Scattered Shots: Hunter mastery balance in Cataclysm beta
by Brian Wood 
Sep 27th 2010 at 9:00AM
With Cataclysm, all of our huntering skills finally progress to the next level. The apprentice surpasses the master, and we even get the new mastery ability and mastery stat on our gear to prove it. Mastery gives us a bonus that is unique to each spec, scales with our gear and provides a convenient knob for the designers to use to tweak our DPS as needed to help keep all specs in line with each other.
At least, that's the plan. Currently, our masteries, which haven't been touched since the re-implementation after the 31-point talent trees, range from nearly useless to "Holy bajeezus, Batman!" More alarmingly, if unchanged, there is a danger that they could represent scaling issues that would make it impossible to balance the hunter specs across raid tiers.
Join me after the cut for an analysis of the current state hunter masteries. If discussing the potential balance issues of in-development stuff is dull and pointless to you, give today's column a pass and hop back on Thursday for something different.
It ain't final, it's still the beta/PTR
As always, we're still in beta. Well, we're also in the PTR, which is considerably further along -- but the point is that we're still in development. The hunter class is like a newborn child; sure, it may look like a hideous, deformed, alien thing, but that doesn't mean it can't grow up into an uncommonly good-looking paragon of death.
Normally I don't spend a ton of time analyzing the DPS advantages of beta abilities, because they change every build or two. I figure we need to wait for them to settle down somewhat before really crunching the numbers. But with mastery, it's been a long time with no changes. Our masteries today are the same as they were first re-implemented over a month ago. Since they are starting to seem somewhat fixed and I still have concerns, it seemed worthwhile to take the time to run the tests and check the numbers.
Quick review
In case you've forgotten, here are the masteries for each spec:
- Beast mastery Master of Beasts
- Marksman Wild Quiver
- Survival Essence of the Viper
The DPS advantages of mastery, by spec
I ran some tests at level 85 to measure how much mastery is contributing to our DPS. Because the specs aren't yet balanced (MM is way behind, DPS-wise), I'm looking at mastery as a percentage of DPS rather than raw numbers. I did the tests in poor gear and with premades with varying levels of gear, from 288 mastery rating up to 1,500 mastery rating.
Since this is on the beta, the last patch never got applied. That means that pet DPS went down, but Kill Command damage went way, way up. Essentially, this means that all specs will probably see an increase in the percentage of DPS that mastery contributes.
Here's what the numbers are now looking like with very little mastery on gear:
- Beast mastery Mastery contributes around 13% of the total hunter + pet DPS.
- Marksman Mastery contributes around 1.6% of the total hunter + pet DPS.
- Survival Mastery contributes around 16% of the total hunter + pet DPS.
Here's what the number look like up around 1,500 mastery rating:
- Beast mastery Mastery contributes around 19% of the total hunter + pet DPS.
- Marksman Mastery contributes around 3.5% of the total hunter + pet DPS.
- Survival Mastery contributes around 30% of the total hunter + pet DPS.
Mastery DPS does not need to be the same
An important thing to note here is that the advantage of mastery does not need to be the same from spec to spec. It is perfectly fine if MM gets a 3 percent boost from its mastery and SV gets a 30 percent boost. All that matters is that the DPS of each spec is approximately balanced.
So perhaps MM gets little from the mastery stat, but the advantage of Piercing Shots or other talents gives it a big DPS edge that other specs don't get. The important thing is that DPS balances out in the end, and there are a lot of ways to adjust that.
Sure, it would kinda suck if your MM spec never wanted a piece of gear with mastery on it and your SV spec would never take anything else. Then you end up needing two different sets of gear just to play the two specs, making it far more likely that you'll get holed into just one or the other. I feel that way too, but we have to feel that way very, very quietly. If the hybrids heard us complaining about needing two gear sets, there would no end of lecturing.
The scaling problem
While it's fine if the mastery boost is different from spec to spec, it is not fine if the scaling is radically different from spec to spec. You can turn all the DPS knobs you want to, but if MM gets 20 percent more DPS from going up a tier of gear yet SV goes up 30 percent, then we have a problem.
