Contents:
1. Talents+Glyphs
2. Pets
Beast Mastery Talent Spec
Pros:
- High burst damage with Bestial wrath.
Cons:
- Poor sustained damage.
- Lack of a ranged interrupt.
- Rely heavily on pet for damage. Poor pet management and the death of your pet will render you almost useless.
There is very little room for variation within the BM talent spec. The last 3 points would be best spent in “Hunter vs. Wild” Talent in Survival.
Beast Mastery Glyphs:
Prime:
- Kill Shot (Must)
- Arcane shot
- Kill Command
Major:
- Bestial Wrath (Must)
- Disengage
- Master’s Call
Minor: Feign Death/Scare Beast.
Tap’s Commentary:
There’s currently an issue with the Kill Shot glyph not resetting the cooldown after firing, and another bug with Concussive Shot not making a difference to run speed at all (Read: Broken). I haven’t yet confirmed that either of these have been fixed, as I don’t use the Concussive Shot glyph and only just recently started using Kill Shot glyph again, but I will update if it’s fixed. I would recommend the Trap Launcher glyph for offensive comps and the extra utility, and raptor strike as an optional glyph you would use if you find yourself being a target dummy again. I don’t find too much use for it though since I’m constantly using every global to get out of melee range, not stay in it.
Pets
Tap’s Commentary:
In arena you can call/dismiss pets anytime, so having an arsenal of 5 pets with abilities for all situations is a must. Also note that when you change your pet, even to another pet of the same type, the cooldowns are reset/new. For this reason I have 2 spiders, to web twice. I can use web on one, dismiss it, get the other spider out, and web again.
Beast Mastery Pets:
- Silithid – Venom Web Spray – Essentially the same as the Spider’s Web. Solid pet for BM.
- Shale Spider – Web Wrap – Shares DR with Intimidation.
- Spirit Beast – Spirit Mend – Decent heal that you can use on either yourself or somebody else. Scale very well with AP.
Tap’s Commentary:
What pet you use as BM will depends on your team’s composition. You can bring almost every raid buff to the table. You can tame multiple spirit beasts and just disarm/call them to heal yourself since the cooldown isn’t shared.
Pet Talent Specs:
- Cunning
- Ferocity
- Tenacity
Key Pet Abilities:
- Roar of Sacrifice – Probably your best defensive ability. You can also use it on friendlies to lower the damage they take significantly. Also note that Roar of Sacrifice does not share a cooldown, so you can chain it by dismissing and calling other pets.
- Intervene – Works just like the warrior intervene. You can use it to intervene a blind or a kidney shot if you’re lucky enough.
Tap’s Commentary:
Overall, Marksmanship is the clear winner for PvP. You just can’t go wrong with its burst damage, Readiness and Silencing shot. However the other specs aren’t too far behind, Beast Mastery is great for 1v1, but Survival is really suffering from the recent nerfs to Explosive Shot and Black Arrow. Black Arrow is no longer specced into due to the poor damage, dispellability, and high focus cost of the shot.
I do prefer this spec over SV but MM is always a win for me in pvp! Nice to have the options tho, thank you Tap even tho you’re not with us anymore.
“even tho you’re not with us anymore.”
Wait, what?
He’s left the team, no more Tap guides.
Cheers for the articles!
Though I’m curious as to why Kindred Spirits instead of Killing Streak?
Would you recommend BM for small scale PvP aside from 1v1 ie 2v2 and 3v3 being the max size one could reasonably use BM to the best results before wanting to switch to MM?
I don’t think enough love and care has gone into this beginner’s guide. It doesn’t even mention Devilsaur for the healing debuff, and the commentary was more of a copy paste from the other articles regarding the ability to dismiss and call pets, which is not new information. As for the Kill Shot glyph, is this only an issue in a PVP setting? I’ve been using Kill Shot glyph in PVE and it works fine and has been. Also, not mentioned, is if you have a team that is heavily LOSing you, BM can have the highest sustained damage as your pet happily follows them around those pesky pillars while you are cut off at range.
What I have noticed is that if I am over spamming killing shot the 2nd one will get canceled (about 1/3 of the time) out if i dont wait fpr GCD other than this the glyph works fine for me.
This article is Rubbish and the way he writes and think I can tell he cannot hit 2200+ 2s/3s on BM Spec.
Here are some ideas for some of you :
1. BM’s ability on survival is higher than MM. Why ? Spirit Beast Heal every 30 sec or so.
You can think of it as a kind of res and use it to sub one of your trinkets with DarkMoon.
2. You can attack a target out of line of sight.
3. Intimidation
4. High focus regen allows you to use Tranq shots at a lesser compar. cost
5. Becareful with your pet dying (lose a bit of dps and use heart of ph. – TOTALY worth it)
6. Experiment with Mastery vs. Crit Rate, they have similar dps levels but Mastery is a good option. Spend a few hundred gold switch your stacks and find out.
7. Haste is rubbish for BMs
Depending on your team composition your talent trees can also vary. I can write a huge paragraph on this and how to pick each fights.
There is only one class you should play if you ever think of getting 2200+ on BM, that is orc.
Here is my best advice :
But mainly 1900+ games you have to learn how to switch targets back and forth with your partners. Communication is 99% and having good understaing with your team mates is the key to a good team. ENJOY your PvP instead of trying to win.
Okay BMHunter, please try to stay on topic and do not insult authors — you can disagree without insulting, and even then please disagree with related factual information.
First of all, be aware that Tapp has been 2200+ in many seasons. Secondly, you say “this article is rubbish” — do you disagree with everything the article states? If not everything, what do you disagree with and why? You list a bunch of stuff that seems entirely unrelated in any way to anything Tapp said in this article, and repeats things he’s said in other pvp articles.
The only concrete thing you seem to take exception to is the statement that BM has worse survivability than MM. I know BM has the spirit beast heal (which Tapp talked about in the article) but for PvP survivability MM also has:
– ranged silence/interrupt (ability to mouseovermacro another target and interrupt)
– Self-heal every 9-10 seconds with chimera shot
– Readiness — instantly reset deterrence, disengage, traps, silences. This is HUGE for survivability.
