Messar

My guild currently is in the phase of treating hunters as red-headed step children. Our current make-up is something similar to this.

Group 1
MT
OT
Shaman (Resto) (Dropping WF)
Feral Druid
Warlock

Group 2
Fury Warrior
Rogue
Rogue
Enhance Shaman (Dropping WF)
Feral Druid

Group 3
Shadow priest
Shadow priest
Mage
Mage
Mage

Group 4
Warlock
Warlock
Shadow priest
Mage
Sometimes a Hunter/Resto Druid/2nd Shadow priest

Group 5 (Spellsurge Usually)
Paladin
Paladin
Paladin
Priest
Priest

We've been going over arguments on where to stick hunters.

Currently we have two raiding hunters. I'm BM as well as the other hunter. Last week he specced into Survival because the melee were wanting the 200+ AP buff. Well, once he respecced he was tossed around melee groups w/o dropping Grace of Air or into a Shadowpriest group.

I was wondering if people could post their raid make up or point me in the direction of doing some math on the threat bonus WF will add to the MT/OT compared to Expose Weakness.

My gear is rather crappy for Survival and I could pick up some nice pieces since we're fairly progressed (Working on Kael'Thas) but I'm not sure if I want to spend DKP for something that will sit in the bank.


*Edit* We typically have 6-8 healers on most fights. Tried to edit to reflect this.

 

DarKNecross

Well I think your first problem is your Groups are horrible.
How I would do your groups:
Group1 Tank Group:
Main Tank
Off Tank
Warlock
Druid
Hunter (Survival)
Group2 Healer Group:
Paladin
Paladin
Paladin
Priest
Shadowpriest
Group3 Melee Group:
Enh Shaman
Fury Warrior
Rogue
Rogue
Feral Druid
Group4 Caster Group:
Mage
Mage
Mage
Shaman
Shadowpriest
Group5 Caster Group:
Warlock
Warlock
Hunter (BM)
Mage
Shadowpriest

The only hard part when doing that was finding a spot for the Survival Hunter
For the Group1, you have all your tanks, they get Cmd Shout, Blood Pact, Battle Shout, Imp. The Survival hunter doesn't really fit into any of the groups, but at least here he gets LotP.
As far as group 2 goes, your healers really benefit from having the extra mana from Shadowpriest. Quite possibly you could always swap the Survival Hunter and a Paladin, giving the tanks Aura and letting the hunter have extra mana.
For Group3, I didn't change anything.
Group4, however, I don't understand why they needed 2 shadowpriests in their group, plus giving them the extra damage from WoA + Heroism is a large boost to DPS
Group 5 was sort of the "Leftover" group, putting the auxillery casters in there. However, they can all do a decent amount of damage still, plus the utility of the Shadowpriest. Also don't neglect the fact the hunter gives Ferocious Inspiration. It's pretty similar to your Group 4, however I wouldn't reccomend stacking 2 shadow priests in groups (except in special circumstances).

All things considered, your shaman really shouldn't be dropping GoA totem in their groups. Melee DPS benefit more from Windfury, (save the Shaman and the Feral Druid) and as a hunter you don't benefit from SoE totem.

http://crimson-guild.com

 

Messar

Our Shadowpriests refuse to be without a second shadowpriest. They use MD/SWD and say it's not possible to sustain their damage rotations w/o another one. Also, I think 2 of our mages are full-arcane. I know atleast 1 is and he'll probably nerd-rage out of the building if he doesn't have a 2nd shadowpriest.

The issue with GoA is it's 97 Agi with Kings/LR (24 AP from Expose). Again, with our gear I'm not sure we could break 900 agi. I definitely know I can't.

SoE totems are nice for beastial pets

 

UnholY_Prince

I know this isn't relative to your topic, but tell your Shadow Priests to start chugging Super Mana pots, learn to time their Shadowfiend, and use Dark Runes. If those Shadow Priests get a Shaman and WoA they're also looking at a good 20mp5 from the spell dmg increase alone, not to mention Mana Tide if its a Resto shaman, and Mana Spring. Coupled with BoW, your Shadow Priests sound like they're just being cheap.

