Thanks for the help!

Couple notes - I had gore and bite both on, not sure why they're not showing up.

My auto:steady is a bit off because when I use my rapid fire + berzerking macro I try to mix in steady/auto/multi/auto/arcane/auto/steady etc... Should I just be using steady? I thought i read a couple times multi/arcane actually put out more damage in shot/shot ratio.

I have a few pieces outside of 25 mans I'm still looking for, but in the course of 3 weeks going from all greens to this gear is decent.

I'm also currently using Zhunter mod for my autoshot timer and aspect bar. It's been suggested to use Quartz because it compensates for lag, is Quartz more beneficial?

Even though I've read the debates I'm still a little iffy on exactly what gear I need to be getting. I know as much agi as possible but I'm currently trying to balance a little crit and stam in there as well.

I pulled 1050dps on VR with a wind serpent and nothing but T5 gear / kara bow with a hybrid sv build. That was back at the end of Jan.

WWS - VR

@ the guy doing 737dps a few posts up, note my ratio of steadies to autos - 160 steadys, 94 autos. Also note the complete lack of arcane or multishot

Something else worth considering, your gear is a little lite for SV. You might consider going BM until you pick up some more T5/ZA/PVP Loot. You would definitely do more dps.

edit: Your main issue was shooting roughly as many specials as you did autos. You want to be minimally around 1.5:1. Missing 50% of your shots in X time is a big hit in dps.

I have a couple of questions if you don't mind

I thought the dps strat for survival was to never impede on your autoshot. I have been weaving all my other shots around the autoshot timer. Should I be using 2 steadys per auto for max dps?

If you don't mind, what is my gear short on? Aren't I supposed to be going for straight agi? Fully raid buffed I have over 1060 agi, is this not enough or should I be going for other stats as well? I'm a little bit confused on this point.

First off, don't go to a 2:1 rotation yet. You do not have the gear to support it yet. Stick with your 1:5 rotation. Concerning haste effects, for small haste effects like [Drums of Battle] stick with your 1:5 rotation since that level of haste just tightens it up. Plus, dropping to a 1:1 with that low level of haste drops your DPS significantly. At high levels of haste you have 3 choices as listed in a post of mine a few pages back.
1) Stay with the 1:5 rotation but see little improvement in DPS since the rotation is limited by the multishot CD
2) Move to a 1:1 rotation, which wil have comparable or better DPS then the 1:5 if with sufficient haste
3) Move to a modified 1:5 rotation that still weaves in arcane and multishot but which places more steady-autos in between to take advantage of the haste

Pick whichever option works best for you. I prefer 3), which I do not implement perfectly but good enough that it is still and improvement over just the 1:1.

Concerning gear, yes agility is very important and the key attribute for survival hunter success. However, we cannot be agility blinded since there are some items with a lot of agility that significantly gimps our DPS such that our total raid contribution is less. Cheeky's spreadsheet is a good tool to be used in making that tradeoff decision.

Besides the suggestions to do some arena to get some of the Vengeful pieces, which would be huge upgrades, other options include getting Badges of Justice to get more of that gear. You are about 7 hit rating short of being capped, one suggestion to get that hit cap, increase your agility, and increase your personal DPS is to replace the T4 gloves with the [Gauntlets of Sniping]. It increases your DPS by 8 and your average EW proc by about 2.6 AP.

Also concerning gear, you have some unideal buffs. I realize that you are probably waiting to get better gear first before making the expenditures, but below is the list of unideal buffs:
1) No enchant on cape. +12 agi is ideal and suggest having it done to this cape since you may need to use this cape from time to time to make hit cap.
2) No enchant to chest. +6 stats is best.
3) No enchant to wrist. +24 AP
4) Only +7 agi to gloves. +15 agi
5) 40 AP, 10 crit on legs. 50 AP, 12 crit a little better
6) +5 agi to boots. +12 agi
Getting these enchant upgrades would increase your DPS by 29, your time to OOM by 3 seconds, and your average EW proc by about 11 AP.

Concerning spec, I have a couple suggestions:
1) Having 2/5 in IHM doesn't really do much. Suggest moving those to GftT as has been suggested by others. That will increase your DPS by 24. If your guild needs for you to have IHM, then move the points in Efficiency to it after you increase your mana pool.
2) Don't need 2 points in Trap Mastery as previous posts have indicated. 1 point (if any) is all you need. Suggest moving 1 or 2 of those points back into Survivalist.

Note that all of my numbers were using the raid buffs I currently receive and may be a little different for you and your raid buffs.

First of all, thanks for taking the time to reply to my post everyone.

