BM Hunter and what our community is costing us...

[Banard 61]

So lets think about this.....

Statistically BM Hunters & Frost DK are on the bottom of dps charts. We see this with the following: 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/13#dataset=99

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/13#dataset=99&difficulty=4

 

but no one in the community really talks about this. We get this conversation about frenzy vs stomp (ignoring the best BM hunter are using stomp) and we get conversation about BM DPS is "fine". 

Well its not fine...we got 270,000+ parses telling us it ain't fine. 

Meanwhile...not knowing what the DK community is saying or doing there is: 

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/6807-Patch-7-3-Frost-Death-Knight-Changes-Blizzard-App-Update-Tweets-StarCrafts

So blizzard sees frost dks doing garbage and acknowledges it. Meanwhile nothing about BM...three weeks in...and nothing about bm

but the community is fine? to busy arguing frenzy/stomp to stop and say wait a minute we need a tweak? 

why isnt there a uproar about this? We got a leggo baked in and hit to hard with the nerf bat. We need a tweak, hunters need to stop arguing amongst themselves and group together like the warlocks did (well maybe not so aggressive). 

For some reason blizzard thinks we are happy ...or are we happy? The community needs to post on wow forum use twitter accounts and get blizzard to acknowledge this.  We need a buff, not a rework like frost dk, but a small buff.....actually no...we need a big buff and nerf to teir 19. I pretty sure no one wants to keep farming mythic nh. 

Edited July 17, 2017 by Banard

[Sisco 23]

I don't think I'd say I'm happy, but i just like to play to the best of what the game allows. I feel like blizz has never really been that good to hunters and they dont intend to change. That being said, i just try to make the best of what we have and try to put up high parses for my ilvl. My guild isnt cutting edge by any means and i am always on top of the meters. I play to see the content and play with my in-game friends that i have been playing with for years. It is frustrating seeing other classes and specs get buffed while we get put in the corner or nerfed. I guess since i would be in the same place after any buff as i am now, it doesnt make much of a difference to me. If you look at Method's first kill of Avatar, there were i believe 2 or 3 BM hunters and with that i'm afraid that blizz we say that we are not obsolete enough to need a buff if the top raiding guild has several people running the spec on first kills of bosses. While i am not as frustrated as you are on the topic, i dont think you are at all alone, but i feel like we dont get the fair listening to from Blizz that other classes are afforded. 

[Khallid 110]

I remember reading in a blue post (I think it was around 7.1.5 or so, but I don't remember details enough to find it) that BM is designed to be a non-top dps spec on purpose as a penalty for its full mobility. It doesn't make sense for a ranged spec that has no casting movement penalties to also do the most dps. All other specs would be useless in comparison.

From a more casual perspective, BM is the most overpowered spec in solo content. Killing mythic dungeon bosses alone to get Fenryr is the kind of bullshit most other classes and specs simply can't do, and it's not even that hard for a BM hunter.

I find the spec is pretty fun, and the "low" dps is high enough to kill bosses. Most of the time, you will wipe due to mechanics. Raid bosses are not intended to be killed undergeared like World First guilds do. The raid would be over too soon and everyone would get bored. So I can see why it's not an issue for Blizzard.

If anything, the underwhelming spec continues to be Survival.

If you're so worried about it why don't you switch to Marksmanship? BM will never get a buff to be top tier dps.

 

Edit: The change to Frost DKs is more fundamental. No matter how good a player you are, if you break Breath of Sindragosa early because you need to soak or dodge a mechanic, the dps literally plummets. So you're being punished for playing correctly. The issue that Breath lasts too long so you can't stop hitting the boss is a fairly big problem. It is not a tuning issue.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Khallid

[Darkthronian 0]

My thoughts on this:

Right now every top ranked player is playing Stomp cause they have TF T19 which is very strong. At some point though they will get items which are simply better than T19, and will have to drop T19 and go for Dire Frenzy instead. If they want to maximize their dps that is.

 

From my pov, Dire Frenzy has a higher skillcap than Stomp and thus has a higher potential. 

