Yeah, there is. I'm consolidating information in a notepad document I have somewhere, but I really need some time off, so I'm focusing on enjoying the holidays right now.
Hopefully, that's understandable

I was hoping to receive some help here. I stopped playing my hunter in early ’07 and recently picked her up again. Now with all the changes in the previous patches im a little lost. It used to be all about agility and crit but now it’s changed. Talking to some hunters on my server it was brought to my attention to trade my crit gems in for AP gems. They stated that the output of damage would increase significantly and that it “should” not affect the crit chance. Now ive always had trouble getting above a 20% crit chance. As its standing atm im at 22% but it seems my damage output is low. What would you guys suggest? I’m a 41/20 build hunter. Is it possible that I need to change my spec some? Can you guys link to a great hunter BM spec? I already have the shot rotation down. That’s never been an issue; I think its all gear atm.

Please help!!!


Thanks for your time

Failes

link to me
The World of Warcraft Armory

Use my spec. It's the ideal BM raiding spec. The World of Warcraft Armory. The hunters you've been talking to sound like they don't have a clue. You're one step ahead of them already just from visiting these forums. You're biggest problem right now is your hit rating. You'll want to get near 142 hit rating ASAP. I wouldn't recommend socketing pure hit gems, but every yellow socket should get an agi/hit gem. Agility is better than AP/Crit hands down. The only time you should socket pure crit gems is in a yellow socket if you're already hit capped and the socket bonus is a good one. For red sockets pure agi is golden, for the blue ones use agi/stam sockets. If the socket bonus is crap just do pure agi gems.

For reference: 1 Agi > 2 AP = 1 Crit

That is the easiest way to make gear/socket choices. Hit is generally better than everything up to 142. The exception here is that if you're at 140 and you can get a 10 crit or 10 hit item, the 10 crit item will be a bigger DPS boost because you'd only benefit from 2/10 of the hit.

What is your shot rotation?

PS. Don't sign your posts, the mods get cranky.

i have some i use. the main one i use atm is this one here

Steady / Arcane / Auto / Steady / Kill Command (if available) / Auto Steady / Multi

also this macro when im out farming. it seems to give the best bang w/o giving me a ton of aggro

/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast [target=pettarget] Kill Command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Auto Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

basically it incorporates KC into the mix. i did have one i
used before that was timed with the speed of Valanos but i lost it in the toon xfer and cant find the site. form what i take from your reply it seems that agility still plays a major part in hunters.

As I suspected, there is your problem. Your shot rotation is a 1:1.5 rotation which is mostly useless for a BM hunter. What you want is a 1:1 rotation. Start off with something simple like this.

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/castsequence reset=3 Auto Shot, Steady Shot

This is the only macro you need to do solid DPS as a BM hunter. Spam this button and profit. Spend some more time reading the forums here, and becoming more comfortable with the new rotation, and you can use Kill Command when it's available, and even substitute Multi-Shot and Arcane Shot for your Steady Shots. That macro is far from the end all be all maximum DPS, but it's a good start and using it should give you some immediate DPS upgrades while buying you some time to learn.

This is untrue. Agility in equal amounts is always superior to hit rating. Even using cheeky's spreadsheet and replacing every bit of hit i had (down to socket bonuses) so I was literally at 0 hit rating (9% chance to miss a boss) agility proved to be .9 dps higher (per 10, delicate crimson spinel) as a 41/20 bm hunter. As your hit increases agility becomes slightly (but increasingly) better, at 125 hit rating your looking at more of a .11 dps drop between hit and agility.

Hey guys, im sure this has been posted somewhere, and probably covered to death, but i cant find the information though searches.
Basically i wanted the know the Synergy between hunters and shadow priets, how beneficial are they compared to the other casters in the raid. From what iv read in the Shadow priest threat, the general consensus is they dont benefit a hunter as much as a mage | destro Loc > healer > hunter > other casters.
Any help would be great, but im mostly concerned with BM hunters, given this is what the guild is raiding with. the hunters in our guild demand a shadow priest above all the other classes, and they have the guild officers convinced that this is the way it should be, but i believe they are being greedy.

Thanks guys

Please use the search function before posting. There have been Many posts on this topic previously.

I have been playing with Cheeky's SpreadSheet while doing live testings, and I came with some questions, I checked that forum if there was any answers, sadly there wasn't (or I searched in the wrong place ^^)

So, let's get started :

My current config is:
BM spec 41/20/0
1:1 cycle.
Wolf Slayer rifle (2.7 base speed and 79.x displayed dps)
2k pa / 28.5 % crit
as a dwarf I have the 1% crit bonus using rifles. (that's something we will have to take in account for next part).

