As a BM Hunter get a scorpid from shadowmoon, have him learn poison rank 4.
For bosses manually activate poison _after_ you got the beast with + trinket buffs. You will get a big poison stack that refreshes himself everytime.
If you are lazy, just get a ravager, its awesome too and you don't need to handle the poison stacks. Plus the ravager does more dps on trash.
As I mentioned above, all macro's like this have a few problems. a) High ping will severely impact your dps when using this macro. b) Haste effects will invoke your GCD, and combined with latency, can have some pretty bad effects on your damage output c) It kills a lot of your flexibility in choosing exactly which shot you want to use and when. For example if your running oom, you'll want to start using exclusive steady shot, and skipping Arcane shot.
As I mentioned above, all macro's like this have a few problems. a) High ping will severely impact your dps when using this macro. b) Haste effects will invoke your GCD, and combined with latency, can have some pretty bad effects on your damage output c) It kills a lot of your flexibility in choosing exactly which shot you want to use and when. For example if your running oom, you'll want to start using exclusive steady shot, and skipping Arcane shot.
Yeah I was about to go there, but you beat me to it. I love macros, and I use a Steady macro on my Hunter, but there are a million things that happen in a raid setting that will ruin your macro-spam and hurt your DPS. The macro is a good way to take a terrible Hunter and make them a good Hunter, but it's not going to make anyone a GREAT Hunter.
I have the same problem as others here when it comes to recruiting. I used to raid as a Hunter and I want the other Hunters in my raid to live up to the standards that I set for myself (minimum 1k DPS on most fights, etc.). But finding Hunters who can do this is extremely difficult. Most Hunter applicants don't even get past the first check, which is a proper spec and gear. If by some miracle an app passes that test, bringing them to a raid and seeing 600 or less DPS (combined with pet) just makes me /facepalm.
Others have said it in this thread and I've been saying it for well over a year: the Hunter class is that *hardest* DPS class to master (not to play, but to play WELL) in the game. The timing requirments are inhuman, and the system of "do this so you don't hurt your DPS" as opposed to "do this to help your DPS" makes for a class that will always carry a stigma among the vast majority of WoW players.
I think hunters also have the nastiest learning cliff at 70.
Not taking away anything from being a difficult class to play well, but I think they are, by far, the easiest class to get from 1-70 without ever doing anything even reasonably right. Even if it is sometimes only for levelling specs, every other class in the game has training wheels... compare the success of a hunter who sics his pet on something, turns on autoshot, and watches TV to any other class that just turns on autoattack or wand and hopes for the best. Granted it isnt exactly powerlevelling... but it'll get you there. I think all other classes have at least some bare minimum training wheels that force at least some minimal learning.
Again, not taking away from the difficulty of the class... obviously there is a huge middle ground between good hunter and lolautoshot. I just think another contributing factor to the vast pull of retard hunters is that, when you are supposing to be learning at least the basics of the class, the penalty for absolutely sucking just isn't there.
"Mentorship - your pet looses 200 happiness if you can not sustain more than 500 dps"
Jokes aside, I've seen terrible hunters, I've seen decent hunters and I've seen awesome hunters. I'd estimate it to be 90% terrible hunters, 9.5% decent hunters and 0.5% awesome hunters.
[04:04:29] <Malan> Kaubel just laid the smack down in the the blizzcon thread
[04:05:07] <Kaubel> fucking idiots. i need to go on a banning rampage and put things right once and for all.
[04:05:20] <Kaubel> our forums are infested with pussy.
I think hunters also have the nastiest learning cliff at 70.
Not taking away anything from being a difficult class to play well, but I think they are, by far, the easiest class to get from 1-70 without ever doing anything even reasonably right. Even if it is sometimes only for levelling specs, every other class in the game has training wheels... compare the success of a hunter who sics his pet on something, turns on autoshot, and watches TV to any other class that just turns on autoattack or wand and hopes for the best. Granted it isnt exactly powerlevelling... but it'll get you there. I think all other classes have at least some bare minimum training wheels that force at least some minimal learning.