 

For BM to be competitive on dmg meters we should not have to rely on getting Titanforged T19 when we are in T20 content.

 

So imo, no need to nerf T19 or buff Stomp. Stomp with T19 is a nice entry level into ToS. Stomp is easy to play and should at best be a mid table dps spec. 

 

The change we should be asking for is a buff to the Dire Frenzy build. Maintaining buffs on pets and timing cooldowns is the challenge of this spec. Dire Frenzy is more challenging to play and should be upper half on dmg meters if played at It's max potential.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Darkthronian

[Luthixx 138]

11 hours ago, Khallid said:

I remember reading in a blue post (I think it was around 7.1.5 or so, but I don't remember details enough to find it) that BM is designed to be a non-top dps spec on purpose as a penalty for its full mobility. It doesn't make sense for a ranged spec that has no casting movement penalties to also do the most dps. All other specs would be useless in comparison.

^

I have no issues with my dps most of the time, but as a ranged with entirely unlimited movement mechanics aren't an issue at all. I find during mechanically heavy fights I do a lot more dps but I'm never near the bottom. I still sit quite nicely near the top, and have found no issue with BM this tier. My only issue is that unlike someone like Rogerbrown who has 925 TF T19 items, I'm left with slightly above average items to use. When I get the ring I'll be holding on to 920 cloak and 905 legs, without being lucky enough to get anything higher and with better stats.

There is no skill-cap with BM though, it's an absolute joke of a spec to play in every sense of the word. I can eat my dinner with one hand and outdps most of my guild at the same time. We're essentially a utility spec, we do however have really high potential DPS if we get good Wild Call procs. That's the only thing that really separates BM from a mid to a top tier spec currently, our proc rates. Which prior to this patch wasn't an issue.

[Banard 61]

3 hours ago, Luthixx said:

^

I have no issues with my dps most of the time, but as a ranged with entirely unlimited movement mechanics aren't an issue at all. I find during mechanically heavy fights I do a lot more dps but I'm never near the bottom. I still sit quite nicely near the top, and have found no issue with BM this tier.

Another perfect example, you in your specific situation is fine so the class is fine...ignoring 270,000 parses.  Just because you are a better player then the rest of your guild or put more work into your toon then the rest of guild does not mean the class is fine. 

270,000 parses tells us we need a buff. 

Comment likes yours are throughout wow forums on every site and its that reason will not see them or there will be a delay. 

I will we repeat again we need either:

(1) a small buff

(2) a bigger buff with a corresponding nerf to tier 19. 

[Banard 61]

15 hours ago, Khallid said:

 

If you're so worried about it why don't you switch to Marksmanship? BM will never get a buff to be top tier dps.

Why give excuses?  Why argue against it? 270,000 parses say we need it. DId i say we need to be top? We are below average. I said we need a small buff or a bigger buff with a corresponding nerf to tier 19. 

[Sisco 23]

Reposted from other thread for people that arent following

 

13 hours ago, Banard said:

Actually it depends on the fight, KJ was 3 MM hunters and thank you for illustrating a perfect example of what i am talking about in the other thread. 

This everything is "fine" attitude is causing us not to get buffs when they are needed.  270,000 parses have us 2nd last. 

It isn't that i think everything is fine. You can see my full explanation. Yes we are low on the charts but because i am doing fine in my raid setting, a buff for us would take me from #1 on the meter to more #1 on the meter. To me, that isnt worth getting all up in arms about, but I fully support you and your endeavour. The only reason i can see to argue for buffs is when we play to 95%+ by item lvl and get out damaged by someone playing sub 70% by item lvl. This would indeed be frustrating to me. If this is what you are seeing in your raids then yes, i get why you are mad. Since most of us aren't facing this situation though, you see a lot of apathy. I play hunter bc I like hunter. Plenty of people play the flavor of the patch and will switch to whatever is top DPS but i think that is only a solution if you are literally getting the absolute most out of the spec 98%+by item lvl and still not happy with where you are on the meter. With the exception of arms warrior which you should be arguing needs a nerf, most specs are withing 7% of the middle of the pack. Not saying i dont agree with you Banard, just explaining to you why i am not as passionate about it as you are. 