Remember that survivability is a lot more than just heals and health.
Care to give us your pvp toon’s name so we can take a look and see what you’re doing differently?
“I can write a huge paragraph on this and how to pick each fights.
” Deeds not words”
I still think that, “There is only one class you should play if you ever think of getting 2200+ on BM, that is orc.”
Is probably his best statement. Stun resists and extra pet damage… woo. Not like being able to use another trinket or damage reduction, character obfuscation, or AoE silence are even close to being as good. /sarcasm.
well I only pvp enough to get my season bow for my Troll bonus but I find BM to be the best spec for its mobilety as for what was stated about HotP(heart of the phoenix) I haven’t found it that usefull but I could be just fooling myself:) as I have just started researching it …someone want to remind me of some good research sites for hunter pvp specs and the like?
1. No
2. (Corrected)Your pet can follow your target out of line of sight, and get spat on and cc’d to no end, and cause your healer to use more mana to heal it back up again. A dead pet in arena is quite difficult to resurrect without the *Insert talent that instantly resurrects pet* specced into.
3. DR’s with practically every other stun.
4. Tranq shot isn’t something you want to be using as BM.
5. Common sense.
6. The information I posted about haste vs crit vs mastery is probably no longer current. Considering the readers are spending the time to read these guides I’ve posted, it would take but a fraction of the time you take to read them, as it would to test stats in-game. Do your own testing. You can only stand on the shoulders of giants(read as Frostheim) for so long, (And I’m somewhat of a midgit in that regard anyway).
7. Haste was rubbish for every hunter spec when I was still playing.
Yes your talents will differ depending on your team composition. Realize that the talent skeletons I post are just an example, or the “default” template for the specialization.
You’ve posted that talents will differ accordingly to your team’s composition, so does race. Orc is quite viable for almost every comp, but others will be better versus certain comps.
Thanks for taking the time to read the guide, and for your constructive criticism.
BMhunter if alot of the whu community feels the same as me then they must be fed up with your moaning, lack of respect etc of the people who put a hell alot of work, time, blood, sweat and hairy wrists in to this website.
I am still awaiting the videos, screenshots etc you have promised us over the recent posts, would love to see some. I really hope you have blogged on here under your character name as the only Orc bmhunter I can find is on the EU server which from what I can see has no arena ratings or pvp achievements etc.
Last thing to finish off with if you felt so strongly about the pvp specs then the adult thing to do would of to emailed frost and explained why.
Good day all
Just a typo I suppose:
Glyph of Mend Pet does not exist
Yeah it had changed, these guides have been stored up, Tap has left wow so he wrote them all before the changes and they are getting released slowly.
Yeah, I’m trying to get out all of Tapp’s posts when I can — but I just tweaked it to remove the Mend Pet glyph from the minor list.
So what happened to Tapp? I never saw any announcement or post about it–just something about him not “being with us” after “his” last post, and that he’s left WoW, according to Houmas. What’d he do, ditch WoW for Rift? If he did, all I can say is “sucker.”
That being said, after trying arenas with friends and guildies and then trying (and failing entirely) to enjoy random bg’s, I’m so utterly sick of Cata PvP that other games do occasionally look tempting.
Mostly just time constraints and frustration with the game, Cydearm.
I wanted to read through all of the articles before commenting, but now that I’ve had a chance, I’m ready to provide some appreciation and criticism. I’m a little sad that Tapp has left already; maybe Euripides can pick up the mantle? His articles on the topic have been quite good.
To start, I feel like I could grab a Marks spec and enter arena and know what I’m doing because of these entries. I’m not saying I’ll be great, but I won’t be completely lost and I’ll be in a position to get better. Tapp broke down why the spec works and defined its benefits exceptionally well. All of the articles are an excellent perspective on arena, really.
That said the follow-up articles on Survival and, particularly, Beast Mastery read weaker than the Marks entry, meaning that the author seemed not to give the same level of detail with those specs. I have to assume this is because Tapp spend the vast majority of his PvP time in Marks. That’s cool; you like the spec, you should play what you love! I don’t want to just give a broad, general impression, though. To that end:
Survival
Mirrored Blades is a huge tactical advantage and far outweighs the minor DPS increase of Pathing (1% Haste per point). It might be rare that Mirrored Blades wins a match, but rarer is the case where 1% haste is going to be the difference between a win or loss. It also vastly improves the benefit of the Deterrence Glyph (over Trap Launcher with Mirrored Blades, IMO). Utility always outweighs minor DPS gains in a PvP environment. It’s obvious Tapp knows this already because of the detailed, thoughtful way he described Readiness and Silencing Shot for Marks. This same level of logic was lost on SV to some degree.
I do like the Moth mention for SV to make up for a lack of interrupt. It was not a bad article, and I learned a few things, but felt that – in general – it was just not as comprehensive as the Marks entry.
Beast Mastery
The same goes for Beast Mastery. Tapp emphasized how important it is to keep our pet alive, but has no points in Imp Mend Pet, which can single-handedly save your butt from DoT classes, and has done so for me many a time. I would have also liked to have seen a bit of detail on Kindred Spirits (Kaneli also mentions this, above), where I’ve seen it in some builds but not others.
I’m also not sure I agree with the assessment of BM damage. Beast Mastery has strong sustained damage split evenly between the Hunter and pet, so long as both are kept alive, and a lot of escape mechanisms. It adds up to a lot of steady pressure, particularly if the pet is chewing on a caster. As another user mentioned, it’s good for LoS, and fun to send my pet off in a BG and run away myself (I’m such a coward!). Is it as great as Marks? Probably not with Readiness, but Longevity and CT,HC make it pretty damn good from a survivability standpoint, and it lacks the RNG of SV. I’ve also found it particularly good in 1v1 against Warriors and, with the right pet, Resto Druids. I imagine this is the spec in which Tapp spent the least amount of time in PvP, but I have found it to be the most cunning of the three specs, particularly in Battlegrounds where I can pop Heroism, have Kings up, or the healing debuff.
