Crackseed

Pet wise Sebudai, I think we're going to see the Wasp become a pretty strong contender as well for non-BM Hunters. I'm a fan of it's skill and the changes overall seem to be bringing it more in line with the rest of the Ferocity pets for raiding.

Here's hoping! GG Minor Armor debuff <.<

I like the build you linked overall, though I'm personally going to try a slightly different spec, with 2 points from UF shifted to Survival Instincts and gutting the points from Imp Steady/Imp Mark to 3/3 Barrage and 1/3 Imp Barrage. I find Aimed is a solid shot for me and with 2 more steadies omitted due to threading in arcane/aimed in the rotation now, I really don't know if Imp Steady is going to be a worthwhile use of points.

 

Hunteralex

I keep it all pretty basic along the lines of spamming my tiny rotations. Here it is...

Hunter's Mark-->Serpent Sting-->Steady shot (Macroed Out)x4 or until Chimera Shots CD is up. Then continue with Chimera Shot-->Steady Shot(x4)-->Chimera Shot--> And so on..The macro for my steady shot is pretty basic aswell. It is..

#showtooltip Steady Shot

/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");

/cast Kill Shot

/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command

/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");

/cast !Auto Shot

/cast Steady Shot

I hope i was of some asistance. O btw, im no longer a Marksmen, im a Beastmaster-Readiness Hunter now.

 

DomiJi

Hello Hunters out there,

first of all thanks for that awesome thread and excuse my bad englisch please!

With the upcoming patch i think about, what i can do to maximize my dmg as a marksman!
At the moment i cast the normal SpS -> CS -> SS rota!

Yesterday i try the SpS -> CS -> SS and AS (on CD) rota and i run oom in a few seconds :-(
But my dps was realy good and approx 100 dps higher than without AS.

My question is: would this mana problem become better with the patch and is it necessary to
use aimed shot in the rotation ??? and ist it a good idea to skill efficiency and rapid recuperation
to compensate the mana problem ?

Is it a good idea to switch 5 points out of nerfed unleashed fury and put them into survival instincts
and maybe another talent in the mm tree ? or is unleashed fury already a must have talent ?
Does 3 points in improved steady shot make sense anymore ? or 2 points enough ?

Many thanks for your tipps and answers!

Greetz
Whaag


PS: sorry i can't use the spread, it woun't run on my mac and office 2004 :-(

 

excess21

Hi DomiJi!

It pretty much comes down to how you like to play, there is alot of supporting evidence for both Barrage + Imp. Barrage + Aimed Shot combination and Imp. Arcane Shot. I personally chose Arcane Shot as my post-patch talent to integrate into my rotation. In preparation for the upcoming nerfs to Steady Shot and changes to the mana cost of Arcane Shot I have already chosen the spec and glyphs I will be using post patch:

Spec:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

In combination with these glyphs:
Major:
[Glyph of Serpent Sting]
[Glyph of Arcane Shot]
[Glyph of Hunter's Mark] post-patch -> [Glyph of Steady Shot]

I chose Arcane Shot for it's short CD and nice RAP scaling. I was keen on Aimed Shot at first, but once I realized that I would have two 10s CD (Aimed + CS) shots along with a pretty high mana consumption I decided against it. I currently use a priority rotation: Arcane Shot > Chimera > Steady > Auto. This pretty much staggers the CDs of both Arcane Shot and CS so that I don't have to fire them back to back with a larger hit to my mana pool, although this does happen on occasion.

I have been raiding with this spec recently I have to say that I am surprised at it current damage output when compared to other very geared guildies and BM hunters.

Wow Web Stats
(Forgive the wipes, Dark Iron has been a lag fest since the maintenance this Tuesday)

 

legomyegolas

I'm not sure I'd go with aspect mastery if I wasn't getting UF. It's essentially costing you 4 talents that could be spent elsewhere. Personally, I think aimed + (wild quiver or barrage or imp steady) is a better value. Even if you choose not to use aimed shot in your standard rotation I think you'd find it useful when you need a little extra burst on demand (think Spark duty on Maly.)

