Need advice on whether to switch to Survival from BM

[Deleted]

As the title says I am questioning whether to switch.
I have been playing an Alt hunter as Survival in raids etc and seem to enjoy it better than BM but dont know whether to switch it to perhaps do more DPS.

I am not very good at controlling the pet at BM and I believe it may be costing me in DPS in the long run.

Is it worth reforging and gemming to trying out Survival? I have been going after BiS BM pieces so far.

Armory -> http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Xcyte/advanced

[Azortharion]

BM will give you more DPS if you can play it about as well as SV, and it has recently become the most popular spec in SoO HC.

You'd be gimping yourself going SV.

[Kissthebaby]

Play whatever spec you want. If you are more comfortable playing surv and like it better, then play it. You won't be gimping your dps if you play it. BM is a tad bit better yes, but not that much better. Don't let anyone tell you that you have to play a certain spec, especially when there are 2 specs that are fairly close to each other.

[Tehterokkar]

Survival is more smooth in focus gains(TotH, ES costs half of KC, LnL proc lets you spam free abilities), BM is fairly bursty in focus usage. As far as DPS goes, BM is slightly better overall and also BM's DPS is more stable. SV is the most RNG shit ever, need to be lucky to do good DPS.

[Alvarie]

As the title says I am questioning whether to switch.
I have been playing an Alt hunter as Survival in raids etc and seem to enjoy it better than BM but dont know whether to switch it to perhaps do more DPS.

I am not very good at controlling the pet at BM and I believe it may be costing me in DPS in the long run.

Is it worth reforging and gemming to trying out Survival? I have been going after BiS BM pieces so far.

Armory -> http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Xcyte/advanced

Head over to Azor's FAQ and grab some of his BM macros for pet management, BM is the top dog now, and especially for the last 3 fights in SoO, BM will trump Surv!

I suggest grabbing Dire Beast over ToTH as well.

[Kissthebaby]

. SV is the most RNG shit ever, need to be lucky to do good DPS.

Such a common misconception about survival. People just think OMG 4 SET is all just spam one button. Thats not true tho. You can still do good dps even without amazing rng as survival. You will always most likely get the procs you need. You arent always going to get a 10 second lnl sure, but thats a rare case. Also to do good dps as bm you also "need to be lucky" you aren't parsing unless you get 2 TED procs during your opening stampede (most of the time), go look at bm parses they are all 35 percent uptime + on TED (survival is the same way not claiming that its different) they both require good rng to do good damage.

[Azortharion]

Play whatever spec you want. If you are more comfortable playing surv and like it better, then play it. You won't be gimping your dps if you play it. BM is a tad bit better yes, but not that much better. Don't let anyone tell you that you have to play a certain spec, especially when there are 2 specs that are fairly close to each other.

I disagree, but it is a subjective thing.

They might be "close" single-target, but "close" still puts BM 10% ahead of SV single-target. On cleave/AoE mix (Protectors), more like 12%, and this is with all parses too. If we check top parses (so what the specs are "capable" of), the difference for single-target and protector-style is 7.5% and 11% respectively.

TL;DR a ~10% difference between 2 specs is not a small enough difference to be negligible/"you can play whatever and you'll do better with what you like the most", in my opinion.

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Such a common misconception about survival. People just think OMG 4 SET is all just spam one button. Thats not true tho. You can still do good dps even without amazing rng as survival. You will always most likely get the procs you need. You arent always going to get a 10 second lnl sure, but thats a rare case. Also to do good dps as bm you also "need to be lucky" you aren't parsing unless you get 2 TED procs during your opening stampede (most of the time), go look at bm parses they are all 35 percent uptime + on TED (survival is the same way not claiming that its different) they both require good rng to do good damage.

I think he meant that, at a basic level, SV is way more reliant on RNG to do -good- (parsing) damage than BM is, because it has 1) 2 RNG factors, both of which are very significant and ideally have to stack with each other and 2) a lot more of its damage potential depends on one of those RNG things proccing (LnL).

BM can do very well without any trinket procs at all. I got a #1 BM parse on Protectors that was 70k ahead of the #1 Survival parse with 2 TED procs/9% uptime. My experience doesn't even fall within anecdotal evidence either, because it just perfectly goes to show that BM is capable of so much more with crappy trinkets.

And yes, 4 set procs are literally about spamming one button. And refreshing Black Arrow when the ICD expires. That's -literally- it when it procs, there's no more depth to it.

