Kom

Argh! Sorry but I feel like I am going around in circles. That link you just posted is the exact formula's I've been posting. They are completely different to your one. I think you mis-interpreted me also, when I say unmodified weapon damage, I mean there is no additional damage from elsewhere added, I believe that is what Blizzard means also. Yes it is 'modified' to be normalized, check my first post on the matter with the 3 possible formula's, Lactose's post confirms it's the first one on my list:
1) WeaponDPS*2.8 + AmmoDPS*2.8 + 280 + 0.2*AP

Which is quite different to your formula of:
WpnDmg + 280 + 40% AP

Hence where all the confusion came from.

Also I am not questioning how you obtained the 20% figure. I merely meant that you were making comparisons in your post WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion between what shots to use your GCD and what not to use, but the Arcane Shot formula was off (the armor piercing is irrelevant) and you factored raid buffs into a comparison of Base values, which would skew any result. In this case however the result comes out the same, AS sucks, but I figured I'd point it out.

Hope this clarifies a few things, finding Lactose's post on the matter does for me.

 

Conscience

ES and Arcane share CD, so you will only use one (ES should be your choice, as long as you have specced it) of them either way.

 

• Playered

You should have at least 300 Int at level 80 unbuffed assuming you use your intended gear which makes it pretty decent for a 'filler' talent and naturally it will improve with your gear and buffs.
Also going to throw a generic figure of 500 Sta unbuffed which will give you 150AP bonus at base and again scale with buffs and gear. (Imp) Fort will give you 215 Sta which is a bonus 64 AP and the PvP gear which is naturally high on Sta will again help you to retain some oomph with your survivability - this does not bring into account the boost to your pets AP either but I'm not so certain about how it will result (double dipping?) so don't want to make a rough comment on it.

How does increasing your max range help you on ST unless there are physical objects stopping you being at 30-35 yards and thus that extra 6 yards become useful? not to bring in the fact that standing further than the minimum required will currently provide you even less chance of getting Totems and buffs.
If anything having Hawk Eye provide synergy by lowering the required range on Sniper Training by 2/4/6 yards would allow it to complement really well.

 

KraxisSingular

I guess you said all I wanted to. Though I think we will have considerably more than 300 Int at 80. Both Hunters and Enhancement Shamans are getting a 3 point 100% Int to AP talent. That along with the intended complete sharing of gear (since Shamans don't want Str anymore but Agi) indicates very strong ly that we will have more Int to throw around. 500+ Int doesn't seem unreasonable.

Good idea on Hawk Eye. That would certainly help with totems, and if Abom's Might ever gets buffed in range.

 

TrevvyTrev

I think then that the problem is I don't understand you. The competing design philosphies of various talents have absolutely nothing to do with whether the UI should be reworked to provide range information. It's not that I disagree with your assessment of how the design is going (even if I don't endorse a few of your assumptions), it's that it's not even relevant. Even if the designers made these talents with the assumption that hunters would be at max range, that doesn't explain why they work the way they do. Neither of these abilities says, "when the hunter is at max range," so why should we assume that's what the designers meant? And even if we do, how does that explain why both talents work at very specific ranges, while the client does not provide very specific range information to the player?

In fact separation anxiety specifically factors in NOT being at max range during an encounter into its design. There are two reasons: 1) it doesn't use distance to target in its calculations AT ALL, so it's a meaningless metric. It doesn't matter whether you are 10 feet away from an NPC or Player or object or anything else besides your pet. 2) it also works when you are right on top of your pet, for whatever reason that may be (pvp, pve ... it doesn't matter).

