Basically Frostheim, one of the bloggers over at Warcraft Hunters Union also has a column over at Wow.com, and in this column he kicked up a storm by stating his opinion about the current state of the BM spec and the raid viability of the spec too.
I'd just like to weigh in on this one and say:
Leave
The WHU blog is a great source of information for both new and experienced players and for some people to rubbish his entire site over it is stupid. What's even more stupid is the complete lack of understanding of basic raid mechanics that some people in the comments threads everywhere have shown both defending and lampooning the spec.
First of all I doubt this was intended to be a sucker punch to the spec. Yes the tone was slightly condescending and yes not all of the data he used was perfect in every way but cut the guy a break. Everyone loves BM and Frost is no exception. The tone a lot of people picked up on rather hurtfully is the way the guy writes but it's intended to be amusing, and if they bothered to see his blog they'd realise this. I think some people came into the the post expecting to be outraged and filtered their responses through that rage.
Secondly some of the people replying on both sides further serve to reinforce the stereotypes I thought hunters were edging away from.
In the defending corner the fact that one of the main defences was that FI was a key buff was a complete joke. Yes it's important, yes your pet could also be bringing an armor debuff but its also true that the buffs are brought by other classes that don't struggle to compete and in 25mans they will most likely be covered. I forget the poster but I also believe someone was arguing that because your pet was better on movement fights - it was better on certain fights in ICC where you're required to move a lot which in my mind is bullshit. Any spec has learnt to move by now and it wont gimp your spec if you're doing more base dmg anyway. Every spec is stronger at different things, surv will benefit more from magic gimmick fights like Hodir, MM will benefit from %dmg increase fights like BQL and I also feel this is where BM falls down. Why they hell can't blizzard give the pet a buff or make it an applied debuff to the target?
Some of the people on the other side seem to be using Frost's data as a stick to further beat the spec with which is also a shame. Mainly just to make themselves look like the better players. Obviously no playstyle is better than any other provided the player is still having fun. Apart from the normal trolling this was partially a backlash against all the people turning up to vent their anger. I reckon if half of them posted their armorys we'd be laughing at their gems.
The Data. As was pointed out "the plural of anecdote is not data" and this was why the column was originally penned. Frosthiem has been getting multiple emails from BM hunters calling him out for "dissing" their spec every time he mentioned it wasn't a raid viable spec and he chose to address it (before he entered the hunter druid bet) with actual data. The data wasn't perfect - as has been pointed out. I believe this to be an almost self fulfilling prophecy. Because BM isn't the best dps spec, the best min-maxing progression hunters won't play it and so the gap widens on the meters shown.
As has been repeated Ad Nauseum it's not competitive, however, it's still a viable way to raid if you're not raiding hardcore. My main problem with the spec is the fact that often I know I'd be top of the meter if I respecced. I have access to reasonable gear (when I have time to raid) and I can gather the setups to get me over "the bare minimum" but I don't want to be there.
IN MY OPINION I agree with Frostheim on a lot of points and I believe there's a damn good reason you don't see a lot of hunters as BM in ICC and thats because its not optimal and until it gets a bit more love (Which is probably coming in the form of better pet scaling) it will still be lagging behind the other specs. I'm not saying for one second that BM hunters shouldn't raid, I'm merely stating that because the deck is stacked against you it's unlikely you'll be in a progression guild in that spec, purely because raid leaders will always try and optimise their raiders.
Lastly I'd like to point out that whilst people aren't as energetically jumping on the BM Wagon the theorycrafting is still out there if you're after it. EJ still has a thread up on it which is being updated and theres always the Spreadsheet if you prefer to do your maths on your own.
I myself have decided to take up the mantle of BM on farm content at least and see just what kind of numbers I can push out of it. Mainly so I can bring Gaylord the big pink dino back. I'd like to extend the challenge to all other hunters rocking MM and survival to make their offspec BM so we can actually gather some decent data. From my initial spreadsheets I'm getting more out of Arp than AP although that could be related to the spec I'm using.
I'd welcome any tips/tricks from more experienced BM hunters in the comments below
/echo out
(hectic week, meant to get this out sooner)
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