Daily Chronicles

So far I am at ilvl 666, done heroic Gruul and leveled an alt to level 100.  With Patch 6.1 arriving next week I decided to write few thought about 6.0x thread.

Having a Garrison is very cool, I was looking forward to it and still like the idea of a permanent character house.  What I am not so pleased to see is a lack of customization options.  I would like to be able to tell my main Orc hunter's headquarters from my alt Pandaren rogue's house and I can't.  Another thing where I feel Blizzard went overboard with the Garrison idea is the resource/profession buildings.  Right now it basically kills all the social interactions, cooperation,  and trading in the game.  It's fairly easy to stay self sufficient with few adds and players have very little incentive to keep "MM" up in MMORPG.

Game pushes you to check in few times every day for each character.  I, personally, don't like the idea.  My work/life schedule allows me to play 2, sometimes 3 nights a week and I don't appreciate being pushed into tamagotchi-like babysitting rhythm.

I really like Beast Mastery spec, but it had been so bad in terms of DPS in this expansion I had to run raids as a Marksman.  Because of that I didn't feel I needed to be competitive in BM spec and I maintained low-maintenance (i.e. passive abilities wherever possible) build throughout 6.0x cycle.  With changes to hunter abilities in 6.1 I changed my BM build to something I hope I'll be able to use for raiding:

In raids I'll probably switch Spirit Bond with Iron Hawk.

The changes I have made in preparation for 6.1 rollout are:
I am now using Steady Focus instead of Thrill of the Hunt
And Stampede for Blink Strikes.

Patch 6.02 PRT Notes

Reading through 6.02 PTR Patch Notes I, naturally, pay attention to what changes are coming for hunters as a class more than anything else.

So

• Racial traits leveled out - good, not that I struggled with them, but it sounds fair;
• No reforging - ok, I guess it makes gear different again, right now the difference between best in slot and not-so-good in slot gear is negligible, it is probably a step in a right direction;
• Different stats system - I need to play with it to understand how it works and I am fairly sure some adjustments will be made after it goes live;
• Stats shrinking - long overdue, in my opinion;
• Combined AH - nice, more consistent prices and opportunity to buy some items unavailable for Horde right now;
• Healing changes - probably huge, but I never had a healing character, I don't know how it used to be and have no baseline to compare to what it is going to be in WoD.

While not all of the above is a good news at least it is not a bad news.  Hunter changes, though, concern me.  

Now hunters have no interrupt or silence ability/shot/talent.  Not only hunter does not have any anymore, but all the pets lost it too.  Pets lost all rooting abilities as well.  The only thing that's left to hunter is a Freeze Trap.  So if a mob starts casting anything at me I just stand there waiting for it to finish.  

Hunters also don't have any raid utility on their own anymore.  Hunter's Mark is being removed and I can bet new Fox Stance the way it's described in the PRT notes is not going to be used by anyone in the raid.  Pets still provide raid buffs though but I feel something valuable was taken away from me and nothing was given in return.

Also from the notes looks like Survival spec is going to be overpowered in PvE.  Pandaria was the first expansion I experienced where all three specs were fairly close to each other in damage output and raid utility and I feel my favorite Beast Mastery is being neglected for the Warlords of Draenor expansion.

Soloing Zandalari Warbringers

I found farming Zandalari Warbringers to be very lucrative and, at first, challenging.  They also have a chance of dropping one of three mounts, but those are soulbound and can only be sold to a vendor for 2.5g.

I believe I started soloing Warbringers at ilvl 520 and while it was tedious in the beginning, since they have huge health pool it is doable and can be done at comparatively low levels by Beast Mastery hunter.  The fight is about survival, not DPS.

First,

Build

I selected Spirit Bond as my Tier 3 talent and highly recommend it for any soloing and even leveling.  Makes hunter's life much easier than a lot of other DPS classes.  Please note I chose it over Exhilaration because I think sustained healing is more important while fighting NPCs, than a boost on a cooldown.

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Animal Bond - same as above, healing;
Glyph of Mending - same as above and above, sustained healing;
Glyph of Misdirection - with Misdirection macro that misdirect to pet is one of the aggro mitigation tool with Feign Death being the second one.

Minor Glyph

Glyph of Revive Pet - this allows me to revive my pet without interruption even if Warbringer is banging on my head.

Strategy

Pull up a Turtle, set it to passive and turn off the automatic Growl.  Engage Warbringer, bind it to the pet and make sure it ignores you.

General tips

• Stand behind and away from Warbringer at all times;
• Monitor threat levels to make sure it targets pet at all times;
• Watch out what it casts (see Abilities).

Warbringer Abilities and Mitigation

Each Warbringer has four out of five abilities:

• Thunder Crush - frontal cone of damage.  Make sure you're not in it, Mend Pet.
• Meteor Shower - meteors are dropping all over.  Dance to avoid a hit (you may survive a hit or two), I believe you may be able to stay outside of the affected area and still DPS the Warbringer, but I never bothered to prove it.  Mend Pet often.
• Horrific Visage - keep Bestial Wrath on cooldown to interrupt, but even if you don't it is usually not critical, except for the Warbringer in Krasarang Wilds which tends to reset if you allow it to scare your pet too far away.
• Scarab Swarm - bunch of scarabs tries to get you or a pet, I usually Multi-Shot them down as soon as they appear or Glaive Toss through them if they are already on me.  If you miss them, don't sweat, they hit like kittens.
• Vengeful Spirit - Summons Vengeful Spirit.  This thing hits like a truck and can 2-3 shot your pet.  Fortunately it is extremely slow, so use Distracting Shot as soon as it shows up and step away, if it gets too close - change position.

Bare Minimum

So at the bare minimum a BM hunter needs to use:
Mend Pet
Misdirect to pet (I use macro which I use in place of the regular Misdirection)
Feign Death for threat mitigation

And, if Warbringer has Vengeful Spirit ability:
Distracting Shot

The Build

So it's obvious I play a hunter.  My primary specialization is Beast Mastery.  I keep my character properly gemmed and reforge every time I get a new gear piece.  I don't transmog.  My Build has been stable for a while:

I chose Thrill of the Hunt and Blink Strikes because they are passive and don't require additional button clicks.  I feel my hunter has too many already.  Spirit Bond as well as Animal Bond and Mending are there for soloing which I do a lot.  And Glaive Toss coupled with Misdirection to pet makes wonders when I need to get adds off my back in a hurry.

For misdirect I use the following macro:

#showtooltip
/cast [@focus,help][help][@pet,exists] Misdirection

which misdirects to the player in focus (I set focus on tanks in instances) or to pet if there's nothing in focus.

Overall I want to be able to solo high-level instances, such as Firelands, in my primary configuration even if I lose some DPS.  Survivalability of the pet is the number one priority as I pet-tank pretty much everything, including Zandalari Warbringers.  And most of the time I tank with a ferocious pet, only toughest mobs force me to pull out a turtle or a direhorn (for primals on the Isle of Giants).  As for my own protection I simply try to avoid damage using Feigh Death, Deterrence, and Disengage.

I also have Marksmanship spec as a secondary and tried to maximize DPS on that spec.  Never got close to what I am able to pull out as a BM in that spec though, I guess it just doesn't fit my playstyle, although self-healing shots are supposed to be useful I stay alive longer in BM spec.  Plus in BM spec I am able to use my exotic pets, such as quilen with battle rez Eternal Guardian or a strider with water walking.