Sore82

First thing ill say is that you are in some pretty ideal situations. Being in groups where you get a drums every time its up is very nice...add getting a BM/Feral Druid and it makes it even better. Next, comparing one weeks DPS on something to another, is not the best way to say which rotation is better. If everyone gained 70DPS from putting 7 points in iAotH...then it wouldnt be a question of IF you should do it, right? Ive had weeks where I do 1900 DPS on a fight and the next week ill do 1700 without changing any gear or talents...does that mean I got worse in that 1 week period of time? No, it has to do with group makeup, crit rolls and other people in the raid as well. From looking at your WWS, I would be more concerned that you are doing more damage than not just the BM Hunters, but also the rogues and warlocks...unless you are out gearing everyone in the raid, thats pretty odd.

If you are looking at Brut DPS, specifically, using a fight like Gorefiend is not really the best way to see what is "best" DPS. In Gorefiend, most of the time your are clumped up and are in an ideal DPS group. For Brut it can be a little different (depending on how your guild does it). I know for me, I was in a group with 3 mages and a Shadow Priest, and the BM Hunter was with 3 Warlocks and a Shaman last night when we killed him. With how the groups were done (because the mages were soakers and I wasnt), I was not in range for any Haste Drums at all...the only benefit I got for being in that group was th Shadow Priest (which makes it so I can use Haste pots instead of Mana Pots...so its a slight DPS boost for sure). I pulled out around 1600-1650 DPS, and I consider that GOOD for a fight like Brut.

This thread is full of information on people who have worked out every build and talent you can think of, and most say that the 7 points in BM are not worth it compared to going down into Barrage.

 

Stonga

Hey.

First time poster so go easy on me.

I recently got my hands on the DST trinket, and with my current gear i get a loss of 40 in dps by replacing any of my trinkets according to the spreadsheet. I've been reading a lot about it being a superior trinket, but i guess that only applies to BM hunters.

I have 3 trinkets i currently use and it seems that the best combination for me is [Ashtongue Talisman of Swiftness] and [Bloodlust Brooch].

I've included my spreadsheet as well if you want to look at it, in case i'm doing something wrong.
Hunter Spreadsheet (Survival).xls

When hasted i use this macro:

And unhasted i use this one:

I have a 3rd macro as well without Multi-shot that looks the same as the 2nd one i posted.

For the last week i've started to experiment with a /castsequence macro that looks like this:

For me, both /cast and /castsequence macros seems to output the same amount of DPS.

 

Whitefyst

@Nebelwerfer

I just want to clarify some things Sore82 stated. I agree that the uncontrolled haste from DST and IAotH can be problems for survival hunters that are using a 1:1.5 rotation, such as myself, since it screws up the rotation and to be effective you have to watch for the procs to know when to switch to the various steady-auto rotations.

However, if you are a survival hunter that is evolved farther than myself and have the 4 set T6 bonus along with the Ashtongue trinket and are using a 2:1 rotation as your standard rotation with a macro that scales to 3:2 or 1:1 automatically with the amount of haste effects on you, then DST and IAotH can be very effective since they result in more shots and damage without you having to monitor the procs and switch rotations.

@Sore82

I really don't think it is correct to make absolute statements that a Barrage build with a 1:1.5 is always superior. It is true that it is superior in some situations, but I also believe that there are valid situations in which the 0/20/41 1:1.5 hunter or 7/20/34 2:1 hunter can be superior. A lot depends on your gear, your buffs, your group, your available haste effects, your latency, etc. Survival hunter is not one size fits all, and it should not be advertised as such. There are certain builds that perform better under different situations, and a survival hunter should find and use the build that works best for their current situation.

Concerning DST, the trinket can be good or bad for you depending mostly on your spec, other gear, and what rotations you normally use and use during the DST proc. In your case in the spreadsheet, your current trinkets do indeed work better for you theoretically since your 1:1.5 rotation is so much better than your 1:1 rotation (1495 to 1178). Thus, switching to the 1:1 rotation, even hasted from DST, provides less DPS than your 1:1.5 rotation.