Bottom line: You can't implment an ability that completely changes based on whether you are at least 20 yards away if you aren't going to let players know when they are 20 yards away from whatever it is that triggers the ability. I can tell when I'm 5 yards away from my pet. I can tell when I'm 40 yards away from my pet. I can't tell whether I'm 18 yards away from my pet, and that makes a HUGE difference. I need to know exactly how far away I am from my pet so I can decide whether I want to move closer to it, away from it, or stay put. I'm just suggesting that they either:

1) Unlock range info in the API, so people can get exact ranges again in relation to any particular object or entity from which they would like to measure, or

2) create "buffs" for these abilities that only apply at specific ranges. When you are 20 yards or more away from your pet, you get a "Separated!" buff with an appropriate tooltip ("Your pet is suffering from separation anxiety, increasing its damage"). And if you are 30 yards or more from your target you get "Sniping," with another appropriate tooltip. Assuming of course, that you have these particular talents trained.

Your points, valid as they may be, simply have nothing whatsoever to do with mine, which is why I keep getting confused as to why you've linked them.

 

Steelfleece

I should note that in WotLK, max rank Aspect of the Hawk will be +300 Ranged Attack Power, making Aspect Mastery +150 RAP for Hawk. That definitely outperforms 1 point in Master Marksman in at any reasonable amount of RAP. It may not scale, but for 1 point that's a pretty huge AP gain.

Still, it may not be worth finding 3 extra filler points in BM for non-BM builds. I still think BM builds will remain more viable than a lot of people here seem to be thinking, however, as pets still have incredible scaling potential and, as long as they can be kept alive, should be damage machines in WotLK.

affect –verb (used with object) 1. to act on; produce an effect or change in
effect –noun 1. something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence
Know the difference.

 

Serpent's Choice

Currently, of course, the preferred raid sting (such as stings are preferred) is Scorpid. However, all this talk about improving the viability of stings and raising the Serpent Sting coefficient makes me curious as to its potential use in the next build. This 0/18/52 [+1] build provides synergy for a theoretically improved Serpent, diving MM for Improved Stings and picking up Noxious Stings. Lock and Load has a very poor average time between procs when not triggered by traps (on the order of 2 minutes), but the payoff is high when it occurs, and, frankly, there aren't many better methods to dive past that tier in SV. Notably absent is Sniper Training. Posters above me have already done the math to demonstrate why extreme range is suboptimal with respect to Abomination Strength and other melee-origin, range-limited buffs. I further argue that the change to Hunting Party works at cross-purposes with Sniper Training; Kill Shot does not trigger Hunting Party, and the end of a long fight is precisely the period of time that I most want to my ensure party mana regeneration is working.

The question, of course, is how big of a change is needed to make this work? With the change to mana mechanics and the buff to Hunting Party, I'm only going to focus on the damage aspect of this comparison. Serpent Sting does use more mana than Steady Shot, but I do not believe it will be an issue. There seems to be some dispute still on the exact mechanics Steady Shot is employing in WotLK. For the sake of argument, I'll be using the numbers least favorable to Serpent Sting, since it has the most to prove! We'll assume a 150 dps bow and 50 dps arrows, which I think is a reasonable point of reference at or about Naxx80 level content. Let's also assume a 40% crit rate, with 5/5 Mortal Shots. Physical damage is reduced by armor, however, and I'll assume 20% mitigation from armor. That gives us:

Steady: ([280 + [(150 + 50) * 2.8] + (0.2 * rAP)] * [0.6 + (0.4 * 2.3)]) * 0.8
Simplified to: 1021.44 + (0.2432 * rAP)

Serpent Sting, currently, cannot hope to compete. But, we know that its coefficient is changing. Serpent Sting, as a dot, cannot crit, but it is not physical damage, so is not subject to armor mitigation. Improved Stings increases the damage by 30%. I'll assume this is a situation where the dot can run to duration. If you're fighting mobs that die in less than 15 seconds, I trust the EJ readers won't be trying to dot.

Serpent: [1210 + (C * rAP)] * 1.3

Lock and Load is infrequent enough that I won't try to model it, but we do also need to consider Noxious Stings. Over the 15 seconds of Serpent Sting, we will have at least 5 Auto Shots and 6 specials. In reality, we should have more than that due to haste and competence, but, again, I'm tipping the scales against Serpent Sting. Because the math is still changing on Explosive Shot, we'll assume those specials are all Steady Shots (again, this penalizes Serpent). We'll let the bow be speed 3.0 for roundness.

