I know, and I agree. That is why our melee DPS group has that kind of arrangement, as well.

However, just to compare:

Noctral (Rogue), the #1 DPS on their first Vashj kill, did 637,219 total damage.
Varnic (me), the #1 DPS on my guilds Vashj kill this week, did 596,720 total damage.

I'm going to assume his gear is pretty good, because Armory is currently showing me his PvP gear. While he is lacking Windfury, I am lacking everything except Battle Shout. Going on the idea that my gear is still relatively poor, I would say that if we could both gain every buff our class can utilize for personal DPS, I could, at the very least, match his DPS.

A lot also depends on how exactly your guild does Vashj. In my guild, for example, I'm on Elemental duty for phase 2. The damage I produce is still nice, but not the maximum I could be doing. Some of the Rogues, for example, can be attacking the Nagas that spawn. They are able to utilize such debuffs as Sunder Armor to increase their damage. Also, in Phase 2, I lose the Battle Shout buff because my groups Warrior is not killing elements with me. So, in Phase 2, I essentially have no other synergies except the occasional FI from the second hunter.

Lastly, I recall seeing a BM hunter churn out about 1.3k sustained DPS on Vashj. A Hunter had it in his Signature on the Blizzard forums. I believe it was Djinn from Deus Vox on Laughing Skull. A perfect example of a well geared hunter with great skill.

There's been SSs of hunters matching and beating that DPS on the same boss... and hunters dont lose buffs by being stacked up together, Ferocious Inspiration stacks w/ itself.

Doing this is one of the reasons that DPS thread closed and made way for the WWS thread. Comparing total damage is completely meaningless, as it doesn't tell you how long a fight lasted.

My alliance's DPS is very top heavy, so all the "total damage" comparisons to a better balanced group would be out of whack.

Erhem...

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...&s=12090-12716
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...s1&s=6793-7140

Hunters can easily hit 1k DPS when we aren't having to worry about adding something to the raid like MDs, kiting, or trapping.

Well since I don't have any recording of my DPS, I'll still be going along with this. Despite how long the fight lasted for both guilds, from pull to death, that is how much we both did, no matter how inaccurate it may be. I'm trying to compare as best I can with the information I have at hand.

You're comparing Void Reaver to Fathom Lord here. There's a marked difference between the 2 bosses. On Vashj you are actually doing less DPS than 2 rogues and a mage in your raid. It appears as if you're actually doing DPS 10% more of the time than most of them which would in fact put your damage done higher just like anyone else.

Pound for pound you are only topping DPS on Fathom Lord and for some reason you have increased your sustained DPS by around 300 points. That's a huge discrepancy. How can you explain your lack of DPS on the other fights? That's not just a mob trapping issue.

Rogues generally output the same sustained DPS for every fight. That's what a raid leader really needs. They need to know how much DPS is required to kill a boss before an enrage and they can't assume that you'll "kick it up a notch" just for that fight.

When I check http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=dw4xvs1ijwfs1 it's sure that you are up there and you're not a scrub hunter though. You definately hold heavy dominion over your raid position and your record shows it. But the evidence shows that every second a rogue spends DPSing a target is worth at least 100 more damage than your hunters and that's the idea.

Well the rogues should be doing somewhat more damage than hunters on straight up fights.
But hunter do very good damage as well without the quite the penalty for meleeing that rogues get ( bm hunters pet dying compared to a dead rogue). But for balance reasons a rogue has to out preform a hunter somewhat because of lack of well... pretty much anything other than dps.

Our hunters get imp goa + lotp while melee get an enhance shaman, furry war and 3 rogues in a group. The hunters generally range from -10% of the rogues to better than the lower rogues.


morgrim: http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...vm&s=8099-8504
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...&s=10244-10665

While I don't necessarily take issue with the conclusion, I've always found that argument to be lacking. Other than Misdirection (which is new in TBC) or maybe an occasional Frost Trap, there are next to zero abilities that Hunters bring to raid boss encounters that are anything special. Rogues, on the other hand, are practically essential in many fights simply due to Kick.

3 skilled hunters is usually the way we roll. MD, is a VERY Underated raid skill. We roll with 3 in every raid. One BM, one MM and One survival (trying to get the MM to go BM but hes reluctant). Its funny, our hunters can sometimes beat, and sometimes come damn near close (within 5-10k) to beating rogues and fury warriors. **Note, hunters don't get even get the enhance shammy or SP's. Imagine if they did. =/

On a side note, 3 or 4 hunters on Vashj makes that fight easier, or so Ive heard, guess we will find out tonight >.>

Edit: I can't read. I fail.

Are you having to feign when doing this kind of dps output?

On karathress specifically, not really due to the targets being broken up. But otherwise pretty much like Sapa said. My first feign is usually followed by BW + trinkets since I'll have a nice aggro gap to play with then.

