JohnyQ

As for some comments that were made on the first page about haste affecting shots and efficiency I have a few questions:

First, does the haste affect all the shots so that SS and other abilities have a lower cast time, say 1.2 seconds or so for SS, or does it just affect auto shot while not lowering the casting times on special abilities?

I ask this because as shown in the examples a loss of timing effectiveness proves to be at the very least a delay in autoshot and more seriously it could cause a whole rotation to fly off the hook.

Second, I have been using a rotation as follows and would like a critique of what i've been doing.

Steady -> Arcane -> Auto -> Steady -> Serpent -> Auto -> Steady -> Arcane -> Auto -> Steady -> Multi -> Auto...repeat.

While I have seen that this is somewhat mana intensive as also shown by the OP it puts out a fair amount of damage.

Third, this is to the OP, have you taken into account any of the efficiency talent points in the MM tree which would reduce the cost of all abilities on your charts with the exception of KC?

Thanks.

 

Reviction

I have a question about shot rotation. Currently I have to ranged weapons that I use.

Wrathtide Longbow - Items - World of Warcraft (Wrathhide longbow)

Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle - Items - World of Warcraft (wolfslayers sniper rifle)

I am also BM spec with the cookie cutter spec. My first question is regarding weapons. Is the sniper rifle the choice in weapons for me? Secondly with the wrathhide I use just a stead/auto shot rotation with kill command. If I use the bow should I add another shot to my rotation since it has a slower attack speed? If so, and mana permits, how should I set up the rotation?

 

Infenwe

JohnyQ: You don't need a timer or anything to confirm that. My hunter alt is 46 BM / 15 MM (crap gear with low crit so mortal shots isn't that good. Besides, she mostly soloes so it would just make her pet lose aggro more often). She has 5/5 imp. AotH and when it procs there is no way you can mistake that steady shot cast time for 1.5s. It most definately is modified by haste (and quiver).

And from what I have observed, serpent sting serves exactly one purpose and that is to make non-dwarf rogues have to blow cloak of shadows to bandage in pvp. It's too mana intensive and low dps when soloing and in raids it's pretty much the weakest possible DoT that could take up a debuff slot (and if you're not mana starved when raiding just using SS, arcane + multi you're probably doing something wrong)

 

• Jakt

One thing that's still not quite clear to me is how the hidden 0.5s auto shot cast time interacts with steady shot. In particular can this cast time tick down in parallell with with a ongoing steady shot? To illustrate the question with a example:

Assume a 2.0 speed setup. Ignoring any latency issues will casting a steady shot 0.5 seconds after my last auto push out my next auto or will my next auto fire at the same time as the steady?

 

◊ Lactose

Auto Shot cast time does not tick down simultaneously to any other cast.
You need 0.5 seconds of 'dead' time (no casting, no movement, etc) after an ability for Auto Shot to be able to fire.

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

 

Lumi

It will push it .5 seconds after your steady shot fires. Remember though that steady shot is affected by hastes. Chances are if you have a 2.0 speed shot, you have a steady shot faster than 1.5.

 

• Jakt

Deleted due to idiocy.

 

Wraith40k

I need to test this out, but wanted other opinions. Below is a macro that is supposed to allow 'Huntards' to spam 1 macro button and still weave steady shot realibly, without clipping, as well as automatic kill command activation. The original person I copied this from also has shift modifier for multishot (probably not necessary) and arcane shot (again not necessary for BM) in the rotation. I have not modified the macro, but I assume you could just replace the initial arcane shot with steady shot, or run the castsequence out to the 100x's.
I have edited much of the text on 'how it works' to remove names, name calling and much of the original sarcasm.

""
/cast [modifier:shift] Multi-Shot;
/castsequence reset=6 Arcane Shot,Auto Shot,Steady Shot,Auto Shot,Steady Shot,Auto Shot,Steady Shot
/castrandom [target=pettarget, exists] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()


Pressing it the first time will cast Arcane shot, then no matter how many times you press it, it'll wait for the autoshot to go off, because it's programmed to in the CastSequence and wont go off until that Auto does. After that it'll steady, then wait again until the auto goes off, etc, until it's gone to the end of the cycle, and it'll Arcane Shot again, which should coincide with with the cooldown coming up anyway.

