Slightly chaotic video, I know. I'll create myself some bulletpoints to make things more structured next time and also have a TL;DR section for you very busy folk. Please leave other feedback, questions, suggestions in the comments. Oopsie: Around 25:00 I talk about Barbed Shot being buffed by 25%. That's completely wrong - it's getting NERFED by 25%. Still more damage per cast than Kill Command post-nerf though. I perhaps didn't get across SUPER clearly what I think the best M+ Hunter Spec is: It's Survival.
I can see wanting to commentate over near-perfect gameplay, but calling out your mistakes arguably might be even more useful. Would love a walkthrough!
Thank you so much for these videos Azor... They are so incredibly useful and interesting. As a self-styled "average-hardcore" player, I am focused on optimizing and have an understand of the spec enough to get into trouble, but I'm not smart enough to get out of it again. I have yet to delve into looking deeper into the APL and understanding sims and theorycrafting, so your videoes, tutorials, updates and explanations (you may have heard this before, but you're litterally like a Hunter professor/teacher) go a very long way in making me better at my class to the benefit of those that play with me, as well as boosting my enjoyment of the class and the game in general. Thank you so much 🙂 Also - actually really enjoyed the format. It's a good day when I see a new Azor video on youtube. Happy hunting my dude.
@@benkelly7182 could be worse, if they weren‘t having such major quality issues and balancing was more towards mm hunters, it would probably be quite some fun
I wouldn't play hunter if not for Survival. Just an amazing, fun melee spec, although the devs have really taken a lot of it's identity away with this latest update by nerfing bomb spam quite a bit.
I'm in the same boat. I miss dragonflight survival with massive bomb spam. Don't know why they want to push this kill command tip of the spear crap and dumb down the spec.
@@darkraider1130 yeah you were literally just spamming mongoose bite in st also and it was very boring if i remember correctly, it feels so much more fun now
I really don't see a nerf to bomb spam? The opener in M+ is unload all bombs and go into CA and immediately get 2 new Tipped bombs, while Butchery and ES running, and throwing in the FOTE with space. Once the synergy of Butchery reducing CDs to Bomb which then reduces Butchery going, there's a pretty consistent rhythm.
Bomb spam was never the specs identity - even in legion it was fury of the eagle and mongoose bite. You're right the identity has moved away, and that's because we don't take mongoose bite anymore.
To be frank, the lack of clarity with the Howl stacks in the default UI beyond the little buff square is part of the problem to me where it feels Blizz completely gave up on updating their spell alerts. A crucial buff shouldn’t require installing a third party addon because it doesn’t have sufficient in-game indicators like other crucial buffs. I was there back when Power Auras was still around and it pressured Blizzard into implementing spell alerts and improved native readability of their buffs/debuffs so there wouldn’t be a reliance on addons. But they definitely have not kept up with their design and readability visual language for a while.
Its a big problem with a lot of buffs. Why the hell do we have to read guides and add weak auras to track, manage, and understand how our spec actually works on a fundamental level.
Like the video. Wanted to know if you'll consider doing walkthroughs on the mythic raid bosses from a hunter perspective? I know you have stream vods up but I can't seem to find one that has the first boss.
Blizz takes all this time to rework DR to then gut it to oblivion (atleast for MM but come on that's exactly what the class fantasy is for). I was awaiting the rework and had fun with it but after they gutted it I quit retail.
Really hope they add Howl of the Pack being active during the duration of Coordinated Assault. It's pretty annoying watching it fall in the middle of bursting.
Hey! I feel like the sims atm are not accurate for DR.. i did 1,5m dps on hc sikran on a 2,5 min fight. If I sim my hunter with the same gear, i do 1,2m dps on a 2m patchwork fight. Is it still bugged on live servers or?
Honestly , in high end content that's how it should be. BM should be for newer players that are doing open world content and delves. That's what it's best for. Then when you want to improve and play high end content you can switch to MM or survival.
@@setha7398 i agree. i feel like no spec should have uncontested movement while being able to perfectly execute their rotation (from range especially). bm should do some damage so that people that like it are able to play it, but i wholeheartedly think that bm should always sim the lowest, since it has no penalty during any fights. this is unlike survival who might have to move out of melee or unlike mm who might have to move in general and wont be able to cast aimed shots
@@setha7398, there is absolutely no reason for BM not to be viable for higher content, or any other class for that matter. this elitist behavior is destroying the game.
@@mariansimon1007What a joke of a remark. By this line of thinking, as MM is the second most mobile ranged spec in the game it should be behind all the casters in all forms of content
Fantastic format for a video. All of the information is clearly written out and you convey the information that needs to be conveyed. Our community is lucky to have you.
Hi Azor, Thanks for the Video great work. 2 questions. a) is the MM aoe sentinel build represented here the salvo build? (therefore MM could get higher prio damage build with the wail arrow cleaving build? for example for Mythic Queen? or is it already the wailing build? and b) Could these Dark Ranger numbers could get even WORSE if they fix the bugs?
Question, when you are swapping specs from Bm to survival in raid are you also saving gear with crit / mastery ? It sucks because Bm hunter wants haste / crit but mm and sv hate haste.
