SURVIVAL Raiding in 2.1 - Page 49

• Intermission · 03/09/08, 9:09 PM

Originally Posted by Chanii

Have the same problem here.
I think all we need is to add the line "/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()" on the top of the macro.
Right?

Edit:
Yup, it did help.

I think you should add a "/script UIErrorsFrame:Show()" at the end.

I'm guessing Hide() is a toggle to hide it permanently, and Show() brings it back on permanently. Clear() would just clear any current errors from the frame (after they have already appeared).

So if you Hide() the error frame, perform the macro (and get the errors, but they're hidden), then Clear() those errors, then Show() the frame again when the macro is done.

That's just my assumption, I'd give it a shot in-game, but no WoW at work. I'm sure some more UI-competent people could correct us.

{edit} so the macro would be:
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
*macro goes here*
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/script UIErrorsFrame:Show()

Sufferings · 03/10/08, 1:43 AM

Quick question, I have seen some thoughts on group setup, but had some questions on survival hunters as we are trying to integrate one into our raid group before Sunwell hits.

Our typical melee group runs with an enhancement shaman (myself), 2 rogues, 1 MS warrior and 1 fury warrior. We also have 2 BM hunters outside the melee group and a feral druid that tanks when needed. We usually run with one or two shadow priests (which I have heard are sometimes needed for survival?).

What would the optimal group setup be for a survival hunter?

Also, how much dps should a survival hunter be doing in their best gear set? Although the main reason I want a survival hunter is for expose weakness and imp hunters mark, I want them to do good damage compared to the rest of the group.

I have seen a lot of conflicting information about just how much dps they are capable of and also about the group set up.

If I can get some informative answers on this or a link to this information, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Kabuto · 03/10/08, 2:00 AM

A decent survival hunter will do more dps than you and your arms warrior, but around 200 dps less than 'the best' BM
hunter. Get one of your BM guys to try it out.

The best gear is almost identical for all hunter specs as nothing is specifically itemised for Survival anyway.

Sufferings · 03/10/08, 2:26 AM

Originally Posted by Kabuto

A decent survival hunter will do more dps than you and your arms warrior, but around 200 dps less than 'the best' BM
hunter. Get one of your BM guys to try it out.

The best gear is almost identical for all hunter specs as nothing is specifically itemised for Survival anyway.

What about ideal group setup? Our rogues are both hovering in the 2k dps range, me between 1500-1800 usually, fury warrior at 1500ish and MS warrior around 1300ish. Our BM hunters range quite a bit because of pet viability on fights, but can easily pass our warriors and compete with our rogues if their pets stay up.

I guess what I am saying is, if I am going to put a hunter in the melee group, it would be one of the BM hunters, so where should I ideally set the survival hunter? I have had one of our BM hunters go survival, but he prefers BM and I would rather have him stay BM and just fill another ranged spot with a survival hunter.

Thanks!

Wunlastri · 03/10/08, 3:07 AM

Originally Posted by Enova

EDIT: CC awareness will soon be a moot point, anyway, given that it will no longer break targets under break on damage type crowd control - possibly unless specifically targeted.

Wait what?

Enova · 03/10/08, 7:21 AM

Originally Posted by Wunlastri

Wait what?

Yup, apparently, on the PTR, Avenger's shield, Chain lightning, Multi Shot and a few more similar abilities can be safely used around sheeped/sapped/trapped targets without breaking them.

For multi shot, that means it would either jump to 3 uncontroled targets, if there are enough to go around, or it will only fire at one or two targets if there aren't enough eligible targets.

Aerevyn · 03/10/08, 7:51 AM

Originally Posted by Sufferings

Quick question, I have seen some thoughts on group setup, but had some questions on survival hunters as we are trying to integrate one into our raid group before Sunwell hits.

Our typical melee group runs with an enhancement shaman (myself), 2 rogues, 1 MS warrior and 1 fury warrior. We also have 2 BM hunters outside the melee group and a feral druid that tanks when needed. We usually run with one or two shadow priests (which I have heard are sometimes needed for survival?).

What would the optimal group setup be for a survival hunter?