Edit: To contribute to your thread, as a raid leader, Hunters for me are the hardest class to fit into a group. BM is a bit easier FI can benefit a caster group such as the Mage group, but synergizing with LoTP and an S.Priest is counterproductive for the raid. They usually get thrown in the Healer group in lieu of one of the better healers in our raids, since healers are generally decent on mana even w/o a Shadow Priest if they're smart with consumables.

 

• Intermission

Sorry, this isn't really contributing to your Survival hunter placement, but I feel compelled to second what UnholY_Prince said:

Two shadowpriests in one group for a typical raid encounter sounds like a terrible, terrible waste, and I can only assume the reason for two in a group is stemmed from very cheap shadowpriests or mages.

If you have two caster groups, and 2 shadow priests in one single group, you end up with:
1 group with enough mana to not even need to potion/evoc/gem/darkrune on any given encounter.
Another group mana starved, possibly resulting in complete oom even after using every single mana-gaining consumable.
Spreading those two out will result in a massive net gain of raid damage, because both groups will benifit from a SP *and* their own consumables.


Regards to SV hunter, our groups are very similar to what DarKNecross posted. However, as he stated, typically the SV/MM hunter would be swapped with that pally for tank aura + hunter SP.

 

galzohar

Yes, as a fire mage on mag 1 shadow priest gave me almost enough mana to not need consumeables (and although I was clicking, my cube was in range so I didn't move much). The only mage spec that benefits from more than 1 shadow priest is full arcane, and the DPS increase from that extra shadowpriest (and the spec) is probably not worth losing a shadow priest in the healer group. I mean if your casters need mana, you're healers are probably starving for mana.
Requesting shadow priests so you don't have to use consumeables isn't the way to make progress, especially when you don't have a shadow priest for every group full of mana users, which naturally means you need more than 3 shadow priests in the raid to even consider pairing them up, which is a very rare situation. And I'd proabably pair them up with healers before I'd pair them up with DPS. Let's face it, healers run oom faster than DPSers except in few extremes such as AB spamming mages.
Also read the warlock thread regarding improved shadowbolt, I still need to check if MB/SW are even worth using (from a total raid DPS prespective), as consuming the imp SB debuff not only reduces warlock and DoT DPS, it also reduces your mind flay DPS significantly.
As for survival hunters, they do not provide any party buffs afaik, so the benefit they provide is completely equal regardless of their party... So the only thing that comes into consideration is what would give that hunter the most DPS and how much DPS it would cost by moving whoever he was replacing in that group. Since survival hunter is generally lower DPS than other classes afaik, he'll probably be the last to be put in a group, often resulting in being in a group that "makes no sense".
I'm usually all for stacking mana for healers first as they have more issues than DPS (both using equal amount of consumeables) and only then DPS. However we usually have our caster group in the form of shadowpriest+moonkin+ele shaman+mage+mage (although I would happily sub a mage for a destro lock as on top of his extra DPS he also gives the raid more imp SB uptime being in that group, but we never even have 1 destro lock, and I'm not sure making a mage lose 8% crit 3% hit is worth it just to give an affliction lock 8% crit 3% hit).

 

MatsT

Am i the only one that finds it weird that the first poster only has 5 (or possibly 6 depending on that last spot) and the second poster only 6 healers in their raid setups?

 

Enova

Well, if he specced survival ESPECIALLY for EW, and geared accordingly (stacking agility instead of AP), yeah, he should be stuck with an ehna shaman to drop him GOA, a feral druid for more crit (and so GOA isn't completly wasted on a single person), and rogues/warriors at the group's leisure. As for buffs, well, kings has prio over might on that guy if you can't get enough paladins

Also, remember that for EW to be efficient, he needs to have as much agility as possible. That often means wearing leather because of the stats on mail items. He may need an offhealer in the group or not, but a shadowpriest helps. However, that shadowpriest would miss out on concentration aura, WoA totems and such, and he may be needed in another group. Overall, it depends how much physical dps depends on EW how the survival hunter should be grouped. At the very least, he should get kings and GoA, though.

Oh, and one more thing, about your group setup... if there's a feral and 2 tanks in a group, wouldn't GoA be better due to extra dodge/armor? It's not like windfury can proc in feral forms.

