(WoW) Guide: Hunter - Master of Beasts
So, I'll switch gears here ("sharing the love," as it were) and take a look at something completely different - hunters. In specific, the Beast Mastery path. This is another class that I simply don't play, which may be a little odd considering it was the first class I ever played in the game
Build
Right off, I'm seeing comments about Beast Mastery simply not being top-notch DPS. Reasonable damage, but not optimal. Apparently both Survival and Marksmanship builds do better, but we'll check it out anyway here.
Raiding builds appear to be along the lines of this or this, with some flexibility in the low-end tree talents.
- Endurance Training and Thick Hide: Much better for solo play than groups. The stamina/armor benefit isn't terribly, it just doesn't help you do your job (DPS) inherently, and a tank should be taking the hits, not you or your pet. It's taken only as something of "filler" for higher tier access, really.
- Focused Aim: While not in either of these builds, it can help a good deal with Hit Rating (more on that later). That means it's potentially of higher value to starting raiders than the above builds suggest. When you have enough hit from gear, there's no point in keeping this talent.
- Frenzy: Even at less than a full 5 points, this is enough to keep the effect up regularly. One of these builds uses 3/5 one uses 4/5, so there' s a little difference of opinion there.
- Go for the Throat: Once you have an unbuffed crit chance of about 25%, one point here seems to be considered "enough" to keep your pet's focus up.
Gear
Stat priority goes something like:
Hit (to cap) > Attack Power > Agility > Crit > Armor Penetration > Haste > mp5 > Stamina
- Hit Rating: This and its spell equivalent will come up a lot for DPS classes. One of the absolute best DPS traits point-for-point is Hit Rating... until you reach the cap, then additional Hit is completely worthless. Go figure.
Raid bosses are level 83 mobs. With a maximum weapon skill, that means there's a base 8% chance to miss them. That translates to 262.32 Hit Rating. Without any other fancy benefits, that's your goal.
Now... if you're draenei or always in the Heroic Presence radius of one, that lowers the miss chance by 1% right there, leaving you to get 229.53 Hit Rating. If a hunter has points in Focused Aim, that also lowers the miss chance. I don't want to go through all the numbers now, but there's a straightforward breakdown with 3.1 math here.
- Attack Power: Pretty straightforward, increasing damage for attacks and pets.
- Agility: For our purposes, this contributes both to attack power and critical strike chance. But straight AP is still better on a point-for-point basis.
- Gems: Basically, you probably want AP when you can. Yellow (or mixed yellow) gems are a good place to add in +Hit if not capped, until gear supports that on its own.
- Major Glyphs: Bestial Wrath, Steady Shot (seems preferred) or Kill Shot, and Glyph of the Hawk
Palaemon Gear Analysis
Get more +hit! ;) That's something of a trick. I'm going to go through here and list viable upgrades, but the best results will involve juggling items, gems, and enchants to maintain the hit cap while boosting other stats. I've had this issue gearing Sash for Retribution - picking up a clear 'upgrade,' and then having to replace a gem or enchant to remain hit capped.
- Helmet of Just Retribution: Probably try to get a Plunderer's Helmet from heroic Utgarde Keep, as the gem slots make it more flexible. Or King Dred's Helm from heroic Drak'Tharon Keep. Enchant with Arcanum of Torment from revered Ebon Blade.
- Choker of the Betrayer: Get Khay to make a Titanium Impact Choker. Gem for AP or AP/Hit, as necessary.
- Spaulers of the Abomination: Eh... not much pre-Naxx here. The Massive Spaulders of the Jormungar from heroic Utgarde Pinnacle are a sidegrade, but they do have hit rating. Greater inscription, of course, when possible.
- Embrace of Sorrow: Cloak of Gushing Wounds is probably a slight upgrade, but loses a little hit. When you can spare the hit from the slot, getting a crafted Ice Striker's Cloak would probably be worthwhile. Enchant with Major/Superior Agility.
