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  1. #21
    It's not one issue that's hurting BM (IMO, I know many love the changes), but several.

    The effect of the heavy-handed GCD changes kill the flavor of the spec for me. BM has been a fast paced run-n-gun style where you set up burst windows and then go big red kitty bang bang for 15 seconds. It feels really good and rewarding when you set it up right. The GCD now severely limits that, and popping CD's doesn't "feel" like it used to.

    Without that good bursty feeling, and the addition of micro-managing a tedious, boring, unrewarding frenzy buff makes the spec feel like a lot of work without the "moment of glory" anymore.

    The fun just isn't there, but it could be with some minor changes. Here's what I thought the spec should have been for BFA:

    1.) Pets: eliminate pet focus, place their abilities on CD's. Pet focus adds nothing to the game. Instead of pet families, have leatherworkers craft collars that go in a pet inventory slot that gives the ability you want. That gives the player the freedom to have the pet they want paired with the ability they want. More choices = more fun.

    2.) Cobra shot resetting KC during BW. THIS is the ability that should have gone baseline, not dire frenzy. It's fun, bursty, and feels good. Get rid of barbed shot, bring back dire beast spam, and make the KC reset baseline.

    3.) Rollback this GCD nonsense. This does not make the game better. If burst macros are a problem, come up with a solution that doesn't hurt the entire game. On-use trinks were given a small shared CD so they couldn't be used together, and the change didn't rape the entire game.

    Just a few changes that for me would have made the spec more fun. If BM needed a bit more complexity, add some dots for us to maintain that don't require staring at a weakaura nonstop for 3 tiers of content.

  2. #22
    For me, BM has just become a mini-game of "build and maintain 3 stacks". I haven't used any addons before that tracked buffs/debuffs, and don't feel like starting now.
    But trying to keep an eye on my pet's buff while doing everything else is NOT fun.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Squiggit View Post
    Well from this thread it sounds like a lot of people were drawn to BM specifically because it was an easy spec.
    Yep, in the meanwhile half the melee specs in the game are like "press 1 to build resource, press 2 if resource full, press 3 on cd or if it procced, the end", why can't the game have 1 non overcomplicated ranged spec? What are we supposed to play? Frost mage? Assuming they don't implement another form of bullshit like "you have to blink during icelance to maximize dps" or something. No wonder guilds struggle to recruit ranged and everyone wants to play melee. Not only they don't have to deal with half the mechanics except sporadic boss that requires interrupts, but there are plenty of specs that have low level of complexity.

    I played survival when it was ranged and the biggest "complexity" was keeping up your serpent sting and black arrow dots. I played MM when everything was castable on the move including aimed shot, and I actually enjoyed it even before HFC 4set that made aimed instant cast. And now suddenly let's rewrite history and say hunters are meant to be super complex in every spec of theirs.

    Is there any noob friendly ranged spec left in the game I can casually enjoy on my alt? Doesn't seem hunter has one, aff lock isn't one either, spriest lost the appeal when they removed COP, so I don't even know.

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Felixon View Post
    I don't understand why people are complaining - the new BM looks way better,it even became challenging in comparison to the previous 2 button spec.
    I don't see BFA BM as challenging, I see it as tedious. It's like writing 500 sentences in school because you told the teacher off. Ya, writing 500 sentences is challenging, but what's challenging about it is not the skill required to write sentences. It's challenging because you have to force yourself to write all 500 when you want to be doing something else.

  5. #25
    well OP it's because it is, people like to conceal their bragging into claiming that everything is a piece of cake (for them) but the reality is that it's a fair spec, it's by no means complex but in practice multiple things happen roughly at the same time and you need to prioritize them

    and if you mess up you DO get punished: if your frenzy stacks fall off you lose alot of DPS, if you give into the tempation of immediately hitting Barbed Shot again you lose even more

    there's really no reason to give crap to this spec, sure it's not among the hardest specs to play but it's fair

  6. #26
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Cyanu View Post
    well OP it's because it is, people like to conceal their bragging into claiming that everything is a piece of cake (for them) but the reality is that it's a fair spec, it's by no means complex but in practice multiple things happen roughly at the same time and you need to prioritize them

    and if you mess up you DO get punished: if your frenzy stacks fall off you lose alot of DPS, if you give into the tempation of immediately hitting Barbed Shot again you lose even more

    there's really no reason to give crap to this spec, sure it's not among the hardest specs to play but it's fair
    Truer words have never been spoken when it comes to BM.