Right now, it's looking like there's a problem with mastery scaling.
If we start at the baseline, then every point of mastery (around 179 mastery rating) is netting BM around a 1.33 percent DPS increase. SV sees around a 1.7 percent DPS increase, and MM sees a tiny 0.25 percent increase. Unless the other specs have a stat that scales comparatively better the mastery for SV, survival will pull ahead as gear levels increase.
Solutions
There are a lot of ways to solve the issue, and I don't doubt that Blizzard is considering many that I haven't even thought of. Certainly it looks like mastery is a bit too good for SV right now. The simplest solution to that would be to just reduce the percentage damage increase -- so instead of 2.5 percent increase to elemental damage, we make it 1.5 percent (or whatever seems appropriate). This is the great thing about the mastery system -- it's easy to tweak. Alternatively, you could limit the types of elemental damage the master affects (just fire and shadow, for example).
However, I do think that the MM mastery probably needs to be reworked entirely. While we could certainly increase the proc chance of its mastery -- or more likely, increase the damage of the proc -- I'm not convinced that's the best route to go.
Personally, I'd favor just giving MM an entirely new mastery. I like the idea of giving MM a flat percentage damage increase to physical damage. This is very fitting with the theme of MM and essentially gives us the armor penetration benefit, only without the wonky non-linear scaling that made armor penetration such a weird stat in Wrath. It also fits well with the hunter masteries in general and would scale well with them. (As a side note, my low-mastery hunter gets about 72 percent of hunter damage from physical shots, including Piercing Shots, and the SV hunter gets about 85 percent of hunter damage from magical shots).
But whatever the solution, I hope to see something change in the next several builds. Now that things are on the PTR, it feels more and more like we need to get the big changes out of the way so we can spend our time rooting out subtle bugs and tweaking things.
Scattered Shots is dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. Our Scattered Shots Resource Guide takes aim at everything from improving your heroic DPS, understanding the impact of skill vs. gear, and getting started with Beast Mastery 101 and Marksman 101.Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Scattered Shots
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Hituro Sep 27th 2010 9:14AM
So does this mean the SV Mastery tooltip is wrong? You mention lowering the bonues to elemental damage, which is what I remember it doing from the class previews, but the tooltip says +2.5% pet damage. It's the same on the PTR. Which is right?
Frostheim Sep 27th 2010 2:16PM
Ah, yes, the tooltip is wrong. It increases elemental damage by 2.5% per mastery.
Sithril Sep 27th 2010 9:26AM
Redesigning MM mastery, well, what about it did something like that your ranged shots have a chance to reset the cooldown (and cost) of your next Chimera shot?
Deathknighty Sep 27th 2010 9:29AM
That's not passive enough. That means more mastery would alter your rotation drastically if you were stack it heavily, wouldn't it? They're meant to be things that increase your dps passively, not change your rotation drastically depending if you have a lot of a certain stat. ;)
Peddel Sep 27th 2010 10:13AM
@deathyknighty
the ret paladin mastery bonus does change your rotation, so that ain't true
Meatwadz Sep 27th 2010 10:59AM
From what I have read, the ret mastery speeds up your rotation some but does not change the rotation by much. Completely resetting the cd on the signature ability of a spec would drastically alter the playstyle and focus management system.
Zaros Sep 27th 2010 12:48PM
The balance druid mastery is what makes the entire rotation!
Blaubard Sep 27th 2010 9:29AM
"It ain't final, it's still the beta/PTR"
(no comment)
benbettis Sep 27th 2010 11:04AM
I'm so tired of comments like this one. Yes, we get it, it's the PTR/beta. But do YOU get it? PUBLIC TEST realm. As in test it, and then critique it. What the hell is the point of even having a Beta if we're gonna just sit there saying, "Oh it's just beta don't waste your time worrying about it"?