Not a bad entry, by any means, but I think if the author were to abstain from Marks for a couple weeks and focus on the other two specs he’d find that they’ve got their own grooves. If he comes back.
All this said, I am not very good at PvP. I do not do arenas and I’m not rated, but I do feel that the above has some validity and that, in general, there is not enough discussion of BG versus Arena in the aforementioned articles. I also really appreciate what Tapp has written and value each article to some degree, even with the criticisms I’ve put forth. It’s obvious he knows (knew?) what he’s talking about, and I look forward to hearing more; hopefully anyway!
Well said!
Hear Hear!
I have to admit, this is exactly the sort of response I like to get to the information I’ve posted. Constructive criticism. I agree with pretty much everything you’ve posted, and the entirety was well written.
“That said the follow-up articles on Survival and, particularly, Beast Mastery read weaker than the Marks entry, meaning that the author seemed not to give the same level of detail with those specs”
This is true, I did not give the same attention to detail with the SV and BM guides as I did with the MM guide. Laziness? No, more to do with lack of experience. I would prefer to give a few sentences of tried and true, tested material than paragraphs upon paragraphs of speculation and half-truths about a certain topic. I do not have nearly as much as experience with BM, or SV, than I do with Marks, and I would of preferred to give the little info I know to be true about the two former specs, than to sit and write essentially what would be “blog fodder” without having the experience to back it up.
Alot of criticism I’ve had towards my guides is aimed at misinformation, or a lack of. As for the misinformation that some think is there, and it probably is, I’m human, it’s because of the tier, league, division, or stage of which I played at. The information is not catered to 2500+ players, people at that rating do not play like I do, they play better. It goes without saying that to those who already are over 2k and have read my guide, would have found the information quite unimpressive to them, as it would already be common sense to the aforementioned.
I’ve written these guides with the idea of it being current to the level or difficulty you would find, pre-2400. A few posts about, “No tap, it would be better to spec this and this, and do this versus that” are entirely correct to your own understanding of Arena PvP. that said, there is more to it than just specs, glyphs, team comps.
There’s another unwritten world of information that comes into why a team beats another. Confidence, tact, willingness to try different approaches, and not following the typical modus operandi that everyone else deems as normal. I’m assuming most of the readers are American, and know of the tactics and techniques involved in a professional NFL game. I’ll compare WoW to NFL(
) and use an analogy to back up what I’m trying to bring across.
In WoW, you have teams, individual players, with weaknesses and strengths, that are unique to their playstyle, class, spec, gear, and so on.
In most other sports, particulary NFL, there is the similarity of weaknesses and strengths, considering fitness(gear), technique(knowledge and playstyle), Body build or shape(Class/Gear), etc.
Now, if in an NFL match, both teams were to use the same play against each other, over and over again, they match would be decided by their ability to perform the play BETTER. This is what we would explain in wow, as the execution, of a strategy.
However, is this the most efficient way to go about competition? What happened to being inventive, dynamic, or even a little unpredictable. And there we find the biggest advantage you will ever have in WoW(PvP). Unpredictability.
Consider playing against someone, rock, paper, scissors. If you almost used Rock, 10/10 times, without fail, wouldn’t your opponent start to pick up on it? Your comp, spec, playstyle, and play, or technique is the same each time, your opponent adapts. He uses paper, UNTIL, you change your strat up. You use paper too. This is the metagame of WoW. You’ve now taken the game by the reins and are playing ad lib. This is what the best players do. This is the heart of PvP.
If you’ve every wondered, why am I still stuck below 1800, why can’t I get higher? this flowchart or priority of possibility is the answer. Gear>Class>Comp>Skill>Metagame. Now Skill and Metagame are pretty much one and the same thing. The distinction we could make would be that skill is everything before we take it to the next level, metagame. So, skill is your ability to execute strategies, movement, positioning, communication, etc. But metagame is your ability to improvise. It’s like the difference between knowledge and wisdom.
I would be posting this sort of information I just wrote above, but I needed material to educate everyone, not just a select few who would be able to wade through and understand it all. There needs to be a basis, or a beginner’s guide, if you will. I”m still teaching you how to play chess, how each piece moves, how many squares are on the board. Because later, when we get into strategies, and techniques, and combinations of a higher technical degree, you NEED to know these basics through and through.
As for the real answer to the slackness of my writing considering my BM and SV guide, playing BM or SV in arena is like playing with less pieces on the chess board than your opponent. Your team is sub-par when you play these specs. Now this has to do more with game balance, and math, than the specialization itself. I would love to play SV with the same degree of success as I can MM, but I can’t. I don’t have the skill to offset the disadvantage of playing a weaker spec.
BM Relies on burst damage. You can say almost every dps specced class that you bring into arena does, but some specs rely on it more.
SV is about looking badass. Really, without the damage of the other specs it’s kind of just an excuse for a 3rd talent tree at the moment.
MM on the other hand, is about what you need to play effectively, and win. It’s about control, viability, damage on command. This is why my MM guide was more indepth.
Thanks Bozanimal, for your post and concern about the integrity of the guide. I hope this answered some of your concerns about it. I do wish to write on the advanced stages of the game, but unless we all have a thorough basic understanding of every class, mechanic, and spec, it’s going to be a frustrated guide. And the game is so ever-changing it’s hard to post up one guide that will have everything, and be current for more than a week. The best guide you can get is by playing and observing the game yourself. Happy hunting.
Tapp may have been 2200+ in the past, but 2.X and 3.X is a long ways away from 4.X.
When I saw this posted and started reading, my honest first thought was “repost??” It really does seem to follow way to closely to previous postings, the “commentary” is near identical for each of the pvp specs.
