RIP survival

[galaxyquest]

This is getting way overblown.

1. No one is using Stampede as BM unless the target is basically stationary and you never need to target swap. The 25y range limitation on KC makes Blink Strikes pretty important on at least a few fights unless you're macroing all your KCs @pettarget, in which case you're going to be really shitty at stuff like killing cannons on Thogar or turrets on Maidens. Without Stampede the gap between BM and other specs is even smaller than its <5% gain.

2. The AOE gains as BM are rather pointless, to be blunt. No fights have sustained AOE DPS phases long enough to justify this except for Maidens, and theoretically MM should still be higher if you get 2-target Chim shots the entire fight (assuming you're not on boat duty.) Barrage or Powershot are always going to be the majority of your AOE burst damage, and since there are other classes in the raid with similar skills, all of this shit should get blown up before Beast Cleave gives any discernible benefit. Serpent Spread creates a similar situation currently, and while leading to high parses, generally it isn't actually necessary to make sure stuff dies.

3. BM cooldown management is random after you get the 2pc which somewhat mitigates the advantage of it over SV for burst but is almost entirely why BM is pulling ahead of the other 2 specs. This is especially true if you play an Orc or a Troll where CD stacking is pretty important. Sitting on BW is a bad idea, even if you end up using it somewhat suboptimally, which will affect your parses.

4. One of the big reasons BM is also pulling ahead is because of its ability to use Steady Focus due to stacking Haste as the primary stat. Haste is technically the 3rd best stat for MM, but I don't think you end up with enough of it to utilize SF, although I would imagine it'll end up being actually better than TotH since the high cost of AiS and CS make it pretty likely your TotH procs will overlap.

There are probably more reasons I'm not considering for why BM probably just isn't going to end up being the spec people play. It's just more annoying, the gains aren't guaranteed, and the only situation it's genuinely better just doesn't exist.

The BM doubter arguments are making me hesitant.

[Keny]

Shit spec , good riddance, now give MM back to the top plz.

[zurm]

The BM doubter arguments are making me hesitant.

-Most of BrF involves fights that have multiple targets (disadvantage: MM)
-BrF has a ton of fights that require quick hard swaps, many that really need a CD of some kind (disadvantage: SV)
-Many of the above swaps are frequent (disadvantage: MM, due to longer CD on RF)
-BrF fights, especially on mythic, require high mobility (disadvantage: SV, because FS is much stronger than LW on multi target fights)

Between BW, beast cleave, and Focus Fire's flexibility, BM simply has better tools for BrF. Until MM gets decent AOE and more consistent cleave (good luck reliably hitting 2 targets with Chim Shot), and SV gets a CD/Execute, BM will be the best option. The only reason SV was an option was because it's single target sustained was SOOOOO much higher than the other specs (10%+) with high MS (which BRF has a ton of). Now that the gap has lessened with FF buff and the discovery that sims heavily undervalued 4pc tier (there were quite a few BM hunters already up there in top parses on Warcraft Logs) there really isn't a reason NOT to go BM. Are you going to cripple your raid playing SV instead? Probably not, there is more room for error with BM than SV... but you're certainly not ideal. Nor are you helping your raid burst down priority targets like Pillars on Kromog, Elementalists on Blast Furance, Flamemenders (?) on Operator, etc.

you are retarded, the fact BM damage is listed as "Pet Damage" dosnt come 100% entirely for the pet. is a large portion due to Kill Command. Kill Command resource and CD are manage by the player.

still large portion of BM damage is attached to pet "20-25%" so yeah an AFK survival hunter will do less than an afk BM hunter, saying they were autoshoting. BM have far more buttons to push more CDs to manage (including some passives survival was giving out as granted) now you have to deal with dire beast again and pet movement, you have to deal with bosses hitbox (is got much better than before but still you will find bosses that dont cooperate), BM aoe is stronger than SV but is way harder to manage than SV.

The average joe will be better sticking up to SV, the pro min maxer, well he know what he needs to know. im a casual player right now and my gear is all about SV multistrike, nor do i have 4pc. i will be sticking to SV but for sure my 2nd spec will be BM and will be getting again my CM bm set.

