The Survival Hunter in WotLK - Page 177

Hunteralex · 05/08/09, 7:40 AM

Originally Posted by arlen

I'm currently using 1 point in Focused Aim. The spreadsheet showed a dps loss for my current gear set if I used gems to get capped.

No matter what, weather it's re-speccing or re-gemming, you're going to lose a little DPS. There is no way to avoid it.

arlen · 05/08/09, 8:24 AM

I know that. Never said you wouldn't. I was just replying to Sulik's post with a reason someone would consider taking a point in Focused Aim.

tominski · 05/08/09, 8:59 AM

I have only noticed today that 'Point of no escape' talent now applies from 'Black Arrow'.

Are people choosing these talent points now then for the extra 6% crit while BA is applied??

Sorry if its been covered, just couldnt find anything on it since patch...

Pijn · 05/08/09, 9:29 AM

Originally Posted by tominski

I have only noticed today that 'Point of no escape' talent now applies from 'Black Arrow'.

Are people choosing these talent points now then for the extra 6% crit while BA is applied??

Sorry if its been covered, just couldnt find anything on it since patch...

I'm afraid you are mistaken, Point of no Escape only affects Freezing Trap, Frost Trap and Freezing Arrow. It's a strictly pvp talent, where did you get the idea it affects Black Arrow?

tominski · 05/08/09, 9:43 AM

My mistake, reading to fast. Thanks.. just saved me a respec!

Teehsee · 05/08/09, 9:43 AM

I have read some stuff on ArP here, however have not gone through every post. My question is..i have heard there is somewhat of a soft cap at which it becomes a less desirable stat. Does anyone have that number/percentage?

Bikiniwax · 05/08/09, 11:53 AM

Originally Posted by Teehsee

I have read some stuff on ArP here, however have not gone through every post. My question is..i have heard there is somewhat of a soft cap at which it becomes a less desirable stat. Does anyone have that number/percentage?

There is no softcap on ArPen. The more you have, the better it works. However, ArPen is not something you would purposely try to stack in most cases.

You can get more info here: Hunter stats and scaling

Effinhunter · 05/08/09, 4:38 PM

Originally Posted by Bikiniwax

There is no softcap on ArPen. The more you have, the better it works. However, ArPen is not something you would purposely try to stack in most cases.

You can get more info here: Hunter stats and scaling

This is an incorrect assumption and was explained by a blue. There is a soft cap on what your armor pen is applied to and you will see diminishing returns.

Blue post was on April 17, 2009. Reference below.

116% Armor Pen only giving 66%!?!?!?! | DPS | WoW Blue Tracker | World of Raids

dssurge · 05/08/09, 4:52 PM

Originally Posted by Effinhunter

This is an incorrect assumption and was explained by a blue. There is a soft cap on what your armor pen is applied to and you will see diminishing returns.

Blue post was on April 17, 2009. Reference below.

116% Armor Pen only giving 66%!?!?!?! | DPS | WoW Blue Tracker | World of Raids

Except this blues post directly contradicts testing by Rogues using both Grim Toll and Mjolnir Runestone. The proc will force a 98%+ Armor Pen, +25% from debuffs, whatever is on gear, and static armor pen talents like Serrated Blades force it to go sub-zero.

Theoretically, you can't bottom out armor using percentage modifiers, but you can have it gradually approach zero far beyond the 100% threashold; anything over 118% *should* cause a 0-armor situation, so until you reach this boundary all armor pen is completely effective unless the formula provided by GC is wrong, which seems to be the case in this respect.

Effinhunter · 05/08/09, 5:03 PM

Originally Posted by dssurge

Except this blues post directly contradicts testing by Rogues using both Grim Toll and Mjolnir Runestone. The proc will force a 98%+ Armor Pen, +25% from debuffs, whatever is on gear, and static armor pen talents like Serrated Blades force it to go sub-zero.

Theoretically, you can't bottom out armor using percentage modifiers, but you can have it gradually approach zero far beyond the 100% threashold; anything over 118% *should* cause a 0-armor situation, so until you reach this boundary all armor pen is completely effective unless the formula provided by GC is wrong, which seems to be the case in this respect.