That's your perfect shot rotation, where you wont lose any dps to the way steady shot and your other shots will pause your autoshots .

Ontop of this, if you hold down Shift and then press it, it'll cast multi-shot, which you can do to fit into the rotation. You can wait for this whenever you want, and you can watch your multishot cooldown on your own multishot button on your bars anyway.

ANOTHER awesome part which you might've noticed, is the line involving Kill Command. This will kill command every time you can, for ABSOLUTE maximum dps. If you use a macro with /cast Kill Command, it wont work, but that's where i'm tricksy and use /castrandom, where it WILL work. ""

I plan on trying this out this weekend. I have manually gotten my timing down, and dps up... If this macro works it would be great to be able to spend more time watching other things than my shot timer (Like my scorpids poison stack).

Thoughts?

 

◊ Lactose

Normally, both Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot do more damage than Steady Shot, even for BM Hunters. Thus, they improve your DPS if you use one of them instead of Steady Shot. This is much heavier on mana, though.
Using Multi-Shot like that might delay your Auto Shot.
Using Kill Command like that might delay your Auto Shot.

Macros like these are, by nature, easily affected by latency. On the other hand, they tend to negate a lot of reaction time (if you find it hard to time it manually).

Additionally, macros do not adapt to what's happening in the encounter.
The player is able to (although I'm not guaranteeing that s/he does).

As it is, I see manually timing as having the highest potential, while macros make it easier to focus on other things.
Personally, I don't like shot rotation macros, but that's just preference.

The upcoming changes to the whole /stopcasting business might alter the above some, but that's hard to say before it's actually implemented and people have had the time to play around with it.

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

 

Sieta

Has anyone discussed the implications of using something like Autohotkey for your shot macro? I recently came across a post on the WoW forum that discussed using a Autohotkey script that would essentially eliminate losing dps due to having poor reaction timing on shots since it's automatically spamming the macro key. From what I've read the program is perfectly ok to use as long as it's not used for botting purposes. I'm curious to find out what I can do with a shot rotation to maximize dps using Autohotkey vs. Manually spamming a macro.

 

Alistar

I was looking into shot rotation and I came across this thread.

I would like to post my personal experiences and calculations in regards to this topic and slightly related topics.
This is just what I have found personally, I am certainly willing to accept constructive criticism.

1) The global cooldown appears to be affected by haste rating:
1.a. My experience - I fire off Rapid Fire and Abacus and I can still continually fire steady shot one after another despite the fact that they are obviously going off faster and the little grey circle moves just as fast on the other abilities; and I can use the other abilties (doesn't affect the cooldown of abilities though).

2) I think you neglect serpent sting for the wrong reasons.
It may have not great DPS, but consider this is DPS on an instant shot, where you can add more DPS while it ticks in the background. I throw this in on cycles now and then where it fits by serpent sting, autoshot, steady, back to my cycle. You delay autoshot, but it doesn't appear to reset autoshot. I can fire serpent sting, I see my autoshot (on screen and in combat log) and my hunter timers mod shows it going off.

3) This has been discussed, but on a slower bow a 1:1 shot cycle is not maximising your DPS.
I go for like a 1.2-1.3 shot cycle (I look at this as 6 per 5):

I use the sunfury -> My armory profile as well if you want to see the rest Im using:
The Armory

I am Beast Master Spec, and please no criticisms on my talent choices, this works for me for now, I tweak now and then based on what I can do.

I actually calculated out using processor scheduling methods a good shot rotation for it. Processor scheduling is actually really good to look at it, because you can take latency, intrrupting, cooldowns, pretty much every variable into consideration.

Just for tests, I tried a steady-auto-steady-auto shot spamming macro.
My DPS dropped almost in half. I was hitting only about 400-500 DPS.
Using my shot cycle I can keep up around 875-900 without breaking a sweat and up to 1000 with a little effort. This is just my DPS (no pet included), with raid buffs, not using beastial wrath, rapid fire or abacus or bloodlust (but I'll get to that). My pet adds in about 350-400 pretty easily to that total.

