Pretty basic one is:

You can get fancy with separate macros that include Kill Command in the cast sequence and switch to that when you crit but I've found that to be counter productive.

My guild just started in CoT/BT, and Ive just started to really look at haste gear. Currently I'm BM speced and us a serpent spine longbow (3.0 speed). I think I understand that it is too slow. Getting about 60 haste would put its auto speed at about 2.0, which I think is the best?

When using a 1-1 rotation as BM is it best to use arcane and multi whenever they are up, or just stick to one, or just steady?

Also I've heard about marksmanship being better at BT levels, but I don't quite see why. When your MM don't you use some kind of auto, special, special, auto rotation?

I have a question for the masses that relates to lag and it's effects on dps.

I play on a US server from Australia (I may as well be on the moon) and as such, have to deal with latency in the region of 600-700. I understand that most of the US people only have to deal with 100-200 at the worst.
My question is this: are there any others out there that play with this kind of lag and have you experimented with shot rotation macros etc? I am a box clicker and do well enough in the dps stakes but I feel I need to step it up a notch as we're hitting Gruul's now. My gear should be ok.

Switching servers is not currently an option for me either. I'd appreciate some feedback on the affects of that lag on dps and whether or not macros are remotely effective. Thanks in advance.

I play from Aus as well and I've found that macros are not effective at all, you need to be anticipating your autoshot and starting the steady shot a little bit before your client realises that autoshot has fired. The reason even just an auto/steady macro wont work is because it won't start the steady until after your client realises that auto has finished casting, which makes for alot of wasted time that could cause you to drag out your next auto.

The only macro I have successfully been able to use without clipping stuff is an arcane/kill command one.

Playing around with the spreadsheet, I keep coming to the result that the Barrel Blade is the best weapon in game for a BM hunter (without DST) and only beaten by Bristleblitz if I add a DST.

I plugged in my current weapon (Wolfslayer), Barrel Blade, Lady's bow, Bristleblitz and Blackbow, with a DST (I haven't got one yet but I figured I'd give the slow weapons a little help - no dice), and here are the numbers (normal steady rotation):

(in order, unhasted, QS, DST, DST+QS (as per the spreadsheet) and the DPS on top of the gear tab (I guess it's the average))


Bristleblitz Striker 823 946 993 1058 925
Barrel Blade 856 949 950 953 919
Black Bow 818 941 988 1052 919
Wolf 831 956 959 961 916
Serpent Spine 808 929 975 1039 908

And let's not mention that without the DST, the slower weapons drop ALOT, making the Barrel Blade the best ranged weapon in game (912 for the Rifle vs 886 for the Bristleblitz - the drop is massive)

Am I missing something?

The DPS is your overall dps. QS is the dps just while QS is up, not your overall DPS with QS spec'd. The overall dps value takes into consideration how often QS, DST, both at the same time, etc will be up given your gear, spec and shot rotation and computes a value. To compare them properly you will need to do a round with DST equipped and record overall DPS, then do a round with something like bloodlust broach equipped in its place and record the overall dps from the top of the gear sheet. What you arent able to see in your test is the overall dps of non-hasted + quick shots vs the same with a dst added in.

An important component in that comparrison is are you hit-capped with the various weapons. As a night elf they wont matter but for a troll/dwarf who is not hit-capped, selecting a weapon that they have the +5 weapon skill racial for is a significant increase by itself. Was 30-35 dps on the sheet I was using, would change based on gear and buffs. e.g. for a non-hit capped troll bristleblitz is better than barrel-blade even without a dst.

Alright, we did SSC last night. Had some issues with Hydross (we've not done him in a few weeks due to lack of resist tanks available) but the rest of the night went smooth. I was focusing extra extra hard to try and resolve my slacking dps and while I felt like I performed more top notch - the numbers don't show it.

Given my gear and spec, I feel like I should be averaging much higher dps and I am not sure why I'm not. For the first half of the night, I was grouped with holy priest and holy paladin, a MM hunter and a warlock. At the end of the night, we lost the priest and gained a feral druid, so that helped a bit.

I did well on Tidewalker, so so on Lurker, and horrible on Karathress. What's up with this? What can I do differently and why I am stuck on this mediocre dps plateau?

Wow Web Stats

I am trying to get upgrade on the helm. (I've been running Kara since April and not seen the damn thing drop, and we've not yet killed Vashje) I am getting Belt of the Black Eagle made up tonight. And once I get a new helm I am resocketing things to more +Agi.

