Gozardina

What got my attention with this set of questions is GCD usage during trinket procs, particularly Runestone. The reason I mention that is because of threat generation. Using Northrend Beasts heroic as the example, I use Misdirection roughly 20 seconds before the tank engages, then Rapid Fire + Aimed > Chimera > Serpent > Steady x1 (x2 depending on timing) > MD > Aimed > Chimera > Readiness > MD > Aimed > Chimera > at which point I fall into the standard rotation. In this specific scenario I waste a number of buffed specials because I'm focusing on getting 3 MDs within the first 10 seconds of the encounter (or 4.5 seconds of GCD uptime).

 

Esoth

These look like reasonable questions, but I would suspect that you are not going to be able to achieve a clear cut answer. Instead it's more likely to be highly situational.

It is very unlikely that you will find a situation where you can use readiness with the GCD otherwise going unused. Whether you use it during a trinket proc or not, you are always going to eat some kind of DPS penalty. With mjolnir procced my numbers would be 16959 for chimera, 11113 for aimed, and 6688 for steady. If you do chim+aim+readiness you aren't replacing steady shots with specials, but are effectively moving your rotation up 7 seconds with an additional 1.5 seconds. So it's more like a 60%-70% increase in chim/aimed damage at the cost of three steady shots, if that makes sense. Long term, it's a chance at getting an extra chimera and aimed every 3 minutes which probably isn't going to be huge. Instead, I think it would probably be more important to look at a window of time where DPS needs to be concentrated, such as an add that has to die or a shield that has to be destroyed in 10 seconds. Using readiness here would give you an extra chimera and aimed at the cost of three steadies within that window, and although it also means that your chimera/aimed usage on the boss will get pushed back slightly, it is pretty easy to see that aimed+chimera>steady*3 in the window where DPS mattered the most.

i. So looking at it that way, numbers with mjolnir would be 16959 for chimera, 11113 for aimed, and 6688 for steady for me. 8008 damage gain using readiness here. Without the proc, 9053 for aimed and 5448 for steady, so a 7996 gain. The difference between using it inside or outside the proc looks trivial.

ii. You can consider rapid fire as being a 40% increase in auto shot damage and wild quiver damage for its duration. Ignoring wild quiver for a second, mjolnir would up auto damage by about 22%. Mjolnir's duration is only 2/3 of rapid fire so I think the percent increase in damage would be 1.22*1.4*2/3+1.4*1/3=161% over the full 15 seconds. Let's say you did 1000 damage in 15 seconds. If you had 15 seconds of rapid fire plus mjolnir within that, and another 15 seconds of no damage increase, it would be 1610+1000=2610 damage. If instead you had no mjolnir proc but were able to use double rapid fire, it would be 1400+1400=2800. Getting off two rapid fires is better than getting off one rapid fire stacked with the mjolnir proc, so you're going to have to make the judgement call as to whether or not delaying rapid fire in order to stack it with the proc is going to force you to lose a rapid fire over the course of the fight.

 

Cerevantes

A quick bit of imput here in regards to haste stacking or not on Anub25H. Rapid Fire does not reduce the channel on Volley nor do Imp Hawk procs. Haste Potions (which you should be popping one before every pull and saving another for sub-30%), hand accelerators, and WoA/Ret-Moonkin auras affect your channel duration.

I also found that properly timing your volleys so that you account for latency whilst not clipping your final tick was the difference between 6,500 and 9,000 dps for me so be mindful you're not clipping your final Tick of Volley.

The pull is always going to be the shakiest on threat because everyone's trinkets are off ICD and the tank has the lowest amount of threat versus the raid. That being said, your tank shouldn't be needing 3 MDs within the first 40 seconds. Have your rogues throw their first tricks on the tank, and remember if you can MD 3 times, you can feign 3 times.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...evantes323.png

 

torii

While Chimera Shot refreshes Serpent Sting with current AP, do crit (with hunter 2pc T9 bonus) and dmg bonuses also refresh with current levels?

Relevant Encounters
Loetheb: +50% crit
Hodir: Storm Cloud +135% crit dmg
Iron Council: Rune of Power +50% dmg
Vezax: Shadow Crash +100% magical dmg
Twins: Empowered Light +100% dmg
Icehowl: Stun?

