Zurai

Nope. They're both great trinkets for hunters (though I personally wouldn't use mindtap - I havn't had a mana problem that superior pots and demonic runes didn't fix, especially now that I've started downranking multishot).

 

Nightarcher

Anyone wonders if Eej actualy usese the weapon he has on his avatar?

 

• Dinian

The difference in +hit, however, is not.

 

McInaction

The DFT debate is an entirely diffrent topic that can go back and forth, my stance has always been that it allows for flexibility in hunter gear choices. (like if I had a DFT I could use a normal scope...)

 

◊ Eej

Man, I put my CT Profile in my sig for a reason. :|

Hunters don't really need +hit, you get so much +hit from gear already. Say you had full Giantstalkers stepping into BWL, that's +3% hit right there, add on two ZG Enchants, another +2%, throw in a Onyxia Tooth Pendant, another 1%.

So 6% from armour + neck, which for DPS purposes means you're going to miss like 1/90 shots (or so), which isn't a big deal. If you really need 9% hit for tranq shot, get an Accurascope or 3/3 Surefooted.

Nevermind the amount of +hit you can get from rings and cloaks.

 

McInaction

Nice bracer enchant! *snicker*

 

Elendril

depends what zone you're raiding. :-P in naxx, yes it's wrong - seal of the dawn is far and away the best trinket you can wear there outside of slayer's crest or DFT if you need the +hit (and i'm not going to get into the DFT debate, because i've had it so many times that my head will explode). i rotate between KOTS and Jom Gabbar depending on cooldowns, but i always have my seal equipped - except in the spider wing, where i use DFT over the seal.

 

◊ Eej

It was a choice between enchanting for PvP or PvE, and I always pick PvP over PvE. :<

 

Judia

You should never FD/drink unless there is nothing to dps.
Its been shown that on any fight less than several hours you get better DPS first by downranking MS to rank 1 and then downranking Aimedshot to rank 1.

 

Zurai

True, but all I said is that superior pots negate the need to feign-drink except on the longest fights. I didn't say it was a good idea to feign then, just that superior pots wouldn't cut it ;) Superior pots + demonic runes + lesser mana oils + nightfin or sagefish means you don't ever have to worry about running out of mana, even as a Horde player.

 

◊ Eej

That's only true if you downrank Multishot, Zurai, if you go full blast, you're still going to run out of mana.

Unless you have JoW/BoW! Ho ho ho... :|

[EDIT - And/or a lot of pieces of CS]

 

Zurai

I didn't downrank multi on our patch kill, which went to almost 8 minutes, and I still had over 2.5k mana when I died (about 7:30 in). I do have black grasp and had the CS belt at the time, though (up to 2 piece now).

BTW, off topic, but has any other hunter noticed that Patch will completely ignore pets for HS as long as anything else is alive, even if the other target isn't in melee? My pet is always the last thing alive/unfeigned on wipes, even while he's chasing after rogues that unsuccesfully vanished and has nothing else in melee with him for 10+ seconds. It seems to me that he won't do his poison nova if ia pet is in melee, but he also won't HS them.

 

Elendril

pets are not valid HS targets. i can't speak for the poison nova, since i've never seen it.

as for sustaining mana - i rarely even use combat pots now, but that's with 8 piece CS and paladins beaten into submission if JOW is ever missing from a mob. before i had 6 piece CS i regularly used combat pots, lesser mana oils, and demonic runes.

as to the cost:benefit of thorium arrows - the mana oil comparison isn't a valid one, because there's only so much we can do with mana - if i was running out of mana despite pots, runes, mageblood, lesser oils, and nightfin soup, then yes by all means i would use brilliant mana oils. i don't, so they're not worth using. thorium arrows definitely give you more DPS in every fight no matter what. i can understand not using them on trash or even on farm bosses (i certainly don't use mongoose pots on every fight anymore...), but they're just another in the long line of consumables you can use to add to your DPS, and not using them *is* hurting your performance.