Yes, let's resort immediately to name calling, and ignore 90% of my post. I did NOT say BM was easier than SV. However, the FACT is that even without buffing your pet, you have more passive damage as BM than SV, which automatically means the difference that skill makes will be lessened. Want proof? Look back in WoTLK when rogues just had to stack armor pen and keep slice and dice up; when a large part of your damage is "passive", the difference between retard A and pro player B is, by definition, reduced. Additionally, it is far from hard to hit BW on cooldown and hit FF at the right time. Again, NOT saying BM is easier than SV, because it's not. What I'm saying is that BM IS NOT HARD, and there's no reason to make it seem like a typical player can't succeed with it.

Let's also ignore (<-- that's sarcasm) that the ONLY reason SV was the top spec was because it had MUCH higher sustained. Now that the specs are closer, you WANT the spec with better tools to help you down encounters; being able to focus your damage in bursts is HUGELY important, especially in MANY BrF encounters. It's easier, and you can drool your way through a raid, but please don't think you are doing your raid any favors by playing SV over BM. You don't have to be in a World First guild to want to bring your A game.

[galaxyquest]

You don't have to be in a World First guild to want to bring your A game.

This.

10chars

[Perrito]

Yes, let's resort immediately to name calling, and ignore 90% of my post. I did NOT say BM was easier than SV. However, the FACT is that even without buffing your pet, you have more passive damage as BM than SV, which automatically means the difference that skill makes will be lessened. Want proof? Look back in WoTLK when rogues just had to stack armor pen and keep slice and dice up; when a large part of your damage is "passive", the difference between retard A and pro player B is, by definition, reduced. Additionally, it is far from hard to hit BW on cooldown and hit FF at the right time. Again, NOT saying BM is easier than SV, because it's not. What I'm saying is that BM IS NOT HARD, and there's no reason to make it seem like a typical player can't succeed with it.

Let's also ignore (<-- that's sarcasm) that the ONLY reason SV was the top spec was because it had MUCH higher sustained. Now that the specs are closer, you WANT the spec with better tools to help you down encounters; being able to focus your damage in bursts is HUGELY important, especially in MANY BrF encounters. It's easier, and you can drool your way through a raid, but please don't think you are doing your raid any favors by playing SV over BM. You don't have to be in a World First guild to want to bring your A game.

so 5% more "pasive" pet damage isnt a huge diff. i also said on my post, yes an AFK sv hunter will do less than an AFK bm hunter. most of the pet damage is that high because you work for it, if you dont KC on time, if you dont FF on time, if you BW on time with the resources you need then you are not taking advantage of what the spec offer. your damage wont go up, it will go down.

Survival is easier to play, easier to AOE with, dont have to rely on pet (GL on oregorger btw). swithcing to BM just because the sims put it 0.5% is what i call only need it if in TOP EDGE guild. my guildmates are happy because we are 8-10 Heroic BRF, LOL im 100% sure they wont care if im doing 0.5% less damage than what is optimal, we will still kill stuff and collect the desired loot.

My gear is optimized to SV either way and im not going to change. if BM pulls ahead next tier, sure i may change my new gear to suit bm, but unless we are keeping 2pc and 4pc bm for next tier i doubt BM is going to be better than SV.

[Nakauri]

I've had a feeling many people would be disappointed or underwhelmed by beast mastery after the patch. It's certainly its own breed but it's not overpowered. I don't think it's wrong of people to use the other specializations based on a specific tool that spec is good at: beast mastery is a jack of all trades, a miniature survival and marksmanship. But it was definitely more fun and versatile than previous incarnations of it, so I think I'll keep it in my arsenal.
BM has a damage variance similar to fire mages; in the current simc heroic tables fire sits at 18% variance and beast mastery is 16% (for comparison, arcane is 11% and survival is 9%). In BRF it won't pull out AoE like survival can, or multidot, or ST burst or execute snipe like marksmanship, nor will it be as predictable as either, but it can do all of those things, which makes it unique in my books.

(GL on oregorger btw).

Oregorger is the fight I had my most doubts on Beast Mastery - I offered my mythic spot up to someone still needing loot, but I was very impressed with it on heroic. I pulled it out as a highlight for anyone who wants to see beast mastery on heroic oregorger [here]. Just pretend your pet is explosive shot.
edit; oops, warning - bigwigs reset and played an airhorn every barrage.

They all have their place and function, imo. How you use them will depend where your dps team needs the best bandaid. There is very good, versatile potential in BM.

