The best way to play MM in T13 will not change much from now beyond figuring out how best to utilize the T13 4P bonus. With a reported 105s ICD on it, I do not think that the T13 4P will be too impactive since we will only need to worry about it every approximately 2 mins. I say 2 mins since we ideally probably want to time it around times when we have other non-haste procs available.

The current "best" way to play MM now depends on the fight and your preferences.
- For a mostly standstill fight with few to no cast interruption possibilities, then a AI hardcast build with casting AI when sufficiently hasted is usually best. Haste and crit are the best seocndary stats in this case.
- For a fight with a lot of movement or interruption possibilities or significant periods of AoE, then you still want to cast AI when on single targets, sufficiently hasted, and not in threat of interruption/movement but be casting AS as the focus dump otherwise on single targets and MS on multiple targets. In this case, crit and mastery are the best secondary stats after getting sufficient haste for a desired tight CS cycle with as the AS focus dump.

You can't control casttime itself, as far as I know, but you could make auras for haste buffs which indicate that your casttime has been lowered.

As Nerec stated, I am not aware of any mod that tracks the cast times of our shots, although it is possible one exists. However, I do use Power Auras (other similar mods can work just as well) to help me realize when my AI cast time is sufficiently low. I have Power Auras show above my moveable focus bar when important dynamic buffs are present on me or dynamic debuffs on the target and how long is left on the buff/debuff. Items I monitor include RF, BL, SrS (to know by when to refresh it), ISS (to know by when to refresh it), trinket procs, potion of Tol'vir, Blood Fury (I am an orc), and other similar items. Once I get the T134P, I will include the haste buff from it as well.

The situational awareness information from Power Auras provides many benefits, with one of these being when my AI cast time has crossed the threshold to hardcast it if safe to do so. I know for my current character gearing of static haste level (from haste rating on gear, my ranks in Pathing, and with assuming ISS and raid haste buff) which dynamic haste effects (or combinations of them) will result in my AI casttime to be fast enough to consider using it.

MosphetCookies - WoW AddOns - WowAce

LF Testers for Hunter Addon

Alpha version but it's looks very promising

As far as I'm concerned, that's the way to play now. I've done plenty of tests with my rotation, and even glyphed for CS, using AS to dump focus over a hardcast AI just leaves too much empty space. So you try to fill that emptiness with more AS, well now you're out of focus. No such issues with a hardcast AI as a focus dump.

I can't remember reading about this anywhere, but bombardment has been nerfed on live - the bombardment buff is now consumed by the cast of multi-shot, so you have to wait for the shots to land, crit, and re-grant you bombardment, or you will shoot another full cost multi-shot while the previous one is travelling.

Just like H Rag seeds. :/

I am in Firelands now, and bombardment has the old behavior again. Either it was reverted/fixed or zone-based somehow...

It was back to the old behavior today in Dragon Soul, too.

I got Wrath of Unchaining (397) last night. Although it has no passive benefits, it is an awesome trinket. On target dummy testing last night with no raid haste buff, it fully stacked in about 6 to 7s with an AS focus dump cycle and about the same with a AI focus dump cycle during RF. Hence, as long as you do not go more than 10s without attacking, its uptime is nearly 100%.

So this prompted me to do a quick trinket analysis for 4.3, with including all 378 plus trinkets. For proc trinkets I used a rough uptime equal to that modeled in FD. I also used the data from WoWHead, so it may not be 100% correct.

Since agility is our primary stat, I ordered the trinkets first on average agility. Then within an agility band, I made a rough guess at the order on the other effect.

Trinket	iLvl	Passive	Dynamic	Dynamic Avg	Type
Wrath of Unchaining	416	N/A	990 Agi	990 Agi	Proc
Wrath of Unchaining	403	N/A	880 Agi	880 Agi	Proc
Wrath of Unchaining	390	N/A	780 Agi	780 Agi	Proc
Starcatcher Compass	410	517 Agi	3278 Haste	820 Haste	Proc
Kiroptyric Sigil	410	517 Haste	2585 Agi	517 Agi	Use
Vial of Shadows	410	517 Agi	Damage	N/A	Proc
Starcatcher Compass	397	458 Agi	2904 Haste	726 Haste	Proc
Matrix Restabilizer	397	458 Agi	1834 Stat*	524 Stat*	Proc
Kiroptyric Sigil	397	458 Haste	2290 Agi	458 Agi	Use
Vial of Shadows	397	458 Agi	Damage	N/A	Proc
The Hungerer	391	433 Agi	1730 Haste	433 Haste	Proc
Starcatcher Compass	384	406 Agi	2573 Haste	643 Haste	Proc
Matrix Restabilizer	384	406 Agi	1624 Stat*	464 Stat*	Proc
Kiroptyric Sigil	384	406 Haste	2029 Agi	406 Agi	Use
Vial of Shadows	384	406 Agi	Damage	N/A	Proc
The Hungerer	378	383 Agi	1532 Haste	383 Haste	Proc
Arrow of Time	378	383 Agi	1149 Haste	287 Haste	Proc
Ancient Petrified Seed	378	383 Mastery	1277 Agi	319 Agi	Use

* Stat is crit, haste, or mastery depending on which you have the highest rating for at the time of proc.

Of all the 378 trinkets available, Ancient Petrified Seed loses out since it has by far the least average agility and since its other stat is mastery, which is by a small amount our worst secondary stat. However, a well timed use of the full agility proc could move the trinket ahead of the other 378 trinkets. Of the remaining two trinkets, The Hungerer wins over the heroic dungeon trinket since they have the same passive agility but The Hungerer has a higher total and average haste proc.

Of all the 384 trinkets, Wrath of Unchaining wins out by a large margin since it is actually a half tier in ilevel higher at 390. Including buffs, the 780 agility is worth 1888 AP and 2.4% crit. That is 374 more agility than the other 384 trinkets. It dominates just like the other agility stacking trinket Fluid Death did at the start of Cataclysm with beating out a lot of 372 trinkets although it was ilevel 359. Since I do not have a good feel for how good the damage from Vial of Shadows is, I have arbitrarily set it at the bottom of the list, although it could just as easily be the next best after Wrath. Of the remaining 3 trinkets, haste is the other stat. Going by average haste, I ordered them in descending order the Starcatcher Compass, Matrix Restabilizer, and Kiroptyric Sigil. Note though that well timed use of the agility on the Sigil can potentially move it up the list some.


The same ordering applies to the 397 and 410 ilevel trinkets as for the 384 ilevel trinkets, except that a 410 version of Matrix does not exist.

The heroic version of The Hungerer slides in between the 384 and 397 groups, but could possibly be caught by the Compass due to its large amount of average haste.

The 397 version of Wrath is worth 2130 AP and 2.7% crit.
The 410 version of Wrath is worth 2396 AP and 3.05% crit.

FD shows the 397 version as about a 780 DPS gain over either of my current trinkets (H The Hungerer and Matrix).

Note that the 390 version of Wrath may be lower rated than the 410 trinkets, but the 403 version is definitely better, or at least good enough to be one of your 2 trinkets.

With Regards to our Off piece tier, I am guessing it will be the Gloves from Morchok? 2x Red socket seems to push them above the set ones, especially without the tier hands having Crit on...

The other option seems to be chest plate, but the other non piece tier items don't have 3 Sockets in.

There also seems to be a distinctive lack of a second agility ring for Hunters. Out of the two that drop, one has Expertise on. The only other option is the Valor point ring, which is basically a direct upgrade to Widow's Kiss.

The same goes for Cloaks. Is Ryhloths heroic cloak still best in slot now?

What are your thoughts on this?