stoagie

deleted

 

hotmetal

Howdy.

Hopefully this is the right place to report / ask this question.

If "Volley" is a ranged attack and can crit, shouldn't it be proc'ing Go for the Throat?
On trash packs i'm finding my pet focus starved and was wondering if this behavior
is intended (volley crits do not generate focus for the pet).

 

• Scotch

It's intended. The energy generation would be so high as to be ridiculous in AoE situations, particularly when soloing. More to the point, however, it's trash, so there's little point in worrying about it.

<Bryne|work>: Scotch is one of the least terrible hunters I have ever had the extreme displeasure to raid with.

Do not click this link

 

tieren

I read quite a few pages back that casting chimera while in viper refreshes serpent sting but with the dps penalty. Consequently I have always made sure to be in dragonhawk to hit the refresh.

When I went to reapply the sting when I had Mirror of Truth up again it came back as "A more powerful spell is already active."

Question is, is the dps reduction to serpent sting a myth or is this some sort of bug and actually does happen? I can get more dps by keeping chimera on cd even while in viper, whereas previously I held it off to gain a little more mana before switching back to dragonhawk and refreshing.

 

Botei

a MM rotation has to be more "elegant" than BM. because of rapid fire and/or heroism, i found that your dps is best when you manually weave in an extra steady shot or 2. i was using a SS, SS, Aimed, SS, SS, Chimera rotation and that worked pretty well for me; however, when rapid fire/heroism was up, i would have to add that extra SS to make sure i didn't get to chimera before the CD was up. basically, you can't solely rely on your cast sequence macro as MM. you need to pay more attention to CDs to maximize your dps

 

Vitaro

There is no DPS reduction to Serpent Sting ticks when refreshing them with Chimera Shot while under Aspect of the Viper. To be very honest; instead of posting this question here you could've tested and concluded that at a target dummy yourself.

Then as for Mirror of Truth or similar trinkets: Your damage will be lessened with 50% while under AotV so even with MoT proccing you cannot refresh it -- so you'd have to then switch to AotDH and reapply Serpent Sting. I can see how that part is confusing

EDIT: Error on the 'damage will be lessened' part.

 

tieren

I would by all means test it myself if I had time. I basically work - raid - sleep during the week cause of my schedule and don't have the time to test before the raid tonight. Thanks for the quick answer.

 

Alassel

Good morning all,

Last week I respecced using some of the advice I have read here, however I did not have my planned spec in front of me and so accidentally tossed 3 points into Focused Aim. These need to go, obviously, and it seems that I have two choices for them: Unleashed Fury or Barrage / Imp Barrage. My Armory link to talents is here: Alassel (Proudmoore).

My team is currently running heroics and moving into Naxx next week. I've been using an awful lot of Volley recently, but I am unsure how much value that will have when we move into the 10-man instances. Basically, I can see arguments for both uses of my talent points, but don't have the experience in 10-mans to really decide well for myself, so any advice you guys might offer would be lovely. Thanks!

 

nosleep

Hello, i am a newly returned to playing wow, hunter. I am currently MM using a 11 / 53 / 7 build, steady spam 100% no points in imp arcane or barrage, thinking of switching to 16 / 51 / 4 or something like that, using imp arcane.

After reading this thread i came across a lot of very good info on MM, and for all you're hard work i am very appreciative.
But i do have 1 question that has been spoken about on this thread but i couldn't see any actual answer to.

My question is about the MfD bug in relation to serpent sting glyph. It's my understanding that at the present time (this may be fixed in the patch, which could be this week or next but until then it's fairly important as far as i can see) any amount of points in MfD will stop the serpent sting glyph from working.
Now, i haven't done any maths on it as i only just found out about it, but i am wondering what is best? Spec out of MfD totally and keep the serpent sting glyph? or use a different glyph (maybe arcane shot, i'm currently using glyphs of steady - serpent and hawk, seeing as i have been 11 / 53 / 7 on a pure steady spam rotation) and keep MfD.

It seems to me that the 5% dmg for me and pet + the 10% crit bonus from MfD would out weigh the bonus from serpent glyph, but as i have said i haven't done any maths on it and so i am left wondering.

my only 2 ideas are these.
1: keep the standard 16 / 51 / 4 spec with imp arcane and use the glyphs - steady, arcane and hawk.
2: keep the serpent glyph and spec out of MfD. idea for none MfD spec - like so
The 1 point in Focused Aim is there as i'm currently 1% below cap from gear, it could be put into piercing shots i guess, or barrage, but seeing as i wont use aimed in my rotation it would only be for e-peen on trash.

Any and all ideas would be more than welcomed, thanks.

