Kharthus

How does that work? Does the percentage based damage increase stay thru refreshes for the rest of the fight?

 

Pijn

That's correct, which makes it very important for all MM hunters to make it their second nature to recast Serpent Sting in the four following situations (posted in useful addons thread): Recasting Serpent Sting

 

Repaxan

This is going to sound stupid, but do hunters' abilities which do non-physical damage (Arcane Shot, Chimera Shot, Explosive Shot, etc) benefit from buffs that increase spell damage or spell crit? ie, Focus Magic, or Earth and Moon? I heard that all non-physical damage is considered as "spell" damage.

 

Brutalus

Is there any power or effect that can slow, snare, daze, or CC a big red (TBW) hunter? It has happened to me a few times now as the FC in WSG so I am wondering if it is a lag/latency issue or some ability I am not aware of.

 

Pijn

Not affected by buffs on us that increase Spell Power (since none of our attacks are affected by it), but damage is increased by debuffs which increase damage taken by boss from magical sources (Earth and Moon, Curse of the Elements, Singed at Hodir).

 

TrevvyTrev

No player abilities that I know of can do that (I believe death grip and knockbacks work, but I don't count those as CCs), and in WSG the only other effect that can snare you is the vulnerability debuff that slows you and increases damage taken when you've held the flag too long.

 

dvorjak

According to the spreadsheet, I will see a gain of 78dps if I take the Steady Shot glyph over the Kill Shot glyph. I understand the benefit of the Kill Shot glyph is situational and relevant to encounters with longer burn phases below 20% than those that aren't. My question is how do we determine exactly how much of a gain Kill Shot will give of for each encounter in Ulduar? I am thinking of taking my guilds average down times for each encounter from WMO and trying to figure out if I fire a first Kill Shot right at 20% and then I am able to fire another one every cooldown with and without the glyph, how much of a dps increase that will be over not taking the Steady Shot glyph. But my problem is that this is a little beyond me in the math department. Are there any easier ways to determine this, or is the math out there already?

 

Korghal

No. Like you said, it's situational, which means that it's effect will differ from one raid to another. There are so many factors that would be included, that a "simple" answer is impossible. It is WAY to complex to be able to create a formula to calculate its worth. If you were looking for a simple answer, the easiest way is to go with your guts. Perhaps you are right, perhaps you are wrong. No one will ever know anyway

Factors to include in thinking.
Adds (target switching) - Serpent sting has to be applied to gain benefit from the SS glyph. More adds = more chances to fire Kill Shot.
Movement - Can't fire SS while moving.
Phase based encounters (like Yogg, where 2/3 of the last phase is under 20%)
I'm sure there are alot more, and obvious, that I forget about at this hour.

 

Agrotho

One solution is carry several of each glyph on you at all times. I swap out glyphs on several different fights in Ulduar (Steady on Ignis, KS on Yogg, etc). It doesn’t take long at all to change and they run for 3-4 Gold a piece on the AH. It is very difficult to theorycraft which glyph will perform better on average through a full-clear. It is a fairly straightforward process to choose your glyphs before each pull.

 

dvorjak

I do the same. I was not looking to determine which glyph is best for an entire clear, but a way to determine which is best for each individual encounter. For yogg, kill shot is a gimme, but for other encounters including ignis how do you determine that steady shot outweighs kill shot? Do you take the time the boss is below 20% and calculate the number of potential kill shots you can get off vs. the avg. dps gain of steady shot?

 

Gozardina

Korghal's statement above regarding how this varies from raid to raid stands true. If it takes your guild a very long time to kill Ignis then the Kill Shot glyph may very well out perform the steady shot glyph. However, as weeks go by and your boss attempts get faster and faster the Kill Shot glyph begins to lose it's value. Since we do not know how long Ignis (and the other bosses for that matter) remain below 20% health in your specific runs, it becomes difficult to make these decisions for you.

 

• VRoscioli

A good way to test this would be to take the average time it takes to kill Ignis and the amount of time he is below 20% on average and use them as your parameters in the spreadsheet. See which glyph provides more DPS. Of course, this method still doesn't take into account things like adds, but it is a good jumping-off point.

 

Kelthuryon

Why do most MM templates feature Rapid Killing?

I was under the impression that using Readiness optimally would always override the cooldown reduction portion of this talent, while the "on HK/experience kill" portion certainly doesn't mean much vs a raid boss.

Perhaps it is to buff the effectiveness of Rapid Recuperation on trash ?

I was under the impression that spending those points in FA would allow more stat budget toward agi/crit/arp/ap thus being more interesting than points spent in seemingly situational talents.

 

• VRoscioli

Rapid Killing lowers the CD on Rapid Fire to 3 minutes, allowing the use of Rapid Fire TWICE every 3:15 (when used in conjunction with Readiness).

 

Danrith

Blood Presence from a Death Knight currently buffs vehicle damage in the Flame Leviathan fight. Has anyone seen if Trueshot Aura, being a similar passive raid-wide buff, can also affect the vehicles?

 

Enova

Noticed this on the Argent Tournament mounted jousts a while back. And, in that case, TSA does not work, while Blood Presence does. Granted, Flame Leviathan might work differently, but this does set a precedent. For some reason, vehicle damage does not seem to scale off AP, but it is susceptible to flat + damage% modifiers. I would assume Ferocious Inspiration, however, would work with vehicles.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Stuart

Just a little question :

With this from the 3.2 patchnotes :"All pets now receive 40% of their master's resilience and 100% of their master's spell penetration. In addition, if a player is at their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise"

Does anybody can tell me if the difference in the pet dps will be big, average or little with this change ? (of course if the hunt is hit caped and specialised as a beastmaster) ?

