wvbean

I frequent The Hunting Lodge

Though for Survival many in this thread and those over at the lodge different in their opinion on specs for Survival hunters.

 

QuiggyB

You were not using said macro. The original question you asked was about chaining steadies with a /cast !auto shot /cast steady shot macro veriant. Looking at that WWS you were using something that produced a 1.5:1 using steady, arcane and multi.

 

• Crowbite

After reading this comment on the Hunting Lodge....

I'm going to go out on a limb and say there is a lot of mis-information on that website.

FinishHer - I know of a couple hunters that are working on guides like the enhancement, but because hunter mechanics can change given certain levels of gear, these guides are difficult and time consuming to write. Unless your hunters are willing sift through these threads and actually want to get the most out of their DPS numbers, you'll be fighting an uphill battle.

 

wvbean

So you'll discount an entire website based on one thing you saw and didn't like? Nice philosophy.

Plus you pulled that out of a BM hunter guide. Go to the Survival forums and start some discussion if you want to get their opinions. Quite a few experienced Survival hunters that frequent it that are knowledgeable.

 

Myke

First post, so beg your pardon if I violate any posting rules.

In reading through this thread (mostly the last 10-12 pages) and another Suv Hunter forum, I'm left in a state of confusion. I have attempted to follow all the advice listed but cannot seem to break 900 (780-850 usually) DPS in early MH/BT or deep SSC. I have been using a 1.4:1 shot rotation due to having passive haste from my chestpiece (Armory not linked due to the auto linkage in my profile). When I pop Rapid Fire I switch to a 3:2 BM Steady Shot rotation. Using a wind serpent pet as my buffed crit rate is ~34-36%. Lightning breath causes ~150 Damage per use.

I am completely lost as to talent choices. I have seen both the 28/33 and the 20/41 highly advocated. I have not seen the math behind these trees though. I have read the recent posts on shot rotation numbers, but must have missed the theory behind the talent choices.

I am in the process of regemming my gear. I plan to keep the 2 green gems in the chest and legs (meta reqs). All other gems will be +8 or +10 Agi. Other than that, I'm at a loss as to why my personal DPS is so low. I understand my purpose is to support the raid as a whole, (~900 Agi raid buffed, 750 unbuffed) but I can't help but feel I can do better with my own DPS. I currently am in the bottom 3 on DPS during raids.

I appologize for the "help-me" post, but I have read through mounds of info on suv hunters, but obviously have misunderstood it from my DPS performance.

 

Serf

I don't know about his choice of meta, but I can only assume that the reason he uses Multi is because, well, it hits 3 targets. 3 targets being hit for additional damage > steady spam, esp. with a 0.5 cast vs. a 1.5 cast unhasted. And while Steady may be our most efficient shot, Arcane does put out more damage, no? perhaps he's using the same style of macro/manual cast?

As for the drum rotations- That's none of my doing, because if you took the time to check my professions on my Armory, you'd see I'm engineering/mining. I don't condone the abuse of drums, either, but I didn't even notice it, honestly. Same goes for it as with the abuse of pots though- The change in WotLK just seems like vindication for me. relying on consumables to chain-chug them has always been against my grain- using long duration consumables to buff up is a different matter. It makes me dependant on not only another person, but also upon something that was obviously not designed to take place as such. yes, Hawk gives me 155 more AP- which translates to 11.07 DPS- but if I can't maintain my damage rotation during the entirety of the fight, then I lose far more DPS than I've gained with hawk. I sacrifice a small amount of DPS for guarenteed damage for the entire fight.

SURVIVAL Raiding in 2.1 Yes, I did post my macro, you just didn't look for it well enough.

Rivkah:

I know I could be doing better. But by not chugging mana pots and still remaining in the blue for mana, I see myself as not abusing the system some have built (chain-chugging pots) and instead remaining within the system created by blizzard and not having the mana problems of others. Sure it gives more mana at the low end of your mana pool than at the high end, but the mana recuperation given by it at low end effect the regen works out to be still about 50 MP/5. I just don't find the DPS buff of Hawk to be worth letting my mana drain out, because I have never, even with just steady/auto reverting to a 1:1 rotation, been able to recover enough mana to keep myself in the blue if I wait for half-way. Think of it as a preventative measure, instead of a reactive one.

