Focus Fire used to be one of the least interesting things going on for Beast Master Hunters. You just sent in your pet, waited until you got five stacks and went about your business. But what about now? The great Vince Lombardi sums up the situation perfectly.
Focus Fire now represents some of the most complex decision making that Beast Mastery Hunters have had to face since the game had four Spirit Beasts and only five stable slots. Actually that was pretty easy too. You got all four and then a wolf. There. Done. So yeah, this is as hard as it gets, and you have to handle this all while dodging flames, prioritizing adds, and jumping onto a boat from a swinging hook.
Because it’s been buffed so significantly there will be many times where you end up using Focus Fire before Frenzy reaches five stacks. Here are some basic guidelines of when to pop Focus Fire. Bendak wrote a nice summary in his Beast Mastery post, and I felt that it was important enough to echo here.
- Have five stacks of Frenzy? Pretty straight forward. Just pop and go, unless Bestial Wrath has anywhere from 10 to 19 seconds remaining on it’s cooldown. Then you want to wait until there are ten seconds left on the cooldown so that Focus Fire will overlap Bestial Wrath’s duration.
- You have at least one Frenzy stack and more than three seconds remaining on Bestial Wrath.
- If your Frenzy stacks are about to drop, then pop Focus Fire. Do not let them go to waste.
- Ready to pop Stampede? Then get ready to pop Focus Fire.
- Ready to pop Bestial Wrath? Then get ready to pop Focus Fire.
Thankfully, we have WeakAuras to make this decision making all too easy. Hunter Azortharion has created this awesome weak aura string that tracks each of these scenarios and let’s you know when you should hit the Focus Fire button. I can’t recommend this enough.
I’ve been using this a short while and it’s really made a difference. Focus Fire was always somewhat of a boring and lackluster ability, but now I think it makes Beast Mastery fun and complex. It’s no longer go grab a coffee while the pet does all the work. It’s a heck of a lot of fun right now.
Stay Focused!
