Bêta

State of Beast Mastery Hunters on Shadowlands Beta

envoyé 17/08/2020 à 21:22 par Moofzy

ShadowlandsIntroductionFrénésieAbout the Author

I'm Moofz. I main Hunter and do both Mythic+ and raiding at a high level. I write the BFA Marksmanship Hunter guide and most Hunter-related content and news for Wowhead. I also have a Hunter Mythic+ website, stream raids and dungeons on Twitch, and do YouTube content. I've also commentated multiple Race to World First events over the past couple of years. Feel free to message me via Twitter or in the Trueshot Lodge with any Hunter questions or inquiries.

What's Changed?Class/Spec Changes

NEW Effrayer une bête - Scares a beast, causing it to run in fear for up to 20 sec. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Only one beast can be feared at a time.
Iconic Hunter spell that dates back to vanilla WoW. It can be beneficial while questing or during PvP. Sadly, a targeted fear that only works on beasts has very niche uses in modern gameplay.

Yeux de la Bête

Eyes of the Beast can be used while questing, or in very niche scenarios that require "scouting" ahead. While this ability is perhaps one of the coolest abilities in the game, once again the practical uses of this ability are few to none.

Tir mortel

Beast Mastery Hunters get an execute baseline! In BFA we were given Killer Instinct as a talent, but it was surpassed in relevance by Animal Companion after it was buffed in patch 8.2.5. Kill Shot gives our execute phase a bit of added depth and is a welcomed addition to our toolkit. That being said, Kill Shot isn't quite as strong for Beast Mastery as it is for Marksmanship since it does not interact with our toolkit nor is it affected by our Mastery like it is for Marksmanship Hunters.

Tir tranquillisant

In Battle for Azeroth, Hunters had a purge baked into our pets. The addition of Tranquilizing Shot is primarily to give Marksmanship Hunters similar baseline utility to Beast Mastery and Survival Hunters. It is, however, a slight quality of life change for us as well, considering we no longer have to rely on our pet positioning and targeting to properly soothe targets.

Détournementfor the next 8 sec

It now works like the current Ficelles du métier. Definitely a big quality of life change.

Ressusciter le familier2 sec

Devastating change. Without a pet, we are essentially useless considering the majority of our DPS is tied to our pets. If you don't have Aspect de la tortue available to sync with your Revive pet, expect to waste 5-10 seconds attempting to revive your pet. If this change stays in, it'll be very hard to justify bringing Beast Mastery or Survival Hunters to any sort of competitive content.

Marque du chasseur

Beast Mastery Hunters now have Hunter's Mark. While single target is largely a "apply and forget" scenario, having to juggle Hunter's Mark in AoE feels cumbersome and unrewarding. The new version of Hunter's Mark has a reduced GCD (1-sec Hasted GCD) so it's a bit easier to manage, however, the focus generation component has been removed.

Tir des Arcanes

Beast Mastery Hunters should typically use Tir du cobra rather than Arcane Shot. Ironically, Arcane Shot is proving to be slightly higher DPS due to Cobra Shot's increased focus cost. In addition to the increased cost, unlike Cobra Shot, Arcane Shot deals arcane damage, which isn't affected by armor.

Enchaînement bestial

This change just brings Beast Cleave in line with other target capped abilities.

Tir du cobraRank 2

Removing this passive tied to Cobra Shot cripples our rotation. This change makes Tir des Arcanes more favorable to use than Cobra Shot. It also severely affects talents such as Cobra cracheur and Cobra tueur as their damage potential is directly correlated with the number of Cobra Shot casts.

Flèches multiples

This change just brings Multi-Shot in line with other target capped abilities.

Talent Changestalent calculator

NEW Effusion de sang - Command your pet to tear into your target, causing your target to bleed over 18 sec and increase all damage taken from your pet by 15% for 18 sec.

The damage the DoT does isn't super significant, its real benefit is the bonus pet damage it provides. It lines up quite nicely with both Courroux bestial and Aspect de la Nature. At the moment, its currently bugged and does not work with Animal Companion so it loses a ton of value when the two are paired together. Bloodshed is only relevant in single target scenarios considering it only increases damage against a single target.