- Gilded Ringmail Hauberk: Naturally, the Heroes' Cryptstalker Tunic for 80 emblems of heroism (or Naxx-dropped token) would be the most notable upgrade. More attainable is an Aviary Guardsman's Hauberk, a BOE drop from Drak'Tharon Keep (probably heroic). That piece looks good and includes a couple gem slots. There's also the Polished Regimental Hauberk from exalted Argent Crusade that carries its own +hit and a yellow socket, probably beating out the Aviary Guardsman's overall. +stats enchant.
- Giantmaim Bracers: Good, solid bracers at this point. If you have the money to spend, you could keep an eye out for BOE upgrades on the AH - Bracers of Smothering Inferno (Ulduar drop) > Slime Stream Bands (Naxx drop) >= Armguard of the Tower Archer (Emblems of Valor). Enchant's good.
- Rusted-Link Spiked Gauntlets: Naxx-dropped BOEs, so that's about as good as you'll see 'til tier 7 (arguably a sidegrade anyway). You'll want to gem it, though, and enchant with Precision (until hit capped) or Crusher.
- Giant Ring Belt: Sovereign's Belt from heroic Utgarde Pinnacle. Sadly, from Ymiron, so that'll have to wait 'til after Tark's sword, I imagine. ;) Belt buckle and gem as needed.
- Giantmaim Legguards: No solid upgrades short of raiding. Probably worth getting Icescale Leg Armor for.
- Dragon Slayer's Sabatons: Probably good, though - and I wince in saying this - the Boots of the Neverending Path from exalted Argent Crusade are pretty good... maybe even better, until hit capped, in spite of being leather. Icewalker Enchant, or Greater Assault if hit capped without it.
- Signet of Bridenbrad and Band of Motivation: Get a Titanium Impact band, naturally. Hang onto the Signet until you can get something better. Maybe a Signet of Edward the Odd off the AH if you can afford or a Mobius Band from heroic Culling of Stratholme.
- Crusader's Locket: As ever, trinkets are situational. An Incisor Fragment from heroic Drak'Tharon would be an attack power upgrade. Mark of the War Prisoner from heroic Violet Hold has a good chunk of +hit, but the use effect is spell power based. The Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood from heroic Nexus has less +hit, but a use effect that boost attack power - so is more useful in that respect. There are a number of +crit trinkets like the Meteorite Whetstone in heroic Utgarde Pinnacle or the Darkmoon Card: Death.
- Mighty Alchemist's Stone: Probably worth hanging onto.
- Greed and Traditional Flensing Knife: Weapon are tricky due to combinations. Hmm. Greed is fairly good. You could replace the knife with The Fleshshaper from heroic Halls of Stone or even a Broken Stalactite from revered Sons of Hodir. Or you could replace the pair with a Silvery Sylvan Stave from the Argent Tournament. The stave is more feral druid-oriented, but you'd lose only +4 attack power and some armor penetration for +crit, a little more stamina and about +45 agility. Enchant dual weapons with Accuracy (hit/crit) or Superior Potency (AP), a two-handed weapon with Greater Savagery or Massacre (abyss crystals).
- Drakkari Hunting Bow: Nesingwary 4000 or a Drake-Mounted Crossbow from heroic Utgarde Keep, if possible. If you're really set on bows, there's not much pre-Naxx, pretty much just the Titanium Compound Bow from heroic Ahn'Kahet. Heartseeker scope, unless you need more hit here, then maybe a Biznick's 247x128 Accurascope.
Rotation/Priority
Use what you can as they come off cooldown in roughly this order of priority:
Kill Shot > Multi-shot > Arcane Shot > Serpent Sting > Steady Shot
- Multi and Arcane seem pretty close. This higher priority attacks are generally worth it even if Serpent Sting is about to fade - they just deal more damage.
- Note: If you're not in a group with Replenishment and/or mana is becoming an issue, it may be necessary to skip Multi-shot.
