[Hunter]Macros de-mythified

Motto · 02/26/08, 8:12 AM

Foreword

[Hunter]XYZ posts start turning from theorycrafting into Macro A > Macro B, regardless of their original intention, namely different specs and play styles, we're turning into programming code theorycrafters instead of focusing on maximizing the experiences and capabilities of the class we play.

This is the reason I decided to create this new post instead of addressing the issue in any of the 3-4 posts around. If it’s decided this post has not got it’s place here on it’s own, I kindly ask a moderator to move it where he/she thinks fit.

Ever since the ./stopcasting and server – client communication patch, pure class, playstyle, optimizations, debates etc have turned into macro theorycrafting.

The myth of 3:2

/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Steady Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command

• with certain variations to stop sounds, stop errors from showing or casting Lightning Breath if using a Windserpent

Did anyone actually ever really wondered what the oh so famous 3:2 macro does? Do this little test: get rid of your macros from your action bars. Install an auto shot timer bar if you don’t already have one on.

Drag the spellbook steady shot onto the bars and start spamming away. Yes, it does the exact same thing as the 3:2 “macro”, it generates the same sequence and number of shots.

What does this mean? It means it’s time people started opening their eyes and realized it’s easyer than ever to weave their shots manually. Why? Read below.

Castsequence mania

/castsequence reset=x/target Steady Shot, Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command

• where x = the number of seconds you wish the sequence should start over from the begining, totally unrelated and not influenced by / influencing your weapon's speed; programming stuff, not mechanics stuff.
• again, with certain variations to stop sounds, stop errors from showing or casting Lightning Breath if using a Windserpent

I never understood the arguments for this.
Not only you turn into a bot for 4 hours straight pushing 1 button, but you are not utilizing your class’ full potential. Regardless of spec.

You are a D.P.S. class. This means Damage Per Second. Why gimp the very essence of what you are supposed to be from start?

Using a balant macro that just uses 1 (one) special ability the class possesses (yes, the second is auto shot, but you’re not really <using> auto shot with a castsequence macro, you are just using the macro mechanics to weave the steady) limits your potential from start.

Using multi shot and arcane shot in a wise manner when their cooldowns are up will make a world’s difference in your damage output. It goes back to the start, more shots, more damage per second, if it is done right.

Propper rotations 101

There are just 4 Steps I find necessary in order to really shine and feel good while you’re at it too. Go to Dr. Boom and do the following:

Step 1: Start auto shooting at the target. Just that. Enough time untill you get familiar with the frequency of which it fires.

Step 2: Once you’re confident with Step 1, start casting Steady Shots in between the Auto Shots in a manner that allows both to fire unconditionally and not delayed.

Again, do this untill you are familiar with the “rhythm”.

Step 3: Now the fun begins. Once every 6 seconds (5 if improved Arcane Shot talent is present in your spec) replace one of the steady shots with Arcane Shot.

Now a little tip: here’s where Kill Command shines and comes into play.

You will have certain ammounts of dead-time in between the special shots (and here’s where you need to pay attention, doing this for gaps between Steady Shot and Auto Shot will sometimes delay the following Auto Shot).
If Kill Command is up, use it right when you use the special shot and before the Auto goes off.
This way you are not doing any harm to the flow of your Auto Shots.

Step 4: Repeat Step 3, but replacing Arcane Shot with Multi-Shot every 10 seconds when the Cooldown is up, following the same Kill Command application process.

Rinse and repeat. Things should fall into place in a form simmilar to:

-	Auto Shot
-	Steady Shot
-	Arcane Shot (Kill Command – if active)
-	Auto Shot
-	Multi – Shot (Kill Command – if active)
-	Auto Shot
-	Steady Shot
-	…

Now one can argue that starting the rotation with another one of the special shots might be a better way to do this.

What I can say about this is that from personal observation this is a much better Global Cooldown + Steady Shot cast time management scenario than starting off with a different special. Your mileage may varry.

Specs this works for

All.

There’s no such thing as “BM has 20% firing rate, just use Steady:Auto, it’s better”. Precisely because of that, the loose time in between Auto Shots is smaller, damage per second is increasing.