About the quoted text: This is indeed true for me. I got a MX Revolution so i use the Flywheel option if u know it (= very fast spamming). The other macro i use however does not generate any "Failed to cast" sounds (i think that's the sound you're referring to), and it's bound to the same WheelDown key (switched to the 2:1 macro to test it).

The other macro looks as follows:

#showtooltip SV
/castsequence reset=5/combat Auto Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Auto Shot, Steady Shot, Auto Shot, Steady Shot, Multi-Shot(Rank 6), Auto Shot, Steady Shot

So it's just a macro that stacks my entire rotation. Still feel this one does more DPS for me than the 2:1 macro. I don't have any WWS logs to back this up however since hunters in my guild keep changing groups every week. Sometimes we get a Shaman and Feral, sometimes just the healers group.

Removing the "/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()" and "/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()" lines still gives me the "Failed to cast" sounds and the FPS lag.

I tested this as follows:
In the outside world (Barrier Hills, above SH), killing Ogres.
When I select a dead target and start spamming the macro, my FPS drops from 60 (max fps for me, pretty sure my screen is the bottleneck there) to 15-20. The weird part is that when i spam the same macro when i don't have anything selected, fps drops to 25-30. And when I am spamming it to kill an Ogre, fps is 55-60.
When i do the exact same tests with the 1:1,5 macro posted above, i keep fps above 50 at all times.

I'm at a total loss why the 2:1 macro generates FPS loss and the 1:1,5 macro doesn't.

===
Sidenote

The 2:1 macro i use (for people that didn't see my 1st post):
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

and have also done above tests with (and same results):

/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Steady Shot

and

/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

The following macro even brings my fps to an astonishing 5-10 on spamming the macro without a target or a dead target:

/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorFrame:Clear(); UIErrorFrame:Show()

Ok, just to get this down:

I need different non pure agi gear? Straight dps gear that adds more crit/ap?

I don't have any haste items at all, I thought before they figured out haste actually gimps your dps, has this been revamped and is haste very important for survival now?

I still need a couple items from KZ, and quite a few from ZA. I'm hoping to get the 2 1handers from ZA for max stats.

I read all the stats on IAotH VS MT and it seemed like people were going away from IAotH because the sudden proc in haste screwed up their rotation, is this not true anymore?

I'll have to read the pages I missed in this thread since it seems like the strats on the previous pages have been proven wrong.

That is not what I am saying exactly. I will clarify. If an item has enough agi that it overcomes the balance of crit/AP on other items, it can be better for you. However, there are few if any pure agility items that do that. Often some items with sligthly lower agi but with crit/AP/armor pen/etc can produce more personal and raid DPS for you. As I stated, use a tool like Cheeky's to evaluate. I personally look at the personal DPS, time to OOM, and average EW proc between 2 items in Cheeky's to determine which is better. With assuming 0.3 conversion between AP and physical DPS and 8 other physical DPS including pets in the raid, the trade off is a ratio of 1 personal DPS ~ 0.42 average EW proc AP. Thus, for example, if something increases your personal DPS by 10 but you lose 2 on your EW proc AP, the item is better for your total raid DPS contribution.

Wasn't suggesting that you get any static haste gear. You are correct that for item levels that giving up other item abilities for a little static haste usually hurts Survival hunters instead of helping and that it requires a lot of static haste to really be helpful.

What I was referring to was your rotation under dynamic haste effects.

Yes, the [Item not found!] is nice if you can afford to lose the sta from [Netherbane], which is another great option in the T5 areas.

From my analysis and those from many others, MT is usually superior for Survival hunters. But check it out for yourself in Cheeky's spreadsheet. That extra crit is not only good for increasing personal DPS, but for also increasing the average EW proc, your mana return from TotH, and other items/abilities that proc on crits.

Its the number of updates sent my the mouse. You can change this under mouse settings in control pannel. I believe its the property called "lines to scroll"

IAotH - the reason people did not like this previously is 1) the gain from haste was minimal since you were still blocked on the GCD allowing you to move form shot to shot and 2) the sudden change in shot speed complicated timing greatly often resulting in worse execution. Now, if you are using an unlocked macro that has a /cast !auto shot line followed by some sequence of abilities in a /castsequence /castrandom or /cast (not including more !auto shots) you wont have this issue since you keep spamming your macro and it just self adjusts down to a 1:1 rotation as haste increases.

For SV using that sort of a shot macro IAotH is pretty good. So is MT/Readiness. I dont know which is best but the right answer is definitely one or the other for max dps.

Try this in your macro.