Bête féroce25

A fairly significant buff to Dire Beast. The beast itself still does little to no damage, but now that it doesn't cost focus, it's essentially a free 5% Haste buff every 20 seconds.

Odeur du sang

This is essentially a version of Instincts primaux that is now tied to Courroux bestial rather than Aspect de la Nature. Scent of Blood feels a bit awkward to use as it causes us to waste some of the cooldown reduction we get from Barbed Shot procs, most notably in our opener. That being said, it helps to maintain a higher Frénésie uptime. It will be especially helpful towards the start of Shadowlands when our secondary stats will be pretty low.

Cobra cracheurSummons a Spitting Cobra for 20 sec that attacks your target for Nature damage every 2 sec. While the Cobra is active you gain 2 Focus every sec.

While this change sounds good, there are a ton of issues with Spitting Cobra that make this talent unusable. The most glaring issue is the high cost of Tir du cobra at the moment. We physically can't cast Cobra Shot enough for this talent to be relevant. In addition, there are some major bugs with Spitting Cobra. The cobra that spawns only has a range of 25 yards (it won't deal damage if it spawns further). Spitting Cobra is also reduced by Animal Companion's -35% pet aura so it does decreased damage anytime these talents are paired together. The talent has some potential in single target situations but there are some major changes that need to occur to make it relevant. Assuming these issues are fixed, Spitting Cobra will become better as we scale and we're able to cast more Cobra Shots. It also has some potential synergy with talents such as Cobra tueur.

Ruée3

Pretty good buff to Stampede. Now that it's a 2 min cooldown, it pairs well with both Courroux bestial and Aspect de la Nature. Stampede has potential to be viable in burst situations, but at the moment, Stomp's consistent damage seems to outweigh it.

Runeforged Legendaries

Generic Legendaries

Appel de la Nature - In BFA, Aspect de la Nature was a pretty solid cooldown due to Instincts primaux. Since we no longer have any traits that buff it, Aspect of the Wild returns to being a fairly underwhelming cooldown in terms of DPS gain. While it does provide some benefit, Beast Mastery's major cooldown is actually Courroux bestial, not Aspect of the Wild. Call of the Wild unfortunately reduces Aspect of the Wild so its offensive benefit isn't very great. It does, however, reduce the cooldown of Aspect du guépard and Aspect de la tortue as well. Paired with Cœur sauvage, we might see this legendary used defensively depending on the situation.
Stratagème du couard - Craven Strategem has no added DPS benefit, but its defensive utility is insanely good, especially for PvPers. It may see some use in dungeons or raids depending on the scenario, but other than niche defensive utility, I highly doubt we'll use this legendary in PvE very much.
Appareil de trappeur de Nesingwary - Nessingwary's serves little to no purpose for Beast Mastery Hunters. Having to spend a GCD on a trap that does zero damage doesn't help us in any way. In fact, using this legendary is at best DPS neutral. I don't see a world in which we would ever use this legendary over the other options we have.
Braises de la forge des Âmes - Soulforge Embers gives us a unique interaction between Piège de goudron and Fusée éclairante, two very underutilized abilities in the Hunter toolkit. Conceptually, the idea is amazing and brings to light a new element of class fantasy. Pragmatically speaking, however, Soulforge Embers feels awkward to use in actual gameplay, as it requires two GCDs that are not a part of our core rotation. Unlike Marksmanship Hunters though, Beast Mastery has some natural downtime baked into the spec so utilizing Soulforge Embers effectively is typically much less of a hassle. That being said, Soulforge Embers is currently the best performing legendary for all three specs by a landslide on Beta (this can easily change with tuning of course).