 

Steelfleece

That's kind of a bad idea because ideally you want to begin your aimed shot about .2-.5 seconds BEFORE the auto-shot fires. Due to client/server interaction and what not the shot will still fire, and you get to start casting your aimed shot early. This is the only reason I use an auto-shot timer, though sometimes they can be woefully inaccurate and throw you off, I admit. I used to wait until I heard/saw the graphic, but I definately do more DPS now that I've began "clipping" the shot early(which of course doesn't actually clip the shot).

affect –verb (used with object) 1. to act on; produce an effect or change in
effect –noun 1. something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence
Know the difference.

 

Elendril

i just watched my character's animation and learned exactly when to fire. having the same weapon for a year can do that to you. i haven't gotten the timing down perfectly with slavemaker, but it's pretty close to just casting as soon as aimed shot is up anyway :-P

 

Steelfleece

Right, I was referring to the statement that "waiting until your weapon fires"--which is a bad idea. I'm pretty sure it's completely possible to do it without mods, but you should always begin your aimed shot just before the last auto-shot fires, not after.

affect –verb (used with object) 1. to act on; produce an effect or change in
effect –noun 1. something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence
Know the difference.

 

Elendril

yeah, absolutely. one you hear the sound or see the arrow graphic you're already late.

 

Avellyr

Or you could use...Major mana pots :O
I used them for patchwerk for a while before he was on farm for us, it made me wince every time i popped one :P

I'll agree that an auto shot timer probably isn't necessary for timing aimed shot given enough practice, but i don't see how you could time your multi-shot. Being able to see exactly how much time is left before your autoshot fires in invaluable, not only for multi shot, but for mobile fights where you have to stutter-step a lot. I can move at a pretty decent pace without missing a single shot in my rotation by using the timer to tell me when no shots can fire.

Edit: DFT is the best trinket for hunters, hands down. It's part of my optimized ideal gear set because it allows you to use high-agi rings like cryptstalker, godslayer, and reanimation instead of hit rings. Trinkets are also the slot that you gain the least dps from as a hunter, so getting your hit from there instead of replacing more valuable slots makes sense.

 

Elendril

it's the best trinket pre-naxx gear, yes. CS+enchants gets you 6, prestor's gets you 1, and kots gets you 1 - add eye of nerub and you're at cap. i rarely if ever have my DTF equipped now. see my profile, and swap jg for seal of the dawn and that's my normal naxx equip.

 

Tzeni

Without reading much of this thread (sue me, I've read most of this stuff before) keep in mind that if you haven't had much sucess with ashjre'thul drops... the difference b/w ashjre'thul and the next best weapon (usually Rhok, unless you're killing ouro) is significant.

Also... somebody has to be low on the dps list, right? And hunters do the least raw damage. Take a look at the patchwerk dps threads. That's just the way it is.

 

CrazyCarl

Once the hunters I've been playing with used Mageblood Potions, Mana Oils, and Mana Pots, their DPS went up considerably (I don't know how much for sure, but people made a big fuss over it, so I'd imagine it's a lot).

 

Groglox

With mongoose, and grilled squid as my only dps buffs, I average 490-500 dps on patchwerk in my profile gear with a 21/30 spec. I ussually beat out 4 and even 5/9 CS TSA hunters in my guild which is really frustrating. Maybe it is their ping? I wish I knew why people have such a hard time with hunter dps.

 

RK

At the risk of a de-rail: does that mean you could (attendance permitting) bring 1 warrior, 4-5 healers and 35 ranged DPS (including spare druids/priests/shamans slumming it) and kill Patchwerk without needing to worry about any Hateful Strikes at all or healing anyone but the MT (as long as there's some pets in melee)? Or am I misreading something?

If there is a way we could cheese it out within the rules of the encounter and see the fights after Patchwerk, even if we had to get all the rogues to attune their caster alts and give them priority on something to make nice to them, I would try to get our raid to take a shot at it. We've had to resign ourselves to putting all hope of the Abom wing away before TBC (losing your MT and one of your other best-geared tanks will do that, as will losing your best-geared rogue, your best geared mage, your best geared DPS warrior...), so being able to crib some additional tier 3 and some nice drops would be awesome for catching up.

