Bah- that's what I get for theorycrafting when I should be working. Seems I made the same mistake on both rotations... lemme try that again.

Option 1:
0.0 Auto Shot Fires -
0.2 Steady Shot
1.7 Steady Shot Fires -
1.9 Arcane Shot
2.1 Arcane Shot Fires -
2.5 Auto Shot Fires -
3.4 Steady Shot
4.9 Steady Shot Fires -
5.1 Auto Shot Fires and sequence restarts

Lost .1 seconds there.

Option 2:
0.0 Auto Shot Fires -
0.2 Steady Shot
1.7 Steady Shot Fires -
1.9 Arcane Shot
2.1 Arcane Shot Fires -
2.5 Auto Shot Fires -
3.6 Multishot
4.1 Multishot Fires -
5.0 Auto Shot Fires -
5.2 Steady Shot
6.7 Steady Shot Fires -
6.9 Arcane Shot
7.1 Arcane Shot Fires -
7.5 Auto Shot Fires -
8.4 Steady Shot
9.9 Steady Shot Fires -
10.1 Auto Shot Fires and sequence restarts

This one isn't affected quite as much, losing only .1 seconds over 10 seconds compared to .2 seconds for the shorter rotation. You hit the nail on the head- the first one clips .1 seconds of the autoshot. I don't think this changes which I prefer, however- the shorter macro is still preferable for movement fights.

I feel for you with the fel mana pots. They run 15g/5 on my server, and I'm able to get a guildy to make them for slightly cheaper. Also, in fights where my personal dps isn't quite as important (notably farm bosses, stuff we're going to kill even if I die extremely early on) I'll use Aspect of the Viper (~100 mana/5) over Aspect of the Hawk. I know I'm a horrible person for doing so, but trading ~20 dps (according to the spreadsheet) for a considerable amount of gold is worth it when I know I don't need the dps. I only wish I could do this for Thrill of the Hunt too...

In any case, we're both on the right track, it seems down to a case of personal preference now. Trade slightly higher (theoretical) dps for more mobility and a shorter macro- it's your call.

My experiences with raiding in Hyjal and Black Temple and the way I play, I have preferred a steady/arcane rotation. For one thing it's easier to use--you don't need to stare at cooldowns and focus on other things that become more important in later fights. It also works a little better with the 2.9 speed bow I was using for a long time, and works in a macro with my now slower 3.0 speed bow. It's also nice that arcane shot isn't mitigated by armor, just resistance.

Thrill of the Hunt is an indispensable talent for me. The further in raiding progression you go, the longer the fights tend to get--and the more damage you'll take randomly or as an entire raid. Mana potions are important and can help you out in a lot of fights, however they are not always an option. The Illidari Council encounter, for instance, can last an extremely long time, and you will randomly take burst damage that can come from multiple sources--you will take 5000+ burst damage, and can take much more. Healers can be preoccupied and you can easily have to chug a healing potion. To do your maximum damage, you'll be using Aspect of the Viper, mana oils, and hope you get a shadow priest!

Also as a little note, I do my cast sequence in my macro in a different order. It works out better for me when I'm changing targets on trash a lot because of the cooldown on arcane shot. Just something to think about if you're having problems with your macro.

I am curious about this statement. Do you mean it seems to work better with a 2.9 speed bow instead of a 3.0 speed bow? I am trying to get a 3.0 speed bow because I think it would work better than my 2.9 speed.

My guild is so competitve, that trading Hawk for Viper can mean the difference between 2th and 6th on the meters. I was 2nd for 95% of our last Karathess (sp?) kill and then ran out of mana when he was at ~25%. I switched to viper and did a steady/auto rotation for the rest of the fight and ended in 6th! We had another fight last week where a mage crit Lurker with the final blow and went from 5th to 2nd! We are all so close. When we are all that close, it really doesn't matter which spot you end up at, but, we all still try for the bragging rights! In reality, we are all fighting for #2 since no one can come anywhere close to our #1 rogue in his rogue optimized group (at least he is really cool and one of the few rogues I've ever met that doesn't brag about his DPS).

My guild is on a project to get all the DPS'ers to break 1k DPS regularly. I am the guild's survival hunter, and have been playing with specs lately to try and get my performance to a level I feel is acceptable. I am tearing my hair out!

I took the above spec suggestion to see if usage of a macro would improve my output. I have for a long time been a manual shot timer. I have my nights/moments of great timing, and times with less focus. With this spec, and with not having a spriest, this was my output from SSC this week. Wow Web Stats I had a TON of mana issues. I was on total pot cooldown, and forced to resort to viper usage as well. I was putting out a lot more TPS than usual, so I don't know if the numbers are reflecting the potential of the spec/rotation or not. The problem is, I won't always have a spriest, and am the last to get grouped with the ones we do have available. If this spec shines (provided the mana is there to maintain) then I'd like to keep trying it, but if it really really depends on the availability of a spriest, I think I need other options.

