With the recent 3.0.8 patch, the landscape for hunters has changed considerably. The 3.0.2 patch also brought significant changes, but two things remained constant: the dominance of the BM spec for raiding, and the suckage of the SV spec for anything except trapping. At least that’s what I’ve heard and read because I never actually ventured into the tree enough to know for myself. Oh, I took a few points in Hawk Eye to get some extra range that was nice but not crucial to anything. And leveling up I’m sure I took some points before I knew what I was doing. But excluding one brief time where I experimented w/ MM in my 50s or 60s, I’ve been BM and loved it. I love the fast and easy leveling, the built in tank and autoshooting of the hunter. And then when I started BC raiding (SSC was my first raid ever) and learned I could press 1 key 90% of the time and top the damage charts, I loved it even more.
When WotLK came out (or just before) and I started leveling as a gorilladin hunter, I had the best time leveling ever. Finally a good use for Volley. The pet talent trees are fun to customize, and my stable was full of exotic and different pets. I had leveled from about 12-mid 60s with The Rake (named Dog) from my home of Mulgore. Sadly, somewhere along the way, Dog got left behind. I raided in BC with a cat, then a ravager for DPS purposes. Along the way, there have been many companions. Choices must be made and some are put out to pasture. With the new exotic pets, there are even more options for a BM hunter. The current hero of our guild is Willie, the Jormungar Worm from Storm Peaks. His Acid Spit armor debuff makes both his friends and foes wet themselves, though in different ways. Not having a Warrior or Rogue who can do the armor debuff means that I sacrifice a bit of my own DPS for the good of the others. Needs of the many and all that. However recent testing has showed me that there’s very little difference in DPS when using Snugglebunny the Devilsaur vs. Willie the Worm against a training dummy. I’ve not run extensive tests, but several test to OOM trials actually showed a slight increase in DPS when using Willie. Maybe it’s the armor debuff or maybe Snuggles has a cold (or maybe my testing method sucks). Whatever the case, I don’t feel as bad about taking Willie along as I did before.
So now comes the big dilemma. The BM nerfs and SV buffs have gotten me (and many others) to seriously consider spec’ing SV and learning a whole new playstyle. There’s this thing called “trap dancing” where you use your traps to get LnL to proc thus removing CD and mana on 2 successive shots. Explosive Shot is the uberness of the tree. It does a lot of damage and then some more damage later. And the mana, OH THE MANA. Running test trials to OOM might take 5-10 minutes rather than my current tests which last less than 2. And blue socket stamina gems are no longer worthless as you get 30% of your stamina as ATK for you and your pet. Word on the blogs is there’s a 10-20% DPS lead over BM right now. So what’s the problem. Just grab a cookie cutter spec, shot rotation macro, regem for agility and stam gear and you’re good to go.
Well not so fast Mr. BM “One Key” Generic Hunter.
- There’s no shot rotation macro that will work. Your shots are priority based. Always do explosive if it’s up, unless it’s DOT is still in effect. Then you use Aimed Shot (wth) or Steady Shot, unless ES is about to wear off, then you can either just wait or go ahead and shoot. Watch for LnL procs, don’t refesh ES, wait for it to wear off. Ahhhhhhhh, too many keys and thing to watch. I want my simple macro of uber shooting back.
- You have several specs to choose from depending on whether you want to trap dance, sniper, or both. Like the Frenzy talent in the BM tree, there are several talents that you don’t spec fully. Just a point or two depending on your crit rating and raid makeup. So there are some recommended specs but there’s plenty of freedom depending on your playstyle. Not a bad thing, just different.
- What about Willie. The melee are going going to miss him soooo much. And what pet do I use. I don’t currently have a non-exotic ferocity pet. I have my gorilladin tank Joshua and cunning bird of prey Turtledove. And I have a slot I could use to level a cat or raptor a few levels but I’m not in much of a grinding mood right now. The only difficult encounter we’re currently working on is Sartharion with drakes up. All the others we have down sufficiently that there is not much need for min-maxing pet or spec. But on Sarth, my current pets have usually died quickly with the exception of Willie. So I’m thinking a tenacity pet for Sartharion is the way to go. That means Joshua, and the extra AoE will be nice against the welps and firelings. For the others, the bird will be fine until I can get something else to 80. I wonder if the guild would mind me leveling something in the raids. Nah, that’s just asking for a good kicking.
So tonight I’m planing on respecc’ing back to SV with this new build and practicing on some more dummies to get the rotation down. Then maybe I’ll do some heroics to get demonstrate my leetness. Then on Tuesday, I will prove once and for all…that I just need to go back to BM and spam my shot macro.
