Still loving Beast Master after all this time...Follow

I've been BM specced for almost my entire career as a hunter. Wouldn't change it. I've done all the level 70 instances, most of the heroics, and just started Karazhan last week (finally!!!). Beast is still a great spec to have. You're pet should be able to off tank any mob you can find, except a few of the really hard hitting ones in Heroic difficulty.

Kill command is definately a great skill. If you develop a macro to weave it into a good shot cycle, you'll reap the benefits. The damage on it will only improve as you and your pet level. With a full compliment of raid buffs and bestial wrath, you should expect crits over 1000. During normal soloing and instances, you'll see 600 to 800 crits depending on which pet you have out.

Stick with the spec you like until you come up against a reason to change it. If you're liking kill command, keep it. I've managed to be useful in cc situations without silencing shot because my pet can hold mobs so well. I'd hate to see another hunter that likes Beast spec change out of it.

*edit: spelling*

Edited, Apr 19th 2007 10:53am by Smoothrustic

Edited, Apr 19th 2007 10:53am by Smoothrustic

I think a Marks hunter DPS is probably higher overall, but a BM hunter definately has more sustained DPS. Marks generally pwns more PvP because it is more burst damage, whereas with BM i get a lot of smaller crits more often. You won't see a BM hunter getting gigantic 2k aimed shot crits and whatnot, but my pet will often crit several times on the same mob for upwards of 350. My style used to be all marks, but I've adapted to a BM style of play. I just love sending in the pet and watching it tear ***!

Well I am a 70 BM with 70 Raptor - [the green Felraptor from Blade's E.M.] i got my talents set up so I just get the Kill but maintain all the high DPS marksman talents - i also use the Devilsaurus Tooth coupled with the Kill and have (so far) mostly blue items with a few epics. I get aimed shots of 3k + my average DPs is 600+ and the Pet can Crit's over 1200 with the right combination of things. I went Blacksmith (and mining for mats) to get the high level axesmith axes with lots of attack power and crits and added as much agility as i can afford. I can tell all you would be BMs its a highly effective way to fight and as a solo spec it cant be beat. Im not much into pvp - but have been told the marksman is the better way to go for that - I'm not sure, I just know marksmen are fine as long as the don't have to melee AT ALL. Personally I don't know how they can do that I tried the marksman spec recently and i will admit I got aimed of 5k and scatter is a great tool - but even with all the tricks i knew i couldn't always keep all the mobs at range all the time, so either had to fake and let the pet die or die with the pet fighting.
Another thing about Marksman - in a group u really have to turn off your pet's growl so warriors can build up rage then as marksman u loose another "keep them at bay" trick. So - also i think because I am used to it - I went back to BM and it's a very effective spec. as long as u use your talent points carefully going only for the top DPS talents from Beastmaster and Marksman and go heavy on agility.

It takes a little practice, but easily doable for everyone. If you're beast specced, and you've got a pet you think can tank, let's say it has 12k armor. Hopefully you didn't nerf it too much and it has around 5600 life. Let me run through the steps I take if my pet has to tank:

Communicate to the party that the pet's target should be at least the 3rd target killed. Any more than that and it will need heals.

After the initial pull by whomever, send in your pet. Cast intimidation. Shoot your pet's target with scorpid sting. Forget about them and focus your dps, follow the kill order, or drop your freeze trap, etc. Hopefully you're killing the pet's target by the time scorpid sting wears off.

Scorpid sting is a useful tool, and I don't see many people talk about it in the forums. It's another way to reduce the damage taken by your pet or tank. Any time I'm in heroics/raids I use it on the hard hitting mobs. Even if it only makes the mob miss once every 20 seconds, that's 3-4k dmg your healer won't have to heal.

On a side note, I'm always doing this with a turtle that has 13% better armor. I personally don't think this would work with a pet that had any less than 5% improved armor.

Deleting duplicate post




Edited, Apr 24th 2007 11:21am by Kompera