Mattos, I think you've made an error in math as far as the value of the regen from black bow.
If each shot in viper is giving 350 mana, you would need to fire ~43 shots with Black Bow to effectively gain the mana equivalent of a "free tick". With an 8k mana pool, you need 22.85 shots to go from 0 to full without bbotb, and 22.35 shots if you were using it. In either case, it would be more practical to stop at the 22nd shot and switch to Hawk, since there would be wasted regen (and thus lost dps) if you waited until you reached 100%.
Realistically, with replenishment and JoW active, a hunter shouldn't need even 22 shots to regain 8000 mana.
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'm not rehashing the 51/10 vs 50/11 thing. The latter is clearly the better raid DPS spec, especially in the current build, and happens to be my current spec. I'm just pointing out the 51/10 with a cunning pet is a nice match, and really isn't too far behind in dps for raiding.
hehe why not? I mean, nobody here should be looking to jump down your throat and flame you for your ideas and theorycraft hehe. its definitely something I still feel is worth testing.
I still hop on beta to do only one thing. compare 51/20, 55/16, and various 51BM specs against 50/21. I think 51 pt. BM needs a buff, not because it sucks altogether, but because it's up against go for the throat at 70, and readiness at 80 lol. that's a tough match imo.
Sure - here are 4 - just don't laugh too much - we are not a 1337 bunch. The first two are the first raids we did after the patch and no one understood what was going on.... the second one was fun as we AoE pulled everything. On these ones I'm running 51/10/0 (Armory is borked and is still reporting my old spec). Using an owl. Wow Web Stats Wow Web Stats
The second two are after we have things a little more straigtened out. I'm 50/11/0 and using a cat. The third one was a mess for me because I'd just reinstalled the application from an old image just before the raid and didn't noitice that it rolled back ALL my macros until after the raid, so there will be some funny stuff there from some unknown point in time (given the number of arcane shots, probably from a PvP time). Wow Web Stats Wow Web Stats
I'm still an armature and reading into these. Any insights would be appreciated. For other hunters Kheer is MM spec, Mable is BM, but with literally her old 2.4 talent tree. Purujit is something like 46/15/0. None of the four runs is the same content.
Something that jumps out at me immediately using a Cunning pet w/o GFTT is Owl Focus is a a 30% chance for only 1 free focused attack, which would have a high probability of being a Claw (Bite or Smack) since there is not GFTT present to provide added focus surplus. Of course, with the OF proc a free Claw would transfer the saved focus to follow up with its special attack freely (in theory). Basically, is this 30% chance enough to off-set A.) a consistent surplus of focus for the pet to pull from after every GCD? and B.) is a 30% chance reliable enough to justify losing the extra crit chance of a ferocity pet?
Spec would be big consideration in this too. Cobra Strikes is activated solely off pet crits and Owl Focus does not grant a crit, but just a free attack. This is apparent regardless of having GFTT or not.
Another thing that concerns me is the DPS difference in having the 2/2 Animal Handler for 10 expertise reducing the chance for a target to dodge by 2.5% and Wolverine Bite being reliant on dodges to proc. vs. skipping Animal Handler just to increase WB's proc rate.
The Cunning tree has interesting talents, but it all seems more geared towards PvP than raiding.
EDIT: Response to Mako.
Mattos, I think you've made an error in math as far as the value of the regen from black bow.
If each shot in viper is giving 350 mana, you would need to fire ~43 shots with Black Bow to effectively gain the mana equivalent of a "free tick". With an 8k mana pool, you need 22.85 shots to go from 0 to full without bbotb, and 22.35 shots if you were using it. In either case, it would be more practical to stop at the 22nd shot and switch to Hawk, since there would be wasted regen (and thus lost dps) if you waited until you reached 100%.
Realistically, with replenishment and JoW active, a hunter shouldn't need even 22 shots to regain 8000 mana.
Mako, you are absolutely correct. Having the time to actually account for all factors that are involved in making a swap out and the true mechanics behind AotV...I would say I butchered the math I used to justify the macro I suggested. I realized I was also not considering the mana cost to fire each shot. In my defense, the idea came to me on a whim after finding my BBotB in the bank the other day and I did not take the time to actually test or consult with others prior to implementing what I thought was a "great idea." My apologizes.
Last edited by Mattaos : 10/28/08 at 2:32 PM.
Reason: Additonal Response to Another Post
Good point on Wolverine Bite. I did watch that on the pet bar, and in the current patch it proced prettly regularly. In was on cooldown more than not, but I don plan to spec back into animal handler after the next patch.