PS : Sorry for my English.

 

Vegelus

With change made to Animal Handler (increases pet's AP by 5/10% instead of increasing expertise) it should be more than noticable (note that previous version of AH did not reach expertise soft cap). But not big enough to bring BMs to other trees.
This change might be even better for instance soloers, if this change means that pet will have expertise hard cap. Less parry gibs means a bit less dmg incoming. But that needs testing.

 

Conscience

Hello everybody, one short question (that certainly comes up often) here regarding going for an ArP-heavy MM-build. With my current gear I can touch the 619 mark with Grim Toll equipped. The spreadsheet, however, indicates that going for 4/5 (5/5) Conquerer, which lets my ArP drop to something beetween 400 and 500, is ahead of such a setup. Should I rely on the sheet right there or are there aspects of this issue that aren't modeled accurately (like, especially, the proccs from GT)?

 

TrevvyTrev

The change doesn't put the pet at the expertise hard cap. Parries still happen, but dodges won't, so a hunter at the hit cap will have a pet at the expertise soft cap.

 

Beushdag

While lvling my hunter i chose herbalism and skinning as my professions for the heal and crit chance. The heal has saved my life a few times but im wondering if there is something more benificial to me than the crit from skinning. So what i'm asking is what are the smart professions for a hunter in both lvling and the end-game.

 

Enova

While leveling, I wouldn't bother maxing the crafting professions, since most of the stuff you can make becomes obsolete before you gather enough materials for most of the good items. Just stick with the gathering ones you already have - they're decent and can make you quite a lot of gold. At some point after reaching level 80 you're going to want to decide what professions make your life easier, though. You might want to make more money and just buy off everything you need, or you might want to farm certain consumables by yourself and avoid the hassle of finding a craftsman or the AH. Or you might want to just get the best stats you can out of these.

The crit chance from Skinning won't likely be worth it compared to, say, the ring enchants from Enchanting, or the stat bonus from the Jewelcrafting stuff, and it's not the best money maker either.
Herbalism might still be worth it for raiding, even if indirectly, since you'll have all the herbs you need for flasks while doing daily quests around the world. You could also couple that with Alchemy for better, longer lasting flasks.
Jewelcrafting is very good for self buffs, and quite the money maker, but the downside is, you need a lot of gold to level and maintain it, or to level mining as well.
Enchanting is awesome in that it saves you a great deal of hassle looking for someone to enchant your stuff, but, again, it's expensive as fuck to level, and I sincerely wouldn't recommend picking it until the mid 60s (or later, if you can't afford the time to farm a few low level dungeons for stuff to DE; it will come in very handy disenchanting Northrend quest rewards, if you do, however). And, as a bonus, you don't need a gathering profession to sustain it.
Leatherworking is good, at least for the unique enchant, if nothing else. If you want to go this way, keep skinning, at least until you max it.
Engineering is godly, because it makes the best arrows available, is funny as hell and has quite decent utility. The drawback is that it almost forces you to be a miner to level it, and after you've gotten most of the stuff, it makes Mining almost useless. Also, it's tends to make your gold disappear, even after you've maxed it.
Mining in itself doesn't give you anything worthwhile, but it does however make good money on the AH, and it's relatively cheap to level up. The problem is you have to spend a lot of time looking for veins, you have the greatest competition, since ores are few and far between, and due to a combination of reasons, it seems like it's by far the most popular gathering profession around.

I'll toss in my personal opinion on what to get based on what your goals are, but be warned they are costly to level.
For making money: Jewelcrafting + Enchanting (but you have to spend a lot more time and money on leveling them first)
For saving on raiding costs: Alchemy + Herbalism (also, quite decent as money makers, especially if you're not raiding)
For maximum stat gains: Jewelcrafting + Leatherworking
For PVP and farming utility: Mining + Engineering

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't realize just how big a wall of text I created. Should have kept it simple

Guilty as charged ^

 

Pijn

I would say for 'maximum' stat gains: JC + BS

Maximum is actually an incorrectly used term here, since strictly speaken all professions give the exact same bonuses when looking at stats (LW, inscription, enchanting and alchemy give the exact same extra stats to their enchants/flasks)

However, when we are looking at 'maximum' potential for endgame raiding, there really is no doubt about it; BS + JC are the best choices since it allows customization of stats. One can choose to go for extra Agi, crit, hit, ArP. This reason alone means the real dedicated endgame raider should really go for BS+JC.

 

Beushdag

For PvP at lvl 80 mining and engineering would be better than the heal from lifebloom? and what from engineering makes it so useful in pvp that wouldnt be replaced by honor or arena gear??

 

Enova

The heal from lifebloom is not going to keep up with how much health you're gaining after around level 60ish. The stamina from mining might help more, since it's passive.

As for what makes engineering great, it's actually the trinkets and the armor enhancements that you can apply to PVP gear, such as Flexweave Underlay, Frag Belt, Hyperspeed Accelerators or Nitro Boosts. Here is pretty much a typical engineer's selection

Guilty as charged ^