 

Orioh

Recently one of our hunters went survival, with around 33% crit unbuffed, without master tactitian. We are able to get a more than ideal group setup for the raid, and it seems to have boosted physical dps a noticable amount.

For example, the past few SSC raids have been designed like this:
Group1 (tanks)
Prot Warrior
Prot Warrior
Prot Pally/ Feral Druid
Affl Warlock
Feral Druid/ Affl Warlock

Group2 (melee)
Dps Warrior
Rogue
Rogue
Rogue/Dps warrior
Resto Shaman dropping WF

Group 3( caster )
Mage
Mage
Mage/ Warlock
Resto Shaman dropping WoA
Shadow Priest

Group4 (physical dps)
Beast Hunter (me)
Survival Hunter
Marks Hunter
Resto shaman dropping SoE and Agility
Feral Druid

Group 5 (healers)
Paladin
Paladin
Priest
Priest
Shadow priest

I was often told before that survival was lacking in damage, but with our survival hunter, he is able to stay top 5 dps, while still providing Expose almost, if not all the time.

 

Messar

I realized that after I posted it. It's been quoted and I didn't want to edit the post, but it's a general idea of our set-up. I was hoping to get responses on what guilds do with shadowpriests and if they actually use a survival hunter.


For all of you posters who use a survival hunter, what's their agi at raid buffed (w/o GoA I assume).

Our two tanks prefer WF over GoA for threat reasons. The feral druid in that group generally tanks trash, so I think he is there for Devo/Imp but I could be totally wrong.

 

• Shifft

We've been using a survival hunter recently, and I can pretty definitively say screw that noise. Have them spec BM or MM and actually put out good damage. Raid setup is normally something like this (although we picked up 2 new shamans yesterday so it might change):

Group 1
Warrior
Warrior
Warlock
Paladin
Resto Druid

Group 2
Holy Priest
Paladin
Warlock/Mage (usually our resident warlock tank here)
Paladin
Holy Priest

Group 3
Rogue
Rogue
Rogue
Fury/MS Warrior
Enhancement Shaman

Group 4
Marks Hunter
Survival Hunter (Now Marks too)
Shadow Priest
Mage
Feral Druid

Group 5
Mage
BM Hunter
Warlock
Shadow Priest
Elemental Shaman (Resto now but Elemental as soon as he gets decent enough gear)

Of course it varies from night to night, but that's the ideal raid for us. I thought 6-6.5 healers was normal, isn't it?

 

Bikiniwax

With Marks Hunters possibly *not* being the top Hunter DPS spec now, would a Survival Hunter (albeit with at least 700 AGI unbuffed) contribute more DPS to the raid with 3/3 Expose Weakness? With your group make-up above, I count 11 people plus 3 pets that could use the AP bonus.

Lets say your SV Hunter has 1000 AGI raid-buffed. He would be contributing 250 AP to 11 players and 3 pets. Is this not more DPS than the difference between a MM Hunter and a SV Hunter?

Comparing a SV Hunter's individual DPS alone without taking into consideration their DPS contribution to the entire raid (of those that can benefit from increased AP/RAP anyway) is not seeing the big picture?

 

Spades

Our survival hunter puts out about 10% less DPS than me in raids, it seems, but his effective RDPS contribution is insane. I wonder if you know much about Expose Weakness?

"Existence has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long."
-Rorschach, Watchmen

 

Groggan

To give a number to a typical RDPS contribution I'll share my numbers:

I've got a lil over 1000agi raid buffed (agi elixir, gift of the wild, and bok), we'll say straight 1000 to make the math easy. Our raid typically rolls with 8physical dpsers, 10 if you count pets (and you should). My EW is up almost 100% of the time, and is worth at least 250 AP. So, for our typical raid makeup my EW is worth 2500 AP. Using just the 14AP=1DPS rule for white damage that's already 178DPS. The reality is that 14AP is worth more than 1DPS when you account for crits and special attacks (I gain about 1.7dps from 14AP on just my auto-shot damage, counting specials it would be even more).

So, in order for a respec to BM to be worth it to me I would have to be gaining at least 178DPS, likely much much more.

