KraxisSingular

Personally I'm assuming that BM is the best DPS at this time as well as early 80 and perhaps initital raiding. That will slowly be overcome by the better scaling afforded to MM dues to the plethora of +damage talents and AP talents, as well as the bonus advantage of scaling better with WF.
Essentially much like Warlocks have it now with Affliction and Destruction, but with the utility reversed.

To 'fix' this, if it is ever wanted by the powers that be, something as simple as a glyph tied into a deeper BM talent like Frenzy would lower the GCD of Steady Shot (and Steady Shot alone) by a given value to make BM able to scale a bit better with WF and haste. MM would still scale better due to the other talents but BM would be able to maintain a respectable scaling making the relative balance between the two specs easier. Personally I think it is only fair that BM is going to be quite a bit more powerful than MM in total personal DPS, and MM making up for it in raidutility and less dependance on a frail pet. So raidslots would hopefully end up being a choice between players.
I guess that is pretty much a naive hope, but I will maintain it as I truly think all our specs should have the chance to raid effectively.

Rogues like Haste a lot, Combat more than Assassination, but still all like it. Reason being that white damage is their greatest contributor of damage. Something similar goes fro Warriors. Druids don't like Haste much, in fact they have it now like we will in Wrath, around 30-35% of their damage coming from white attacks.
So Haste is a troublesome stat for physicals in mail and leather. Half want it, half doesn't. I hope Blizzard itemizes after that and provides a lot of gemslots to add haste or whatever you want.

 

Aerynlore

This is more of a help me see the bigger picture kind of question, but I think it applies well to our situation:
Since we are going to have to share our precious mail gear with three specs of hunters and one spec of shaman, what are stats that everyone wants to see and doesn't have a "soft cap" for?

Agility - All hunters love it, I don't know about those totem tossers.
Stamina - Survival will love it, nice for the rest of us.
Intellect - Nice for all.

Hit - Hard cap at 9%, Survival has a "soft cap" at 6% with Surefooted, Shaman want as much as they can get (or do they have a point where more ~= useless?)
Crit - Can anyone really have too much crit?
Attack Power - More is always better

Haste - BM has a "soft cap" where the +haste% increases total +dps by a smaller amount, MM and Sv have a much higher "soft cap".
Armor Penetration - More is always better, right?
Mana Per 5 - More is always better, but it's a very minor stat. Does Enhancement have a pressing need for this?

It seems that Blizzard is looking for the lowest-common-cap for each value, and will try and put that as hard-stats on armor, and let gemming, trinkets/rings/necklaces and enchanting take care of the rest (i.e. 6% hit on gear, and gemming, jewelry, enchanting for the last 3%). To figure out what this lowest cap is, we probably have to consider those other mail wearers.

 

mako

Shaman should have the same DW hit cap as rogues, not sure if it's still 25% in wrath, but it should be fairly high.

As far as haste for hunters goes, how is haste any worse for BM than SV/MM? 1% haste is 1% more autoshot DPS for any spec. BM simply has 20% more ias to begin with, but short of a weapon speed cap besides "fastest speed obtainable due to gear availability" i don't see how it could have a lesser effect for one spec than another.

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www.damnwesuck.com

 

Kigale

Haste is a bit less valuable for BM because they can get SS down to the GCD with talents and quiver alone, while an MM and SV hunter needs haste from gear to reach this point. Haste becomes less useful as soon as SS gets to a 1.5 second cast.

EDIT: Shaman like expertise more than hit from my understanding, since they cap main hand and special attack hit with talents. After 9%, hit only affects off hand attacks, while expertise affects both.

 

Aerynlore

Once Steady Shot becomes a 1.5s shot, then haste no longer affects SS, and only hits the auto-shot. At this point, every point of haste affects one shot (auto) and not two (and steady). Thus, BM hits this point sooner than the other two. Once they both hit the 1.5s SS, then MM gains the most benefit per point in haste because their Auto-shot does more damage per hit. Now, this isn't even napkin math (or paper, or grid-paper, or... plaid paper), but there definitely is going to be a dropping point where the next point of haste adds significantly less dps than the previous point of haste.

Do we have any math on when that drop occurs?

EDIT::
Odd question to ask, but does our pet scale with our Expertise? I'm not suggesting that it would be a plausible reason to put any Expertise on hunter gear, but I'm curious about that.

