Please excuse my confusion, but where is he getting the 22.08 from? To increase my Crit by 1% it takes less than 8 critical strike rating, not 22.08? If you use 8 instead of 22.08 Focused Aim would be the clear winner, so I must be doing something wrong.

22.08 is the standard conversion for crit rating to 1% for all lvl 70 hunters (all classes?). I don't know where you're getting 8 from, but you're either not lvl 70, or just wrong.

I am level 70

My character displays:
Crit Chance 28.64%
Crit rating 223(+10.10% Crit chance)

223/28.64=7.79
I know 7.79 isn't exactly accurate so I posted it as "under 8".

To further test this I remove my gloves with a 16 Crit rating and it changed to:
Crit Chance 26.52%
Crit rating 207(+9.38% Crit chance)
223-207=16
28.64-26.52=2.21%
16/2.21=7.24 (or under 8)

I am not trying to say that 22.08 is wrong. I am asking how it was arrived at and what am I doing wrong in my calculations?

That's where you're off. Your crit rating of 223 increases your crit chance by 10.10%, not by the 28.64% you're using. The 28.64% takes things other than crit rating into account.

Minor update on the previously posted macro: Apparently, if you have a friendly target (e.g. yourself) targetted, the fix from the original post will not work.
Here's an updated version:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/stopmacro [target=target,noexists]
/stopmacro [target=target, noharm]
/cast !Auto Shot (optional)
/cast Steady Shot

Original post has been updated.

Those gloves have agility on them by any chance? Agility adds crit too remember

I posted pretty much this exact suggestion a number of pages back and, unfortunately, it doesn't work. If you're pressing your macro button as the mob dies, it will still target a new mob all on it's own... and then the macro won't prevent itself from firing. The same is true with the focus macro.

There appears to be some bug with autoshot where it will pick a new target and start firing at that one when your current target dies. It doesn't seem to happen if you're not pressing a button that has some kind of attack action tied to it. However, putting logic into the macro to prevent it from functioning if you don't have a target doesn't help.

It feels like the game is watching for you trying to attack by seeing what action your macro is supposed to take, and hacking around the default code somehow to keep autoshot firing. It might be looking at the button to see what action its supposed to take w/o checking to see if it would actually take it given the current circumstances.

Confirming that the macro posted by Lactose unfortunately doesnt work to stop this annoying behaviour.

And you switched off the auto switching between melee/ranged and added the !auto shot as written in that macro?
I haven't had the chance to test the macro yet.

Personally, I haven't had any issues with the macro. I've heard other people saying it works 90% of the time, etc.
I have a feeling that if it does still bug out if you press it while target is dying, that it's related to latency (conditionals are checked client-side):

CLIENT: Macro pressed, target selected (almost dead). "Hey, I want to shoot this foul beast!"
SERVER: Instructions received. "Sure thing, but that thing's dead already. Here, you can shoot this thing instead, it's right next to the one you wanted to shoot!"

Even if it isn't a 100% fix, I still find it a pure improvement over the default behaviour.
I should probably note that I don't spam the macro, which might help explain why I haven't had any issues with it, even when target 1 dies and there's other targets nearby.

Hopefully, the Auto Attack/Auto Shot unlinking bug will be fixed soon, allowing us to not worry about this any longer.

On the latest beta build it seems to be fixed. Autos were going off correctly while casting steady (regardless of the auto shot/auto attack option being selected or not). I only tested it quickly though, so it'd be nice if someone tested it out to confirm (or to prove me wrong ).

Hi, this is my first post, but I am reading the thread since page 60 and havent seen the points mentioned yet.


I cant use the spreadsheet, because I am at work, but I think the statement that haste is a linearly scaling stat is wrong, at least for Marksman or Survival spec.

It would be linear if we just would shoot Steadies, but considering the cooldowns of our main shots Chimera/ES, the scaling graph should show some deviations due to waiting/delays to match the mainshot cooldown.