As for group makeup, the curse and the boon of a SV hunter is that it doesn't matter where you place them, they are still going to benefit the raid. Ideally you'd pop em in a group with a feral druid, a shadow priest, an enh. shaman, and a BM hunter, but really I doubt the opportunity cost of that group would be worth it in the end. Even an enh. shaman alone might not be worth giving to the SV hunter if it's gona cost your rogues WF (enh. shaman GoA is 110agi for the fully buffed SV hunter, so with the above numbers that's 275 more AP for the raid, so 19dps, I guarantee you that your rogues get more than 19dps from WF). So where do you put the SV hunter? With a feral druid if you can (5% crit is actually very significant for his dps and longevity if he has TotH), maybe with a spriest if there is room, maybe with the BM hunter for FI if there is room there.

Anyways, I'm rambling, those are my thoughts.

 

Ato

Sorry found a more appropriate thread for my queries.

It's all fun & games till someone gets a [Hydrocane] in the eye!

 

Jintra

Group1 Tank Group:
Main Tank
Off Tank
Warlock
Druid
Hunter (BM)

Group2 Healer Group:
Paladin
Paladin
Paladin
Priest
Shadowpriest

Group3 Melee Group:
Enh Shaman
Fury Warrior
Rogue
Rogue
Feral Druid

Group4 Caster Group:
Mage
Mage
Mage
Shaman
Shadowpriest

Group5 Caster Group:
Warlock
Warlock
Hunter (SV)
Mage
Shadowpriest


like the one of DarKNecross but the bm in Tankgroup.
Reason: Battleshout for the Pet (more Dps) and (I HOPE a Bm specced it, if not *sigh* reroll) Imp. Huntermark for all melees in the whole raid.
So the SV gets his mobile Manapot (Shadow ^_^) AND provides all phys. DD with Exp. Weekness.
Both Hunters happy, raid efficient.

Sorry, the here shown english is a bit "out of question" ^_^ it's the end of my workshift and I'm tired

 

• Shifft

Yes, I know what expose weakness does, but the difference between him being survival and him being marksmanship is the difference between him being able to handle Vashj elementals or not (that being the main deciding factor) and him being happy with himself raiding. No point having one DPS in your raid who can't perform simple jobs effectively because they're a support build, just for a small amount of extra raid DPS. From what someone said a few posts earlier, he would need to gain 178 DPS? He's gained far more than that from a respec, probably even more if he respecced to BM instead of MM.

 

Groggan

If he is gaining far more than 178 DPS from a respec then he doesn't know how to spec/gear/play Survival. I'll see about getting exact numbers next raid, but our BM spec hunter can't be more than 10% higher DPS than me, and it would take 1780DPS for that to be 178DPS difference...

 

Jarlsberg

Being loathe to start a new thread, I'm hoping that this is the right place to ask my question.

Our guild has just started on Karazhan, and we're running into trouble with Moroes. Our make-up last night was 2 warriors, paladin, 2 feral druids, priest, 2 hunters, 1 rogue. Usually we have a fire mage as well, but, well, things happen.

On to my point, as BM spec I've been consistently #1 (nearly a tie with the Fire Mage when he's in) by a wide margin, but haven't been able to completely lock down a Moroes add by myself due to traps breaking, timers running out, etc even with the 2-piece Beast Lord bonus.

I'd like to move to Survival, but the GM is worried that the cut to my DPS would be too much for us to take. My question is, would the increase in RDPS from EW make up for or even exceed the hit? My feeling is that it would, but I'm now looking for experience / evidence one way or the other to either fuel my argument, or set me down.

 

• Intermission

I very, very much doubt Surv would be higher dps in a 10 man raid. For starters your Agi would be quite low by gear comparison, and your are only buffing maybe 5 players tops (tank, OT, rogue, rogue, pet), instead of 13ish in a 25man raid.

I would recommend BM for pure damage, possibly MM if you like the feeling of more control.

 

Thelyna

The 'elitist' answer (elitist as the dictionary difference, not elitist as in elitist jerk) is that "it's karazhan, it doesn't matter". The factual answer is that with only 4-5 melee affected by EW, it's almost guaranteed to be a DPS loss.

The probably more useful answer is that MM should still be reasonable DPS and with points in surv for the trap talents you should have a better time with the adds.

DeeNogger: "No dot timer? Get your belt off, its spanking time."

