This buffs gonna change anything?

[Lodvampire]

There’s a significant set of changes to Beast Mastery coming in the content update next week. These were shipped off toward the PTR yesterday, but haven’t appeared there yet:

Barbed Shot damage increased by 125%.
Barbed Shot’s bleed damage now ignores the target’s armor.
Cobra Shot damage increased by 25%.
For the Heart of Azeroth:

Feeding Frenzy’s tooltip damage displayed has been lowered commensurate with Barbed Shot now ignoring armor. Its total effective damage remains unchanged.
As always, you’ll see these (and everything else) in the final update notes, which we’ll publish just before the update goes live.

So, we not gonna be last dead anymore or is too little, too late?

[Tojara]

Cobra shot is like ~8% of your damage and barbed shot is what, 4-8% of your damage depending on current traits? If you go with an even 5%, that's a 6.25% increase to your overall damage, not accounting for whatever armor reduced the damage of the ability by. So overall, it's probably an 8-10% ST DPS increase?

[Nathasil]

Am i the only one who thinks pure numeric changes to some abilities are not a "significant set of changes"?

Anyway, from a quick glimpse over my own logs i would estimate the Barbed buff is around 5% total damage increase.
Cobra Shot around 3%.

So somewhere in the 7-10% ballpark of total damage buff, i would say, which is not bad. Looking at the current Mythic-Raid statistics a 10% Buff would place BM right ontop the other two hunter specs at the middle of the pack.

Both of these buffs have very little AOE contribution, so i do not expect them to change M+ a lot. BM will not be as useless on tyrannical bosses...that's all.

[Gasparde]

In a pure ST fight Cobra Shot should be between 7 and 10% of your total damage, let's say it's 10% so the CS buff alone amounts to like a 2.5% buff in the best case scenario (waaaaay less in any fight where you're inclined to press Multi Shot like... ever).

Then there's Barbed Shot, which currently (depending on Feeding Frenzy traits) can range anywhere from 3 to 8% of total damage. This one might actually do something in a heavy crit-focused build with a lot of Feeding Frenzy and Dance of Death traits.

I don't think these will get BM out of the gutter in a raid that's not movement-intensive at all and is all about spread-out multi target fights. Maybe a super high %crit build emerges and produces some relevant ST numbers, maybe that'll be enough to get BM into a decent place for Crucible, but none of this will help BM's non-existent scaling going into the next raid. So unless this opens up a magical new op build I'd say it's way too little way too late.

[Turtel]

Interesting to note is that both of the buffed abilities are purely player damage (rather than pet damage), which means BM will scale slightly better with weapon damage now, and mastery will slightly drop in value relative to the other secondaries: particularly haste/crit due to Barbed Shot procs becoming more valuable. The One with the Pack talent should also become stronger relative to Chimaera Shot, but we'll have to wait to see if it will overtake it.

EDIT: Assuming they buffed the baseline damage of Barbed Shot by 125% and additionally made that new baseline damage ignore armour, then the actual increase in damage done by Barbed Shot will be 221.43% instead of just 125%, or in other words you need to apply a factor of 3.214 rather than just 2.25 to figure out the new damage of Barbed Shot relative to the old damage.

EDIT2: The previous edit is only accurate if you didn't have the Feeding Frenzy trait though, since they mentioned that they nerfed Feeding Frenzy in order to compensate exactly for the bleed now ignoring armour. Also I get the feeling that they didn't buff the Feeding Frenzy damage by 125%, it's purely the baseline Barbed Shot damage, seeing as they mentioned that the tooltip damage for Feeding Frenzy should decrease (which shouldn't happen if it has been increased by 125%). This means people who were using the Feeding Frenzy trait might actually see a smaller than 125% buff to their overall Barbed Shot damage.

[Keren]

so feeding frenzy trait will loose value and overall we may get a crit and haste heavy single target build around dance of death..
however, I don't know why, but how i read it, those are not the only changes for BM?

would be fun to change some talents around and maybe go for a 1102010 build..

[bazzzyl]

Now make bleed dmg stack and we will be fine.

[Mavick]

EDIT2: The previous edit is only accurate if you didn't have the Feeding Frenzy trait though, since they mentioned that they nerfed Feeding Frenzy in order to compensate exactly for the bleed now ignoring armour. Also I get the feeling that they didn't buff the Feeding Frenzy damage by 125%, it's purely the baseline Barbed Shot damage, seeing as they mentioned that the tooltip damage for Feeding Frenzy should decrease (which shouldn't happen if it has been increased by 125%). This means people who were using the Feeding Frenzy trait might actually see a smaller than 125% buff to their overall Barbed Shot damage.

They didn't "nerf" Feeding Frenzy, they lowered the tooltip damage because that damage now ignores armor. The damage increase of the trait is *in theory* supposed to remain the same. The trait should technically lose no value. Sounds like you're confusing the trait with the ability. Barbed Shot got buffed and ignores armor, Feeding Frenzy remains the same as before except you see a smaller increase on the trait on the tooltip, but since it's ignoring armor, you're getting the same increase as before.

