I believe the Singe debuff also has a chance to cast on each Explosive Shot tick, so you have a 30% chance on each ES tick to deal another 3k damage when standing next to a fire. I'm not 100% sure of this, as it's kinda tough to tell when you are trying to do the 3 minute kill, but I believe it to be the case.

Well, first off, BA --> Sting works out to be a spreadsheet dps loss vs Sting --> BA from what I've read in this thread, but that could definitely vary with specs and glyphs. Or, maybe whomever posted that data was wrong. Or maybe we shouldn't trust all spreadsheet data on a whim. I don't claim to have tested it myself.

And when I say Sting > BA > ES I'm talking lead-in. I usually dot first because I find that in a small window of time (adds, trash, any other time you want burst damage, etc.), if you don't put them up immediately, then you almost might as well not put them up. Yes, I realize the rotation from there prioritizes ES, but because of the DoT factor, MM is still more bursty. I don't feel like I'm wasting any GCD's dotting up something that won't live the full duration of the DoT just to get the full +% of damage to my core dps rotation.

I guess that's all I meant by burst.

No, haven't successfully done hardmode XT yet. I do over 6k in normal mode with some volleys in there for adds, which is decent for where we're at. I could probably do about the same as SV. For my gear, the two specs are very similar. I'm just getting used to the playstyle since it seems MM will overtake SV at some point in Ulduar gear:
Best Possible DPS in Shandaras WotLK Spreadsheet

And then with GC's quote from a while back:

Just wondering, but for a surv hunter, which is better. Wrathstone or Mirror of Truth.
Also, is it better to have 2% extra crit but have .65% less hit?

Don't forget that MM hunters also greatly depend on two debuffs that need to be applied (which also costs 2 GCD); Hunter's Mark and Serpent Sting. Where BA and SrS are 6% and 3% damage increases respectively for a surv hunter, HM and SrS are 5% and ~13% for a MM hunter.

I'm mainly saying this since you mentioned 'something that won't live the full duration'. On a boss target it makes sense for a MM hunter to use HM and SrS, but when fighting adds the MM hunter has to make the same decisions as a surv hunter regarding debuffs on the adds. Think Emalon (even though he has been nerfed greatly, think back to the first week VoA): is it worth casting SrS and HM (or similarly BA and SrS) on the charged adds when you know they will die within 10-15 seconds? Probably not, especially since it would mean you have to re apply the mark to Emalon himself.

Your first priority is to stay hit capped all the time.

Even though many would agree "First priority is to stay hit capped", I think putting some maths here could prove to be much help.

0.65 less Hit = (approximately) 21 less Hit Rating
2% more crit = (approximately) 92 more crit rating

Regardless of your spec and gear, 92Crit Rating is much more of a benefit then 21 Hit. You even need not to check any spreadsheet to be sure of that.

How ever as a rule of thumb (for survival) you could consider 1Hit Rating = 1Agility = 2 Crit Rating for approximation issues regarding dps increase... As mentioned actual values will differ according to your gear but will remain close to this assumption for any Survival hunter.

So staying hit cap is and will remain a priority but you should NEVER loss 4crit for 1hit... Under such circumstances just remain below hit cap by all means... You will reach the cap regardless of you want it or not when you get Ulduar gear

Cheers

Not sure if I read this correctly, but I would take 2% more crit before 0.65% hit chance any time. It is simple math which makes you conclude it gives you ~1.35 % more dps.

Your best option to get rid of you miss chance would probably be the +hit/agi gem.

Well with all due respect, Hit is not > All other stats.. 1 Hit > 1 Any other stat (very slightly over Agi for Surv Hunter so I mentioned equal to make calculation easier)... Ofcourse Hit = 0 if you are above hit cap so I am only mentioning about cases where you are not already capped

For example regardless of your gear level and spec, 1Hit is NEVER/EVER > 2Agi (not even 1,5) neither is it as good as 4 Crit

And "Use the spreadsheet" is the long term and ever correct reply but there are many cases where you just need or would like to decide for a "Bid" or Not in a few seconds... Still I believe no spreadsheet , under any case could report 1 Hit beating 2 Agility or 4 Crit.. Its simply against raw mathematics.

