BM Hunters Still Need Help

If you're talking best possible gear, we think BM is pretty close to Survival in 3.3.3. Marks is ahead, and that's largely a function of armor pen, but again you are talking about absolute best gear. If you aren't in Icecrown 25 hard modes, then gear is likely to have just as much effect on your damage as spec. Ideally, things are balanced at all levels between level 1 and 80 with BiS gear, but there are going to be a lot of points along the way where that's probably not true. We see Survival hunters beat Marks hunters all the time in what I would categorize as average (meaning not server first guilds but capable of progressing) raids. Hopefully we'll see some BM guys up there too, but it may take higher gear levels.

Q u o t e:
I would be pretty surprised if guilds doing hard modes w/ access to lvl 80 BiS gear have hunters raiding as BM, or would be happy with a hunter choosing a spec that isn't min/max'd.

My suspicion is that the hunters with the gear you are describing will have a propensity to go Marks, because that currently yields the highest damage and raiders tend to play whatever does the highest damage. In a world without armor pen, that might not be the case (though I haven't done the math lately).

Nonetheless, it is also true today that Marks can beat Survival, and yet there are a lot of Survival hunters raiding. Our hope is that in 3.3.3 that there will be as many BM hunters as Survival raiding, which would be a really nice bump for BM. Maybe the estimates (ours and those I've read) about the boost BM is getting are overly optimistic. We'll see.

It's possible the Survival hunters are only going Survival for Replenishment, though all 3 hunters bring some pretty solid raid benefits these days.

Judging from a quick perusal of the Internet, my hastily written post up above confused some people. My apologies. The point I was trying to make was that 3.3.3 BM seems pretty close to SV in a lot of cases. We're not going to know more until we see more humans and fewer spreadsheets try it out. Players raid SV today and can be relatively competitive on meters. Therefore hopefully players who like BM can do the same thing. Are all 3 hunter specs within 1% of each other on all gear? No, and I don't think that's a reasonable goal. We'll try to narrow the gap where we can without forcing every player to respec to the whatever the current flavor of the month hotness is or creating balance nightmares in PvP.

Q u o t e:
With my current gear, my BM spec trails a SV spec by 7.8% in potential dps. Compared to MM, BM is 13.4% behind. When I plug in the BiS gear in every slot I find BM trailing SV by 8.9% and the gap between BM and MM increases to 16.7%. I also have to add that I did not gem for anything but Agi in any of the specs so the ArP factor is reduced. I only have 426 passive ArP with my gear. Even without massive amounts of ArP, BM still is way behind MM and considerably behind SV as well.

We didn't obviously compare the gear of every hunter out there. We looked at a few different levels of progression and BM is pretty close to SV in a lot of cases. Eurytos up above thinks BM is pretty close to SV, and in fact I'll quote him in a minute. If you're a BM fan I think you can raid as BM in 3.3.3 without utterly embarrassing yourself. Are there hunters out there who can out dps you? Sure. But there would be hunters out there who could beat you even if you were both MM. Any of us can pull out parses where the Elemental shaman or Shadow priest or Blood DK is topping the meters for that particular raid and still making ICC progression. Let's assume BM and SV are 1500-2000 dps behind MM. At that level, the damage is probably close enough where skill and gear are going to have a much greater impact than your spec for most of you.

Is that acceptable for Lich King 25 hard mode? Probably not. But the guilds at that level of progression are obsessed about even minimal dps gains, and they need to be. I'm not sure we can ever balance all 3 specs of a given class to be within 100 or so dps of each other on the most challenging content given that the specs have different mechanics that produce different strengths and weaknesses on different encounters. Balance at the hardest of the hard core is different from balance at the rest of the game, and much of the community would do well to focus less on maximum dps potential with the best gear and focus more on what they themselves can do. BM in 3.3.2 was unacceptably low in PvE. I'm not sure it is now.

Q u o t e:
1) BM is still the lowest DPS at any ICC raider gear level.
2) BM still has the highest reliance on the pet for damage and suffers tremendously if it dies or otherwise cannot participate.
3) BM's raid buff is shared by Ret Pally's and Arcane Mage's and only 1 person with it is needed, whereas it's optimal to have 2 sources of replenishment and the only other prominent raiding specs with it are Ret Paladin's and Shadow Priests.
4) Survival offers higher DPS while mobile.
5) Survival has higher survivability.

1) Lowest isn't of particular concern. It's unlikely to ever be a 10-way tie. Magnitude of the haves and the have nots is more important. Subtlety, BM, Arms, Frost and Frost were so far down that it was unreasonable to expect players to raid with them. We buffed them where we thought it was safe without, as I said above, pushing every existing player into that spec or creating PvP problems. It's not a 10 way tie now, but it's closer than it was in 3.3.2, and to be fair, probably closer than it's been at any time in WoW previously.

