Eurytos

FIRST!

Hunters Mark if you raid with 3+ Hunters should come out on top.

I debate Hawk vs Sting. My Improved Hawk uptime is about 50% usually. That's 3% average haste.

 

Derek649

So far from what I've read throughout this article is that the rotation for live at the moment is RF->Readiness->Serpent->Chim->Steady loosely, I'm more wondering about what it's going to look like come 3.0.8, and excuse me if I've missed this somewhere in the article. I've heard that Aimed Shot in the rotation will result in high dps due to its high crit chance with glyphs, I've also read using every cool down and minimal steadies, or steadies with arcane shots. I haven't been able to get on the PTR for myself but has any of the latest builds lead to any obvious choices for a high dps rotation.

 

Iru

Post patch, arcane shot will cost the same mana as steady shot so will be a much better shot choice whenever its CD is up

 

stoagie

So where does this leave builds that are heavily based on Steady Shot, i.e. Glyph of Steady Shot, Improved Steady Shot, Master Marksman, Steady Shot rotation etc...

Would you reccommend, if PTR goes live, moving points back into the Barrage talents and using a new rotation that threads in Aimed and Arcane anytime these shots are up?

 

Iru

I personally think that spending 7pts to get & buff a single shot isn't worth it (Aimed SHot, Barrage & Imp Barrage), especially when considering the talents you'd forgo in a build like this. Simply accept that the MM rotation is a little more complex SpS->CS->AS->SS till a CD is up (either CS, KS, or AS). If the utility factor of Aimed Shot still appeals, move a pt from Imp Arcane Shots to take Aimed Shot

 

Feanoro

With regard to Hawk glyph vs Serpent, it's no contest. Haste is a B stat for us at best, especially when you consider most of us will be near haste cap from gear alone, plus the diminished role of Steady post-3.0.8. Serpent however directly boosts Chimera rather nicely, as well as giving us a bit more time to manuver without losing a Sting boosted by a temporary AP gain.

 

Vitaro

That's not entirely fair to the Hawk glyph: It also definitely boosts our Auto shot speed, which is a considerable part of our DPS. Post-patch my MM Glyphs are looking to be Serpent Sting (SrS), Steady (SS) and AotH. The DPS gain per-glyph under the latest spreadsheet is as follows:

SS 37
SrS 30
AotH 27
AS 16
AotV 14
HM 13
RF 8

Edit: This is using a Chimera + Arcane + steady-spam rotation.

 

stoagie

Is Improve Arcane Shots even worth one point? It doesn't scale with RAP.

 

Vitaro

I'm seriously going to e-strangle the next person who brings this up: It sure as hell scales with RAP; just as it says on the tin.

 

Iru

Huh? how is 5% more dmg per point not scaling?

 

Vitaro

There is a spreading 'rumour' shall we say on the EU official hunter forum that Impr. Arcane Shots does not scale with RAP. This is of course brought up any time without evidence or any further explanation. I've tested it point-for-point at a target dummy myself to make sure it's all humbug.

 

stoagie

I heard about it not scaling with RAP on the US forums:


"My question is about the equation used for determining the damage done by Arcane Shot, and whether the talent of Improved Arcane Shot really gives a true 15 % bonus in damage or not.

Right now I have a RAP of 3640, so the equation for Arcane shot would be (3640 x 0.15) + 492 = 1038.
I have invested 3 talent points in Improved Arcane Shot, which should give me a 15 % bonus. Therefore: [(3640 x 0.15) + 492] x 1.15 = 1193. This of course is not the case, since my Arcane Shot currently does 1111 damage. That number comes from the fact that they apply the 15 % bonus only to the 492 portion of the equation. That equation would look like: (3640 x 0.15) + (492 x 1.15) = 1111. This means that for 3 talent points I have only increased the damage done by my Arcane shot by 73 damage. Since the 15 % is only applied to the 492, which is unchanging, no matter how much RAP I have, my bonus from Improved Arcane Shot will always be only 73 damage (it does not scale in damage like the rest of the equation does).

I would love to know if this will be dealt with in a future patch, since I am now going to respec and get rid of Improved Arcane Shot (because 73 damage is not worth 3 talent points, especially since the bonus will never increase in value based on RAP)."


The above poster received this reply:

"I just wanted to reply about the arcane shot equation. It is confirmed that the talent Improved Arcane Shot only applies to the 492 in the equation, and does not increase in attack power. Therefore no matter how high your RAP is, the bonus you get from Improved Arcane Shot will always be 74. Until they fix it, and actually increase the entire damage of the arcane shot by 15%, the talent is worthless, and should not be taken (unless you really really have no where else to put your talent points)."

 

Vitaro

Poster is wrong. I just tested it again and Impr. Arcane Shot works fine.

Numeric proof:
RAP: 4401
Impr. Arc Shot: 3/3
Arcane Shot hits non-tracked mob for: 1391

Raw Arcane Shot: ((4401*0.15) + 492) * 1.05 = 1210
Improved: 1210*1.15 = 1391


PS: "* 1.05" in above formula is 5/5 Ranged Weapon Spec

 

Sebudai

If the spreadsheet is to be trusted, which it most likely should be, my optimal MM spec comes out to this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The shot rotation would include both Arcane Shot and Aimed Shot.