My shot cycle uses serpent sting, the first application is fine, there is still usually 6-7 seconds left on the debuff when the second application comes around, and then the 3rd application is usually applied around 3-4 seconds after the second wears off. (yes it is kind of a long cycle) And yes it is not terribly efficient.

It also uses arcane, although somewhat sparingly, as it is fairly mana intensive, but I usually use it once, maybe twice depending on latency in my shot cycle.

I use multi, because it boosts autoshot dmg, but does cause the global cooldown, usually twice in a shot cycle, if there is no CC.

I throw in my Misdirect Macro as well to boost tank threat (it seems piddly, but we take 2-4 hunters with us on 25-mans so we all do it in cycles and it helps)

/target <tank>
/cast Misdirection
/assist <tank>

This of course is quite mana intensive, if you looked at my spec I don't have Improved Aspect of the Hawk. This is because I would need aspect of the viper to keep enough mana up even with popping potions. And before I got enough mp5 gear I would usually need wisdom for that as well.

Getting slightly off topic, I will be switching to try aspect of the hawk for raid bosses again as I find Mark of Conquest helps quite nicely(pvp reward - chance on hit to restore average of 200 mana - procs about 5.5% of shots) It is 18 less AP than bloodlust brooch, but allows me to use aspect of the hawk, so 155-18 = 137 more AP constantly, using that. Makes the on use of bloodlust useless to me.

For say a Void Reaver battle (haven't downed him yet, but close we can survive to 10 mins just hes not dead yet - usign this as example as I move around a bit and stay and shoot at times for those who know the battle it depends on how lucky you are, sometimes I can 60 seconds without having to move only other example I have is Gruuls, which is insanely easy to control mana), I use about 400 shots, at 5.5% proc rate thats 22 procs, at an average of 200 mana thats 4400 mana over the battle. With Fel Mana potions and other buffs, this works, plus if need be I can switch to viper if I start runnign too low while a potion cools down.

If you can use aspect of the hawk and bloodlust brooch, good for you, remember, just giving my experiences and playing style for those who might find it helpful.

Now to the meat, I can't actually quite give you an exact shot cycle (Im sorry big leadup no climax) but I can give you a rough idea of what I do. The reason is, I adjsut it constantly based on latency and fps (choppy is bad for clicking and watchign correctly) and if I have to move around the fight or not (I run through the rough calculations pretty quickly in my head on the fly)

Open with misdirect usually
Serpent Sting - right away to get it out of the way
Steady shot
Autoshot
Steady Shot
Autoshot
Multishot
Autoshot
Steady Shot
Serpent Sting/Autoshot (depends which comes first - )
Steady Shot
Arcane Shot
Autoshot
Steady Shot
Autoshot
Steady Shot
Autoshot
(Multishot is ready abotu here - but I don't us eit yet)
(Might throw in an arcane - especially if Im moving)
Steady Shot
Arcane shot (depends if I used it above)
Autoshot
Multi-shot
Serpent Sting
Steady Shot (yes I clip the next autoshot with this, but I like serpent sting, dot is good for when you are moving around as well)
Autoshot
Steady shot

Kill command gets used after an autoshot on non-steady shot portions.

Thats about my shot cycle, it moves around a little bit, I will sacrifice half the remaining serpent sting debuff if I know Ill be moving around for the next while just to keep DPS on it.
This is not very mana efficient either as I don't let serpent sting expend itself fully, and use other shots in there. I also took efficiency in the marks tree, which helps with that.

I hope found my ramblings useful. If you have any questions or suggestions I look forward to them.

Oh as a side not, I hear different opinions about hit rating - I have 146 hit rating and I miss about 2-3 in 1000 shots miss rating of 0.2-0.3% - according to a couple add-ons I have. This is against lvl 70 and 71s. 72-73 that jumps up to about 7-10 shots in 1000. Anyone have more definitive knowledge on hit raitng and hunters.

 

◊ Lactose

The only Haste known to affect the global cooldown is Bloodlust /Heroism.
I have tested this several times, with less than 100ms ping and ~50fps. With only the 15% quiver, I've been able to get the 'spell not ready' while only using Steady Shot. What this means is that the spell has fired, but you can't use it again, due to global cooldown.
With other Hastes in addition (e.g. Rapid Fire, Serpent's Swiftness, Quick Shots...), it becomes easier and easier to produce this message.