Explosive Shot for example has a 6 seconds cooldown, so
for a perfect 3SS/1ES or 4SS/1ES rotation you need to be at 2(have to disregard quiver for this one) or 1.5 seconds cast time.
Right in the middle at 1.75s cast time you have to waste 0.75seconds before you can cast your next ES, which is the worst case and should show up on the graph.
Fortunately, quiver haste brings us past this point and we are going uphill (nonlinear), so we get more bang from haste, than from 2->1.75

Chimera Shot is a bit more complicated with its 10 seconds cooldown.
2s cast time for for a straigt 5SS/1CS (purely hypothetical,if they erase quiver haste at some point)
1.67s is probably the optimal case for a perfect 6SS/1CS rotation
1.5s on the other hand would induce a 0.5 seconds delay for a 7SS/+0.5s 1CS

Just like SV, quiver haste takes us to 1.7, but we are going uphill just till 1.66, after that its downhill, so less bang per haste.
It needs to be calculated if its worth it for MM to spend item budget on haste past this point and delay the next Chimera Shot. Or maybe the whole issue is trivialised by latency and human error anyway, but it doesn't change the fact that the scaling is non linear.
I am sorry I couldn't provide the numbers myself, maybe later when I am home.




On a complete different topic, considering the changes to spell pushback, is it still worth it to spec a non-BM pet for Cobra Reflexes?
Kill Command would also provide better benefits with 0 CR if its worth the mana for MM/SV Spec.


I hope I could make my points clear, English is my 3rd language

My control test on targeting is to go outside shat, have my pet round up two mobs, then spam fire on one... and wait and see whether I pick up the second one.

So far, none of the macros posted here have had any effect on auto targeting.

With auto shot/attack enabled - the macro above doesn't work, steady shot will always pick up the next target, with or without Auto shot in the macro.

With auto shot/attack enabled - the same macro without /stopmacro behaves the same. Same for using steady off the action par, or my other shot macros.

With atuo shot/attack disabled - the macro above works. Any amount of spamming (I may not have gotten a shot off at the exact moment of death in such limited testing) will not pick up the second MOB.

With auto shot/attack disable - all other shots and macros also happen to work. Spamming steady outside a macro won't pick up the second mob. Spamming the same macro without the /stopmacro lines also doesn't have an effect.


So this test shows that if you have two mobs in combat, and even a hostile OC but in range. It is the interface setting that determines whether specials will pick the next mob or not, not anything in the macros.

But to be fair, I think Lactose is talking about the very specific moment when the mob dies, which isn't tested here.

I'm also curious whether they haven't already hotfixed live servers for the issue of auto attacks no longer being unlinked when you enable Auto Attack/Auto Shot. It *looks* like the auto shots are now behaving the same whether that feature is selected or not. Can anyone confirm?

Out of curiosity, what process are you using to make sure that auto is not being clipped by steady (with clipped here meaning that it won't fire while steady is casting)? Obviously, I can stare at my character and combat log, but I'm hoping someone has a more efficient way of checking.

You're forgetting that CS and ES trigger the GCD, so basically has a 1.5s cast time, hence SV uses exclusively a 3SS/1ES rotation and MM uses either 5SS/1CS or 6SS/1CS

I'm at work so I've got time to waste on this :P
I'll take Survival since the effect is grestest here, and spose that a rotation does 1000 damage:
At 0 haste + quiver SV's rotation is 6.717s, that's 148.9DPS, adding 20 haste gives 6.652, 150.3, 1.462dps increase
At 200 haste: 6.130, 163.1 + 20 haste => 6.079, 164.5, 1.382dps increase.

So yeah, in practical terms it's not quite linear, which is what I'd expect. I think actually you're trying to show that i's asymptotic at certain points, which is also true, but bleh. My original statement was based on what was probably a misunderstanding of the context of another post. Haste is principally a linear dps increase stat, which is what I set out to demonstrate, but the post I made that statement in reference to was based on complete dps analysis, so it's conclusions are most likely true in that context. In short, we were both right, just about different things :P

Instead of those, try adding a line

That would stop the macro if your target is either dead or you simply have no target. Should work well.

