Faerdael

Better for Surv than MM is really a moot point. Question is it better than your other yellow stat options for your spec? Hit? No. (if not capped), Crit? Currently yes; once 3.0.8 hits however, crit should end up being better (more instant cast damage, less steady damage makes haste a dull boy). This is true for either MM or Surv at the moment.

As far as Imp AotH goes, you actually are seeing alot of 1 point IAotH surv builds creeping in, since it allows you to pickup the IAotH Glyph, which is effectively 2 extra talent points in IAotH. This is enough to get down to 1.5s steady for most players. Otherwise, your options for a third major glyph are Viper aspect or Immo trap, which aren't terribly appealing.

 

Yaridovich

Really glad to see a topic on Survival, my favorite Hunter spec. I just have a few things I want to bring up.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Given my haste and hit rating, this is the build I'm looking at for Trap Dancing Survival. I only need 1 point in both IAoTH and Focused Aim and I left Master Tactician unfinished as it didn't seem like it needed maxing. However, that leaves 4 points floating that I don't know what to do with. Finishing MT or IAoTH are both ideas, but I could also grab Aimed Shot and 3/3 Improved Stings which I haven't seen on any builds yet. Just curious.

I've been testing trap dancing in heroic runs to try and get a feel for it using a Raptor Strike/Immo Trap Macro to reduce downtime in DPS. The problem I'm finding with this is that my Runeblade of Demonstrable Power is too slow to wait for a Raptor Strike to go off, and that I'm probably losing DPS by waiting on it as opposed to just stepping back after the trap. Anyone else found any trouble with using Raptor Strike on trap dancing? I may just need to invest in a faster weapon or dual-wielding.

 

Hamurabi

If you're not already meleeing something, it's been my experience that Raptor Strike will go off instantly if you hit your macro right as you enter melee. Maybe toggle Auto Shot off, then run into melee to drop the trap + Raptor Strike?

 

sanremuile

Lately I've been hugging my [Fang of Truth] swords a lot during raids. The hit rating is very much good to have, and I've noticed that after I got both of them enchanted with +26AGI, they actually perform incredibly well! While soloing quests or farming raid food, it does also give you some leeway should something get into your melee range (I can break open physical damage fairly quickly with these badboys!).

Pretty random, I know, but I was fairly pleased to see that something I got from a faction (Wyrmrest Accord) at honored was actually worth something! I know there's all kinds of things out there that are better, I just figured that these make a mighty fine place marker for any new Hunters out there who are just getting started in raiding.

 

Yaridovich

Due to the lack of a good 2hander Agility enchant in Wrath, I'm thinking that dual-wielding might be the way to go for Survival. Of course I'm rolling on Black Ice if it drops anyway, but just saying. The Fangs of Truth are amazing if you're not hit capped and I'll probably be putting mine back on when I drop 3/3 Focused Aim. However, I'm debating whether they're better than dual [Broken Stalactite]. You lose the Stamina and a slight amount of Agility and Hit but gain a nice crit rating.

On an unrelated note, there's a few topics on Trap Dancing on the Damage Dealing forums but none of them can land a blue post. By this, I'm guessing Blizz didn't count on this happening and they're currently lost for a way to do something about it.

 

sanremuile

I've definitely noticed that, Yaridovich. The Damage Dealing forums seem to be a mess of QQ, Page-Long theorism, and more QQ lately. The [Broken Stalactite] is also pretty cool, although the Hodir grind is most certainly not. After the patch allows the [Relic of Ulduar] to be a BOE turn-in for rep, it may become much more considerable (More advanced raiders going after their shoulder enchants may have better access to the dagger for now!).

I'll go through the other DW options later on, but I'd agree that it just feels more natural as SV to use two weapons. [Black Ice] is gorgeous, but you can bet that there'll be a wild pile-up of Hunters, Paladins, and maybe even Warriors going after it!

Items to Dual-wield:

• [Hatestrike]
• [Twilight Mist]
• [The Hand of Nerub]
• [Murder]
• [Sinister Revenge]
• [Webbed Death]
• [Torment of the Banished] - No Hit
• [Knife of Incision] - No Hit, Low AGI
• [Widow's Fury] - No Hit

After checking it out, I'll definitely be going after either [Twilight Mist] or [Murder] for their cumulative haste; [Webbed Death] is pretty. There's some AGI lost in the transition, but they are definitely two very appealing weapons! [Widow's Fury] is also very attractive for those who are hit-capped.