 

excess21

Thats a matter of opinion, I wouldn't sacrifice 2% overall dmg and the ability to quickly and efficiently resurrect my pet for a 6% chance to proc (Wild Quiver), OR 15% chance to proc from a skill that is receiving a nerf and will be used less (Imp Steady Shot), OR a skill which isn't comparable (+15% Arcane Shot Damage > +12% Aimed Shot Damage) (Barrage). Spark duty is a joke, and CS + Arcane Shot is more than enough burst.

 

legomyegolas

I agree spark duty is a joke, as is all current content, I was simply using that to illustrate a point that having another instant gives you the ability to have more controlled burst dmg when you need it. For me I know how to get out of the fire, and call my pet back before it dies, so those 3 points are pretty thoroughly wasted. Curious, would you spend those three talents there if you weren't going to get aspect mastery? If not, then you're paying 4 points for 90 AP and 10% more dmg when you're in viper. Seems pretty steep for what you get.

Oh, and yes, it is a matter of opinion. That's why I prefaced everything I said with "I'm not sure I'd..." I simply presented my opinion and stated my reasons for such.

 

kthreev

This is going to be my spec post-patch.

On live the basic example of my rotation is SrS, CS, AS, Steady till CDs, CS, AS, etc. With my new build, its going to be exactly the same, but I'm going to be throwing in arcane shots in place of steady's whenever its up, still giving priority to Chimera, Aimed.

For example, SrS, CS, AS, ArcS, SS, SS, SS, (+/- SS), ArcS, CS, AS.

I'm thinking this to be just about the top dps output for marks, and it will be extremely nice having so much burst as well. I understand the arguement about 4 points for Imp. Aspects, but honestly, I don't see any other talents worth putting those points into instead. Wild Quiver and Imp. SS are both lackluster in comparison imo.

 

mako

There's a distinct difference between maximizing your character for farm (trivial/easy) content, and maximizing it for new (challenging/unfamiliar) content.

On new content, survivability tends to have a significantly higher value than it does on farm encounters. For example in a guild learning Sapphiron for the first time, the healers would surely not complain that their hunter is taking 5% less damage due to having aspect mastery. Likewise, healers who are not familiar with the fight may be less likely to heal your pet, giving imp revive more value should your pet eat a couple of blizzards, or a new tank could get your pet accidentally cleaved.

Going even 7 points into BM (focused fire) makes it worth reviving your pet if it dies mid-fight, so there's no compelling reason not to minimize the time it takes to do so. There's no significant damage talents being skipped out on from MM or early SV, so while it is a personal decision, the minor DPS gain on farm content really doesn't do much except inflate ones ego.

I'd wager that's also the reason why many MM hunters intend to pick up Survival Instincts in 3.0.8, instead of getting 4/5 or 5/5 Unleashed Fury.

<Bad> Dragonmaw US
www.damnwesuck.com

 

legomyegolas

We won't be seeing "new (challenging/unfamiliar) content" until Ulduar which is who knows how far off. Ghostcrawler has already alluded to hunter changes that will probably change the class enough that trying to discuss talenting for it would be a waste of time.

In my opinion, when 3.0.8 comes out until 3.1 you're not really getting much for your money when you spend more than seven talents in BM just to get Aspect Mastery. If I don't spec survival then I'll most likely keep barrage and imp barrage because even after the volley nerf that'll probably do the most for my raids (we aoe everything at this point.)

 

Whitefyst

One thing to keep in mind is that the maximum DPS that the spreadsheets provides you at anytime as you compare build options depends on several factors, which include:
- Your current gear - as hit, haste, crit, AP, etc changes which talents work better than others can change
- Actual playing situations - the spreadsheet idealizes the situation with perfect implementation of your rotation and pet always attacking - it doesn't account for loss in DPS due to moving, interruptions, etc.
- Buffs - if the buffs you used in your analysis are not the same as the buffs you actually play with, the results may not actually be the best for your raids
- The talents of other characters in your raid, including other hunters (e.g, if another hunter in the raid has IHM, then your IHM does not really provide any additional benefit and those talent points could be allocated somewhere else (I still prefer to have the talent for when I am the only hunter with it))
- Your pet management - doesn't provide much benefit to allocate talent points to increase only your pet DPS if it is dead a lot or not attacking
- Your playing style

My point is that the spreadsheet is a great resource for helping you maximize your DPS but that you shouldn't take the results from it as gospel. Weigh the pros and cons of changes against your actual playing style and conditions and reevaluate periodically as your gear changes or buff/debuff situation changes.

