BM Hunter - Shadowlands: Quick Look

[@Zeloh927]

Preach pumping out the vids like a marksman pumping out DPS.

[@BlueShadesX]

Marksmen most times are bottom meters haha

[@nicholaskrozel225]

@@BlueShadesX not in shadowlands

[@DuoSpear]

rapid fire would make more sense than DPS

[@alexevans5481]

Every Preach video I finish, another pops up

[@DustyTheKitty]

Always prefer the simple specs, means I can focus more on the mechanic while muscle memory takes care of the damage.

[@logyin1053]

This information is about 5-6 months old preach but a buddy of mine hired a blizzard employee during that employee purge that Activision had a while back and apparently at the time a new class was in the early stages of development with the intention of releasing during mid expac of shadowlands with the goal of "shifting the meta mid expansion in a new way compared to just number tuning across classes". I don't know if it's still a thing as he also said they were potentially making massive changes to covenants because they were near impossible to balance but that doesn't seem to be the case so the above could also be scrapped. I can't really provide any credibility to this but I thought I'd post anyways for food for thought

[@Dovahnuke]

I've always seen BM as the raid leader's spec. Easy to play so they can focus on leading, most raid leaders I know play either BM or Boomkin.

[@FiercedWoW]

Just want to point out the reason for BM hunter pets running all over, with the macro you stated. The reason for this isnt because they're lazy. Its because pets actually straight up refuse to use their spending ability on cooldown, sometimes they just dont use it for a solid 3 seconds regardless of their focus at that time. So if you want max damage out of your pet you need to macro their spender into each and every attack you press so they actually use it on CD.

[@atheren_zethere]

It's actually a silly amount of damage too. Every time we get a new BM hunter in my guild who is under performing it's one of two things I check (the other being barbed shot uptime). Macroing your pets attack to all your abilites is usually ~10% dps. It's absurd.

[@2SeizeTheDay]

@@atheren_zethere You're absolutely right. As a solo Hunter main since Wrath I can confirm this is 100% accurate. Small change for a big fix!

[@apsodyeu3694]

@@atheren_zethere Wait what? Im a new bm hunter, so i have to do what exactly? macro the normal pet attack into every of my own abilities?

[@watchonjar]

This spec needs more, I know they want it to be simple but at this point its far too simple, literally one more level of depth or maybe another spell or two to add into the rotation that interacted with KC or Cobrashot and this spec would be fine. I hate having to choose between having the best looking pets and interesting gameplay.

[@naejimba]

Or at the very least they could include that complexity as a talent choice(s); if you are able to perfectly execute the more complex option, it should deal a little bit more damage than the simple version. That way they can have their "accessibility" (TM) while not making hunters feel like they have to go with another spec if they are doing more difficult content.

[@rahm90]

My vote goes towards making A Murder of Crows into a baseline ability for BM. With the addition of allowing for Kill Command to extend the duration of the debuff by a few seconds each time, if Kill Command is used on the target affected by AMoC. It's not an overly complicated addition to the core toolkit, but it would add something for us to work with and focus on. It would also be rewarding if you execute your priorities in the right way as AMoC would last longer on the target per cast.

[@watchonjar]

@@rahm90 Nah not enough, there needs to be a new spell with interaction with the spec. I think something like survs wildfire infussion some type spell that makes you actually think about what you want to do, it could even be talent like wild fire. Im just tired of thinking "do i want to use my cool pets I camped for hours to get, or do I actually want to enjoy playing the game"

[@thesage5101]

Bring back pet talents

[@alittlebirdi]

I enjoy the simplicity of BM because I'm the kinda raider that likes to keep his eyes on everything that's happening in a fight so I can jump in where needed...also known as bitch duty!

[@BrackishBrit]

As a fellow "I'll do the mechanics so everyone else doesn't have to" guy, I salute you sir.

[@MarcoAdriaans]

But tbh, a LOT of specs in wow are simple, I tried fire mage, that is so much more simple, and gets dull after playing it for a while, I don't have that with BM :-)

[@DuoSpear]

I enjoyed BM in legion for its simplicity.

[@Foster_The_Wild]

Marco Adriaans ye BM is actually a lot going on if you focus on it. Pet control, misdirect, barbed shot up, multi-shot up, spirit beast heal on tank if hes low, there is a lot more than DH, auto attack, slash, eye beam.

[@zxqra]

BM stands for Buff Management at this point . I don’t see the logic of the only cool spell that we have to be put as useless talent- stampede. Someone take the time to design this spell and no one ever use it . Just make it base line at this point . Place it on 8-9 min cd with every 40 energy you spent , you decrease the cd by 1 sec or something , just like DKs army . Also who cares about the kill shot or hunters mark , bringing back chacrams would made more sense for the 3 hunter specs than kill shot and hunters mark (also cool looking ability)

[@Just.Bored.86]

I wish they would fix PET AI; not to stuck or bugged, proper attack/skill usage. So we dont have to make an attack macro or constantly using dismiss/call pet every fast pace actions..