I don’t know if I was looking up the wrong character, but it does not appear that Clinkz is all too active in PvP for this season. And attempting to look up some of the other players that he faced in the youtube videos shows those teams were not all that impressive as well. He may know PvP, both Arena and BGs, but I do question the knowledge of Hunter based PvP.
I would have liked to see in a beginners guide much of the included information but with a little more of a why instead of an is type deal. Maybe listing what the talents do when it comes to PvP and examples of how they will help. In this guide, Intimidation wasn’t even listed anywhere, that is some what of a big ability you have as BM.
The MM guide at least had some time spent forming it together with a very general but more-so complete guide of sorts, but both the Survival and even more the BM guide are a complete lack of anything besides the extreme lacking end of basic information. All the posts have this “Read: Broken” thing in it and I have no clue what that is pertaining to. Is there another guide called “Broken” or is that ment as a “TLDR:” version of what was said before.
As for the Glyph, it is and has been working as intended. It is just a junk glyph. The glyph actually reduces the affected player to 100% normal run speed regardless of enchants, I.E. Boars speed (and I do think talents as well, but not 100% sure on this). The glyph is really basically removing that small little bit of speed in the duration of a conc shot, the difference will be less then a yard in distance lost.
any love out there for chimaeras? i like the fast cooldown on the frostbreath and the aoe for those flag riots in TB. i’m not good at wow math, so is the damage worth it?
Curious on why you pick Silithids and Shale Spider over Chimaera. Here’s why I think the Chimaera is better.
Exotic Abilities
~~Chimaera – Froststorm Breath – (243 + ((RAP * 0.40) * 0.24)) Spellstorm damage every 3 sec for 8 sec to all enemies within the area.
~~Silithids – Qiraji Fortitude – Increases party Stamina by 584.
~~Shale Spider – Embrace of the SS – Increases party Strength, Agility, Stamina, and Intellect by 5%
Depending on team comp, yes it could lean one way or the other. But DPS is king right? slight edge to Chimaera maybe, but we will call it a push.
Special Abilities
Chimaera // 30 yards // 10 sec CD
Frost Breath – slowing the target by 50% for 5 sec.
Silithids // 30 yards // 40 sec CD // Magic-dispellable
Venom Web Spray – Sprays toxic webs at the target, preventing movement for 5 sec.
Shale Spider // 30 yards // 45 sec CD // Magic-dispellable
Web Wrap – Encases the target in sticky webs, stunning them for 3 sec.
Here’s where the Chimaera shines.
(1) Only 10 sec CD – Slowing the target by 50% for 5 seconds, and with only a 10 sec CD. Your target is being slowed (5 sec), Concussive Shot (for 6 sec, with 5 sec CD) – and literally your target could never be out of slowmo.
(2) Frost Breath is no longer dispellable, where Venom Web Spray and, Web Wrap can be dispelled by magic.
Winner…Chimaera.
Tell me why I’m wrong, and I’ll go back to using the sporebat.
hey.
its great to see finnaly a BM PVP guide.
it was always mm/surv long time.
even in wotlk it was mostly surv and mm because bm was bad.
tnx a lot of this topic was very and rly very helpfull.
keep it going greetings an old old bm hunter that doesnt like to post
I do think the guides can be helpful to many players that frequent this site and even being critical by nature, I hope the guides continue. Once the “beginners guides” are out of the way, I do hope that Tapp gets to the meat of PvP and starts going with some tactics and the “what to look fors” from the perspective of an Arena player, not just a casual Hunter in PvP. I still can never remember if I should trinket a blind or a cheapshot when it is needed.
One thing that readers do need to understand, this is a guide intended for a PvP BM spec, not a PvP BM Pet Guide. I am guessing that a guide covering pets and abilities when it comes to Arena and BGs will be on its way at some point.
I’m glad to see this post up, and wanted to add a few things about BM PVP. I do Arenas primarily as BM, in 2s, 3s, and 5s, and have also tried MM in all of those. I have a Matchmaking Rating around 2000 on each team, so pretty decent, but not a pro.
I prefer BM to MM, although MM seems to be clearly better overall if you look at the statistics of top Arena hunters. I use BM largely because I have years of Arena practice as BM and know its tricks well.
Highlights of BM in PVP:
Intimidation is obviously really important, especially during Bestial Wrath to make sure they sit there and eat damage.
Beastial Wrath serves as an extra PVP trinket, and delivers nearly the best burst damage in the game if you can prevent your target from LOSing. I combine this with a rogue’s Smokebomb to wipe out opponents before they can get out of the smoke to get heals. BM’s burst lasts around 15 seconds with all cooldowns used, which is longer sustained damage than MM’s more jumpy damage.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera is EXTREMELY useful when you’re being targeted, especially by melee. I find I can fight melee as BM without losing much damage because of constant pet damage and the ability to disengage so frequently. As MM I’m crippled trying to attack a melee opponent who is on me.
Heals: Spirit Beast heals become VERY substantial, and can help your teammates if you’re not the one being attacked. I consistently do around 3 times more heals as BM than as MM, overall.
So, I’d say BM is a strong option in PVP, especially with the right teammates. However, MM is still clearly superior in most comps, and I think is a little easier to get the hang of overall.
I hope that’s helpful to you all.
Pet Specs:
I disagree with Tapp’s recommendation on pet specs, although he’s right in the pets he highlights as good pets (I might also add Devilsaur, for 5% crit and the healing reduction debuff).
For MM you want to focus your pet’s talents on survivability and utility, but for BM the DPS talents are really important.
Remember that the usefulness of BM in PVP is for the burst damage, which comes largely from pets, so you want to highlight that strength in your choice of pet talents.
I recommend BM PVP not use the increased stamina talents. The difference they provide is minor, and I find pets are very rarely killed (especially ferocity pets, which self-heal remarkably well).
Cunning:
Note that BM Cunning Pets only need one point in mobility because of the already decreased cooldown due to Longevity talent in the BM tree.
Here’s the Cunning spec I recommend:
http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#mcd00of00rkRd
Ferocity:
Note that Charge is VERY useful in PVP.