[Nythiz]

Am i the only one who thinks pure numeric changes to some abilities are not a "significant set of changes"?

Anyway, from a quick glimpse over my own logs i would estimate the Barbed buff is around 5% total damage increase.
Cobra Shot around 3%.

So somewhere in the 7-10% ballpark of total damage buff, i would say, which is not bad. Looking at the current Mythic-Raid statistics a 10% Buff would place BM right ontop the other two hunter specs at the middle of the pack.

Both of these buffs have very little AOE contribution, so i do not expect them to change M+ a lot. BM will not be as useless on tyrannical bosses...that's all.

BM didn't really need a lot of M+ buffs though. It's still quite strong for M+ (obv. not in the same ballpark as Outlaw rogues or Havoc DH, but it has solid AoE dps).

I think these buffs will work out quite well for ST, which is where BM needed some love.
Middle of the pack would be a good place as that would make BM strong for progression again (I mean it even was decent for progression when it was bottom of the charts), without coming in nerfbat territory.

This will hurt mastery though, which was already a stat a lot of people were deviating away from.

[Turtel]

They didn't "nerf" Feeding Frenzy, they lowered the tooltip damage because that damage now ignores armor. The damage increase of the trait is *in theory* supposed to remain the same. The trait should technically lose no value. Sounds like you're confusing the trait with the ability. Barbed Shot got buffed and ignores armor, Feeding Frenzy remains the same as before except you see a smaller increase on the trait on the tooltip, but since it's ignoring armor, you're getting the same increase as before.

Yes that is what I meant, our semantics was just different. I classify making the trait ignore armour as a buff. Previously in 8.1, if the trait said that it increased Barbed Shot damage by 1000, then it actually only increased the damage by 700 because of the armour reduction. If they didn't nerf the trait damage from 1000 down to 700 then it would have ended up being buffed. Anyway we are saying the same thing, just differently.

Regarding when I said people with Feeding Frenzy won't seeing as big of a buff to their overall Barbed Shot damage: this is because only a portion of their Barbed Shot damage is going to see the 125% buff (the non-Feeding Frenzy portion); the Feeding Frenzy portion of their Barbed Shot won't see the increase (which is what I understood the 'patch notes' to mean, which I explained in my previous response).

So say someone's base Barbed Shot damage without Feeding Frenzy is 4000 in 8.1 (by base damage I mean the damage done before armour reduction). After the 8.1.5 buff their base Barbed Shot damage will go up to 4000*2.25 = 9000. An increase from 4000 to 9000, which is an increase of 125%, the figure stated in the patch notes.

Now say this person had the Feeding Frenzy trait (which increases base Barbed Shot damage by 5168 at ilvl 415); their base Barbed Shot damage would be 4000 + 5168 = 9168 in 8.1. After the 8.1.5 buff, only the 4000 base damage of Barbed Shot will receive the stated 125% buff, which means their new base Barbed Shot damage will be 4000*2.25 + 5168*0.7 = 12617.6. An increase from 9168 to 12618, which is only an increase of 37.6% instead of the 125% increase for the person without Feeding Frenzy.

This was all assuming they buffed the base damage of Barbed Shot by 125% and on top of that also made it ignore armour. Also keep in mind that I was talking purely about base Barbed Shot damage, the actual damage done by Barbed Shot is 30% lower in 8.1 due to armour reduction, while in 8.1.5 the actual damage done by Barbed Shot is the same as the base damage (since it ignores armour). So the % increase to the actual damage done by Barbed Shot will be bigger than the values I've mentioned here.

[gixxpunk]

This will hurt mastery though, which was already a stat a lot of people were deviating away from.

Not so much. But it improves agi/AP DPS scaling slightly:

old:
( Pawn: v1: "BeastMastery": Class=Hunter, Spec=BeastMastery, Agility=2.25, Ap=2.15, CritRating=2.92, HasteRating=2.51, MasteryRating=2.65, Versatility=2.63, Dps=7.07 )

new:
( Pawn: v1: "BeastMastery": Class=Hunter, Spec=BeastMastery, Agility=2.33, Ap=2.21, CritRating=2.89, HasteRating=2.48, MasteryRating=2.59, Versatility=2.71, Dps=7.79 )

For me it comes out as a 6.13% buff overall.

[Prostatus911]

From what I've seen briefly on other forums and discord channels, it seems like people are seeing anywhere from 5-8% damage increase as azerite traits will fluctuate. I suspect BM will be back in the 'average' for damage specs. /fingerscrossed

[Kaver]

BM didn't really need a lot of M+ buffs though. It's still quite strong for M+ (obv. not in the same ballpark as Outlaw rogues or Havoc DH, but it has solid AoE dps).