Due to the fast attack speed of BM Hunters, you can really only fit in 1 special between each Auto Shot without delaying the Auto Shot. Serpent Sting does less damage on average than Steady Shot, as far as I can remember.
Unless there are nature vulnerable mobs, I don't see a reason to use it as BM specced.
For Marksman and Survival, there might be enough dead space to use it comfortably, but I don't have any first-hand experience with that.

Correct, Serpent Sting does not reset the Auto Shot timer, but it can delay it by up to 0.5 seconds (depending on how close to the Auto Shot fire you used it). With the attack speed of BM Hunters being as fast as it is, this delay can net you a high % loss of Auto Shots.

With global cooldown being what it is, I can't see how this would work out without intentionally delaying some of your Auto Shots. Do you happen to have a WWS or just a plain combat log where you feel you accomplish this? It would be interesting to see how you're making this work for you.

How does this work?

This seems quite high. Again, I'd be interested to see a combat log (parsed or normal) to see what's going on.
What are you using to measure your DPS?

Your example rotation actually looks pretty bad in places. E.g. where you have Multi-Shot, Serpent Sting, Steady Shot, then Auto Shot. With perfect timing and no latency, your previous Auto Shot is now at least 4 before the one you're about to fire. Not a good sign.

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

 

Alistar

I'll admit you probably right about the haste thing.

I just saw the little grey circles and it seemed to fire, but I can't hear whether it did or didn't. I am probably assuming too much by relying on the graphic.

As for the shot rotation:

It's because if you are quick enough with the buttons, I can fit in an extra shot once in awhile while autoshot is still cooling down after a steady. And you are right, sorry, any extra shot should be after a steady before an auto as steady will eat the global cooldown. Before a steady after an auto will cause big delays in DPS.

As for combat logs, how do can you save them?
I have 3 mods that tell me DPS, one puts my pet in with me.
Usually on a boss battle I get about 850-950ish on one, 1250ish on another (with pet) and 875-950ish on the third. I suppose they could be wrong, Im not taking them at straight face value per se, just relative value in that, binding the standard steady-auto shot macro to the mouse wheel and scrolling the whole time (with and withotu kill command in there), I got less DPS on them while standing perfectly still then I do on a boss battle where I have to move around using mine; by almost half.
I was screwing around kara with this for many weeks in a row. Using the steady-auto-steady-auto I was down in 5th place for damage. Using my weird shots cycle I would be first by a couple % - beating out fairly equally geared rogues and warlocks. Heck I could do the first half of a day (up to almost Maiden) with steady-auto-steady-auto be behind about 5% from first place, switch to mine and jump up to first by the end of curator, although barely usually. Again, not taking it at straight value, but relative value, I don't assume its right, but I assume its consistently wrong, so any relative change can be taken appropriately.

I don't number crunch entirely, just think about 30 seconds ahead on whats gonna happen and weave shots in to acommodate that.

As for processor scheduling, I work with real time embedded systems, you have to be able to have many different tasks run on a processor with different priorities, but only one can run at a time. So its like the shots, optimizing it to fit in the most shots in the available time. If your steady shot, autoshot doesn't fit in perfectly you can throw in other shots there now and then, where you delay autoshot a bit, but it seems to increase overall dps.

And to say to your serpetn sting comment, yea number wise you are right, serpent sting does less than steady, but it stacks with any future DPS for 15 secs. And with sthe sunfury a shot speed of 2.1 I think, auto shot uses 1.25secs as BM spec I think it is, you have .8 secs to do something else, throw a serpent sting, 0.3 secs before auto, but yo uhave global cooldown, so it starts now. To the end of auto is 0.8sec so 0.7 secs on global cooldown. So you are only losing 1/2 a steady to throw a serpent in there. Theoretically for every shot that is better than half a steady its worth to throw it in there, if you can perfect timing, but I can't latency and all that, which is why it works out to about 6 in 5 shots for me cause getting steayd to start immediately after the auto to have time to throw that extra one in there is hard for me at least.

