I’m going to say mean things about some BM hunters here, exposing the dirty little secret of a certain kind of BM hunter. So let me preface by saying that I’m not talking about all BM hunters, and that I love the BM spec. I love my big red pet, and I played BM from patch 2.0 until it got nerfed into the ground in patch 3.0.8. I am, of course, a dps whore and I follow the top dps spec whatever it is.
The recent post I made over at wow.com got me thinking about the BM players a bit. After some reflection, I think there are three different kinds of BM hunters at the moment.
The BM Die-Hards
Some die-hard BM hunters are BM because they just love the flavor of the spec. They love their pet above all else and they’ll play their spec until the end of days and give god the finger if fluffy can’t join them in the afterlife. I have a lot of respect for these guys — I even knew one of them back in vanilla, raiding MC and BWL with us when BM was far more of a fail spec than it is now.
I can absolutely respect this irrational die-hard attitude — I understand it what with my gun obsession.
Interestingly, the vast majority of BM hunters nowadays would identify themselves as die-hard BM hunters. And I think that these guys are actually a minority.
The Cowardly BM
Another large chunk of the BM population are the youngsters who just fear change. These are the players who started WoW in BC days, when BM was the unquestioned top and overpowered hunter spec. When they started playing they were advised by their friends, strangers and everyone in the universe to play BM for leveling, for raiding, and for pvp. They glorified in the one-button rotation macro and their big red pets and their spot high on the damage meters.
When BM fell hard in the Wrath nerf these were among the loudest complaining about breaking their beloved spec. Most of these guys had never even played another hunter spec for more than a day or two. They really have nothing to compare their spec to. They never listened when their mothers said, “How do you know you don’t like it until you try it?”
Not everyone who started playing in BC falls in this category, of course, but a heck of a lot of BM hunters do.
As Wrath progressed and BM boosts failed to keep up with their scaling issues, it was interesting to see some of these guys finally give another spec an honest chance. I got a lot of emails from them, finally sick of their spot on the meters and taking the plunge and discovering the joy of another spec (and others who grudgingly played another spec only to help their raid group, and stayed BM the rest of the time).
A lot of these guys finally gave another spec an honest try for the first time, and found they liked it. Many more of them, however, never did try. I refuse to acknowledge the latter as legitimate die-hards. They haven’t earned the title, they just fear change.
The Lol-Lover BM
And here’s the dirty secret of the BM playerbase: a lot of them aren’t attached to the spec for any flavor reason at all — despite what they claim — they love the spec only because it is ridiculously easy to play. They loved their one-button macro back in BC. They think they should have every right to just press the same button all fight and still do just as much dps as the most complicated spec in the game to play.
These guys became very clear when I wrote about the BM spec at wow.com. I pointed out that in the current incarnation the spec was way too easy. Their rotation is literally just two buttons. I expressed disappointment in this after being very excited about some of the proposed BM changes, and many of the Lol-Lovers jumped on me in the comments.
The gist of their comments were something like this:
Not everyone wants to theorycraft to the sixth digit and have elitist jerks tell them what to do. You like to play that way but it doesn’t mean everyone does, and we should be able to play the way we want and still do the same dps.
You shouldn’t have to be the greatest player in the world and spend hours theorycrafting to raid.
I’ll agree that you shouldn’t have to be the greatest player in the world and spend hours theorycrafting just to be able to raid. And in fact you don’t. However, I do think that the greatest player in the world should be capable of doing more dps than the average player. I mean, don’t you?
But these guys clearly did not think so. They felt — very strongly — that it made perfect sense to have a spec that was easier to play, and further it made sense (in a way I don’t understand) that the easier spec should also do just as much dps as much more difficult specs.
First of all, I can tell you now that if this were the case — BM with a easy rotation summed up as a 1-button macro, and still do the same dps — then 80% of all hunters would be BM. Doing the exact same dps in a vastly easier way doesn’t make you equal to the other specs, it makes you better. And players will drift to the spec that is best.
But I also totally disagree with every element of this Lol-Lover mentality.
Your Decisions Should Matter
I want my in-game decisions to matter. Further, in good game design, you decision have to matter.
If you really want to be able to play the way you want without regard to theorycraft or advice and have no “best” whatever, then every single one of your abilities has to be identical. You can have Blue Shot and Red Shot and Yellow Shot — but all of them cost the same, have the same cast time, and do the same damage. Now you can play however you want to play and still perform as well as anyone… but no decision you make matters.
I remember when Hrist was in town. We were going to do some table-top gaming, but he had his two little girls with him.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “They have this online game they can play forever.”
And sure enough they were entertaining themselves by playing some game that involved dressing up dolls — that’s it. Just choosing clothes and hair styles and stuff. It enthralled them, kept them busy and engaged for hours. But it wasn’t really a game — it’s an activity.
If you really want to be able to play any way you want and have the result be the same as doing it any other way, then maybe I can talk to Hrist about getting the name of that dress-up game for you. That sounds more up your alley.
But once you have a choice between two abilities that are different — once you have a decision that matters — then one answer is going to be better than another for any given situation. If you can cast either Arcane Shot or Kill Command, you want to cast Kill Command. One way of doing things is best if you’re trying to optimize your dps.
But now that you have that decision, now that you have abilities that are at all different, now you’re subject to theorycraft and the Elitist Jerks telling you the best way to do things. Either you’re dressing up dolls or you’re killing dragons. You have to choose one or the other, you can’t have both.
And again, I’m not saying you have to be an uber-skilled wow-savant to be able to raid. But I do think that the uber skilled savant should probably perform better than you or me.
Spec Equality
I really, really want to see all three specs being about equal in Cataclysm. While they’ll never be exactly equal as long as they aren’t exactly the same, getting within 5% or so of each other is a fair and probably achievable goal.
But if the specs are going to have approximately equal dps, they also need to have approximately equal complexity, or difficulty to play. Because without equal complexity, the specs won’t be equal. If a spec is clearly much easier, it needs to have lower dps; if it has the same dps, it needs about the same complexity.
In Frostheim’s world this equality among specs is the ideal, this is the goal. Three hunter specs with about the same dps and about the same complexity.
This way you’re going to do the best dps in whatever spec you are best at playing. You can play whatever spec you enjoy the most. And for us dps-whore min-maxers, we’ll also get to pick the spec that we like the best, rather than the spec that maths out in the lead.
And hopefully all the specs have enough complexity to allow skill and practice and knowledge to play a role. When you’ve been practicing and reading and playing for a few months, you’ll be a better player than the guy who just bought a hunter off of ebay. You’ll do more dps, and stay alive longer.
Who wants to play a game where skill doesn’t matter? Where on day 1 the ebay guy is just as good as you?
I don’t, and I can only say that I’ll be using every resource I have in the beta to push for this kind of spec equality, not just in terms of dps, but in terms of complexity and opportunity for quality decision-making.
For a while I was a ‘cowardly BM’. My girlfriend, bless her ever patient heart, knew that I was afraid to try something else. I don’t like change, and for a while I was panicked about the change to focus, too. But back when Wrath started, and it looked like our little FaF guild would make it into raiding, she asked me to try something other than BM. I whined and grumbled and didn’t feel comfortable, but when she told me of what Survival could bring to help our little ten man group, I sighed and gave in.
I happen to love Survival now.
Im also an altholic. My other hunters are still solidly BM, as I now feel that it’s the best spec for me to solo in, until I get to 80 and better gear. I adore BM, I love my big red hunterness, but I know now the joy of being pretty high dps, too.
I eagerly await Cata and share the same hope as you, that if the three specs are within 5%, might be able to bring my spirit beast with me sometime as a proud BM hunter. But as a love of the twitchy reaction time of Survival, I really, really don’t want to see BM reduced to a single button macro. That’s not playing, that’s…pushing a button and counting. You can do that in kindergarten, seriously. If you can plunk a six year old down in front of the keyboard and say ‘push this button, count to three and then hit it again and keep doing that, mommy has to go use the bathroom’ in the middle of your raid, your not really playing, even when you’re the one pushing the button and counting to three.
I wish I could find the video again, it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the post on wow.com about one button. It was joking that a game could be nothing but clicking a single button on the screen endlessly and people would still become addicted to it…I figured that might be the sort of game for those who like single macro BM play.
So while Im not a diehard BM (Im happy and just fine and dandy sitting here in my secondary spec that I know is one of the main reasons my little guild got Kingslayer), I guess I could be of the ‘nostalgic for the old days…but not when it was one button’ group.
I think I’m probably a combination of the first two groups. I’m still leveling my first character to 80 (a lovely Dwarf huntress currently at 76), and after a few early miserable levels as MM I’ve been leveling BM. I absolutely adore my boar pet as much as I would a real life pet, and I work really hard to up my DPS and make my rotation interesting as I level.
But I know that, once I hit 80 and step into the scary world of dungeons for the first time, I’m going to have to duel-spec into MM. I want to bring as much DPS to the table as I can, and I know I’ll enjoy MM, but it still scares me to leave my Big Red Boar capabilities behind. I’ll still get to use the spec (I plan on doing extreme soloing as well), but having to learn a new rotation while still controlling my pet is a little daunting to this noob
I don’t get the third group at all. Why would you want to press one button all the time? That’s not fun, that’s Farmville. I love being able to be fluid with my rotation as the situation needs it (esp. because my boyfriend’s bursty arcane mage has a habit of ripping aggro off of my tanking pet when we’re duo-ing). To each his own, I suppose, but don’t complain about having crap DPS if you’re not working for it.
Die Lol-spec. Die Die Die. Die from level 5 warlock dots while pally stunned. Die of starvation while looking for Mankrik’s wife. If it requires me to do long division in my head while editing code i’ll do it, just let me bring my spirit beast and my big-red-pet to a raid without completely gimping myself.
Thank you! I am so sick of these people talking about these things as though they actually care about the class. I would love for BM to be equal dps so that I can justify raiding with it. I love it, but I also love doing a ton of damage, so I gotta go where the DPS is for me. However, in the end, I don’t want hunters to be the next mage.
Look all over the mage discussions and you see people talking down on mages, about how easy it is to do top dps, about how bad the players are… simply because they have very few buttons to press. But this would be worse than mages because at least mages have to watch for procs and react to them… the current cata BM huntard seems like a class for my 5 year old.
So to you 5 year olds out there, go away and find some other class, or game even, that dress up game sounded fin!
This article would be a lot more effective without the name-calling. The last two sections argue eloquently by themselves.
I’ve tried playing BM a few times, didn’t enjoy it. I like doing consistent, hard-hitting damage on my Hunter, the pet-centric spec did not provide that nearly as well as my beloved Marksmanship spec. A similar thing happened with Survival: I gave it its fair chance, but the spastic, proc-dependant gameplay gave me headaches (it felt like being a Healer playing Whac-a-Mole). So I know what spec I like and why. And I can understand why the hardcore BM guys like their own spec. To each their own.
I hope Cataclysm will put Hunters in a similar situation to Warlocks are lately. They are quite possibly the most well-balanced Pure class. All three specs are more or less competitive amongst themselves (even if Demo is still sort of a buff-bot spec), with situational strengths and weaknesses that compensate for differences in complexity. Destro is still simpler than the other two, but not to such a horrible degree as BM is compared to Marks and Survival.
Blizz has a great chance to throw the current balance out of the window and start all over again. It’s a little sad, even if predictable, that they’re currently keeping BM gameplay so simple. There are so many things they could be doing there. Heck, adding one or two new procs (with one of them being a pet ability) would go a long way there.