I agree that owl's focus and feeding frenzy don't make up for the crit rating on paper. What I couldn't show you was my testing with 55/10/0 between the cat and owl. Because the cat was focus gimped (especially outside of a raid) the two were almost statistically comparable.
I'd offer to provide better WWS reports (and comparable ones) after 3.0.3, but it looks like there will be very little time before WotLK and I doubt there will be many raiding ops.
I was just checking out the new spreadsheet, and it shows wolves being higher than cats dps wise? Is this correct?
I can't remember, but the spreadsheet might already have nerfed rake (can someone confirm this?)
Other than that, I don't see how wolves can do higher dps, when their pet family skill doesn't stack with BoM or BShout, while rake is a dps skill.
Armor Pen is still going to be a desired stat once the next patch is released. Bosses are getting a armor buff of 10% increasing the value of ArP slightly beyond what an acceptable limit is currently. Obviously, ArP is useless in a raid after the point where a targets armor is reduced to 0. Now, we have more armor to penetrate and ArP will need to be re-visited to determine a soft cap % based on average boss (and/or mob) armor.
Sorry for linking back a page here...
I have to disagree with ArP becoming in vogue again. It remains an unavoidable stat, so there are many items that are the best for you at the given that are just not optimally itemized with ArP.
The reason ArP is bad isn't that the armor is low on bosses, or even that it is only applied aftyer Sunders and stuff, but the simple fact that all three specs put out so much damage that isn't affected by it. BM = 40-50% pet, MM = Chimera + sting + pet, Surv = Explosive + sting + pet. So ArP really doesn't scale very well with our damage because of the limited impact it has. Bosses would need way more than 10% more armor for it to be effective enough.
It is a stat we will have to live with though, but gearing directly for it seems to be a path down Trouble Lane at this time. Much like Haste for BM Hunters.
Regarding Wolverine Bite and Animal Handler granting Expertise. I have to agree at this time that they don't mix very well unless you have extra pet talents to throw around. If we assume the target will dodge 2.5% of the attacks with Animal Handler, then a fully hasted pet attacks around 11.63 times in the span of the cooldown of Wolverine Bite and does 6.67 specials (I still ahven't seen any conclusive evidence for the 1.25 sec GCD for pets). That's not that many attacks and given the dodge our pet has a chance to WB within the cooldown of less than 50%. Wolverine Bite alone should be enough to near eliminate dodge of a target (dodgestreaks are of course possible), unless it is especially high in dodge. And depending on the power of WB you might even want enough dodges for it to proc (is it better than the melee swing + normal special?).
Regarding Owls Focus... Well it is essentially a 30% reduction of focuscosts. Though we all know it doesn't work like that. It can proc when you don't need it and forget to proc when you need it a lot. And the really problematic stuff is that it mainly procs after your pet has spent focus (or had another Owl's Focus proc), so it needs focus to get it to work.
But if we calculate it as a 30% reduction is costs and the pet uses the 1.5 GCD, then the FPS of the pet is only 11.67 which can be covered by Bestial Discipine alone (12.25 FPS). So a Cunning pet is at this time the best option for level 70 51/20/0 pets. But the reality is that Owl's Focus isn't anywhere near enough to keep focus starvation away, and when that happens the value of OF falls off sharply.
I was just checking out the new spreadsheet, and it shows wolves being higher than cats dps wise? Is this correct?
Make sure you changed the focus dump ability the pet uses. Wolf has bite, but cat has claw, so if you leave bite in the list of abilities used, it does no dps at all for the cat.
Just did three tests to test the pet GCD issue. I wanted to confirm or deny the 1.25 GCD issue.
And I can confirm it.
First test was my Wasp and it performed 94 specials over 2 minutes, two short of the optimal number for 2 minutes.
Then I tested my Cat, and it did 92 specials.
And finally I tested my Cat again, this time without Rake to see if it was perhaps racials that were out of the ordinary, and there it did 88 specials. The reason for the lower count of Claws for this test is because I have macroed Rake and Claw for a priority to Rake, so whenever I don't spam the specials won't fire. This is of course only temporary until the change in pet special priorities.
If the pet had used a normal 1.5 second GCD then I should have seen 80 specials or less. This naturally affects my spec for 1/2 GftT in some degree. I did see what was close to focus starvation a few times (kept careful attention to it to make sure a possible starvation wouldn't skew the results), which obviously comes from the faster specials along with critdroughts. A 30% crit apparently is only just able to keep the pet supplied at this time. Next build might see a little better results because of the cheaper racials.
