Comments on: How to work your hunter in 4.0.1

By: angry gamer

angry gamer — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 20:00:00 +0000

Hey Angry, what spec are you?*

I am BM all the way for general play with a collection of ALL Spirit Beasts *flex*

I raid as MM because it refreshes serp sting.

Kill as focus dump? That seems to be correct from what I am hearing. I would interweave arcane (a bit) to get a few more dps. Some experiments I have done just omit arcane from my rotation completely.

For sometime now arcane has actually been a bit of a drag on dps in general for MM. I have advocated it being optional for MM and that seems to be carrying over to ver 4.0.1. Mileage may vary but for 80 it seems to be so.

Hope that helps…

By: Drew

Drew — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:23:30 +0000

I’ve not had much of a chance to play, but as a “BM for Life” hunter, I’m really excited about the changes; we don’t appear to be headed back into “red-headed stepchild” range again in Cataclysm.

Anyhow, don’t forget the new ability that eats up frenzy stacks to increase haste or something similar. It’s on a 15-second cooldown and the name escapes me right now, sorry.

But yeah, Kill Command is definitely the focus dump of choice, along with Arcane Shot (and Kill Shot, when available as you said). Also, the new Kill Shot glyph is phenomenal (for everyone).

By: ReversionLFM

ReversionLFM — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:48:30 +0000

With MM it Chimera shot is the critical one and you have to use it often enough for it to refresh your serpent’s sting. I am using Icehud to show me my focus but I need something to show the sting on my target and which abilities are ready. Like you said, right now I am way focused on my action bars.
I might have to swap the built in auras for Power Auras and try getting a few more things to display front and center. The rotation, written on paper, seems no more complicated than the old rotaions… but the focus thing is making it a lot more interactive. Or at least reactive. Before if you got off rotation you could pick it up anywhere. Now if you get sloppy your focus is drained out or maxed (and wasted).
Focus is your feedback. The feedback for when you are doing your rotation poorly is right there and impossible to miss.

By: Bristal

Bristal — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:43:19 +0000

I chose a BM spec and looked at a couple of shot priority recommendations, but I really didn’t “get it” until I spent some time with a target dummy.

You are exactly right. Steady fills it up, everything else drains it. Using steady is like being in Viper, damage worse, but bar fills up.

All specs have a couple “best use” abilities on short cooldowns. BM’s are Kill Command & Kill Shot. Your priority is to keep enough focus to be able to use KC/KS whenever it’s off cooldown, and use anything else to fill the spaces, but not so much that you clip your best abilities. Keeping up serpent sting is another variable.

So start with (Hunter’s Mark, of course) Serpent Sting (until pet gets there) Kill Command, Arcane/Serp Sting, and use Steady to be sure you have enough focus every 6 seconds for Kill Command or Kill Shot when off cooldown.

The min/max will be getting in as many of those primary abilities as possible during a fight, while improving your ability to fill the spaces. And when your long cooldown abilities are available, time your best abilities to coincide as many times as possible in it’s duration.

I sense that with repetition, it will become more intuitive. Right now I’m staring only at my action bars. Addons that show your focus clearly and graphically and cooldown alerts will be helpful.

Another hint. You have to click on “learn” to get your spec (and your pet’s spec) to stick. My pet damage wouldn’t go above 700DPS until I realized that although I’d clicked the talents I wanted, I never clicked on “learn”. Pet DPS then started going >2K.

Pet DPS I believe is meant to be more than personal DPS in BM. So pet management/speed going to be critical.

I’ve missed BM.

By: ReversionLFM

ReversionLFM — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:27:19 +0000

love the concept… have not had any time to do anything with it. I cleard out all but one of the active slots in prep for taming more pets but have not gotten around to taming any yet. So I just have one pet and can’t test how useful the changing on the fly is.
And I still need to regem and do some reforging before I get back into ICC.

Hey Angry, what spec are you? I am MM and I ahve been trying using Kill command and arcane shot as my focus dump. So far I am getting better DPS using Kill command. Think it procs more or something. Not sure. I am a poor theory crafter.

I must say, I do like the new system. It makes DPSing a hunter very active and interactive. It is harder but more interesting.

By: angry gamer

angry gamer — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:39:15 +0000

pretty much what I am doing now…

How do ya like all the new pet storage slots?