From the new information provided by Slouken over at WoW Forums -> Upcoming 2.3 Changes - Concise List

And

Does anyone have an idea if shot rotation macros will still be viable in 2.3? I'm currently using a kill command/auto/steady macro to help with my usual 200-300 latency. I can go back to manual button pushing, but my dps drops by 10-15% from bad timing/latency/missed KC.

Thanks for the explanation Enova.

Given the issue of slow speed bows and BM spec (I just picked up the Serpent Spine Longbow, so have a bow that is likely too slow), your explanation suggests that some haste to get the shot speed closer to the ideal could be VERY beneficial.

I am guessing that there is not a hard and fast conversion factor for haste or armor pen compared to agility though. Is that correct? Is tehre something even ballpark accurate, other than plugging values into a spreadsheet and seeing what happens?

Hello, I have a question about BM Hunter pets.

I have a cat, and I was advised by our hunters in the guild (my main is a mage) that I shouldn't use bite on autocast because it has a CD and only use Claw to dump focus. Is this true? The below if a direct qoute from one of them:

"for some reason I want to say there's a prioritization problem with Gore/Bite because of Bite's cooldown. I wanna say if you have both on auto cast it will only use Gore consistently and ignore Bite or vice versa."


Thanks in advance

What Slouken is getting at is that on the PTR's right now (7501) there's a change that makes /cast auto shot and /castsequence auto shot, ... a toggle, like the ability in your spellbook. On live it's like /startattack. He's saying this is being reversed to how it is on live. So if this does happen shot rotation macros will be viable.

in the next PTR build it will be "fixed"

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=879058320&postId=27201197169&sid=1#266

I have bite and gore turned on all the time. My pet uses bite frequently. Besides that, its more damage per focus than gore and claw so why wouldn't you use it? Its not like the pet stops using claw or gore when bite is on cooldown.

Here's some proof. There's roughly 6 global cooldowns in between bites. The ratio of gore to bite here is 5.125 : 1

FemaleDwarf - WWS

To get this behavior you must have bite to the left of claw/gore on your pet bar. The bar acts like a left to right priority queue. It will use the leftmost ability it can at any given moment, as long as it has focus and the ability is not on cool.

Edit: Since claw/gore have no cool besides the global one, if it is to the left of bite, that is all your pet will do.

This thread is great, and has answered a bunch of my questions already, so thanks in advance to those who contribute here.

I was normally a raiding BM hunter until my guilds elemental shammy (and strider kiter) suddenly quit the game one day, and I was going to kite striders. I respecced to 7/45/9 to hold aggro better on striders. We killed vashj for the first time last night and I was lucky enough that the bow dropped. My guild will now be moving on to kael.

Ive read some strats on the kael fight, and Ive read that a hunter tank is used on the Bow. It seems like a lot of burst dps is neccessary, but Id imagine that BMs mana efficiency would also be nice.

Which spec would be best for a guild starting on kael? Anything specific to hunters that i should know about kael that might not be mentioned in strats?

This is completely untrue. I have neither on my pet's action bar and both are used at the same frequency.

Help me EJ, you're my only hope...

After finding a lack of informative and constructive advice elsewhere, I humbly submit myself to critique here. Main problem? My dps sucks. It just.. SUCKs. I'm BM - it shouldn't suck. I even think my gear is pretty decent - though I _am_ concerned about the gems in the slots I have. My hit is near cap because I've gemmed in some +hit pure gems, which I'm undecided if it was a good idea.

I'm also trying to decide what BWI/Trinket combo would work the best, since there's an increased chance of clipping with BW/RF or the troll racial, so i try to use those separately. Any ideas here would be fantastic.

I work with timers to work my 1:1 auto/steady rotation - but even still, I'm struggling to stay decent on the meters. Frankly, I'm running out of ideas.

I post my most recent WWSes and armory for your perusal:
Tidewalker, my best fight so far: Redtail - WWS
Karathress: Redtail - WWS
Leo, where i sucked some serious nuts: Redtail - WWS (I don't even remember hitting the arcanes, that's embarrassing)

Armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

I welcome all advice and ideas, in teh hopes I can turn the "I just suck" into "I only moderately suck"

Redtail:

The biggest thing I see when I look at your logs are that you're generally firing significantly more auto shots than specials. So it's not just that you're clipping your auto shots; you're actually not firing "enough" specials. Browsing through the actual log file, I see a bunch of events where you clip an auto by firing your steady a little too early (auto is followed by steady after ~2.5 - 3.0 sec), and then immediately afterward, there's a string of 2 or more auto shots with no specials at all. I'd wonder whether there's a mental process of "Oh, crap, I clipped that" which leads to distraction and missing your specials altogether for a couple cycles. If you use a rotation macro, it may be buggy. Or maybe something else is going on in the fight at the time that doesn't show up in the log; no way for me to judge. But fundamentally, I think that if you can fix your rotations so you get closer to one special per auto, you'll be in a much better place.

Also, it looks like your pet has relatively low DPS time. While a 41/20/0 hunter should have "good" personal DPS even without the pet, your pet is significant icing on the cake. Obviously there are fights where it's not practical to have your pet out all the time, but you might want to ask yourself whether there's anything you could do to improve its DPS time on any of these.

Gems: Fortunately, you don't have to rely on guesswork when facts are available. Get Cheeky's spreadsheet, plug in your current gear and gems, play around with different gem choices (sacrificing some +hit for more pure +agi). See what wins. Profit. I think this will be a minor issue, though.

