[7.3] Azortharion's Hunter Guides

[bazzzyl]

Bestial Ferocity 3x stackable with Qa'pla.
TT hits with aoe.
Dire Beasts also affected by Thunderslash.

Choose one.

[Gaaz]

I mean, tuning is not rocket science. If the only objective was to make BM catch up to MM, then they could just turn the damage knob on all of BM's abilities. Bit of a band-aid solution, of course, they'd have to do it again as gear gets better and MM outscales BM on those grounds.

I thought that all BM attacks are a function of the attack power. If you want to increase performance and fix scaling for BM without the ever doing the usual "5% buff" each patch, you can just increase the scaling of damage for main attack abilities. Finding exact formula really is not, as you say, rocket science, so I am still confused as to why blizz did not do that already. Unless the gap is intentional that is. But in itself, making a fluidly changing with better gear modifier is a relatively simple concept. Especially since all player damage already is calculated in a similar way. They can even make breaks at certain gear levels if they are so afraid to skew balance at lower levels. For example:
Damage = Current damage x Y where "Y" is a square root of (Current AP / 50000) and can not be less than 1.
This way you get a fluid multiplier for players with above 50k attack power that increases in potency as gear progresses. Too much scaling? Make it a cube root. Still too much? Make it quadruple, quintuple etc...

[Mavick]

The historical issue is how BM scales with weapon ilevel, as Azor pointed out with the inverse example of MM. The sort of fix that solves this is making all classes that scale with weapon ilevel (or don't do it well, like BM) scale more like casters do. That should make it easier to balance across the board. Anything outside of that is just simply going to make BM dependent on "band aid" fixes coming in at different points that keep ramping our abilities damage up more and more as other classes continue to outscale us.

[Deleted]

They would have to redisgn BM as not being braindead to play, but that's not something they want, nor is it something the community wants.
They can't give out equal damage for free. BM is in a good spot right now, if it falls too far behind, they'll just deliver some aura tweaks.

If you only go with 1 spec and never switch, I'd go with MM.

Yet a lot of the community like BM hunters for what they are, a relaxed spec. I can assure you if you asked all the raiding BM hunters in the world, a lot of them are going to say they see no problems with the rotation and enjoy playing a spec that is not as demanding as some other specs.

Not giving equal damage for free is bullshit, and you know it, frost mage is as braindead and easy to play as BM, gets insane damage output. For BM it comes down to the fact that blizzard isn't thinking properly on how to fix the spec. Make BM mastery also apply a 50% increase to the hunter's own abilities, would bring it up quite a bit. Then again they'd probably have to rebalance CS damage output a bit or it would probably overtake KC's damage by quite a bit.

[Deleted]

Yet a lot of the community like BM hunters for what they are, a relaxed spec. I can assure you if you asked all the raiding BM hunters in the world, a lot of them are going to say they see no problems with the rotation and enjoy playing a spec that is not as demanding as some other specs.

Why "yet"? That is exactly what I was saying.

Not giving equal damage for free is bullshit, and you know it, frost mage is as braindead and easy to play as BM, gets insane damage output. For BM it comes down to the fact that blizzard isn't thinking properly on how to fix the spec. Make BM mastery also apply a 50% increase to the hunter's own abilities, would bring it up quite a bit. Then again they'd probably have to rebalance CS damage output a bit or it would probably overtake KC's damage by quite a bit.

Aura tweaks are more than enough to balance any and everything as long as the basics are set. No need to do anything else.
And I can't really speak about frostmages and how they play but I'm pretty sure Frost Bolts and Ebenbolts aren't (always?) castable on the move.

I thought that all BM attacks are a function of the attack power. If you want to increase performance and fix scaling for BM without the ever doing the usual "5% buff" each patch, you can just increase the scaling of damage for main attack abilities.

Same result.


whether KC does 1+*800%ap*1,05(aura) or 1+*840%ap("scaling buff") - same thing.
Aura tweaks are easier to implement and adjust and it's less risky to fuck something up because you don't have to adjust every single % scaling manually.

[Deleted]

Why "yet"? That is exactly what I was saying.



Aura tweaks are more than enough to balance any and everything as long as the basics are set. No need to do anything else.
And I can't really speak about frostmages and how they play but I'm pretty sure Frost Bolts and Ebenbolts aren't (always?) castable on the move.

Same result.


whether KC does 1+*800%ap*1,05(aura) or 1+*840%ap("scaling buff") - same thing.
Aura tweaks are easier to implement and adjust and it's less risky to fuck something up because you don't have to adjust every single % scaling manually.

