I agree it's a small benefit. I'm also using the Arcane glyph, since the last I heard it was very close to the SrS glyph. We usually don't have issues killing adds with our raid comp. Someone a long time ago said this game is about a bunch of little numbers that add up to big numbers, so I guess that's where my mentality is. If I can improve my dps by a small amount in many areas, overall there will be a noticeable increase.

Depending on where you are focus-wise, you may not have enough to throw up SrS, BA, and ES, if everything's off CD. In which case you're left casting cobras, or choosing between putting up the Dots and casting ES. This is the similar to switching to multi down adds and switching back to the boss. Although he usually still has SrS, I usually have very low focus and ES is off CD.


This is true with the new shot queuing system. I'm still thinking WotLK shot spamming. Although, anywhere around 1.67 should provide similar results all things considered.

Point taken. If crit is so much better than haste, then it doesn't matter as long as you're around a 1.67 cast time. Because some of the benefit from haste is situational, or intangible, if it's close to the value of mastery, then I will probably pick haste over mastery.

Unless you are talking more about trying to increase your DPS by tossing SrS on other targets, this point is largely irrelevant. Your best DPS rotation is what it is. Switching targets just changes what you are applying your rotation to, not the order in which you apply it.

Edit: The only possible increase here would be if you had "extra" focus for the one SrS you need to get things rolling.

No. I'm talking about fights like Halfus or Tron where you have to change targets. On Maloriak and Magmaw you have to switch and burn multiple adds together. Not all fights are as simple as shooting at one monster.

I'm sorry to disappoint you. Beyond what is needed to make sure you can always fit 3 shots between ES (and specifically, that you can fit 3xCoS, which is both the "worst" and also the most frequent situation), haste isn't even nearly the same value as mastery. At 760 haste femaledwarf puts the following value on different stats:

Without raid buffs:

With raid buffs:
Admittedly, these results should be taken with a grain of salt. The model is far from perfect and I've had cases when adding a point of haste actually decreased (!) the calculated dps.You should also note how incredibly sharply haste drops in value when you add raid buffs. I have no idea why this is happening and I can only assume something is off in the model.

Nevertheless, I've never had a simulation where haste wasn't at least 15% below mastery. Model aside, it's a matter of logic. Once you have enough haste to fit 3 cobras in 5 seconds, haste only affects our damage from:

• Auto Shots - about 15% damage
• Pet auto attacks - about 7% damage
• LnL procs - allows using 2nd ES a tiny bit faster - probably too little a benefit to compute
• Increased base regen - a negligible amount
• AoE - slightly faster focus buildup for multi-shots
• A very minor cushion for human error during the rotation

By comparison, mastery affects all the major sources of our damage except for auto shots, pets and kill shots. Perhaps the only situation where haste might be on par with mastery is AoE. Everywhere else, those stats are just not in the same league.

Hey all, I just started raiding recently and was trying to figure out why my explosive shot damage has a higher % than my cobra shot out of the overall damage done compared to these hunters during magmaw in the combat logs below.

WoW Meters Online - Combatlog Replay
WoW Meters Online - Combatlog Replay

I do not have a combat log for myself during the fight but the percentages are similar to this:

WoW Meters Online - Combatlog Replay


I am casting 3x cobra between explosives and doing this on lnl procs:

Explosive Shot, Arcane Shot, Explosive Shot

Anyone can help to shed some light on this?

Use:

Explosive, Cobra, Explosive, Arcane, Explosive instead.


You may have been misled by the fact that Explosive, Arcane, Explosive is listed in the OP as a viable way to use LnL if focus is high.

By now I think we can agree (well, if someone doesn't agree, speak up please) that it is in fact a sub-optimal way to use LnL. It would make sense to use it that way if getting focus capped affected our dps negatively.

Since unglyphed Arcane is virtually the same damage as Cobra, and Arcane's shorter cast time doesn't matter in a rotation determined by ES cooldown, there isn't much point saving focus for another Arcane. Therefore, capping focus is not much of an issue either.

Esoth, could you update your post accordingly?

