Okay guys. So I was sitting in Org today chatting it up in trade chat, when we started joking about melee hunters and mongoose and teasing some of the guys who immediately went up in arms about how dumb we were. But then.... I started thinking to myself.
Considering our new minimum range, would a hunter be able to increase his DPS by having a secondary weapon with mongoose on it. In between shots, he could take 1 quick step forward into melee and with a macro do three things. Equip mongoose weapon, raptor strike, wing clip. He would then immediately step back out with his primary weapon(s) on and continue to DPS as usual.
This is likely not a good idea, no matter what, but I am curious. Some things that need to be considered are as follows.
If this is reasonable, then it is obviously easier to do for a MM/SV hunter. They would do it during their normal 1:1.5 rotation when Multi or Arcane are on CD.
Does the 2% attack speed increase effect ranged attacks? A quick test on my warrior says no. So if we're doing this, it is solely for the 120 Agi.
With practice, can this be done without interrupting your shot rotation? What are the chances of getting the proc with your two "instant" attacks? Would your chances of a single proc be increased if you are DW. (I think not.) If it can be done within the shot rotation, is it worth more than a multi or an arcane shot?
Don't discount the actual damage capability of raptor strike, or the fact that you can easily, in a MM/SV spec, get imp raptor strike. Raptor strike alone is probably not worth it, and the idea of a hunter using mongoose is laughable, but when you consider both at the same time.... I must admit I'm curious.
This sounds absurd, I agree. Maybe a person with more time/money on their hands, or with a guild that has everything on farm and doesn't mind a person doing some experimenting, can consider testing this out. Hopefully it's not washed away without due consideration.
This idea is silly, impractical, and all odds say it's not going to work, but somehow it's got me curious. I'd actually volunteer to test this, but, seeing as I'm not keen to put a mongoose on the [Twinblade of the Phoenix] it will probably take me 3 weeks to gather the points for a s3 axe to waste mongoose on - that being the only reason I'd actually waste the points on it.
If I had to venture a guess, it'd be impractical for raiding purposes. Period. The reason is that melee is a hell of a dangerous place to be on most bosses (starting with Gruul's Hurtfuls and Nightbane's Cleaves, on to Void Reaver's Pounding and Lurker's Whirl, to Azgalor's Rain of Fire that needs to be max ranged). Thus, we would not only defy the point of being ranged, and as such safe dps, but it would also put the melee, and the tanks at risk by potential parries, chain cleaves, or simply AOE targeted at ranged attackers.
Also, remember that melee need to be below 110% of the tank's threat, while ranged need to be below 130% in order not to pull aggro. Moving in between ranged and melee while your threat is above 110% means you instantly overaggro the tank, move the target out of position, and generally cause a wipe, seeing as raid bosses have an unhealthy tendency to be untauntable.
As for ability facts, Raptor can only be used once every 6 seconds; and since moving into melee for a wing clip which does virtually no damage isn't a good idea, Raptor Strike about the only ability you can use. However, compared to Arcane shot, on a similar cooldown, this isn't instant, and, depending on your luck, you may need to wait 3.5 or 3.6 seconds before you actually do damage. In 3.6 seconds (plus the wasted time moving back and forth), you can fire at least 2 steady and 2 autoshots, maybe with a special in between, for more damage than a raptor, and for more damage than a chance at 150 agility is worth. It gets worse over extended periods of time, as you lose your shot rotation, and you spend most of the proc duration in melee trying to refresh it.
Somehow, trying to get the best of both worlds isn't quite so hot...
However, the 'PVP toy' or 'grind tool' value of Mongoose is probably a lot higher, since nobody cleaves, you don't overaggro anyone, there's no threat of a parry gibbing the tank, you'll wing clip a lot and mages still blink to what used to be our deadzone, so getting 150 agility out of a melee attack is a nice perk.
Last edited by Enova : 01/22/08 at 10:32 PM.
Originally Posted by XI-
In summary, TBC raiding is easy. 9/10 encounters can be summarized with 1 phrase. Stay out of the fucking fire. If this is too difficult BWL was still there last I checked, so go have at it for some practice.
I'm hoping someone can help me with the logistics of an ongoing arguement in my guild. One I'm we have all faced at one time or another: how viable are hunters for a dps group.
