Thread: Beast Mastery Hunter Guide (4.3)

Contents:


1.0 Introduction
1.1 A few words
1.2 Abbreviations and Acronyms

2.0 Your Hunter
2.1 Race
2.2 Professions
2.3 Talents
2.4 Glyphs
- 2.4.1 Primary Glyphs
-- 2.4.1.1 Other Primary Glyphs
- 2.4.2 Major Glyphs
-- 2.4.2.1 Other Major Glyphs
2.5 Consumables
- 2.5.1 Food
- 2.5.2 Flask
- 2.5.3 Potion

3.0 Gear
3.1 Stats
- 3.1.1 Hit
- 3.1.2 Crit
- 3.1.3 Mastery
- 3.1.4 Haste
- 3.1.5 Mastery VS Haste?
3.2 Enchants
3.3 Gems
3.4 Leveling Heirlooms & Costs
- 3.4.1 Heirloom Enchants
3.5 T13 Set bonuses & some words

4.0 Rotation / Shot Priority

5.0 Your Pets
5.1 What pet to bring?
5.2 Pet Talents
5.3 Pet Tips

6.0 AoE
6.1 Multi-Shot
6.2 Explosive Trap
6.3 Worm / Chimera
- 6.3.1 Burrow Attack
- 6.3.2 Froststorm Breath
- 6.3.3 Worm or Chimera?

7.0 Macros

8.0 AddOns and Useful Sites
8.1 AddOns
8.2 Useful Sites

9.0 Change log



1.0 Introduction

1.1 A few words

This guide is meant for PvE purposes only, and should not be followed for PvP.

As BM we have the best burst of any of the specs because of Bestial Wrath and how often it can be used and how effective it is. Marksmanship has Burst for the first 10% of a Boss and every 3 minutes for 20 - 40 seconds. Survival relies on Lock & Load procs for their burst, which isn't very reliable IMO.


1.2 Abbreviations and Acronyms


Thanks to Whitefyst for the Abbreviations and Acronyms.


2.0 Your Hunter

2.1 Race

I parsed all races with Arbalest of Erupting Fury, used Ruthless Gladiator's Longbow for Troll w/ Bow, and Ruthless Gladiator's Rifle for Dwarf w/ Gun.

Orc: Blood Fury for increased AP, Command for increased pet damage, and Hardiness for recovering from stuns/snares faster.
Troll w/ Bow: Bow Specialization for 1% crit, Berserking for haste, Da Voodoo Shuffle for snare resistance, and Regeneration. -129 DPS
Worgen: Viciousness for 1% crit. Darkflight for increased movement speed and Aberration for decreased curse durations. -140 DPS
Dwarf w/ Gun: Gun Specialization for 1% crit, Frost Resistance, and Stoneform to remove some status ailments. -172 DPS
Troll w/o Bow: Berserking for haste, Da Voodoo Shuffle for snare resistance, and Regeneration. -183 DPS
Draenei: Heroic Presence for 1% hit, Shadow Resistance, and Gift of the Naaru for a heal. -195 DPS
Goblins: Time is Money for 1% attack speed. Rocket Jump for short burst movements and Rocket Barrage for some damage. -214 DPS
Blood Elf: Arcane Torrent for silencing nearby enemies and 15 focus every 2 mins and resistance to magic. -222 DPS
Night Elf: Shadowmeld, Nature Resistance, Quickness to avoid damage. -241 DPS
Human: Every Man for Himself to shake off speed reduction and traps. -248 DPS
Undead: Will of the Forsaken to remove certain status effects and Shadow Resistance. -252 DPS
Dwarf w/o Gun: Frost Resistance, and Stoneform to remove some status ailments. -255 DPS
Taurens: War Stomp for a stun, Nature Resistance, and Endurance for extra health. -255 DPS
Thanks to Whitefyst for saving me the time of looking up all of the racials for each race.