[Kissthebaby]

I disagree, but it is a subjective thing.

They might be "close" single-target, but "close" still puts BM 10% ahead of SV single-target. On cleave/AoE mix (Protectors), more like 12%, and this is with all parses too. If we check top parses (so what the specs are "capable" of), the difference for single-target and protector-style is 7.5% and 11% respectively.

TL;DR a ~10% difference between 2 specs is not a small enough difference to be negligible/"you can play whatever and you'll do better with what you like the most", in my opinion.

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I think he meant that, at a basic level, SV is way more reliant on RNG to do -good- (parsing) damage than BM is, because it has 1) 2 RNG factors, both of which are very significant and ideally have to stack with each other and 2) a lot more of its damage potential depends on one of those RNG things proccing (LnL).

BM can do very well without any trinket procs at all. I got a #1 BM parse on Protectors that was 70k ahead of the #1 Survival parse with 2 TED procs/9% uptime. My experience doesn't even fall within anecdotal evidence either, because it just perfectly goes to show that BM is capable of so much more with crappy trinkets.

And yes, 4 set procs are literally about spamming one button. And refreshing Black Arrow when the ICD expires. That's -literally- it when it procs, there's no more depth to it.

You have never played survival this who tier especially with bis gear how can you comment on how much worse of a spec it is and how it plays when you have never even played it. You are just simply going off logs (which survival has a lower representation clearly) my personal logs in a shitty guild with shitty kill times show that it is more than competitive with BM. If I actually had a consistent raid I would be able to show more, but just looking at my single target fight logs, you can see I'm in the same area of top 10 BM players( which most people play) this is why I advocate that it doesn't really matter what spec you play. Especially considering op doesn't like BM, can't control his pet well, and is better as survival. It really makes no sense to switch specs 10 months into SoO, unless you want to learn a new spec because you are bored. It looks like your progressing still tho so I would advise you to wait till after you have finished progression, or start playing BM on farm fights.

[Azortharion]

Doesn't matter if I've played it or not.

Representation is near 50/50 - 26.996 BM players vs 25.524 SV players.

You're still like 10% average DPS behind me, and 7% DPS behind a BM dude with similar PR points as you.

#1 SV guy (Rikuss-Paragon) is still roughly 7% behind my average DPS with filter on. Filter off he wins by roughly the same amount cuz Paragon.

Your personal success with SV does not in any way differ statistically from the masses (tens of thousands of parses), looking at your own logs just proves my point. With filter off, your average DPS matches that of the #18 BM guy. With filter on, it's the same, so not even close to top 10 BM players.

You're 15% average DPS behind me and 10% average DPS behind a similarly PR ranked dude with filter on.

You can argue your viewpoint till Christmas, doesn't make SV any stronger. It's 10% behind no matter what you think of it. The significance of this can be argued, but if you wanna be the best you can be (which OP obviously does since he bothers making a post here), 10% is a shitton.

It doesn't matter if OP can control his pet either, when BM outperforms SV across -all- percentiles by 7-10%. This includes sub 50th percentile players who leave their pet on assist and otherwise forget about it.

Average DPS for you/me gotten through ProRaiders, WCL filter only.
# of players of each spec/strengths/potential on each fight gotten through WarcraftLogs fight statistics.

[Kissthebaby]

I stopped reading when I saw pro raiders. Hey that goes off all fights tho. I have shit parses for all non single target fights. I don't get to cheese or anything so my dps is going to be lower, the paragon dps ranks and everyone else who loves to parse on aoe fights are going to be better. On the 3 fights that matter (iron jugg thok malkorak) I have a #1 parse and 2 # 2 parses. I think that's better than anyone else. It shows that I didn't just get lucky once, and that I'm consistent. Again my guild is shit with bad kill times and 22 people who would rather be on wildstar. Excuses aside I can't believe you are going off pro raiders VERY skewed dps ranks, that is very dumb to say the least. Also the representation is about 50/50 like you say. Most of the top hunters are BM, you know this, you can't argue it. If this wasn't true I wouldn't of held these top single target parses for so long. So that 50/50 argument is bullshit. And yes my personal success shows that a top hunter can compete with other top hunters as a different spec, which is what people see and go off of. Again close to no top hunters are playing survival.

[Jeremypwnz]

No top hunters play MM..

[Cliperlol]

No top hunters play MM..