Regarding my crit %, I'm still missing a lot of gear that I'd like to have, often using something off-type (like those stupid Nyn'jah's Tabi Boots) or very low-level gear ratio (Tunic of the Ranger Lord; it's a freaking heroic MgT piece for crying out loud! I want my Ranger-General's Chestplate already. ;_. Having achieved 34.xx% crit with the lack of certain pieces of gear I know that I could easily get over 35% once I can finally get those. >.< Re: the S3 helm though- I don't arena much, and when I do, I get stuck with a non-healer, or get stuck against full S4 geared people. So, my points buildup is very slow. Meh- I'll eventually get enough points. Again though, gear issue.

I do use mana oils and a potion of greater intellect, actually, since I can't ever find mageblood or Draenic Wisdom on the AH- they're always sold out, and the mats are equally hard to find on the AH. If I knew someone whom I could buy them off of regularily, I would.

Also, screw windserpents. :P Sorry, but I really don't like them, and while I will get a pet that benefits the raid, I'll get one that benefits the raid in a way that I can appreciate; I'm currently, for example, using a Owl with Screech, for a half-imp Demo Shout every Screech that stacks with Demo Shout, too. may not be as big a thing against casters, but it certainly helps versus the melee, and it's a cheaper focus cost, too.

If the fight lasts longer than about three minutes, I've hit about the 50% mark of my mana. since most fights end at about 4 minutes and something in, I'm just running dry as they end. The Efficiency cost cut in Arcane Shot and Multi Shot are really what Efficiency is for, for me. If i was just steady-chaining, I'd easily see no reason to have it.

Regarding the Naj fight difference: Ahhh, alright then. That would be, I believe, because some of the raid members don't see it as necessary to actually pluck spines from their hapless comrades. So i was doing a fair share of running around and trying to assist with that at range. I don't wait to fire Arcane, since they changed the speed at which autoshot fires after instant shots, and I do wait on multi.

As for assault to bracers; I know, I know. I'm just stubborn about that. ;P Just doesn't seem right to be getting just AP instead of Agi. I don't exactly have secondary gear to be putting on, though, for stamina fights- I have my one set of gear that i've been trying to upgrade, and I basically went from doing first few bosses of SSC (Hydross, Leo, Moro, Lurker) and A'lar and Loot Reaver in TK with what effectively qualified as beta raids (easier going) where I floated around the 5th-6th top DPS, straight to being in BT alpha (serious business) around 8th-9th. I'm still getting used to the change in environs, as well as in how the alpha raiders work.

NB: I'm pretty good, I think, at the whole "hunter"ing thing, it's the part on the raid specifics I'm still getting in tune with.

 

Rivkah

In my survival raid guide I've attempt to collect a good deal of the general wisdom I've seen in the various forums. It doesn't include all the detailed theorycraft, mostly I've just tried to answer the most common questions and include links to more detailed sources where possible. I need to go in and make some adjustments soon, been kinda busy lately.

Myke, do you have any WWS reports we can look at? It may help us determine what's going wrong. Looking at your armory I will say your gear is pretty low level for the content you're doing. There are several changes you can make that aren't very difficult. Doing 5-6 weeks worth of arenas (even if you lose, 10 games a week will only take you about an hour) will net you an S3 helm. The SSO neck is better than the saberclaw talisman. The S2 shoulders of course are better than the S1. You can probably upgrade your bracers soon from Rage, but if you don't get new ones soon, you can also consider getting the leather badge ones. Dual breeching comets or trollbane are better than legacy if you can get them. The badge gloves are better than the T5 (the ones with crit). Belt of deep shadow can be crafted and is better than girdle of the prowler. You should be using a crit/AP patch on your pants instead of the stam/agil ones. Your rings need serious work, get the badge ring and try to get another good ring if you can, maybe Garona's Signet Ring if you're still doing Kara. Also work on getting an hourglass.