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/tar [exists, nodead, harm]; pettarget
/castsequence reset=2 !Auto Shot, Steady Shot
/castrandom [target=pettarget, exists] Kill Command, Lightning Breath
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1

I have been using this macro on live for quite some time:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast Kill Command
/castsequence reset=2.1/combat/target Steady Shot, !Auto Shot
/castrandom Arcane Shot,Multi-Shot(Rank 6)
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

(The Adventures of Adenhart: Survival 1:1.5 Macro)

And it has been working just fine for my rotation. However, after spending some time on the PTR, this macro seems to be having issues. My Steady Shot is being canceled by something mid-cast. I dont know enough about macros to figure it out...I tried a few things but cant get it to work the same way it does on live.

Any ideas?

Here is mine from last night, this is my guild's 3rd week into BT BT WWS

The high warlord fight is a good one to look at because their is minimum movement. I hit almost an even ratio of auto/steady, only 3 more autos than steadys. Somehow I missed an autoshot on that fight (the only one i missed all night) despite being over the hit cap, strange. I use manual weaving and no macros.

I also use the rapid fire 3-5 times in boss fights, during hasted phases you should maintain a perfect 1:1 steady spam or priority rotation, I just use a steady spam for the reduced mana cost.

You should be weaving in multi/arcane after steady shots but before auto shots like this:

Steady, Multi, Auto
Steady, Auto
Steady, Arcane, Auto
Steady, Auto

Rinse & Repeat.

Are you using macros or doing it manually?

I'm doing it manually, and I'm weaving exactly like you just posted, I just use arcane before multi every time, faster cooldown on arcane = more dps overall if you put arcane first, right?

Also, I don't really have mana problems very often. There was only 1 bossfight where I was OOM by the end of the fight while keeping a constant rotation on.

I also died on the FLK fight and got rez'd so that's why my dps was a bit low there.

I also got most of my gear enchanted with agi again, but I just couldn't afford the 15 to gloves and 12 to boots yet, i'll get them asap.

So, if I don't really have mana problems shouldn't I always be weaving arcane/multi as much as possible while rapid fire is up since they do more damage per shot than steady?

I'm still kinda confused why my steady:auto is so far off, I weave a steady after every normal shot rotation.

I do have another question - I sometimes have a problem with my manual weaving, There were 3 times on that raid where I was in my rotation: steady, auto, steady arcane auto, steady.....

I shot a multi after that last steady and it hesitated for a second and shot after my auto went off, after that I shot an arcane just to fill in the blank spot. Is there any way to fix this? Should I get quarts so it compensates for the lag? Does anyone have any knowledge of the quarts autoshot timer?

Double post.

Vasilii, did you log out in your raiding gear or is that just your PVP gear?

I've decided to stop trying to get max agi (all of my gear is just straight the best agi I can get). I'm trying to compile a list outside of PvP items (I might get an arena team but pvp isn't my main thing in WoW for the time being).

I am sorry, but I do not have any WWS to share. However, I am currently using the same ranged weapon and can attempt to impart my observations. Question though, how are you doing your rotation? Which do you use:
1) Fully manual?
2) Macro for the steady-auto with manually weaving in the arcane and multishot? If so, what macro do you use?
3) Macro for the full rotation? If so, what macro do you use?

For unhasted 1:5 rotation using both arcane shot and multishot, you should see the following shot ratios under ideal situations (same target for long duration and no moving):

Autoshot 40%
Steady Shot 40%
Arcane Shot 10%
Multishot 10%

The rotation should look like steady-arcane-auto-steady-auto-steady-multishot-auto-steady-auto, with a variation of it having the arcane and multi switched.

While under Rapid Fire, if you just use a 1:1 rotation, the ratios should be:

Autoshot 50%
Steady Shot 50%
Arcane Shot 0%
Multishot 0%

If you are trying to weave in the other specials during Rapid Fire to take advantage of some slack areas, per the best rotation that I discovered, the ratios should be:

Autoshot 42%
Steady Shot 42%
Arcane Shot 12%
Multishot 6%

This is a 17 shot cycle with performing a 1:1 rotation 7 times with inserting arcanes after the 1st and 5th steadys and multishot after the 3rd.

From your WWS, I can see the following with modifications to include misses:

Autoshot 654 44.6%
Steady Shot 481 32.3%
Arcane Shot 230 15.7%
Multishot 102 7.0%

[top] 1467

Ignored the rest of the attacks since they were special cases.

