Terenas - Should I respec Marn?

[Kevin]

OK, so I've been toying with the idea of a respec on Marn. There are a couple of reasons for this.
1) I raid more with him now than I thought I would.
2) We have plenty of tanks now with the warriors and druids so I don't need to pet tank instances anymore.
3) When I duo with Treesh out in the world, her new spec means it's not as bad for her to have aggro over the pet.

Now I've looked at damage meters for ZG, AQ20 and MC with Keepers for the last 5 runs, and Marn + Pet has been the top DPS in all but one of those runs (for the time I was there) except for the very first MC run we did with Keepers where I died to Luci and ended up 3rd when you factor pets in. So I ask, what would I gain?

This is a long section so I broke out a summary later on. :)

I'd be happy to see input on the specs from all hunters, some of the other points are more about affects on the Terenas guild so that is why this is in Meeting Stone not somewhere else. :)

DPS - Doing some calculations on my own and looking at what the fun little TheoryCraft mod shows, my DPS would go up by 25-55 in my current gear depending on the exact spec I use (not a lot of difference in Marks or Survival on my DPS from what I can see) and allowing for margin of error in calculations. The percentage of DPS I would gain as my gear continues to get better would simply grow (Marks and survival hunters DPS grows faster with better gear than beast hunters). My pet would lose about 25 DPS. So I would still see a net gain of 0-30 DPS, at least. It could be more. I don't see it being less. If I get say a Strikers Mark on the next MC run, that bow alone would see 2-5 DPS more from the respec (my total DPS would go up by 7-10 I believe from that bow with the respec and would only go up by about 5 without the respec). So even if the respec doesn't net Marn + Pet more DPS right now, it would with just one or two gear changes.

There is another side to this though and I'll look at it on a different basis.

ZG - Pet can be doing DPS for all fights except blood drinkers (don't know about Hakkar and Jin'do since I've never faced them). Pet usually will die to Venoxis and Jeklik. Though dash in and dash out still allows me to use the pet DoT pretty well. On Mar'li my pet usually tanks the spider spawns and with intimidation and beastial wrath I can help keep zerkers from moving around after they fling people. Intimidation allows me to get stuff off healers till a tank can get there too. With a respec I would lose the ability to tank the spider adds on Mar'li and hold zerkers in place. Neither of which matter much at all. I would lose combat time with the pet vs Mandokir, Jeklik, and Arlokk for sure. I don't know if the pet would even survive a Mando whirlwind without the talents behind it. I also don't know if the pet would hold a raptor or gator or tiger through AoE without the talents like it does now (I believe there is a reason that Higler dies less when I'm on the runs and I believe Meowry or Qantaqa getting and holding aggro when he does stupid stuff or just adding 3 seconds of stun is part of it).

So I lose some tanking with the pet that I don't really need to use and I lose some pet DPS on bosses. However, my total damage for the runs will still likely be higher, because the boss fights are still a huge portion of the total damage you do in there and the pet is already limited in many of them. I've checked damage maters before and after boss fights and Me+pet pretty much always falls behind the other marks or survival hunters+pets at least for some of them (Venoxis for sure, I stay pretty even on Thekal and Mando). I make up ground on the trash mobs again. But more damage on the bosses is generally a lot more valuable than on the trash.

AQ20 - I generally don't send the pet in on Kurinaxx unitl the very end because I can't split my attention well enough to watch for 2 different sand traps. So he stands by me and howls. He gets sent in at the end for a little bit of a damage add but I could still do that. Rajaxx pet is in combat all the time and tanking many of the flyers as they get DPS'd down or just off tanking one for a bit till it gets handled. But the aura from the Lt. General keeps the pet pretty healthy. I would lose the tanking abilities but I'm not sure how important those are, especially since I'll help kill things faster. Moam pet is sometimes a DoT sometimes there to help on banishes. I haven't done anything else in there. Trash in there all the time now, but I can clear the poisons so that our healers aren't thanks to improved mend pet.

