Gjorn

Hiya folks!

I have two short questions. The first is in regards to cast bars. I currently use Karthu's Hunter Timetrs for my autoshot cast bars, and various timers. I think it works ok, but still feel it's a bit lacking. Is there some other alternative that is more popular and superior in some way?

The second is in regards to gear. With my current gear I feel the best way to get to the hit cap without gimping other stats, by going back to the felstalker set for instance, would be to switch from pure ap and agi gems to agi and + hit gems. Is that a sound assumption?

The Armory

 

Elbarth

I've read around and decided to to post in this thread (thanks for making it, i've been registered a while but never bothered to post :P) as i'm unsure about certain things about my shot rotation, spec, and my pet.

I understand some of my gear is lacking (i'm not a hardcore raider at all because of having no past pre-tbc, only starting last November) so I was a bit behind starting the leveling to 70 and had a hard time getting into a decent guild. As you can see on my armory i'm BM spec and use the Sunfury bow (bringing my speed to 2.1) and my pet is a cat (King B w/ Cobra Reflexes to be exact, always use him soloing and raiding). In Karazhan I currently get 1-2 on DPS, with some nights being 1-2% above the rogue (who usually places with me) and some nights being a bit lower than him (it changes throughout Kara, we usually end roughly tied). Because of that, it seems like my DPS is fine, but I honestly don't understand what i'm doing (to the point that I feel comfortable). We're currently sitting in Kara until we get a few more recruits/get the ability of more members to be on at once so we can try Gruuls.

One thing i'm confused about is my shot rotation. The big thing is the "hidden 0.5 autoshot cast". Does that cast take place at the end of my cast time (meaning I have 0.1 sec for human error with my steady timing), or am I thinking wrong? I'm currently experimenting with my shot rotation because of bringing that up so i'm no longer putting in arcane and various shots (mainly steady now) because of clipping/GCD/mana problems. If I am correct, wouldn't that mean that when Imp AotH procs that my speed would be too fast and i'd start clipping autoshots if I use steady, or does the cast speed up as well? For all I know i'm talking a load of crap and i'm even more confused than I think :P I know some other parts of my spec should be changed, possibly getting a point into imp revive pet (for when he dies, of course) but i'm not sure what things to switch around. With my current spec my pet has enough HP/Armor to help me kill a lot of junk easily, so I don't want him too squishy!

My pet has the following skills on his taskbar: Claw, Growl, Prowl, Dash
I have prowl autocast off as when its on he does it every minute and falls behind and its a real pain, and I don't use it too much in PvE at all. In PVP its semi-useful but it isn't anything amazing (useful for sneaking in WSG to check on the horde defense). I'm wondering if I should give him bite to replace prowl (I have all the focus talents) to improve his DPS, or just switch pets. I've heard that ravagers do a tiny bit more damage, but I honestly don't think it'd be worth it till the level 69-70 ones in Netherstorm are tameable. I'm not too sure about scorpids as well as it seems confusing and that they may be bugfixed and it would no longer work as well as it does now.

If some of this stuff was already mentioned in the thread, please point it out to be (and where if you don't mind), as a lot of it was personalized to various people and I didn't understand some of it.

Thanks in Advance!

edit: I just downloaded Karthu's timers, which is the one the poster above uses as well. I do have to admit i'm a clicker, as sad and horrible as it is. I'm currently looking for a new keyboard/mouse since this mouse doesn't want to let keys to bind to it (no idea why) and the keyboard has troubles so I don't want to rely on it too much (and i've never learned a lot about various macros and keybinds).

 

Mikari

Would anyone mind commenting on my WWS's posted on page 1? I'm always trying to improve how I play my hunter, so comments would be really appreciated.

Thanks

 

Rakan

I hear Quartz is a good one for timing shots, but I have yet to use it.

I think it is a decent assumption, but do not underestimate the value of the 4 piece bonus from Beastlord. If you check the WWS I have posted and look at Canislupus you can see he leads the raids quite a bit, and he just raves about that armor reduction. Maybe the Gloves of Quickening off of Maiden would be a good change for you, as I believe they have +hit on them, along with the boots from chess event. Other than that I cant help you much because I focus more on the SV side of huntering.