With the same stat / cycle I equiped the serpentshrine bow (Vash'J) with a 3.0 speed and 90ish dps.
What brought my attention is that my cheeky's dps went down.
So I tried equiping the BlackBow of the betrayer : another dps loss.

at this point, I was thinking it's because of my 1% crit loss due to those bows ... so I tryied with the arena S3 rifle : another loss; Al'ar Rife = dps loss, ZA rifle = dps Loss.

okies, so after brainstorming on that I came with a few points :

- The Weapon speed of those weapons are between 2.9 and 3.0 => bad for 1:1 cycle
So I did all those testings with a 1:1.X cycle : I only get a small dps increase, not more than 10. and my time to Oom got down by 15 sec.

- Keeping the 1:1 cycle but working on hast stuff.
With a friend who have 160 hast (10% speed) he can make a 3.0 weapon speed to have a BM cycle spead : 1.9x
sadly to get to that point, he had to reduce his PA / crit he got from BT / Hyjal , therefore he have basicly the same stats as I do (2K pa / 28% CC)
comparing our Recounts stats, it seems that he have the same dps as mine. the only gain he have is using a 3.0 dmg range with a BM speed on a 1:1 cycle.

- Stay with a 2.7 weapon and get more PA / CC
So, according to Cheeky's it seems that keeping my karazhan rifle (or get Doomwalker rifle : 2.6 base speed) with a 1:1 cycle and keep working on BT / Hyjal classic PA/CC/Agi stuff, is what'll give me the best dps alternative that using 2.9/3.0speed and a different Cycle, or hast stuff.

So here's my question to those who love to play with numbers, or have experimented the same thing ... What's your point of view on those weapons ?
To me it really seems that the only thing that matter on a ranged weapon is the base speed (much more revelant that the displayed DPS).
At this point it really seems that for BM in 1:1 cycle, that Wolf-slayer and barrel-Blade rifles are the two best weapons, even compared to Hyjal / BT ranged weapons.

if some BM's have tryed using their Wolf-slayer rifle with T6 stuff aimed on PA / CC, do you mind to post some recount results on fights at 1:1 cycle?

Thank you for reading.

weapon speeds as BM hunters has been conversed and exhausted many times before. The conclusion is that the wolfslayer or doomwalker gun are the highest damaging weapons available to a BM hunter until you get a portion of haste. The best way of achieving a decent amount of haste without passing up damage from other stats, is to get a [Dragonspine Trophy]. once you have a DST the other weapons pull ahead (bristleblitz being the "best" max-dps weapon in the game, unless you are a dwarf).

first of all : I am a Dwarf! (and proud to be :p)

About the DST, i'm not sure it makes slow weapons being usefull again ... or it will join what I said about slow weapons and Hast => I'm not sure that stacking hast to make a 3.0 goes to a 1.9x BM speed will have a good side effect on the PA / CC and then on the overall dps.
Sure my weapon will do more domage, but I'll miss the PA / CC I could have if I wasn't stacking Hast.

Also, I haven't been able to test the DST in live, simply because Rogues allways ninja that trinket when it drops ... and we mostly never go back to Gruul's ^^

however, it is a dps increase. and their are few trinkets you will find better than a DST.

indeed.
Wolfslayer + berserker's call + tsunami = 1110dps
Wolfslayer + berserker's call + ashtongue = 1113dps

in fact, playing with hast will juste have an effect on your auto shot cycle :
160 passive hate will make a 3.0 shoot like a 2.7 weapon, but it'll not really make you shoot that faster your steadies. 160hast = 10,x% => that will make your steady shoot at 1.35 rather than 1.5.
So basicly, using hast stuff will just make you use 1:1 cycle with 3.0speed weapons without "blank time" in your cycle, but this won't increase your dps that much (as you can see in the posts above, this don't even give you the displayed dps difference as gain. i.e: Wolfslayer : 79dps and S3 rifle : 95dps => 16dps. with DST trinker I have a difference of 11 dps.

Wow Hebus! Your findings are earth shattering. The world of hunters has just been turned upside down. I bet you nobody has mentioned this on any single page of any single hunter thread in these forums. However, it might be discussed on almost every single page of every single hunter forum at least once. Please read before you waste your time on matters already discussed at length.

Well kamaa I'm sorry, but as I was looking on that forum through the search fonction, also searching on other forums, I haven't really found a real debate on that.

At some point I never said I found something to "earth shattering" and your comment is quite rude if you ask me ...

in fact, the only thing i've found about weapon choice at high level was a simple list, with almost no explanation.