You can shimmer and it doesn't interrupt your cast when you land, so a mage shouldn't really have many issues if played correctly.

[Gaaz]

Same result.
whether KC does 1+*800%ap*1,05(aura) or 1+*840%ap("scaling buff") - same thing.
Aura tweaks are easier to implement and adjust and it's less risky to fuck something up because you don't have to adjust every single % scaling manually.

Not exactly what I was proposing. There is no need to manually adjust damage "aura" buff or fix it to a particular number. It will happen automatically and very fluidly. This is especially important to situations where there is a large range of available stats that change dynamically. For example, a hunter with 50k agility hits for waaay less than a hunter with 60k agility with special attacks. The scaling is not linear as far as I understand. So applying the same 5% aura to both might not be the correct way. That is why we recalculate stat weights every time as well. In your example it would look like this:
A hunter with 50k agility gets a 1 + (800%ap)*1.00 damage
A hunter with 60k agility gets a 1 + (800%ap)*1.046 damage (cuad root relation)
Basically, to fix scaling you make a dynamic modifier depending on the main stat through a root relation (just for example, it can be any other non linear dependency).
But that is just a hypothesis and an idea of the top of my head, nothing more. Also, if damage is in linear progression derived from the main stat, then yes, it is much easier to fix with a simple aura buff. I doubt that is the case however. And if so, aura buff will disproportionally increase attack at low gear levels, while lessening the impact at higher gear levels.

[Deleted]

Hello all,

Kind of bored waiting for Antorus (guild cleaned easily HM ToS but we are not enough atm to start MM), i started leveling an alt, my warlock.
Im a really lazy player and always focus on a single character per extension. I only switch classes from extension to extension, if it happens.

I really really enjoy both classes (main MMHunter, alt AffLock).
While im stuffing my alt and farming some ap, its some time that i dont invest in my hunter main.
(Actually got all MM legendaries except the ring and got one for the BM spec - Parsel's Tongue)

SO ! My question is, did any of you have some feed back from the ptr of the current state of the hunter (MM/BM compared to all but principaly to warlocks) ? I suppose that the 'dps chart' will not vary that much from now.

On one hand, MM feel really harder to play than AffLock but it feels more rewarding i think. On the other hand, AffLock is relatively easy and feel smoother to play for the same result.
Im not locked either on rolling BM but i never really tested it on the current content.

Any PTR guy here to give me some advices ? Thx a lot in advance and sorry for my english, not my native langage tbh.

[Tehterokkar]

Hello all,

Kind of bored waiting for Antorus (guild cleaned easily HM ToS but we are not enough atm to start MM), i started leveling an alt, my warlock.
Im a really lazy player and always focus on a single character per extension. I only switch classes from extension to extension, if it happens.

I really really enjoy both classes (main MMHunter, alt AffLock).
While im stuffing my alt and farming some ap, its some time that i dont invest in my hunter main.
(Actually got all MM legendaries except the ring and got one for the BM spec - Parsel's Tongue)

SO ! My question is, did any of you have some feed back from the ptr of the current state of the hunter (MM/BM compared to all but principaly to warlocks) ? I suppose that the 'dps chart' will not vary that much from now.

On one hand, MM feel really harder to play than AffLock but it feels more rewarding i think. On the other hand, AffLock is relatively easy and feel smoother to play for the same result.
Im not locked either on rolling BM but i never really tested it on the current content.

Any PTR guy here to give me some advices ? Thx a lot in advance and sorry for my english, not my native langage tbh.

Nobody knows what spec will be best, not just for Hunters, but for all DPS specs. They have done 0 tuning(other than some Windwalker changes) to specs or the tier bonuses within Antoras(some specs still prefer T20 at this point).

Unless something drastic changes, MM will be slightly ahead of BM assuming perfect play of MM just like it is now in ToS. Both specs are completely viable, you won't get told to go MM by playing BM even in very top end guilds(top 100 world rank), unless an encounter is totally broken for MM(like early KJ was for Sidewinders build).

MM is a much more challenging than BM, or even Affliction to a certain degree. As MM you are much more reliant on standing still at certain times, where Affliction has some wiggle room because most of its damage is based around DoTs and a fast-ticking channel. You should definitely give BM a try, you don't really need any specific BM legendaries, most BM hunters have Prydaz/Sephuz combo as their highest simming combo at the moment. But if you don't own Nighthold T19 2p, the BM chest is a very strong legendary. It's best to always sim your character through raidbots.com to find out the best combination.