If I'm in a group with a shaman who is using a totem to clear the poisons the pet will still go in as a DoT on trash. The rest likely won't change at all. So it should be a net DPS gain, and much larger DPS gain on the Kurinaxx and possibly even Moam fights since if the pet is off on a banish I lose that DPS.

MC - Pet is very viable and low maintenance on all the trash mobs. Luci and Mags just a Furious Howl totem. Gehennas pet is able to go in and do damage after the guards are dead, will die to RoF even with the tank moving but still can add some. Garr, on a banish. Geddon, just a totem. So I would still use the weaker pet on the trash but I would gain a fair bit of power on the bosses.

5 mans - This is where I lose the most and we still do a lot of them. The pet would no longer be a viable tank for the focus fire mobs as it wouldn't hold the aggro. Could still off tank something to keep it off the healer if the MT is overloaded but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be an off tank anymore. Swirly ran into this when that nice gun dropped for him and he tried a respec and the pet couldn't be an off tank anymore. This would be counter balanced a little bit by either better traps and a wyvern sting (so a bit more CC) or scatter shot to at least give a second or two more for someone to pick it up. My survivability if I have aggro could also go up some. And I might have trueshot aura to help the tank and other physical DPS


Summary
Gains
* 0-35 more total DPS of me + pet
* 25-55 more DPS on MC raid bosses and some ZG and AQ20 bosses (where pet doesn't fight them now)

Losses
* Ability to play as an off tank in 5 mans and some of the raid encounters.

Toss Up
* Solo and small group playstyle will change
* My survivability with a weaker pet could go down a bit as Marks and maybe up a bit as survival (deterance + counter attack can do great thing)


The Questions
1) Should I respec? Tjos is being asked for the opinions of the folks on Terenas. How much would losing me as an off tank in the 5 mans mean to you guys?

2) What spec? I've looked at both Marks and Survival builds. And as mentioned they both do different things. In my current gear I actually look to gain about 5 more DPS from a Marks/Survival build but it is even less utility of the class in 5 mans (survival still gives more utility I feel). Though I'm not positive about that because if I went Survival I could use some different gear too. Having the +15% agility talent I might change some of the other gear as well. 10 agi with that talent goes from 20 RAP and 0.19% crit to 23 RAP and 0.22% crit which doesn't seem like a ton, but it starts to add up and I do have some high agi items that I'm not wearing in favor of +crit or +hit right now since that does more for my total damage. I'd have to look at it more.

There is one strike against survival from me from a gameplay standpoint, and that is that I have an L35 survival hunter on Stormrage, though she is actually a melee hunter who shoots as little as possible, Marn would still be ranged. :) So it's not a big deal. I waffle a lot on which I feel I would like more.

3) Now if I do this change I'm not going Marks/Beast or Survival/Beast, it will be Marks/Suvival or Survival/Marks because while a 20 or 21 beast could keep some of the offtanking it wouldn't really realize much of a DPS increase (if any, I could lose out on the DPS of Me+Pet) since I'm already 20 Marks.

So I'm thinking about:
Build 1 - Last two points in improved Aspect of the Hawk, Improved Mark, or Survivalist? I am a Tauren so I've already got essentially half of the Survivalist talent anyway. More points in there would simply let me lower stamina even lower on the priority list (and it's pretty low as it is)
Build 2 - Feels like a standard survivalist build doesn't seem to be much wiggle room for points.

Why savage strikes? I get lazy sometimes and melee things when I get aggro. If I'm zergering people through instances I end up in melee a lot and for the annihilators in MC. :) Those points could go in entrapment or wing clip or parry just as easily, but I figure if the build is mostly focused on upping my damage and savage strikes does up my damage. I also PvP now and then and sometimes I'm forced into melee and raptor strike crits with the big two hander I use for PvP can hurt (I've done 800+).


