What Treachery is This?!

No, your eyes don't deceive you, that's a Beast Mastery at the bottom of that there tree!

I've decided it's high time I experience the one Hunter spec I've never tried. I leveled as Marksmanship back in vanilla WoW, and have been Survival ever since I returned during the latter part of Burning Crusade. Yes, even during its heyday, I just wasn't interested in trying Beast Mastery.

But now I feel the need for a change. I want to see just how different the BM playstyle is from that of SV. As a Survivalist, I treat my pet like a weapon: I basically fire him at the boss and let him do his thing while I focus on my shot rotation and maintaining my DoTs. Beast Masters, on the other hand (at least as my uneducated mind imagines them), treat their pets as extensions of themselves: the pet is responsible for a greater proportion of overall DPS, so keeping it alive is of much greater importance.

I purchased dual talent specialization, so my SV spec is still ready at hand for raiding (at least until I feel supremely confident with BM), but I'm excited to try my hand at some Big Red Pet wranglin'.

And seriously - Spirit Beast!