Your Changing Raid Spec  

This post is a reprint of an post I wrote over at the Primal Forum

It's that time. As the shadow of 3.08 looms over us, it's time to start thinking ahead to how we'll be throwing the lead after the patch.

No amount of theory crafting will make up for actually trying the spec out. On that note, I spent some time over at the PTR this weekend beating on target dummies and trying out some of my spec ideas. I won't be discussing hard DPS numbers today, as I don't trust Blizz not to change things between now and patch day. Once 3.08 drops, I'll have a full write up including Recount data.

The following are my recommendations:

Exotic Beastmaster

This build is centered around the soon to be king of pet DPS, the Devilsaur. While it's true that a Scorpid in the highest sustained DPS on simple boss fights (Patchwerk), and that a Cats can situationally exceed the Devilsaur's DPS, the hinted changes to Rake and Scorpid Venom in 3.08 point to the Devilsaur being top damage. This build offers good sustained DPS when Serpent Sting is kept up, combined with the Steady Shot Glyph, and popping Arcane Shot every time it comes up.

Enhanced Marksman

This build makes full use of the Marksman tree, while dipping into the other two trees for a couple of nice damage enhancing talents. This is very similar to the spec already being used by Xxskillzz, and offers very high burst damage, at the cost of a more complex shot rotation.

Besides Steady shot, you'll be refreshing Serpent Sting every ten seconds with Chimaera Shot, and firing Arcane Shot every six seconds.

Survival with Hawk

Explosive shot is getting a nice little damage buff in 3.08, combined with the periodic haste buff of IAoTH and suddenly Survival is blowing past other DPS classes (if not the other two hunter specs).

You'll be spamming Steady Shot, maintaining Serpent Sting, firing Arcane Shot each time it's up (which is pretty often with Lock and Load), and using your Explosive Shot every six seconds. Because your Serpent Sting needs to be manually refreshed and Explosive Shot is each six seconds to Chimaera Shot's ten seconds, yours is the most complex shot rotation.

But your good crit, combined with the nearly 50% crit chance of Explosive Shot means you'll be doing nice damage and that the raid will be getting your replenishment buff nearly 100% of the time.

Notice that none of these builds incorporates the Efficiency talent. Instead they count on good regen technique with Rapid Fire and Aspect of the Viper, as well as external regen in the form of the Replenishment buff from Paladins, Shadow Priests, and Survival Hunters.

It's time to start thinking about your play style, as well as the needs of the guild, and find which build you'll be using after 3.08.