The Survival Hunter in WotLK - Page 209

alienangel · 10/29/09, 1:08 PM

Originally Posted by Juneko

With my stats and being far below haste cap haste is still almost half what arp and crit are worth.

Has anyone considered forgoing haste completely and doing only 2 shots in between explosive shots? With gear available it's certainly possible to gear away from haste and have maybe ~100 haste rating at most. Gearing this way is preferable because of the poor returns on haste, and overall would be a dps increase naturally. This would put your steady shots at a 1.68 cast time, plus 3% from in raid if you have a ret paladin/moonkin. This means that if you had downtime on multi/aimed and dots that using 3 steady shots would delay your explosive shot by almost .6 seconds. Since my explosive shot does roughly 4.5 times the damage of my steady shot(and this also saves mana) it might be worthwhile to consider. Latency is also a factor, and could delay your steady shots even further.

Before picking up the 3 258 haste items I have equipped now, I was at 0 haste rating, the spreadsheet still had a no-wait priority queue as my highest SV DPS (i.e. the "hit the highest damaging attack that's up, if not steady shot without caring how close you are to a better shot coming off cooldown" I'm using for MM). I only checked with the default wait time vs. 0 wait time though, in the MM case for the same rotation differences of a 10th of a second made a large difference, so perhaps more investigation for SV was merited.

Note that "gearing away from haste" means "gearing towards ArP", which increases the strength of steadyshot in relation to ES, which also pushes towards the "no-wait" case.

Therealthing · 10/31/09, 4:42 PM

I am not trying to reduce the importance of spreadsheets anyhow, especially regarding the optimal shot-rotation feedback the latter deliver, though I'd like to share my experience of the past 5 months on figuring out what the ideal shot rotation of a SV hunter should look like.

I have concluded, after many tries to apply different spreadsheet configurations in-game, the following:
Even though different shot rotation setups resulted in varying DPS output, according to the spreadsheet outcomes, their application during a patchwerk-style fight resulted in a difference in dps that was negligible.

So, after all this experimentation, I realised that the best and easier to follow shot rotation should be one that's based on a first-come-first-serve pattern. The only thing one has to keep in mind is pop DoTs (BA and SS) at the beginning of the fight and keep them up thereafter, giving priority to KS, ExpS and AimedS (or Multi), with this order, while keeping Steady strictly as a filler. The latter should always be held back when a higher-prio shot is coming off CD in less than 1 sec.

This might seem like an overly-simplified method though it has worked for me and, presumably, all the other hunters who don't rely on any timer addons and want to keep manual control of their shooting strategy. This has managed to keep my dps at ~6.2k in 10mans and at ~7.1k in 25mans (figures varying according to mana efficiency and raid configuration of course).

Bottomline is, to my experience, shot rotation output from spreadsheets should be consulted but applied only to the point they are in line with the player's individual playstyle.

Cheers

KraxisSingular · 10/31/09, 6:21 PM

I think you have misunderstood the spreadsheet 'rotation' somewhat, as what you explain what you do it pretty much what it does. The list is a priority of skills. So essentially you have put your two DoTs on top of the list over KS and ES for instance.

Rotations are dead, pretty much everything these days are priorities. And I mean other classes too.

Frostfox - EOD · 11/02/09, 8:47 AM

The set bonus from having two tier 9 pieces seems to make it worth doing some respeccing for the survival hunter... I realize most raiding hunters will continue to use Marksman, however when running the 5 man and in solo mode, I prefer the survival... I am curious however what others have considered dropping in order to put the three points into Improved Stings... It would seem that Hunting Party and Expose Weakness are the ones to cut... In addition, does anyone know how the Serpent Sting Glyph will affect the damage output???

KraxisSingular · 11/02/09, 10:29 AM

You should have that glyph already.

Anyway, if you only want to go Survival for 5-mans it is somewhat pointless to go for Imp Stings. The gain over 2/3 EW and HP is there but not terribly great (50-60 DPS). And that is in a raid setting with buffs and debuffs. In 5-mans with no 13% spelldamage debuff (not to mention the fact that most of the health you deplete will not expend a full sting), far from as many crit bonusses etc etc, you not only lose a whole lot of the advantage in Serpent Sting with crits, but you also get a lot less EW uptime and you lose Replenishment which can be a major factor for smoothing runs in 5-mans for less downtime ("manabreak please guys").

Don't do it if you don't intend to use it for raiding, there are no advantages for 5-mans.

Frostfox - EOD · 11/02/09, 2:48 PM

How does it compare to the Marks spec??? Is changing back to Survival a better option with the Tier 9 gear??? And if so, still need to know which points to drop to add to the Improved Stings.... Any suggestions there????

Hagen · 11/03/09, 3:46 AM

About where to cut the points for Improved Stings: With the help of the DPS analyzer I chose to take one point from Expose Weakness and two out of Resourcefulness. This leaves me with the best DPS (depending on the DPS analyzer) and I keep bringing Replenishment when it's needed.

