BM vs other for leveling ONLY

[Habskilla 2]

Is there a noticeable difference leveling as BM? Do you kill mobs just as fast as Marks/Surv? Is the only real advantage of BM leveling is that you don't risk dieing as often but everything else is slower?

[sonasol 0]

Actualy everithing is faster as BM. Your pet kills all while u autoshot only. If u save mana you save a lot of time, u never drink.

U dont need to kit, your pet holds agro just fine.

Bm is better to lv yes.

[Drain 19]

BM is uncontested for leveling. It's so far over the others they shouldn't even be considered until 60. If you pump up your pet, the game becomes a joke, and you'll minimize downtime, which is the most important factor for leveling. You could even save money on ammo since your pet does most of the DPS anyway. You could buy gutter bullets, or just melee.

[Raziya 11]

It's true, BM turns your pet into a monster tank and trivializes PvE.

But... you know, if you're on a PvP server, it doesn't exactly excel at killing enemy players. I leveled with MM / Surv, myself, and really enjoyed the journey up. If you're not in a rush, or if you hate ganks, maybe a new spec is a good idea anyway, if not for efficiency then for fun.

Besides, auto shooting stuff to death is boring. Now, burst comboing some poor red team scrub out of Shadowmeld... that's fun ;)

[Fisher 5]

1 hour ago, Raziya said:

But... you know, if you're on a PvP server, it doesn't exactly excel at killing enemy players.

1. You're not always PvPing. Most of your time leveling, even on a PvP server, will be spent fighting mobs. You want to be BM for that.
2. If you're beast mastery, your pet will be good for killing enemy players... as long as the pet you tamed has Dash or Dive. Until then, it will have trouble reaching its target. Get past level 29 and you'll see an improvement.

1 hour ago, Raziya said:

Besides, auto shooting stuff to death is boring. Now, burst comboing some poor red team scrub out of Shadowmeld... that's fun ;)

I personally enjoy being able to just send my pet in and auto attack to victory. Sometimes I just go AFK/semi-AFK in an area with mobs my level and let my pet grind XP for me. Can't do that if you're MM/Surv.

[Raziya 11]

3 minutes ago, Fisher said:

1. You're not always PvPing. Most of your time leveling, even on a PvP server, will be spent fighting mobs. You want to be BM for that.
2. If you're beast mastery, your pet will be good for killing enemy players... as long as the pet you tamed has Dash or Dive. Until then, it will have trouble reaching its target. Get past level 29 and you'll see an improvement.

Not always, obviously, but if you're fond of PvP, it's not going to do you many favors.

I went 100 / 0 with a BM hunter at level 40 or so back on Nost 1.0. Your pet may be a killing machine, but if you can't survive while it does it's job, you're kinda screwed.

3 minutes ago, Fisher said:

I personally enjoy being able to just send my pet in and auto attack to victory. Sometimes I just go AFK/semi-AFK in an area with mobs my level and let my pet grind XP for me. Can't do that if you're MM/Surv.

That's fair. I prefer to take a more active role in the game, so I play MM / Surv. When I do my AFK, which I do fairly often, I just dismiss, shadowmeld someplace safe, and step away for a few.

[Papalok 1]

I've leveled over a half dozen hunters on private server and retail vanilla. I've leveled BM more than once and it's faster on a PvE server -or- a PvP server if you are leveling in a low density zone. It is THE faceroll spec out of all classes when it comes to questing and this is why a hunter is usually the first level 60. The main reason for this is that it is the least gear-dependent spec in the game because your pet's damage is not affected by your gear. However, the myth that the other specs aren't viable for leveling is pure nonsense.

Benefits of BM:

• Least gear dependent spec in the game.
• Least mana dependent spec for hunters.
• Lowest amount of effort required of any spec in the game.
• Sit on your ass and auto-attack, if that's a benefit to you.

Here are my issues with BM on Elysium PvP.

• The population on Elysium's servers are so high that regular PvP encounters are inevitable after you leave the safety zones.
• Anyone with a brain will destroy you in PvP 100% of the time.  A CCed pet makes you completely worthless (and your pet doesn't get it's CC immunity until you hit level 40). Your survivability is garbage and no amount of confidence will save your corpse. No SS, no deterrence, no hawk eye (increased range), no imp wing clip. gg
• Even with Dash I've noticed my pet has issues keeping up with players and landing attacks, which might be due to my latency but either way this gets irritating quickly.

