is BM really this shit?

[bullseyed]

Pretty much this
(BM only since vanilla)

Back in the day before WotLK came out, we (the handful of us hunter posters over at EJs) laid everything out to Ghostcrawler about how BM base was too high and scaling was too low. How we'd win the patchwerk fight in Naxx so badly that BM would be overnerfed and bad for the rest of the expansion.

We got forum banned from the Blizzard forums and told we didn't know what we were talking about.

And then everything happened exactly as we predicted. I think our theorycrafting back then was even accurate to within a few percentage points of the logs.

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Are there still people out there that say with confidence that method changed to troll for dps increase? They race changed for the passive racial that was making jaina's massive damage dot drop faster because it counted as a slow. jesus christ this whole forum is a case study for dunning Kruger effect

Even if they had gone troll for DPS, you can't just switch to MM without the gear and you can't just switch to an alt that isn't properly geared up and funneled to.

I am surprised top guilds haven't banned hunters and shamans outright though, just because of mail gear and ease of sharing.

[Deaged]

It doesnt change the fact that a lot of players still play BM in raids even though it’s the worst spec in the game. That wouldn’t happen with any other spec of a dps class. You would never see 200 k parses of Demo in heroic if it was the worst spec in the game. People keep playing BM even though it performs badly.

The demographics are rapidly changing as people get correct azerite pieces. This tier hasn't been out that long and the gear that was good for BM is all too uncommonly complete trash for MM. And why are you talking about heroic? Nobody cares about heroic.

[TOM_RUS]

Since BM can't cleave or multi dot anything on BOD, it should at least be top on single target fights. But that's not the case and needs to be fixed. Reported it as a bug in game. Everyone should do the same.

[Feanoro]

Back in the day before WotLK came out, we (the handful of us hunter posters over at EJs) laid everything out to Ghostcrawler about how BM base was too high and scaling was too low. How we'd win the patchwerk fight in Naxx so badly that BM would be overnerfed and bad for the rest of the expansion.

We got forum banned from the Blizzard forums and told we didn't know what we were talking about.

And then everything happened exactly as we predicted. I think our theorycrafting back then was even accurate to within a few percentage points of the logs.

Not for nothing were there jokes about "Prove GC wrong, get your class nerfed to the ground."

[Bepples]

Back in the day before WotLK came out, we (the handful of us hunter posters over at EJs) laid everything out to Ghostcrawler about how BM base was too high and scaling was too low. How we'd win the patchwerk fight in Naxx so badly that BM would be overnerfed and bad for the rest of the expansion.

We got forum banned from the Blizzard forums and told we didn't know what we were talking about.

And then everything happened exactly as we predicted. I think our theorycrafting back then was even accurate to within a few percentage points of the logs.

IIRC in WotLK it was more than just scaling. Readiness was moved from being the Survival 41-pointer the Marksmanship 21-pointer (why did they ever do this?), so as BM you could go 50/21 and be pretty broken with Readiness + Bestial Wrath (the BM 51-pointer was Exotic Pets + extra Pet talent points so it wasn't as valuable). Plus, by that point BM was not only the effectively-mandatory Hunter raiding spec but it had been for all of BC as well. So it made sense for BM to be nerfed, although in 3.0.8 they did their usual mistake on piling multiple nerfs at once which turned the spec from must-play to must-avoid.

Did they really ban people, and if so was it purely because of the feedback?

[threads]

It doesnt change the fact that a lot of players still play BM in raids even though it’s the worst spec in the game. That wouldn’t happen with any other spec of a dps class. You would never see 200 k parses of Demo in heroic if it was the worst spec in the game. People keep playing BM even though it performs badly.

it's a hunter thing

[ydraw]

I’m only giving my input to the debate “Is BM really this shit?”. And due to the effortless gameplay of BM I believe it is only fair that BM has the lowest dps cap in the game.

But it was one of the highest DPS specs at the start of the expansion. Why is it so hard for you to accept that this isn't deliberate? If Blizzard was punishing BM with low DPS because it's "easy", why did it let BM be one of the highest DPS in Uldir?

