Mattaos

Has it even been confirmed by a Blue that Readiness not resetting TBW/Intimidation is a bug?

 

KraxisSingular

You shouldn't need more than 3/5 Frenzy with 3/3 Cobra Strikes.

And no, I don't think there has been any comment on the TBW + Readiness issue.

 

Donitsu

I dont believe it has, on top of that I dont know if it's going to be all 'that' useful, considering with a glyph TBW is going to be down low as shit already.

 

Donitsu

oh shit, i linked the wrong spec. i was looking at somebody elses fail spec.

THIS is the link i meant to post

ugh
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?hunt...00000000000000

 

mako

Spirit bond is still a 0 dps increase talent, while animal handler is not. Warlocks are claiming their imp doesn't benefit from the standard hit talent, which would apply to us as well, meaning animal handler a superior filler talent.

<Bad> Dragonmaw US
www.damnwesuck.com

 

lamrith

I have seen it said that the Cat being best DPS based on scaling with raid buff, but has anyone done any testing on it?

I have not raided yet on ptr and do not have beta access to test at lvl 80, but here is what I found from PTR testing without buffs..
Dropped my 70 ravager and went out and tamed the new epic and tenacity pets so they were all equal level(65) etc for true comparisons. Devilsaur, core hound, cat, and ravager(cunning).

Pet only avg sustained dps after three 2 min runs on single target;
Devilsaur 140-150
Cat 120-130
Ravager 120-130
Core hound 110-125

The fact that Monstrous bite is a %based boost would make me think it would scale quote well with buffs.

 

Shandara

Is this with you hitting the target for GfTT procs? Because without it your pet _will_ run out of focus.

Cats have the big advantage that Rake ignores armor, scales really well on the DoT and has a relatively short cooldown.

WotLK Hunter DPS Spreadsheet

 

◊ Lactose

Tested Rabid with a Wolf (using Bite).
Bite does not seem to trigger Rabid. Looks like only pet auto attacks are valid for proccing the Rabid effect.
I submitted a bug using the in-game tool:

Rabid (pet talent, Ferocity tree) does not work with pet specials.

The pet Ferocity talent Rabid states: "Successful attacks have a 50% chance to increase attack power by an additional 5%."

Using Rabid grants the pet the buff Rabid: "Hits can increase the pet's attack power."
Attacking normally while the pet has this buff sometimes procs the Rabid Power buff: "Increases attack power by 5/10/15/20/25%."

Rabid Power does _not_ proc from a pet's special attacks, only auto attacks.

Easiest/most consistent way of reproducing:
A.) Have a Ferocity type pet (e.g. Wolf), have trained Eyes of the Beast on the Hunter.
B.) Invest talent points at least 12 talent points in Ferocity, 3 being placed in Avoidance, 1 placed in Rabid.
C.) Locate a target, e.g. a training dummy.
D.) Use Eyes of the Beast, and go close to your target.
E.) Right click the target (or click on Attack [default:1])*.
F.) Make sure your pet is in range of your target. Once your pet is dealing damage to the target, you are close enough.
G.) Without moving away, TURN your pet gradually facing away from the target. Pay close attention to when your pet stops dealing damage.
H.) In this position, activate Bite. If Bite does not hit the target, reposition yourself again. Once Bite connects, but your pet's auto attacks do not, you are in the correct position.
I.) Activate Rabid.
J.) While Rabid is active, use Bite on every cooldown (Focus permitting**). If Eyes of the Beast's duration runs out, recast as needed.
K.) Observe that Rabid Power will never proc. Repeat test as needed.

Other tests indicate that this is also true for other pet special abilities. The bug is not caused by using Eyes of the Beast, it simply makes the bug more consistently reproducable.


*Suggesting disabling all auto cast pet abilities.
**The Hunter BM talent Bestial Discipline is suggested to increase rate of Focus regeneration, allowing more uses of Bite.

Look, Lactose, we'd rather you didn't eradicate the whole human race.
- Sam & Max

 

dssurge

Aimed shot Glyph is -20% mana cost making it's mana cost lower than Arcane Shot (assuming no glyph). Unlike the Arcane Shot glyph it's also more practical for off-target shots due to not requiring a Serpent Sting active to get the benefit.

It is quite accurate that it will be a larger mana sucker than Steady Shot spam but the objective here is to maximize DPS in which case Aimed Shot is more damage per shot that Steady, hence why it's being suggested. It's also possible that Arcane Shot will do more DPS as well but I was looking for an excuse to spec Piercing shots and using Aimed as well as Steady in my basic rotation would do that.