Again, not taking away from the difficulty of the class... obviously there is a huge middle ground between good hunter and lolautoshot. I just think another contributing factor to the vast pull of retard hunters is that, when you are supposing to be learning at least the basics of the class, the penalty for absolutely sucking just isn't there.
The big issue with levelling isn't so much that Hunter is "easier" to play from 1-70 but that it is the most forgiving of mistakes. A Hunter is *rarely* in danger of dying when levelling. In fact, from 60-70 my only deaths on my Hunter were from PvP. The Hunter's pet takes all the damage, and if things get out of control, FD is there to save you (you get this pretty early on, though I don't remember exactly what level). I think this is an important point, because there is no worry about DPS when levelling. On my Druid, I had to make damn sure I was doing decent enough DPS to kill this mob before he kills me...if I was just sitting there auto-attacking, I would be killed over and over.
In our guild, we found that our hunters had the toughest adjust post-TBC. Pre-TBC they were always very good DPS, but many of them were also very lazy. Their shot rotation was pretty much aimed shot, autshot and spam other buttons between watching TV. Because they were the best geared class in the guild, they could get away with this.
Post-TBC there was greater gear parity. And they did not appreciate how shot rotations worked now. So they would still use Aimed Shot and spam multishot non-stop. They also did not embrace new shots. For example, one hunter refused to use steady shot because he said bosses never got dazed.
It took a recruit hunter to show them that their shot rotations were terrible, but also that there were other viable specs aside from MM. When this guy did almost twice their DPS with shit gear, they could no longer deny that they were sucking.
All except our former hunter CL. :-( He defended his aimed shot/arcane/mult-shot rotation until he finally ended up quitting the game. Basically blamed us for him being outdpsed by our main tank.
Now most of our hunters do phenomenal DPS, but it took a lot of work and drama to get them there. A few of them change specs once in a while, and there's always a drop in DPS when that happens, until they learn the new build. One of our hunters just went BM from MM, and his DPS was pretty bad until he stopped spamming multishot/arcane shot. And he still does it time to time, despite his best intentions.
Thats definitely something that I would like to do. The main obstacle with doing that for a hunter is that words can't really describe/teach someone how to time shot rotations. Its something that every hunter needs to do for themselves, and it surprisingly takes a very large amount of practice to get it right.
Perhaps words can't describe it, but maybe pictures can?
In patch 2.2, Macintosh users are getting bulit-in video recording. I know PC users are already making video recordings.
My suggestion would be, install a damage meter and do video recordings of some Doctor Boom tests. Start with just an autoshot, and start with no mods other than the damage meter. Play with different shot rotations. Then install the most important mods for getting the timing right, and do it again. String it together with some video editing software, record a voiceover that explains what's going on, and post it to YouTube.
Sure, Doctor Boom tests won't let you teach everything, but IMO they're enough to get the idea across that DPS is something that doesn't come for free and that you should work on. I recently suggested to a hunter in our guild that he optimize by installing a damage meter and running tests against Doctor Boom, and his raid DPS has skyrocketed. It's a blunt and imprecise tool (since he's so different from most raid encounters), but it is a tool. Once someone knows how to optimize their DPS for Doctor Boom, they're in a much better position to understand when you start explaining how raids differ.
I am not qualified to do this, for hunters. Yes, I've been playing a hunter since November of 2004, but mine is basically a farming alt -- I raid on my shrubbery-spec druid, tank-spec paladin, or DOT-spec warlock, not on my hunter or rouge. On hunters I am a relative noob, and my brain is too full of druid/paladin/warlock to really pump the time into it that it would require.
Tons of hunters don't get it because, like enhancement, the mechanics behind it are flawed and the game doesn't accurately portray the actual happenings underneath it. Hence the need for autoshot timers, WF cooldown monitors, and understanding that things like the autoshot cooldown exist. People are bad because they don't have information due to the game not providing it.
