BM has Kill Command. It'd probably be a slight gain if only KC consumes the proc for BM.

A short answer on my specific case :

I've played with 100 ms of latency and i have really difficulty in raid situation to perform 5ss and 2 as ...

I've tried to increase my haste (19%) but it's not really solve the problem.

Which level of hast cap will be reasonnable for me ? & after haste and hit cap, witch stat must be increase (mastery ? Crit ?).

My template, stuff and reforge on wowreforge : Wow reforge link

Answering this question generically since may apply to others.

As clarification, the 12.93% haste level is the level to allow you to be able to perform 5 SSs in a tight 10s CS cycle at 0 latency. However, it does not mean that you are supposed to cast 5 SSs every cycle.

The ideal situation is still to only be able to cast the minimum 4 SSs per cycle required to maintain ISS (doing so results in about 0.4s of deadtime in the CS cycle at this haste level); however, for focus balancing reasons, we often need to cast a 5th SS.

As a reminder from the guide for the Standard phase unhasted:
- Without the T12 4-set, I recommend at this haste level performing the following base cycle with MMM AI procs replacing the extra SS on every 3 of 4 procs and an AS on the other procs to include focus regen cycles to balance focus
CS-ASx2-SSx5
Hence, this cycle performs the 5th SS on roughly 5 of 8 cycles.
With Termination, the 5th SS is not needed when Termination is active
- With the T12 4-set, I recommend at this haste level performing the following base cycle with MMM AI procs replacing an AS. In addition, to balance focus an AS needs to be replaced by a 5th SS as needed, preferrably on cycles with neither a MMM AI or T12 4-set proc to reduce focus wasting.
CS-ASx3-SSx4

The 100ms latency case is kind of an “ideal” latency case for this haste level. When performing a 4 SS cycle, it makes up for the deadtime in the cycle and results in a tight CS cycle. However, on 5 SS cycles, it results in about a 0.3s delay in your CS cycle.

Since the goal is to perform that 5th SS cast as seldom as possible to balance focus and with the T12 4-set reducing the need for the 5th SS cast, I do not recommend acquiring additional haste to try to tighten up the CS cycle on 5 SS cycles. It results in more deadtime on the 4 SS cycles and costs you additional crit and mastery.

This post does not really apply to those that raid in 25-man raids since the 10% physical haste buff should be available in the vast majority of 25-man raid groups.

I recently received a private message in regards to a player with questions about what is ideal for him to do in his 10-man raid that is often without the 10% physical haste buff (just called haste buff for the rest of this post).

The default answer is to switch to SV to increase your personal DPS and to increase the DPS of your raid. This default answer is particularly useful for those that like to play SV and am good at it and/or have a raid group composed of a lot of physical DPS.

This default answer is not necessarily the best answer in all situations though. These include:
- When your hunter is also the only source of the 10% AP buff for the raid. For most physical DPS classes, the 10% AP is bigger DPS gain than the 10% haste.
- The player knows how to play MM well, but does not play SV nearly as well. In these cases, switching to SV can be not much of a personal DPS gain or even a loss. Also, itemizing gear to support SV an SV spec well is not bad for MM but is not ideal.
- Your raid has very few physical DPS and is caster heavy. Hence, the raid benefit of the raid buff is much smaller, and in the extreme case, only applies to yourself and the tanks.
- You are not normally without the haste buff but am from time to time on a seldom enough basis where it is not worth allocating one of your dual specs to SV.

Personally, I fall into several of these categories. I am the only source of the raid’s 10% AP buff when our DK tank goes DPS (in which case he covers the haste buff anyway). I am much more effective at playing MM than I am at SV since I study it much more and play it much more (almost all the time). Except for a melee sub from time to time, I am the only physical DPS in my raids. Finally, I am rarely without the haste buff since we usually have two shaman, each with dropping the caster/physical haste buffs. I am only without the haste buff when one of the shaman is missing that night and our DK is tanking. As such, I do not have an SV spec or raid as SV ever (only raided as SV at the start of Cataclysm when it was so much better). When I am without the haste buff, I continue to raid as MM since it occurs infrequently and since my raid says they do not care if I respec SV.