 

Cheeky

I'll take a look. My guild has only just started learning Morogrim, so I don't have a great frame of reference for the fight, but I'm going to assume you just DPS Morogrim himself, and leave the adds to the Mages/Warlcoks.

I can see you are BM spec's and your Paladins love you. One thing that is very troubling is that there are 234 Steady Shots but just 205 Auto Shots. I think you are hitting your Steady too soon and clobbering more than 10% of your Auto Shots. This is going to lower both your DPS and your mana efficiency.

(I cannot access Armory from work, so I can verify if the following was totally just bad luck) It also seems like your crit rate is a bit low for T5 content. You should be able to be over 25% raid buffed pretty easily for that gearing level.

Your pet choice and usage is fine. A Scorpid might add 100-150 more DPS in that fight since the Poison stack can be trinketed up and maintained throughout the encounter, but I'm not sure if that is an option for you or not.

Honestly, I think your pretty close to your potential. Remove the clobbered Auto Shots, get some more crit gear (or a Feral Druid) and maybe think about a Scorpid. Other than that you are not an anchor for your guild, but an asset right now.

Cheeky of Havoc

 

Gjorn

Thanks.

I'll give Quartz a go. Seems like people in the AddOn forum like it.

As for the gloves, I think the gem's are a better immediate alternative, since they are guranteed to be easily obtainable, while I might have to wait a while for the gloves, if I ever get them.

I might go back to my trusty old Mag'hari leggings though. Mag'hari Huntsman's Leggings - Items - World of Warcraft. They have proved to be a surprisingly excellent quest reward.

I'll also give the Beast Lord set a second chance, at the next opportunity.

 

Rakan

judging by your dps and stats, a little bit more crit wouldnt hurt, but other than that you are beyond my limited skills.

 

Kaber

You dont see the same DPS on every boss. For Mag I can hit well over 1000, while for Hydross I'm down in the 800 Range, and Void Reaver I'm in the 700's. WWS isn't perfect, nor is every boss fight. Their are tons of factors that go into how much you can DPS, how much damage you are actually doing, etc. Just because your shots are doing comparable damage does not mean anything. I can pick up a 3.0s bow and do the same damage per shot as a MM with a 2.4s bow, but that does not mean we would do the same DPS.

WWS counts downtime in DPS only if you do nothing for more than 5s at a time if I recall correctly. What happens if I run for 4 seconds to avoid an arcane ball and start DPSing again? Or what if I toss out arcane shots as I'm running? I lost a lot of DPS as I was moving, but WWS doesn't count it that way. The place to judge your DPS is on tank'n'spanks, and only if it is the same boss. You can't compare DPS from mag for yourself to Gruul for someone else, for example, because there are a lot of factors that go into it.

Don't try and compare yourself to a hunter that out gears you and has a lot more raiding experience, and especially don't try and draw comparisons on fights that are very bad for judging hunter DPS.

 

Rakan

1. I can pick up a 3.0s bow and do the same damage per shot as a MM with a 2.4s bow, but that does not mean we would do the same DPS. - Elaborate pls. I understand AP differences and damage range differences on this are the main factors. What else?

2. What you said on WWS is absolutly correct.

3. Don't try and compare yourself to a hunter that out gears you and has a lot more raiding experience - If we dont compare outselves to our betters, how are we supposed to improve with no marker? Also, as a SV hunter for that fight his gear would be different than his other raiding gear, and besides, how do you know what gear he had on for it? I thought this was the place we avoided assumptions?

 

Mikari

Yeah I realise I screwed up on the shot rotation on Morogrim, I'm usually a lot better. The paladin's don't really love me, I just nag a lot to get pet buffs and judgement of wisdom :p

My unbuffed stats are 1982 RAP (with hawk), 24% crit and 145 hit rating. Group buffs were basically just another BM hunter in my group, occasionally I'll get a feral druid in my group and very rarely a shadow priest, but otherwise the hunters kinda get put wherever.