Thank you Frostheim I was trying to give that same massage over at the DD forums for a week now. You probably read some of my post not saying I am proud of them all. I just wasn’t as good as you are in having the community to understand what I was trying to say
Frostheim… I appreciate you fighting for us BM hunters for a more complex rotation. Be persistant and I’m sure you will succeed for all of us
Corwyn: “This article would be a lot more effective without the name-calling. The last two sections argue eloquently by themselves.”
QFT. I almost didn’t make it to the end because I thought it was just another “Frost is ragging on BM” article. Whenever I see you write about BM I just picture you poking a nest full of big red angry hornets with the barrel of your gun, and you have a giant grin on your face since you seem to really enjoy doing it. I find it hard to respect the rest of your writing when you seem to devote so much of your time to upsetting the poor BM Hunters. You spend the first half of the article literally name-calling. “Hay guyz, I used to BM too” doesn’t give you a free pass to insult people, ESPECIALLY if you then want those people to listen to what you have to say with an open mind.
Agree 100%. Keep up the good work, Frost.
I hope that they do manage to get each spec to be roughly equal, in both DPS and complexity, while keeping different play styles intact. One-button wannabe’s aren’t any more skilled than a Drinking Bird.
I think I’m a die hard…but maybe I’m a coward. I started playing in BC and I do love the BM spec but since the nerf I only use it for solo and pvp where I’m responsible only for myself and won’t screw up other members of my group.
Good comments on equality and complexity…….I agree that if you expect to do similar dps you should have to employ similar skill.
Someone made a comment about mages……..the 10man group I am with is working On Sindragosa………the other night one member ( a mage ) could not make it. The mage’s brother (our holy holy pally) set up their 10 year old kid brother to play the mage’s toon. He said he created a macro so that the 10 yr old only had to spam a single button…..the kid’s dps was not bad
I have nevr played a mage…but it sounded sort o boring to me.
Frost, much <3
I was BM through Vanilla and BC (before I even knew what raiding was – and dang don't I feel like I missed out on BM's heyday!), but in Wrath I took the plunge, went MM, and started topping some charts in raids.
But in my heart, I'm patiently waiting for the specs to get closer in line so I can unleash King Krush with impunity.
However, respect is important. I do _not_ want to be just mashing one button over and over again and achieving fantastic DPS. I want to be known for skill, for playing my spec well, and for contributing to the raid in ways a robot couldn't.
Here's hoping the devs read your blog, Frost. You are one prescient little drunk hairy dude.
Like most who commented here, I was a mix of groups 1 and 2. I LOVED my BM spec when I levelled. Most of all I loved my pet and I was so proud of her for doing up to 40% of our total dps. I was a little afraid to switch but took the plunge to respec SV. The first thing I did was wail “we’re not kindred spirits anymore!”
I love the SV spec now but if BM became raid viable I’d probably switch back. Have yet to try MM – don’t quite have the gear level for that yet – but I wouldn’t be afraid of the change anymore. But I WOULD like to get my strong, perfect pet back with whom I could survive just about anything. We truly were kindred spirits
*sigh*
I’ve always been whichever spec was the highest DPS. I was Marksman in Vanilla (never had the gear to do survival), I then swapped early to BM in TBC and stayed BM with a brief raid buffing foray into Survival. At the beginning of wrath I was BM, then with the big nerf in naxx I swapped to Survival then halfway Ulduar to MM. I’ve been MM ever since.
Spec never mattered to me. I can see how it would to others but I was always the best damage I could be. If a less complex spec did the same damage – I’d swap to it. The reason I was mostly BM through TBC was because it did significantly more damage with less attention paid. Which meant I could focus on leading raids.
To be honest. I could give a shit if somebody wants to play as lol1buttonBM and do the same damage as me as Marks because blizzard would never allow it. Even if they did I’d be speccing lol1buttonBM to 1 button my way to victory. Besides, theres other things that make a good player other than rotation.
@Dhorvin – why wouldn’t he? BM hunters are the most prone to butthurt. I maybe am being a little cynical but more drama = more traffic. Honestly though, the way some of you react they should rename Bestial Wrath to Bestial hypersensitivity. Any time anyone implies that your spec is simple or subpar (even using evidence) theres a big red shitstorm of people who didn’t read the post correctly and want to talk about all the rubbish hunters they beat as BM.
First: apologies for the double post.
Second: Frost isn’t name-calling so much as pointing out perceived problem players. I’ll agree that it may be a little degrading, but you’re likely in the one-button camp if you’re taking offense. Hunters, and all other classes, have multiple buttons for a reason. The game is designed in a way that gives players a choice. The ability to remove that choice is not good gameplay, and is the reason why some specs can’t do comparable DPS.
Suggestion: If you enjoy a spec, learn to play it. Don’t get offended when people make arguments against the one-button gimmick. If you can’t be bothered to learn the complexities of a game such as WoW, it may not be the game for you. Blizzard is making attempts to move away from this playstyle, as evidenced by their desire to add complexity to Paladins and the lack of ability to play other classes via one-button macros.
@Echo: “some of you” “your spec”
@Taira: “you’re likely in the one-button camp”
I haven’t raided as BM in a very long time (although I do use it as my dual-spec for terribad Arena play and soloing old content). People are allowed to disagree with Frost and not be a BM Hunter or a face-roller, although given how antagonistic he is I can see why you might make that assumption. I am not upset because he has insulted me; He hasn’t said a thing that applies to me. I am disappointed because he is diluting his own message by needlessly insulting other people. Name-calling is not the way to encourage people to listen to what you have to say.
I was a die-hard BM player for a long time. I loved the concept of me and my big tough pet taking on the world. I loved that my pet could tank the berserker trolls in ZG if we picked one up unexpectedly.
I loved it even more when BM became the best raid DPS spec in BC — even though some hunters I knew who didn’t keep up with EJ wouldn’t believe that BM was better than MM even at the end of the expansion. That is how much we were looked down upon in classic wow and how much MM was put on a pedestal.
I stuck with BM in Wrath, and for the sake of the challenge I stayed with it after 3.0.8 and I started a thread on EJ for the spec so it wouldn’t fall completely off the radar screen and not have any theorycraft done for it at all. I still did #1 or 2 damage in my raid with the spec, which I guess says more about my fellow raiders than it does about the power of BM after 3.0.8…
But then 3.1 came out and Replenishment was all important. My guild was only doing 10 man Ulduar and so I had to respec to SV so we would have a source of replenishment. And I found out I loved SV! And then I gave MM a try and I LOVED MM! I loved being in the top 5 in the much better raid I got into.
While I still love the concept of BM, I could not go back to playing a one-button spec. I fully agree with you, Frost, on the need for BM to be competitive AND require complexity to be done well. I hope they listen to you!
PS Note that I am a long time fan and practitioner of the BM spec, and the author of the EJ BM guide, yet I took zero offense to anything you said here. Well said.
A well-reasoned, courteous, articulate argument.
You’re sadly a dying breed, Frost. Well done.
I have to admit I was a mix of 1 and 2 until just after the great BM nerf. I came up in BC leveling BM and raided BM, reach the cap in Wrath and be uber in raiding as BM, then have the devs slap me to my knees with a huge nerf. For a while I was stubborn and refused to try the other specs and I will admit it was a bit of fear of change. I was fortunate enough that the people that I raided with were cool and didn’t push me into respeccing and with dual spec I didn’t feel as forced to venture out. Now I have played all the specs and feel I can call myself a true Die-Hard BM. I couldn’t get into the SV rotation, didn’t like how tight it felt. MM is my raiding spec of the moment and though I like it ok its just not pulling the same passion out of me as BM does. I still solo and 5 man with BM and if for some reason today I logged in today and BM was a bit more on par with the top I would go back to raiding with it without hesitation.
What i love about BM is the pet. I like having to manage my pet. I never cared much about how simple the rotation was because of controlling my pet. Also maybe i am the weird one out but I don’t deal with many macros. I have a MD one but thats about it and I have never used the one button macro for BM. That said I wouldn’t mind a bit more complicated rotation for BM as long as I still have all the pet utility I have come to love.
Great post Frost.
I have to admit that at one point I definitely fit your description as a combo cowardly-lol hunter. I leveled BM in vanilla but didn’t get into raiding until Karazhan. As we all know BM was the top spec then and I loved it. I’d always previously played a healer but the one button macro made topping the dps charts easy.
Fast forward to WotLK and again I leveled as BM. Life was good when raiding started but eventually the spec was nerfed and my dps crashed. I soon realized I wasn’t pulling my weight in raids and the only thing that kept me there was my long time relationship with the guild. Seeing your name constantly at the bottom of the dps charts is a terrible feeling and I decided I had to do something different. Learning a new spec is daunting and as my guild was taking on new content, I decided the best thing to do was to take a break from raiding and learn how to play survival in the 5 mans.
At first my dps was pathetic. I was used to hitting one key over and over for all my dps and now I’m suddenly switching between 5. I was constantly unsure of what to do and my hesitation made it worse. I decided to go online and look for tips. I found this site among others and memorized shot rotations along with tweaks to my macro’s to squeeze out every last bit of dps. I was making improvements but still was no where near what I felt was needed to be raid worthy. After a month I was ready to quit the game altogether.
Before quitting I decided to try one last thing. It was about that time that dual spec came out and I decided to try marksman. I’d always been afraid of trying marksman as in vanilla the uberleet raiders bashed us BM’ers about how tough their spec was to learn. As a result I decided to stay in my safe little BM world. Now that I was about to quit the game I thought that maybe the marksman spec could save me. When I got to the trainer I realized the most amazing thing. When I tried to click on Dual Spec I accidently hit Training by mistake and to my surprise I saw a long list of items under Survival.
You know that sometimes in life there are times when everything in the the world seems to slow down. That happened to me at this moment as I realized that I’d never played survival in the 5 previous years. As I’d been playing BM long after I hit 80 there was no real reason to go back to the trainer. In that moment I realized that I’d never trained any survival ability beyond its first level and that I’d been playing the last month with the level 60 Explosive Shot and the level 50 Black Arrow. I literally facepalm’ed about a dozen times and then I got excited.
I returned to the 5 mans fully trained in my survival spec. While before I had struggled to get 2k in a boss fight, now I was well over 3k (good with my gear at the time). Aggro not dps was now the problem and it wasn’t long after that I rejoined the raiding scene.
Learning survival made me excited for the hunter class and the game in a way that hadn’t happened in a long time but I knew I hadn’t completed my training. I had avoided going marksman as the vanilla horror stories had always scared me away. Dual spec made doing this a lot easier because I knew that if I made a few mistakes in a PuG I could easily switch back to my survival comfort zone. I found the marksman learning curve to be ridiculously short (probably because I made sure to train everything to max level first) and soon I was switching between MM and Survival in raids depending on the fight. I know the hunter class has big changes on the horizon but I am not worried because I paid my dues in WotLK and I know now that I can adapt to anything that Blizzard throws at us.
