22/31/8 for Drain Teams?

[Treisk]

http://www.arenajunkies.com/images/icons/icon2.gif 22/31/8 Hybrid Spec (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cVdMzxxoZVVVoEzh0oZMhh)

I've heard a few different people tossing this idea around now. I also know factually that http://www.arenajunkies.com/images/icons/icon2.gif Team Asia (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/team-info.xml?r=Crushridge&ts=5&t=Team+Asia&select=Team+Asia)'s Hunter, http://www.arenajunkies.com/images/icons/icon2.gif Foxcat, (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Crushridge&n=Foxcat) uses this spec for 5v5 in his Drain Team.

Essentially, it looks like the object of the spec is to maximize the DPS you and your pet do while maintaining lots of control and keeping your pet alive. Giving up Silencing Shot, Improved Barrage, and Master Marksman are offset by picking up Endurance Training, Improved Revive Pet, and pet DPS talents. You also give up Survivalist, Clever Traps, Deterrence, and Surefooted. Simply put, weighing those options, 0/41/20 sounds stronger, just because of the extreme trade-off. You give up so much to gain so little.

But do the gains make up for the losses? What else do you pick up on your way up the BM tree? Is it worth it to give up Bestial Discipline, Improved Mend Pet in the BM tree by not going further? The trade-off simply doesn't seem worth it.

I want to get some input from some that have tried this spec out in a Drain format. Did I build the spec wrong? Am I right about it being a weak spec? Is the trade-off really worth it?

Give me your $.02 here, and consider my curiosity piqued.

[Arna]

I was looking at that build as well. I am still 0/42/19, and it works fine for me. But I noticed Foxcat goes that build you mentioned. Anyone have any feedback on this?

[Treisk]

I believe Sciurus experimented with it a bit, but I haven't heard anything back from him. I'll poke him in the ribs until he posts something up here. With any luck I can get something from him by the end of the day.

[juventino_hero]

yeh, im thinking about trying that spec aswell for my drain team

probably gonna play some 5's today, and if i do, ill spec that and post here and tell ya how it goes :)

Obviously mine isnt top 10 material, but we've obtained this rating in a week with a very good win-loss record, whilst beating teams like eminence, so yeh, ill keep my hunter brother's informed :)

[Sciurus]

Well I tried it out a bit in 2s today. Priest logged off and didn't come back tonight so we couldn't play 5s, but maybe I can get some games in later and give you an update.

The main reason I respecced is because Ar/prep rogues are completely tearing us a new one in 2v2 as disc priest/hunter (wtb stoneform, /hate you dwarves). I needed a second way to lock them down, this gave me another option without losing most of the good talents in marks (scatter/imp stings/mortal shots/barrage/etc.).

Basically if the rogue jumped my priest as rogue/priest, we won because I could put enough dps pressure on the rogue to force his priest to heal him instead of mana burn while still being able to somewhat lock down the rogue to the point my priest could gain a bit of breathing room. Now on the other hand when they jumped me, we were boned at that point because as a non dwarf hunter, you're only chance vs a rogue that isn't mentally handicapped is to spec tbw to get away when freezing trap is going to get chain dispelled (or get insanely lucky with entrapment procs). This basically completely locked down my dps, forced my priest to heal instead of mana burn, and then he got mana burned they would switch off of me and kill him and it would be gg. I'm pretty much at a loss as to what to do with this fight if the rogue is on me instead of the priest.

Vs rogue/second dps it was pretty good though, because as long as I can lock down the rogue, the chances of getting bursted down outside of getting caught in a shatter combo are relatively low, and without a healer or dispeller, I can gain some breathing room to kill him before they generally killed me.

Didn't get to play vs any other teams at a very high rating, but I'm thinking it will be sick against druids in 2v2/3v3. I can see some sick combos you could pull off like when a druid attempts to travel form away, you intimidate him while your priest lines up a mana burn and he loses 2-3k mana while stunned. I can also see it being useful vs pillar humping paladins. Imp wc proc him while his warrior is out of los marked + trapped, then line up a mana burn and stun him right as he pops freedom on himself, giving you enough time to dispel freedom, and reapply imp wc while your priest owns his mana pool. It also allows you to set up an aimed shot burst combo on a target with your priest, like put pet on stay, cast intimidate, start casting aimed shot while your priest lines up the mb->sw:d->smite spam combo, then send pet to attack as aimed shot fires and start laying into them while they are stunned.