Beast Mastery Legendaries

Ordre funeste - Dire Command is a pretty underwhelming legendary for us. The legendary only has relevance at a low target threshold considering we stop using Ordre de tuer in AoE. The beast that spawns is the same Bête féroce from our talent. Similar to our talent, the beast that spawns does rather pitiful damage, and its damage is only single target (it does use Piétinement if talented into it). On top of that, Dire Command only gives us a 10% chance to spawn the Dire Beast in the first place, which equates to a little less than once a minute. The one redeeming factor to this legendary is that when the Dire Beast does proc, it does give us the 5% Haste that also comes from the talent.
Morsure de cobra d’attise-flammes - Once again, this legendary doesn't provide much value with the current state of Beast Mastery. Tir du cobra currently costs way too much focus to gain any meaningful DPS from this legendary. Additionally, having free Ordre de tuers does very little for us as focus isn't a major issue for Beast Mastery Hunters considering our high passive regen. Flamewaker's is also a pure single target legendary since it relies on Cobra Shot, so it loses value in AoE scenarios. This effect will improve as we gain secondaries and we're able to cast more Cobra Shots, but in its current state, I don't foresee us using this legendary.
Qa’pla, ordre de combat en érédun - Qa'pla is one of our better single target legendaries for Beast Mastery. The value of this legendary scales directly with how many Tir acérés we're able to cast. Traits such as Odeur du sang pair wonderfully with it. As we gain secondaries and can produce more frequent Barbed Shots, this legendary gets better. The downside, like some of the other legendaries, is that Qa'pla loses value in AoE considering we typically don't Ordre de tuer as much in AoE situations.
Crocs transperçants de traqueur de rylak - Rylakstalker's is perhaps Beast Mastery's most well-rounded legendary. While a boring effect, a flat 30% crit damage during Courroux bestial is amazing for us and it significantly bolsters our damage during our major cooldown. As we scale, we will continue to get more frequent Bestial Wrath windows, increasing the value of this legendary. Rylakstalker's is also the only Beast Mastery legendary, aside from Braises de la forge des Âmes, that has any major relevance in AoE.

Legendary OverviewBraises de la forge des ÂmesCrocs transperçants de traqueur de rylakQa’pla, ordre de combat en érédunOdeur du sangCovenants & SoulbindsKyrianNight FaeNecrolordsVenthyrhereKyrian
Flèche résonnante - In PvE, the bonus 30% Critical Strike can be quite nice, especially in AoE. Beast Mastery Hunters love Critical Strike since some of our abilities (Appel sauvage, Communion avec la meute, etc) directly scale off of it. The Critical Strike bonus we gain from Resonating Arrow also benefits our pets. The other major benefit that Beast Mastery has compared to Marksmanship and Survival, is that we can essentially line up every Courroux bestial with every Resonating Arrow cast. Going even further, If we take Frisson de la chasse we gain 9% passive Critical Strike (assuming 3 stacks of Frénésie), and every 2 minutes we gain another 10% Critical Strike from Aspect de la Nature. In total, we gain a ton of passive Critical Strike during Resonating Arrow, which equates to some pretty hefty burst. The major downside to this ability is of course that its a placed AoE effect, so moving mobs outside of the area loses value. Resonating Arrow also has an awesome effect that lets you cast abilities onto targets that would normally be out of your line of sight. It lends itself to having some unique benefits in PvP, especially in Arenas.

Invocation de régisseur - On the surface, this ability seems quite underwhelming, but after doing dungeons and raid testing, this ability adds a ton of value. The real beauty of this ability is that Flasque de sérénité removes bleeds, diseases, poisons, and curses. Things such as Nécrotique and Aggravé can be removed, along with a ton of new poisons, diseases and bleeds introduced in the new dungeons and raids such as Exsanguiné from the Hurlaile fight in Castle Nathria.
Necrolord
Chakram de mort - For Beast Mastery Hunters, Death Chakram is currently our best option for pure single target scenarios. The ability lends itself towards being versatile - being able to deal with both AoE and single target scenarios. It also gives us additional focus per bounce, which is a nice bonus perk. Death Chakram is currently bugged in AoE situations as it can bounce to nearby corpses. Without considering Soulbinds or other utility, Death Chakram is perhaps the best option for Beast Mastery Hunters in terms of both single target throughput and AoE throughput as it's only slightly behind Kyrian in regards to AoE at the moment.