Edited July 18, 2017 by Sisco

[InfernoRFU 117]

We're not #1 DPS on every fight ever. Game is literally unplayable.

[Khallid 110]

2 hours ago, Banard said:

Why give excuses?  Why argue against it? 270,000 parses say we need it. DId i say we need to be top? We are below average. I said we need a small buff or a bigger buff with a corresponding nerf to tier 19. 

You seem to think that there's something innately wrong about being below average. Someone has to be below average, and Blizzard has decided that BM should be below average this expansion, as a penalty for its mobility.

As soon as you start buffing the specs in the bottom, the middle tier that gets dropped to bottom starts complaining. It's a never-ending game. That BM needs a buff is your opinion, which Blizzard disagrees with. I didn't mean it as a joke to switch to MM. If statistical parses are all you care about, then choose a spec that's at the top. It's not nearly as time-consuming to have 2 specs raid-ready of the same class as having 4 alts all geared up.

[Banard 61]

3 hours ago, Sawzorthn said:

We're not #1 DPS on every fight ever. Game is literally unplayable.

pure troll comment. 

[Banard 61]

2 hours ago, Khallid said:

You seem to think that there's something innately wrong about being below average. Someone has to be below average.

There is. There are 4 -5 specs that are clearly 10% below the middle of the pack and need to be brought up in line.  No one needs to be below average. There will always be someone on the bottom but the aim...as blizzard has stated should be for the specs/classes to be within each other. 

BM average parses are 10% below the middle. There is no reason for it. 

[Banard 61]

2 hours ago, Khallid said:

 

As soon as you start buffing the specs in the bottom, the middle tier that gets dropped to bottom starts complaining. It's a never-ending game. 

It is , its called marginally differences.  The gap needs to be small. There are clearly winners and losers. The size of the gap needs to be reduced. BM needs a buff. 

But i going to end it here, its quite obvious we need a buff, its quite obvious at this point there not coming. The BM community is "content and happy" being behind the curve. 

 

 

[Khallid 110]

It's a matter of argumentative speech at this point. My argument doesn't convince you, and your argument doesn't convince me. There's not much else to discuss.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Khallid

[DeathsDesign 92]

1 hour ago, Khallid said:

It's a matter of argumentative speech at this point. My argument doesn't convince you, and your argument doesn't convince me. There's not much else to discuss.

Probably the most valid point I've seen on this thread lol.

 

Honestly though I think BM in itself is in a decent enough place, it could get a little love but doesn't need to be top of the pack like other classes.

With legendaries I think BM is brought up quite a bit.  The difference between having belt and shoulders vs having neither is pretty significant and I think  that's where a lot of disparity is coming into place.  Not to mention if you go  look at the top parsing BM Hunters they are all running T19 2 set and T20 4 set which makes stomp a MUCH more viable spec than without the T19 2 set.  The reason they can do this is because they have Mythic WF/TF tier pieces which are still just as viable as heroic ToS gear.  Mythic Elisande drops 900+ loot which is on par with normal ToS.  Gul'dan drops 910+ loot which is just under Heroic ToS.  Not to mention with the TF cap being increased to 950 ilvl all of this gear from Mythic NH can titanforge up to 950 which in turn makes it virtually irreplaceable.

 

I see a bigger disparity between BM hunters with and without legendaries than I do BM hunters and other classes.

ALSO let's not forget that the wclogs rankings you linked are 99th percentile.  That is literally the TOP OF THE TOP of the class.  The players that perform at that percentile are the players that know the absolute ins and outs of the class, every timing down to the last second, perfect rotation to keep up buffs and stacks etc.  That is a VERY POOR reflection of the wow community as a whole.  Most players will never parse more than 80-85th percentile because they either aren't willing to put in the time and effort to min/max accordingly or just aren't good enough to push themselves to that point.