I don't think talents like Barrage and Improved Barrage are going to be optimal for your average encounter. They're definitely weaker than other options for any normal tank and spank encounter according to the spreadsheet. Similarly, Glyph of Trueshot Aura appears to be pretty weak as well. Regardless of all of that, I think Aimed Shot is still worth picking up over that 3rd point in Improved Hunter's Mark, unless you're raiding with like 4 hunters or something.

One of the harder decisions I've found is going up to 3 or 4 in Unleashed Fury vs. putting 2 points in Survival Instincts. The first option is slightly more dps in the spreadsheet, but that doesn't account for encounters in which the pet might die or miss a encounter-specific buff(like Thaddius), and it also ignores the benefit of 4% damage reduction. Personally I'm sort of leaning towards the 2 points in Survival Instincts.

Anyway, with this build I would use Glyph of Serpent Sting, Aspect of the Hawk, and Steady Shot. According to the spreadsheet those are the three best options dps-wise by a decent margin. I think we can also safely assume that Cat will be the best MM pet after the patch.

Thoughts?

 

stoagie

Thanks for testing this Vitaro. The US poster had me spooked. I wonder why he was so convinced it didn't scale with RAP?

 

stoagie

Looks very interesting and by that I mean the points in unleashed fury. I will be moving some points from Survival into BM because of your suggestion. My only worry would be mana regeneration - do you think Rapid Recuperation is an unnecessary talent?

 

Sebudai

According to the spreadsheet it will be for me, but I think that's also a highly subjective choice. My primary focus is 25-man raids and I can always count on having all of the various mana regen buffs. It might be optimal to pick up Rapid Recuperation and/or Efficiency under different circumstances.

It's also highly dependent on encounter duration I think. Right now everything is dying in like 2-4 minutes, so mana is almost always a non-issue for me. This could certainly change in Ulduar though. It just depends on how they design the encounters.

 

stoagie

I've changed to this spec in light of your suggestions,

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I do not raid, just starting heroics, so I've keep points in Rapid Recuperation. I'm avoiding Improved Arcane Shot, in spite of Vitaro's tests because I don't use that shot in my rotation.

I have replaced my Glyph of Steady Shot with the Hawk glyph because Marked for Death breaks this glyph.

Presumably if the PTR changes become live then I'll dabble with something like this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This build avoids Improved Steady Shot and puts points in Aimed, Barrage and Improved Arcane in anticipation of using those shots in a new rotation.

 

Sebudai

Yeah, if you mainly do heroics, I think Barrage and Improved Barrage become very good talents. Volley and Multi-shot get used constantly in heroics.

 

Spatrick

I'm not sure but I would assume your guild is like mine. We aoe all of the trash in Naxx and clear it in one night. If that's the case wouldn't these talents benefit our overall dps?

I realize boss fights is where its at but with the easy content that we currently have it seems the barrage tallents are worth it. Not for single target dps but dps overall (Naxx clear).

 

Esoth

That's almost exactly the same build I came up with, except that I had 2/2 Rapid Recuperation and none in Imp Mark - with full raid buffs, the point at which Improved Steady Shot passed RR was somewhere between 3 or 4 minutes. If you have enough other hunters in the guild to have a token Imp Mark spec, RR or Imp Steady Shot seem like the place from which to take points, depending on your mana situation.

I was a bit surprised that Unleashed Fury is still performing so well for Marks. My suspicion was that it only works out to be better than Survival Tactics (or one of the weaker talents from MM, like Imp Steady Shot) if you were using a scorpid or maybe a cat in their current state. However, even with a raptor, Unleashed Fury was the better choice.

As far as the glyphs go, Steady and Serpent were way in the lead with every setup I tried. Improved Aspect of the Hawk was the best for the third glyph in most setups, but honestly, Glyph of Trueshot Aura was within about 2 dps most of the time.

 

Eurytos

So let's not look at what a spreadsheet says and do the math ourselves?

We first need 3 numbers:
1) How much of our damage comes Chimera Shot Serpent?
2) How much of our damage comes from Auto Shot?
3) How much of our DPS time is Quick Shots up?

For me, those numbers are normally as followed:
1) 8%
2) 25%
3) 50%

So, since Glyph of Serpent Sting increases Chimera Shot Serpent by exactly 20% (6 ticks instead of 5 = 6/5 = 1.2), 1.2*8 = 9.6 = 1.6% increase.

Now, the haste from Quick Shots is a straight percentage increase of Auto Shot damage and nothing else (assuming Quick Shots already puts you at the haste cap for Steady Shot). So, 50% uptime * 6% increase = 3% more haste overall. .03 * .25 = 0.75% increase.

So yeah, clearly I was wrong about the Improved Hawk glyph.

 

stoagie

Apparently Marked for Death breaks the Steady Shot glyph but is fixed on the PTR

Marked for Death breaks Glyph of Steady Shot - TKA Something

 

ankah

I know it is not a very popular talent, since it gets very poor results from the spreed sheet, but I have Rapid Recuperation now, and I will sure keep it after the SS nerf, if I stay MM.

Not only is it great for solo play, I saw a cut in my viper time since I do back to back rapid fire in conjunction with my trinkets/racials (which also increased my over all dps, even more so in all out encounters such as patch, Thaddius and others). I am not saying it's for every one, but I would highly recommend it based on my personal experience and play style.

 

Esoth

The mana portion of Rapid Recuperation was not implemented in the spreadsheet until December 5th, so if you haven't looked at it since then it will be better than you expect.