That isn't really a relevant question. If you have a haste rating of 1000+ then you either reforged to get that rating, or you have it from gear you haven't yet reforged. The game gives you (in most cases) the ability to shift it someplace else. The assertion that is being tested is that regardless of where it came from, anyting over 757 haste is less optimal as long as you can get it someplace else that is reasonable (e.g., not expertise or dodge).

If the assertion is that "you have 1000+ haste without sacraficing Crit or other stats and you CAN'T reforge it to crit or other stats" then I think that asserion would only apply to a much higher teir than is obtainable today.

And of course all of this is based on an unreasonably simplified model, but I think that differences in numbers are large enough to demonstrate the point. After a haste rating of 757 it is the very likely the worst stat for SV, regardless of changing shot rotations.

ES>>AS>>ES>>AS ... You lose ES ticks. If CoS did 100 times more damage than AS, would you still use AS to burn focus? Clearly that's not the case, however, my point is that the goal of an LnL rotation should be good dps...not good focus dumping. Even if focus capped, I agree that you are better off using a proper LnL cycle and then using the focus afterwards. Get the most ES out there that you can.

I covered this in a previous post...if you were already focus capped before LnL proc'ed, then you were already doing something wrong. If you become focus capped during an LnL proc, allow yourself to cap and you really don't end up losing a lot of focus anyway.

ES>>CoS>>ES>>AS>>ES

You are only gaining focus for the first three shots for roughly 27 focus. So...if you were at 80 focus when LnL procs (Really, that's pretty high and you probably need to be casting BA soon) and allow youself to cap, you lose about 7 focus. Is seven focus worth losing ES ticks over?

No...just in case you were wondering.

I just noticed Enchant 2H Weapon - Mighty Agility - Item - World of Warcraft isn't on the enchants list.

My conclusions are based on the following facts:

• Our rotation is determined by the cooldown of ES
• Under normal circumstances we will fire exactly 3 shots between ES
• Therefore, it does not matter if the shot we fire is instant or not - as long as it can be cast in 1.67 seconds (or below)
• Therefore Arcane Shot only provides higher dps if it hits harder than Cobra
• Unless you glyph Arcane, it doesn't hit harder than Cobra. Check parses or femaledwarf - the difference between the shots is negligible.
• Therefore focus, beyond what you need for ES/BA/SrS doesn't substantially increase our dps
• Therefore, we don't lose dps if we overcap
• So, you shouldn't worry about overcapping when choosing how to handle LnL

Now, in practice Arcane still has a minor advantage over Cobra - firstly, because it hits for about 1.5% more, which is a laughable difference, but a difference still. Secondly, because it can proc Sic'em which may result in a slightly higher pet damage. Those two only offer a very minor dps increase however, so changing your standard behaviour to prevent focus overcap is generally not something worth doing.

In fact, the more i think about it, the more I begin to wonder whether I should use Arcane at all except for LnL procs. While in a perfect, stable rotation dumping excess focus might help me get a little bit of extra dps, the increase will be extremely small. On the other hand, sitting on the full focus bar has it's advantages. Anything during the encounter, that might force me to:

• Switch targets
• Start AoEing
• Stop using Cobras for a while but still alow me to ES/BA every CD

... might result in a focus starvation. And when that happens, the dps loss is far more than minor. Given that virtually every encounter does include one of those things, it may be best to simply keep using Cobras even when focus capped and thus minimize the chance you'll ever be out of focus when you need it. Over the course of the entire fight, that might just be a dps increase. I'd need to kick that idea around in my head to see if I'm not missing anything, but at the moment it seems to be the way to go for most of the bosses.

This is because 760 is (approximately) the soft haste cap as it is the amount you need to fit 3xCoS in between Explosive Shots. Now obviously you know this, but what you're forgetting is that there are raid buffs that increase your haste (like windfury) which means that if you have 760 rating unbuffed, you're below the haste cap.

Edit: For clarity sake: 760 is the haste cap with raid buffs, 760 without raid buffs means you're below the haste cap.

How viable are the PvP gloves? The heroic tier gloves are probably better due to item level (372 compared to the PvP's 365), but until those are available, how valuable is the 2 seconds off of traps and BA? In short fights it's useless, but once a fight lasts 235 seconds or longer you can get 1 extra black arrow/explosive trap. I haven't done any math or tests on it, but common sense leads me to believe that the extra 1 black arrow + lock and load procs you would get in a 5 minute fight add more damage than the 1% crit or 1% mastery (~200 rating) you could get from wearing a piece of raid gear.