The logical answer is: It's not deliberate, it's just that Blizzard still hasn't worked out how to fix BM's scaling. BM *always* starts off strong, then gets worse and worse the higher item level gets throughout an expansion. It's a numbers problem, it's not deliberate tuning. It just never gets fixed because the number of people playing BM remains strong no matter how poorly it does numbers-wise.

BM is a unique spec in the game since it's only spec that does the majority of its damage through its pet. It has very high baseline damage but scales poorly, because pets scale poorly.

[Lodvampire]

But it was one of the highest DPS specs at the start of the expansion. Why is it so hard for you to accept that this isn't deliberate? If Blizzard was punishing BM with low DPS because it's "easy", why did it let BM be one of the highest DPS in Uldir?

The logical answer is: It's not deliberate, it's just that Blizzard still hasn't worked out how to fix BM's scaling. BM *always* starts off strong, then gets worse and worse the higher item level gets throughout an expansion. It's a numbers problem, it's not deliberate tuning. It just never gets fixed because the number of people playing BM remains strong no matter how poorly it does numbers-wise.

BM is a unique spec in the game since it's only spec that does the majority of its damage through its pet. It has very high baseline damage but scales poorly, because pets scale poorly.

Pretty much this ^^
IF Bm was suppose to be the last in every kind of content like is right now, its suppose to be the weakest always, or at least middle of the pack at the start of progression in a new tier while people with more "complicated and complex" classes/specs are still learning the mechanics and adjusting their rotations to the fights.

[Simca]

It doesnt change the fact that a lot of players still play BM in raids even though it’s the worst spec in the game. That wouldn’t happen with any other spec of a dps class. You would never see 200 k parses of Demo in heroic if it was the worst spec in the game. People keep playing BM even though it performs badly.

I agree that people play BM even though it performs badly. You refuse to accept there are other reasons possible besides difficulty, though. I know multiple people whose reasoning is as simple as "I like animals; BM is the spec made for that."

Some people will always play the same specialization, regardless of balancing, and just rely on Blizzard to keep things relatively close. I've played Holy Paladin for over 10 years with the exception of a single raid tier (I played Mistweaver in Throne of Thunder because our healing composition would have been 3 Holy Paladins and nobody else). I've been relatively lucky that Holy Paladins have at least always had a good niche even when they're at their worst, but honestly I probably wouldn't switch mains even if they nerfed Holy Paladins into the ground.

That's not because I am terrified of difficulty and NEED to play Holy Paladin to prop up my failing skills or whatever. It's purely because I have played it almost my entire WoW playtime, and I'm not going to change based on a momentary balance blip.

I really don't want to indulge stereotypes, but a lot of newer players gravitate towards a few different archetypes based on fantasy concepts alone. Feral Druid, Balance Druid, Holy Priest, Retribution Paladin (an easy and obvious counterexample to your "you wouldn't see this happen with any other dps spec - Ret will always have a boatload of players, regardless of position on meters), and Beast Mastery Hunter are most affected by this. Then, once people get attached to a character as a main, some people (not all, but some) don't ever change. I have a friend who has played Fire Mage since Vanilla and never switched. It's not because Fire is easy (traditionally, it has been the hardest of the three Mage specializations due to Combustion, but that changes with each rework). It's just because she is a Fire Mage and will not be anything else.

Do you seriously know of no players like this? Does your specialization and class choice change with every single buff or nerf just so that you can always be FotM?

Honestly, finding an FotM hopper is a lot rarer than finding a player with a static main specialization in my experience. Maybe if your sample population was like the top 10 Mythic guilds or something, then sure, maybe you'll find exclusively FotM players. However, in the general WoW population, I don't think that's true.

[Mavick]

Pretty much this ^^
IF Bm was suppose to be the last in every kind of content like is right now, its suppose to be the weakest always, or at least middle of the pack at the start of progression in a new tier while people with more "complicated and complex" classes/specs are still learning the mechanics and adjusting their rotations to the fights.

And what happened when BM was near the top at the start of Uldir? They nerfed it by 5%. Your point was again?

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I agree that people play BM even though it performs badly. You refuse to accept there are other reasons possible besides difficulty, though. I know multiple people whose reasoning is as simple as "I like animals; BM is the spec made for that."

You're trying to turn this into a discussion of "why do people play BM" when the subject matter of the majority of the thread has been raiding, and coming from a competitive viewpoint. I think we all know there are tons of people out there who don't give a shit and play whatever spec they want for whatever reasons. Those aren't the people we're talking about or care about.

