lythrdskynrd

What is Shot Rotation?

In its simplest terms Shot Rotation is the order in which you choose to fire your special shots. Many hunters in wow start off as ‘mad button mashers’ hitting whatever button doesn’t have a ‘little spinney clock thing’ on top of it.

What that ‘young hunter’ doesn’t understand is the damage they do can be greatly increased by just hitting the buttons in a different order.

Scope

This guide is intended to give a visual representation of the damage done by a hunter over time with the purpose of helping the level 70 hunter decide how to play with their current setup and improve their 'endgame'.

The Concepts

There are some building blocks that you need to understand before you can really get into thinking about shot rotation.

Cooldown: this is one you should be used to already, this is the time between casting any individual ability and casting that same ability again.

Global Cooldown: also known as GCD. This is the minimum time between casting one spell and any other spell.

DPS: Damage Per Second – hopefully self explanatory, your DPS is the amount of damage you do to an enemy in 1 second of time.

DPM: Damage Per Mana – this one is a more advanced concept, not because it is difficult to understand but because you’ve got to crack out a calculator to figure it out. DPM can also be thought of as efficiency.

DPM is important when dealing with any fight that has the potential to use all of your mana. Once you run out of mana, your DPS drops significantly.

Visually, the shots look like this



We’re going to skip the DPM of Aimed shot for now (you’ll see why later on) for now lets look at a few calculations. Assuming a hunter has 2000 Attack Power

First looking at the Serpent Sting, at maximum rank it does 660 Damage over 15 seconds, for 275 mana. The effective DPS of your Serpent Sting is 44. The DPM: 2.4.

Second we have Arcane Shot, (15% of Attack Power + 273) for 230 Mana. More difficult to calculate the DPS of the shot as it is instant … in this case I will calculate it based on the GCD it triggers (1.5s). The effective DPS of your arcane shot (with 2000 AP) is 382 the DPM: 2.49.

Thirdly, we’ll look at Steady Shot, (20% of Attack Power + 150 + Normalized Weapon Damage) for 110 Mana with a 1.5 second cast time and no ability cool down time. This shot improves based on the Bow you have & on a reasonably obtainable weapon like Valanos you have a an effective DPS of 411 with a DPM score of 5.60.

Serpent Sting: 44 DPS 2.4 DPM
Arcane Shot: 382 DPS 2.49 DPM
Steady Shot: 411 DPS 5.60 DPM

Finally looking at auto shot we know that it does weapon damage plus attack power plus arrow power (referred to as Normalized Weapon DPS) but since it costs NO it is your most efficient attack. The DPM is INFINITE.

Auto Shot: Normalized Weapon DPS *INFINITE* DPM

There are of course all the other ones to worry about but it’s more effort than we need … 2 things to take away from this

#1 – For doing Damage your Auto Shot is the most efficient
#2 – For doing damage Serpent Sting is your least valuable shot
#3 – For doing damage Steady Shot is your MOST valuable special shot.

So what are we ‘Shooting For’?



The ideal shot rotation would probably look something like the above picture over time you would shoot things in the following order.

Steady / Arcane / Auto / Steady / Kill Command (if available) / Auto Steady / Multi (if no Crowd Control)

[repeat]

There are a number of things that can go wrong with ‘the perfect shot rotation’ some of the biggest variables can’t really be controlled for. Human Reaction time & Lag can prevent you from getting it exactly right. As long as you know what you’re *TRYING FOR* you’re going to be miles ahead of the competition.

So what about the other guys?

The above might seem obvious when you’re look at it but compare to what happens if you pick the same set of shots in a different order.



One Hunter told me he always liked to fire his instant shots first … they just feel faster so they’ve got to be better … *BUT* look at the space between Auto Shots. Any time the Auto Shot is not counting up is a waste of time on your most efficient shot.

The (sort of) Myth of a Fast Weapon



If you have a bad rotation you’re going to be doing less than your optimal damage. A slower weapon is more forgiving of bad rotation, a slower weapon is more forgiving of LAG and Human Reaction Time but isn’t necessarily *better*



Recall that the MOST efficient shot you have is Auto Shot. The second most efficient shot is Steady…

Imagine if your weapon & talents allowed you to ONLY use the two best shots that exist for a hunter.