 

mako

1% more haste is still 1% more attacks for any spec... MM/SV will hit harder with auto, BM will still hit more often.

Can anyone in beta confirm that serpent's swiftness effects steady shot cast time?

Also, I can't find a post to confirm or deny it, but I thought haste had been consolidated into a single stat (for physical/casters) like hit? If that's the case, shouldn't steady be able to be dropped to 1 second, since that's the minimum gcd?

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www.damnwesuck.com

 

Kigale

I'm not sure we are on the same page here. Your first line is correct up to a point. At first 1% haste does equal 1% more attacks, but once you reach 1.5 sec SS cast haste only affects auto shots. Which significantly reduces its value. BM gets to that point with talents, so haste on gear only affects autos. While haste on gear affects the number of SS casts by a MM or SV hunter ... to a point. At which point, haste has the same value for all specs.

 

Bovii

Shamans will crave AGI and INT as their AP stat has been change from STR = 2 AP to STR = 1 AP/AGI = 1 AP. They also, just like us, have a 3 point talent in the early portion of the ENH tree which returns 30/60/100% of their INT into AP.

All other ancillary stats, with the exception of Mana per 5 (which both classes despise and find unnecessary), are non-concerns.

The thing, though, is that BM Hunters have never craved Haste as much as MM/SV Hunters because they haven't had to due to Serpent Swiftness. Due to haste not affecting the cool down on SS (it still doesn't affect the GCD in Beta though Haste has been consolodated into one stat AND there are new JCing gems that add universal haste) and the power of Serp combined with IAotH, BM Hunters didn't need to really add any haste items and could focus solely on Armor Pen, AGI, Crit Rating, etc. With the change to Steady Shot no longer interrupting Auto Shots and the increase in draw time to 2.0 seconds while still being blocked by a 1.5s GCD, BH Hunters are going to have to utilize haste much more than before and will be utilizing other shots as well.

In a nut shell, Blizz leveled the playing field with gear choices for Hunters across all three specs and ensured, as best that they could, that BM Hunters would no longer be one button push monkies that no longer used the vast suite of abilities.

 

TrevvyTrev

Serpent's Swiftness does affect steady shot cast time on beta. Also, haste has been consolidated into a single stat as far as ratings are concerned, but melee and ranged attacks are specifically excluded from having their GCDs affected by haste. One interesting side note is that a few hunter abilites that are considered spells will have their GCDs lowered by haste, and existing hunter haste from gear affects them, like scare beast and mend pet.

 

Path

Actually, I would argue that even after all 3 specs reach the 'soft-haste cap' of 1.5s on a SS, MM and Surv will still get a slightly higher return on haste than BM. The reason for this is fairly simple:

After reaching the 1.5s 'soft cap' for haste, the only thing affected by haste is autoshot damage. MM and Survival will naturally have a higher % of their damage coming from autoshots than BM (as BM will get a higher % from the pet).

1% of 40% > 1% of 30%.

 

KraxisSingular

Since Steady is capped for BM, only the 35%ish damage from Autos are affected. Agreed? This is due to BM Hunters investing in talents that award Haste (with no obvious replacement talents that award DPS in some other manner). I think that is obvious too.
Surv and MM however invest their points in talents that buf the damage of their shots, not just Autos but also specials. Hence their specials and autos given the same gear should hit a fair bit harder. This was supposedly the balancing factor in TBC, but it got borked up when SS was way better than any other talent in comparison (and the horrible need for complex rotations for Surv and MM).
But now that SS alone brings Steady below the GCD cap (and no, physicals don't get the lowered GCD), and WF can bring both Surv and MM down to that too, they have effectively played catch-up and nearly done it. BM in the situation of a WF totem has the advantage of 20% more autos. MM in particular will scale better with buffs because their talents center around buffing the power of each shot rather than the number of shots. So MM can maintain an equal amount of special shots that BM can, but each will hit harder and more importantly will scale better as gear goes up, and of course with buffs such as BoM, Kings, GotW and so on. Further, Wild Quiver, while not exactly crazy DPS will begin to cover the gap SS has on even Autos. Even more since I hear rumours that a blue has mentioned they are looking into buffing it.