So those are the thoughts. I'm not unhappy with Marn, but we've had a few 1 or 2% wipes on bosses where I've thought "If I were a higher ranged DPS spec, we wouldn't have wiped". And of course there have been 5 mans lately where I wasn't even really asked to off tank with the pet either because our warriors and healers are getting better and better geared and more available so more DPS would have helped. But there are still times where I do off tank in 5 mans and I won't know how I feel about the solo play changes till I try them.:)

[PapaSmurf]

GG,

From the recent 5 mans we've been doing Terenas it's pretty clear that the need for you to off tank has diminished. Between Wimpy, Jester, Conc, and Mist (Doomstar) we usually have 1 often 2 warriors in the party. We've typically been able to get a druid in the parties as well. I believe your role not only in raids, but 5 mans as well, would be much better served if you were to max your DPS as high as possible. Plus it will feel nice to always be at the top of recap/damage meters:)

-Mike

[Mirajj]

Gah...where to start. You probably realized that you'd have me piping up in this thread.;)Here's how I see the three trees.

Beast Mastery - Solo, pre-60/raiding stuff. You have a strong pet, and can keep up with each other pretty well.

Marksmanship - PvE endgame build

Survival - PvP builds

Mirajj is, atm, 6/35/10, which is a spec just about as self oriented for damage as I can think of. All the damage she puts out comes from her, so that the gear found can used to up this considerably. The problem with the specs is that they don't really play well with each other. A heavy BM won't do well in raids beyond MC where the pet can't be used very effectively. A heavy Marksman will have a slower time soloing, and while can be good in PvP, is clearly lacking in close combat. A Survival hunter can do well in PvE, but not as well as a marksman, but a Surv shines in PvP.

The problem with a BM hunter is that once you get past MC, ZG and AQ20...there's not much place for pets. Not as it currently stands. You could probably use a pet on Razor. You won't see one for Vael. You could likely have one soak a hit or two on Broodlord. On any of the three drakes, your pet will likely get parbroiled in less than 20 seconds ([WTB OSC for pets]). You don't want pets on Chromaggus, as they can get turned into Broodlings quite easily. A pet on Nef is soon a crispy critter, as well.

In AQ40, you can't use a pet on Skeram. On the bug trio, they'll likely take 2-3 poison volleys, but then are toast. On Sartura, a whirlwind or two, and the pet is gone. I can see some pet use area's on Fankriss, but I'm not sure about the viablility.

The sad thing is, Blizz needs to make some pet armor or make pets more customizable, or do something with them to bring them up to speed for end game use. Sadly, by the time you are 40man raiding...you generally have a couple warriors around, and they tend to pick up the tanking jobs.

However, when you go back to 5mans, your pet is, as you surmised, now a bit gimped. It won't hold like it did before. It's got less HP, less AC. What I've found is not that that while the pet is less viable as an OT or in an MA position...it doesn't mean that they are completely out of the running. Just more care has to be taken to let the pet work up some aggro.

I have also found that without a pet, I have a lot more time to focus purely on my personal damage output. I don't have to think about sending the pet it, or making sure it's in the right position, or on the right target. It's less mental work. I kind of equate my build to combining my pets DPS and my dps into one, instead of two seperate places.

The thing is...all three specs are viable right now, but some are stronger than others due simply to design. All I can suggest is to give a new spec or two a try, and see what you think of it. You can always change back.

I would caution, however...watch out for Wyvern Sting. I've never seen or felt that a use has been found for that, outside of a battleground. As well, for Lightening Reflexes to be 'better' than Trueshot Aura, you need a certain amount of base Agi. I don't recall what it is offhand, but if memory serves, it's in the neighborhood of 450-500.

[Pesmerga]

As well, for Lightening Reflexes to be 'better' than Trueshot Aura, you need a certain amount of base Agi. I don't recall what it is offhand, but if memory serves, it's in the neighborhood of 450-500.

It's 400.

[swirly]

For me it really comes down to a question of what do you want from your character...utility or damage. I tend to find that I become unhappy with a character when I run into situations where I should be able to do something and I just can't. Like with my pet holding the focus fire target. I like to know that if its needed, I can do it. Even if it never really is needed anymore. I guess I kind of feel like that in 90% of fights more damage isn't going to really mean much. It may speed things up, but we would win the fight without it as well. On the other hand I feel like utility can, on occasion, swing a fight from a wipe to a win. The problem that arises though is raids. In a raid you are probably only going to swing a fight by doing more damage. Its unlikely that you will be able to do something with your pet that will stabilize things going wrong while with added dps you might just kill things before they go wrong.