2.2 Professions

The following professions are all roughly equal for Hunters:

Leatherworking: 130 agi to bracers in place of the usual 50 agi enchant gives a DPS equivalent of 80 agility.
Blacksmithing is similar. An extra socket each in your wrists and gloves, each with a Delicate Inferno Ruby gives 80 agility
Alchemy: Mixology with your flask will give you 80 agility
Enchanting: 40 agi to each ring gives 80 agility
Inscription: Swiftsteel Inscription (130 agi/25 mastery) to shoulders in place of the Therazane enchant gives 80 agility
Engineering: The synapse springs with the 480 aqi proc is 80 agi on average. Engineering does have some other perks that increase survivability and may improve DPS uptime, including Flexweave Underlay, are further perks. Nitro Boosts now have a failure rate and can no longer be safely used in raids. Engineering does provide epic 359 helms with Cogwheel sockets to pick what secondary stats you want on it; however, these are obsolete in T12 content.
Jewelcrafting: 3 Delicate Chimera’s Eye instead of 3 Delicate Inferno Rubies gives 81 agility; however, Jewelcrafting becomes obsolete in T13 content with the introduction of epic gems.
Thanks to Whitefyst for saving me the time of looking up all professions.


2.3 Talents

There really isn't much wiggle room to choose when specializing as a BM Hunter.
This 31/7/3 Spec is generally what we want to go with, but you can also go with 31/10/1 and won't see much change at all, if any.
Do not do the ISS BM Build, I tested that spec extensively and it is just too clunky.



2.4 Glyphs

2.4.1 Primary Glyphs

Glyph of Kill Command - Required
Glyph of Arcane Shot - Required

2.4.1.1 Other Primary Glyphs

Glyph of Kill Shot - Recommended
Glyph of Rapid Fire - Optional
Glyph of Serpent Sting - Optional

2.4.2 Major Glyphs

Glyph of Bestial Wrath - Required

2.4.2.1 Other Major Glyphs

Glyph of Disengage - Recommended
Glyph of Raptor Strike - Recommended (but situational)
Glyph of Trap Launcher - Recommended
Glyph of Ice Trap - Optional
Glyph of Mending - Optional

2.5 Consumables

2.5.1 Food

Here are the food you'll want to use.

Skewered Eel
Fortune Cookie
Seafood Magnifique Feast

2.5.2 Flask

Flask of the Winds should be your Flask of choice unless your guild provides Flask of Battle

2.5.3 Potion

Potion of the Tol'vir



3.0 Gear

3.1 Stats

Hit 8% = 961 Rating 841if Draenei
Crit
Mastery or Haste

3.1.1 Hit

Gearing for the hit cap is generally a good idea. Ranged attacks have a 8% chance to miss against mobs 3 levels higher than us and each point of hit rating gives us 1/120.109%, so we need 961 hit to reach this, or 841 for Draenei.

3.1.2 Crit

Almost all abilities crit for 200% damage, or 206% damage with a Agile Shadowspirit Diamond. Some exceptions include Explosive Trap and Serpent Sting which uses spell crit damage (and crit chance) - 150%, or immolation trap which cannot crit.

3.1.3 Mastery

Mastery affects all damage done by our pet, including Kill Command, and each point of mastery increases pet damage by 1.7%. Mastery beats haste hands down.

3.1.4 Haste

Haste affects both the speed of your shots (cobra and auto) and your rate of focus regeneration. You need 128.057 haste rating to get 1% haste. Haste effects generally scale multiplicatively. If you have 32% haste from gear, 3% from Pathing, and Rapid Fire, a base casting time of X would now be X/1.32/1.03/1.4. Procs that increase haste rating will stack additively with your total haste rating value (32% in this example). Focus regeneration appears to be a base of 4 focus per second scaling multiplicatively with haste; i.e. 30% haste would be 4*1.3=5.2 fps. You will likely not see a huge increase in focus regen from upgrading gear. Haste is further devalued with the 2t13 bonus, as we will be using CoS a lot less.Haste affects both the speed of your shots (cobra and auto) and your rate of focus regeneration. You need 128.057 haste rating to get 1% haste. Haste effects generally scale multiplicatively. If you have 32% haste from gear, 3% from Pathing, and Rapid Fire, a base casting time of X would now be X/1.32/1.03/1.4. Procs that increase haste rating will stack additively with your total haste rating value (32% in this example). Focus regeneration appears to be a base of 4 focus per second scaling multiplicatively with haste; i.e. 30% haste would be 4*1.3=5.2 fps. You will likely not see a huge increase in focus regen from upgrading gear. Haste is further devalued with the 2t13 bonus, as we will be using CoS a lot less.

