Ready for Highmaul

I’ve been keeping busy enough in game that I almost forgot that World of Warcraft has this thing called raiding. Also, is it just me or does it seem a lot longer than 2.5 weeks since launch? Feels like at least a month for me. At any rate, I am ready to jump into normal mode Highmaul, hopefully tonight if enough guildies are ready for it. I’m “only” ilvl 636, but that is being brought down quite a bit by the fact that I still have my legendary cloak equipped and a 615 trinket. I also have not been running challenge modes, so the rest of my gear is either crafted or 630 stuff.

I do actually have some nice pieces. Most notably is my gun, Shrediron’s Shredder of the Savage. I’ll be upgrading that to stage 3 (ilvl 660) today which is going to be a huge weight off my shoulders. Why? Because traditionally I have terrible luck with ranged weapon drops. I know everyone says this, but I truly mean it. I spent the entirety of Throne of Thunder with a 516 heroic scenario weapon. I killed Lei Shen with a heroic scenario weapon. I went into Siege of Orgrimmar with a heroic scenario weapon. My raid never sees ranged weapon drops. It never saw one in Siege until a year after the fact, and the only reason I got one before that was because of bonus rolls.

So no, crafting this gun was not a waste of money. It lets me enjoy myself without worrying when I’m going to finally get a half decent weapon. I achieved this by having 3 toons cranking out Gearspring Parts. My main crafted the gun and the first upgrade, and an alt is crafting the second upgrade. The third alt had been churning out Didi’s Delicate Assemblies so I could reroll the gun to “of the Savage” (multistrike+crit). Now that third alt will be relegated to making my Wormhole Centrifuge, Blingtron 5000, and other fun engineering stuff.

Stormshield sunset
Stormshield sunset

Of the Savage

Out of the 30 Savage Blood I needed to upgrade it to this state, I probably only managed to get about 10 of them from my Barn so far. Not every work order generates one, it’s very much a luck-based thing. I got another handful from Primal Spirits and the rest were purchased by keeping a hawk eye on the auction house for deals (if you consider 1500g for one Savage Blood a “deal”). I’m glad I had that third alt to make the rerolling items, because those also cost a fortune.

On the leatherworking front, I crafted the pants and was able to reroll those to “of the Savage” without much difficulty. I haven’t upgraded them yet. I will likely wait until I get enough Savage Blood myself through work orders and Primal Spirits.

My third crafted item is the inscription trinket. Since I have no scribes, the prospect of upgrading that seems much less likely. Chances are it’ll get replaced before then. Actually, I kinda hope it does. Because I have “of the Savage” engineering goggles sitting in my bank that I picked up for an absolute bargain the day Molten Core LFR launched. I guess the person assumed it was now worthless with the free 640 helms from MC.

So… thoughts on the crafting system. I like most everything about it except the time gating. I feel like you should be able to make stuff faster if you want to put in the time or gold. I could only be at the stage I am now because I had 3 toons cranking out stuff for ONE profession.  I’m also upset they made the gun part of the 3 crafted pieces limit. This was a last-minute change from how things were on beta. I would rather they had left it engineering-only and not count towards the limit.

The cloak is the last thorn in my side. I just haven’t seen a drop yet. I did see a 620 cloak but the legendary was still much better with its socket and extra secondary stat. 630 cloaks are borderline better, especially if they have crummy stats to begin with. It’s why I’ve been hanging onto my Apexis Crystals thus far. It would feel like a waste to buy any 630 pieces. I will wait until I have enough crystals for the base piece plus the upgrade, then reevaluate from there.

Best hunter title
Best hunter title

Garrison update

The garrison is going quite well. I’ve finished all of the Stables achievements and got my spiffy title (as seen above), as well as all the mounts.

Thanks to my Dwarven Bunker and Salvage Yard, my followers are getting geared up nicely. Many of them are already ilvl 645, and others ilvl 630. Even my “lowbie” followers are hovering around 615. I managed to snag a piece straight out of Highmaul from one of my follower missions, the Flechette-Riddled Chain. Unfortunately it is one of the worst possible pieces I could have gotten, but I still think it’s pretty cool. That was a week ago so I’m curious how long it’ll be before I see another one of those raid missions.