Essentially no Hunter should stack any sort of passive Haste in Wrath unless there are changes (35% of personal DPS being Autos make it horribad stat to get). Other stats will just be better. Just like Enhancement Shamans want to get their specials hitcapped, and from there they never look back. And Ferals trying to avoid Haste too (about same percentage of white DPS).
The problem that WF affords is that Survs and MM more or less get the greatest advantage of Serpent's Swiftness (putting out more yellow attacks), but they can spend their points on stuff that buffs the shotpower instead.
Now Survival doesn't appear to be going to top BM for DPS (if it did I would expect either a massive Surv nerf or BM buff), but MM on the other hand has a massive 22% bonus to various shots, autos get 12% (BM Autos get 7%), specials 22% (BM once again gets 7%), 10% crit damage bonus to specials, essentially 6% more autos (Wild Quiver) and 6% ArP on the most spammed shot. And of course the AP bonus of 14%.

I'm not saying it is the end of the world for BM, but essentially eliminating the main advantage for BM ranged damage with an external source is to say it plainly, rather sucky.
The better the gear the more considerable this scaling issue will be. The point will just be if BM has enough of an initial advantage overall to be competitive for a spot in a 25 man.

 

Kaji-Boulderfist

Maybe we should beg for some different types of quivers. Instead of 15% attack speed, We could get something like 13% attack speed and 2% hit or 5% agility or something else. This would help BM hunters stay below the haste cap on steady.

 

HellyardsOwn

From playing the beta I can assure you that the pets are all but frail, first off dps pets get a self rez, which rocks, and a lot of the talents heal your pet, or reduce the damage taken.

As far as Marksman Scaling better with haste I don't know if I agree, I'm level 73 at the moment, once they implement Separation Anxiety and I respecc (thinking something like 55/16 or 56/10/5) I'll spend some time testing out the overall DPS of each specc so far.

I don't bother much with haste (or a standard rotation at the moment), due to the GCD being shorter than Steady's cast time I've been using something of a 1:1:X rotation, mixing in a lot of multis, arcanes, and kill shots (opening with serpent's sting because strangely it's actually doing a ton of damage).

I tried Survival out and I really could see (god forbid) Survival completely replacing BM until they "rebalance" everything. The biggest thing to understand is nothing is final yet, even the other Hunters on Beta aren't sure of everything yet, I know hunters who are running in, serpent sting, explosive shot, and the mob is dead, and all they can say is, "This is probably gonna get nerfed to the point where it's undesirable, I kind of hope it does, it's a bit much."

I can tell you so far that when I was in the nexus with Quick shots, Drums of Battle, Windfury, Rapid Fire, Haste Trinket, and Heroism (The Death Knight Haste too but I don't know for sure which of them stack) I felt like I was shooting a chain gun and I can assure you that although I don't know how well Marksman benefits from Haste versus Beast Mastery, Beast Mastery is still feeling the benefits.

My recent endeavor is trying to stack enough haste gear in my bank to throw it all on and get a <1 second auto shot speed, trying to get 2 autos between steadies =P

edit: Did some experimenting, now Quartz may not recognize everything as it should, being that it's beta, but with a little haste being BM, my steady shot cast time is showing as 1.4 seconds. Once again it's all beta.

 

Catalept

I don't see that they need to. Passive haste is clearly a gimp stat for any raiding hunter, but it's important not to mix up gear-based personal haste and buff-based 'raid haste'. Windfury and Serpent's Swiftness buff pet haste as well, and there's every reason to believe that BM pet damage WLK will contribute the same 30+ percent that it does in BC, which gives BM hunters a much higher return from WF than the other specs, even though BM hunters start out with Steady Shot below the GCD. Given how well pets scale with AP in WLK, the 'melee only' AP buffs that are a thorn in the side of hunters could prove to be exactly what ensures that BM DPS stays at the top

Aside from anything else, Imp.Stings currently boosts all DPS. It's completely borked

It seems that there are still dozens of bugs, glitches and untuned parameters in the current beta... although the basic mechanics are largely in place, it really doesn't look like any meaningful DPS comparisons are possible yet. Which doesn't mean that it's not fun to try

 

HellyardsOwn

@Catalept:
I agree completely, it's really not possible to compare anything lol. As far as stings, I haven't tried imp. stings yet (was gonna once the survival talent for stings is implemented) but I do notice my stings ticking for as much as 500 without it o.O

Kind of mad they nerfed Chimaeras, That would have been enough for BM to do top dps, Chimaera crits for 5k, ask your MM hunter's raptor to keep up with that =D

 

Steelfleece

Since all pet skills are currently using place holder values for damage, I think there is a lot of potential for a big shift (especially where Beast Mastery is concerned) when they change them.