You’d be working with the best possible damage per mana … which means you’ll still be shooting when others are out of mana. The reality of a fast bow speed (or so it would seem) is that if you adjust the shot rotation you can do the same or even more damage over the longer term.



One trap you can fall into with all that time before the Auto Shot goes off is starting a new Steady Shot too early… this is bad



Although aimed shot does a good amount of damage, it resets the Auto Shot timer.

In the time you are casting ONE Aimed Shot you could have cast

1. Auto Shot
2. Steady Shot
3. Arcane Shot

And you’d be most of the way through casting another Steady and Auto Shot

Essentially, shooting *ONE* aimed shot costs about the same as shooting almost *FIVE* other shots .. though it only does the damage of about 2. It does however retain its value for when you are initiating combat with a misdirect or whatever people to with it in PVP.

Summary
At the end of it all, Shot Rotation comes down to 2 things

#1 – Choosing the Most valuable shot you currently have available
#2 – Minimizing time spent not ‘casting’

If you’ve got a slow attack speed – you will have enough time to safely fit a Second Special into every second or third set of shots… that is less efficient in terms of mana consumption but does a lot of damage sooner.



If you’ve got a fast attack speed you’re going to leave out … well … basically everything but Steady Shot



If you count the number of ‘Damage Pointers’ you’ll see that the same number of attacks happens in each so both wind up being perfectly valid choices for shot rotation … but it does depend greatly on the gear that you actually have.

Back to Damage Per Mana (Rotation Cost)

If we look at the two ‘good’ rotations we’ve got one final concern which is the final cost.

Rotation 1 (Slow) =
Steady / Arcane / Steady / Steady / Multi (or Arcane with Improved Arcane Shot)
Which in Mana Cost is =
110 + 230 + 110 + 110 + 275 = 835

Rotation 2 (Fast) =
Steady / Auto / Steady / Auto / Steady / Auto / Steady / Auto
110 + 110 + 110 + 110 = 440

In the end we have the Marksman’s (Slow) Shot Rotation hitting 9 times in about 10 seconds for the cost of 835 mana. In that same amount of time, the BM (fast rotation) hunter is hitting 9 times for the cost of 440 Mana. There are a number of talent choices that alter this Efficiency for example would reduce the cost of the slow rotation to about 750, many Survival Talents reduce the cost of this by some factor that I’ve not actually worked out (If I were to estimate it would reduce the cost by about 40% of your crit rating = 10% with 40% crit).
Rotation Cost ... possibly available in future.

Conclusions

In terms of Damage Per Mana - Steady Shot is the best one available to us. In terms of Damage per second Steady Shot comes out ahead when measuring arcane against the Global Cooldown is causes (though there is a case for Arcane shot if there is "free time" available for it on a slower weapon.)

It seems that the new ideal shot rotation would be based on an Auto Shot speed that allowed a hunter to do a constant rotaion of *JUST* auto and steady ... with minimal time in place to account for Lag and Autoshot Hidden cast time (0.5 s).

 

◊ Lactose

Sadly, I don't have the time to read the entire thread, but this is incorrect. Ammo DPS does not in any way affect Steady Shot's damage.

Edit: Also, I didn't see any mention of haste affecting cast times of shot, most notably Steady Shot and Aimed Shot.

Look, Lactose, we'd rather you didn't eradicate the whole human race.
- Sam & Max

 

lythrdskynrd

DOH! Did I leave that in? Someone else on another forum had already corrected me and I'd reworked the calculations based on it.

It seems I accidentally left mention of the arrows in the bit about describing the value of steady shot.

The Damage Per Mana is roughly correct for both Arcane Shot and Steady Shot

Haste effects on the cast time of Steady Shot do not effect Global Cooldown so do not actually improve SS

Aimed shot has been discounted because it resets autoshot timer and hasting it shouldn't effect that

 

shookers

True, however haste effects cause the half second lead team between the end of a steady shot cast and the time it takes an autoshot to fire to fall partially inside the GCD. This makes it possible to fit more auto/steadys into the same period of time, regardless of the GCD

 

Gearknight

This isn't strictly true, because there are 2 actions (that I can think of) which can take place while under GCD but not casting anything: Kill Command, and Autoshot.