After a short hiatus with the Trading Post, that plot is now back to the Inn once again. There was a brief moment where I was resource starved, but that is no longer the case. I now hover around 4000-5000 resources and that is with doing almost every available mission for the salvage. The main reason for this is I have two followers with the Scavenger trait. And yes, that stacks. I typically get about 500+ resources from missions a day. I rarely drop below 4000. What shall I do with all these excess resources? Buy my bonus roll tokens of course. Why spend gold or apexis when I can spend this?

gronnmount

Hunting for Rare Mounts

As you may have noticed from my previous post, I did indeed acquire the legendary Sunhide Gronnling mount from Poundfist. I couldn’t stop there though. I’ve now acquired the Bloodhoof Bull and Mottled Meadowstomper as well. The clefthoof is the one featured in the header image.

I’ve got a few left to get, but the clefthoof and gronnling were the two I actually wanted and will use frequently. I like large, obnoxious mounts. What can I say?

The one annoying thing about hunting for these mounts is the phasing stuff going on. If you weren’t aware, currently there are multiple “phases” of each zone happening on your realm. You may not notice it because the general chat channel is shared between them, but these individual phases have independent rare spawns. I missed the clefthoof mount twice previously because of it. The only way you can switch phases is to get someone from the right phase to invite you. I finally had this happen the other day, and lucked out with Nakk the Thunderer and Luk’hok kills within 3 minutes of each other. I killed Nakk first and would not have been able to kill Luk had it not been for Aviana’s Feather. Both were in different phases, and neither was in my original phase. So my realm had at least 3 instances of Nagrand going. Confusing, huh?

Spec for raiding — BM or MM?

Argh. Lone Wolf. I know a lot of you like this talent, but this is my soapbox so I’m just going to say it: I wish this talent didn’t exist. I talked about this on the last Hunting Party Podcast, some agreed and some did not. I think it’s wrong that a hunter’s highest potential DPS is now done without a pet. To be fair, Focusing Shot has about the same DPS potential for MM, but you’d have to play it absolutely flawlessly.

This is about where I’m seeing DPS right now, with my gear (from best to worst):

  1. MM with Lone Wolf
  2. MM with Focusing Shot
  3. MM with Exotic Munitions
  4. BM with Adaptation

The gap between 1 and 4 is hard to ignore. MM can do about 15% more DPS than BM at this point, which is kind of upsetting. Sure, one spec doing like 5% more DPS is expected. I think this gap is too large though. I wish I could say this was just a simulation thing, but it’s easily noticeable in the real world. Even outside of dungeons or raids, the simple act of killing elites to trap for my Barn goes noticeably faster with MM.

I’m just going to play it by ear. In other words, I’ll stubbornly stick to BM until I realize that Blizzard has won, and I’ll do what no hunter should ever have to do: Abandon their loyal companion to do more DPS.

Too dramatic?

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35 thoughts on “Ready for Highmaul”

  1. Yeah the MM/BM difference is HUGE. I actually switched to farming lvl 100 rares for resources in MM with Lone Wolf when I have my bodyguard around for a little extra tankiness, because it just takes so long to kill them in BM by comparison. I actually did see a good amount of damage from Exotic Munitions in Beta testing, too…just wish it was enough to compete with Lone Wolf. I miss my pets!!

  2. I think Blizzard needs to put a ton of resources into balancing LW and then peg it as a low-tier talent. It’s jarring going 1-100 and then losing the pet, but I think it should be an option. The easiest way to do that is to let people choose very early on whether they want to play their character as a Ranger or as a Hunter.

    For the record, LW was one of the (several) reasons I came back to this game after a several year hiatus. I’ve wanted something like it for years, ever since dealing with terrible pet AI and macros in TBC. It’s actually a little irritating in the current setup with higher DPS and lower utility. I’d prefer it to be even on both counts so it’s entirely a playstyle preference instead of one being a glass cannon (which is always mandatory for raids).

