wow Patch 7.2.5: Beast Mastery Hunter Changes

[Stan 5,239]

Tuning for Beast Mastery Hunters continues and Blizzard reverted changes made to Wild Call triggering. Dire Beast and Dire Frenzy will have two charges baseline The Mantle of Command (Legendary shoulders) will be changed to increase the proc chance of Wild Call.

Changes above should result in more Focus and a more fluid rotation for Beast Mastery Hunters.

Blizzard (Source)

Hi Beast Masters. We’ve been reading your feedback and trying different sets of changes for Beast Mastery Hunters internally and on PTR.

To start, we are reverting all 7.2.5 changes we’ve made so far to how Wild Call triggers. Instead, Dire Beast and Dire Frenzy will have 2 charges baseline. The Mantle of Command (legendary shoulders that currently add +1 charge to Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy) will be changed to instead further increase the proc chance of Wild Call. 

Overall, this will result in more Focus for all Beast Mastery Hunters, resulting in a more active rotation. Additionally, this gives all Beast Mastery Hunters access to a Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy with 2 charges playstyle that is more engaging and fun, allowing you to make decisions on when to use the buttons, instead of feeling like you should most often simply push them on cooldown.

We’ve been trying other iterations of changes surrounding Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy and Wild Call, including increasing Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy Focus generation or versions that avoided changing the legendary shoulders drastically, but ultimately reached the conclusion that giving 2 charges to the abilities baseline, which many of you have asked for, was the best change for the spec at the current time. We appreciate your patience while we try different iterations on PTR.

We are also making a few other less major changes to the spec in the next PTR patch, including:

• Aspect of the Wild will reduce the global cooldowns of your damaging abilities by 0.2 seconds, allowing you to more reliably spend the Focus you’re generating while it's active, especially with Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy going off.
• Kill Command and Dire Frenzy will cause your pet/Hati to charge up to 40 yds (up from 25 yds) to the target, matching the max range of your ranged abilities.
• When your pet casts Dash, Hati will also gain Dash for the same duration.

[InfernoRFU 125]

4 minutes ago, Stan said:

• Kill Command and Dire Frenzy will cause your pet/Hati to charge up to 40 yds (up from 25 yds) to the target, matching the max range of your ranged abilities.
• When your pet casts Dash, Hati will also gain Dash for the same duration.

Yessssssss.

[Fun 5]

Stoked! Thanks for the update.

[Luthixx 138]

WOOHOO! BM finally getting the love! Those changes to Aspect are very exciting too! CoF and bracers will definitely stay a great combo for a long time!

[Najjic 10]

Finally ! Pace of bm will feel so amazing now.

[Rhondar 0]

This is great news indeed. Really looking foward to not seeing Hati 3 miles behind the action as well as everyone out running our main pet.

So which legendaries do you guys see as BIS for BM once those changes kick in? Mantle will be nice due to increase procs but do you still see it as BIS? I am thinking Belt/Bracers?

Thoughts?

[hDszzT 103]

Mother of god, they made the shoulders specifically because people said "BM plays smoother and way more fun with 2 charges on Dire Beast", and Blizzard actually went back and undid it to make it baseline?

Here's hoping they may go make a lot of other mandatory legendaries' effects baseline. after this.

[Sharknad0 67]

I begged for this, until I finally got the shoulders two weeks ago. Now the excitement of getting the shoulders has dissipated, as I do not have the belt, and am sure it will become BiS. Oh well. Definitely a change that was needed. I feel for those who still do not have the shoulders. Took a long time, but I have them finally. At least I have the wrists and CoF.

[Vaylen 0]

Sooo exciting stuff yeah? well heres the balance being implemented so far-

Paying the Price: Patch 7.2.5 tuning to compensate for the extra Dire Beast charge (updated)

May 2, 2017 bendak 13 Comments

Yes, we’re all excited about the changes coming next patch… but you didn’t think it would come without a price, did you? The first round of tuning is in, and Blizzard maybe overestimated how much 2 Dire Beast charges is worth in terms of DPS. They also nerfed the T20 bonuses to the point where you’ll want to wear T19 instead.

