Pandaria [Guide] PvE Beast Mastery

[Arrowtree]

Introduction:

Hey, guys, I'm Arrowtree - a hunter from the Horde guild Vatican. Nothing much can be said about me, only that I'm usually a prick and a troll but I quite enjoy playing hunters and outdpsing most plebs out there. The reason why I decided to make this quick guide on BM hunters is because I've seen multiple hunters just do everything incorrectly and there was even a post on the forums about a confused hunter... soo, yeah, here we go, time for some tips and what not, eh?

Talents:

Level 15 tier - Posthaste is the top dog in almost every situation. The speedup it gives has incredible utility and lets you get from one place to the other faster than most classes can.
Another viable option is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera. It's possible to use it on fights like Jin'Rokh or Durumu, I suppose, because there may be chances where you'll get multiple Lightning Orbs/knockbacks in a row and in that case Crouching Tiget, Hidden Chimera is a bit better.

Level 30 tier - Binding Shot outdoes every other talent in this tier by far. It's an AoE stun and can help control adds incredibly well. The only time where you'll want Wyvern Sting is when you need an add to be off the fight for a long time (imagine something like Wind Lord Mel'jarak or adds before Elegon).

Level 45 tier - due to there being a bug with Aspect of the Iron Hawk, there are 2 choices: Exhilaration and Spirit Bond. Choose Spirit Bond for passive healing and Exhilaration for a big heal on demand. That being said, though, I'd always pick Spirit Bond due to it not using up a GCD.

Level 60 tier - now I've done quite a bit of testing just for this tier but after a few hours, based off the data I have, Dire Beast is the best talent in this tier. The only time where you'll want to use Thrill of the Hunt is on bosses like Council or Lei Shen, where the Multi-Shot spam is real. !WARNING! Dire Beast sometimes will or won't work, which is why you pretty much must make a macro for your 2 main abilities - Arcane Shot and Cobra Shot - to include a /petattack command(the macro will be posted later on in this guide, don't worry).

Level 75 tier - for BM it's possible to go either A Murder of Crows or Blink Strikes. You'll always go A Murder for Crows on Single Target fights, but when there's any cleave/AoE fight where you'll need to use Multi-Shot, then use Blink Strikes.

Level 90 tier - for most of the fights you'll want to go Glaive Toss because it simply provides the biggest dps increase. You'll want to take Barrage, though, on fights like Lei Shen or Council (if you don't stack the bosses together).

Stat Priority:

After a few days of testing different builds, I've come to a conclusion that there's a clear winner amongst all the builds for BM, which is :

Hit Cap (7.5%) -> Expertise Cap (7.5%) -> Agility -> Haste -> Mastery -> Critical Hit

Agily - more damage for you and your pet;
Haste - more focus generation, faster auto-attacks, faster pet attacks;
Mastery - more pet damage.

Reforging and Gems:

Let's start with the gems, since your main priority is agility, this is how your gems will look like:

Red: Delicate Primordial Ruby (+160 agility)
Yellow: Deft Vermilion Onyx (+80 agility + 160 haste)
Blue: Glinting Imperial Amethyst (+80 agility +160 hit)

Now read this closely - the only time when you'll want to fill a yellow or blue gem slot with their respective gems (Deft Vermilion Onyx or Glinting Imperial Amethyst) is when your socket bonus is 120 or 180 agility. There is more math put in there to further optimize it but you generally just follow this rule.

Moving on from gems, it's time for reforging.

Following the stat priority, your first priority is getting 7.5% hit and expertise. Do not get any less than that. Also, do not get any more than 7.6-7.7% of them as it's just a waste of stats.

After hitting the hit and expertise cap, just reforge everything in to haste or if your item already has haste on it, just reforge the other secondary stat in to mastery.

To help with reforging, use the addon ReforgeLite, which is also mentioned further down in the Addons section.

BiS Trinkets + Weapon:

Again, after testing the trinket uptimes, etc. I've come to a conclusion that Bad Juju is the best trinket a BM hunter can have (though must be used with the same macros as with Dire Beast to fully work (macros will be posted later on in the guide)). Second comes Renataki's Soul Charm OR Vicious Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault. Both are equally good, though I prefer to use the Vicious Talisman due to it having a generally higher up-time and a more stable burst window.