(Ps : All data I mention here applies for a Level80 Hunter only)

Cheers


Edit - Explanation : I tend to look warmly for Rule of Thumb approximations just to allow myself and fellow hunters be able to judge a dropped items worth roughly so that they will not Bid/Roll over a friend in raid instantly because they did not have the time to check spreadsheet so tried to get the item in that moment... If I do not already know the new dropped item I try to calculate its approximate worth with those simplified equations. Actually for my level of gear 1 Agility is around 1 Hit (I am over hitcap but can swap items to remain slightly above 263) Also for example again for my level of gear 1 Agility is around 2,7 AP or 1,7 Crit. Usually 1 Arp is "approximately" equal to 1 Crit for me and list of "Rule of Thumbs" go on... Ofcourse I agree that best way is check the spreadsheet and plan for what item to get next but in many case RNG drops make it hard to judge when and how much is that special item is an upgrade for you.

For example In Ulduar 25Man gear I tend to find "any 2H weapon with +hit on it" to be seriously inferior to 2H weapons without +hit as Almost all T8,5 gear and Ulduar25man tries to throw u way over the hit cap and there are few slots to get rid of that extra +hit which is thrown at you from all directions...

Read the line I posted again, and you'll notice that what you just posted is exactly the same as what I said: hit > other stats if you're not at the cap and given the same amount of stat points. I even made it bold when I posted it. Anyway, it is very possible that 1 HR is better than 2 agility or 4 ap/crit, which I'll show here.

I took the best in slot pre-hardmode excel sheet (88b) and hand adjusted the hit with -11 rating (so 252). This yields 7360 total DPS. Now, adding 10 hit gives 7378 DPS while adding 10 agi only gets 7375 DPS (I use this example to not go over a full % of hit which bumps the value for pet DPS), which shows the basic fact that hit is better than agility in the same quantity.
Now, adding 1 hit at 262 gives you another 11 DPS, while 2 agi only gets you an extra 2 DPS. So yes, it is VERY possible that 1 HR > 2 agi (more in this case). This is because of pets just getting full % hit, not ratings.

And about bidding: I don't know about other people, but I check the loot that has a chance to drop up front and base my decision to bid or not on "analysis" (sounds so heavy for a simple check what is best) done pre-raid.

Well you certainly got me there ) Forgot about the 262-263 transition issue where pet +hit is tranferred only in Integers...

I admit the position you illustrated (/bow) still I stand my point in any given gear replacement you would never get more then 2agi for 1 hit ) Still your post remains correct

Cheers

Edit = Ofcourse you dont need to post other transition points such as 5% to 6% etc where that last final 1 hit beats 2 Agility.

Alright - Solid point! I think the only difference with HM, is that certain adds / trash can be pre-marked before being agro'd. Otherwise, it's a totally valid point. Still, I play both on a regular basis, and MM still feels like it ramps up faster than SV does. Over the long-haul, they even out, but you get more cooldown and burst options with MM, Rapidfire, Readiness, CS + Aimed + Arcane, etc.

On a side-note, I'm bummed to see that Glyph of Steady Shot is showing up in the BiS MM and SV setups as almost mandatory. Nothing stinks more than having to glyph your worst shot because it's more dps over the longhaul. ES glyph doesn't look like it even makes the cut on those SV spreadsheets. =/

The problem with the BiS thread is that it relies on the spreadsheet entirely, which doesn't do well with the Chimera Shot glyph for example. Technical/simulation issues with displaying its true worth. Most people use the Chimera Shot glyph though either way.

thanks for the info guys. I think im gonna stick with the 2% crit then based on your answers.

I think you're correct, Singed was actually my 3rd highest damaging ability on our 10 man hard mode kill yesterday and was much higher than anyone else's Singe damage.

WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay in Engrish

I´m currently working on an AddOn to evaluate which shot next to use based on a priority system and some other conditions. In fact I already posted about it a few weeks ago but since I wasn´t satisfied with the code back then I scraped it completly and rewrote it again. It´s back at the point where the actual system works reasonable well now and I´d like to start optimizing the priorities of the shots. Since I´m playing mostly SV myself I´m going to start there.

Right now it evalutes the following priority list from top to bottom and displays the first result with matching conditions at least once after each cast:

- if OOC and no HM on target or HM fades in <= 10s ~> HM
- if targetHP <= 20% and KS is off CD or coming off CD within GCD+0.5s ~> KS
- if ES is off CD and last ES has been cast less than 2s ago ~> blank (wait for the DoT to fade)
- if ES is off CD or coming off CD within GCD+0.5s ~> ES
- if AotV is not active and BA is off CD or coming off CD within GCD and targets is going to life for >= 7s ~> BA
- if AotV is not active and no SpS on target or SpS fades within GCD and target is goint to life for >= 10s ~> SpS
- if AimS/MS is off CD or coming off CD within GCD ~> AimS/MS
- if (no HM on target and or HM fades in <= 10s) and target is goint to life for >= 45s ~> HM
- if none of the above ~> SS

A few things I´m wondering about are
- Should I really wait for SpS to fall off before reapplying it or should I reapply it within the last 1.5-3s in order to get a theoretical 100% uptime?
- How long does the target have to life so it´s worthwhile to use a GCD to reapply a BA, SpS or HM (taking other hunters in the raid into account)?
- Are there any priorities completely off or did I forget something important?