2) and 4) are legit points in my opinion. Pet reliance is a really sticky wicket, because if we make you rely on the pet, then it's really terrible when you do lose it, and if we don't make you rely on the pet, well that pretty much kills the theme of the tree.

3) You shouldn't be brought for your raid buff. Awesome raid buffs shouldn't be a lever to get an underperforming spec (or player!) into a raid. With very few exceptions the raid buffs are not going to be so significant to make you want to take a bad player over a good one. Sometimes we're tempted to just nerf all of the raid buffs to the 1-2% level in Cataclysm just so players focus more on what's fun and less on raid buffs.

5) I'm going to downplay this one too for the simple reason that I think you guys would dismiss it if I offered it as a reason for why you'd want to play a particular spec (in PvE). Now, personally I think this is a consideration in building your character and I wish we could get more players to care about it because it would give us more tools in developing talent trees etc. You'll see the occasional non-tank who gems a little Stamina to survive fights with tons of raid damage, but for the most part players will take even a tiny dps gain over survivability (in PvE) and just blame the healers (or the designers).

Q u o t e:
This said by GC earlier so I guess mentioning calculators and spreadsheets isnt going to help the discussion. I thought a lot of the input GC and the others get are from a lot of the theorycrafters that make these spreadsheets? Maybe I'm wrong.

Spreadsheets and simulations are awesome and some of them have become quite sophisticated. There are still plenty of situations where actual players can't get anywhere close to those theoretical maximums. Now there are other situations where really exceptional players can bump up against those predicted numbers. For most players, their potential dps (in game) is a lot more relevant than what the spreadsheet says their potential dps could be.

As an example, imagine that Survival required a really punishing shot rotation. Very good players (the kind that get insane actions per second on Starcraft maybe) might eek 14,000 dps out of that rotation. Mere mortals might only get 9000 dps though. On the other hand, imagine Marks could pump out 10,000 dps for almost any level of player. If you're going by the spreadsheets alone, you'd be dumb not to play Survival. Going by your logs, you'd be dump not to play Marks (unless you're in the 1% bracket). You could come up with similar examples for one spec only beating the other with best possible gear, or one spec only beating the other on fights with no movement. And so on.

This is a theoretical example. No need to respond with "But Survival isn't harder to play." :)

Q u o t e:
#1 MM - 13234 dps
#200 MM - 11630 dps

#1 SV - 11596 dps
#200 SV - 10451 dps

# 1 BM - 10432 dps
#200 BM - 7577 dps

So what's very interesting about this is the bottom of the top dps for each spec is roughly about the same level as the top of the next spec. Even taking into account the selection bias, that's a pretty big gap.

You have to be really careful analyzing numbers like this, especially when you're looking at the #200 guy. For example it's entirely possible that the #200 MM player is a much better player than the #200 BM player since players who really want to maximize their raid's dps have presumably gone Marks. I also suspect the sample size for Marks and Survival is much larger.

Q u o t e:
Let me introduce to you the arcane mage.

That is all.

Players like to wave this banner, but it's just not true. If all you do is look at their damage logs, yes, a lot of damage comes from Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles. Does that mean any Arcane mage can faceroll his way to 12,000 dps? Hardly. The good mages have a lot of things to manage in the way of mana and cooldowns.

"Requires skill" does not mean 20 sources of damage. It can also mean you have to juggle a lot to maximize the damage from 2 sources. That is the design of the mage in a nuthsell: a dominant nuke with a lot of infrastructure to prop up that nuke.

Off topic, I know, but this is a myth that needs to stop getting perpetuated. :)

Q u o t e:
He didn't. How did you get there from "occasional non-tank who gems a little stamina"? He didn't say that it happened a lot, or even that it happens in ICC. He was just making a general observation about player behavior and how it impacts their design. You both agreed that dps players don't care about survivability stats in PvE (although they might care a lot about survivability cooldowns).

The observation that they occasionally see stamina gemming probably comes from the fact that well, it happened. Back when Ulduar was srs bzns, there were dps classes (mages in particular) that complained about not having enough health to meet the "minimum health" threshold for a few fights (mostly hard modes?). Those guys actually did gem a "little stamina" (or swap some "stamina gear", whatever that was) just to meet that threshold, and they complained that dps plate classes didn't have to do that, blah blah. There were threads about it in this forum.

Yeah, this is exactly what I was referring to. Survival does matter in terms of being able to beat the boss, and I think we would be in a better place if more dps players took some responsibility for survival instead of assuming the design was that they focus solely on dps and blame the game (or the healers) when they die. That doesn't have to mean socketing blue Stamina gems in every piece of armor. It could mean "Hey, maybe I can afford the 2 talent points for this survivability talent. That drops by maximum dps by 6%, but I'll do more damage alive than dead."

Q u o t e:
Yes you do have to be careful with numbers like that . The issue is though that we're seeing numbers like this across the board. BM is 10% behind Survival which is then 10% behind Marks.

