If BM is so bad why is it by far the most played hunter spec?

[C J]

Can't speak for anyone else, but I could not stand MM when I tried it, it felt horribly clunky, and I miss how Survival played as a ranged spec, Beast Mastery has the closest feel to it for me, rotation wise (even if the skills aren't remotely similar)

[Bearded Sith]

The REAL reason class representation is out of wack (as per your original question, OP), is not because "BM is unplayable".

Listen, when someone claims a spec is "unplayable" it's either because they personally hate it or something about it, or on the cutting edge of gameplay (Mythic raiding, etc.), one spec will perform slightly higher on certain fights than others.

In the REAL WORLD, all the specs are PLAYABLE and ENJOYABLE if that's your thing. All specs will perform as well as you play them and can be played at any level with dedication to it. However, people are sheep. They see a data log that says Marksman performs 1% better on Argus than Beast Mastery. OMG, BM IS UNPLAYABLE!!!

99% of the time it boils down to what spec YOU enjoy playing and how well YOU can master it. My main is a hunter, and my favorite thing to do is play Survival as much as humanly possible. But it has a higher learning curve, and quite bluntly, it's easy to mess up in a hurry. But when press the right buttons at the right time, phew, those number go soaring. So because of the higher level of difficulty of a spec, it might not "perform" as well in certain situations. Raids, Mythic+'s, etc. I PERFORM better at Beast Mastery because it's so easy to play. That, to finally answer your question, is the majority of the reason you see a lot more Beast Mastery Hunters than the other two specs.

There are a LOT of people that play WoW. The bleeding edge, performance focused players make up such a tiny amount of the population, just do not follow what they do.

Ignore the bleeding edge. They are their own thing.

[laumotor]

Because BM hunter can easy show off their effort of camping rare....

[Locruid]

SV is a shitty melee nobody wanted and MM has the garbage vulnerable and turret design.

\

Yup SV sure does suck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYDDvutD2i0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueL2Hfq3jqE

[Dastreus]

Pets, and I would love Marksman, but it was super changed in 7.2 and I do not like the change. Aimed Shot windows sucks, as does having to stand still.

[Krelivane]

It isn't bad though? It's one of the best DPS specs in the game at the moment. o.0

[Feanoro]

Because easy mode.

[GDM287]

that's the problem. randoms kept saying they wanted melee hunter and then nobody played it. i expect 9.0 to convert SV fully back to ranged. they are already prepping it by only giving it 1 melee ability in bfa.

I have played some on the alpha and SV is still melee. it does have some ranged ability's buts its a main hit looks like from what i have seen is raptor strike and it's really fun i like it better then live SV.

- - - Updated - - -

The REAL reason class representation is out of wack (as per your original question, OP), is not because "BM is unplayable".

Listen, when someone claims a spec is "unplayable" it's either because they personally hate it or something about it, or on the cutting edge of gameplay (Mythic raiding, etc.), one spec will perform slightly higher on certain fights than others.

In the REAL WORLD, all the specs are PLAYABLE and ENJOYABLE if that's your thing. All specs will perform as well as you play them and can be played at any level with dedication to it. However, people are sheep. They see a data log that says Marksman performs 1% better on Argus than Beast Mastery. OMG, BM IS UNPLAYABLE!!!

99% of the time it boils down to what spec YOU enjoy playing and how well YOU can master it. My main is a hunter, and my favorite thing to do is play Survival as much as humanly possible. But it has a higher learning curve, and quite bluntly, it's easy to mess up in a hurry. But when press the right buttons at the right time, phew, those number go soaring. So because of the higher level of difficulty of a spec, it might not "perform" as well in certain situations. Raids, Mythic+'s, etc. I PERFORM better at Beast Mastery because it's so easy to play. That, to finally answer your question, is the majority of the reason you see a lot more Beast Mastery Hunters than the other two specs.

There are a LOT of people that play WoW. The bleeding edge, performance focused players make up such a tiny amount of the population, just do not follow what they do.

Ignore the bleeding edge. They are their own thing.

Yea i agree, i enjoy BM just because it is more fun to ME. I only raid in heroic since the ppl i raid with are all cross realm folks from different severs. and most of the time in our raid group and in most pugs i out preform most MM ppl i run across. I think that is since i like the spec i am better at it, vs say some one that plays MM but is not good at but plays it because icy veins says its the best or logs says its the best or some well know hunter from some mythic raid guild that is know for being great says it the best. Both MM and BM are not really hard. I just like pets and find MM boring so why play the one i find boring or uninteresting to me. I will do better at the one i find the most fun. I don't think most BM ppl play it just because its so called easy most dps are easy. Its the pets man the pets.

[Talon8669]

Genuinely curious. Out of every 100 hunters I see while playing in PvE, 95 are BM, 5 are MM, and I haven't seen a single surv hunter in months

Lower skill cap and it ultimately doesn't SIM terribly lower than MM. In most cases people cannot perform at the 100% SIM rate anyways and playing BM nets them higher dps than if they played MM.