Now if you think that has been discussed a lot already, please can you post a link, so I can join the debate. I guess that's what is best to do, rather than telling people they are wasting time

I searched for "wolfslayer" and got 204 hits.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t15179-h...ght=wolfslayer
Mentioned briefly switching back to wolfslayer due to Cheeky's spreadsheet and seeing an improvement.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t11420-h...03/#post587762
Mentions wolfslayer better than tuskbreaker without the additional haste of crafted BT gear.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t15179-h...68/#post586631
Praise for wolfslayer over other weapons and the logic behind it.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t11420-h...02/#post578392
Praise for wolfslayer over other weapons and the logic behind it.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t9816-hu...48/#post578184
Wolfslayer is DPS king.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t15179-h...66/#post578183
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t9816-hu...yer#post578162
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t9816-hu...yer#post578128
Somebody asking your exact same question.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t9816-hu...yer#post571984
This guy knew the discussion had been beaten to death, but he at least found new ways to pose the questions revolving around the armory listings.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t9816-hu...yer#post570582
Praise for Wolfslayer as BM weapon to include logic behind it.

I'm done. I've hardly scratched the number of posts you might have found had you done one simple search with the word "wolfslayer" as a key word. You did not use the "search fonction" as you claim and you have wasted both my time and yours. Please do not assume your time more valuable than the other members here. Rather than expecting people to jump to answer your questions or go back and read old threads so that they can provide you with the links you request, please just use the search function or *gasp* read the threads yourself. There is much knowledge to be gained in these forums. Take full advanage of it.

I posted a potential solution to the ranged weapon speed itemization issue.

WoW Forums -> Ranged Speed Itemization Solution.

Let me know if you guys have any suggestions or thoughts.

I had a similar idea but just to be able to adjust your speed and therefore damage range of steady shot to be able to make a perfect 1:1 rotation no matter what weapon or spec you have, either would fix this issue I think.

I actually came here to talk about our "perfect" ranged speed after haste. Is it just the global cooldown of 1.5sec +latency or more complicated? I figure with 200ms ping that would be about 1.7 secs, does that sound right first of all and should we actually be going for a speed to still not clip autos when AoTH is up or just as close to 1.7 as possible regardless of hawk?

Autoshot has a .5 second hidden cast time so it's a bit more complicated. I think the perfect speed would be: (cast time of steady shot) + latency + .5 seconds, so ~1.8 for BM and 2 for MM/surv after quiver and talents.

Well, if there really is a .5sec hidden cast time on the autoshot, that would means BM have a 2sec+ cycle ?
1.5 steady + 0.5 + latency = 2.0 + latency.

If that standing is true, then 2.9 weapons should then be the most appropriate weapons for BM because with talents and quivers (no passive hate items) the autoshot rotation is at 2.1 sec. The extra 0.1 sec will be taken by the latency.

However with the lot of posts regarding 2.7 weapon speed supremacy (thanks again to Kamaa for the links), I don't really see where that hidden casttime is affecting BM 1:1 cycle with 2.7 weapons, because the rotaction speed with talent / quiver is at 1.96.

Or maybe that hidden cast time is more like a CD between two autoshot. but I don't think it's easy to go down to less than 0.5sec cycle.

1.5 steady is reduced to 1.5/1.15/1.2 ~ 1.086 seconds after quiver+talent haste.
There is enough spare time to benefit from quickshots and haste gear and also to not to worry much if kill command is cast just after steady.

Can't post on US forums. So here...

What happens with your "modified" speed. When DST or AotH procs, you get Bloodlust/Heroism or Drums of Battle from friendly neighbor leather worker (or some other haste).
That's right its modified again, in irregular and hardly controllable way. Turning math, theory and practice around again.

Hunter mechanics needs different 'fix'. One that would agree with haste rating, steady shot and 0.5s cast of Auto Shot.
Turning Steady Shot to instant shot (with cd) would band aid the thing if our "other" shots would be rebalanced to compensate loss from constant Steady shooting in same process. Then we would become dependent on GDC alone in most ocasions.
1.5-3.4 speed would be all possible, well still some bit more than other. But with white damage larger part of our DPS those differences would wane as white dps would dictate our 'rotation'. (meaning auto shot dps alone with any haste = better weapon = better dps)
If auto shots were doing 3x damage they do now, we would watch far more not to clip them.
And if steady shot had CD, well it would be fired as much with 0 as with 500 haste rating. And since its weapon dependent... better weapon -> better dps.

Think about it.
Rules:
Arcane = 50% auto/instant (6s cd)
Multi = 50% auto/instant (not 0.5) (10s cd)
Steady = 50% auto/instant (4-Xs cd)

With almost any modified speed you should be able to place those specials between 2 shots regularly. Clipping would only occur if you were to slow or tried to squeeze more specials between 2 shots when above certain speed increase. Increasing haste would improve your main source of dps, while at current 2.6-3.1 (3.0) speeds it would be hard to bring it to the point where it would be impossible to squeeze special between 2 shots. (0.7? second auto shot, 0,2(instant with lag)+0.5 auto cast).
Well changing "Any instant action" to "Movement delays auto shot if used in 0.5seconds when auto shot is firing" to would go long way to.

Not perfect but not weird as un-linking auto shot from other shots. (firing auto, while casting steady / aimed?!).
And lvl62 hunter mechanics transition would become relic of the past.