For the record, I'm the one who made the comment about Explosive Trap and multiple mobs. I had really forgotten about the post until I came back to this thread. I was operating under the assumption that Explosive Trap was operating the same way Immolation Trap was. Hell, as was pointed out by tooltip links, Explosive Trap is not supposed to trigger LnL at all.

But, after testing it more tonight, specifically Auriaya's swarms, and the worm packs en route to Hodir, I am pretty certain that Explosive Trap does not have a periodic chance to proc. I never saw a LnL refresh while clearing tonight.

But if it is a 100% LnL proc on trap triggering, perhaps we're back to the trap-dancing days.

Edit: Though on second thought, this would now conflict even more with the current version of Sniper Training. Perhaps merely on fights where there are reliable adds spawning.

Dwarf SV Hunter: The World of Warcraft Armory

Should I keep my Nerubian Conqueror or switch to

Golemheart Longbow?

Try using the WotLK DPS Spreadsheet and see what you get for an answer.

Having seen the comments here regarding Explosive Trap, I tried this out on a Naxx run last night and I can confirm that Explosive Trap procced LnL 100% of the time on activation, but I never saw an activation on ticks of damage.

Now, the question is, would this be an increase in DPS over using Black Arrow. Using the spreadsheet, my current theoretical max DPS is 6501, using standard shot priority (Kill > Explosive > Black > Serpent > Aimed > Steady). Spreadsheet calculates an average time between LnL procs from Black Arrow of 101 seconds, which seems reasonable - we've all had those fights where it takes forever to get LnL procs.

Removing Black Arrow from my shot rotation gives a theoretical DPS of 5998, with as expected ZERO LnL procs, so essentially a 500 DPS loss from not using Black Arrow. So, can Explosive Trap damage + extra LnL procs give more than 500 DPS? If Black Arrow procs LnL once every 100 seconds, with Trap Mastery Explosive Trap would offer a LnL proc every 24 seconds. So by dropping Black Arrow we gain 3 extra LnL procs in 100 seconds, plus the damage of 4 explosive traps. In order to make up the difference, then, I need to do 50000 damage in those 100 seconds from Explosive Trap + LnL procs.

On my last Ulduar run, using Explosive Trap on adds, my average initial damage was 1250. Tooltip says additional 900 damage over 20 seconds - I'm uncertain if the DoT damage scales with AP or not, but for simplicity I'll have Explosive Trap damage as 2150 per application. The spreadsheet calculates my average Explosive Shot damage (without Black Arrow in the rotation) as 11699 for 3 ticks (averaging crit & non-crit with my calculated crit% fully raid buffed), and my average Steady Shot damage as 2844. So with the extra LnL procs, I gain 6 explosive shots, but lose 6 steadies.

(6 x 11699) + (4 x 2150) - (6 x 2844) = 61730 damage over that 100 seconds.

Looks to me like this could, surprisingly, be a slight DPS increase over Black Arrow. I'll try this out tonight and try to post some WWS data.

I use Explosive Trap on Auriaya's swarms for a healthy dps increase over the rest of my raid. You can also use this on XT and Mimiron phase 3 (I explosive trap + engineering belt + volley + explosive shot the bigger adds), as well as the Freya encounter. Don't be shy, trap dancing is not dead!

Are you accounting for the fact that Explosive Trap does damage to all adds within trap range? Your formula only seems to account for the initial application of the trap to one target.

The only time you can really count the traps damage is on the boss imo, so I would assume that extra adds being in there shouldn't be counted (unless you are more interested in personal dps and not killing the boss).

As for the ticks, some fights might not get all of them, due to movement. I know that's not the majority of fights, but still it's something to think about. If the dps difference is that much more, then a few missed ticks shouldn't matter much, though.

No, I am not accounting for any damage done to adds, because it will vary highly from fight to fight. What I'm attempting to evaluate is whether use of Explosive Trap would be a DPS increase on a single target. If we can show this, then it is obvious that it will be an additional increase in DPS when the trap application affects multiple targets. Unfortunately, the current version of the spreadsheet does not calculate Explosive Trap damage, so I'm going to need some empiric evidence to help firm up the numbers.