Heroic ToS rankings for 75th Percentile

If you look at the 75th percentile rankings you see that BM hunter while still below average is about 2% below the middle of the pack and 4% below it's Marksman counterpart.  This in itself makes it still very competitive in actual live environments.

 

Do BM hunters need a buff? not really but it would be nice.  Are BM hunters competitive and viable in the current content? absolutely.

[Bladehawk 6]

Someone's making an argument about whether or not a spec needs to be buffed...

... using 99th percentile parses.

Uh-huh. A small example of why Blizzard is better at balancing the game than the playerbase will ever be, despite how much some of us may insist otherwise.

4 hours ago, DeathsDesign said:

ALSO let's not forget that the wclogs rankings you linked are 99th percentile.  That is literally the TOP OF THE TOP of the class.  The players that perform at that percentile are the players that know the absolute ins and outs of the class, every timing down to the last second, perfect rotation to keep up buffs and stacks etc.  That is a VERY POOR reflection of the wow community as a whole.  Most players will never parse more than 80-85th percentile because they either aren't willing to put in the time and effort to min/max accordingly or just aren't good enough to push themselves to that point.

Heroic ToS rankings for 75th Percentile

If you look at the 75th percentile rankings you see that BM hunter while still below average is about 2% below the middle of the pack and 4% below it's Marksman counterpart.  This in itself makes it still very competitive in actual live environments.

Thank you for pointing this out - disappointed no one did it earlier. Trying to judge class balance based on the 99th percentile is moronic, especially if a class involves RNG (which is every class, to varying extents).

Edited July 18, 2017 by Bladehawk

[Banard 61]

On 18/07/2017 at 4:21 PM, DeathsDesign said:

 

ALSO let's not forget that the wclogs rankings you linked are 99th percentile.  That is literally the TOP OF THE TOP of the class.

before commenting go look for yourself. It is consistent through the percentile. I just picked one. 

[Banard 61]

On 18/07/2017 at 8:25 PM, Bladehawk said:

Someone's making an argument about whether or not a spec needs to be buffed...

... using 99th percentile parses.

Uh-huh. A small example of why Blizzard is better at balancing the game than the playerbase will ever be, despite how much some of us may insist otherwise.

 

Again go look at the looks it is consistent throughout the percentile the sample is 270,000+. 

[Banard 61]

Mythic: 

25%https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/13#dataset=25

50%https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/13#dataset=50

75% https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/13

80%https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/13#dataset=80

99% https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/13#dataset=99

 

My favourite, the next boss i am doing on progression: 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/13#boss=2048

 

^ now ignore the top, the outliers that are doing too good..and look at the middle of the pack...then think about this....

And average increase of 100,000 DPS will only make us better then 4 specs. <specs not classes. 

Be in denial all you want facts are facts.  This movement argument is bullshit, specifically considering as a class we always had movement. 

And for argument ...in HFC we had perfect mobility...perfect....MM with instant aim shots...perfect mobility....and this was the 75% mythic logs in HFC: 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/8

There was no such argument then that hunter should have less dps cause of movement. 

^ and yes people complain about BM and surv low dps but it was not much of a issue then as now cause of no AP system.  With the current AP system, the GAP between specs cannot be large...being on bottom is not the issue...the gap between middle of the pack and the bottom is. 

Edited July 20, 2017 by Banard

[Banard 61]

On 18/07/2017 at 2:24 PM, Khallid said:

It's a matter of argumentative speech at this point. My argument doesn't convince you, and your argument doesn't convince me. There's not much else to discuss.

Here is another twist to this arugment: 

https://misdirections.wordpress.com/2017/07/19/a-plea-to-mr-game-director-hazzikostas/

To stop rants like this we need a buff to our DPS and nerf the teir 2 two-set.  The fact that once i get my ideal drops i'll still be wearing a 905 and 890 NH teir gear while working on mythic KJ is kind of pathetic. 

Our gear mess is another example of our crappy dps.

 

cant wait for argus....i can see it now...the ideal set up 2 tier 19, 2 teir 20, and 2 teir 21!