Noxious from Auto: [729.7 + ([3.648 * rAP] / 14)] * (0.03 * 5)
Noxious from Steady: [1021.44 + (0.2432 * rAP)] * (0.03 * 6)
Simplified to: 293.3142 + (0.08286 * rAP)

Total Serpent Sting: 1866.3142 + [([1.3 * C] + 0.0828617) * rAP]

So, what are we looking for out of the raised coefficient? It turns out, we don't need that much of a bonus. For the effective scaling of Serpent Sting to equal that of Steady, ([1.3 * C] + 0.0828617) must equal 0.2432. At that point, Serpent Sting comes out roughly 800 damage ahead, due to higher base damage. Admittedly, at exactly the break-even point, it might be preferable to still avoid Serpent Sting, since it cannot proc Hunting Party or Expose Weakness. But that break-even point is low: 0.1233. This means that if they raise Serpent Sting to even a 0.15 coefficient, then a fully talented Serpent Sting will scale better than Steady Shot, at least early in WotLK. Personally, I'm hoping for the coefficient to wind up at 0.2 to outweigh any lingering concerns over mana efficiency or the general dot mechanics -- and to ensure that Serpent stays competitive when we upgrade to ever-higher damage weaponry -- but even a more modest improvement may yield a positive outcome for a fully-talented sting SV build.

 

Kedour

A while back someone posted the comparison of mail and leather gear for hunters, saying we'd likely be wearing some leather. I thought maybe adding a small critical strike rating bonus from Intellect to Careful Aim might help that, but then it may begin to be considered as vital, which I think Blizzard may want to avoid from a tier 2 talent. It'd probably be a very small bonus, but would make intellect a bit more valuable to us. Any thoughts?

 

RogueLeaderX

Current ET - Increases your total health by 2/4/6/8/10%

WotLK ET - Increases your stamina by 2/4/6/8/10%

Look a little closer ^^ =P

 

WarTotem

Hmmm, after reviewing I seem to have found the error. I must have either been very tired or have had quite some drinks at the time (or both), as I seem to have interpretted the WeaponDamage part as 'normalized' damage, Most likely due to the extremely confusing tooltip. That would mean that "unmodified" means "with no extra damage from Attack Power", which seems completely retarded, as the 20% AP added to that IS the bonus on normalized weapon damage.

Conclusion:
The tooltip was worded very badly, Steady Shot does normalized attack damage + ammo damage + base damage + daze bonus. Or:
SteadyDmg = NormWpnDmg + AmmoDPS*2.8 + 280 + [Dazed:175]
for rank 3
Which basicly is auto-shot DPS * 2.8 + bonuses. Guess you caught my error at the right time, Chimera Shot was due for a revision anyway :P


Don't you consider Mortal Shots vital already? The problem atm is that you are almost "forced" to go 14-15 points into Marksman, which is a pretty annoying problem especially for Surv hunters. I'ld love to see Careful aim switched with something in T1-2 in Surv tbh, maybe Hawk's Eye (although then Blizz needs to find a new excuse for Sniper Training being in the Surv tree :p). I've tried as hard as I could, but I simply can't find enough points to give up in my surv build to go 11 in BM, which is very annoying.

 

TrevvyTrev

One issue is that if we go on the assumption that Serpent Sting will only edge out Steady Shot if it is *fully talented*, then it's going to be a lot harder to meet Blizzard's stated goal of having all hunters incorporate a sting and a shot (besides steady) into their rotations. It might work for MM and SV hunters, (each of whom gets some incentives to use serpent sting in their trees), but BM hunters probably won't be keen on going deep enough into MM for improved stings at the expense of Imp. Tracking, for example.

Plus, someone's got to do Scorpid Sting, right? MM hunters aren't going to want to do it in light of Chimera Shot (unless the boss *really* needs disarming and the warriors/rogues have theirs on CD), and SV hunters might prefer Serpent Sting also because of whatever-Potent-Venom-is-called-now.