3.1.5 Mastery VS Haste

Mastery is beating Haste. But they are very close in theoretical damage that you won't really notice it at all.
Thanks to Nooska for writing up 3.1 > 3.1.4, no reason to redo something that is already perfect.

3.2 Enchants

Helm: Arcanum of the Ramkahen
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal or Swiftsteel Inscription if you're a Scribe.
Back: Enchant Cloak - Greater Critical Strike or Scroll of Enchant Cloak - Major Agility or Swordguard Embroidery if you're a Tailor.
Chest: Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats
Wrists: Enchant Bracer - Agility
Gloves: Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery or Scroll of Enchant Gloves - Major Agility
Belt: Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Legs: Dragonscale Leg Armor
Boots: Enchant Boots - Assassin's Step or Enchant Boots - Major Agility
Weapon: Enchant 2H Weapon - Mighty Agility
Ranged: Flintlocke's Woodchucker or Gnomish X-Ray Scope

3.3 Gems

Meta: Agile Shadowspirit Diamond
Red: Delicate Queen's Garnet or Delicate Inferno Ruby
Orange: Deadly Lava Coral or Deadly Ember Topaz
Purple: Glinting Shadow Spinel or Glinting Demonseye

3.4 Leveling Heirlooms & Costs

Shoulders: Champion Herod's Shoulder (2175 JP's)
Chest: Champion's Deathdealer Breastplate (2175 JP's)
Ranged: Charmed Ancient Bone Bow (3500 JP's) or Upgraded Dwarven Hand Cannon if Dwarf (3500 HPs')
Head: Tarnished Raging Berserker's Helm (1350G - Guild)
Back: Inherited Cape of the Black Baron (1200G - Guild)
Daggers: Balanced Heartseeker x2 (2175 x2 JP's)
Trinket: Swift Hand of Justice x2 (2725 x2 JP's) < Are not unique-equipped and will both proc

Total cost if you went all out:
2550 Gold.
16,550 Justice Points
3500 Honor Points
Thanks to untg for getting all the Heirloom information.

3.4.1 Heirloom Enchants

Shoulders: Zandalar Signet of Might
Chest: Scroll of Enchant Chest - Stats or Scroll of Enchant Chest - Major Health
Ranged: Standard Scope
Helm: Not Available.
Back: Scroll of Enchant Cloak - Stealth
Daggers: Scroll of Enchant Weapon - Agility

3.5 T13 Set bonuses & some words

2-piece set bonus: Steady Shot and Cobra Shot generate double the amount of focus.. This is really nice. You should switch to it immediately, even if this means you're downgrading from 391 > 384.
4-piece set bonus: Your Arcane Shot ability has a chance to grant 30% haste to you and your pet for 15 sec.. This looks very nice, especially for BM. How good we're unsure of as the ICD proc hasn't been reliably confirmed yet. It is definitely worth picking up though.



