I'm not doubting how minor the increase is, but what could you possibly spend those points on at that point which would net more dps?
It's called Bloodlust, not Heroism. What kind of pansy name is Heroism, anyway?
<Bad> Dragonmaw US www.damnwesuck.com
12/13 [25] Heroic - Recruiting exceptional players.
I don't think Lock and Load is strictly required for a viable SV build. This build skips it entirely while buying all the fundamentals, including Improved Hunter's Mark, and avoiding the sting-based damage. The 3 points in Sniper Training are relatively fungible as well; if melee-origin buff ranges make Sniper a suboptimal raiding talent, then other options might be Trap Mastery (if it's worthwhile as a one-off point buy) or Survival Tactics (if the chance-to-feign stays useful). As long as at least one of those three points stays in the SV tree, in fact, the others can go wherever might be of interest (2/5 Efficiency if mana remains a concern?).
Last edited by Serpent's Choice : 08/18/08 at 1:44 PM.
Reason: "Tactics" not "Training", sigh.
Sniper Training is still up in the air as to being useful or not. Worst case, the extra crit to kill shot sub 30% needs to compete with the overall dps increase of L&L.
I was under the impression that master tactician was still terrible though. Is something changing that makes it viable in wrath?
It's called Bloodlust, not Heroism. What kind of pansy name is Heroism, anyway?
<Bad> Dragonmaw US www.damnwesuck.com
12/13 [25] Heroic - Recruiting exceptional players.
Sniper Training is still up in the air as to being useful or not. Worst case, the extra crit to kill shot sub 30% needs to compete with the overall dps increase of L&L.
I was under the impression that master tactician was still terrible though. Is something changing that makes it viable in wrath?
Master Tactician is very good IMO. With a 2.8 speed bow, it should have a 53% percent up time. That's like having a 1.06% crit chance per point.
I don't think Lock and Load is strictly required for a viable SV build. This build skips it entirely while buying all the fundamentals, including Improved Hunter's Mark, and avoiding the sting-based damage. The 3 points in Sniper Training are relatively fungible as well; if melee-origin buff ranges make Sniper a suboptimal raiding talent, then other options might be Trap Mastery (if it's worthwhile as a one-off point buy) or Survival Training (if the chance-to-feign stays useful). As long as at least one of those three points stays in the SV tree, in fact, the others can go wherever might be of interest (2/5 Efficiency if mana remains a concern?).
That spec is exactly what I'm planning on now except with Lock and Load instead of Surefooted. I still have to do the math on Sniper Training.
I think Lock and Load offers more mana efficiency than Efficiency does. You'd need to spend over 1000 MP5 to make 2% savings more than 20mp5.
I can't imagine that it will ship as-is. A pet increasing rDPS by THAT much is just not fair. Plus I cringe at the thought of raiding with a Tenacity pet, assuming the 2nd Hunter in the raid will be Surv.
Sorry if this has been covered, but for raiding wouldn't a sporebat (cunning) be more ideal than a worm (tenacity)? They both do nature damage and armor reduction. According to wowhead the sporebat reduces armor by 700 (any idea if it stacks with sunder?) and is AOE, but no listing for the amount reduced by the worm. Looks like the worm would have slightly more uptime on the debuff than the sporebat, but is that enough to compensate for being tenacity?
I was under the impression that master tactician was still terrible though. Is something changing that makes it viable in wrath?
Master Tactician is going from a 6% chance to a 10% chance, which pushes it just slightly ahead of 1% average chance to crit per point. It's good, now.
As for Surefooted, I think the benefit of that talent might come down to what itemization looks like. Right now, at endgame, it is very difficult to keep hit rating below the cap (in SV-themed gear, anyway) even without Surefooted. If that continues to be the case, then, clearly, it's a bad talent. However, if they itemize things a little better this time, such that there are alternatives without so much hit rating on them, then Surefooted allows us to save itemization points. We'll just have to wait and see until more gear becomes available on beta. Point taken on Lock and Load vs. Efficiency, however.
