Enova

Depending on the number and quality of your physical dps team, you can sacrifice some EW power and get personal oriented dps stats like raw AP and crit, over agility, and still output some serious numbers as survival.

And, generally speaking a properly geared SV hunter shouldn't be that far behind a BM hunter in terms of personal dps either. You're still behind, but the gap is not quite as big as it seems. You NEED TO have at least 2/3 Expose Weakness if you pick up Survival as your raid spec, but unless your crit is around 50% ish raid buffed, I'd personally recommend getting all 3 points in it.

 

grymwish

This post could go under either Macro or Hunter questions, sorry.

Right now, Im using a macro that casts Hunter's Mark and sends the pet in to attack with one click.
/cast Hunter's Mark
/petattack

Id like to modify the macro to also include:
1. Cast Hunters Mark and put the pet on passive (/petpassive) when I hold the SHIFT key.
2. NOT cast Hunter's Mark and put the pet on passive (/petpassive) when I hold the CTRL key.

I have tried using modifier command macros that have worked in other macros that I use on a regular basis, but doesnt work correctly when I use any modifier with pet commands. Thanks in advance.

 

Thorlin

I have been using Cheeky's sheet religiously and find it a great help.

One question I do have is regarding HASTE. I run a 0/31/30 spec for Raids and am near or on top of my guilds damage/dps charts, and right now I am in T5 equivalent gear :-) .

How much haste is good? Is it viable to stack haste on Marks or Hybrid hunts just like Beasts?

Would it be beneficial for Marks or Hybrids like myself to stack haste and approach a closer to 1:1 rotation? ie like enough haste to get a 1.50 weapon speed or something crazy like that?

From playing with the sheet it looks like that certain amounts of haste is more beneficial than others, ie almost like plateaus. But I could be off base.

 

ohrion

/cast [nomodifier] Hunter's Mark
/cast [modifier:shift] Hunter's Mark
/petattack [nomodifier]
/petpassive [modifier:shift/ctrl]

that should work.

 

Reinforce

Between Hourglass of the Unraveller, Dragonspine Trophy and Bloodlust Brooch, which two should I choose as a BM Hunter?

And which two if the Hourglass is replaced by Tsunami Talisman?


I'm also wondering if Pauldrons of Primal Fury (8agi, 8crit) is better then Rift Stalker Mantle.

 

Felixalias

Bloodlust + Dragonspine.

I believe the Pauldrons are better without the T5 set bonuses.

I can't answer for the Tsunami Talisman, I've been wondering that myself.

 

Meanmoocow

I've been reading over this thread and i didn't see a comparison between the how Haste or armor items like those in Zul'Amen and ignore armor, found on some badge and pvp gear, affect overall dps.

Which gear set should I concentrate on more as a pre- SSC raiding hunter?

The World of Warcraft Armory

This is my armory page.

My spec is currently pvp by any suggestion there would be helpful as well.

 

Reinforce

Thanks Felixalias. I've been wondering about it because Cheeky's spreadsheet said my dps is higher, but I don't know which info is correct and which not, since according to the spreadsheet, Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix seems to be also better then Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle, which I know is not true. (and an older version of his spreadsheet showed me different stats)

 

Skim

I noticed that too. Within Cheeky's Spreadsheet, the WSR used to give more dps than Phoenix Bow. Now it suggests otherwise. I recently picked up the Sunfury Bow and put a crap +7 dmg scope on it and have been playing around with it. I cant really notice a huge difference either way.



My question is this:

When is a good time to start to break up my Ebon Netherscale set? What typically are the next logical upgrades for the Chest, belt, and bracers?

My Armory Profile:
The World of Warcraft Armory

I have enough badges to get new xbow and have a +28 crit scope ready to go on it. I have 2 T5 (gloves, pants), I have [Shoulders of Lightning Reflexes] , I have more than enough hit to play around with(+149, but also have +25 kara ring and new bow is +15 on top of that). However, I cant seem to find a good replacement for this Ebon set. The new 100 badge chest is nice [Scaled Drakeskin Chestguard] (60 badges short after i buy xbow) as well as [Ranger-General's Chestguard] off of Hydross, but the belt and bracers spots elude me. Im guessing [Belt of the Black Eagle] + [True-Aim Stalker Bands]? My guild is 5/6 in SSC and 2/4 in TK. Any additional gear advice is appreciated.

Thanks

 

Nidhighe

Thanks for all the insight and information you toss out here for the community.

I tried out the macro that you suggest, and noticed that I clip alot of shots with it. My hunter is only 66 at the moment, but I went out and messed around at Dr. Boom a little bit to see what worked best. I am using a 2.8 speed bow at the moment. I use my n52 gamepad to spam the macro every tenth of a second.

Any suggestions as to how I may be messing up with this macro would be greatly appreciated.

 

Pixen

Hey, quick questions. Just dinged 68 last night, currently using the [Legion Blunderbuss] but switching to the [Lohn'goron, Bow of the Torn-heart] as soon as I can finish that quest chain. This will drop my shot time from 2.2s to 1.8s. I've been manually weaving my shots to this point, but I don't think that'll be feasible after I upgrade due to a ping that hovers between 2-300ms.