Also, how much dps should a survival hunter be doing in their best gear set? Although the main reason I want a survival hunter is for expose weakness and imp hunters mark, I want them to do good damage compared to the rest of the group.

I have seen a lot of conflicting information about just how much dps they are capable of and also about the group set up.

If I can get some informative answers on this or a link to this information, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Some of my reply is backed up by theory, some is my opinion, I'll try to keep the two seperate.
Theory.
Unfortunately, as much as we survival hunters would love it, raids rarely run with two enhancement shamans and the raid's dps benefits better from WF in the melee group than GoA for the Surv Hunter. This is especially true with your setup (MS warrior), Fury warriors tend to be rage capped and use Heroic Strike, thus no white damage from MH to turn into WF procs.

My Opinion
It seems the best combination you can come up with with the classes you've mentioned would be putting all 3 hunters together with the feral druid.
An alternative is swapping out the rogue into the group with the 3 hunters and putting the feral druid into the melee group. It'll suck for the hunters but will probably be of greatest raid benefit. (This is only a good solution if the rogue is not combat swords, if Rogue is combat swords then WF is a big increase in dps).

As for the Surv hunter's dps, it very much depends on the fight. There's few fights where you can get a really good representation of a hunter's dps because we are all of ranged, melee and mana users so there is rarely a fight that doesn't gimp our dps in one way or another. We're working through MH/BT at the moment (4/5, 3/9) so my gear is probably slightly behind but comparable. On Shade of Akama (probably the best place to test dps if you put the Surv hunter up top on the channelers, also good for synergy with the melee there) I can output about 1300 dps, there will be others who can do better than this no doubt.

In our raids we generally have 2-3 hunters and 4-5 melee + a feral druid (often dps for bosses) which makes for a lot of physical damage. When I'm in the raid it's almost like having another dps (works out at about 800 effective dps across the raid I think) because of EW/IHM. So you can probably attribute another few hundred dps to the Surv hunter interms of the raid (though that's no reason to slack).

A Surv Hunter should probably be top dps on Azgalor and Supremus. Those fights are perfect for them. If they're not top or close they're probably doing something wrong.

Adenhart · 03/10/08, 8:19 AM

Originally Posted by Aerevyn

As for the Surv hunter's dps, it very much depends on the fight. There's few fights where you can get a really good representation of a hunter's dps because we are all of ranged, melee and mana users so there is rarely a fight that doesn't gimp our dps in one way or another. We're working through MH/BT at the moment (4/5, 3/9) so my gear is probably slightly behind but comparable. On Shade of Akama (probably the best place to test dps if you put the Surv hunter up top on the channelers, also good for synergy with the melee there) I can output about 1300 dps, there will be others who can do better than this no doubt.

Ironically enough the largest problem I've faced since clearing Hyjal and going 4/5 BT thusfar, is pet survivability. The Tier 6 encounters for the most part are not pet friendly whatsoever. It's true on fights like Azgalor personal DPS is very high, but one RoF kills my poor wind serpent- or at least makes me use 2 GCDs Mend Petting him back to health before sending him back in. The only fight in MH that isn't a problem is Kaz, all the others I know I'm losing a lot of DPS micro-managing my pet's health. I agree Shade is one of the few fights that would be a good benchmark of DPS, but even then you're switching targets a lot

Many factors like amount of target switches, time spent setting up and executing MDs, group composition ect. all play into it. Where other ranged classes have a DPS window that differs by maybe 250, mine atm is anywhere from 950-1450. A lot of what a SV Hunter brings to the raid is not going to show up on his Recount data on any particular fight.

Aerevyn · 03/10/08, 9:38 AM

Originally Posted by Adenhart

Ironically enough the largest problem I've faced since clearing Hyjal and going 4/5 BT thusfar, is pet survivability. The Tier 6 encounters for the most part are not pet friendly whatsoever. It's true on fights like Azgalor personal DPS is very high, but one RoF kills my poor wind serpent- or at least makes me use 2 GCDs Mend Petting him back to health before sending him back in. The only fight in MH that isn't a problem is Kaz, all the others I know I'm losing a lot of DPS micro-managing my pet's health. I agree Shade is one of the few fights that would be a good benchmark of DPS, but even then you're switching targets a lot

Many factors like amount of target switches, time spent setting up and executing MDs, group composition ect. all play into it. Where other ranged classes have a DPS window that differs by maybe 250, mine atm is anywhere from 950-1450. A lot of what a SV Hunter brings to the raid is not going to show up on his Recount data on any particular fight.