4.0 Rotation / Shot Priority

The most basic priority for single targets will be something like this:

1. If your pet is on the target, Kill Command
2. If the mob is going to live long enough, apply Serpent Sting.
3. If mob is below 20% health, Kill Shot
4. If Focus Fire is at 5 stacks and you're not under the effects of Bestial Wrath, use it.
5. If you have enough focus to cast Kill command on CD, Arcane Shot
6. Cobra Shot


Do not use Focus Fire during Bestial Wrath.
Always use Bestial Wrath when it comes off CD.
If you're an Engineer I recommend macro'ing your Synapse Springs to Bestial Wrath, it will up your DPS a lot more.
Do not overlap Berserking(Troll), Rapid Fire and Bestial Wrath. It just hurts you in the long run. Instead use Bestial Wrath first, Rapid Fire after BW fades and Berserking after Rapid Fire fades. Doing this will do better in the long run.
Macro any On Use Agility trinkets to BW.
Always bleed off excess focus with Arcane Shot while making sure you will still have enough to use Kill Command when it's off CD.
Use Rapid Fire and Berserking on CD as long as you're not in Bestial Wrath.
Use Fervor before Bestial Wrath if you're low on Focus and don't want to do Cobra Shots.. I also like using Fervor for AoE situations.
I know this probably goes without saying, but use Misdirection at the beginning of a fight and throughout the fight if needed.

But here's a rough guideline to follow for "rotations", always use your better judgement when it comes to your next attack. BM doesn't exactly have a rotation, it's constantly changing, unlike MM and SV.

When the boss is pulled:
Hunter's Mark before pull.
Make sure you prepot (use a Potion of Tol'vir just before entering combat)
Serpent Sting (This gives your pet time to get to the target)
Bestial Wrath (Synapse Springs & Blood Fury if Orc)
Kill Command
Arcane Shot spam (until Kill Command or Kill Shot come off CD)
Kill Command
Arcane Shot x2 (or 3 more times since Bestial Wrath is still up)

Bestial Wrath & Rapid Fire have faded:
Rapid Fire (repeat again if your a Troll when Rapid Fire as faded with Berserking slight)
Focus Fire (if at 5 stacks)
Cobra Shot (x1 or 2)
Kill Command
Arcane Shot (x2 or 3)
Cobra Shot (x2 or 3 depending on haste)
Kill Command
Cobra Shot x2
Arcane Shot x2
From this point on, till the boss is at 20% you just go back and forth between these two rotations.

Boss Under 20% Health and you're under the effects of Bestial Wrath:
If Serpent Sting or Hunter's Mark are not up, put them up again.
Bestial Wrath (Synapse Springs & Blood Fury if Orc)
Opt out Arcane Shot for Kill Shot when possible
Kill Command
Arcane Shot spam until Kill Command or Kill Shot come off CD.

Boss Under 20% Health:
If Serpent Sting or Hunter's Mark are not up, put them up again.
Focus Fire when at 5 Stacks.
Kill Command
Opt out Arcane Shot for a Kill Shot when possible
Cobra Shot x2 (or 3 depending on your Haste)



5.0 Your Pets

5.1 What pet to bring?

Ferocity and Cunning pets are both close in theoretical damage and require more numbers before one becomes more preferable than the other. Ferocity has the advantage of Rabid and Call of the Wild, although the long cooldown and short duration of Call of the Wild lessen its value (though it is greater for BM than for the other 2 specs, thanks to Longevity). Cunning has decent talents in Feeding Frenzy, Roar of Recovery, and Owl's Focus, but Wolverine Bite is currently poor.

5.2 Pet Talents

If you find your pet dying frequently on a certain fight I suggest using this spec...



5.3 Pet Tips

Make sure your CotW and RoR are not on autocast, you want to manually activate these along with your other cooldowns.
Do not have Prowl or Spirit Walk turned on, it will just cause your pet to take longer to reach the target.



6.0 AoE

6.1 Multi-Shot

Multi-Shot is our base AoE tool. It costs 40 focus and incurs a normal GCD as of 4.1. As BM we can couple Multishot with BW and fire them off at a cost of 20 focus, giving us 6 Multi-Shots back to back.