I should also note that it's NOT Improved Stings, and not Noxious Stings that is bugged. It's just Serpent Sting, by itself, untalented, is for some reason boosting all damage the target takes from all sources by a rather drastic amount. And really, it's making testing the different specs kind of difficult, especially where Chimera Shot is concerned, so I'm glad they say it's getting fixed next build.

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.

 

TrevvyTrev

Before we get too hung up on a figure like 35% of personal dps coming from auto shot, we should remember that several things helped contribute to that. One thing is set bonuses. Two of them specifically boosted the damage from Steady Shot, and we can't say whether that will continue in WotLK sets. Another is the fact that steady clipped auto shot. Since steady did more damage than auto, given a choice (and mana) it was better to delay the auto and ensure that as many steadies fired as possible. With the unlinking of the two, there's no longer any choice, and more auto shots will be fired than we're used to seeing.

The corollary is that auto shot damage percentage starts to mean less and less as a metric, because the very stat we're evaluating changes the ratio. In other words, because haste stops helping steady shot early on, but keeps on benefiting auto shot forever, the more haste you have, the more of your damage would come from auto shot. If, for example, you had a hasted 0.75 auto shot speed (obviously not possible currently) then you would fire TWO autos for every steady shot, flipping the ratio on its head.

So yeah, we want to stop stacking haste after a certain point -- IF we can get comparable dps increases from somewhere else at the same cost. But as we know, that's not always the case, and that doesn't make haste a bad stat. Melees scaled pretty well with it even though their specials have never been affected by it (except slam?), and it was because it boosted their white damage without any penalties. We are now in in the same boat.

 

Grogzor

But we are missing something else as well. We can assume that a BM hunter is going to be getting 20% haste from Serpent Swiftness and an additional 15% haste from our quiver. This on its own takes Steady Shot down to less then 1.5 or the GCD. Now, an MM or Surv hunter has the 15% haste from their quiver automatically, but he is also able to get Windfury which even untalented will also take him down to about the GCD. So in essence, in a raid environment, Haste on gear for both BM and MM/Surv Hunter will only really be affecting Auto Shot.

But when it comes time for me to remove your wings, and you, you must try to fly...

Click Here to see what makes me tic(k).

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Berfert

So, I'll repeat myself...

Honestly, it seems to me that this is the best solution we have of the possibilities I can think of. It helps not just us (by making most/all of our shots benefit from haste), but the same problem that most other classes have with haste.

Would it be possible for someone in the beta to query the devs for their opinion on the matter? And/or if they have some other solution in mind...

 

Catalept

Sure, but it's worth remember that Blizzard has definite 'design philosophies' driving the changes they're making for WLK. There's every indication that for hunters, these include:

1. Making our pets more useful for all specs, both in terms of utility and dps.

2. Making classes more fun (or at least interactive). For us, that means that Steady spam and afk autoshot are personae non grata.

This means that pets will continue to do a significant proportion of our damage, and Auto Shot will never be intended to dominate our DPS breakdown (to the extent that auto attack does for BC melee, I mean). I would guess that, as a very rough rule of thumb, Blizzard will be aiming for hunter DPS breakdowns to be 1:1:1 between pet, auto shot and ability-based damage. It's certainly too early to start number-crunching the relative merits of WF for MM, BM and SV... but I can't see passive haste ever becoming a priority stat for hunters unless something drastic happens, like pets scaling with passive haste... I'd have no problem with that, mind you

I think it's far too early to say that we have 'issues' with anything. Blizzard has a number of tools to tweak our DPS (e.g. base damage, scaling, cooldowns) without doing something as drastic as allowing haste to affect physical-school abilties. Remember that casters have slow-casting spells, and no 'permanent' haste... OTOH, rogues have Slice'n'Dice almost permanently up, as well as a 1-second base GCD. For hunters, our own class-specific hastes (Quiver and Serpent's Swiftness) are basically immutable, and if applied to our GCD would lead to the sort of synergy blowout (via Heroism stacking, for example) that Blizzard is trying to avoid in WLK.