You know how some of the most ardent anti-smoking people are former smokers? I once was a cowardly-lol BM hunter and now struggle with BM hate. When the Great Hunter Nerf happened I ultimately felt I needed to make a change and I know I’m a much better hunter as a result. I get irrationally angry whenever I see someone posting that it is ok to raid as BM and I know I should be compassionate with that person. I’ve been there and I know what it feels like to get out of your comfort zone. I will grant that maybe some people just love the spec but it is a small minority. Most everyone that raids does it to beat bosses, get loot, and (if we are honest with ourselves) top the dps charts. BM is great for solo’ing, farming, and leveling but not raiding. I know from personal experience that anyone that raids as BM today isn’t performing to the level that they could if they switched specs. The dps topping-one button hunter is gone and I hope we never see its like again. Effort should be rewarded and better play should mean better dps. It isn’t that hard if you take the time to do it and dual spec has made it easy. All you have to do it try … but do remember to check the trainer first.
First of all let me start out by saying, Excellent Job Frost. I love this article. I started out in BC and loved my BM spec, I switched over to MM once I hit 70 (enjoyed that) after about 6 months or Wrath came out. Needless to say I went back to BM, hit 80 learned that SV was better. Tried it out…didn’t care much for it but stayed with it till the end of Uld and went back to MM. I didn’t know how to optimize my spec to the best of its ability, taking time to learn and practice I’ve become a hunter to be dealt with no matter the spec. I’ve been running MM ever since ICC came out and have stayed on top of the charts. Just recently I decided to fool around and actually Raid ICC 25 in my BM spec, just for Gits and Shiggles. I was still ranking in the top 3 to 4 on every fight, consistently pulling no less than 10k. Never thought I would see BM spec pulling that much, I have to say it made me happy. Fun times running with my Big Red Pet again. Anyway getting back to the point I was trying to make. Always try new things, challenge yourself for a more enjoyable experience, be one of those that can talk about every spec equally and make an educated decision. I agree with you Frost, IF all the specs are going to be equal in DPS they should be equal in complexity to make the spec more fun and interesting to play… Most Excellent Article, a must read for all hunters (every class really, just apply the class and specs).
I’ve been BM since vanilla as well. Even worse I camped Humar the Pridelord for five days as a dwarf hunter on a pvp server (Barrens wasn’t the wasteland then that it’s become now). I named him Jinx and he’s been with me ever since. Yes, I have pets that hit harder (Devilsaur, two Spirit Beasts) but it’s not the same. Jinx is as much a part of my hunter as his rifle. I look forward to Blizz bringing all the hunter specs back to raid viability. I love my guild for it’s ability to tolerate my BM love in our raids and look forward to being able to reward their patience with the return of my hunter’s mass quantities of sustained, ranged dps.
I am in absolute 100% agreement that “if the specs are going to have approximately equal dps, they also need to have approximately equal complexity, or difficulty to play.” But where your perfect world has all 3 specs being of nearly-equal difficulty, and producing nearly-equal results, I’ll take the opposite tack.
I think the recent hunter model has been an excellent one and that every class should have a “training spec.” There should be an easy tree that people use for leveling, and “advanced” trees that they can venture into at any time if they feel ready.
Skill differences are a fact of life. Not everyone can take A.P. European Literature; some kids have to take Remedial English. And that’s OK. There should be a place for those who can’t do the difficult stuff. And it should also be a place for those who just don’t WANT to do the difficult stuff. There should be a tacit agreement, that from our end, we don’t pick on them for playing the easy spec; and from their end, that if they want to do any serious raiding, they need to graduate to a spec that does meaningful DPS. And the best part is, dual-spec means they don’t have to choose.
I leveled and learned as BM, like most of us. When I hit 70, I looked into the other specs, and marks just sounded awesome, and I never looked back. But I was overjoyed when dual-spec came out and I could add BM; I had forgotten most of how it worked by then. Even at 80, it’s a great novelty spec; I love it for extreme soloing, or PVPing with an exotic pet (in my case, chimaera). But specs are not people, and they should not be considered equal just because they exist. Specs are like books. If you want to write trashy romance novels, that’s fine, but complaining that you never win a Pulitzer or a National Book Award is likely to fall on deaf ears.
I haven’t raided as BM in a very long time (although I do use it as my dual-spec for terribad Arena play and soloing old content). People are allowed to disagree with Frost and not be a BM Hunter or a face-roller, although given how antagonistic he is I can see why you might make that assumption. I am not upset because he has insulted me; He hasn’t said a thing that applies to me. I am disappointed because he is diluting his own message by needlessly insulting other people. Name-calling is not the way to encourage people to listen to what you have to say.
I dont think hes trying to encourage anyone to change. IMO if people are not about making the best decisions for min/maxing and they believe their way is the best and its someone elses fault they are not playing optimal, aka Blizzard. No amount of brainwashing, subliminal messages etc is going to help anyways.
My aplogies for the missed quoting of the first paragraph.
I agree with most of the comments Frost…your point is valid but your delivery is pointlessly antagonistic. I’ll start taking your “Cowardly BM” messages seriously when you start talking about the “Terrible MM” hunters who can’t beat an equally-geared BM hunter (when all the math says they should.)
Not to sound completely hostile, I got annoyed & sidetracked by the comments. Your idea about all 3 specs being equal in performance and complexity is great, and I think if you look at a similar class (pure dps) – say Warlock, where all 3 specs perform well – it’s definitely doable. However on the flip side mage is like us, with the 3 trees completely balanced differently in terms of effectiveness & complexity. It might just be something that will never be equalized for hunters.
The same could be said of many classes. Each has some distilled, simple spec/rotation that has, in some cases, become so simple to execute, many players AFK while playing them. Those who play these easy rotation classes tend to be more vocal when change occurs. GC has spent… how many posts now? on trying to get his free help beta community to stop complaining about changes and report the effects of the changes instead. But, that’s a whole other gripe — you get what you pay for, Blizz. Anyway, this sort of thing needed to be said about some who play BM, but I’d like to see other class websites tackle this problem for their particular communities, too.
I’m not sure I fall into a “BM hunter category” that you’ve set out above. I played it during TBC because it so outperformed the other specs, and I was happy to come back to MM in Wrath.
That said, I would vastly prefer a game in which all three specs perform similarly than one in which one spec is tanked for end game dps purposes simply in the pursuit of punishing it for being less complex. Choice does matter, and the choice to play a spec and its accompanying playstyle should matter. If BM is really an idiotmode spec that does reasonably comparable dps, you’re right that people will flock to it.
However, BM also has some of the coolest and most unique mechanics in the game (exotic pets, esp. spirit beasts, is mostly what I’m thinking of here), and relegating it to mediocre for any purpose but hardcore devotees and leveling simply because it’s not complex enough does not cut it for me. I have had loque’nahak sitting in my stable for over a year after spending forty-some hours looking for him not because I want to have him sitting in a stable, but because I can’t justify punishing my raid teams in HM content so I can use an awesome pet that I spent a lot of time finding. If I have to choose between performance equality and complexity equality, I will choose the former every time so that (giving people the benefit of the doubt) people can choose to play the way they like to play and not the way the game forces them to play.
I am a SV spec hunter with a BM duel spec. I loved the ability to level with the BM and to go do a lot of the group quests solo. But for raids I prefer the hectic frame of mind of the survival spec and the way you can react to different situations, helps to keep me focused and on target. I do not like the MM tree for the simple fact that it is too much like my RL job and having to plan every single action to get the best results just doesnt appeal to me in the entertainment area. Now don’t get me wrong, I love haviing a MM spec hunter in a raid with me, that trueshot aura buff is the bomb. However I can still compete with them as a SV and still be in the top of the raid dps. I guess the gist of what i am saying is there are different people who choose there spec for different reasons, we need to respect those choices even if we don’t agree with them. Rudeness is a sympton of todays society in general and needs to be addressed. There are ways to express yourself to others without being rude and nasty.
The very last sentence of the article made me smile. Good luck getting changes implemented.
Not to play devil’s advocate here or anything but some people can only handle one button.
There are a great deal of very bad players out there and they are as entitled to play just as much we are. I would be bored to hell if all I did was sit there spamming one button over and over but that is just me. I say let their damage be on par, let them be within 5%, it is only fair.
In the end, even if the lol BMs do comparable DPS to MM and SV once they get into a raid they will die 30 seconds into 5 minute fights, they will stand in the fire and void zones and generally do everything that a bad player does. The BM lover will do the right thing and will do comparable DPS, within 5%, and you most likely would not mind having them along.
The bad player that plays a lol BM because it is easy mode will be found out to be a bad player and will not get invited back to raid with people again whereas the BM lover will still get into raids as 5% lower is not really all that much of a difference and sometimes knowing when to move is as important as how much DPS you do.
Personally, as a raid leader, I would gladly sacrifice 5% DPS to have everyone move the right way when they are supposed to.
So once again, not to play devil’s advocate here but I agree with the BM players, let their damage be on par and then let us decide if they are an lol BM or a BM lover once we run with them and decide if they are worth running with.
As it is now a bad player can use the excuse “but I love BM” to justify the reason they suck. Tale that away from them and let them be seen for what they really are, bad players. I say stop letting bad players hide behind the mask of the noble BM lover.
* – “bad player” means someone that refuses to try and get better and not someone that is just new and is still learning.
* – Full disclosure – I too am a BM lover, I just do not raid with it. My raiding spec is my Off Spec and I spend 99% of the time in it. My main spec is still BM and always will be.
Have to agree with Frost, great effort should be rewarded by great results. If someone wants to be mediocre then they should be but to expect great results is just plain stupid. For Blizzard to design the game that way is a failure of game design. Every great game that exists does so by being easy to learn but difficult to master. Would there be chess championships if it was easy to master? What would be the point? If you want to see this game destroyed keep advocating for the one button spec, heck every class should have a one button spec while we are at it.
Confession: I have a lol-mage alt.
Arcane mages have by far the simplest rotation I’ve ever seen. Granted, your dps can differ by 1-2k if you mess up your placement, movement, and cooldowns but man.. with the T10 bonus.. push button 1 until proc. Then push 2. You don’t even have to pay gold every time you cast. It’s kinda nice. lol
Although, I can’t say I’ve every played BM on my hunter. Nothing about it has appealed to me. *shrug*
The truth hurts sometimes, and some people are bound to be offended by it. I know I felt that way early on in Wrath when I was told I needed to change if I wanted to raid, and was faced with the daunting prospect of learning a new spec.
Those who fall into the first category shouldn’t be offended at all, since they choose their spec knowing well the limitations, and potential hardships they may face.
Those who are in the second category, which at a time included myself, may be a bit upset at being told the truth. It’s frustrating to be told you need to leave behind your known, comfortable spec, and try something new. This can be a good thing though, as I know in my case, that this feeling eventually encouraged me to overcome my fear of change.
As for the third group, they are the only ones who should be offended by anything Frostheim has stated and in some ways deserve to be. As mentioned, the desire to be just as effective as other specs, without putting in similar effort, is really a desire to be better than the other choices. Players who love the spec, and really just want it to be effective, don’t truly belong in this category and shouldn’t really find offense in anything said.
I really do hope that BM manages to be both effective and interesting in this expansion. I also hope that those who really love the spec are able to play it, without having to struggle with being as far behind in pure numbers as they are now.
What concerns me however, is that if we end up with another BC situation, then we’ll once again end up attracting all the players who want to perform well with the minimum effort.
Apologies from a former English major.
It’s “DUAL-SPEC”. Not “DUEL-SPEC”.
Carry on.