Benefits and advantages of manual weaving

• better mana management
• optimizing rotations on the spot to the given situation
• playing the class actually becomes interactive
• sharpened reaction times that lead to better overall (situational) awareness in time

If all is done well, you should be the master of a perfectly coreographed Tango. Things will start flowing naturally into place.
This is one of the things that keeps me ticking after having cleared Black Temple since September. It’s one of the enjoyments I find in raiding and any form of PvE.

There are other benefits of doing things this way, but this is indented as an open debate in hope more people might addapt a manual approach of playing their class, so fire away.

Edit: changed the title to reflect the nature of the post in a better way, thanks Maturin for the tip.

Maturin · 02/26/08, 9:01 AM

It looks like you're trying to do two possibly contradictory things with this post. In the beginning you point out that most discussion of Hunter theorycrafting becomes a discussion on how to optimize macros, and suggest that it should have it's own Hunter Macro thread.

You then go on to say that people using macros are gimping themselves, and your post becomes an essay on why manual shot weaving is better. That's fine, but maybe you should change the title to reflect that. Something like [Hunter] How & Why to Manually Weave Shots.

I play both a druid and hunter. As a druid, I don't watch an auto attack cast bar and try to wedge my mangle & shred in between. I spam the keys they're on so one will go off as soon as the GCD ends. I'm lucky because I don't have to deal with the crazy special/auto mechanic that Bliz has implemented for hunters. If I did, I'd retire my druid that day.

Those of us playing hunters and using macros are using them so that we can enjoy our class, do decent dps, maintain situational awareness and use other hunter abilities (maintain stings, trap, keep pet alive, etc.) I have no doubt that learning your latency, getting perfect at watching your cast bar, and manually weaving shots is the key to doing maximum dps. But for a lot of us that turns the fun of playing a hunter into the job of playing a hunter.

Azulor · 02/26/08, 9:10 AM

Are you really suggesting the people on this board aren't able to manually weave shots as BM if they choose to do so? As the person above me has noted, one of the main advantages of macroing is simply it frees you to pay more attention to things other than your autoshot timer and whether KC is up.

But sure, I don't disagree that manual weaving is great in some cases.

Enova · 02/26/08, 9:20 AM

Manual shot rotations are better for every spec, every speed. However, they're only better in ideal conditions (i.e good focus, good latency, good fps, whatever)> There are of course reasons to use macros (insufficient experience, fatigue, or simply because there are other things to focus on during a fight). The point still stands. Manual > Macro, because of the lack of adaptability macros have.

This thread's role is to clear the other threads for more important aspects of hunter theorycraft, because, apparently, not everybody uses manual rotations, and judging by the last pages of the other hunter threads, an extra macro line is what everybody seems to need in order to turn into God's gift to dps classes everywhere /sarcasm

Seriously though, the amount of macro posts we've seen recently is insane, and worst of all, repetitive enough to break the continuity of more interesting points being made on these forums.

Maturin · 02/26/08, 9:34 AM

Seriously though, the amount of macro posts we've seen recently is insane, and worst of all, repetitive enough to break the continuity of more interesting points being made on these forums.

I certainly agree, every hunter thread ends up with the "fix my macro" questions. But is a thread that basically amounts to "don't use macros" the answer to that? I think that you are going to have 100 people read Motto's post and reply with "Thanks for the information. So should I use /castsequence or /castrandom with a 3.0 weapon?"

I don't think the people on this forum are oblivious to the merits of manual weaving. They've made the choice to use a macro. When they ask for help on their macro and we reply with "don't use it," we may as well be replying to a "how do I do more dps" question with "go roll a rogue."

Sorry if we've gone off topic, just need to decide if this thread is for discussion of how to best weave shots manually (addons to use, how to improve latency, easier keybindings, etc.), or is it about the mechanics of how macros work (what /castrandom really means, which line will cause a macro to hang, etc.)

Howitzer · 02/26/08, 10:13 AM

Personally, I don't think any hunter needs or should use a macro, period. The only thing I can see as an acceptable macro is one for a BM hunter tying in KC to SS/AS rotations. This is, however, probably the #1 PM/Email I've seen though. Its always about whats a good rotation or what macro should I use or what cast sequence.

The problem lies in the fact that the class changes so dramatically at level 62 with steady shot. Blizzard just needs to throw that skill in at level 24 or something so by the time the hunter reaches 70 they will know what the hell they are doing.