[@9aus]

I agree. Because of sloppy AI, people started triggering basic pet abilities (like bite/claw) by including them in the macros for their basic hunter abilites. The price for this: now you can't send in you pet to attack a different mob from the one you're attacking with your abilities, unless you have a separate set of keybinds without the pet commands hardwired into to run your rotation.

[@RandyPannier]

I really want a BM hunter with the potential for more thoughtful gameplay. This is where talents can really give the spec an advanced mode. I love the hunter pet fantasy, but simple spec kind kills it.

[@rhomir1418]

Appreciate the quick look videos, pretty straight to the point, within the first 30 seconds. Came here after looking at other videos from other creators and I was getting annoyed with all the min/max talk and viability :/, when all I wanted to know is if it's still a chill spec lol.

[@baseballfan4877]

2:18 .. pls report this bug. The cobra STILL doesnt have a 40 yd range like you... you saw it came out but didnt attack anything and just stood there. Yeah bug has been in since bfa beta and still hasn't been fixed.

[@MrDMSir]

That's hunter for you

[@Traditional_American]

It's still the same on the ptr, just tested the talent last week and it was still just standing there not attacking, so I reported it lol

[@davidschultz2198]

Does barbed shot actually have an animation yet? It is only 2 years old

[@Tangakkai]

Preach hittin' us immediately after alpha started with those nice poignant class previews. I love it! Please Frost DK next Dude, we need your opinion on the 2 Hander goodness!

[@lootmaster1337]

Bm hunter in my m+ Yeah bm is cool... If my damn pet wouldn't get stuck on every damn little pebble in this game

[@2SeizeTheDay]

Try taking your call pet icon for your active pet and putting it on one of your bars and clicking it when you want your pet to return to your side or moving in the same direction as you. I'd recommend doing it after every pull to take advantage of your pet's increased speed when out of combat. Also another small change that can make a massive difference is keeping your pet's dash ability on his bar turned off auto-cast (right clicking the ability so it doesn't have the gold rotating border around it). This way you can use the dash manually on your command to either move your pet to your next target or make him rush back your side. Pets such as spirit beasts and cats have their cloak they keep up and this causes them to move slower when in combat. You can also abuse the fact that kill command teleports your pet to its target as well to move them quickly! Hope this helps with your pet's mobility!

[@victordorantes3999]

with all the new spells no one is talking about action bar getting congested. going have to use passive talents that maybe weak. Not to mention covenent abilities that will be added.

[@danielwells1734]

I'm considering this spec once again. Currently in live I main a 456 Havoc Demon Hunter.

[@derekbush6239]

BM and Havoc need 2 extra rotational spells each, they're so hyper boring to play that I've dropped my hunter and DH altogether. Here's to hoping they're a little better to play, or at least that MM stays dominant.

[@liangdar9675]

I think more spells should be shared between the hunter specs. Maybe BM should get steady shot or the old Cobra Shot to regen focus and I'd like to see MM get kill command back to have at least a little more interaction with the pet.

[@laidtorest387]

I love my Havoc DH. I don’t understand why everyone insists we needs more buttons just for the sake of it.

[@dattand2085]

Oh boy. I love the class fantasy of BM so much I spent way too many hours of my live collecting the rarest and coolest pets out there, camping and flying around spawn points for days on end, sometimes weeks. But then there is the gameplay. By god I cannot stand it anymore, it feels so bad.... Such a poorly realized spec imo I wish it wasnt so crap :(

[@ArilandoArilando]

Why do you think it's crap?

[@dattand2085]

@@ArilandoArilandoBarbed Shot doesnt feel impactful, so does the new Cobra from the Talent and Bestial Wrath aswell feels like it lost it´s coolness factor by being spammable, it´s up so often. In general tho Hunter has this problem where all the other classes get sick spells with great effects and sounds. In contrast the Hunter feels like a pea shooter, only exception being the new Volley maybe.

[@Straggler8]

The only + seems to be beast cleave being a buff on character, so no need to add auras (I stopped playing after Jaina, so maybe it was already added)

[@martinrossi3258]

i'm still thinking why the give arcane shot back, they could create a new skill for bm instead of putting another shot.....

[@martinrosschou]

2:30 Anyone have a link for that video please?

[@Freeasacar]

Two things need to happen if BM is to not be an utter joke of a spec where you can just spam any button that lights up and Cobra Shot if nothing is lit up: Stomp needs to be tossed in the trash and DPS needs to move away from pets and back into the Hunter's abilities so that their rotation means something. Right now pets passively do most of their damage, and I do mean MOST. It's mostly the claw/smack abilities that contribute to this. You aren't really playing a class if you play BM, just facerolling your keyboard and directing your pets to the targets so they can do all the work, and it's pretty funny how nothing seems to be changing in that regard.

