BM for Leveling? Still good?

[Nickiter]

Yeah, Bloodwing spec is good for leveling. The Bloodwing will take a ton of enemies down for you, and those that it doesn't kill are pretty easily mopped up.

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Oh wait, this is a WoW forum.

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Same answer.

[Recompence]

I'm assuming that was an AION reference?

I find BM boring yet efficient for leveling. going to stick that out till around 70, since I want a rhino I may keep BM as my primary anyways.

[Robdeathkill]

Im excited to play surv/marks in endgame. BM is fun, but im selfish and like to see those big numbers for myself not my pet

[rathok]

Yes, BM will work but...

I found a really interesting way to level as survival that uses very little ammo and kills mobs super fast, doesnt use any mana to speak of and you dont even need your pet to tank. What i do is spec for standard survival PVP: point of no escape, explosiveshot, lock and load, entrapment and resourcefulness. You run up to the mob your going to kill, drop a snare trap on it which will proc LNL and a 5 second root. Start unloading your LNL procs and the mob swill be dead before he can get to you and pretty much all of the damage is free because LNL uses no mana and no ammo. Only drawback is that you can only do it once every ~24 seconds but I just alternate between that and misdirecting to my pet and i never pull agro or go oom and never have to viper unless i pull like 4-5 mobs. Much more fun than BM grinding with your pet soloing mobs...

[gaymer77]

BM all the way if you want. The only change would be at 70 when you get MD & could go surv. You can make a mod that does MD on your pet, casts hunter mark, and makes your pet go in to attack. I'd suggest doing that regardless of what spec you go but if you do go surv its a must-do so you don't pull agro off your pet. Personally I've always loved cats so my hunter has a cat and used one the whole time to lvl up. I did pick up a rhino to tank if I needed the extra threat they gave but got rid of it when I realized that my cat did just fine. At 80 I still prefer my cat over the standard wolf. Its a slight dps decrease but in my eyes its not that much lower dps.

[allforone]

Yeah, Bloodwing spec is good for leveling. The Bloodwing will take a ton of enemies down for you, and those that it doesn't kill are pretty easily mopped up.

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Oh wait, this is a WoW forum.

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Same answer.

Borderlands 4tw. Though I prefer my sniper rifle, thus am not using that tree atm.

On my hunter I actually levelled till 65 in MM then went BM for the last 15 levels. I tried SV at endgame but it's boring and requires you to stay perfectly still, which doesn't really happen much ever. MM has no such requirement and allows you to run around almost freely, and even at entry-level 80, you lose no real damage. The only kicker for MM is that you have to have a weapon with a slow firing rate. MM, played decently, also gives less downtime than even BM.

[Patty]

Only problem for me was from 70 to 80.. I tried Survival.. But with the full epic gear i keept pulling aggro as soon as i used Explosive shot.. So went to Bm.. Sucked to level all the way in Aspect of the Viper not to over aggro.. And kiting mobs around constantly can get really boring.. All depending on the area you are in of course..

[jjonj]

I really dont understand these people :S ?

Im leveling my hunter at the moment, just got 72 today, gonna be my 6'th level 80 char...
I love BM, and i have mainly been using that untill now.
I have dualspec survival, but mainly use that in instances and for soloing hard bosses etc (yes survival is better than BM for soloing the tough guys, the pet can die, but as survival you can quickly kill them by kiting from my experience)
I do level as survival some of the time, but i certainly dont expect my wolf to keep aggro O.o ?
I just kite em.. explosive shot, aimed shot explosive shot, while running backwards as needed, is usually what a mob takes, but as BM my pet is able to hold aggro, as long as i use one cooldown every mob. (kill command, BW and intimidation) also for BG's i go BM.
So yes, BM is still very viable

[erh]

what talents are needed for lvling as BM and which ones should be skipped?
any cookie-cutter BM leveling builds?

[Russelcoight]

Bm till you can get your hands on explosive shot , than survival all the way.

10-60 as Bm would probably be most effective. 60-80 survival is best imo.




Im a bit of a nerd for doing this but i have and orc and nelf hunter , one 70 and the other 80. Bm at the later levels in comparison to Survival is pathetic. Pet agro scales terribly and survival does more damage anyway.

[gaymer77]

Im a bit of a nerd for doing this but i have and orc and nelf hunter , one 70 and the other 80. Bm at the later levels in comparison to Survival is pathetic. Pet agro scales terribly and survival does more damage anyway.