Pets
For DPS, Ferocity pets with a build like this or this :
Devilsaurs (it'd be nice if they weren't so big) > Wolves/Raptors > Spirit Beasts > Cats
- Pets inherit all the hunter's hit percentage (albeit rounded down, making being at the cap more important). They also get a percentage of Ranged Attack Power, Stamina, Armor, and Magic Resistances.
Other Tactics
- We all love some frost traps, don't we? And Misdirecting to the tank is always good.
- After the tank builds some aggro on a boss (maybe 10-20 seconds in), use Bestial Wrath, Kill Command, and any use-effect trinkets that might pass along benefit to your pet. The damage boost makes this a "use early and often" tactics unless you have some reason to hang onto it, such as synching timing with Heroism (not that we have any level 80 shamans).
- Aspect of the Dragonhawk, using Aspect of the Viper when mana is needed.
- A couple macros:
Set Focus- Sets your current target as your focus.
/focus target
Misdirection- Casts Misdirection on your focus if there is one, if not then it casts it on your pet if there is one.
#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus,exists,nodead][target=pet,exists,nodead] Misdirection
Sources/Further Reading:
http://community.livejournal.com/wow_ladies/10196965.html They did most of the work for me on this one.
http://elitistjerks.com/f74/t52682-raiding_beast_mastery_3_1_a/
http://kruxor.blogspot.com/2009/06/hunter-pre-raiding-solo-achievable-gear.html
Build
Right off, I'm seeing comments about Beast Mastery simply not being top-notch DPS. Reasonable damage, but not optimal. Apparently both Survival and Marksmanship builds do better, but we'll check it out anyway here.
Raiding builds appear to be along the lines of this or this, with some flexibility in the low-end tree talents.
- Endurance Training and Thick Hide: Much better for solo play than groups. The stamina/armor benefit isn't terribly, it just doesn't help you do your job (DPS) inherently, and a tank should be taking the hits, not you or your pet. It's taken only as something of "filler" for higher tier access, really.
- Focused Aim: While not in either of these builds, it can help a good deal with Hit Rating (more on that later). That means it's potentially of higher value to starting raiders than the above builds suggest. When you have enough hit from gear, there's no point in keeping this talent.
- Frenzy: Even at less than a full 5 points, this is enough to keep the effect up regularly. One of these builds uses 3/5 one uses 4/5, so there' s a little difference of opinion there.
- Go for the Throat: Once you have an unbuffed crit chance of about 25%, one point here seems to be considered "enough" to keep your pet's focus up.
Gear
Stat priority goes something like:
Hit (to cap) > Attack Power > Agility > Crit > Armor Penetration > Haste > mp5 > Stamina
- Hit Rating: This and its spell equivalent will come up a lot for DPS classes. One of the absolute best DPS traits point-for-point is Hit Rating... until you reach the cap, then additional Hit is completely worthless. Go figure.
Raid bosses are level 83 mobs. With a maximum weapon skill, that means there's a base 8% chance to miss them. That translates to 262.32 Hit Rating. Without any other fancy benefits, that's your goal.
Now... if you're draenei or always in the Heroic Presence radius of one, that lowers the miss chance by 1% right there, leaving you to get 229.53 Hit Rating. If a hunter has points in Focused Aim, that also lowers the miss chance. I don't want to go through all the numbers now, but there's a straightforward breakdown with 3.1 math here.
- Attack Power: Pretty straightforward, increasing damage for attacks and pets.
- Agility: For our purposes, this contributes both to attack power and critical strike chance. But straight AP is still better on a point-for-point basis.
- Gems: Basically, you probably want AP when you can. Yellow (or mixed yellow) gems are a good place to add in +Hit if not capped, until gear supports that on its own.
- Major Glyphs: Bestial Wrath, Steady Shot (seems preferred) or Kill Shot, and Glyph of the Hawk
Palaemon Gear Analysis
Get more +hit! ;) That's something of a trick. I'm going to go through here and list viable upgrades, but the best results will involve juggling items, gems, and enchants to maintain the hit cap while boosting other stats. I've had this issue gearing Sash for Retribution - picking up a clear 'upgrade,' and then having to replace a gem or enchant to remain hit capped.
