I am currently having dps issues with my survival spec. In some fights, my dps can soar, but in many others, I am hitting rock bottom.

I can't seem to keep up a normal dps rotation. Using KS, ES, and SrS glyphs. Normal pet is a wolf. Would anyone mind looking at my spec and gear to give me some pointers? Possibly a rotation that works? I am using SrS, KS, ES, BA, Aimed or multi, then a steady as a filler. (this might be wrong!) Looking for a little advice.

After reading about 10 pages, I am still trying to figure out what is the best spec to use. I see mentions of putting 1 point into IaotH, etc. I see a few specs not having any points in aimed shot.

Thanks

The spec I have currently is tester spec.

Yes, Bandit shows as lower DPS than my FotFF too, sorry if that wasn't clear - but that's assuming none of the procs are double damage in a fight that only doubles magical damage (which Bandit's provides but FotF doesn't), and even then the damage difference is small (under 15 dps IIRC in my case). The attempts I used Bandit's on all had higher average damage for the proc than a normal fight, so I think that would easily make up the small DPS difference in the spreadsheet (unless ES scales ridiculously well with the 143 AP difference between the two trinkets).

Argument rather moot if you're not standing in the crash zones though, which I reluctantly must admit is more likely, since saving me mana and gaining damage doesn't seem worth the risk of knocking mages/locks out of a zone which gives them far more damage.

That's what I mean though, FotFF boosts your magical damage by proxy. The chances you'd get a Bandit's proc while in a Crash are pretty small, whereas FotFF would boost every Explosive you fire in a Crash. That alone, I believe, most likely outweighs any damage boost from Bandit's during Vezax.

Here's some input from a former SV hunter. Trying to keep a "normal" rotation is a waste of time. We lost access to our haste cushion in IAotH. The rotation is now just awkward, and there's not a lot to be done about it. BA really made a mess of things. Watching for LnL can be a trick. Trying to get Sniper on some fights can be painful. Even EW can have significant down time on some fights, depending on how many points you have in it.

The net result is basically what you described, on some fights (when you can juggle everything) your DPS will be amazing. On the others though, not so much. I'm sure that's just life as a SV hunter.

Look for ways (in your playstyle) to minimize the drop-off (from optimal DPS) on your bad fights. Live with ruling the DPS meter part time, and make sure you're not a handicap to your raid the rest of the time. Have you even tried another spec? I found I like consistancy of the other specs better than the highs and lows of SV. I believe that, at the end of the raid, there won't be a huge disparity in DPS between any of the hunter specs, and that some fights will benefit some specs more than others.

edit: at the very least I would suggest trying another spec on the specific fights you're having trouble with.

Anyone else get their greatness card and have doubts on whether or not to replace FotFF instead of mirror with it? I mean it's only a five dps diff for me in favor of FotFF.

My doubt stems from the realization that the spreadsheet is "just a model" after all. We do rely on our crit quite a bit..[Mirror of Truth]

That's the second time I've seen that said and I don't quite understand. Why does anyone need priority for the crashes?

Hey, there's one issue I see with your current talent points spent. You definitely need 5/5 Master Tactician. 10% increased Crit chance is way too good to pass up. I also notice it's almost always up.

I'd take 3 points out of Improved stings, 1 out of GftT and 1 out of Hunting Party so you can fill up MT.

As a Surv Hunter, there's no real rotation. It's more of a priority list now.

Kill Shot
Explosive Shot
Black Arrow
Serpent Sting
Aimed/Multi-shot
Steady Shot.

Steady shot is indeed just a filler. If any of the above shots are going to be ready to fire before your Steady would finish firing off, go ahead and choose one of those rather than the steady.

Are you weaving your Explosive shots? If LnL procs your rotation should be

ES -> AS -> ES -> Steady -> ES

As long as some other shot or GCD using ability is used between the ES's so that the ticks are all used up, then it's good to go. Also, upgrade your +8 stats to +10 on your chest.

Your priority is wrong, especially if you want to have anything close to a normal rotation. You will find KS > ES > BA > SrS > Aimed > Steady a better priority. If you fire BA and then SrS (Glyphed) the mob SrS debuff falls off right as BA is off cooldown. If some math will help you: BA is a 22s cooldown (talented), SrS is a 21s debuff (15+6 glyphed) and you can't use SrS until the BA cooldown is at 20.5s due to gcd. Therefore they will always be available near the same time. What do you do when ES procs? Current school of thought is to wait .5seconds after the gcd to fire the next ES.

This might not be the best spot to discuss this as it is more of a strategy answer, hoping that the mods let it slide

Not sure how your guild does it but we use a DK tank as primary. The DK glyphs for IBF because this then puts the cool down on the same timer as the General's Surge of Darkness. As you may therefor gather, that brings the % damage bonus of the General's ability to 0% added making his attacks hit as normal. Therefore, there is no need to kite back and forth which allows your raid to stay stable (probably going to get nerfed but I doubt it). Anyway, have your raid setup in three groups. One is the all healer team which will be sitting in the green saronite vapor stuff. The other two teams are split to the sides of the healer team. When someone gets marked for a crash, the team shifts and the collapses back to take advantage of the buff. The benefit of doing this is that your DPSers aren't running around like headless chickens trying to get a DPS boost while losing major DPS while moving.