Our enhance shaman recently got the ear of our gm, and got me replaced in the dps group in favor of a rogue. Our group usually looks like this:
Enhance shaman
Feral Druid
Ms/Fury Warrior
2 Rogues (or 1 Rogue and 1 Ret Pally. Pally gets priority)
The shamans arguement is that Ret Pallys and Ms Warriors arent viable without windfury, and therefore get a guaranteed spot. Sicne they get a guaranteed spot, it means he must drop windfury. Since he must drop windfury, and hunters don't benefit, then rogues get priority over hunters.
It's a solid arguement if you take it at face value. My real question is, are his assumptions correct.
Do ret pallys and ms/fury warriors need W/F to be viable?
Since rogues benefit from W/F and hunters don't does that outway the benefit hunters receive from LotP, BS and Mana Spring, while also giving Ferocious Inspiration?
If someone better with math could crunch numbers, that would be awesome. I know real raid situations will change everything, but theorycrafting from a vacuum is the only one way to get any sort of sense I suppose.
On Raptor Strike and wing clip. Raptor strike, if que'd up as you move into melee range will be instant, and wing clip can proc mongoose, so you would want to use that as well, but you would never actually wait for a mongoose proc. Either you get it or you don't and you move back out to melee instantly. It should be able easily done within the span of a GCD. Raptor strike itself doesn't increase your chances of a mongoose proc it just increases the damage you do in that brief span of melee. You would want to use both at once, and for these purposes both can be considered instant.
This is only remotely viable if you can do it with little or no interruption to your shot rotation. Your swing time never ever comes into play. You're only in for the briefest of seconds.
I know this is off the wall, but it doesn't stop me from being curious.
I'm hoping someone can help me with the logistics of an ongoing arguement in my guild. One I'm we have all faced at one time or another: how viable are hunters for a dps group.
Our enhance shaman recently got the ear of our gm, and got me replaced in the dps group in favor of a rogue. Our group usually looks like this:
Enhance shaman
Feral Druid
Ms/Fury Warrior
2 Rogues (or 1 Rogue and 1 Ret Pally. Pally gets priority)
The shamans arguement is that Ret Pallys and Ms Warriors arent viable without windfury, and therefore get a guaranteed spot. Sicne they get a guaranteed spot, it means he must drop windfury. Since he must drop windfury, and hunters don't benefit, then rogues get priority over hunters.
It's a solid arguement if you take it at face value. My real question is, are his assumptions correct.
Do ret pallys and ms/fury warriors need W/F to be viable?
Since rogues benefit from W/F and hunters don't does that outway the benefit hunters receive from LotP, BS and Mana Spring, while also giving Ferocious Inspiration?
If someone better with math could crunch numbers, that would be awesome. I know real raid situations will change everything, but theorycrafting from a vacuum is the only one way to get any sort of sense I suppose.
Thanks.
Hunters don't benefit from Unleashed Rage either. 10% melee AP.
I'm hoping someone can help me with the logistics of an ongoing arguement in my guild. One I'm we have all faced at one time or another: how viable are hunters for a dps group.
Our enhance shaman recently got the ear of our gm, and got me replaced in the dps group in favor of a rogue. Our group usually looks like this:
Enhance shaman
Feral Druid
Ms/Fury Warrior
2 Rogues (or 1 Rogue and 1 Ret Pally. Pally gets priority)
The shamans arguement is that Ret Pallys and Ms Warriors arent viable without windfury, and therefore get a guaranteed spot. Sicne they get a guaranteed spot, it means he must drop windfury. Since he must drop windfury, and hunters don't benefit, then rogues get priority over hunters.
It's a solid arguement if you take it at face value. My real question is, are his assumptions correct.
Do ret pallys and ms/fury warriors need W/F to be viable?
Since rogues benefit from W/F and hunters don't does that outway the benefit hunters receive from LotP, BS and Mana Spring, while also giving Ferocious Inspiration?
If someone better with math could crunch numbers, that would be awesome. I know real raid situations will change everything, but theorycrafting from a vacuum is the only one way to get any sort of sense I suppose.
Thanks.
If you want to make an optimal hunter group you'd rather want to do a fairly different group setup:
1 Shammy
1 Feral Druid
3 BM hunters
After all, BS and UR are pet only buffs, so while not being wasted they won't contribute as much as for pure melee classes, so warriors are imo "wasted" in a hunter dps group.