Earlier in this thread I followed the discussion of the optimal shot priority, which, at the time, favored Serpent Sting over Black Arrow. However, I'm seeing more Hunters breaking down their behavior using a priority that places Black Arrow over Serpent Sting.

I routinely read these boards and check the spreadsheet against my gear/gear planner/talents/glyphs with every release. I know there is an argument for BA>SrS, but I can't make the numbers justify it. I've read the argument for BA>SrS because of earlier LnL procs, though they're only potentially earlier by 1.5 to 3.0s seconds before falling into standard rotation. I've also read that putting BA over SrS and weaving a shot between matches the cooldown of talented BA (24s) to the falloff of the subsequent SrS (21s); but I see no real value to this other than making it easier to anticipate when it's time to debuff the mob again, rather than the rolling "whack-a-mole" priority which seems to get the best results.

My spec is 0/16/55, and the elements relavent to my point are primarily:

• Noxious Stings (3/3) (+3% all damage on SrS'd targets)
• Resourcefulness (3/3) (-6s CD to BA)
• The text of BA ("increasing all damage done by you to the target by 6%").

Using the spreadsheet, I've set it to use shot rotation results, changed the shot rotation order and then hit "test rotation." I sampled each 10 times, and I'm providing the deltas to demonstrate how "stable" each rotation is. I get the following values with all other considerations equal:

RF>KS>ES>SrS>BA>AS>SS: 6670.68 ± 12.22. My current priority, SrS > BA
RF>KS>ES>BA>SrS>AS>SS: 6666.07 ± 18.56. My current priority, BA > SrS
RF>KS>BA>ES>SrS>AS>SS: 6658.28 ± 25.49. To match BA CD to SrS duration by weaving ES
RF>KS>BA>SrS>ES>AS>SS: 6609.37 ± 22.65. Buff every damaging shot concept, BA > SrS
RF>KS>ES>BA>AS>SrS>SS: 6668.77 ± 12.58. To match BA CD to SrS duration by weaving AS
RF>KS>SrS>BA>ES>AS>SS: 6628.75 ± 20.54. Buff every damaging shot concept, SrS > BA

I pretty closely follow the first priority; I do my best to keep SrS up >90% and generally I use Explosive Shot before I'll BA, even if BA is off cooldown. The spreadsheet seems to show that this has the highest DPS potential and also makes sense to me on my debuff timer. It places the full duration of Black Arrow into the window of Serpent Sting, which maximizes the time when (most of) my damage is buffed by +3%, +6%. There's also some merit to matching the BA cooldown to serpent sting duration, weaving AS between (it's just as "stable"), but it means that occasionally you would want to wait for a BA CD before using ES.

My damage is pretty satisfactory, but like everyone else here, I'm always looking to improve - is there some logic I'm not factoring in?

So, I tried out trap dancing with explosive trap last night in Ulduar, with mixed results. A few things make this not the best comparison. First, I have fairly high latency (200-400ms), and second, I'm not a practiced trap dancer, so I did have trouble at times with trap placement.

It seemed to work best on Auriaya and XT. The rumblers on Kologarn also seem to be a good place for this strategy, but I got the bug where I was gripped just as the arm died and never got released, so I died early on that fight and can't give any good report there. Ignis and Razorscale were more problematic due to the kiting of the boss - my trap placement failures were amplified. If you don't place the trap well, and it isn't activated, then you have 24 seconds where BA is not on the target AND you don't get the benefit of the extra LnL proc.

I'm going to continue to play around with this, but I think it is going to be more situational rather than a definite DPS upgrade.

Speed = Cast Time / ( (1+A/100)*(1+B/100)*(...) )
Speed=1.5 (your goal), Cast Time=2, A=15 from quiver, B=Unknown
1.5 = 2 / ( (1+15/100)*(1+A/100) )
A=15.94

15.94*32.79 (Haste Rating per % increase)=522.6726

If you have Ret or Moonkin Aura, You can drop 3% haste from gear

12.94*32.79=424.3026

Therefore ~424 Haste Rating will meet the soft cap.