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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsScattered Shots: BM not the premier spec for Cataclysm extreme soloing
by Brian Wood 
Oct 4th 2010 at 9:00AM
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim.
Like an elf telling you about his most favoritest butterfly, the Cataclysm beta goes on and on. But unlike elf stories, the beta feels like it's getting somewhere. We're now seeing fewer major class changes and more and more tweaking to shot damage -- something that was nearly entirely absent in the early days of beta.
While shot damage, spec DPS and stat weights may still be up in the air, we've now got pet scaling nailed down, and our talents seem mostly fixed (though surely they've got to do something about Counterattack eventually). It's time for us to turn our attention to extreme soloing in Cataclysm.
The first shocking thing that leaps out at us is the fundamental fact that it appears that BM will not be the extreme soloing spec of choice in Cataclysm. In fact, BM may well be the worst extreme soloing spec. Join me after the cut for the shocking changes to pushing your hunter to the limits and beyond.
More health is good
We know from our previous discussions on extreme soloing that the most important things are pet health, damage mitigation and healing. We don't care about DPS or threat, since we can eventually kill anything if our pet can keep tanking it, and we can drop threat or slow DPS as needed.
Cataclysm brings us a very healthy boost in stam, both to hunter and to pet. With blue-level gear, you can easily get your tenacity pet in the 70k-80k health range. This is a massive improvement to the amount of damage your pet can absorb.
More health means more healing
The new Mend Pet now heals your pet for 25 percent of its total health over 10 seconds. This means that the more health your pet has, the more Mend Pet will heal. This is also true for the Spirit Bond talent and the Silverback pet talent. All of these heals are based on a percentage of your pet's total health.
The new Glyph of Mending (now a major glyph) was nerfed to only provide a 3 percent increase to pet healing (and doesn't currently work besides), but the Blood of the Rhino pet talent is still giving us a 40 percent boost, along with the 10% from Spirit Bond. It is very easy for your Mend Pet to heal for over 5k per tick.
This, combined with more than doubling pet health, opens up a lot more content for soloing from vanilla through Wrath. Cataclysm content, unfortunately, is built with massive damage that more than equals our pet health and healing increases.
Why BM is no longer the extreme solo spec of choice
Currently on live, BM is the only spec you'd want to extreme solo with 98 percent of the time. This is because the spec offers the following advantages:
- Endurance Training
- Thick Hide
- Spirit Bond
- Catlike Reflexes
- Beast Mastery (because it enables us to get both Wild Hunt stamina increase and Silverback self-heal)
Finally, the four extra talent points from Beast Mastery are no longer necessary for us to get all of the extreme soloing talents -- with the change to Wild Hunt, it's no longer a stamina boost and we don't need it for extreme soloing.
So BM no longer offers any must-have extreme solo abilities; however, it still gives us harder-hitting pets and some more pet talent points that could be of marginal use, like for Last Stand or Great Resistance.
Unfortunately, BM actually brings a disadvantage.
A big part of extreme soloing remains the tier 5 two-piece set bonus that heals our pet for 15 percent of the damage that we deal. And as we do more damage, we heal our pet for more. But -- and this is a big but -- this only heals for damage from the hunter, not damage from the pet.
Not only does BM get a much larger percent of its damage from its pet, but BM's signature shot is Kill Command, which is considered to be made by the pet. Your tier 5 will not heal your pet based on Kill Command damage. So now we have all specs able to get pets with just as much health and just as much mitigation, but MM and SV will be able to heal their pets significantly more than BM can.
I have a hunch that MM may become the extreme solo spec of choice, just because of its ability to combo up the Chimera Shot self heal with the Spirit Bond self-heal.
The crit factor
The big unknown right now for Cataclysm-level extreme soloing is your pet's chance to be crit. Our pets still have the Grace of the Mantis pet talent that reduces their chance to be crit by 4 percent. Alas, in Wrath, raid bosses have a 5.6 percent chance to crit. Previously we managed that other 1.6 percent through resilience, but in Cataclysm, resilience will no longer provide crit reduction -- or any affect at all in PvE.
I spent far too much time over the weekend measuring raid boss crit chances to see if perhaps they have a lower chance to crit in Cataclysm than they did in Wrath (or, Titans help us, a higher chance). This was time that could have been much better spent consuming frothy adult beverages that make one irresistibly charming to the opposite sex. Alas, testing vanilla through Wrath bosses demonstrated only that raid boss crit is currently bugged (or at least bugged for pets) and my charm remains resistible.
It's a pretty safe bet, however, that boss crit chance will stay at 5.6%.
What we'll be soloing
Right now, the massive damage dealt by Cataclysm mobs, combined with our likely lack of ability to make our pets crit-immune, suggests that unless something changes, we won't be soloing much in the way of significant Cataclysm content. However, a lot of previously unsoloable BC and Wrath content will open up to us. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some Wrath raid bosses pretty easily soloable by the Cataclysm hunter and her trusty pet.
