[BEAST MASTERY]Legion Alpha Discussion

[Bullettime]

Question: is Dire Frenzy an actual loss of DPS? I couldn't find the answer, people agree that it's the worst choice of the tier by far, but something seems really off with that talent. I feel like I have way less focus while playing and need to pray for RNG a bit more due to that fact. Many of the talents simply don't work along DF, like first tier is completly broken if you pick it. Even small things, like current 4pc, is just worse if you choose Dire Frenzy.

So is it just me, or is picking nothing actually better than picking DF?

Main issue with it, imo, is just that it has a longer cooldown by default which cuts into the average benefit of the ability.

I don't think it's necessarily a DPS loss but more of there's no reason to pick it. Stomp does good AoE damage on a lower cooldown and Chimaera is free Focus gen and cleave that doesn't compete with Dire Beast at all.

[MrTharne]

The stacking mechanic of Dire Frenzy is so bad since wild call is so rare...

[Bepples]

Is it just my bad interpretation of it or is our 4-set very bad?

Hunter T19 Beast Mastery 2P Bonus - Dire Beast reduces the cooldown of Bestial Wrath by an additional 5 sec.
Hunter T19 Beast Mastery 4P Bonus - When you use Bestial Wrath, all of your currently summoned Dire Beasts gain 20% increased damage for 10 sec

The 2-set sounds helpful but the 4-set just seems to go against the proper cooldown usage of the spec. You are meant to delay Dire Beast if BW is about to come up but to get the most use out of that 4-set you would need to use Dire Beast right before going into BW. Additionally it's pretty dependent on the amount of pets you have up. It would be pretty useless if you have 1 dire beast up with less than 5 seconds remaining when going into Bestial Wrath.

[MrTharne]

Yeah, 2p is good.
4p is maybe the worst ever, it doesn't even make sense imo. Dire Beast duration is 8sec so why does the bonus duration is 10sec ? And most of the time you will only have 1 Dire Beast up. I just don't understand this.

Edit : Wait, wasn't there an artifact trait in an old alpha build where the duration of Dire Beast was extended by something ? Since then this trait is gone...but they didn't change the 4p maybe ? Like what would you do this ?

[Zeth Hawkins]

2p: "Use Dire Beast immediately after Bestial Wrath"
4p: "Use Bestial Wrath immediately after Dire Beast"

What do you want from us, Blizz?

[ShasVa]

2p: "Use Dire Beast immediately after Bestial Wrath"
4p: "Use Bestial Wrath immediately after Dire Beast"

What do you want from us, Blizz?

To not play BM spec ever again, maybe? Who knows. Still on the fence about playing one in Legion myself. If anything it was unfair to move a former talent into a legendary item, which will probably have an atrocious drop chance.

[Bepples]

To not play BM spec ever again, maybe? Who knows. Still on the fence about playing one in Legion myself. If anything it was unfair to move a former talent into a legendary item, which will probably have an atrocious drop chance.

Not just the talent (Adaptation), by the way. Bestial Wrath also no longer reduces focus costs unless you have the legendary, and even then it's only 20% now (it was 50% before). I guess the trade-off is that you are going to be in Bestial Wrath a lot more these days.

This is what I hate about Legion design: it seems like they either cut traits/abilities that used to be baseline and move them to artifacts/legendaries, or they just cut them entirely. Either way, they pretend that the cutting is somehow adding to the game and improving it. I think it's the lazy approach to looking like you are doing something about classes.

[Creatinebrah]

how does BM compare to MM?

[zerocarbs]

I'm wondering why when Wild Call procs and Dire Beast isn't already on cd why we don't get an extra use of Dire Beast?

[sayne9]

I'm wondering why when Wild Call procs and Dire Beast isn't already on cd why we don't get an extra use of Dire Beast?

No ability reset works like that unless it has charges in which case it provides a charge. It getting a charge would be incredibly powerful, like it would be a talent and it would probably be one that would compete with any we have. I think adding a charge to lava burst for ele shaman is a talent onto itself. It is just strong because it makes every proc the best it can possibly be.