Chair recomposée - Fleshcraft can be a fairly strong defensive ability, giving players a shield up to 50% of your maximum health every 2 minutes. The major downside of this ability is of course its long channel time. For raid, and even in PvP, it might be hard to find times to adequately charge this ability. In Mythic+ however, there is generally ample time to utilize this ability, which can easily be a game-changer in higher dungeons. The shield also allows you to ignore certain mechanics depending on the situation.
Night Fae
Esprits sauvages - While most of the other covenant abilities seem to be completely implemented, Wild Spirits seems to be unfinished for the most part. The ability itself works and is usable, but many of our abilities don’t interact with it properly. For Beast Mastery Hunters in particular, Wild Spirits does not currently proc off of pets attacks or abilities such as Enchaînement bestial, nor does it proc on DoTs such as Tir acéré (it does proc on the initial cast of DoTs, but does not proc off of DoT ticks). Considering pets are the majority of our damage, it's safe to say Wild Spirits is pretty underwhelming for BM Hunters at the moment. It also has an internal cooldown on how often it can proc, which really hurts its damage capabilities. Wild Spirits has the potential to be really strong for AoE, but it has some things that need to be ironed out before it becomes viable for any Hunter spec.

Forme d’âme - Utility-wise, Soulshape is probably one of the best covenant options we have. The on-demand blink and added movement speed helps our positioning. Soulshape along with Désengagement and Aspect du guépard gives us an abundance of tools to deal with different types of mechanics.
Venthyr
Tir écorcheur - Flayed Shot does a fair chunk of damage by itself, and of course, it provides us with extra Tir mortels throughout the entire fight. Unlike Marksmanship, the Beast Mastery toolkit doesn't really have any interaction with it. BM's Mastery doesn't buff Kill Shot or Flayed Shot like Marksmanship's Mastery does so it's significantly less impactful for us. The major downside to this ability is of course the lack of AoE it provides as it is strictly a single target ability. It is currently performing worse than Chakram de mort in pure single target scenarios.

Porte des ombres - A teleport can be nice situationally and definitely gives us a bit of added utility to our toolkit. Door of Shadows might be useful for skips in Mythic+ but in general, its usage is pretty niche and situation dependent.
Covenant OverviewFlèche résonnantePelagosRenoncement au passéMéditation de combatChakram de mortBonesmith HeirmirArsenal d’Heirmir : gemme médullaireRêveries forge-néesTir écorcheurTheotarOmbre apaisanteConvenances du désertConduit TraitsCovenantPotencyFinesseEndurance

Covenant Traits

Marque d’affaiblissement - You can only obtain this Conduit via the Kyrian Covenant. Enfeebled Mark is a very solid trait for Beast Mastery Hunters as it directly increases your damage to enemies within Flèche résonnante. As I mentioned earlier, BM Hunters have an enormous amount of Critical Strike during Resonating Arrow, so increasing damage done on top of the large amount of Critical Strike works wonders. The major downside to this trait is of course the fact that Resonating Arrow is a placed area of effect, so moving mobs outside of its effect cripples the value of this trait.
Libération surpuissante - You can only obtain this Conduit via the Venthyr Covenant. As mentioned earlier, Tir mortel damage for Beast Mastery Hunters is a fair bit lower than its Marksmanship Hunter counterparts, so while buffing its damage is useful, it's not quite as useful as some other traits. Empowered Release isn't a bad trait by any means, but it's also not a necessity. Tir écorcheur and Kill Shot are also single target oriented abilities so this trait loses value in AoE scenarios.
Barrage nécrotique - You can only obtain this Conduit via the Necrolord Covenant. Necrotic Barrage is definitely one of the better conduit traits available if you choose to go Necrolord. It's a straight damage boost to Chakram de mort which does a pretty good amount of damage already. This trait also increases the focus gain from Death Chakram which is a nice added bonus.
Harmonisation de l’esprit - You can only obtain this Conduit via the Night Fae Covenant. Esprits sauvages unfortunately has some flaws inherent in the ability as it doesn't currently work with many hunter abilities or pets in general. Having a conduit that buffs its damage doesn't really help us in any way considering its current state. There is definitely potential for Wild Spirits to be strong in AoE assuming it was fixed to work with Hunter abilities, and more importantly Hunter pets.