Sinborn · 02/26/08, 10:14 AM

We had a discussion about hunter dps in vent last night, while waiting on a healer for ZA. The hunter was arguing about how he doesn't spam a macro to dps, and how it's difficult to maintain his shot rotation, yada yada.

I said, "you know what my rotation is as frost?" and proceeded to keep vent keyed while I spammed my frostbolt key very loudly. My point was dps as a mage is easy, and I can maintain better situational awareness because of it.

And that's the point of shot macros. It may be a bit less dps than perfect manual weaving, but for some fights (council anyone) spamming a macro while keeping a close eye on the encounter will do more dps, cause you don't die to tunnel vision.

Of course I have never played a hunter, so I don't really know anything. I just figured I'd share a bit of fun I had with the discussion of shot macros.

Kaladian · 02/26/08, 10:34 AM

I would love to manual weave my shots because i know it does better DPS then my macro but i also have to focus on the raid/my pet/my threat. I like to manual weave during regular/heroics but in MH/BT there is so much more going on that i cant afford to stare at my quartz/whatever my other mod is for autoshot bars so i can time my next special in the 1.97 sec autoshot timer. It is not fun to watch my steady shot cast bar, my autoshot bar along with the .5 sec hidden cast time for auto, KC, and keeping my pet alive at the sametime trying to keep myself alive. I run a 3:2 macro most of the time because it does the best DPS for me and haste doesnt seem to mess it up either.

Again i would love to sit there and watch all my cast bars but that luxury isnt there anymore with complex fights blizzard is releasing nowdays. To me the one thing that is killing manual weave is the .5 sec hidden cast time of autoshot which is effected but KC and the fast casting of steadyshot. there was alot less stress when we had a 10 sec cycle around aimed shot. To fix hunter rotations the .5 sec cast time for autoshot must go.

Midnight · 02/26/08, 10:45 AM

Originally Posted by Motto

(...)
Castsequence mania

/castsequence reset=x/target Steady Shot, Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command

• where x = the number of seconds you wish the sequence should start over from the begining, totally unrelated and not influenced by / influencing your weapon's speed; programming stuff, not mechanics stuff.
• again, with certain variations to stop sounds, stop errors from showing or casting Lightning Breath if using a Windserpent

I never understood the arguments for this.
Not only you turn into a bot for 4 hours straight pushing 1 button, but you are not utilizing your class’ full potential. Regardless of spec.

You are a D.P.S. class. This means Damage Per Second. Why gimp the very essence of what you are supposed to be from start?

Using a balant macro that just uses 1 (one) special ability the class possesses (yes, the second is auto shot, but you’re not really <using> auto shot with a castsequence macro, you are just using the macro mechanics to weave the steady) limits your potential from start. (...)

I disagree. I am using a castsequence macro yet that doesn´t mean I have to either spam this macro or resign to pushing only one button. I merely use the castsequence as a means to prevent me from accidentaly casting a second steady shot too early and clobbering the following auto shot completely. I also disagree that manually weaving leads to "sharpened reaction times that lead to better overall (situational) awareness in time". Maybe it does for you, it certainly doesn´t for me. Not having to stare at my quartz bar to time my shots accurate to the millisecond leads to more situational awareness for me at least.
Also maybe I got you wrong with this but the way I understand it you claim that regardless of spec and weaponspeed simple steady - auto is always suboptimal. This is oversimplifying. There are certain spec/weapon/item/proc combinations where doing a simple 1:1 rotation is the best DPS.

Exbox · 02/26/08, 11:57 AM

If you had looked through any of the old topics, notably Cheeky's "Help me please" and Howitzer's "[Hunter] Beast Mastery Bible", you would have seen your argument combatted about time and time again.

And okay yes, although macro's make it easy, manually timing is tougher. I love manually timing as a BM, but It's pretty tough getting it out timing my steadies, ect.

And as any spec I find myself stuffing my shots in using the BM macro anyway, so it's not to bad.

[Macro - 1:1 KC] + Spamming of Arcane gives me a very good 1:1.x rotation as BM, and timing also makes no difference, so it's entirely up to personal preference.

This entire thread should somehow be moved into the Help me please topic.

Originally Posted by Motto

Foreword

Specs this works for

All.