    1. Pets haven’t been too bad in terms of derpiness lately, aside from the odd encounter with issues (usually revolving around Blink Strikes).

      But yeah, I think Lone Wolf would have been better as a true spec you can start playing as from the beginning. But my guess is they didn’t want to have a class with 4 DPS specs.

      1. Yeah, we don’t really need four DPS specs. A well-balanced low-tier LW (+/- 2%) would effectively create a fourth spec without actually creating a fourth spec. It feels like if they patched the utility up, all they’d have to do is buff/nerf the % DPS on the talent as needed to keep it on par. Seems easy enough to me, but what do I know?

        The pets really have improved since I last played (WotLK), but I think at this point it’s more a vendetta than anything. I wanted LW so badly back in TBC that it’s hard to not be happy about it now.

      2. I wouldn’t be surprised (and I personally would be pretty delighted) if Blizz made MM strictly pet-less going forward. It’s the spec that makes the most sense as the ranger archetype.
        Grats on the tier 3 gun. I’m pretty jealous! I managed to score a 645 from a follower mission that rolled haste (blech). My initial plan was to use 3 engineers to make the gun but I changed my mind because I wanted the tier 3 darkmoon trinket first (currently 2/3). I’ll probably use my seals on weapon dropping bosses exclusively.

  3. I really like Lone Wolf so far – but only use the talent and MM in general in Instances and Raids. Out in the world, I’m using BM and Gara so it doesn’t bother me too much that I’m petless when in MM.
    The other day a mage’s pet was doing some crazy stuff in Challenge Modes, pulling everything and generally being a nuisance and it made me realize just how much I don’t miss my pet in that environment.

    1. I’ve always said, play what and how you like and you will more than likely do better than anything else. You like SV with your pet (like I do) you’ll push out more dps that way than playing without a pet as a MM when you dislike the spec and don’t really fully understand how it works. No spec in the entire game is that broken that you can’t compete with one you know perfectly and enjoy playing over one you hate and have a vague idea of.

      1. Sorry, this was meant as a reply to Brigida’s comment below you. I don’t know why it kicked up to your comment and I don’t see a way to remove a comment so I can place it where it needs to go. My apologies.

  4. One of the reasons I became a hunter was movement + constant button pushing suited my play style. Standing still, PLUS the insanely long (for me) cast time on Aimed shot, just removes the joy from it. I can do it, but I really don’t like it.

    When I played MM occasionally in MoP, it at least had Aimed Shot procs that I could look forward to — but am i missing something now? Are there ANY fun procs with MM?? Add to all that, removing my pet (which guys, you gave me so many fun ones to tame in Draenor) kind of squeezes the joy out of it.

    1. MM’s challenge is balancing focus costs, cast times, and the opportunity cost of not moving at certain times. Definitely fun for some but I can see how it’s way too different from classic hunter play styles.

  5. no love for Sv 😛 but really, im going Sv with focusing shot, its aoe and ST potential is pretty good. Sucks that they don’t have a lot of burst aoe potential, but the sustained for both is pretty good enough to stick with without being forced to switch. Ill see you in heroics tonight gents, and best of luck to all the hunters!