I understand your hesistation. The proc on cast is low, quite low. And the reason it is attractive is because of the lack of any other real talents there. I think the talent is one of those that Blizzard had mentioned to be less effective talents (they don't want them all to be good). But I would not be against changing it to a 3-6-9% proc per tick + what it does now. I don't think that would make it OP. It has to remain relatively low as it has a nasty potential for OP, and getting it to that would be horrible as a nerfstick could slam Explosive down rather than LnL.
Also, to the point about there being a ton of +hit on survival gear, look at my gear. When I replace my helm with the KJ helm, I'm going to be 8 hit rating under the hit cap with surefooted that I really have no place to make up. Surefooted is not a just a PvP talent by any stretch.
Originally Posted by missiletoad
I get enjoyment out of constructing buildings out of my fries and demolishing them with my chicken nugget army as I make monster noises. But you people. You people are FREAKS.
One of the other things I find about Surefooted is when you end up wearing rogue leather you get a lot more +hit than you need, since the rogue hit cap is so much above our own. Perhaps with WotLK Blizzard will want to move away from that and make Surefooted make up any hit that leather would give over mail that had intellect?
However, I thought I had read that Blizzard wanted to move away from stacking hit. Anyone know where I may have gotten this from?
Also, to the point about there being a ton of +hit on survival gear, look at my gear. When I replace my helm with the KJ helm, I'm going to be 8 hit rating under the hit cap with surefooted that I really have no place to make up. Surefooted is not a just a PvP talent by any stretch.
Giving up 6 agility for 10 hit on your chest might be the way to go then
But like you said, when you're going for best in slot sunwell pieces, surefooted is very helpful, considering that there's not nearly as much hit on sunwell gear as there was on bt pieces.
It's called Bloodlust, not Heroism. What kind of pansy name is Heroism, anyway?
<Bad> Dragonmaw US www.damnwesuck.com
12/13 [25] Heroic - Recruiting exceptional players.
Giving up 6 agility for 10 hit on your chest might be the way to go then
But like you said, when you're going for best in slot sunwell pieces, surefooted is very helpful, considering that there's not nearly as much hit on sunwell gear as there was on bt pieces.
Even with the BT pieces. If you don't take the horribly bloated Halberd, there isn't that much +hit that you'd be able to completely skip surefooted.
Originally Posted by missiletoad
I get enjoyment out of constructing buildings out of my fries and demolishing them with my chicken nugget army as I make monster noises. But you people. You people are FREAKS.
When it procs, you replace 2 Steady Shots with Explosive Shots (the first would have been an Explosive Shot anyway). Let's say that Explosive Shot deals 1000 more damage on average than Steady Shot. That's 2000 damage added per proc. At .6 PPM, that's 1200 damage per minute, or 20 DPS. 20 DPS for 3 talent points is 6.66 DPS per point. So... if we do 2000 DPS at 80, that's only a .33% damage increase per point... which is awful.
But, it's also saving us 2 Steady Shots and 1 Explosive Shot worth of mana. Someone said base mana at 80 should be around 5000. Steady Shot is 4% base mana which is 200. Explosive Shot is listed as 504 mana on the official talent calc so we'll use that for now. Thats 1208 mana. 1208*.6=724.8 Mana per minute, or 60.4 MP5.
So.... 20 MP5, and .33% damage per talent point for single target DPS (at best).
Actually, you will do 4 Explosives in a row, of which the last will be a normal/non-L&L one starting the next cycle.In other wordsn you replace a 6s cycle with a 4.5s ES spam cycle (or you add one in front, whichever rocks your boat). And as I have explained before, if you use Serpent Sting you will refresh Serpent either a GCD too soon or too late, both giving the same 1.5s delay before the next tick. Minor difference, but you should take that into account tbh.
If I take your assumption of Explosive being 1000 more damage then Steady we should see:
ES-3SS cycle = 4S+1k (S= Steady dmg)
DPS: (4S+1k) / 6s
Now when you proc you 'replace' this cycle with 3 Explosive Shots, or:
L&L proc: 3S+3k
DPS: (3S+3k) / 4.5s
The loss in DPS from that Serpent sting is 10%, which will be doing 1500 over all ticks. -150 damage
Average time in between procs is around 100 seconds (15% chance every 15 seconds) or a 21 DPS gain.