BTW, I believe your unhasted rotation is not a 1:1.5 rotation. I may be wrong, but I believe that that macro implements a 1:1 rotation with substituting in the various cast random shots when not spammed. When spammed, it should do more than a 1:1 I believe, but that rotation is not guaranteed to be a true 1:1.5 rotation. I believe that the macro you are trying out is an improvement since it will better do the core auto-steadies; however, it still does not always implement a true 1:1.5 when unhasted since it can cast multishot and arcane shot after back to back steadies when their CDs align that way. A good thing about the new macro though is that it does scale with haste. It does the auto-steadies with casting the other specials as they are available. With more and more haste, you just have more auto-steadies betweem specials in general. Although not ideal, I do use this macro in fights in which I need more situational awareness and can't concerntrate as much on manual-weaving; otherwsie, I prefer to manual-weave since that seems to work best for me.

 

Sore82

I still believe that in order to make a "standard" 2:1 shot rotation viable, you need to have at least some passive haste on you (thats constant haste thats is not a proc or something you get from Rapid Fire or a Haste Pot). Doing a 2:1 rotation with +0 Haste causes a lot of clipping and has issues with getting Auto Shot off when its supposed to.

I have 4piece T6, and have tested the 2:1 rotation several times, and have seen fro myself this problem. The Auto Shot getting stuck issue only seems to occur when you are attempting a +0 Haste rotation, and EVERY time you shoot off a Steady without the Auto going off, you are losing DPS. So, the only way to resolve the problem is to add some passive +haste. This, in turn, becomes a whole new set of issues, because Blizzard has poorly itemized a good deal of the BT +haste items, making you give up a good amount of stats for a minimal amount of +haste. Here is a good example:

[Fists of Mukoa]
vs.
[Gronnstalker's Gloves]

or

[Shadow-walker's Cord]
vs.
[Boneweave Girdle]

Both have minimal amounts of Haste on them compared to what the equivalent non-Haste item is. You lose stats like crit, hit and agility.

Now then, with Sunwell here...the itemization is a little better, but not much. The polearm that drops in Sunwell is a solid upgrade for the one in BT, but there are still better options for us for our own personal DPS or for raid wide DPS (which was discussed a page or two back). The craftable +Haste ring is also a good upgrade for most people...however the Badge one is also very good.

Think of it like this, Drums add 80 Haste, and I can still use a solid 1:1.5 rotation while Drums are up...all Drums do are tighten the rotation up to make it even more effective. You would need AT LEAST that much passive haste to make a 2:1 rotation viable. Each of those pieces I linked has around +37 Haste...meaning you need about 3 pieces of +Haste gear to make it "worth it"...while at the same time you are losing out on a good chunk of Agility, crit, hit and various other stats.

 

Wunlastri

If you are referencing those items vs drums, I'd say you only need two pieces of armor to effectively tighten the rotation to pre drums ideal. I'm assuming you are going for 5% In that case, you take one of the two 'sub optimal' items you've listed plus a felspine if you are 3.0 speed, if 2.9 just take the two.

I am reading you correctly, right Sore82? Seeing as the main mechanic behind dps is still speed, not to mention EW upkeep based off of shots, giving up a few stats should be well worth the haste to reach 70-90 passive not including quiver.

 

Sore82

Re-read the very first sentence of what you quoted from me. I said in my own personal opinion...I did not say anything about Barrage being the "absolute" spec of Survival. I suggested the points would be better spent in there. And if you read any of my past posts, I have stated that the 0/20/41 is a valid spec also for Survival...again, like you said, depending on a variety of factors. I have also made several statements in the past that there is no "cookie cutter" Survival Build...because there really isnt.

However, having said that, there are certain specific specs that stand out more than others. I have personally experimented with many of them, and have come to my own conclusions about what works best for me for my specific situations. I have never stated that I know everything there is to know about Survival or what is best for everyone...I am only able to give recommendations based on real-life experience (instead of relying on a spread-sheet to tell me what "should" be the best). I have used Cheekys in the past (and still do for some things), but for the most part I like testing stuff on my own...since every person is different. A spreadsheet can only tell you so much.