Soooo....you're saying you are a terrible hunter?


My opinion on OP's question: At this point just play whatever spec you want. The raiders on the cutting-edge of progression will always play whatever spec on whatever fight. Doesn't matter if its only ~1% ahead of another spec. If you feel more comfortable and enjoy playing SV, then you should stick with that.

[Jeremypwnz]

I'm not currently playing MM.

[Azortharion]

I stopped reading when I saw pro raiders. Hey that goes off all fights tho. I have shit parses for all non single target fights. I don't get to cheese or anything so my dps is going to be lower, the paragon dps ranks and everyone else who loves to parse on aoe fights are going to be better. On the 3 fights that matter (iron jugg thok malkorak) I have a #1 parse and 2 # 2 parses. I think that's better than anyone else. It shows that I didn't just get lucky once, and that I'm consistent. Again my guild is shit with bad kill times and 22 people who would rather be on wildstar. Excuses aside I can't believe you are going off pro raiders VERY skewed dps ranks, that is very dumb to say the least. Also the representation is about 50/50 like you say. Most of the top hunters are BM, you know this, you can't argue it. If this wasn't true I wouldn't of held these top single target parses for so long. So that 50/50 argument is bullshit. And yes my personal success shows that a top hunter can compete with other top hunters as a different spec, which is what people see and go off of. Again close to no top hunters are playing survival.

I don't get to cheese on anything either, so the argument holds up just fine. Just because you do not like the argument being made, it doesn't mean you can reasonably find silly excuses not to bother reading it.

But just to humor you, your amazing rank 1 Juggernaut is still 7% worse (again) than the #1 BM parse that was set by a russian I've never heard of. Hardly a "top hunter".

If 7% dps behind another spec is competitive to you then be my guest, but as I've pointed out a billion times, you're still 7-10% behind on about everything.

I think it's worth pointing out that very few people get to parse on Galakras like you do because their guild afk's, or whatever. 530k is -a lot-.

Doesn't matter if no top hunters are playing Survival - you're calling yourself a top hunter in your post, I'm comparing you to BM hunter that are not near the top and you are still way behind.

EDIT: You really didn't read my post, though, did you? You said ProRaiders is unreasonable because lolAoE tacs, but I used the filter as an example all the way through. Are you going to argue that all BM hunters solo-AoE other stuff?

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No top hunters play MM..

Conjor does/did and he was advocating its viability 'round here for a looong time. I don't necessarily agreed but it was still good.

[Kissthebaby]

I don't get to cheese on anything either, so the argument holds up just fine. Just because you do not like the argument being made, it doesn't mean you can reasonably find silly excuses not to bother reading it.

But just to humor you, your amazing rank 1 Juggernaut is still 7% worse (again) than the #1 BM parse that was set by a russian I've never heard of. Hardly a "top hunter".

If 7% dps behind another spec is competitive to you then be my guest, but as I've pointed out a billion times, you're still 7-10% behind on about everything.

I think it's worth pointing out that very few people get to parse on Galakras like you do because their guild afk's, or whatever. 530k is -a lot-.

Doesn't matter if no top hunters are playing Survival - you're calling yourself a top hunter in your post, I'm comparing you to BM hunter that are not near the top and you are still way behind.

EDIT: You really didn't read my post, though, did you? You said ProRaiders is unreasonable because lolAoE tacs, but I used the filter as an example all the way through. Are you going to argue that all BM hunters solo-AoE other stuff?

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Conjor does/did and he was advocating its viability 'round here for a looong time. I don't necessarily agreed but it was still good.

Yes you dont get to cheese anything? Do you get to go down every week on norushen first? because thats the only way to parse on that fight and you have to log it yourself which I dont do. lets just make a list for filtered bosses.