So the player that messaged me wanted to know how to tune his MM hunter for the lack of haste buff since staying MM seemed to make the most sense to him for his situation, which meets many of the factors listed above, and whether doing so was acceptable. I said that it was acceptable situationally and shared the details of how I handle it currently with my T11 4-set. I then investigated how it would work out with T12 gear, especially the T12 4-set.

The key to this situation is our two major haste points for the fully buffed case – 12.93% haste from gear and Pathing for a tight 5 SS cycle and 5.4% haste for a tight 4 SS cycle. If you notice, these two cases have about a 7.5% haste difference between them. This is not 10%, but still important.

If you are built for the 12.93% haste 5 SS cycle for the fully buffed case, then the main impact of losing the raid buff is that you downscale to the 4 SS cycle being preferred. Performing the 4 SS cycle at this haste situation only has 0.16s of CS delay. Without the T12 4-set, this rotation is decently focus negative, losing about 17 focus per cycle on average. This requires performing a 5th SS a lot. The 5th SS cycle delays your CS by 0.7s. Unfortunately, without the T12 4-set, the 5th SS is needed almost every cycle to balance focus. With the T12 4-set, the situation is much better since you rarely need the extra SS (only 1 in every 10 cycles).

Here is detailed shot information for the 12.93% haste case without the haste buff for the Standard phase unhasted.

Shot	Time	Focus	Focus2	Focus3
CS	1.00	60.52	60.52	60.52
AS	2.00	43.03	43.03	43.03
SS	3.54	58.99	58.99	58.99
SS	5.08	74.95	74.95	74.95
AS/MMM2/SS3	6.08	57.46	79.46	90.90
AS	7.08	39.98	61.98	73.42
SS	8.62	55.94	77.94	89.38
SS	10.16	71.89	93.89	105.33
Net Focus	-17.11	-28.11	-6.11	5.33
Cycle Delay		0.16	0.16	0.70
Ratio	-1.22	1	20	19
#Autos		4.55	4.55	4.79
Net-T12AS	-7.10	-18.10	3.90	15.88
Net-T12CS	2.91	-8.09	13.91	26.42
Ratio for AS	1.40	1	2	1
Ratio for CS	2.91	1	1	0

Focus2 – MMM AI proc replaces an AS
Focus3 – extra SS replaces an AS

Compared to the case with the haste buff, the Standard phase unhasted really is not affected much by the lack of the raid buff. It takes a little longer at 0.16s on 4 SS cycles and 0.7s on 5 SS cycle, but has slightly better focus balancing since the haste buff doesn’t affect regen but the longer cycle generates a little more over its duration. The big penalty occurs when you have to cast the extra SS to balance focus, although you have to cast the extra SS slightly less often in this case.

With the T12 4-set bonus’s practical elimination of the need for the extra SS, our cycles over the Standard phase unhasted are almost identical except for the extra 0.16s on the CS cycle for the case without the raid buff.

Where the real impacts of the loss of the haste buff occur is during the much more shot flexible dynamic haste periods where both our SS and AI cast times are longer, although regen is still slightly better. In addition, obviously autoshot and related damage is less without the haste buff.

In this situation, I definitely recommend the RF glyph since the extra haste is fully utilized during RFs to increase both SS and AI cast times to 1.03s and 1.49s, respectively.

So now that we discussed the case of how the recommended configuration is impacted by the loss of the haste buff, let us look at what the situation is if one desired to tune their MM hunter for the lack of the haste buff (not recommended but for extreme cases).

Without the 10% haste buff and assuming 3/3 Pathing, your base SS cast time not including haste on gear is:

2/1.15/1.03 = 1.69s (instead of 1.52s with the haste buff)

So how much haste from gear would you need for the 4 SS cycle with 4 GCDs for CS and ASs at 0 latency?