Trait nerfs

• Pack Leader now gives 3% Kill Command damage per point instead of 5%. So if you currently have 4 points, it’s been nerfed from 20% to 12% Kill Command damage.
• Jaws of Thunder now has an 8% chance per point (down from 10%). So if you had 4 points, it’s been nerfed from 40% to 32%.

I think these nerfs are a bit strong, but there is some silver lining: It will make more relic drops viable. These traits will probably still be the best, but not to the point where you’d take a massive ilevel nerf to use them. I’ve trashed or passed on way too many relics because of this.

My advice? Start trying to acquire high ilevel relics that have current mid-tier traits like Unleash the Beast, Spitting Cobras, Wilderness Expert, and Furious Swipes. Especially if they’re higher level than your current Kill Command relics. Don’t throw anything away.

This really sucks for anyone who has recently passed on future upgrades due to this change, or even overwritten existing relics.

T20 set bonuses

• The 2-piece bonus now increases the damage bonus of Bestial Wrath by 1% every time you cast Kill Command, Cobra Shot, or Multi-Shot (nerfed from 1.5%).
• The 4-piece bonus now increases the damage of Kill Command, Cobra Shot, and Multi-Shot by 10% during Bestial Wrath (down from 20%).

Yikes. Any BM Hunter would want to keep using T19 even with T20 available to them, especially if they have Mythic pieces or high titanforges from other difficulties.

The 2-piece was already kind of mediocre, definitely not worth breaking your old 4-piece for. It’s probably going to average out to a 5-6% increase to damage during Bestial Wrath.

The 4-piece nerf is hilariously bad. It’s no better than the current T19 2-piece (for Dire Frenzy at least) which increases your main pet’s damage by 10% during Bestial Wrath.

Item level upgrades will ensure they’re an upgrade eventually, but in a world of Titanforging it’s not that simple. Blizzard has to make the new set bonuses at least equal to the old in terms of throughput. Right now they are not.

The new Mantle of Command effect

Since 2 charges is now baseline, The Mantle of Command now increases the Wild Call proc chance by an additional 20%. So it’s 40% when using the shoulders, and 70% when using the One with the Pack talent.

I am cautiously optimistic about this, mainly because it gives me some hope for a competitive crit build in 7.2.5. I haven’t tried any of this yet though.

If the T20 set bonuses don’t get improved, the shoulders will likely not be an option because it will be absolutely essential to have that third set bonus (either 4p T19 + 2p T20, or 2p T19 + 4p T20).

Chimaera Shot

Oh yeah, that thing. It still exists. It got part buffed, part nerfed in this build. Its damage was slightly more than doubled, but its cooldown was increased from 9 to 15 seconds. Slightly better, but needs to be better than that to compete with Dire Frenzy and Stomp IMO. Try again, Blizzard.  

Paying the price

Our gameplay is going to improve, but at the cost of damage (at least if things stay as is). I totally agree there had to be some sort of compensatory nerf for getting 2 charges, but I’m not sure this hits the mark.

Once we can do some further testing (and when sim craft gets updated) we can investigate the true consequences here. There’s certainly nothing to panic over though. This is just Blizzard’s first dart in the board.

I will update with testing and sim results in the future.

Update: Keep in mind this is just a first impression, but I played with this on the PTR for a bit after raid tonight and have to say the DPS nerf isn’t as bad as it seems. It’s pretty darn close to what it was, but that’s just some quick feelycraft. We’ll see what the sims say. Dummy tests were fairly positive though!

I take no credit for this info as i am not the author its originaly linked from the following source

http://eyesofthebeast.com/2017/05/paying-the-price-patch-7-2-5-tuning-to-compensate-for-the-extra-dire-beast-charge/

[Valks 2,375]

On 5/1/2017 at 1:19 AM, Ammako said:

Here's hoping they may go make a lot of other mandatory legendaries' effects baseline. after this.

I think we're late enough into the expansion now where people won't hate Blizzard too much for it. Imagine if this had been done a few months ago, when people still only had a few legendaries.