Try using a 1:1.5 rotation for the slower weapons when you have no haste effects. It should up their DPS to be higher than the faster weapons. Whether you have the skill to pull this off and the mana to maintain it is for you to decide. The Wolfslayer and Barrel-Blade are just really well timed for BM Hunters.

If you are physical DPS heavy it is never too early to switch to Survival. Also, if you are getting that close to killing Gruul, try switching all 3 Hunters to BM. You'll probably see a decent increase. If you are all put in the same group 2/3 of your TSAs are completely worthless. Ferocious Inspiration stacks, so you would all be getting +9% DPS for yourselves and your pets - and helping the Feral out more than +125 AP. I'd try that approach before re-gearing for a Survival build.

This is a great idea. I really appreciate the advice and spreadsheets on these forums.

I don't think my DPS is poor for a Survival Hunter, but I'm no longer sure what I need to do to squeeze out a little more DPS. Since BC came out, I often feel like I'm missing some critical insights into the new Hunter class. My DPS time seems unusually low on many fights, and I've been trying to work on that.

I am in a casual raid alliance that is basically 1/6 SSC and 1/4 TK.

I have over 1000 Agility raid buffed, which should be enough to justify having a Survival Hunter in the raid.

I have been playing around with my talent build and +hit gear recently, and I think this build and gear is the best I can do with what I have. I'm welcome to suggestions, of course, and I have a fair amount of KZ/T4 gear in my bank that I am not currently using.

I try to do a 1:1.5 rotation, but I also use Rapid Fire and Abacus of Violent Odds whenever I have some time to stand in one place, so I'm doing a 1:1 rotation as much as I can. I usually have moderate lag (~300ms), which does keep me from doing a proper 1:1.5 rotation sometimes.

Armory Gear Page

The Armory
(currently still showing some consumables)

WoWHead Talent Build (0/24/37)

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Recent Logs

Magtheridon: Wow Web Stats
919 DPS, backup clicker, low DPS time for everyone here is probably due to an unusually long DPS halt at 32%.

Gruul: Wow Web Stats
1051 DPS, could really work on DPS time here. I often guess wrong on ground slam timing, so I may be overly cautious.

Lurker: Loading...
823 DPS... I feel very threat limited on the melee adds, even with a Misdirect. Otherwise, I feel I should be doing more DPS here, but I'm not sure what I'm missing about the fight. We have been killing the adds pretty fast, so I do spend some time standing around, waiting for Lurker to pop back up. And I tend to miss specials between Autoshots during Spouts, etc. We split up into 6 groups instead of 5 here for positioning, so I am missing some group buffs, but I don't think that's the proximate cause.

Magtheridon: Wow Web Stats
1119 DPS, backup clicker.

Gruul: Wow Web Stats
934 DPS, low DPS time as usual.

Lurker: Loading...
824 DPS. Better shot rotation this week than the next week (above). But I still feel like I'm doing less DPS than I should.

Void Reaver: Wow Web Stats
715 DPS. Maybe not the best boss for comparing DPS... Also, Void Reaver is new to us. I think this was our second kill.

Magtheridon: Wow Web Stats
959 DPS, full-time clicker.

Edit: Updated links since some logs were merged, etc.

Hey my character is Tenrosei on Maelstrom The Armory
I am in a casual raiding guild and I have a lot of casters and one other hunter who is bm in my raiding group (Kara). I was wondering if I should switch specs to bm to increase the raid's total dps or stay marksman or even go survival(even though there is no real melee dps). In general I just need some help on my raiding spec. Any help would be greatly appriciated, Thanks in advance.

I'm looking into haste gear for my hunter, and I was wondering, does the proc from DST lower both the cast time of steady and the gcd? If it does, it sounds like it wont mess up a rotation at all, and mostly independent from other haste gear considerations.

I cant seem to get the WWS to open but your toon looks good. Might be able to do a bit of re-gemming if you have another ring sitting around like recalcitrant or truestrike.

If you dont run a lot of physical there is no reason for you to be marks or survival. The additional utility you bring to a caster group might allow you access to a shadow priest. With out knowing how many hunters you normally run with its hard to say whats best. If you run with 3 hunters then you are going to get some synergy probably from some combination of druid/sham/shadow priest. If you are a lone hunter being BM will help your raid leader out because you pretty much benefit whatever group he puts you in short of a tank/healer group. You will also do a noticeable amount more personal DPS as long as you can keep your pet up and running. Hope that helps with your spec.