 

Enova

While it is kind of overkill to fire 3 (not to mention 4) MDs within that short a time span, if you don't feel like wasting some medium cooldowns (such as MD and FD) before using Readiness, then by all means, do it - nobody ever died from tanks having too much threat. You have to be aware, though, you're likely going to have to sacrifice some good dps GCDs for it, and I'd recommend replacing steady shots whenever possible.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Mishun

Just thought it would be worth to mention that you also get an extra silencing shot (physical dmg) inside the buffed window, extra arp with mjolnir.

And what I do on the pull is to apply serpent sting, pop up all my cds and pray that mjolnir and death's veredict will proc soon. After that I start with chimera then aimed+silencing and readiness. Most of the time both trinkets will proc before aimed+silencing.

About chaining or coupling RF with mjolnir procs, it depends on the duration of the fight. If you can use readiness only once then wait on mjolnir for the 2nd RF. Not taking into account fights where you have burst phases.

 

R00k!3

Personally I use the first Chimera/Aimed for MD. After that Paragon is up in the most cases, so I use my first RF+CotW and apply Serpent Sting to get a the most benefit out of the Serpent Dot & Chimera Proc.
Maybe it is a waste of one Gcd but afaik the damage modifiers remain also when Serpent Sting is refreshed by Chimera.

 

Masterdragon

It was fixed long ago, When serpent is refreshed, it recalculates the damage of Serpent Sting based on current stats at the time. The ability to pop everything then put up serpent sting to have it continue to use those values no longer applies. Things like attack power buffs wont remain anymore for serpent sting.

However, anything that is a damage multiplier buff (like Vezax's Shadow Crash multiplied bonus) remains at that value when refreshed when no longer under the buff.

"The fun about this sentence is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything, it's too late to stop reading it."

 

• Tsook

One thing that I haven't seen any testing on, with respect to 2T9, is whether crit percent is carried over with chimera refresh like % damage buffs, or recalculated like AP. In other words: is the AP recalculation the special case (they "fixed" rolling stings by implementing just AP recalculation), or is % buffs the special case (whatever random bug causes it to persist, despite rolling stings being fixed in general).

Granted, there's not many short-lived buffs that increase crit percent directly, but agility procs certainly do indirectly. The actual DPS potential of pegging serpent sting at 100% crit, or whatever, for a whole fight is fairly minimal, but it would be interesting to find out which way rolling stings was fixed for future knowledge.

 

jimavet

While I'm not sure this is "theory-crafting", I wanted to offer another advantage of the Hyperspeed Accelerator enchants: Obviously my main priority is to activate them pretty much as soon as they are available and ideally if another item (trinket) has procced, but depending on the length of the fight they can be a very nice way to regain mana: go into Viper, activate the gloves, and return to Dragonhawk once the glove finishes. During the span of time the glove is active I will fire steady shots only - saving an immediate Aimed then Chimera [or vice versa depending on if ISS has procced] shot once I've returned to Dragonhawk. I've found that while the spreadsheet indicates the Pyro Rockets give marginally better dps, using the gloves to regain mana this way makes me have to resort to "plain old" Viper in only rare cases/fights because using the gloves can virtually replenish my mana bar from a single use.

Also, as pointed out above, the Accelerators increase channeling speed of Volley. For H Anub I find this to be a very nice way to help on the adds, and will replenish a new Volley cast with 1 sec left on the gloves - so that I get the hasted Volley effect for the entire channeled time despite the gloves having gone into CD by the time the channeled Volley ends.

 

Cranch

Why would you shoot Serpent after Chimera and lose the serpent-sting damage from Chimera?

 

Esoth

He's doing it for threat only. The amount of threat you can maximize from MD (until 3.3 when it becomes amazing) is so pathetic that relying on hunters to build threat for the tank to such an extent does not sound practical.

 

alienangel

Apparently the similar refresh mechanism Shadow Priests have for their crittable dots (SWP I think?) lock in the crit rate present at the time of the initial cast of the DoT - so if for instance you pop a wild magic potion before combat and apply your DoT to the boss before it wears off, you maintain the increased critical strike chance through all refreshes during the fight. I'm a bit unclear whether this applies to crit damage boosting effects like Storm Power on Hodir too, or %crit buffs like Spores on Loatheb, but it apparently definitely applies to crit rating buffs.

They outline some of the testing they did at [ShadowPriest] Dot critting logic and 3.1 , we could try to replicate some of it as well, with stuff like getting naked, stinging a target dummy, dropping combat, equipping gear quickly and refreshing via chimera shot.