A friend of mine did exactly that group setup on Teron, and to no surprise all 3 hunters were beyond the 2k DPS range (somewhere between 2.0 and 2.2k).
The setup has the additional nice feature of being rather flexible: You can replace any number of the BM hunters with a mage/warlock/spriest and still have a nicely working group. Ofc this would at some point mean you're back to a caster group and GoA would get replaced by WoA, but the "transition" is rather smooth.
To get back to your original group setup though: I think we don't need to discuss rogues spots in that group. Rogues without WF are just plain horrible (we had to do it once, putting a rogue into the otherwise for BM hunters reserved healer group (sigh), and he lost at least overall 30% DPS, dropping from 2k to 1.3k-1.4k).
If you "deny" a MS warrior or a retri pally a spot in that group they also loose a great amount of DPS, probably even in the range of a rogue. The only one in that group that could get replaced is the feral druid. If you put a BM hunter in there instead of him the group looses 5% crit but gains 3% overall damage plus the hunter's pet will do substantially more damage.
Also, if the enhancement shammy knows his class and can play well he'll do a totem rotation of GoA and WF (i belive it still works, please correct me if it doesn't), basically increasing the overall DPS of that group by about 10%. That way the feral druid and/or hunter would also benefit from the shammy, too.
So as a summary: Yes, a "pure" melee group has very good synergy effects which you typically don't want to break. But there are other forms of physical DPS groups that work just as well. We did a MH run once with 2 physical DPS groups and 1 caster group as opposed to our normal setup of 2 caster groups and 1 physical DPS group and our DPS went up considerably.
...and with a macro do three things. Equip mongoose weapon, raptor strike, wing clip. He would then immediately step back out with his primary weapon(s) on and continue to DPS as usual.
I seem to remember swapping weapons both activating (a 1 second?) global cooldown and resetting Auto Attack cast timers (possibly including Auto Shot).
Look, Lactose, we'd rather you didn't eradicate the whole human race.
- Sam & Max
Considering our new minimum range, would a hunter be able to increase his DPS by having a secondary weapon with mongoose on it. In between shots, he could take 1 quick step forward into melee and with a macro do three things. Equip mongoose weapon, raptor strike, wing clip. He would then immediately step back out with his primary weapon(s) on and continue to DPS as usual.
The biggest problem with this rotation is in the bolded portions. Even if the damage of a raptor strike + wing clip was more damage then auto + steady, you're talking about 2 weapon swaps which means you're talking about 3 seconds of global cooldowns (+1.5 from the wing clip) and a swing timer reset on each swap. And as was earlier mentioned, by going into melee range, you lower your agro ceiling from 130% to 110%.
EDIT: beaten to it by lactose
Originally Posted by Lactose
I seem to remember swapping weapons both activating (a 1 second?) global cooldown and resetting Auto Attack cast timers (possibly including Auto Shot).
It's 1 second for rogues and druids in cat form, 1.5 seconds for every other class.
Originally Posted by Kamaa
On Raptor Strike and wing clip. Raptor strike, if que'd up as you move into melee range will be instant
You will have to wait for the Raptor Strike due to the swing reset from the first weapon swap.
Last edited by Sarutobi : 01/23/08 at 11:15 AM.
Originally Posted by DeeNogger
Every time I bite into an oatmeal raisin cookie mistaken for a chocolate-chip an angle loses its wings. Fucking trani's of the cookie world!
Hi, I'm a newbie hunter that's going to start raiding in a few weeks. My guild is already doing SSC, so I will have a relaitvely easy time through Karazhan and Gruul -- however, I want to do the very best I can not to dissapoint
First of all, wonderful topic, much kudos to the regular posters.
I was just wondering if there is some documentation on how Wind Serpents have funny movement. As I understand it, the main trick is to tell your serpent to use LB manually, and it should be OK. Now, I've seen many BM hunters complain about fights like Void Reaver, because it's very pet unfriendly. However, (again this is from theory not experience), I don't see the big issue: Pounding has a 17 yard range and LB should be 20. Is the LB pathing freakiness enough to mess it up so your pet does get caught in the pounding?
I don't see the big issue: Pounding has a 17 yard range and LB should be 20. Is the LB pathing freakiness enough to mess it up so your pet does get caught in the pounding?