[Simca]

You're trying to turn this into a discussion of "why do people play BM" when the subject matter of the majority of the thread has been raiding, and coming from a competitive viewpoint. I think we all know there are tons of people out there who don't give a shit and play whatever spec they want for whatever reasons. Those aren't the people we're talking about or care about.

Sure, but you're not thinking about this from a data perspective. Those people are included in the statistics he's citing. Those types of people are on WarcraftLogs and when he's counting # of parses, then those people could be entirely propping up the specialization's # of parses. He's using a source heavily contaminated by non-competitive raiders to try to justify a competitive raiding standpoint (if your interpretation of his argument is correct, anyway). It doesn't make any sense.

[ydraw]

And what happened when BM was near the top at the start of Uldir? They nerfed it by 5%. Your point was again?

And it was still near the top after that. It only started slipping once people were in 375+ gear. If they really meant for BM on the bottom they would have nerfed it by a lot more than 5%. The 5% nerf only took it from top spot to around 4th.

[Mavick]

Sure, but you're not thinking about this from a data perspective. Those people are included in the statistics he's citing. Those types of people are on WarcraftLogs and when he's counting # of parses, then those people could be entirely propping up the specialization's # of parses. He's using a source heavily contaminated by non-competitive raiders to try to justify a competitive raiding standpoint (if your interpretation of his argument is correct, anyway). It doesn't make any sense.

You're basically both right. Yes there are a ton of non-competitive players included, I'm not disputing that. But on the same note, there are still some that play the spec competitively even when it sims/performs behind MM. Antorus is a good example of that, once BM finally got buffed midway through the tier. It was still behind MM in sims but you could still, if you were good enough or lucky enough, outperform MM on a few fights. This just doesn't happen to be one of those times. There is objectively nothing in this tier that BM is better at, performance wise, than MM. So anyone pretending that it's competitive is just wrong.

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And it was still near the top after that. It only started slipping once people were in 375+ gear. If they really meant for BM on the bottom they would have nerfed it by a lot more than 5%. The 5% nerf only took it from top spot to around 4th.

I feel like you're drawing out the timeline of BM being "at the top" longer in thought than it actually was. It didn't take many weeks for gearing to happen and scaling to catch up. In my experience you could still challenge the top 5 but it got markedly increasingly difficult after the first few weeks.

[Liarparadox]

Nothing wrong with playing BM. But thinking that BM is a complex spec is just crazy.

Personally I couldnt main a BM hunter. It would be waaaaay too boring. It’s nice to have as an Alt though for when you need to turn your brain off for a while.

I had a bit of a laugh at this because this is EXACTLY what i do!! I play my BM hunter when i'm just looking for a relaxing dps experience. Nothing wrong with a bit of simplicity in a spec; I appreciate it. But the idea that BM is even remotely complex is not even worth considering. You can leave your brain at the door; and I like that about the spec personally. And like you, that's one of the reasons why I don't main a BM hunter; i'd be so bored so fast. (And I don't like how MM and surv play atm)

Edit: i should point out, I'm not suggesting BM shouldn't be buffed or tuned. It actually seems to me like it really does need a bit of help atm.

[Feanoro]

For the people who cite TBC BM:

It was solely due to a 5 point talent that gave you 20% haste, such that you could machine gun Steady Shots. It had nothing to do with pets or the theme of BM at all.

[Kaver]

But it was one of the highest DPS specs at the start of the expansion. Why is it so hard for you to accept that this isn't deliberate? If Blizzard was punishing BM with low DPS because it's "easy", why did it let BM be one of the highest DPS in Uldir?

The logical answer is: It's not deliberate, it's just that Blizzard still hasn't worked out how to fix BM's scaling. BM *always* starts off strong, then gets worse and worse the higher item level gets throughout an expansion. It's a numbers problem, it's not deliberate tuning. It just never gets fixed because the number of people playing BM remains strong no matter how poorly it does numbers-wise.

BM is a unique spec in the game since it's only spec that does the majority of its damage through its pet. It has very high baseline damage but scales poorly, because pets scale poorly.

I agree. I don’t think it is deliberate.