In terms of spec choice, there seems to be a lot of argument about what's best, but what you have should be decent, although 2 points in imp mark isn't all that useful, see if you can get another hunter in the raid to take the full thing or try to squeeze it in up to 5 (maybe drop a point in RWS for 1 pt in thrill of the hunt to compensate for the lost efficiency if you need it).

 

• Vaxum

In addition to the resources mentioned earlier, I'd recommend TKASomething.com - it's an hunter-specific forum with a decent contingent of regulars who are also active here.

Also I would like to put in another plug for Rivkah's Survival Hunter Raid Basics page - it does an excellent job of summarizing the current "state of the art" for SV hunters.

 

Rivkah

Ok Serf, so basically we've established you aren't looking to improve your dps, you just are happy playing and satisfied with the results you're getting. That's fine, there's lots of players like that and if your guild doesn't care and you don't care, I'm not gonna try to convince you otherwise. Usually when people post in this thread they're looking for ways to improve and I tried to give you the best advice I could on that front, take it or leave it.

I wasn't telling you that you have to get a windserpent btw, owl is often useful for raid buff, although better if you don't have a warrior with imp demo, not sure if you do- I was just using that as an example of why saying you have enough crit and don't need a crit scope wasn't really correct, because survival hunters do typically run with more crit than you have and it still benefits them substantially.

 

Fleabite

Having just gained my 4 piece t6 bonus, I'm looking for peoples opinions/experience on the switch from 0/20/41 to 7/20/34.

Now, heres the crux....I have not been blessed with a DST, nor can I guarentee a group of drummers (hunters do not get alot of love in my new guild, if I get a feral druid I consider myself lucky!)

There will be 2-3 drummers in my party (including myself).

50 Passive haste (Badge chest, Cloak of Fiends)
2.36 base speed
2.25 speed with drums
2.05 speed with Iaoth
1.95 speed with Iaoth & drums
1.89 speed with haste potion
1.69 speed with rapid fire

So, to stay as I am using 20/41 and a 1.15(/4) and moving to my cast macro only on rapid fires/heroism/haste pots, or to move with the times to 7/20/34 and accept that there will be times when I can't use the cast macro, and fall back onto multi/arcane shots?

Incidentally has anybody happened upon a addon(or thought of creating one) that will maybe make it more obvious which haste buffs you have on you at a given time, in order to tailor your rotation accordingly?

Input appreciated,
Flea
(apologies if you feel this would be more appropriate in the Hunter Help me thread, I have tried looking for SV help there in the past and it got completely overlooked)

 

Serf

Sorry Rivkah- I AM looking to increase my DPS, but I won't abuse pot chugging to do so. I'm also, as you can see, highly argumentative. >.>;

Right now, I need to improve my gear a lot, I know that; Since I'm using in some cases still heroic gear (*cries over still having his Tunic of the Ranger Lord*) I know that if i can upgrade those pieces I'll be doing a lot better just on that alone- same if I get a lucky drop of Supremus next week and get Legionkiller (that's another reason i don't have a crit scope... those things are prohibitively hard to make if you don't have the mats already farmed, at least on my server- nodes are rare, even in high node concentration areas... I don't exactly have the mats or the time to farm up the mats for a critscope every time I upgrade my ranged weapon).

Regarding Windserpent vs. Owl: That was purely my opinion, re: Screw Windserpent. xD Sorry. I just really think they're ugly, and they never seem to survive more than 5 seconds into a fight, and with the current bug with them STILL not being fixed (they go to range to cast lightning breath) it just seems wrong to use them anyways. And, as far as I know and have experienced, Screech stacks with demo shout, even improved, or is that just a perception problem on my end?