 

Sapa

I'm SV hitting ~1.1k agi full buffed with GoA.
In my search for answers I asked rogues/warriors/shamans... how much they benefit from 250ap. Answer was 60-90 DPS / 30-40 TPS (class and spec depended).
People used t5 gear in their spreadsheets and standard raid buffs. (no major stacking)

In general 1AP = 0.3 dps (14ap = 4.2 dps // far higher than 14ap=1dps white)
SV hunter provides ~250-275ap to each dps

2 tanks, 1 feral tank/dps, 3 combat rogues, 1 dps war, 1 enh.shaman, 2 hunters, 2 hunter pets (my guild typical setup)
12x250ap = 3000 ap to raid = 900 rDPS
The number is elevated due tanks and pets having bit lower ap gain (but TPS is higher thus allowing higher DPS for people that are riding aggro right behind tank) and EW not being on all mobs at once. Uptime of EW is close to 100% on single mob (i have ~46% crit buffed, my auto shot alone can keep EW up)
In Hunter survival thread we came to conclusion that in typical raid SV hunter should contribute close to ~550 rDPS besides his personal one.

As for SV personal dps. I can keep up with top5 people one of them being BM hunter that has like 5-10% more dps. In 2.2 patch we will be balanced even closer (he losses ~450dps scorpid, gets ~350dps ravager/w.serpent).

Additional benefits of SV is usually higher hp/damage migration due talents and easier itemization on hit rating (but more intensive on agi). Better kiting ability (due more reliable traps, better dodge, scatter, possible wyvern).
I tank every "hunter tank" or kite things that allow themselves
2 abdominations/ghouls/banshees in Hyall waves, 2-3 infernals at Anetheron to free dps and heal.

And finally we mostly don't care what group we are in. Having GoA > LotP > ShadowPriest priority here. GoA helps my and raids dps, lotp helps my dps and my mana issues + keeping EW up 100%, SP eliminates my mana problems completely(no pot usage).

Shaman, FeralTank/dps, BM hunter, SV hunter, Random (Lock or Pala or BM hunter 2) is my typical group.
Paladin if Feral Tank needs FR/FrR. Lock if feral goes dps or needs extra hp. BM Hunter2 if he shows up.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...jerks/Sapa.png

 

Zedd

We usually try to get the best out of both worlds(not making one person getting nothing out of the group) so our groups look like this:

Hunter BM
Hunter Surv
Shadow Priest
Arcane Mage
Arcane Mage/Hunter BM (depending who shows up, we have 2 arcane mages currently)

The melee gets their perfect group as usual:
Rogue
Rogue
Feral Druid
Melee shaman
Fury Warrior.

IF we have 2 feral coming most of the times we put them like this:
Feral
Shadowpriest
Hunter BM
Hunter BM
Hunter Surv

The above group also works great with my 2/5 Tier5 bonus(pet heal proc) on bosses like void reaver, tidewalker and bosses with AoE effects in general.

 

Gurth

As a survival hunter myself i can safely said that SP is absolutly godly for us. I don't have thrill of the hunt since i've preferred getting 3 points in RWS for maximum DPS output so my mana efficiency is really poor.

Of course it would be nice to have shammy, feral druid, MM/BM hunter and shadow priest in the same group from and egoisting-DPSwhoring point of view, but this really inefficient raid wise.

Keep in mind that of the above buffs i would still get the SP as number 1:

1) GoA is really nice for SV, but for other class you should really go for windfury wich do nothing to us so the only benefit from being in a shammy melee group would be the little mp5 and str for pet

2) People seem to forget that SV hunters have pet too... VE healing is really handy in many situations

3) in many case you will be out of totem range, and occasionally even to the feral aura (depending of fight) while VT mana regen have no range limit

4) melee group is very often full (feral shammy 2-3 rogues 2-1 warriors) and you can't ask any of the above to switch with you without significantly lowering dps


Usually we put BM hunter / SP / SV hunter / 2 casters when possible (this may vary depending on encounter) which seems a reasonable compromise to me.

 

Beerbaron

use concussion shot and the length of the room to help you kite/trap if that is your guilds strat. this buys more than enough time for your trap's cooldown.. even with breaks and resists. a focus macro for concussion shot will help a lot here.