Tag Archives: Dire Frenzy

Hunter News, Opinion

BfA Alpha: Changes to Dire Frenzy and Dire Beast, Bestial Wrath goes on the global cooldown

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There is no longer a choice between Dire Frenzy or Dire Beast, all BM Hunters will now be using Dire Frenzy for their Focus generator/Bestial Wrath reset. Well, now it’s actually called Barbed Shot instead of Dire Frenzy, and it behaves totally like a shot (in that it requires a ranged weapon, and uses a standard shot animation).

Barbed Shot seems like it’s not fully implemented at this point, but I think I can gather where it’s going to be when it’s finished. The shot you fire will now be the damage component as it applies an 8-second bleed, and this bleed is what sends your pet into the frenzy (right now it’s an instant attack and not a bleed, but I’m sure that will change). Currently on alpha, the pet still does its regular dire frenzy attacks in addition to the shot damage, but since this isn’t mentioned in the tooltip I suspect it will be removed. Your pet will still charge to your Barbed Shot target, so it still functions as a target swapping mechanic similar to Kill Command’s charge (which is nice).

Frenzy stacks on your pet are still a thing, so maintaining these stacks will remain a core mechanic. It’s too early to say how crucial it will be to maintain 3 stacks since no numbers are balanced. But if Blizzard decides to make pets do more damage again (in contrast to Legion where their auto attack damage is quite low), then a lot more emphasis could be put on those frenzy stacks.

Continue reading BfA Alpha: Changes to Dire Frenzy and Dire Beast, Bestial Wrath goes on the global cooldown →

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Hunter News

Beast Mastery tier 21 hotfix buffs, the Aspect of the Wild build, and the start of BfA Alpha

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A couple of Beast Mastery hotfixes dropped this week, but they’re both pretty minor. I’ve had a lot of people ask about them and how it affects gearing, so here’s a quick post on them.

Hotfix 1: Increases all damage by 2.5%

This applies to every main ability and active talent, it doesn’t increase things such as pet auto attack damage (as far as I know). Beast Mastery is still going to be near the bottom on Warcraft Logs, but now we should no longer be in our own sad little tier at the bottom. That’s the most positive way I can spin this. I was hoping for more targeted changes, i.e. buffs to Beast Cleave, Thunderslash, and AoE talents. But a buff is a buff and this makes our single target a little better.

Continue reading Beast Mastery tier 21 hotfix buffs, the Aspect of the Wild build, and the start of BfA Alpha →

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Hunter News, Opinion

Patch 7.2.5 Beast Mastery: Stomp vs. Dire Frenzy [UPDATED]

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About a month ago I made a “patch 7.2.5 preview” post for Beast Mastery where I predicted that the Crit/Stomp build would be making a return in some form, and also took a look at the new legendaries. The Stomp part panned out, but the legendary sims were not clear. They were only single legendary sims, so it was easy to take them out of context. In hindsight I would’ve done legendary combos instead. I did slather the post in disclaimers but apparently it wasn’t enough to prevent some misinformation. Also the blog format isn’t the best for this info, I guess. Not everyone looks at the date of the post, and the info kinda just sits there forever, even when it’s no longer relevant. So I decided to remove that post since it’s pre-patch info and was being taken out of context repeatedly.

Now, the patch is here and a lot of people are jumping on the Stomp train, but the question is how long is it going to last? Well, it’s going to fall off a bit in Tomb of Sargeras with T20 gear. However, with the right gear and legendaries, one should be able to keep Stomp fairly competitive with the Dire Frenzy build. It comes down to how much you value DPS gains over play style. For some people, any gain — even less than 1% — is worth switching for.

Updated on July 6, 2017: Recently there was a bug fixed in Simulation Craft which slightly changes the results posted here originally. I’ve updated the simulations below. We’ve also seen on the live game how Stomp is doing slightly better than expected (compared to Dire Frenzy).

The bug was keeping the base Bestial Wrath cooldown reset at 15 seconds instead of 12 seconds. So we lost a bit of DPS in the sims, and the gap between Dire Frenzy and Stomp shrank to basically nothing (even in T20 gear). I’ve put red text on any sections below that were updated.

Update TLDR: The small gap between Stomp and Dire Frenzy in T20 is gone. They’re basically equal now.

Continue reading Patch 7.2.5 Beast Mastery: Stomp vs. Dire Frenzy [UPDATED] →

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Hunter News

It’s happening! Beast Mastery gets its best changes yet in 7.2.5

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I’ll be honest with you, I was getting pretty upset about the initial 7.2.5 changes with Wild Call. I even had a big rant in my post drafts that I never got around to posting because it was too negative and strayed from being constructive. But there’s not even any point in going over why the initial change was so bad, because it’s gone. Deleted. Blizzard has finally listened to us.

Originally Posted by Seph (Official Forums)

Hi Beast Masters. We’ve been reading your feedback and trying different sets of changes for Beast Mastery Hunters internally and on PTR.

To start, we are reverting all 7.2.5 changes we’ve made so far to how Wild Call triggers. Instead, Dire Beast and Dire Frenzy will have 2 charges baseline. The Mantle of Command (legendary shoulders that currently add +1 charge to Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy) will be changed to instead further increase the proc chance of Wild Call.

Overall, this will result in more Focus for all Beast Mastery Hunters, resulting in a more active rotation. Additionally, this gives all Beast Mastery Hunters access to a Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy with 2 charges playstyle that is more engaging and fun, allowing you to make decisions on when to use the buttons, instead of feeling like you should most often simply push them on cooldown.

We’ve been trying other iterations of changes surrounding Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy and Wild Call, including increasing Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy Focus generation or versions that avoided changing the legendary shoulders drastically, but ultimately reached the conclusion that giving 2 charges to the abilities baseline, which many of you have asked for, was the best change for the spec at the current time. We appreciate your patience while we try different iterations on PTR.