[@watchonjar]

correction pets do *most* of thier damage and I do mean *MOST(60%+)*

[@L_A_B_Y]

The class is called BEAST master. and you are complaining that the class gets most of its damage from the BEASTS? Pepega Clap

[@EdyGlockenspiel]

Did they fix thrill of the hunt to finally do...literally anything at all? Or is it still there and gives no crit despite the tooltip like it has since 8.0 prepatch?

[@Evilmon2]

Yes, like a full raid tier ago. And it gives crit to pets too now. It's by far the best talent on that tier and part of the reason why BM's dps is so good right now, an extra 9% crit to keep up Dance of Death is nothing to sneeze at.

[@EdyGlockenspiel]

@@Evilmon2 It still dose nothing on retail if that is what you are referring to. I have checked a few weeks ago, which was after 8.3 went live.

[@Evilmon2]

@@EdyGlockenspiel It doesn't show up on the paper doll, but it absolutely works. Simply looking at how many of your attacks were crits on logs shows that quite clearly. Edit: And to be clear, it's given the hunter crit% since launch of BfA too, the bug was the crit% didn't apply to any damage that came from pets. That bug was fixed about halfway through EP.

[@rockarolla272]

Edy Glockenspiel you got a loled cookie

[@Jerby]

@@EdyGlockenspiel It's been fixed since mid-eternal palace. Why did you think EVERY single hunter was running it?

[@Swoody1866]

Give me stampede back take it off the talent tree plzzzzzzz.

[@spud2063]

By Thanastrasza (280 - 7) on 2016/09/16 (Patch 7.0.3) Gotta love using Stampede and the tank moving the boss thinking its a boss skill... Skullsquawk on 2016/10/26 (Patch 7.1.0) Exactly, this needs to be changed cause if the boss moves or is moved all that damage is wasted and you wait another 3 minutes to use it again.

[@MCBlaZiKeN]

I'd prefer not, but if they did that i wish they made it so the beasts actually ran at a target and not just in a line. Means that sometimes it would completely miss

[@martinrosschou]

1:00 "Beast Cleave ofcourse limited by the AoE Cap". What is the AoE Cap? 5 targets?

[@kilerbylol]

Yes, most cleave abilities have been changed to max 5 targets.

[@emanuelbandrabur5338]

Monk next?

[@vproject2564]

How many additional stable slots did BM hunters get in Shadowlands? Need to go back and get more pets. :D

[@GoruWoW]

Barbed Shot (and legion dire beast) feels so bad in my opinion.... BM has no control over their focus regen cus everything is tied to a spell that has a long cd that only gets reduced by random RNG - or in the case of the new talent, if you cast Bestial Wrath.... which is a rly bad spell to tie it to, because we wanna use Bestial Wrath first and then dump Barbed Shots after to reduce its cd, but now with that talent instead of Primal Instincts we have to choose between RNG vs cd reduction on pull

[@Bladius_]

Barbed shot is how we control our focus? You keep Frenzy at 3 stacks and you get all the focus you'll ever need. If you play the class properly and have the right traits something like 90%+ uptime is possible on Frenzy. It's a great skill test for BM, it makes you think ahead and balance "3 stacks now" vs "hold 2 and 3 stack at the last second". It's some needed skill expression we've lacked before with out basic "press CDs, Press KC, press cobra" rotation. It's RNG "technically" but you should be stacking crit and taking the talent that increases the chance of gaining a stack, it's really smooth with that; and you can even take the azerite trait that increases Frenzy duration to take even more RNG out of it if you wanna. I like the new "loop" with Bestial Wrath too, both abilities feed each other really well; it seems pretty skill testing as you'll have more direct control over when you can line up wraths for Barbs to keep a 3Frenzy going and when you wanna pop off excess barbs to force Wrath to cooldown during burst windows.

[@watchonjar]

@@Bladius_ But thats not fun tho is it. every spell is basically press off cd and you try and maintain a buff on your pet AI which you barely notice.

[@coendou007]

I hate barbed shot, it's completely against everything BM stands for as the "out-and-about let your beast help you solo spec", let's give them gameplay that is not only entirely rng, but also has a very slow buildup, that'll help them.

[@MetaL556]

This ability is the sole reason I didn't play BM in BfA, and likely won't play it in Shadowlands. What was wrong with Dire Beast being our focus generator? I liked having a pile of wild animals clawing and chewing the boss when a whole bunch of resets came about.

[@coendou007]

@@MetaL556 i 100% agree, this ability is half the reason I quite bfa.

[@Bladius_]

If Barbed feels RNG you probably are playing wrong/not speccing right. I can have over a 90% uptime on 3Frenzy in encounters. It's skill testing, it feels much less RNG if you are thinking ahead a few GCDs and lining them up right. It's hardly a slow build up too, you wanna dump 2 stack after your opener KC, and you're nearly guarenteed getting a refresh before your burst window is up if you're speced properly. I cannot remember the last time I dumped my 2 Barbs in my opener and dropped it due to "RNG", using the DoD/OwtP build.

