From the way you quoted someone re: a 1:1 v. 1:1.5 shot rotation, are you implying that BMs should in fact go for the latter or simply that a 1:1 with an arcane or multi in place of a steady should would be appropriate mana considerations being moot?

I only ask as I'm still pretty new to BM (Marks until about 3 weeks ago or so) and I often see folks claiming that even if a BM pet is taken out of the equation a BM hunter will in fact keep up with a MM hunter. On very long fights (Gruul, for example) this is generally the case compared to the 23/37 (I think hes usually 26/35, but I'm not sure) and 20/41 mm/surv hunters in my guild (i.e. I'ma bout 1% behind them when SWstats counts pet dmg seperate but well above when pet dmg is counted as my own). On shorter fights, I can be on top by a very large margin but fall to 3rd or so (i.e. 5-6% down from the other hunters or so? I really can't recall numbers) when pet damage is not included. No one in my guild uses WWS, so I'm afraid I can't post any logs. Generally I do a straight auto-steady rotation with KC when applicable.

Incidentally, I'm curious about how most folk are handling Rapid Fire as BM. Should I stick with auto-steady or start flinging instants when available (due to bad bad clipping with an auto-steady rotation) when Rapid Fire is up?

Edit: I'll keep the original up for comments and esp. because I am looking for info. on how BM hunters are utilizing Rapid Fire. As I dwell on this question, however, it does make sense that an auto/steady priority rotation (arcane/multi replacing steady) would be better dps, but for me mana concerns are a reality. I could probably give arcane/multi priority when TBW is up (due to them being 20% cheaper) but the rest of the time would run me OOM very quickly. The mats for Fel Mana potions are, unfortunately, almost never available on my extremely low pop server, and my toon is LW with a BS alt. I could eventually level my druid and roll herb/alchy, but that takes a lot of time I don't have. I spam Superior Mana potions atm, but if I get one that happens to grant a low "proc" it is very easy for me to be close to out before the next cd is up. Another low proc, of course, is devestating at this point. Is FD/drink an acceptable alternative?

Thanks much for comments. I've done very well switching BM (actually, with my pets data merged, I haven't been beat yet =)) and learned oodles at this site, just trying to tweak my rotations/priorites to eke out as much dps as I can.

Refer to this thread for the theory crafting:
[Hunter] Haste Rating analysis for end-game builds

The short answer: No. MM does not scale better with haste than BM, nor does it surpass BM *unless* you run an unhasted 18/43/0 build and are a god among men when it comes to reflexes and have very low latency to avoid clipping shots (this is only pre-haste gear where MM can hope to match BM). Again, this is theory crafting using Cheeky's spread sheet, so if you want to doubt the results it makes no difference to me; however, I have yet to find a reason to distrust the numbers I get by using it. Yes, I know, you all want WWS logs in the end-game. If someone wants to provide them be my guest, since I don't have access to T6/Haste gear.

[Hunter] Haste Rating analysis for end-game builds is what you seek.

And yes bm pets don't scale as fast as your personal dps, but they do scale with your ap and to a lesser extent your crit, through GffT and KC. If you want to see if mm is better at t6 gear download Cheeky's spreadsheet and test it for yourself.

Edit-Meh I'm a nub and i didn't check the last page, only 2 hours late!

The only fights in which you can lose your pet in an instant (as far as T6 content) are: Archimonde - Doomfire is dead pet, Azgalor - bad rain of fire is dead pet, Supremus - bad volcano is dead pet, Shahraz requires a full SR pet but is entirely survivable (also pets don't get the prismatic shield debuff so scorpid poison is always ticking for full), Council - it's just really hard to use your pet on the fight but it can die to sequential AOEs, Illidan - Agonizing Flames is dead pet


Really only five fights in which your pet has a death sentence should the dice roll poorly. The pets can however still have a meaningful impact during their lifespan though as you'll certainly see in some Illidan kills with hunters running scorpids coming out way in front of other DPS classes.

I was wondering how the "Striking" ring enchant works out for a hunter, considering how the Khorium scope and simmilar +weapon damage scopes don't add to Steady shot damage I'm guessing that the same is true for the ring enchants, but it would be nice to hear if someone did some solid math for the impact they would have.

What I do is start with a multi between the first and second autos, followed by an arcane between the second and third autos, and then start pressing my steady shot key as fast as I can. With .8 second steady shots and a 1.5 second GCD, my autoshots naturally fire .5 seconds after my steady shot ends but before the GCD ends. This means I am in no danger of fully delaying an autoshots with 2 steadies back to back, and my primary concern becomes starting my next steady as soon as possible after GCD ends.

I end up delaying each autoshot by a small amount, but delaying an autoshot by .2 seconds is preferable to delaying a steady shot by .5 seconds or a full second or whatever. I haven't been able to devise any sequence of shots at that level of haste that doesn't clip autoshots while maintaining special shot dps. I doubt that one exists.