I guess I have two questions. One, is it worth speccing out of Imp. AoTH until I pick up a slower weapon? Procs will put me at 1.57s, which will mean with anything over 70ms lag I'll be pretty much guaranteed to clip shots. The second question is, should I take Rapid Fire out of my BW macro? Because that would put me at 1.3s shots, which I can't imagine would be very good for me.

 

doopz211

Hello. I'm a semi-experienced BM hunter raiding on Arygos, we have completed BT/Hyjal and plan to enter Sunwell on the patch day (which happens to be today)

I had an idea pop into my head a few hours ago and wanted to share it with all of you, and get some answers as well

The idea was to stack haste as much as humanly possible, both passive haste and " On Use " haste (such as the trinket Abacus of Violent Odds and haste potions) My first roadblock was that lowering my steady shot under 1.6 would prove promlematic, and i'd most likely clip.

Then, I thought if I used an extremely quick bow, something in the low 2.4ish speed, stacked haste, used haste potions in place of mana potions, popped all cooldowns related to haste as soon as they were up, and stayed in a shamans group for bloodlust, could I surpass or meet the dps of a general BM shot rotation for a medium amount of time? Also, keep in mind, the ranged weapon I would be using would be of bt/sunwell equivalence.

I'd also think of putting crit gems in place of everything else to ensure maximum burst dps while under these insane haste situations. (would like suggestions here also) I'm sorry for not being very specific in the gear I'd be using, for I havent done my research to say exactly what I would equip for this.

Finally, If you have suggestions about a few things I could change with my idea that would prove to be helpful, I'd be grateful to hear them.

 

Aragda

I assume that you mean just by using instant shots and autoshot durring those times of extreme haste.

The problem you will run into is the minimum attack speed. You'll lower your autoshot to the minimum and the rest of the haste will be wasted. You'd have to figure out how much haste it took to get down to that minimum and only use that much haste at a time.

As for being able to produce the same dps as a more "normal" BM hunter by using this type of stacking, i can see it being possible. HOWEVER, unless you decked out in sunwell haste gear, you would be sacrificing a good ammount of other stats, lowering your DPS durring the times you were not uber-hasted. Your dps would likely fluxuate from somewhere arround "insane" durring those massive haste trips, then down to "mediocre" between cooldowns. It might ballance out to be equal overall, but you would run into your second problem at that point: MANA! Once you obtain enough haste, your auto shot becomes too fast to weave steadys in without massive cliping. You'd be reliant on arcane and multi as specials and if you were using haste potions, you'd be out of mana in no time.

I wouldnt recomend stacking any more haste than is necessary to maximize the efficiency of whichever rotation (1:1/2:3) is highest damage for your weapon speed.

(Also, finding a ranged weapon that fast that isnt a tanking weapon is kinda hard )

 

Teldra

Is there any kind of table that someone has already done that shows the best rotations at various weapon speeds? I'm using the Sunfury bow that's normally hasted to 2.10, but also have quick shots, rapidfire and now the DST. At one point in the raid last night I looked and my speed was down to 1.08 but I'm not sure what buffs were running at the time. It'd be great to know that I should strive for a certain rotation either all the time, or switch when my haste gets the speed below a certain point.

 

Reebz

Personally, I disagree.

I would, and do, choose Bloodlust + Hourglass.

Hourglass procs AP which benefits both you and your pet, regularly.

As most hunters who have the selection of Dragonspine or Tsunami Talisman, your crit level should be high enough to keep focus coming thick and fast with GFTT, so extra haste doesn't directly correlate with extra pet dps, whereas Hourglass does.

I personally always have had the best results with Hourglass.


It is true if you're using a 3:2 rotation, allowing BM hunters to use higher damage weapons with an extra sacrifice of mana.

I would recommend using a 3:2 macro with /castrandom as that will turn into a 1:1 ratio with sufficient haste.

I've never had any issues and I'm using Sunfury with a mixture of Kara/Badge/MercGlad gear and regularly crack 1,200 DPS on tank and spank fights.

 

Speech

[quote=I would recommend using a 3:2 macro with /castrandom as that will turn into a 1:1 ratio with sufficient haste.[/QUOTE]

What does your macro look like? I stopped using :

#showtooltip
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast !Auto shot
/cast Steady Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1

because it would not go to 1:1 when under BL / Rapid and just was lower dps overall during those times.

 

Reebz

Enjoy.

I've had zero issues with this macro and have pushed 1,295 dps with this in my current gear (Kara/Badge/MercGlad, feel free to armory me).

I've found it to scale perfectly with haste (even with Rapid Fire, iAotH and Heroism all at once).

I've experimented with about 6 macros now, but this is the one I keep coming back to. Just can't beat it for DPS. Its rough on the mana usage though, be prepared to chug pots.

Also, I have had no issues with clipping/KC lockups, so can't help if you have those unfortunate problems.