[@Bladius_]

@@MetaL556 I conversely don't like "zoo BM", It's me and my pet(s). I'm not druid that communes with wildlife; I'm a trainer, with my tamed beast. Both are valid of course, and there are talents for Zoo BM if that's what you prefer.

[@oFractureD]

Is that bird pet he has a shadowlands thing or is it already in the game? i like the look of it.

[@cesaraossa]

Thanks for this video. I still seems too close to the Legion build which made me feel beast with a pet hunter instead of a hunter with a pet beast. Unless I'm see this wrong.

[@VintasticGaming]

They need to bring back pet unique abilities like fire spray tunderclap poision

[@chrisblack5359]

So the anima ability is just blood of the enemy without the initial burst damage?

[@s0515033]

I lik the way BM has played. I really don't want the spec to change. BM's beastcleave damage in BFA is misleading. It's not very good itself. It's only good because Azerite traits were buffing it immensely with Dance of Death and Primal Instincts. Rapid Reload allowed for constantly rolling aspect of the wild, too. When you subtract all the borrowed power buffs, beastcleave is not really that strong. It didn't need to get nerfed. 6 seconds is also far too long for a pet rez, since pets are trivially easy to kill in PVP. It just makes BM a liability when it's already mediocre in Arena. IN PVE, dungeons are full of mechanics that will randomly one shot your pet or kill it regardless of mend pet. Skittish, tanks lose aggro and pet dies. If you need to taunt pet dies. If you get hit with a dot/bleed/aoe that hasn't been factored into mitigation, pet dies, etc. Can't really avoid it or afford to have to waste so much time rezing the pet. Pet AI is also terrible. You currently have to macro all of your attack abilities into pet abilities because the pet just won't even cast them regularly. This is why you see pets changing targets. Everything is macroed to /petattack or else pet won't do anything.

[@watchonjar]

the way the class is rn is terrible we literally have a standard rotation of 3 spells with one of them being a just a buff to overall damage. How is that satisfying to you? All im saying is now that we have DH, bm hunter doesnt need to be the noob spec anymore. People that want a brain dead spec should play dh.

[@s0515033]

@@watchonjar Barb shot Kill Command Cobra Shot Bestial Wrath Chimera shot (first half of expansion) Crows (first half) 6 regular abilities used most of the expansion until late game. The passives only got better late and took over. leaving you with 4 core abilities in the rotation. So it's not true you got 3 abilities. This is a wow-forum meme. Aspect of the Wild adds another button for CDs. I regularly use traps, interrupts, dispels, too, so that adds more buttons. We lose buttons because blizzard can't tune passives vs actives with late game stats without rendering passives worthless, not because the class inherently has few buttons. DH only appeals if you like melee. I don't. Totally different playstyle. I care more about the encounter than mashing more buttons for the same of mashing more buttons, anyway.

[@Jargik]

@@s0515033 Totally agree with you. josh'sgoinham if you do not enjoy the supposed "3 button rotation" then maybe don't play the spec...?

[@watchonjar]

@@s0515033 Kill Command you use off cd, Bestial Wrath you use off cd Murder of Crows you use off cd, Chimera shot you use to gain a bit of focus but mostly use off cd, cobra shot you use to not cap focus or to get KC back off cd in BW window. Barbed shot you are supposed to try to maintain 3 stacks as long as possible but u can literally get away with using that off cd because BW empowered KC is where most of ur dps is anyway. Almost the entire spec is just press button when its not greyed out, there is no thought in any of it. At least other specs are builder spenders, BM doesn't even have that because focus comes in buckets. How is that good design to you? Its not, stop simping for the devs because BM allows you to no brain your way to the top of the DPS charts.

[@watchonjar]

@@Jargik Nah they should make the spec better, every spec in this game should be engaging and complex, because your rotation and moment to moment character game play is the core of this entire game. This isnt league of legends you arent supposed to swap mains when another champ looks better, this game is made in such a way that you are supposed to pick one character and play them as your main for a long time if not indefinitely. Therefore I shouldn't be forced to choose between better gameplay and not using all the rare pets and gameplay aesthetic that I prefer. Your comment would be like me saying they should just leave shadow the way it is in alpha. You cant just keep a spec crap because you want an alt that can easily no brain solo things.

[@davidjamesthomas]

So cobra shot animation is still broken with guns and crossbows and it still looks like a snot rocket I wish they would just make it look like an actual snake

[@Absurd000]

They put a cap on beast cleave? Anyone know the details about this?

[@Bladius_]

They capped all cleave abilities to 5 targets. It's not a "direct" BM nerf.

[@MCBlaZiKeN]

Honestly? i love BFA BM. I know it always got shat on and that it's really simple, but not every class is gonna be complicated.

