Beast Mastery Guide

[Air]

*** Gonna be tweaking this guide. ***

Reason for this post to explain why beast mastery is currently the best dps spec for hunter's right now, and the reason's why.  I'll also post a spec that I use and try to explain the benefits of picking certain talents.

Reason's why bm spec is better:

1. The dps potential behind a BM hunter is greater than a Marks hunter.  Given a equally skilled hunter with one being bm and the other being marks, the bm specced hunter will always come out on top.
2. This moves into the next point.  Shot rotation's can be our achilles heel.  Done right a hunter can do extreme amounts of dps.  Done wrong a hunter can severly hurt there dps.  For a marks hunter to compete with other classes they would need incredibly low ping rate and perfect shot rotation (not missing a single shot or timing).
3. Playing a marks build mean's that your best will never be good enough compared to a bm hunter let alone another class.  A shot rotation is everything for a hunter and it's that reason why mark's hunter have a hard time keeping up with bm hunter's.  It was this realization to why I respecced to bm and haven't looked back.
4. Bm hunter rely less on a shot rotation, and focus more on the health of there pet.  With less reliance on a shot rotation, A hunter can focus more on there surroundings and be able to move faster incase of danger.
5. The best dps scenario for a hunter is one which a hunter doesn't need to move at all or move very little.
6. Better group synergy.  Bm hunter's provide ferocious inspiration, a 3% increase to damage that will scale with group's damage.  Marks hunter's provide a static increase 125 attack power, no scaling.

Weekness's of bm spec:

1. Seen as a leveling spec, and a joke spec or a farmer's build.
2. Pre-bc 2.0, bm spec was seen as a no-no amongst guild's.  You would go mark's or survival or no invite at all.
(counter: not so anymore after 2.0.  Scaling of bm spec outweighs that of marks or surv hunter's.)
3. Lack of control in there ability to cc.  Our traps dont last long, and can break much easier and get resisted much more.  (counter: in a 25 man raid, a hunter cc is not the most reliable and usually will end up getting people killed, healers specifically.)
4. Lack of range.  While marks hunter's and survival hunter's have it, we don't.
(counter: it's something that be given up in the fact that by putting points into marks, the dps potential outweighs it's usefulness.)

Basic rotation of a bm hunter is:

steady shot, auto shot

Make sure to hit kill command every time it's up if mana isn't a problem.

Quick Shots, aka Improved Aspect of the Hawk
When quick shot procs, start throwing in arcane shot and multi shot.  best way to do it is this way.

steady shot, auto shot, multi-shot, auto shot, arcane shot, auto shot, steady shot, auto shot

This is referred to as a 1:1 rotation.  1 special for every one 1 auto shot.  Remember to throw in a kill command also.  But try to do so before the next auto shot.

3:2 Macro: for range speeds > 2.7
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/cast Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

1:1 Macro for range speeds < 2.7
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Quick Shots Macro
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill Command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot,!Auto Shot
/castrandom Multi-Shot,Arcane Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
**note:be careful of any cced mobs

Beast Mastery Talent Build:
BM build 41/20

IMPROVED ASPECT OF THE HAWK

This is an important one. With 5/5 in this talent, you have a 10% chance to increase your attack speed by 15% for 12 seconds.

The simple math for this is More Speed = More Damage, but let’s take a look at the not-so-simple math for it.

That’s about a 7% increase to your damage (Cheeky’s Spreadsheet and other theorycrafters confirm the 7%.) Not to mention the increased number of crits (more shots = more chance to crit), which means more Kill Commands.

ENDURANCE TRAINING

You will see on the spec above that this talent is given 1 point. The reason for this is that there are 10 points needed to reach the 3rd tier, and this was the best place to get the last point needed.

Stamina and HP are important, but there are other talents in this tree that are more important. As a hunter, you should never be the direct recipient of an attack, unless it’s a random one (such as Moroe’s Garrote). Most of your damage will come from AoE magic, and while Stamina is key for surviving that, you should have enough health to survive hits as it is.

FOCUS FIRE

This talent (when at 2/2 talent points) gives you a 2% increase to your damage when your pet is active, and a 20% additional crit chance to your Kill Command.

A Hunter’s bottom line is DPS, therefore, this is obviously a key ability. Anything that increases your damage increases your purpose and value in the raid.

IMPROVED ASPECT OF THE MONKEY

This ability gives you up to a 6% dodge increase to your AotM. Certainly not bad.