The point at which you can start your steady without clipping an auto is variable, dependent on latency. The assumption I worked under when I was manually timing my shots were: It takes latency/2 ms for a key press I initiate to reach the server. So if my latency was 200ms I could hit my steady shot 100ms early. In practice my latency is always under 200ms so my window to fire an early steady was extremely small. The cost of clobbering an entire auto shot is huge, which is why I used a macro.

Hit enter after you type a spell into the text field, that seems to save it. I use tracking of some sort.

Yes, that is your latency. Quartz gets your latency at the start of each cast and generates the red bar and text.

Thank you so much Glaurong! That helps a ton. I've tried hitting enter after typing in the spell to use for global cooldown. (Originally tried Track Humanoids) It just makes it disappear on me. But I will try it again. And man... that latency hopping is going to drive me mad. Could that be one of the causes of my newfound dip in dps? Sudden hopping of my latency? It never shows that on my normal latency bar from bongos, that says I hover at like 200 ish.

Quartz ping bar isnt very accurate, i got 3 different i think and none of them hops as much as quarts bar does. Doesnt matter if ive had steady 70-120, i still get 300-400 readouts once in awhile during that time.

Most things treat latency as a rolling average and that is sufficient to tell if you have a connection problem. Quartz attempts to give you latency at a point in time with a single polling of the UI. If I was going to implement it I would probably start a rolling average at the beginning of the cast and update it through the cast. I'm not ambitious enough to dig into quartz however and my latency is low enough that it doesn't really matter.

Hi all, Newb here with first post.

Background-

Social endgame guild on EU Sunstrider.
Attempts on Vashj (18% last night).
Usually 41/20 build, use Auto/Steady/KC Macro when latency high, highest bite/claw on Cat.

Problem-

I was looking at our WWS logs from our try last night (only used WWS for 2 raids so far) and noticed my pet has a ridiculously high miss rate on all of its attacks (~20%).

Is this normal? Is it the type of mobs? (elementals mainly) Or am i doing something wrong?

It got me thinking if i should talent for Animal Handler (+pet hit) and if you think it would make an overall dps increase.

WWS

I did look through forum to find answers but couldn't hence the post.

Thankyou for your time, PRO forum and users btw

'Miss' includes dodges, parries and blocks. I'd say your results are normal, with these factors taken into account.

On a similar note re: pet misses...

Does +hit gear on the hunter affect the pet in any way? (I didn't get statistically significant results changing from 130 to 147 (hunter hit rating) when analyzing pet hit rate numbers on WWS).

Nope, sadly it doesn't.

There already is an addon that does exactly that. I'm sure it's on curse somewhere. I'll find the link when I get home.

Scorpid Poison Counter. It works.

Unless the BM hunter get a slow weapon too, then he by far surpass the MM yet again.

Its as great as a 1.4% dps increase is for your pet only for a whole 2 points. Its some time ago i saw the math but it was around that for total dps increase output practically considering for example glancing blow.

Actually he doesn't. Refer to the linked thread for my updated numbers.

Something else to consider is does the boost MM may get at higher gear levels even with a DST offset the loss of dps to the group that a BM brings with FI? FI stacks, scales, and helps more than 1 group in a raid (2, for those lucky enough to have a stacked BM group) compared to TSA.

I did respectable dps when I was a MM, but what solidified BM as my build was not only my dps increase but the fact I was helping any dps in whatever group I find myself in (sadly, still get put in with healers occasionally).

On a side note, does anyone know if FI affects DoTs only when they're applied or whenever it procs?

Only upon application.

The general rule of thumb is that mob debuffs affect all damage that occurs, as it occurs (Stormstrike and Scorpid Poison is an example). Player buffs/debuffs affect spells on their initial application (Bestial Wrath and Scorpid Poison is another example.

TSA actually does more than we think. Older data supported the 14ap:1dps ratio, but it is actually 3ap:1dps for most melee DPS, while its about 6ap:1dps for druids (in any form) and prot warriors. So 125 AP from TSA on a melee group buffs the group by about 42 DPS. Plus straight up AP on pets scales an incredible amount, I dont know the figures off-hand but I believe it to be a much greater gain for a pet than any player is capable of. In order for FI to over-take TSA, you would need to essentially be in the Black Temple with physical DPSers that average over 1200 DPS just about every fight. FI is great for caster groups, so it opens up more options for the hunter, but it is not as big a buff over TSA as we originally thought. Also, given that it is not up 100% of the time (though it can often reach over 95%), that diminishes the effects just a tiny bit more.

I do believe FI affects all damage. DoT damage is figured when it is applied and stays at that mark until it drops or gets replaced (which is why scorpid poison stacking never technically gets "replaced" since all it does it refresh the 5stack).