On Azgalor the trick is to put your pet on stay and agressive near the Doomguard tank spot (Tauren Warriors for us).

I'd agree that the target switching on Shade makes a slightly poor comparison but it's mostly, if not over-compensated by your multishot hitting 3 targets usually (especially once some sorcerors arrive).

I'll also agree, a Survival Hunter's benefit to the raid is in their utility (especially if readiness specced) but their personal damage should not be ignored. They are, after all, a dps class and although their spec is "sacrificial" they can't be considered a "gimped" spec by any means.

Enova · 03/10/08, 9:53 AM

Originally Posted by Adenhart

Ironically enough the largest problem I've faced since clearing Hyjal and going 4/5 BT thusfar, is pet survivability. The Tier 6 encounters for the most part are not pet friendly whatsoever. It's true on fights like Azgalor personal DPS is very high, but one RoF kills my poor wind serpent- or at least makes me use 2 GCDs Mend Petting him back to health before sending him back in. The only fight in MH that isn't a problem is Kaz, all the others I know I'm losing a lot of DPS micro-managing my pet's health. I agree Shade is one of the few fights that would be a good benchmark of DPS, but even then you're switching targets a lot

Many factors like amount of target switches, time spent setting up and executing MDs, group composition ect. all play into it. Where other ranged classes have a DPS window that differs by maybe 250, mine atm is anywhere from 950-1450. A lot of what a SV Hunter brings to the raid is not going to show up on his Recount data on any particular fight.

Well, on Rage, if you can pull your pet out a few seconds before D&D for safety, it will survive.
On Anatheron, you can leave it on the boss for the whole duration, and just spam mend pets when possible.
On Kaz, like you said, no problems there...
On Azgalor, you can set him to aggresive and stay near Thrall, to dps doomguards rather than get in the way of fires.

Edit: 2/5 tier 5 goes a very long way to ensure a happy, healthy and living pet.

Gurth · 03/10/08, 10:14 AM

I'm still torn on what spec going for sunwell.

At the moment i have a mixed raid/pvp build since we are just farming content, but surely once sunwell goes live i will respec for better raid performance.

The 3 specs i'm considering are:

1)7-21-33

2)0-28-33

3)0-20-41

As it is now, third build wins in short fight while second one have better avarage performance. With sunwell gear however, getting haste items will not gimp too much your dps stats, and it's actually easy to get around 10% haste and keeping 4 t6 bonus. Was thinking to switch to the Barrel-Blade Longrifle for 1% racial crit and higher agi, and then with approx 10% haste i'll bring down my autoshot to 2.05, that will allow me to switch to 3:2 rotation and getting full benefit from IAotH procs.

Any comments?

Schniepel · 03/10/08, 11:35 AM

I had an Imp. Arcane spec before and recently switched to 7-21-33. So far I am very impressed with the results. Using a normal BM rotation, which converts to 2:1 unhasted, I usually get better DPS for less mana consumption. This spec really shines if you add a 'haste-cycle' to it to get to a 3:2 or even better 1:1 rotation. I dont have passive haste at all, but use the following to achieve this goal for as long as I can:

- IAotH (15%, 12 sec, proc)
- DST (20%, 10 sec, proc)
- Rapid Fire (40%, 15 sec, on use)
- Troll Berserking (10-30%, 10 sec, on use)
- Haste Potion (25%, 15 sec on use)
- Bloodlust (30%, 40 sec, on use)
- Drums (5%, 30sec, on use)

Although Haste Potion may not be an option for everyone (lucky me raids with a Ret Pally

) and the same goes for Berserking, it works out really nice if you can get this to work, especially in shorter encounters. But even in the longer ones the sustainability is great.