  6. I am a SV hunter through and through. BM is my OS and dabble in it a little bit. I tried MM but I find it absolutely a nightmare to play well and just do not enjoy it. I find sticking to any kind of “dps ranking” just because it says one spec or talent is better than another is ridiculous and short sited. Obviously, there are exceptions and sometimes a certain talent is just garbage or just too good to pass up. Rarely, though, is a spec that broken that it can’t be played well, and still produce good dps.
    I find if you actually enjoy playing your spec and know the ins and outs of it like the back of your hand you will do leaps and bounds better than a spec you are only playing because some list tells you it’s better and you don’t enjoy, and/or don’t know all the tricks of the trade to play it to it’s fullest potential.
    I say this coming from a friend of mine who played MM throughout MoP because he loves that spec, and he routinely came in near the top of that charts even when that spec was sampled so little that it didn’t even register on any sims because that few of players played it. Or the BM hunter during ICC who just destroyed the rest of the MM and SV hunters one night when MM was the supposed “king” with SV a very close second.
    I say, stick with what you enjoy and you will more than likely do better than anyone playing something they hate, or don’t know how to play well just because some list says Spec A is better than Spec B or C. It’s a game after all, aren’t you supposed to be doing this because you enjoy it, not because a list tells you what you should play?
    On a side note, I absolutely refuse to take Lone Wolf as a talent. I think it is a garbage talent to have ever even been given hunters and wish it would be taken away. I play a hunter because I want to have a pet, and play a pet class. For those who like it and hated having a pet, why would you ever choose to play a class where a pet is one of the most important parts of your dps in the first place? I find the talent laughably misplaced for something that could have been much cooler and more hunter based than completely gutting the main feature of the class, it’s pet.

    1. I do agree you should play what you love, but it’s hard to just say no to gobs of extra damage for some people. I’m not even well practiced in MM and I can do quite a bit more damage with it. Min-maxing performance is also a primary motivator for a lot of people who raid. Getting more numbers *is* the fun factor for them. I’m somewhere in the middle. I like performing well, but I also have a play style I prefer that just makes me want to say fudge the numbers.

      I’m just going to go in with my BM/MM dual spec and see what happens.

      1. I can only partially agree with you on your points, only because very few people are going to truly min/max to the fullest potential that the top players in the world are able to pump out any sizable number differences to make a real difference or dent in the numbers. I do agree that some people “min/maxing” in what you are referring to might be the fun factor for those people, but even then I still believe it to be a psychological thing of any real sizable number differences to even mention. They only play the “top spec” because some chart told them to and they will defend to the death they see some sizable difference worth noting compared to other specs and mock those that don’t follow suit.

        Like the 2 examples I gave in my first post, no spec across any class is that broken to cause it to be completely worthless. To further add a 3rd example, Unholy DK’s were “supposed” to be utter garbage like MM hunters at the start of MoP. I played Unholy, well, because we got a pet, and even on other classes I want my pet. I got mocked in raids by other DK’s in whispers and chat because I played unholy and how much I sucked for playing that. To which I replied with linking recount in chat and showing I was actually ahead both in DPS and in damage done to all those frost DK’s, some even with better gear, who assured me I was a noob and unholy was a broken, useless spec even after I pointed out I was outperforming them in my broken spec. I enjoy playing unholy tons more than frost and I know exactly how to time everything. That alone will easily make me outperform most other frost DK’s who know nothing of the spec. Yeah, I could learn frost like I did unholy and probably push out more numbers, maybe, but I would argue the average player isn’t learning a spec like that and just button smash what someone told them was the best. The term min/maxing has lost all meaning in the past few years because of how common it’s usage gets thrown around to justify belittling those who don’t follow any kind of set simulation, so few people truly know and do what it actually means, they look at a sim and ask in the forums what’s “best” and they think that is min/maxing because they have the right gems and the right enchants.

        But there are always exceptions to the rule, I’m not trying to suggest my opinion as fact by any means, and there are some with the skill outside of the top players who could min/max to that level, but I would argue that number of players is quite small, and that it still is a psychological thing with most others. Too many times I read on the forums or in chat on a daily basis “what’s the best spec,” “What spec does the most dps,” etc. IMHO, if you ever have to ask something like that you definitely fall into the psychological category and will never perform to a level of a true “min/maxer.” Then again if the fantasy you are doing more is what is fun to you, more power to that person, I will still always suggest to those people asking to choose what you enjoy and know, because I have seen how much better you will be as a player and a class that way over being told what to play because it is “the best” on some random chart. Ultimately, though, if following the crowd like that is what is fun for you, so be it, doing what you enjoy even if you are lower in damage, then so be as well. Everyone should play how they wish to without judgment from anyone as being bad or a noob, but don’t defend it for anything other than what it is. I will always play with my pet out no matter if LW did 100% more damage than with a pet. It’s what I personally enjoy and I have never not pulled my own weight on my raid team as a lifetime SV hunter.