Now, concerning your build, it is a very good option and can be very successful for many players, but there are a few minor things that I want to point out to consider what is best for you:

1) 2/3 in IHM: If there is no other hunter in your raids with IHM, then having this talent is beneficial; however, if there are any other hunters in your raids that has 3/3 IHM, then your talent is wasted points in raids. Your DPS (and the raids) would actually be better if you allocated the points somewhere else. An option instead for increasing DPS is Piercing Shots, especially if you are planning to use Aimed SHot in your rotation. I know that it is not a great skill, but it can stil improve your DPS. However, my prefered suggestion would be if you do not need IHM to move it into Barrage, which will buff both your Aimed Shot you are planning to use and your AoE. Another concern is that this talent buffs other hunters as well, so not having it fully talented is not ideal.

2) 2/2 GftT: This is a great talent for making your pet a focus dump to increase its DPS. However, with our pets slower speeds and as our crit rates become higher, the benefit of the second point in the talent diminishes and eventually becomes zero as our pet cannot attack fast enough to use up all the focus. I have neither done or seen any analysis on where this point is, but the spreadsheet currently indicates for my character that the second point provides no additional DPS benefit while previously it did when I was at lower crit rates. Hence, you may be able to drop a point here to move someplace else, such as topping off IHM or Barrage.

3) 4/5 Unleashed Fury: This is definitely a great talent option, and it theoretically works out to be the best DPS option. However, there are some practical considerations to take into account on whether it is actually the better DPS option, as you pointed out but on which I am elaborating. For fights in which your pet has 100% uptime, it works out very well. In fights where your pet dies and you either dont use it anymore or reduce your DPS uptime to rez it, where you cannot use your pet since the target will kill all melee (and you want to make sure its still around for the 2% bonus), where the target is not attackable by melee (e.g, flying), or where you have to take your pet in and out of combat a lot, this talent can be an actual DPS loss over other options. For players that are great at optimizing their pet's DPS uptime, this talent is a benefit. For others, this talent can be a loss. My personal preference is usually my DPS over my pets. Thus, I move 2 of those points into Survivial Instincts for less damage taken and for 4% more crit on my steady shot (and also my arcane shot after the patch). Considering that you spent 3 points in IAS, I would consider this talent a good option for you.

 

mako

I suppose how you value improved revive pet depends significantly on the playing ability of the player, as well as the difficulty level of content being completed. I do agree that (because naxx is trivial) an average player should not lose their pet on more than 3 fights in Naxx if they are in what I consider an average guild; i.e. a guild that can clear all non-achievement content within 1-3 tries each week.

Healing debuffs can be easily provided in more reliable manner from Rogues and DPS Warriors, and as such, are better left to those classes whenever possible.

I'm of the opinion that in current content, one of the few encounters worth optimizing for at all is Sartharion +3 as it is more challenging than any non-achievement raid encounters currently in the game. As such, damage reduction from Aspect Mastery and Survival Instincts, as well as having a revive pet that is viable to cast are more significant than a weak wild quiver proc that *might* increase my personal DPS by 1% (If there is a different place to put those "saved" points from skipping aspect mastery, please let me know).

Optimizing under the assumption that any non-trivial content in Uldar will be on a level similar to Sartharion +3 is more interesting than worrying about squeezing another 100 dps out of my character on patchwerk when it's already easy to kill him with less than 25 people in an alt-run. If things change before then, so be it.

Perhaps I'm just being nit-picky on this last point, but you're wrong in claiming that arcane shot is part of every hunter's standard shot cycle, seeing as survival will not even use the shot. If the concern is maximizing damage in a vaccume, unleashed fury will be the talent of choice over survival instincts. 4% crit on arcane shot is still inferior to an 8% increase in pet damage, meaning raiders who opt for survival instincts while also taking aspect mastery do so (in part) because of the added survivability gain.