Recommended Ferocity spec: http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#mdd00fzzzhkRb
Good luck!
Hello Kazador. I agree with your disagreement of my recommendation of pets for this spec. There is no one pet that will suit all conditions and situations. But as a community of hunters we should be engaged in discovering and sharing our experiences with certain pets, so that we might be able to have the select few that are best. Don’t assume I know the game more than any of you do. I probably don’t. I would encourage everyone to post their opinions and assumptions they have on the game so we can find more possibilities on how to play the game better.
Thanks for your feedback Kazza.
Thanks for the reply Tapp, and I’m glad to see you’re checking in on the conversation.
Clarification though: I AGREE with the pets you recommended for BM. Best options are Spirit Beast, Silithid, Devilsaur, and Shale Spider, in that order in my opinion. Having multiple pets and getting multiple pets is good.
I was only disagreeing with the TALENTS you chose for BM pets in PVP. I think BM pet talents need to focus on DPS much more than pets do for MM and SV hunters. So my recommendation on pets was on their talents.
Incidentally, in answer to another poster who thinks Chimera’s rock, I think Chimera’s are OK, mostly because of the slow, but they don’t provide any buff at all which is too much of a disadvantage in my opinion. The AOE is more of a liability than a help in Arena (it breaks CC), though it can be fun in BGs. Chimera was my pet of choice for Arena during much of Wrath, but I don’t like them in Cata.
One pet for the leet DPS. Sporebat.
TOUGH CROWD TAPP
na good write up just no BM for me!!! aimed, chimera, silence arcane, scatter shot, killshot, killshot loves my MM
Kill shot is actually the weakest in MM as it does not have the higher RAP component that BM does, and does not have the higher crit chance that SV provides.
And scatter shot is ofc available in all specs
Wait… what higher RAP component does BM get to their Kill Shot??
The 25% AP bonus BM gets over the other specs.
Amongst equally geared Hunters, BM should have an on average higher hit Kill shot over Surv with MM being at the bottom.
I just want the readers to realize that Trap and Frost are Both MM hunters so any Guild will have a slant towards MM hunters. its to be expected that we really wont have in depth and truly accurate information about BM hunter that you would get from an exclusive and experienced BM hunter. I’m not saying the guilds are garbage and we shouldn’t learn anything from them but just wanted to point out that we aren’t getting information from true experienced BM hunters from either of them
I’m sorry Furlicity but this is just ridiculous. I know for a fact frost has played BM in the past (I can’t speak for Tapp). It’s not like BM is so difficult, and complicated with so many subtleties that if you haven’t exclusively played the spec for years you aren’t able to provide correct information.
If anything, I would say that BM is by far the easiest spec to master, making this information very likely to be perfectly correct.
First of all BM plays much different now then it did in the past. So past experience doesn’t mean you know what your doing now And if your opinion that BM is the easiest spec to master shows you are misinformed also.SV by far is the easiest spec and i feel BM is as complicated as MM
Just look at each specs procs both MM and SV have Procs that you want to use as soon as it shows up. it a no brainer BM has a proc that you don’t always want to use when its ready to obtain max dps that is just one example
another is or pet. for us to gain maximum dps we have to micro manage or pet much more so then SV or MM. All it is to either of those specs is a dot. I can continue with this comparison but i think you are getting the point.
See this is what in talking about when it comes to BM and the misinformation being perpetrated by Guides run buy MM hunters. They give the bare minimum information and by doing so they make the spec look so easy to play, And this also accounts for the reason all but a very few think that BM is the lowest dps of the 3 specs. The reason most but not all see BM is he lowest because it isn’t played right from the lack of or incorrect information.
I want to show the readers one of the misinformation given by frost when it comes to BM
he says to use focus fire every time its ready
Focus Fire — which gives you a 15% haste boost — should be used whenever it’s available and your pet has 5 frenzy stacks.
This is false information you don’t want to consume your focus fire right before a BW/TBW you want to keep the stacks on your pet for 2 reason. first you want you attack speed to stay on your pet and second you wont be benefiting from its haste bonus during that phase
This is one reason ( and there are many more ) you and others think BM is so easy to play you haven’t received correct and in depth information. you have been given the bare minimum which in turn makes the spec look easy to play and since you was given the bare minimum information you will never see the dps potential of that spec so you will always be under the misconception that BM is not a good spec to PVE or PVP compared to the other 2 hunter specs
Hi Guys,
I Play as BM in arena (2′s 3′s) and BGs exclusively – I just have more fun letting my exotic pets pwnfaces.
I find damage to be really good. I play with a frost DK in arena (2′s) and i either beat him or come a close second in damage done if I’m not focused down.. but its not all about the damage of course. just pointing out BM damage can be great with gear/skill. I cant speak for 2200+ setups though. Spirit mend for team healing is awesome..
I have actually learnt some new tips from a) the post and b) the comments.
Tapp and Kazador /cheer
Thanks, I’m glad you found my comments useful!
Let us know what spec seems to work best for you and your pet.
Hello. I’m solely playing BM in battlegrounds and arena, and I’d like to add a bit to this guide.
I’ve played a fair amount of matches in arena, but my rating (my nick should link to armory) is very low. The reason for this is because I’m in a small guild, and I’ve not been able to get a stable team with classes that have good synergy. Since this guide is meant as an introduction to BM PvP, I hope my low rating won’t be held against me.
I disagree with the talents suggested in this guide. The damage bonus from GftT and Sic’Em plus the cheaper Arcane Shots from Efficiency is not as valuable as Survival Tactics and Entrapment. I’ve tried PvP with GftT and Sic’Em, but personally I prefer 4 sec rooting on both Snake Trap and Ice Trap, shorter cooldown on Disengage and less chance of traps being resisted to the very minimal damage increase from the MM talents.
Someone also mentioned Improved Mend Pet, this is well worth spending 2 points in, it removes snares, DoTs, pretty much anything. You really need your pet at the target as a BM hunter, you should maximize their mobility.