[@theloa7154]

Exactly. I hated BM for the longest time but I've played it all expansion and I've really enjoyed myself in all content, it's simple it is but I really do feel like it's interactive and dare I say it... Silky smooth really it's so smooth to play I have an ele shaman and while I love them too they are not smooth at all

[@MCBlaZiKeN]

@@theloa7154 completely agree. MMS was absolutely destroyed in BFA and BM plays like a hot knife through butter. plus, it's really enjoyable

[@daniellec2101]

I don’t care if it is stupid simple. I love BM, will be the alt I use to experience the Ardenweald campaign.

[@noobkaka567]

Rogue Shadowlands video please?

[@0x7000]

Preach, thank you for all the hard work. When will you be posting shadow priest?

[@Kadaren]

I feel like arcane shot is gonna feel so useless on bm idk

[@Requlier]

I'm guessing with the correct talent setup (like the one Preach showed in this video), Arcane and Cobra Shots become situational depending on if you have Bestial Wrath up or not. I could be wrong though, but I know that I am going to test this when/if I get a beta invite.

[@FiercedWoW]

its only use is to hit a paladin in his BoP. Cobra shot always does better, it has a higher damage value and they almost cost the same focus. on top of that cobra shot reduced the CD on kill command each time you use it, kill command being your main ability you dont want to use arcane shot when you couldve used cobra shot instead. Just like how steady shot is there for bm aswell, but you dont get focus on using it (rank 2 does that, and only mm has it) So yeah, it wont see any use.

[@Bladius_]

What I'd like to see, since they increased cobra to 50 focus, is arcane being free/dirt cheap so we can press it in situations where we wanna pool focus for a KC about to come up but don't wanna waste a GCD.

[@homeig-2234]

Barbed shot is still just bad gameplay to me

[@ArilandoArilando]

Why?

[@Linus1871]

yea it sucks

[@baseballfan4877]

I absolutely hate that ability. one of the worst abilities ever introduced. What was wrong with dire frenzy or dire beast for focus management? why the hell would i want a bleed as a BM hunter?

[@levicook8488]

@@baseballfan4877 The bleed damage almost irrelevant. Out of a 22m dmg encounter it did 1m. Bad. Its much better for frenzy and crit chance.

[@baseballfan4877]

@@levicook8488 yeah so why have some garbage bleed that feels irrelevant instead of some badass extra pet attack or extra pet summon.

[@Brekner]

I mean, my dream is to have complex specs that require a lot of practice to learn but easier boss fights. When you have both complex rotations and complex boss fights i'm just not interested.

[@francischabot1412]

I don't see how BM is much simpler than most other specs out there right now outside of being able to attack while moving. Ret is super easy. Got to keep Inquisition up like BM got to keep Frenzy up. Then it's mostly generate holy power and then dump. Pop wings when available (only thing that matters really it's like half their dps). It's tricky to optimize holy power generation but doing so instead of fcfs wont increase your dps by a lot . Moonkin is super easy. I would say maybe even easier than BM as there's no CD on dots so you are not penalized that much for refreshing them too soon outside of losing a little bit of dps unlike BM where if you refresh Frenzy too soon (or too late) you'll eventually not be able to keep it up and your dps will go down the toilet until you can reach 3 stacks again. Alternating spells is not hard. Havoc DH super easy. Outlaw rogue not too hard either. Destruction lock can be a little bit tricky as it's super easy to waste havoc or not be efficient with your Infernal CD and wasting those CDs is super bad as it's like your whole dps. It's not rare that i do 10k more dps than another BM hunter in a raid or mythic+ because he fails to keep Frenzy up and his uptime of BW is not good enough. BS is a short CD and must not be refreshed too soon or obviously too late. When lot of things happen it's easy to miss it. It's a myth than to do dps you only have to press KC. If your uptime of BW (via BS cast) and Primal Instinct (via MS cast when there's aoe) is not good enough and if you can't keep Frenzy up 100% of the time like you should with current gear the dps wont be that good. It's an easy spec but so is 90% of the specs today.

[@watchonjar]

becuase 90% of our rotation is press off cd in a priority list. There is literally no thought into BM whatsoever aside from trying to maintain frenzy which you as a player dont even feel the benefit from aside from the dps meter. Also the issue isnt ease, its engagement. Even if a spec is easy it can be good if its engaging, like ret at the end of MOP when you just had proc after proc; you dont have to think to much but its fun becuase of the procs. Specs need to have things that feel satisfying, there is nothing satisfying about BM KC doens't hit super hard anymore, barbed shot is a tiny bleed that is only there for ur pet, BW is off cd so much it has lost so much of its feeling as a cool down and aspect of the wild is a spell that gives resources back to a spec that auto generates resources easily anyway.