I think these buffs will work out quite well for ST, which is where BM needed some love.
Middle of the pack would be a good place as that would make BM strong for progression again (I mean it even was decent for progression when it was bottom of the charts), without coming in nerfbat territory.

This will hurt mastery though, which was already a stat a lot of people were deviating away from.

BM will always be good for progression because BM hunters dont die

[gixxpunk]

From what I've seen briefly on other forums and discord channels, it seems like people are seeing anywhere from 5-8% damage increase as azerite traits will fluctuate. I suspect BM will be back in the 'average' for damage specs. /fingerscrossed

7% or even 8% is most likely not going to happen from this changes alone. 6% - 6.5% is what sims (with manual override) show. But you can check yourself by adding this lines to your override tab in simc:

override.spell_data=effect.323302.ap_coefficient=0.321
override.spell_data=effect.283802.ap_coefficient=0.3447625
override.spell_data=effect.734284.coefficient=4.389

[bullseyed]

So, we not gonna be last dead anymore or is too little, too late?

BM will be closer to middle of the pack with roughly a 7% DPS increase.

Still no utility that cannot be provided by other classes (who also have more DPS), so still no reason to bring a hunter to a raid.

Seems like people will be able to chose MM or BM based on preference, rather than having to be MM for DPS reasons.

- - - Updated - - -

Am i the only one who thinks pure numeric changes to some abilities are not a "significant set of changes"?

Anyway, from a quick glimpse over my own logs i would estimate the Barbed buff is around 5% total damage increase.
Cobra Shot around 3%.

So somewhere in the 7-10% ballpark of total damage buff, i would say, which is not bad. Looking at the current Mythic-Raid statistics a 10% Buff would place BM right ontop the other two hunter specs at the middle of the pack.

Both of these buffs have very little AOE contribution, so i do not expect them to change M+ a lot. BM will not be as useless on tyrannical bosses...that's all.

You have some rotation issues if cobra shot is that low in your damage.

- - - Updated - - -

BM will always be good for progression because BM hunters dont die

I got this weird bug where I feigned death but can't get back up guys.

I didn't die though. Just a weird bug. That I get when mechanics target me.

[Nathasil]

You have some rotation issues if cobra shot is that low in your damage.

I did not only check my own logs, but the #1, #2, #3 and #10, #11 and #12 rankings for Mythic Grong, also. In all of these logs CS contribution is between 6 and 9.5%.

You would need more than 12% total damage done by CS to have it at more than 3% damage increase with this 25% buff. Grong is mostly single target. In any multi-target scenario the increase will obviously be even smaller.

So i don't know what you mean, but i think the 3% estimate i gave was VERY generous and i certainly don't think that hunters with CS <12% of their total damage have any "rotation issues".

[FLANOFETT]

[QUOTE=bullseyed;50930982]BM will be closer to middle of the pack with roughly a 7% DPS increase.

Still no utility that cannot be provided by other classes (who also have more DPS), so still no reason to bring a hunter to a raid.

Seems like people will be able to chose MM or BM based on preference, rather than having to be MM for DPS reasons.

- - - Updated - - -


What Utility do you want to bring specifically that would make bringing Hunters mandatory to a raid? In your mind, do you believe that all classes should have a special utility that no one else brings in raids to ensure representation?

[Nythiz]

BM will be closer to middle of the pack with roughly a 7% DPS increase.

Still no utility that cannot be provided by other classes (who also have more DPS), so still no reason to bring a hunter to a raid.

And yet you often see a few hunters in top raids. The "unique utility" that BM provides is that BM can do boss mechanics very easily as they sacrifice close to 0 dps whilst moving.
I'd say that's enough reason to bring a hunter to a raid on top of the utility that we share with some other classes (e.g. immunity, decent selfhealing, CC, etc)

Bringing BM to middle of the pack dps is a, in my eyes, decent position as we're outside of the nerfbat range (that we were in during early uldir) and yet should be viable enough to bring a few hunters to a raid.

[FrostyButt]

People will cry about BM doing competitive DPS. Blizzard will nerf them again because they seem to listen to vocal minority when it comes to stuff like this. Look what happened in Uldir. People bitch that an "easy" class was doing well. Then next week Blizzard nerfed it.

[Bepples]

I got this weird bug where I feigned death but can't get back up guys.

I didn't die though. Just a weird bug. That I get when mechanics target me.

Totally off-topic, but this reminds me of a bug that existed in early Legion. You could do some weird spec-switching trick between BM and MM that allowed Play Dead to be usable all the time, even without a pet; the big problem was you could use it on any unit in the game, including both friendly and enemy players; you would target them and cast Play Dead and they would basically enter a forced feign-death state for 6 minutes and be totally unable to control their character. Some people took it to BGs but personally I stuck to killing Khadgar and his buddies in the Violet Citadel in Dalaran because I didn't want to risk a ban.