My scorpid is also sitting at something sick like 11.5k armor and I have the 4 second pet rez, so the pet utility and survivability part is definitely a bonus. Another thing is bestial swiftness owns with a scorpid. For a pet without dash, it actually allows the stupid pet to somewhat keep up with druids in travel form, and it can almost catch bridge jumpers of any other class before they break combat to drink in blade's edge as long as he isn't shivved or hamstrung. Not to mention if you want to change target with your pet to stun someone, the pet doesn't move at the pace of a 3 legged turtle, so it's actually a feasible idea.

So far I'm really liking the spec, I've won games in 2s that I would have normally lost as full marks, and it gives me better lockdown on melee for the price of slightly worse lockdown on casters while maintaining some cool pet utility at the cost of ranged damage. I think I lost 160ish ap from master marksmen, 12% multishot crit, uninterruptable volley (nice vs snake trap, about it though), and some hit from surefooted so I had to swap in my exalted violet eye ring and I need to swap a resil gem for a hit gem. I lost some silence combos, but I think the intim combos I can pull off are definitely more powerful.

I dunno, hopefully we can get some games in 5s tomorrow and I'll see how it goes. I've got a few ideas vs 4 dps teams I want to try seeing as that's all we seem to run into anymore.

[juventino_hero]

back from 2 hours of 5's :P

anyways, my team was playing drood-pally-warrior-lock-hunter, and switched to lock-hutner-drood-priest-pally mana drain for the first time today

after getting farmed by a triple healer-double warrior team to 2050, we finally managed to get the team working and raised it back up 40 points above our previous (now 2190) without a loss, :)

Anyways, about the spec, it made a WORLD of difference, my pet was hitting alot harder, it didnt give bridge jumpers on BEM a long drink (1 tick max), and my pet didnt die once, despite having 3-4 dps trying to zerg him, just pulled him back and chucked hots, sent him back in g2g

Only thing i didnt lik was giving up silence shot, it really hurt while trying to stop a priest mana burning and not being able to silence him, given that my scatters are used almost solely on the warriors, so i only have intimidation on a 1 min cooldown, and feign death if the priets happens to be mana burning me.

anyways, fun spec, and im about to try it in 2's and see how it goes, gl :)

[Sciurus]

Alright after playing with it in 5s, I think I still like 0/42/19 better for the lineup we play with.

We run 2345 with a hunter over an elemental shaman when they play with me, and I find my pet is rarely focused down in 5v5 as long as I'm not retarded as to when I send him in.

Here's what I think of the spec in 5s.

First off, the lack of clever traps sucks. Wtb 39 second frost trap. Also, no silence hurts for when you need to stop a mana burn or lightning bolt or sheep or something on demand. My pet has a lot more survivability but the 40 second cooldown difference between silence and intimidation is extremely noticeable, not to mention my pet is AoE feared half of the time. I'm also missing my 200 ap and 12% crit on multishot, but that isn't as noticeable as the other stuff. Oh and the 2% hit from surefooted I lost sucks, because I had to switch in my violet eye ring over my veteran's ring and lost the crit + resil.

I dunno, we hit 2366 (lost a 21 point game due to a dc gg) and we're pretty much done for the season assuming a bunch of teams don't try to win-trade past us tomorrow, so I won't be able to play with it at a high rating for a week or so again. Our battleground has so many win-traders right now it's retarded -.-

[juventino_hero]

i dont think this spec would work well if you only have 2 healers and have warrior in team, as yeh, silence shot + all the extra solo dmg and utility in traps/hit etc seems to outweght pet survivability

But in Team Asia's make-up 22-31-8, were you only have 2 dps, for obvious reasons pet survivability is alot more important, hence why i thikn its better :P