I'd also like to not that when maximizing personal DPS, IHM is as bad as aspect mastery. 3 points for 90 AP is very weak. Seeing as hunter pets don't gain AP from IHM, the gain from Aspect Mastery's 90 AP is going to be slightly more powerful. Factoring in the 20% lower DPS loss during viper, even at 4 points, aspect mastery is superior to IHM for personal dps.

<Bad> Dragonmaw US
www.damnwesuck.com

 

Adele

If your guild always had a Ret pally in with Imp Ret Aura, would the haste cap decrease to 424'ish with the 3% haste buff?

 

camullo

Piercing Shots shall ignore 6% Armor...
Does anyone know if armor penetration is based on the unmodified armorvalue of a boss or calculated on the modified (minus Sunder Armor etc.) ??

 

mako

Armor Pen is calculated after the major and minor armor debuffs remove their static armor value. Unless piercing shots is changed to affect all shots it's going to remain an underwhelming talent.

<Bad> Dragonmaw US
www.damnwesuck.com

 

Gozardina

~33 haste rating (32.78?) = 1% haste
since the soft haste cap is based pretty much on making up the missing 20% from not having Serpents Swifness, then you are looking at approximately 656 haste rating.

So I believe the haste soft-cap already assumes Imp Ret Aura will be present in the raid.

EDIT: Whitefyst, thank you for clearing up the discrepancies I had with the soft haste-cap.

 

Whitefyst

You are incorrect. The softhaste cap is not the amount of haste to make up for not having Serpent Swiftness. It is the amount of haste needed to get the steady shot cast speed down to the GCD (i.e., from 2.0s to 1.5s). As other posts in many threads in the Hunter folder point out in more detailed math, after the 15% haste from our quivers, MM and SV hunters need an additional 15.942% haste to get to the softcap. This equates to 523 haste rating, without accounting for any other haste effects to become soft-haste capped.

Obviously, in addition to haste rating on our gear, other haste effects, such as the Imp Ret Aura, Quickshot procs, haste trinket procs, Rapid Fire (RF), haste potions, etc. provide haste that helps to reduce or eliminate the amount of haste rating required to be softcapped.

Personally, I have not been too worried on trying to get haste softcapped since IAotH theoretically has roughly a 50% uptime. With 0 haste and no IAotH glyph, IAotH procs already get you almost to the softcap. The glyph or less than 1% haste from haste gear will get you past the softcap without having to worry about raid haste buffs. Whenever you use RF, you exceed the haste softcap. Hence, haste rating on gear really helps the most only when you are not under other haste effects that get you to the softcap (of course, it still always helps to reduce your autoshot speed but at diminishing amounts).

Thus, I try to stack a good amount of haste rating as it comes naturally, but I have not made it a priority to achieve 523 haste rating from gear. With the changes in 3.0.8, where steady shot will not be used as much in our rotations since we will be using alternative shots, like Arcane Shot and/or Aimed Shot when they are off CD, the benefit of working to be fully haste softcapped with gear is even less.

 

Harmann

It's actually even less than that currently for Marksmanship specced Hunters. Chimera Shot has a 10s cooldown, you can only fit 5 Steady Shots in between that cooldown. If your Steady Shot is casting at 1.5 secs (GCD) then you fire off your 5 Steadies, wait 1s and fire Chimera Shot (with server latency, this 1s is closer to 0.5s). Since you're firing 5 Steadies in an 8.5s window of time, they really only need a casting speed of 1.7s. To account of server lag and other factors, 1.6 is probably safe. 1.5 just leaves you with a bit of dead time between your last Steady and Chimera Shot.

You are thinking of Survival where the haste cap is indeed 523. Steady has to be a 1.5s cast in order to fit 3 inbetween Explosive Shots and not push the next Explosive Shot back at all. Marks however works with around 164 to 328 Haste or so depending on your ping. You won't be pushing your Chimera Shots back at all with that much Haste after firing your 5 Steadies.