I get that it can be frustrating. Its usefulness is rng(aa crit) wrapped in rng(20% chance) wrapped in rng(cd remaining). When it resets with 1-2 seconds remaining it feels like 'wtf was the point of that'.

[Alvito]

I've got a quick question and I'm hoping someone with beta experience has some data to address. I know I have read a lot of posts and opinions about play style and some people suggesting that Chimera improves the "feel" of the spec and I know that Azor seems to prefer Chimera, but is Chimera a dps preference or a play style preference?

Thanks for your help,

If you dont spec into that or barrage you only have 1 ranged attack which seems odd.

[ShasVa]

With all the changes to BM in Legion, even though they can be managed, I feel like I may have tamed Loque'nahak for no reason. That being said I'm still hesitant to let it go, because I've played a BM Hunter since MoP's 5.0 patch. I could imagine Loque and Hati being very useful together.

My other grievance, which I can't do anything about, is Hunters in general in Legion. Top of the list is the campaign, which compared to other classes, is quite average. Titanstrike's base skins aren't that great either. Might go look for alternatives.

Artifact wise, the best idea is to get the "Hati benefits from your skills" trait first, correct?

[Nythiz]

Question: is Dire Frenzy an actual loss of DPS? I couldn't find the answer, people agree that it's the worst choice of the tier by far, but something seems really off with that talent. I feel like I have way less focus while playing and need to pray for RNG a bit more due to that fact. Many of the talents simply don't work along DF, like first tier is completly broken if you pick it. Even small things, like current 4pc, is just worse if you choose Dire Frenzy.

So is it just me, or is picking nothing actually better than picking DF?

Dire Frenzy is a bit of a complicated talent.
This talent actually has a lot of weird interactions that Dire Beasts don't have (and vice versa).

I for one imagined that it would be decent for a lot of AoE situations since it gives attack speed (which interacts with beast cleave).
But then Azor's guide says:

Dire Frenzy is not a desirable talent and should not be taken in any situation, as it only directly improves your single-target damage, and does very low damage on top of that.

And I haven't done enough research into DF (nor do I have access to the beta) to really dispute his claim.

Titan's Thunder (golden artifact trait ability) also has a different interaction with DF compared to DB.

Currently Dire Frenzy simply isn't up there. But I'm not sure how that will work out in Legion itself. I kind of hope it will be somewhat viable. As the concept of having 1 (or 2 with Hati of course) really strong pets feels more "class fantasy Beastmaster" to me than just summoning some random wild animal.

The stacking mechanic of Dire Frenzy is so bad since wild call is so rare...

That's not really what the stacking is designed for though. It's not really there to take advantage of, but more to make sure that Wild Call procs aren't completely wasted for people who take this talent.

If you dont spec into that or barrage you only have 1 ranged attack which seems odd.

That makes it a playstyle preference though. A rotation being odd doesn't make it bad.

Chimaera shot makes beastmaster flow a bit better (especially now without the extra abilities and artifact stuff); but for general purpose Stomp seems to be a better choice dps wise. Single target and on 2 targets Chimaera shot pulls slightly ahead (maybe making it preferable on a lot of raid encounters); but on 3+ targets Stomp pulls ahead by a huge margin. Seeing as stomp pulls ahead hard on multitarget without being far behind on 1-2 targets; PLUS the fact you can't just switch talents on the fly anymore, leads me to say that Stomp is better for general purpose DPS.

But ye, Chimaera makes the rotation more enjoyable.

With all the changes to BM in Legion, even though they can be managed, I feel like I may have tamed Loque'nahak for no reason. That being said I'm still hesitant to let it go, because I've played a BM Hunter since MoP's 5.0 patch. I could imagine Loque and Hati being very useful together.

My other grievance, which I can't do anything about, is Hunters in general in Legion. Top of the list is the campaign, which compared to other classes, is quite average. Titanstrike's base skins aren't that great either. Might go look for alternatives.

Artifact wise, the best idea is to get the "Hati benefits from your skills" trait first, correct?

Correct on that last part.