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I agree that people play BM even though it performs badly. You refuse to accept there are other reasons possible besides difficulty, though. I know multiple people whose reasoning is as simple as "I like animals; BM is the spec made for that."

Some people will always play the same specialization, regardless of balancing, and just rely on Blizzard to keep things relatively close. I've played Holy Paladin for over 10 years with the exception of a single raid tier (I played Mistweaver in Throne of Thunder because our healing composition would have been 3 Holy Paladins and nobody else). I've been relatively lucky that Holy Paladins have at least always had a good niche even when they're at their worst, but honestly I probably wouldn't switch mains even if they nerfed Holy Paladins into the ground.

That's not because I am terrified of difficulty and NEED to play Holy Paladin to prop up my failing skills or whatever. It's purely because I have played it almost my entire WoW playtime, and I'm not going to change based on a momentary balance blip.

I really don't want to indulge stereotypes, but a lot of newer players gravitate towards a few different archetypes based on fantasy concepts alone. Feral Druid, Balance Druid, Holy Priest, Retribution Paladin (an easy and obvious counterexample to your "you wouldn't see this happen with any other dps spec - Ret will always have a boatload of players, regardless of position on meters), and Beast Mastery Hunter are most affected by this. Then, once people get attached to a character as a main, some people (not all, but some) don't ever change. I have a friend who has played Fire Mage since Vanilla and never switched. It's not because Fire is easy (traditionally, it has been the hardest of the three Mage specializations due to Combustion, but that changes with each rework). It's just because she is a Fire Mage and will not be anything else.

Do you seriously know of no players like this? Does your specialization and class choice change with every single buff or nerf just so that you can always be FotM?

Honestly, finding an FotM hopper is a lot rarer than finding a player with a static main specialization in my experience. Maybe if your sample population was like the top 10 Mythic guilds or something, then sure, maybe you'll find exclusively FotM players. However, in the general WoW population, I don't think that's true.

I do recognize that other elements also play a part in what spec people choose. But the amount of players choosing the worst performing hunter spec is just unusual compared to other classes. Normally the majority of players choose the best performing specs.

If you look at mage, warlock and rogue, you would never see the worst specs of those classes be the most played if they were bottom dps. For example, only a small minority play Sub Rogue right now even though it is one of the most beloved specs of the game.

Warlocks are a bit wierd right now because all the specs perform really well.

Out of the dps classes (hunter, rogue, warlock, and mage) I cant remember a time where a spec (other than BM) would be the most played for the class if it was bottom dps.

[Deaged]

I agree. I don’t think it is deliberate.

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I do recognize that other elements also play a part in what spec people choose. But the amount of players choosing the worst performing hunter spec is just unusual compared to other classes. Normally the majority of players choose the best performing specs.

If you look at mage, warlock and rogue, you would never see the worst specs of those classes be the most played if they were bottom dps. For example, only a small minority play Sub Rogue right now even though it is one of the most beloved specs of the game.

Warlocks are a bit wierd right now because all the specs perform really well.

Out of the dps classes (hunter, rogue, warlock, and mage) I cant remember a time where a spec (other than BM) would be the most played for the class if it was bottom dps.

1) BM was the go to spec from the start of the expansion until now and most hunters started the tier with gear orientated for BM
2) Parses are almost 50/50 now at the mythic level
3) MM out performs BM by just under 10% at the 75th percentile over all of BoD mythic
4) you have the IQ of a potato if you can't figure out why people haven't immediately switched over to MM

[siskokid21]

BM is always the best spec to play while raid leading, due to not losing any damage from movement. The downside is that it's very much a 1-trick spec and tends to under perform compared to other hunter specs. There are a few exceptions, such as Uldir and Nighthold, but generally this is due to MM/SV being under tuned and not because BM is actually good.

[Ezyah]

i mean i understand we can not always be top of the pop but there is a difference between being last and being Dead last by a huge margin.

[ydraw]

BM is always the best spec to play while raid leading, due to not losing any damage from movement. The downside is that it's very much a 1-trick spec and tends to under perform compared to other hunter specs. There are a few exceptions, such as Uldir and Nighthold, but generally this is due to MM/SV being under tuned and not because BM is actually good.

I like to make stuff up too sometimes.