- Helmet of Just Retribution: Probably try to get a Plunderer's Helmet from heroic Utgarde Keep, as the gem slots make it more flexible. Or King Dred's Helm from heroic Drak'Tharon Keep. Enchant with Arcanum of Torment from revered Ebon Blade.
- Choker of the Betrayer: Get Khay to make a Titanium Impact Choker. Gem for AP or AP/Hit, as necessary.
- Spaulers of the Abomination: Eh... not much pre-Naxx here. The Massive Spaulders of the Jormungar from heroic Utgarde Pinnacle are a sidegrade, but they do have hit rating. Greater inscription, of course, when possible.
- Embrace of Sorrow: Cloak of Gushing Wounds is probably a slight upgrade, but loses a little hit. When you can spare the hit from the slot, getting a crafted Ice Striker's Cloak would probably be worthwhile. Enchant with Major/Superior Agility.
- Gilded Ringmail Hauberk: Naturally, the Heroes' Cryptstalker Tunic for 80 emblems of heroism (or Naxx-dropped token) would be the most notable upgrade. More attainable is an Aviary Guardsman's Hauberk, a BOE drop from Drak'Tharon Keep (probably heroic). That piece looks good and includes a couple gem slots. There's also the Polished Regimental Hauberk from exalted Argent Crusade that carries its own +hit and a yellow socket, probably beating out the Aviary Guardsman's overall. +stats enchant.
- Giantmaim Bracers: Good, solid bracers at this point. If you have the money to spend, you could keep an eye out for BOE upgrades on the AH - Bracers of Smothering Inferno (Ulduar drop) > Slime Stream Bands (Naxx drop) >= Armguard of the Tower Archer (Emblems of Valor). Enchant's good.
- Rusted-Link Spiked Gauntlets: Naxx-dropped BOEs, so that's about as good as you'll see 'til tier 7 (arguably a sidegrade anyway). You'll want to gem it, though, and enchant with Precision (until hit capped) or Crusher.
- Giant Ring Belt: Sovereign's Belt from heroic Utgarde Pinnacle. Sadly, from Ymiron, so that'll have to wait 'til after Tark's sword, I imagine. ;) Belt buckle and gem as needed.
- Giantmaim Legguards: No solid upgrades short of raiding. Probably worth getting Icescale Leg Armor for.
- Dragon Slayer's Sabatons: Probably good, though - and I wince in saying this - the Boots of the Neverending Path from exalted Argent Crusade are pretty good... maybe even better, until hit capped, in spite of being leather. Icewalker Enchant, or Greater Assault if hit capped without it.
- Signet of Bridenbrad and Band of Motivation: Get a Titanium Impact band, naturally. Hang onto the Signet until you can get something better. Maybe a Signet of Edward the Odd off the AH if you can afford or a Mobius Band from heroic Culling of Stratholme.
- Crusader's Locket: As ever, trinkets are situational. An Incisor Fragment from heroic Drak'Tharon would be an attack power upgrade. Mark of the War Prisoner from heroic Violet Hold has a good chunk of +hit, but the use effect is spell power based. The Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood from heroic Nexus has less +hit, but a use effect that boost attack power - so is more useful in that respect. There are a number of +crit trinkets like the Meteorite Whetstone in heroic Utgarde Pinnacle or the Darkmoon Card: Death.
- Mighty Alchemist's Stone: Probably worth hanging onto.
- Greed and Traditional Flensing Knife: Weapon are tricky due to combinations. Hmm. Greed is fairly good. You could replace the knife with The Fleshshaper from heroic Halls of Stone or even a Broken Stalactite from revered Sons of Hodir. Or you could replace the pair with a Silvery Sylvan Stave from the Argent Tournament. The stave is more feral druid-oriented, but you'd lose only +4 attack power and some armor penetration for +crit, a little more stamina and about +45 agility. Enchant dual weapons with Accuracy (hit/crit) or Superior Potency (AP), a two-handed weapon with Greater Savagery or Massacre (abyss crystals).