[@zeng58]

I have a problem when it comes to mechanics and dps that’s why I pick bm

[@rahm90]

"Don't fix what isn't broken" I mean yeah sure, the spec works. Although it's FAR from perfect still as of the alpha. Going into BfA: They removed the option for BM hunters to choose between Dire Beast and Barbed Shot(Dire Frenzy). Why? Sure, some players did not like using Dire Beast, that's understandable. But why remove the option to choose between them? They also introduced the Animal Companion-talent which allows you to have 2 permanent pets of your choice out. Looking at Shadowlands: Animal Companion in itself is awesome for BM. Although why make it/keep it as a talent? We've just gone through several expansions of seeing how Lone Wolf was recieved for MM, and people wanting it as a baseline option and not a talent. For BM, it's the same thing with Animal Companion(2 pets). Give us that option as a baseline passive choice for us to make. Baseline, the spec could use something more indeed. My vote goes towards making the talent A Murder of Crows a baseline mechanic for BM. With the addition of allowing for Kill Command to extend it's remaining duration on a target. That in itself isn't overly complicated but it would add some more things to work with that isn't just another "press-on-cd ability". Other than this... Stampede should be reworked to become a passive tied to Bestial Wrath, causing you to summon 2 more of your stabled pets to fight for you for a set duration. Using auto attacks and benefiting from Kill Command + Beast Cleave. Barrage? Yeah, remove this please. Would love a talent that, when picked, increases the duration and damage of Beast Cleave and causes Kill Command to also be affected by Beast Cleave if combined with Bestial Wrath.

[@Requlier]

I would use Animal Companion over Killer Instinct if it did not split the damage of your pets in half! I tested Animal Companion at the start of every patch this expansion, and Stomp would be split in half, overall damage is split in half, and even kill commands were split in half. I feel like BM hunters would use Animal Companion more if our main pet kept 100% damage, and the AC pet had 50% damage. I wonder if this was the way with Hati during Legion, but I don't know because I did not play Hunter during Legion

[@rahm90]

@@Requlier With Animal Companion, the damage is not exactly split in half. It's true that both pets deal equal damage with certain abilities and attacks. Although the main pet also uses Basic Attacks(such as Bite or Claw or Smack), while the 2nd pet does not. Also, currently, they don't do 50% damage each for the affected attacks. Each pet deals 65% of the normal damage the main pet would do if you were to go without Animal Companion. Another thing which makes this somewhat tricky, is that the damage the main pet deals with Basic Attacks, is reduced down to 65% of normal as well, if Animal Companion is chosen(even though the 2nd pet does not use Basic Attacks). In short, picking Animal Companion over no talent at all on that tier, is about a 10-13% boost to damage depending on RNG. Maybe a little more sometimes. ----- Hati during Legion made up for about 11-16% of your total damage as a BM hunter. Your main pet did roughly 35-40%. And you yourself did the rest. This ofc varied depending on the encounter.

[@nordfald3740]

@@Requlier are you talking about on live or on the alpha? cause right now, Animal Companion is objectively the best talent in that row, both for ST and AOE, at least on live.

[@Bladius_]

I know some people like "Zoo BM", but I've always prefer me and my dude(s) sticking it out together. We're trainers, not summoners. I'd prefer for stampede and Crows to stay as talents. Issue with Animal companion is it adds MORE jank to our kit. It's better DPS at the moment sure, but the second pet is more annoying to keep alive and adds another layer of random AI fuckery. Though, if I'm right and cleave is 5 targets per beast it's 100% an autoptake in SL for cleave encounters. I know that's not to everyone's taste, just throwing in my 2 cents.

[@Squeebop]

I myself am a lazy player when it comes to my rotation. So BM hunter and Ret paladin, yes please !

[@watchonjar]

then play dh, hunter isnt the noob class anymore

[@Squeebop]

@@watchonjar lol sure it is. Managing barbed shot was the most difficult and that was ez

[@Justaguywithglassesok]

@@watchonjardh is just as much of a faceroll as bm is

[@neoncheetah1452]

Preach stop I can't keep up I just finished the mm vid and now this one my god. Look forward too seeing dh after this video lol

[@d1o2c3t4o5r]

Wait, you can do 360s in WoW?

[@RecoilMojo]

Whenever I pick a new class on new xpacs I always wish I chose Hunter instead. Will I make the same mistake?

[@ummthatminecraftguy]

Damn it. I was hoping BM wouldn't be crap this time again. Hopefully with it only being early alpha they can fix it and bring it back to it's pre-Legion state. Also keep up these alpha vids Preach, your commentary is always great.

[@RMX010]

ikr, bm are so shit since i think WOD?

[@themiswizard5267]

i miss old bm hunter in legion why Pets more damage than hunter

[@bogus2680]

These are great excited for rogues, mages, and fury warrior, havoc

[@Jesus-bs5fl]

2 pets baseline now?