        In the end, I would be more worried that if MM is truly performing that well for you, and you don’t even play it well, that nerfs are clearly coming your way, or SV/BM have buffs coming. We already know number tuning is currently happening and we only saw the first round of it last week. Last thing you want to be doing is bouncing around different specs that favor different stats only to be nerfed to oblivion or others be buffed above another spec and now your stats, gems and enchants are all wrong. If you always play what you enjoy to your best ability, things like that become null and void.

        As long as a player can say they are having fun with whatever they are doing, who is anyway to question a choice they make really?

        1. Thanks for your well said post. I had been getting worried with all the talk of MM and LW. I much prefer SV which has been my primary since some time in BC. I tried some MM years ago another time when it was ‘the best’ and my numbers plumetted. I read up on the roation and shot at dummies and I still could not bet my numbers to match my SV ones. Finally I gave up and went back to SV. I have met MM hunters that blew my numbers away. But that guy was OP in any class. Last night in Highmaul I was second DPS in our raid behind a better geared rogue. Yeah, think I will stick with what I know and love.

  7. The Lone Wolf talent seems like Blizzard has a personal vendetta against me. I have gotten A LOT of abuse for not being a Lone Wolf. I don’t normally use exotic pets, preferring my wolves with the exception of Gara so normally when I join a group they often can’t tell tight away I am BM. This however hasn’t stopped the worst of the worst from immediately kicking me the first chance they get for having my pet present. I have gotten whispers berating me about my main spec choice so now I have more people on ignore than there should be. I find this all crushing because of how personal the hunter, especially the BM spec is to me. If this continues this could be the death of WoW for me. I don’t like playing the other classes, none of them strike a chord with me. I hate tanking, I dislike healing and other dps methods leave a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t like playing alts because I get them to level 40-ish then I get bored and go back to my hunter. Before the guilds and friends every hunter has had that one buddy that has always had their back:their pet. I find it incredibly crushing that Blizzard is now taking away the pets from the pet class. I know after ten years in this game it is par for the course for favorite specs to become obsolete but never has it felt this bad.

    1. I have, sadly, come across this kind of behavior already in WoD as well. I play SV with BM as my OS. I always have a pet, and refuse to use LW because I main the most awesome class, hunter, because I get a freakin’ pet. I’ve gotten a few of those whispers and some not so nice comments said to me in the last 2 and a half weeks. I hate having to ignore people because of bad behavior, but as you said, it seems to be more common than not lately with this.

      Ultimately I just bust my ass with my rotation and send a kind whisper with a link to recount after a boss fight in a dungeon or some trash pull with that beautiful green bar above theirs and then ask them “who’s the one that sucks?” I had one person reply to that that I would be being if I took LW, which I responded to with, so what you’re saying is you would suck even more if I had the LW talent? They didn’t say anything after that. It takes a thick skin to play what you want and enjoy, but in my experience you will always do better doing that than playing something you dislike or in a way you aren’t having fun in.

      Another thing to remember, which I am sure you are aware of, certain fights favor certain classes. There are melee friendly fights, and ranged friendly fights, even hunter friendly fights (looking right at you Thok!). As much as we would love to be on top always, we won’t, it’s just not possible with the mechanics as they are now. I find being a master of your pet and how it moves or sometimes doesn’t move is the key to really pushing out the numbers. Too many people rely on the AI to do the work for them and just forget about the pet so they have switched to LW and washed their hands of the pet. A real hunter knows how to master all his tools given to him or her and doesn’t just go for the easy way out by ditching their pet. Any DK, or warlock, or warrior, or whatever who wants to question my choices can enjoy my ignore list, I’ll be damned if I’m getting lectured by any of the Hunter support classes like that.