Who really cares if he is antagonistic or not. Its his opinion, he’s entitled. If you don’t want to hear it don’t read it. I say here’s to Frost for putting it out there, for expressing his frustration. He has earned it. Most hunters today wouldn’t have half the skill if not for his advice or the advice of others inspired by him. By that right, the choice to be antagonistic about something that gets under his skin is his prerogative. I raise my glass to you, Sláinte!
I agree for the most part, only most of those “hard-core” BM hunters are also those LOL hunters. They may seem hardcore, but they all still have their one button macro and sorry Frost but MM and SV shot rotion can be macro into 2-3 buttons too.
An yes you will always do more DPS if you press the buttons yourself then a macro doing it all, but most hunters out there who raid, they use a one button macro and always will so as long as we’re allowed to. Its a sad day for BM really, I really doubt they are going to do anything to fix them, all I see them doing is nerfing it more and more.
I said in the intro that I was going to be mean to a certain subset of BM hunter. I meant that. I also meant it when I said that I love the spec, but that love isn’t going to keep from stating the facts, or in situations like this, stating what I think are well-founded opinions.
I feel like I do a lot for BM hunters, more than most members of the hunter community (though everything I do is based on fact, rather than wishful thinking). I also get a lot of shit from BM hunters.
Interestingly, I wasn’t ever assaulted by MM or SV hunters back when BM was on top. When I was talking about how BM was the top dps spec, and that raiders serious about optimizing their dps should only play BM. Die-hard MM or SV knew they were doing less dps but did it anyway. The others respecced.
But when the situation changed and BM fell off, I was immediately (and rather continuously) insulted and bitched at for saying that BM was a lower dps spec. This was just fact, mind you, and the dissenters were never interested in doing any kind of scientific testing to prove me wrong. They preferred to attempt that through sheer screaming volume.
When the general agreement in the community was that BM was not even raid viable and shouldn’t be brought to ICC, I wrote a huge article, supported with every form of data I could think of, proving that BM was in fact raid viable for all normal mode ICC fights. It also showed clearly how much less dps they did, and I then stated the opinion that I’d rather bring someone who was going to do what’s best for the raid team.
The result was massive frothing hatemail, internet posts, twitter fury… all saying “How DARE you say that BM isn’t raid viable!? We are too!!!!”
I think that a chunk of BM hunters are too emotional and irrational for me to understand, and I now ignore them.
I will continue to support the BM spec. I will continue to post and keep updated BM guides just as I do the other specs. I will continue to find new ways to stretch the spec with extreme soloing and pet tanking.
But I will not continue to have patience with people who are that irrational, or who feel that they somehow deserve to do the best dps in the game while pushing only one or two buttons, with zero thought or decision-making. Die-hard BM lovers are not going to be offended by anything here. The ones who are offended — good. Maybe they’ll stop posting and emailing me their crazy.
I’ve read your blog on occasion, but never commented.
While you’re a filthy, ale-soaked, gun-loving dwarf…I love you from the top of my betusked head, to the bottom of my uncovered Troll feet.
In other words, I agree.
i have to say, its really annoying seeing all those that give you a hard time, say you just hate bm, or in general give you attitude frost. i guarentee nearly 90% of them have benefitted from your guides, your advice, and your theorycrafting. all your hard work goes into the community and we all benefit from it that take the gift that is given to us. perhaps they need to walk some time in your shoes, do what you do for the hunter community, and look at things from your perspective before they start spouting out hate or untested criticism. kudos to you friend for your hard work and dedication, you make playing a hunter worthwhile.
My first serious char was a hunter and he was BM all the way from lvl1 to 80 and I loved it. I loved being able to do group quests, I soloed some dungeons on the way to 80 and did “silly” achievements that you just couldn’t have done without the spec. I absolutely adore the spec, the BRP ability, the extra pet management and above all: the feel that your pet MATTERS. If your pet dies in a raid, you HAVE to resurrect him, without your pet you are half a hunter.
I was BM back in the early naxx days of wrath but switched to MM fairly soon to stay on top since I love to do competitive dps. I’ve always kept my BM offspec and I sort of switch back to it now and then just for nostalgia.
I’m rambling… My point is, I hope you succeed in influencing Blizz to make BM a bit more complicated in Cata. The spec has a great… “feel” to it, but it’s silly easy and boring to play in raids (During soloing it remains interesting with all the extra threat management and stuff you’re doing).
Cheers Frost, keep up the good work!
I must agree, and I find it interesting how much more fanatic certain members the BM community can be than those of the other class specs that underperformed throughout Wrath. You don’t really see Arms warriors or Frost mages getting quite as upset when well supported and logical comments are made about those specs performing poorly.
Again, there are many who reasonably understand the limitations of the spec as it currently stands, and choose to use it anyway. That I understand, just as I understand Frostheim’s preference for guns. It’s just those who refuse to accept logic and data, and get angry when confronted with such, that confuse me.
i would like to say frostheim, i sent you an email about gemming and arp and all that very sorry if i seemed like a huntard.
basides that, thank you for this great site and info. also as the BM spec. i used it for 80 levels and left it to go to MM for a litle more of a challenge and also i was told no guild would take a BM hunter to a raid. lol so i then became upset because i love the BM spec and the pet/hunter bond so much i went back and guild has no prob with a BM raider as due to the fact we have a MM and SV hunter also, so why not a BM hunter.
as for the rotation, i do think they should up it so theres not so many face roll BM hunters screwing up the hunter/BM spec name. the rotation yes is very simple but i hope all in all BM can once again be up to par with the rest.
I couldn’t agree more. The name-calling is warranted. Those of us who’ve played every spec there is and become good at it through hours of work and theory crafting deserve our time in the spotlight aka topping damage meters. Hard work should not go unrewarded.
That said, I have NOTHING against BM hunters. I love my big red pet. However I do have something against a BM hunter in a raid barely out dpsing my tank. The term “Carried” suddenly pops into my head. Sure, in BC when you could faceroll a macro with your complete rotation in it, they were topping meters and irreplaceable. But now, I’d much rather take another dps that can put out the numbers and help the raid progress.
So, if they get buffed in Cataclysm, then I’ll have no problem with a BM hunter in the raid again, hell, I’d love to see one of each spec of hunter in a raid. It would be great. But until then, I’ll be happy using BM to do extreme soloing and do Beast-Cleave, and wont force my guild to roster me with some “you owe it to me to let me play the spec I enjoy and still be able to raid” guilt trip.
BIG RED PET FOR LIFE, just maybe not in a raid…
Cogent and interesting. Thanks, Frost.
All you BM’ers (in my head I keep thinking “beemers”), especially the Lol-lover BM’ers, should read Frost’s 2:16 post, just a few above here.
When someone hands you a sandwich and asks nothing in return, you can do a few different things. You can say “thank you” and enjoy the sandwich. If you don’t like sandwiches, know someone else who could really use a sandwich, or whatever, you can say “thank you”, wait til they aren’t looking, and discard the sandwich or pass it to someone else. Or, you can scream in their face “WUT THE FUG KINDA SANDWICH IS THIS CANT U MANAGE TO DIG A ROAST BEEF SANDWICH OUTTA YER ASS DONT U KNOW ROAST BEEF IS TOTALLY THE BEST FUGGIN SANDWICH WHAT R U SUM KIND OF FUGGIN SANDWICH-NUB???” The problem with the last response is that it really doesn’t take much of that to ensure the person won’t be offering you additional sandwiches in the future.
When it’s just one person being an a-hole, it’s easy to keep in mind, that it’s only one person being an a-hole. When it’s a whole slew of people, even if they are still not necessarily representative of the BM community at large, it becomes harder to think of each as an isolated incident, and easier to think, “Wonder what happened, because all of a sudden, Beastmasters in general seem to be behaving like a-holes.” Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s not. It certainly not all BM hunters. But it’s a lot of people.
Frost does a shitload for us every day, and asks little to nothing in return. He has a choice in how he wants to spend his time, and at the moment, he is choosing to do this stuff for the hunter community. Someday, he may choose differently. I, for one, am acutely aware of this and sincerely appreciate all that he does. If you don’t appreciate it, at least have the decency to at least keep your mouth shut and not fuck it up for the rest of us. You idiots push him to say screw this and take a desk job, and suddenly this game will be a lot less fun for hunters everywhere. Which would really suck, because we’re clearly the most awesome class in the game.
Don’t piss on the awesome.
@Bastige:
unfortunately, Beast-cleave is getting demolished in Wrath, so no more face roll arena.
Beastial Hypersensitivity… roflmao:D
Well done Frost. Great article as usual!
I’ve cleared nearly all of Heroic ICC25 as both BM and MM (and yes, MM does more DPS by a considerable margin, but BM can also do very good DPS). I enjoy the playstyle of both specs, but really love the CONCEPT of BM (bad-ass pet rips things apart, hunter assists from a distance). I think Blizz could do a lot with this concept, but they haven’t really yet.
BM was a macro-fest in BC, and apparently is on track to be to be that again in Cata, which I find extremely disappointing. Despite the weaker DPS, in WotLK BM is currently about as complicated to raid in as MM is.
MM mostly uses 3 shots after one serpent sting (Chimera, Aimed, Steady). MM essentially has one cooldown to manage on a 3 min timer (Rapid Fire/Readiness).
BM mostly uses 4 shots throughout the fight (Sting, Multi or Aimed, Arcane, Steady). BM essentially has one cooldown to manage on a 1.17min cooldown (Big Red, macroed with Rapid Fire, Kill Command, etc).
So the idea that people in WotLK raid as BM because it is somehow “Easy-mode” simply doesn’t make any sense. Perhaps some people have stuck with BM because it WAS easy mode in BC, but so much time has passed since then that I doubt many of those remain.
Anyway, I just wanted to clarify that. Thanks Frost for continuing to fight for BM to be both interesting to play and balanced for DPS with the other specs.
“Maybe they’ll stop posting and emailing me their crazy.” – hahahhaha I’ve been laughing for a good 5 minutes. Classic.
BM Hunters scare me like religious zealots.
My first toon to reach level cap was in Wrath and so I’ve never raided in the glory days of BC BMness. If they can get the complexity and DPS right I’d love to give it a try but as you say Frost, I think as a DPS player it’s our job to bring the biggest numbers we can to boss fights.
G
I am amazed at the sensitivity of some people here. Name-calling? My god, if this is what people take offence to, I would hate to think what their reactions would be to pretty much every other forum on the web.
Frost gave his opinion on the people raging at him in a firm but still quite gentle fashion (especially compared to other forums out there). I don’t quite understand how these naysayers expected a post like this to go? How gentle do you have to be before others don’t get hurt?
“To all the beautiful BM hunters out there….I uhhh…..think you are very special…..I believe….and it is only my lowly opinion…..that the BM spec is too easy to play……but that’s just my opinion…………….please forgive me if you diagree”
The other thing I don’t understand, is that, in all the recent BM posts, Frost has been fighting for a better BM spec? To add a little spice to the mixture. If I was a hard-core BM I’d be rejoicing that someone like frost is in the Beta and taking the time to fight for our spec. Why wouldn’t you want that? Who want’s to go into a raid and hit 2 buttons the whole time? The way Cata is heading I could teach a 5 year old to play BM and he/she would have it down in a few minutes. “Press this button and stay out of the fire”.
To all those that are saying BM can be used for raiding, well of course it can. Will you be as much help to the raid as SV or MM? Definitely not. Blizzard has stated themselves that they failed in making BM a viable raiding spec so how are people still arguing that it is?
