I'm a great BM hunter. Pet micromanagement is my forte, and there's really nothing so awesome as the stunned look on a player's face when he realizes that no matter whether he attacks me or my big red pet first, he's dead. (At least, I imagine they look kinda stunned, it's possible there's some panic there as well. Can you tell I'm having fun leveling on a PvP server?)
That said, as the title and screenshot attest, I have gone Survival (at least with Izzy, Schen is still BM for leveling), and it is amazing.
It's kind of funny that I'm going Survival now, long after everyone else switched over, and after the BM-crippling nerfs have mostly been reversed (I didn't even respec for that). I'd tried it out in the past, and I just couldn't seem to get the rotation down--immolation trap, explosive shot, multi shot, ack my pet's dead and I have aggro! It was uncomfortable and it seemed just too hard. I was satisfied with where I was with BM, and so I went back to it.
This post made me step back and take another look at why I was staying BM.
Beast Mastery is my comfort zone, my safe place. I know it very well, and I can squeeze about as much DPS out of it as my gear will allow. Survival is only "hard" for me because it's not BM. It's a trap I fall into frequently. When we go out to eat, I always order the same thing or the closest I can find to it. I like one particular smoothie at Jamba Juice and don't really go out of my way to try the others though I'm sure they're just as good. I admit to being a little more adventurous with my Doritos, but that's only because my favorite flavor is no longer available. And it kind of bugs me--I don't want to miss out on something good just because it's different from what I'm used to. I realized that this was what was happening with me and Survival.
With my earlier re-spec I'd focused on the differences and how alien this strange new playstyle was to me. I tried trapdancing and even tamed a new pet. This time, I made an effort to give Survival a fair try. My wolf, Bolt, stayed at my side, and still does a fair amount of my damage. I spent about an hour practicing my rotation on the test dummies in Ironforge before tagging along on a quick Black Temple run for the achievement (I finally got to /fangirl at Illidan!) and then a Heroic Azjol'Nerub where I blew the other DPS away. This time, I'm staying Survival.
My wolf still bites and my hydra still tanks, though. I'm still a Hunter, after all.
2 comments:
Game imitates life, huh?
And did you mean for the "I always fall into this trap."?
I thought it was a pithy pun.
I dunno, I still can't do it. I tried SV, and I wasn't having any fun. I sat back and worried myself about it and my boyfriend said "You know, the whole point of the game is to have fun... if you aren't having fun, why even bother?"
so back to BM for me... am I gimping my raid? Maybe, maybe not. But I am usually near the top of DPS. I don't think the raids right now require a lot of supermax DPS except maybe Sarth+drakes.
So for now, I stay BM, because that is where I have fun.
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