Nightshroud

The idea of a single 'AP better' -> 'crit better' threshold for a certain ratio of AP vs Crit is a common misconception. It can happen any number of times (then reversing) and the first crossover for the gem ratio is likely to occur much earlier than you're citing.

The best advice is for everyone to use a spreadsheet with their current gear, which in turn provides both current value of AP and Crit along with the synergy that happens when you add both stats with the same gear selection.

This 'threshold' style thinking is rough to the point it is a disservice. New Hunters are too often led astray.

Priest Guide
Hunter Guide

 

svengarlic

That doesn't really answer my question. For example if I go from 22% to 23% crit, I am going from 78 shots out of a hundred doing normal damage + 22 doing 2.3 times normal damage = 128.6 x normal shot damage to 77 doing normal damage + 23 doing 2.3 times normal damage = 129.9 x normal shot damage. That is only a 1% increase in damage, not 1.15%.

 

Tmesis

That's because the ratio of CritvsRAP (gear levels) at which some amount of RAP and some amount of Crit Rating are equal trade-offs only hold true above a certain amount RAP. Before that point, RAP is always better no matter how high your crit is. The RAP intercept with 0 crit rating does weird things with the ratio.

This is in no way a misconception. You can verify that the ratio exists both with calculus or via the method I posted earlier in the thread.

[Edit] In fact, the very reason the choices can flip-flop is because the ratio exists.

 

Xavias

Right, so if we were to illistrate this into a graph, there would be an intersection at the point of which adding more of one of them would be superior to adding the other one. That is what I mean by "threshold".

 

Howitzer

Xavias, I'm sorry this turned into a "lets flame Xavias" in his own post. I never intended that. =(

Lets get back on topic here.

 

Groggan

Good early discussion, I agree with the ideas that the non-obvious mechanics are the root of all hunter evils.

Oh, and as for this silly debate of AGI gems vs. AP gems, the single ruling factor is that AGI gems are effected by Blessing Of Kings, which you should always have in a raid environment. The 8 AGI gem actually becomes 8.8AGI, and since 8AGI is about = to 16 AP for almost any range of in-game hunter itemization the 8.8AGI is almost 100% of the time better. (For SV hunters that 8AGI becomes 10.12AGI btw).

And, as for the AP:Crit valuation thresholds, both of their valuations are based on DPS, not on AP or Crit alone. You can't say at XAP crit is better, you can say at XDPS 1 crit rating is better than 1AP. And from an itemization stand-point however the AGI gems will always outperform equal itemization-level ap and crit gems because of BoK.

 

Ruggedjeez

You do NOT gain more from ap than you do from crit. Your math is obviously incorrect. When i was bm i gained more from crit than i did ap at even a lowly 1800 ap. Factor in raid buffs, because you're always going to have some buffs.

I've lost scorpid poison stacks even with 2 points in animal handler.

 

Cloak-SH

Not that I have any real experience or expertise with the hunter class but a couple things I'd like to add ;p

I dont know how it is with other guilds as when i do look at other wws reports its to peek at the other rogues. In our guild we have the one hunter who competes very well in straight up dps fights - always beats me on FLK even if he's still within 5k dmg :] - and from there we have the other raiding hunters just a little further down the meter. Anecdotally lets say position 4 or 5 and positions 7/8 ish depending on the fight.

Anyways our top hunter says he relies almost exclusively on sound to time his shots. Its something that I hadnt heard in this thread yet so I figured I'd throw that out there as well. He recently switched mains to resto sham for the guild, Eversio - Shattered Hand US is the hunter.

Edit - Yes recruiting a hunter is a serious trial. anyone want to transfer? We've adopted the policy of recruiting someone who has a high activity level and training them, searching for good hunter dps applicants is enough to give me gray hair.

 

Kaber

I dont think I see mortal shots being accounted for in there. That causes 1% crit to boost damage by 1.3%. Lets go the easy way and take 40 agility vs 80 AP. That's 1% crit, and 40 AP. Most AP conversions into DPS consider 1 AP to boost DPS by .3, which makes 40 Agility a flat 1.3% total damage boost plus 12 DPS, and 80 AP a flat 24 DPS. Once you reach the DPS mark of 922, you get an equivalent exchange if you take nothing else into account. However, that 1.3% crot also sets off Kill command and Go for the Throat, both of which cause an immediate ~150-200 damage. Every time you crit your basically get 400 damage free. Does the extra 40 AP on your pet make up for that? No, especially since your pet only sees something along the lines of 15 pts of that AP.

Your calculations are leaving out a lot of factors (and admittedly so are mine), which is why I recommend using the AEP calculations or a spread sheet.

edit: I see you are accounting for 15% on mortal shots. Since crits boost damage by double, mortal shots improving that by 30% is actually a flat 30% damage boost on crits, so you would see 1.3% rather than 1.15%, right? Maybe I missed something, but that's how I always found it to work.