As for typical SV hunters running with more crit than me- They normally go over 50% raid buffed then? o.O Because I'm talking purely unbuffed I have 34.24%, and that's, again, with the relatively low end gear that I have. Or are you saying most SV hunters in my gear have more?

 

• Intermission

I sit at around 55% crit in raids with buffs. A crit scope is still far far far better than a damage scope.

Not using potions is like not wearing pants. We all want to do it, but its socially unacceptable not to. The game and all the encounters in the game are designed around everyone using potions at every opportunity. Just like work office ethics assume appropriate coverage of genitals. To say using a potion every cooldown is "abuse" is laughable.

Using Viper instead of Hawk is just a by-product of your potion laziness, and also your paladin laziness as JoW should give you all the mana you need. Most hunters chain Haste potions on dps important fights, as JoW (ontop of manaspring/tide) are adequate to sustain a /cast/cast steady + KC rotation/macro. The only fight where I use Mana instead of Haste is Muru, as JoW cannot be put on the adds (I save a pot cooldown for P2 though, which is used to either Haste or Shadow).

An owl pet is handy. Personally I dont use one, but it's nice to have especially when working on fights such as Brutallus if tank healing is your weakness. Of course you want a dps pet ready in your stables for when you need it, regardless of how "ugly" it is (hint: you're an Orc hunter, you're already ugly).

And sub-par enchants/gem/gear/talent choices is something you'll hopefully realise in time.


PS/edit: If you came here looking for advice, then spout out some horribly illogical reasons for not taking on board that advice, expect to get some awkward replies.

 

Serf

Well, until I got into this alpha, JoW has never been something I've gotten, so honestly I'm not used to it. If it really provides enough help, I can easily lose some Efficiency, for example.

Another problem about using pots all the time- The prices on my server are heavily inflated, moreso than most I see, and fel mana pots are almost impossible to buy. The only reason i can afford my major agi pots at 100g a stack is because i can buy the erocone, thankfully, and have an alchemist make them for me.

As for haste... Netherbloom sells at 30g a single piece, if it sells at all, and the afformentioned Terocone (2 for the haste) is 50g a stack. Dailies every day don't keep up with the costs, not when i have to obtain the mats for other things, like my enchants for upgraded gear, gems, et cetera.

As for 'ugly' pets; There's ugly, an then there's ugly. :P Even the pets most call 'ugly' have an aesthetic. Windserpents just don't appeal to mine. besides, birds better suit my overal idea of being a buffer/debuffer with the Screech. besides, i don't find orcs to be all THAT ugly...

As for sub-par enchants, I already realize I chose the wrong enchant, for the 'best overall' effect in a raid setup. The 1.3 DPS increase of AP over Stats is a sacrifice I'm willing to take atm- I do more than just do the end-game raids, and as I said, i only have the one set of gear, so i can't just swap out for a stamina set, for example. I'll be starting to do that as I continue to get better gear than what I have now, using the pieces I have now to sub out for a stamina set.

Sub par gems, though? That's a point of contention I'm still trying to figure out. Of course I have to meet my meta requirements, but where exactly do those gems best fit? Where can i "dump" gems of the other two colors (rather, of the orange hit/agi or purple agi/stam) to benefit myself most? That's something I'm still working on. but if it's a red slot, it gets a rare/epic red 10 agi gem, no matter what.

As for awkward replies... Yeah, I know. I'm a weird guy. Sorry if I come across as stupid, in some cases; I have an odd view of things.

Edit: talents are really where I'm most in the dark. i know the obvious parts of it, of course, what to avoid, what to take for sure, but exact number of points for efficiency, (like 4/5 frenzy is just as good as 5/5) that sort of thing I know I'm weak on. I've always felt that being safe is better than being sorry in the end.

 

• Intermission

Sorry, I threw on the gem/enchant/talent/gear line as a "not really important, you'll realise what is best for your character in time" sort of statement. I didnt mean to say they are all bad now, or that you dont already know whats best in some cases. I didnt Armory you. Bad wording on my part.