6.2 Explosive Trap

Explosive Trap is our other AoE ability. It has a small base damage (29 per tick) but with a 54.5% RAP coefficient it does a substantial amount of damage. It is also our most efficient ability by far, costing 0 focus if dropped in place or 20 focus with Trap Launcher (10 focus glyphed). Explosive Trap's major caveat is obviously that it requires the target(s) to stay in the targeted area for 20 seconds for full effect, making it impractical on some fights.

6.3 Worm / Chimera

Beast Mastery hunters can bring exotic pets, and in AoE situations this means we can increase our damage by bringing a Worm or a Chimaera.

6.3.1 Burrow Attack

The Worm can channel an AoE attack called Burrow Attack. When this is used the pet burrows underground for 8 seconds dealing damage every second. Burrow attack does 11.52% of our RAP + 205 damage per second over 8 seconds, so at 10k RAP burrow attack does 1357 dps to each enemy in the attacks radius. Burrow Attack is on a 30 second cooldown.

6.3.2 Froststorm Breath

The Chimaera also gets a channled AoE attack, Froststorm Breath. FsB does less damage as a base since it does 11.52% of our RAP + 205 every 2 seconds over 8 seconds, so at 10k RAP FsB does 678.5 dps (half of Burrow Attack). Froststorm Breath, unlike Burrow Attack, does not have a cooldown, so if the AoE situation lasts more than 16 seconds, Froststorm Breath will do higher dps while AoE'ing.

6.3.3 Worm or Chimera?

Chimera is for short Aoe fights or MOVING adds(Beth'tilac Spiderlings) fight while Worm is for longer AoE fights or STATIC adds fight(Rhyolith Fragments).
Thanks to Nooska for writing up 6.1 > 6.3.2, no reason to redo something that is already perfect.
Thanks to JackTheLad for mentioning this.



7.0 Macros

Now I know some may be irritated with the targetting and how Blizzard changed it a few patches back, so I found an easy way to deal with this by adding /startattack to the first line of each of our attacks.

From my understanding Rabid is buggy right now and not auto-casting like it should. So to fix this issue we simply add it into macros with our shots.

Bestial Wrath, Racial and Synapse Springs Macro
#showtooltip Bestial Wrath
/run sfx=GetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX");
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use 10
/cast Call of the Wild
/cast Blood Fury
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX",sfx);
/cast Bestial Wrath

Kill Command Macro
#showtooltip Kill Command
/startattack
/cast Rabid
/cast Kill Command

Arcane Shot Macro
#showtooltip Arcane Shot
/startattack
/cast Rabid
/cast Arcane Shot

Cobra Shot Macro
#showtooltip Cobra Shot
/startattack
/cast Rabid
/cast Cobra Shot

Scatter Shot Macro
#showtooltip Scatter Shot
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Scatter Shot
/cast Scatter Shot

Tranquilizing Shot Macro
#showtooltip Tranquilizing Shot
/cast [@mouseover, harm][harm] Tranquilizing Shot

Hawk > Fox Macro
#showtooltip
/castsequence !Aspect of the Hawk, !Aspect of the Fox

Cancel Immunity Macro
#showtooltip
/cancelaura Deterrence
/cancelaura Hand of Protection

Misdirect Macro
#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [target=focus, exists, nodead],[target=pet, exists, nodead] Misdirection

Pet Macro
#showtooltip
/cast [@pet,dead][mod:shift] Revive Pet
/cast [pet,nomod,button:1] Mend Pet
/cast [pet,nomod,button:2] Dismiss Pet



8.0 AddOns and Useful Sites

8.1 AddOns

Qulight UI: This is a complete UI replacement addon built off Tukui by Tukz.
Serenity: Serenity is the replacement for JS' Hunter Bar.
xCT: xCT is a very lightweight combat text addon (20- 30kb mem usage)
BigWigs: Boss-mod.
Skada: Skada is a modular damage meter with various viewing modes. It is inspired mainly by Assessment, but also by Recount.