I know a scorpid would be a fair bit more dps, but the way poison works right now just seems unintended and I'd rather not go through the hassle of taming one and getting it's loyalty up for it to be nerfed and become worthless.

 

xiel

I have a question about Scorpid Poison stacking. A few weeks ago I broke down and got a scorpion pet (thanks to the information I found here), and began to use it in raids. Eventually another hunter got a scorpid as well and on our last Kael'Thas attempts I noticed on the trash that there was only 1 stack of poison being applied to mobs (at a much faster rate). We were both using rank 4 poison so I thought "ok that's weird that it stacks but w/e". So I trained rank 5 before the next pull to see what happened. After that 2 stacks began to appear but my combat log (simplecombatlog addon) began to show both stacks ticking for my damage. Now I was really confused. But I think the combat log issue was fixed, we both hadn't named our pets so my combat log was probably assuming both pets were mine. But I didn't get a chance to test it out because I had to switch characters.

But the main question I have is if there can only be 1 rank 4 poison on a mob at a time? If so, then how is the damage calculated? Or was this just another naming issue?

 

Kaber

That was in response to the guy who said there shouldnt be any DPS difference. The simple fact is every single boss is different, and allows for different DPS numbers from different classes. But I will elaborate:

1. Damage per shot and damage per second are very different. If I'm firing off a 500 damage shot every 3 seconds while someone else is firing the same 500 damage shot every 2.4 seconds, his DPS will be higher. What you may not be seeing is a) his crit rate may be much higher, b) his pet may be doing a lot more damage, or c) he is firing more shots in the same period of time.

2....

3. Comparing yourself to hunters at your own level is going to be a lot more helpful and meaningful than comparing yourself to a hunter that seriously outgears yourself. You can certainly learn something by looking over Howitzer's WWS, but saying you do the same damage per shot and thus should do the same damage per second is a very slippery slope. I would recommend finding as many WWS of good survival hunters as you can at your own progression level and look them over to see if you actually have a problem. To be quite honest, you might be seeing an issue right now where there is none. For all you know you could be one of the better performing Survival hunters for your gear/progression level.

Now, I would go log a standard tank'n'spank like Gruul or Mag. If your personal DPS is under around 750-800 as a survival spec, I would say there's an issue. 690 DPS as survival on void reaver is not bad for a ranged class that has to constantly run around avoiding large exploding objects.


Edit: If you want a point of reference, here is my first run as a Survival hunter (think i had 850ish Agi fully buffed) on Mag. I was on cube duty, but fortunately since I'm out of combat for longer periods WWS is pretty accurate:
Wow Web Stats

I logged out in PvP gear, so I wouldnt use armory to look at my gear until tomorrow.

 

Zogeth

What I am confused with, is why do you have such different DPS, if your shot ratio, average shot damage and hit rating seem very similar?

 

Glaurong

Each rank of the poison rolls its own stack like the old ignite. Each application (from any scorpid) of the same rank will refresh the stack.

Time between shots or rate of fire (whichever you want to call it). This is what makes Don Santos' and Wolfslayer so good.

This is one of the largest factors in determining your potential DPS. As a BM you need to tune your weapon speed and haste to minimize your time between shots with a 1:1 rotation. As a MM or SV you need to tune your rotation as close to 1:1.5 as possible.

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

 

Rakan

Wow Web Stats
(mag trys)

Wow Web Stats (void reaver death)

Wow Web Stats (our last recorded Gruul kill.)

I guess this is not so much for everybody to check out, but more for Kaber. I think the lowest dps I averaged was 689 on VR. So still a bit low maybe. I dunno.

 

Glaurong

I don't see any glaring problems with your WWS, the ones Cheeky mentioned are easily fixed. If you continue to have problems clobbering shots I'd say try out a macro. The popular opinion here is that is cheapens the experience but I'm no elitist jerk =P I use what works and what makes my life easier.

Regarding the scorpid: Get one.

This is the single biggest thing you could do to boost your dps on a lot of fights, not running one when it could net you 100-200 more dps is really just lazy. I fought against getting one for a while but eventually I just realized my arguments were cover for laziness.