Last night during our Supremus fight, it occured to me how important positioning is now that buffs are raid wide. Simple concept but when we came out of the kite phase and I noticed I only had half the buffs I had earlier, it only took moving 10 yards to the left and bam full buffs again. This will be the single largest dps gain for many people - make sure you know where your shaman totems and feral druid are.
Hi , this is my first time posting. I just wanted to show my point of view in some hunter mecanics and ask some questions to see what you guys think about it .
1) Last night in SWP i went BM specc 50/11/0 ( no imp aspect of the hawk ) . i thought since Serpent swiftenss + quiver caps the haste needed for steady shot , why not swap to aspect of beast and try it out ... Results : Oh my god! outdpssing the other BM hunters by at least 300-400 dps with the same gear/skills (3.2kdps combined , 1.59k dps pet)( will post WWS soon ) . i know AotB might sound ridicilous for most hunters but i think , in my opinion , is the best aspect to use as BM specc .
2) i was wondering , if serpent swiftness and quiver cap haste on steadyshot why does the t7 in WOTLK gives way too much haste . is blizzard trying to make us go marks ? if so why is the 2 pieces set bonus 5% pet damage? i m really confused.
or will blizzard make haste effect our GCD ? otherwise all that haste is a wasted stat if you are BM specc , i know it will benefit autoshot but still ...
Hi , this is my first time posting. I just wanted to show my point of view in some hunter mecanics and ask some questions to see what you guys think about it .
1) Last night in SWP i went BM specc 50/11/0 ( no imp aspect of the hawk ) . i thought since Serpent swiftenss + quiver caps the haste needed for steady shot , why not swap to aspect of beast and try it out ... Results : Oh my god! outdpssing the other BM hunters by at least 300-400 dps with the same gear/skills (3.2kdps combined , 1.59k dps pet)( will post WWS soon ) . i know AotB might sound ridicilous for most hunters but i think , in my opinion , is the best aspect to use as BM specc .
2) i was wondering , if serpent swiftness and quiver cap haste on steadyshot why does the t7 in WOTLK gives way too much haste . is blizzard trying to make us go marks ? if so why is the 2 pieces set bonus 5% pet damage? i m really confused.
or will blizzard make haste effect our GCD ? otherwise all that haste is a wasted stat if you are BM specc , i know it will benefit autoshot but still ...
Last night during our Supremus fight, it occured to me how important positioning is now that buffs are raid wide. Simple concept but when we came out of the kite phase and I noticed I only had half the buffs I had earlier, it only took moving 10 yards to the left and bam full buffs again. This will be the single largest dps gain for many people - make sure you know where your shaman totems and feral druid are.
Good point to make even though it seems very obvious. We have been accustomed to being in a specific group for specific buffs for so long that sometimes I wonder if hunters forget that a mass majority of the "juicy" buffs are raid-wide....but, are restricted to a specific proximity (30-45 yards). Fights like Supremus or KJ where there is a large area to move around and mobility is critical, knowing where your key buffs are in relation to your own positioning can be the difference in having great DPS vs. good DPS. Thanks for bring that point up, Ulfang.
I do not have the ability to post the screenshot (cannot locate my screenshot folder since patch 3.0.2) of my Recount and I will see if anyone was running a WWS. For the entire run I did approx. 8 million damage and 4.7 million of that was from Volley alone (46% crit rate).
This is several pages late, but just wanted to give a tip.
If you are running vista, the game folders were moved to the shared folder with the 3.0.2 patch. So should be at Shared/Games/World of Warcraft
In an attempt to maybe head off an influx of random commenting or silly questions from new EJ forum visitors that might be reacting to the recent merger of DPS class forums on the WoW Official site, allow me to steer you in the right direction.
Please understand how these forums work by reading all the stickies posted at the top of the forums, read through threads completely before asking dumb questions (use the Search this Thread tool), do not post for the sake of posting (offer up some sort of creative or analytical thought) and take any whining back over to the WoW forums.
3/3 Longevity was/is a good DPS boost, but 1/3 Long and 3/3 Cobra Strikes has shown to be the better DPS combo.
If the pet has 100% DPS time on a boss fight this is probably true, but what about fights like Felmyst and KJ where the pet can't attack for certain periods of time? (Ex: Flight phase on Felmyst, and being recalled to sit in Shield of the Blue on KJ.)
Perhaps I just prefer the utility of 3/3 Longevity 1/3 Cobra Strikes over 1/3 Longevity 3/3 Cobra Strikes...if I lose a small amount of DPS on tank'n'spank fights, so be it. I really like having Bestial Wrath on as short a cooldown as possible because it pops me out of snares/slowing effects such as the ones on KJ.