 

Cheeky

Typing /combatlog with save a file called WowCombatLog in your logs directory. You can run this file through WWS for much more accurate DPS numbers than your AddOns are giving you.

We tend to call this a priority or replacement rotation. Heavy analysis has shown that for BM Hunters 1:1 rotations (Auto:Special) produce superior DPS while also being mana-efficient. The special you use can be either all Steadies, or a choice between Steady, Arcane, and Multi based on cooldowns and expected mana longevity. (I am an embedded sofwtare developer as well, so I understand what you are getting at.)

Serpent Sting does just 660 damage if it's not resisted. Plus, you may not realize that Auto Shot has a cast time as well, and anything cast in the last 0.5s before an Auto Shot will delay it. In you example you will be delaying both the Auto Shot, and the subsequent Steady Shot (and most likely the Auto after that.) That combined delay probably out-weighs the gains of the Serpent Sting, and we haven't even looked as the mana/damage returns (which are very unfavorable to Serpent Sting.)

The Hunter DPS spreadsheet has a section where you can hand build any shot rotation you desire, and it will provide you DPS based on the cycle of that rotation. I encourage you to fool around with it, as far as I know it is very accurate, and you can input latency values as well to account for real-world timings.

Also be careful comparing DPS with other raid members. I could be in a raid with a bunch of awesome players and pull 12th on a meter, or in a guild that sucks and pull #1, but my personal DPS was identical in both. It's better to use absolute numbers (which is the point of tools like WWS) that are not relative. And some fights favor different classes - any AE class that isn't #1 on Illhoof is doing something seriously wrong.

Cheeky of Havoc

 

Alistar

Well, when you're wrong you're wrong and when you're right you're right.

You are correct, my method is actually slightly less DPS than a straight 1:1 shot rotation.

Had a bunch of friends tank and heal a lair brute while I just shot at it, trying my way and 1:1 several times each.
I had standard raid buffs, kings, fort (not that that would matter), gift of the wild.
Didn't use beastial wrath or rapid fire.

My DPS for 1:1 was about 926 on average
My DPS for my way was 891 on average

Thats with my pet dmg added in.

I tweajed it a bit and could eek it a little higher sacrificing serpent sting for multis when they popped cooldown, but not much.

Thanks for the help, I never knew abotu WWS either, its a nice tool.

 

starus

Hey folks,
Good thread, thank you for the great information.


A few different people have talked about the situation I'm in and I was wondering if anybody had any more thoughts on the issue please.

I'm an Aussie with ~500ms latency. I've chosen a BM build for Raiding, because I enjoy it as much as the fact I think it serves me better than MM now.

My current weapon (2.8 speed) doesn't allow me enough reaction time, with server lag, to really squeeze in much apart from a Steady shot each auto-cycle. (With talents and quiver I have a 2.03 autoshot timer.)

Even though Kill Command no longer resets the GCD it feels like every time i use it my next steady shot is thrown out and causes me to clip a little.
(Yes I know, I should combat log it and do some real analysis, but I've been busy! I use Quartz.)


Thus I have been trying various macros.
I don't want to macro because I'm lazy. I enjoy using other shots in various situations.
Basically, I want to minimise the penalty I have in my high latency.

Should I got for a KC/Steady macro? I could spam it so that if KC is available I have clicked it so fast that it will fit in before a Steady and not clip my next autoshot too badly?
I really don't like spam buttons but surely there has to be some way of fitting in a KC without screwing up a basic Steady Shot rotation?


Thanks!

 

◊ Lactose

If you have a steady latency, a macro isn't a good idea in my opinion. As it is right now, the /castsequence macro functions somewhat like this (assuming /castsequence Steady Shot, Auto Shot), spamming it:
The first time you click it, it will start a Steady Shot.
Until Steady Shot has fired, the next parameter (Auto Shot) will not start.
After Steady Shot fires, Auto Shot fires.
Until Auto Shot has fired, the next parameter (Steady Shot) will not start.

The problem in your case is that the check for whether or not the Auto Shot has fired requires your client to wait for the server to tell you what's happened.