Now with the FI change BM should be 7-8% behind Survival and 17-18% behind Marks. Thats still too much of a gap in my opinion.

So what are you saying about those players who estimate BM will be very close to Survival with the changes? Are they wrong? If so, talk to them instead. We don't really expect the community to come to a consensus on anything, but on the other hand, when some players are saying "they're close" and some players are saying "they're not" then more than likely, someone is wrong. :)

Again, if you really like BM, you should be able to raid as BM with this change. Your raid leader may ask you to respec for the hardest Icecrown fights, but if you're on those fights, then you're probably used to being asked to make specific changes in order to maximize even the most marginal efficiency gains. At that point "close enough" might not be enough. At that point swapping for a 1% dps gain might be worth it. We're not going to get every class within 1% of each other in every situation, and players on that content know that.

On the other hand, if you've been wiping on normal Festergut for the last four weeks then I can almost promise you that swapping from BM to MM is not what's going to suddenly buy you success.

Q u o t e:
I do have a few questions in regards to the BM hunter changes on Fero. Inspire.

Ghostcrawler or other PTR player can answer this...

Currently FI gives a 3% dps increase & 9% arcane shot dps increase - this is based on a pet critical hit proc.

How will the changes of 3.3.3 affect this?

1. Its now an aura - does the aura still based on a pet attack proc or is it more like a Trueshot Aura (once applied - its up)?
2. It now buffs steady shot by 9% dps - does that replace the arcane shot dps increase or it is in addition to (thus being a +9% dps for both steady shot AND arcane shot)?

In 3.3.2, Ferocious Inspiration rank 3 says:

When your pet scores a critical hit, all party and raid members have all damage increased by 3% for 10 sec. In addition, increases the damage dealt by Arcane Shot by 9%.

In 3.3.3, Ferocious Inspiration rank 3 says:

All party and raid members have all damage increased by 3% within 100 yards of your pet. In addition, increases the damage dealt by Arcane Shot and Steady Shot by 9%.

Q u o t e:
Every spreadsheet model, every raid parse, and even some very sophisticated tests of BM DPS by folks like Frostheim ALL consistently point to a MASSSIVE discrepency in DPS in a raid context.

Using something like Shandara's dps spreadsheets in 3.3.3, yields something like 15,000 for Marks, and 13,500 for Survival and BM. BM may be slightly below, but it's not by much, and given that this is a spreadsheet and not a raid parse, I think it's safe to assume that's within the human margin for error.

There was a recent interview with two of Paragon's hunters in which they offered that they thought BM and SV were close and MM was maybe 1500 ahead in best gear. That's pretty consistent with the numbers I pulled out of the air above.

If you think sources like that are in error, feel free to bring that up. But you kinda need to do so before saying "every spreadsheet model" etc. point to a massive disparity. (Assuming what you're arguing about here was my saying BM and SV are close.)

Ideally all three numbers are 15,000 and that's a good if probably unrealistic goal to shoot for. In the mean time, BM should be close enough to Survival that you can raid with it, given that there are plenty of Survival hunters raiding today. If you don't get anywhere near 15,000 dps today (and current hunters are closer to 11 to 12K as highest dps in Icecrown), then the delta is likely to be even smaller, perhaps below 1K.

Q u o t e:
Ghostcrawler: Note that even in the spreadsheet data you're using, BM is behind MM by 10%, which is nowhere near your stated goal of getting them in ballpark of 1% or so if possible. (you mention that 1% a lot in your posts.)

That's not actually a goal, or a realistic one anyway. I drop that 1% number a lot because it seems sometimes that's what the expectation is. The goal is that you should be able to play what you want and still be able to raid (and ideally PvP, but we're a lot farther from that). We've always said that taking on the most challenging content is going to take away some of your flexibility, and for the most part, players capable of beating that content are okay with that level of min / maxing. In fact, they kind of enjoy it.

There's just no realistic way to have every dps spec in the game anywhere close to 1% of each other given how different the encounters and gear are, not to mention player skill. We'll continue to get as close as we can and will keep looking at specs that are just not taken seriously for raiding. I understand that may be a subjective call, just as the interpretation of "viable" is somewhat subjective. We determine it by looking at who is actually brought to raids as well as what their dps is when they do so.

Q u o t e:
It's also a flaw in logic to say

'even if you were MM there's some other hunter that would be better than you as MM'

because what if you were talking to the strawman hunter that's supposedly better? Are they better than themselves?

Terrible argument.


The real argument is how much DPS that awesome hunter puts out when they respec.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here, but I'll try to articulate my argument again. Overly-worrying about the best SV hunter being at 10,600 dps when the best MM hunter is at 12,000 dps doesn't make a lot of sense when your dps is at 7000. You will see a far greater gain by closing the gap to that 10,000 dps hunter than you will ever see from a buff that we make. Players often tend to put too much emphasis on class mechanics and not enough on skill and gear, which is where the real dps gains stand to be made.