Potency Traits

Carnage - This trait is essentially the Frénésie dévorante Azerite trait reworked. Initially, this trait will be pretty good considering at the start of Shadowlands, we'll be struggling to maintain uptime on Frénésie. The added damage it gives, like its Feeding Frenzy counterpart, is nice to have, but isn't super impactful overall. The damage from Tir acéré is a very small portion of our overall damage so increasing its damage isn't super significant, but it does slightly bolster our multi-dotting capabilities. With that in mind, this trait will start to fall off as other traits increase in value. This also holds true for the reduced recharge rate aspect of Bloodletting. As we gain secondaries, it'll be easier and easier to maintain those Frenzy stacks, meaning having the reduction in recharge time for Barbed Shot will quickly become more of a convenience factor.
Appel résonnant - Initially, Echoing Call will be decent, but it won't make a major impact on our gameplay. As we scale, however, Echoing Call will become more relevant. Since Echoing Call influences Appel sauvage, as we gain secondaries (Critical Strike and Haste primarily), this trait will quickly ramp up the number of Tir acéré procs we gain. Paired with Communion avec la meute, we might see a crazy amount of Barbed Shot resets. More resets of course mean more damage from interactions like Piétinement and Qa’pla, ordre de combat en érédun, as well as higher Courroux bestial uptime.
Appétit féroce - Ferocious Appetite is a fairly mediocre Conduit for us. As I've mentioned earlier, Aspect de la Nature is a pretty underwhelming 2-minute cooldown for us, so reducing its cooldown, while beneficial, isn't a major DPS gain. Additionally, this trait's value is directly tied to our Critical Strike chance so initially, when our secondaries are fairly low, we won't benefit from the cooldown reduction very much. This trait does have a pretty cool interaction with Compagnon animal as each pet's Ordre de tuer counts as a separate instance.
Union bestiale - One with the Beast is one of our better conduits as it directly buffs our primary cooldown, Courroux bestial. Obviously, as we gain ranks, this trait will directly increase the benefit of Bestial Wrath, but it also gains power as we gain secondaries. Higher levels of Critical Strike and Haste means we'll get more Tir acéré procs, which equates into higher Bestial Wrath uptime. More uptime directly benefits One With the Beast and increases its value.

Finesse Traits

Retraite tactique - Hunters get Retraite vengeresse! It's not quite as good as its Demon Hunter counterpart, but it'll help a bit while questing or during dungeons. You have to be in melee for it to be useful so this trait isn't really too impactful for us.
Vigueur du guépard - Aspect du guépard can be pretty useful when trying to avoid mechanics or while traversing long distances. Typically we don't really need too much movement speed so this is just a "nice to have" type trait.
Revers de fortune - This is the only Finesse trait that has some sort of damage gain tied to it. While Beast Mastery doesn't really need additional focus, a slight focus gain is better than nothing. This will probably be the go-to Finesse trait for all three Hunter specs, especially in PvP and Mythic+.
COMING SOON

Endurance Traits

Résilience du chasseur - Similar to how the existing Azerite trait À couvert works, using Feindre la mort reduces damage taken for a short period of time. This is a very useful trait if you are able to predict and time the incoming damage appropriately. It will have relevance in raid, dungeons, and PvP. The cooldown reduction on Feign Death also gives us more flexibility and allows us to ignore targeted spells more often.
Harmonie des Tortollans - Cooldown reduction on Aspect de la tortue can be useful, but is generally only used in niche situations. As this gains ranks, pairing it with Appel de la Nature and Cœur sauvage may allow us to ignore certain mechanics depending on their frequency.
Avantage du tireur d’élite - A damage reduction tied to Marque du chasseur give us more incentive to use it on different targets. This trait will be especially useful for raid considering most damage stems directly from the raid boss (damage often comes from the environment and may not count towards this damage reduction). The downside to this effect is that it only reduces damage from a singular target (as opposed to the all-encompassing damage reduction that Résilience du chasseur provides for example).
Vent régénérant - While the bonus healing this trait provides is nice, I don't foresee it being more useful than other endurance conduits. The initial heal from Enthousiasme is generally enough to prevent you from dying or at least give your healer an opportunity to heal you to a stable level. Hunters suffer from a lack of upfront mitigation, so traits such as Résilience du chasseur or Avantage du tireur d’élite are much more useful for us.

