SURVIVAL Raiding in 2.1 - Page 46

ugla · 02/25/08, 11:53 AM

Originally Posted by Chanii

G’day,

first post here and native german speaking, ergo please be patient with me. *smiles*

I’ve been playing WoW now since last September. Started off as a BM and had quite a joyride. Two weeks ago I started raiding seriously, first TK/SSC and now BT/MH. Ergo I skilled to Survival.
I must admit, this build is very challenging to play but listening to the feedback from my fellow guild members, I’m gaining experience fast and my game play is ok. Own dps is still very low though due to my bad rotation.
Since we already have two BM Hunters for damage (oh I will get them sooner or later, stupid rotation!) I was thinking about going full blown support.

While full-blown support in 1 survival hunter can work well, I think in the long run you're better off getting a BM hunter to get Improved Hunter's Mark. It lets the survival hunter with the mana-heavy rotation get efficiency and splits support roles. So if you can't make a raid, at least the melee can still have 110AP and if the BM hunter can't make the raid, you'll still have expose weakness for everyone. Here's hoping in WotLK that hunters receive benefits from more physical DPS group buffs!

Chanii · 02/25/08, 12:11 PM

QuiggyB, ugla, thank you for the reply.
QuiggyB, great post there!

My idea was that I might as well go all-the-way Survival instead of merely 95%. I wont loose efficiency actually since 5 points from BM wanders into iHM.

But I think the best bet is the "trial and error" path.

ugla · 02/25/08, 12:31 PM

Originally Posted by Chanii

QuiggyB, ugla, thank you for the reply.
QuiggyB, great post there!

My idea was that I might as well go all-the-way Survival instead of merely 95%. I wont loose efficiency actually since 5 points from BM wanders into iHM.

But I think the best bet is the "trial and error" path.

Yea, I'm on my 4th iteration of my survival build. As I go it has gotten better for my play style and has increased my damage output.

Chanii · 02/25/08, 12:44 PM

Last stupid question of the day, please bear with me.

I havent found a "worthy" page/link/thread to calculations concerning rap, crit, etc.
For example:
x crit and y agi will produce how much "real" crit?

Regards, Patrick

QuiggyB · 02/25/08, 2:42 PM

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t9816-hu...-_development/

MasterZeus · 02/25/08, 3:00 PM

Originally Posted by Whitefyst

If you are having mana problems during that fight, there are many ways around it, some in your control or not:
- use mana oils
- use mageblood pots
- be in a group with a shadow priest
- be in a group with a shaman with mana spring
- chain mana pots
- have a ret pally in the raid with judgement
- use AoV
- drop to a rotation that uses less mana when low
- etc

Two more ideas:
[Mark of Conquest]
[Black Grasp of the Destroyer]

I use both of these on this fight and they help a lot.

Whitefyst · 02/25/08, 6:31 PM

Originally Posted by Chanii

What do you guys think? is 2/3 in TotH and EW enough with my crit rating?
And what gears should be changed still?

Regards, Patrick

From personal experience and analysis, I would suggest the following changes to your spec.
1) If you really want to buff the raid, put 3/3 in EW. I realize that the last point may only increase your uptime in ideal situations by about 10%, but that 10% is a huge amount when your EW proc is nearing 300 AP. That equates to about 30 AP per physical DPS (including self) in the raid for a raid DPS total of 72 DPS assuming 0.3 conversion and 8 physical DPS. Furthermore, actual fights are never ideal with moving. interruptions, switching targets, unideal rotation, etc. In these situations, the 3rd points makes even a larger difference. I would move one of the points from CE into this since it definitely provides higher DPS and possibly even more personal DPS.
2) Would suggest getting 5/5 MT, this increased crit rate not only greatly helps your own personal DPS simply from criting more, but it also helps it from proc talents that depend on crit more, such as TotH, EW, and your crit trinket. Obviously, raid DPS improves too from better EW. I would suggest moving either the 5 points in IHM (if a BM in the raid has it) or Efficiency into it. I have the 5/5 in IHM instead of a BM since I more consistently attend raids over our BMs. If you lose the efficiency and dont have a SP or shammy in your group or a ret pally in the riad, then prepare to use mana oils and use pots.

With these changes, you can't put the rank in CE anymore. Suggest putting it into Readiness for the utility it provides or in 3/3 TotH if want the mana.

These are my suggestions, but please check them out for yourself in Cheeky's spreadsheet against what you are planning to do to make sure that the suggestion is an improvement.

