Funny you should post that - I was just drooling all over your 9k Patchwerk on my guild's site. I'm not able to raid Ulduar currently due to internet issues, but I've been trying to convince the other hunters in my guild to try an MM build. You being ranked #1 on Patch (200 dps above the next highest of any class) helps

What I'm finding is that, even at a somewhat low ArPen rating (520-ish no trinket), my numbers still end up being better than when I ran agility. It could be the connection issues I have (average 0.2 - 0.5 Mbps during the evening, 800-1500ms latency = Volley DC's). The simplified rotation queue's up much faster than typical MM / SV whack-a-mole. Not sure if anyone else has noticed similar results.

The 70+% crit rates on Chim and Aimed don't skew his DPS this at all... RNG crit luck > any gear you can ever equip if all you're going for "real world" comparisons.

SV is better than MM in Naxx gear, but they are closer in comparisons than the huge lead MM gets in BiS Uldar sets. Synthetic tests are a far better indicator of consistency, provided they're accurate, than WMO top 10-lists (some of which I'm also on because of luck or limited people completing the encounters.)

You did hit on one thing that does make MM a superior spec in a lot of people's opinions though: rotation consistency is always a plus.

He also recieved 3x tricks of the trade and 3x hysteria (which is pretty much a 20% phys damage boost for the entire fight). Things like these are the reason you have to take such top lists with a grain of salt because there are always people looking to improve their numbers way beyond what they "should" be. That and luck.

Would you say it's a fair comment to ignore the ArP model if you only do 10 man non-hardmode raiding? There isn't much gear which has a lot of ArP on it.

With this in mind, assuming the higher tiers of gear have more ArP on them, surely if our DPS gets too high because of it we're in for a nerf? Could hit non-ArP 10 man raiders harshly.

Also, all these ArP calcs, are they taking into account sundered armour and whatnot?

It has been stated several times, that even at lower levels of ArP (around 250 and upwards), the ArP model can yield better DPS. Your best bet is STILL to go by the spreadsheet.

Blizzard nerf and buff quite frequently and it's really impossible for anyone to say who and how the nerfs will inluence.

And yes, all the calculations are with Sunder Armor and other debuffs.

I would say the small bump we're seeing from ArPen is putting us in line with other pure DPS classes, if anything. I don't think it's something nerf-worthy any more than Rogue DPS currently is.

because the spreadsheet calculates the average ArP gain based on uptime and adds that average to what you already have, it doesn't account for not gaining benefit if you go over the cap on the arp proc. (I think this was changed in a recent version though)

It seems like there may be a point where having passive ArP beyond the cap may be worthwhile, since ArP past the cap as far as i can see is only lowering the benefit of the ArP trinket. There should be a point past cap where u could switch out your ArP trinket for another. Althought it isnt currently attainable, having passive ArP hard cap should be the goal right?

That would be a goal, provided you don't sacrifice too many other stats in return (just as we aim to have hit capped without sacrificing too many other stats in return).

I still dont understand MM high dps. with agi gear i lose ap when i switch to MM and definetly lose dps, i follow the guides and using different addons i always have my shots on cooldown yet my dps is at least 1k less then sv,
so i thought to do the Arp got my set with 260 arp + grim troll and around 4600 ap (my crit goes down from 41.2% to 36) and my dps is slightly better then MM with agi but definetly not compared to sv with 5k ap 41.2% crit.
Also how do u get mana up on a 10 man i can burn my mana pull on MM after i use readiness and pop 2nd rapid fire and mana is all out AoV is a huge loss of dps. am i just supposed to get better gear before i can switch MM cuz as it looks right now i can do 6k dps on a 25 man SV but MM i can reach 5k if im lucky

@Forgotten38

To me it seems like your gear (atm) is not quite ready for MM spec taking full advantage of armPen; You are quite far from soft cap. Further, different figths call for different specs as MM is more heavily dependent on debuffs as FF/sunder leaving figths with alot of shifting targets less viable for MM. And make your raid leader yell out _hard_ if you see missing armor debuffs ^^

Concerning mana and oom, it could be either your build (you have 2 surv specs atm) or the setup. I agree mana issues may be present in a 10man setup if you're not having a say resto shammy in your group and perhaps no mana batt. in your raid setup. But you'll have to work around it - look for Viper Sting and time it off with Chimera Shot cooldown, this will get you out of AotV on most bosses (with mana ofc )

Try to look for gear upgrades with armPen > haste and then change to MM and I'm sure you will shine

Two questions..

So assuming that I can get at least ~350 or so ArP, it's worthwhile to build a spec around that as I gather more ArP gear? (My hunter is not my main atm, so I need to build one spec and stick with it. I do have a JC, so regemming is not an issue)

How are the benefits of ArP effected if you are in a 10-man instead, where you don't have all the other raid buffs? Is agility MUCH better if you don't have all those buffs (sunder and whatnot) or is it about the same?

For an alt that is not highly geared, and mostly doing 10mans, I'd go with Survival any day. Without a retri paladin or resto shaman, MM just goes OOM too fast. Survival with Agi gems is a far better choice.

MM also relies more heavily on target debuffs, which likely won't be as available in 10mans as they are in 25.

So MM will be my 25-man spec, and I might just stick with BM for 10-mans and such (I have too many spirit beasts collected to go MM/SV :-) Hopefully they will pass ArP to pets eventually, so that will help BM.

I've got about 200 ArP from gear without gemming, so once I get another item or two with it, I'll try the MM/ArP build for 25-mans. The simpler rotation will help as well, considering the lag I get.

