BM Dark Ranger update?

Ask Mr. Robot
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1

Since the update to 11.2.0 BM hunters are finding better use switching to Dark Ranger build. Will there be a stat update to AMR to consider the changes?

Per the new write up on IV for BM hunters the new stat priority for the BM DR is

Beast Mastery Hunter Dark Ranger Single-Target and (AOE) Stat Priority

  1. Haste to 30%;

  2. Critical Strike;

  3. Versatility;

  4. More Haste;

  5. Mastery;

The sims at the moment still seem to be pushing towards mastery and vers over haste and crit, unless I am reading things wrong.

Thanks for any update.

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I would also like to hear a response from the developers. This seems very strange to me, and I don’t understand why you need to take so much mastery.

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I’ve been looking into this. So far, it is not obvious to me why haste should be so valuable compared to other stats. The spell breakdown I’m calculating matches logs that I see. If anything, I’m over-estimating how much damage comes from black arrow compared to other abilities a little bit. Black Arrow is buffed by mastery, just not at the same rate as pet damage.

The way black arrow damage scales with haste is complex and not obvious. The cooldown of black arrow is not affected by haste. The DoT damage of black arrow is not affected by haste. The amount of withering fire you get during call of the wild is not affected by haste.The cooldown of call of the wild is not affected by haste.

You get more black arrow by getting more deathblow, which is a proc off of kill command. More haste = more kill command = more black arrow. But, that scaling is also not obvious. There are many effects that can cool down kill command (cobra shots, master handler, etc). Some scale with haste, some do not.

The idea that there is some unique benefit of haste up to 30% is, for me, a red flag. That sounds like some sort of weird artifact of simulation. Over the years, I have consistently shown that haste breakpoints are rarely “a thing” if you adjust for the limitations of simulation techniques.

I see top players using a lot of haste and low mastery, so of course that gearing strategy “works”. I wonder what would happen if those same players use the stats I am recommending. To me, it doesn’t make very much sense that mastery would be weighted so low. The coefficient on mastery is 1.9 for pets and 1.0 for shots. Right there, you can see that it does not make sense to weight versatility over mastery. (getting some versatility is usually good, but it works as a multiplier on other stats, so you want some of everything else first) This should be an immediate indicator that the stats people are using might actually be sub-optimal.

We are deep into our between expansion upgrades to the website. As part of that, we are experimenting with even better calculation techniques. I am going to use beast mastery as a test case in the near future. I’ll keep you all posted if I find anything different.