Question on attack power procs and refreshing an existing lower damage serpent sting:

What is the general wisdom of refreshing serpent sting when it does more damage based when boosted by AP procs? With my current gear, there are 4 AP increases that often occur:

T8 4pc, +600AP
Mirror of Truth, +1000AP
Greatness, +300AP
Call of the Wild, 10% increase (not a proc but about +600-700AP)

Obviously you have to give up a GCD, mana and probably some tick clipping to do this - are the dmg benefits > than the 1 GCD cost?

Serp Sting now automatically adjusts to your current AP instead of the old "rolling" behavior.

Fire and forget.

As was just mentioned in the simply questions thread, each CS refreshes SrS using the AP in place at that time. As you aren't ever firing SrS after the first application, you should just fire CS on every CD and ignore the AP trinket procs, as their effects all last for longer that the CS CD.

I'm also wondering what amount of ArP/crit is considered the point at which you completely replace ArS with SS. I'm currently stacking ArP and sitting at 355, and use an ilevel219 gun.

I also have a question about Piercing Shots: Does it stack additively with itself like Deep Wounds or Ignite? It's answer a question to me about Crit's worth to a MM hunter.

It does, but just like with Deep Wounds and Ignite, there is no real reason to stack crit just for the sake of keeping the debuff on your target (it really is okay if Piercing Shots fades from the target). Simply treat Piercing Shots as an extra 30% damage on crits, nothing more (well, a little bit more with Mangle/Trauma), nothing less.

That's me being inarticulate That's what I meant to convey. But it's good to know, because it also means that I don't need to worry about less potent SS crits simply overwriting a CS crit.

The latter one, 2xt9 will only make your Serpent Sting DoT crit occasionally, it will not affect Chimera Shot-Serpent.

Forget piercing shots is a DoT. Think of it as a plain +30% damage on crits.

Is this true? If so, where is this info posted/tested?

EDIT: Just tested this, not the case on live.

Your Serpent Sting damage is recalculated every time your Chimera refreshes it. Even if you reapplied it every time you got an AP boost (trink, etc) you'd still refresh it back to the unbuffed damage once you fired Chimera w/out the buffs up. The long and the short, fire and forget as stated before.

Like Pijn touched on, back a page; for things like Iron Council's Rune of Power, or General Vezax's Shadow Crash, you should be applying serpent sting whilst under their effects, as it will keep the benefit when you no-longer have the buff (even when refreshed by CS).

I was under the impression that chimera refresh would do the reapplying for you. I.e. if you use chimera while on the rune of power, the SrS would be buffed as if you recasted one in a rune. Same with shadow crash.

I have not tested this myself, but I'll look out for it this week (unless someone else is sure about Pijn's speculation).

Nah, to summarize the SrS re-application debate (it's been going on in several threads now):

It has no use to manually re apply SrS if you get an AP proc/buff. However, it is extremely important if you get a +% damage modifier buff that you manually refresh the SrS on your target. There are only four cases of +% damage modifiers i can think of; Thaddius, Malygos, Iron Council (be sure to use the circle on all 3 targets), Vezax.

Come to think of it now: I will test if the 15% damage increase from Tricks of the Trade affects Serpent Sting ticks. And with that i mean; will it continue to affect SrS after the buff wears off...im curious now

Edit: this is amazing, the 15% damage increase from ToTT remains active for SrS and Chimera Shot-Serpent throughout the rest of the fight, long after the buff has faded. Feel free to check for yourselves and confirm it, i just checked on a dummy in IF with the aid from a rogue guildie.. just amazing. Time to make a /w macro for the rogues in my guild 'Buff me now'.

I have a hard time imagining that Blizzard would let this bug (which I assume that it is classified as) be with us very long. I mean, they did nerf the whole AP-stacking scorpid tactic, which resembles this idea.

That put aside, what pure damage modifing buffs can we get in a normal raid group? Is Tricks the only one? And does it stack with itself, should a raid have more than one rogue?