Mind linking a source? This could mean GC was wrong (which is certainly plausible). It could also mean that separate armor penetration abilities/debufs can be combined to produce new caps that chain together to approach 0. Not sure if this would be intended though.

If you look at the thread I linked, it mentions testing by warriors that showed armor penetration WAS NOT doing the 100% that should have came from the types of testing you are talking about, so I'm seeing a complete contradiction here. A link to your source would be helpful.

Teehsee · 05/08/09, 5:15 PM

I know that i had read somewhere that you get the full benefit of armor pen up to a certain percentage...im thinking it was 7% or 15%. After that, the return starts diminishing. What i am trying to figure out is if i wanted a TRUE 30% armor ignore, what percentage should i shoot for on the tooltip? I really just wish i had favorited the pages while i was reading them.

Either way, thx for the quick link responses. The stat scaling link, although not exactly what i was looking for, made me think of a few other variables i want to use for testing.

Esoth · 05/08/09, 5:28 PM

More armor penetration discussion and testing, including that specifically on GC's comment, can be found in the Combat Ratings thread in the general Class Mechanics forum. I can't really blame anyone for being confused by it as apparently it is convoluted enough that even GC wasn't completely accurate with it. But basically the "cap" isn't really what you think it means; you're not going to hit a wall where pen suddenly provides zero value or has a diminishing return, even at 0 armor.

Bolg · 05/10/09, 5:03 PM

Mh. Yesterday i visited Gluth in Naxx10 and helped our other hunter with my traps - my question now is, is it always better for me to lay down a trap to trigger lock 'n load instead of using BA?

woody-shuhalo · 05/10/09, 5:18 PM

Originally Posted by Bolg

Mh. Yesterday i visited Gluth in Naxx10 and helped our other hunter with my traps - my question now is, is it always better for me to lay down a trap to trigger lock 'n load instead of using BA?

In that situation? Go for the traps. You're helping the raid while getting a 100% chance of LnL every 24 seconds.

Although I didn't spreadsheet it, I have to think that always popping a trap on zombies has to add up to more damage than BA's granted bonuses with a 6% chance of LnL.

alienangel · 05/10/09, 6:01 PM

Originally Posted by Bolg

Mh. Yesterday i visited Gluth in Naxx10 and helped our other hunter with my traps - my question now is, is it always better for me to lay down a trap to trigger lock 'n load instead of using BA?

Tried to do some rough math for this, based on my average ES, steadyshot, and black arrow damage from the spreadsheet, and my predicted (hunter only) DPS to account for the 6% damage buff lost:

ES    ST    BA    DPS     BA Cooldown ExtraESDmg  LostSTDmg LostBADmg LostDPSDmg  NetPerCD  NetDPSPerCD
13161 2928  6753  5705.96 24          26322       5856      6753      213.97      8577.64   357.4
13161 2928  6753  5705.96 30          26322       5856      6753      171.18      8577.64   285.92

The accounting for the 6% damage loss from the debuff is kinda rough (Normal DPS * 0.06 * BA uptime), but I think it's reasonable as napkin math. I also did not consider the chance of proccing LnL from BA anyway - this would favour not using traps, but the chance of a proc is still fairly low, so unless the spreadsheet has a neat probabilistic "expected LnL damage from each BA" I'm ignoring it for now.

So if you get an LnL proc every trap cooldown by dropping a frost trap instead of firing BA, then after considering the debuff damage you give up, and the damage of the 2 steadyshots you losts by firing extra ES instead, and the damage of BA itself, I should still be gaining 8577 damage every time I do it. If my trap cooldown is 24s that's a 357 dps gain, if my cooldown is 30s (untalented) it's a 285 dps gain.

Seems to be very much in favour of dropping traps to proc LnL any time you have a choice; hopefully no glaring errors above.

On fights like thorim arena where you're not even getting full use out of the BA debuff, it's even more of a no brainer.