I was also looking at the prospect of some kind of Chim -> Arcane -> 4x Steady rotation but I again think Improved Steady Shot would need to be more of a reliable proc to accommodate this prospect. Currently saving Imp. Steady Shot procs exclusively for Chimera Shot seems to be the only way to go, hence why I would chain Arcane immediatly after Chim.

I'm still really on the fence for the viability of a lot of shot specific talents because I want to optimize the talents that affect the broadest range of abilities. Specifically, Piercing Shots, Imp. Arcane Shot, and Survival instincts. It's almost impossible to get any real testing done on Beta pre-mades because of how horrible their gear is and doing testing at level 70 seems inaccurate.

Oh, and for what it's worth, as the level 80 pre-made both Aimed and Arcane out-damage Steady on the target dummies, both by over 200 damage non-crit.

 

Griffen

A hunter posted about changed ai for pets on EU wow forums, and I wondered if anyone else have noticed this?

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Hidden hunter pet changes

Numquam catapultas allice, iram omnium concitabis

 

Kom

Yes and no. That maths is ok, its in the ballpark, and yes it is below other talents that give 1% per point. However even at around (a bit over to be precise) 2% for 3 talent points it still makes it far better than a lot of other talents. For example Wild Quiver is a lot more DPS than Imp SS.

It's good that there's a few things to play around with I guess when it comes to MM spec i.e. the LnL spec and the BM hybrid (mind you this has been the top MM spec since TBC so nothing new here). However really, the most practical spec is pretty clear 7/57/7:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
- Theres nothing further in surv to get.
- As for the BM talents, they require 3 points in dump talents, which reduces their value significantly. The only situation I can foresee them being worthwhile is whereby you have infinite mana, in which case you can drop all the MM mana talents for some extra in BM. I can't see that being very likely going off PTR experiences.
- Aimed and Silencing shots are bonuses, Aimed in the rotation may be more DPS by a minor amount but for over double the mana of MM hunters SS and without the added perks its dreaming to think it will be standard.
- As for Piercing Shots I'm alarmed so many people have it in their trees, it's horrific in terms of DPS, worst in the tree.
- The good thing really about the MM spec atm is that there is points to spend where you like.

--

For surv specs, everything really depends on how many points your 25 man raid setup will require you to have in Hunting Party. If you only need to put 2 points in it, this is the ideal situation really, allows for all the surv DPS talents with only 51 points spent in the tree. This would give a setup of 7/13/51:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
- LnL is crap, on paper its crap, in practice its even worse due to the cumbersome nature of trying to adjust your rotation based on a proc.
- No matter what spec you go, do not underestimate Noxious Stings, 3% damage with a cost of 4 talent points is still very very strong.
- Really you can throw the spare 20 points around wherever you want. IAOTH, MS, CA and FF are all pretty evenly matched, a theoretical top DPS spec may not be the practical one due to a lot of gear related issues. Just take whatever is good at the time.

I'd go as far as to say with this talent tree that each Hunting Party point passed 2 is at a cost of 1% DPS which is fairly significant.

 

dlanod

This bug has been around for quite a while now - I usually find out Cower has gone on to autocast or Growl off autocast because my pet suddenly can't hold aggro worth a damn. I'm yet to find any logic for it, so have just raised bug reports on it.

 

TrevvyTrev

Yes, this is one of the side effects of the new "defensive" AI for pets. Pets will come to your aid as soon as you enter combat, which means as soon as you aggro something in the case above. Another effect of course is that pets will attack whatever you're attacking (because you enter combat as you attack). Some people don't like this part, although I think it is a considerable improvement over the current behavior.

 

Khassandra

I've noticed the same and I like it. All I have to do is fire an arrow at something and my pet races off to attack it as soon as the arrow leaves my bow, before the arrow hits the mob. Which means its attacking before I ever take any damage. Definitely a plus in my book.

http://fdwde.wordpress.com/

"I've always wondered what it'd be like to have a prehensile penis, but you don't see me shitting up this thread with my idea." - Kaubel

 

Griffen

Does that include automatically switching targets when you got more than one mob on you, to gain aggro, as described in the quote?

As for going off when you fire a shot, i don't know yet - don't see a problem for anything but wyvern sting on that atm (saw someone complain about it - don't know if that has been fixed).

Numquam catapultas allice, iram omnium concitabis

 

Rivkah

You don't mention Focused Aim, which is the new home for the 3% hit talent, a pretty significant dps gain for talent buck I would think unless you're already hit capped. The gear I've seen thus far tends to be kind of hit light and I would expect you get more dps gains with the talent and socketing for other stats than socketing for hit and taking different talents.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

I saw this discussed a while back but wanted to confirm it.

