39 BiS Standards (All Classes) Updated for Phase 5!

Ty =)

Just bought a bushmaster for 7g on AH, i assume it's pretty low :p
aye very nice buy, last time I checked was 300g+ on whitemane horde :)
 
spent 250g on sfbm on rattlegore
 
Ty =)

Just bought a bushmaster for 7g on AH, i assume it's pretty low :p
Considering I just got a bushmaster for 30g and was stoked with how low it was, 7g is amazing. That’s the present I had for Muz.
 
Any lock GODs at 39? Need some help, never played lock at 39 before, which specc and pieces are the best?
PM me or just write here, All help needed :)
 
Is this still the most recent BiS for disc priest @Outofspace
 
Is this still the most recent BiS for disc priest @Outofspace

Ya, but they are all assuming fresh toons with zero WSG rep. Once you're honored you should take the cape and possibly the staff at revered.
 
Hey Soge! Or anyone knowledgeable really. A few questions about hunters.

Could you describe the difference in playstyles between Survival and MM? Is one superior to the other? The way I see it you are giving up hawk eye (huge), scatter shot, and crit damage for a lot more survivability (surfooted seems OP).

Alliance side, what should your weapon rotation look like?
I am thinking:

Vanquisher sword (15 agility)
Sentinals blade (15 agility)
2x Speedsteel rapier (22 intellect)
Obsidian cleaver (22 intellect) for flag carrying
Staff of Jordan with (15 agility) for Raptor strikes?

Should you always switch to a 2h for raptor strike, counterattacks, etc?

Am I missing anything or is there anything I could improve on?

Is there anything from BC for hunters i should think about to future proof?

Thanks so much!
 
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Hey Soge! Or anyone knowledgeable really. A few questions about hunters.

Could you describe the difference in playstyles between Survival and MM? Is one superior to the other? The way I see it you are giving up hawk eye (huge), scatter shot, and crit damage for a lot more survivability (surfooted seems OP).

Alliance side, what should your weapon rotation look like?
I am thinking:

Vanquisher sword (15 agility)
Sentinals blade (15 agility)
2x Speedsteel rapier (22 intellect)
Obsidian cleaver (22 intellect) for flag carrying
Staff of Jordan with (15 agility) for Raptor strikes?

Should you always switch to a 2h for raptor strike, counterattacks, etc?

Am I missing anything or is there anything I could improve on?

Is there anything from BC for hunters i should think about to future proof?

Thanks so much!

Oi, great questions! I'll start with an overview of the specs.

Survival vs Marksman

Looking at talents I'd say your comparison isn't too far off - the main differences between the two trees are Hawkeye/Scatter Shot/Crit Damage vs Entrapment/Counterattack/Hit chance. The main thing people get wrong about Survival is how much damage it does. With Surefooted/Lightning Reflexes you are easily making up the difference in overall damage potential, but the gap comes mostly down to Hawkeye helping MM deliver that damage to more targets and harass easier. Being that Viper Sting is one of your main objectives as a Hunter, that extra range helps you safely keep stings up on more targets.

Lightning Reflexes gives a Survival Hunter somewhere around 70 more AP and 1% crit; combined with Killer Instincts SV ends up being +3% dmg, +3% Hit, and +70 AP vs 1% Crit and 27% Crit Bonus so it really feels like a wash when comparing the damage talents. Scattershot is definitely the next best thing in MM, but I find it lacking compared to even a few points in Entrapment/Clever Traps for BG situations. If we were doing Arenas I would say Scatter is required but in BGs where area denial is so huge, Entrapment + multiple Frost Traps is tops.

The survivability part really comes entirely from Entrapment, Deterrence and Counterattack, the extra Stam helps but it's honestly the least important part of the kit. Comparing all that to Scattershot and you see how in a pinch SV has more tools to work with vs most melee. That being said, Scatter is amazing vs BoF which is a big problem for SV.