I also dislike Windserpents. Theoretically they are superior dps, but Ravagers have always been far better in my eyes for a long list of reasons. The reliance of macro spam to incorporate Lightning Breath for Wind Serpent dps is the main drawback. If you ever need to go manual (which you do at some stage in almost every fight, end-sunwell especially so) then you loose their main dps advantage. Even under perfect scenarios (ie Brutallus, no Burn, full raid buffs, using LB macro, autocast off), my Ravager has consistently out dps'ed my Wind Serpent.

Potion costs arent that bad. I havent done a daily in months, and I never farm. I simply sell a few epic gems every now and then for 250g each. I use the badges from raiding to buy them. Haste pots are around 7-8g each on my server, 90g for a stack of Agi Elixirs, 40g per stack of Agi food, and I make a batch of mana injectors every few weeks, each pot is around 3g I believe. Ammo can be a real money killer too. Drums are cheap as chips. Agi scrolls are one of the more expensive things, but I usually ninja a fair few from repair bots, and only ever use them on Brutallus/KJ or when we were going for first kills.

Admittedly I do not pay for repairs, the guild bank does. However at 5-6g a death in repairs, the Agi Elixir and Agi Food cost twice as much as the death does, not to mention the potions and ammo used on that attempt. So I dont believe the repair bill is anywhere near as much as a contributor as regular consumables.


Anyway, talking about costs of raiding is pretty pointless. Back in Thaddius/Loatheb->KT times, or in pre-2.1 SSC/TK times it was infinitely worse than it is now. You would need to spend approximately 2 hours farming for every 1 hour or progression raiding. It was ridiculous. That ratio has gone from 2:1 to around 1:8 with the 2.1 patch changes. It's a change for the better I think, and the potion sickness is another nice change.

Yes, I agree with the potion change. It's amazing. Anything to cut raiding costs is great. I dont think it should apply to HP/elemental protection pots... but that's not the same issue as chain ironshield/haste/mana pots. However just because that is the new standard in potions in WOTLK, right now 1 every 2 minutes is the expected prot frequency. Fights and classes are designed based around the mp5 given from a pot every 2 minutes. Bosses like Brutallus, Void Sentinels, etc hit as hard as they do because its accepted the tanks will have Ironshields on 100% of the time. It would be ridiculous for them not to design that way, because that is the limitation they gave us.

 

Serf

Maybe it's just the eternal optimist in me looking at potting and trying futilely to make a build where I don't have to touch them except in the direst of needs.

I'm a Miner/Engineer, so I don't use drums, nor will I drop mining for LWing just to use drums. Not my thing, and my guild's fine with that- Repair bots need to come from soemwhere, and the mats need to coem from somewhere too. ;P

I have to pay my own costs for everything. Guild pays for nothing, though thankfully now that I'm raiding in the alpha I get my fair share of the epic gem drops out of the whole process.

Also, almost no one buys the gems on my server; people have evne tried selling them for 200g, and no sale, usually.

Also, i heavily envy you for having the injector recipes. It`s impossible to find that damn thing, at least for my luck. it does make the `cost`of having mana pots less painful, however. Would you be willing to derive a SV build that would suit my current gear for maximum benefit?

 

Rivkah

Serf here's the thing about the pot chugging, in high end raiding, a lot of people have to do it, especially healers. If you aren't maximizing your dps because you don't believe in chugging pots, that extends the length of the fight, which leads to healers having to chug more potions. So from a raiding perspective, you avoiding pots is passing those costs on to someone else. That being said, I don't really believe that it's fair to expect a lot of pot chugging on what qualifies as farm content- I tend to play it cheap on the easy stuff myself. But you have to decide when you're working on new content, whether you want to be part of the problem or the solution for your raid. As a survival hunter you already seem to be taking the route of providing solutions to help the raid do better. Maximizing your dps within reasonable parameters is also part of that picture. As you push on to harder content (not sure how far along you guys are), these things are going to be more important.