Killing Streak is currently not worth the points. The buff last 8 seconds, but Kill Command got 6 second cooldown. Kill Command also often fails on moving targets. The talent would be much better if Kill Command gave the pet a buff that made the pet use the ability as soon as the pet was in range (just like Intimidation), and if the buff duration was 6 seconds longer to weight up for the Kill Command cooldown (it would be even better if it immediately reset cooldown on Kill Command, just like Lock and Load).
Personally I prefer 10 more focus from Kindred Spirits, it’s not a lot, but it helps during Bestial Wrath nuke.
For simplicity, here are the talents/glyphs I use (sorry for nasty links, I don’t know how to format them properly): http://www.wowhead.com/talent#cfbffkhdRRoZhrM:zoscMVMm0
Some may want Pathing over ISS, I’ve tried both, the difference is minimal. The Concussive Shot glyph is also fixed now, it’s now a decent glyph, I value it slightly above Master’s Call glyph.
Tap:
I respectfully disagree with you when you say BM hunters shouldn’t use Tranq Shot. This ability is really powerful against frost mages, you can completely undress them for shields and Fingers of Frost (I’ve found this to be worthwhile, Ice Lance won’t deal much damage then, and some of their abilities depends on you being frozen or they got a Fingers of Frost proc). While you won’t do much damage since you’re busy undressing the mage, your pet and hopefully your friends will squash the mage. Even when you’re alone it’s well worth dispelling the mage before you start dealing damage. Further this ability is great against paladins when they use Freedom and on warriors to remove their enrage.
BM survivability is also very good (relative to our other specs, it’s still rather bad relative to other classes). Spirit Mend from Spirit Beast is more controlled than heal from Chimera Shot, and with CT;HC you’ll usually find your Disengage at 12 second cooldown, sometimes even 8. Not to mention that Deterrence cooldown also drops drastically, it can go all the way down to 30 seconds.
Swapping pets in combat is really, really risky. The bug that pets spawn with 6k hp, no resilience, no bonus to armor, etc. still exists, I’ve had my pet instantly killed in arena because of this (remarkably we won that 2v2 fight, I didn’t have Heart of the Phoenix, but still managed to resurrect the pet). I’ve had my pet die remarkably many times due to this, skilled players know that a single AoE will instantly kill a freshly summoned pet, in fact it takes a couple seconds for the pet to get the bonus, so if you’re fast, you can target the pet and use a instant single target ability to kill the pet.
As for pet talents:
You don’t need 2 points in Mobility. Thanks to BM talent Longevity 1 point in Mobility will give Dive/Dash a cooldown about as long as the duration of the speed increase. That point would be much better spent in Boar’s Speed.
While you do depend on your pet, I would rather take Serpent Swiftness than Great Stamina, people usually leave pet alone, and as BM, you must pay more attention to your pet.
Owl’s Focus is a really good talent, I wouldn’t skip it.
Feeding Frenzy is also very good when you try to finish someone off.
Lionhearted is also nice, for those cases when Improved Mend Pet refuse to proc, but this talent can be skipped.
I wouldn’t take Lick Your Wounds, there are better talents around.
2 points in Wild Hunt is probably too much, you really don’t want to drain your Spirit Beast for focus, it cost 5 focus to use Spirit Mend, it has happened that my pet was out of focus when I wanted to use it, it’s not good to have it fail because of that. There is however a bug in the game right now that makes pets instantly get capped at focus at random times, so right now, 2 points in Wild Hunt is good, but don’t get used to it. 1 point in Wild Hunt and as much as you can afford in Shark Attack is better, in my opinion.
For Spirit Beast, I would spend a point in Charge, it’s just a second snare, but it’s quite useful in battlegrounds (not as much in arena, though), for example when you’re running with the flag and someone is chasing you.
I’m uncertain for Heart of the Phoenix. I’ve played both with and without it, and it’s a good talent, but the bug that pet revives with no bonus from hunter gear, meaning that if you use the ability when pet is in AoE it will cause the pet to instantly die again, makes me rather want to spend the points in damage increasing talents.
Tenacity pets I generally wouldn’t recommend at all. Intervene is currently not bad, but it will be changed rather drastically in 4.2, seemingly no longer preventing bad things to happen to you (except damage). However, I recommend taming a Rhino if you do battlegrounds. Throwing people down from Lumber Mill in Arathi Basin or any other high place will give you a good laughter, every time
Oh the pet glitch… love it.
A word of friendly heads up for you BM hunters… when you’re going up against other hunters (bgs or arena comps with other hunters in them), a smart hunter will tranq off your Beastial Wrath. Its simple, easy, and I absolutely love doing it. Most don’t realize their main avenue of burst can be so easily negated… just figured it’s a point worth bringing up.
Correction… recently got together with a BM hunter friend of mine in a duel and Beastial Wrath can no longer be tranq’d off. Sad for me… good for him
id like to say thanks. i run a troll bm on deathwing and i use your info for my hunter.
i have had people tell me i should change specks, but i shut them up with my dps. i pull about 15 to 16k in our raids.i run a spirit wolf or a core hound depends what we need.
in the end id like to thank you for your work on your site.
No offense but..
I did that much at the end of WotLK, without the 30% buff in ICC.
Since Growl doesn’t cost focus, and doesn’t trigger any cooldowns, there’s little reason not to use Silverback as a self healing ability for pets. It may be more sueful than talents that increase it’s healing, as it becomes more sefl sufficient.
No offense but…is there any chance that this guide will be rewritten in the nearby future to take into acount all of the improvements people suggested in the posts following it?
Frostheim suggested I should post my suggestions here so here it is:
Builds:
There are two popular talent builds when it comes to Beast Mastery PvP.
Most of the Beast Mastery talents are pretty straightforward with little room for personal choice. Improved Mend Pet was chosen over Kindred Spirits because it not only keeps your pet alive, it also keeps it clean of snares which increses your damage. Killing Streak and Pathfinding should be avoided because they’re unlikely to have any positive effect on a fight. The glyphs are straightforward as well: Glyph of Bestial Wrath, Glyph of Arcane Shot, Glyph of Kill Command, Glyph of Master’s Call & Glyph of Feign Death are no brainers. This leaves the player with an empty prime and a major glyph slot to use as they wish.