Even people like Kurkis (who people consider to be one of the top DPS Survival Hunters in this thread) dont put points into iAotH, nor does he wear any passive +haste gear (closest +haste item he has is a DST). So, take that information however you want.

 

Jander

As for comparing these two WWS let me say that I have month of logs of where I was 20/41 and the one I posted was my absolute best Teron DPS for that build. I realize that WoW isn't a sandbox where I can control every variable without fail. I think its fair to say that if the first week where I use IotH with the 2:1 rotation is 70 DPS better than my best week of 1.5:1, then IotH probably has some merit. You have made some negative post about it that may lead some people to never try it. As far as Kurkis dismissing it, he admitted himself that he hadn't tried the build much in one of his post. Feel free to do a post history on him if you want to confirm it for yourself. To suggest that I myself haven't tried every build out there is pretty presumptuous. I have tried 20/41, 28/33 with barrage, 28/33 with an arcane only rotation with IAS, and 7/20/34. The fact of the matter is that with high end gear, 7/20/34 has produced the best results for me, while also having the best mana effiecentcy.

As far as posting Teron #s goes, until a week ago Teron was the benchmark ppl used for DPS. As far as me having the group I did and me doing #1 DPS what can I say. I can't help that my guild goes out of its way for group synergy. The melee group is Enhance Shaman, Ret Pld, MS Warrior 2X Rogue. The caster DPS is a SPriest, Destruction Locks/Mages and a Elemental or Resto Shaman. The hunter group is a resto shaman, 2-3 hunters and a feral druid. What group are we gimping to get the group makeup I have? One could argue for a feral instead of a pld in the melee group. The fact of the matter is that a Ret Pld need windfury so he has to go there. The other thing is that any smart rogue would pick 2% damage + 3% crit versus 5% crit from a feral druid anyway. I understand that our rogues and warlocks should be higher. On most fights the warlocks would be higher, I think they either died or got threat capped on both of those logs. I can't make excuses for our melee. That being said 2100 DPS would still be 2100 DPS if I were 10th. In fact if our melee didn't suck and we got him down faster then my DPS would have been higher than 2100.

I'm going to say that Kurkis had it right about trying to stay as hasted as much as possible. He had a similar group makeup to what I have. He posted DPS numbers like mine and he got flamed so bad that he has quit posting to my knowledge. Between the people saying SV hunters can never keep up with BM hunters and other people saying he could only put out those numbers because of his group, he has quit posting and the community as a whole has to do without any knowledge he could have shared.

For people having problems chaining Auto Shots as SV using a 2:1 macro try replacing /cast Steady Shot with /castsequence Steady Shot. The added lag from using castsequence gave auto the time to fire for me. It also let me use KC without an auto being missed. I had both these problems with a /cast command. I was to the point where I was ready to give up on SV. My previous best 1.5:1 20/41 run was 2050 DPS. I pulled 2550 DPS as BM without trying hard. I knew I had to get my SV DPS up to be able to justify running as SV. A 2.1 macro with IotH did it for me.

 

Chanii

Stupid question quick before I socket it wrong:
If you have 3/3 surefooted and a Draenei race, how much hit rating should you have?

 

Osse

15.77 x 5 = 79

 

• Intermission

Here is a comparison for a Brute kill, Osse:

Wow Web Stats

1947 dps in that kill, I reached well above 2k when not using Scorpid sting though. Scorpid sting I realised is quite a large dps loss, even though I had unlimited mana.

Things I could improve on:

- Scorpid sting (and to a lesser extent, being the Mark hunter) hurts dps by a fair chunk. I dont see how I'm going to get around this though... I am the Survival Hunter after all. The extra GCD every ~20 seconds, and trying to fit it into a manual 1:1.5 really threw me off. I've only been doing 1:1.5 for around a month or two when I specced Survival.
- I didnt have any haste pots, next week I will. (massive fail on my part)
- Only 3 drums over the whole fight. I'm leveling LW atm and our other hunters might too.
- I noticed on my fraps that our Feral druid tank swapped himself out of our group whenever he tanked... to get an imp. He was loosing GoA to do this, and we all lost LotP too. He certainly wont be doing that next week, which will mean double LotP uptime for us hunters too.
- Fraps = fps loss = dps loss
- Being an Aussie hunter (250-400ms, cant use macros even if I wanted to), and frapsing, I made quite a few shot rotation errors. Especially around the re-scorpid and mark applications. I basically didnt hold a true rotation at all, just a GCD squeeze between multi/arcane/scorpid, trying to make sure I got a steady for each auto too (which I didnt).
- I got burn, ~10 seconds of movement.
- I cant use a Wind Serpent. I'd like to, but I dont use a macro so I cant macro Lightning Breath. Although they may be fixed now from what I read in this thread?


