BM in BfA

[Just1c3]

Hey folks, I don't have the beta, but I've watched a few videos, and what I've seen of BM so far looks... disappointing. It bothers me that Survival seems to have more pet interaction than BM does, that's just... not right, in my opinion.

Can anybody who DOES have the beta share their thoughts? Are there any changes coming that anyone knows about, maybe this will get addressed at some point? I mean, Blizz is gonna do whatever Blizz is gonna do, but this feels more like an oversight, a mistake, than a deliberate design choice.

[Kendevis]

I'm not expert, I'm playing hunter by a few months and was loving Survival.. Now I have the beta and found out that yes, Survival is very similar to Beat Mastery. No more hunter for me.

I hate all these changes. Why are they forcing us to change class every expansion??

[natpick]

IMO its because the game is old and the devs feel there need to spice things up at the end/beginning of expansions to give the false sense of progression,its supposed to be an mmo rpg where the devs give you the tools and we the player create the progression,in our own style or way.this constant forced change is not good.

[Just1c3]

IMO its because the game is old and the devs feel there need to spice things up at the end/beginning of expansions to give the false sense of progression,its supposed to be an mmo rpg where the devs give you the tools and we the player create the progression,in our own style or way.this constant forced change is not good.

I'm not complaining about the fact that things are changing, I understand they need to shake things up. I'm complaining that the changes themselves are bad, it doesn't fit the theme of the spec at all. It feels wonky that Surv would have MORE pet interaction than BM when BM is supposed to be the "pet class". It'd be like... say, giving Frost DK an undead minion also, just like Unholy, but also Frost's undead minion is way better and stronger than Unholy's is. That'd be weird, and it takes away from Unholy's identity as well, because Unholy isn't the "have an undead friend and buff him" spec anymore because now Frost does that better

[RaZz0r]

Bfa BM essentially plays identically to the the way the dire frenzy BM plays on live servers just slower.
The only thing that has really change between legion and bfa BM is that dire frenzy is renamed to barbed shot.
( still dose the same thing as DF it was mostly changed to make BM hunter look less silly in combat )
And the basically removal of dire beast in the old sense its now a focus spender on a CD that dose not reset.

So if you liked the Zoo style BM that play style is sadly dead tho it hasn't been the spec to go for in a long time for most hunters on live.
Honestly im hoping that both BM and MM gets a overhaul or something before launch.

MM currently on BFA plays extremely slow its fine on mobs with low health but once you start killing a boss or something with a bit more health it becomes boring real fast.

BM on the other hand plays a little bit faster but the spec is completely brain dead.
You can blindly mash your 3-4 main rotation abilities and still do 85-90% of your potential max dps.

Don't get me wrong i dont mind a simpler spec but come on give us something more in terms of game play then stagger Dire Frenzy / Barbed Shot
to get the maximum up time at 2-3 stacks 20% game play and 80% sim your self to balance out your stats is not fun in the long run.

[Nythiz]

BM on the other hand plays a little bit faster but the spec is completely brain dead.
You can blindly mash your 3-4 main rotation abilities and still do 85-90% of your potential max dps.

Don't get me wrong i dont mind a simpler spec but come on give us something more in terms of game play then stagger Dire Frenzy / Barbed Shot
to get the maximum up time at 2-3 stacks 20% game play and 80% sim your self to balance out your stats is not fun in the long run.

I completely agree that BM needs another skill ceiling increasing ability. The old Focus Fire ability that consumed Frenzy was slightly similar to dire frenzy / barbed shot stacks, but I felt it had a bit more depth.

That said, saying the spec is brain dead is way underselling the spec as well. It's true that you can just mash KC and Dire Beast on CD, fill free GCDs with Cobra Shot and do 80% of your dps. But that really goes for A LOT of classes, so it's more that the game has devolved into that state for a lot more specs.
Most, if not ALL classes have 1 or multiple specs where you can do 80% of dps by just mashing stuff on CD.

Getting the max out of BM can be found if you want it to be there (e.g. not wasting DB/DF 1 sec before BW comes of CD, using DB/DF with the legendary boots properly, keeping up the DF stacks at 3 as much as possible, etc).

It would help BM a lot if the dire frenzy speed buff had a lot more weight, because that mechanic does actually require a little bit of extra attention to keep up and prevents spamming DF on CD.
It also wouldn't be so bad if BM didn't have this insane focus regen (because frankly most of the time I actually have trouble to even dump my focus fast enough before it caps), as that would make using Cobra Shot less braindead and more punishing if you CS and run out of focus for KC.
But there is enough to make the difference between a bad BM hunter and a good bm hunter; unfortunately for the good BM hunter that gap is a lot smaller compared to say good and bad MM hunters.

[Sencha]

Too similar to Legion BM, which is boring as hell to play.

