Gellidus

Alright, well, I just posted this on the VN Hunter Boards (http://vnboards.ign.com/wow_hunter_class/b22778/p1) and since I didn't see anything specific about this, I figured I'd repost it here as well, to get some feedback, and hopefully someone willing to double check my numbers, heh :x

Alright, servers are down, so I'll stop being lazy and really get to the math behind this. Particularly because I want to out DPS my shadow priest friend on Gruul tonight :p

Ok, first of all, I think we're going to have to use actual numbers rather than just arbitrary figures here, but we'll see.

First, let's assume 7/45/9 spec, or something similar, that includes Barrage/Improved Barrage. It will also naturally include Mortal Shots and the Slaying Talents. However, for the sake of keeping it simple, I won't go over the slaying talents.
Next, for the Hunter's stats, let's say 2000 RAP and 25% crit to make the math simple. This probably is about what I get with my 0/42/19 spec in PvE gear, so it should be close enough :p Also, we'll use Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix (2.9 unhasted speed).

Now, to determine what a normal rotation would look like with no haste (2.52 Auto Shot speed with Quiver haste):
All time is in seconds, naturally :p Also, remember that all haste effects, including quiver, affect Steady Shot, but the global cooldown still gets in the way. I'll give the time stamp for the BEGINNING of each shot, and naturally, this is VERY much an idealistic model, no person could ever do this as precisely as I'm going to be stating it, so take it all with a grain of salt. Also I'm going to round down the Auto Shot speed to 2.5

0.0 Auto Shot
0.0 Steady Shot
1.5 Multi-shot (Rank 1)
2.5 Auto Shot
3.0 Steady Shot
4.5 Arcane Shot (Rank 6)
5.0 Auto Shot
6.0 Steady Shot
7.5 Auto Shot
7.5 Steady Shot
10.0 Auto Shot

Because of the way this rotation is set up, we can't actually count that last Auto Shot at 10.0, because that's counted at 0.0 for the next cycle. So that gives us 4 Auto Shots, 4 Steady Shots, 1 Multi-shot (Rank 1), and one Arcane Shot (Rank 6).
Now using a bunch of formulas from Hunter Mechanics -- v2.0/TBC and the stats I gave our imaginary hunter, let's get a feel for how much damage each shot does, and how much DPS.
Average damage:
Auto: 763
Steady: 783
Multi-shot: 839
Arcane: 573
Now, that's before any type of damage mitigation. Let's assume 35% damage mitigation which gives us
Average damage after mitigation:
Auto: 496
Steady: 509
Multi-shot: 545
Arcane: 573
Now, let's go over the total damage done in this 10 second period.
Total damage after mitigation:
Auto: 496*4 = 1984
Steady: 509*4 = 2036
Multi-shot: 545
Arcane: 573
Grand Total: 5138
Now, we have to account for crits, and we have to do this separately, due to Improved Barrage.
Total damage after mitigation with 25% crit rate:
Auto: 2629
Steady: 2698
Multi-shot: 791
Arcane: 759
Grand Total after mitigation with crits: 6877

So, this gives us 687.7 DPS, not too bad, sounds reasonable, but if someone wants to check my math, I'm not quite sure I got the whole Mortal Shots thing right. I figured that the damage with crits included was: damage*(1 + crit%/100)*1.06 However, I'm not entirely confident in that formula, and I couldn't really manage to find anything about it.

Now, this is probably a very convoluted way to go about it, but now we'll take a look at what our shot rotation would be with the 15% haste proc from Improved Aspect of the Hawk.
With the 15% extra haste, our 2.52 speed drops to 2.19 speed. Now let's see how that changes our shot rotation. I'm going to round up to 2.2 seconds per Auto Shot to keep it easy.

0.0 Auto Shot
0.0 Steady Shot
1.5 Multi-shot
2.2 Auto Shot
3.0 Steady Shot
4.4 Auto Shot
4.5 Steady Shot
6.0 Arcane Shot
6.6 Auto Shot
7.5 Steady Shot
8.8 Auto Shot
9.0 Steady Shot
11.0 Auto Shot

Check that over, but hopefully everything should be correct. We move from a 10 second rotation to 11 second, because if we tried to fit that arcane shot in after the 3.0 Steady Shot, we'd only make it after the 4.4 Auto Shot, at 4.5 when the Global Cooldown comes back up again, which would mean at 6.0 we'd start another Steady Shot, delaying the 6.6 Auto Shot to 7.2 seconds approximately, or we could leave the Steady Shot out and lose DPS that way, but either way it's not really a great way to do things. Now, on to figuring out how much this increases our DPS, if at all.

Now, none of the figures from above will change, only how many shots we get in. So let's borrow from above.
Average damage after mitigation:
Auto: 496
Steady: 509
Multi-shot: 545
Arcane: 573
Total damage after mitigation:
Auto: 496*5 = 2480
Steady: 509*5 = 2545
Multi-shot: 545
Arcane: 573
Grand Total: 6143
Now for crits, and again we have to do it separately, because of Improved Barrage.
Total damage with crits:
Auto: 3286
Steady: 3372
Multi-shot: 791
Arcane: 759
Grand Total with crits: 8208

Now, remember, to let the cycle 'reset' itself, it takes 11 seconds, so taking 8208/11 seconds gives us: 746.2 DPS

This shows a definite 58.5 DPS increase that I imagine would only get larger when you get better gear (more RAP and crit).