10 - 4 = 6 = 4 * 1.6884761 / x
x = 1.688471 / 6 = 1.12565 or 12.57% or 1610 haste rating

Haste rating requirements with various levels of Pathing (suggest 3/3 though):

Pathing Ranks	Haste From Gear	Haste Rating from Gear
0.00%	15.94%	2042
1.00%	14.79%	1895
2.00%	13.67%	1751
3.00%	12.57%	1610

This is equivalent to the 2.33% low haste on gear case (5.4% with 3/3 Pathing) with the haste buff since both have the 1.5s SS cast time. Thus, you need 10.54% more haste on gear to make up for the 10% haste buff if normally at the 5.4% haste case. The RF glyph still fully takes advantage of this situation with getting your SS cast to exactly the GCD during RFs.

Note that this case is essentially your haste for the 12.93% haste case with an additional 3% haste to fully make up for the loss of the raid buff.

Focus generation is a little better at 4.64 fps vs. 4.22, but this results in only 4.2 more focus per CS cycle, which does not make that much of a difference.

Lets look at the 5 SS case with 3 specials (12.93% haste case from guide - 9.63% with 3/3 Pathing):

10 - 3 = 7 = 5 * 1.6884761 / x
x = 1.20605 or about 20.61% or 2639 haste from gear (an unreasonable amount that will be ignored over the rest of this discussion)

Going back to the 4 SS cycle design since that seems like the best option (especially from the earlier discussion), here are more details. It results in a tight 10s CS cycle with the following profile:

Shot	Time	Focus	Focus2	Focus3
CS	1.00	60.64	60.64	60.64
AS	2.00	43.28	43.28	43.28
SS	3.50	59.23	59.23	59.23
SS	5.00	75.19	75.19	75.19
AS/MMM2/SS3	6.00	57.83	79.83	91.14
AS	7.00	40.46	62.46	73.78
SS	8.50	56.42	78.42	89.74
SS	10.00	72.38	94.38	105.70
Net Focus	-16.62	-27.62	-5.62	5.70
Cycle Delay	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.50
Ratio	-0.80	1	20	19
#Autos		4.60	4.60	4.83
Net-T12AS	-6.51	-17.51	4.49	16.32
Net-T12CS	3.61	-7.39	14.61	26.94
Ratio for AS	-0.87	2	3	1
Ratio for CS	3.61	1	1	0

Focus2 – AS is replaced by an MMM AI proc
Focus3 – AS is replaced by a 5th SS

Without the T12 4-set, the bad news with this cycle is that it requires the extra 5th SS almost every cycle in order to balance focus. The 5th SS results in a 0.5s delay in your CS cycle. Thus, it is not a great option without the T12 4-set.

With the T12 4-set, it basically becomes close to focus balanced with rarely using the extra SS (like one in every 10 cycles).

Thus, although I recommend in most situations to go SV if your raid does not have the haste buff; however, this post provides information for the alternatives of remaining as MM without the haste buff as long as it doesn’t hurt your raid.

I do not have the 4-set yet so I cannot say for sure; however, I really doubt it would give you focus. How it should work logically is the same as for MMM AI procs where they do not consume the 4-set proc since they cost no focus. They are technically a different version of Aimed Shot and KC than the focus costing version. Thus, I expect that the RiF KC would work as normal, and the 4-set proc would be used on the next focus costing shot.

i have had 4set for over a week, so i'll give the information i have come to:
-doesn't check focus(can use chimera if you have 0 focus)
-Only is consumed on any ability that uses focus(so procs don't consume it)
-Has no internal cooldown

i have been trying to abuse it but i have really only been using it for chimera or hardcasting aimed, never have used it on kill command, and randomly if i don't see the proc and i'm spamming my arcane shot key. So i have just adapted the keep my rotation, have extra focus? extra arcane shots. If anyone needs more info on 4p let me know.

It is also the case that Arcane Shot wastes the proc, greatly devaluing the bonus if one doesn't adapt their rotation to the procs and use a different spell than Arcane. My suspicion is that hardcasting Aimed is the best approach, at least if you can stand and shoot in peace, but using KC is less of a break from the usual rotation and will result in smoother focus management and ISS uptime control.