I've attempted to use the "split" macro as per BigRedKitty forums, but that, honestly, dropped me down by a shocking 200dps (can show WWS from ZA if anyone is sceptical). This may be due to my lag issues (Australian player), I'm quite aware of this and for that reason I am stacking armor pen instead of haste.

 

Fleabite

I'll make this quick as I'm sure its been asked alot of times before (alternatively if someone wishes to take pity and quickly PM the answer, that would be great).

I have just switched to a WS (previosly ravager) .. Current macro is;
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast !Auto shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill command
/cast Steady shot
/script UI ErrorsFrame:Clear()

1) Is there a 'best' place to insert the lightning breath command? (also am i right in that i take LB off autocast?)
2) Should I teach said pet Bite? (raid buffed I will have around 35-36% crit)
3) Can anyone reccomend a add-on that will get rid of all the "xxx is not ready" yet errors I get due to macro spam.

Much appreciated,

 

◊ Sarutobi

1) Put it right below the Steady Shot cast. I'd recommend moving Kill Command there as well. And yes, you are correct in turning LB off auto-cast.
2) Training bite is a marginal DPS increase. I typically leave it out of the build in favor of survivability talents (resistance/stam).
3) Adding /script UIErrorsFrame:Hide() to the beginning of your macro and changing the last line to /script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();UIErrorsFrame:Show() will reduce the spam a bit, but won't completely eliminate it. I have yet to find anything that will completely remove the spam with LB i nthe macro.

 

Moobinator

Does anyone know the command to turn off, or a way to remove the flapping and screech sound effect on my system so I don't have to listen to it all night?

 

Glaurong

Would someone mind posting or PMing me a zipped up 2.4 log of you shooting something? Want to update my parser and don't have any handy.

Log Parser for BM Hunters (Right click, save as) - Updated 10/11/2007

 

Teldra

Does anyone use a programmable game pad, like the N52 or Saitek Cyborg? I'm wondering if it would be better to write the macro in-game, keybind it, and use the game pad to repeat that one button, or to use the game pad macro feature to spam the string of text.

 

Vesanta

Lately I've been trying to convince my raid leader that the hunters in our raids could improve their DPS with better group synergy. We've cleared BT a handful of times with the setup we have now, but I feel some of our potential is being wasted. Usually our raid setup is as follows:

Group 1:

Prot Warrior x2
Prot Paladin
Resto Shaman
Resto Druid

Group 2:

Feral Druid
Fury Warrior
Rogue
BM Hunter
Enh Shammy

Group 3:

Shadow Priest
Mage x 2
BM Hunter
SV Hunter

Group 4:

Warlock x3
Elemental Shaman
Mage

Group 5:

Holy Priest x 2
Resto Shaman
Holy Paladin
Resto Druid/Holy Paladin/Holy Priest

The night to night group composition varies based on attendance of course. We run with more than 2 resto shaman sometimes, so either group 3 or group 4 will get the extra shaman (sometimes both). Recently we've recruited 2 rogues and I feel we could change up the composition a bit so that the hunters could all be placed in a group with the feral and the SPriest be moved to the healer group. The issue here, as they see it, is whether or not the feral would be more beneficial in the melee group or with us hunters. I'm not really sure how to explain that it is or if it is.

I know that when I'm the lucky hunter in the melee group I can pretty consistently get 1st to 5th in damage done, even with gear thats slightly lagging behind, but I have a feeling the only reason I'm put there in the first place is to buff the rest of the group with FI. Before I joined up, all of the hunters were either MM or SV and because of agro problems, poor latency or FPS, and inefficient shot rotations, never really did so well in raids. I believe the RL's opinion of hunters in general is skewed because of this, and since he handles absolutely everything guild and raid related, he is often preoccupied. I'm not sure he has a lot of time to be spending analyzing whether or not the class has improved over the last several months.

So, more to the point, is LotP more beneficial to the hunters in this raid set up? If so, how should I explain this to him?

Apologies for the drawn out post, I just wanted to be thorough in my explanation of our situation. Also here is a wws for a recent BT clear through Shaz: Wow Web Stats

Thanks in advance.

 

Ato

So how do you Hunters claiming that you use the 3:2 rotation actually maintain this?

I go OOM before the cd on my pot is up.

Example. I begin shooting at Dr Boom with 3:2 rotation. Take first mana pot about once I've used about 2k of my total mana. That brings me back up to approx full mana again, and begins the potion cooldown timer. By the time I go OOM, my pot cd still has about 30-40 seconds left on it.

I dont see how it is possible to use a 3:2 rotation in practice; no mana and all I'll be doing is Autoshotting.

It's all fun & games till someone gets a [Hydrocane] in the eye!

 

Ruind

You should be using fel mana potions(3200 vs who knows), mageblood elixirs, and mana oil, as well as switching to viper to bridge the gap. Also in a raidng environment I would imagine you would have other outside resources such as mana spring/tide, or a shadow priest. It is a mana intensive shot rotation as discussed earlier in this thread, you may even have to juggle between a 1:1 and a 3:2 if you cant keep your mana up.