I apologize to anyone reading if this makes the thread hard to follow.

I am also locking down comments on this thread for good. When we have more information on Arcturis, I’ll put up a new post.

In the meantime, I suggest you use the Arcania forums for general discussion.

The value of this will decrease in a 10 man, and then further in a 5 man however.

BM pets are also invaluable in high-movement, but pet friendly fights.

I went ahead and have done what I said I’d do. I went and speced Beast Mastery and broke out my level 80 devilsaur. I did not change one piece of my gear that I use in MM, except I did put glyphs into the glyph slot of my BM spec. My gear rating going by wow-heros.com is 2116. I used recount as the main dps tool addon and made certain it was put on overall setting and not current setting. I don’t’ use the current setting, simply because it only gives you the particular dps on a single fight, be it 1 npc or 5. While the pet and my toon may crit hard on one npc, the next one, they may not crit as much or maybe not at all and so on. So overall data is the best judgment of dps. The overall gives your average over a whole instance. I tried a few other addons too and while another person may like one of them, I found that recount was closer to a more better judgment, based upon some of the incredibly ridicules numbers I saw out of the others.

I then did a lil math too. but I wont’ bore anyone with it right now. Suffice it so say… that each instance has a min dps level that everyone should be doing, or at least and overall average of it. Each boss has a time limit to burn em down and if you don’t’ get em down in that particular time, then they will enrage and you can then start your trek back from the graveyard.

Anyway on with this.

I can go into great detail into the numbers and the this and thats. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. What I have said here is the truth . Well for myself it’s the truth. I lost a total of over 1800dps going into BM. IE: I went from doing right at 3kdps (oh yeah, when everything pops right, I can crit hard up into the 4ks) down to between 1143 to 1200 dps. This is a substantial loss of dps. So again I’d have to see, with my own eyes, a BM hunter doing anywhere near 5k dps using the tools I have, in the way I have, in order to judge it. At present, going from my experiences, it’s a fallacy. Simply because in two years of playing, I’ve sure not seen it done from a BM hunter and I sure can’t get there atm.

Considering my hunter is a lvl 450 leather worker, I always add my own buff to the raid or instance group using the new “Drums of Forgotten Kings” Which gives all party members an increase of all their stats by 8% for 30 min or I’ll use, “Drums of the wild”, which gives all party and raid members, increasing armor by 750, all attributes by 37 and all resistances by 54 for 1 hour. I always (since I’m also a level 450 cook) put out “fish feast” for everyone which gives the raid members “Restores 22500 health and 19200 mana over 30 sec. If you spend at least 10 seconds eating you will become well fed and gain 80 Attack Power, 46 Spell Power and 40 Stamina for 1 hour.” I place all this text here to cover my point in the end.

Now as far as I can tell, the beast mastery tree does give a few buffs to raid members. Things like: “Ferocious Inspiration” and a couple of others which I put points into. But in the end, loosing that much dps and considering what else I do bring to an instance in the way of buffs, through the above, for me at least, it’s not worth it.

Now even if no one cares why I think it’s not worth it, I’ll tell you anyway. For myself, the fun in the game is two fold at level 80. One is to be able to do the best dps that my gear and knowledge of a particular toon will allow; and in doing so, NO ONE has to carry me and my lack of dps or whatever. Hence, if I know an instance requires everyone to do at least 550dps, I’ll do everything I can, to make sure, that if I am dps, I’ll be doing that, if not more. And the other is (and this goes along with doing the right amount of dps);is to be a help to the raid or instance members and not a hindrance if at all possible. So If I go into an instance and I can’t bring the right amount of dps and knowledge and what I can for buffs, then I personally feel that I have failed those people. IE: You’re only as strong as your weakest link and personally, I don’t want to be that weak link. I’d rather have everyone doing what is needed. This holds true of a group of people no matter what that grps objective is. You for instance sure don’t want someone in your grp in a real war battle that can’t do their job. While in game, it’s no big deal to some people to run from a grave yard! In real life however, you don’t get that second chance. So for me at least, it’s a crossover between the two. I am the same in game as I am in reality. IE: I won’t get my brothers killed if I can at all help it and I’ll be everything I possibly can be. Having said this, I can’t, if in game, I were a healer, keep healing someone who won’t get out of the ozz or is having computer issues or what not. But I will try, until the tank starts to get the worse of it, then you my friend, are going to die, That tank is the only thing keeping us going and I’m not going to let them die. You can whine and cry about it till the cows bloat up and start stinking and I won’t care one bit.

Like it or not, The BM Hunter has proven thus far to be a potential weak link. In my in game experience, this is the truth and is why I was greatly appreciative of Blizzard for giving everyone the option at level 40 to duel spec. This way the BM hunter can have his play fun/leveling spec with all the pretty pets and look cool with em and the MM hunter can bring hard dps to the table, while those that like pvp more, can duel spec also into Surv, or simply have two specs being a hybrid. That was a good thing for hunters.

My statements have been made. I stand by them and am convinced right now that while yes, the fancy pets are neat and cool looking, it’s just not worth being a BM hunter for me in raids and instances. I am however having fun sitting down watching my Devilsaur do all the killing when I do my dailies, but NO WAY will I use my BM spec and my pet in any raid or instance right now.

As far as I’m concerned and I’ll repeat it until it changes. Blizzard has a long way to go in making each tree balance out nice. Maybe they don’t want each spec tree balanced, but if it were, then at least in end game there wouldn’t be such a large separation. I certainly do not expect to go into wintergrasp for instance in nothing but raid gear and mm spec and think I’m going to do a whole lot of great pvping. On that same note (and I do have two 80 hunters btw), I don’t’ expect to go into a raid or instance in full arena/ pvp gear and do as well as a same gear rated raid geared toon. The point is, that each hunter tree has it’s place. I think that is what Blizzard may have strived for and in that, I think they hit the mark. But this new pet is just one other one that people can sit and wait for months, days, weeks or hours to try to get. Atm I’m hovering over Storm Peaks trying to wait out for Skoll and have been for 3 days till the weee hours of every morning. And yes, I’ve searched the web for spawn locations and yet no sign of him. I suppose it’ll take me months to run across him and hope some jerk didn’t kill him before I can try to tame him. But there is a point in this too. It’s damn hard to have the patience it takes to get the exotics and still, even if I or you get one or even all of them, they still aren’t going to make up much difference for what is needed out of hunters dps wise in instances and raids, But you will get gloating privileges for waiting and having em. Maybe for you the individual, this is all the fun you care for… to be able to brag and gloat.

It’s not for me.

so its gonna be really stupid to keep stable slots in LOW amount of 5 :(