Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing are both diminished if not outright detrimental if you are going for Relentless as well. You can't just add agility in the form of gems without having to devalue some other sockets to maintain the meta bonus. Relentless may be close with other professions, but I see it only falling further behind with JC/BS.

Yeah, Sv AoE damage nerf is also stated very clearly, so you'd think if they wanted to do the same to Sv single target, it'd be stated that clearly as well.

As far as the "Steady Shot scaling with Haste" is concerned: The way to make SS and CoS scale with Haste "even more" than they do already, would of course be to find some way around having the special shots on a cooldown, aka a way around the Haste "softcaps".

Hi, I have been reading this thread for the past few days and I have not found any suitable answer to issues I am having in the rotation.

How locked into the CoS > CoS > CoS > ES rotation are we? The ability causing tough choices is primarily Black Arrow and choosing when to reapply it. Many times, reapplying BA will force a delay on ES. Often at the start of a typical x3 CoS > ES I can already determine whether or not I can apply BA and still have focus for ES at the end by how much focus I have at the start of the first CoS.

For example, if I start a x3 CoS > round with around 10 focus and BA is off CD, there is no way to cast BA without forcing a delay in my next ES. The unfortunate part is that sometimes, if I prioritize ES in a situation like this, it may actually take me several ES CDs before I can reapply a BA.

So I suppose the question is, what is the best rule of the thumb to go by when reapplying BA? Is it okay to delay ES by as much as ~4 so that I can reapply a BA, or should ES always be prioritized?

Let me just make this clear: We are fine with folks discussion upcoming changes in a factual manner. Useless opinion and speculation just derails things, don't do it.

Right, now I'm confused. Earlier on in the discussion it seemed like the reason to stack mastery over crit was some type of crit softcap and that with raidbuffs that would be very possible (someone said 38% or so?). If the cap is 51% the discussion is mostly of theoretical importance and for the next 6 months I'll just reforge it all to crit (or haste).

Well...it has been stated that going for ISS is a dps loss...under certain conditions.

I don't think that it should be a general blanket statement that ISS will lead to dps loss for survival. When evaluating a survival rotation that uses ISS, we should consider the following:

A) CoS > SS, so within your rotation, you will have to make up at least [(2xCoS damage) - (2xSS damage)] just to break even.
B) Practicality: I will mention 2 points here.
1) A rotation that requires you to uphold ISS will always be more complicated, therefore more likely to drop DPS due to player error or other complexities with random procs such as LnL.
2) A rotation that requires you to uphold ISS will hold a larger percentage of physical vs elemental damage as compared to a rotation that does not require ISS. This means that Mastery is even less important which makes it easier to reforge into haste -- a rotation that requires ISS will ALWAYS be a rotation that is geared towards a large haste cap. At lower haste caps, refer to A -- you will not have the time and focus to make up for the dps loss of casting two SS over 2 CoS.

Keep an open mind when considering new rotations and strategies for playing this spec -- especially as we approach higher gear levels. In BC, the strategies for playing a hunter changed drastically once you hit a certain level of gear, and I suspect that we may see similar things happening in Cata.


Now, to respond more directly to Wiggeh, I don't think analyzing the opener for your rotation is a good way to do things. While an opener is important and can make a big difference, it will most likely not be the deciding factor in the rotation you choose when it comes to a 7 minute fight (or longer).

So for a normal rotation with: 3/3 pathing, Hunting Party, and ISS you are suggesting...

SS>>SS>>CoS>>AS>>ES>>CoS>>AS>>SS>>SS>>ES>>CoS>>CoS>>CoS>>AS>>ES
vs
CoS>>CoS>>CoS>>ES x3

So...

4xSS + 5xCoS + 3xAS + 3xES (/w roughly 1000 points dedicated to haste instead of crit or mastery)
vs
9xCoS + 3xES (/w roughly 1000 points more divided in some fashion into crit or mastery)

So the question is, will 3xAS make up for the dps loss in 4xAS AND the overall reduction in damage due to having lower mastery and crit?

Seems like it might, at best, come pretty close to a tie...which in my mind would make the added complexity of maintaining ISS devalue this type of rotation. I would favor the simpler rotation that pulls comparable dps so as to maintain consistency in my dps from fight to fight.

So...I'm not trying to contradict myself here. What about the next step up in haste caps? When CoS and SS reach a cast time of 1.25s.

Now we have...

SS>>SS>>CoS>>CoS>>ES>>CoS>>CoS>>SS>>SS>>ES>>CoS>>CoS>>CoS>>CoS>>ES
vs
CoS>>CoS>>CoS>>ES x3

or...

4xSS + 8xCoS + 3xES (With roughly 2000 points dedicated to haste instead of crit or mastery)
vs
9xCoS + 3xES (With roughtly 2000 points dedicated to crit or mastery vs haste)

Again, I understand that this will not be accomplished until later gear levels...that's why it's theory crafting. Trading 1xCoS for 4xSS is a pretty good deal. Throwing down those extra SS, again, makes crit more important than mastery making it easier to reforge Mastery into haste without huge DPS losses. Maybe someone can sim this out, I really haven't played with the sim much...I suppose it's something I should take the time to learn.