[Spoonman]

In my opinion BM is gonna be strong in BFA because of 3 reasons

1. The new talent that makes Kill command execute styled
2. The ability to have Stomp and Dire Frenzy at the same time
3. We have Intimidation Stun as Baseline

Ive never had any problems being able competing for top spot on the Beta
Multi Dot fights with 2 seperated Bosses we are still very weak

The spec is still very easy and boring if u wanna call it that, the core rotation havent changed anything

The only bad thing I has to say about it is that, Blizzard changed how GCD works and because of this its not possible to macro together mulitple spells anymore
The most common combo was BW and AOTW, now u have to wait 1 second between using em which feels very incrdibly annoying

If you plan on leveling with War mode on make sure you use Dire Beast Hawk, its insane right now at least

Will have to see how much Blizzard fucks BM tuning numbers but for now it looks solid

[Akakishin]

BM on beta is all about Barbed Shot management which is extremely easy while survival is like Melee BM without Barbed shot. Surv also seems to do better at both lvling and early lvls of gear at 120. The only reason I play BM at beta is that it's a bit faster than surv and MM and everything dies too fast right now,

...

Will have to see how much Blizzard fucks BM tuning numbers but for now it looks solid

I think BM needs a bit of help on numbers and isn't the best choice for good AOE, spcly considering that Multishot hits like fukin whirlwind and all you're betting for is your pet cleave to crit or something.

[Cytraz]

Currently I feel BM is the best spec on PTR + I like the idea of the spec the most and am glad that they are finally getting rid of the million animal companions that were present during Legion. However, the rotation is just too simple and too easy to execute.

I want to play a spec where I can differentiate myself from other people playing the same spec in terms of damage and DPS. Right now, it feels like if you can handle barbed shot buff, which is very simple to do, then there is no more room for further improvement, meaning you will be "just another BM hunter" on the DPS meter, since everyone will be doing around the same DPS, because of the extremely low skill ceiling.

[Trapstarz]

Currently I feel BM is the best spec on PTR + I like the idea of the spec the most and am glad that they are finally getting rid of the million animal companions that were present during Legion. However, the rotation is just too simple and too easy to execute.

I want to play a spec where I can differentiate myself from other people playing the same spec in terms of damage and DPS. Right now, it feels like if you can handle barbed shot buff, which is very simple to do, then there is no more room for further improvement, meaning you will be "just another BM hunter" on the DPS meter, since everyone will be doing around the same DPS, because of the extremely low skill ceiling.

For that very feeling, you have lots of other specs like Shadowpriest or non dad-build boomy

[Cytraz]

For that very feeling, you have lots of other specs like Shadowpriest or non dad-build boomy

Funny you should say that, I am already looking into maining Spriest in BFA

[Danwo]

BM hunter on beta is not like BM hunter live.

If you pick optimal dps spec on Beta you got a new rotation, new spells.

If you can't master BM optimal spec you will loose dmg. On Live I can spam BM hunter, on Beta I cant spam.

On Beta if you fail your Cobra Shot / Kil Comand rotation you will loose 10-15 % dmg.

On Beta you need to stop all dmg for 1 sec or less every 5 sec.

[Cytraz]

BM hunter on beta is not like BM hunter live.

If you pick optimal dps spec on Beta you got a new rotation, new spells.

If you can't master BM optimal spec you will loose dmg. On Live I can spam BM hunter, on Beta I cant spam.

On Beta if you fail your Cobra Shot / Kil Comand rotation you will loose 10-15 % dmg.

On Beta you need to stop all dmg for 1 sec or less every 5 sec.

What else do you have to think about besides keeping x3 barbed shot buff stacks and KC on cd with cobra as a filler?

[Danwo]

What else do you have to think about besides keeping x3 barbed shot buff stacks and KC on cd with cobra as a filler?

First of all you can't keep 3 x barbed shoot buff. There are other priorities that will give heavier impact on dmg. What is your best pve rank?

[Cytraz]

First of all you can't keep 3 x barbed shoot buff. There are other priorities that will give heavier impact on dmg. What is your best pve rank?

You can keep up the buff for most of the time, as long as you get a little bit of RNG.

There literally is nothing hard about the BM rotation. It almost beats Havoc rotation in terms of simplicity. Don't try to make the spec seem harder than it is.

And I am a 11/11 mythic raider.

[Millhi]

with AC pet not benefiting from avoidance just yet so useless in dungeons/raids cause it keeps dying, DB yields the most dmg/dps and same for ChS on ST which are 2 extra rotational buttons you will use. Its not just KC and BS with cobra filler.

Is what the guy probably means? It's definitely not legion BM atm.

[Cytraz]

with AC pet not benefiting from avoidance just yet so useless in dungeons/raids cause it keeps dying, DB yields the most dmg/dps and same for ChS on ST which are 2 extra rotational buttons you will use. Its not just KC and BS with cobra filler.

Is what the guy probably means? It's definitely not legion BM atm.

1) It is too early to know which one of the first talent row gives the best damage. Also, does DB pet get avoidance?
2) Chimera is most likely never to be used in that row of talents, since One with the Pack is too good, since it makes it easier to keep up x3 barbed shots

[Mavick]

1) It is too early to know which one of the first talent row gives the best damage. Also, does DB pet get avoidance?
2) Chimera is most likely never to be used in that row of talents, since One with the Pack is too good, since it makes it easier to keep up x3 barbed shots

Chimera shot outsims owtp in the current beta simcraft. People that keep saying that I feel aren't aware that it's been nerfed from its Legion version. AC technically outsims DB, however people are saying the AC pet is still lacking the aoe avoidance pets should get. I just ran 2 heroics on beta and didn't have an issue with it tho.

[Sencha]

Is BM doomed to be the most simple spec of WoW because of the significant amount of players choosing this spec just to collect pets?