- Drakkari Hunting Bow: Nesingwary 4000 or a Drake-Mounted Crossbow from heroic Utgarde Keep, if possible. If you're really set on bows, there's not much pre-Naxx, pretty much just the Titanium Compound Bow from heroic Ahn'Kahet. Heartseeker scope, unless you need more hit here, then maybe a Biznick's 247x128 Accurascope.
Rotation/Priority
Use what you can as they come off cooldown in roughly this order of priority:
Kill Shot > Multi-shot > Arcane Shot > Serpent Sting > Steady Shot
- Multi and Arcane seem pretty close. This higher priority attacks are generally worth it even if Serpent Sting is about to fade - they just deal more damage.
- Note: If you're not in a group with Replenishment and/or mana is becoming an issue, it may be necessary to skip Multi-shot.
Pets
For DPS, Ferocity pets with a build like this or this :
Devilsaurs (it'd be nice if they weren't so big) > Wolves/Raptors > Spirit Beasts > Cats
- Pets inherit all the hunter's hit percentage (albeit rounded down, making being at the cap more important). They also get a percentage of Ranged Attack Power, Stamina, Armor, and Magic Resistances.
Other Tactics
- We all love some frost traps, don't we? And Misdirecting to the tank is always good.
- After the tank builds some aggro on a boss (maybe 10-20 seconds in), use Bestial Wrath, Kill Command, and any use-effect trinkets that might pass along benefit to your pet. The damage boost makes this a "use early and often" tactics unless you have some reason to hang onto it, such as synching timing with Heroism (not that we have any level 80 shamans).
- Aspect of the Dragonhawk, using Aspect of the Viper when mana is needed.
- A couple macros:
Set Focus- Sets your current target as your focus.
/focus target
Misdirection- Casts Misdirection on your focus if there is one, if not then it casts it on your pet if there is one.
#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus,exists,nodead][target=pet,exists,nodead] Misdirection
Sources/Further Reading:
http://community.livejournal.com/wow_ladies/10196965.html They did most of the work for me on this one.
http://elitistjerks.com/f74/t52682-raiding_beast_mastery_3_1_a/
http://kruxor.blogspot.com/2009/06/hunter-pre-raiding-solo-achievable-gear.html
Just looking this over shows the completely different mindset that comes between GW and WoW. When I build in GW, I'm looking at Energy Management, and Cooldown, more than anything else, and skill selection is basically 'what is cool and works together' versus DPS or anything similar. For example, my Ranger's big thing is Barrage (hit up to 6 people grouped together with a nice damage boost). I like it for the group effect more than the damage boost, and because it costs me all of 1 Energy, and I can fire it once per second. I like the nice spread effect of it, even though there's other bow skills which would do more (interrupt, daze, bleed, poison, etc). I'd given up on using pets until recently, and I'm looking at certain pet skills which work nicely with what I do (inflict poison, or there's a nice one that gives both my pet and myself health regen as well as speeds up our attacks). Again, these are fairly cheap, and have a nice recharge. But... gah. The book keeping on WoW just blows my mind.