But there’s one little problem, we’re a RANGED class. You shouldn’t be meleeing in the first place, let alone being the main aggro target while doing it so you have hits to dodge. Don’t put points here.

THICK HIDE

This ability can increase your pet’s armor by up to 20% and your armor from items by up to 10%.

At first glance, this seems like a great talent. And it is while leveling, and even doing some 5-mans. But, once you’re in a raid situation, neither you nor your pet should be taking much physical damage, and armor doesn’t stop magical damage.

These points can be better spent elsewhere, since in raids it’s pretty useless.

IMPROVED REVIVE PET

This ability gives you a huge boost to reviving your pet. As a Beast Master, your pet is vital to giving boosts to your (and anyone in your party) damage, so you need to have it out as much as possible. This reduces the cast time, the mana, and increases the amount of health your pet comes back with.

This is an important one to have when your pet dies from that AoE blast it didn’t run out of fast enough, and you need to rez it during a battle to maximize your own damage.

Now, most of the time, with proper pet management, this won’t be an issue, but it’s still handy in a worst-case scenario.

PATHFINDING

This gives up to a 8% increase to your Aspect of the Cheetah/Pack.

Like Thick Hide, this does have it’s early uses. Up until you get your first mount, this talent is great for the boost to your run speed. But raiding, you won’t be using either of these much. The biggest exception is with kiting, and the unimproved Aspects should be enough if you use your Concussive Shot and Frost Traps.

BESTIAL SWIFTNESS

This gives your pets a 30% speed increase outdoors. While this is, like many others, great for leveling as it decreases the time it takes your pet to get to the mob, there’s a little problem.

Most raids are not considered “outdoors”. (And ZA and MH are the only TBC raid instances that are considered outdoors) So go ahead and skip this one.

UNLEASHED FURY

This one increases your pet’s damage by up to 20%. We already know that anything that gives an upgrade to damage is a good thing. It adds to your primary raid function, and should therefore be snatched up.

IMPROVED MEND PET

This gives a mana reduction to your Mend Pet, as well as increasing the amount healed. Going all in also gives you a 50% chance to cleanse it.

This is an important one. Some hunters say that you only need to go one in for this one, but I think that having a 50% chance to get that debuff off my pet to be huge. A great example is Maiden’s Holy Fire. The sooner you get that off, the less likely that you’ll have to pause on damage to rez your pet.

FEROCITY

This increases your pet’s crit chance by up to 10%. More crits = more damage = vital talent.

SPIRIT BOND

Let’s you and your pet regen up to 2% of total health every 10 seconds.

A great talent while leveling to be sure, but in raids? Not so much. You shouldn’t be taking much damage to begin with, and the amount it heals really isn’t that much. (At max, it’s 2% of your total health. Say you have 11,000 health that’s 220 health every 10 seconds. Not gonna help that much.) The points can be put to much better use elsewhere.

INTIMIDATION

Although you will rarely use this in raids, because it’s main function is to generate threat, and you don’t want to do that in a raid, (and the bosses are immune to the 3sec stun) it is the required first step in the main talent line of the tree, and should therefore be picked up.

BESTIAL DISCIPLINE

This talent increases the Focus regeneration of your pet. This is a very important talent as ALL of your pet’s active abilities such as Bite, Claw, Gore or Screech requires focus, and the faster your pet regenerates it, means the more it can use those special attacks that will increase it’s damage.

ANIMAL HANDLER

Increases your mounted speed by 8% and your pet’s Hit by 4%.

This talent isn’t taken so much for the mounted speed increase as it is the pet hit. The more your pet hits means more damage. This is also the ONLY way we have to increase the hit of our pets.

FRENZY

This gives your pet up to a 100% chance to increase it’s attack speed by 30% after scoring a crit.

You’ll notice that in the spec, there is only 4/5 points listed. This gives your pet an 80% chance to gain the attack speed per crit.

However, your pet should be critting enough that this should be procced most of the time, even without that extra point. Your pet will still be doing a lot more damage, and you’ll get to put that point to use somewhere else.

FEROCIOUS INSPIRATION

This gives your party a 3% damage increase for 10 seconds after your pet scores a crit.

This is an important one as it is one of the few group-buffs Hunters can give. It stacks, so if you have more than one BM hunter in the group, your party will be dealing even more damage.