I suppose Blizzard is in a sticky spot, in terms of wanting to make hunters substantially different to play than other casters, but it's pretty clear that they've dropped the ball with the auto-shot mechanic. They really need to just make it completely independent of whatever other casts are going off (while retaining the characteristic that you need to be standing still to get it). It would trivialize shot rotations to an extent, but that's a good thing; they'd still be more complicated than mage rotations.
As someone who just started playing with a hunter a couple of weekends ago, this is a great and valuable thread. I'm only 33 but I agree with the observations that Hunter seems to provide a lot of latitude for sloppy play, and the pet allows you to get away with being on the edge of incompetence all the way to 70.
Having the Quartz castingbar installed already gave me a lot of insight into the autoshot/specials issue with regard to clipping, so I'd like to think I'm an educated Hunter, if not a great one. And isn't that a lot of the issue here? Lack of information/knowledge? I agree that the Hunter class mechanics and lack of UI feedback on your autoshot clipping lead to a lot of Hunters not really knowing what's going on. Seeing as how that's a concept at the heart of the class, it's surprising there isn't any UI element addressing the issue.
I'm leveling an alt hunter right now and just did Ring of Blood in Nagrand over the weekend. I did it with a few hunters who I assume are mostly BM spec because their pets have spirit bond. I was level 67 with almost everything green and was outdpsing the level 70 hunter. They were using some shots that are clearly not steady shots. I was just casting steady shot, waiting for autoshot to fire, then casting steady shot again, etc. It is a pretty complicated class to play and you don't really know you're underperforming unless you see another hunter put up a lot more dps than you do.
I replaced my 2.9 speed crossbow with an around 8+ dps higher gun with 2.5 speed (1.84 after talents/quiver). I didn't know about the 0.5 autoshot cast time before reading this thread and I'm pretty anal on learning basic mechanics of my alt classes. /facepalm
Why so many "Just don't get it" ?
Maybe because those who got it were not supposed to.
Seeing how "technical" it is to play a hunter, I am not certain this is what Blizzard intended to make of the class.
The reason for this might be that hunters just don't want to be middle-of-the-damage-meters, how Blizz said they should be.
This always comes down to the same gimmick : if you don't have a good, sustained DPS, you need to bring something else to the raid, or other classes are just better than you for that raid spot. Lactose and others pretty much listed what was not working in the hunter class, as well as what hunters were bringing to the raid.
Imaginative and DPS-hungry hunters found a way to thread shots, to optimize their spec, etc.
Great. But was this ever intended by Blizzard ?
And, if suggestions are accepted, I think boosting hunter's specials damage, but making them "on next attack" abilities (i.e. "replace next autoshot") would improve the general skill of the hunter population.
The big issue with levelling isn't so much that Hunter is "easier" to play from 1-70 but that it is the most forgiving of mistakes. A Hunter is *rarely* in danger of dying when levelling. In fact, from 60-70 my only deaths on my Hunter were from PvP. The Hunter's pet takes all the damage, and if things get out of control, FD is there to save you (you get this pretty early on, though I don't remember exactly what level). I think this is an important point, because there is no worry about DPS when levelling. On my Druid, I had to make damn sure I was doing decent enough DPS to kill this mob before he kills me...if I was just sitting there auto-attacking, I would be killed over and over.
Sorry to see you drop your hunter as your main. I have played a raiding hunter since the MC days, using the 10 sec rotation based on aimshot was so much simplier/easier then the steadyshot rotation we have now as a BM hunter. There is little to no room for error anymore. We are the only class that trying harder will probabley lower your DPS. Just think if rogues sinsterstrike would delay the next autoswing for melee because that is what happens as a hunter. I'm not sure what the solution is but either autoshot has to be totaly indenpdent of special shot or steadyshot needs to be an instant shot so it doesnt affect autoshot. Between 1.5 sec GCD/.5 sec autoshot cast and the other mechanics with fights right now it is very frustrating to play a hunter well. On top of all that my latency has jumped from 60-80 in raids to 200-220 the last 2 months which has really hurt my overall DPS because of the small room for error in a BM shot rotation.