Miracoran, the Vehement Cord is the best bow a Hunter could have. It gives all the best stats for us, AKA haste+mastery, though the gem socket is not that good. A replacement weapon is Voice of the Quilen, which is almost the same, except in stead of mastery it gives hit, it gives slightly more agility (but less stamina) and also has a better gem socket. The reason why Miracoran is better is because usually you'll hit hit and expertise cap from your other items.

Drop spots: Bad Juju drops from Council; Renataki's Soul Charm drops from Jin'Rokh; Vicious Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault can be bought with Valor Points; Miracoran, the Vehement Cord is a shared loot drop, meaning that every boss from Throne of Thunder has a chance to drop it (albeit small); Voice of the Quilen drops from Iron Qon.

Ability Priority/Opener:

The ability priority AKA the rotation is very easy to learn:

1. Bestial Wrath/Rabid/Rapid Fire off CD
2. Kill Command off CD
3. A Murder of Crows off CD
4. Dire Beast off CD
5. Glaive Toss off CD
6. Focus Fire on 5 stacks and lower than 100 focus
7. Arcane Shot as a focus dump
8. Steady Shot to recover focus

If you're running Barrage, there is no rotation/priority list for it, just use it when you have 4+ targets to hit with it.

The opener is also quite simple:

1. Mark the boss
2. Potion
3. On pull - Rapid Fire + Glaive Toss or Barrage
4. Bestial Wrath + Kill Command
5. A Murder of Crows
6. Arcane Shot
7. Dire Beast
8. Rotation/Ability Priority list until you're low on focus
9. Serpent Sting
10. Rotation/Ability Priority list

Ok... it might not seem so simple but once you get used to it, it's nothing hard... really, I promise!

Macros:

Now I don't really use that many macros, mainly only 3, which you should know about:

#showtooltip Arcane Shot
/petfollow
/petattack
/cast Arcane Shot

#showtooltip Cobra Shot
/petfollow
/petattack
/cast Cobra Shot

#showtooltip Bestial Wrath
/cast Bestial Wrath
/cast Blood Fury
/cast Stampede

#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [@focus, nodead][@pet, nodead][]Misdirection

The first 2 macros are used just to control all your pets and summoned units, AKA the Juju Gnomes, your Dire Beast and the hawks from your 2p set bonus. You'll DEFINITELY need to use those macros, trust me. If you don't, it's a huge dps loss.

The 3rd macro is basically a bunch of offensive cooldowns thrown in to one that I 99.9% of the time need to use at the same time.

The 4th macro is a must-have for raids because it greatly helps with add managment and control for tanks (misdirection redirects all your threat to tanks, so just use this and AoE the adds and you're good to go).
Explanation of macro - misdirects to your focus target, if no focus target found, then misdirects to your pet, if no focus target or pet found, misdirects to your target if friendly, otherwise doesn't cast.

Addons:

I don't really use addons and don't recommend you to use too many of them either, as they will clutter up your screen, lowering your awareness and such.
Here are the addons that I use: Deadly Boss Mods, TellMeWhen, ReforgeLite, ElvUI.

Deadly Boss Mods - yeah... you know what this is. It shows stuff on your screen.
TellMeWhen - configurable bars/icons that show you timers on your spell CD's, timers for your buffs, and much more.
ReforgeLite - a really good addon that reforges for you. You just put in your stat priority and it does all the heavy-lifting for you.
ElvUI - a complete UI overhaul. Helps with seeing stuff, mainly, by being able to move action bars, adding some new features, etc.

Tips and Tricks:

I don't really have a lot of tips or tricks to teach you but here we go:

1. Always make sure to watch where your pet is. I usually just spam ctrl+2 (aka /petfollow) whenever I don't need to dps anything so the pet gets back to be and doesn't bug out. This is especially important on Megaera, where your pet will bug out in water every chance it gets.
2. Always stay below 120 focus but above 40 focus. You'll need the 40 focus for Kill Command but if you're ever at 120 focus for longer than, let's say, 2 seconds, you're simply losing dps.
3. Don't worry too much about Serpent Sting falling off. In most cases it will and it's not really wise to re-apply it as you most likely won't be able to keep it up and you'll have wasted a gcd for a low damage ability.
4. Make sure to have your misdirection off cooldown, especially on add fights like Horridon, Tortos or AoE fights like Council. It will help your tanks and your raid a great deal.
5. You're the most mobile dps class out there, so use it! Whenever someone can't dps because of movement, YOU can! It's not really a tip or trick but just remember this, please :D
6. If you have your BiS trinkets (Bad Juju and Renataki's Soul Charm) you can do a neat "trick" for a lot of fights: use Barrage on your opener and every time before your Beastial Wrath comes off cooldown to almost always proc either one or both of your trinkets for a bigger burst window. This won't really increase your dps (maybe slightly) but it's incredibly useful on multiple fights where you can get a damage buff and want to have a bigger burst window.