EDIT: That said, I don't find my DPS particularly lacking either. 3736 DPS on a 1:34 Gorefiend and I was using two passive trinkets there when I should have used my Brooch. I was also using the badge crossbow because I'm too cheap to put a Biznicks on the Archi or Illidan bow. After getting a Golden Bow, 2656 DPS on a 3:30 Mu'ru with 10 healers...and half the time I'm not getting the various juicy debuffs on the boss itself, so I dunno.
If the pet has 100% DPS time on a boss fight this is probably true, but what about fights like Felmyst and KJ where the pet can't attack for certain periods of time? (Ex: Flight phase on Felmyst, and being recalled to sit in Shield of the Blue on KJ.)
Perhaps I just prefer the utility of 3/3 Longevity 1/3 Cobra Strikes over 1/3 Longevity 3/3 Cobra Strikes...if I lose a small amount of DPS on tank'n'spank fights, so be it. I really like having Bestial Wrath on as short a cooldown as possible because it pops me out of snares/slowing effects such as the ones on KJ.
EDIT: That said, I don't find my DPS particularly lacking either. 3736 DPS on a 1:34 Gorefiend and I was using two passive trinkets there when I should have used my Brooch. I was also using the badge crossbow because I'm too cheap to put a Biznicks on the Archi or Illidan bow. After getting a Golden Bow, 2656 DPS on a 3:30 Mu'ru with 10 healers...and half the time I'm not getting the various juicy debuffs on the boss itself, so I dunno.
If you read what I wrote, I did not declare a 1/3 Long & 3/3 CS build as the one and only option. Of course, 3/3 Long is a good DPS spec and much more viable with a pet other than a Cat or Scorpid. Also, since patch 3.0.2 has gone live I have not had any trouble with Felmyst (only pet downtime is flight phase) and my cat stays on KJ the entire fight unless I call him to help me finish off a tough Sinister Reflection (i.e. pally or priest). 1/3 Long for a Cat allows the 3rd Rake tick to finish before refreshing (based on the spreadsheet), but 3/3 CS is pretty powerful when your pet has the opportunity to DPS 90% or more of the time.
Honestly, I couldn't tell you what is good or great DPS for Gorefiendpost 3.0.2 since I have not done him. Would you mind posting WWS reports for the above mentioned fights? Gratz of the Twins Bow also
If you read what I wrote, I did not declare a 1/3 Long & 3/3 CS build as the one and only option. Of course, 3/3 Long is a good DPS spec and much more viable with a pet other than a Cat or Scorpid. Also, since patch 3.0.2 has gone live I have not had any trouble with Felmyst (only pet downtime is flight phase) and my cat stays on KJ the entire fight unless I call him to help me finish off a tough Sinister Reflection (i.e. pally or priest). 1/3 Long for a Cat allows the 3rd Rake tick to finish before refreshing (based on the spreadsheet), but 3/3 CS is pretty powerful when your pet has the opportunity to DPS 90% or more of the time.
Honestly, I couldn't tell you what is good or great DPS for Gorefiendpost 3.0.2 since I have not done him. Would you mind posting WWS reports for the above mentioned fights? Gratz of the Twins Bow also
How does your pet survive without going into the shield or is that just a typo?
KJ has a fairly large hit box and proper shield positioning can allow continued melee dps at the edge of the hit box. Granted it is only a few seconds of dps gain for each Darkness, but it is extra dps.
To avoid a debate over semantics regarding pet survivability during boss boss encounter post-3.0, lets understand that pets have received a pretty well documented (and now tested) overhaul in all aspects. Pet survivability is much more manageable with talents that have either been re-worked (i.e. Spirit Bond) or added (i.e. Bloodthirsty), not to mention our pets have baseline resistances. It is typically pointless to point out obvious reactions a competent hunter will do to manage their pet during any given encounter, such as KJ's Darkness of a Thousand Souls that equals insta-death for any active entity exposed. Pulling pets in anticipation of known encounter mechanics that will insta-gib a pet should be a given.
Felmyst on the other hand used to have more variables to consider to keep a pet alive. Pre-3.0, having a pet out of range of a dispels or in range of an Encapsulated player would lead to a rapid pet death. The only things we could truly rely on were our own Mend Pet spams and random raid heals & dispels. Post 3.0, pets are much more resilient and, if talented right, able to receive bigger, more effective heals. Solarian could be another boss encounter that had similar variables to Felmyst.
EDIT: Here is a comparison of the Felmyst fight pre & post 3.0. Look at the number of Mends used for each fight (ignore my dismal DPS performances). Also, if you look at Dancingbeast's (MM) pet number for post-3.0 and my pre-3.0 pet numbers you can see the huge difference the pet changes have made on the poor Wind Serpents.
