Best spec?

[Kulia 39]

As the title says, I'd like to know the best spec for WoD hunters.

I'm currently levelling up my hunter now, and I'd like to know how survival(my favourite spec) compares to MM and BM.

So, which spec is the top of the hunters?

[Atrais 38]

As the title says, I'd like to know the best spec for WoD hunters.

I'm currently levelling up my hunter now, and I'd like to know how survival(my favourite spec) compares to MM and BM.

So, which spec is the top of the hunters?

 

Refer to Niix's guide:

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/7530-warlords-of-draenor-all-inclusive-hunter-guide/

[Iridar 80]

In single target PvE, Survival goes neck-neck with Beast Mastery, while Marksman is significantly ahead. While leveling / soloing you can play whichever spec you want, in fact, you probably should stay away from MM, because it can be a bit annoying to level in.

 

But later on you'll probably want to switch to MM, as it has a higher damage potential.

[f0nZi3 7]

But later on you'll probably want to switch to MM, as it has a higher damage potential.

 

Until they nerf Lone Wolf (which I hear is coming relatively soon).

[Atrais 38]

Until they nerf Lone Wolf (which I hear is coming relatively soon).

 

They would have to nerf Lone Wolf by quite a bit....

MM is at least 10% ahead of BM/SV on ST...

[Kulia 39]

Okay, so I guess I'm sticking to MM for highest dps :\

Ahh well, hopefully things even out a bit later with some gear. 

[Atrais 38]

Okay, so I guess I'm sticking to MM for highest dps :\

Ahh well, hopefully things even out a bit later with some gear. 

 

Definitely dont feel like you HAVE to go MM, both BM and SV bring very competitive DPS compared to most other DPS classes, and in AoE fights both specs actually outpeform MM.  Play what you enjoy, because in two months, who knows what the best spec will be.

That being said, I was originally a MM-hater and have been converted over the past month since 6.0 launched, its a different playstyle than BM and SV, but very enjoyable once you adjust

[Kulia 39]

Definitely dont feel like you HAVE to go MM, both BM and SV bring very competitive DPS compared to most other DPS classes, and in AoE fights both specs actually outpeform MM.  Play what you enjoy, because in two months, who knows what the best spec will be.

That being said, I was originally a MM-hater and have been converted over the past month since 6.0 launched, its a different playstyle than BM and SV, but very enjoyable once you adjust

Hmm, I guess I'll stick with MM until I hit 100, then see what I prefer better when I get rid of all my SoO gear. 

I've never touched MM until 6.0 when I went MM from Surv actually kinda enjoyed it but I definitely much, much prefer Surv. Never really touched BM because I don't like the idea of most of my damage being controlled by pet-AI which.. isn't always the best. 

[Atrais 38]

Hmm, I guess I'll stick with MM until I hit 100, then see what I prefer better when I get rid of all my SoO gear. 

I've never touched MM until 6.0 when I went MM from Surv actually kinda enjoyed it but I definitely much, much prefer Surv. Never really touched BM because I don't like the idea of most of my damage being controlled by pet-AI which.. isn't always the best. 

 

My two cents is that Surv is a bit meh right now in the fun department without any baseline CDs, and you never realize how nice Kill Shot is until you have it taken away from you :)

[Kulia 39]

My two cents is that Surv is a bit meh right now in the fun department without any baseline CDs, and you never realize how nice Kill Shot is until you have it taken away from you

Like I said, I'll see what happens at 100.

In the meantime, power-levelling for me!

[Atrais 38]

Like I said, I'll see what happens at 100.

In the meantime, power-levelling for me!

 

Good luck!

[Kulia 39]

Good luck!

Thanks!

[Orthios 271]

That being said, I was originally a MM-hater and have been converted over the past month since 6.0 launched, its a different playstyle than BM and SV, but very enjoyable once you adjust

And here I am having been playing MM since July, and personally detest BM (which reminds me to switch BM to SV as my OS, but that can wait).

[Atrais 38]

And here I am having been playing MM since July, and personally detest BM (which reminds me to switch BM to SV as my OS, but that can wait).

 

Not a big fan of BM either, something about having your pet do all the work for you never appealed to me :)

[Iridar 80]

Until they nerf Lone Wolf (which I hear is coming relatively soon).

That sounds interesting, where did you hear that?

[Niix 169]

Lone Wolf will likely catch a small nerf. However that wont really fix the REASON why it's the best talent. It will still be the best talent. 

• The lack of haste and the massive cast time of Focusing Shot + it's inability to be cast while moving makes it absolutely terrible.
• Exotic Munitions simply just doesn't hit hard enough for it to be even remotely competitive.

I would be okay with Lone Wolf taking a 5-10% nerf and the other two slightly buffed. In theory Focusing Shot should be our best choice here, but it's not even close. As you can see here.