So how do these differences play out in games? With MM you're going to want to be mid most of the time to take advantage of your range and tracking. Covering your ass involves keeping flares up and usually Freezers down for rogues, if you get jumped it's Scatter > Antivenom run or FD > Freezer > Aimed Shot. If a Warrior or Paladin gets to you with Scatter on CD though you're basically screwed. You also need to be mindful of stinging future Scatter targets. You'll have great damage for bringing down FCs but won't be close enough to click the flag very often, which can lead to some annoying relay situations. You can control the game through brute force mid dominance but you will be at the whims of others to get the core objectives accomplished.

To play SV effectively you can't be too worried about kills, it's more about big picture strategy. Other than the obvious hunter goals of Viper Stinging and managing stealthers, you want to try and pull the entire team through as many Frost Traps as possible. You gotta get cheeky dropping traps and running away, getting a second one down by staying out of combat and even FD > trap to get a third out. An ideal start to a game has me being chased and entrapping the entire enemy team up our tunnel - maybe no kills at all for me, but it can mean that my team is bringing the flag home before they even get to ours.

All the shenanigans eat into DPS though, so you have to know when to actually stop and capitalize on your setups. You're happy to fight indoors where you can force people through your traps while running all around funneling groups of enemies. Your single best roll is probably defending an FC in your base. You can completely block all stealthers and buy more time than probably any other class while providing crucial tracking intel.

I'd say that covers the core differences but I'm gonna truncate my answer there for now, I'll get to those gear questions next time!
 
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Oi, great questions! I'll start with an overview of the specs.

Survival vs Marksman

Looking at talents I'd say your comparison isn't too far off - the main differences between the two trees are Hawkeye/Scatter Shot/Crit Damage vs Entrapment/Counterattack/Hit chance. The main thing people get wrong about Survival is how much damage it does. With Surefooted/Lightning Reflexes you are easily making up the difference in overall damage potential, but the gap comes mostly down to Hawkeye helping MM deliver that damage to more targets and harass easier. Being that Viper Sting is one of your main objectives as a Hunter, that extra range helps you safely keep stings up on more targets.

Lightning Reflexes gives a Survival Hunter somewhere around 70 more AP and 1% crit; combined with Killer Instincts SV ends up being +3% dmg, +3% Hit, and +70 AP vs 1% Crit and 27% Crit Bonus so it really feels like a wash when comparing the damage talents. Scattershot is definitely the next best thing in MM, but I find it lacking compared to even a few points in Entrapment/Clever Traps for BG situations. If we were doing Arenas I would say Scatter is required but in BGs where area denial is so huge, Entrapment + multiple Frost Traps is tops.

The survivability part really comes entirely from Entrapment, Deterrence and Counterattack, the extra Stam helps but it's honestly the least important part of the kit. Comparing all that to Scattershot and you see how in a pinch SV has more tools to work with vs most melee. That being said, Scatter is amazing vs BoF which is a big problem for SV.

So how do these differences play out in games? With MM you're going to want to be mid most of the time to take advantage of your range and tracking. Covering your ass involves keeping flares up and usually Freezers down for rogues, if you get jumped it's Scatter > Antivenom run or FD > Freezer > Aimed Shot. If a Warrior or Paladin gets to you with Scatter on CD though you're basically screwed. You also need to be mindful of stinging future Scatter targets. You'll have great damage for bringing down FCs but won't be close enough to click the flag very often, which can lead to some annoying relay situations. You can control the game through brute force mid dominance but you will be at the whims of others to get the core objectives accomplished.

To play SV effectively you can't be too worried about kills, it's more about big picture strategy. Other than the obvious hunter goals of Viper Stinging and managing stealthers, you want to try and pull the entire team through as many Frost Traps as possible. You gotta get cheeky dropping traps and running away, getting a second one down by staying out of combat and even FD > trap to get a third out. An ideal start to a game has me being chased and entrapping the entire enemy team up our tunnel - maybe no kills at all for me, but it can mean that my team is bringing the flag home before they even get to ours.