In other words:
When Auto Shot is finished on the server, you have to wait for the server to relay this information to you. This takes time, dependant on your latency (higher latency = longer time).
When your client knows that Auto Shot has finished, it sends the 'Start Steady Shot' event to the server. This is not registered server side immediately, again the wait time depends on your latency.

Without a macro it's possible to start casting Auto Shot before Steady Shot has finished its cast on the client, resulting in telling the server to tell your Steady Shot to start much earlier than it would with the macro. This is similar to what the casters do with the /stopcasting thing.

For minimizing the penalty for a high latency, I would really reccommend doing it manually, pre-emptively starting the casts, although this is much more demanding.

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

 

smokinggun

following this thread i've tried to make some speculation that i would like to talk about you all


1 role of global cooldown in shot rotation.

let's just take the steady, auto rotation, performed by the macro
/castsequence reset=3 steady shot, auto shot

let's consider a BM hunter :

new bow speed = (old bow speed) / (haste effects) [ aka auto shot timer]
SS timer = 1.5 / (haste effects)

possible haste effects (not considering any gear or trinket)

normal (quiver + Serpent Swiftness) = 1.15 * 1.20 = 1.38

Quick shot (quiver + SS + QS) = 1.15 * 1.20 * 1.15 = 1.587

Rapid fire (quiver + SS + RF) = 1.15 * 1.20 * 1.40 = 1.932

RF + QS (quiver + SS + QS + RF) = 1.15 * 1.20 * 1.15 * 1.40 = 2.2218

let's get my bow steelhawk crossbow with a speed of 2.8 so i get this auto shot timers :

normal = 2.8 / 1.38 = 2.03

QS = 2.8 / 1.587 = 1.764

RF = 2.8 / 1.932 = 1.449

RF + QS = 2.8 / 2.2218 = 1.26

same apply for steady shot timer:

normal = 1.5 / 1.38 = 1.08

QS = 1.5 / 1.587 = 0.94

RF = 1.5 / 1.932 = 0.77

RF + QS = 1.5 / 2.2218 = 0.67

now the question is: how the global cooldown affect steady shot ? because with all the haste effects steady shot casting time is 0.67 but global cooldown should still be 1.5 seconds so during RF + QS my steady auto shot rotation will be sooner or later clip an auto shot due to the fact that GCD prevent me cast another steady shot even if an auto shot has been already fired right ?

this means that i would loose 0.24 sec each steady,auto due to the fact that GCD prevent me to fire SS and after 3-4 steady/auto "combos" one of my auto shot will be delayed due to the fact that each SS i'm casting is delayed by 0.24s of the GCD,


Is this true, or there's something wrong in my speculation ?


2 Steady shot casting time and damage
i have used HunterGuide » Theorycraft for my haste and casting time speculations
but i found Steady Shot - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki which is a bit confusing me in particular this:

anyone has any clues of what that 1.787 and 2.466 could means ?


now last part steady shot damage:
HunterGuide » Theorycraft

SteadyShotDamage = DamagePercentageBonus*RWS*(150 + (WeaponDamage/WeaponSpeed)*2.8 + 0.2*RAP + [Dazed: 175])

Steady Shot - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki

Formula: DamagePercentageBonus*RangedWeaponSpecialization*(150 + WeaponDamage/WeaponSpeed*2.8 + 0.2*RAP + [Dazed: 175])

but for what i've know till now SS damage depends only by RAP (and if the target is damaged) like
here Steady Shot - Spells - World of Warcraft

so adding a +xx damage scope, having different bullets/arrows or changing our ranged weapon (without considering things like "increase xx ap") should not affect SS damage.
any idea ? i hope the post is readable

 

◊ Lactose

Due to the global cooldown, you will not take full advantage of all haste when under the influence of extreme values of haste.

They're adding the 0.5 second casting time of Auto Shot and 0.2 seconds of latency, then converting that into base weapon speed, trying to get the 'perfect' base weapon speed for pure Auto Shot/Steady Shot spamming.

The tooltip is incorrect. It'll be fixed in an upcoming patch.

WeaponDamage affects the damage of Steady Shot (easily tested), ammo and +damage scope do not. Additionally, the RAP scaling is only 20%, not 30%.

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

 

starus

Thanks Lactose, that's helpful!