If one does not adapt one's rotation, then one won't be getting the free Arcane Shot and I am not certain the current haste recommendations are optimal. Actually, even adapting to the procs with KC, I think it's not yet clear which haste levels will result in smoother play, but I think it's possible higher haste levels will end up being best.

Thanks for the T12 4-set information kby, Azulor, and Palioh.

If the 4-set proc is not consumed by utility abilities, such as Tranq Shot, Silencing Shot, Widow Venom, etc, I consider that a good thing since those are low focus costing abilities that do not take advantage of the proc as well as most of our primary focus dumps. Plus, although we use them seldomly, we often need to use them at a certain time where there is little flexibility to delay their use for another ability top be used first to utilize the proc.

Please let me know which abilities are and are not affected by it, and I will put the information in the the MM guide.

The AS T12 4-set Bug

It is definitely an impactive bug if Arcane Shot consumes the T12 4-set proc but does not have its focus saved. It was already the inferior choice of shot to use on the proc, although a fine option if far from CS being available and unable to use KC efficiently at the time. With this bug, Arcane Shot gets pushed further down the list.

However, the bug is not as impactive as some may think (the sky definitely is not falling) and probably better than the alternatives to totally avoid the situation. The AS bug only applies over the about 50-60% of the fight when we are unhasted and using AS as the focus dump. Yes, having AS still cost focus and consume the proc wastes part of the T12 4-set benefit, but this is alleviated by the following factors:

1) If you are talented for Termination, the loss of that focus savings is not as important at boss health below 25% and may not be needed on average since your 4 SSs are already generating 12 to 24 extra focus per cycle. Just the 12+ focus per cycle gained with 1/2 Termination is already better than the average focus per savings from the T12 4-set proc being consumed by AS correctly.
2) During the KS phase, the missing focus savings is not needed or not needed as much as well since the addition of KS casts in replacement of AS saves 22 focus per cast. Just one KS cast per CS cycle replacing an AS is equivalent to more than twice the T12 4-set proc benefit if applied to AS correctly.
3) CS consuming some of the T12 4-set procs. With the recommended rotation, CS has about a 42% probability of consuming the proc over AS. The probability of the procs being consumed by CS can be increased if desired by alternative rotation designs.
4) When possible KC should be used in place of AS, which will correctly get the T12 4-set proc benefit and do a little extra damage.

If I assume at a worse case that during about 50% of the fight that we are susceptible to the AS T12 4-set proc, that is only about 150s of a 5 min fight. Over that 150s, I expect a proc roughly every 15s on average (about 6 autos per proc with assuming some time before use since may be casting steady shots). This means there would be a total of 10 procs over this period. With assuming that 4 of the procs are consumed by CS, that is only 6 that would encounter the AS bug. This number can be reduced as mentioned by using KC instead or may not matter if in the Termination or Kill Shot phases. The 6 bugged procs equates to roughly at most 6 extra SSs instead of ASs over the course of the whole fight, which is roughly 68 DPS or 0.2% of my overall DPS in my gear. This is not a big deal.

Furthermore, casting Arcane Shot is pretty much unavoidable if want to perform good consistent DPS since:
- Aimed Shot is too slow when unhasted without stacking a significant amount of additional haste.
- Aimed Shot is still vulnerable to interruptions/pushback and needs to be replaced by Arcane Shot during such possible situations or when moving
- Using the slow Aimed Shots when unhasted locks out more autoshots, resulting in less T12 4-set procs.
- There really is not a great Aimed Shot rotation option when unhasted (see later)
- Kill Command is the inferior option to AS in damage per focus when a proc is not available and is only a good option to use the normal version of when wasting a lot of focus
- Kill Command does not proc Sic’Em, while using Aimed Shot procs less Sic’Ems, hurting pet DPS.