Also, BM isn’t easy-mode because of the current shot rotation. It’s because I could sit down, have a drink, and my pet would still be doing 40% of my possible damage. Movement, isn’t nearly as much of an issue as it is for MM or SV. Cata looks like it is going to make that even easier.
My opinion is that pets need more commands on call. To make BM truly feel like a BM I should be able to command my pet with much more versatility. A lot of pets have abilities that are on auto cast for the most part. Rather than new shots, I’d like to see a lot more pet abilities figured into my shot rotation. Maybe even an extra pet to control at the same time (that would really start to give you some options). A pet that could CC while the other burns it down. I love my pets. I have a special bond with all of them as I levelled each stage with all of them, but I at the moment, It’s either wolf or spider. The rest are sadly discarded. If I could combo certain pets for certain situations, I would truly feel like a tamer of the wild.
Personally right now, I think all specs should be able to raid in ICC.. with the zone wide 30% buff.. its really hard to say if BM could raid or not in ICC. When ICC had no raid buff likely not they where far too behind and when they did add it and pets didn’t get it, it was a slap int he face.
The problem with BM and raiding for me isn’t the fact that it did less DPS, no no. The problem with the spec was the fact, the whole reason someone would even really want to take BM over MM or SV is to have access to hard to find and super rare pets, that should do a bit more DPS then any other standard pet in the game.
Frost I think you and everyone can agree with me, that a BM hunter with a spirit beast doing 5% less dmg then say MM using a wolf isn’t so bad and doesn’t make the Spirit Beast the ZOMG everyone must raid with it like a wolf became. That is why I don’t like it, even as BM hunter, I’m doing far less DPS and I have to use a wolf to even get to that, if I don’t I do much much less almost down right LOL damage then the other specs.
What they need to do for BM.
- Make it our tanking tree for off tanking or soloing/leveling
- Make it so we can do a good out put of damage same as any other off tank
- Give us some really cool skills for out pet, maybe for PVE and PVP that no other tree can get
- Put Big Red Pet back to how it was, but just lower the damage we do and how long it last, its not a big game breaking to not be able to be CC for say 5 or 10 secs
- Give us another damn shot. I was so happy to hear of Cobra shot, I thought, yes finally BM gets a shot.. only to find out its the same as Steady shot and at level 81 it replaces it!? Stop doing that Blizzard
I look at it this way, the hardcore BM hunters, the real ones like myself do it not to top the meter in raids or even heroics or whatever. We do it to solo content, to be able to walk in their to a raid boss (even a lower level one or tier) and solo him for an hour. All the BM hunters who complain about they should do the same DPS as MM are the ones who want it easy and never once bother to try to solo a Wrath Heroic!
But we will never see any of this love for BM because Blizzard can’t even give us a new skill to use, they give us a laughable Kill Command, the animation for it is lame to look at. We don’t even nee to use any other shot then Steady/Cobra and Kill command + Rapid Fire and Big Red Pet. I wish they would have given BM Cobra shot as their big hit that refreshes our sting and vemons doing say the same damage as Arcane shot, the other specs are fine on shots, hell only MM gets Aimed shot now, so no more using that for BM in PVP, hell Aimed shot is LOL now, its only use for that free one that MM gets, other then that its silly to use it in a rotation.
Again why does Blizzard not want us to tank? Would it make it easier to tank then a real tank? I don’t think so, and I know the game is short on tanks as it is, giving us the option and skills to be able to check that tank role in randoms and at least be able to hold threat like any other tank, wouldn’t at all make it any less different then it is now. Hell I’ve tank heroics myself with my pet and people think that’s so cool that hunters can do that.
But come Cata, no more. I wont know 100% until the pet pass is done, but given how the trees are, I doubt we’ll be able to even solo the old old word content that’s not getting updates like 60 raids. Sad, its sill beta so I hope out, but they took away Volley.. one of the keys to soloing is MD+Volley to get aggro or pick it up on your pet on pulls, oh wait they removed Volley.,
Personally what needs to be done before you start QQ about BM doing the same or close to the same as SV or MM is to fix the tree and give us what all hardcore BM hunters want.. we want to do extreme soloing and if your a hunter who says. “I don’t like extreme soloing, its not for me” Then you sir are one of those Hunters who like it easy then or you just like showing off your spirit breast. Either way, I don’t want to see BM being a raid spec.. DPS wise.. as a off tank.. that’s another story, but it’ll never happen, Blizzard clearly does not like us tanking.
Alas, what you want is not what most BM hunters want. They want to be able to dps competitively in the spec they want to play.
Extreme soloing and pet tanking is a pursuit of a minority : )
Cheers Frost,
I’m a little late to the party here, but the things you’ve said need to be said, and anyone finding the wording antagonistic are reading this automatically assuming that you are attacking them. I’ve been levelling my second hunter ( a little hordie) and finally left MM (which I just wanted to try levelling in) for BM, and I forgot how much the big red pet could be, but wholly christ is it the most boring rotation known to man. Anyone complaining that here really must not want to use their brain to play this game.
Sorry for the second follow-up post, but I just wanted to add a few things. I’ve been playing a hunter for a long while now (not as long as Frost, but I started literally the week before BC came out). We have tried hard to distance ourselves from the huntard moniker, and added complexity to our rotations has helped get us passe this stigma. If BM stays as Frost has reported, basically a 1 button spec and doing similar damage to MM and SV, then most will migrated to this spec. All other players will know this and accuse any hunter, no matter the skill, of being a huntard and there will be no distinguishing the good players from the bad. I think we, as a community, want more than that. Going back to what BRK said on the podcast, if the shot rotation isn’t complex, then the pet management aspect of BM should be more involved, and this I fully agree with and fully fits this spec that is pet-sentric. I don’t know if blizzard has the wherewithall to do fully reprogram the spec (I imagine it would be fully building from the ground floor) but I think that is where the spec should go…more pet control.
I support Frost in this. I agree with the post and the general idea that no spec should be competitive DPS while using a one-button macro. I also agree that people shouldn’t have to be fully into the EJ thing to enjoy a video game, but you don’t have to be. Video games historically contain some element of difficulty. Otherwise, it’s just a movie. (Mostly.)
Give the Governor a Harrumph!
I agree that there should be equality among the specs, not just in potential damage but in the difficulty/skill it takes to play them as well. I have 5 hunters across 4 realms, and can honestly say I’ve played every spec. Of those toons my BM hunters are by far my favorite and most played because of the fact that your pet is more apart of the character, more significant. In SV & MM it just doesn’t feel the same to me. I would love to competitively raid in in BM spec, to be able to hold my own with SV & MM Hunters in the likes of ICC or Ruby Sanctum, and would more than willingly deal with a more complex shot rotation to be able to do it. It’s not fair to have to choose between the spec you love or to raid, and it’s a very hard choice to make
I just want to say, I love all you guys who have come out in support of Frost! Frost you have a lot of people here that would take up a sword in your defense. I hope that at least gives you a glint in the corner of your eye and a swelling pride in your hairy dwarf chest. You are loved and respected for what you do. Keep it up and haters be damned!
Ohhhhh pleassee…
Hello frostheim????
You do realiseeeee that BM have the least survivability out of the 3 specs? You do realise pet micro managment of a bm hunter is harder than the other 2 specs?
Thats the ballance, as a bm you will get less survivability and you will have to more pet micro manage which will balanced with an easier rotation for you.
Why the big deal… “LETS MAKE BM SAME COMPLEXITY AS OTHERS”
When clear as a bm hunter you cant survive fuck all and 2 pet micro managing is a hassle…
Oh wait but teh dps shudent be the same… Thats just you talking about “Raid” dps.
Your theory of bm spec is too simple is irrational and not well thought out.
MM have readiness and shit loads of burst, sv have cc and survivability.
Bm has “big red pet” which at this moment in wrath doesnt even keep you immune from cc, bearing in mind BIG RED pet lasts 10 seconds, a mage can simply ice block it out.
And what does a bm hunter have after??
I think the simple rotation for a bm hunter is well justified…
If you want the bm spec to be just as complex as SV, then give bm more survivability.
Either keep the simple rotation or give it more surv or extra abilities if you push for the idea it needs to be a more complex rotation.
AND ALSO DPS IS JUST DPS, who cares if some ebyer does same dps as you in a standing still fight, surelly you do realsie in cata CC is coming back so you will have to be knowledgeable in your own class, so the ebuyers will be found out and no one will prais em because they can dps in a standing still fight seeing as most of cata will require knowledge movement and so on…
With each new post you seem to bring out im slowly loosing respect for your way of thinking..
Wow this sounds like an AA Meeting that just ran out of Decaf with some of these people on here complaining at facts. Now if you didn’t guess by the name I’m not a Hunter I’m a Rogue professionaly I hate Hunters they make me look bad if played well lol. But personaly I love them I think its interesting to watch and read about the class and yes I do have an 80 Hunter so I do enjoy them not just on paper.
But the point I’m getting at is some of the people on here need to step back and look at what they are saying about Frost himself not Frosthiem the WHU mod or the WoW.com writer no Frosthiem the Dwarf Hunter alot of you people think just because you read this blog or rolled a Hunter you can bitch about someone who is taking their own time just to make your game alittle bit better? He could just keep his mouth shut for the lol-BMers out there and let the Hunter rep end up as a Huntard Gold Farmer again I was around for those days I don’t imagine they were fun but no he takes his time out of whatever he wants to do to reserch and whatever else he does just to make the Hunter community a better place as far as BM he goes out of his way to FIND ways to show BM is just as good but the fact right now in the game is that it just doesn’t exist anymore and no matter how may “Top Meter” stories you can find or Screenshots or whatever Blizz itself has admited that it didn’t do BM right but does Frost throw all that in peoples faces? No he looks for ways to prove those facts or to correct them hell he’s spent time in Beta testing BM stuff…sure looks like he hates BM to me because I know everyone plays spec they hate in the Beta if they can get into it. The fact is just that The Fact he finds them and sticks them up here for everyone to read and enjoy/hate but thats just it The Frosthiem Goggles are just the Facts not the Feelings or Hopes or Prayers or what have you they are just ment for Facts so if you have a problem with the data do the months and months of testing yourself or don’t bother with the WHU but leave Frosthiem the Dwarf Hunter out of this stuff his point is just to make your game alittle more fun if you have a problem with the Facts then take it up with them not with him and to the rest of you Hunters be it BM/SV/MM Who see the WHU as what its ment for as a Guide to make your lives that just better much DPS love from a fellow DPSer!!!!.
*Adrenaline Rush on CD now*
Thanks for your time especialy you Frost from a lowly sneaky AFK Rogue!
Wow. And here we have an example of the rabid anti-Frostheim, Mr. JackAs. Who lives up to his name by not only by being very rude and writing terribly, but being COMPLETELY wrong on nearly every statement made in the post. I wish people like this were somehow unable to find this website.
At any rate, I PVP extensively as BM, and since that seems to be what this person is trying to talk about, let me point out that BM currently has the strongest burst, the best survivability, the best CC immunity, and doesn’t require significantly more pet management. MM and SV currently have the best CC and sustained dps, and for that reason MM currently dominates Arena.
Anyway. Sigh at JackAs, giving BM a bad name.
Dhorvin – I assumed from your hypersensitivity you were also a BM hunter.
FrostheimuJackAs – thank you for proving my point. What in fact you are doing, like most of your ilk, is rambling between pvp and pve with no real justification for anything you’re saying. What is mainly being discussed is PvE. Cataclysm isn’t finalised, I’d suggest you get some reading comprehension between now and then.