I do prefer to just come up with stuff for other people to test though.

edit: Oh yeah, I should note... the above rotation at 1.25s casting time generates a HUGE amount of focus in both SS and CoS, but also in the fact that the rotation itself requires a lot of haste...therefore entails a large amount of FPS.

The rotation as presented may not be viable simply because there are not many ways to effectively burn off that focus without dropping ISS or losing dps by dropping CoS in order to get off instant casts such as AS or BA. It is because of this that I can easily envision a point at which, because of gear, there is a spec swapping point where you can dps better with MM or BM than you can with Surv. I believe Surv is highly limited by that 6s CD on explosive shot, but we don't have the gear to do better with MM at the moment. This was a similar story in BC, for those of you who remember.

I've done the math out myself and I'm still seeing 757 haste rating for a 1.667 sec cast time, 19.998% attack speed bonus total. I am using the whole 128.05701 haste rating for 1% haste.

Default Cobra (Hunting Party + Pathing) = 1.765 sec (13.3% attack speed bonus)
2 sec / (1.10 * 1.03)
2 sec / 1.133 = 1.765 sec

Default Cobra (Hunting Party + Pathing) + 757 haste rating (5.911%) = 1.667 sec (19.998% attack speed bonus)
2 sec / (1.10 * 1.03 * 1.05911)
2 sec / 1.19997163 = 1.6667 sec

Yeah, you are right Azulor. A 1.667 cast time is not ALWAYS desirable. There are many times that it is not. But to be perfectly honest, the only cast time that I can think of that will always offer perfect rotations through LnL procs and BA casts is a cast time of 1s. You aren't going to hit a 1s cast time outside of blood lust/rapid fire moments.

Refer to my earlier post about rotations and you will see that I discuss the delays involved with a 1.65-1.67 cast time.

As far as LnL procs go, it really depends on what's going on in the battle as far as how you spend it. For instance, a well placed LnL proc can be the best way ever to get your BA out:

ES>>BA>>ES>>AS>>ES

That's always nice to get out, but doesn't happen very often. The fact is, unless we magically get down to a 1s cast on CoS, we will have to make concessions -- either to waste time while we wait for the ES CD, or to cast something and delay our next ES. The name of the game is to minimize how much time is wasted and how much time we delay.

In my experience, the most common rotation is CoS>>CoS>>CoS>>ES. In fact, after getting 1 BA off, I can complete that rotation 4 times without focus capping (4x6 seconds = 24 seconds = 1 BA CD), but gradually building up focus for a BA cast and maybe some gratuitous AS. This haste cap is fairly intuitive and fits the abilities, so I doubt you will find something much better, however, let me side with you a little bit and give you some hope to build off of.

I, personally, do not aim for a 1.667 cap. I think it's too idealistic to aim for such a cap and I'll tell you why: LAG! Also, I find myself so close to the line in terms of having enough focus when I'm at 1.667...I have been trying to keep my cast time at 1.65-1.66. I find that giving myself that little bit of leeway in my rotation and the tiny extra bit of focus regen keeps things running smoothly. Could all be in my head, who knows -- maybe you could crunch some math on a few different haste values to see if there really are benefits to different values of haste beyond the 1.667 limit.

I believe what you will find, however, is what we probably already know, right? No one is saying that haste is not valuable beyond the cap...however, we are insinuating that it is LESS valuable. Run some different setups on femaledwarf.com and you will watch the value of haste rise and fall as you approach and pass the cap. You see...you are right that you might fit in more dps with more haste. But is that haste more valuable than an equivalent amount of crit? Probably not. A soft cap doesn't mean that the stat becomes unimportant. It simply means that the stat has reached a "sweet spot" and if left there, will allow other stats to really shine through and polish your dps.

Removed, figured out what he was trying to say.

I just did a preliminary test on Darkmoon Card: Hurricane - Item - World of Warcraft. I forgot to use a windserpent...


Here are some facts:
1. I had procs pretty close to each other, interval less than 5s.
2. The proc uses Spell hit table (I'm hit capped).

PS: I will use WoL for further analysis.
I was using 352 pvp gloves, so more BA less AS, i think there will be a bit more procs from more AS.

Test A: Fired 70 ES (210 ticks) while running in circle, not a single proc. It does not work on the initial hit of ES, unless i'm really unlucky.

Test B: Fire Multi Shot only on those 7 mobs group in Icecrown, needed 2 multi shots to finish them all, most proc per group is 1. Any suggestion on a better place to test this, without killing myself?


Test C: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis
12mins test, cat pet, 3.58PPM, 365.55 DPS. 13.75 Mastery, this is without 352 pvp Gloves.



It would be much better for a MM hunter to test this trinket, then find out the proc chance.
I think this is not a bad trinket for hunters (It should be very good for enhancement shaman), even though it can not proc from DoTs(?). In my tests, at least it beat AS damage done every time. Also, in raids, with Heroism Phase and 8% magic damage buff, the damage done will be higher.

I did some testing of my own tonight and came up with a number much closer to 2.3 PPM over the course of 5 separate 5 million damage dummy tests. The proc rate seems quite a lot lower than I imagined it would be. The proc was accounting for about 1.7% of my overall damage, or about 275 DPS. Unfortunately I don't have screenshots of my damage meter, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Obviously RNG is a big factor here, but that seems like quite a large difference in procs and overall DPS between our 2 sets of testing.