 

ankah

You must be thinking of the Steady Shot gylph, that has not worked with MfD, and it will be fixed on the next patch, unless there is a new bug that I am not aware of.

 

nosleep

Oh dear, i have miss-read earlier today and then based a whole line of thinking on it, oops.

I guess the question still stands in one form or another.

What is better? steady shot glyph or MfD? I am thinking MfD will be better.
5% dmg for my dmg and pets specials + 10% crit dmg on steady, kill, aimed and chimera Vs 10% dmg on steady.

Seems quite obvious to me i guess, steady glyph is 10% dmg on steady, take the 5% from MfD that will be lost from dropping it, means the benefit from using the glyph over MfD is only 5% on steady.

So to use the glyph instead of MfD gives 5% dmg on steady, whereas MfD over steady glyph means we lose 5% dmg on steady but gain 5% dmg on all other shots + pet specials and 10% crit dmg on all used shots, except arcane.

correct me if i'm wrong.

 

◊ Dravous

MFD is a very potent talent and will give better dps gains than the SS glyph even pre-patch(this can be verified by the spreadsheet, in fact I think someone already did in a previous post). However, it's looking like the patch will be here tomorrow, or if not very very soon, and as such will be a moot point.

 

ankah

That is right. My understanding is that MfD will offer about 1% more dps per point, making it a no brainer. While this current wow build stands, you are better off with Serpent. arcane(or true shot), and AotH, once the new patch drops, replace the Arcane for SS, imo.

 

Perzyx

I'm not sure what gear/ spec you had before you were so-called "gearing up", but perhaps the reason your dps has been, as you said "gearing down" is that you have made some real bad choices.

#1, you have an expertise ring. Expertise gives no benefit to you and does not transfer to your pet.
#2, you're hit is 242 (with hit gems and hit enchant) yet you chose 3/3 in Focused Aim. You are wasting itemization and/or talent points being way over hit cap. You could save talent points and/or re-gem, re-enchant (+44AP instead of +20 hit on gloves).
#3, your choice in gems are terrible (i.e. +24 stam, +4 stats. Even your meta you are better off with +21Agil/ 3% dmg instead of the +42AP/ Run Speed meta.)
#4, Scope, +40 crit > +40 haste
#5, Talents, 2 pts into Hawk Eye isn't good. also I would re-allocate the 3 pts in Imp HM (unless your raid lead is making you spec it). You may not have enough crit for it, but I would consider only 1 pt in GffT.

 

Anindor

I have a couple questions that I'd like some input on.

First off here's my armory link with current spec and gear
The World of Warcraft Armory

As I've been putting together my own BiS list for T7 content I've realized that I could put together two great sets. One stacking haste and the other Stacking Armor Pen. Stacking armor pen I could get to +\- 15% armor pen in my ideal set. At this point do you think it would be useful to still pick up Piercing Shots for the extra 2%?
At this point my set is stacking haste but I believe that, as boss armor goes up, Armor Pen will scale much better and increase overall DPS (especially as we move into Ulduar).

At current gear level I can do about 4500DPS on patchwerk25 (Mostly 10man gear with a couple 25man pieces). Should I wait till I get a full armor pen set to switch over to new gear? I'm thinking that If I start replacing pieces one at a time my overall DPS will go down as I won't have enough armor pen or haste to really make a difference. I'd show you my choices for BiS for both my haste and armor pen sets but Its in a spreadsheet and I don't know how to host files anywhere lol.

 

krateroz

You might wanna read this

BigRedKitty: Armor penetration stinks - WoW Insider

 

ankah

Piercing shots only applies to Steady and Aimed, very poor choice of talents for any one, under any circumstance.

 

Anindor

I've read the article, and agree with it to a certain extent. As all raid bosses in Naxx have approx 13,080 +\- armor and sunders reduce that by 3925 our Armor pen only works as a percentage of 9,155. My best armor pen set would put me at about 15% armor pen (you can get more but you would be sacrificing other stats more than I want to). Reducing armor by about 1,373 (not insignificant but not huge). But say in Ulduar raid boss armor is buffed to 16k. Sunders would still reduce armor by 3,925, but our 15% armor pen would reduce armor buy 1,811. Armor Pen will scale where other abilities will not.

I can't be sure on the actual benefit until I see armor numbers from bosses in T8 content. But it could turn into a very good stat.

 

Iru

But GC has already said hunter mechanics are likely to be different in Ulduar, so ArP may loose importance again - I'm thinking of situations with magic dmg arrows for example.