IMO, if there are problems with Steady's cast time, the easiest fix is to put it back to 1.5 seconds

 

Bovii

I haven't figured out how to quote within a quote so forgive the ghettoness above.

The reason that they won't allow haste to affect melee GCDs is because, other than Steady Shot and Aimed Shot, there isn't a melee ability can be interrupted. If you allow it affect the GCD, you're talking about a great deal more burst damage possible. This goes directly against what Blizz is trying to accomplish.

 

TrevvyTrev

To clarify, I don't think anyone was talking about the proportion of overall damage affected by haste. We were just musing on the value of haste as applied to the things it actually can affect -- i.e., shooting. Pets can be 50% of our damage overall, and we'd still have the question of how much haste affects the portion of our damage that involves shooting at things, and of *that*, people have been suggesting 35% (which seems to be changing with WotLK, hence my post). So it's not at odds with the idea of making pets more integrated into our playstyle nor with making rotations more interesting than spamming a single button all the time. I approve of that approach myself -- I've been playing with a deathknight and busted/bugged/OP abilities aside, it feels more interesting to rotate abilities.

Additionally, sometimes we muddle the idea of "stacking" stats. When I think of stacking, I think of adding as much of it as possible, even when other stats may be available. To that end, stacking haste has downsides. But I think a lot of people may be taking the idea away from these discussions that haste is a *bad* thing to have when your steady shots hit 1.5 second casts, and that's just not entirely true. Too much of it can be bad, but at various times it will be an efficient upgrade path. Adding haste will always increase your dps, even if it's only increasing auto-shots. I say this because it's worth noting that there are items in WotLK with haste on them, and the value of haste is not necessarily equal to the value of another stat of equivalent item budget.

EDIT: One thing to add to the discussion of why melee/ranged abilities don't have their GCD lowered, one factor is that spellcasters don't have any autoattacks that go off between or during casted spells. So if haste did not affect their GCD, they would see no value from it at all -- they'd cast the same number of frostbolts with 500 haste as they did with 0 haste. Melees and hunters cast the same number of *specials*, but they do significantly more auto attacks at higher haste values.

 

muwatallis

In the very heart of this Haste discussion, i am stuck between 4 talents where all problem is caused by Lock and Load and somehow is connected to the issue being discussed right at the moment.

As a survival hunter, i am pretty sure i will have to focus on Haste in WotLK. Though "Lock and Load", which meets Serpent Sting and Exploding Shot in a well designed consistency leaves me in the form of the thinker statue of Rhodin and trying to find "Which one to sacrifice": Improved Aspect of the Hawk is and always been a must. On the other hand there is Serpent Sting, in benefit from Lock and Load saves me some mana and if talented is told to cause quite a DPS increase. And last, Exploding Shot which is likely to be new Arcane Shot placeholder in survival rotation with increased damage output and serves Lock and Load also.

My question here is,

Even if Serpent Sting's current form is bugged and gets fixed in future, could any of the beta testers approve it to be still considerably a good choice with "Improved Stings", over "Improved Aspect of the Hawk" or "Explosive Shot" ? Losing IAotH will leave me with having to stick to haste gems over agility so therefore Expose Weakness decrease. Even it would be a minor decrease, yet i am scared.

The Dragon's Flight

 

Tyranna

Is that so bad though? Haste basically only affects white damage for all physical classes afaik. Auto-shot is our white damage. However, we do get a little bit extra from haste through more IAotH and WQ procs.

I seem to be seeing people think haste is undervalued because it doesn't affect all of our damage. But I don't see haste affecting all wars, rogues,enh shammys or ret pallys' damage either....aside from CP and poison procs.

*edit* clarified + added CP (combat potency) and poison procs.

 

Catalept

Read the thread please

To re-iterate... abilities are shaping up to do a much larger proportion of our personal DPS than they do for melee, and there's the small matter of that furry food-hole next to you, which currently doesn't care in the slightest bit what your passive haste is.

People seem to be forgetting that in BC, the main value of haste isn't from a flat increase in white damage... it's from the ratio-shifting it induces. Small changes in passive haste have a highly variable value depending on your shot speed, existing haste, expected drum uptime, phase of the moon and the last digit of pi.