Beast Mastery - Glaive Toss or Powershot?

[Okacz]

Hey there fellow hunters,

I recently decided to try BM, although I hate the concept of it. You know, feeling of "half ranged, half melee" fight, pet's being retarded, rotation based on cooldowns and so on. However, the DPS gain over SV was enough to suffer those atrocities This thread is not about that.

What should I pick, Powershot or Glaive Toss? From what I've heard there is no reason to use a different talent than GT in all specs (MM excluded, you simply don't pick any talent there since you don't play it). However, I found out that Powershot sums up to higher dps than Glaive Toss on Recount. The cast time is a problem indeed, but BM gives you 2 ways to hasten things up, Focus Fire and Rapdi Fire, therefore the cast is very short when used properly. And the focus cost of Powershot is another point - you waste much more with Glaive Toss, and with BM finding yourself too low on focus when Kill Command is avaiable is a real dps loss.

So, what do you think? Is Glaive Toss still a way-to-go and no-brainer, or is Powershot a good option as well?

[Kantoro]

Powershot is bad. If you move, even a tiny bit, you just lost a ton of dps and the 1 minute CD. If they allow it to be shot while moving with 5.1 perhaps it will be viable. As of now, if you use PS and get moved, knocked back, stunned, w/e you lose all that damage you would have done. Plus knockback is facking annoying to tanks.

[Okacz]

Powershot is bad. If you move, even a tiny bit, you just lost a ton of dps and the 1 minute CD. If they allow it to be shot while moving with 5.1 perhaps it will be viable. As of now, if you use PS and get moved, knocked back, stunned, w/e you lose all that damage you would have done. Plus knockback is facking annoying to tanks.

Yea, bout that, I've hears some things about "Powershot bug", but never encountered one, neither on dummy, nor in LFR (switched to this spec recently, didn't raid it yet), and for x shots fired I've got x shots recorded. How exactly DOES this shot bug?

And about this annoyance part... hehe But on dungeon trash, Barrage is a way to go, with 5000 yards range and capability of pulling mobs from other dimensions.

[Butu]

While the DPET (damage per execute time) of Powershot might be better than the DPET of Glaive Toss, you only get to use powershot a few times in a fight, while Glaive Toss is used much more frequently. If you take Powershot, you end up dumping more focus with Arcane Shot than if you took Glaive Toss, and because the DPET of AS is the second worst of all hunter abilities, you end up making more total DPS when you have GT in your rotation as opposed to Powershot. Sure, if you could take both, Powershot would be much higher on the priority, but since you can't, take GT instead.

Edit: Focus costs/procs/whatnot complicate the DPET comparisons a bit, but the logic is still sound.

[TheTrueM4gg0t]

I've been doing some testing on raiddummies, just for the sake of being able to have a little overview of the Tier6 issue.
the first observation was: they all seem quite similar in damage. blizz has done an acceptable job on balancing these talents. (no proof though, no simming done yet)

under the assumption of doing similar damage in the end, it comes down to:
PS and Barr being 3sec casts, thus rootin you (PS has the advantage that it can be interupted and recast, which Barrage can't be recast)
and GT being an instant cast. thus mobility. this is why it's recommendet to take GT.

the other difference is the AoE component of the 3 attacks.
GT and PS are both straight lines, whil'st Barrage is more of an area arround the maintarget. and as you can't assume that a trashpack is always aligned in a stright line,
you will porbably be hitting more targets with barrage by chosing the target in the middle of the circle of mobs than trying to find a straight line where all mobs are standing on.
thus in terms of AoE, its Barrage that normally wins.

for BM there's also another aspect: every PS alignes with BW, thus always gaining the +10% dmg and the reduced focus cost.
And it is more burst for our "big burst" with Pots+Readiness, because you can reset and use this massive oomph bam spell twice, rather then the two smaller GT's

and another reason why GT is often better: it's a pure AP scaling ability, whilst PS and Barrage are weapondmgdependant. so if you are one of the many unlucky guys that have a much lower ilevel with the weapon than the gear, GT will probably do more damage for you.
(the same holds true of you have a much higher ilevel on the weap, but then you're a lucky bastard^^)

I'm going with barrage atm. because of the BM burst and better AoE stuff. the 3sec standing still every 30sec is normally not such an issue