It should be noted that this only applies to your party, not the entire raid. But this should still be a large enough increase your parties damage to make a huge difference.

BESTIAL WRATH

Enrages your pet, making it un-CCable, as well as causing 50% more damage for the 18 seconds that this lasts.

More damage. Can’t be CCed, can’t be feared. We all know that the Big Red Pets are one of the main reasons we spec into this tree, and picking it up should be a no-brainer.

CATLIKE REFLEXES

Increases your chance to dodge by up to 3%, and your pet’s by up to 6%.

As with IAotM, this is nice while leveling, but means nothing in a raid when you should never be dodging blows in the first place.

SERPENT’S SWIFTNESS

Increases your ranged speed by 20% and your pet’s melee speed by 20%

As looked at before, more speed = more damage. Definately get the entire benefit of this talent.

It’s actually this talent, not Big Red like many believe, that gives the BM spec its great damage capabilities. It plays a big part in your weapon selection (without any other haste gear, such as Dragonspine Trophy or some Badge of Justice rewards) as well. Wolfslayer (2.7 speed) will give you top DPS over anything else because it brings you closer to a perfect 1.5 second rotation than other, slower, weapons.

THE BEAST WITHIN

This ability sets you into a rage during Bestial Wrath, making you unCCable, increasing your damage, and reducing the mana used.

This is the cream of the BM crop. For those 18 seconds, you are pretty much a god, and nothing will be able to stop you. To be able to deal more damage and to use less mana while doing it is an incredible boon, and it’s a big reason why we spent all those other points in this tree.

This concludes the look at the BM tree and it’s standard raid spec.

So we’ve looked at speccing BM, and how to allot those 41 points. But what to do with the other 20?

One option (at least for Heroics and Kara where you will be relied on for CC) is to sub-spec Survival to improve your traps.

Because this is a sub-spec, I’m only going to cover the first 4-Tiers.

The Standard Survival Sub-spec:

Now let’s break this down:

MONSTER SLAYING

This increases your damage to a Beasts, Giants, and Dragonkin of mob types by up to 3%

Although an increase to damage is good, in raids, you won’t encounter many of these types of mobs, and those that you do will be trash mobs. With only 20 points to spend, we need to be careful about how we budget them.

HUMANOID SLAYING

This increases your damage to humanoids by 3%.

Increasing your damage is always good. And unlike it’s Monster counterpoint, you will be fighting humanoids most of the time, so it’s definately worth picking up if you’re going down this tree.

HAWK EYE

This increases your range by up to 6 yards (to a total of 41 yards).

Being able to hit things from far away is a wonderful skill. It keeps you out of AoE range, allows for better pulling, and makes kiting easier. While not necessary in raids where you have a limited area to work with, it is a good spot to dump some points to move forward in the tree.

SAVAGE STRIKES

Increases the crit chance with your Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite by up to 20%.

This is a fairly useless talent. While yes, these abilities will be critting about 40% of the time, you shouldn’t be meleeing in the first place. It’s not bad when soloing where melee saves you arrows, and your pet might have problems holding aggro, but it’s totally useless otherwise.

ENTRAPMENT

Gives your non-Freezing traps an up to 25% chance to entrap the target for 4 seconds.

This is a nice talent, because a target entrapped is a target that’s not hitting you, giving you a few seconds to run back to max range, bandage, heal your pet, down a pot or whatever you need to get done, or for a tank to pick it up if you aren’t simply kiting it to death. Since the entire point of sub-speccing Survival is to improve your traps, be sure to pick this one up.

DEFLECTION

Increases your chance to parry by up to 5%.

I can’t stress this enough. You shouldn’t be in melee!!!!

IMPROVED WING CLIP

This gives your Wing Clip up to a 20% chance to immobilize your target for 5 secs.

This is one melee ability that is actually worth it. If you do end up in melee, you can stun them and run back to range. A very useful talent to be sure.

CLEVER TRAPS

Increases the duration of Freezing and Frost trap effects by up to 30%, the damage of Immolation and Explosive trap effects by up to 30%, and the number of snakes summoned from Snake Traps by 30%.

Again, as improving your traps is the point of the Survival sub-spec. This one improves them A LOT. Longer freeze times means it’s easier to trap a mob, or even 2 mobs at once. And helps bring the Duration closer to the Cooldown.

SURVIVALIST

Increases your health by 2% per rank.