That leaves BM hunters as the best candidates for Scorpid duty, but the issue is making it feel like they should want to do it instead of just being relegated to it because their stings are otherwise subpar. One thing that might do the trick is to add a one-point, Tier 2 talent that adds some synergy with it. I like this idea because it would solve both the above issue, while also helping with the longstanding "throwaway point to get to Tier 3" issue that BM hunters find so irksome. I'm thinking of someithing like the following:

Poisoned Fangs (BM, Tier 2, 1 point): "Your Scorpid Sting now applies to spells in addition to melee and ranged, and your pet's special attacks have a 10% additional chance to critically strike against targets afflicted by one of your stings."

10% may seem a bit high (or low, depending on your view) but part of my thinking is that BM hunters might feel that the increased pet special criticals would lead to more invigoration procs, which would help defray the somewhat prohibitive mana cost of Scorpid Sting. It also somewhat matches the pet special critical strike benefit of a single point in Focused Fire, which is in the same tier. I made the crit chance increase apply to stings generally just so as not to overly pigeonhole BM hunters into using scorpid (plus give it some use for lower level hunters without scorpid), but rather provided a gentle nudge in that direction by giving a specific boost to Scorpid in the talent. I also went with pet special crits instead of something like "your pet's attacks have a chance to regen x% mana against targets afflicted by your Scorpid Sting," because I didn't want to make it into a low-cost mana regen talent for MM/SV hunters to be able to pick up -- not that I'm really opposed to that personally, but it seems like something that might be too much of a bargain for those specs.

Another idea I had would be something like "your pet's special attacks ignore x% armor against targets afflicted by one of your stings," but that really just comes across as "your pet's damage is boosted by y%." Still, that might be an easier talent for hunters to model and feel as if it were worthwhile. Plus, pets don't get armor penetration as we do so maybe it would work. Better yet, in light of the non-pet scaling effect of armor pen the talent could give the pet some percentage of the hunter's armor pen, but that would mean that the talent didn't do anything if you didn't gear for armor pen, which theoretically may be possible in WotLK.

Well, that problem exists for BM hunters too. It's not like I can find enough points to go 11 in SV, either. On balance I'd say it's a tad worse for BM -- SV hunters might miss out on some damage boosters, but by contrast BM hunters miss out on improving traps, which is a pretty significant part of the class, at least in smaller scale instances and PvP.

 

Steelfleece

Aren't you thinking Survivalist rather than Endurance Training?

affect –verb (used with object) 1. to act on; produce an effect or change in
effect –noun 1. something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence
Know the difference.

 

Kedour

That's true about Mortal Shots. At least if Careful Aim did give a bit of a critical strike rating bonus then those 14-15 points wouldn't seem AS forced. More criticals would complement BM and Survival specs very well, as well as Mortal Strikes. It'd give all of those talents in early Marksmen that are cookie cutter a tiny bit more synergy, being that they all act off of or contribute to critical strikes. I'm just thinking something small, considering Lethal Shots is there. Something like making 16%/33%/50% of your intellect contribute to Ranged Critical Strike rating as agility does. This would give a hunter with 250 Intellect right now another 3.13% critical chance, but these numbers would need to be changed depending on the ratio of agility to intellect on our gear, and how the agility -> critical strike rating -> crit chance conversions are at level 80.

Also, from what I'm seeing as the typical survival hunter's intellect right now (250 to 300) and stamina (about 500), they'll be fine skipping the 11 points in BM if Hunting Party and Thrill of the Hunt can keep their mana okay. They'd gain more AP from a build like this:
WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Hunter -> Talent Calculator

I'm not sure what kind of a build you were after for survival, but I think that would be my survival raid build. I don't have a lot of survival experience though, so feel free to point out flaws.

Edit: I think taking one point from GftT and putting it in Mortal Strikes may be better, but I'm not sure. Too lazy to do the math while at work.

 

Arcazua

Are you looking at Endurance Training (BM) or Survivalist (SV)? Survivalist was changed to stamina. Endurance Training is still health.