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

 

Glaurong

In my opinion, at your level of gearing, the DPS gain by going BM will outweigh the added DPS you are bringing to the raid as SV. It looks like most of your top damage dealers are casters, you seem to be running with about 5 physical damage dealers, most of which aren't even close to 1k dps.

I'm at a similar gear level as you and this is a WWS from last nights Gruul kill

Wow Web Stats

It was far from an optimal performance for me, my pet got stuck in the stupid gate (so I had to go dismiss him and recall after I opened with MD) and I was targeted by cave ins constantly (I had 7 start right on my head). Given all of that I still pulled down 1k dps as BM. I should be able to push 1200 next time if I don't screw up.

Given your raid makeup/performance and gearing I really doubt EW is adding 300+ raid dps.

Last but not least: socket some hit gems

You are sitting at 79 hit rating and have all kinds of crazy gem combinations to get socket bonuses you don't need!

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

 

Rakan

in relation to my gem selections - I didnt put those gems in each one for the set bonus. I put them in for the meta gem bonus, which is 12 agi and 3% crit dmg, but needs 2 reds, 2 yellows, and 2 blues to get it to work. I just put them in places where I could take advantage of some free stat points. For a SV hunter and the amount that I crit, that 3% (which is doubled like the slaying talents) adds up to a ton of damage. So I took the loss on the extra agility.

edit: chess event boots will fix my +hit issue.

 

Jarynn

Thanks for the thread.

I'm curious on a general look at my gear/setup and welcome to any suggestions. I'm slightly tweaked to be better in PVP, but am basically 41/20/0 BM raid spec'd.

The Armory

I did 790 dps in the entire first 1/2 of Kara last night (including trash, upto Curator, including Nightbane) I did 564 and my pet did 220dps. (No WWS logs to analyze)

I'm using a cat with claw only, and of course avoidance 2 and that fast attack talent (keep forgetting the name).

I also have glove/shoulders/helm of T4 but while it gives me more mana, it's less DPS stats than what I have on armory atm. I had a shadowpriest the entire night for Kara (but not Gruuls).

Also, in Gruul's last night (cleared) I'm pretty consistently lower dps/damage meter rank there than Kara. I think it's a system performance / video lag issue partially, as well as having better competition.. do BM hunters have any tips on how to generate more damage on these fights? Especially Gruul? I'm pretty consistently out dps'd by a Marks hunter on both Gruul and Maulgar. (Huntress, in my guild)

Lastly, I just got the Merciless crossbow, and I noticed a nice jump in dps over my Valanos (never got a ranged kara drop), but I'm still concerned about it's slow speed. Considering my guild gives combat rogues and fury warriors first priority on the DST (*sigh*) what do you all think about the Thundering Skyfire Diamond?

Also, if anyone has a good list of what fights a scorpid is better dps than a cat, and how to use it properly, I'd love to see that.

 

Kaber

First to Rakan: your DPS on mag is almost identicle to my own. I don't see any real issues with your rotations or DPS. If you saw in the survival thread where I posted the comparison of BM to Survival and the impact I had on our melee heavy raid... I can honesly say I had very little Impact. I think survival is best suited to a raid where you have lots of very well geared players who are already getting the most they can out of their class. I agree with Glaurong, you really would be better off with a BM spec for the time being. You strike me as the type of player that wants to excel, and when you do it can have a very good domino effect on the rest of your raiders. I plan on going back at the end of the week if I dont see a big improvement in our raid-wide DPS. Something I noticed is our other hunters and DPS slacked off without me there leading the meter, making people work harder because they want to beat me, they want to see their DPS high on the charts. If I'm not up there pushing them, I actually find our raid-wide DPS drops.

Its one thing to look at what survival does from a technical standpoint, but its really interesting to see how these mechanics actually interact with human psychology. All our hunters went down in DPS with me, and for no good reason because they would have all gone up at least 50-100 DPS. Not a single one of our DPS performed up to par. Maybe its because I act cocky when I'm topping the charts - I know it makes people want to beat me for being an arrogant ass, and it makes them get more out of themselves. Even if you dont have the act, people will see you consistently up there and start wondering what they could do better, kind of like how you saw Howitzer's log and wondered what you were doing wrong. That's how I got one of our very subpar hunters to "turn up the good" so to speak, she finally came to me when I was doubling her damage and started asking questions.