All the shenanigans eat into DPS though, so you have to know when to actually stop and capitalize on your setups. You're happy to fight indoors where you can force people through your traps while running all around funneling groups of enemies. Your single best roll is probably defending an FC in your base. You can completely block all stealthers and buy more time than probably any other class while providing crucial tracking intel.

I'd say that covers the core differences but I'm gonna truncate my answer there for now, I'll get to those gear questions next time!

Thank you so much for the in depth answer! I was wondering how their overall dps compared- this clears a lot up. While I'm sad I will miss out on the scattershot death ray combo, I am going to try survival! You look like you are having way too much fun running around out there to not see what it's about. Level 36 at the moment with most my BIS gear see you guys soon!
 
Alliance side, what should your weapon rotation look like?
I am thinking:

Vanquisher sword (15 agility)
Sentinals blade (15 agility)
2x Speedsteel rapier (22 intellect)
Obsidian cleaver (22 intellect) for flag carrying
Staff of Jordan with (15 agility) for Raptor strikes?

Should you always switch to a 2h for raptor strike, counterattacks, etc?

Am I missing anything or is there anything I could improve on?

Is there anything from BC for hunters i should think about to future proof?

Thanks so much!

That weapon lineup looks pretty good, I'd say that 22 Int on the Cleaver is excessive, I'd probably prefer +15 Agi for a flag carry. It doesn't take that much Mana to run away :] Then you could just use the Cleaver for Raptors too if you want to do weapon swapping. I don't find it worthwhile as I just spec out of Savage Strikes if I am running one handers. SoJ has a bit higher topend but then again you'd really just want a PoD if you're going to be this thorough and tricky. Swapping weapons uses up a GCD so I'd rather just stick to one weapon type and spec for it personally. Raptor/Mongoose are super Mana intensive too so I don't mind pretty much just ignoring them with one handers and focusing on getting range. 5/5 Entrapment too good anyways!

Also Counterattack isn't based on Weapon Damage so no reason to swap for it. For BC, Medal of Courage gets a huge upgrade and so does the SFBM, not much else to bother with.
 
Quick question about feral dps. How much more ap does the 10 10 tiger gloves give over unholy might? My druid is 30 so still plenty of time to farm. But just curious on the agi/str to AP ratio for cats :)
 
If you go full HotW you're getting 20% more Strength, so it would be worth 24 AP. I don't know the Crit per Agi ratio for a 39 Druid, but it's pretty favorable I think.
 
Quick question about feral dps. How much more ap does the 10 10 tiger gloves give over unholy might? My druid is 30 so still plenty of time to farm. But just curious on the agi/str to AP ratio for cats :)
For feral kitty it would actually be 34 ap since 1str is 2 ap for kitty’s and also 1 agi is 1 ap I should include.
 
For feral kitty it would actually be 34 ap since 1str is 2 ap for kitty’s and also 1 agi is 1 ap I should include.

Oh, very true, somehow I randomly forget this even though my main is a Feral. That I don't really care about lol.
 
Oh, very true, somehow I randomly forget this even though my main is a Feral. That I don't really care about lol.
ahha right, what is a main?...
 
For the warlock BiS guide, what do you guys think about subbing in Robes of the Lich over Magi?

Worth the spellpower loss for the extra 200 health or no?

I noticed that the BiS gear linked here uses the 9/9 Eagle gloves instead of the +15 spellpower Black Mageweave gloves, so I'm wondering what the cost/benefit is for spellpower vs stamina in the 39 bracket.
 
I try to trade roughly 1:1 Spellpower/Int/Stam. Taken as a hard rule, that makes Robes of The Lich BiS, but I'm a little softer than 1:1, favoring Spellpower and I don't hate Spirit either, which brings Robes of the Magi just a hair above Lich.

Gloves are 18 stats vs 15 SP, great place to beef up your HP/Mana pools a bit.
 

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