To be a good hunter you have to understand how shot rotation works with haste effects/latency/GCD/.5 sec autoshot cast. most hunter who dont read forums and do the theorycrafting that is needed to learn to play a hunter well will not fair well in DPS at all. WE have really good hunter in our guild that all rank real well on the DPS charts but i struggled alot in the beginning until i studied up on the new rotation vs old one.
The data presented in the Daedalus class study may offer some insight as to why there are few hunters that "get it". While the study is certainly old, it probably still holds some relevance.
You can see summarized quite nicely that the average hunter has a low motivation for "Advancement" and "Competition". Hunters also score 3rd-lowest out of all classes for "Mechanics" in a class that, as noted above, has the most unforgiving DPS mechanics of all. With low scores in all of these categories, I would expect the majority of hunters not to do the research necessary to play the class to the exacting PvE criteria of these forums.
That it requires substantial research outside of the game to play the class effectively in PvE is frequently criticized.
I couldn't agree more, lazy hunters are making it incredibly hard for those of us that work hard/read lots regarding class mechanics. It is challenging though to actually maintain 1400-1600 dps by using correct shot rotations, understanding and utilizing haste as well as using a scorpid with cd'ed stacks instead of being lazy and letting them build with no cd's! I expect to see myself at the very top of the meters or atleast being very competative if not why bring me? Hunters don't bring much other utility to the raid. Its just frustrating the majority of huntards are wrecking the image of the class for the handful of exceptional.
Good post on hunters. Honestly, the common Hunter would likely perform better with an autoshot timer mod and some information on clipping autoshots, but this game is supposed to be causal friendly.
If there isn't, there should be a sticky post on the official hunter forums on how to "get" hunters, so at least if the hunter wants to perform better he can go there to look for assistance. That sticky will not help everyone, but it will help someone. There isn't much you else that can be done.
Someone once said:
Hunter is easy to play, but hard to master. <c>
Oh but it goes both ways for many classes. The thing with Hunters is that they are several classes mixed into one. Your concerned gear selections are so mixed because of the need for agi, stam, int, mp5, crit, hit, etc. The shot timers, how you should enchant, what spec to use, what pet to use, the specific rotations necessary, and so on... Its just a bible one could write on how to effectively play this class. I see so many posts from people complaining on how horrible we are and I just laugh. The Hunter is a very powerful class in the right hands, but it just takes someone who enjoys Theorycrafting and spending the time to learn in order to master it. Once you do that, you'll have a world of appreciation from your guild that you're part of the small percentage that "gets it".
But anyways, @ the OP of thiis post: Xaviar. You speak about spec, bad choices in itemization, bad talent selections. So I figure, (what the hell), I'll take a look at his armory. What I found was slightly disheartening. You are BM yet not taking advantage of the huge DPS boost for yourself and the raid from 5/5 Improved Mark, you raid yet you only have 1 point in animal handler, your gem selections are completely focused around AP-stacking when you'd get a lot more balance out of yourself if you focused on agility gems. (Your pet is not your primary dps as BM spec, you are). Basically, I found it quite ironic that the OP made a post about "why so many just don't get it." He somewhat fell into his own trap here. hehe. (p.s. - constructive criticism, please do not get emo.)
I have Arcane and Kill Command macro-ed together because this was happening constantly with a Steady/KC macro, thus preventing Steady from going off until my pet did a KC.
Does /stopcasting need to be added after Arcane and before the KC or will a simple
/Cast Arcane Shot
/Cast Kill Command
macro work properly, meaning only having to press the button once to activate both?
Hunter is hands down the most newb friendly class in the game. Their mechanics allow them to underperform and still effortlessly solo to 70.
