Just letting you guys know

[Crowfeather]

SV was the top spec in highmaul, multistrike was OP as hell.

It wasn't until surv was buffed a few weeks into highmaul that it started becoming top dps. Until then, MM was king on every fight except twin ogron, and bm was always top for tectus, just because of that sweet beast cleave!

[Deleted]

BM is literally snoozefest.

So are your posts.

[Feanoro]

The bigotry comment was just plain funny. The BM fanatics are way worse than any supposed anti-BM bigots (by the way, the stereotype in classic was Chinese farmers, not housewives). From years of observing this forum, I've seen...

--BM on top, by any margin--
Player 1: "Hey, I've been toying with an idea to use SV for..."
BM crowd: *foams at mouth* "YOU SUCK BM IS THE SPEC FOR ALL THINGS YOU'RE SHITTING ON YOUR RAID NOT PLAYING IT ALSO YOUR MOM DRESSES YOU FUNNY."

--BM not on top---
BM crowd: *foams at mouth* "F ALL OF YOU BM IS STILL THE GREATEST IN MY HEART NUMBERS MEAN NOTHING ENJOYMENT MATTERS YOUR SOCKS ARE THE WRONG COLOR."

--BM good for X, not as good for Y--
Player 1: Theorycraft suggests that while BM is great at X, $otherSpec is better at Y, because...
BM Crowd: *foams at mouth* "THEORY IS A CONSPIRACY TO DENY BM AS THE TRUE SPEC FOR ALL THINGS INCLUDING AUCTIONS MATH MEANS NOTHING YOU COOK EGGS WRONG"

--BM crowd talking to themselves--
"Goodness me, I don't understand why we have such a stigma. It must be jealousy from the poor unenlightened proles, who fail to understand the godlike superiority of BM." *puffs pipe*


(Yes, this is joking exaggeration for any that are too autistic to understand that.)

[Salty Maud]

Both hunter specs are viable in the first raid. BM and MM are tied in terms of single target damage. BM does better AoE, but is limited to cleave while MM can manage split AoE. When nighthold opens and tier bonuses are a thing MM pulls ahead but until then, play whichever spec you want unless some encounter clearly favors one or another.

[v1perz53]

This was because at first, damage meters didn't join hunter and damage pet together (a little late they added the possibility, but it was not default) so BM hunter were always at the bottom (30-40% damage was coming from the pet) and as MM/SV pet damage was around 15-20% the numbers were pretty different. (this was before 1.7 that was the hunter patch)

Also since skills were not normalized MM skills usually made big numbers (aimed shot with BWL xbow was an orgasm for those people)

After 1.7 numbers were a little better.

I had to educate a lot of guild members trough vanilla and BC (before the 1 button macro) to show them BM was as valid as MM and SV to raid.

BM was also mechanically challenging, in that pets at that time had no AoE damage reduction and could die very quickly, healers didn't generally have pet frames and there were pretty much no smart heals to passively heal them up, and mend pet was still a long channeled spell. Plus pets could be targetted by certain random mechanics which was undesirable. I know many hunters in MC/BWL didn't even have a pet out because it was in many cases more of a liability than it was worth (save things like pet pulling Shazz), and even those that did have one out just basically had a wolf next to them for furious howl. And without "move to" existing, pet control was quite a challenge. I personally did use a pet though because while controlling a pet was "challenging", the standard play of hunter in vanilla that consisted of "use aimed shot, use multi shot, wait for them to come off CD and use them again" was not, and I welcomed any extra complexity.

[Dahkeus]

So, I started investing in the BM artifact after I had put a bit into the MM artifact partly because I wanted to try out BM for a while, but also partly because of all the talk I'd seen regarding recommending BM for dungeons over MM. I'm still not 110 yet (ya, I know, I'm busy irl, raid in another game, and taking my leveling experience slowly, lol), but I haven't really seen what would really put MM that far behind BM for dungeons to where it would be worth investing outside of the MM artifact.

Am I crazy or is Barrage actually not that hard to control? So far in dungeons, I've just either adjusted my range to target or direction relative to it in order to avoid pulling extra. I know BM is a bit more mobile due to no aim shots, but if MM dps is generally higher outside of sustained AoE, wouldn't this make up for any DPS drop from missing an Aimed Shot or two?

I was aiming to get 13 into my BM artifact, but now I'm actually starting to wish I had just stuck with investing in MM. =/

[DeadlyDag]

BM and MM is more or less the same at the moment (not talking about simcraft here, but personal experience)

I pull ~230k dps with BM in mythic on bossfights (only singletarget) and around ~220k with MM, so the difference is not that great.
If there's more than one target, but no more than 3, MM will quickly pull ahead, but as soon as there's more than 3, BM will manage better DPS.

The difference is so small at the moment that it does not matter to be quite honest.

Both my BM and MM artifact is ~870 ilvl and level 16+.

I still prefer to level BM at the moment due to solo\worldquests, but MM is more enjoyable.
I have way more "look at the focusbar"-moments with BM.

Barrage is way easier to control now after the hotfix.

[Polanco]

I have always played BM. Been my favorite spec since I started WoW. I remember ICC 25 man raids, walking in with a spirit beast and having other hunters call me out, then I was in top 3 dps. its all about the player. And when someone tells me I should be playing another spec, I say, start paying my subscription and you can tell me what spec to play. To each their own.

[Deleted]

Bm works best in small groups, mythics. Because of boss mechanics in raids MM works better, as the pets will keep dying.

[Sartuk]

I know many hunters in MC/BWL didn't even have a pet out because it was in many cases more of a liability than it was worth (save things like pet pulling Shazz), and even those that did have one out just basically had a wolf next to them for furious howl.

I mean, any hunters that did only that were missing out on significant damage. Even as MM pets were still 10-20% of hunter damage at the time. I'm not saying none did it, but any hunter doing what you described back then was playing at an absolutely insanely sub-optimal level.

[Rehija]

what you described back then was playing at an absolutely insanely sub-optimal level.

Yes it was, but remember that our petheal was a channeled spell and healers had most of the time to much to do to keep an eye out for hunter pets. It was more convienient to keep your pet at your side for Howl or just put it away; a compromise. If you wanted to play with an active pet you had to convince a drood healer to hot your pet on occasion when he had time to spare.

A lot of classic raid gameplay were compromises between effectiveness and convenience

I had to educate a lot of guild members trough vanilla and BC (before the 1 button macro) to show them BM was as valid as MM and SV to raid.

I can relate to that but i had the advantage that i played BM during late classic so it was easyer for me. But hey, we also had a feral tank in our Raid during classic, so "not so common" speccs were not outright banned in my raidgroup.