8.2 Useful Sites

Zeherah's Hunter DPS Analyzer: Hunter simulation tool.
Reforge-Calc: Great place to go to for a quick and accurate reforging tool.
WHU: Constantly updated and always has great info and Hunter discussions.
Petopia: Great source to find a specific pet you want.
Elitist Jerks: Very useful theorcrafting info and a well-known guild.
Manaflask: Great place for any kind of Info about World of Warcraft you could possibly want.
Noxxic: A site with quick and useful information about all classes and specs.
Joystiq: Great Hunter info as always.
WoWHead: A place where you can quickly search for anything you might want.



9.0 Change log
9/5/2012 Reverted the rotation changes. Thanks for confirming what is actually better, Kissthebaby
6/5/2012 Changed opening rotation the best I could with 4p T13 proc'ing annoyingly. Thanks for pointing that out, Namarus
22/2/2012 Changed from Midnight Blue to Gold4 for easier viewing.
9/1/2012 Changed a few things in the Stats section.
30/12/2011 Changed few things.
28/12/2011 Added some information about Jewelcrafting. Thanks qui and Pope
27/12/2011 Cleaned up the Change log. I'll start doing this monthly if it is necessary.
23/12/2011 Updated rotations to accommodate T13 and also updated AoE pets.
11/12/2011 Haste vs. Mastery update.
1/12/2011 Added T13 and epic gems.

Originally Posted by Bassch

As a BM Hunter myself, I must say this is a really nice guide . Hopefully it gets stickied. You might want to add in the race preferrences for people that are unsure, and mabye add in when to use their own racials again, in case people are unsure .

Thank you. Sure, I'll add the race preference and Racial usage.

Just doing parses now with BiS gear..

Awesome - just dual specced to BM and couldn't find a guide on here.

Nice job

Originally Posted by Sonaxiano

Why play BM when the best to specs for PvE is Surv and Marksman.

This is not true at all, a good BM Hunter can out DPS and keep up with MM and SV with ease.

I may be wrong but from what I know only marksman gain focus from Rapid fire.

What's wrong is that people are still in the WotLK mindset and refuse to acknowledge that BM is doing very well again.

---------- Post added 2011-08-21 at 12:12 PM ----------

Originally Posted by mööh

I may be wrong but from what I know only marksman gain focus from Rapid fire.

Still increases Haste greatly, thus increasing Focus regen as well as faster Cobra Shots which again increase Focus.

Very well said, Firebyrd.

I used to actually use the Glyph of Mending, but then I just found that my pet really was not getting hit at all and since they take like 90% reduced damage from AoE the Bloodthirsty talent heals it quickly. I personally just find that Raptor Strike and Disengage come in handy a bit more, although Raptor Strike is situational it does help a great deal.

As for Heart of the Phoenix, I used to carry around a spare pet for certain fights where my pet usually died. Fights that come to mind; Nefarian, Chimearon, and Magmaw. Would just get gibbed in those fights. There isn't any need for this pet so far in Firelands, but here's the spec I used. http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#mdd00fc0zhoRb

Originally Posted by Helfarch

Are you saying that haste and mastery are of equal value for a BM Hunter?

They are. After you hit your target Haste plateau, Crit overtakes them both and the values of Haste and Mastery become dead even until the next plateau is attainable. The math has shown neither to be better than the other. Certain fights will favor one slight more than the other but the severity is hardly worth making a broad reforging assessment.

Wow, nice guide. This sort of made me want to play BM. Then I remembered I have a craving to get rare pets when I go BM. So that stomped that light out.

Originally Posted by Amorise

They are. After you hit your target Haste plateau, Crit overtakes them both and the values of Haste and Mastery become dead even until the next plateau is attainable. The math has shown neither to be better than the other. Certain fights will favor one slight more than the other but the severity is hardly worth making a broad reforging assessment.

From what I've read, Mastery isn't worth it. While it sounds good in practice, it only affects our pets DPS, where the other 2 affect both our pets and our dps. Ive also read that both haste and crit are also on par with each other. To be honest, I hear different stat priorities from so many different places. I dont know what to think now.