A well-played and geared BM Hunter is easily hitting 1k on most fights.

How Hunter DPS should compare to/beat Rogue DPS isn't really a worthwhile topic, imo. That is a decision the Devs will make and we rarely, if ever, get a glimpse of their reasoning when they do make that decision. Historically, it was clear that pre-TBC the Devs didn't care for Hunter to be topping the meters, so Rogues and Mages far outstripped Hunters in most cases. Now, the tables have turned somewhat and the Devs have allowed Hunters to do extremely competitive DPS.

Are Hunters doing more DPS than Rogues? Yes and no. Depends on the fight, but I've beaten Rogues on a lot more TBC fights (my TBC raid experience is 6/6 SSC and 3/4 TK) than I ever dreamed of back in the Naxx/AQ days.

Saying we are not consistently hitting 1k is wildly inaccurate though. I hope this doesn't come off as too argumentative or e-peenish, but I don't like to see people saying absolutes like the quote above when it's far from accurate. I think it just builds on the "huntard" rep the class has, and it's not fair to those of us that are dedicated to playing the class to its potential. =)

Edit - As for the most recently posed question: yes, a few FDs early in most encounters is required for me, but once I'm about 2 minutes into an encounter and I get a successful FD, I don't need to bother anymore (unless there is an aggro reduction, of course).

Although the other 2 hunters responded well I'm just going to agree with them. With my abysmal gear (armory me, if im wearing stalkers helm im in pve gear) I hit 900 dps on most fights. With this i need to FD 3 times usually, the third is only necessary to stay below the OT that we keep incase the MT dies.

However I can also see how alot of people don't think hunters can do good damage. Primarily Pre-tbc, starting in aq40 hunters damage was very low. BWL had the de-aggros help hunters and MC had the lack of gear that allowed hunters to do well, but in Naxx hunters weren't close to good rogues/fury warriors. The second thing is some hunters just can't seem to dps well. On our last gruul attempt i was #1 with 7% of the raids damage, meanwhile the other hunter (who respecced BM from MM once he saw my placement on the DM's) was 9th on damage with 4% of the raids total.

Easiest to lvl, hardest to master

Take that hunter on 30min dr.boom shootout and watch his rotation. Help him fix it and make him drink those mana pots on raids.

20%+ improvement on the spot. Got few hunters here that were doing 5-600dps when they should do 8-900. Went (ordered them) on Dr.Boom with them... bam solid performance.

Just don't give them macros right away, make them do few runs by hand. Then give them Steady-Auto macro and have them change steady with arcane-multi now and then.
Most pick up the idea rather quick when they see far bigger dps numbers Ofc spec them BM for starters then send them into fray.

I got few saying me that they are bit scared to go allout... give them KTM and have them stick FD under keybind. Make some contest of "who can pull aggro of tank" and you made dps hunter in 1-2 raids (well this is how I do it - worked 4 times now)

I think the bigger picture is where the numbers get lost. I've played my hunter since Nov of 05. I can say with tons of experience that most hunters suck at being hunters. It is a hard class to play well. In leveling and playing my Priest and Tank I'd say 30% of the hunters I run into actually know their class.

As far as "pet friendly" fights. There are only a few that aren't Pet friendly to a hunter who knows how to control their pet. Many hunters don't pay attention to their pet and in the end makes them useless. If you have someone who's BM who's pet dies all the time from Whirlwinds etc.. they should Respec.

So with that said if you have 2-3 GOOD hunters then you should bring them. 3% extra dmg to any type of dmg is a huge plus. IMO BM should be the primary spec of any hunter attempting to output the most dmg atm. Sadly MM needs a buff or rework to compete in a raid situation.

Personally I can be in the top of the dmg meters with Locks/Rogues/Mages on nearly every fight so far. I don't play with poor players either, I have to work for that spot.

Sadly so many hunters give us good hunters a bad rap. Unfortunately I can't argue with ppl who point out that most hunter can't play.

Alas I'm a healing priest now so it doesn't effect me too much. I would advise anybody receiving apps from hunters to at least try them out. You may find yourself with one of the few and far between. A solid Misdirect, clutch traps, Pets to OT (and yes they can OT) loose trash, blinding & sustained dmg, and the 3% dmg buff to all players in the group is a tough thing to pass up if the hunter can do it.

Depending on the fight my guild usually brings 2-3 hunters. Hunters are better than some fights than other melee, such as Gruul, and Al'ar. However, for fights like Lurker for example, a BM hunter will be hurting on the DPS as their pets tend to die to spout unless the hunter uses mend pet very frequently, which drains mana and thus leaves us open for less shots unless we have a shadow priest or a ton of mana pots.

Pretty much, its entirely situational, but on average, I'd recommend 2-3 hunters.