By the way Lactose, [target=target] in a macro is redundant; it defaults to your current target. The above would be the same as

for instance. You can simple start a new set of conditionals after the first to have another instance of the same command. Anyway this isn't the macro thread, but that should do what you're after. I haven't tried it myself however.

To put it simply:

Week 1: Myself and another hunter pew pew brutallus. I'm BM, he's MM. I do 3.4k, he does 3.1k. Neat.
Week 2: We're short healers. Ret pally goes holy, shadow priest goes disc. The hunters both spec survival for replenishment. We both do 2k dps on Brut.

...I immediately advise the raid lead to never, ever, ever, have the hunters spec SV again. over 2k dps lost because of 2 respecs? WTH?

I don't see how survival is viable in any fight requiring dps. First off, explosive shot is unimpressive as hell compared to chimera shot, or even steady shot. Worse, because it's on a 6 second CD, you're locked into either 3xSS per Explosive, or 4xSS per explosive if you're hasted down to 1.5. That means that haste basically won't scale for steady shot in a survival build post-WF nerf. Either you fire 4, or you fire 3. If you fire 4 before getting down to 1.5, then you're inducing explosive shot loss over the course of the fight. It's the old improved arcane build all over again. Of course, MM has something of the same problem, but it's a lot easier to get from 5 to 6 than it is from 3 to 4. It's also worse for SV because you have to refresh your sting, inducing another locked-duration CD into the mix, wheras MM only has chimera.

Does this get any better at level 80? Does Lightning Reflexes scaling or something else save SV from its own low dps at some point? I assume I'm seeing a "worst case" scenario right now because explosive-SV has no GFtT at 70, and pet damage was pathetic, but it seems to me that SV would be the hardest hit by the WF nerf because it will have the hardest time using lesser values of haste to increase steady damage with such a short locked-cooldown ability bounding your steadies. I know my guild hunters are contemplating going to a no-explosive, no-sting, steady-spam hunting party build with MM talents if we ever have to go SV again. Is SV really that broken? Even the theorycraft seems to have moved away from it.

The biggest problem with survival at 70 honestly is that it's impossible to get both explosive shot and go for the throat. Go for the throat is a pretty significant dps loss in a spec that is already being forced to forego a lot of damage talents in the marks/BM tree. I ended up going marks for raiding right now, I plan to go back to survival for leveling and wait to see what happens with all the balancing at 80 before I settle on a raid spec.

At 80 survival can get enough damage talents to perform decently well in a raid setting. I believe that MM and BM are still capable of beating it but I'm not sure by how much as survival seems to gain more from those extra 10 talent points and better gear than the other specs in a 25 man setting. In 10 man Naxx (this was a few weeks ago, so I have no idea what the latest nerfs have done) I could put out decent damage but I still had trouble coming in #1, usually the ret palis were kicking my butt. In 25 man Naxx I was able to come in #1 on Patchwerk once and could put in respectable showings on most fights. The only other hunter there was better geared than I and marks specced for the raid where I came in #1 on Patchwerk and survival specced on the next raid I participated in. He beat me on most fights but it was by maybe 200dps and we were still coming in ahead of the bulk of the pack.

In terms of the WF nerf I actually think marks will be harder hit than survival, although survival will still be harder hit than BM. Survival spends a far larger percentage of its time on instant casts which aren't really significantly affected by haste- steady shot spam makes up a smaller percentage of damage. That being said I think survival will really need a bit of attention to stay viable at 80 and I hope Blizz has that in mind and is just waiting to address it until after hunter dps in general is at the level they're comfortable with.

In relation to the accidental shooting of other mobs bug, this is actually a problem that has existed for a long time for melee. The amount of times I've been attacking a target on my rogue and all of a sudden I'm attacking another target that I didn't choose because the mob died on me drives me nuts. When I saw this behavior on beta on my hunter I recognized it immediately. I don't know why they haven't fixed it long ago for any class but it really needs addressing and I hope it'll be fixed soon.