 

Whitefyst

Ahh... I forgot about that. Thanks for that additional information. I now feel much better with my between 200-300 haste rating that I have been maintaining.

 

Harmann

It will be even less come 3.08, if we take a look at one of our rotations that occur which involve 2 Arcane Shots and 1 Aimed Shot between Chimera Shots:

0.0 Chimera Shot
1.5 Arcane Shot
3.0 Aimed Shot
4.5 Steady Shot
6.0 Steady Shot
7.5 Arcane Shot
9.0 ---
10.0 Chimera Shot

We still have a 1s gap with nothing to do (clearly a limiting factor they placed on a class they were scared of, we have two powerful shots on 10s timers, they know how poor 10s timers work out and I'm sure this is quite deliberate design) except we only have 2 Steady Shots in that 10 second window. In this particular rotation snippet (sometimes you have 2 Arcane Shots between Chimera, sometimes only 1) your Steady Shot could be completely unhasted and you would still be able to fire off Aimed, Arcane twice, Steady twice and have Chimera going off at exactly 10s.

Marksmanship builds effectively get zero benefit from haste in 3.08 outside of Auto Shot. Even in the 1 Arcane Shot filler portions of the rotation, it would take a marginal amount of haste to get your Steadies down enough so as not to push back your Chimera Shots at all.

So:
Double Arcane Shot filler portion; 0 Haste required. As in truly 0, don't even need a quiver/pouch to have no Chim pushback.
Single Arcane Shot filler portion; 9.09% Haste required. Quiver/Pouch gives 15%, we're already covered.

This might end up being a scaling nerf indirectly. Obviously Blizzard wouldn't have known though since their testing methods obviously are and have been completely useless. Whatever they're doing over there to get their "numbers" isn't even close to working.

I notice all the classes that get the most benefits from as many stats as possible are the ones scaling up to and past 50/21 DPS levels. If Hunters indirectly just got an entire stat chopped off that used to scale our damage, we may be in more trouble than we thought and Survival might be pulling even further ahead at high gear levels.

The more stats you need to cap/softcap the better you scale. SV's got hit, haste, crit, agility, int, stamina and AP now. Marks will have hit, crit, agility, int, AP. That's something to worry about once we get to Tier N.

 

KraxisSingular

Hadn't thought of that... Well obviously I had considered Haste to be less important due to less Steadies, but this is rather disturbing.

But if we assume Hastecap, then would it really be a DPS loss to start a Steady at 9 seconds? I know that most of us won't see a nice nearly perfect 9 second rotation... So I guess your thoughts might be right. If we assume no Haste and some lag then the perfect rotation might very well end up being much closer to 10 seconds.

 

Esoth

For the first iteration, we are looking at a choice between one chimera shot (CS) in 2.5 seconds (1.5s GCD + 1s wait) versus one chimera shot and one steady shot (SS) in 3 seconds (1.5s GCD + 1.5 SS).

(CS+SS)/3=CS/2.5
2.5CS+2.5SS=3CS
2.5SS=0.5CS
5SS=CS

So your chimera shot would have to be exactly 5 times more powerful than steady shot for waiting to be worth it, right?

 

Harmann

That 1s wait is in a perfect world with 0ms latency. In real world rotations, this 1s gap turns into something closer to 0.5s.

With Steady Shot's pathetic damage in 3.08, I can't imagine it being worth while to push both Aimed and Chimera Shot back to cast that last Steady.

 

ahmiri

I've been reading these posts for a while now. As I've been gearing up my dps has been gearing down. As CL thats totally unacceptable. I'm spec'd MM with a talent build of 16/51/4. Here's my armory link The World of Warcraft Armory.

I've tried the Chimera > 6x Steady Shot rotation and that works fine until I have to renew Hunters Mark or run OOM. Is there a way to weave those in there that won't throw off the shot rotation? I can't seem to get that down.

 

Whitemane

Well Hunter's Mark is 1.5s GCD so it should not throw anything off. Running oom you keep going, but rotations in between chimera's are done in viper aspect.