[@ght405]

stampede bsaeeline for bm sounds fine to me

[@Bladius_]

I don't like "zoo BM, I prefer me and my guy(s) doing the work. I'm a trainer, not a druid summoning the local wildlife to help me :P

[@gimduin78]

Am I the only one who don't like Barbed Shot? -.-

[@KingMidgardsormr]

I just want to see Assassination Rogue and Frost dk

[@petercarioscia9189]

I understand these are 'quick looks' but I wish they were a little longer...a little less quick lol

[@stephendunne409]

Wait, manually controlling pet abilities? Lmao I thought once they were hotbarred on the pet's own bar they were automatic

[@Tuesoctloth]

They are, however, if you decide to use the ones on the pet hotbar, there's actually a 6 second delay. Making a macro/button for it removes the delay.

[@Bladius_]

Yeah but you can squeeze extra DPS by using it manually; example: If your pet uses his "claw" ability outside of a Bestial Wrath window, you lose DPS over manually casting it after pressing BW.

[@TheSometimeAfter]

That lack of dispel...

[@gampie13]

dispell is not tied to tranq shot

[@EndOfExistence1337]

The aoe target cap sounds really annoying. Just another step backwards I guess..

[@EpicKillstreak]

Was hoping for it to return to MoP era where it was amazing for me personally. Welp, another expansion, another shit. Barbed shot is garbage. The spec has a lot of potential to be made super cool. Heh, maybe in the next one.

[@Bladius_]

Barbed shot is my favourite change to BM (mained since MoP). Gives us another thing to manage and actually rewards you for planning ahead on your GCDs; Instead of the "huntard classic": Press cooldowns, press KC, press cobra, weave in a multishot every 5secs if it's cleave.

[@xin-xvi]

Beastmaster Hunter has always been a really fun and solid spec, simple but great.

[@s.t.5993]

Of course blizzard had to bring more skill buttons back. Compared to other games like ff14, WoW BfA gameplay is so poor, with maximum six keys to push, while other games have more complicated and creative rotations.

[@nawafoxbow4975]

Monk next please

[@geow0521]

Please do havoc dh

[@hvdiv17]

they did break it 6 sec pet rez:(

[@phogol]

Anybody thinks BM is too simple needs to try raid leading. It is by far the best RL spec to play. Easy enough to maintain while still being able to watch the raid and everything else a good RL should be looking at. Not everybody needs to play a shitlord dps.

[@Bladius_]

Also, they can say it's easy all they want. I'm alive DPSing and their "hard to play class" died 3 minutes ago? Who's more useful? I had this happen to me just yesterday, I was something like 25% of our damage in a fight (LFR but still) and said "this is insane, why is noone doing damage", a DK piped up and said "lol ur a hunter with 3 buttons". Of course I asked him if it's so easy why he isn't playing it since he died 3mins into the encounter :P

[@stefanjoksa]

Wait, arcane shot is a spender ? Wth ?

[@Bladius_]

It should be a free filler, but it's basically just a weak Cobra Shot now that costs the same. lmao.

[@Aiikaz]

Gimme the MAGE

[@testies786]

YEET

[@robh316]

Frost DK preach please

[@Liljeborg]

Everyone needs a Netflix farm spec

[@4everGrobari]

Give BM Hunter Chakrams talent instead of Barrage talent and i will never swich other class or spec for entire expansion. PLS BLIZZARD make BM at least fun for eyes PLS. PS: Make chakrams have 6s dot after hiting target so bm is playable for pvp + fun for eyes by the way i never pesonally used Barrage in my lifetime of playing bm its so ussles that hurt my fellings... PLS BLIZZARD

[@joshuagarner1654]

I have never been able to get myself to get excited playing hunter. Probably because its visually boring

[@captaincokecan]

i press button

[@Sillygoosebandit]

who mains BM and doesnt macro their pets geez

[@EvilForces]

DH Havoc plx

[@Ub3rSk1llz]

i hate what blizzard has done to hunters

[@Bradimus1981]

I hate the Barbed Shot mechanic.

[@ollivainionpaa684]

If you don't have keyboard and your mouse contains 1 button for skills, this is the spec for you! Stay in mind though, you still contain your health bar... clam down... I know... I KNOW! CALM DOWN, chill god damn it... There is no need to worry, it is healers' job to focus on that thing. You can do this! Go show them what you are made of!

[@Pompen]

I hope it plays like it does when gear and optimized for stomp spec as without the azerite gear "passives" BM is fucking dogshit lol

[@Lemmywinks1989]

Simple, but saticfying.

[@rockarolla272]

Yes very saticfjugvyig

[@TheFrambler]

Definitely not satisfying, id go as far as to say dissatisfying

[@robertviscomi8199]

Warriors next pleassseee

[@OveropinionatedAzhat]

wait, people post-pandaria actually try to manually control their pets? why??? pets are so dumb and unresponsive its just a waste of mental energy since the nerf bat was taken to pets as a whole.

[@nicklasjensen9043]

The unresponsiveness of the automatic use of pet abilities is the exact reason why you would want to manually control your pets.