Since you've not provided WWS of the two parses, it becomes very difficult to determine what you and/or your fellow hunter were doing incorrectly, as pre-wf change all three specs should be at similar damage levels.

A couple of things you should take into account is that since neither you or the other hunter appears to be overly familiar with the play-style, dps would suffer from the learning curve and realize that at level 70 SV simply isn't a complete spec since you're locked out of gftt, 5/5 mortal shots and imp stings when you choose explosive shot.

Saying something such as never having a hunter (or hunters) spec survival again due to poor performance on one fight is foolish. Assuming that the two hunters were the only providers of replenishment, the regen to your mages/locks alone should yield an increase in raid dps.

Edit: Also consider the standard brutallus (burns, pets bugging) factors when attempting to compare dps between separate kills.

No offense but you must be doing something wrong with surv. I will agree that it is the lowest of the three specs but not by the 1400 that you are seeing. I pulled 3500 as MM on brut and as surv I pulled 3100DPS. As surv I used a ES/Steadyx3 rotation. Marks used a CS,aimed shot, Steadyx5 I think.

My ES tricks are critting for 1500 average fully buffed equaling 4500 on a 6 sec CD and a 75% crit rate.

My CS is about 5600 dmg and a 2100 serpent crit at about 75% crit rate. Not sure why the crit was so high


Brut in 3.0 as Surv Cat pet about 341dps no GftT

Brut in 3.0 as MM Scorpid about 506dps 1/2GftT and zero focus problems

I personally think that at level 80 the pet dmg will equal out between the two specs (both having GftT). Both specs have VERY close AP in my gear. Ever item has agi. The equaling of pet dps should make the two specs very close on dps on single target bosses. AOE on the other hand MM will win every time due to the volley crit buff.

Edit: both fights there wasn't room for me around the tanks so I was chilling with the melee and NOT at sniper training range hurting the surv dps.

Here's my mana-battery spec at level 80 :

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

As a disclaimer, we are talking about 10-man raiding here, *NOT* 25.

Two questions --
1 : Unsure of where to put the last 3 points... seems to be a choice between 3/3 Improved Stings or Aimed Shot + Rapid Fire & work Aimed Shot into the rotation somehow. Is Aimed Shot even viable? It becomes the new Multi-shot in the old 1.5:1 rotation.

2 : How many points is genuinely needed for Hunting Party to be viable? Right now I'm looking at 2. Seems to me that if I can't get enough crits within 15 seconds for a 40% chance-to-proc to proc once, I fail as a huntard. Thoughts?

What Rivkah said, ES and GftT are both must-have talents for a SV build, and you can't have both of them at 70.

Come 80, I'd expect things to be a little better since both those must-have talents are available, but SV's still going to lag behind. SV suffers from a weak early tree. Imp Tracking is at most 0.8% dps per talent point, that's assuming a focus starved pet, and survival instincts is similar, and they're the only talents in the first 3 tiers of SV which increase dps in their own right. BM has Aspect Mastery and, given a bit of focus, unleashed fury both slotting in at around the 1% dps increase mark (UF is obviously worth even more for deep BM). MM is even better endowed, with mortal shots, careful aim and go for the throat all pretty much must-have talents for any build (apart from the second point in GftT for a BM hunter). A BM hunter will automatically get the good BM talents as they progress down the tree, and then fill up on the good stuff in MM. A MM hunter gets all the good early MM stuff for free, and then probably takes 16 in BM (nobody seems to mention this, but I'm finding 16/51/4 to be the best spec in both the spreadsheet and my simulator, UF > IT if the pet stays up and you have any +focus talents). SV gets a pretty weak first 15 points and ends up having to miss out on the good stuff in BM (not that aspect mastery is particularly good with SV's mana sustainability, or UF particularly good without BD and/or GftT).