KraxisSingular · 11/11/09, 11:55 AM

Interesting change for Assassination Rogues. Murder will be a flat 4% damage increase to avoid locking too many bosses out of in ICC.

Cound this potentially count for Imp Tracking? I still remember Ulduar and the non-trivial amount of bosses that didn't fall under that talent (Mechanicals and Unknown). And unlike Murder all three mains specs rely on Imp Tracking. Maybe Blizzard is beginning an early outphasing of such talents (Crusade cound be considered as well, but since it apply to far less types it can be considered an extra bonus, rather than a specific requirement).

But then again, it doesn't look like ICC will feature untrackable bosses.

alienangel · 11/11/09, 1:12 PM

Imp Tracking allows bonus damage against several more types of creatures than current Murder does though, so it's much less restrictive of encounter design - basically blizzard is only forced to make the hunter talent not work when they have a compelling reason to make a boss Unspecified or Mechanical. Murder on the other hand gets made useless whenever something is undead, demonic, elemental, which are probably a lot more common choices for boss types.

Personally I'm hoping they put some Demon bosses back in so I can use my stash of Demonslaying Elixirs, which AFAIK are still better than level 80 elixirs and flasks. They've managed to avoid putting any in level 80 raids

sefren · 11/11/09, 2:43 PM

Jaraxxus in ToC is demon boss, the Elixirs of Demon Slaying still work on him.

KraxisSingular · 11/11/09, 3:01 PM

Originally Posted by alienangel

Imp Tracking allows bonus damage against several more types of creatures than current Murder does though, so it's much less restrictive of encounter design - basically blizzard is only forced to make the hunter talent not work when they have a compelling reason to make a boss Unspecified or Mechanical. Murder on the other hand gets made useless whenever something is undead, demonic, elemental, which are probably a lot more common choices for boss types.

Personally I'm hoping they put some Demon bosses back in so I can use my stash of Demonslaying Elixirs, which AFAIK are still better than level 80 elixirs and flasks. They've managed to avoid putting any in level 80 raids

Nevertheless, having such important talents knocked out is not what I would consider very impressive. And I believe that Blizzard, with the incoming Cata changes to talents, are beginning to see it too.
I actually consider Imp Tracking to be considerably worse than Murder in this regard, despite affecting more targets. The relative bonus is about the same (4% and 4.2ish%, remember the pet here), yet Imp Tracking is 5 points with no real viable options for all 5 points. At least Murder is 2 points, which can all be placed elsewhere. And Crusade is a basic 1% talent line with an extra bonus so I won't get into that one.

I guess I'm rambling, especially considering that ICC in all will have completely trackable bosses, unless bosses like Sindragosa or one of the final wingbosses are Unknown. But I find it positive that they actually take such considerations in mind now. Remember for Murder the same problem was present in Naxx, and to a considerable extent in Ulduar too. So I'm sitting here hoping.

alienangel · 11/11/09, 3:56 PM

Originally Posted by sefren

Jaraxxus in ToC is demon boss, the Elixirs of Demon Slaying still work on him.

I suppose I should have said important bosses. Jaraxxus is barely worth flasking for currently since DPS on him (as opposed to his portals) isn't a barrier to killing him. Twins/Hodir/Thorim/Anub would be IMO more the sort of boss I'd like to use demonslaying elixirs on.

edit: come to think of it, I'm not sure what type of mob Jaraxxus' portals are

KraxisSingular · 11/12/09, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by alienangel

I suppose I should have said important bosses. Jaraxxus is barely worth flasking for currently since DPS on him (as opposed to his portals) isn't a barrier to killing him. Twins/Hodir/Thorim/Anub would be IMO more the sort of boss I'd like to use demonslaying elixirs on.

edit: come to think of it, I'm not sure what type of mob Jaraxxus' portals are

Unknown... Or Uncategorized as the name really is. Nether Portal. So no Demonslaying on them or various +damage talents.

DerailedThread · 11/12/09, 2:27 PM

Is resourcefulness talent showing up as minus dps for anyone else when you get 1/3? I'm not sure what's up. Even with 3 points, the most dps gain i see is around 5.

chucknourish · 11/14/09, 4:43 AM

Hello fellow Community,

I have been reading this forums for ages and I decided to make the next step and create an account.
However im not extraordinary at maths, so i cant really help on the thinktank discussions but i wanted to share a problem I encountered since i got DeathsVerdict.

When both of my trinkets procc, i have 83,91% Crit +4%EW(glyph) +15%ST = 103%Crit.
Now, i think it would be time to get EW to 1/3 and i would have a point leftover but whatever i do in the spreadsheets leaves me with a dps loss at the end.

1/5 iAoTH
1/3 Stings
1/2 RF

So i was wondering if anyone else has got experience and workarounds to this problem.

Ty in advance chuck