Undra Sep 27th 2010 3:03PM
Frost was actually very careful to keep useless numbers out, he was looking at the ratios of damage which even with inflated or deflated numbers is still informative. So it's not really the right situation to remind others it's the beta, especially when Frost made a point to do so at the beginning of the article.
Biting someone's head off for a knee-jerk reaction to the wrong situation doesn't help either.
Hal Sep 27th 2010 9:29AM
This picture makes me think I need to get in on the all-hunter guild. Although I'll probably just be that poor soul in the corner, plummeting off the chain and into the lava.
Hal Sep 27th 2010 9:34AM
Actually relevant follow-up question:
Did your testing through the "gear levels" also include upgrades to weapon DPS? For MM, there's going to be a strong relationship between weapon DPS and mastery, but going up in tiers of gear hopefully includes a weapon upgrade (eventually).
Also, do we know yet if there's a cap on mastery? That is, can MM eventually get up to 100% of shots to make an extra shot?
Frostheim Sep 27th 2010 2:19PM
Yup, I was testing different weapon levels -- though our dps no longer scales as highly with weapon damage.
Deepfriedegg Sep 27th 2010 9:35AM
Maybe what would help with mastery scaling issue is that every spec would need different amount of Mastery rating to get +1 mastery.
I agree masteries dont have to deal the same percentage of hunter damage but they should be at least comparable. Having 3% vs. 30% leads not only to mentioned scaling issues but also potentially to itemization issues.
Boobah Sep 27th 2010 1:09PM
Why on earth would you fiddle with how much mastery rating gave you a point of mastery, when you can fiddle with how much each point of mastery gives you? The point is to change how mastery rating converts to damage/healing/survivability; fiddling in two places A) gives you more chances to create a bug, and B) after the first time you do it, makes fixing mis-matches harder rather than easier.
And they probably don't have the tech in place to convert ratings at a different rate based on class, much less spec.
In short, changing the rate at which rating converts to mastery does exactly nothing that adjusting the effect of mastery doesn't.
furry Sep 27th 2010 9:39AM
Does Improved Serpent Sting affect Chimera shot at all (like adding the damage when we chimera), or no since we only apply the sting once then let Chimera do the work?
bonekrewe Sep 27th 2010 10:21AM
It does not.
Dendallin Sep 27th 2010 9:50AM
For the MM hunter mastery, the best way to keep the unique flavor and increase DPS would be to allow the Wild Quiver effect to proc from more than just Auto Shot. I tested this on the PTR with my hunter (I had about a 30% chance to score a Wild Quiver after trading extra Hit and some extra haste for Mastery), and ONLY Auto Attacks proc Wild Quiver. This is not mentioned in the tooltip, and is likely the reason why MM's mastery is so far behind the other specs. Both BM and SV buff almost everything they do, which is going to make Mastery a much better shot for them. MM's only buffs a small portion of their total damage and only gives them a chance at a small damage proc, which is seriously less than what BM and SV have for masteries. However, addding Aimed Shot and Steady Shot (possibly Chimera as well) to the Wild Quiver effect, should increase the value of Mastery enough to make MM value the stat as well.
B Sep 27th 2010 10:56AM
Actually the MM mastery bonus doesn't buff any abilities at all. It just proc an extra free off-gcd attack 50% of wpn dmg which to me sounds quite poor (they taken the talent Wild Quiver and just turned it into a 51 point (31 in Cata) talent) compared to BM mastery, which buffs the pet dmg, and SV mastery, which buffs all magical damage.
As Frostheim suggested, making MM mastery to increase physical damage by X% would probably bring MM Mastery up. But who knows what Blizz is planning, MM might end up having harder hitting shots that scale well with gear/weapon stats instead of mastery. And BM/SV might end up scaling more with Mastery instead of gear/weapon stats.
miggedymike Sep 27th 2010 10:12AM
Just a quick question about this. For beastmastery it is completely tied to your pet. How squishy are the pets right now in beta? A 20% or more increase in damage is fine unless the pet goes down 5 seconds into the fight.