As for the question about how long to wait for a KS or ES to come off CD before it´s more worthwhile to use another, lower priority shot as a filler even if that mean delaying the KS/ES a bit. Right now I´m using the static value of 0.5s regardless of the actual damage ration between KS, ES and the other shots. The only answer to the question for a more precise value I´ve been pointed at so far was the following formula:
(the whole post)

As far as I can tell there´s something wrong with it though (or I´m misinterpreting the result somehow). If I use the same value for ES and SS I´d assume the amount of time to wait for an ES before it´s a DPS loss would be 0s but in fact it is 8s-6s=2s (which would make absolutely no sense anyway) and if I set ES to two times the value of SS it evaluates to 1.5s - less than what it should be if their damage was the same. If one ES does 100x as much damage as SS it evaluates to ~0.06s max. waiting time. So the more the damage ratio favors ES the less time I should wait for it - exactly the opposite from what it should be.

@ Apathy
I'm sorry it took so long for me to reply. I'm going to address some concerns I had about your post. First of all I don't want to seem nit picky but I found several questionable things. First of all there is a major difference between spreadsheet specs and actual specs. Personally I'm 2/17/51 (only 1 point in TotH, and 2 points in Focused Fire). I know that seems silly but my current gear has dropped my hit so low I've had to gem into hit, found I hit 6.01% and though it would be a perfect to spec into thatlast 2 percent. Secondly I don't spec into trap mastery, I find Hawk Eye is universally better in real world dmg (which is also something MM 7/57/7 spec cannot take). Specs are always dependant on that person's gear. Don't spec 5/15/51 just cause some guy in a world first kill did it, do it because it benefits you. Look your stats, if you have 150 haste rating, you need IAotH and your mana pool might be large enough you don't need more then 1 point in TotH. Let that Spriest bring replenishment to the group, don't feel obligated.

The other thing I'd like to touch on is (and I know I'm going to get flamed for this) Haste is a very weak benefit. Any haste that drops your timer below the GCD is a huge waste. I'd rather have something increase my agil, hit, crit, or armor pen before I waste talent points or itemization on that much haste. I do drop a couple points into IAotH, but only because my haste rating is in the low 300s. Fights where you are constantly target switching, or moving (where sniper training is also hurt) is going to further hurt the dps benefit of haste points. For many fights those points in Rapid Fire may as well be used on Endurance Training as you will be moving at some point during rapid fire anyways or the fight will not go long enough to see the benefit of those points, especially Freya.

I'd like to concentrate the rest of this post around Freya knock x 3 as I have recently completed it on 10 man. I'd like to add I did over 20% of the raid's dmg with the next highest person doing 16%. Nobody died, so there was no QQ i died loss of dmg issue. When analayzing spreadsheet dps, include everything. DKs and Enhance shaman provide 10% ap with a 99% uptime, there is no reason not to include it. Keep in mind SV is gonna get a bigger buff from this since they have additional agility and an AP proc with a 99% uptime, this is going to further increase SV's numbers. Also remember on Freya there is a LOT of target switching and moving. This is a greater benefit to SV then MM.

Detonating Lashers: Everyone stacks up, you drop a trap, quickly fire a few explosives by sidestepping the group, stack back up volley. Disengage out of the group and try and single target down lashers. Kill the ones following you first, when you have Kill Shot rdy, disengage (or rocket boot) and take it out. Once none are folllowing you, don't be stupid and kill on chasing someone. Drop a SrS on it, move on to the next lasher. When you catch one swithcing players, now is the time to take it out.

Water, Storm, Snap: I know a lot of groups like to AoE down the trio first, but this is silly IMO. AoE dmg is less then single target dmg, even with 3 adds. My group splits dmg into small groups that help eachother on debuffs. This ensures all 3 are brought down at the same time, with a stronger dps group hitting the snap lasher (me and a warlock) then the group on water and storm. With me being on the snap lasher full time I get my maximum dps rotation off.

Big Tree: Maximum dps rotation.

Roots and trees: Hawk Eye from survival makes ti easier to switch to friends who may be out of range. I know I've had to walk a few steps to hit a tree sometimes, and thats with the 6 yd range increase. The dps loss on marks would have to be even larger.