      You sound like you know the hunter class, just keep doing what you enjoy and screw everyone else, IMO. You’ll do better in the long run, and enjoy yourself more that way then being forced to do things you don’t enjoy to appease people in a video game on telling you how to play and enjoy your time in game.

    2. Are these heroics or normal runs? I’ve found the heroic runs to be remarkably asshat-free in WoD, presumably because of the Proving Grounds requirement. I’d be surprised to see that shitty attitude from the groups I’ve run with so far. (Admittedly, without a pet.)

  8. I said it before, LW is Bliz saying “we don’t have the encounter designers around to do encounters that work with pets very well so …”

    A 15% gap is huge, even at a point in game where much is expected to be broken. I don’t believe they want to see it as broken anymore than they want to admit they broke professions on purpose to appeal to the FaceBook game mindset of younger and younger players (i.e. Garrison management.) I’m now part of a family that has an 8 and a 14 year old playing regularly … and I see exactly how much they love the distractions and mini games. They will be Blizzard’s bread and butter.

  9. Wait. Where I can get the schematic for the engineering gun 3rd level upgrade? I can’t find it anywhere…

    And the great difference I see with playing Lone Wolf on groups (I just couldn’t make it work leveling or soloing anything) is that you get rid of all the problems with the pet micromanagement. You’re now only worried about your position and your damage, not if your pet is effectively attacking anyone or if he’s running to some unnecessary mob or even just chillin’ on the corner.

  10. @Mythriak; it’s purchasable once you buy True Iron Trigger.

    On the post; I skimmed the comments so forgive me if you answer, but I’m kind-of jealous of your resource acquisition. As someone who has no scavenger followers, it’s an uphill battle to get the resources I need to do anything. And it’s a disturbing trend I’ve noticed; people who got extremely lucky and got multiple scavenger followers have no need for an LM/TP (or both) and are flooded with resources, whereas people who did not get any scavenger followers are struggling to keep pace with those who did.

    Even my own experience was ridiculous. One alt got two scavenger followers and they had no problem getting level 3 garrison, but my main with no scavengers? Uphill battle, again.

    1. Well, I believe you can get a scavenger follower from the Inn. You’ll have to level them from 90-100 but that doesn’t take too long (at least compared to leveling the quality of a follower already @ 100).

  11. Bendak, you know what’s going to happen once you get your gun lvl’ed right? It’s bound to be one of the first items that drops for you. People like you and me are in the same boat all the time (damned if you do, damned if you don’t).

  12. Yes! So ready! I’m also 636, which I feel is way perfect to start Normal mode.

    I like crafting too, and it’s still kind of gated just like before – you needed a daily cooldown to craft the best stuff, but this time it starts out slow and gets better. Sure to start you can make 4 a day, and if you have the mats a work order does 1 each, but by the time you’re 700 with a lvl 100 follower in there, you’re making 10 a day and they bust out 2 per work order! What took 10 days now takes a little over 4. Fair to me!

    I for one LOVE Lone Wolf and the whole “Ranger / Sniper” deal. Spirit Bond was my favorite thing ever for soloing current and old stuff, but the new camouflage perk almost makes up for it!

    I’ve been playing way too much… but I told myself I’m not missing ANYTHING this xpac! I’m getting all Garrison achievements, doing Brawlers Guild rank 10 again, NOT missing out on Challenge Mode stuff, getting legendary ring as soon as possible on main and Alliance alt… as well as new goals I didn’t know about like getting all the treasure from the treasure map and assault area achievements.

    1. Other than getting Meatball as a follower, is there anything truly new in Brawlers Guild, other than the fun of reordered fights? (And don’t get me wrong, that is fun, I’m just not sure how much of a priority the guild is for me this time around.)