Another item to note is that since you now have Surefooted, you no longer need 145 hit rating. You only need 95 hit rating. So feel free to drop around 30 points of hit rating gear for better DPS gear. Some changes you can make along these lines for easily obtainable gear include:
- Drop [Worgen Claw Necklace] for [Necklace of the Deep] crafted by JCs (-13 hit)
- Drop [Drape of the Dark Reavers] for [Blood Knight War Cloak] bought with BoJs (-17 hit)
- Replace [Ring of a Thousand Marks] for a ring with some agility on it with equal or better DPS (-19 hit)
- Replace [Sonic Spear] with any of the various 2Hs or 1H combos that provide both more DPS and agility (-24) hit

Suggest keeping your hit gear around for swapping pieces in and out as appropriate.

Another suggestion that can help both personal DPS and EW proc is regemming.
- Suggest a different meta gem - the [Relentless Earthstorm Diamond] - it is a huge boost over your current meta
- With the above meta, you only need 2 blues and yellow gems. You already have the right number of blues, but you have 5 yellows with all +8 crit. As Survival spec (and really all hunters), you are generally better off putting the +8/+10 agi gems in the 3 extras. The agility scales with LR and BoK, while crit does not. +8 agi is really 10.12 raid buffed for 10.12 AP, about 2.5 AP on EW proc, 0.25% crit, 20.24 armor, and 0.40% dodge, which is much better than 0.36% crit. Would definitely replace the yellow gem in your gloves and also the 2 in your chest. Check out the differences in Cheeky's spreadsheet for DPS and EW proc to see the improvements.

Namarus · 02/25/08, 9:08 PM

I'm rather confused by this statement.

Originally Posted by Whitefyst

... I realize that the last point may only increase your uptime in ideal situations by about 10%, but that 10% is a huge amount when your EW proc is nearing 300 AP. That equates to about 30 AP per physical DPS (including self) in the raid for a raid DPS total of 72 DPS assuming 0.3 conversion and 8 physical DPS.

I was under the assumption that all physical dps got 300 AP, and it was not divided among them.

Leighlu · 02/25/08, 11:07 PM

Originally Posted by Namarus

I'm rather confused by this statement.

Originally Posted by Whitefyst
... I realize that the last point may only increase your uptime in ideal situations by about 10%, but that 10% is a huge amount when your EW proc is nearing 300 AP. That equates to about 30 AP per physical DPS (including self) in the raid for a raid DPS total of 72 DPS assuming 0.3 conversion and 8 physical DPS.

I was under the assumption that all physical dps got 300 AP, and it was not divided among them.

Yes, it is applied to all physical dps. All physical dps get 300AP in this scenario.

If your expose weakness is up for 10% less TIME due to a lower crit rate, it is effectively lessened by 10%, thus the 30AP Whytefyst was talking about.

ugla · 02/25/08, 11:13 PM

So I completely misread something.

Wish these forums had a delete button...

Stub · 02/26/08, 5:48 AM

I have tried to make a new spam macro after reading of the 3:2 rotation.

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command 
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

I'm not sure what I do wrong, but this will give me a 4:2 rotation and on rapid fire its just a 1:1 rotation. What am I doing wrong here?

The best I have come around is this:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast !Auto Shot
/castrandom Steady Shot, Arcane Shot
/castrandom [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command 
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

But I think I have read somewhere it is better to do a 3:2 than weave in Arcane. My measures on Dr. Boomm tells me different though?

Btw: Have 2.52 auto shot speed and 4/5 IAotH but planning to go 0/20/41 when I get my macro's right

Hunterlin · 02/26/08, 7:16 AM

There is no good reliable way to do 3:2 rotation now, it all depends on you latency, servers load and from how much you pray to gods of WoW ...

I still continue to use old and improved 1:1.5 (2.3.2 patch was good for this rotation too!) that gives exactly computable and reliable DPS output.

Stub · 02/26/08, 10:29 AM

I have been trying the

Auto, Steady, Steady, Auto, Steady, Arcane

compareded to

Auto, Steady, Auto, Steady, Arcane, Auto, Steady.

I hardly gain any damage but use more mana. I did it all with manual weaving the Arcane.

I think you need to have a 3.0 weapon before you gaine anything from it. Could that be right ?

nosleep · 02/26/08, 10:33 AM

So, i have been racking my brains trying to figure something out.

