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What Does GC Think Of BM DPS…

 

Couple of things this week. First off wiping on Rotface at 5% when you have 24 people repeatedly is truly frustrating. Alas real life sometimes likes to smack you in the face like it was your pimp. However I did end up getting a nice little upgrade last week Wodin’s Lucky Necklace.

So according to MMO-Champion, 3.3.3 should hit the live servers this week. That’s good news for us BM hunters. FI will become an aura, our steady shots will do 9% more damage, and Fluffys of the world will get the ICC buff also. GC also chimed in on BM hunters in the forums to share his views and opinions on where we stand in terms of BM’s DPS in comparison to other hunter hunter specs.

From MMO-Champion

Hunter (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Beast Mastery in 3.3.3
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. (Source)

Ferocious Inspiration in 3.3.3
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%. (Source)

Theorycrafting hunter specs in 3.3.3
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. (Source)

So GC thinks that if you want to raid as BM, you should be able to, that’s good. He also acknowledges that we are not as high a DPS spec as MM, as if that was something new. He does make a good point about switching specs though, if you don’t have the skill to play your class then the most OP spec in the world will not help you at all.

The other big thing that he said was that we should be close to survival in DPS, and that both specs will be behind MM. That’s a new view from the powers on high. GC had promised a pony, we didn’t get it yet, but he gave us a mule. Close, but not quite the same. Now all they need to do, is give us better pet scaling, and we can give MM a run for the money. So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo. 

View From The 3.3.3 PTR Part 2

Ok, I finally got around to finishing up testing the changes to FI on the PTR this weekend. So without further ado lets take a look at the results shall we?

Overall damage and DPS on the live server

Now for the PTR

OK, so over all my total DPS went up by 109.8. Not too bad of a boost to our DPS. With raid buffs that should make quite a difference. Now next lets take a look at how the damage broke down per shot.

Live Server

PTR

So on the live server, I fired off 10 more shots than on the PTR, 585 on live and 575 on PTR.  However, even with that difference, the changes to SS increased its percent of over all damage by 1.5%.

Each shot on the live server averaged 1702.3 damage, and with a shot speed of 1.29 seconds gave an average DPS of 1319.3 per shot.

Each shot on the PTR averaged 1912.9 damage, with a shot speed of 1.29 seconds  gave an average DPS per shot of 1482.8.

This is an increase of 163.5 DPS averaged per shot. Not to shabby in my opinion. Now the changes aren’t game breaking. They won’t push us over the top back to the best raid spec again. As much as I would love for that to happen, we’re still a long way off from that. However, this is a step in the right direction. With the right buffs, and pet management this will give us that increase that we need. Now all we have to do is keep Fluffy up and nomming away on the mobs and we can show those nonbelievers that we can do the DPS and we are a competitive spec.  So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

When Gweninu Isn’t Gweninu

Well I’ve decided to do something a little bit different. I am secretly an altaholic. There I said it. So saying that, I am adding a new page to list the other parts of me that I hop on from time to time. Keep an eye for it to appear soon. take care all.

View From The 3.3.3 PTR Part 1

Ok after a few false starts and patch issues, I’ve finally been able to start testing the changes to BM on the PTR. First off if you are going on the PTR and it keeps crashing due to a polearm issue the fix is very simple.

1. Open the PTR folder
2. Open the Data folder
3. Change the patch3.MPQ file name to patch33.MPQ

First off here’s the run down all the auto shot tests were done with Flask of the north, Saronite Razorheads and the following procs.  Culling the herd, improved aspect of the hawk, Fatal Flaw (from the NES), and Exploit Weakness from the T10 bonus. This also includes Devilicious’s damage after 2000 shots.

Live results

PTR results

With just Ferocious Inspiration        With FI and Arcane empowerment

          

Final DPS on the live servers after 2000 shots is 2130. Not too bad, but not too great. We fire faster but don’t hit anywhere near as hard as our MM and SV brothers and sisters. I noticed that FI was up around 90% of the time.