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Marrilaife View Post

    Is there any noob friendly ranged spec left in the game I can casually enjoy on my alt? Doesn't seem hunter has one, aff lock isn't one either, spriest lost the appeal when they removed COP, so I don't even know.
    Arcane mage is very simple now, also Boomkin is significantly reduced in complexity now that Full Moon is a (not very competitive) talent.

  8. #28
    And here I thought the point of barbed shot was just to maintain the bleed debuff on your target. Shows what I know. The talents change up the rotation and abilities quite a bit depending on what you're running.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Marrilaife View Post
    Is there any noob friendly ranged spec left in the game I can casually enjoy on my alt? Doesn't seem hunter has one, aff lock isn't one either, spriest lost the appeal when they removed COP, so I don't even know.
    Often the difference between a noob friendly spec and a pro spec is just whether you pick the more active/passive talents or sacrifice a small bit of dps vs min/maxing the rotation. BM hunter isn't that much more complicated than before for me (honestly before I thought it was too boring and excessively simple, now it seems about right), but that's probably because I'm playing it sub-optimally. I say fun matters more, especially for alts I'm not actually going to do upper level raids with.

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by ydraw View Post
    Arcane mage is very simple now,
    Is it much changed from Legion? Didn't try it on prepatch, but I played Arcane in Legion and fights like heroic Aggramar made me want to go delete my mage. If you couldn't stand still and pump arcane blasts during your arcane power window your dps was in the trash can.

    One cool thing about BM hunter was bestial wrath cd reduction mechanic made it pop so often you didn't have to pin point and time your "1 moment of glory" you were basically popping it on cd unless you expected to not be able to dps at all (Imonar bridge for example). So it added to "noob friendliness" of the spec.

    It's kinda like playing havoc DH in Legion with chaos blades (have to time them well together with meta) and with demonic (you have meta very often so you just go for the uptime).

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by un1ty View Post
    Yeah, BM was so relaxing without the stupid buff stacking and now it's baseline... I planned to switch from Shadow to BM for BfA, but now I dunno... I'll test and see.
    It still is.. It's just something you need to get used to but it's not going to be hard to just track your pets frenzy and only used barbed shot when there's 1-3 seconds remaining on that buff. You shouldn't use barbed shot at other times (not even when you are sat at 2 stacks due to higher ammounts of wild call procs. Most important thing is maintaining those 3 stacks of frenzy on the pet (and in doing so thrill of the hunt stacks on yourself if you've chosen that talent).

    Cant emphasise enough that Barbed shot should not be used simply because you have 2 stacks.... It should only be used to maintain the frenzy / thrill of the hunt stacks. Using Barbed shot at 2 stacks when uneccesary to maintain frenzy simply increases the chance that you will find yourself with no stacks of barbed shot later when your frenzy is about to fall off.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by AdrianCC100 View Post
    I do try and keep 3 stacks on Barbed Shot. I will refresh the buff when there is about 2.5 seconds duration left. Guides I read say that you should never sit on 2 charges of Barbed Shot, but you want to keep at least 1 charge of Barbed Shot at all times so you have a charge to refresh the buff.
    You should sit on 2 stacks of barbed shot.... Barbed shot should only ever be used to maintain Frenzy / toth. Using barbed shot at 2 stacks at any other time simply increases your chance of getting to a point later in your rotation where you have no barbed shot stackss available when your frenzy / thrill of the hunt is about to drop off.

    Sitting on 2 stacks of barbed shots helps protect you against bad RNG with wild call procs (wild call = auto shot crits give you an extra stack of barbed shot). If you go a while with no auto shot crits it's possible to have zero barbed shots available when you need to refresh frenzy / toth even if you'd only been using barbed shot at 1-3 seconds remaining on frenzy / toth every time... so if you are using barbed shot simply to stop it capping on 2 stacks then you are just going to make this problem even more common.

    Besides all this it's very rare that you will find yourself sitting at 2 stacks of barbed shot outside of heroism unless you pick One with the pack. I'm at 48% crit out of combat unbuffed (goes as high as 68% in combat with procs and aspect of the wild up) and even if I only ever refresh frenzy stacks at 1-2 seconds left I still sometimes get very close to not having a stack of barbed shot available when I need it..... Crit will likely never be much higher than this in BFA (certainly not before the final tier of the xpac) so you are never going to be getting more wild call procs in BFA than you currently do in Legion.

    The only exception to all of this is if your Chimaera shot / kill command is about to become available during the 1-2 seconds remaining on frenzy when you need to refresh it. You don't want to delay Chimaera or KC but you also can't afford to lose your frenzy / thrill of the hunt procs by using Chimaera / KC immedately. So for example if you are going to need fire Chimaera shot and kill command at the same time as you need to refresh barbed shot then it's worth refreshing Frenzy a couple of seconds earlier than usual so that you don't have to delay Chimaera / kill command.