When 2.4 goes live, there will be the 3 new bits of T6, at the moment i have 4/5 T5 and the Bow-stitched Leggings from Azgalor, bow of Archi ect, along with other BT / MH random stuff.
I have T6 gloves in the bank, but it is not worth using them yet, as it will cost me my 4 set bonus from T5.

I'm using an "Auto, Steady, Steady" rotation, surv spec, and it is working great, mana wise and DPS wise. ( never go oom, even in the tank group )

My question is this...

Has anyone thought about the new T6 gear having so much crit rating on it?

What i mean is, i can't help thinking that when 2.4 goes live ( my guild will be doing the 1st 3 bosses, ideally quite quickly ) i will probably end up going for 4/5 T5 ( head / gloves / chest and shoulders ) and then 4/8 T6 ( bracer / boots / belt and legs )
Obviously i am thinking this because of the 2 x 4 set bonus 5% crit + 10% dmg from Steady. Which seeing as my rotation is 66% steady them 2 bonuses will be a major boost to my dps ( lol not to mention the legendary bow :P .. but who knows how far away that is )

There is of course the stats difference to consider, between the 4 bits of T5 i am thinking of keeping, and the 4 bits of T6 i am thinking of not using.

On the whole the difference seems to be a swap on 2 bits ( gloves and shoulders ) from Hit to crit + a very small stat increase from T6 gloves and a moderate stat increase from T6 shoulder. And a very small stat increase on ( head and legs, which is mostly a stam increase ) and of course the 2 sockets i lose from the legs.

What i can't seem to do is to work out if my thinking is just plain crazy!.. or if it actually will benefit my overall DPS

So has anyone done, or can anyone do the maths on this?

Or better yet, has anyone done any actual live tests? Tho i think not, with the few guilds that have killed the 1st 3 bosses in Sunwell, and the state of the PTR at the moment slowing others down.

I thank you so much in advance, for any help anyone can give me on this.

Tho my guild mates might not thank you, if you show that full T6 with bow-stitched legs or whatever combo is better, and i stop passing on all the T6 :P

peace love n unity.

Whitefyst · 02/26/08, 2:10 PM

Originally Posted by nosleep

When 2.4 goes live, there will be the 3 new bits of T6, at the moment i have 4/5 T5 and the Bow-stitched Leggings from Azgalor, bow of Archi ect, along with other BT / MH random stuff.
I have T6 gloves in the bank, but it is not worth using them yet, as it will cost me my 4 set bonus from T5.
Tho my guild mates might not thank you, if you show that full T6 with bow-stitched legs or whatever combo is better, and i stop passing on all the T6 :P

peace love n unity.

I haven't done the analysis yet of whether having 4 T5 and 4 T6 instead of all T6 equivalent gear is better or not since the gear is still too new and I do not know all of the gear available in the new instances yet. And it may be viable for certain spec, rotations, and play styles.

However, I did do an analysis a while back on whether 4 T5 or 4 T6 is better for a Survival hunter. I did this analysis with a 1:1.5 rotation and not a 3:2, but the 4 T6 set is by far much better than the 4 T5. At our high crit rates, especially with 5/5 MT, the 5% additional crit does not help as much as 10% additional damage and the better stats on the T6 gear. I do not have the exact numbers anymore, but it was pretty clear at that time. I would still think that the same would hold true for a 1:1 or 3:2 rotation.

In fact, I have done the opposite of you. Instead of getting 4/5 T5 and skipping on T6, I have been skipping on T5 and waiting to get T6, which greatly improves your agility and EW proc. I only have 2 T5 pieces (gloves and legs), which I use for farming only so that I do not have to heal my pet as much while farming and for the little better persona DPS on the T5 gear which overcomes the slight additional DPS from EW on my pet and me for my other gear.

Now part of the reason for this is that T6 > T5. But I also did this since other drops in T5 areas or available PvP or badge gear are better overall survival pieces than the individual T5 pieces, such as the S3 helm, Ranger-General Chestguard, Void Reaver Greaves, Gauntlets of Sniping, and arena shoulders and since it was probably going to be very difficult for me to get the 4 set bonus with limited Vashjj kills (only killed her 4 times to get people attunned for T6 areas) and Kael kills (only have done him twice so far and probably will not do too many times) and people fighting over the hero tokens when they dropped. I decided to let others spend high DKP amounts on the T5 helm and chest while I save for T6 pieces that are by far better for me.