So I guess, for me, it would come down to a choice between raids and between other stuff. Everybody knows that I'm not generally one to sign up for raids. If I'm around and there is room then I don't mind going, but I don't tend to like to schedule. So thus I tend to look for utility in my builds and just do what I can when in a raid. You, on the other hand, schedule for raids and go on a decent amount of them. So maybe they are important enough that you want to spec for them. Its kind of a choice...spec for raids and be decent in 5-man/other or spec for 5-man/other and be decent in raids. Either way you are probably not going to be a bad character, its more just a question of where your focus is. So where is your focus with marn?

[vor_lord]

Should I respec Marn?

Yes.

Respeccing is cheap. Wondering all the time if the grass might be greener isn't :) I say try it and see. If like swirly you miss your tough pet and utility, then respec back.

Right now we're at the point that I wear DPS gear and try to keep up even while solo healing in a 5 man. We'll be fine in five man situations with a semi gimped pet. Don't worry about us, do what you want to do.

Not having played a hunter since a pre-talent one in beta, take my comments with a grain of salt. I agree with Mirajj about Wyvern Sting -- it seems to be a PvP talent. For CC, a trap is better or a BM pet is better. I suppose you can sting and then pet tank after, but your pet will stand around for the 12 seconds most likely, or you'll be fussing around switching the pet target for most of the 12 seconds cutting down on your DPS. Also I believe that the damage from the sting will be aggro to you, and the pet will be behind establishing aggro if you try that.


As far as Trueshot vs. Lightning Reflexes -- how are the groups organized with the hunters? As a healer the groupings never matter much (I only care if Bifrost or a mana tide shaman is in my party). I'm wondering if you are generally paired with other hunters and therefore get Trueshot for free in a raid anyway.

What about improved hawk? Just being an ignorant priest, it looks pretty good for raiding. Wait.. what does 'normal' ranged attacks mean? Autoshot only?

[Kevin]

Addressing all posts. Too lazy to do quotes. I have respec'd to Build 1, with the 2 unspent points in improved aspect of the hawk.

Well my problem is I don't know what I want to do with Marn, hence the post asking opinions. :) The guild does both 5 mans and raids and I do both as well, and I still PvP at times too (though I haven't done and PvP since I got back from my break, but before that I usually did 3-5 matches a week). I like having high utility as well, but with most characters that depends not only on spec and gear of your character but the spec and gear of those around you for what utility is needed. Both specs I posted actually have stronger traps than my old spec so a double trap or FD trap in the middle of combat to catch an add will actually work better. Both specs have deterrance as well so that if I get aggro, I can be pretty much unhittable (with melee attacks) for 10 seconds. So I think both specs will still have ways to replace a strong pet for some of those 5 mans and I'll be helping kill stuff faster. But yeah the question as posed to the Terenas guild was do you think my utility to groups would be higher as more DPS now that we are geared better. Both vor_lord and PapaSmurf seemed to answer that with a yes.

And while the pet may still be able to off tank if we start with the pet on the target I won't be able to peel things off rogues and mages, etc with intimidation. Intimidation is a very strong aggro generator, stronger than a lot of people realize.

To the question of Trueshot aura in raids. Morde pays attention to it and generally spreads them around so they help everyone. He had been putting me in a group with another hunter who had it and putting the other hunters in with warriors, melee shaman and rogues (since it gives 100 AP to both melee and ranged it helps the tanks too). I think we'll all have it now though, at least I know Drec, Bini, and Galah are all TSA spec. But it will still help the group DPS in 5 mans, just like the wolf's furious howl helps all the melee people. It also helps the now gimpy pet hold aggro a bit better as it ups the DPS.