Build with MM talents:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#cfhffkhdoRofM:zoZcdZMmz
This build focuses on improving you and your pet’s focus regeneration through the use of Marksmanship talents. The leftover talent points can be distributed freely, with optimal choices being of course the first tier Survival talents. Note that Pathing only increases your own attack speed, not your pet’s.
Build with SV talents:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#cfhffkhdoRoZG0M:zoZcdZMmz
The second build uses the Survival talent Entrapment to improve the amount of snaring a BM hunter has. Combined with the other defensive talents from the first tiers of the SV tree, this build helps you to stay alive a little better. Again, the leftover points can be spend freely depending on personal preference.
Pet Builds:
A hunter is a damage dealing class and that should be reflected in your pet’s talent builds. Defensive talents are of course useful, but with proper pet management as well as the occasional Mend Pet, your pet shouldn’t have any trouble staying alive.
There are a few skills in each talent tree that are similar. Serpent’s Swiftness increases your pet’s auto-attack damage by 10%, as well as helping you get Focus Fire more quickly. Lionhearted is useless if you use 2 points of Improved Mend Pet, but if you don’t, then it’s vital to keep your pet attacking as much as it can. Dash/Dive are also included in all builds, since your pet will need to keep up with whatever it’s attacking (and since they’re needed for the higher tiers you’d pick them anyway). Finally, Charge gives your pet a little bit extra mobility combined with a stun, making it double useful.
Cunning:
http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#mcd00ofh0MoMd
Cunning pets specialize in mobility and focus saving and you’ll want to make ample use of both. With just 1 point in Mobility you can make your pet keep up Dash/Dive 100% of the time. Owl’s Focus helps your pet’s focus (making it less dependant on your shots if you use MM-based build) and Wolverine Bite is a free, high damage attack that your pet will use almost always on cooldown, because the trigger (doing a critical hit) is super easy to achieve.
If you use Improved Mend Pet then you’ll want to get Roar of Sacrifice. If not, then Cornered/Bull Headed may be the way to go. All depends on wheter you want to save your teammate or your pet.
Roar of Recovery is seldomly worth bringing, due to the simple fact that it’ll allow you an additional Kill Command or Arcane Shot…every 6 minutes.
Ferocity:
http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#mdd00fczzhoRo
Forget utility, deal some damage! That’s what the ferocity tree is all about. That’s not to say they don’t have anything worth bringing for PvP though. Improved damage, improved crit and Charge/Dash are no brainers. Bloodthirsty is an ok talent that gives your pet a little added survivability when it’s off on its own (and we all know that happens at times). Heart of the Phoenix is a mixed blessing. It’s very good for PvP in theory but at the time of writing, pets get ressed with very little health so they often die easily. And to be fair, your pet shouldn’t need ressing in the first place.
It’s recommended to make a macro that combines Rabid and Call of the Wild with Bestial Wrath. This will increase the effectiveness of your burst a lot.
Tenacity:
http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#Vqdku0h0d0kr
Since Tenacity pets have less damage dealing skills, there’s room for a little more defensive skills. This build uses 1 point of both Natural Armor, Great Stamina and Great Resistance but these can of course be interchanged based on the player’s choice. Silverback will give your pet some health regeneration of his own (note that Growl doesn’t cost focus and doesn’t trigger a cooldown, so you can freely use it in PvP). Finally, since there’s no Dash/Dive for this tree, you’ll want Boar’s Speed instead.
I’ve been a MM pve hunter for a while now and have just recently gotten in to pvp. I’ve tried all three builds over the past month and I find that BM is just a blast to play. I feel as if I have more to do and more survivability as a BM hunter. Just my two cents to everyone to just play what you enjoy playing. Unless of course if you’re a serious Arena/BG player then I would probably still stick with BM hehehehehe.
Mäyhem here from Spirestone
I just recently switched from MM to BM after being a Avid MM hunter for years.
I wanna say thanks for the post- and Thumbs up to Haedus and Snoggi.
First off just wanna say that for BM I would always suggest a Spirit beast for the heal.
/tar Mäyhem
/cast spirit mend
/stopcasting
/targetlasttarget
Above is a Useful macro for all those loyal WHU readers. It allows you to Spirit mend whoever’s name you input without having to switch targets.
Bm up! Go Red or Go home!
@Mayhem: You’re more than welcome. It’s always nice to be of help to someone. As for your macro, I have suggestion for an improvement that you might like:
#showtooltip
/use [pet:Shale Spider,@target] Web Wrap; [pet:Spirit Beast,@player] Spirit Mend
What this macro will do is use the skill of your pet based on what pet you have out (I only stated 2 pets, but of course it can be expanded/customized to your own needs). The [@player] is simply a shorter way of writing ‘target me’.
There’s a bunch of other macros that I have that you might be interested in. If so, just say and I’ll share ‘em here.
Since this is likely my last post on anything WoW related (due to having to quit because of health reasons) I’d like to ask Frostheim to remove, or at least thoroughly review, these PvP guides. The quality is simply nowhere near the things he writes himself and there’s no sign of the author being interested in improving them.
Sad thing though, as the idea was pretty good. Judging from the replies posted, the community could together have written quite a decent guide.
These PVP guides have been in general written well. Given the target audience (hunters with little to no PVP experience), Tapington has done a great job in outlining the basics of hunter PVP. I will admit this BM spec guide was given a little short shrift, however, to be honest we would be kidding ourselves if we tried to push BM as the great PVP spec that it simply is not. Without silencing shot and readiness, BM just can’t be as flexible or ultimately as useful as MM will be for arena/rbgs. If you don’t agree with me, then simply ask the vast majority of top ranked hunters out there. This is not to say that BM can’t do well in certain circumstances/comps, but it just does not have the tools as Tapington pointed out to do as well as MM for the majority of players/comps.