There’s no such thing as “BM has 20% firing rate, just use Steady:Auto, it’s better”. Precisely because of that, the loose time in between Auto Shots is smaller, damage per second is increasing.
.

I'm sorry but I don't think most of us would agree. Please refer to the Shot Illustration here: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t13107-h...n_illustrated/

With your usage of Auto, Steady, Arcane, Auto, Multi, Auto... ect, you're totally not taking into thought the Auto-shot cooldown or the .5 second cast on Multishot, in fact, I find that you're just spewing your postulates all over the place without putting thorough thought into what you're saying first.

In fact, BM can go 1:1 if there is enough haste rating. http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t11420-h...mastery_bible/ Has many WWS reports of hunters who have enough haste and enough haste buffs to basically push themselves to 1:1 for an entire fight.

In fact, your rotation for "all" hunters isn't too far off, but considering the range in hunter specs, and the amount of haste any given hunter can have, you cannot justify one sequence of shots for all hunters .

Hunterlin · 02/26/08, 12:00 PM

Since 2.3.2 /castsequence is bad for dps.
Just because castsequence always wait for shot confirmation from server to continue to next shoot.
Manual weaving allows queue steady cast while auto shot casting is in progress(and cut GCD time), thus leading to tighter rotations.
I have switched my 1:1.5 rotation from 10 to 12 shot rotation because now I cut time so that multi is not up after 10 shots.
My rotation now with additional steady-auto compared with 2.3.0 rotation(2.9s weapon speed, survival, 0 haste):
steady-auto-steady-multi-auto-steady-auto-steady-arcane-auto-steady-auto
With manual rotation I gain about 0.5-1.0 seconds in 10 shot sequence and getting haste gear would allow to squeeze this rotation to even less.

sovelis41 · 02/26/08, 1:28 PM

The morality of macro usage is one of the time tested arguments in nearly every hunter forum I've seen. I personally don't use a macro 90% of the time, but there are times when it is useful to pull out the trusty standard auto/steady/KC macro on fights where I want to pay more attention to whats going on than my quartz timer. Fights like Archimonde or Bloodboil where I'm watching a lot of different timers, and directing traffic in a fight, I like to know that I can lean on the macro to keep my DPS adequate while keeping tabs on the rest of the encounter. When it comes to fights like Teron, I drop the macro from my bars, point my camera at the wall and focus on that cast timer (occasionally calling out ghosts or running out for my own ghosts).

I teach as many alt or new hunters as I can the skill of weaving shots and using Quartz, and I always start out telling them the most basic, steady-auto-steady-auto, rotation then build from there. Getting some people to forget about aimed shot, forget about stings etc and focus on a simple rotation can be a bit challenging. If I'm leading some PuG gruul or mag and a hunter's DPS is just really bad, I'll give them the macro, tell them to just spam that, and it at least improves their DPS enough temporarily.

Which is better (macro or manual)? For me it's manual. I've played my toon enough to time my shots using only the bow sounds and animations, and if I turned off Quartz I'd still be able to maintain my rotation to a point.

steamrice · 02/26/08, 2:14 PM

Macros are more consistent when considering quick shots, haste potion, drums of battle, rapid fire, and the occasional bloodlusts. I honestly tried manual weaving on tank and spanks like RoS p1 and Teron and I just can't keep up a consistent pace or keep up with the changes in speed. Anyone who says otherwise is lying or have some insane reaction time / ping. Kill Command would only make it harder when manually weaving.

Exbox · 02/26/08, 3:20 PM

Originally Posted by steamrice

Macros are more consistent when considering quick shots, haste potion, drums of battle, rapid fire, and the occasional bloodlusts. I honestly tried manual weaving on tank and spanks like RoS p1 and Teron and I just can't keep up a consistent pace or keep up with the changes in speed. Anyone who says otherwise is lying or have some insane reaction time / ping. Kill Command would only make it harder when manually weaving.

I find more people actually choose to have their finger over "1-6" with their index or middle finger, and spam click on KC, but who knows, and who cares. To each his own!

Glaurong · 02/26/08, 3:28 PM

This thread is terrible. The title is misleading and the premise is stupid.

Macros are a tool, you can chose to use, or not use them as you want.

I use them because they allow me to pay attention to complex fights.

P.S. - Dr. Boom != Kalecgos or Felmyst