Now this data is from your whole run, which included 4 SSC bosses and their trash. Thus, this data is a little hard to analyze as a whole, but it seems okay, although the number of steady shots is a little low. Should expect more autos than steadys since moving a lot and switching between trash targets. With a lot of trash, should expect more arcanes than typical for steady since restarting rotation a lot as switch targets and move. Should expect less multis since restarting rotation a lot with switching targets and due to not using multishot near CC targets. Nothing wrong jumps out here, except that the percent of steady seems a little low, since there are many possible explanations for the ratios.

To get a better feel, let's look at a boss fight where you tend to be on the same target with less moving so you should be seeing more ideal results. Unfortunately, your log does not include Morogrim, which would probably provide the best results since except for when watery graved, you should be on the boss the whole time (it does appear though that you targeted the adds on a few occasions). I assume that the best choice to look at from your log is Hydross since you were probably on the boss the whole time with only hitting the adds with multishot when fired and that the only breaks in the DPS is during the transitions between frost and nature phases, and your log seems to indicate that this is generally true.

The ratios from Hydross, with adding in misses and removing the 3 autos and 2 arcanes from what appears to be pulling the adds before starting to allow the tanks to build rage, are:

Autoshot 55 42.6% -> 52 (should be)
Steady Shot 37 28.7% -> 52
Arcane Shot 18 14.0% -> 13
Multishot 19 14.7% -> 13

129

There were 3 Rapid Fires during this fight.

This is definitely a little odd. The fact that there were 3 extra autoshots is not a big deal and can be explained by moving and getting off and extra auto when doing so and stopping the rotation. The big concerns is that you are missing over 12% of your steady shots and that your other specials are high.

Looking at your detailed shot log, the reason for the lack of steady shots became readily apparent. For the most part you are not really doing a 1:5 rotation with arcane shot and multishot. You are mostly doing a 1:1 rotation with using arcane shots and multishots in place of steady shots usually when they are used. This can be seen in the log looking something like steady-auto-arcane-auto-steady-auto-multi-auto-steady-auto-etc.

For a 1:5 rotation, the arcane shots and steady shots should always follow a steady shot and not replace them. Now there are a few situations where this does happen, but mostly you are doing a 1:1 throughout. For a true 1:1, you should only have 55 specials, but you have 74, which is 19 extras (its actually less than this since you clipped a few autos too, which is bound to happen). These occur several times when you do actually do an arcane or a multishot after a steady, but many of these occur from restarting the rotation with a special and inserting specials in the wrong locations (e.g. multishot followed by an arcane clipping your autoshot).

Can't give you more advice without knowing how you do your rotation. I have used several macros myself. The original one I used advertised as a 1:5 but was actually a 1:1 like what you are doing. I had a fixed 1:5 macro that I used for a while (and still do when can't afford to concentrate as much on the weaving since need more SA), but it doesn't scale as well under haste. Hence, per many other folks suggestions, I usually use a manual rotation with casting the arcanes and multi over the last 3rd of the steady.

Hope this helps.

In my PVP gear, I'll PM you with a list of upgrades later today!

But I cannot stress enough the importance of getting an arena team even if you jump in a random 5v5 every week for 10 games, start building up points because arena gear is easy to get and in most cases will be better than anything you can pick up until very high levels of progression.

Weird, double posted.

On Hydross, please by all means follow the directions provided by your guild leaders. There is more than one strategy to beating each boss, and you should follow the one that your guild prefers. I just made some assumptions that it was like how my guild does it. We have off tanks pull the 4 adds right on top of Hydross and once they have built up enough threat, we AoE them down doing damage to both Hydross and the adds at the same time. I stay on Hydross along with all of the non-AoEers the whole time to help get him down faster (for less transitions) and to keep EW procced on him. I do use multishot during the add period to help get them down, but I keep Hydross targeted the whole time. As clarification, all DPS stops on Hydross during the transitions, with the raid moving to the side of the platform on which Hydross will be tanked for that phase so that if someone pulls aggro they do not cause a premature transition and extra adds. In addition, after the threat has been wiped and the tank for that phase has established his initial threat, a hunter MDs to that tank to help him build his threat up quicker.

Concerning whether to use the [Nethercobra Leg Armor] or [Nethercleft Leg Armor], there is not definitive answer. It depends. For me, using [Nethercobra Leg Armor] provides over 8 more personal DPS at a cost of about 3.7 AP average on EW proc. The current tipping point for me on which is better for total raid DPS contribution is whether there are 8 or more other physical DPS, including pets, in the raid. If less, then [Nethercobra Leg Armor] is superior. If more, then [Nethercleft Leg Armor] is surperior. With considering that it takes at least 8 other physical DPS to be on the same target to make [Nethercleft Leg Armor] superior and that [Nethercobra Leg Armor] is better at all other times, including split targets and when soloing or in 5 and 10 man instances, I have chosen to use [Nethercobra Leg Armor] although it hurts my average EW proc. Another factor is that if you are low on health, which you are not, [Nethercleft Leg Armor] is a good way to get an extra 500ish health, increase EW proc, and only lose a little DPS.