This is a great place to throw that extra point needed to access the 4th tier talents. More health means more survivability against magical AoE, DoTs and random attacks (such as Attumen’s Charge or Moroe’s Garrote).

DETERRENCE

Ability that increases your parry and dodge for 10 secs.

Didn’t I tell you you shouldn’t be meleeing in the first place?

TRAP MASTERY

Reduces the chance your traps will be resisted by up to 10%.

Again, the point of this subspec is to improve your traps, and decreasing the resists is very important. A resisted trap, if your cooldown isn’t quite up, can lead to a very messy situation for your group. Either you have to kite it until the CD is up, or your group has one extra add running amok. So either less damage being dealt to the focus mob, or clothies are getting hacked down. Be sure to pick this up.

SUREFOOTED

Increases your chance to hit by up to 3%.

This is important, the more you hit, the more damage you do. If your hit is lacking, be sure to pick up this talent.

One thing to note is that the hit cap is 9%. Anything more than that is overkill. Also, it is not included in your paperdoll hit-rating, so you have to do a little math. (Can you add 3 to a number? Good.) As your hit gets over 9% (6% on your paperdoll) look at pulling points out this talent to spend elsewhere.

Depending on your needs, a few good spots are Lethal Shots (increases your crit, and probably the best slot to put these points), Endurance Training or Survivalist. Only put it into ET or Surv if you or your pet is suffering from AoE attacks, otherwise get the Lethal Shots.

IMPROVED FEIGN DEATH

Decreases the chance that your FD will be resisted by up to 4%.

A nice talent, but far from a necessary one. Part of what determines if your FD will be resisted is whether or not there is other players generating enough aggro to distract it. Even in 5-mans and Heroics, there should be enough other people generating aggro that you should rarely be resisted in the first place.

Now to look at the breakdown for sub-speccing Marksman. This sub-spec is the most prevalent among raiders, though I found in Kara that the improved traps are useful.

This is the Standard 20pt Markmsan Sub-spec:

Now, let’s break it down.

IMPROVED CONCUSSIVE SHOT

This gives your Concussive Shot up to a 20% to stun your target for 4 seconds.

Generally, this talent is considered a waste of points. If you’re a full MM, then you have Scatter Shot, and if you are sub-speccing, then there are much better talents for you to invest those last 20 points in.

LETHAL SHOTS

Increases your crit by up to 5%.

To sum up in a word: *DROOL*. This is an incredible talent, and with pre-Kara gear you’re looking at rocking 23-25% crit. To say that’s uberly nice is an understatement.

IMPROVED HUNTER’S MARK

Allows the damage enhancement caused by your hunter’s mark to effect melee.

This is a great talent, but consult other hunters in your guild before grabbing it. While it does increase everyone’s physical DPS, it doesn’t stack. This means that only one hunter in a raid needs it. Typically MM or your Survival hunter will have it.

EFFICIENCY

Decreases the mana used by your shots and stings by up to 10%.

If your group doesn’t need you to go with IHM, then this is definately the way to go. Less mana used means less pot popping, less switching to Aspect of the Viper, and more constant, sustained DPSing. A great talent to grab onto.

GO FOR THE THROAT

Your crits can regen up to 50% of your pet’s focus.

This is an important one for BMs. Our pets are a good chunk of our DPS, and attacks such as Bite and Claw burn their focus. This is a great way to keep your pet attacking at it’s fullest.

IMPROVED ARCANE SHOT

This reduces the cooldown by up to 1 sec.

Really, this isn’t worth it, especially with so few points to dedicate into this tree. A good portion of your time should be doing the basic Steady/Auto with Arcane and Multi Weaved in as you can. I’ll cover this more in Shot Rotations.

AIMED SHOT

Gives you a spiffy shot that deals a huge load of damage with a 3 second cast time, and reduces healing on that target by 50% for 10 seconds.

Unforunately, with the long cast time, you can deal more damage in those 3 seconds with your Steady/Auto rotation than with Aimed Shot. It’s picked up because of the talent that it leads to. Still useful for a MD pull or an opening shot while soloing.

RAPID KILLING

Reduces the cooldown of Rapid Fire by up to 2 minutes, and after killing something that gives you XP/Honor, your next Arcane, Aimed or Auto does 20% more damage.

This is nice because it helps give you a burst opener when moving from one trash mob to the next. But the real reason for it is the decreased CD with Rapid Fire means you can use it more, and we all know that more speed = more damage. Definately worth tossing 2 points into.