Your pet should always be in melee range. by manually using LB, your windserpent will not path "back" to 20 yards to use LB and then return to melee to continue dps. Instead, it will use LB at the 5 yard range as one would expect.
Your pet should always be in melee range. by manually using LB, your windserpent will not path "back" to 20 yards to use LB and then return to melee to continue dps. Instead, it will use LB at the 5 yard range as one would expect.
Okay, how about telling it to come back for poudings, then telling it to stand still during the poundings (no arcane bolts during poundings, right?), but where it can still spam LB?
Okay, how about telling it to come back for poudings, then telling it to stand still during the poundings (no arcane bolts during poundings, right?), but where it can still spam LB?
Or just train it for max Arcance Resist and keep mend pet up. It's less micro-managing and has served me well so far.
Last night I was talking with a hunter in my guild about her shot rotation. She really likes her 3.0 speed bow, even though she's BM. She said her shot rotation pretty much looks like this:
If I am doing my math correctly, her autoshot attack speed should be 2.11. If I am not mistaken, her shot rotation should look like this, with timings:
0.0s fire steady
1.5s fire arcane
2.0s fire auto
which fits under her speed of 2.11 (assuming under 110ms latency).
From this rotation, I calculate a DPS of 1332 (with her gear). The 1:1 priority rotation (arcane, then multi as dropdown options) shows 1283dps.
If I swap her 3.0 bow (merciless xbow of the phoenix) with wolfslayer and recalculate the 1:1 priority rotation, I calculate 1311dps.
What I am wondering is, am I doing my math correctly? Ignoring things like mana consumption and haste procs, is a 3.0 or 3.1 speed bow actually better than wolfslayer?
Last night I was talking with a hunter in my guild about her shot rotation. She really likes her 3.0 speed bow, even though she's BM. She said her shot rotation pretty much looks like this:
If I am doing my math correctly, her autoshot attack speed should be 2.11. If I am not mistaken, her shot rotation should look like this, with timings:
0.0s fire steady
1.5s fire arcane
2.0s fire auto
which fits under her speed of 2.11 (assuming under 110ms latency).
From this rotation, I calculate a DPS of 1332 (with her gear). The 1:1 priority rotation (arcane, then multi as dropdown options) shows 1283dps.
If I swap her 3.0 bow (merciless xbow of the phoenix) with wolfslayer and recalculate the 1:1 priority rotation, I calculate 1311dps.
What I am wondering is, am I doing my math correctly? Ignoring things like mana consumption and haste procs, is a 3.0 or 3.1 speed bow actually better than wolfslayer?
Thanks,
toga
What does she do after that rotation while waiting for the cool down of Arcane Shot? (Also, her GCD prevents the Steady Shot after the last Auto listed to start at 3.0s, delaying the following Auto Shot too.)
A Shot Rotation can't really be modeled on 3 shots like that.
I fear I might come off as a bit of an idiot with this question, but I shall ask it all the same! I've really been a bit confused by something of an impasse. After a long break, I got back into my hunter, and I'm working on acquiring gear. So far, I've been going for heroic badge gear--primarily, the haste stuff. Is haste utterly detestable as a hunter or is it preferred? Am I going down the right path, or the wrong one?
I'm sitting at 96 haste rating with a lovely Sunfury, which I hope to replace as soon as possible, heh. It fixes the weapon speed down to 1.98.
Any advice you can offer me would be incredibly appreciated! Thank you.
EDIT: Ah, I forgot mention, that I am spec'd Beast Mastery.
I fear I might come off as a bit of an idiot with this question, but I shall ask it all the same! I've really been a bit confused by something of an impasse. After a long break, I got back into my hunter, and I'm working on acquiring gear. So far, I've been going for heroic badge gear--primarily, the haste stuff. Is haste utterly detestable as a hunter or is it preferred? Am I going down the right path, or the wrong one?
I'm sitting at 96 haste rating with a lovely Sunfury, which I hope to replace as soon as possible, heh. It fixes the weapon speed down to 1.98.
Any advice you can offer me would be incredibly appreciated! Thank you.
EDIT: Ah, I forgot mention, that I am spec'd Beast Mastery.