Hunter Pet UpdatesNew Tames200here

To tame Cloud Serpents, players will need to acquire the Bien éduquer son serpent tome by reaching Exalted with the L’ordre du Serpent-nuage. If you aren't already, make sure to be Exalted heading into the new expansion! Cloud Serpents belong to the Serpent family and will be the Cunning specialization.

For Undead beasts, players will need to acquire the Tome de lien d’os simplifié. The exact method of how to obtain this tome is still unknown, but the text strongly suggests it is related to the Necrolord covenant. Undead beasts are not tied any specific family as they are scattered throughout multiple different families such as Molosse, Diablosaure, and Serpent des vents.

CamelsMammothsCoursersSpirit BeastsPetopiahere

Players are now able to tame Elegon! Players will have to venture to the Elegon in Caveaux Mogu’shan to tame him. Despite having a Cloud Serpent model, he will be classified as a Spirit Beast. This means that he will be the Tenacity Specialization.

Pet AbilitiesTir tranquillisantEsprit de bêteChauve-sourisSporoptèreConcerns Going ForwardCobra Shot vs. Arcane ShotTir des ArcanesTir assuréTir du cobraRank 2Ordre de tuer

Tir du cobra does physical damage, costs 45 focus, and reduces the cooldown of Kill Command by 1 sec.

Tir des Arcanes does arcane damage (~15% less damage than Cobra Shot) but it only costs 30 focus.

Tir du cobraTir des ArcanesWhat Does This Mean?Tir du cobraTir des Arcanes

The most obvious issue is that using Arcane Shot over Cobra Shot ignores the innate cooldown reduction baked into Cobra Shot. We inherently lose out on Kill Commands.

This is a slight nerf to talents such as Instinct du tueur and Compagnon animal as casting less Kill Commands depreciates their value.

Cobra cracheur becomes even less desirable. I described a few of the issues with Spitting Cobra earlier in this article, but now that we are completely ignoring Cobra Shot, a talent that gains value by using Cobra Shot becomes useless.

Cobra tueur also becomes unusable. Since we aren't using Cobra Shot, we physically cannot benefit from Killer Cobra's reset mechanic as it relies on the use of Cobra Shot.

Revive PetRessusciter le familierTir du cobraTir acéréFlèches multiplesAspect de la tortueFeindre la mort

Questing - From a questing point of view, pets are our front line. Being gimped for 4 seconds is a death sentence for most Hunters, especially without Aspect de la tortue available.

Mythic+ - For dungeons, in many cases, pets die by no fault of the Hunter. Similar to BFA, there are already abilities that target our pets in Shadowlands dungeons, inevitably killing them. Having to lose out on damage due to a random mechanic feels miserable. On top of that, having to move during the cast to avoid dying, thus starting over, feels even worse.

PvP - This is perhaps the biggest issue for PvPers. Enemy players will simply target Hunter pets, knowing that the Hunter will be forced to channel for 4 seconds just to play the game. Even with Guérison du familier (which is dispellable by the way), it's extremely easy to kill Hunter pets. Even now, they often times just die to passive cleave. This change basically eliminates Hunter from any competitive PvP gameplay as any competent PvPer can keep the Hunter locked down every 4 seconds.

Ressusciter le familierDomination gangrenéeAnimal CompanionCompagnon animalGriffeMorsureCoup de patteevery

Animal Companion reduces damage done by guardians and other summoned pets. Force vitale condensée, which summons a guardian to deal damage, has its damage reduced by 35% when paired with Animal Companion.

The cobra summoned by Cobra cracheur has its damage reduced by 35% whenever the two talents are taken together.

Ordre funeste, one of our new legendaries in Shadowlands, procs a Bête féroce. Its damage is also nerfed (albeit very minor) when Animal Companion is taken.