Question as it relates to survival: I know Surv is one of the better melee specs at keeping DPS uptime even when dealing with mechanics that cause you to move around, but does movement/mechanics account for a significant difference between it and MM/BM in many places in your experience?
When I see this I always wonder how the hell did it come to the point that they say "MM Dark ranger is overperforming in single target lets nerf BA by 10% (after hotfix)" but then Survival exists and overall it's the strongest hunter spec, another melee that's insanely strong as if the game didn't have enough of them already. Well at least the Surv enjoyer brothers are eating good. I'm still dreaming of a world where Salvo gets merged into Volley or Small game hunter into trickshots so it opens up a route to get Improved Deathblow and Killer Accuracy for some ST prio damage by sacrificing Tactical Reload.
I was wondering if you had any interest in a sort of hyper-optimized raid guide where you talk about each mythic raid boss and what specs you play for each? Maybe even the builds? But i think your guides do that well once we know what spec you play. This could even just be a short answer
@@Lere look up hunter only raid logs for each boss and see what the majority are doing if you are comfortable playing all specs and have gear for everything stat prio
Hey champ! First off, thank you so very much for all the work you put in these guides!! my question : what about the ST fights where you're required to move more such as Nexus princess? still MM over BM? because i assume these are patchwork numbers?
I'm getting so frustrated by Hunter's Prey... I like how it feels in terms of key press impact but getting sick of having to ask tanks to be careful with pulls or else I may pull an extra pack inadvertently... Just bricked at least 3 keys this week due to it hitting mobs that aren't in combat. Not sure if intended behavior, but frustrating as hell...
Damn, this is some really awesome info. I really appreciate all the time and work you put into putting this together. Looks like it's a good time to pick up Survival.
Just the typical 'weakness' being melee and relatively squishier than the other melee options honestly. Still I love it, I've become one of the M+ carry DPSes in my guild now.
I've been saying this for a while now. Old Survival was basically Sylvanas. Less about hard hits and more Dark Arrows, poisons, etc. BM is basically Rexxar. No explanation needed. MM is basically Tyrande. Swift, hard hitting, no nonsense execution. It makes zero sense for Survival to have been the melee spec, they only picked it for its name. BM is litearlly Rexxar 2.0. Should've been BM with option to duel-wield as well.
Damn, I hoped DR MM hunter be strong for ST and AOE. Got no reason to play higher contents now. Just transmog farming and occasional break from wow until MM is great again.
It's really interesting how blizz put in all this work into the DR rework, and then nerfed it so bad that no one wants to play it. Just blizzard things I guess, maybe it will get there one of these days.
@@tacticalgoatman Each spec is being simmed with its bis gear. I didn't fully optimize every single hero talent combo, but that stuff doesn't amount to more than 1% or so, tops
After playing BM for the entirety of DF I tried MM for 10+ keys and also SV for a fair amount (120+ keys). Both isn't my cup of tea. Don' know what it is exactly. Switched back to BM last weekend and it just feels right! In my opinion it's getting easier to get invites aswell. I'll stick to BM. I just love it ❤️
Its fun for the people who like the hunter class and melee, its nice that it definitely feels different than the other specs but i would like to see mm and bm buffed
It's the best and most fun hunter spec and always has been. If you like your sit in ranged and not move 2 button BM spec, just go play that. Leave survival alone, it's fun and strong. It never gets it's time to be the best hunter spec , so you can deal with it for a patch.
@@setha7398 Leave SV alone comes a few years to late no? Wanna be a melee mongo without a care in the world except to be a pimple in a boss's ass - thats Wow-s melee for you - there are already plenty other specs for that.
Ive been either maining survival or its been my #1 alt ever since the rework in Legion and have always enjoyed playing it. But im not a fan of the new tip of the spear mechanic. Playing survival right now makes me feel like im always wasting resources, either its tip of the spear stacks being used up on raptor strikes or else im going to be overcapping on energy. Personally i feel that survival was more fun in Dragonflight, some core abilites not being present anymore is kinda lame with no wildfire infusion and no Mongoose Bite which i dont understand why that isnt baseline.
You are one hundred percent correct. Survival was best in dragonflight. Tip of the spear and having to use kill command is not the survival identity and never should be. 😊
So to be clear, the only spec thats actually completely dead on arrival is MM DR?, also I am assuming if you aren't pushing super high keys and you are fine with 7-10's BM DR is still fine? by the way Thank you for the work you put in for all of us other hunters lol.
I simmed the most recent BMPL build compared to the previous one and the previous one sims 2% higher. Is this due to my current stats? Should I leave it as is or try to aim for different items to accommodate ?
@@Gr3gHerrera set your simc version to "latest" and try again
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Key to survival damage is don't min max tip of the spear for every bomb or whatever. Use Kill command for when you need focus..otherwise focus on bombs, butchery, explosive shot and try to use coord assault with all these also. Raptor strike to apply serpent sting and use some focus on a single target. Fury of the eagle on aoe...not single target unless maybe low health
Good. That's how it should be. BM is for newer players with an easy rotation and instant cast all abilities. Having that be the strongest and easiest makes no sense. To do higher content you should have to go MM or survival.