For many classes the difference between a bad and a good player is 10-15%. For hunters the difference between a total newb and someone with efficient cycles can easily be 100%. This variance allows bad hunters to truly stick out compared to a rogue that is using a bad cycle and performing 5-10% below his optimized counterpart.
Also Blizz has been cycling the best pet every couple patches for 3 years. Right now the scorpid pet is clearly broken, every hunter should be using one in pve. A year ago having a scorpid pet was like a giant sign that screamed 'I am a newb.' In another couple patches scorpid will be nerfed and there will be a new #1 pet. Having to tame and level the new flavor of the month pet is not a very fun prospect. So players that can get by on whatever crappy pet they are using (and they easily can) will do so.
But anyways, @ the OP of thiis post: Xaviar. You are BM yet not taking advantage of the huge DPS boost for yourself and the raid from 5/5 Improved Mark, you raid yet you only have 1 point in animal handler, your gem selections are completely focused around AP-stacking when you'd get a lot more balance out of yourself if you focused on agility gems. (Your pet is not your primary dps as BM spec, you are).
In defense of the OP:
- Imp Mark could be coming from elsewhere in the raid.
- AP-stacking helps Scorpids much more. Arguably higher for overall DPS.
In addition to this mechanic being difficult, I've seen a lot of hunters just flat out deny it.
hunter1: you could do much more damage if you...
hunter2: fag!
From the looks of it, since BM has actually become good, more people have started to do better damage, since it's sooo much easier. The only people who don't are those who just refuse to learn how hunters work.
The biggest issue with the hunter class is that even if you DO "get it", you can still drastically underperform. Ability cycling for maximum effectiveness is part of any DPS class, but hunters not only have perhaps the most complicated cycle, but also the cycle most vulnerable to exact timing. Add to that a complete change in fundamental mechanics post-TBC and you end up with even experienced hunters being largely unfamiliar with how to play their class. There's a ton of misinformation out there, and it's hard to sift through the noise to find the signal. If I had a dollar for every hunter I see raiding with Viper on...
You are BM yet not taking advantage of the huge DPS boost for yourself and the raid from 5/5 Improved Mark
Other hunter has it, hence why I don't.
you raid yet you only have 1 point in animal handler,
Are you new to BM spec?
your gem selections are completely focused around AP-stacking when you'd get a lot more balance out of yourself if you focused on agility gems. (Your pet is not your primary dps as BM spec, you are).
AP gems are the highest source of raid damage until you have ~2200 (BM SPEC)
Heres a quick run-down of crit vs RAP:
Crit is budgeted as follows: 2ap = 1 crit rating. 8 Agi = 8 RAP + 4 crit rating. So basically, an AGI gem is an equal balance of both crit and AP (budget-wise)
Budget-wise, 1% crit is the equivalent of 44 AP.
10 AP = ~1.28 DPS for hunters with ~25% crit
Hence, 44 AP = 5.63 DPS.
1% crit = 1.15% of white DPS (being 420) = 4.83 DPS.
Ability DPS scales higher with AP than crit does. But heres a quick calculation for steady shot.
20% of 44 AP = 13.2 x crit rate (say 22%) = ~10.3 per Steady shot
1% crit = 1.15% of 800 (Steady shot damage) = ~8.1 DPS
Not to mention that RAP scales your pet AP/spelldmg, which in turn, increases scorpid poison DPS.
I definetly found this to be true. I only started playing my hunter about a year and a half ago but was fortunate to land myself in one of the best guilds on our server and learn from some exceptional hunters who showed me the wisdom of shot rotations over button mashing. TBC threw me into an unknown world where my shot rotations would never be the same. Even now i have difficulty deciding if i should use the steady shot kill command macro or try to do my rotations manually. In many cases i find the macro to be more useful because im unable to just stand there and concentrate on perfect timing. A fight like Sunstrider involves a lot of awareness of whats going on around you and shot rotations are constantly being interrupted.
There are definetly fights where i feel like i "do get it" but dont perform as well as i could.
08/13/07, 9:07 AM
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