Taking my current gear and substituting in T5 shoulders, chest, gloves, and legs with my rotation, I do get a personal DPS gain of 3.5 DPS. However, my average EW proc drops by 7.11 AP. Assumming .3 AP to DPS conversion and 8 other physical DPS in the raid, that is a loss of 17.1 in raid DPS, which far out weighs the 3.5 personal gain.

Taking my current gear and instead substituting in 4 T6 pieces and with putting on inferior neck and cloak to make up for some of the loss of hit, I gain 77.8 personal DPS. I still lose 6.45 on average EW proc, which is about 15.5 raid DPS, but that is a total raid DPS gain of 62.3 with T6 over the 13.6 loss with T5.

With the new T6 gear available, I assume that I will be using some of those pieces in lieu of the ones listed since they have good hit rating on them besides the other stats to help make up for the T6 hit defficiency allowing me to use better gear in slots currently providing my hit rating and allowing me to use better options in some of the T6 slots such as the Bow-stiched Leggings instead of the T6 legs. Haven't had the time to determine the optimal set yet though, but I do not plan to wear T5 for raiding at all.

Anyway, this is the optimal that seems to suite me best with my current spec, rotation, and gear. Other options may work for others better.

Someone else will need to do the analysis with the 3:2 rotation since I do not think it is viable enough for me at this time from previous analysis to worry about it at this time.

nosleep · 02/26/08, 9:06 PM

thank you Whitefyst

But i think you misunderstood me.

I understand that at present full T6 > full T5, that is not even a question in my mind.
I may be misunderstanding you, but you gave a very detailed explanation as to why you think T6 > T5, this leads me to think you misunderstood my question.

The only reason i pass on T6 at the moment is because if in 2.4 i decide that 4 x T5 + 4 x T6 > 7-8 x T6, then i will of taken 3-4 bits of T6 loot that will not be used and could of gone to someone who will use them.
I don't pass because i think t5 > t6 or because i am saving DKP for better items.

My guild does have a DKP system, but it is the very very last thing we use to distribute loot. We use a system that is a very basic "need > greed" in short the whole guild is happy to "give" the item to the player that will benefit the most from it, or the player who will bring the most benefit to the raid ( set bonuses ect ) and so passing to save for better gear later on is never even a thought.
1: because if you need the gear later on, it wont matter how much you have had in the past, you will get it anyway. ( we don't "bid" against each other, we talk, decide and "give"
and 2: If it is an upgrade then you take it, period, why would you not take a piece of loot that will help you and your guild.

My only question is...

Has anyone done, or can anyone do the maths on 4 x T5 + 4 x T6 Vs 8 x t6? Or whatever combo, like bow-stitched legs and 7 x T6 ect
Considering i use an "auto, steady, steady" rotation, survival build with 5/5 MT ( if my armory matters then i apologize, as i am MM PVP build at the moment )

ugla · 02/27/08, 4:00 AM

Stub, I have been using this macro to do a 1:1.5 rotation. It is the most spammable macro I've seen. I'll post what I use with 5/5 Imp. Arcane Shot (my only .5 shot is arcane, I don't use multi-shot in my rotation), but fixing it for multi-shot is easy. It's been posted a few times in this thread, and I'll post exactly what I use:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use Bloodlust Brooch
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot
/castrandom [nomod] Arcane Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1

The 2 /console lines let you spam the macro without hearing the error sound (not the speech--the swish sound or whatever) and the /script line clears your error frame of all those "That ability isn't ready yet" messages. The use just attempts to activate my trinket and doesn't affect the rest of the macro at all, except that it needs to be inside the 2 lines that disable then enable the sound or it will still make the error sound.

The macro basically does its best to produce a 1:1.5 rotation. It has the effect of correcting its own timing when you spam it because if any of the timing gets messed up a single delayed auto shot will get the timing working again. With heavy haste effects, if you spam the macro it will automatically drop to a 1:1 rotation prioritizing arcane shot or multi-shot over steady shot every few steadies--just don't hit it again too soon after one of the specials goes off if your bow's speed is 3.0. I also added the [nomod] to the castrandom line so i can hold down a modifier key while i spam the macro to simply force a simple 1:1 rotation for conserving mana.

To make it work with a rotation that uses multi-shot as well, change the castrandom line to...

/castrandom [nomod] Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot

Stub · 02/27/08, 4:55 AM

Thank for your help ugla

I just have a few concerns: Don't you risk that the Arcane Shot or Multi-Shot will fire in between the Auto and Steady shots ?