Sufferings · 03/10/08, 11:44 AM

Originally Posted by Aerevyn

Some of my reply is backed up by theory, some is my opinion, I'll try to keep the two seperate.
Theory.
Unfortunately, as much as we survival hunters would love it, raids rarely run with two enhancement shamans and the raid's dps benefits better from WF in the melee group than GoA for the Surv Hunter. This is especially true with your setup (MS warrior), Fury warriors tend to be rage capped and use Heroic Strike, thus no white damage from MH to turn into WF procs.

My Opinion
It seems the best combination you can come up with with the classes you've mentioned would be putting all 3 hunters together with the feral druid.
An alternative is swapping out the rogue into the group with the 3 hunters and putting the feral druid into the melee group. It'll suck for the hunters but will probably be of greatest raid benefit. (This is only a good solution if the rogue is not combat swords, if Rogue is combat swords then WF is a big increase in dps).

As for the Surv hunter's dps, it very much depends on the fight. There's few fights where you can get a really good representation of a hunter's dps because we are all of ranged, melee and mana users so there is rarely a fight that doesn't gimp our dps in one way or another. We're working through MH/BT at the moment (4/5, 3/9) so my gear is probably slightly behind but comparable. On Shade of Akama (probably the best place to test dps if you put the Surv hunter up top on the channelers, also good for synergy with the melee there) I can output about 1300 dps, there will be others who can do better than this no doubt.

In our raids we generally have 2-3 hunters and 4-5 melee + a feral druid (often dps for bosses) which makes for a lot of physical damage. When I'm in the raid it's almost like having another dps (works out at about 800 effective dps across the raid I think) because of EW/IHM. So you can probably attribute another few hundred dps to the Surv hunter interms of the raid (though that's no reason to slack).

A Surv Hunter should probably be top dps on Azgalor and Supremus. Those fights are perfect for them. If they're not top or close they're probably doing something wrong.

I have to admit, moving the feral (who usually sits with the MT group, since he ends up OT a lot) is something I had not considered, awesome idea. I am kinda kicking myself (as a big theroycrafter) for not thinking about this beforehand.

As far as the melee group, I prefer to leave it untouched, but one of our rogues is combat daggers (until a second set of warglaives drops). I have considered swapping one of the BM hunters in there, and moving the dagger rogue, a resto shaman (dropping GoA), the other BM hunter, a survival hunter and the feral into the same group and seeing how that goes.

I figure the second one would be even better for overall raid dps, thoughts?

Evil-Homer! · 03/10/08, 1:32 PM

Originally Posted by Sufferings

Quick question, I have seen some thoughts on group setup, but had some questions on survival hunters as we are trying to integrate one into our raid group before Sunwell hits.

Our typical melee group runs with an enhancement shaman (myself), 2 rogues, 1 MS warrior and 1 fury warrior. We also have 2 BM hunters outside the melee group and a feral druid that tanks when needed. We usually run with one or two shadow priests (which I have heard are sometimes needed for survival?).

What would the optimal group setup be for a survival hunter?

Also, how much dps should a survival hunter be doing in their best gear set? Although the main reason I want a survival hunter is for expose weakness and imp hunters mark, I want them to do good damage compared to the rest of the group.

I have seen a lot of conflicting information about just how much dps they are capable of and also about the group set up.

If I can get some informative answers on this or a link to this information, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Well I can give you all the info I have learned thus far in raiding.

1. Optimal Group Setup - Keep in mind that the Surv hunter does not need to be in the melee group, only on the same target that all of the physical damage dealers are on. This is a HUGE misconception that most raid leaders make, and it irks the hell out of me. If you want to Maximize the Surv Hunters benefits to you, I think they should be considered as a melee. Optimal setup I think is 1 or 2 BM hunters(stacking 3% dmg is hot) a feral druid and a Shadow Priest. Now you can swap out one of the hunters or the druid for a shaman that can drop GoA/mana tide but that would be dependent on how many shamans you run with. It also depends on the hunter too, if they are prepared for a night of raiding then chaining Fel Mana Pots should keep them from running oom, so it can trivialize having a sp.