Considering you are only doing heroic raids with your guild, just play what you want, what feels the most fun. If your officers don't like you switching to some spec that is 5% less DPS on simulations, then they are retarded because those sims are done with gear they will never achieve in heroic in the first place.

[Azortharion]

So Antorus is right around the corner and there will be guide updates coming soon to reflect the new set bonuses and so on.

Marksmanship may have some rotational considerations with the T21 2pc (just makes it easier honestly). Beast Mastery presents a new labyrinth of potentially good builds (if you don't know how to sim your whole gear setup yourself yet, now is a good time, video guide: https://youtu.be/B7gDtmlUSAM).

Writing the guide for Beast Mastery is by far the most difficult for this reason. Literally any legendary, and I mean any legendary, can be the BiS for you even if you have all Legendaries available. It's a damn mess is what it is.

Survival, so far, remains mostly the same, again not with many overwhelming changes.

[keygy]

So Antorus is right around the corner and there will be guide updates coming soon to reflect the new set bonuses and so on.

Marksmanship may have some rotational considerations with the T21 2pc (just makes it easier honestly). Beast Mastery presents a new labyrinth of potentially good builds (if you don't know how to sim your whole gear setup yourself yet, now is a good time, video guide: https://youtu.be/B7gDtmlUSAM).

Writing the guide for Beast Mastery is by far the most difficult for this reason. Literally any legendary, and I mean any legendary, can be the BiS for you even if you have all Legendaries available. It's a damn mess is what it is.

Survival, so far, remains mostly the same, again not with many overwhelming changes.

lol the bm thing its because the new bonuses that huge is the change azor?

[Banard]

Beast Mastery presents a new labyrinth of potentially good builds.

Writing the guide for Beast Mastery is by far the most difficult for this reason. Literally any legendary, and I mean any legendary, can be the BiS for you even if you have all Legendaries available. It's a damn mess is what it is.

but its the simplest to play!

[Azortharion]

lol the bm thing its because the new bonuses that huge is the change azor?

Well no, there's a labyrinth of BM builds right now as well. All I am saying is that trend continues going into the new tier. If anything it expands a bit with the addition of a new tier set, and T19 2pc still being pretty good. Simple to play, pretty difficult to optimize gear for. ^^

[Tehterokkar]

Majority will find Sephuz+Prydaz as their BiS due to their secondary stats scaling better than Legendary effects if your gear ilvl is roughly the same across all slots. If you have like a 950 neck and 930 boots, then most likely legendary boots is better than prydaz.

[Azortharion]

Yeah, we'll see.

[Alias92]

Hi guys,i've been following this site for a while but i post for the first time today.I have a BM hunter 933ilvl,no tier gear at all, all legendaries for the spec except the apex predators ring, for trinkets i use CoF 930ilvl (i was lucky with the relinquished tokens) and engine of eradication 910ilvl from ToS NM.What is the best combination of legendaries for the frenzy build you suggest that i use? Mainly for some M+ and NM/HM Antorus? Atm i am using Parsel's Tongue with the boots.Can you suggest anything else? (no need to use sims, and thanks for the info).

[Azortharion]

Probably Mantle + Parsel, but you have to sim these things for yourself, it's just the only way to know. When I say Mantle+Parsel, it's just a guess, it helps that you have no tier gear because then you don't have to compromise on that front, although your main concern atm should be getting some T20 4p at the very least.

Parsel loses value in Mythic+, as well.



Use this video if you haven't to work out simming it for yourself, it's pretty easy and it is something that'll help you in Antorus, Battle for Azeroth and probably beyond.
For simming Mythic+ trash, I like to go with 3-4 targets Patchwerk on a fight of a minute or so, that works for most trash packs but ymmv.
Mythic+ bosses are 1-3 minutes depending on what levels you are doing, affixes etc.

[Alias92]

Thanks for the advice man, keep up the good work you are doing.

[nidosarg]

Sidewinders is gonna to be insane in Eonar Fight

Dont know if the little add can be gripped by dks? And burst them with a Warriors/Rogues

[Aciddot]

Sidewinders is gonna to be insane in Eonar Fight

Dont know if the little add can be gripped by dks? And burst them with a Warriors/Rogues

I think if cc is coordinated well and adds are clumped, a non-sidewinders build will still be better. The marked shot spam during Trueshot is too good.