Altought, quick napkin math shows TotT only as a small damage buffs.
Example: during a "normal" fight, the serpent effect of Chimaera is about 8% total damage. 8 x 1.15 = 9.2 -> 9.2 - 8 = 1.2. So, with only tricks, the total damage increase done by the hunter would be about 1%. It's not much, but it's neither nothing.

Okay I put my myself on the spreadsheet, but it shows a DPS decrease if I were to switch my gems to ArP, I thought that you wanted to stack till soft cap, then stack Agi as normal. Why would it show me a decrease?

unless I am missing something

Seems like you are missing at least a couple things, including:

1) How the spreadsheet models trinkets. If I understand things correctly, the default is that it averages out the proc over time. Hence, something like the MR ends up providing about 130 ArP constantly instead of the 655 ArP with approximately 20% uptime. Thus, the numbers in the spreadsheet does not properly indicate the full ArP benefit of the trinket procs.

2) Although stacking ArP can be the solution to improved DPS for MM hunters, it is not for everyone. If you are giving up to many important other stats (agi, crit, and AP) on better gear pieces to wear much inferior ArP pieces (that may also have haste instead of agi, crit, or AP), then you may be giving up too much stats such that you are not hitting hard enough even with the armor reduction/penetration to see a DPS increase.

I have a question that i don't think has been touched currently i have 562 arm pen that is with gemming for it and with arm pen food i also use grim toll for now. My question is do i benefit more from arm pen elixers or from endless rage. i know i want my arm pen to be higher to hit the 100% mark when grim toll procs but is it worth the ap loss from endless rage at my current status thanks for the help

Well, the comparison is not quite that easy since its not just Flask of Endless Rage vs. Elixer of Armor Piercing since you should be using a guardian elixer too like Mighty Thoughts. It also depends on the other options you have available for reaching the softcap.

Regardless, my personal opinion is that using the elixer to get ArP capped is not the preferred option. 45 ArP and 45 Int on an average battle have a hard time beating out 180 AP. Considering the relatively low value of int, it is only worth about 50 AP. That means that the 45 ArP would need to be worth 130 AP (or 65 2AP). That means a point in ArP has to be worth more than 1.44 points in 2AP (or 2.88 AP). Furthermore, if you are less than 45 ArP from the softcap, the cost of not using the flask is even greater.

Generally, you are much better off getting your last points in ArP via other methods, such as gems or food where the trade off between ArP and agi/AP are more balanced. 40 ArP vs. 40 agi/80 AP from food or 16 ArP vs. 16 agi/32 AP is a much better ratio.

With that said, using the elixers instead of the flask can be a better option for reaching the softcap in some situations, mainly where the gear switching to get that last 45 ArP costs you a lot more in stats than the using the elixers do. However, if this is the case, you may be in the situation where not going the full ArP route is better.

Anyway, you can approximately check this out in the spreadsheet yourself for your situation and gem/gearing/consumbale options.

EDIT: Note that this analysis uses the base stats provide by an item and does not modify them via buffs (such as 10% AP or 1.144% agi) since the item ratios are per base stats.

Thank you for the info i will look into it more

Ok so, I am in full ulduar 25 gear, and right now prepping for 3.2 im getting better numbers gemming agi. Is anyone else seeing this as well ?

I don't know. Even with all 3.2 it seems pretty hard to reach the armor pen hardcap without using an arp trinket. Are we still going to use mjolnir and gem arp until the cap and gem agility after?

@Tanials

In 3.2 (and other future content patches) the newer gear will provide easier access to reaching the ArP softcap (569) because the gear will inherit higher ArP values on it from the higher ilvl. This means less gemming ArP and more gemming Agility. Unless they ever decide to change the mechanics of how ArP rating works, it is likely that we will continue to see more benifits from itemizing for the ArP softcap first, and Agility second.

But you're right, reaching the hardcap without the use of a trinket proc will likely never happen.