None of these are relevant unless you are going OOM. I already said you should use KC unless you are going OOM. What exactly are you arguing?

Escort,

From reading posts here, people who don't use macros to fire their shots are able to eek out a little more dps than those of us who do use macros. The ammount of DPS gained by manual weaving increases as client side lag increases. People who macro their shot rotation do have one minor advantage in that they can easily send multiple commands at once. (ie steady/kc, or multi/kc, or arcane/kc) Unless I'm mistaken Zek is a manual weaver. He says using KC is unrealistic in his shot rotation, and if he's manually weaving every one of his shots, that is probably true. For anybody using a macro there is no reason not to use KC. The benefits are reflected quite obviously in Cheeky's spreadsheet.

If Zek reads this later perhaps he'd be willing to clear it up for us.

Ok. Ill stick with scorpid sting instead.

But id say group buffs access determine wether you can afford that kind of DPM or not.

Thanks for feedback everyone. Kamaa, will work with what you posted.

Picture worth are worth a thousand words indeed.

Manual vs macro...hmmm.

Yeah. It really depends on what kind of support you're getting from your guild and your raid design. I joined a guild that had little to no faith in hunters. I've slowly managed to turn this around and now myself and the SV hunter in the guild are often between 1-5 on the meters. Our raid design doesn't really allow for us to be in a melee group or even to get a shaman for agi. If we're in with a shaman he's almost guaranteed to be dropping WoA for the primarily caster group. One thing that we do have top priority on is a shadow priest. With a spriest and chain potting I never go OOM and am able to maintain max DPS. The same can be said of our SV hunter who often does similar damage as I do depending on the fight. (He excels in fights that require a lot of movement.) I am confident without KC he would be lower in DPS.

As for using scorpid sting instead of KC. You can use them both, at the exact same time. Mana is the only limiting factor.

Survival hunter getting spriest too?

Next few answers are my personal observations and should not be taken as facts. (apart from how KC is modeled in spreadsheet).

1. What happens with mana usage if you do 1:1.5 + KC when on CD.?
You run out faster. Witch can be serious problem before you get geared up and got used to managing you mana pool.

2. What happens with 1:1.5 rotation if you use KC?
You will most likely mess it up (doing less damage). Especially if you macro KC and in such case 1. (up) will happen even faster.

3. Is there any possible way to use KC as Survival with 1:1.5 rotation?
Yes. 1:1.5 has openings where KC could be used. (BUT same GDC opening is better used on MendPet, Hunters Mark, Trinket/Racial Activation, Scorpid Sting and now even Serpent Sting)

4. How frequent are this "openings"?
From experience once or twice per 20 seconds. Depends on how "perfect" execution of rotation you have, coupled with your lag and reaction time. Most times its once for me.
It looks liker: steady+multi, auto, steady, auto, steady+arcane, auto, steady+opening, auto, steady...

5. Is Cheeky's Spreadsheet correct on theoretical KC damage gain for Survival(any) hunters.
No. Because it would be modeling hell. Entire 1:1.5 rotation is "chaotic". So Cheeky has modeled KC with no GDC. Just frequency based on your critical hits (added in v12 of spreadsheet). And that is causing KC to show bigger DPS gain than actual.

For young hunters to try 1:1.5 with KC... Sure TRY, maybe they figure out something new (like 4xt3.5 set bonus)
But I recommend that they do it after they have played with 1:1.5 rotation for some time.

Edit: I say GDC for KC, because it's approximately how much it costs you (KC delays auto).
And I remembered, some people had some success with "auto. KC/Steady. auto. KC/Steady+Arcane, auto..." witch is still unexplored by me. Mostly because I use "Auto shot, Steady Shot + LB" macro and weave all other things manually.

KC can be used in 1:1.5 if you do use manual rotation (not castsequence) witn macro that contains just KC+steady, but even then I doubt it's mana effectiveness. Since 2.3 I am weaving shots manually so I might try my BM macro with survival spec too.
Macro that I use as BM for KC+Steady:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
#show Steady Shot
/castrandom [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/cast Steady Shot

I do not use /castsequence since 2.3 because it often jams. Manual weaving took time to get used to(both 1:1, 1:1.5), but I am up to my usual DPS again.
Edit : Also with castsequence about half time KC gets used after steady, thus delaying next auto. Macro I posted do not delay auto, but this macro is not spammable, you have to time it right manually.

Yes, the SV hunter is getting a spriest too. I'm not saying that he needs it, or that it's the most beneficial group for him to be in, simply that he gets it and that's what works for our raids.


Zek,

As I've said several times before, and based on the things you posted, I continue to agree that KC is a valuable tool to any hunter as long as you can use it without going OOM. Cheeky's spread sheet does not give KC a GCD for one very simple reason. It does not have a GCD. If you're trying to sneak in KC's in between shots then with a seperate keybind then I suspect it will slow down your DPS. People keep talking about trading one shot or another for KC. Unless mana is the primary concern, this is not neccessary.

You can use KC in conjunction with ANY shot other than auto shot. Auto shot is the only shot that is delayed by KC. If you use KC in conjunction with any other shot you have the full 1.5s you would normally have from the GCD. No more. No less. Auto shot will not be delayed.

Does KC offer as much DPS as Cheeky's spreadsheet suggests? No. If you used KC every time it was up, you would indeed delay your auto shots on occasion. With bad luck you could end up delaying near half of them. However if you are using intelligent macros and keybinds that allow you to use KC in conjunction with your other specials and avoid clipping auto shot, KC should provide a marginal DPS upgrade.

I challenge Zek and other 1:1.5 to give it a whirl. A macro similar to Hunterlin's post is a good show of a macro that shouldn't clip auto shot. You could even create a macro for all of the special shots used in your rotation.