The Vicious gloves also have hit rating and slightly more agility than 359 pieces.

You could use my rotation comparison method from a few posts ago to determine this.

As stated in a much earlier post, I let focus ramp up gradually during a 3*CoS>>ES rotation (Rotation 1) in order to afford BA. However, eventually, I will have enough excess focus to afford the following rotation:

CoS>>CoS>>AS>>AS>>ES (Rotation 2)

Clearly, this delays the next ES, so is it worth it? Let's find out maybe...

CoS*2 + AS*2 + ES = 6.34s of rotation time.

Ra = 6/6.34 = .94637

Rotation2 * Ra = 1.893*CoS + 1.893*AS + .946*ES

So...analyze. 3*CoS + 1*ES vs 1.893*CoS + 1.893*AS + .946*ES

Which is better? I think you will find that there are indeed appropriate times to cast AS...even outside of an LnL proc.

edit: Of course, Rotation 1 may still beat Rotation 2 if Careful Aim applies to the scenario.

Yes, if you choose to delay ES in order to fit 2 Arcanes, it's obviously a gain. The main problem is that in order to do so, within 3 seconds you will have to spend 88 focus while regenerating only about 12. So, even if you do it when focus capped, you'll end up at about 24. This isn't that much of a problem if you can keep up 3xCoS for the next several rotations.

However, you shouln't do it if your BA is going to to come off cd in the next 2 rotations as you may have problems using it on time. Or worse, you will be able (barely) to use it on time, but if you're "unlucky" and have a LnL proc right away, you won't be able to fire the 3rd ES on time.

On the other hand, if you do it right after BA, then firstly you're unlikely to get focus capped to begin with (takes time to rebuild focus after ES+BA) and secondly, a LnL proc might happen at any moment, and despite the fact that LnL shots are theoretically "free", you don't regenerate focus much while casting them, and at the end of LnL you need to spend a large chunk of focus.

So, the scenario you proposed would mostly be good if:

• You recently used BA and it won't come off cd soon
• You got LnL proc almost immediately
• Despite the fact that you just used BA and consumed LnL, you're still swimming in focus (maybe lucky with ToTH)

In that case, it's pretty "safe" to get yourself dry on focus by going 2xCoS, 2xAS, ES.
That is of course, if encounter specifics do not disrupt your normal rotation and focus regen at this point, but that's another story.

So to conclude, it's a neat idea, but the circumstances where you can use it without potentially screwing up much more important sources of your damage, are fairly rare.

I had this problem, though I am not a goblin so femaledwarf was telling me to go 7% haste or 901ish rating. What I found it to be was the latency is set by default to 150ms, i.e. fairly high. Reduced it down to 50ms and it came down 6% or 757ish haste. This is probably why itis causing it to show as a DPS loss for you. Just retest with you typical ms. The latency setting is under settings which is the bottom tab.

I've been messing around with Arcane Shot settings on femaledwarf. The highest DPS I could get with it is with the "Minimum Focus to use Arcane Shot" set anywhere from 86-92 (same DPS results for each setting). I also noticed it is more DPS to use Arcane Shot during the Careful Aim phase. This results in 8 Arcane Shots being used over a fight.

Then I removed Arcane Shot from the rotation entirely. The loss was 99 DPS. Out of the 21,056 I had, that's a 0.47% decrease.

That seems like a negligible loss compared to what it would mean in game. With not using Arcane Shot, you could ignore Focus entirely. I'd guess that most people would see DPS increases in game by dropping Arcane Shot simply because it would mean that for any target switch or add phase, you will have full Focus. What's more is that you can completely skip Thrill of the Hunt and the DPS doesn't go down because you no longer need the extra Focus, giving you three talent points that can be put into utility.