And Survival hunters are more than viable, when properly geared and raid buffed. A good Survival hunter can not only increase the DPS of all physical DPS in the raid on the same target by large amounts (about 100 DPS each when you get over 1200 raid buffed agility), but we can also put out competitive DPS that is in the top part of the raids.

1. Have you covered the basics with your guild leaders? i.e. AP benefits to the raid from Expose Weakness? Glancing at your armory you have 830ish unbuffed agility, so raid buffed let's say an even 1000 to be conservative. (I have 930 unbuffed, 1148 raid buffed). Your 1000 agility gives 250 attack power to every member of the raid. Your WWS shows yourself and 2 other hunters (and pets), a dps warrior, 2 melee dps druids, and 3 prot warriors that benefit from your debuff. Crunching the numbers, using a conservative .2dps/AP ratio and 90% EW uptime, you're contributing AT LEAST (all the numbers I've used here are quite conservative, IMO) 400 additional dps to the raid as well as increased threat generation for your tanks which helps everyone else go lights out. And you're doing it while being in the top 5 dps yourself.

2. Arena gear is quite tasty. WELL worth the hour or so it takes to knock out 10 matches a week. You and I are at very similar points in raid progression, and I would be hard-pressed to find items better for SV build than the S3 Helm and S2 shoulders. Great personal dps and plenty of Agility for EW.

3. On a whim, I put together a ZA run last week, without really having looked at the loot tables. I got Rage off of the second timed chest, very nice fist weapon. The dagger looks pretty too. Got to love +20 enchants.

4. Nethercobra (AP/crit) is best. I have one in the bank set aside for either VR greaves (if they ever drop) or the 2.4 badge pants. The legs I'm wearing now have the Nethercleft on them, and other than burning 400 gold for the armor kit, I'd switch it out for the added dps.

If you have your mana consumption covered, switching from Efficiency to Imp Hunters Mark makes us even more impressive. For me it's the jump from providing 287 attack power to 397...it's a very impressive contribution to the raid.

We all have to deal with the huntard stigma. We have to do our research, and find a way to effectively convey that information to the people who do the invites.

Hope this helps.

Agree. Before Season 3 came out, I was pretty well-geared for the items available for our progression (we were just getting to Vashj and Kael then) although theere were still several upgrades available in SSC/TK. But when I saw what was available in Season 3, I saved up my arena points and earned about 40K honor, which was about 4X as much as I had previously earned since I am not a PvPer. The gear was so good and relatively easy to attain and more under my control, that I had to do it.

When Season 3 came out, I was actually using the S3 helm, gloves, and chest, along with my previously purchased s2 shoulders and legs. I also got the vindicator boots and bracers (passed on the belt since the belt I had is better). I used all but the legs, since I already had my T5 legs, in my PvE gear.

We have just killed Kael for the 2nd time last night and are working on 3rd Hyjal boss, so I have gotten some upgrades since then to replace a lot of the PvP gear. But I am still wearing the S3 helm and S2 shoulders as Leighlu stated and am also stil wearing the vindicator bracers. For a Survival hunter, nothing is better in T5 zones than those 3 items. Upgrades exist for the other PvP pieces though, so if you (Kope) need to prioritize which PvP pieces to get, I would get those for how long they will last. However, since you have the T5 shoulders already but blue chest, you may want to upgrade your chest instead if you do not get the one off Hydross before then.

Thank you Sore, I got this macro from you and have been telling everyone about it. It really does work absolutely great.

The problem you are having on PTR may be what they are talking in the 2.4 PTR known Issues List thread:

It doesn't quite sound the same, but it could be since they usually have no idea how our DPS macros even work.

Yea, I saw the bug report about it. It doesnt sound the same at all...but I suppose it could be related. I made a post about it on the boards there just to make sure. The problem isnt with Auto Shot, its with, what seems like, Arcane/Multi Shot taking presidence over Steady Shot even when it is mid cast. This doesent happen on Live with the macro...and I have tried editing the macro in various parts to try and fix it, but have had no luck.

I just wanted to post this here to see if anyone else was seeing the same problem, or could repeat the problem, on the PTR. Just to make sure im not crazy.