MM Soloing – The Wave of the Future?
In my FAQ, I state BM is how you level, but my recent delving into threat mechanics has made me reconsider. In fact, tonight I’m going to spec 20/40/0 (I’ll figure out the last point later) for grinding out the last level with my Serpent, Kite. I’ll lay the path out for the newbies later, but I want to talk a bit about why MM is the new soloing build, and why I’ll probably use it from 70-80.
If you find this a bit hard to swallow, so do I. I’ve been a diehard BM since Beta. But at heart I’m a soloist, and I want what will allow me to do that best.
Suppose I’m a fresh new just dinged MM hunter. I think it’s pretty reasonable that I have 1300 RAP without TSA on. Maybe even without AotH on. My pet should have around 589 AP. Now I turn on TSA. I gain 125 RAP which translates into 27.5 PAP and my pet also gains 125 AP for a total of:
589 + 27.5 + 125 = 741.5 PAP
I’d be getting 43 extra threat each growl, adding in some Kibler’s would grant an extra 228 threat. My Leggings of Beast Mastery? Add 399 threat. With those 2 items I will have almost doubled growl’s threat, and it will only go up from there. Did you notice the secondary effect? I will have insane personal damage as well.
Hunter get’s higher damage + Pet get’s greater threat generation = Solo Win!
Wait a minute. When would a BM hunter start to see growl scale? Well, if you look at the BM tree, sadly none of the talents actually buff the pet’s Strength or AP. They’re all damage multipliers tacked on the end. To see growl scale at all you’d need a total of ~1958 RAP to get your PAP up to 734. Always using Kibler’s Bits would lower that down to ~1776. At least BM’s get extra threat generation from increased pet damage.
SVs are just screwed, but then they should be used to it by now.
Of course this could all change at Blizzard’s whim, and we’d probably never hear about it.
The Mystic Hunter 
Fearstalker said,
May 7, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Umm… this growl thing has me really confused… especially with what you are saying that it still scales off PAP.
Assuming it doesn’t change again before it gets to live, I was planning on picking up a Dire Raven and using that with screech for aggro while staying BM. Should I go MM as well?.. (I’m doing solo, some pvp, and a few instances, but will dump pvp once I get a few more things, since Blizz says I can’t have most S4 items).
If I go MM, then what about weapon, I don’t have a good slow MM weapon, but just a lowly Santos and still trying to find a BBLR…
Fearstalker said,
May 7, 2008 at 5:37 pm
and leggings of BM for a MM?… thought the rest of the stats stank?…
Znodis said,
May 8, 2008 at 9:04 am
The “lowly” Santos is what I’m using as well. I think I’d prefer a slower weapon around 3.0s, which with a quiver would be reduced to 2.6s. Taking Imp Arcane for the 5s cooldown makes it fit nicely in there. The extra 0.1s, I’d like to have to adjust for lag. I’m considering some of the PvP weapons.
Assuming things don’t change before WotLK, I think MM would be a good setup. The superiority of BM is that Furious Inspiration is a party wide buff that stacks. Put you’re 4 other highest DPSers with a hunter and thats a huge buff. With just 5 people (2 of which are tanking and healing), I think MM will be superior. I know it’s already considered the PvP spec, and I now feel it is the best solo spec as well.
If the ravens still use the same stats as the carrion birds, I still think owls and bats are better, but you won’t really be missing anything. Of course, the ravens look really cool, and I also want one. Although I haven’t tested one, I’m pretty sure they’ll be in the recommended list. A solid choice.
For the LoBM, I say if you can get them cheap go for it. As a MM you may not need them too much, but should you start to raid and need to stay BM or SV, they will help a lot to swap in for soloing. I got mine for 380g, but anything under 500g is not a rip-off. The rest of the stats aren’t great, but I figure you can make up for that other places.
Fearstalker said,
May 8, 2008 at 9:14 am
LOL.. LoBM still close to 1000G on the servers I’ve been looking at. For the legs, I’ve been planning to get the S3 legs, since I won’t have any raid drops, and no craftables there (and won’t have access to S4 legs either). My though is that the S3 legs will give me enough of a stam boost that I don’t have to worry about it in other slots.
I’m looking at the Dark Raven for the food factor too, cat and WS are the the other pets, so I just need a stack of blackened trout. (yes, they are carrion birds).
Since I’m not even specced into FI (mr solo is me) it’s all been about frenzy and BW. But if the burst is better…
thanks for the input!!