Hunter DPS 3.1.3

 
Hunters are recieving two more buffs since the Ranged Weapon hotfix.  Hunter's Mark is going from 300 to 500 and the talent Master Marksman is now also affecting Aimed and Chimera Shot (mana wise).

These changes will cause each tree to gain a somewhat different amount of DPS:

Marksmanship:  +196 DPS
Survival:  +148 DPS
Beast Mastery:  +79 DPS
  
These changes have minimal affect on PvP since Hunter's Mark is usually instantly dispelled and costs mana and a GCD; however, the mana changes should help Marksmanship slightly in PvP.
  
It is unfortunate that the Beast Mastery tree continues to fall further behind since Hunter's Mark does not help out a pets damage at all.  Unless blizzard decides to buff the Beast Mastery tree in some way, I see even less BM Hunters in the future (not that I see many in the present).
  
Here is the update in DPS for each Hunter Tree come 3.1.3 (25 man raid, with my gear and talents as mentioned in each Tree page on this site):

Survival:  +6769
Marksmanship:  +6613
Beast Mastery:  +6211
  
Marksmanship and Survival are neck and neck, while BM is left behind, especially since if a BM Hunter loses their pet, their DPS plummets.
  

Hunter Buffs Incoming

  
Hunters dps is too low according to the developers.  Today they are implementing a +30 dps increase to all bows, crossbows and guns that are of an item level of 226 or higher.  This should translate to a hunter damage increase of a few percent.
 
This is not the only buff that Hunters are going to get.  Another buff is planned in a few weeks time.

Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17223144541&sid=1


  
WoW Reports updated for Week 4, and Hunters are still struggling.  Hope they plan to buff Hunters in PvP as that seems to be more out of balance than PvE DPS problems.

I am very interested to hear what the next buff will be in a few weeks time...
   

Hunter / Rogue 2152

Siphter and I climbed almost 200 points this week, as last week we were below 2k.

Siphter specced back to a Shadowstep / Hemo build and we did a lot better at finishing our targets.  The mobility that Siphter has with Shadowstep allows him to instantly move into the fight from a safe distance so that he is not pulled out of stealth with aoe effects.

I have switched from using a Wasp to now using my Chimaera.  Roar of Sacrifice helps me live quite a bit longer.  The Froststorm Breath is a great slow and helps keep our target slowed all the time.  I do miss 9% extra pet crit and Heart of the Phoenix that Ferocity pets have (mostly that crit that my pet doesn't have).

Above 2k, we won 6 games in a row, 4 away from getting flawless victor; would have been pretty cool if we could have gotten that.

We faced a double rogue team that instantly killed Siphter.  But I was able to kill both the Rogues even though they were able to get away with a vanish (love BM w/ a Chimaera).

Our queues were a bit better this week, as we faced off vs Rogue teams half the games (and won about 90% of them).

We still have trouble with most Ret Paladin and Holy Paladin teams. 

I am confident we can get to 2200, but with Tier 2 weapons at 2350, that is our new long term goal.  Getting to 2350 is going to be amazingly difficult as Hunter / Rogue, but if we get some lucky queues, it is in the realm of possibility.
  
My favorite BM PvP macro:

/petattack
/cast Rapid Fire
/cast Kill Command
/cast Blood Fury(Racial)
/cast Call of the Wild
/cast Bestial Wrath
/cast [target=player] Roar of Sacrifice
/cast Intimidation
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
  

Slow Going

Things have been slow on the WoW front these past two weeks.

In PvE news, my guild has not been able to get a 25 man Ulduar raid going since the patch, and the future doesn't look good.  10 man Ulduar is okay, but the enjoyment wears off quickly when there aren't many gear upgrades.

In PvP news, the Tier 2 Weapons have been moved to 2350 rating requirement from 2200.  As Hunter / Rogue we had a shot at getting to 2200 (we were at 2150 earlier this week), but 2350 is out of our league.

I really hope blizzard decides to do a minor overhaul on the Hunter class in PvP.  Being okay in 5v5, bad in 3v3 and terrible in 2v2 is not fun when 90% of people only play 2v2 (yes, I'm part of that demographic).
 
Blizzard should give Beast Mastery Hunters another shot or ability in their arsenal as they are downright boring to play in PvE and need some major utility in PvP.

It would be easiest to replace the BM 51 point with this new shot/ability (the functionality of the increased pet talents could go to Animal Handler, and the ability to train Exotic pets could also go there or stay as part of the new 51 point talent).

My vision for the new 51 point BM talent (Arcane Spit):
Hunter commands pet to Arcane Spit for 1500 Arcane damage on target (25 yard range) and also gives the hunter a buff that allows their next Arcane Shot to silence for 2 seconds (buff lasts 30 seconds).

The cooldown on Arcane Spit would be around 10 seconds.  The ability would cost mana, but would have no energy cost for the pet.  The ability would be on the Global Cooldown.

This would give PvE BM Hunters a bit more DPS, around 186 or so more DPS.  This would also give PvP BM Hunters more utility with a short silence that could be used on every other Arcane Shot (about every 12 seconds).