What I think some of the comments have been missing is that these are basic PVP guides. Ultimately, success in PVP requires not just the basic information posted here, but in depth knowledge of each class that a hunter will face. I believe what separates the serious PVP hunter from the casual PVPer is knowledge of the other classes and what to do in certain situations. I’m not even speaking of the meta game, but general PVP knowledge. There is quite a bit of variation among the top hunters when it comes to PVP, as they change their reforging/talents/spec/pets to suit the specific situations that they happen to be in.
When it comes to PVP, gear/talents/etc, just aren’t as important as maximizing one’s abilities and taking advantages of weaknesses presented in other classes. I have seen R1 arena hunters go and duel/arena other high level players wearing thieir old school TBC weapons and win simply through their knowledge of the other classes. Ultimately PVP is not about DPS, but about control. A good hunter will be able to control the other player(s) and peeling for his teammates while setting up kills.
I have only been to 2k in RBGs and close to 2k (in the high 1.9s for 2s, 3s, 5s) in arena, so I am by far not an expert in PVP. That being said, I have been privileged to play with and against gladiators/rivals/high warlords and am making these statements from my observations from said games. Perhaps in future PVP articles if any are written, they could address strategies for 1v1 (hunters vs other classes). Even though arena/battlegrounds are very much team oriented, knowing simply what to do against other classes would be helpful for the majority of the WHU crowd. Perhaps a series of dueling guides would suffice. There are a number of videos out they (Youtube for example) that cover this but having it written out for the WHU crowd would be helpful. In addition, most of these hunter PVP videos aren’t up to date. Hunter PVP last season was quite different than it is this season, especially considering the nerfs to warriors and the rise of caster classes (locks/shamans/spriests) this season.
After the hunter 1v1 articles, perhaps some baisc strategy guides for hunter comps would be useful, which could be updated each season/patch. Admittedly, hunter PVP gets a lot less focused/sustained attention than pretty much every other class simply because hunters have been weak in PVP for quite some time. As difficult as it is to attain success in PVP as a hunter, would I play any other class? I think not.
If you compare what some other players have to say about BM compared to the guide, then you cannot disagree that this guide is too short and focusses mostly on MM.
Combined with the fact that some things are suboptimal or plain wrong, and the fact that this should be a guide for a BM build (and not a MM build), it just doesn’t cut it when compared to the rest of the content on this otherwise excellent website.
Finally, while I’m glad you’re doing well as a MM hunter, I feel that the choice should ultimately be up to the player, not the metagame or flavor of the month. If there’s a guide for BM, then it should contain mostly BM information, not things that promote or descrive MM.
Hey guys!
So, i`v been playing MM for a while , but since my new arena partner is a Rogue, i`v taken this opportunity to try BM with a spirit beast for healing, and i can only say :HELL YEAH!!! Thing are going really great. We only have a hard time dealing with mage comps since the rogue is assassination, the funny thing is that when we go against 2 mages we always win, but when a mage is with another class i go down faster than i can say “i`m dead” and then the rogue in almost every situation gets to finish the other guy and remains with the mage, and since he`s on assa you know what happens. But other than mages we pretty much kick @$$. What i wanna do now , is take the spec and all of its math seriously. My gear is still reforged and gemmed as for MM, so i need some advice from someone who has done the math properly… should i stick with crit or with mastery, since on BM spec mastery=more DMG from pet.
Thx alot.
The opinion on that varies. In theory, critical strike rating will do more (since it affects both you and your pet, and triggers special abilities too) but it’s not about sustained dps.
Personally, I try to get them both at about the same level for the following reason. During your burst, you’d really benefit if you’d hit for double damage. However, this also tends to be when your crit chance is at its best already. If you score a critical hit, then all the excess crit rating is essentially wasted (even more so if it’s an auto crit) but the mastery will always add a bit extra damage (and increase the effectiveness of said crit). So at some point, you may wish to increase the quality of your critical hits rather than the quantity. A Kill Command during a burst will benefit a lot from mastery and crit alike (but remember it will already have a vastly improved crit chance to begin with).
The short answer is: a mix of both, just to get your base damage up a bit and make the crits you get extra beefy.
On a side note, burst trinkets work very well with Bestial Wrath and the Ancient Petrified Leaf even more so (the cooldown ensures its always ready for the next BW). You won’t even miss the resilience you gave up for that.
I absolutely love my pvp BM hunter. MM may have better burst damage from the start, but it all depends on what you want to accomplish.
My personal role is to be a team player. I concentrate on CC healers and EFCs.
If I find myself in the role of guardian or protector of our FC, I run slightly behind, dropping traps and using any method I can to slow attackers.
I have used the same tactics to score flags, again by slowing pursuers and popping a speed potion.
This wasn’t a very in-depth guide and I felt that it was a BM Guide written by a well learned MM hunter.
One lack of detail I saw was Spell Penetration.
I see many players doing hardly any damage at all and when I look up the toon in the Armory I often see no Spell Pen at all.
I would suggest to guide authors to please cover all of the bases and resist promoting bias against a style that they don’t prefer.
If it were all about “cookie cutter” then Blizz would create only one gear set, pre-gemmed, pre-enchanted and give us only 2-3 buttons to push.
Oh, btw, feel free to look me up and offer advice and criticism.
Klinzai on Stormrage.
Don’t be a jerk. I’m not… unless someone needlessly dumps on me.
Thanks and Happy Hunting
Hi guys, I’m pretty new to hunter really, after 6 years of tanking/melee I’ve gone ranged and loving it.
I’m BM spec and although winning about a third of the arenas, wondering if MM is a massive difference? I’ve tried it, but just can’t get on with it at all. Maybe I need to give it more time. I play on Shadownsong EU – Hux if you wanna look and see if my spec needs adjusting, no expert here.
Also, great site guys. To anyone moaning about stuff on here should maybe make they’re own site and we’ll then judge them.