That's a 0,35% DPS increase per point AND a mana efficiency increase. (Not sure about mana costs yet)
What effect this will have for AoE fights is something to think about though, but we will have to see evidence of being able to sting in an AoE environment first (or being able to save the buff)
PS: If Explosive Shot cost (504 mana) is the level 80 value, expect 3877-3885 base mana pools. That's 494-502 base mana gained over 10 levels.
One of the other things I find about Surefooted is when you end up wearing rogue leather you get a lot more +hit than you need, since the rogue hit cap is so much above our own. Perhaps with WotLK Blizzard will want to move away from that and make Surefooted make up any hit that leather would give over mail that had intellect?
However, I thought I had read that Blizzard wanted to move away from stacking hit. Anyone know where I may have gotten this from?
I'm not entirely sure about that one, though. With Enhancement getting the same incentive to push to mail as we have, they'll be wanting to start working on stacking some +hit. Additionally, with only Survival really get the bonus to +hit, the other two hunter specs will be left hard-pressed to reach the hit-cap if the mail +hit gear just isn't there.
Alternatively, we could see several jewelry items with large amounts of +hit (ala Band of Accuria). This would allow them to place approximately the same amount of +hit on mail to get hunters to their cap without needing these rings/necklace/trinkets, while still letting Enhancement shaman take the jewelry to get their off-hand +hit higher.
Of course, as always, we have no idea until WLK raid gear is announced, but that could be a possible gear balance for them to put in. I can see Blizz doing that almost all around, too. Making armor gear (head, shoulder, chest, wrist, hand, waist, legs, boots) average out to giving every class their +9% chance to hit, and for those dual-wielding classes, having them pickup jewelry to fill the gap. I know I'd rather see lots of items with a little bit of hit then three or four items that take care of all my hit.
I'm more for the idea to give 5-6% hit on gear, considering a lot of classes have talents to increase their hit chance already. Then add +hit jewelry and more importantly; plenty of yellow sockets. With Enh Shamans getting 1 AP from Strength and the same AP & crit from Agi as we do, I would expect a nice amount of Red & Yellow sockets in mail DPS gear. With ~5% hit on gear, Blizzard will leave the option open for BM/MM hunters to gem agi/hit in yellow, while Surv will be able to stack +crit in there. An Enhancement Shaman will probably want Yellow gems for hit, expertise or haste. Both ofcourse going AP/Agi in red sockets and all but Survival Hunters avoiding the use of blue gems (4agi/6sta for a Surv Hunter seems very much worth it now). In other words, allowing the choice in stats you need the most
The loss in DPS from that Serpent sting is 10%, which will be doing 1500 over all ticks. -150 damage
Average time in between procs is around 100 seconds (15% chance every 15 seconds) or a 21 DPS gain.
That's a 0,35% DPS increase per point AND a mana efficiency increase. (Not sure about mana costs yet)
What effect this will have for AoE fights is something to think about though, but we will have to see evidence of being able to sting in an AoE environment first (or being able to save the buff)
PS: If Explosive Shot cost (504 mana) is the level 80 value, expect 3877-3885 base mana pools. That's 494-502 base mana gained over 10 levels.
You are correct about the 4 ES's in a row, I screwed that up.
Lock and Load would only proc when you cast your sting... so the sting will have 15 seconds left when you get the buff every time. That's more than enough time to use it and be back in normal rotation so I don't see how you could be wasting sting damage this way.
Unless you're trying to say that stings aren't actually cast every 15 seconds... which is true. You should let your sting get their final tick, so you would be on average 1/2 a GCD longer, meaning you would be casting a sting every 15.75 seconds instead of every 15 seconds.
But, you would be casting a Sting first, meaning you would be constantly approaching 15.75 from above, not below.
You also have to concider Moonkins in your hit equation. Improved Faerie Fire is 3% to the raid. So we're only going to need 6% +hit without surefooted, 3% with.
I think Careful Aim will make Mail gear much more viable. The problem in TBC was that Intellect sucked balls for Survival. It still won't be a great stat, but it will be better than +hit which was not the case before.