Aimed Shot Alternatives to Avoid the AS T12 4-Set Proc

On the other hand, using Aimed Shot whenever possible reduces the need to use Kill Command at all. However, without the T11 4-set’s reduction in the SS cast time, there is not an ideal option for an unhasted AI focus dump cycle.

The first item concerning an AI focus dump cycle when unhasted is that CS is definitely has higher priority since:
- It does about the same damage by itself as AI. Add in the extra autoshot, partial SS over the remaining AI cast time, and WQ damage, CS does by far more damage than AI.
- CS also heals you.
- Using CS more often results in more autoshots and slightly more T12 4-set procs over using AI more often.
- CS costs less focus, even when using the AI glyph

Thus, the goal is as tight of a CS cycle as possible. Note that a complicating factor is MMM AI procs replacement of another shot (probably AI) can result in some deadtime in the cycle, usually best used by casting an extra SS. Some options and the haste requirements are:

2 AIs and 4 SSs per cycle

For a 10s CS cycle, this requires 21.21% haste. This is 2717 haste rating without Pathing and 2265 haste rating with 3/3 Pathing. A 9s CS cycle requires 36.36% haste and is discarded as an option.

The 10s CS cycle would look like the following roughly repeated once the first MMM AI occurs:

CS-SS-SS-AI-AI-SS-SS
CS-SS-SS-MMM AI-AI-SS-SS-SS

With 1.3s and 1.89s SS and AI cast times, respectively.

An alternative is to move one of the AIs to right before the CS so that its higher costing shot consumes the T12 4-set proc if an MMM AI proc is not available to use. Either way, MMM AI procs will always be used before they expire. Note that the MMM AI proc cycle has an additional SS. Without the SS on this cycle, there is 0.89s of deadtime. With the extra SS, the CS cast is delayed by 0.41s that cycle, with an average cycle delay of 0.23s.

The extra SS is needed for focus balancing too. Without the T12 4-set procs, this cycle is not sustainable, even with assuming use of the AI glyph. It loses about 22 focus per cycle on average even with the extra SS on MMM AI cycles. Even with the T12 4-set, this cycle is not sustainable since it loses about 5 focus per cycle.

Thus, if you went with this cycle, you would need to cast an additional SS about every other non-MMM AI proc cycle. Hence, you would be casting a 5th SS about 75% of the time, with about a 0.53s CS delay on average.

The haste required for this cycle may be difficult to achieve with T12 gear but is probably possible. However, you would definitely be sacrificing a lot of crit and mastery to achieve it.

1 AI and 4 SSs per cycle

For a 10s CS cycle, this requires -4.26% haste. This is a bad option since it is already focused positive and basically wastes T12 4-set procs. Furthermore, at realistically small positive haste values, there is significant deadtime in the cycle (0.38s at 0% haste and 0.79s at 5% haste) as well as being even more focus positive. Thus, this option is discarded.

A 9s CS cycle requires 7.71% haste. This is only 987 haste rating with no Pathing and 586 with full Pathing. The cycle would look like the following roughly repeated once the first MMM AI occurs:

CS-SS-SS-AI-SS-SS
CS-SS-SS-MMM AI-SS-SS-SS

With 1.47s and 2.13s SS and AI cast times, respectively.

Note that the MMM AI proc cycle has an additional SS. Without the SS on this cycle, there is 1.13s of deadtime. With the extra SS, the CS cast is delayed by 0.34s that cycle, with an average cycle delay of 0.19s.

The extra SS is not needed for focus balancing though. Without the T12 4-set procs, this cycle already waste about 16 focus per cycle with the AI glyph and about 15 focus without the AI glyph. Thus, this cycle total wastes the T12 4-set procs and is also a bad option.

An alternative is to instead of casting the extra SS on MMM AI proc cycles is to still cast the AI hardcast. This delays the CS cycle by 1s on the MMM AI proc cycles. Hence, you would be losing the full benefit of the CS glyph about every other cycle.

With this option, the cycle loses about 17 focus on average without the T12 4-set procs and is just slightly focus negative by about 1 focus with the T12 4-set procs without the AI glyph and slightly focus positive with the AI glyph.