We are also making a few other less major changes to the spec in the next PTR patch, including:

  • Aspect of the Wild will reduce the global cooldowns of your damaging abilities by 0.2 seconds, allowing you to more reliably spend the Focus you’re generating while it’s active, especially with Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy going off.
  • Kill Command and Dire Frenzy will cause your pet/Hati to charge up to 40 yds (up from 25 yds) to the target, matching the max range of your ranged abilities.
  • When your pet casts Dash, Hati will also gain Dash for the same duration.

 

Continue reading It’s happening! Beast Mastery gets its best changes yet in 7.2.5 →

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Hunter News

Patch 7.2.5: Big changes coming to Wild Call procs for Beast Mastery

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EDIT: IGNORE EVERYTHING BELOW! Blizzard has smartened up! 2 charges will be baseline in 7.2.5!

Wild Call  — and by extension The Mantle of Command — is getting some rather large changes in the upcoming patch 7.2.5. Let’s go straight to the blue post:

Originally Posted by Seph (Official Forums)
In 7.2.5, we are changing Wild Call from a cooldown reset mechanic to a cooldown reduction mechanic.

The base proc chance will be doubled and the cooldown reduction per proc will be 3.0 sec (affected by haste), roughly half the average expected value of current live Wild Call procs. Baseline, the amount of total Dire Beast casts and Dire Beast uptime should be roughly the same as on live, except the changes should result in smoother Focus regeneration from more well-paced Dire Beast casts.

Additionally, these changes have the desired side effect of bringing the power level of The Mantle of Command more in line with other legendaries.

(…)

One with the Pack’s proc chance increase to Wild Call will also be doubled. With the talent, Wild Call will have 100% chance to proc.


So, let’s summarize this:

  • When your Auto Shot crits, Wild Call will now have a 40% chance to proc a 3 second cooldown reduction on Dire Beast.
  • They want to nerf The Mantle of Command.
  • One with the Pack will make it so that every single time your Auto Shot crits, Dire Beast’s cooldown will be reduced by 3 seconds.

Continue reading Patch 7.2.5: Big changes coming to Wild Call procs for Beast Mastery →

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Hunter Guides, Opinion

The Mantle of Command: Unlocking the 4th Hunter spec

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Legendaries have probably been the most contentious issue in all of Legion. It sucks to have meaningful gaps in player power, or completely transformative and quality of life effects gated behind pure luck. In my opinion, legendaries would have been better if they all had utility or defensive bonuses and their DPS power came from raw stats. Even if Blizzard agrees with this in hindsight, it’s kind of too late for Legion. Instead they’ve upped the drop rates and removed diminishing returns on bad luck protection so that eventually you can get all of them for your spec if you want.

This brings us to The Mantle of Command. The legendary every Hunter hopes to get. I was lucky enough to receive it as my fifth legendary. This is on top of the Roar of the Seven Lions which I received as my second legendary. Don’t hate me. Even though I’ve been lucky here, I know the system is broken. The only solace I can offer is that you will get the shoulders at some point now that it doesn’t get harder to get each subsequent legendary (after your 3rd). Let’s just hope it’s a matter of days rather than a matter of months because every BM Hunter deserves these.

Patch 7.2 Update – April 1, 2017

New traits (and an update to Dire Frenzy) have lessened the relative value of the Crit build discussed below. It’s not that the Crit build has gotten worse, it’s that the Dire Frenzy build has gotten better. The Dire Frenzy build switches priorities back to Agi > Mastery = Haste > Crit > Vers (roughly).

The changeover happens once you get the Thunderslash trait, plus Convergence of Fates and/or Call of the Wild. At this point, the Haste/Mastery Dire Frenzy build becomes about 5% more powerful than the Crit build in single target. This is the same single target build discussed in my BM FAQ post.

In short, the One With The Pack crit build is still totally viable (and extremely fun), but min-maxers will probably want to stick to the Dire Frenzy build. Oh, and the shoulders are still totally amazing with this build because it gives you so much control over those Dire Frenzy stacks.

For all I know, this could revert again once Tomb of Sargeras comes out and we get the new set T20 set bonuses. Part of the reason this build is so strong is the T19 2pc for Dire Frenzy, and once we lose T19 4pc, the OWTP Crit build’s increased Bestial Wrath uptime could be crucial for those new T20 bonuses. But for TODAY, the best possible DPS is had by going Dire Frenzy.

Second Update: April 12, 2017 – Thunderslash nerf

With the Thunderslash nerf, the original Crit build discussed below is still a viable option. The Dire Frenzy build still has more DPS, but the gap is much much smaller. If you have more fun doing the Crit/OWTP build, I would encourage you to play it. The gap is only a few percent at most.

Continue reading The Mantle of Command: Unlocking the 4th Hunter spec →

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Hunter News, Hunter Pets

Beast Mastery News: Hati customization, Dire Beast replacement

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Shortly after I wrote this initial piece on what I felt was wrong with the Beast Mastery fantasy in Legion, the developers announced that they planned on adding a glyph so that Dire Beast would pull from your own stable of pets rather than use random ones from the wild. This addressed one of the primary concerns, but the other big one was Hati.

Since then, Hati has seen a model update (as seen above) and most Hunters seem to agree that it’s a heck of a lot better than the old model. In addition there are different colors of Hati to match your artifact color. After they did this, I was fairly certain that was it for Hati. Having every single BM Hunter stuck with the same wolf wasn’t ideal, but at least it was a brand new model.

However, in the most recent build a very interesting item was datamined.

Continue reading Beast Mastery News: Hati customization, Dire Beast replacement →

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