I was in an excellent group though. Enhance Shaman, 2x BM hunters, and just under half the time we had a Feral druid. We also had a ret paladin and an arms warrior in the raid, and CoR + CoS. WWS says there was no FF (only 1 cast, and it resisted). ?? Surely our druid isnt that bad... WWS error maybe.


I'm going to aim for at least 2150 next time, given the same group. Btw, one of our BM hunters got 2450ish on a ~4-5 minute attempt. Not too bad at all.

I was looking at other guild's WWS logs, and wow, its embarrassing how bad some other hunters are. Sub 1400 dps as Survival and sub 1700 as BM seem all too common... absolutely terrible even if you're in group 6 on your OWN, let alone some of those hunters having Lust/Agi/LotP!!

 

Stonga

Thanks for the response.

I'm not sure what you mean that my unhasted macro is not a true 1:1.5 macro, but if i'm correct, you mean that i have Steady Shot in the /castrandom part of the macro? This was a mistake from my part. Usually i have Steady Shot in the /cast part of the macro. Sorry about the confusion.

I made a WWS report of todays raid and i think my DPS is so low compared to many others posting in this thread.

Either i'm doing something wrong or my gear is capping my DPS. I guess the former.
I had a Resto Shaman and a BM Hunter in my group today so heroism was used on these bosses and i got Ferocious Inspiration and Agility totem.

Usually on a boss fight i start with a MD to the tank, then i use a 2:1 rotation for about 10-15 seconds. After that i pop rapid fire and [Bloodlust Brooch]. When Rapid Fire runs out, the shaman usually pops heroism, when he does, i use my drums in combination with Heroism. When Heroism runs out, i use Readiness and pop another Rapid Fire. Then i use a haste potion if i don't have mana issues yet. After that i'm back to a 1:1.5 rotation.

But somehow like on Teron, i still can't get past 1600dps.
My ms during raiding is somewhere around 120-200. My FPS is above 40 all the time so that shouldn't impact my DPS.
I used the /castsequence macro tonight by the way.

The macros i'm using is posted a further up on this page.

 

Osse

I guess it's time to try manually weaving on Brutallus next week as now in feral druid resto shaman group I ended up with 1750 ish dps. The kill itself was rubbish performance from me, had to interrupt casting a lot with extra moving and typing plus I used fel mana pot when I had 80% mana so had to use 2:1 for like a minute.

Would imagine 1850 ish being my cap with the "all in one"-macro in this group. Obviously if the shaman was ench and there was two hunters in the group my dps would be over 2k but that'll never happen.

Will actually test tomorrow if my 90 passive haste is causing clipping issues with the macro as I use a macro that clicks a button up and and every 5ms.

 

Sore82

Here is a good example of group composition making a BIG difference on DPS. Compare our WWS reports:
Wow Web Stats

I was in a group with no Drums available to me, no Feral Druid and no BM Hunter (also no Blood Fury)...yet we have (basically) the same gear, and did almost exactly the same amount of shots. The DPS difference is nearly 300 DPS. Nothing I could really do in that situation. I had a SP and used +Haste Pots when I could...but other than that, I just gotta work with what I get. I was also on Scorpid duty, which I hate doing...but whatever. Im sure in a couple of months when the tanks start getting all the better Sunwell gear, the need for Scorpid will go down and down.

 

• Intermission

Another thing to note is specs. I feel 0/20/41 is a great raid spec, especially for Brutallus:

6 ---------- 5 ------------ 4 ------------ 3 ------------2 ------------ 1 ----------- 0
---*RF/readiness/RF------------------------*RF-------------------------*readiness/RF.