 

Ryas

Ran a 25 man Naxx PUG last night, and managed 4,637 DPS as a 1/15/55 spec on Patchwerk. Still working on doing Lock and Load procs correctly, and I didn't try trap dancing. Killed him in around 3:34. I haven't changed all my gems to agility gems yet either. Trying to work on the spec before 3.0.8 goes live. I am, however, enjoying it much more thoroughly than BM, that's for sure.

Basically just used explosive shot every time it was off CD, and steady in between. On Lock and Load procs, I would cast ES->SS->ES->SS->ES. However, if my Serpent Sting was about to expire, I would use the GCD on reapplying Serpent Sting, as while I wasted a Steady Shot, I needed to use a GCD ability anyway to let my ES charges go off, so I used it then instead of later.

WWS: Wow Web Stats
Armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

Also, I'm not sure if any other addons do this, but I tried the AddOn NeedToKnow (NeedToKnow - Addons - Curse) and configured it to show an Explosive Shot bar for when I cast it. It shows you as a bar when your ES charges will expire, which was kind of nice to see. Could be useful for some other people.

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n...nterweapon.jpg

 

marson

Just out of interest Ryas, i noticed in your spec that you took 3/3 sniper training, in the WWS you posted, did you specfically go out your way to make sure you were the 30 yards away or just estimate, just curious as a few posts ive read are debating weather to take sniper training or not

 

Ryas

I usually tried to go 30-35 yards away if I could. It was pretty easy to do on Patchwerk, but it was kind of annoying to do on some bosses, notably Grobbulus and such.

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n...nterweapon.jpg

 

Yaridovich

Thanks for the run down on the One-Handers sanremuile. Some really good looking ones in there, but it looks like we'll be rolling against the Rogues for them. The problem with this is that Rogues have a higher priority on melee and are going to walk away with the weapon most of the time which is why I'm looking at the freebies for now.

Still curious to see whether maxing out IAoTH or going for Improved Stings would be a better use of my left over points. Without doing any research, Stings seems like it would be the more powerful choice but I've yet to see a SV build take it.

 

Iru

why not max Imp Stings and get the IAtoH glyph? That's worth the equivalent of 2 pts in the talent.

Edit - having thought bout it a little more

I think the reason you don't see SV builds with Imp Stings is the need to burn 7pts to get Focused Fire, so there aren't usually enough left. Figuring out which is more beneficial is an exercise for Shandara's spreadsheet.

 

Rivkah

I used to have imp stings but when I consulted the spreadsheet, it insisted that I would get better dps from imp hawk. I've noticed that as my gear scales that my stings make up a smaller percentage of my damage output so perhaps that's the reason you don't see it in a lot of builds.

 

Ikuzo

I did a quick check on different talent distributions using Shandra's PTR version of the spreadsheet, just because I was curious about the point you just brought up. Speccing into Focused Fire over Imp Stings turned about to be about a 40 dps increase.
However it's worth noting that with is with my current gear and gems (AP gems and enchants instead of Agi, at the moment). I can only imagine that once those gems and enchants are replaced with Agi counterparts, the benefit from Imp Sting will be even less, since stings scale better with AP than Agi simply because stings don't benefit from the crit bonus that Agi gives.

 

sanremuile

I'm sure Rogues die a little on the inside every time a Hunter rolls on a dagger that they want, although upgrades are always upgrades nonetheless. Once [Journey's End] is transformed with the next patch, I'm sure Hunters will no doubt roll on that, as well. At the moment, the Rogues I raid with are looking pretty good in terms of gear, so I doubt [Twilight Mist] will be a heated item.

 

Phantasmique

Does anyone know or has any experience about the 7/13/51 spec VS 0/19/52 spec , where as the first spec has 5/5 IMP IAotH + Focused Fire 2/2 , while the second spec has Aimed Shot + 3/3 Improved Stings

Better said, is the improved stings/aimed shot combo better than IMP IAoTH/Focused Fire ?

 

ankah

Ryans, I have a few questions in regards to your WWS report, first, was it from the PTR?

Is there a reason why wws is not recording the dot effect or it is rolled in to the total ES damage?

Would you not be better off subbing the first SS of the LnL proc with an Aimed? so it would go ES>Aimed>ES>SS>ES? or was it a timing issue for the dot?