Saelle made a great comparison between ex smokers and hunters. It’s kinda true in that I’d say the majority of the hunter community does look down on BM purely because it’s not as hard and we all used to play it.
Personally I hope they make all 3 specs more complex. Then at least all the huntards will reroll the next EZ mode flavour of the month.
Kazador made a good point about the comparison between BM and MM rotations. I too have pointed it out before. If it wasn’t for ArP how much dps would MM really be doing? I love how all the MM are still milking the ArP cow regardless of their passive rating. What makes the rotation more complex? The fact that they have Readiness? Movement for the BM hunter is just as crucial because he needs to squeeze out every ounce of dps to try and play catch-up to the other two specs.
The point was also made that if a BM’s pet dies we’re (yes I am a die-hard BM) horribilus fuctis so WE have to make sure that BRK stays alive because we all know the healers will not be tossing out heals to our beloved companions. So pet management comes into play. MM and SV hunters can afford to carry on pew-pewing without their pets whereas BM just cannot. I would be overjoyed to see more interaction between BM and their pets. A signature shot would be nice (screw Intimidation) but I doubt it would make the spec any more complex. More interaction with our pets would do the job.
Long live King Frost! I will continue to direct all training hunters to WHU and even the one-macro-spamming lol-BM ones as I feel you have knowledge to impart on all of them.
/tar Frostheim
/salute
So I just had a thought.
the numbers for the dmg of the attacks are not yet fina; and the level cap is 83, so there might be upgrades to abils that are not out yet.
what if Steady Shot does more dmg for a BM hunter than Cobra shot?
and what if Arcane Shot does more Dmg/focus than Kill Comand 9 remember it goes off of pet crit , not yours).
the Bm rotation becomes alot harder to master no?
i see something like this
1)Hunters Mark
2) Scopid
3) Serpent
then
Arcane Shot to bleed off extra focus,Unless in BW Kill Command cause of the 50 % pet dmg.
Steady Shot to regen focus , unless you need to refresh serpent sting , then Cobra shot.
Focus fire every 30 secs.
BW every 1.17 mins
fervor as much as you can , but being sure you don’t waste focus.
just a thought , i am probaly wrong
Lirithiel – Most of the highly ranked BM hunters are using full arp setups in any case. My pet last time I checked was doing roughly 1kdps on fights which is not trivial. Pet management is just as hard for all specs it’s just BM has slightly more resting on it. With the amount of passive healing and splash healing in raids these days its not exactly a big deal to leave your pets in for things on most fights.
“Kazador”
BM does NOT!!! have better burst than MM!!! YOU must be very dellusinal if you think bm does… Even MM has better survivability than BM thanks tor readiness.
The only reason beast cleave works.. is because of the “core hound” due to its “25% slowing spellcasting effect” which is only available to “BM’s”
“Echo”
Justification? Prove? Justification is…. why the fuck moan about “BM ROTATION IS TO SIMPLE” when clearly even if the dps of the spec is increased in all other areas the spec falls miles behind the other 2 classes in cc and survivability.
“I hope they make all 3 specs more complex”
Yes make all 3 specs same complaxity… If they increase the survivability and cc of a bm hunter…
“What is mainly being discussed is PvE”
EXACTLY MY POINT!!!! Frostheim is being narrow minded and is only looking at the “PVE” aspect and he is asking for a change which will affect all aspects Inc “PVP” where the bm spec simply fails, if it had a complex rotation like mm or sv, even though it doesnt have the cc or survivability as those two specs (mm or sv).
/Sarcasm on
QQ bm rotation is to simple QQ because i dont like seeing other ebuyers surpass me on recount because im an elitist who likes to have the biggest E-penis, i want to push for changes to a spec because im considering “PVE” only, im not even contemplating about the “PVP” facts because im being narrow minded. Bla bla bla “PVE”.
Bla bla bla i dont like others playing my class and giving my class a bad name because i think solely of generalisations. Even though i know “most wow players” wont generalise and wont base their descisions to invite me to a raid because they saw another crappy hunter. But because of my own “skills”
/Sarcasm off
Thats what frostheim is sounding like. Forget others as long as you play good people wont give a fuck if some other dude is an ebuyer and just bought thier “hunter ”
And he has gone out of his way to nerd rage on a long ass post because he is being narrow minded ie “PVE” and how he doesnt like other scrubs giving his class a bad name cos he probably is to insecure in his own skills..
More people pvp than raid which its a fact!!!! I personally think frostheim is being very narrowminded on this particular matter.
And if he wishes to QQ and rage about it fair enough, he is entitled to it. BUT im also entittled to mine.
@Jackas:
Please stop posting if you have nothing constructive to add except to carry on bashing Frost – you’re just making matters worse for yourself. If you want to discuss the pvp/arena enviroment go visit Arena Junkies and QQ there. This site caters more for the pve’ers altho Frost does an admirable job to keep those who pvp in the loop.
@Echo:
BM has “slightly more” resting on pet management??? Almost half your damage down the toilet when your pet dies is hardly comparable to 13% for MM/SV…maybe slightly more now with the laughable 30% buff in ICC but my point stands – pet management matters so much more to BM than MM and SV. Not one hunter in my guild (all SV and MM) could give a shit about their pets dying during fights and they have admitted as much.
“Lirithiel”
Im a blanaced player, i both pvp and pve
And i visit lots of hunters sites regularly, if i see someone saying something or promoting something which effects all aspects of the class then i will intervine.
Frostheim is respected in the hunter community and if he pushes a matter even further lots more “mindless people” would support him without asking questions on the matter which would cause a chain reaction and could actually have an effect ingame. After all if the community QQ’s then blizzard will make those changes etc…
And the fact is that he is making to big a deal out of somthing which needent be, to acostume his “pve” taste without giving a balanced view on the “pvp” aspect on the matter. Which personally i think the “bm spec” will greatly suffer if the rotation is further compicated.
And fair enough this is a PVE forum/site and i shudent mention “PVP” but pvp is a big part of the game. After all you want wow to be diverse etc.
I would also harshly comment on pvp sites if somone promoted a change which would suite their taste requirements but would greatly decrease a specs potential in pve.
And i thank you for agreeing with me on the “pet micromanagment” matter.. “Ecko” clearly doesnt know what he is talking about…
Personally I find BM’s simplicity to be a-lot less fun. I happen to love BM reminds me of the old days where it was, me and my pet against a world where everything was trying to kill us, but mashing one button over and over again purely to be top of the dps meters is just sad. I think that Blizz want to put back the RPG element into wow so you can chose the spec based on what you want your character to be like and not whether it tops the damage meters. If more people did THAT then WoW would be much more fun.
JackAs, you are a marvel. Three mile-long posts full of polemic and not a SINGLE proof/substantiation of your claims. You should go into politics.
Please note that repeating the same statements over and over doesn’t make them any more true or believable. Hard science, proof – that kind of thing does.
Agree with Lirithiel, up to a point. Pet control in BM is not as much as I would like. But definitely more than SV/MM. As SV I hardly ever do anything other than eyes of the beast to jump of a clift so my pet don’t get us wiped. The healers give the pet some love and I have a point invested on phoenix to have’im up IF I noticed he’s dead. When I do BM (solo) all my attention is on my pet. Healing, cower, go here, stand there/voley, Big red, intimidate, etc.
However, that is not micro management. Want pet micro management? try Guild Wars vesion of BM. Now, that’s pet micro management (Blizzard, you got arenas/pvp ladders and other brilliant ideas from them, get some more for us hunters!) your pet does buffs, poison, bleed, stuns, interrumpts, and some hard hits, all of them cost YOU mana. There your pet does NOTHIING if you are not hitting a button (well, it does “attack”, but the base damage is low). If you want extremes, henchmen (IE players) arenas its the ultimate pet micro management tournament. you and your 3 pets (who are fully geared, fully leveled IE players) against someone elses team. Set individual targets, control flags, send a henchman to capture objectives far out of your sight, take control of their critical abilities in important fights, that’s pet management (all of that while YOU run around either trying to take down their henchmen or the person behind them. Oh, and if you die, the henchmen can continue the fight and if the other team is really bad, they can res you). Saying BM having to click once or twice more than usual on their pet “micro management” in WoW complicated is a laughable statement. The sad thing with GW is that it is a game for purely PvPers (anybody can from day one, have a fully geared, fully lvled, all abilities unlocked any class toon to play PvP with) and I like both sides. WoW is a nice balance.
Becoming a flame war but oh well.
Lirithiel – fair enough mate. But if you’re playing as you should be your pet should never die. It’s not hard to do this, especially in ICC. I always ensure my wolf lives and I haven’t had a pet die on any fight in ICC25 apart from leaving the wolf on deathwhisper and him getting gibbed when her shield comes down or on LK if I leave him on Arthas in P2. Both are easily fixed. 50% is also far too high for pet damage and I’d be interested to see logs showing that, personally my own experience using an Arp BM setup has been more like 30%
Jackas – Again, thanks for making my point for me. Arguing against having more complexity is retarded if you want better burst. MIndlessly spamming 1 or 2 buttons to high rating in arena is stupid. BM isn’t fine as it is. Adding more complexity would benefit your spec.
I’ve nothing further to add. I seemed to have sparked this, sorry frost.
Hulder
YOU ACTUALLY NEEDS PROO TO BELIEVE THAT..
Bm has less survivability and cc than MM and SV?
And that you are more likelly to die under the BM specc rather than the MM and SV spec?
Either you dont play a hunter, or your knowledge playing as a hunter must be very limited..
Why the fuck would you want to increasse the complaxity of a spec to the same level as MM and SV
When clearly the CC and SURVIVABILITY are not on the same level.
Isnt that a stupid thing to ask?
/sarcasm on
Lets make this spec as hard as the others even though it wont offer the same reward levels and lets sway everyone to “NOT” play the bm spec.
/sarcasm off
If you are too dumb to see the major flaws behind asking BM to have a more complex rotation then i feel sorry for your intelligence.
Well, that of course was a conclusive, non-refutable argument, rock-solid with facts! *cough*
Hee hee hee… JackAs entertainment: priceless.
P.S. Anyone remember this?
http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/2010/06/frostheim-goggles-questions-and-answers/
I think I need another pair of Frostheim Goggles. Pretty please, Frost?
I was prepared to hop in here one last time and point out that all the frothing zealotry in this comment thread seemed to be coming from Frostheim lovers, not BM Hunters, but then Mr “JackAs” had to show up and… do whatever it is he’s doing. Shine on, you crazy diamond.
I still think that the article was needlessly abrasive, but if I were in your place and I had to put up with the antics of someone like that guy on anything approaching a regular basis, and if he’s at all representative of the typical feedback you get from BM Hunters, I’d probably tell the lot of them to Die In A Fire and start up a cooking blog. So, I guess I’m saying that while I still don’t agree with the antagonism of the above piece, I now have a better understanding of where that antagonism comes from.
You want proof?
Ok answer this question. Do you have a hunter who has 6.1 k gs in pve gear and has full wrathfull gear on live at the moment?
If you do prove it. Give armory links and so on.
Do you have a beta invitation?
If you dont tick all of those criteria then you dont qualify to comment on the subject what so ever as you would lack the knowledge of the class specifics.