ReplyDeleteThere are people who crunch numbers of GW efficiency of abilities and builds, too. But... there is one gargantuan design difference I can point to immediately. WoW endgame content revolves around fighting bosses. There are groups of "trash" on the way (where groups can cut loose with their area effect abilities), but the truly challenging things are the bosses. And while each boss is a little different, a majority of them involve 5/10/25 players trying to down a single target. So if you're talking optimal, you want characters designed and outfitted to accomplish that as quickly and safely as possible. In GW, most bosses are incidental critters with pumped up level and a stealable skill, often appearing with groups of other mobs like normal. They aren't tactically much different from fighting any other enemy of that profession. Even though I'm somewhere in between "what's theorycrafting?" and "give me more spreadsheets!" I still like the wide array of stuff that contributes in WoW over the fewer item slots, less variety, and 8-skills-at-a-time limit of GW. But... mileage varies. Strangely, the way you plot, plan, and crunch Star Wars rules, I'd have thought you'd appreciate such details. ;)
ReplyDeleteThere's a few bosses in GW where you really need to know your stuff -- take a look at that @#$^@ing griffin I finally beat last night, and the @$#%^ing bear I may have to go up against in the relatively near future. Then again, these are both solo missions, where you don't have the advantage of 5 to 25 people helping you. Which brings up something else -- those bosses, are you able to take them down solo? In GW, you could play the entire game without using a Guild, Hero, or Henchmen, but I really don't think you can do that in WoW. RE: Star Wars -- specifically, for Star Wars, I did this because I'm not overly familiar with the mechanics, and I wanted to ensure that I knew where I was going with the character. I don't tend to do that with D&D (except for Feats), and I do it to a lesser degree in Scion (where such things can be pretty important). Star Wars is open enough that I like having my options in front of me for each level. In D&D, that's done for you -- classes aren't as flexible in and of themselves.
ReplyDeleteGonna just put this out here: Accuracy's mats push it into the 1k ~ 2k gold range. Is 'spensive o.o;
ReplyDeleteWhich brings up something else -- those bosses, are you able to take them down solo? In GW, you could play the entire game without using a Guild, Hero, or Henchmen, but I really don't think you can do that in WoW. Different monsters. You -can- solo WoW from bottom to top. The elites that you can get quests about killing or dealing with are convieniently labelled 'Group' to let you know they're tougher to take down or 'Dungeon' if it involves going into an instance of some kind. And here's where things differ. WoW is open world with everyone running about until you or a group tuck into an instance. GW is an instanced world of your own private playground except in cities. So GW instances are built with solo -or- group play in mind, while WoW's instances are the dungeon crawls you and buddies go into to achieve quests and gear rewards.
ReplyDeleteAh. One of the abyss crystal-using enchants? Good to know.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so the question then: Can you solo 'Group' missions or Dungeon Crawls, and reasonably expect that you'll actually be able to do it? I mean, if you want to get gear rewards and such.
ReplyDeleteAs sorta said already, the simple answer is no. The "endgame" content of WoW is group-oriented, and there are group dungeons along the way, but you can reach maximum level without doing them. Though... umm... can you really clear GW truly solo? No henchmen? I was under the impression that areas don't scale depending on how many people are in your group. Which would mean a lot of missions can't be done with just one character (unless, maybe you use some broken, twinked-out build). O.o In Wow... you can do level 1-80 solo, no problem. There will be group quests along the way, but you can work around them if you'd disinclined to party with anyone. After level 80, options narrow a bit for the insistant solo player. There will be a bunch of regular quests to do yet, but once they're done they're done. And let me just say there are boatloads more quests in WoW than I've seen in GW (where they tend to taper off partway through the campaigns). There are soloable daily quests that can be repeated. There are various profession (tailoring, blacksmithing, etc.) goals that can be pursued. PVP combat is an option, though battlegrounds sorta put you in a group, whether you talk/listen to them or not. But there is some story in the dungeons/raids that you won't see if you don't go. So I can't exactly say "the whole game is soloable."
ReplyDeleteNo. Kinda. From my experience in the last expansion, "Group 2" quests are generally soloable. "Group 3" quests are sometimes soloable, depending on what you're playing and how good you are. To solo "Group 5" quests, or dungeons/raids, you pretty much have to be over-levelled/geared for them. I've run my paladin through Stratholme (a level 60 5-man dungeon that was top-level before Burning Crusade came out) repeatedly at level 80 and it was a cake walk. Or course, none of the drops in there are going to be upgrades at that point, but you can finish out old quests or achievements or hunt for rare drops like special mounts.
ReplyDelete