I see you have 3 points into exposed weakness, since you had a crit rate of at least 43% (aimed), do you think you could have done it with 2 points, and still keep it up?

How was the upkeep time of hunting party? I see a lot of builds with only 2 points into it, but I have always wondered myself if it was enough, since it makes us really dependent on SS to keep it going at 40%, but with 60%, I would think one could keep it up and go thru less Steady shots, replacing it with Aimed, in this case.

Looking forward to your responses, and just in case you or some one reads this the wrong way, I only ask because i am still deciding if I should saty MM or go SV, and clearly I do not know the first thing about SV.

 

Ktharsis

I feel like I'm missing something, because Icewalker seems clearly superior to any other boot enchant, and yet it's not even listed in the initial post. 12 hit + 12 crit is equivalent to 48 AP in item budget, which is much better than the 32 AP you get from greater assault.

Even for people who don't need the +hit, it may be possible to regem elsewhere in order to replace hit with AP, at no net loss of item budget. Unless I'm making an elementary math mistake, it seems like the Icewalker enchant is nearly always going to be a good idea.

 

sanremuile

Actually Ktharsis, I believe the topic of Icewalker has come up several times previously. Generally, we all agree that it's a fairly solid enchantment overall.

I've been playing around my spec again, changing things up to try out Aimed Shot. It's nothing fancy, essentially just the Trap Dancing spec listed at the front with 5/5 IAotH.

• WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Hunter -> Talent Calculator

 

Ryas

No, this was on a live server.

Don't know about how it works. I assume it rolls it all into one, or my DPS would be much lower if it didn't take into account all the damage ES does.
On Live, Steady Shot just does more damage then an Aimed Shot would, especially with the Steady Shot glyph. Once 3.0.8 goes live, I'll probably do an Aimed Shot first. Though, there is speculation that because ES does so much damage, it might be better to just shoot all 3 Explosive Shots one after another, maybe waiting .5 sec for the charge to go off. We'll see.
This I don't know about. I probably could in the 25man because I have Kings and Rampage and other buffs, however, I mainly run 10 man content with my guild and we don't have a warrior or a feral druid, as well as we don't always have 2 paladins, so my crit rate won't be as high in a 10 man raid, so I'm not sure I want to take the chance of it not always being up. Maybe once my gear is a little better, but I may test it out this week.
I honestly didn't know people were only putting 2 points into it. I'm sure in a 25man, as I stated with the Expose Weakness question, that it would be more viable. However, it is a 15 second duration as opposed to a 7 second duration, so I'm sure I could get away with 2 points into it and still manage to keep it up at all times.

Remember, I'm still learning how to play Survival too. I've been Beast Mastery since SSC in the Burning Crusade so its quite the change. It really is so much more fun though.

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n...nterweapon.jpg

 

ankah

Ryas, thanks for the response, trying to figure things out as well.

General question: Do all traps share the same hit box? I mean do they all share the same proximity to be set off, or does the aoe traps have a larger radius in which to be triggered?

 

Yaridovich

For those who've been testing it, how's weaving Aimed Shot working out? Is it providing a big damage increase?

 

Ryas

If I recall correctly, on Live you'd be better off using a Steady Shot in between because it does more damage. However, with the patch and the Steady Shot nerf, I believe using an Aimed Shot in between would be the higher damage option.

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n...nterweapon.jpg

 

sanremuile

All traps have the same activation radius, the problem is, bosses do not. I currently have a thread discussing the issue of trap activation ranges vs. boss hit boxes if you'd care to join in or read up on the problem areas of trapping.

• World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Trap Range vs. Large Boss Hit Box

APT's (Arrow-Propelled Traps) not the answer? Bosses to blame for trap misfires?
Read More: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...08766612&sid=1

 

Æthien

I haven't had to roll vs rogues yet, although we only have 1 active rogue she wants fast daggers and any swords, fists or slow daggers I can have for stats. (Which is how I got my Hatestrike yesterday... <3 that weapon)

I don't know what HaT rogues want but I imagine it's just a slow weapon for high eviscerate crits (or whatever finisher they spam...) so fast swords are yours again.
And that would allow you to pick any of the above freely except for Murder, Webbed death and Torment.

 

◊ Kurisu

Evis doesn't use weapon damage, it's a range of damage affected by AP and while I'm not on top of all things rogue I believe they still use fast/fast to take advantage of poison procs.

SC Alts: Toremu - shaman

The other main
Kurisa- Druid