#1 - Jan. 21, 2017, 2:56 a.m.
Looking for any pvpers to provide their input as I do not do enough pvp to provide a solid input for BM pvp.
Now to address some key issues with BM
Legendaries mandatory for spec
Currently playing Beastmaster requires two mandatory legendaries roar of the seven lions, and mantle of command. these two legendaries provide a quality of life change and a huge stress reduction for the focus regeneration issue to the spec. before 7.1.5 was brought to live servers some nerfs were brought to these legendaries some of which included the belt and ring (apex predator claw). Acording to Ornyx there is a stance trying to be maintained by blizzard about legendaries not being required for specs however as a beastmaster hunter to alleviate some of the major play issues mantle of command and roar of the seven lions are absolutely mandatory in order to help with not only the dps issues, but the focus regeneration. ( this doesn't include the massive downtime during the rotation)
Mechanics of Beast Master
Beast master currently has a rotation that involves weaving kill command during the bestial wrath window for optimal dps. which hind sight is fine how ever that also involves not using cobra shot when your below 90 focus, waiting for dire beast procs as out side of aspect of the wild our only focus recovery tool is dire beast at 24 focus over an 8 second duration and hoping we get lucky with procs for more until we either get aspect of the wild up again and have enough focus pooled up to pop bestial wrath again and to start weaving kill command while using cobra shot to reset the cooldown. the spec it self has a lot of down time if we are not weaving kill command as it involves waiting for bestial wrath by in a sense fishing for dire beasts to help get the cooldown of bestial wrath reset quicker.
Talent issues
Currently as BM we have a pretty set talent choice with little to no variety. in the first talent tier we take Dire stable ( or way of the cobra depending on if running mythic + and gear set up)
the second set of talents we run stomp as it still out performs dire frenzy and once we get out tier which does not work with dire frenzy it's all the more reason not to take dire frenzy.
in the third tier of talents we take posthaste as it helps with our poor mobility.
in the fourth tier of talents we take (blink strikes if pet pathing worked properly screen shots I provide below show poor examples of pet pathing) other wise bestial fury for the extra 15% damage for bestial wrath
in the fifth tier of talents we take binding shot because its just that much of a better choice over wyvern sting and stomp in a pve mythic raid environment.
in the sixth tier we take A murder of crows for single target or volley over the now broken barrage for any aoe fights (including mythic +)
for the seventh tier we take Killer cobra, Stampede is still too unreliable to take with its new design.
Currently we are into a new tier of raiding Nighthold and looking at the first couple days of statistics from warcraft logs at the 75 percentile BM sits towards the bottom again.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#sample=7 ( One week sample size, variance will change over time especially with mythic coming next week)
Now lets take a look at Emerald Nightmare Mythic as well as heroic
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10#sample=7®ion=2 ( Mythic 7.1.5 dps BM is towards the bottom for 75th percentile players)
Now for heroic logs to have some other comparisons https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10#sample=7®ion=2&difficulty=4 (BM isn't bottom in this case but still towards the bottom)
http://i.imgur.com/usTwmZ8.jpg ( bad pathing part 1 )
http://i.imgur.com/0yHPHKX.jpg ( bad pathing part 2 )
http://i.imgur.com/g6lWwTk.jpg ( bad pathing part 3)
Pets and Hati
Pets are also an issue ironically for BM mainly due to the AI and pathing. some examples are included in the picture above others would be mainly referring to Hati who does not act like a natural pet in the sense of on any AoE pull Hati tends to lag behind pets and I can see surge of the storm gods proc in two areas one on trash and one way in the wrong spot ( wrong spot being hati). the blink strikes talent is nice in theory if pathing and AI worked properly but in a lot of circumstances due to either the environment or just buggy situations the hunters pet can blink strike and despawn or end up in really odd areas one case being the air on Helya during phase 2 - 3 when killing tentacles and stay there and still damage the boss.