As for the former. BM seems to be quite a solid choice for dungeons and mythic+ content early on in the expansion. And spirit beasts are an excellent choice since they retain their Spirit Mend ability. So I doubt your Loque tame will be "for no reason"

[Alvito]

That makes it a playstyle preference though. A rotation being odd doesn't make it bad.

Chimaera shot makes beastmaster flow a bit better (especially now without the extra abilities and artifact stuff); but for general purpose Stomp seems to be a better choice dps wise. Single target and on 2 targets Chimaera shot pulls slightly ahead (maybe making it preferable on a lot of raid encounters); but on 3+ targets Stomp pulls ahead by a huge margin. Seeing as stomp pulls ahead hard on multitarget without being far behind on 1-2 targets; PLUS the fact you can't just switch talents on the fly anymore, leads me to say that Stomp is better for general purpose DPS.

But ye, Chimaera makes the rotation more enjoyable.)

Without it you end up with far more down time then ranged ever has. Normally ranged classes are constantly using abilities/spells. Without chimera you end up sitting around more then most are used to. As odd as it seems people seem to be fine with waiting if you are channeling an ability or casting and it takes a few seconds, but far less willing to just sit and wait to be able to do something again.

[Deleted]

Without it you end up with far more down time then ranged ever has. Normally ranged classes are constantly using abilities/spells. Without chimera you end up sitting around more then most are used to. As odd as it seems people seem to be fine with waiting if you are channeling an ability or casting and it takes a few seconds, but far less willing to just sit and wait to be able to do something again.

This is what we have to look forward to

[betahunter]

This is what we have to look forward to

can't quote [img] tag cos of post count ayyylmao

Truth. This is why I'm not returning in Legion, glad I got into beta so test this pos out. Look at the official forums, since the pre patch hit everyone is mad af. Blizzard doesn't listen once again.

[Sencha]

This is what we have to look forward to

So, without chimera shot you spend 2:30 minutes doing nothing in a 7:30 minutes combat?

Looks fun...

[Devilyaki]

After playing both spec for a bit each I liked the feel of mm more than bm. Bm seems a bit slow or something can't really put a finger on it but something seems off :/

[sayne9]

So, without chimera shot you spend 2:30 minutes doing nothing in a 7:30 minutes combat?

Looks fun...

I've always enjoyed resource capped classes and not gcd capped classes. Downtime is a natural thing for those classes. Thing is, when you design a resource capped class generally you want to make it so that you have to plan out your resources ie the old feral builds. They had to decide what finisher of 3 they wanted to use, if they had enough time on their rip and savage roar to ferocious bite or if they had to re-apply. They had to think about things. Make decisions. BM has nothing to save for. It has no decisions. Basically you maintain ~75 focus and hit buttons as they come off cd. No planning or thinking required.

That said I prefer bm to mm with sidewinders/patient sniper.

[Nythiz]

Without it you end up with far more down time then ranged ever has. Normally ranged classes are constantly using abilities/spells. Without chimera you end up sitting around more then most are used to. As odd as it seems people seem to be fine with waiting if you are channeling an ability or casting and it takes a few seconds, but far less willing to just sit and wait to be able to do something again.

Don't get me wrong. I completely agree, and I think blizzard is missing the mark on BM (I mean they know people prefer to do something rather than nothing). There are few other specs, if any, with such huge downtime.
And the other specs that do have it have to (as sayne9 above me mentioned) make certain decisions that BM largely doesn't have to make.

But question was: Is chimaera a dps preference or a playstyle preference. And although it is the former in some cases, it's the latter for most people.

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I'm not so sure yet if i'll like BM. Most of the waiting is quite spaced out (e.g. waiting for a second before hitting KC, or waiting whilst maintaining beastcleave); so it's not super bad, but it just doesn't feel right. Like Sayne said, there is nothing to maintain, there are no decisions to be made. All you need to be aware of is hitting your cooldowns and not overspending focus with cobra shot.
And the artifact doesn't seem to bring much relieve on that front either.

I mean in WoD cobra shot was a boring button to press. But at least there was the requirement of hitting your cobra's on the ball and you could mess up (e.g. casting cobra right before a skill comes available).