As to which spec for my current gear. My normal set that I've been raiding in is at 375 agi. If I farmed the mats to get the two Bone Slicing Hatchets enchanted with +15 agi, I could have 406 agi just from a weapon swap. I could have more AP or agi than I do, but currently I don't want to sacrifice any of the mana I have. I'm at 3600 unbuffed mana and I really don't want to go below that, I have to drink too much as it is. :) So I'm sticking with the Zulian Stone Axe for a bit and keeping the +22 int (330 mana) it gives me. I am still looking at getting the rest of the mats together for the enchants though just for a higher damage higher stam weapon set. Zulian with +25 agi (like I have) is 1.48% crit, 96 RAP, 330 mana. 2x BSH with +15 agi is 1.08% crit, 112 RAP, 105 HP (for me since I'm Tauren). And yeah, right now 18 RAP is more damage than .4% crit. So I've got the gear to support either spec. I'd like a bit more crit, I'd really like a painweaver band now, especially with the surefooted talent and my current bow. I'm +6% to hit now in base gear (2 tarnished elven and the Fahrad's Reloading Repeater quest reward) and +3% from surefoot. I like that though. I can just slap on Voone's Vice Grips and get to 8% for the MC bosses now.

I did take improved Hawk and it can only proc off auto-shoot and I've only got 5 points, but that means it should proc about once every 50 shots or with my bow about once every two and a half minutes. It should proc in boss fights and in since there are times I don't jam on the aimed, multi DPS cycle to conserve a bit of mana, I do just sit and auto-shoot at times so it will be a DPS adder. And I've got 2 in improved mark because I had to put 2 points some where to dig down far enough.


As mentioned the respec did happen and I did some solo killing and some killing with Treesh. I can pull aggro off Meowry with just auto-shots and crit strings. Solo on non elite mobs doesn't matter (and it didn't matter before) I still, just like before open them with aimed shot multi shot and usually they are dead. Solo on elites (blue dragons in Winterspring) isn't much harder to kill them but I have more down time and I have to play around with FD more. The pet isn't strong enough for me to kill them via the sick pet, gimp (scorpid) sting, beastial wrath and auto-shoot to regen mana like it used to be. Me + Pet DPS is about 5 DPS more over the long haul than it had been. But again I'm drinking more frequently and I can't conserve mana the way I used to or the pet will die. I pretty much have to burst the damage sucking down mana or rez the pet (which is soooo much more expensive without the improved revive talent) after the fight.

With Mogo around killing the non elite ogres to get her +9 str to bracers enchant (which did drop) the higher DPS was evident. Those things are stupidly easy to kill though but we smoked them and upping her DPS with TSA and the spec upping mine you could tell.

We then went to farm some ogre beads from the elite ogres outside DM (we picked up about 5 in the 30 minutes or so we spent) Mogo and Marn played a bit more like really old school Mogo and Marn back when they were L20 and duo'ing Waling Caverns. Pet would have aggro for a bit, I would have aggro for a bit, Mogo would have aggro for a bit. The 3 and 4 dog packs were fun. I'd drop my now stronger explosive trap, she would start casting chain I would fire of multi-shot and they would run over the trap. Mutli shot is now an average damage of about 700 (crits aroun 1100, non crits can be as low as 500). Her chain is about the same (crits around 900 but never really lower than 600) and the initial trap hit is around 300 burning for 44 a tick after that. I would have aggro on anything that was still alive, pop deterrance and monkey (49% dodge and 30% parry for 10 seconds with that combo) and just laugh as we finished off whatever was left. This combo was still possible before but not as strong, not as likely to crit, and I couldn't pop deterrance. I could have had the pet intimidate one and hold it but eh. In th e4 dog packs the pet was sent to the one that only got the trap so it held that one most of the time anyway.