So I've just recently picked up enough gear to make the decision to go all out on ArP, I've just regemmed and stuff so I still miss a couple of pieces. t8,5 shoulders for example so I can get the 4-piece bonus which I guess is even more beneficial now since the use of steady shot is even bigger without arcane shot. If anyone got any other tips on my gear I'd appreciate it while I'm writing here anyway by the way.

But to the actual question,
What I understand from reading stuff and from my own experience there are some fights where survival is better, theoretically, mostly where there's a lot of target switching going on, Yoggi for example, in phase 1 there's adds to be killed, in phase 2 I go in the brain where there are adds to be killed, and guess what I do in phase 3, ye adds.

Anyway, I've regemmed every piece of gear with ArP, so my question is, should I stay MM or respec survival despite the fact that my ArP gems are pretty much wasted for these fights?

I know this is a very individual and situational thing but I just want a general answer and I know the best way to find out is to actually test it myself but I was just curious if someone had already done the math and testing on this and could make this alot easier for me

Thx

Math cannot be done on fights that include lots of movement and/or target switching. It's WAY to complex. If you are indeed looking for math, the only help you will ever get is from the spreadsheet, and that is also my advice. Put in your ArPen socketed gear and switch to a Survival spec, and you will see the result.

If you weren't looking for math, but instead our opinion, I will give it. I will (probably) never socket ArPen. Most likely I will even pass Mjolnir for my guild mates who guaranteed always will benefit from it. In Ulduar many of the hardest fights include movement and/or adds, which decreases the value of each point of ArPen. That's my general belief.

(1) 4 piece T8.5 is not desirable for the ArP setup. You want [Mantle of Fiery Vengeance] or [Iron-studded Mantle]; [Saronite Mesh Legguards] or Legguards of Cunning Deception; Gloves of the Fiery Behemoth or Gloves of the Steady Hand for your BiS setup. Anyone is free to correct me if they have found other items then these that fit with the MM ArP build.

(2) Stay MM with the gear you have now. I would advise having an alternate set up gear to go BM for Yog. You will start finding your pet very valuable.

Edit: Some links did not work so I left them as text.

After further modeling using v.89g, I've gone back to agi over ArP gems. Using the same talent build and rotation, in my case ArP is calculated to only come out 15 dps ahead of agi under optimal circumstances. On paper I do not consider this a significant enough gain over the loss of effective survival dps for specific or gimmicky fights. When my gear improves to a sufficient level I will probably go back to ArP.

I have a couple of weeks of ArP WoL reports that I will use as a rough point of comparison for the week ahead. I'll update my results later.

If your EP values for agi and ArP are very close you are more likely to benefit from keeping them balanced than stacking one over the other. This normally isn't an issue with gear since it all has agility (edit: this used to say gear which made no sense) and you would really only be seeing ArP take the place of crit, haste, or hit. But it is an issue with gemming, because you can only get ArP by dropping agi (if you are using agi gems at a starting point). Agi works very well with ArP so you are simultaneously devaluing ArP by dropping that agi gem and also increasing its value by adding ArP.

As an example, the spreadsheet is giving me an agi EP of 1.461 and ArP EP of 1.490, but dropping one delicate for a fractured results in a loss of about 1 DPS. I know I've tried some setups where going with one fractured was an upgrade, but a second was a downgrade. Replacing some of my gear with more ArP gear changes this so that ArP gems are always an upgrade. You logged out in pvp gear but I'm guessing the amount of ArP you have from gear (not gems) is probably fairly close to mine if you're seeing that small of an upgrade, and it makes sense.

The scale values especially for ArP are rather difficult to calculate reliably, because to get the values each stat is increased by a reasonable amount (maybe 50, maybe 200) to see a significant change in DPS and then is calculated how much 1 of each stat give you.
Since ArP scales exponentially and has a cap you should be careful withe the calculated scale values. The actual benefit for 1 more point is usually less than the calculated amount and if you are near the cap the calculated value is severely inflated. (in fact the last points before the cap are the most valuable ones, but if the used delta brings you over the cap the calculated scale values will be much lower)

Yes, you are correct. I'm away from my spreadsheet(s) at the moment, but the EP values were extremely close in my modeling as well. It's to the point where, as MM, swapping between Elixir of ArP/Mighty Rhino and Mighty Agi/Blackened Dragonfin results in less than a 1 or 2 dps difference.

Edit: I just tossed my gear into Rivkah's analyzer and it's showing a passive ArP of 404 (without food/elixir).
When gemmed agi using Dragonfin/Mighty Agi, my EP values are 1.416 (ArP) and 1.439 (Agi) - very close, indeed.
When gemmed ArP using ArP Elixir/Hearty Rhino, my EP values are 1.473 (Arp) and 1.524 (Agi).

I'll need to do more tweaking with the spreadsheet when I get home to find the best balance.

Edit #2: I find it interesting that according to Rivkah's analyzer, the agi setup gives me close to 150 more effective AP then the ArP setup.

I looked at the BiS spreadsheet and I was confused on the gearing choice because I thought the 4-piece bonus worked well with the increased use of Steady Shot. Could it be possible that the dps is skewed because the spreadsheet is unable to properly calculate the proc on [Mjolnir Runestone] in according to passive ArP? I am thinking this because the BiS gear also has 900 ArP and I was under the impression that you should stop at 567 with [Mjolnir Runestone] until you can completely hit the hard cap for ArP.