Having whatever gearscore hunter does NOT prove anything about specs or survivability or anything else you claim in your comments here. That you’re now attacking ME personally does not make up for the total lack of actual substance in your “arguments” (which aren’t, therefore, arguments, but simply claims).
This is my last reply to this as I’m not going to spam this blog. Feel free to call me whatever you like, all you are doing is to prove further the point I and others have been making about you. If you haven’t got it by now, you never will.
Why should you have an input on the subject matter if your not showing proof that you have played the class extensivelly ie by getting better raiding gear, or by getting full wrathful.
Surelly you would not be knowledgeable enough to take up any opinion or give any opinion on this subject matter.
And ill make the conclusion you havent played beta either.
And no im not attacking you but prove the BM does make you survive and helps you cc more than the other 2 specs. So go ahead and feel “smart” by mentioning big words
““arguments” (which aren’t, therefore, arguments, but simply claims).”
But reality is you dont know dont know fuck all about the class and the repercussions of what frostheim is trying to push and in the manner he approached his “The dirty BM Secret” post, your just kissing frostheims ass blindlessly on this particular subject
Now i have raided and pvp’d extensively and played the class thoroughly on live and in beta and i can assure you.
Further complicating the BM rotation will be a major fail.
Frankly I think Frost is correct, not only is he correct I think he was very polite. I love BM and i was very unhappy after the nerf and went survival. Now I love survival and kinda dont want to be pet dependant again, however if BM becomes the top raiding spec ill go back to BM. I tend to have a hard time changing specs I stayed survival since i made the initial change. I hope BM is within the 5% mark of the other specs but i also hope it is 5% within the same difficluty to play if it stays as dismal as it is hopefully we can pet tank or at least make it the best pvp spec.
Beta is Beta things are still changing maybe we will get a new AOE to replce volley maybe not as long as im having fun im a happy hunter.
@Jackas: Please read the posting rules here: http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/faq/ Specifically, you are violating everything in the “I think you’re wrong part 2″ section. Stop making personal attacks and ad hominem argument. If you want to disagree, that’s fine, but say why and talk about the argument, and not the person.
In live BM currently has the best survivability due to the ability of bestial wrath to ignore *everything* that anyone can do to stop them, as well as passive healing and boosted health.
In beta SV has the lowest survivability in general, due to being the only spec without any kind of self heal.
BM does not need to micromanage their pets. No spec does, though MM probably currently benefits from micromanagement more than any other spec (manually using Furious Howl). Sometimes, in the occasional fight, you need to hit Cower. In beta this is more common, but then BM pets do less of their damage in beta and BM has the extra pet points for an insta pet rez.
In terms of CC, the specs are closer than ever now that they all have scatter shot as a baseline. SV has wyvern and entrapment, giving them the best CC. MM has readiness so once a fight they can get a 2nd trap. BM has Intimidation and still has the ability to break out of any kind of CC with bestial wrath. They don’t a need mind-numbingly simplistic and thought-free shot rotation as well.
Been thinking about what to say here. I was a lil afraid I might be one of Frosts three types of BM as we have this bond and he understands my hopes, my dreams….
But the thing is, I play WoW to relax and wind down and hang out with people. If that people happens to be a tiger soloing icecrown with me so be it. But I don’t WANT a complex rotation nor do I want to top the meters by hitting one button.
Ok that’s not quite true but when I raid and group I like to do at least well and I try to put in a good rotation. I don’t ENJOY it exactly, pressing buttons, but you do what you gotta do or don’t do it and I want to see these places and bosses and run around with 10-25 other people killing stuff.
But THEN…. Sometimes …. I get competitive. Badly. And I will work my ass off to beat the crap out of someone if they triggered me. I want every button I can get that will put me over the top and I want it right now.
So what I hope we get is a two tier tree set for all three where you can do ‘ok’ and WoW isn’t a second job but then you can kick it like Frostheim if you work like Frostheim. Don’t knock the dwarf. He works very hard and I appreciate it.
.
Wow, what an amazing article. I think the specs should be close to doing the same dps but the specs are designed to enhance some players play styles and preferred game play situations. Whether it’s dungeons, soloing, raiding, pvp, farming etc., each spec should serve it’s intended purpose and slightly out peform the other specs in certain situations.
One more thing no one has to theory craft at all EJ and Frost do those things for us and fo that I thank you Frostheim, and hopefully the battle for BM will be sucessfull. People seem to forget your trying to make BM a good solid spec to play again. Wow sometimes I dont know why you do it but im happy that you do, Cheers : )
My sentiment about BM is that it’s just plain boring. There’s nothing to think about. Nothing to do. I was sad about the removal of Rhumba because it seemed like a “fun” talent more than anything else.
@JackAss I hate feeding trolls, but here goes. Dude, don’t question other people’s intellect because you can’t provide proof for something. Your “if you were smart you’d already have proof” argument is laughable. It’s YOUR argument. YOU provide the proof.
Imagine, if you would, Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” and inside it said this: “Creatures evolved from other creatures through natural selection and mutation. You all should already have the proof for my argument yourselves.”
How seriously would people have taken this?
Mr. JackAss, that is YOU. That is what YOU sound like. You’re not helping your cause by living up to your name. You’re just making yourself point sound worse and worse.
Unless this whole thing is tongue-in-cheek. In which case, BRAVO, SIR! you’ve done an excellent job of illustrating how out of their minds some people can be.
I really want someone to write this software: http://xkcd.com/481/
Oh if only that software was real, that would be so great!
I’m pretty sure I fall in the first category. My love for BM is irrational to the point of drawing “are you crazy?” looks from my fellow guildmates, some of whom are blood relatives. I have played SV and MM, both to high degrees, but for me there’s nothing like the following conversation, irrational as it may be:
Random MM (occasionally SV) hunter: “Wow I got ya beat by a bit on the dps meters.
Didn’t realize you were BM. You might want to think about switching specs.”
Me: “Yeah, look at your pup doing less than half the damage of mine. It’s so cute! Let
me know when he grows up and wants to play with the big dogs.”
That being said, just because the spec I play is weaker, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get the most out of it. I like min/maxing and theorycrafting with BM, and am disappointed when I run across hunters that don’t try do the best they can with the spec. They’re one of the reasons BM suffers from the horrible reputation across my server in my opinion.
I’m in the boat with those who want BM to have a more complex rotation for that last reason. I feel it truly is the first step of getting the spec back any semblance of respectability that the spec has lost, even more so than just bringing the damage in line with MM and SV.
In the end though, Frost pegged it for the first category.
If BM is respectable, I will play it.
If it is only known as “huntard spec”, I will play it.
If it is so simple I can have a seizure over my keyboard and still top charts, I will play it.
If it becomes so complex I have to take piano lessons for a month and wear protective wrist gear and helmet, I will play it.
If it rockets through the top of the dps charts, or gets nerfed six feet under, I will play it.
In the spirit of Frost’s love for guns, “You can have my Big Red Fluffy when you pry it from my cold dead hands.”
I loved BM while I was leveling but once I started raiding and realized the it was a pain in the a$$ to get top dps I quickly made the switch to MM and now I can usually top charts over any BM hunter in equal gear. It really does amaze me when someone notices that the MM hunter is way above there BM they always have some kind of excuses like ” Oh I wasn’t Trying to be top. ” Now that makes me Lol.
Random MM (occasionally SV) hunter: “Wow I got ya beat by a bit on the dps meters.
Didn’t realize you were BM. You might want to think about switching specs.”
Me: “Yeah, look at your pup doing less than half the damage of mine. It’s so cute! Let
me know when he grows up and wants to play with the big dogs.”
roflmao
Best. Comeback. Ever.
I am exactly the same Marcusbidarcus. I do my utmost to get all I can out of the BM spec because the idea of fighting alongside your pet was what drew me to the class and WoW in the first place. My hunter is my main and always will be, BM will always be my main spec no matter how far they nerf it into the ground. I mean how much weaker can Blizz make the spec? I am confident they will get it right in the end even if it is dead boring atm.
Frostheim appears to have forgotten that an integral part of WoW’s dominance over its MMO peers stems from its accessibility. Having come from EQ1 WoW is, to be blunt, flat out easier to play, easier to be good, and requires a far smaller time commitment to leveling, raiding, and honing your craft. That is a significant part of how WoW has drawn in millions of people that otherwise wouldn’t play and that its peers couldn’t touch.
People complaining about the players that want easy-mode specs is like complaining about WoW being easier than some of its peers. If you want more of a challenge there are other games you can play. I’d say it’s highly improbably that WoW’s designers will ever cater to the more advanced side of the spectrum of players over the least common denominator, which probably makes up the majority of the playerbase, in something as widely important as the complexity balance between specs. The easy-mode spec is only automatically better than the more complicated specs if you’re a max/min type player. Max/min players obviously do not make up a large portion of WoW’s playerbase.
I’m all for easy-mode specs. It doesn’t help those people stop standing in fire but it means I don’t have to scratch my head while watching the 6k GS MM Hunter that only pulls 4kdps on 10 man Fester despite a respec/regem/being pointed to resources like this site. It means I don’t have to waste my raid id for the week in a group of DPS that clearly lacks the skill to finish off the bosses of the instance. There are too many people that flat out don’t play their class/spec well to make things even harder for them. As long as WoW is designed with the LCD in mind your best bet if you don’t like easy-mode gaming is to go to another game. As long as they’re of the mindset that content should generally be available to everyone the difference between the top players, (some minuscule percentage of the playerbase) and everyone else can’t be very big.
You’ve said many times that your allegiance is to the spec with the most DPS. If all three specs are equal DPS then your choice represents your real preference. If you pick the easy-mode spec that means deep down you want easy-mode and all the talk of complexity is simply talk. If the complexity is what you want that’s what you’d pick. Implying that you have no choice in the matter is dishonest.
“I’m all for easy-mode specs. It doesn’t help those people stop standing in fire but it means I don’t have to scratch my head while watching the 6k GS MM Hunter that only pulls 4kdps on 10 man Fester despite a respec/regem/being pointed to resources like this site. It means I don’t have to waste my raid id for the week in a group of DPS that clearly lacks the skill to finish off the bosses of the instance. There are too many people that flat out don’t play their class/spec well to make things even harder for them”
Just because some people are retarded doesn’t mean the entire game has to change. I think blizzard realise this. They’ve tried to make BM harder before – namely the nerf in naxx which tried to introduce Arcane as another shot in their rotation.
I’m personally not sure I “want” more complexity. I’ve largely quit the game and having something I can pick up and play is nice. However the moment this game becomes Hello Kitty Island Adventure wif Dwagons, is the moment I think it won’t be worth playing. Having some challenge makes the game interesting. I could have been asleep most of TBC and still done similar dps. Making all of the specs equally challenging to play with the POTENTIAL to do high dps is the holy grail. If one spec can do more dps with less buttons/effort it will become the flavour of the month.
Besides, having a spec considered the retard spec doesnt benefit anyone.
@Fae — I guess I disagree with you on most points, including what you think the developer’s motivations are. Wow is designed to be more accessible than previous MMOs and it’s designed to appeal to a wider audience.
But other than requiring fewer numbers, raiding isn’t actually much easier than it was 5 years ago in WoW. The fights, in fact, are harder than they were in vanilla.
I’m not asking for hardmode style gaming, I’m asking for WoW-style gaming. And I will bet you that BM rotation gets its complexity boosted up, because in WoW they do *not* want a rotation that simple ever, let alone one that simple that does as much dps as the others.