2. Best Dps - As most of the other people have replied its really based on what fight you are on, I also think that the group make-up has a significant role in their personal dps too. 1000-1200 should be a good number for a stacked BT geared survival hunter. Keep in mind though that their dps will not top the meters but once you add in the huge buff of EW and imp mark (i give about 360AP to the raid) it will vastly out do the loss in dps overall.

3. Here is a link to my armory and spec if you need any more information or ideas

The World of Warcraft Armory

Sufferings · 03/10/08, 2:06 PM

Originally Posted by Evil-Homer!

Well I can give you all the info I have learned thus far in raiding.

1. Optimal Group Setup - Keep in mind that the Surv hunter does not need to be in the melee group, only on the same target that all of the physical damage dealers are on. This is a HUGE misconception that most raid leaders make, and it irks the hell out of me. If you want to Maximize the Surv Hunters benefits to you, I think they should be considered as a melee. Optimal setup I think is 1 or 2 BM hunters(stacking 3% dmg is hot) a feral druid and a Shadow Priest. Now you can swap out one of the hunters or the druid for a shaman that can drop GoA/mana tide but that would be dependent on how many shamans you run with. It also depends on the hunter too, if they are prepared for a night of raiding then chaining Fel Mana Pots should keep them from running oom, so it can trivialize having a sp.

2. Best Dps - As most of the other people have replied its really based on what fight you are on, I also think that the group make-up has a significant role in their personal dps too. 1000-1200 should be a good number for a stacked BT geared survival hunter. Keep in mind though that their dps will not top the meters but once you add in the huge buff of EW and imp mark (i give about 360AP to the raid) it will vastly out do the loss in dps overall.

3. Here is a link to my armory and spec if you need any more information or ideas

The World of Warcraft Armory

I think I am going to go with BM Hunter/dagger rogue/feral druid/resto shaman/survival hunter once I pick one up. Then when that dagger rogue gets a MH warglaive, I'll swap him back in the melee group and stack the other BM hunter in the group above.

And ya, the reason I want the survival hunter is because of those buffs. 360 ap to our melee is huge by itself!

Thanks for the info, just need to find me a survival hunter now, lol!

Mahuk · 03/10/08, 7:43 PM

I recently started raiding as Survival since my guild needed one and I am still trying to figure out some things. For my first week of raids I was really really struggling to keep up a decent rotation. My damage was really low and I decided to work over my spec and rotation during the weekend. I also took the time to read this whole thread to find useful informations.

Right now the best rotation I was able to maintain during my tests was the standard 1:1.5 rotation (multi/arcane with multi priority). I have read about the new /cast !Auto shot; /cast Steady Shot and how it's supposed to deliver great DPS, but for me it is always way less than the 1:1.5 rotation. I do not have 4 pieces of T6 yet so my damage would rise if I had it, but according to my numbers, a 10% bonus would not help 2:1 come on top of a 1:1.5 rotation.

To the survival hunters out there that use the 2:1 macro, what do you have that make it better than 1:1.5? Is there something I'm missing?

-------------

I am really impressed by Kurkis' setup and his results found on page 38-39. I am really interested to learn more about it. Is Kurkis still around? Anyone else tried to follow his footsteps to reproduce his numbers?

Gonk · 03/11/08, 2:39 PM

What are folks thinking in regard to the [Crossbow of Relentless Strikes]? Is this a viable Survival Weapon?

I've been using the rotations that QuiggyB posted in post #831. I don't have DST and am running a 0/20/41 spec. I'm seriously considering saving badges for 2.4 and getting the crossbow.

Vasilii · 03/11/08, 4:08 PM

Originally Posted by Mahuk

To the survival hunters out there that use the 2:1 macro, what do you have that make it better than 1:1.5? Is there something I'm missing?

-------------

I am really impressed by Kurkis' setup and his results found on page 38-39. I am really interested to learn more about it. Is Kurkis still around? Anyone else tried to follow his footsteps to reproduce his numbers?

I believe Kurkis situation was unique and that he accomplished tremendous dps based on that specific situation and strategy.