 

◊ pewsey

As a Low Ping Loser, my mage alt uses FastCast and has great success with that AddOn in increasing my DPS. Would a similar AddOn work with the Hunter Aimed shot cycle ?

Could FastCast be modified to help with that ?

Basically, this would allow the hunter to spam Aimed shot during the autoshot cycle and have the aimed shot fire after the autoshot has.

Pure speculation on my part, but it seems like it could be valuable assistance for hunters.

Edit: Just looked in more details at FC. It says it supports Hunters. Comments from anybody who has used it ?

Pewsey has heard about tact and discretion, but tends to regard them much as children view vegetables.
Nemesis: "Pewsey is single-handedly turning around every guy in the BB that didn't want to have kids."
Viator: Because I had a baby so I'm better than non-breeders.

 

Blaise

As others have gone into; there's a lot of reasons why your Hunters may be lagging behind.

Rotations, even if not followed properly, are a big boost if they arent really using any at all. On my server I am constantly astounded by the lack of knowledge displayed by Hunters even in the raid guilds ahead of my own. There's a lot of bad information out there, and some of your Hunters may simply have bought into it, or not really looked into how to improve their damage.

There's more than a few threads here on shot rotations, which rent too hard to find, that you can often just point people at.

Also, yeah, if they are FD/Drinking, that alone is a cause for their damage being so low. I've found it to be one of the biggest misconceptions out there by the 'average' Hunter. There's almost never a time when I advocate FD/Drinking, personally, except in situations where you either have nothing to attack, or can't attack (ala, out of LoS on Firemaw for the debuff, etc). Even then, rarely should it be needed if they are doing their "jobs" as raiding Hunters.

Which is where you get into gearing, pots and enchants. How your Hunters are geared matters a lot respective to others in damage meters. If they are lagging behind in the important drops, or missing key pieces of equipment, they will take a huge hit damage-wise. Check to see how they are geared, or links us a CTProfile of the Hunter doing best/worst for your guild so we can dissect if there's anything they've done horribly wrong on that front (I've seen waaaaay too many Hunters not take Blackhand's Breadthe, wasting a scope slot on +hit, cloak choices, etc).

Enchants are also big; is their gear enchanted? Ie; do they have +15 Agility on gloves, weapons? Mana regen for their bracer? Have they gotten exalted ZG for the 30 AP shoulder enchant? ZG Head/Leg enchants are also huge.

Consumable wise, they should be bringing, at minimum, Minor Mana Oils, Mageblood, Mongoose, Thorium for bosses, and mana pots of some kind. These things alone can boost the damage your Hunters are doing substantially, as it removes a lot of the need to either down-rank Multi-shot or even think about FDing and Drinking.

As to where your Hunters should place.. it really depends. If your best geared Hunter is on par, gear wise, with your best Rogue... in some cases, he should beat that Rogue, and in the vast majority of cases, run around 85%-90% of his damage.

In my guild, even when I am slacking and not using my pet at all, Jagged Arrows (I need to stop handing them all out!) and such, I can easily keep pace of around 85% our top Rogue, whom I barely out-gear, over-all, especially on trash. But it varies on bosses. I get floored on Instructor, for example.

But a lot of it may also be fight-biased. Are your Hunters standing out of Nef's fear range, for example? That alone will allow your Hunters to catch up to a lot of the melee based dps. Are they timing moving out of LoS properly for fights like Chromaggus, minimizing time spent not shooting? While fairly basic, they may either just not know or be slacking in their duties.

All in all, yeah, more information is needed to really diagnose if they are sucking, slacking or are just looking bad for some reason and doing okay. Damage meters from a fight like Ebonroc would be good to look at, for example, as well as answering some of the stuff pointed out by others.

Nevermind if any have made some bad spec choices..

Wow, this post was way longer than I planned. Sorry?

Lucinius, by Dianora (large version)