From a dev standpoint... I think nothing should be changed in Survival. I think both the PvP and PvE specs are great. Scatter Shot means you won't be taking Explosive Shot for PvP... but that's OK by me. I'm overall happy with every talent (pending Sniper Training which I have yet to do math on).
You also have to concider Moonkins in your hit equation. Improved Faerie Fire is 3% to the raid... meaning we'll only need 6% w/o Surefooted, 3% with.
I think Careful Aim will make Mail gear much more viable. The problem in TBC was that Intellect sucked balls for Survival. It still won't be a great stat, but it will be better than +hit which was not the case before.
I'm a little (ok, more than a little) leary about relying on one spec of one class to account for a third (or half with Surefooted) of my required +hit; and even then, I'd be counting on the ImpFF being on the target all the time. This also requires a few different sets of gear to account for having or not having that +3% from ImpFF.
Maybe it's a bit off-topic, but ImpFF seems to be one of those buffs that's a lot closer to worthless than it seems. Only the Moonkin is the one that can consistently gear for the +3% to hit. It's a 'well that's nice' for any other DPSer who happens to be short on hit, but all raiders should already have their hit-cap. I put ImpFF in the same category as Surefooted. It's a +3% to hit for the person who has the talent, and everyone doesn't get to count it.
I don't know how your guild raids, but in ours pretty much everybody has 90%+ attendance. Right now I balance my stats as if I had a Feral Druid in my group, cause 90% of the time I do. Moonkins are sick in WotLK, I see no reason to not balance around having one, since you should.
You also have to concider Moonkins in your hit equation. Improved Faerie Fire is 3% to the raid. Plus, they said bosses will be 2 levels above, not 3. So we're only going to need 5% +hit without surefooted, 2% with.
I think Careful Aim will make Mail gear much more viable. The problem in TBC was that Intellect sucked balls for Survival. It still won't be a great stat, but it will be better than +hit which was not the case before.
From a dev standpoint... I think nothing should be changed in Survival. I think both the PvP and PvE specs are great. Scatter Shot means you won't be taking Explosive Shot for PvP... but that's OK by me. I'm overall happy with every talent (pending Sniper Training which I have yet to do math on).
This is the first I've heard of that change, and I like to think that I've been keeping up with the Wrath changes. Do you have a source for that statement? If you are referring to the crushing blow change, they made it so mobs 4 levels higher crush - not that boss mobs are only 2 levels higher.
This is the first I've heard of that change, and I like to think that I've been keeping up with the hunter changes. Do you have a source for that statement? If you are referring to the crushing blow change, they made it so mobs 4 levels higher crush - not that boss mobs are only 2 levels higher.
My bad. Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking of. Post edited.
Kill Command was initially created as a reactive ability, something you hit when an event happened (a critical strike). The problem was that the event happened too often, and players just stuck it into a macro. Kill Command basically just became a flat damage increase. Players are right to assume their DPS has jumped because of shots not interrupting the auto-shot timer (it has, our tests show a ~140 DPS increase in some trials), so I think it's fair to say the class' sustained DPS will be okay.
IMO Kill Command being changed to a 2 minute buff is good. They will balance the damage to what we need to be... it's just a matter of HOW we do it. Kill Command was a pain to have to macro to every ability and have that constant mana being sucked out. The buff is kinda lame atm, but I still like the change.
IMO Kill Command being changed to a 2 minute buff is good. They will balance the damage to what we need to be... it's just a matter of HOW we do it. Kill Command was a pain to have to macro to every ability and have that constant mana being sucked out. The buff is kinda lame atm, but I still like the change.
Given the stated intentions for Kill Command I understand them. But for Koraa to go all giddy some time back and telling us how great it will be, when it is a clear nerf. And another button to push... I think most Hunters will just bind it to be cast every 2 mins and be over with it. No different from now. While it could be argued that the new Kill Command can be used to boost certain skills, it is just not very efficient to micromanage such a low DPS skill.