As you can see from above you don't always do the most dmg from Black Arrow preloading or waiting on LnL Procs. Trap dancing is amazing for the Detonating packs, 2 extra Explosives beats out any Black Arrow benefit, expecially when it leads directly to a Kill Shot (i made this happen 2 or 3 times on our kill, giving my dps a huge boost). This also lowers mana consumption as those Explosives are free, although neither spec should have ANY problems with mana on Freya. I have a focus macro on Freya and viper sting her every time it doens't interfere with an ES. As for Rapid Fire, your use of those points is very dependable on your kill time and what add pack you are dealing with. Would you use rapid fire if you get a detonating lasher pack first? Depending on how your group handles the trio is might also be bad (LoL at using rapid fire for volley).

Finally I'd like to say your post goes on to prove my point that SV gets more dmg per point overall then MM. SV spends less points on dps talents then MM does, yet does more dps? This gives the SV hunter more flexibility in customizing its talents to its gear as there are about 4-6 floating points on top of the already wasted points on Stam, Hawk Eye, TotH, and sometimes sniper training. I'll leave you with this question, would MM take losses to dps talents in an effort to get these utility talents?

I just remembered something...

Rapid Fire doesn't affect Volley. If we read the tooltip that's technically correct, "Increases ranged attack speed by 40% for 15 sec." But since this speedbuff includes cast shots like Steady Shot, and Steady Shot is more like Volley than it is like Autoshot, could it be that it is just an oversight along the way?

This is obviously not very important, but I do remember popping Rapid Fire and then being forced to Volley... Felt rather wasteful.

@Beachwanderer

I agree with what you're saying, other than from a 'potential' standpoint. It's all about the strat you use with the spec you've chosen, and executing that to it's full potential - Which takes practice just like anything else. For example, if you use hawkeye as SV, then that's your strategy. It's clearly not a dps increase on any spreadsheet, but it does make sense, seeing as how moving around on that fight causes you to lose the Sniper Training buff.

The real challenge would be to find a way to not have to use it. It's easy to crutch on something so useful, but it really is just a comfort thing. You can 'potentially' do better without it. Just as MM can potentially do better in some situations, but requires a smaller window of error on a few fights.

Just going off my memory here, I'm fairly certain that rapid fire does, in fact, affect Volley. I can't test this right now (I'm at school), but as soon as I get home I'll test it out.

EDIT: You're correct, it doesn't increase the speed of Volley's channel.

I'd like to see this post. The highest dps shot is fired in priority order. The reason is to get more GCDs spent on higher dmg shots therefore having higher dmg overall. Attempting to 'ramp up' your dmg by firing dots first lowers dps as you will have ES off cooldown not being used, BA off cooldown not being used, etc. The ramping up happens on its own, over time. For a SrS to do more dps then a BA, even ignoring the 6% dmg bonus it gives... well here's the math.

BA = RAP*0.1 + 2765
SrS = RAP*0.2 + 1270

BA = SrS : RAP*0.1 + 2765 = RAP*0.2 + 1210
RAP = 15550, which I don't see any hunter likely to hit this xpac.

Again I don't know where you are getting the information of BA->SrS being a dps loss to SrS->BA or where you read it in this thread. No spec or glyph that I know of has that much sway to SrS. Never forget the whole point of a priority rotaiton is to use the highest dmging shot asap so you don't delay gcds to cast it again, I can't stress this enough.

Volley is a channeled spell. Rapid Fire does indeed increase it's dps. Haste affects volley the same way it affects all AoE Effects. The spell will do the same amount of damage, but in less time. The period between each attack is shortened, so there are the same number of attacks, hitting for the same damage, but in a slightly faster time.

I wouldn't call it a crutch. If a tree spawns randomly (40 yd range?) around Freya, regardless of the Sniper Training buff, you are maximizing your potential chance to be able to shoot it. The dps gain from trap mastery (where I steal point from) does not outway the loss of 1 or more GCDs that Hawkeye can (and most likely will) negate. Things move, you move, and even if you find perfect positioning, many things are out of your control. A light beam on Hodir may be out of range of the rest of the group, but not you! A runic power on Iron Council may be in your range to shoot from, but no one else! Yogg-Saron spawns a tentacle that you have to run to, you're in range before everyone else! These things and more are completely out of your control, but where the range isn't a crutch, it's a direct dps gain. By telling me it is a challenge to "not" use it is telling me I need to predict where the game randomly spawns things, which is just not feasible. Your patchwork dps might be a tiny bit higher, but you would lose dps in virtually every fight in Ulduar.