 

sihyunie

I don't know if you can just say Ulduar bosses will have more armors (they'd have to nerf casters to match dps).
I believe the boss with the most armor in TBC was Voidwalker (T5 content) at around 10k.
Also, you are missing minor armor reduction buff, so bosses are at 7359 armor, which is 30.67% damage reduction.
Let's say you have 1% armor pen, thus the boss is at 7285 armor.
Now boss has 30.46% DR, and you gained .3% dps increase (.21/69.33=.003).
Say you have 10% armor pen, 6623 armor on the boss, or 28.48% DR, or .31% dps increase per % of armor pen.
Let's take more extreme example and have 25% armor pen, which gives only 24.91% DR for the boss.
This still give only .33% dps increase per % of armor pen (This isn't really scaling very well).
Now that's all assuming that all your attacks are physical, except they are not.
Serpent Sting and Arcane Shot aren't affected by armor pen, and neither are Chimera Shot for marks and Explosive Shot for SV.
These add up to upwards of 45% of hunter's damage for marks and 50% for SV. For both specs, pet makes up for about 1/6 of total damage. So armor pen affects only about 40~45% of hunter's total damage.
All these together (and assume like 6k dps), you get ~.5dps increase per armor pen rating.
That's pretty awful itemization in my books.

For the sake of the argument, let's set boss armor at 20000, which give 47.11% DR after sunder and ff.
With 25% armor pen (396 armor pen), you get .534% dps increase per % or armor pen.
For hunters, that translates to ~.94 dps increase per armor pen rating at 6000 dps.
Still lack luster, considering you probably won't get 25% armor pen in a reasonable gear.
I'm sure there will be gears with armor pen that are good, but there's really no sense in stacking it.
May be pure physical dps class like warrior or combat rogues might enjoy the benefit of armor pen.

Back in TBC, especially in Sunwell, gears just came with armor pen, with no real alternatives. Also, hunters had larger part of their damage affected by armor pen, so it was more valuable back then than now. In addition, when they converted Ignore Armor to rating, they converted at a bad ratio (so that same gear just became worse).

 

Anindor

Alright. thanks for the clarification. If Arcane and Chimera are not affected by armor pen, it really starts to lose what little shine it had. I guess I was kind of grasping at straws, wondering why Blizz would itemize such an obviously broken stat onto gear (particularly our T7 pieces). My optimal set, stacking haste and crit, and ignoring armor pen, only includes 1 Valorous piece (the shoulders). With replenishment the 4p bonus isn't worth it. And, since I'm MM, the 2p bonus isn't that huge either.

 

krateroz

Yes in my opinion a MM hunter should go for best in slot before any Tier 7.5 pieces, i got lucky tonight and got my Leggings of Failed Escape, those are much better than the Tier 7.5 one

We can hope blizzard will realise that ArP is not good anymore for hunters and will put less on gear for Ulduar

 

ketsuri

I have 2 questions. Sorry if they have already been answered, but I didn't see them in the thread.

1) If Imp AotH is active ~50% of the time, doesn't that mean that haste is only effective during the 50% that it is not activated? Also, if we are adding in aimed shot and arcane to the rotation, would haste get out weighed by crit or ap?

2) The post above mine talks about best in slot. I have been having trouble using the spreadsheet to find out which gear is best in slot. Is there a list of which gear is best in slot for each spec?

 

KraxisSingular

1) Yes and no. Yes to effectively giving you faster Steadies, and no in the form that Autos will still fire faster from passive Haste. And that is not that at all, but not as good as most other stats.

The simple fact is that Haste will diminish greatly in value. Not only due to fewer Steadies, but fully hasted MM has a gap from the last shot and the 10 sec CD on Chimera. Obviously lag will play in, so it might end up being about right with some haste.

 

Daemous

Like many BM hunters, I'm looking to explore other trees again. I'm not afraid of complexity. SV trap-dancing is pretty crazy. MM chimera seems straight-forward with some possible probs with re-applying a lower sting. Anyway, wrt to MM and the PTR reduction in the BM unleashed fury, I'm wondering if 16 pts in BM is ideal for a MM. That got me exploring different options.

BM suffers especially hard on pet-unfriendly fights. SV trap-dancing suffers on melee-unfriendly fights. I realize this is crazy on the surface, but the math doesn't look bad. It just looks incredibly complex. And yes, sometimes you wont be able to LnL via melee-unfriendly fights.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (2/51/18)

It's an Arcane Trap-Dancing Marksman. Rotation is typical MM of Serp, SSes and Chimeras. While dancing every LnL you get a CD-less full power MM Arcane double-tap.

So the question is: does a free cool-downless double hit of full MM arcane shots every 30 sec (or trap CD depending on Blizz dev waffling) along with survival instincts out-weigh the loss of 3 in Imp Hawk, Focus Fire, Aspect Mastery, and nerf'd pet Fury? Or put another way, is there time to drop a trap at my feet barely next to a boss in a typical MM rotation every 30sec to get the two CDless arcanes?