Since his guild has been farming BT/Hyjal for quite some time, his raid dps as whole is very high and fights are very short. A fight that might take my guild 8 minutes may takes his only 4. Because of this he used 4Piece T6 bonus + steady shot trinket + multiple stacked haste effects + stacked group... he spent the majority of a fight in a 1:1 hasted state, after the haste he used 3:2 but could have probably achieved the same result if he was using 1:1.5. The majority of his big numbers came from the prolonged hasted state combined with a short encounter time.

I don't believe that 3:2 is viable for most survival hunters but if someone has some WWS to look at I think it would be really valuable.

I have not yet run the numbers on the 2.8 badges crossbow but I can't see using a 2.8 weapon very successfully with survival. Perhaps if you did not have access to S3 Bow or Archi Bow. For hunters progressing into sunwell, an amazing survival bow will be just around the corner [Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas] Not to mention the 2.8 bow looks terrible!

With all the haste gear sitting around this does bring up some interesting questions:
- Does haste have any place in 1:1.5 with 3.0 speed weapon? My thoughts are absolutely not, has anyone found differently?
- Some of the best items in the game will be leather, how much leather can we wear and still maintain decent time to OOM. (assuming no shadow priest) (this question has tons of factors involved but might be interesting to talk about)

SomeRandomIdiot · 03/11/08, 5:54 PM

Originally Posted by Mahuk

I recently started raiding as Survival since my guild needed one and I am still trying to figure out some things. For my first week of raids I was really really struggling to keep up a decent rotation. My damage was really low and I decided to work over my spec and rotation during the weekend. I also took the time to read this whole thread to find useful informations.

Right now the best rotation I was able to maintain during my tests was the standard 1:1.5 rotation (multi/arcane with multi priority). I have read about the new /cast !Auto shot; /cast Steady Shot and how it's supposed to deliver great DPS, but for me it is always way less than the 1:1.5 rotation. I do not have 4 pieces of T6 yet so my damage would rise if I had it, but according to my numbers, a 10% bonus would not help 2:1 come on top of a 1:1.5 rotation.

To the survival hunters out there that use the 2:1 macro, what do you have that make it better than 1:1.5? Is there something I'm missing?

-------------

I am really impressed by Kurkis' setup and his results found on page 38-39. I am really interested to learn more about it. Is Kurkis still around? Anyone else tried to follow his footsteps to reproduce his numbers?

Kurkis' setup was uniquely fitted to his guild and situation, and I honestly don't believe that most survival hunters out there would benefit by emulating it. If your guild is stacking the dps and killing Teron Gorefiend in 2:30 (for reference, our guild has had Illidan on farm for 6+ months now, and we kill him in 3-3:30), as well as basically requiring all raiders to go leatherworking for the haste drums, then yes you'll see an improvement.

In the end, he was doing exactly what we tell people to do: use a 1:1.5 rotation for most of the fight, swapping to a 1:1 (2:1 macro works as well) while under the effect of haste. He was just prolonging that haste to be a large % of the fight, and as such believed that the 1:1 rotation was the cause of his dps and not just the logical path.

Note: I use a 1:1.5 rotation with imp arcane shot, and tonight I'll hopefully break 2k dps on Gorefiend myself.

Edit: Rotten tarnation, Vasili beats me! The blood elf speaks the truth!

SomeRandomIdiot · 03/11/08, 6:04 PM

Originally Posted by Vasilii

With all the haste gear sitting around this does bring up some interesting questions:
- Does haste have any place in 1:1.5 with 3.0 speed weapon? My thoughts are absolutely not, has anyone found differently?
- Some of the best items in the game will be leather, how much leather can we wear and still maintain decent time to OOM. (assuming no shadow priest) (this question has tons of factors involved but might be interesting to talk about)

A while back I did the numbers on a pure haste setup (I.E. going 1:1 with as much haste as you could stack in sunwell gear) and the dps result was terrible. Given that a 1:1.5 rotation is governed by your arcane shot and multi shot cooldowns, haste really isn't going to have an effect. The only times haste would have an effect would be the hasted portions of the fight where you move to a 1:1 style rotation, and given that this is usually such a small portion of the fight I wouldn't recommend it.

Regardin