Last time I played a Hunter with any degree of seriousnss was around Wrath. Once they turned the class into a ranged rogue with focus instead of mana, I was out. Feeling nostalgic, I've been playing some Hunter during the Forever beta, and both the beast mastery and survival trees feel good and fun to play. So that got me thinking - porque no los dos? BM's Summon Hawk doesn't have a deadzone and can be used in melee. Once I realized that, I started theorycrafting and came up with this melee beast master build: https://www.warcrafttavern.com/forever/ ... dddddjggii
What are we lacking compared to a dedicated BM here? The capstone burst cooldown, and that's about it. We also don't max out Frenzy. But why would we want to? With the pet inheriting our crit chance, and the extra 10% from Ferocity, it'll be critting all the time, ensuring almost constant uptime anyway, especially with a fast attack speed cat.
And what are we missing from Survival? Mongoose procs and Mongoose bleed, which is whatever, we get 2 reliable hawks instead. And we're also missing out on 10% Agility. That one stings. Going like this we're also spread too thin to get the extra 5% crit from Lethal Attacks in MM, but such is life.
This build is made to work with two-handed weapons, for maximizing Raptor Strikes and Strider Kicks. In melee, we'll have plenty of buttons to press - Raptor Strike, Strider Kick, Fire traps on a low CD, two hawks out. And since we'll be attacking slow with a two-hander, there's plenty of time to step back and weave in a Sting. To support this, we get constant 100% mana regen from both trees.
Now, in beta, I could only explore one side of this tree at a time, not how the two of them work together. Individually they're fun already. Together? I expect double the fun. I have no idea how the actual numbers will shake out in late game gear, but I'll definitely be experimenting with it on live.
This is a PvE version of the build. For PvP, some adjustments are in order that require further thinking. Right now, the idea is to shuffle some stuff around to get Entrapment, Deterrence, and Lethal Attacks, likely dropping that dip of Frenzy and the trap talents.
Since we're still a month away from release, I'm open to suggestions for making this build more viable. But for someone who likes to press buttons instead of sitting there and waiting, this is looking mighty attractive already.
It's an interesting build, and I am looking forward to experimenting with the new talents myself. I do wonder if the Mongoose Bite talents will be too strong not to take in the Survival tree, or vice versa for Big Red Pet in BM... Ahhh, I just want the full release already so I can mess around with them.
Will be interested to know how you get on with your build experiments next month!!
While all of this is speculation since we don't know how the actual scaling will work, it appears that Mongoose will deal roughly, slightly lower, the damage of Raptor Strike. Which is good. But we'll be relying on procs to use it. To maximize the damage, we'll be using two-handers, and those have slow attack speed. Let's say with buffs and the Deadly Aspects proc, we get it down to 2.5 seconds. At 10%, this works out to roughly one Mongoose every 25 seconds.
Meanwhile Hawks are always available and have the cooldown of 6 seconds. So in 24 seconds we'll use 4 hawks. The damage numbers on the skill are still a mystery. It scales with ranged attack power, so they should be at least decent. Then again, it's a complete wildcard and as a new skill, I expect it to be rebalanced 10 times within the first two months of release. Either way, they'll be a stronger Arcane Shot. If they aren't, they have no reason to exist.
As for the capstone Mongoose DoT, well, Hawks keep attacking for 18 seconds so they have a built in DoT. With two of them out at once, that means two DoTs going at all times. But they have HP, and very low HP too, and it's not clear if they won't die from every bit of AoE.
So basically, yeah, I can't wait to play around with that stuff live and see how it all maths.
BTW - aspiring hunters - did you know you can command your hawks the same way you do your pet? You can change their attack modes and tell them to go stand here or there at will.