I find when we get all our top DPSers on the raid, everyone else does better. It gives them something to strive for and prove to themselves that they are capable of it as well, and they certainly are if they put in the effort. I think once your guild gets to a good place where the DPSers are all solid and doing well, survival will be a good choice again.

OK, enough pep-talk out of me.

 

Kaber

Use combo gems. A single Jagged talasite (4 crit/6 stam) counts for both a blue and yellow gem. With only 2 Jagged Talasites, you have the 2 blue and 2 yellow reqs filled and you can socket away with agility on the rest of your gear. If you have a piece of gear with a really good socket bonus, try to use Jagged Talasites and Shifting Nightseye gems to fill them so that you get meta gem requirements filled at the same time as the socket bonus.

Once again, its the fight not the player. You can have the same ratios, and the same damage averages, but what you DONT have is the same number of shots fired in the same period of time. This is going to sound dickish, but please re-read my explanation over again if you do not understand.

Void Reaver: Stand and shoot 20 seconds, start running for 10 while firing off 2 arcane shots. You essentially do 2/3's the DPS of someone who got to stand there for the entire 30 seconds, yet WWS does not count the down time because you were dealing damage on the run. Would I recommend leaving out the arcane shots to boost your DPS numbers? Not a chance, you need to do as much damage to Void Reaver as you can at all times. The total of shots fired, the weapon speed, the amount of haste you are under, how often you move, how often you have to completely stop DPS, and so many other things figure in to your DPS that you cannot just say, "same damage, same ratio, they should have the same DPS."

Again, you are not accounting for any of the following: crit rate, weapon speed, number of shots fired, down time spent moving/healing/bandaging, health/mana potting, etc.

 

Rakan

sweet. Thanks.

 

Kaber

Try to get the wolfslayer, or go buy Don Santos' gun. The shot speeds are better for BM.

Second, your guild needs to be informed that the DST is a mere 2.5% dps boost for rogues/warriors, probably a bit higher for shaman, but a whopping 7-15% DPS boost for hunters. There is no reason to lock hunters out from getting it aside from greed on the part of rogues that think everything belongs to them.

 

Avellyr

OK...lets see, I think a scorpid would probably do comparable damage even if its stack got knocked off sometimes, but here are fights where you can keep a full stack for a large portion of the fight.

Karazhan -

Attumen, Opera House, Shade of Aran, Illhoof, Netherspite, Malchezzar, Nightbane

T4 25-mans -

Magtheridon, Gruul, Maulgar

SSC -

Morogrim, Karathress, Vashj (P1/P3)

TK -

None

Hyjal -

Rage Winterchill, Anetheron, Kaz'rogal

BT -

Najentus, Shade of Akama, Teron, Gurtogg, Reliquary, Shahraz, Illdari Council, Illidan (P1/P3)

The way to use scorpid poison is to turn off autocast and send in your pet, then jack your AP as high as you can by using trinkets, and also use BW if you have it, then turn on autocast so that the first stack is applied at maximum damage. Then keep your pet on the boss as much as possible to prevent the stack from falling off.

The most important part is to always use rank 4 or below (if you have multiple scorpids in a raid you'll have to work it out with the other hunters) since rank 5 only has an 8 second duration, which means that one miss will drop your stack. You'll want to put 2/2 in animal handler to reduce misses, and 2/2 in GFTT to provide enough focus to your pet as well.

 

Jarynn

Did you get my PM regarding their response? I showed them the Haste analysis thread, and other things, and basically they feel that the haste is essentially wasted on hunters versus what they calculate you get from a properly spec'd rogue/fury warrior. I can post that full discussion here, or in a new thread if you think it would be appropriate. The DST certainly has some staunch DW Melee advocates to it, with math they can pummel you with (right or wrong). I don't feel they're trying to be jerks, they just don't see it.

They also have looked at the hunters in 20 top raiding guilds and find it very poorly represented on hunters, whereas it's used by rogues/etc all over the place.