@ Oh, please. There is no such similar argument being presented or implemented for Ret, Frost, Destro, dps warriors, etc. And if you think MM is on an entirely different giga-brain realm of difficulty you are living in an alternate reality. Also, by your logic MM should never do more damage than an Spriest or any of the other dps specs with more complex rotations in any form of content. Take your elitism and faulty logic to the forums
@@setha7398BM shouldnt be the best spec, it should be viable tho…if it’s gonna be this shit why even have it in the game? Survival is not complicated at all and it is still the best by far
So you are saying all hunter who have been BM-mains for YEARS should have to abandon the spec to enjoy content like eveybody else and leave the spec to be some kind of low status noob-spec?
@@setha7398 that is the most stupid arguement ever BM isn't even the easiest spec in the game, fury warrior is easier , MM has a much easier rotation, its literally aimed shot, rf and multishot, bm if you don't manage your barbed shot stacks they will drop off so easy compared to before and you will lose a shit tonne of damage
Copium aside, I... Do not understand the reasoning/process behind Blizzard's development on this. To me, playing Hunter going on almost 20 years... it is astounding that Blizzard would take one of, if not the, most anticipated Hero Spec of the expansion, and start it off with it being one of the worst... to then spend a huge effort reworking it for 11.0.5... for it to be bad. And then to nerf it. Like, from a player perspective - it no longer feels like Blizzard incompetence or negligence. It feels intentional now, like a slap in the face. They have the numbers. They KNOW its performance. And to then nerf it after hyping players up for its rework is so... disheartening. I understand fixes need to happen and yada yada... but we are now over 2 months into the expansion, and they've only applied what, 2 changes to DR overall? A conceptually cool but numbers-off rework, and a nerf...? And ... what's their comment? Radio silence. Their inability to take quick action, or apply small, incremental changes, kills player's interest. Players don't want to wait until 11.2.0 for DR to "finally" have bite, only for either Shadow Priest or any of the 6 Mages to top it anyways. I guess it wasn't really copium aside...
What's the point of working out bugs in the hunter dicord? It will be ignored anyways. So it's just a waste of time. But hey, the volley visibility bug in PVP got fixed. Yay, I guess.
Hunters used spears for hundreds of thousands of years, bows for tens of thousands of years, and guns for 400-500 years. Melee Hunter is perhaps the most common spec in all of human history…. all that time and yet 2024 is THE YEAR OF THE SPEAR
I really miss surv being ranged… I’d still play it if wasn’t for tip of the spear. Just not a fun mechanic to play around. To me, it just feels like a worse arms warrior. If it was just the bomber play style, that at least has more call back to old ranged surv.
Amen! I LOVED LOVED LOVED playing ranged survival. Back when mythic raiding gear mattered, I could go out and jump on multiple max level horde in world pvp and wipe them out as ranged surv hunter! I would literally fly around Northrend spamming for peeps getting ganked, fly down in the middle of them, wreck ‘em and graveyard camp them. Ahhh, the good ole days!
I know we should play the meta, but it feels weird to play melee hunter when there are better melee classes. So.. can I please go BM or MM in M+ without being kicked ? :D
You should have your own group so you won't be kicked on any class and spec you'd play. I just created hunter, and this nerf.. 😢 I don't want another melee class such as surv, Fuck it
Survival is the most fun melee spec I have ever played. And it's extremely strong. Survival is very rarely this strong , if ever and it's because of people like you. Leave it alone. BM and MM are always the strongest hunter spec, take the L for one single patch. Jeez.
What do you mean leave it alone. Ranged has been here since the beginning. I really just wish SV got moved off to its own class so that there can’t a stop to this melee/ranged divide.
Are you trying to claim that "hit only Mongoose Bite" was an interactive spec? There's way more play between different abilities now than there was in any iteration of the Mongoose Bite single target builds.
@@Evilmon2 What I am saying is that MB was a staple of the spec and now you don't ever play it. Managing to fit as many Bites in a window was dynamic and interesting idea (not always executed in way that fit that idea admittedly). This new SV cares more about its generator than its spender... Not exactly fun design imo. What I would have liked to see is put more emphasis on Bite in aoe and less on bomb spam. KC extending the duration of Mongoose Fury is also not good, makes the window feel meaningless.
Survival is right where it needs to be, it's the other specs that need to be brought up. Playing a ranged hunter feels so ass right now. Sure ill be an aoe king in m+ as MM but it feels shitty to basically be doing tank damage on bosses.
Survival never gets to be the strongest hunter spec. You weirdos can deal with it for one patch. Just cuz your sit and do nothing 2 button BM spec isnt good doesn't mean surv should be nerfed.
Interpreting the data to suit your perspective seems weird. Like changing all the sims yourself to adjust for things you have have decided are bugs and expect to be changed doesn't give any sort of honest representation of the numbers in game right now. It really feels like you want survival to be the best, and your data interpretation is leaning that way. But then again, i'm not without bias myself sooooo...
@@gloomshadeo You've misunderstood. I have made no assumptions about bugs I assume will be fixed. These sims are trying to model what's ingame as closely as possible.