Edited July 20, 2017 by Banard

[Khallid 110]

3 hours ago, Banard said:

Here is another twist to this arugment: 

https://misdirections.wordpress.com/2017/07/19/a-plea-to-mr-game-director-hazzikostas/

To stop rants like this we need a buff to our DPS and nerf the teir 2 two-set.  The fact that once i get my ideal drops i'll still be wearing a 905 and 890 NH teir gear while working on mythic KJ is kind of pathetic. 

Our gear mess is another example of our crappy dps.

 

cant wait for argus....i can see it now...the ideal set up 2 tier 19, 2 teir 20, and 2 teir 21!

This is totally true, they fucked up the tier sets quite significantly. There's a lot of problems on how tier 20 is so weak they had to nerf tier 19 to even make it worth using, but they did it wrong and the 2-set is still strong. The issue with using 3 tier sets at once, because the 2-piece from the previous tier will stagnate, making a lot of high ilvl pieces of gear not an upgrade. If you can't get upgrades then your dps will never go up.

However, if Blizzard nerfs the tier19 to the ground to the point where it's unusable, maybe even buffing tier 20 in return, your overall dps is not going to go up, only your item level. The thing is, they added a few buffs to BM a week after 7.1.5 came out because they thought it was needed. They don't seem to think it is needed right now.

The tier sets occupying the slot of a strong legendary is also an issue, but not so significant. You can shelve that into legendary balance most of the time. There will be another legendary you can use in another slot. However, that aggravates the previous point. If you have 6 pieces as tier and 2 more as legendaries, there are 8 pieces of gear that you can't replace. Blizzard is assuming at this point that you have several legendaries.

I wouldn't say that's a specific issue with BM though. It's a core issue of loot all through Legion.

What I would do to improve the situation is to make tier 21 have a 6-piece bonus, so you're forced to drop all previous tiers to get it. It would still clash with legendaries, but it would be less troublesome than it is right now. They don't seem to be going that route though.

 

Even though I don't think a buff is necessary right now, it's not like I prefer to not get buffed. But the issue of the bottom spec being X% below the average is too much will always be an arbitrary number. It doesn't seem at this point that 10% is Blizzzard's breaking point. I am open to the argument that BM might not scale well with gear because of the tier 19 problem. If that turns out to be true then the gap between BM and the rest will widen, at which point I will agree that a buff is necessary.

[DeathsDesign 92]

6 hours ago, Banard said:

before commenting go look for yourself. It is consistent through the percentile. I just picked one. 

before making comments like this yourself read the post.  If you had you would notice that I actually posted a different percentile parse and explained a comparison to the majority (not all but majority) of the rest of the parses in that bracket.  This also would indicate that I did look at other percentiles before deciding to use the 75th percentile as my example as it is much easier to obtain than a 99th percentile.

BM - 10th Percentile, Rank 15, 80.7 score 16 pts behind rank 1

BM - 20th Percentile, Rank 15, 85.3 score 10.8 pts behind rank 1

BM - 30th Percentile, Rank 15, 86 score 9.8 pts behind rank 1

BM - 40th Percentile, Rank 16, 85.5 score, 9.8 pts behind rank 1

BM 50th percentile, Rank 16, 84.8 score, 9.9 points below Rank 1

BM - 60th Percentile, Rank 16, 84 score, 10.8 points below Rank 1

BM - 70th Percentile, Rank 18, 83.3 score, 12.1 points below rank 1

BM - 80th Percentile, Rank 18, 82.5 score, 15.6 points below rank 1

BM - 90th Percentile - Rank 22, 81.3 score, 15.6 points behind rank 1

These are the rankings out of a total of 280k+ parses (the parse number counts for all percentiles not just the single percentile currently selected) for Heroic ToS where the majority of the current teir raiding guilds are standing.  As you can see regardless of the percentile there's not much of a disparity in the rankings.  Yes... this does mean that we BM hunters could use some love, but this does not mean that it is ABSOLUTELY GAME BREAKINGLY NECESSARY that we have one.  Will a BM hunter that is performing adequately in his guild be benched? I highely doubt it.  Also these numbers are indicative of the parses for players that are perfect at the class and those that could probably do more damage by auto-attacking, so therefore it's an average. 