Also, a spec that does just as much dps but is vastly easier to play is just better than the others. It’s better for the unskilled player, who can do max dps with that spec but not others. It’s better for the min/maxer who then doesn’t need to devote as much of his attention to the rotation and can instead concentrate more on the fight at hand.
“I’m not asking for hardmode style gaming, I’m asking for WoW-style gaming. And I will bet you that BM rotation gets its complexity boosted up, because in WoW they do *not* want a rotation that simple ever, let alone one that simple that does as much dps as the others.”
The designers are juggling a population (at least on my server) that is largely unskilled and a very small yet vocal minority that wants to be pushed. My point is that it’s OK if there’s a faceroll spec. No one said you have to play it. Who is hurt by the existence of such a spec? We only have two options instead of three? Is that really a crime? Pretty sure that’s where things stand today except we’re missing our third option for lack of viability, not personal preference…which in my book is about 100 times worse. Accessibility is about having options for everyone or at least as many people as reasonably possible.
“Also, a spec that does just as much dps but is vastly easier to play is just better than the others. It’s better for the unskilled player, who can do max dps with that spec but not others. It’s better for the min/maxer who then doesn’t need to devote as much of his attention to the rotation and can instead concentrate more on the fight at hand.”
I don’t disagree. If DPS was equal between specs you’d pick the one you thought was more fun to play right? If the spec’s complexity is a large part of what makes it fun for you, you wouldn’t pick the faceroll spec. If you’re a max/min type player you don’t care about complexity. Your only requirement is, as you implied, maximizing your performance relative to your effort. The spec is better for some definitions of better. We can come up with lots of qualifiers that make one spec better or worse than the others. However, as a DPS class the unqualified best spec is the one with the most DPS. Period. If all three have equal DPS then with respect to our job they’re all equal and which one is “best” becomes a subjective, personal choice.
For the record, my definition of fun is getting things dead. I play MM because being the highest DPS spec helps get things dead. I couldn’t care less about the spec’s mechanics except in the context of seeing and clearing content. Would I play a faceroll spec if it was top DPS? Of course. If it made it easier to avoid the avoidable damage? Yep. The spec is simply the means to an end though. The spec is not important. The goal (seeing/clearing content) is.
If a spec does the same dps, but is vastly easier, it is better. The min/maxers will feel they have to use that spec — because when you’re in a complicated boss fight, it’s an advantage to have a simpler rotation. It lets you spend more of your attention on the fight mechanics — therefore you’ll do more dps.
I’m fine with a faceroll spec if it does less dps; however, blizzard has stated their intent to make all specs do the same.
I think what’s needed is to make specs that *can* be played faceroll, and do poorly, but if played optimally they are more complex, and do more dps. Of course, you could say every spec is this way — no matter how complex it is, you can play it badly, do less dps, but still handle any solo/leveling content in the game.
Hi Frost,
I don’t know how classify my game, then.
So, another category should be created: “BM Hunters that never feels weaker or inferior to other specs”
I’m ok that recognize that our toolbox is lower than Marks or Surv, however, BM Hunter has many possibilities that are completely ignored, even for PvE and PvP. And I don’t agree that is one button spec. Of course you can play by one button, however never will be maxed spec.
I played Marks ans Surv, and there is no many differences on the rotation apart from extra shot, that’s not so much.
I never feels weker or inferior to other specs, at least in my server, and feels comfortable to use BM with best numbers regarding PUGs or 25-Man Raid from Guild.
Then, still there is live on BM Spec.
I agree BM was vastly nerfed at the begining of 3.0.8, and weaker for a certain time, but gradually has been corrected and even in 3.1 was in not so bad place.
I’m theorycrafting player as well, and allways enjoy to min/max. Still I don’t find too much differnce with BM Spec at each level of gear since I was progressing.
Blizzard is reverting Improved Kill Command from reducing cooldown to 0, to increase KC’s crit chance. I guess they have been listening to feedback!
So now the BM rotation will require Arcane Shot as a focus dump, assuming that KC once every 6 seconds is not enough. Better?
i must say some thing are well put but im not a die hard bm i only used it to lvl my first hunter, now im lvling a mm pvp specc hunter and i must say i love it but i realy wanna try bm as a pvp specc but cant find any decent specc for nor some tips in what is crusual in the specc.
If you’re pushing one or two buttons for BM, you’re doing it wrong. I can’t tell honestly after reading all this if the “one-button or two-button easymode” comments are sincerity or sarcasm.
My rotation has six or seven, if you can call it a rotation. One of the beauties of hunter in any spec is a flexible priority system.
And it works. Even in a Beastmaster spec, more often than not, I have out-DPSed better geared players of many classes….particularly other hunters in the specs you deem to not “fail”.
Not just in Heroics. In ICC. 10 and 25.
From where I’m sitting, it seems that the BMs you are complaining about aren’t the only ones flailing at this point. You say “some” BMs, you say “certain” BMs, but you seem to have forgotten to point out the positives of the rest. You say “some” BMs, you say “certain” BMs, then your wording seems to lump everyone into your pocketholes. In any case, if you’re ignoring the bad apples, this is an interesting way of doing it. You sound like one of the standard trolls in /trade on any given server, and so do a good deal of the commenters here. If you want to call this emotional, go on. When you toss out namecalling, that’s what you’re looking for.
Why do I play BM spec? I suppose I’m one of the “die-hards” you deride. The irony is, your post here speaks far more about yourself than it ever would of me.
I’m disappointed. I came to this site many times to learn my class, to make sure I could never be called the dreaded “huntard”. I found this nugget coming here to stay informed.
Yet here I find you’re sounding a bit like a huntard yourself.
Good thing the ignore works both ways, eh?
@Ijomi: I couldn’t agree more.
Frostheim, I’ve been coming here for quite some time for advice and consultation on plenty of things but all I could see is an article based on misinformation and ignorance. I’ve played a Beast Mastery hunter since the beginning of my hunter days and it’s not because of how easy it is, according to you, it’s because of how complex it is.
This whole article is scattered with “one-button,” “one-shot” hum-drum mentions of a foregone rotation. I feel as though you have no right to be writing about such a spec that you refer to as Big red pet. Yes, that is our CD to blow for maximum DPS; as do most classes with a Big red enrage. The complexity of BM lies not within it’s rotation, but in maximizing our DPS. Maximizing Hunter DPS and maximum Pet DPS. Another thing you don’t mention is pet management. Anyone can pop BW and boost their DPS a bit. But a real BM Hunter knows how to weave it in, to match you and your pet’s procs and skills in order to achieve a maximum output BW.
I’ve parsed many logs doing 8-9k DPS in heroics in my BM build, and 12k on Festergut in ICC10. BM may be a little gimped compared to MMS at the moment, but it certainly is FAR from failure. As I say this, only the best of the best BM hunters will respect the spec to the point where they will maximize its potential.
I’d like to address as well your comments about the “one-shot” “one-button” bonanza. Complaining that BM is too “easy” is a shot in the dark Frost. I can safely wager you’ve never spent more than a day in BM spec, unless you needed to solo a quest or something using a Tenacity pet + 4 points.
So, as MMS in ICC25 I can pull about 13k DPS. That sounds pretty good, right? Do you know what I do? I stand there, with my pet on passive and shoot every shot that is off cooldown (except Arcane). In the current state of how hard MMS hits; that is ALL you have to do. You talk about complexity and difficulty in play; if an MMS hunter is glyphed, gemmed, and geared properly….all they need to do in an encounter is make sure Serpent Sting goes up, then pop Chimera Shot, Aimed Shot and Spam steady shot until both those shots are up. Do you honestly think that standing there with your pet on passive and hitting those buttons are more complex? I’m sorry, but shooting 2 more shots than BM, does not make the spec more complex. The most complex spec is SV, but I don’t want to venture into that.
@Toshirou I disagree with just about all of your points, alas.
I never said you played BM ’cause you like it easy. I said that *some* BM hunters play that way.
The one-button macro is specifically referring to the beta, and it was my saying that a valid one-button macro was bad that caused this certain sect of BM to go up in arms defending a one-button macro and a simpler playstyle.
The reference to BM as a failure spec in Wrath was a Blizzard quote. So you can take that one up with them.
I have indeed played BM more than a day at a time. I played BM for years straight. I still play BM for stretches of time, including raiding with BM when it doesn’t matter if my dps drops by 20%.
If that is the way you play MM, I understand why you feel it is not much more complicated; ;however, you are not playing the spec optimally. The two interesting things about the MM spec is that it requires not losing auto-shots or steadies to movements, so your movements skills are far more vital, and it requires stacking cooldowns — among other things that means manually controlling every furious howl, something that isn’t nearly as important for BM, amusingly. With 4-6 rapid fires per fight, MM has a decent amount of cooldown stacking that must be very carefully prepared for, in addition to stacking furious howl every 45 seconds, etc.
@Frostheim:
You are glorifying the MMS spec way too much. In a fight where there is little to no movement; the spec quickly becomes just as “easy” a spec. When I mention my play style on MMS, it is a simple, dumbed down version of it. Sure, if you have to move you’ll need to play the strafe-auto-shoot game where you lose as little auto-shots as possible. But in fights that do not require you to move at all (e.g. Saurfang); You are simply standing there pressing the buttons that call priority when they are up. But that does not make the spec anymore complicated.
Timing your Bestial Wrath with your own trinket procs, talent procs, gear bonus procs is just as tedious or complex as stacking Furious Howls every 45 seconds, and utilizing your Rapid Fires effectively. But you have to go a step further to maximize your DPS as a BM hunter, otherwise your DPS does drop by 20%. And when you say that, that means you are not playing BM optimally.
Movement is quite vital to BM as well, if not more, because you have less shots on the move to utilize. Your movements must carefully weave in Steady and Auto-shot just as importantly as you do with MMS. And it stands as more important for BM as Steady Shot is your primary shot. Now, as BM we’re either using the Raptor for its Rend (to boost its damage sporadically) or Devilsaur (for its constant 9% damage boost). Timing your Bestial Wrath to match trinket procs, gear procs, talent procs, kill command, and your pet’s buffs / procs and Call of the Wild … Will result in a massive DPS boost, and thus maximizing your DPS as BM.
Anyone in any spec can sit there and spam one button and DPS happens. But it is up to the player to make the spec more complicated than it is or as easy as they want. You may think BM is the easiest spec, but being the bastard child of Wrath, it would seemingly be justified to say it is the most difficult spec. You need to know what you are doing to pull the correct numbers and viable numbers. It is the player that makes the experience easy or difficult. If you still believe BM to be an easy spec then you, sir, are not playing it optimally and are afraid to change your thoughts on its processes.
You can choose to play BM to its fullest potential and realize its complexities or you can continue to believe it just isn’t as complex and play the way you’ve played it since the beginning of patch 2.0.
I have only begun playing this game for about a month, so a lot of the theorycrafting ideas still go right over my head. I’m learning as well as I can with my limited time availabilty, but at this point, and I’m sure this will change with experience, I DO appreciate that I can use a relatively simple rotation and at least hang with the experienced players when I’m in the instances. Heck, I’ve run into so many dps-criticizing idiots in this game already, I can’t imagine what it would be like if my dps truly reflected my inexperience. I’d quit the game from the abuse….lol.
I do intend to play this game to its fullest potential, but thank god in the meantime, it’s possible to be inexperienced and still have a good time.