As a survival hunter your best pet dps choices are ravager or windserpent, depending on your crit level and your raid makeup. If you raid with an elemental shaman there's no point in even worrying about the windserpent, because it's probably not a good fit for you (I disagree about the ugly tho, my Slinky is cute!). The ravager is probably best for general use in that case. The owl will do less dps than the ravager, but if your raid likes the debuff, the amount of dps it reduces you by isn't so much that it's a problem to use him (my owl was a big help on our first Kalecgos kill Sunday). The thing is there's a maximum amount of AP you can debuff on a boss, it's 340 AP. Now a regular demoralizing shout is a 300 AP debuff. Improved demoralizing shout is 420. Curse of recklessness adds 135 to the boss. So if your tanks don't have imp demoralizing shout, then when you have CoR up, your owl is debuffing 175 AP which is pretty darn useful. However if your tanks have imp demoralizing shout, with CoR up you are only debuffing 55 AP, which while nice, is far less exciting. If you don't run with CoR up at all, then it can end up not gaining you anything, but it looks like you guys use CoR so the owl is probably earning his keep. Now that being said, I noticed you don't have kill command in use on your WWS. You should include that in your macro.

Looking at your WWS again, on Najentus you gained 6k mana from JoW and another almost 3k from thrill of the hunt. You also had a mana tide totem (I'm jealous now) which gave you almost another 2k. So you gained back 13k mana that fight not even counting the aspect of the viper you say you were running the entire fight. That's a lot of mana back- were you actually having any mana problems on that fight? I don't have to pot at all on Najentus if I have judgement of wisdom alone and I have no points in efficiency and only 1 point in thrill of the hunt. It sounds like you just don't have a lot of experience yet with high end raiding so maybe as you get more used to the mana that's available you will be able to adjust your playstyle accordingly.

It sucks that your server economy is so terrible, and not having an herbalist definitely sucks. If I couldn't provide my own herbs it'd be a lot more frustrating. You don't know anyone who can make fel mana potions? I can't believe there's nobody in your guild with the recipe, it's farmable in like 15 minutes. You can always use regular mana pots too, they're cheaper, although obviously they don't provide quite as much benefit. Again I don't think you necessarily need to be chain potting on every fight, but I think you have room to adjust your spec some to be a little more damage oriented and take the risk of potting a little more often than you do now. On progression content though, you really should be willing to pot heavily, if your guild as a whole isn't willing it's going to make it a lot harder to learn and you'll just be paying for it in repair bills instead. I'm really glad they're putting potion sickness in the expansion if it means they're going to revamp things so that chain potting isn't required to produce good damage, but I'm reserving judgement till I see how it works out.

I think the big thing about your gem choices is actually that you are pretty seriously over the hit cap, and you're probably better off going with 2 crit/stam gems rather than the hit/agil and agil/stam gems. The net agility is the same since you are sacrificing 2 full agil sockets instead of 4 half sockets, but the crit will do you more good than the hit as long as you are above the cap. Easiest thing based on your current gear (and I realize it may not make sense to regem at the moment) would be to put 2 green gems in your pants, get the socket bonus there, and switch the rest of your gems to pure agil. Or if you were really stuck on getting the 2 agil bonus from your gloves, you could go with 3 gems, 1 purple, one green and one orange. Regardless in either case it would free you from having to have a mix gem in your PvP shoulders.

In terms of typical crit, in my gear I run at about 50-53% crit raid buffed in a proper stack group (GoA, feral, full consumables). My gear's better than yours but I still find crit to be beneficial (although it does tend to make early pull threat rather touch and go). I was just saying crit scope is still worthwhile. Mats cost is outrageous though so I understand if you realistically think you're getting a new wepaon soon you might not want to apply one to this one.

Anyhow I cover a lot of what you should know on my guide if you want to read it:
Rivkah's World of Warcraft Notes: Survival Hunter Raid Basics

Intermission, your not using potions is like not wearing pants thing was hilarious. I had to share that with my guild I'm also curious what your windserpent and ravager dps has been? Slinky pumps out pretty good dps for me.