If you enjoyed this guide, leave a like, comment, or w/e, really, I'm just trying to help ^^ If you find some mistakes in grammar or anything else, just write in the comments and I'll fix them ASAP :)

Changelog
[23.03.2016]:
Added information about my UI (ElvUI) in the addons section.
Added Dire Beast into opening rotation (forgot about it previously, sorry >.<)
[28.03.2016]:
Updated talent tree a bit.
[31.03.2016]:
Updated talent tree because of Aspect of the Iron Hawk bug.
Updated opener and rotation to include A Murder of Crows.
Corrected some information in the Stat Priority section due to recent fixes.
[02.04.2016]:
Added the Reforging and Gems section.
[06.04.2016]:
Updated opener to be more easier and more effective.
Updated macros and tips to include Misdirection.
Added an "advanced" tip/trick to the Tips and Tricks section.

[Feralin]

Arrow just one thing u didnt mention was the fact Voice of the Quilen has slightly less stamina but more Agility than the others ToT weapons and base damage. It should be BIS but due to this problems on hunters maybe the shared loot Bow can be BIS.

[doped]

Ty for your guide.
My pet with 10% of hit rating and expertise miss kill command on the dummy (about 15% of miss).
Do you think I should use full haste in my yellow socket?
I followed the guide for the retail that give priority to critical> Haste> Mastery and allows me to switch me to MM.
In my opinion I think that on some bosses Tot MM do more dps but it may be that I am wrong.
Could you please post some screen of your dps to Tot or the dummy?
I salute you and thank you again for your most useful guide.

[Arrowtree]

Thanks for you comments, here are some answers for your questions :)

Added the stats mentioned by Feralin.

About the pet, usually in raids your KC shouldn't miss with 10% hit/exp but if you want to be more safe, the hit/exp cap that I've found is approx 13% but in my honest opinion, 10% is enough.

DPS on Dummy (25 million damage, only self-buffed, using stat pet, no potions/flasks/food) Image here - add about 3-5k dps (because of combat ending timer). For this try trinkets used - Renataki's Soul Charm and Bad Juju, weapon used - Voice of the Quilen, hit/exp cap 9.7/9.8%

Spoiler: Show

About MM being stronger on some bosses - so far it's proving to be false. MM has the potential to be a better dps than BM on /single target fights/ but it's only with SoO gear. I've tested it, side-by-side compared it with other players and myself, and BM with this build seems better in every aspect.

[Furiz]

I noticed pet is missing a lot of KCs, but how did you pull out that much hit/exper?

[Kanabekas]

Aspect of the Iron Hawk bugged atm, if you use it youll get 25% att power, while aspect of hawk gives 35%. The issue is that if you use iron hawk, you won't get trueshot aura so 10% ap loss.

[Arrowtree]

Aspect of the Iron Hawk bugged atm, if you use it youll get 25% att power, while aspect of hawk gives 35%. The issue is that if you use iron hawk, you won't get trueshot aura so 10% ap loss.

Thanks for that! I'll fix the talent section right away!

I noticed pet is missing a lot of KCs, but how did you pull out that much hit/exper?

Reforge :)

[albyzor]

arrow stop giving our inside tips to others :)) Jk good job keep it up

[Arrowtree]

Also, to all hunters - please upvote this bug http://www.warmane.com/bugtracker/report/21264 as it's a huge dps loss for us. I greatly appreciate your help, thanks :)

[Arrowtree]

Bump!

Will check out new updates when I get home and will update guide if needed :-)

[Hephisto]

I don't know if you can but I would like it if you can make a Bm Hunter Guide for PvP

[Arrowtree]

I don't know if you can but I would like it if you can make a Bm Hunter Guide for PvP

Sure, man, when I'm free I'll start working on it :)