To keep this topic from de-railing from a pointless debate over recalling a pet to avoid KJ's Darkness of a Thousand Deaths, the point is that a pet can remain an active DPSer much longer and more effectively now. This makes Cobra Strikes a very viable option if the hunter has enough crit to consistently proc it. Of course, this is all basically a discussion for level 70 raiding post-3.0, which as we know is not a true depiction of what we can expect in the level 80 dungeons. The only evidence I have to use to speculate raiding options for level 80 are thru the spreadsheet and things I read on the beta forums.
EDIT: Here the WWS report for my guilds KJ fight this week. Wow Web Stats I was able to proc Cobra Strikes 40 times (cat never left KJ, but to avoid DoTS & finish a Reflection) and I proc'd BTW 4 times during the encounter. The only problem I found for this fight in regards to Cobra Strikes is that Volley does not proc GFTT and my cat was left semi-focus starved at times.
Now that Beast Master Hunters are easily haste capped on their steady shot, is it still best to use a Haste Potion with your Bestial Wrath macros, or is there another viable solution? At the moment I don't seem to have mana problems so I dont think a mana potion is necessary. I feel like I'm holding back since I don't use my potion cooldown on boss fights anymore.
On the one hand, I'd have to assume that it was part of Blizzard's overall buff restructuring, and that it wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) stack.
On the other hand, I borrowed a warrior in my guild and went out to do some 'napkin testing' on Terrokorantula, and not only did both debuffs appear on the mob (ie. demoralizing shout did not preclude the apparent application of demoralizing screech), but the subsequent hits with both debuffs appeared to be markedly reduced relative to hits with only one debuff or neither.
So basically, has anyone done any testing on this?
On the one hand, I'd have to assume that it was part of Blizzard's overall buff restructuring, and that it wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) stack.
On the other hand, I borrowed a warrior in my guild and went out to do some 'napkin testing' on Terrokorantula, and not only did both debuffs appear on the mob (ie. demoralizing shout did not preclude the apparent application of demoralizing screech), but the subsequent hits with both debuffs appeared to be markedly reduced relative to hits with only one debuff or neither.
So basically, has anyone done any testing on this?
Good question. The original list posted by Blizz outlining all the changes to buffs & debuffs did not mention Demo Screech.
* Attack Power Debuff: Demoralizing Roar, Curse of Weakness, Demoralizing Shout
I wonder if you may have uncovered a potential UI bug. You should report this on the WoW Bug forums, but I would have to guess it will act the same as Furious Howl (wolves) and not stack.
I was looking over the WWS from my guilds KJ kill this past week and particularly scanning my cats activity. I noticed in his log that Dash was showing as procing 13 times during the 6m 45s fight. Dash has a 32sec CD, which would be almost 2 procs per minute or a total of 13 procs in 6m 45s. I never even considered to look at this before assuming the Pet AI was smart enough to not use Dash if the pet was on the same target for the entire fight duration. Dash also burns 30 focus each time, so this would mean my Cat used 390 focus on a pointless ability (except for the initial attack heading in to the target).
It did not seem to affect Rake at all (98 ticks total), but Claw is only showing 108 strikes over the course of the fight. Estimating that Claw should trigger 48 times per minute (given the available focus) it should have shown almost double the strikes WWS is reflecting (108), even with a .9% miss rate. Of course, GFTT didn't proc consistently due me Volley attacking Reflections. Dash looks to have burned 30 focus and a GCD twice every miunte thus reducing Claw strikes.
If anyone else has a WWS report showing this same thing, please confirm this finding.
EDIT: Here the WWS report for my guilds KJ fight this week. Wow Web Stats I was able to proc Cobra Strikes 40 times (cat never left KJ, but to avoid DoTS & finish a Reflection) and I proc'd BTW 4 times during the encounter. The only problem I found for this fight in regards to Cobra Strikes is that Volley does not proc GFTT and my cat was left semi-focus starved at times.
25 Cobra Strikes in 7:30 vs 37 Cobra Strikes in 6:30. Also I only used Bestial Wrath twice on the fight since I save them for when I'm slowed. Anyway both our pets had a 41/42% crit rate on Rake by the looks of it. I also didn't volley Reflections there. And your steady shot crit 50% of the time while mine only ended up cat 39%
Our gear is near equivalent and DPS is close enough considering my conservative usage of Bestial Wrath and extra time taken on the fight. I'll try 3/3 Cobra Strikes this week to see if there's a noticeable DPS boost for me, though in 2 weeks I guess it won't even really matter.
10/28/08, 2:03 PM
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