[Deleted]

A miniature survival how? It does more AoE damage on anything 2-3 targets and above with zero and I mean -zero- movement impact.

A miniature Marksmanship how? It does more or equal single-target damage depending on your set bonus situation, especially when you start to factor in that BRF requires you to move..

[Nakauri]

A miniature survival how? It does more AoE damage on anything 2-3 targets and above with zero and I mean -zero- movement impact.

A miniature Marksmanship how? It does more or equal single-target damage depending on your set bonus situation, especially when you start to factor in that BRF requires you to move..

Consistently, no. BMs major hurdle is it can do all of these things and do them well, but not as consistently as the other two. Its benefit is it can do all of these things and can sim the highest sustain single target based on gear. Plus, as you said, you can spin around in circles if you'd like.
But if you were to compare a BMs full AOE potential against SV, the SV should consistently do it better. IE: if SV gets enough serpent spreads on kromog hands and they live for the full breath duration, it should outpace a beast cleaving BM (not that its necessarily a good thing). OFC, if these spread hands are killed and a beast cleave clump is not then you have another story -- plus the added benefit of BMs other versatilities, such as ST burst.
Similarly, if you were to compare a BMs full ST burst potential from Darmac 25% to dead versus MM - both with their CD's, of course - then the MM should also outpace the BM there. But the interesting thing about BM is that, because of how wide its damage range is, it could potentially do all those things better at any given moment. It's both at the top of simC and at the bottom of simC.

But you could not have similar MM burst AND do AoE at the same time as MM, nor could you do SV AoE / consistent damage in most peoples CD lulls AND have burst as SV. That's the exchange with BMs damage variance. Its jack-of-all-trades toolset.

In other words, you have MM 2m CDs 35% KS vs BMs 1m CD 20% KS and despite its disadvantages it does a very good job keeping up AND has the capabilities of surpassing in some circumstances. Miniature does not mean inferior.

[dredlox]

Consistently, no. BMs major hurdle is it can do all of these things and do them well, but not as consistently as the other two. Its benefit is it can do all of these things and can sim the highest sustain single target based on gear. Plus, as you said, you can spin around in circles if you'd like.
But if you were to compare a BMs full AOE potential against SV, the SV should consistently do it better. IE: if SV gets enough serpent spreads on kromog hands and they live for the full breath duration, it should outpace a beast cleaving BM (not that its necessarily a good thing). OFC, if these spread hands are killed and a beast cleave clump is not then you have another story -- plus the added benefit of BMs other versatilities, such as ST burst.
Similarly, if you were to compare a BMs full ST burst potential from Darmac 25% to dead versus MM - both with their CD's, of course - then the MM should also outpace the BM there. But the interesting thing about BM is that, because of how wide its damage range is, it could potentially do all those things better at any given moment. It's both at the top of simC and at the bottom of simC.

But you could not have similar MM burst AND do AoE at the same time as MM, nor could you do SV AoE / consistent damage in most peoples CD lulls AND have burst as SV. That's the exchange with BMs damage variance. Its jack-of-all-trades toolset.

In other words, you have MM 2m CDs 35% KS vs BMs 1m CD 20% KS and despite its disadvantages it does a very good job keeping up AND has the capabilities of surpassing in some circumstances. Miniature does not mean inferior.

I see where your are coming from and experienced some of this last night. It performed well on Gruul but I had issues keeping up ae wise with focus. Part of the problem (I think) is we had 2 ele shm (wtf earthquake), 2 combat rogues, warlock, and fire mage, the adds died so damn fast that unless I had BW going into the ae, its was terrible and I'm just not the type to save my cd's for ae just to pad meters honestly, especially if that added damage doesn't really help the raid. Will see how it turns out in the next week but I don't think the top hundred will all be BM and if they are, it will be based off what you said BM brings, cause most of those guys are 685 plus and probably can perform just as well with MM or surv based on the fight.

[Lordbrutus]

sustained DPS sux unless you are the top dps in every long fight .

[Ultratron]

I understand that you guys don't want to switch out of SV mid-tier but please don't make the argument that SV is better than BM in any way. I went into H BRF Tuesday with FULL SV gear. That's ~30% unbuffed MS with full MS enchants/gems/scope and about 1% haste and very low Mastery.