 

ugla

As someone with an only somewhat-serviceable connection and my main a raiding hunter, I can wholeheartedly say I really wish Blizzard would stop with the timing class business. I love the hunter class for a lot of reasons which I won't go into, but in raids I am constantly hobbled by simply having a 250ms ping. Any other class I play has no such limitations, at least not with the drawbacks hunters do--clipping autoshots, missed specials, and greatly reduced DPS.

How did this turn into AP vs agi vs crit?

 

Butchman

Ummm i have one question. How is the SMV quest helm better than maulgar helm? I gain 400 mana, .5% crit a whole ton of HP, but lose 29AP. Unless you were talking about a survival hunter, .5% crit outweighs 29AP by a large margin.

Response?

 

Kaber

You see, that's precisely the problem here. Casual players are just that: casual. They don't theory craft, they dont mini-max, they don't try to wave their epeens in everyone's faces. They go in, have some fun, listen to the theory crafters on what they can do better and might try to apply it, but they are playing to enjoy themselves. Different people have different ways of enjoying themselves, and to say "hey, take this class you enjoy playing and scrap it because blizzard decided to make it ridiculously hard to even play at an average level" is really not helping the situation. Its actually really very elitist, and yes I'm aware of where I'm posting, but you need to understand that the majority of people play this game to have fun, not turn it into a job. I enjoy theorycrafting, even though I also tend to play lazy (its my $15 bucks, after all), but for a lot of casual people the second they start to see WoW as a job they lose interest. And having to theory craft the hell out of your character, analyze every drop and every talent, moves into the no-fun zone for a lot of players. And before you jump down my throat telling me yet again I should quit, listen to what I'm saying: it is not me we are discussing here, it is the Hunter class and how it interacts with the general population.

All I'm saying is that where Hunters currently are is not a great place for us to be. Even before the gap between an unskilled hunter and a skilled one was very large. Equally large was the gap between raiders who theory crafted and those who did not. I would argue Hunters have always been in this place where it took at lot more to get everything out of the class, and average players were behind the curve of most other classes. But Blizzard widened the gap to a huge degree with 2.0. Some of us might like it that way, but it is not good for the class.

 

◊ Lactose

No offense*, but please take gear comparison stuff, etc, to a different thread - e.g. the one about spreadsheets.

I for one don't want this thread to derail more than it already has.

*Well, some.

Look, Lactose, we'd rather you didn't eradicate the whole human race.
- Sam & Max

 

Butchman

Discussion boards tend to lead to discussions. Usually, forums dont tend to go into one direction so...

 

lilwolfe

I time my shots by the sound of my gun primarily. It's a hard thing to explain, but even after downloading quartz and using that to visualize the timing, the sound is the same and the 'feel' of it is the same. I am pressing my shots at the same point as I was before, when using only the sound of the shots going off to time it.

Of course, sound glitches! And on those times I feel like I am completely naked. And if one of the sounds doesnt go off it can leave me momentarily fumbling, but... it's not unheard of.

 

Ailee

One thing not touched is trying to monitor a raid as a hunter. With needing to time your shots, monitor threat, monitor pet, AND attempt to monitor 24 other people... It's enough to drive you crazy. I've been riding my guild hard because we've had an extreme lack of progression recently, including to wiping to Void Reaver for two hours and not killing it that night. We've wiped for four weeks to Magtheridon only to finally kill it last night. So I've taken a lot on my shoulders and I continuously snip at people. A mage can spam scorch, warlocks some dots, rogue some BS/SS, etc... At first it was really difficult and eventually you just give up on your DPS because I know when push comes to shove, I can perform. Mind you this is mostly on learning stuff so make sure people are doing what they need to do. All the same, to be at max performance and monitor a raid is much more difficult than most other classes. (No, I'm not saying it's impossible either).

 

TheBo

The little interest in theorycrafting of most ppl isn't a problem at all, as far as you got one of each class who take an interest in it an teachs his classmates. For me as an raidleader i try to know much about every class, but mostly can't surpass someone of the class who do theorycrafting. So you must choose your classleaders thoughtful.

And if the only lack of a players is his knowlege about theorycrafting, you can teach him to make a good figure at all

 

lilwolfe

The major hurdle of one theorycrafter trying to teach other hunters how to handle a shot rotation is the extreme difficulty of wording the process in text, or verbally over a voice client. How do you explain the idea of clipping to someone? Don't press too soon! = How soon is too soon? Don't press too late! = When is too late? It's not something that can be truly shown hands on over this medium. At all. The best you can do is try to explain it and hope they take the time to experiment on their own.

 

Trifle

Playing on a busy server from NZ, during raid times I typically get a 500 ping. This makes me cry playing the 'new and improved' 2.0 hunter. Whats even worse than a 500 ping tho, is when I have a 500 ping with random latency spikes. This makes me cry even more.

250 ping is something I can get at 5am in the morning, if I'm lucky. Damn you, damn you all.