    TLDR: Only ever use barbed shot to maintain frenzy / toth stacks
    Last edited by Paulosio; 2018-07-22 at 01:07 PM.

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Erondur View Post
    Truer words have never been spoken when it comes to BM.
    A frenzy weak aura makes cake work of the mechanic. Seriously, it's one of the most simple mechanics out there when it comes to spec design. WW monks, for instance, have a chance every time they press a button for their stacks to fall off. On top of a much more difficult burst window where messing up cost you a good amount. When it comes to difficulty BM is close to the bottom of the pole, it might not be the very bottom, but it is certianly close. This is the first time I think in the history of the game where I have seen a quite a few BM hunters try to claim they are up on the list of difficulty.

  12. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Paulosio View Post
    You should sit on 2 stacks of barbed shot.... Barbed shot should only ever be used to maintain Frenzy / toth. Using barbed shot at 2 stacks at any other time simply increases your chance of getting to a point later in your rotation where you have no barbed shot stackss available when your frenzy / thrill of the hunt is about to drop off.

    <snip>

    TLDR: Only ever use barbed shot to maintain frenzy / toth stacks

    And you tell us this based on simulations and math, or based on your own opinion? I'd like to see the proof behind this behaviour being better than optimising your WC procs and not wasting them and their potential focus gain, tbh.

  13. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Valkaneer View Post
    WW monks, for instance, have a chance every time they press a button for their stacks to fall off.
    You mean hit combo? That's dead now since it's nerfed. Everyone's back to picking Xuen for ST and RJW for aoe.

  14. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by Paulosio View Post
    It still is.. It's just something you need to get used to but it's not going to be hard to just track your pets frenzy and only used barbed shot when there's 1-3 seconds remaining on that buff. You shouldn't use barbed shot at other times (not even when you are sat at 2 stacks due to higher ammounts of wild call procs. Most important thing is maintaining those 3 stacks of frenzy on the pet (and in doing so thrill of the hunt stacks on yourself if you've chosen that talent).

    Cant emphasise enough that Barbed shot should not be used simply because you have 2 stacks.... It should only be used to maintain the frenzy / thrill of the hunt stacks. Using Barbed shot at 2 stacks when uneccesary to maintain frenzy simply increases the chance that you will find yourself with no stacks of barbed shot later when your frenzy is about to fall off.

    - - - Updated - - -



    You should sit on 2 stacks of barbed shot.... Barbed shot should only ever be used to maintain Frenzy / toth. Using barbed shot at 2 stacks at any other time simply increases your chance of getting to a point later in your rotation where you have no barbed shot stackss available when your frenzy / thrill of the hunt is about to drop off.

    Sitting on 2 stacks of barbed shots helps protect you against bad RNG with wild call procs (wild call = auto shot crits give you an extra stack of barbed shot). If you go a while with no auto shot crits it's possible to have zero barbed shots available when you need to refresh frenzy / toth even if you'd only been using barbed shot at 1-3 seconds remaining on frenzy / toth every time... so if you are using barbed shot simply to stop it capping on 2 stacks then you are just going to make this problem even more common.

    Besides all this it's very rare that you will find yourself sitting at 2 stacks of barbed shot outside of heroism unless you pick One with the pack. I'm at 48% crit out of combat unbuffed (goes as high as 68% in combat with procs and aspect of the wild up) and even if I only ever refresh frenzy stacks at 1-2 seconds left I still sometimes get very close to not having a stack of barbed shot available when I need it..... Crit will likely never be much higher than this in BFA (certainly not before the final tier of the xpac) so you are never going to be getting more wild call procs in BFA than you currently do in Legion.

    The only exception to all of this is if your Chimaera shot / kill command is about to become available during the 1-2 seconds remaining on frenzy when you need to refresh it. You don't want to delay Chimaera or KC but you also can't afford to lose your frenzy / thrill of the hunt procs by using Chimaera / KC immedately. So for example if you are going to need fire Chimaera shot and kill command at the same time as you need to refresh barbed shot then it's worth refreshing Frenzy a couple of seconds earlier than usual so that you don't have to delay Chimaera / kill command.

    TLDR: Only ever use barbed shot to maintain frenzy / toth stacks
    This has been discussed several times on hunter discord and all the top theorycrafters agree that you never sit on 2 charges, ever. So I would say this is bad and incorrect advice to be giving.