2 extra Rapid Fires is nothing to sneeze at (as well as the MT crit). That spec would be even better for me if the 2:1/3:2/1:1 macro actually worked!

 

Aern

Yeah I sit at a average 1.8k dps average with just goa and imp pack as 0/20/41. The extra rapid fires really do make a huge diff for a steady spam rotation which is what I'm using right now with 78 passive haste and a DST. If Blizz ever fixes auto shot I really think rapid fire spam with haste pot spam will be the top dps with passive haste as a Survival hunter.

 

• Intermission

The mana efficiency gain from Rapid Fire is great too, on fights with less JoW uptime (eg Kalec).

I go from a 1:1.5 to a 1:1 when rapid is up. This equates to mana efficiency when using only steadyshot, but I can just as easily replace the steadyshot with a multi or even a multi+arcane and slightly clip the next auto (rather than trying to actually do a true 1:1.5 while rapid is up).

 

Chanii

Isn't it 15,77 x 6 = ~95?

9% is cap and surefooted gives 3%, ergo the 6.

Ah, forgot the 1% from my racial bonus. Thought it only works for my party members and not on myself.

 

Osse

My suspicions were right. Using belt of the black eagle instead of shadow-walker's cord with shivering felspine is 4.4% dps increase. So basically, with 3.0 speed weapon it's safe to use 53 haste but 90 is too much. This is with 25-30ms though.

This is with:

/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Lightning Breath
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot
/castrandom Multi-Shot(Rank 6), Arcane Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

For hand-weaving it might be different.

 

Sore82

The problem I have been having with going 0/20/41 is that in order to do so, I have to give up Efficiency. I am the only consistent Hunter in our raids...we have 2 BM Hunters, but they will swap between them on who gets in, while I am usually in all the time. So, that is the main reason why I have the iHM talent. Going 0/20/41 would make me completly lose Efficiency. It would look sorta like this:

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Hunter -> Talent Calculator

I cant even get 3/3 TotH without taking a point out of Mortal Shorts or Expose Weakness (neither of which are worth that kind of loss). I already have enough mana issues when im not in a group with a SP...giving up that talent just really concerns me.

Also, btw, according to your WWS report, you only got off 3 Rapid Fires, where I got off 2, which makes sense as it is a 6min fight and RF is on a 3min cooldown. If done at the right times, our Rapid Fire should be coming back up pretty much right as the fight ends.

And what problems are you having with the 2:1/3:2/1:1 macro while hasted? Have you tried the one I posted a couple pages ago that was a 2 part macro?

 

Osse

Drop kill command and use fel mana pots. Sorted mana issues for me without sacrificing lots of dps. Or then get a retri pala in case you allready dont have one.

 

Dibbler

I've tinkered with this a bit using Cheeky's spreadsheet and have found that the max amount of Haste you want with a 3.0 speed weapon and 0.2 latency is 90 using a 1:1.5 rotation.

This makes some VERY SELECT items much more attractive Find Armor

 

Osse

It is 90 in theory but go to try it in real situation.

 

Sore82

VERY SELECT is the key phrase here. I would not consider anything in which I loose more than 10agility to be "worth it". Going over some of the +haste items, the one I would consider to be the most "worth it" would be:

[Fang of Kalecgos] - 25 Haste
[Hard Khorium Band] - 28 Haste
[Clutch of Demise] - 30 Haste
and MAYBE [Cloak of Fiends] - 25 Haste

Other things like:
[Embrace of the Phoenix] - 44 Haste
[Carapace of Sun and Shadow] - 38 Haste
[Duplicitous Guise] - 34 Haste

Would also be ok, however you have to consider you still need to have 4piece T6 to get the bonus and that the 2 Leather items will probably get priority to Rogues/Feral Druids over you.

I personally havent seen ANY of those Sunwell items drop yet and we have fully cleared the first 3 bosses 2x so far. So im not in any real rush to start stacking up on haste gear yet.

 

Osse

Dont forget [Shivering Felspine]

 

Sore82

Thats true, I dont know how I missed that...I think I need a coffee break.