I agree with you wholeheartedly here. I'm baffled as to how negligible the difference between arcane usage and ignoring arcane was. I couldn't believe Blizzard implemented a dps rotation so simple, so straightforward. I feel that this fact is a big factor in how easy it is to obtain maximum hunter dps in raids, and why other classes are underrepresented. The skill-cap on a feral druid, for instance, is much higher. We are one of the only classes in the game working with a strict rotation with little attention paid to circumstance (compare it to a feral, destro lock or even ele shaman).

Arcane has the problem of being squeezed between the high and low damage shots which makes it difficult for Blizzard to balance properly. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that kill command is available to all specs. Basically if Blizzard makes arcane too good, it starts to outperform kill command for BM. If they buff kill command too much to compensate, they end up putting too much damage on the pet end and risk making kill command worth using for other specs. In addition they have to worry about arcane becoming too valuable in comparison to explosive and chimera as well, given the much higher focus costs associated with those shots. So we end up with the situation we're in, where arcane's value is only marginally better than cobra, especially as the cast times of cobra improve.

The other issue with arcane is more specific to SV- namely that SV has tighter focus demands from the standard shot rotation than other specs because we need to contend with both explosive shot and BA, whereas MM and BM really only have one high cost cooldown shot, plus BM's is cheaper and MM's has a longer cooldown. This leaves very little room for flexibility with arcane shot and makes the risks of using an arcane shot at an inopportune time much higher, since you can end up tapped out for your more valuable shots fairly easily due to the erratic nature of SV focus regen.

With regards to femaledwarf modeling- it will always cast the lower priority shot if the higher one isn't available unless the shot has wait time enabled and it predicts it will have sufficient focus and it will be off cooldown before the wait time expires. If you're seeing behavior inconsistent with that please send me a saved setting link and the details.

The statement should really be no "spec" should be allowed to cap their resource with no consequence. The same is not true for hunters in general.

MM hunters pay a significant DPS penalty if we do not dump focus using AS, despite all the benefits we get from SS. Currently for my character, it is a 1003 total DPS loss (about 5%). About 470 of that is direct hunter DPS loss from using SS instead of AS, while the other 550 is from loss in pet DPS due to reduced WH uptime with the loss of Sic'Em procs (MM gets the majority of its Sic'Em procs from AS instead of ES like SV).

To maximize DPS, MM hunters have to maximize the number of ASs that they can perform for the available focus within the constraints of performing CS off CD and 2 SS pairs a CS cycle to maintain ISS uptime. Ideally, we want to do enough AS where averaged over time we are roughly focus neutral (except for dumping focus as the target is dieing). Now there are a couple exceptions to this:
- The first is the CA phase when hasted. With the 60% crit chance bonus and extra crit damage from PS, SS does more damage than AS in this phase. If the SS cast time is hasted near the GCD, then it is a DPS gain to cast SSs instead of AS and to keep our focus at 100% except for CS casts. However, when not hasted in the CA phase, MM hunters still need to use AS as per their standard rotation.
- The second is the KS phase. Whether the MM hunter has the KS glyph with 2 additional focus free shots per CS cycle or the CS glyph with only 1 KS per cycle, during this phase even with using every GCD beyond that needed for CS, KS, and ISS uptime on ASs, it is very difficult to use all of the available focus. The only way to use up all the available focus is to give up on 100% ISS uptime and replace the second SS pair with ASs instead. Doing this can be a DPS gain, but it is not focus maintainable.

Its a similar situation for BM hunters, dropping AS totally from the rotation is a significant DPS decrease (1612 or 8.3%), partly from the direct hunter DPS loss (760) but also due to the reduced number of Sic'Em procs hurting WH uptime and pet DPS (852).

On the other hand, my character in his SV setup actually is shown to have a 124 DPS increase by dropping AS out of the rotation in FD. This is partly because SV pet damage is barely affected since most of SV Sic'Em procs come from ES such that only 58 pet DPS is lost. On the other hand, the hunter gains 182 DPS in this simulation.

Thus, concerning forgoing AS and penalties for capping focus, SV is different than the other hunter specs in that it is not penalized as much by doing so.

Concerning CA phase and AS

There are many factors that contribute to whether it is beneficial to forgo AS during the CA phase or not. These include:

- How many AS shots you would be using during the CA phase. If you are using only a small number of ASs during the CA phase (FD shows me only using 4 to 6 depending on whether BL is used during the CA phase), then dropping AS or not really has very little impact.