As for the comparison of Bandits to FotFF or any other, I personally prefer stable stat increases. While the Bandit proc is nice, it doesn't provide you with much benefit when it doesn't. So you're taking an automatic RAP hit when it doesn't proc. Then again, that is just my personal opinion.

PS> There is no limit on how many people gain from the shadow crash buff so there shouldn't be a prioritization on who gets in and who doesn't.

I replaced my FotFF with the hit trinket from flame leviathan 10 man, which is more or less the same.

If you get lucky with a mirror proc just as LnL procs then that in itself should give you more dps than a constant FotFF throughout a fight. FotFF is much more consistent, though, and in my personal opinion [Fury of the Five Flights] > [Mirror of Truth].

Given raid buffs, you should be at ~50% crit, which is where AP starts to really outvalue crit.

If you're lower than that I'd say use [Mirror of Truth]

Oh, and one other things. I noticed this last Tuesday but I was hesitant to mention anything until I actually did some static testing. TotH and ES are, in fact, working together. Unfortunately, Blizz got all stealthy and coded it so that you only get back 1/3 of the 40% with each tick. So, in order to get the full 40%, you have to crit on all three tics. According to the tool tip, the mana cost (for me) on Explosive Shot is 353 mana. When I crit with ES, though, I only receive 47 mana per tic. SO, if I take 47 x 3, I'd get 141 mana which is <drum roll> 40% of 353.

Is anyone else noticing this and/or am I just parroting what someone else has said earlier?

Your math is wrong. The CD for Black Arrow with Resourcefulness is 24 sec not 22. If you're trying to line up BA & Serpent's Sting, you should put the Aimed Shot ahead of the SrS application. Even then though, they are not likely to stay sync'd over time.

Then the math is belied by actual practice, in this case, and you'll just have to take our word for it until you've tried it for yourself (because it seems like you haven't). Chaining Black Arrow and Serpent Sting results in near perfect synchronization, and ends up simplifying the rotation quite a lot.

The cooldown for black arrow is 22 seconds only if you equip the 4piece pvp gear to gain the -2 sec to trap cooldown bonus.

Using black arrow first then serpent sting, and refreshing it in that sequence every time BA cooldown comes up is non optimal and guarantees 12.5% serpent sting downtime. Yes, there will be unavoidable sequences that end up forcing serpent sting downtime anyway, but that's different from insuring 1/8 downtime + additional incidental downtime as well. It might simplify the rotation, but then so would not shooting serpent sting at all - it is a dps decrease. Whether you feel the simplification tradeoff is worth the damage difference, that is up to you.

On a sidenote, when lock and load procs, if either black arrow or kill shot is up I interweave them inbetween explosive shots. The logic behind the exs - wait .5 - exs - wait .5 - exs sequence is that if you were to insert an aimed or steadyshot in between, the additional damage that you gain doesn't outweigh pushing back exs a further second. However, both kill and ba do enough damage to justify using them to fill in the gaps, I believe.

For what reason? Are people unable to move when a new crash hits the same spot or does the RL think that crashes have a set number of buffs?

Everyone knows that hunters no longer use a strict rotation to dps, and that should be kept in mind whenever we trade advice. The fact is that fights in Ulduar rarely allow you to maintain dot uptime on a single target for the duration of the encounter, and no one is saying that serpent sting should never be refreshed while BA is on cooldown. The only "non-optimal" thing we can do at this point is improperly prioritize one shot or sting over another.

I know my guild doesn't want hunters in the Shadow Crash because we actually have a way to regen mana, so they would rather the mages/locks/etc. use it instead of us, as the more people clumped up on one Shadow Crash means it is more likely for him to be able to leech health when he casts the leech debuff on someone. The less he heals, the faster he dies. I assume it is like this for the other people in this thread.

So your using aimed shot in your rotation now instead of a filler for moblie fights and LnL procs?
And what glyphs are you using now?

We don't have any set in stone rules about this. Survival hunters are really the only ones who get a tangible benefit from being in the crash. But I prefer to stay out of them as well for the aforementioned reasons such as another person to cause a crash or be an additional leech target.

Shadow Crash = damage buff

Saronite Vapors = mana regen and damage to caster

No, this is not true. The Shadow Crash residue increases magical damage and decreases ability mana costs. Saronite Vapors regenerates mana and hits exponentially harder (more than 7 stacks will oneshot a non tank).

Acctualy a perfect synchronization would be to shot BA first then put in a filler like AS and then shot SS.You maybe should try it and test it yourself if you dont belive "us".