I'm not the best at number crunching or theorizing, but I love my hunter and she's been my main since playing the game. But I'm also one competitive chick and this lackluster output is really making me angry. I scour forums and posts and specs and builds, but I worry that something about my execution of it all is really messing me up.

I'm the hunter class lead (because I do spend all my time reading up on things and trying to learn) so I feel like a total jerk not performing better than I do. Can you survival pro's please help me figure out what will work best for my situation, and maybe spot where I am screwing up?

What do I need to do to get to, break and consistently sit at the 1K+ dps level? Please help! Thanks.

Intersting read about improved Arcane Shot. But still you are talking about single target dps, multishot is awesome when go for more targets, not to mention that on a fully sundered and faerie fired target usually do about 20% more dmg than an arcane.

Typical statement about multi is the fact that can break crowd control. This is true obviously, but this is typical a problem of thrash mobs where dps isn't that important anyway and yet it's really good when you can actually use it (aoe packs, or even boss adds), All in all i think that barrage is still a good talent to get.

I'm also interested in getting imptoved Arcane to test it out, still using a 2.9 bow, but upgrading to a 3.00 soon hopefully might allow me use less than 5 points in it and get the same benefits (or even season 1 crossbow for a even slower rotation).

Also to those using a pure arcane shot rotation, why not fitting multi in there too? 10 sec cooldown on multi and 5 sec cooldown on arcane means they will never overlap if properly spaced; final rotation would become something like this:

Steady Shot
Arcane Shot
Auto Shot
Steady Shot
Multishot
Autoshot
Steady Shot
Arcane Shot
Auto Shot
Steady Shot
Autoshot

After being BM for pretty much all of T5/T6, I tried out 0/24/37 using a macro'ed Arcane Shot this week, and I was very impressed by the results.

Here are the WWS's:
Hyjal and BT up to Akama
Rest of BT

Monco is a Survival hunter with significantly better Survival gear than I have. He manually times his shots and he is quite good at it, but I was generally able to keep up with him despite the inferior gear. All other hunters are in the WWS's are BM spec. On several fights, my DPS was slightly lower than what I used to do with BM spec. However, having a backup EW and a far more consistent output on pet-unfriendly fights is valuable and makes up for it in my opinion. Also, my BM gear is better than my Survival gear, so this accounts for some difference.

Some thoughts about it:
- Working Multishot into the rotation is advantageous pretty much anytime you can hit two or more targets. Clipping autoshot is okay for this, because you're effectively getting a free shot's worth of damage. I chose to continue using the macro but throw Multi in after the second Steady, clipping my auto a little in the process. It was pretty successful.

- One flaw of using the macro is that Arcane Shot is that it doesn't receive any benefit from Armor Penetration (thanks Monco). I think that the consistency of timing makes up for this.

- At the T6 gear level (also possible with ZA gear), you can optimize your weapon speed with haste gear so that it is almost exactly 2.5s, which makes it perfect for the macro. I ran most of the night with either 2.51 or 2.56 speed.

- I messed up my rotation a couple times by instinctively firing an Arcane Shot while moving, since in mobility fights this is a good way to increase damage. If you do that, you're committing to manual timing for the next 5s. Alternatively, come 2.3 you could use Serpent Sting as your "moving" shot.


Overall, I was quite satisfied with this spec and I think I may keep it for a while.

Do a shot rotation as illustrated here: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t13107-h...n_illustrated/

Then you would see why this is not possible without major clipping to the point where the multishot would probably lower your DPS.

Here are some concrete tips:
- Since you're having mana issues, spec out of Ranged Weapon Specialization and into 3/3 Thrill of the Hunt. If you always have a Shadow Priest you don't need this, but otherwise I would argue that 0/24/37 is a better spec for Survival hunters than 0/28/33.
- Start using a macro to ensure a clean 1.5:1 rotation. As posted before something like /castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Auto Shot, Steady Shot, Auto Shot should work.
- Get Cat's Swiftness on your boots and a Relentless Earthstorm Meta for your helm. Net trade is +6 AGI, -20ap and +3% critical strike damage (when it's not bugged).
- Be realistic. Understand that depending on group makeup and fight, you actually may not be able to hit 1k DPS on all fights until you get better gear. If you look at your WWS, very few of your raid members are consistently hitting 1k DPS.

Yeah Jani I have to agree with him here group composition is one thing really holding me and you more so back as I know when I get shaman with GoA and LoP I see a 200-300 DPS increase. Sadly I also know we don't have the resource to provide it most the time.

