Belzi.ET

Very interesting post, Coji.

I just had a discussion about aggro with a hunter-fellow in my guild. Since we didn't came to an end, I wanted to ask for help here.

We were talking about threat and crits and crits generating more threat.
As far as I remember, 100 dmg = 100 threat, and therefor a crit with 230 dmg = 230 threat.

With normal hits, my fellow agrees with my opinion.
But for crits he claims, that the formula is:
normal dmg * 1 threat per dmg + crit-bonus * 2 threat per dmg

Calculated with the same shot as above this would mean:
100 * 1 + 130 * 2 = 360 threat


So, what are the maths for calculating threat from crits. And are there any test-results or blueposts or whatever to proof it?

 

hjm87

I would personally like to know what Cheeky thinks about this.

 

Enova

I don't know about Cheeky, but his spreadsheet generally favors the Hourglass + DST in most setups I've tested.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Greenpiggy

Threat is the same as damage(with certain spell exceptions)
Crits don't produce any extra threat by virtue of being crits.

 

Ishmaael

Did the weekly hyjal clear yesterday/today depending on your timezone, and had a lot of trouble with feign death. All 3 of us hunters were noticing higher resist rates, and not once during a boss was I able to get OOC after Feigning, be it to feed a pet or drink. Tried multiple times every single boss (many many times on Archimonde as my pet dies very regularly) and nothing i did seemed to be able to drop combat.

I'm going to be an ass and assume its just a bug (much like the t6 shaman thing lol) but yeah, was not a happy Beastmastery camper.

 

Bearach

The WoW official forums are currently rife with panicked hunters, does anyone have a list of the undocumented changes/bugs in 2.3 for hunters?

There seem to be lots of problems with Feign Death, including the one mentioned by Ishmaael, messed up pet pathing, as well as talk of lower pet DPS.

 

Rokh

Pet pathing on Al'ar was messed up, as people have reported. He was up top just running back and forth not dps'ing at some of the platforms.

Also yes, it seems that feign+drink on bosses has been removed, even without a pet out I still couldn't drink on any of the bosses we did tonight. Didn't really notice the resist rate on feign.

 

Kaladian

Same myself and the other hunter could not FD/drink or feed pet during boss fights. The drinking part isnt a huge deal but not being able to feed my pet after he dies is a problem since they will get instant killed sometimes.

 

lilwolfe

We were in TK last night as well. Pet pathing was a thing of hilarity. On Al'ar I sent him up toward platform 1 and he ran back and forth on the lower level instead. On Kael, at one point I ran behind the statue- the pet followed me and stayed there. I tried calling him, and sending him to attack the Engineer, but he wouldn't move. I had to run back, wave at him, and THEN he came to me and I could control him again.

And yes, I was 0/6 with FD drinking last night - a major major problem for me since we don't usually run with enough spriests to pass out to the hunters.

 

Belzi.ET

Do you have some calculations, testing results, blue posts or whatever to proof that?
Cause at the moment it is word against word.

He can't convince me nor can I convince him.
We need some facts & figures (or at least I need something at hand )

 

Greenpiggy

No link to the actual experiments as i can't seem to find it, but the work was pretty extensive:

Kenco: A Guide To Threat.

 

Cheeky

It depends greatly on the ranged weapon speed, and other haste effects. The slower your weapon (as BM) the more the DST helps. The trick is to maintain a 1:1 rotation, even if it means clipping Auto Shots.

Like Enova said, the spreadsheet is much better at providing these kinds of analysis than I am by hand. Too many variables to take into account based upon your gear.

Cheeky of Havoc

 

Caulwynd

As has been stated before, my inability to feign + drink during SSC last night increased my level of consumable usage by at least four times. I had to coat my weapon with Superior Mana Oil, chug pots, and even drop into Viper. As if the new epic quality ammunition wasn't enough to double raid costs (repairs), paying for consumables is going to make raiding an expensive affair.

 

• Tibor

Was the FD change present in any of the PTR builds for testing? If not, it seems suspect that Blizzard would slip it, malice aforethought, into the live patch, and much more likely one of the myriad bugs that made it into the patch (see: "Restoration Shaman, Free Tier 6 for").

On another topic entirely, the new Badge-bought gear. I have 96 Badges banked for the Huntard. I'm considering the following possible upgrades...

Wrist - 35 Badges
[Master Assassin Wristwraps] or
[Steadying Bracers]

Cheeky's spreadsheet supports my feeling that the Wristwraps' +crit outstrips the Bracers' armor penetration. In fact, pondering this further, I'm not seeing any substantial upgrade to the Wristwraps. Some small upgrades, yes, but nothing dramatic. Am I missing something?


Hands - 60 Badges
[Gauntlets of Sniping] or
[Trickster's Stickyfingers]

I'm leaning towards Gauntlets of Sniping, as they seem at-a-glance like a free equivalent to Rift Stalker Gauntlets. The +haste on the Trickster's gloves is intriguing, and the spreadsheet gives them a slight DPS edge (~6 DPS assuming hit cap), but I'm a bit leery of stacking passive haste with the Dragonspine already making my rotations tricky. The hit rating also gives me flexibility in other slots (gear and gem).