Here are my issues with leveling 1-60 as BM in general:

• BM is a worthless spec at level 60 in both raiding and PvP. Leveling it exclusively makes you a liability at level 60 when you actually have to learn a real spec.
• It's boring as all hell.

A pet holding aggro effectively is not exclusive to BM. A cat with growl and the most updated rank of Bite can hold aggro against anything except an Aimed Shot crit, in which case it won't matter anyway since the mob will be dead in 1-2  globals. MM/Surv will take a little longer to level with, but it's not worlds apart if you're already following an optimal leveling guide. I'm leveling MM/Surv and I'm ahead of everyone else in my guild who has put in similar hours except for the mages and BM hunters. The biggest upside is MM/Surv is actually fun and engaging, it's very useful in PvP, and to a degree reflects the kind of spec you will be playing at max level.

Edited January 16, 2017 by Papalok

[alexinho 1]

A CCed pet makes you completely worthless

Get the mend pet talent that removes CC when you heal it.

[rex 3]

After leveling several different classes on few different project I honestly hate getting to 60 so much I just spec BM and watch TV while grinding. While the spec is very boring to play it also allows you to save tons of gold on gear upgrades since you can be afk and your pet will kill as fast or even faster than most classes.

[Fisher 5]

On 1/16/2017 at 7:18 AM, Papalok said:

Here are my issues with BM on Elysium PvP.

• The population on Elysium's servers are so high that regular PvP encounters are inevitable after you leave the safety zones.
• Anyone with a brain will destroy you in PvP 100% of the time.  A CCed pet makes you completely worthless (and your pet doesn't get it's CC immunity until you hit level 40). Your survivability is garbage and no amount of confidence will save your corpse. No SS, no deterrence, no hawk eye (increased range), no imp wing clip. gg
• Even with Dash I've noticed my pet has issues keeping up with players and landing attacks, which might be due to my latency but either way this gets irritating quickly.

• That largely depends on when you play. I typically don't encounter many people on either Horde or Alliance. If I encounter someone on the opposite faction, they ignore me... except level 60s who simply one shot me. In the case of a level 60, it doesn't matter what spec I am; I'm dead.
• "Anyone with a brain" is a huge prerequisite for most people. Most people will ignore you pet. On the off-chance the don't, you can easily remove the CC. Also, no Deterrence? No Improved Wing Clip? http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#cV0GzgxRtZ0xVVoh No Scatter Shot? http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#cx0GzTxRxtVoht
• Use Concussive Shot/Wing Clip? Not sure what else could be done to help your pet reach the target, but I'd imagine running faster will make it easier for your pet to catch up. If it isn't, perhaps it is being slowed or some other such effect?

On 1/16/2017 at 7:18 AM, Papalok said:

Here are my issues with leveling 1-60 as BM in general:

• BM is a worthless spec at level 60 in both raiding and PvP. Leveling it exclusively makes you a liability at level 60 when you actually have to learn a real spec.
• It's boring as all hell.

• In raiding, I might be inclined to agree, save for a few rare encounters where your pet doesn't have to move much and it doesn't get killed by AoE constantly. In PvP, I completely disagree. Intimidation is pretty good, and still allows room to pick up other talents depending on your playstyle. The pet's DPS is nothing to scoff at, especially when you consider its ability to deal damage around LoS and with you far out of range. The insanely fast attack speed of pets will make casters rage as their 2 second cast time turns into 7 seconds.
  
  Also, this notion that leveling it exclusively somehow makes it difficult to learn a "real" spec is laughable. This is vanilla. The rotations aren't exactly the most complex, and most of the rotation of a "real" spec applies to BM hunters, as well, they just rely on it less because their pet does better DPS and they don't have to waste their mana. The only difference would be the absence of Aimed Shot, and that is assuming you don't move into MM after you get Bestial Wrath, in which case you'd probably be used to using it anyway.
• Leveling is boring regardless of the spec you play. While leveling, you won't have the mana to continually use your abilities, or you'll end up drinking every couple of mobs. Now that is boring. In any case, "boring" is subjective. Granted, you said they are your issues with BM, so whatever.