[Kaver]

I think standing still while shooting fits the Marksman fantasy well. I can however understand why people want high mobility. Although I believe classes with high mobility should do lower dps when stationary compared to a class with low mobility. This would compensate for the lower uptime the low mobility classes/specs have on the boss.

[rrayy]

The REAL reason class representation is out of wack (as per your original question, OP), is not because "BM is unplayable".

Listen, when someone claims a spec is "unplayable" it's either because they personally hate it or something about it, or on the cutting edge of gameplay (Mythic raiding, etc.), one spec will perform slightly higher on certain fights than others.

In the REAL WORLD, all the specs are PLAYABLE and ENJOYABLE if that's your thing. All specs will perform as well as you play them and can be played at any level with dedication to it. However, people are sheep. They see a data log that says Marksman performs 1% better on Argus than Beast Mastery. OMG, BM IS UNPLAYABLE!!!

99% of the time it boils down to what spec YOU enjoy playing and how well YOU can master it. My main is a hunter, and my favorite thing to do is play Survival as much as humanly possible. But it has a higher learning curve, and quite bluntly, it's easy to mess up in a hurry. But when press the right buttons at the right time, phew, those number go soaring. So because of the higher level of difficulty of a spec, it might not "perform" as well in certain situations. Raids, Mythic+'s, etc. I PERFORM better at Beast Mastery because it's so easy to play. That, to finally answer your question, is the majority of the reason you see a lot more Beast Mastery Hunters than the other two specs.

There are a LOT of people that play WoW. The bleeding edge, performance focused players make up such a tiny amount of the population, just do not follow what they do.

Ignore the bleeding edge. They are their own thing.

Well said. People that complain about it being unplayable say it for one specific reason or because it doesn't top the logs.

[Amazone]

BM isnt bad.

it beats the other hunters on single target parses.

It is bad eonar because pet has to move to the targets, a nd it is a melee not a range like mm.
On single target i get superb results, on aoe these weakness hit me, also in m+ where mm wins the dps race on fortified only I think, but mm hasnt got heroism and battle ress
on beta sv is back to ranged spec thank god that was a mistake.

way to many melee, and demon hunter so much more viable melee spec.
Placing traps exploding in your face dint make sense to me.
I know survival hunters in decent guildswere constantly asked to spec back to ranged because of too many melee, that is not a nice thing to ask.

Another thing was that BM were bottom dps aearly antorus they aren't anymore its how blizz gamedesign work theyc annot make it all even.

[Bepples]

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Yup SV sure does suck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYDDvutD2i0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueL2Hfq3jqE

You can smoke shit players in PvP as any spec. I 1v2d a couple Affliction Warlocks as BM. You know how? They had no fucking idea what they are doing. This is not impressive nor is it indicative of SV's potential. Instead you should look at the high-rated PvP statistics which detail how the good players are performing given the spec. Then you should note that the vast majority of Hunters are currently playing MM.

Also, you should comprehend that SV sucks for reasons other than relative power over other specs and numerical tuning.

- - - Updated - - -

It isn't bad though? It's one of the best DPS specs in the game at the moment. o.0

The community tends to have a pretty sour perception of BM. Also, BM Hunters point out playstyle issues all the time and a lot of people bemoan the relatively low output of the spec.

[crakerjack]

I've always wanted to try BM. Been MM since the release of the expansion. I like the idea of have complete mobility and not having to worry about mechanics.

[MonsieuRoberts]

1: Ranged
2: Pet class
3: Huge mobility

Same reason I gravitate toward Affliction.

[aikanaro]

So, MM plays like every other caster? Ooooh, how hard to stutter step or plan in advance your aimed shot dumps. It's not like you get to choose when to activate marked shot with incoming mechanics or have multiple mobility tools to make sure you minimize movement.

And for all your "troubles" MM is one of the best frequent priority target damage specs in the game as a result on top of some of the best aoe, unlike BM whhich has neither of those in exchange for mobility.

bold word explains exactly why i havent played mm since bc.. lol i dont like casters... that simple. however i quit hunter altogether this expansion because they removed the spec i have played since hte pre wrath patch.

[Rustov]

Personally- I don't like BM, but it's the only spec where the pet can hold agro on boss elites. Now I've invested so much time into it I can't switch to MMs rotation that easily. I'm hoping they add something like the old Misdirect Glyph back, or have Growl work on everything that's not a level-cap raid boss.

[Chickat]

Way off topic, but MM on beta is fun idk why people hate it.

[Perrito]

Cause lots of hunters signed up to be a ranged DPS with a pet and sadly that is only BM now...

yeah if pets only behave like they suppose to do I will agree with you. pets are a hindrance, they do not receive buffs, move correctly and do sometimes what ever they want.

I like hunter as a class I dislike how pets behave in wow.

[rrayy]

I've always wanted to try BM. Been MM since the release of the expansion. I like the idea of have complete mobility and not having to worry about mechanics.

Actually, you do have to worry about mechanics.