Even though I was no where near as familiar with BM as SV, BM still put up the same numbers as my SV spec and better numbers for most fights (excluding Oregorger). I only have 2pc t17 and the 4pc t17 bonus sims at a flat ~3100 dps increase for me in both single target and AoE (that's not including the gear upgrade, it's just the bonus tacked onto my current gear). SV 4pc can't even come within the same ballpark as that. ALL OF THAT AND I HAVE NOT EVEN MENTIONED THAT YOU HAVE 100% FREE MOVEMENT AS BM.

Full Haste/Mastery geared and enchanted there's no way SV will be able to compare (as the sims showed already).

Like I said I understand that people don't want to switch from SV in the middle of a tier but arguing that SV is better in any situation (other than Oregorger, where MM is better than both btw) is silly.

[Deleted]

I understand that you guys don't want to switch out of SV mid-tier but please don't make the argument that SV is better than BM in any way. I went into H BRF Tuesday with FULL SV gear. That's ~30% unbuffed MS with full MS enchants/gems/scope and about 1% haste and very low Mastery.

Even though I was no where near as familiar with BM as SV, BM still put up the same numbers as my SV spec and better numbers for most fights (excluding Oregorger). I only have 2pc t17 and the 4pc t17 bonus sims at a flat ~3100 dps increase for me in both single target and AoE (that's not including the gear upgrade, it's just the bonus tacked onto my current gear). SV 4pc can't even come within the same ballpark as that. ALL OF THAT AND I HAVE NOT EVEN MENTIONED THAT YOU HAVE 100% FREE MOVEMENT AS BM.

Full Haste/Mastery geared and enchanted there's no way SV will be able to compare (as the sims showed already).

Like I said I understand that people don't want to switch from SV in the middle of a tier but arguing that SV is better in any situation (other than Oregorger, where MM is better than both btw) is silly.

Kindly get out with your useless anecdotes. They don't belong in theorycrafting discussion.

[Ultratron]

Kindly get out with your useless anecdotes. They don't belong in theorycrafting discussion.

O well, I tried. Keep closing running through BRF with your eyes and ears closed and good luck to you.

[Deleted]

O well, I tried. Keep closing running through BRF with your eyes and ears closed and good luck to you.

BM is the better spec, but you're making everyone who correctly believes BM is the better spec look like an idiot by representing the argument so fucking badly.

You're right, but for the completely wrong reasons so just leave it to those who know how to engage in this sort of discussion at least loosely based on the scientific method instead of tainting our shit with useless anecdotes.

[Ultratron]

BM is the better spec, but you're making everyone who correctly believes BM is the better spec look like an idiot by representing the argument so fucking badly.

You're right, but for the completely wrong reasons so just leave it to those who know how to engage in this sort of discussion at least loosely based on the scientific method instead of tainting our shit with useless anecdotes.

I've done all the sims, I have all of the facts. I chose to present the argument in an anecdotal format because the people who are clinging to SV are ignoring the sims. I'm not sure why you're so angry but I hope you manage to get over it buddy guy.

[galaxyquest]

I've done all the sims, I have all of the facts. I chose to present the argument in an anecdotal format because the people who are clinging to SV are ignoring the sims. I'm not sure why you're so angry but I hope you manage to get over it buddy guy.

Post logs?

[Deleted]

I've done all the sims, I have all of the facts. I chose to present the argument in an anecdotal format because the people who are clinging to SV are ignoring the sims. I'm not sure why you're so angry but I hope you manage to get over it buddy guy.

Show us your sims. I'll be happy to shoot them down.

[Perrito]

I understand that you guys don't want to switch out of SV mid-tier but please don't make the argument that SV is better than BM in any way.

i never said BM was more dps than SV, i said isnt worth the change. my gear is optimized for SV and will stay that way for the rest of this tier. if i change to BM i will prolly quit, that much i hate pets in this game.

[Waylay73]

that much i hate pets in this game.

Boy did you pick the wrong class

[Nythiz]

I hate it when people resort to frigging strawmanning to jump into a discussion.

BM is the best spec. Period.
You will find few to none informed people who claim otherwise.

HOWEVER
Saying that the other specs are dead (Which is what the OP did; its literally in the title!!!), is utter bull.

The new status is not: BM >>>>>>>>> MM > SV
Its more like BM >= SV >= MM (ST)

Stop shifting my (and others') words like we claim that SV is superior. All I say is that it's viable.