The thing you need to know is when to stop stacking haste. With 96 rating and a 1.98 speed sunfury you are near-optimal concerning attack-speed for a bm-hunter. The reason for this can be found in this thread, thus I´m not going to recite it over and over again, but basically it comes down to this: For BM you either need to get a 2.6 - 2.7 speed-weapon or you need to get you´re 2.9-3.0 weapons down to that speed via haste rating. Until you reach a hastened speed of 1.8 - 1.9 (depending on latency also) haste is in most cases the best stat to stack. Though, you should proof this with cheeky´s spreadsheet, which will yield very good results concerning specific gear-questions.
The thing you need to know is when to stop stacking haste. With 96 rating and a 1.98 speed sunfury you are near-optimal concerning attack-speed for a bm-hunter. The reason for this can be found in this thread, thus I´m not going to recite it over and over again, but basically it comes down to this: For BM you either need to get a 2.6 - 2.7 speed-weapon or you need to get you´re 2.9-3.0 weapons down to that speed via haste rating. Until you reach a hastened speed of 1.8 - 1.9 (depending on latency also) haste is in most cases the best stat to stack. Though, you should proof this with cheeky´s spreadsheet, which will yield very good results concerning specific gear-questions.
This is true. In the BM hunter forum there is a new macro people are trying now. In its simplest form it is this
The difference between a 2.7 and 3.0 speed is little now compared to the DPS difference from faster weapons in the past, that is assuming you are using the "new" macro. Anyway, the post has some interesting results.
The difference between a 2.7 and 3.0 speed is little now compared to the DPS difference from faster weapons in the past, that is assuming you are using the "new" macro. Anyway, the post has some interesting results.
Question looking at the above post I see steady auto steady steady, so you purposely clip a second auto shot to get two steadys in a row or am I misinterpreting that? I had thought the optimal rotation was essentially steady auto repeat.
They understand it much better then I do. I just used in it some Dr Boom tests, and in raids. I can not prove it works best. Compared to the old BM macro, I think it works very well. Go to the link. Ask them please. I only linked it in this since I know many BM hunters read this.
Edit. Cheeky would be best to ask, I can not run his SS for macros since I use open office.
I would like to chime in a little about Kara and the BM spec.
Everything that you have been told so far is totally correct. BM is the best DPS raiding spec. However, from the way you are talking about things like "we just now got enough people attuned to try Kara." It shows that "your" Kara runs will hardly be the farming runs other Hunters are now used too.
For any Hunters, Kara is now easy mode, they blow through with decked out teamates and such. However, many have forgotten (or never did it) Kara back when half the people in it were in Greens. Your Kara runs may be a bit rough at first. MM is a good spec for these cases, because by going 0/41/20 you can improve your trapping, eliminating resists and making your traps last longer. As a MM if you do a good shot rotation, you can still do good DPS, maybe not as good as BM, but still decent.
I'm not saying go MM and not BM or anything like that. I'm just saying that if for example you don't have a Shadow Priests for shackles, you may end up trapping at lot. For "new" Kara guilds, resisted traps can be a wipe.
Very good points here. Until my guild managed to put Prince and Nightbane on notice, I ran with a modified MM spec, aimed at CC, for multi-trapping. At that point, I was more concerned with keeping the mobs under control than my personal dps...After we got closer to a farm status, I went for more dps with a few incarnations of the BM build, successfully making all but the best mage in the group look bad...
So....There I was, prowlnig thru the more elite hunters in my range, and I thougt I'd take a look at the Vengeful Waraxe, compared to my Legacy... am I out of my mind, or does that really correlate to about a 12dps jump over the Legacy?? Am I missing something stupid, or do I really, really, REALLY need to go jump on and snag one today and rechant my +35 agi??
The difference between a 2.7 and 3.0 speed is little now compared to the DPS difference from faster weapons in the past, that is assuming you are using the "new" macro. Anyway, the post has some interesting results.
I've tried that macro, and I seem to get better DPS with the old castsequence macro--usually about 30 more. It seems that the "new" macro prefers slower weapons, thus invalidating my haste gear. This has been the crux of my worry and fretting--I can't really decide on a definite answer. Should I abandon the haste route and go for the armor penetration/stats and then use the new macro with an unhasted weapon? I don't know! Very confusing times, lately, eh?
01/22/08, 10:24 PM