I don't actually have a great sense of what gear level someone running that content "needs", but there are some obvious minor improvements that you can work on: Get badges to replace Bladefist's Breadth with a Bloodlust Brooch; get exalted with VE to upgrade your violet signet; get exalted with the Scryers to upgrade your shoulder enchant; enchant your gloves and chest; stand in line for a DST; upgrade your gun's scope. I'm sure there are more, of course, but I think you should be more concerned with getting your rotation solid than fretting about minor gear issues.

EDIT: Elfalora has a point too. Mana is an issue. In addition to those suggestions, consider trying to swap out some of that rogue leather for something with +int on it.

Elfalora - Ah! I keep forgetting to look for ways to pump my mana, as my pots seem always on cooldown. I'll most definitely work on that. Shadow priests are out - they refuse to put them in a group with me. And definitely working on mats for enchants. Thanks for the mana tips.

Hoverpuma: *nods* I started this game... way too long ago, when pets were nothing but a liability. I'm still trying to master the nuances of BM spec, pet begin one of them as stupid as that sounds. I'll search for some tips on handling pets - Leo gives me the most trouble on this, since he bleeds and the cat falls over in a few ticks no matter how quick I hit mend pet.

Looking back, you're right, I need to work on my macro. I think there is some mental process where I flake out. I'm not so terrific at analyzing WWS.

Thanks so much for your time! I've been looking for help for ages, but too chicken to post here.

Is there any program out there that if you input a combatlog that it will tell you what your average auto shot time is??

I'm a SV hunter and I use the kill command steady macro. I want evidence to see if KC slows down my auto shot... while I only use steady and auto shot. If someone is confident if it does or does not that may save me some time from having to program one myself. :p

Hello. first time posting.


I have a BM hunter at level 51 now (41/1/0), and I am about to complete the hunter quest The Green Drake that gives me a choice between 2 trinkets and a spear:

I see that this thread is mainly about level 70 hunters, but if anybody remembers this quest, and can give me advice I would appreciate it.

The revards are these:

------------------
Devilsaur Eye (CD=2min)
Binds when picked up
TrinketMiscellaneous
Use: Increases your attack power by 150 and your hit rating by 20. Effect lasts for 20 seconds.

Devilsaur Tooth (CD=2min)
Binds when picked up
TrinketMiscellaneous
Use: Your pet's next attack is guaranteed to critically strike if that attack is capable of striking critically.

Hunting Spear
Binds when picked up
Two-HandPolearm
111 - 168 DamageSpeed 3.10
(45.0 damage per second)
+17 Stamina
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 14.
Equip: Restores 5 mana per 5 sec.
------------

Personally I think the spear is a weak item for this level, so that's out of the question.

The Devilsaur Eye is ok, but it will be replaced by better trinkets (for example the Bladefist's Breadth, quest reward from Hellfire), and it seems half-worthy.

The Devilsaur Tooth though is unique, haven't found anything that can replace that in outland. For this reason I tend to think that it's the only thing worth taking, even though it's a sor of lame buff for my pet (as a BM, my pet crits a lot anyway).

Does anybody still use this trinket at level 70 ? What would benefit me most at this point?

Thank you.

I find this logic used by a lot of people and I do not see why. Out of the three items, you will use the Devilsaur Eye. Perhaps not at level 70, but at least until around level 65. Its a good trinket. You wont find a replacement till you get two of the following three trinkets found early on in the Outlands: Power Infused Mushroom, Bladefist's Breadth, and/or Mark of Conquest.

The spear will be quickly replaced by the time your level 57 and you will never use the pet crit trinket. Sure the pet crit trinket is unique, but that doesn't mean its good.

Too many people focus on picking the item they will use forever. None of them fit the bill. Pick the one that is immediately useful and will remain useful for awhile. To me, that is easily the Devilsaur Eye.

Hey guys my guild just downed Vashj on Friday and are gonna start working on Kael tonight. The think is I'm using the Arcanite Steam Pistol from Al'ar and know I'm gonna be needing to switch to a Bow mid fight. So I was wondering if any of you have any advice on how to quickly switch to my quiver mid fight or if I should just fire the arrows from a normal bag(which seems would be a big hurt to my DPS especially since I am BM).

Thanks in Advance,

Tongaro

You get the haste rating bonus using a bow with an ammo sack too, you just can't put arrows in it. You'll be fine, just have enough bag slots to hold a few stacks of the Nether Spikes.

So even if I'm not firing the ammo out of the pouch/quiver I still get the haste bonus for simply having one or the other equipped?

Just wanting to make sure I read it right.

Just tested and it doesn't seem to be true what you said I took my bullets out of the ammo pouch and still had the haste but as soon as I equiped the quiver instead of the gun I lost the haste.

Question about the exalted BT trinkets for hunters. I have heard that there is a hidden internal CD on this trinket. Any hard proof on this trinket out there?

Also as a BM Hunter with access to haste gear ( can get attack speed to 1.94 with Legionkiller without killing my stats that bad ) Would this trinket be better than a Hourglass + Bloodlust Brooch combo? And if so which trinket would be best to replace with the BT Trinket?

As far as I know, the Quiver/Ammo pouch haste bonuses are equip bonuses. You can be firing arrows from your bag rather than your quiver and still get the haste bonus. Consequently, you could fire arrows from your bag with an ammo sack equipped and still get that haste bonus.

I'm not sure what you meant when you said you tested it. Did you mean to say bow instead of quiver?

That's incorrect... though all quivers and ammo pouches say "Increases ranged attack speed by x%", they use different spell effects that only work for their weapon class:

Haste - Spells - World of Warcraft for guns
Haste - Spells - World of Warcraft for bows & crossbows