Even worse Focused Fire is basically crap for BM now. The bonus is almost entirely wasted because of Cobra Strikes, and the +damage for the Hunter is the least effective of all specs because of the reliance on more pet DPS. Even with current pet damage percentages it would only provide about 1.4% damge. Yet there is no alternative. At least it has great utility for MM Hunters and their lower critrate for pets.
Overall I call this a lousy change. Change it to normal melee swings and we are talking. Then it would be downright cool, as well as making FF fully useful for all specs (it is kinda ironic that FF is in the BM tree but it is the only spec that can't make full use of it).
No other place to put points? Even without Hawk eye I had no problem putting the points elsewhere. Unless FD is changed
to reflect +hit, Survival Instincts is going to be a good talent.
FD isn't per se changed. But spellhit apepars to be. A lot of talk is going back and forth about 9% hit with no uncapable miss. If that ends up being right FD is on 9% too, of which we can assume 6% from gear as well (combined hitratings remember). Using two entire talentpoints to cap the 3% FD lacks (in case Surefooted doesn't cover it) is a pretty bad investment. We have all experienced unlucky resists, but that is usually the last in a string, not the quite occational resist.
In effect there is not really any choice since LnL provides at least some DPS basically every time you end up at a boss (bad luck on occational fights might happen though, but less than resisted FDs).
About Imp Steady vs LnL. Imp Steady is indeed the same 15% proc, but on the most spammed ability any Hunter will use (I can't see any change to that) vs one that will be used at an interval of 12-15 seconds. Quite a difference. A slight buff to LnL is not out of order.
Last edited by KraxisSingular : 08/18/08 at 6:40 PM.
Given the stated intentions for Kill Command I understand them. But for Koraa to go all giddy some time back and telling us how great it will be, when it is a clear nerf. And another button to push... I think most Hunters will just bind it to be cast every 2 mins and be over with it. No different from now. While it could be argued that the new Kill Command can be used to boost certain skills, it is just not very efficient to micromanage such a low DPS skill.
Even worse Focused Fire is basically crap for BM now. The bonus is almost entirely wasted because of Cobra Strikes, and the +damage for the Hunter is the least effective of all specs because of the reliance on more pet DPS. Even with current pet damage percentages it would only provide about 1.4% damge. Yet there is no alternative. At least it has great utility for MM Hunters and their lower critrate for pets.
Focused Fire provides the same per-point benefit that improved tracking does, and BM hunters have been gushing over how great that is such that nearly every proposed build includes it. "Crap" either overstates the issue, or we've been cheering for nothing. Also, Koraa didn't say Kill Command (KC) was just generally "great" but that it would help hunters have a finishing move (in conjunction with Kill Shot), which it does. It syncs up with Bestial Wrath pretty well (which has been boosted to 50%), and if Cobra Strikes will be up so often so as to render the crit bonus on Focused Fire "useless", then it will end up syncing up with that too. If someone is using a Cunning Pet, then they can "finish" a target off with bestial wrath (+50%), Feeding Frenzy (+40%), Kill Command (+60-20%) and on top of that, the specials will crit. If the hunter has Separation Anxiety and is 20 yards away or out of LoS, then you can add another 10% into the mix.
The designers' intent to create a more robust rotation for BM (i.e., includes stings and arcane) plus auto shot delinking should make up for lost damage from the "old" Kill Command, and keep in mind that if it doesn't, then it probably will get tweaked as they get closer to the final dps pass for all classes. Kill Command thus becomes something you can use against people hiding behind pillars (no LoS), which is another situation that synergizes with Separation Anxiety. Also, pet specials certainly aren't done -- some are clearly bugged, and in the process of tweaking we may see other long awaited changes such as special ability scaling with pet attack power.
Finally, while the old KC certainly helped keep up Ferocious Inspiration (FI), we get an effective means of doing that with Cobra Strikes, which guarantees pet crits. Steady/Arcane/Auto crits would trigger the old KC, and then you'd have a 35% chance of landing a KC crit. Now, Steady/Arcane crits (but not auto) will have a 20-60% chance to proc FI. It's not clear that would result in lower FI uptime.
08/18/08, 12:12 PM
Similar Threads