On the PTR the first test with just FI shows my DPS around 2195, an increase of 65 DPS. The test with FI and AE shows it around 2219, an increase of of 89 DPS from live and an increase of only 24 from just having FI. So it looks like the change to having FI as an aura instead of a procced buff is showing a definite increase in our DPS by being up that extra 10% or so. However, it would appear that we are getting diminished returns on the stacking of FI and AE as it is minimal at best. Now I know the RNG is a big factor in testing, unfortunately, that’s something that we will have little control over, and will have to factor in. So stay tuned for the next installment when I go into what it looks like when using a regular shot rotation and things that can factor in to further increase our DPS and reputation. So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

The Machine Gods Are Now Smiling On Me

Great news everybody! Finally fixed the issue with the PTR. It turns out that I wasn’t the only one having this issue, and a quick trip to the forums solved that and my add on issue. 🙂 So Now it’s off to testing.

When The Machine Gods Aren’t Happy With You…

Ok, I’ve been trying to run a base line test on the PTR for basic damage. The plan is/was/will be to shoot 2000 rounds at the practice dummy just using auto shot. This should in practice give me a good start to checking out if FI and AE are stacking, and if so are they doing it right. Now all I need is for the PTR to stay up for me. After  a few minutes it keeps having a fatal crash. It would seem that the work they did on the 5th didn’t fix it and now I’m also crashing when I mount up also. With all the crashes on the PTR so far, I decided to hop on the live server, and run an all auto shot test. I fired off 2000 shots at the dummy while Dev nommed away on it. Now if the PTR will ever stay on long enough, I can then run a 2000 shot auto shot test with and without a mage in the group. I’ll be able to see if the 3% bonus from FI being on all the time is working right, and if FI stacks with AE. So it has come to the point where I’ve decided to uninstall the PTR and try to reinstall it.

On other news, DRC is slowly but surely making progress through ICC. Thursday night we had our first 25 man Festergut kill and started taking shots Rotface. So  it won’t be long till we start smacking the Prof around, and the rest of the wings. So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

New Blog On The Block

Let’s all give a big welcome to Drew and his blog The Beast Within. 🙂

3.3.3 Shows A Little More BM Hunter Love

News Flash, Blizz has had a change of heart about how they feel about BM hunters. I tried to get some extra time this weekend to hop on the PTR, but it didn’t happen. However, the patch notes have changed, again, and it looks like BM hunters are getting a little more love…

Hunters

• Talents
  • Beast Mastery
    • Ferocious Inspiration: This ability is now an aura and provides 1/2/3% damage to all party or raid members within 100 yards and boosts the damage of Steady Shot by 3/6/9%.

 

OK. Let that sink in…
…
…

There, that’s better now isn’t it. It looks like they’re changing FI again, now with NEW AND IMPROVED GOODNESS!!! So let’s have a look  at FI and how it has changed.

3.3.2 and before
FI would proc a 3% damage boost when Sushi crits. It also boosted Arcane Shot’s damage by 9%. However, it could be overwritten by Arcane Empowerment.

3.3.3 PTR Round 1 The Warm Up
FI is now an aura that gives a flat 3% damage bonus to everyone in range. Instead of boosting Arcane Shot it was going to boost Steady Shot by 9%. The hunters of the world sighed in unison as we were going back to a 1 button mashing machine.

3.3.3 PTR Round 2 Fight
FI gets changed a 3rd and hopefully last time, as the saying goes “the 3rd time is the charm.” The damage bonus is still a 3%damage bonus aura in this version. However, the 9% bonus to shot damage now applies to both Arcane and Steady Shot… That is going to be a very nice boost to our over all DPS. This isn’t going to be the be all end all for BM hunters, but it is a step in the right direction.

Now as far as testing on the PTR so far, well umm I haven’t had a chance to do more than log in and setup the spec for me and Wife. I can confirm though that both buffs are being displayed. So in the next few days, I’m hoping to finish up several different tests. I’m going to be doing a baseline test on the live servers first. From there I’m going to head off to the PTR to test the new FI by itself. Finally I’m going to be running a series of tests with and without AE in the group using auto shot only. So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

Yet Another Blog roll update

This time its one of the big ones, The Hunting Lodge. Later all.