So I lost some utility and it's very strange not being able to make the pet big and red or stun mobs. I've always played the hunter with the pet as an integral part of the team, not a mobile DoT and it doesn't work that way nearly as well. Moewry and Qantaqa and Yurtle (who is now pointless) don't really feel like equals to me anymore. But there are things I can do better. Freezing trap lasts 6 seconds longer now. My other traps do more damage, my AoE is stronger (though still weak). I'm sturdier if something gets on me. Wing clip has a chance to immobilize. I can provide everyone with 100 more attack power. Scatter shot's 4 seconds of time was enough time to stop an add, finish off the current target and get the pet on the add before it hit me or Treesh. Treesh likes the way the duo's feel because while me and the pet are actually doing more damage than we did before the way the fights play out make her feel like she is a bigger part of them.

I'll have to get the spec into a 5 man and into a raid (I'll get the raid on Friday) and into PvP where things will have changed. I'm not sure if I'll be stronger or weaker in PvP now. Beastmasters had some good tricks in PvP but I've got some new tricks with this build.

So it's different (and that is good, different specs should play differently) but I still have more tests to take with it. :) But again, since gear is really what is going to determine power at this level of the game and since there are marks and survival talents that have multiplicative effects with gear but there aren't any beast talents that do, gear starts to dictate that beast spec simply isn't as good. Even the things I could do in 5 mans, I just don't need to do as much anymore. The double trap or the precise trapping of the mob we want to trap are the biggest value most of the time it feels and my traps just got better by 6 seconds. But I'll keep going and see.

[swirly]

I'm not sure if I'll be stronger or weaker in PvP now. Beastmasters had some good tricks in PvP but I've got some new tricks with this build.

One thing I did consider with the TSA build was that you could take the two out of improved mark and the two free points and get 4/5 in improved concussive. That might add some more PvP fun for you. I figure the 2/5 in mark isn't really doing that much anyway.

[Lissa]

Survival - PvP builds

Nit: Survival is not about PvP, Survival is about utility. Beastmaster is more oriented to PvP than Survival is. Survival has talents that help both in PvP and PvE (improved FD is useless in PvP, Deterence is a big sign over your head saying to Warriors, "I'm Overpower Bait, come kill me," Increase Agi by up to +15% means more dodge which means better chance of Overpower again, and the traps talents are more beneficial in PvE than PvP as you've seen Porl use against the constructs in BWL).

[Kevin]

Nit: Survival is not about PvP, Survival is about utility. Beastmaster is more oriented to PvP than Survival is. Survival has talents that help both in PvP and PvE (improved FD is useless in PvP, Deterence is a big sign over your head saying to Warriors, "I'm Overpower Bait, come kill me," Increase Agi by up to +15% means more dodge which means better chance of Overpower again, and the traps talents are more beneficial in PvE than PvP as you've seen Porl use against the constructs in BWL).

Heh, it's good I'll likely want to respec by the time I get to raiding BWL (I likely won't have nearly the use out of +3% hit that I do now). But yeah entangled constructs could be quite fun.

[castille]

I actually recently respec'd Aimilbhine (my hunter) from BM to Marks when she was about .. level 43 or 44. The damage difference is insane. The one thing I can suggest: don't open with aimed. Open with SS, let a few autoshots go off, and timed the aimed to the second or third autoshot going off. I found that my pet can even hold aggro if it crits after that .. then again, I'm also not using endgame gear, either.

[Tuftears]

I would caution, however...watch out for Wyvern Sting. I've never seen or felt that a use has been found for that, outside of a battleground. As well, for Lightening Reflexes to be 'better' than Trueshot Aura, you need a certain amount of base Agi. I don't recall what it is offhand, but if memory serves, it's in the neighborhood of 450-500.

As one of the few hunters around with it, Lagkitten has found Wyvern Sting great for instances that are high in humanoids, as long as you're with a party that respects it. Her favorite pull runs as follows:

- Drop a freeze trap and mentally subtract a melee mob
- Mark the mob that you want DPS on
- Open with Wyvern Sting on a caster
- Concussive shot, then send pet after the marked mob
- The melee mob will drop on your freeze trap quite naturally
- Party kills the marked mob first
- Mark the wyvern sting next, party kills that
- Feign and re-trap somewhere in there

The only downside is the 2-minute cooldown on Wyvern Sting. For the brief sleep it offers, it really could be a minute cooldown without any problems.