According to wowtrack.org (possibly old numbers as wowprogress appeared to show more mythic guilds, but tracking is much more difficult via that site as there is no stat tracking option) there are 12,087 active guilds raiding ToS.  Of those 1697 guilds have killed at least 1 Mythic boss, which is only 14% of the total guild population.  9,283 of these guilds have killed at least 1 Heroic boss which is 76% of the population.  So linking Mythic logs doesn't really prove a conclusive point.  

32 minutes ago, Khallid said:

I am open to the argument that BM might not scale well with gear because of the tier 19 problem. If that turns out to be true then the gap between BM and the rest will widen, at which point I will agree that a buff is necessary.

I am strongly leaning towards this being the disparity of BM dps versus other classes.

 

7 hours ago, Banard said:

My favourite, the next boss i am doing on progression: 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/13#boss=2048

 

^ now ignore the top, the outliers that are doing too good..and look at the middle of the pack...then think about this....

And average increase of 100,000 DPS will only make us better then 4 specs. <specs not classes. 

Now once again this is mythic which is only indicative of a very small portion of the BM playerbase.  Demonic inquisition is not a true indication as well as it is a multi target fight with guaranteed downtimes due to mechanics (no matter how small they are).  The results are kind of skewed as the fight favors ranged over melee, multi-dot classes over ST dps classes, etc.

Mythic Maiden - Pure Single Target, 99th percentile (the variation between 50th and 99th was minor) BM ranking.

Mythic Mistress - Constant cleave/aoe with significant movement and mechanic requirements, 99th percentile (disparity between 50th and 99th percentile increased over ST fight.

 

Now, with all of that said, I think we could be buffed.  I think it would be good if we got buffed.  I think they should nerf t19 and buff the class, do I think that without a buff BM is unplayable? Absolutely not.  Do I think the good BM players can still be competitive in their own guilds? absolutely.  The fact of the matter is, we are in an underperforming state compared the top classes but we are still performing which is ok.

[Banard 61]

14 hours ago, Khallid said:

I am open to the argument that BM might not scale well with gear because of the tier 19 problem. If that turns out to be true then the gap between BM and the rest will widen, at which point I will agree that a buff is necessary.

Thank you for this statement. Totally illustrates your lack of knowledge and history of the BM class. 

BM does not scale with gear. It never has and never will under the design. The major reason is because our pets do not get improvements from weapon damage (its why you can wear better trait relic at lower level compared to MM). It is the reason why in previous expansions we use to get blanket % buff to aspect of the dragonhawk in late tiers. 

It has been like this since WOTLK. Its why in EVERY XPAC since wotlk BM starts out good but ends up shit by the end of it.  

Edited July 21, 2017 by Banard

[Banard 61]

14 hours ago, DeathsDesign said:

 Yes... this does mean that we BM hunters could use some love, but this does not mean that it is ABSOLUTELY GAME BREAKINGLY NECESSARY that we have one.  

To long to read, but all i am going to say is: 

BM NEED A SMALL BUFF TO BRING THEM UP TO THE MIDDLE OF THE PACK OR BIGGER BUFF WITH CORRESPONDING NERF TO TIER 19. 

^ read...then read again...then read again. AT what point did i say game breaking? 

Its hilarious....as the title of this thread states...other specs get together and communicate the issue to blizzard, BM hunter argue against the need for a buff. 

 

Edited July 21, 2017 by Banard

[Banard 61]

14 hours ago, DeathsDesign said:

 

 

Now, with all of that said, I think we could be buffed.  I think it would be good if we got buffed.  I think they should nerf t19 and buff the class, do I think that without a buff BM is unplayable? Absolutely not. 

so the whole point of your argument, was to argue against me but then agree with me? Hilarious. HILARIOUS. 

Another perfect example of the issue with our community, no wonder blizzard gets confused.