protectors - bm is clearly better here, but your average kill times are almost a minute better than mine, my guild does not use affliction warlocks right now which helps the kill times a lot.
norushen - you have to go down first and log youself, which you do and I dont. so my parse is going to be shit
sha of pride - my fastest and best sha of pride parse was with dulality (not even my own guild) and it was 50 seconds slower than your top sha parse. can be cheesed I guess but know you dont.
iron juggernaut- my top parse is from a a 3:40 kill and yours is from a 2:59, significant because I got another stampede which is the only reason I ranked, but every hunter RANKED AHEAD OF ME HAS A SUB 3 MINUTE KILL BY A LOT LOOK AT THE KILL TIME FOR FUCK SAKE.http://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings...nter&boss=1600 there is a common theme with the kill times all ranked ahead of mine.
shamans - never going to parse on this fight when, we have the worst tanks probably ever right now that cant tank this fight, 10 people die every week on this fight on average. Again your kill times are way better which means higher dps
malkorak - You have the number 1 parse here, a 30 second faster kill time then me, you are 3rd damage on the adds. no real cheesing on this fight but number 3 on adds is pretty good luck for a hunter.
spoils - can be cheesed can do 2 mogu sides and basically have to log youself, also you dont do sparks at all, which i have to do full time since we will wipe.
thok - singe target fight for the most part, depends on kill times really I have a rank 2 you have a rank 3, your dps was only 20k better than mine which isnt a lot
siege crafter - depends if you are doing belt
paragons - can be cheesed to shit with parasites which my guild doesnt do
garrosh - depends on kill times, i do seige engineers for my guild when i play survival, so Im already fucked, can also cheese the adds before last transition, can also skip 3rd transition which my guild cant do.

Its a lot of excuses, but its the truth. Again the only fights I can even measure myself against everyone else is the 3 single target fights (iron jug malk and thok) my kill times are a little slower but there isnt much cheesing, you can actually look at my guilds warcraftlogs if you want and see how shit it is, but its the truth, you can watch my stream vods and see 10 people dead every fight. It fucking farm and no one cares,

and yes proraiders is unreasonable for the reasons I explained, fights can still be cheesed that are filtered, not saying you cheese or do it on purpose, but there are always going to be things like kill times that effect shit like that.

[Azortharion]

And even applying only the single-target fight Iron Juggernaut, as I pointed out, puts you 7% behind the r1 BM parse.

If we cut your killtime on Iron Juggernaut down to my kill time, you'd lose like 2k dps. If we cut the fight time down to Encore's fastest kill, you'd gain about 20k DPS.
If we cut the #1 BM guy's killtime down 20 seconds to Encore killtime, he gains 10k DPS.

If we take my 2:59 kill and cut it down to Encore's killtime, I'd be doing 70k more, or roughly 641k DPS, actually INCREASING the gap between us. Kill times are not a valid reason for the BM vs SV thing.

If we cut your Malk log down to my killtime, you lose 10k DPS, and you are #3 damage on adds. Which is still not a lot cuz #Smashyy so that sucks for you or something.

Boss-only DPS, however, your rank 2 or whatever becomes a rank 11, making a larger-than-10% gap between us. Cut you down to my killtime? You drop 9k DPS.

Turn the details of the argument to your favor all you like, you are still universally 7-10% behind with no exceptions I can find.

[Kissthebaby]

You can't just say cut down and here's your dps , you are missing execute phases which matter some. Kill times matter you can't argue it. I still have the best 3 min plus jugg parse as survival refer to the link on the prior post. Not all guilds are sub 3 min kill times. So again compare my kill time with someone else who has a similar time and I blow them away. And it's as surv

[Azortharion]

Irrelevant because I cut both of us down in one of the examples, where we both lost the entire execute phase.

Not sure why you're trying to make a point of how good you are vs other Survival hunters when we're arguing BM vs SV and not.. You-SV vs Everyone_Else-SV

[Kissthebaby]

Irrelevant because I cut both of us down in one of the examples, where we both lost the entire execute phase.

Not sure why you're trying to make a point of how good you are vs other Survival hunters when we're arguing BM vs SV and not.. You-SV vs Everyone_Else-SV

No me survival vs everyone one else BM included. I have the best 3 minute + kill time for all specs, which is what I can compare. Also again I'm not disputing that survival is better than BM, BM is clearly better, my argument is survival isn't that much worse and not as bad as people think.

[Azortharion]

But how is 7-10% worse in all situations presented to you "not that much worse"? Because you beat some BM hunters with a longer kill time? Stuff that I've shown you doesn't matter because cutting your kill times down hardly increases your DPS at all? Actually decreases it? More than an execute phase of difference? :S

I think you underestimate the next-level RNG you had on that IJ as well. Another reason why I bash SV parsing all the time. If you parse well, it's largely because of LnL+Vicious happened at opportune times, and a lot.

On Malkorok boss DPS, 20+ people are well above you playing either spec with equal or worse kill times. Hell, a MM hunter is like 2k DPS behind you.