- What percentage of the CA phase are you hasted and with what type of haste. If you only have 1 RF during the CA phase, during most of the CA phase you are comparing the improved damage of about a 1.67 CoS cast versus an AS. In this situation, replacing AS with CoSs is not as valuable as replacing them when you are hasted as shown below:

Average AS damage/DPS	14521
Average CoS damage in CA phase	18370
CoS-unhasted DPS (1.657s)	11086
CoS-BL DPS (1.275s)	14408
CoS-RF DPS (1.184s)	15515
CoS-15s RF, 45s unhasted	12194
CoS-15s RF, 40s BL, 5s unhasted	14408
CoS-15s TF, 40s BL	14710

(Note that the 14408 in the next to last row is not a copy and paste error. It just worked out that way.)

When just looking at CoS versus AS damage during the CA phase, whether AS or CoS wins out depends on how long the CA phase is and what percentage of it is hasted by what effect.

- The focus savings and what additionally abilities it can be used on. Each AS skipped is roughly 21.56 focus saved when including in Efficiency the average focus savings from TotH (which is 0.44 focus = 22 * .4 * .05). If this allows more ESs, it is a gain. If this additional focus is not used, then it is not a gain.

- How much pet damage is lost during the CA phase from reduced Sic'Ems and pet WH uptime. If you are only doing a few AS, you are maybe at most losing 2 Sic'Ems.

Here is the haste analysis I did based on FD outputs. Since all the data comes right from FD, it carries all the same assumptions.
Haste was added using custom buffs. All raid buffs except HP/WF for the first portion.
The first data set was generated w/o hunting party because my gear won't allow me to go higher than 1.67s cast time





Based on best fit linear models:
At low levels of haste ~109/128 = 0.85 dps per budget point
At higher levels ~101/128 = 0.79 dps per point

Obviously these are rough estimates of big picture haste trends, and could be influenced by latency since I used the default value of 150 ms.

I believe that the funny you have circled is the outcome of overlapping the two plots which are derived slightly differently. With how Custom Buffs work, I believe the first plot multiplies the whole Custom Buff amount in. For the second plot with HP, the 10% from HP is multiplied in, then the amount of the Custom Buff is multiplied on top of that. Thus, 15% from Custom Buff alone is a 15% factor, but 12% from HP and 2% Custom Buff is a 15.5% factor.

In addition, using the Custom Buff changes to model changes to haste on gear is incorrect since that haste is multiplicative instead of additive with other haste rating as haste on gear is.

Next, looking at average CoS cast time is really not too meaningful since we are really never attacking at that speed. The static cast time is the time factoring in the constant effect, including haste from gear, Pathing, and HP. The average cast time also factors in dynamic effects (RF, BL, potions). We will never actually be attacking at the average cast time. We mostly attack at the static cast time and then much quicker than the average when under the dynamic haste affects. Thus, its the static cast time we want under 1.67s since that is the cast time at which we normally operate. Faster cast time due to dynamic haste effects are bonuses.

I would instead suggest redoing your analysis with HP on the whole time and simulating changing haste on gear by adding or subtracting haste rating in the Custom Gear Stats, which is accurate for changes on gear, gems, or reforging. If possible, I would suggest making steps in sizes of 20 haste rating since the about 120 haste rating per 1% haste is a multiple of it as are current gemming amounts (if you want to have smaller step sizes that is fine). Doing this will be more accurate and provide a continuous plot over the whole range studied. In addition, to the total haste percent, if you could include the amount of haste or haste rating from gear at each step would be helpful since that would isolate the haste rating from HP and Pathing so we can see its effects directly. Focus on static cast time not average cast time too.

I do not want to draw any conclusions until we see data that was derived correctly. The information provided is great, it just needs to be refined to be applicable and consistent.

You have a low amount of haste. If you aren't gearing/reforging for 757 or so you can expect a lot more arcane shots, and the value of that glyph rises accordingly. At least, that's what I'm seeing with femaledwarf and the like and actual raid experience. I'm not saying you're wrong by any means, just that this arcane-less play style is most likely tied to having very low haste.