 

 

I'm hoping they don't go overboard and make Lone Wolf useless entirely, that would make me super angry because I hate the idea of the other two talents.

[Atrais 38]

it's inability to be cast while moving makes it absolutely terrible.

In an expansion with such a strong emphasis on DPS taking responsibility for navigating mechanics correctly, Focusing Shot just makes me cringe. Tying our Focus Regen (and thus DPS) to a move with >2.5 cast time? It basically immobile for 1/2 the fight, and we cant even spam other moves while moving, because we would be out of Focus real quick.  It also makes the Steady Shot talent a royal pain in the pass to maintain (>5 seconds of cast time to maintain a 10 second buff?).  They should just make the talent an "improved" Steady/Cobra shot, IMO.  Make it do more DPS and restore more Focus than SS/CS with the same cast time and lack of movement restrictions.

 

I also think Exo Mun could be fixed by keeping the Poisoned Ammo damage the same and letting it stack 4-5 times, like Seal of Truth for Paladins.

Edited November 25, 2014 by Atrais

[Iridar 80]

Lone Wolf will likely catch a small nerf. However that wont really fix the REASON why it's the best talent. It will still be the best talent. 

• The lack of haste and the massive cast time of Focusing Shot + it's inability to be cast while moving makes it absolutely terrible.
• Exotic Munitions simply just doesn't hit hard enough for it to be even remotely competitive.

I would be okay with Lone Wolf taking a 5-10% nerf and the other two slightly buffed. In theory Focusing Shot should be our best choice here, but it's not even close. As you can see here.

 

 

I'm hoping they don't go overboard and make Lone Wolf useless entirely, that would make me super angry because I hate the idea of the other two talents.

Focusing shot needs to be either castable on the move, or it should not remove the Steady Shot from us. 

 

I'd say Lone Wolf pays a lot in utility and viable talents to get that DPS gain, and it should be worth it. People saying "LW is too powerful" forget what we lose to get that DPS gain:

1) We can't use Master's Call. We can always summon a pet to do it, but then we have to waste time de-summonning pet, sacrificing DPS. 

2) Same for all other pet abilities, like Battle Res and Heroism/BL.

 

Though I have to admit, there's a certain convenience in that, because normally you would use a buff pet, and to battle res you would have to de-summon your current buff pet, then summon battle res pet, and either use it for the rest of the fight and be without a buff, or waste time de-summoning BR pet as well. 

Overall, pretty much the same hassle. 

 

3) So many things become non-viable: Intimidation, Spirit Bond, Spirit Bond Glyph (+10% incoming heals while pet active), Blink Strikes. 

 

In case of Blink Strikes, it's not a huge loss since we don't use a pet, obviously, just making the point - we have a lot of pet-related stuff that's removed from the table once we choose Lone Wolf. 

 

I wouldn't mind a small nerf to LW if we could use pet-related talents and abilities without a pet, like Spirit Bond and Master's Call. 

 

4) We lose the pet, which in itself is not that much useful in PvE / PvE, but it's extremely useful in soloing, Loss of Master's Call is unacceptable for PvP as well,making LW viable only in raids / dungeons. 

 

That's a pretty narrow thing to be. 

 

I have mixed feelings about LW - on one hand, it's something I wanted for the longest time, to be a master shooter without the useless furball tag-along, but in that case blizzard didn't go far enough, because current LW is a bit too limited. 

 

Maybe they should have made LW baseline for MM, without the ability to use pets at all, or made pets available only to BM, but I guess that would be a too radical change that would raise a poo storm on forums, and for a good reason - lots of people like their hunters as they are now.

Edited November 25, 2014 by Iridar

[f0nZi3 7]

Iridar, I completely agree with your above post. Personally, I feel it's something Blizzard should have worked out prior to launch because it completely strips your choice of lvl 75 talents down to only one (AMoC) - can't use Blink Strikes (for obvious reasons) and can't even use Stampede and I think you SHOULD still be able to use Stampede. Total oversight on the part of Blizzard with the implementation of Lone Wolf and their core philosophy of having a choice in talents and glyphs.

 

I really would like to see them correct these issues but at this point, that's a lot of coding that would need to be done and I just don't have the confidence in Blizzard devs that they will; a) be able to do it without a major patch release, b) even be interested in or take the time needed to code the changes. Granted, I love this xpac so far. But it seems to me that they are adopting an attitude of "good enough" lately and personally, it's really beginning to piss me off. They are putting a higher focus on the "extras" in this xpac and not the core mechanics of classes - especially given that every class and spec in this game has experienced at least some degree of change that has altered the play style of the class/spec.

 

Anyways...