But, let's see what happens when using the Dragonspine Trophy ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28830#z0z ). The haste proc from this trinket is 30.91% haste, which gives us a 1.93 speed with our Sunfury Bow. To make it easy, we'll round to 1.9 speed. Let's see if we can't find a decent rotation here for this high speed.

0.0 Auto Shot
0.0 Steady Shot
1.5 Multi-shot
2.0 Auto Shot
3.0 Arcane Shot
3.9 Auto Shot
4.5 Steady Shot
5.8 Auto Shot
6.0 Steady Shot
7.7 Auto Shot
7.7 Steady Shot
9.6 Auto Shot

So, the first auto shot gets clipped a bit by the multi shot and we can no longer fit that steady shot in after the 2.0 Auto Shot, or else we'd delay the 3.9 Auto Shot to at least 4.0, if not more, and we'd probably never be able to fit Arcane in nicely. We'll just cut to the chase here and add it all up. 5 Auto Shots, 4 Steady Shots, 1 Multi-shot, and 1 Arcane Shot in 9.6 seconds yields 784.8 DPS. That's a mere 38.6 DPS for that 15% of haste increase, and there's a higher chance of human error causing tons of Auto Shot clipping.

One last thing to try is if we got both Quick Shots and the Haste effect from Dragonspine Trophy. With 15% from quiver, 15% from Quick Shots, and 30.91% from Dragonspine Trophy, our bow speed drops to 1.68, which we'll round up to 1.7 for the sake of the rotation. Now to see if we can fit anything in there :p

0.0 Auto Shot
0.0 Multi-shot
1.7 Auto Shot
1.7 Steady Shot
3.2 Arcane Shot
3.4 Auto Shot
5.1 Auto Shot
5.1 Steady Shot
6.8 Auto Shot
6.8 Steady Shot
8.5 Auto Shot
8.5 Steady Shot
10.2 Auto Shot

OR

0.0 Auto Shot
0.0 Multi-shot
1.7 Auto Shot
1.7 Arcane Shot
3.4 Auto Shot
3.4 Steady Shot
5.1 Auto Shot
5.1 Steady Shot
6.8 Auto Shot
6.8 Steady Shot
8.5 Auto Shot
8.5 Steady Shot
10.2 Auto Shot

First: 6 Auto, 4 Steady, 1 Multi, 1 Arcane
Second: 6 Auto, 4 Steady, 1 Multi, 1 Arcane
So they're identical in practice, but the second one might be a little easier to keep track of, plus I don't like that big gap in between auto shots in the first one at 3.4 to 5.1, where we really can't do anything without horribly clipping Auto Shot.
So let's do the math, that rotation in 10.2 seconds yields 803.1 DPS. A mere 18.3 DPS increase compared to just having the Dragonspine Trophy.

To state the obvious: going below 1.5 hasted bow speed will make weaving any Steadies without clipping impossible. It might increase your DPS a little bit, but anything that takes your speed below 1.5 gives incredibly diminishing returns. This also shows that haste has a diminishing return overall. Also, through this model, I think that a 2.5-2.6 pre-haste bow is the ideal bow for DPSing. Even though the Auto Shots from a 2.5-2.6 pre-hasted bow would be less than what we're seeing here, I think that that speed is pretty much the sweet spot for TBC. Although with that speed you'd want less haste, since you'd reach the point of large diminishing returns earlier than a 2.9 pre-hasted bow.

Wow.. my head hurts.. and this is one helluva long post x_x In conclusion, Haste DOES help Hunters. It *will* increase your DPS, until you reach that 1.5 hasted speed :p HOWEVER, unlike other classes, a Hunter that gains some sort of Haste effect needs to COMPLETELY change their DPS rotation. You need to know ahead of time what Haste effects you might be able to get and once you get them, you *must* change to your predetermined rotation, because your rotation that you used when you were unhasted WILL NOT WORK anymore.

 

The Iron Colonel

I really don't want to sound like a dick, but a lot of this has been discussed already in other threads (notably the BM raiding thread, Hunter spreadsheet thread, and Hunter Mechanics thread). You should really take a look at the work Glaurong, Cheeky, Lactose, and others have done (I name names at the peril of excluding someone and hurting feelings, sorry).

 

Glaurong

Short summary of what lies buried in hunter threads:

Actually, going below ~2 second auto shot makes non-clipping steadies impossible. Auto shot takes about a half second to animate/cast.

Haste effects are only beneficial if you have a non-optimal speed weapon for your spec. Since there aren't many weapon speeds to pick from at the end game, limited haste effects have limited value. They allow you to trim a bit of the dead time out of your rotation. By optimal I mean a 2.4 speed weapon for marks/survival hunters and 2.7 for BM. Additionally haste effects lose all value if you are in a forced auto/special/special rotation and already delay most auto shots.

Trying to juggle multiple rotations depending on variable haste effects will almost always result in a net loss to your DPS. There are too many cools to juggle and you will be at an arbitrary place in another rotation when the haste effect triggers. You will almost never have IAotH or a Dragonspine Trophy proc off the last shot of your non-haste rotation. The exception to this is going from an auto/steady/stead rotation, down to an auto/steady one.

Long story shot: Haste effects should modify the global cool and there should be a wider selection of end game weapon speeds. Currently, haste effects have limited, if any, value (depending on your spec/base weapon speed).

Log Parser for BM Hunters (Right click, save as) - Updated 10/11/2007

 

Cheeky

I think Glau means Auto/Steady/Special to Auto/Steady, just for clairification. No one threads 2 Steadies bwteen Auto Shots.

Cheeky of Havoc