[@OveropinionatedAzhat]

*pushes pet-attack target *waits 5 seconds for pet to decide to change targets or not.

[@s0515033]

@@nicklasjensen9043 You just /pet attack and macro all the pet abilities into your abilities. That makes them automatically use their attacks. It's really dumb that that's necessary, but it is.

[@To3To3To3]

After your BFA BM video I cant take your hunter reviews seriously.

[@forgotten1one]

Mike I know your busy with throwing these out like hot cakes but priests as a whole has about 0 content for SL you should hop on that market sooner rather then later

[@shnobz_kotik]

>BM is simple spec Name at least one spec in that game which is not simple? All classes have braindead rotaions with zero decision making.

[@rockarolla272]

I know you want to defend your spec, but it is indeed simpler than say feral or dh

[@TheFrambler]

Alot/most of classes in BfA r braindead compared to MoP days but BM is on a whole nother level of braindead

[@shnobz_kotik]

@@rockarolla272 it is not my spec and I don't want to defend it. Tbh, I dont want to defend any spec in modern wow. All I wanted to say that all specs are so braindead simple that there is no point to ever compare them by difficulty. There is no difficulty in any of classes, they are all on the same toddler level of difficulty. I mean, yeah, maybe there are specs slightly more hard to play than BM, but does it even matter if all of them could be played by monkey with alzheimer?

[@spudy1000]

@@rockarolla272 sorry I just gotta laugh at how you mention Dh as a more complex spec 🤣 feral yes dh no

[@Nkodtb]

So it looks like every class is going to be plain and boring af lol

[@deathlyit7273]

Don´t like complicated specs? Nope. I don´t like specs with too many annoying gcds.

[@rd9102]

Bm Hunter and same thing for MM in PvP are garbage, that is why they have no representation in PvP at almost any level. Cobra shot looks like garbage too.

[@d9nx239]

BM is boring. I hope MM takes its place as the "hunter spec".

[@Bladius_]

It's funny because me and all my friends think MM is boring. The dream is Survival being reverted to MoP/WoD survival :P

[@cci9459]

BM is a joke as the top dps ability is auto attack....if that does not yell FOR NEW AND POTATO PLAYERS IN GENERAL I dont know what does...oh...Demon Hunter exists as well for the same reason, press 1 2 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 1 2 3 top dps gg

[@s0515033]

A lot of melee have "top damage" or high as auto attack. That's physical classes. Auto attack is misleading too, since it's not actually my top damage as BM. It's about on par evenly with several other abilities. It is only top damage if you press no other buttons.

[@aldarana8483]

Auto attacks aren't a BM hunter's top damage though? If they are it's because they aren't playing correctly. Kill Command should be the top damaging ability single target followed by pet autos and THEN auto attack. In a single target raid fight Kill Command should do more than double the damage of a hunter's auto attacks. Pet autos are also deceiving because in order for pet autos to be 2nd on damage done the hunter needs to be using their barbed shot ability to buff the pets correctly.

[@cci9459]

@@aldarana8483 I cross my heart dude, I havent seen a single BM hunter having top dps anything besides auto attack or in rare cases focused azerite beam (duh) and I do 12+ keys. So yeah chill, you cant deny the class is made for the newest of the new players to just sit there and still do above average damage if you do your rotation by clicking abilities in the spell book. Its not wrong to enjoy that its just that the spec is hot garbage in terms of skill needed. Meanwhile monk (my main) exists and I have to keep track of 6 abilites that I must never use one after the other all while making sure I have resources to keep my downtime next to zero. Gg ez.

[@s0515033]

@@aldarana8483 Depends on what they mean by auto attack. If it is the pet attacks, then yes, it's most of the damage. Auto attack, as in the bow/weapon, no.

[@s0515033]

@@cci9459 In dungeons, the top damaging ability should be beast-cleave, followed by pet attacks like claw, bite etc. But as someone said, to get good damage from the pet attacks, you need to properly buff with frenzy. Then kill command if it is a low AOE encounter. Pet auto attacks and the hunter's gun autos shouldn't be top.

[@jwl5498]

Awful video information all over the place

[@mattwroe4776]

Bm Hunter's have always been for the lower common denominater

[@headlights-go-up]

Found the Havoc main lol

[@Thadeka.]

like any class is ``hard``this is not mop and dont think we wil get anywhere near that.

[@Jerby]

Would be happy for you to post some of your BM logs with perfect play :)

[@destorm33]

Very true

[@JaeyXVI]

Bm is so braindead easy and boring, dont know how people play it

[@Blutnymph]

I miss zoo build for BM. It was the reason I fell in love with BM. The many extra pets you could summon made the fantasy of BM. It was visually appealing regardless of it's simplicity. I hate barbed shot, it feels awful and it's a lame bleed.

[@Necro_Fiend]

I feel that everyday...