 

lythrdskynrd

I've seen one person's discussion and testing of haste effects on Steady Shot here: http://forums.tkasomething.com/viewtopic.php?t=4540

However I don't think that it effects rotation and feel that it would be a needless complication.

Though if someone else can see a way that Haste changes things I'd be very interested in hearing it.
^^ EDIT - Gearknight - suppose Kill Command could be explicitly mentioned above (especially in the conclusions section) but it is in the diagrams.

 

Harwin

It absolutely affects rotation. My current steady-auto rotation wouldn't be possible without it.

My bow speed with passive haste effects is 1.88. If haste didn't affect steady shot the fastest I could cast would be:
0.0 Start Steady
1.5 finish Steady
2.0 finish Auto (0.5s delay after steady)

Because haste DOES affect steady it's something more like:
0.0 start steady
1.1 finish steady
1.88 finish auto (can't fire faster than autoshot timer)

That definitely improves my shot rotation. (In practice I end up with about a 1.92 shot rotation due to latency, but that's still faster than the 2.0 I'd have if steady shot didn't get affected by haste)


Another thing:
KC doesn't trigger global cooldown but Autoshot can't happen within 0.5s after a KC (it interrupts the 0.5s autoshot cast)
So the autoshot timer in your beastmaster example would be a bit longer (depending on latency, dead time, etc) when you use KC than when you don't.

 

◊ Lactose

Let's say a 1.8 speed weapon (after 15% quiver).
As you do it:
0.0 Steady Shot start
1.5 Steady Shot fire (0.5 Auto Shot cast start) + Global Cooldown cleared
2.0 Auto Shot fire (delayed 0.2 seconds -- 11% of Auto Shot time)

With haste applied to Steady Shot:
0.0 Steady Shot start
1.3 Steady Shot fire (0.5 Auto Shot cast start)
1.5 Global Cooldown cleared
1.8 Auto Shot fire (not delayed)

Of course, what you're missing the most, I feel, is something accounting for lag, which might be much more important for these timing things. Hastes, however, do affect things.

Look, Lactose, we'd rather you didn't eradicate the whole human race.
- Sam & Max

 

The Iron Colonel

While I'm not going to debate the mechanics issues that others have brought up, I'm kind of glad someone has put together graphical timelines. While I would say most if not all of the contributors to hunter threads on this board visualize it abstractly, trying to convey that abstract information to the hunter masses is a bit of a headache. Once the mechanics are ironed out, it would be very nice to put together a good set of graphical guides that would benefit the masses.

 

Rephaim

With the 0.5 second hidden timer to auto-shot, and kill command able to get in it's way, wouldn't it be optimal to always kill command after an auto-shot, or simply along with your steady shot?

This macro could do it...

/cast Kill Command
/stopcasting
/cast Steady Shot

 

The Iron Colonel

That's how I do my KC's - auto->kc->steady->auto. Just maintain that while managing cooldowns/trinkets/etc.

 

◊ Vontre

Commendable work here, I've never played a hunter past 20 and I can fully understand this concept thanks to the diagrams. Very nice. =)

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Safid

I really have to second how useful this is in explaining things to our hunters who don't theorycraft very well (or at all).

 

Proeliata

This isn't entirely accurate. Using both multishot and arcane shot whenever they're up, optimized for arcane shot, provides better DPS past a certain amount of armor on your target.

Not as hot for DPM, but it's not all just steady shot.

Generation 29:
The first time you see this, copy it into your signature on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
^^ don't ask me why I fell for this.

 

Rephaim

Serpent Sting can be counted just like Arcane Shot, except with a 15 second cooldown. If that is the case, Serpent sting does more damage per 1.5 seconds than Arcane shot, 440DPS, which is also higher than Steady Shot.

Of course that depends on having an open debuff slot, but for the time it takes to cast, Serpent Sting is better than Arcane Shot.

 

Harwin

I also like to consider it as an arcane with a 15 second cooldown, but it tends to do less damage than arcane shot.

It doesn't crit and receives no bonus from AP buffs. When I was explaining to one of our hunters why he shouldn't use serpent sting, the average damage he did from arcane was greater than the average damage from serpent sting, factoring everything in.

