Thread: SV or BM PvE

  1. #1

    SV or BM PvE

    Currently i'm playing my hunter as SV. This coming week or the next we're FINALLY going to start raiding (it's a long story). I lvled my hunter during FL and started raiding with her in DS. We (as in guild) stopped playing when D3 came out and just started back up for MoP. I switched to BM to lvl and was ok with it when I hit 90 and stared gearing up. Not liking the rotation much I switched back to SV and have enjoyed it more.

    My question is, is BM really that much better then SV in MV? I have the time to switch back and learn the spec, but from doing it on target dummies with 478 ilvl I do better, 7kish better, as SV then BM. I don't feel that the lack of familiarity with BM will make up the difference.

    A few people in our 10m don't have and will never have the gear/ability to do decent DPS and that's just the way it is. I want to do the best I can to help make up for them so we can progress so I want to know if I should switch back to BM to start raiding.

  2. #2
    I'd say try both in the same three fights in LFR a few times, to really get an idea of how they feel during those fights and which you really shine with.

  3. #3
    Im actually using both specs for raiding at the moment depending on the fight. If you don't have to keep a PVP spec keep both.

  4. #4
    There are a few fights with AOE and/or cleave in this tier. SV will be better for those, though our cleave is weak at best. In an ideal world, I'd play the following:

    All 10 man recs:

    SG normal and heroic: SV
    Feng normal: BM, Feng heroic: SV
    Gara'jal N and H: BM, only be SV if your group is really horrible at spirits and need you to be spreading SrS down below. IOW, don't be SV, every other DoT class is better for that role.
    SK N and H: BM...you may be tempted to go SV to clear maddening shout, but you can do that in BM with an MS as well, and you won't put a 15s poison on everyone.
    Elegon N and H: BM with blink strike, imo.
    WotE N and H: in 10 man, SV for the lower trap CDs, the cleave, etc. Plus low pet uptime is badnewsbears for BM.

    HoF (normal recs, haven't done heroic):
    Vizier: BM
    Blade Lord: I go SV just because I have these irrational fear that my pet will be useless in p2, but that's probably irrational.
    Garalon: No one can agree on this one, but I go SV because I kite pheremones and I can spread some SrS to some legs sometimes. Probably not going to be viable in heroic because we want the rogue/melee to get as many GCDs in on those legs as possible.
    Wind Lord: SV, hands down. No questions.
    Ambershaper: I've not done this fight yet as BM. If you're on add duty, you might consider SV, but I'm thinking BM will be better if you're not, as is any spec with short CDs on a fight with a stacking damage debuff.
    Empress: Depends on how you do p2 - if you do a lot of kiting, I'd say SV. If your tanks tank adds, prob still SV for the AOE. I don't think BM would be horrible on this fight, though.

    In other words: be proficient in both.

    ---------- Post added 2012-11-12 at 07:38 AM ----------

    Also, SV is very competitive with BM even on single target, so if you're comfortable with it, might as well stick with it as you'll probably do better as SV anyways.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by DarkPhoenix View Post
    Im actually using both specs for raiding at the moment depending on the fight. If you don't have to keep a PVP spec keep both.
    Same here. I prefer BM, but on some fights i'm forced to use SV.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by eschatological View Post

    HoF (normal recs, haven't done heroic):
    Vizier: BM
    Blade Lord: I go SV just because I have these irrational fear that my pet will be useless in p2, but that's probably irrational.
    Garalon: No one can agree on this one, but I go SV because I kite pheremones and I can spread some SrS to some legs sometimes. Probably not going to be viable in heroic because we want the rogue/melee to get as many GCDs in on those legs as possible.
    Wind Lord: SV, hands down. No questions.
    Ambershaper: I've not done this fight yet as BM. If you're on add duty, you might consider SV, but I'm thinking BM will be better if you're not, as is any spec with short CDs on a fight with a stacking damage debuff.
    Empress: Depends on how you do p2 - if you do a lot of kiting, I'd say SV. If your tanks tank adds, prob still SV for the AOE. I don't think BM would be horrible on this fight, though.
    Agreed with all MSV specs.

    But for HOF, Ok for Vizier and BM for Blade Lord without a doubt.

    For Garalon i tried both and had better result using a BM spec letting my pet on the boss only.

    Ok for Windlord. Got pretty decent result with SV on Ambershaper (MS with SS is very good on blood's + boss + player in a construct cleaving).

    BM is a strong choice for Empress too. The adds in P2 are not really challenging, and BM really shine when it's all about bursting down a single target as fast as possible - witch is the case during most of the fight against Empress.

    My 2 cents

    Will continue posting once i have more heroic experience in HOF.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by darkhybridx View Post
    My question is, is BM really that much better then SV in MV? I have the time to switch back and learn the spec, but from doing it on target dummies with 478 ilvl I do better, 7kish better, as SV then BM. I don't feel that the lack of familiarity with BM will make up the difference.
    Oh believe me it does. I used to be just like you. I knew BM was the FotM but I refused to use it simply because I was shit at it. Once I learned how to play it though, the numbers go nuts, especially on short duration fights. BM is all about doing some absurd dps for the first 30 seconds and then petering out quite a bit. If you can maximize your burst, and your fight is of a reasonable length, you will see MUCH better results from BM.

    I recommend reading some of the other threads here to see if you're playing BM right. And if you have queries, post, and one of us will try to answer em.

  8. #8
    I've only used Survival when AoE was really necessary for a fight. The only exception so far would be Will of the Emperor because it's an irrational amount of pet travel time if you ever switch targets.

    Heck even for the aoe-heavy Wind Lord heroic I'd say go BM because the super-strong burst potential of BM is just too good for the 600% damage buff.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by crashley View Post
    BM is a strong choice for Empress too. The adds in P2 are not really challenging, and BM really shine when it's all about bursting down a single target as fast as possible - witch is the case during most of the fight against Empress.
    How do you do Empress? We AoE down the 6 adds while kiting, I feel like a ToTH SV spec shines there. There's no other real adds to burst down one at a time, imo, since we just trap the reavers in the traps.

    Also, Herecius, you do 25m, right? These are 10 man recs, if i had 3 demo locks and 2 frost DKs I'd be BM on a lot more fights too, but sometimes we actually NEED my AoE in a fight where in 25 man you can get away with shifting that responsibility to others.

  10. #10
    What is the "cleave" of survival?. I haven't tried that spec yet except for trash cuz the aoe is insane.

  11. #11
    Generally to cleave in SV is to keep SrS rolling on 2 targets with an MS under the ToTH proc (which makes MS cost only 20 focus, and makes it a better dump than AS in that situation). And keep an explosive trap underneath. It means you get 15s of SrS on 2 targets, 20s of trap on 2 targets, 2 ISrS and 2 MS on 2 targets. You'll also get slightly faster LnLs if ExpTrap is hitting two targets, allowing you to keep a single target rotation on one target if you need to. You lose a little damage from BA (Exp on 3 target, though, should be higher than BA on one), which is made up for by faster LnLs if you keep ES on CD.

    It's not much of a cleave, let's be honest. These days, cleave tends to invoke memories of Blade Flurry passing down damage taken debuffs/damage done buffs (this is being hotfixed this week even), and Sweeping strikes, etc, doing all the same things, but the basic definition of cleave is simply keeping damage up on multiple targets simultaneously. When people say DoT cleave, they simply mean spriests/afflic locks keeping up full DoTs on multiple targets - SV hunters are more like that except our DoTs are SrS, and ExplTrap with a bit more direct damage from ISrS/MS.

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