I'm kinda in the same boat. 80 troll hunter, 70 BE hunter, and then on another server I've got a 65/66 NE hunter. Raided pre-BC with my NE for a little while when I took a break from my priest. Raided with my BE hunter in BC for a little bit when I would get tired of my priest & took him to our alt runs/lower lvl runs. Abandoned my troll pre-BC when I accidentally xferred to a normal server instead of a pvp server but xferred him to my server about 6 months ago & play on him during my downtime which includes alt Ulduar and ToC runs.

I have to completely disagree with people like yourself that say pet agro scales terribly at higher lvls. You have to MD to your pet when you are soloing things. BM does make things easier to kill since your pet (regardless of type) can take more dmg. Its increased HP and increased dmg via BM talents.

http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#0Vzcbfc0zh0oo its a good pet build to lvl up as BM

[Russelcoight]

I'm kinda in the same boat. 80 troll hunter, 70 BE hunter, and then on another server I've got a 65/66 NE hunter. Raided pre-BC with my NE for a little while when I took a break from my priest. Raided with my BE hunter in BC for a little bit when I would get tired of my priest & took him to our alt runs/lower lvl runs. Abandoned my troll pre-BC when I accidentally xferred to a normal server instead of a pvp server but xferred him to my server about 6 months ago & play on him during my downtime which includes alt Ulduar and ToC runs.

I have to completely disagree with people like yourself that say pet agro scales terribly at higher lvls. You have to MD to your pet when you are soloing things. BM does make things easier to kill since your pet (regardless of type) can take more dmg. Its increased HP and increased dmg via BM talents.

http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#0Vzcbfc0zh0oo its a good pet build to lvl up as BM

As survival i was taking on 3-5 mobs before misdirects cooldown even expired.

And despite using md as bm with a gorilla pet i still constantly pulled aggro. Only way not to pull aggro would have been to play like someone with downs and pretty much just auto attack.

I will also say as survival 95% of mobs died before they even got to me so there was no point in having a pet. I often just used it for intervene / roar of sac and general CC. This is all of course post 60. Prior to 60 bm is the way to go still imo because survival revolves around explosive shot almost entirely.



Without being a bit leetist , if your bm pet can hold aggro post 60/70 you are not putting out very efficient amounts of dps.

[Patty]

I'm kinda in the same boat. 80 troll hunter, 70 BE hunter, and then on another server I've got a 65/66 NE hunter. Raided pre-BC with my NE for a little while when I took a break from my priest. Raided with my BE hunter in BC for a little bit when I would get tired of my priest & took him to our alt runs/lower lvl runs. Abandoned my troll pre-BC when I accidentally xferred to a normal server instead of a pvp server but xferred him to my server about 6 months ago & play on him during my downtime which includes alt Ulduar and ToC runs.

I have to completely disagree with people like yourself that say pet agro scales terribly at higher lvls. You have to MD to your pet when you are soloing things. BM does make things easier to kill since your pet (regardless of type) can take more dmg. Its increased HP and increased dmg via BM talents.

http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#0Vzcbfc0zh0oo its a good pet build to lvl up as BM

I agree with this guy 100%.. I got a 80 Troll male hunter and a 78 Troll Female hunter.. Tried all 3 specs with both of them and yeah Bm for me all the way then at endlevel i specc whatever needed for the raids

[gaymer77]

As survival i was taking on 3-5 mobs before misdirects cooldown even expired.

And despite using md as bm with a gorilla pet i still constantly pulled aggro. Only way not to pull aggro would have been to play like someone with downs and pretty much just auto attack.

See that's your problem. People think that BM with a Tenacity pet means that you won't pull off them. That's not the case. A Ferocity pet for its high dps will hold agro on mobs much better. I tried Tenacity and would pull off my pet but with Ferocity I didn't. The difference is one is a "tank" pet and the other is a "dps" pet. Sadly growl is one of the worst skills your pet can have once both of you are in the x4-x9 lvl range since the scaling only happens every 10 lvls.

Without being a bit leetist , if your bm pet can hold aggro post 60/70 you are not putting out very efficient amounts of dps.

You couldn't be more wrong in your statement. Any hunter who isn't BM and can hold agro off their pet isn't putting out very efficient dmg. If you're BM with a Ferocity pet you shouldn't be pulling off them unless you have a pet that is severely under your lvl or you have growl off (yes I said its one of the worst skills but it does add continued threat) or you're using distracting shot or you don't let your pet start attacking before you start. You also shouldn't open up with aimed shot as BM because it will end up generating a lot of threat.