      1. Not that I noticed, besides Hexos not being required to rank up anymore. It actually feels… easier… as I pittled around right at 100 and had no issues at all. I’m doing it just so I make sure I do it all and in a timely manner :]

  13. I’ve been a Marksmanship Hunter since November 2004 (earlier really, since I played it in beta as well) except for brief moments as BM to tame exotics (I think I have four banked and never leveled) and a Firelands raid where I was Survival for about 10 minutes. So I’m thrilled that Marks is back on top after what feels like a very, very, very long time. (As in, back when Armor Penetration was the thing to stack while fighting in Icecrown Citadel.) But 15 percent is too much of a gap. I’m hoping that gets narrowed to single digits soon; I was lucky enough to have raid groups let me be MM at times when maybe they should have leaned on me to switch and I don’t like thinking of others being stuck in that uncomfortable position.

    I like Lone Wolf for groups and raiding because, yeah, pet pathing can be awful and it’s not a management game I have ever been particularly interested in. As of last night, I have two Marks specs, though, one with pet (and the appropriate talents and glyphs) and one without. When I’m out in the world, my trusty bear tank is indispensable, but I am perfectly happy letting support classes fill that role in an instance.

    That said, I hope they don’t remove pets from Marks entirely. Although I’m not as pet-focused as some hunters — I came to WoW through War3 and the Dwarven Rifleman, after all — it’d be insanely restrictive to do so. I like the idea of making it an early-tier talent and effectively a fourth spec. Everyone gets what they want that way.

  14. I have a dead useful macro for anyone playing MM who switches talents frequently (actually 3 macros chained together with /click). I for one love LW for stables quests and dungeons, but have been using EW when doing things like the apexis daily or questing.

    http://pastebin.com/8bnk2xvZ

    1. Edit: I should clarify, this swaps your talents and spends Tomes of the Clear Mind, but allows you to keep a BM or Survival offspec.

  15. I am having a huge issue with the Hunter class at the moment. Lone Wolf is a good chunk of the problem. I hate MM…huge cast bars all over the place and no pet. If I wanted to play a class like that i would of rolled a Mage 8 years ago.

    Survival DPS is garbage let alone the spec makes me feel naked and BM is just meh.

    Impact? I hardly log on..i do garrison stuff ..fart around…then log out. Been hanging out in Ashran soaking up honor kills…but really my play time has decreased by 60%+. Maybe raiding will pick it up….but i think its time for me to take a break from wow …it will be my third break…

    I want to like this xpac..i want to play it…but after 10-15 minutes into the game…i remember why i logged off last time.

  16. I entered Highmaul Normal yesterday together with another similar geared BM hunter. I had only done 1 heroic as MM but still I managed to do significantly more dps as MM with LoneWolf than my fellow hunter, even in fights with lots of movement. I really hope we’ll see another balance pass soon so that the classes/specs are closer in terms of DPS and the level 100 talents offer a proper choice. Exotic Ammo/Focusing Shot require more interaction/decision making and should reward that with more DPS. Also, I feel kinda naked without my pet.

  17. I odn’t understand all the hate for Lone Wolf. If you don’t want to sacrifice flavor and fun for DPS, don’t. I didn’t want to manage pooling 60 focus every 20 seconds AND having to finetune positioning to avoid extra pulls, so I took Glaive Toss instead of Barrage. It sims as a dps loss, but its actually a DPS gain for me, because GT I use on CD, while Barrage I was more hesitant because its much more difficult to use properly.

    Also, none of the level 100 talents are particularly engaging; Exotic Ammo is a passive buff, and Focusing Shot replaces your focus builder with a different focus builder. Since Focusing Shot removes a large chunk of mobility, I think it should do more dps than it does, but not more than Lone Wolf. Dismissing the pet is a HUGE utility trade off, and should be commensurately rewarded with high dps.

    Remember that when you have a pet, you can bring Battle Rez/Heroism/Web Wrap, a passive source of damage (which MM completely lacks without the pet), you have a semi-tank in a pinch, Master’s Call, and Spirit Bond. With Lone Wolf you lose all of that, and just get bigger numbers. If you take away the bigger numbers, there is no more incentive to play with the talent.

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