Btw: To conserve mana I try to use the rank 1 of Multi-Shot. I just dont see anyone implement it anywhere, is there a good reason not to use the Rank 1? (I know Rank 6 does +205 dmg, but it cost ya 175 mana)

ugla · 02/27/08, 8:44 AM

Stub,

You can easily change any macro to use rank 1 of multi-shot or any spell like this...

/castrandom Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot(rank 1)

I think most raiding hunters use maximum ranks of shots to increase their damage output and start using mana potions for boss fights. There are a lot of other things you can do to increase your mana regeneration like using mana oil and mageblood elixir. I also switch to Aspect of the Viper during a boss fight if my mana gets below 50% a good amount of time before the boss does (or for the couple mana draining fights). Using consumables will become even more feasible when raid bosses start dropping additional gold.

The full macro I posted yesterday only gets to the /castrandom line if a steady shot has gone off and it's waiting for auto shot. The macro works best if you spam it pretty fast--if I had a G15 I think the macro would work perfectly even with pretty good amounts of lag. The only problems I've run into are when I don't hit it after a steady and before the hidden .5 second auto shot cast that will now move the arcane shot to go off with your auto shot, but the macro will adjust by either delaying the next auto shot with a steady shot, or you can not hit the macro until the next auto shot goes off. The reason I like this macro better than a long /castsequence is that it always does your .5 shot as soon as it possibly can, and it can't get to a special on cooldown that it can't cast and hang up like a long castsequence can.

Chanii · 02/27/08, 9:39 AM

ulga, so with a 2.9 Bow and without any haste rating or iAS, I'll have to screw the reset down to 2.9 or leave it at 3.0?

Regards, Patrick

Kope · 02/27/08, 1:03 PM

So, did a TK raid last night. WWS: Wow Web Stats

I died on VR at the last 5% or so unfortunately :\.

Thanks to all your help I'm doing a lot better. I still need to get my rot down a bit better but I'm doing a lot better than before, thanks again for all the help.

Still working on getting a few dps upgrades here and there.

Also, I wanted to ask opinions:

Ancient Amani Longbow - Items - World of Warcraft (Ancient Amani Longbow)

OR

Arcanite Steam-Pistol - Items - World of Warcraft (Arcanite Steam-Pistol)

The steam pistol has a little more DPS on cheeky's spreadsheet, but the longbow has AP and I get the bow crit because I"m a troll

ugla · 02/27/08, 1:08 PM

No, the 3 seconds is pretty arbitrary. Basically, if you don't press the macro button for 3 seconds it resets. Otherwise it resets each time the castsequence completes, as long as each step happens within 3 seconds. Really it can be anything over a couple seconds and work fine. If you have any other specific questions it might be a good idea to send me a PM so it doesn't clutter up the thread.

Kope, I imagine which of those two weapons is better depends on whether you need the hit rating on the Steam-Pistol or not.

Sore82 · 02/27/08, 1:39 PM

Ugla - that is the exact same macro I use (with MultiShot worked into the /castrandom).

This macro works perfectly, and have yet to have any problems with it at all. The macro is easily configurable to your needs. I added in a line for Kill Command as well...and it still works fine.

I dont know if you have had a chance to use the macro on PTR at all, but it was causing me some issues last week with the Steady Shot (the casting bar kept saying it had "Failed"). Im not sure what the problem was exactly...if it has to due with Blizzards new combat log or what. It seemed like the Steady Shot was going off, even though the casting bar kept saying it had "Failed", but with server lag and mod issues, I didnt really get a chance to investigate the issue beyond that.

Stub · 02/28/08, 11:10 AM

My experience with combination of arcane and mulit shot in this macro is that arcan doesn't fire if multi is on cooldown and vice versa.

So I'm stuck with a castsequence if I want to use both.

 /castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, !Auto Shot, Steady Shot, Multi-Shot, Steady Shot, !Auto Shot;
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command

This one i doing fine for me with no clipping.

Vasilii · 02/28/08, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by Stub

My experience with combination of arcane and mulit shot in this macro is that arcan doesn't fire if multi is on cooldown and vice versa.

So I'm stuck with a castsequence if I want to use both.

 /castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, !Auto Shot, Steady Shot, Multi-Shot, Steady Shot, !Auto Shot;
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command

This one i doing fine for me with no clipping.

For all those who use castsequence macros, cheeky's new spreadsheet models your dps using castsequence/spam/manual and you will lose a significant amount of dps by using castsequence, just be aware!

I've always been an advocate of manually weaving but even a spam macro will serve you much better than a castsequence