chimaera

BM Battle Beastie: The Razza

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The Razza

All of this talk about BM PvP pet builds and such has caused me to realize that there are other choices out there besides Spirit Beasts. 😉

During the first few months of Cataclysm, I tried out a few different pets for PvP, but ended up settling with Ghostcrawler as my go-to PvP companion. The DPS, the Spirit Mend, the stealth ability… there’s just too much awesome there for me to not want to use him. Spirit Beasts are without a doubt, one of – if not the all-around best, BM PvP pets in the game right now, but I think another reason I’m so attached to using them is because we were deprived of their usefulness for so long. Apart from the thrill of acquiring one, Spirit Beasts served no real purpose for me back in WotLK. I never raided with one… I very, very seldom would PvP with one, and I hardly ever used one when out farming or questing.

I would have liked to, but there were always better pet option for just about any aspect of play. That all changed when Spirit Strike got replaced with Spirit Mend and SB’s received Roar of Courage. All of a sudden, Spirit Beasts were the ‘it’ thing. So, after having been deprived of using one for so long, I’ve been getting my fill. 🙂

However… this past week I decided it was time that GC and I discuss the possibility of me PvP’ing with other pets now and again. I’ll still be bringing him out of the stable, but I felt it was time I started mixing things up a bit.

First on the list… a Chimaera

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So I fell off the wagon

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Alcohol Abuse…the WoW sabbatical wagon, that is.

The other day I was commenting on my 2 week absence from Azeroth and how nice it was to divert that time and attention to other things. Well… last night I couldn’t resist the urge to queue for some arena matches. I mean, after all… I didn’t want my partner to start worrying about me. 😉

It’s funny just how long two short weeks can be in WoW time. It took me two matches to remember I was MM, and another two to remember where all my skills were. BM is hard coded into 4 1/2 years of WoW muscle memory, but MM is not. 😉

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I generally don’t like crossbows

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…but this one was just too badass to pass up. Look at it..!

Wrathful Gladiator's Crossbow

…and another

Wrathful Gladiator's Crossbow

After 2 weeks of pounding my head against the wall, we finally broke the 1800 rating gear threshold in 2v2 the other night.

My partner and I joke that the arena match making system is actually just a couple of Blizz devs, who are sitting around drinking beers and controlling our fate. How else do you explain being within one game of breaking through 1800, only to have them throw a 2100 MMR Unholy DK/Holy Pally team at us to crush our hopes and dreams. This happens far too often to be purely coincidence… at least I think. 😉

What a job that would be though, eh… I can just picture these guys…

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Beast Mastery PvP Spec Redux

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Visit this post for an updated look at my current Cataclysm BM PvP Build.

So last you heard from me, I was getting ready to try out a Core Hound for use in arena. To bring some of you up to speed, my only arena team this past season has been a 2v2 with a Ret Paladin. I like 2v2 because it only requires one other person, and in my case, I don’t need to rely upon a healer. I’ve never had very good luck with 3v3 either due to schedule conflicts or just not being able to find the right people.

I also like double DPS 2v2 because the matches are over quickly. Either we get our asses handed to us or we do the ass-handing, but either way they’re quick. 😉 That is unless my partner gets stuck 1v1 vs a Resto Druid. In that case, I may as well go make a sammich, then possibly take a nap or learn a foreign language. 😆 It’s nearly impossible for a Ret to kill a Resto druid and even more impossible for a resto drood to kill a Ret. 🙄

At any rate, my partner and I are what most would consider casual, as we “mainly” PvP for fun and typically only queue one night a week, for maybe an hour or less. Anyway, after several weeks of a slow ascent, we hit our proverbial wall at about 1800. Now granted we’ve only made it as high as 1849, I feel like we’ve gotten better over the past two weeks. We’d just made some careless mistakes that otherwise would have resulted in wins for us, and would probably have us on our way to 1950 by now. ‘Course that’s what they all say… 😉

Oh yea, so what’s changed over the past two weeks to give us a slight edge? Well, for one, I’m using a Core Hound instead of a Chimaera. Second, I changed my spec up a bit. I didn’t change my build too much, in fact I only moved two points around. However, I feel it’s made a noticeable impact on my DPS without sacrificing much of anything really.

Here’s a looky at my new build.

Gar’s New and Improved Beast Mastery PvP Spec

Beast Mastery PvP Spec - BM PvP Build

This is the build you need to be using if you want to PvP as a BM Hunter. It’s not vastly different from the one I posted just a few weeks back, yet the subtle differences make it much improved.

As I’d said before, if you find that your pet is being focus fired down a lot, or if you’re lacking resilience, then 1/3 Thick Hide and 2/2 Improved Revive Pet is probably the way to go. I don’t lose my pet(s) too often, so I prefer the increased physical damage mitigation. However, results may vary.

The primary difference… 3/3 Cobra Strikes.

I had dismissed this talent before as being too much of a gamble for PvP, as it only gives you a 60% chance to proc even when maxed. However, after thinking about it I realized I was pretty wrong in my assumption. This talent needs to be maxed for an effective BM PvP build. Here’s why…

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BM PvP Guide – Part Two: Pets

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Chimaera for Beast Mastery PvP

In part two of my Beast Mastery PvP guide, I’m going to discuss BM PvP pets and ways to spec them. Here we go…

Beast Mastery PvP Pets

Part of the benefit to investing 51 points into the Beast Mastery tree is the ability to tame exotic pets. Although currently they’re so-so for PvE, the PvP benefits of an exotic pet are fantastic in my opinion.

First off, Beast Mastery grants us access to arguably the most overpowered pet of them all, the Chimaera.

Chimaera

Chimaeras are great for a variety of reasons. First off, they have what I consider to be the best all-around special of any pet. This is of course, Froststorm Breath.

Froststorm Breath

  • 30 yard range.
  • applies a 50% movement speed decrease for 5 seconds.
  • is on a 7 second cooldown (with 3/3 Longevity), which can conceivably allow for over 70% uptime on the movement speed debuff.
  • cannot be dispelled.
  • does non-armor mitigated nature damage.

Froststorm Breath owns. Period. It is a great spell for both offensive and defensive purposes. It not only makes kiting melee easier, but it’s also a great tool to slow down casters, making it harder for them to LoS you.

Next, Chimaeras are part of the Cunning family of pets. Cunning pets have a variety of tools available to them that are very useful for PvP.

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