  15. #35
    Deleted
    BM being hard?? dont make me laugh. It's all about keeping barbed shot at 3 stacks and keeping kill command on cd as your major cooldown, chimera can be used last.

  16. #36
    The GCD change really makes this spec hurt. Barbed shot being off GCD needs to happen.

  17. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Paulosio View Post
    It still is.. It's just something you need to get used to but it's not going to be hard to just track your pets frenzy and only used barbed shot when there's 1-3 seconds remaining on that buff. You shouldn't use barbed shot at other times (not even when you are sat at 2 stacks due to higher ammounts of wild call procs. Most important thing is maintaining those 3 stacks of frenzy on the pet (and in doing so thrill of the hunt stacks on yourself if you've chosen that talent).

    Cant emphasise enough that Barbed shot should not be used simply because you have 2 stacks.... It should only be used to maintain the frenzy / thrill of the hunt stacks. Using Barbed shot at 2 stacks when uneccesary to maintain frenzy simply increases the chance that you will find yourself with no stacks of barbed shot later when your frenzy is about to fall off.

    - - - Updated - - -



    You should sit on 2 stacks of barbed shot.... Barbed shot should only ever be used to maintain Frenzy / toth. Using barbed shot at 2 stacks at any other time simply increases your chance of getting to a point later in your rotation where you have no barbed shot stackss available when your frenzy / thrill of the hunt is about to drop off.

    Sitting on 2 stacks of barbed shots helps protect you against bad RNG with wild call procs (wild call = auto shot crits give you an extra stack of barbed shot). If you go a while with no auto shot crits it's possible to have zero barbed shots available when you need to refresh frenzy / toth even if you'd only been using barbed shot at 1-3 seconds remaining on frenzy / toth every time... so if you are using barbed shot simply to stop it capping on 2 stacks then you are just going to make this problem even more common.

    Besides all this it's very rare that you will find yourself sitting at 2 stacks of barbed shot outside of heroism unless you pick One with the pack. I'm at 48% crit out of combat unbuffed (goes as high as 68% in combat with procs and aspect of the wild up) and even if I only ever refresh frenzy stacks at 1-2 seconds left I still sometimes get very close to not having a stack of barbed shot available when I need it..... Crit will likely never be much higher than this in BFA (certainly not before the final tier of the xpac) so you are never going to be getting more wild call procs in BFA than you currently do in Legion.

    The only exception to all of this is if your Chimaera shot / kill command is about to become available during the 1-2 seconds remaining on frenzy when you need to refresh it. You don't want to delay Chimaera or KC but you also can't afford to lose your frenzy / thrill of the hunt procs by using Chimaera / KC immedately. So for example if you are going to need fire Chimaera shot and kill command at the same time as you need to refresh barbed shot then it's worth refreshing Frenzy a couple of seconds earlier than usual so that you don't have to delay Chimaera / kill command.

    TLDR: Only ever use barbed shot to maintain frenzy / toth stacks
    Not a criticism, but I found it amusing that you affirmed it was still a relaxing spec, but had to explain a single skill with a 6 paragraph essay, hehe

  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Marrilaife View Post
    You mean hit combo? That's dead now since it's nerfed. Everyone's back to picking Xuen for ST and RJW for aoe.
    WW mastery also works the same way except you don't have stacks - you gain 39%(depending on mastery) more damage when they are not a repeat of the previous ability. So depending on what talents you use it can be bad to really bad.

  19. #39
    I spent a few hours yesterday learning and setting up my hunter for some PvP, and I came to the same conclusion for BM. Not only does the rotation require a lot of babysitting, I found myself with far more cooldowns than I expected for everything I could possibly need and want, with at least 8 or 9 more cooldowns I could optionally add to my arsenal. Cooldowns that include spirit mend which now seems to heal for 50% of your health on a 30 second cooldown, but still has a short range and gets interrupted if you push kill command instead.

    I honestly think BM might become one the best duelists in BfA with one of the highest skill caps on any spec I have ever seen. You have an answer to everything, but almost everything is on both a CD and the GCD, and if you fuck something up your damage just plummets and you die.

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by NoShelter View Post
    3.) Rollback this GCD nonsense. This does not make the game better. If burst macros are a problem, come up with a solution that doesn't hurt the entire game. On-use trinks were given a small shared CD so they couldn't be used together, and the change didn't rape the entire game.
    I'd be fine with Aspect of the Wild being on the GCD. But having Bestial Wrath on it just feels so wrong considering how often that you use it.

    Trueshot for Marksmanship should simply go off the GCD. It's such a lackluster cooldown to begin with, there's no point in simply wasting the first GCD of the skill.

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