Overall, though, I'm hazy on the relative worth of passive haste and especially armor penetration. I've found some discussion of the value of armor penetration hereabouts, but I'd love to know how others tend to balance the different stats. Does the spreadsheet rule you? or another methodology?

Edited for additional thoughts.

 

Rokh

While we're on the subject of hunter bugs, you also cannot trap more than one thing at a time now. Tested it out, the second mob will simply run over your second trap and consume it, but nothing happens.

 

Vasilii

Anyone else notice that the standard steady shot macro no longer seems to work? Or has this been reported before and I am just really late to the party?

I should probably be manually timing my shots anyway...

 

Enova

Cuuuuuurse them... curse them so hard... how am I going to show off now? *cough*

Now, back to the trapping discussion: we're sure this wasn't in the patch notes. But the obvious question is weather it's a bug or a stealth nerf. I'm pretty sure a lot of people would like to see that little trick disappear, but Blizzard seemed to be sympathetic towards us. Besides, if they really thought it was exploiting, they could have mentioned something on the tooltip. Now, there's something I'm going to try later (probably after tonight's raid), and check at least if two different trap effects can be active

Related to Tibor's question, now, [Steadying Bracers] is probably going to become more effective as you begin to stack up more and more armor penetration. And the passive haste on the leather gloves is appealing to me, as well, but to be quite honest, the potential superior agility and intellect on [Gauntlets of Sniping] outweighs it, unless, for some reason, you're clipping a 1:1.x rotation

Guilty as charged ^

 

Locos

Pulling aggro constantly for any player of any class is really a big issue. We have two people that regularly do it in our raid (Warrior & Warlock), and while we like to laugh at them, it really is a mistake that good raiders just can't make regularly. Don't get me wrong, there are always situations where it happens due to a string of unlikely events, but the players that do it consantly are pretty frustrating.

That being said, I think the Flames of Azzinoth is a seperate issue. I actually pulled aggro last week, and was lucky enough to have Feign ready and managed to not get anyone killed. I was not above the tank according to Omen, but Omen seemes to get a little unusual in this phase. It is important to remember that the tanks are in resist gear and they are often more concerned with pathing and avoiding the flamey eyes of death. Most good hunters, or any dps, know the threat output of their tank and aggro limits for pretty much every encounter. Being able to ride that fine line is what seperates average players from exceptional ones in many cases. For the Flames of Azzinoth the threat generation changes so drastically from one attempt to another depending on what Illidan decides to do that it becomes hard to guage how hard you can go. Although, my best dps attempt on Illidan was actually the only attempt that I had Salvation.

 

Alumatine

The main problem I've found with survival is the crit streams. high crit rates are great but as you said, at the begining of a fight you have to feign you find yourself pulling before your cooldown is up again. Personally I found that using the threat reduction prism from vashj during trash I rarely pull anymore. I switch back to double dps trinkets during bosses and high dps fights.

 

• Tibor

For the simplicity's sake, let's say the fundamental trade-off between the two items is 26 crit (18 crit rating plus a Smooth Dawnstone; my guild is just starting Hyjal) rating versus 105 armor penetration. Armor penetration has a non-linear effect on DPS, and at some point, you are affirming that 26 crit rating will be outstripped by 105 armor penetration. How much stacked penetration are we talking? I presently have none, which suggests the Wristwraps is the superior option for the moment.

FWIW, if I compare the two pieces in the spreadsheet, using Rage Winterchill (6200 base Armor), with full Sunders/CoR/FF (4010 total Armor reduction), the Wristwraps are still ~7 DPS ahead. Is this a modelling issue, or would I need to stack 500+ armor reduction to see that gap close? That doesn't seem realistic, in the short term, so I'll probably go with the Wristwraps. 35 Badges aren't hard to come by, either, if I have an urge to stack penetration later on...

 

Kehoe

I was definately panicing trying to feign death and drink while 3000 of my mana ticked away in MH. Have not see the trap bug as of yet, but hopefully it is exactly that. Anyone know if your target is in a trap, and you lay a second right below the mob, does it re-effect the mob, or just disapears as if you were trapping 2 targets?

 

XG08Zero

i'd really like to know this too...

Stalker's War Bands are getting old, and I can't decide whether to get the Leather or Mail heroic badge bracers. Armor Penetration is such a new stat and so foreign I can't decide it's worth. The crit rating (including a +crit gem) in the leather bracers is extremely attractive, and we all have dealt with crit long enough to know it's benefits.

I just don't know about armor penetration. I don't know if it's any good at all, as there's still plenty of gear out there to avoid the stat completely to stick with hit, AP, Crit stats to pump dps.

 

• Tibor

One thing I forgot to mention about the -armor stat is it doesn't apply to your pet's attacks. So it's a less-attractive stat for those still rocking Beastmastery. Crit is more KCs, crit is more GftT focus, etc.

 

Shandara

At the same time, with enough crit, you'll waiting on KC cooldown anyway and apart from using a Wind Serpent, focus usually isn't a problem either.

It would be interesting to see the point where Armor Penetration outweighs more crit.

 

Trieste

Castsequence macro with autoshot is totally broken like it was on ptr.

If you let the autoshot be casted without using the macro it doesn't reset it...

And

• Fixed a bug in which Hunters were able to disengage from combat using Feign Death during boss encounters.

Nice joke...