Hence, this cycle is an option with using the SS/CS/AI glyph with the 4-set proc. However, the slower haste amount and extra AI hardcasts results in less autoshot and WQ damage. Furthermore, a 2.13s AI cast time is really slow and vunerable. Plus, the RF glyph could be very useful during RFs if willing to replace the AI glyph and have to cast an extra SS once in a while.

Another alternative that builds on this is to note that the cycle now takes 10s on MMM AI cycles. By casting an extra SS on non-MMM AI cycles, the CS can be ditched since all rotations now take over 10s. It can be replaced with the RF glyph. Since this cycle will waste focus with the T12 4-set the AI glyph can be replaced with the KS glyph. This rotation is not a great option though since you waste a lot of the benefit of the T12 4-set.

Summary

So there are two possible AI hardcast cycles that could be used when unhasted. Neither is necessarily ideal. One pushes the limits on the amount of haste available with sacrificing a lot of crit and mastery and is still focus negative even with the T12 4-set procs. The other is feasible haste-wise and can be focus positive, but it only hardcasts 1 AI per cycle at very slow speeds such that it is not much of a DPS increase over the AS casts plus autoshot and WQ damage that it probably doesn’t make up for the loss of the additional Sic’Em procs and autoshot related DPS at this slower haste amount.

Although the second of these is an option, I personally will stick with the current recommendations, even with the AS bug. Although the AS bug is impactive and does not allow us to take full advantage of the T12 4-set proc, the impact is really not too large where I would not worry too much about it beyond trying to use KC in place of AS for the procs. I am sure that the odds are that we would probably lose more than that 68 DPS trying to totally change up the rotation in order to avoid the situation 100% of the time.

Plus, I expect that Blizzard will fix this bug (either to have AS not consume the proc or have the focus be saved). Thus, for me, I plan to proceed with business as usual.

I obtained 4-piece two days ago, and after just a day of raiding there is one point I feel is worth mentioning: cycle approach.

I think I speak for everyone on this thread when I say, theory aside, this tier's 4-piece bonus has turned our "rotation" upside-down (somewhat) in practice, due to RNG of the proc's frequency. I have seen numerous situations thus far where back-to-back procs completely change the standard rotation as we know it.

Whitefyst has gone into detail on individual cases, however it may be beneficial to think of it in terms of "how many and what combination of shots can evenly divide into the remaining CS cooldown?" rather than "since it proc'd here, I need to replace a SS with an AS to balance focus" I don't know how many of you are "mental math" people (I hope many are if you are on these boards) but the former is much, much less of a headache for me, while yielding the same results.

This alternative approach can work just the same because of a simple fact: even with the introduction of T12 4-piece procs, your still only firing two different speeds of shots, globals (1s) and SS (~1.4s @ 12.93% haste). This pretty much boils down to judging whether or not to replace 3 instant focus dumps with 2 SS's, or vice-versa, depending on current focus.

For example: you get a proc during a chain of SS's, consume it with a KC, and notice you have exactly 5s left on CS cooldown. You know you'll have to fire off 2xAS and 2xSS before you do CS again. Similarly, if you notice 3s left on CS cooldown after a proc and you're about to focus cap, you know it has to be 3xAS. If low on focus, 2xSS.

This is probably intuitive for many. Just thought I'd lay it out here.

I agree. To be clear, all I try to provide is the ideal rotation to be performed as a guideline to give us an idea of what we want too do with showing many possibilities that can occur on a cycle depending upon which procs occur or not occur that cycle; however, I understand clearly from a practical sense that the implementation is more a reaction to procs and your current focus levels. Its just the same situation as without the procs but with the procs making the situation more extreme - if you are high on focus and ISS does not need to be refreshed, dump focus; otherwise, cast SS. That is the simple rule to follow in all cases.

It has been confirmed in the WoW hunter thread that the T12 AS bug is fixed with AS being a focus free shot when it consumes the T12 4-set proc.