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 5 of 5)
Aldheim Oct 4th 2010 1:02PM
Right. I think that in general Blizz is trying to make the pure DPS classes a little more flexible on that account, so that (hopefully) people won't ask that question as much. They're all supposed to be good for, well, killing things to death. :-)
sherekhan88 Oct 4th 2010 2:09PM
I find the real issue is the crit immunity problem. As in playing a tank, the difference between being crit immune and not is such a biiiiiig difference in your performance as a tank, it's the same for a pet tank.
Hopefully though, there might be further pet talent tree revisions, and mayhaps Tenacity pets would get FULL crit immunity via talent investment in their tree, rather than 'partial' crit immunity.
darktreader Oct 4th 2010 2:26PM
@firstlordmoth : It is entirely the point of my math and the discussion. I am suggesting that instead of just accepting that MM is the new BM, that someone prove that to me first. I respect Frost, he's a smart guy, but this is all anecdotal still, and he's offering his take on the current state of talents and such. It seems to me however, to be overlooking the strength of gear levels and pet scaling, as well as possibly overlooking some things that only BM gets with exotic pets. Who's tried extreme soloing with a Spirit Beast with their self heal and Lick Your Wounds? What about the exotic ability that adds 11k HP to you and your pet? (These may well be totally non-viable, I'm just asking the question)
I know full well what 2 pieces of tier 5 gear do. I'm suggesting, perhaps in vain, that it may not be all that much in comparison to the 2 pieces of MUCH higher level gear that you'd be ditching.
Frostheim Oct 4th 2010 3:38PM
I've responded to your first comment with the math on how it works. For the record, of course I do all of the math on anything I'm posting. I never show it in the post because the vast, vast majority of people would never be remotely interested (and in fact wouldn't read an article filled with math).
That said, many thanks on how you went about questioning the logic -- it was in fact the absolute perfect way. You stated what sounded wrong, then you showed your math for why you thought another way was better.
Once we start talking actual numbers, we're quickly able to sort out the math and come to the right answer :) Nothing drives me quite so batty as people who are eager to say "Lol no that's wrong ur dumb" with no logic, counter argument, or math.
Kamasattrah Oct 5th 2010 12:37AM
So no chance of Survival having any extreme soloing love? It does still have the 10% stamina increase as far as I know, and there are some good talents for increasing auto/steady damage which can be useful. Chimera's heal is pretty useful, no question there, but I could still see Survival doing quite well at soloing anything where the hunter wasn't worried about self preservation. Plus you get some utility in Wyvern Sting for any fights that have additional adds. Being able to sleep one every minute can help for reducing incoming damage on the pet and general fight control.
Just throwing it out there, it's been all BM vs. MM so far, figure Survival deserves at least a little love. ;)
I am curious if serpent sting damage and black arrow count as hunter damage done in terms of the T5 bonus. I would assume so, but you never know, and if they don't it could set Survival back quite a bit as that seems to be a good chunk of their damage now. I don't have T5 nor beta to test any of this, though. :P
Also the extra agility would benefit the pet's dodge chance wouldn't it? It would make sense to, but I have no idea if this is actually true. Could be useful if it did though, less incoming damage means less healing needed.
BlackTiger™ Oct 5th 2010 4:31AM
Is BMs ability to tame spirit beasts still a "key feature"?
Give EACH hunter such ability and let's forget about BM spec. RIP BMs. You did a good job in vanilla and TBC.
sherekhan88 Oct 5th 2010 9:49AM
Bitter, bitter, bitter.
BlackTiger™ Oct 5th 2010 4:32AM
BTW, it never was really possible to solo "current" content.
Kamasattrah Oct 5th 2010 1:01PM
That's not completely true. Depending on your definition of "current" at least. I know normal Nexus was easily soloed by a lvl 80 hunter, I've done it myself before. I know Frostheim has also done some soloing in VH, though I don't think he was able to complete it.
Besides, that was never the point of extreme soloing. It was about going through raid content solo without the bells and whistles of other solo classes, like druids and paladins, just to be able to do it for fun and profit. I personally would love to be able to solo stuff in SSC and TK, I have a lot of memories of those places on my warrior. If only we could solo Hyjal and BT, then I could get those darn pieces that NEVER dropped for me! :P
Kheldul Oct 6th 2010 10:47AM
BM may no longer be the raid solo'ng spec of choice, but the largest problem with pet tanking in a 5, 10, or 25man right now is pet threat. Yes, we can crank the pet stamina. But the Cata BM looks like it may give pets some decent threat. Also note the taunt is only a 1s CD and not 3s. (Sure to not work on bosses, but great for OT'ng adds.)