 

Serpent's Choice

EDIT 2: Now with better MM math!

A less-than-fully talented Serpent Sting might still scale better than Steady, depending on how much they tinker with its coefficient. Under the same conditions as noted above, but with only Improved Stings (no Noxious Stings), Serpent will break-even against Steady scaling at C = 0.187. The most likely characters to have this outcome at this time are probably some sort of hybrid BM hunters. Additionally, the 40% crit rate used in my SV modelling is probably high for anyone else at the Naxx80 level, which will lower the effective scaling of Steady and help close the gap faster. Still, having the coefficient raised to at least 0.2 would be ideal here.

MM hunters don't even much care about the coefficient per se. Because Chimera now refreshes the dot, the reapplication opportunity cost is reduced to zero -- there is no longer a need to ensure that the Sting itself outperforms the Steady Shot it replaces (once), assuming a sufficiently long encounter. The only utilization question is thus whether Chimera outperforms Steady, which is clearly true at just about any possible values of anything. Chimera's bonus damage from Serpent is (629 + [0.52 * C * rAP]), modified by crit chance and armor mitigation. This stacks with the base effect of Chimera. Even at the current 0.1 coefficient for Serpent, Chimera is good stuff and MM hunters maximizing dps output would open the cycle with a Serpent Sting.

For a totally untalented Serpent Sting, the coefficient would have to be raised to almost 0.25 before it would outperform Steady over all ranges of rAP. I don't think we'll see 0.25 on Serpent, though, so builds that don't get Improved Stings but who want to use a Sting should probably consider Scorpid, although I'll note that there is no talent-based motivation to do so, just the raid benefit of Scorpid itself.

Basically, we're going to be looking at the coefficient change to see who can realistically build Serpent into their rotations. Right now, it only supports Chimera Shot MM builds. If it only goes to 0.15, certain SV builds are viable. At 0.2, most other SV builds and hybrids. And, finally, at 0.25, just about everyone including BM. Anything higher than that would require the devs to be hitting the crazy gas. Frankly, after some number crunching with Chimera, I'm still hoping for 0.2, but might have to settle for expecting 0.15.

 

msg

Cross posted in the priest thread.

While technically a hunter buff, I'm thinking they didn't consider the impact on priests in the arena of:

The new Chimera shot (51 Marks talent):
10 sec cd
You deal 125% weapon damage, refreshing the current sting on your target and triggering an effect:
Serpent sting: Instantly deal 40% of the damage done by your serpent sting
Viper sting: Instantly restore mana to you equal to 60% of the total amount drained by your viper sting
Scorpid sting: Attempts to disarm the target for 10 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per 1 min

Viper sting is 8 sec with a 15 sec cooldown, which all other healing classes (other than priests) can dispel. With this talent, viper sting can essentially be kept up permanently.

Considering the massive boost to the base viper sting already (1368 mana for the current rank, 3092 for the new rank), with the talent to boost viper sting to 30%, WOTLK hunters can drain 502.5 mana per second (which seems sort of lol against priests in arena brackets without a poison dispeller, or any mana class without one for that matter).

I mean, maybe the mana pools will be spiking up ridiculously, but considering there wasn't a massive jump from 60 to 70 in mana pools, I doubt we'll see one from 70 to 80 (especially based on how the gear is turning out at lvl 77 in beta).

 

Renmazuo

I may be wrong but I could of swore I remember reading that priests were getting a poison cleanse spell.

 

TrevvyTrev

Exactly. With Chimera Shot now *refreshing* the sting instead of consuming it, Chimera Shot becomes much more attractive as an alternative to Steady when the CD is up. The initial SS mana cost will get "amortized" over the duration of the fight -- once you fire that first sting, you don't need to fire another for the entire fight, and it will just keep ticking. Once Imp. Steady procs, it's almost insane not to follow up with a Chimera Shot -- at 15% more damage and 40% less mana, it's bound to be a better choice than Steady.