Hunters do not want to keep up scorpid sting because it's a mana hog and reduces your DPS potential by a good 200-300 dps, correct?

I'm just wanting to see how useful insect swarm will be for balance

 

Spiry

You are correct.

As I have a moonkin as well as a huntress (and am following both threads) it seems that both groups are wanting the other to do it, and it really only falls to the tanks. Do they need the %miss?

No? Glyph Insect Swarm and keep the Serpent Stings up.

Yes? Well one of us has to do it.../roll?

I realise that unglyphed, IS is an actual dps LOSS, but then again no matter what, Scorpid Sting is a dps LOSS.

 

lamrith

No that is pure pet dps. yes the pet went focus starved, but I wanted to see what each pet does solo. That dps listed was maintained after the initial burst dps at the start from full focus and abilities firing off. It did match up with my pet&hunter dps tests which held them in the same order on total dps against the test dummies.

 

KraxisSingular

Depending on number of Hunters and specs of course.

For Surv and MM Scorpid is downright murder. Survival lose LnL procs and potentially Noxious Stings and possibly even Improved Stings. MM lose Improved Stings and half the reason to use Chimera Shot.
And if there is a single Hunter we lose out on the Steady Shot glyph too (possibly overall as well if it turns out to be a bug). Which is pretty much very painful.

The only spec that should ever be asked to keep Scorpid up would be BM, and only when there is at least one other Hunter to keep Serpent up. I really doubt those 3% miss would make up for the loss of DPS for the Hunter in any other case.

At least IS is still a DoT of some value and doesn't detract a host of talents and/or glyphs (directly at least).
But again, I really don't think the 3% miss will make that much of a difference in the end in most cases. In special cases, yes perhaps.

 

Steelfleece

Using Focused Aim for ~9% hit seems to result in my pet never missing the boss target dummy (only dodges).

 

Smoggers

How exactly does replenishment work though? Obviously if you proc it again while it is active, the raid members whom already have the buff ticking won't receive a second buff. But what about the raid members that didn't get the priority on the first tick? Will they get the next round of replenishment, or will it refresh replenishment on the members that already have it ticking? If so, I would think a full point investment into Hunting Party would be well worth the points. You talk about the talent being a direct dps loss, which it obviously is, but you aren't speccing into deep survival for maximum dps.

Right?

 

Ketari

Okay...except mana conservation, while spamming shots, is also maximising DPS for Hunters. Because of the Viper mechanics, spending mana faster does not necessarily mean our DPS will be higher even in the medium term. If it's scaling identically to steady as Lactose suggests, it means that even with the glyph we're looking at (level 80) 84 mana for 156 damage. That's...not so hot. Especially when you've allready used a talent point and a major glyph on it. For PvP, sure. For PvE? Um.

TrevyTrev - You might view it as good. I view it as necessating me to use passive, because I don't allways want my pet attacking when I open fire.

Smoggers - As I understand it, it places it on the 10 lowest mana users. If they already have it, that means they get a refresh on the duration. You can proc it fairly frequently with 3/5. Also, I'd take issue with your comment about maximum dps - you're not providing a heck of a lot of utility anymore, your DPS has to be up there.

edit: added math

 

KraxisSingular

Whenever Replenishment procs it will target the lowest 10 mana users and give it to them, regardless of any prior Replenishment ticking. So yes, there is a benefit to proc it as often as possible, however one must assume that those that are lowest the soonest will in general remain down there the most (meaning if they get back up again, they will ikely be down again soon enough). The benefit to often procced Replenishment is there, but it is fairly limited as long as it isn't procced once per 15 seconds alone. But with Spriests being fairly common and Retris having a surge of popularity, chances are that there should be enough room for a bit of slack on part of the Survival Hunter.

And no, you do spec deep Survival for DPS. Only Hunting Party is a non-DPS related talent, and you spec deep not for it, but for Explosive Shot. In an ideal Hunter-world the Spriests and Retris would be the ones alone to keep Replenishemnt up since they have a vested interest in getting the talents for it (spriests getting another DoT and retris getting 20% of their mana on judging), the Survival Hunter has the most points to spend for no direct personal gain. But I think most Survival Hunters accept that they need to put some point in HP, for the sake of the raid.

 

Ketari

Or, very arguably, Hunting Party should provide the SV Hunter with a benefit as well as providing replenishment.