 

Enova

So far it's not so much an issue of building threat on the tank as it is an issue of dropping thread on the hunter, especially in the case where FD screws up some times. It's quite horrible to rise from a FD without resetting the threat, given that our initial threat generation is that high.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Ehud

He's doing it under the assumption that your damage multipliers at the time Serpent Sting is applied will apply to the sting as long as it is active. Hence, it would make sense to wait until your trinket has procced before you apply the sting. However, as others have pointed out, this assumption is currently false.

 

Zungate

It is likely because Serpent Sting consumes a MD charge, while the threat from the ticks of Serpent Sting are not transfered unless you actually have a MD charge up.

Clarification:
MD -> Aimed -> Serpent -> Chimera, 3 charges consumed. Only threat from Aimed and Chimera are transfered.

MD -> Serpent -> Chimera, 2 charges consumed. Threat from serpent sting now included, until you lose MD buff.

 

• VRoscioli

It is important to note that in this case, Chimera Shot will take up both remaining MD charges (one for Chimera Shot, and one for Chimera - Serpent), so Serpent Sting still will transfer no threat. If threat is the primary concern, it is usually best to not fire Serpent Sting.

 

mfwhite

In regards to the MD discussion, I think its important to note that auto shot also uses a charge. I've noticed other hunters in my guild having trouble with misdirecting adds on AA when they pull threat by using up all 3 charges and firing off a CS or Aimed Shot after. I have had no issues getting adds to our OTs by watching my auto shots with Quartz. In most cases CS and AiS are on cd so I simply target the add, pop MD, AutoShot>Steady Shot>Auto Shot, back to Anub. This has been consistently the best way for me personally to handle my job as quickly as possible and get back to the boss.

 

sefren

@ki6485
Basically you're trading 30% more Hawk AP (a static gain not scaling with gear) for what looks to be
a) Silencing Shot
b) Wild Quiver

If your gear level is low enough that the static AP gain is a net gain over those two talents you probably aren't ArP capped, and thus should be including IMP Arcane. If your gear level supports dropping Arcane then Silence+WQ are going to net you more dps.

 

MizarAlcor

Rejoice! The new ArP trinket (Needle-Encrusted Scorpion) obtainable from 5-man heroic IC in PTR has been buffed from being a marginal sidegrade to Mjollnir Runestone (452 ArP proc) to a definite upgrade (678 ArP proc). Gone has the days of slaving myself to terrible ulduar10 PUGs.

I just hope that the drop rate isn't marginally low or tied to an encounter where there are a pool of bosses (VH, Palatress/Eadric in ToC). Took me more than 2 months of doing H ToC every single day since patch day to obtain my Marrowstrike polearm back then.

 

Scruff_

If it goes live as-is, even with the buff and even with the 0.26% crit difference in their static stats, Mjolnir will come out ahead still.
N.E.S. proc: 10% chance on CRIT for 678 arp
M.R. proc: 15% chance on HIT for 665

But, that being said, it's defiantly great for people that never got M.R.

 

• Scotch

Considering how high our crit rates are, I think in practice that distinction will be largely irrelevant.

<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

 

MizarAlcor

I am too excited that I almost forgot that detail. However, with the way my uld10 PUGs work (and we can safely assume that come 3.3 nobody will care about ulduar anymore), I don't expect to obtain MR any soon. I'm just a bit surprised how this trinket is a pretty hot topic on some of the other physical DPS threads, but not so much on Hunter's.

 

alienangel

The thing is, if you're already soft-capped on ArP, I don't think this makes a difference unless the NES's uptime is somehow higher than MRs (which seems unlikely given the above proc-info). I'm softcapped via a few gems, so I'd gain by replacing one ArP gem with an agi gem, and gaining some passive crit. People who are softcapped from gear alone will only gain crit.

I think I actually preferred the original iteration of NES, which has the much smaller proc value, but reportedly had a much lower ICD than MR too, leading to double the uptime - that would have netted a DPS gain even at much higher passive ArP.

 

supergoku73

I have been reading so many different threads and so are so many different lists of what is a good shot rotation that I am getting so confused as to what will help me be able to get my dps up to 3.5k dps.

I know you guys get asked a lot to look at people's talent and glyphs and see if you see any improvements but I would be most grateful for any advice and to where I might have messed up with my talents and maybe even my gear. Here is my hunter's armory link The World of Warcraft Armory

Again I will be most grateful for any suggestions on how I might be able to improve my dps with a good shot rotation and how I might improve my talents. Thanks Guys =D