BM hunters have no such synergy with any sting (nor with arcane shot, but that's a different story), so unless they are "forced" into it by raid need (Scorpid), it's going to be Steady-Auto ad infinitum until the target is at 20% for Kill Shot. And as I mentioned above, putting the BM hunter on Scorpid duty just because they've perpetually drawn the short straw isn't "fun," and it seems that Blizzard wants all hunters to routinely incorporate stings and a "cooldown shot" (arcane, chimera, explosive) into rotations.

Hence my suggested "Poisoned Fangs" BM talent. Arcane Shot is another story -- the simplest thing is to make it do more damaging than Steady Shot and much closer in efficiency, so that it's always worth the CD/GCD.

 

Disargeria

What would be the point of Viper Sting then? It would only work against anyone with a mana bar that didn't have a poison removal. That's... Mages, Warlocks and Hunters. I thought we were trying to improve hunters in arena.

 

Aerynlore

I agree with adding a bonus to some sting for BM spec, and Scorpid seems the lone-sting out with nothing that adds to it for added PvE utility. However, I'm loathe to add yet another talent into the already-crowded deep BM tree.

Catlike Reflexes - does anyone actually take this? I see zero use in PvE for it, but is it worth anything in PvP? The only place I can see it having any use is if you really, really want to make your pet min-maxed for tanking. I still chuckle at thinking about a BM hunter's pet tanking a 5-man.... it'll happen, oh yes it will...

But what if CR gets replaced with something to up Scorpid Sting? Say: Your pet's attacks has a 5/10/15% chance to refresh the duration of Scorpid Sting. I think that would go a long way to making Scorpid Sting fantastic for BM, almost eliminate the need to worry about the GCD or mana-cost, and add another benefit for your pet.

 

mako

While it's true on paper, the 8 sec duration of viper coupled with the 10 sec cooldown on chimera will lead for it to drop off from time to time. Depending on how much los-ing and all that fun stuff.

It does seem very powerful vs priests, but at the same time, it's not nearly as good vs the other healers. Think of it as a counter-class? >_>

<Bad> Dragonmaw US
www.damnwesuck.com

 

TrevvyTrev

I'm loathe to do that too, which is why I proposed putting it in Tier 2 BM where you have a "throwaway" point to get to Tier 3 anyway:

Poisoned Fangs (BM, Tier 2, 1 point): "Your Scorpid Sting now lowers chance to hit with spells in an amount equivalent to its normal effect, and your pet's special attacks have a 10% additional chance to critically strike against targets afflicted by one of your stings."

I don't think that's overly powerful for its place in the tree (about on par with a point in Focused Fire, same tier), and the "pet special attacks" effect creates synergy with deep BM talents, but not with MM/SV, so it's not a prime candidate to be "cherry picked."

 

Crowbite

Is scorpid poison being removed? Unless, the poison stack protection is gone, viper sting will still be extremely powerful against any mana class.

 

TrevvyTrev

I wouldn't say counter-class per se, but I would say it is an incentive to partner up with one of the other healing classes. It might not be so bad if elemental shamans, enhancement shamans, retribution paladins, feral druids and balance druids (or resto/holy specs grouped with shadow priests) realized that part of their role was to keep their priest partner cleansed. Going into arenas without a poison cleanser is risky anyway, if for no other reason than it makes fighting rogues even harder.

It's stll there, but using a scorpid (tenacity) pet in arenas will be even more of a tradeoff with the new pet abilities, such that the poison protection might be outweighed. Plus, the poison protection isn't "guaranteed" (the viper can be targeted first) and even if protected it often only forces an extra GCD or two.

Even more interestingly, the designers said they were looking into the dispel system as a whole, specifically the interaction between dispels and junk buffs (and presumably debuffs).

 

mako

Based on current arenas at 70, I think a tenacity pet might be the way to go in any comp where the hunter or pet is focused.

Last stand, extra healing taken, extra stam and intervene might be more beneficial than a little extra dps or even the mana boost from cunning. It'll probably depend more on if pets get to scale with resil at all though.

<Bad> Dragonmaw US
www.damnwesuck.com