In regards to your gear its always hard to say "go get this or go get that." Your hit is a low so i would consider looking at item alternatives or maybe get some +hit or +agi/hit gems to fill in the gap there. Also i would plug your char into a spread sheet and see how your enchants/gems could be changed for the better. If i were you i would change my meta and my axe enchant but other than that it looks like you have a good start.

Bloodlust/Heroism does - but that's it for stuff that's available to players. There's lots of mob-only stuff that reduces GCD.

According to the sticky, Bloodlust/Heroism does not affect the global cooldown.

If DST doesn't speed up the global cooldown why is it so good. If my autoshot speed is allready close to 2.0 wont a DST proc have no effect because I still have to wait for GCD and the .5 auto time?

Thanks a ton

When did that change?

a quick question, i respected to survival to cover my guild needs. greedy rogues that is :p

but i'm feeling like i'm not doing the best rotation.
tonight in ssc :

Zamolxes - WWS

armory : The Armory

i use steady/as rotation, weaving manually arcane and ms rank 1 when posible. (unfortunatley some time i forget about ms)
for now, i ignore kc, to try to get my rotation sorted.

i do anything wrong or is normal to get a bm like strat rotation in the end ?
there is anything to improve (never saw fiend boots, or curator ring drops, so curently i work to get pvp boots, and hydross ring) ? with consumables and raid buffs i got ~900 agi.
thank you

(pet is fresh tamed, only rank 3 of happiness atm, i would like to fully "buff" the raid, so -210 ap is a good thing to. i hope )

Thought this was an appropriate post for this thread ..

I borrowed these macros from a variety of sources and adjusted some of them to fit my needs. Of the countless macros I ran across on different websites and forums, these are the ones I found most useful.

Casts Misdirection on your focus if it is friendly, else casts Misdirection on your target if it is friendly, else casts Misdirection on your pet.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus,help] Misdirection; [help] Misdirection; [target=pet,exists] Misdirection

Simultaneously casts Bestial Wrath and Intimidation.

#showtooltip Intimidation
/cast Bestial Wrath
/stopcasting
/cast Intimidation
/startattack

Alternates Auto shot and Steady Shot while casting Kill Command when available. Resets if you change targets or leave combat.

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill Command
/castsequence reset=2/target/combat Auto Shot, Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Sends pet to attack your current target if it has no target. If it has a target, calls it back.

/petattack [target=pettarget,noexists]
/petfollow [target=pettarget,exists]

Hunter's Mark if target is enemy. Set focus if target is friendly.

#showtooltip Hunter's Mark
/cast [harm] Hunter's Mark
/focus [help]

If your pet is dead, casts Revive Pet. If you have no pet, casts Call Pet. Otherwise, casts Mend Pet. CTRL+click casts Revive Pet regardless.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=pet, dead] Revive Pet; [modifier:ctrl] Revive Pet; [nopet] Call Pet; Mend Pet

Attack focus's target. If there is no focus or the focus has no target, attack the nearest enemy. Simultaneously casts Bestial Wrath, pet attack, Hunter's Mark, and Auto Shot.

#showtooltip Auto Shot
/assist [target=focus,help, exists]
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/stopmacro [noharm]
/cast Bestial Wrath
/petattack
/cast Hunter's Mark
/startattack

Replaces default attack command. Uses /startattack, which does not toggle (i.e. you won't stop attacking if you hit it more than once). Also casts Raptor Strike or Mongoose Bite whenever they are available and hides error message if they are not.

#showtooltip attack
/cast Raptor Strike
/cast Mongoose Bite
/startattack
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Pull macro. Casts Arcane Shot Rank 1 or Distracting Shot if you hold down ALT.

#showtooltip
/cast [nomodifier] Arcane Shot(Rank 1)
/cast [modifier:alt] Distracting Shot

If you refresh a hunters mark rather than waiting for it to fall off and doing a new one, does it keep the 40 stack or do you alwauys have to redo it?

It didn't exactly change, there was no real evidence either way, however, someone (can't recall at the moment) managed to find a hook function that would return the cooldown that the UI shows on skills once used. So using this along with heroism+bloodlust would basically spam 1.5, showing that the UI, at least, showed the GCD staying static.

(Sorry for the off-topic discussion here, but yeah.)