 

• Intermission

The best spec before you get 4pc t6 and a fair amount of passive haste, would be something like this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

0/20/41 (edit I threw points into parry/imp clip/entrap or whatever rather than Monster Slaying. Obviously this changes due to your content. If you still fight giants/beasts/dragons, go monster, if you do Felmyst you dont want any points in entraptment, etc.)

You wouldnt want to do the 7/20/34 at your gear level.

The 0/20/41 playstyle revolves around a manual 1.1:5. You are never going to get anywhere near as good dps out of that spec with anything other than a manual rotation. So if you flinch at that thought, you should either get 4pc t6 and passive haste/drums very soon, or think about joining your BM buddies. It is also a very mana intensive spec. It has 2/3 TotH, which is 1 more than the 7/20/34 spec, but it makes heavy use of multishot and arcane shot, mana whores.

You could use a 2:1 /cast/cast macro with that spec, but you would want to gather quite a bit of passive haste to reduce steady chaining. Also keep in mind one of the the largest causes of steady chaining is incoming damage causing steady pushback, which can result in the next two autos being skipped unless you notice the damage taken and let go of the macro immediately, and let the steady/auto go through before starting again. This is a nice time to throw in a multishot too or to refresh HM.

One of the most important things to keep in mind with any spec is to be able to adjust your shot rotation mid fight depending on your mana situation. This changes from spec somewhat. Currently I use a scaling 2:1/3:2/1:2 "/cast/cast" macro. DST and impAOTH takes me to BM type levels of haste. It's quite mana efficient. However when it looks like I may not make the full distance, simply dropping KC (using a different macro) can help me sustain the dps at the best damage per mana possible. When you go to a 0/20/41 spec, you may want to begin with the 1.1:5 rotation but adjust to a 1:1 rotation when Rapid Fire or Bloodlust is active, using those periods as a means to recoup some mana. As a final option, swapping to Viper and doing a 1:1 rotation may be useful if you are at 20%ish mana with quite a lot of boss HP left, and no immediate mana gains (pot/tide/jow) imminent.

Whytefist, (sorry, not sure on spelling) has done some amazing research on pre-t6 builds and their appropriate shot rotations. It might be worth doing a search for all posts done by him in the Survival thread.

 

Serf

A manual 1/1.5? That's a steady/auto with hand-weaved arcane/multis, right? That's how I've done it ever since I got my hands on steady shot. ^^; I actually LOATHE the simplistic Steady/auto spam of BM, and personally think that Serpent's Swiftness and TBW are rather overpowered and need to be toned down from what they are.

I'll throw points into monster slaying and shift entrapment to parry, because that 1% with Deterrence up can still save you- I actually managed to tank Azgalor for a full 13 seconds before I got smushed with a crushing blow finally after Deterrence ended, so i like the idea of increasing my avoidance there. besides, if a mob gets immobilized at the wrong time beside a player, it will immediately turn and beat on them, instead of following it's aggro table, so I don't want to risk that.

I'm looking to start gathering passive haste without losing too much agility, but aside from the Cloak of Fiends am not really sure where to start on that.

And that shot rotation is exactly why I've always used 5/5 efficiency and 3/3 TotH with Viper 100%, because my mana DOES go to pot unless I do it, faster than even pot cycles can keep it up.

 

Veeloxx

Sorry to be the guy that just jumps in and asks for help. I've read quite a bit of information and I've been told many things that are conflicting, but most of the information I've gotten here so far has been beneficial.

I've been survival for about a month now... currently I'm specced 0/20/41 but my dps is not where I personally want it to be. My biggest question right now is concerning shot rotation, I'm currently using a 1:1 macro, which I know isn't the best, but I'm not sure what is. I'm also not exactly sure as to what things like 1.5:1 are... I'd appreciate any help that I could get.

Here's a recent WWS, shows me at some of my better times and at some of my very worst recently WWS Loading...