It might not be the case for BM hunters and the significantly lower AP but it's not great even then.

 

Huntemup

In addition to requiring a debuff slot, Serpant Sting cant crit, and thus won't proc KC or GFTT focus regen. KC and "free" GFTT attacks are often overlooked when calculating dps. Ignoring crit mechanics for a crit dependant class is not effective modeling. Mortal Shots + Slaying is not insignificant.

Priest - http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...her&n=Chastiti
Hunter - http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...her&n=Huntemup

Ikandi <Serious Casual> - http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...Ganis&n=Ikandi

 

Xantcha

How would Ping affect these shot rotations?

Our Hunters are pretty horrible, but we are on an Oceanic server with Oceanic players. At best we average at 300ms, and usually worse. Considering timing is so important to hunter DPS, would this adversely affect our hunters? Honestly I've never seen our hunters do over 700DPS, and we're up to Vashj.

 

Huntemup

Ping is just as important as it is for any other direct damage class. 700dps is low though.
Are you stacking raid groups so that they get some synergy? Are their spec's reasonable and gear comparable?

And most importantly are you sure you have pet data merged into each hunter's dps? Its amazing how many people dont, and think that their hunters suck.

Priest - http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...her&n=Chastiti
Hunter - http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...her&n=Huntemup

Ikandi <Serious Casual> - http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...Ganis&n=Ikandi

 

Grimlok

700 dps does indeed sound a little low, is pet data being merged with owners?

 

jarlelin

1. - Serpent definitely needs to be represented as an instant with gcd having a cooldown of 15s. However, it's inability to crit makes it vastly inferior to all the other shots at your disposal and shouold really only be used if you are on the move and cant perform any of the other shots.

2. - All shots should be represented as having "listed" cast time plus two times latency. Particularly instants should be modeled as having a cast time of two times latency. This makes it drastically more difficult to perform complex shot rotations in situations with high latency. (Unless you use a stopcasting macro of course, but this messes up my auto-shot-timer-bar, so screw that.)

3. - Something that you generally failed to mention in this otherwise impressive "guide" is the actual cast time of auto shot. The auto shot has a cooldown of [cast time - 0,5s] and an automatically initiated cast time of 0,5s. This is particularly noticeable in your diagram: "Firing anew Steady Shot too Soon", where your first auto shot should be extended to finish 0,5 seconds (plus latency) after that second steady shot finishes. And if you fire off that third steady shot as soon as you do there, and keep doing so, you will, in fact, not fire a single auto shot at all.

Edit: I feel your guide lacked a note on multishot after its intial mention in the intro. The differences between the "instant" cast time of arcane and the 0,5s cast time of multishot really is important to note when planning a difficult shot rotation.

PS. As for number #3 in my own post: I feel that this is the most important fact missed by some beginning hunters and should really be explained in some detail. And as I really liked your diagrams I feel they could properly be utilized to represent this problem.

 

broneal

how does intimidation fit into this rotation for a BM hunter? SS comes with a bonus dmg for dazed(or stunned cant remember) targets. just curious.

 

jarlelin

Intimidation is mostly a utility and will not be represented in a typical dps cycle as so. It does however suffer from the gcd, and will in most cases be substituting another shot such as SS (as BM) or arcane/multi.

It's long cooldown (1 minute) and the pet's annoying tendency to miss on any occasion the buff has been put on it, makes it less than ideal for anything other than an o-shit-button comparative to scatter shot.

I don't actually know if the extra daze-damage from SS triggers from intimidation stun, but general intuition and the fact that I haven't noticed anything to that effect earlier makes me fairly certain that it does not.

 

lythrdskynrd

Thanks for the feedback (everyone) this particular post seems to sum up the input and feedback

just to make sure I understand the 0.5 second autoshot cast time correctly ...

with a bow speed of 2.8 (ignoring haste) I'd get:
2.8 second countup -> 0.5 second cast -> lag -> next autoshot

it will take a few days till I'm able to require the guide with that ... but will take some of the advice I've read

 

Sarevok

actually not a bad post im rather suprised, however 2.44 seems a little fast more like 2.5 or 2.6 though it doesnt really all the much in the end, also, after multi technically it should only be a 1 second global since there is that "cast time" on it