Trohck- the armor penetration issue on arcane shot is something I hadn't considered. I'm only running a bit of penetration right now (T6 gloves) but as we continue farming BT/Hyjal I'm sure that'll be increasing. I do the same thing with multi, specifically in trash situations- it's also very nice to see several crits off a multishot, knowing I just EW'd all those mobs. It's good to hear I'm not the only one who's enjoying the rotation.

Lilwolfe- What sticks out to me (looking at your WWS) is that your steady shot and auto shot crit percent was absurdly low compared to your arcane shot percent, which is more like what I would expect based on your gear. Chock it up to pure luck (I can't think of anything else that'd affect auto/steady but not arcane), but that hurt your dps quite a bit. For the TPS question: I put out an insane amount of TPS and generally have to feign far more often than our BM hunters. An early feign at ~20 seconds into the fight, and another at ~50 are generally all that are needed, save a string of lucky crits later on.

Some Math on Tidewalker asuming a consistent 37% crit chance:
Auto Shot: Upping this to 37% means you would have another 9.6 crits. Assume off average auto shot damage that a crit would be (763x2.3) and subtracting the original 763 since it was already counted, you're adding 9522 damage from autoshots.

Steady Shot: Upping this to 37% means you would have another 11.2 crits. Assume off average steady shot damage that a crit would be (781x2.3) and subtracting the original 781 since it was already counted, you're adding 11371 damage from steady shots.

This is a total of 20893 damage over 7 minutes = an additional 50 dps.

Also, it looks like the only group buff you received was ferocious inspiration from 1 other BM hunter. Group stacking is a HUGE way to increase dps, and without support from your raid leader your dps is going to suffer. Speaking from my own experience, you're doing about as best as you can. Try to get a feral druid and potentially a resto shaman (enhancement shamans tend to be tied to rogues) and you'll see your dps go up. If you're having consistent mana issues, I'd recommend swapping to Aspect of the Viper for the entire fight- it'll cost you about 20 dps, and save you from any mana worries.

Also, an important note- assuming you're ~1000 agi raid buffed with a raid makeup as shown on WWS, you also added ~600-700 raid dps through expose weakness. I'm sure you already know this, but it is an important point you might bring up to your raid lead.

Not much more I can say, you seem to be doing a great job and you'll hit the 1k dps barrier soon enough.

Thanks for the advice. I actually was using the macro. But, as mentioned, I was having major mana issues. More fights than not, I was at no mana and flipping aspect of viper on until a pot cooldown came up. Also, I use Rapid Fire when it's up - should I not be? Or should I change the rotation during that time?

I picked up a wind serpent last night, and soon as she hits 70, I'll give her a whirl. Can you tell me how to macro in the lightning breath and when it is used? (I am horrid with macros)


Thanks here too! I'll see who we have for spriests for tonights raid and if we are dry on them, I'll do the respec tonight. If not, I'll give this a shot with a priesty in my group and see how it goes. Thanks for the encouragement. I'll see about the gems and enchant too. I've been holding off on spending money on the helm because I keep praying for the T4 to drop. I may just go put in a few weeks grind in the arena for gladiator. This is getting nuts. :p

I would expect with a gear set optimized to what's currently in game, for armor penetration you'd be using [Gronnstalker's Spaulders] and [Gronnstalker's Gloves], and possibly [Madness of the Betrayer]. With just the T6 pieces, you're looking at 266 armor penetration. On a 7700 armor mob, penetration gives you about 22 DPS across your whole rotation. Considering you could only replace 1 out of 10 shots with Multishot, you're not really looking at a big hit from not getting armor penetration applied to Arcane Shot. As a liberal estimate you're losing something like 5 DPS.

Even if you had 1000 armor penetration you're only talking about losing 20 DPS or so. Let's take this as a fact. Another liberal estimate in favor of armor penetration is that your Auto Shot is doing a minimum of 700 damage per shot; this is more than reasonable even on a high-armor target. The trade-off is DPS lost by using Arcane instead of Multi (20 DPS) vs. DPS lost by clipping autos. I'm sure when doing manual timing we've all clipped an auto with a Steady by anticipating it too quickly. When you do this, you're effectively losing 500ish damage. More precisely, (700 - 700*((Steady cast time + .5) / WeaponSpeed) is what it costs you if you recover perfectly.