Yeah I am going to have to disagree with you man. I just switched from a BM hunter to a Survival hunter and already I can tell you if KC was worth it in BM, DPM-wise, it's worth it in Survival. Survival mana is like an endless pool compared to that of a BM hunter. As far as the damage since some of my crit rate carries through to my pet and I have 15% more crit as a survival hunter I am finding the damage from using it is is well worth it.

Maybe you can find some empirical evidence to back up your claim?

There's some debate about the chosen build I have put together in the "[Hunter] Help me" thread here on EJ. I was wondering if anyone over here in this world that doesn't watch that thread could weigh in.

The important part starts here: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t15179-h...me_please/p67/

I'd like to make sure that I don't misrepresent what I have gleamed from this thread, and steer newer hunters down a bad path, as I have primarily been a BM hunter in the past.

As of 2.3 KC no longer requires or triggers the GCD. So if you can afford the mana it is free DPS. You just need to be careful not to do it at a time where it will clip autoshot. Here is an example:

0.00 Auto
0.00 Steady
1.50 Arcane
2.61 Auto (still on Arcane GCD)
2.61 KC (still on Arcane GCD)
3.00 Steady
5.22 Auto

Note that this rotation roughly corresponds to the cooldown of KC which is 5s. Perfect! The only problem is how to actually execute this rotation. The combination of the fact that it's not always available (so you can't use it in a castsequence) but it will delay auto (so you can't /cast it in the same macro as your castsequence) means that if you want to do optimal DPS you will have to fire at least the KC manually.

I believe they intended to say that kill command delays auto shot, as far as I know the normal 0.5 seconds most abilities delay auto shot by.

You're correct that it delays Auto Shot, but if you look at what I quoted the poster was implying that instead of using KC you could be using Mend Pet or Scorpid Sting - this is not the case. These abilities require and trigger the GCD, KC does not. KC is usuable in a 1.5:1 rotation in such a way that it will not delay Auto Shot.

I would contend that linking KC with Arcane or Multishot is the worst possible place because Auto shot follows immediately after these shots. Thus any delay in hitting KC will delay your Auto shot.

KC delays auto shot by exactly as much as arcane shot and multi shot delays auto shot. Macroing them together has no net effect on your auto shot delay.

If you manually weave, a macro that /cast Kill Command before the /cast <whatever shot> is extra DPS. I have a macro for arcane, multi, and steady that does nothing but add the /cast Kill Command before the cast of the intended shot.

If you spam a castsequence, yeah, it's not going to work as well. But that's one of the tradeoffs you take for reducing your interaction to spamming a button--it's less precise.

Maybe I'm missing something here. Is there any way to macro KC and Arcane shot such that one button press casts both? I was under the impression this required two button presses. Thus, if you have to press it twice and you have 0.5s until your Auto Shot, you've just delayed your Auto by the time it takes between those two presses.

I was looking for some help, hoping to find someone who can answer a question who has a better grasp on how macros work than I do. What happens if, to address the KC "dilemma", we put KC in between steady-multi and steady-arcane in the macro (for those of us who macro). My questions being, what happens to the macro when KC comes up if it is not ready for use? Does the macro pause and wait for it? Break completely? etc... Also, (I just thought about it) is it possible to insert the "/cast [exists,target=pettarget] Kill Command" into the cast sequence in some way, so that it only activated between steady-->Multi/Arcane if KC was actually available?

Thanks for any help,

Escort

/castrandom [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/cast Steady Shot

Just tested it, works with just single press. I was a bit in doubt so did test.
Some rare times it may require two presses, but I think that it may require two presses is when your GCD is still cooling. First press will do KC, second time you need to press after GCD is over to shoot Steady.
(Just did remembered rare times from last raid when steady did not start with single press, so just speculating why. May be it happened just 1% times, but may happen)

Yes. This was the major effect of the change to /stopcasting in 2.3. Abilities that don't cause a GCD can now be put in a macro and triggered with the same button press as something that does cause a GCD. (Obviously two abilities that cause GCD don't work that way.)

Here's my macros for manual weaving:

MACRO 16777277 " " INV_Misc_QuestionMark
#showtooltip Arcane Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/cast Arcane Shot
END
MACRO 16777278 " " INV_Misc_QuestionMark
#showtooltip Multi-Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/cast Multi-Shot
END
MACRO 16777273 " " INV_Misc_QuestionMark
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/cast Steady Shot

I don't do all the complicated checks for if the pet is alive or any of that stuff. If the pet is dead or unsummoned pettarget is null. This also means if I've got my pet on passive he doesn't go charging off to execute that Kill Command. If he's attacking something, he does Kill Command on it -- even if I'm attacking something else.

Just as proof of concept, here's my other macro that I got to take a lot of /stopcasting calls out of when 2.3 launched:
MACRO 16777246 "Victory" Ability_Creature_Cursed_04
#showtooltip
/cast Bestial Wrath
/cast Berserking(Racial)
/cast Rapid Fire
/use 14
/use [button:2] 13
END

Speaking of macros has anyone been on the PTR today. My normal SS-Autoshot macro isnt work well at all.

/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast [target=pettarget] Kill Command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Auto Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();UIErrorsFrame:Show()

It seems to be hanging up the autshots, i think there was an issue during 2.3 PTR with autoshot being toggled on and off

You may try castsequence like this on PTR
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot

I am not on PTR myself so can not test it.

Yeah, read the PTR patch notes. If you don't add an exclamation mark (!) before Auto Shot, it will then become a toggle.

The real question is: do macros still "skip" and "hang" (pretty much making them unusable) when !Auto Shot is involved?