glyphs

Getting Battle-Ready: More BM PvP notes

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Hunter PvP in 4.0.1

This past weekend I finally felt ready to swallow some pride and go get my ass handed to me in some BGs. The result… I didn’t fare as bad as I thought I would. While I was by no means a “force” in the BGs, I didn’t feel like a punching bag either.

Although I’m still stumbling around trying to find my way, I feel like I’m headed in the right direction. The following are some tips and suggestions which I’d like to offer up, in hopes that they may help some of you overcome difficulties or trepidation. Albeit a humbling experience right now, competing in BGs is a great way to learn the 4.0.1 hunter and find out what your weaknesses are.

As I’ve mentioned, a lot of this info is subject to change in the coming weeks, but I’ll try to update as it does. In the meantime, these posts will be more like notes & progress reports, rather than guides.

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Going the extra mile

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One of my readers contacted me in hopes that I might be able to offer up some personal assistance. This is something I do quite often in the form of e-mail replies and forum post responses, however, I decided to do something different this evening… I felt that it’d be a nice touch to take my advice to the front page of the site. Rather than bury it in a forum response, or in an e-mail that no one but he or I will ever see, I thought maybe a few others could get some value out of my advice as well. 🙂

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BM PvP Guide – Part One: Talents and Glyphs

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Beast Mastery PvP with a Chimaera

Welcome to part one of my Beast Mastery Hunter PvP guide! My goal with this series of posts is to help you better understand the spec, and to provide you with the necessary tools and information to enable you to have success as a Beast Mastery PvPer.

Why PvP as a Beast Master?

That’s a good question and one I hope that I can adequately answer. 😉 Rather than try and sell you on Beast Mastery, I’ll explain why I choose to spec BM for PvP. That way you can better determine if it may be a good choice for you.

For one, I like having a powerful pet. The ability to have a pet is what attracted me to the hunter class in the first place. Early on I decided that I wanted a pet who was regarded as more than just a mild nuisance. I’ve actually watched as my pet’s soloed enemy players at the gold mine in Arathi Basin, while I’ve stood atop the cliff looking down with pride.

As a Beast Master I feel more invincible. What I lack in sustained damage capability, I more than make up for in survivability. In turn, less time spent in the graveyard equals more damage anyway. Not to mention, less dying equals more fun, right..?

I feel more capable of dealing with most any situation as a Beast Master. Although Beast Mastery possesses the lowest overall DPS of the three hunter specs, it’s arguably the strongest when it comes to 1v1 and 1v2 situations. Due to the specs inherent health regen, immunity to CC and increased run speed, I feel much less vulnerable and and far more slippery as a BM Hunter.

I don’t arena all that much, apart from double DPS 2v2, but BM fits the bill here quite well. I find BM to be a more effective build when running without a healer, simply due to the spec’s increased mobility. Because many of the successful arena classes possess loads of CC, I find BM to be a good answer for that. With good communication and coordination, a carefully popped Bestial Wrath is usually all the additional firepower needed to get an opponent down anyway.

So those are a few reasons why I look to the Beast Mastery tree for my PvP needs. I guess to truly see if it’s a spec you’ll enjoy, you’ll have to read my guide and try it for yourself.

Let’s start with the build. Here’s a look at mine…

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Assembling a raiding Beast Master

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Mousie, Tauren Beast Mastery HunterHello readers and happy holidays! I hope you are all having a relaxing break, and don’t have a multitude of ruffians that are in your charge for the next week or so until their mothers come back and claim them. Obnoxious, rowdy ruffians who continuously want to play Pokémon with you and will not leave you alone for even a moment’s reprieve… But anyway, on to Beast Mastery!

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be giving you some advice on how to assemble your very own raiding Beast Master. I’ll be going through pets, talents, gems, and even a few addons that will make raiding as a BM easy and fun.

This week I’ll be covering:

  • Talent Builds
  • Glyphs
  • Gems

But first, why even choose beast mastery? We don’t get any special shots, automatic raid buffs or even do close to the amount of damage that the other two hunter trees can put out. So what are a few of the perks of being a BM?

  • Powerful and unique pets. This tree, as you may well know, revolves around the pet. 20-50% of your total damage will come from your pet alone.
  • Simple and straightforward shot rotation. Weaving your shots is as easy as pie, and as smooth as butter.
  • The ability to have 20-50% of your DPS on your target at all times in high mobility fights.
  • Less threat problems. With your DPS and threat split almost equally between you and your pet, aggroing mobs off of tanks isn’t a problem anymore.
  • It’s a familiar spec that most hunters leveled with. If you’re more confident with Beast Mastery, you’ll do more damage.

Sound appealing? Let’s break it down and see how Beast Mastery functions:

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Marksman Hunter Basics

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Although I haven’t posted in a few days, I assure you I have been busy working on the blog behind the scenes.

Yesterday I stealthily published my 2nd installment of Hunter raiding guides – this one being for Marksmanship. I intended to post a mention of this, but I didn’t budget my time well yesterday. I ended up going on a marathon guild raid night that included 25 man TotC, VoA and Onyxia. It was nice to return for some raiding after having missed out the past few weeks.

After that, I decided to hop on my Horde Hunter so I could complete the quest for the OP (at level 46 anyway) Rune of the Guard Captain. Once that was done, I figured I’d do a BG or two, which ended up being four or five. Good times though.

Eventually, the night passed me by and so I decided I’d just make mention of my Marksman Hunter guide today.

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