So you'll lose about 500 when you completely kill an auto with a Steady. Let's ignore the gradual DPS loss of smaller clips made with a manual rotation. What does it take to lose 20DPS (what you would gain by a manual rotation with Multi) in this fashion? The answer is that you mess up and fully clip an auto every (500 / 20) = 25 seconds

So if you full clip an auto 1 in every 5 rotations then using the macro is definitely better for you - and that's with 1000 armor penetration, very generous numbers, and not factoring in gradual clips. If you account for all of those factors I'd say the macro is better unless you're doing 14 out of 15 rotations perfectly - without a full clip and with minimal clipping on the end.

edit: if you can afford to sacrifice points in ToTH (due to having a spriest all the time), or EW (due to having a lot of survival hunters), then you could put points in to Barrage which would tilt the scales a little towards Multi/manual rotation.

now im not exactly sure what i should do atm i am the survival hunter with a 5/20/36 spec more than likely i will be changing to a 25/36 soon but thats a different story i use a 1:1.5 shot rot with vash's bow which dose amazing dmg but last night we killed Supremus and legion killer droped now with
vash bow it has crit and a 3.0 speed which is what makes it amazing imo
legionkiller">it has the pure agi but the 2.9 speed im just not sure going back to a 1:1 shot rot losing so much dmg is worth it..???


let me add aWWS
and an armory link if that will help eranowenn

Another thing that immediately jumps out at me is the lack of Judgement of Wisdom. That is easily another 5-7k mana you are going without that you shouldn't be. You can also use Fel Mana potions, if I'm without an spriest I go with these and I usually don't have problems (although I am BM). Last night I was able to keep up Viper Sting on Bloodboil for most of the fight and never had mana problems.

In completely unrelated news: Essence of Anger makes me hot Wow Web Stats

First time doing that fight and 3500 DPS is pure sex.

Legion killer is perfect for a 1.5:1 rotation what's the doubt?

well i used sunfury previously and i i had never been able to get both shots off on the one auto shot possibley it has something to do with my lat but as i was looking i was not sure it was possible

Sunder x 5 + Faerie Fire + COR is roughly 4000 armor reduction that Arcane Shot receives no benefit from and most raids should have. I wasn't specifying penetration on gear in our discussion but the fact that Arcane Shot can only increase with +AP debuffs where Multishot will increase both from +AP and -armor.

I am going to give the Imp Arcane rotation a whirl though next clear to see how it compares, hopefully Azgalor doesn't feel the need to Doom me so I can compare with last weeks WWS of full DPS time on him. The macro timing still may give enough of an edge by removing some latency factors and the 0.5s cast of Multishot to make it worth it.

She only had two Paladins in her raid, so for DPS purposes I'm guessing Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings are better.

On that subject, I see several suggestions here about using Aspect of the Viper to deal with mana problems. Is it really better than AotH and feign+drink? It certainly wasn't worth it pre-2.2, and post-2.2 I can't image you'd want to use it while you're above 50% mana since it's actually worse in that scenario.

When I had a 2.9 speed bow I manually timed my rotation because I have a consistent 250-300ms of lag. With my 3.0 speed bow, a macro now works for me. I actually have my macro with a full rotation or a steady/auto rotation when I hold shift.

I never got caught up with trying to be top damage. Once you're out of SSC and TK, rogue gear seems to scale better than others' and they start pulling ahead on single target fights. Part of their pulling ahead is due to your Expose Weakness debuff! Also because of this superior scaling they end up getting a group tailored to them well before you will. I don't get a shaman in my group until we get a 4th shaman in the raid, and rarely see a feral druid. When I get both, though, my damage is plenty competitive--and after that I'm giving the raid 300AP.

I didn't consider Sunder / Faerie Fire / COR because they are penetration of an existing reduction that Arcane Shot simply doesn't have.

Multishot scales with RAP at 20% (2.8/14). Arcane scales with RAP at 15%. I don't have strict numbers on the mitigation Arcane Shot suffers due to resists, but glancing through some WWS's it looks to be between 3-4%. Even with Sunder / Faerie Fire / COR you're looking at 17-26% Armor reduction on Multishot (depending on the intial armor of the mob). This has to be taken into account when you consider how the shots scale vs. each other.

If you're up against a 6200 armor mob with full debuffs you're look at around 17% reduction. Factoring that into to Multishot's RAP scaling, you get .2*.83 = 16.6% scaling with RAP. Arcane Shot gets .15*.965 = 14.5% scaling. So yes, Multi does scale slightly better with RAP, but not by much. The base damage of Multi is higher and it scales with weapon/ammo damage, but again this is mitigated by armor. Until Sunder / FF / COR start offering additional penetration, Arcane and Multi are pretty similar in terms of scaling because Arcane doesn't have to go through armor in the first place. Multi will still receive benefit from armor penetration on your gear but as pointed out above that benefit is a trade-off vs. your ability to manually time your rotation.

Judgment not Blessing. If you are running about 1 shot per second, Judgement of Wisdom is about 185 mp5.

At about 10% mana left Viper will provide 50% of your intellect in mp5. With Efficiency, Steady is about 245 mp5. Viper will take a 100-200 chunk out of that, other raid available mana regen should handle most of the rest.

Kicking Viper on while your pots are on cool and you are under 20% mana seems like the best choice. Although I would immediately switch back to hawk once I was able to down a pot.

Touche.

Counterattack!

I think you mean Scorpid Sting.