IMPROVED STINGS

Increases damage of your Serpent and Wyvern stings by up to 30%, the mana drained by your Viper Sting by 30%, and reduces the dispelling chance by 6%.

Honestly, this is decent for PvP, but certainly not for raiding.

“But El, you keep saying that more damage is what we’re all about. This deals more damage.”

The damage done by Serpent is pretty minor to a boss, so it’s really a waste of a global cooldown.

Viper drains so little mana, that you would not be burning down a boss’ mana fast enough for it to be useful.

Skip this talent.

MORTAL SHOTS

This increases the damage of your crits by up to 30%.

This is the final talent we have access to in this tree, and boy is it a nice one. That’s a big boost to your crits, and as it’s a percentage, it will scale well and only get better as you improve.

BM Pets
Now, the top damage pets are Cats, Raptors and Ravagers. Ravagers are considered best because of the superior DPS from Gore, but Cats and Raptors are very close. Wind Serpents (non-casters) also put out mad amounts of damage. Any of these 4 are the best for raiding. Ravagers are #1, but don’t feel like you’re gimping youself with one of the other 3. (NOTE: You will want 30%+ crit if you want to use the wind serpent because their Focus Dump costs 50 focus, so you need Go for the Throat to proc as much as you can.)

Feeding
Keep the cost of feeding low by feeding it Level 55 food. It will give the same happiness/tick as Level 65 food, and it’s cheaper.

Mend Your Pets

During AoE fights, try to keep Mend Pet up as much as you can. As a BM, if your pet dies, you lose a LOT of damage. Not just your pet’s damage, but things such as Ferocious Inspiration, Focus Fire, and The Beast Within will be unavailable.

Spec your pet for the fights.

Train your pet with the necessary active abilities. Bite, Gore, Claw, Dash, Lightening Breath etc. (Tip: if you choose a cat, grab Prowl. The little bit of burst damage when it comes out of Prowl is nice, but the stealth, especially with the odd pet-pathing issues introduced in 2.3, there is less of a chance of your pet accidently aggroing something by pathing too close to another mob)

Train your pet with these passive abilities:
Cobra Reflexes
Avoidance

These are big ones. Don’t pass them over. Ever.

With the points you have left, use them as such:
Resistance 1 (Based on the fight. Example: Void Reaver would need Arcane Resist)
Resistance 2 (Depends on if this is necessary. Many fights in SSC require both Frost and Nature)
Great Stamina (Your pet shouldn’t be taking much physical damage, so you should focus on Stamina for magical AoE)
Natural Armor (Use this to eat up any left over TP. Useful for mobs with abilities like Cleave. You can also use these points for a 3rd resistance if you want.)

Pet management

Keep Mend Pet up.

Use the attack/passive macro to pull it out of AoE as much as possible, or if its health get very low and you need to give it a chance to heal up.

Keep your pet happy to get the buff to damage. Keep it’s smiley face green, not yellow.

Wind Serpent

If you use a windserpent, take Lightening Breath off auto cast and insert into you SS/AS macro with the following line:

/castrandom [target=pettarget] Lightening Breath

Pet Buffs

Very few are available to your pet.

Sporeling Snack will increase Stamina.

Kibler’s Bits will increase Strength. (This should be your preferred buff because Strength = DPS.)

Scrolls!!!! Scrolls are something that get passed over because people don’t realize that it casts on your target, not yourself. So grab some Scrolls of Strength V (or Stamina V) and use them to give your pet and extra bang.

This is what you can provide. Others can buff your pet too:

Paladins - Blessing of Might, Blessing of Kings
Druids - Gift of the Wild
Priests - Prayer of Fortitude

[Arcdelad]

ecept....your forgettig survival spec...if you REALLY want to help out the raid in general...

[Air]

Yeah I wasn't really trying to compare Survival to BM, more like BM vs. Marks.  It's good to have at least one Survival one hunter for expose weakness to help increase melee dps.  But that's all we need, and we have that with Tyban 

Issue with Survival is the gear isn't really there at the t4 level.  Survival hunter's need extreme amounts of agility to make expose weakness useful.  When I say extreme I'm talking about around 800-900 agility fully buffed.  It's not until the t5 level of gear where survival hunter's are really able to get the gear needed to maintain a decent amount of dps.