 

Vwtifuljoe

all too well do i understand the headache that new hunters bring. over the years, i have seen many hunters brought into my guild, only to have them leave after a short time. mostly this was due to various reasons such as they could never get into raids (from MC to the end of Naxx, it was largely the same 7 hunters. in BC, 4 of us remain), or that they thought the grass was greener on the other side.

as for trying to help others "get it", i keep posting theorycrafting threads on my guilds forums. they range from what gear should you get, breakdowns of which sets/items are better, to talk of haste rating. i even did a "what if" thread that was solely for the purpose of seeing how low you could get your haste rating. i also push the other hunters to preform like i know we can without being negative.

one of our rogues also tried to make it seem like constructing rogue cycles was difficult, till i told him about trying to construct a shot cycle down to the tenth of a second, while factoring in mana consumption, regeneration, and varying haste affects. he stopped talking after that.

i think alot of people are just caught up with the old pre-2.0 10 second cycles and/or macro'ing in KC.

http://ctprofiles.net/36830

 

Chulainn of Dalaran

Just so people have a summary of the Theories involved:

The working theories are:

A Special attack (Multi-Shot (MS), Arcane Shot (AS), Steady Shot (SS)) - regardless of its cast time (or lack thereof) will start the Global Cooldown (GCD) when it is started.

A Steady Shot (SS) cast time is affected by haste modifiers in the same form as weapon speed.

An Auto Shot (Auto) and MS will only fire 0.5s after another action is completed.

A Kill Command (KC) does not initiate the GCD but counts as an Auto delaying action.

Global Cooldown is 1.5s and is ONLY affected by Bloodlust and Heroism.

The cooldown period for Arcane Shot is 6s (can be reduced to 5s with talent points).

The cooldown period for Multi-shot is 10s.

The rest is using these rules and building something amazing from them... like my kids with a new Lego set.

 

Jinsu

It wasn't my intention to jump down your throat and I apologize if it seemed that way. I am just saying by being a hunter and always being the "underdog" so to speak it makes me want to prove myself to everyone else with my skill as a hunter. I understand the difference between us and the average joe hunter. Yes there is a LARGE gap because of the dynamics of our class. It just bothered me when you said its a bother to maximize hunter DPS and you don't do it. I believe hunters specifically should always try to min/max because of the bad rep we get.

I do agree that if Blizzard wants our class to play the way it is, then they need to educate the casual hunter on what to do. There is no information what so ever about weaving shots or anything that is officially by Blizzard. Your right, a large percentage of players do not come to the EJ forums or even read the Blizzard Hunter forums. They are uneducated because the information isn't out in the open.

I just want to say my intention was not to come over as an elitist or anything, I just believe hunters reading this forums especially should set an example for anyone else who might read it to do their best in a raid environment.

 

Zeisha

I can honestly say I've played every class pretty deeply with the exception of warlock... never much liked that class personally. In the years I've been playing this game I've had many people ask me "what should I play" and I try to answer honestly based on what I know about that person and what they are looking for... if they say, "I want to level up easy and then kinda just do stuff at 70" then let's face it, it doesn't matter what class they place as long as they don't go priest, hehe.

But if they say, "I want to raid, but I don't want to stress out about mechanics all the time" choices get a lot more limited. I would never recommend a prot warrior or prot paladin, hunter, warlock, or even raid dps rogue for anyone wanting easy damage output. There's a lot of timing and learning skill rotations and all kinds of stuff that go into playing those classes correctly.

That said though, part of the reason I've always been a hunter is that I enjoy the deep mechanics, learning how to get a little bit better every time something changes, and knowing that I am kind of an underdog to start out. I dunno... I like rooting for the Browns now and then, ya know? :P

 

Trouble

I disagree with people saying that hunters should be changed, that they're too hard or not fun because of timing or it being complicated. There are plenty of classes that require very little theorycrafting or knowledge to max out. Take the shadow priest for example. Gearing is very simple and even if you don't do the absolute maximum theorycrafting you will still be near your maximum power. Doing damage is very simple as well. You have a simple priority list and you just follow it, there's no exceptions really, no special casts, no careful timing. In fact it gets pretty damned boring after a while when you figure out you've probably hit nearly your maximum capability.

For the hunter class there is tons of depth to the classes for maximizing yourself. Sure as a result most people won't achieve their maximum potential, but that's not a horribly bad thing. Depth and challenge are what give a sense of purpose to excelling and increasing your ability. It's the same reason why there's different levels of difficulty for raiding and why Blizzard designs content that only 5% at most of raiders will ever see. If everything was as easy as Molten Core there would be no depth and no sense of purpose, just a mindless sight-seeing tour which would get old real quick.

 

Lumi

There are flaws in the hunter leveling setup that make the mechanics more mysterious than they ought to be. From the start, hunters do not receive steady shot till level 62. This would be like mages not getting fireball or rogues not getting sinister strike till the final stretch of leveling. New hunters never see what a shot rotation is. Old hunters who come back or have not read up will continue to use aimed shot as they have for a long time.

One of the best solutions here would be to introduce steady shot somewhere around level 10. Add a hunter quest that explains how shot rotations work, add in a small challenge with a blue reward. Perhaps add more challenges as you level, small blues here and there. Clarify in tooltips whether a shot resets the swing timer or delays it. Also a default shot timer in the default UI would go miles.

I can understand if I come to these boards to go from 80% to 100% of capabilities. But to go from 50% to 100% is just bad game design.