 

/rant

Edited November 26, 2014 by f0nZi3

[Atrais 38]

Iridar, I completely agree with your above post. Personally, I feel it's something Blizzard should have worked out prior to launch because it completely strips your choice of lvl 75 talents down to only one (AMoC) - can't use Blink Strikes (for obvious reasons) and can't even use Stampede and I think you SHOULD still be able to use Stampede. Total oversight on the part of Blizzard with the implementation of Lone Wolf and their core philosophy of having a choice in talents and glyphs.

 

I really would like to see them correct these issues but at this point, that's a lot of coding that would need to be done and I just don't have the confidence in Blizzard devs that they will; a) be able to do it without a major patch release, even be interested in or take the time needed to code the changes. Granted, I love this xpac so far. But it seems to me that they are adopting an attitude of "good enough" lately and personally, it's really beginning to piss me off. They are putting a higher focus on the "extras" in this xpac and not the core mechanics of classes - especially given that every class and spec in this game has experienced at least some degree of change that has altered the play style of the class/spec.

 

Anyways...

 

/rant

 

Here's the thing, they already did this once before...with Warlocks.  When they came out with GoSac, they broke several Warlock talents.  They eventually made them functional (specifically Soul Link gave extra stamina and Sac Pact used player health instead).  So, they KNEW this had happened before, when you take a pet class and remove their pet, yet they still made the exact same mistake.  In this case, of course, they didn't bother to apply a fix (or at least not yet).  I find this highly questionable design.

 

Most of the talents aren't hard to fix either.  Let Spirit Bond work when Lone Wold is active.  Make Stampede just summon 5 random pets from your stable (and no deactivate Lone Wolf).  Have Masters Call work when Lone Wolf is active. Not overly complex changes required, IMO.

 

Of course, compared to the plethora of other issues they need to work on first (*cough* Shaman DPS *cough*), I doubt we will see a fix before 6.1 or 6.2.  It just seems silly to make the same mistake twice in a row.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Atrais

[Iridar 80]

SHOULD still be able to use Stampede

While this may seem counter-intuitive, you can use Stampede together with Lone Wolf. Using Stampede does not remove Lone Wolf buff from you. 

 

I'm not sure if they have changed the Stampede mechanics to accommodate this. Previously, you could use abilities of the pets summoned with Stampede via macro. I'll test it soon.

 

Edit: I just tested it, and now we can not use any of the *Stampeded* pets' abilities.

 

I consider Stampede a viable DPS cooldown for MM. It seems to yield worse results than AmoC, but it's much easier to use, and especially easier to use effectively. 

 

The only thing I'm unclear about if it's better to summon Stampede before or after BL / RF. 

Edited November 26, 2014 by Iridar

[f0nZi3 7]

I'll have to try Stampede again as it might have been an issue on my end - but last time I tried to use Stampede as MM w/ Lone Wolf, literally nothing happened (and I was a sad Hunter :( ).

[Orthios 271]

I'll have to try Stampede again as it might have been an issue on my end - but last time I tried to use Stampede as MM w/ Lone Wolf, literally nothing happened (and I was a sad Hunter ).

That happened to me on Ragnaros in MC a week ago.  Darn shame since I convinced around half of our 10 hunters to run stampede just for the hilarity of having 50 pets (a total of 90 things, plus a few for mages/locks) attacking at the same time.

[f0nZi3 7]

That happened to me on Ragnaros in MC a week ago.  Darn shame since I convinced around half of our 10 hunters to run stampede just for the hilarity of having 50 pets (a total of 90 things, plus a few for mages/locks) attacking at the same time.

 

I figured out why it didn't work for me... because all the pets I had in on me at the time were Exotics and it didn't summon anything. Switched out a couple pets for non-exotics and those pets were summoned but the exotic pets did not get summoned - even with the Glyph of Stampede I still got no pets and I think that was because my first slot (number 1) still had an exotic pet in that slot. So, I replaced them all with non-exotic pets and all five got summoned and with the Glyph they were all the pets from Slot 1 so yeah.

 

Awesome oversight on the part of Blizzard there.

[Orthios 271]

I figured out why it didn't work for me... because all the pets I had in on me at the time were Exotics and it didn't summon anything. Switched out a couple pets for non-exotics and those pets were summoned but the exotic pets did not get summoned - even with the Glyph of Stampede I still got no pets and I think that was because my first slot (number 1) still had an exotic pet in that slot. So, I replaced them all with non-exotic pets and all five got summoned and with the Glyph they were all the pets from Slot 1 so yeah.

 

Awesome oversight on the part of Blizzard there.

Oh.... duh.  I have a spirit beast in first pet slot and glyph of stampede for reduced clutter in logs, oh well.  Not like I'm heading back to that mad house of a clusterf&&k anytime soon.