The Survival Hunter in WotLK - Page 213

Bambislayer · 12/25/09, 5:34 AM

Originally Posted by Pocidon

In raids, he consistently beats me by over 300 dps. After looking at recount, the main difference seems to be that he fires off about 30-50% more auto shots than I do over the course of each encounter.

30-50% more auto's implies he runs less to me and is not down to haste solely. Try to reduce the ammount you have to move or even stopping every 2 secs or so to allow an auto to shoot, something i still am trying to make my self do.

CedricDur · 12/25/09, 8:03 PM

But how much crit ends up being enough? As I run a few heroics on the side I've removed the Explosive Shot glyph for the Explosive Trap one (and the DPS is truly brutal in heroics, I've not had the chance to really try it in raids yet it being Christmas and all).

I reasoned that 4% more or less wouldn't break or make my DPS (though the spreadsheet shows a 62 DPS loss if I remove it, albeit it does not calculate the Explosive Trap increase, even if I'd not use it on bosses).

That said screw the trap glyph for raids since in raids even trash can cause insta-gibbing if we ge too close to a cleave, Steady Shot might be the thing even if it shows as -11% DPS on the spreadsheet (to note I don't run it on max raid buffs).

Though back on the original question, when is enough crit enough? I have 48% (minus the several different procs like Greatness card that pushes crit to 52% and Master Tactician), had it at 50%, changed around my gear for more AP, currently 48% crit and 5.6k AP.

Thetalisker · 12/26/09, 7:59 AM

Originally Posted by Namarus

One thing I found going SV is that after a certain amount of crit the explosive shot glyph simply isn't worth it.

It's not the amount of crit that determines this choice. Whatever your crit % is, a 4% increase is a 4% increase. The damage gain you get from going from 40% to 44% is the same as from 50% to 54% if everything else stays the same.

The Steady Shot glyph depends on Serpent Sting being on your target, and keeping that up is more important than anything else.

For example, some numbers I got from a couple of logs:

With ES doing 2500 hit and 6000 crit damage, the damage gain from 4% crit is 140 on average per tick.
With SS doing 1800 hit and 4250 crit damage, the damage gain from 10% extra damage is 351 on average per shot, assuming Serpent is on 100% of the time and SS has a 70% crit rate.

With these numbers, if Serpent is on 40% of the time the damage gain from both is the same, on average per shot.

However, since Explosive Shot generates damage over 3 times more often than Steady Shot, the Glyph of Steady Shot is simply not worth it in the end: 3.3 x 140 = 462, which is even more than the SS glyph would give with 100% SS crit rate.

Edit for clarification: 'over 3 times more damage' comes from comparing the number of ES ticks with the number of SS shots on an average raid.

Hagen · 12/26/09, 1:14 PM

You sure did some calculations Thetalisker, but I don't think they matter. Of course the value of the SS glyph depends on the SrS uptime, but since SrS is above SS in our shot priority it should be almost always up when you fire SS (the only times it isn't is if it expires right when you cast your SS).

The spreadsheet should model the value of the glyphs quite accurately.

Namarus · 12/26/09, 5:43 PM

Originally Posted by Thetalisker

It's not the amount of crit that determines this choice. Whatever your crit % is, a 4% increase is a 4% increase. The damage gain you get from going from 40% to 44% is the same as from 50% to 54% if everything else stays the same.

The Steady Shot glyph depends on Serpent Sting being on your target, and keeping that up is more important than anything else.

For example, some numbers I got from a couple of logs:

With ES doing 2500 hit and 6000 crit damage, the damage gain from 4% crit is 140 on average per tick.
With SS doing 1800 hit and 4250 crit damage, the damage gain from 10% extra damage is 351 on average per shot, assuming Serpent is on 100% of the time and SS has a 70% crit rate.

With these numbers, if Serpent is on 40% of the time the damage gain from both is the same, on average per shot.

However, since Explosive Shot generates damage over 3 times more often than Steady Shot, the Glyph of Steady Shot is simply not worth it in the end: 3.3 x 140 = 462, which is even more than the SS glyph would give with 100% SS crit rate.

Edit for clarification: 'over 3 times more damage' comes from comparing the number of ES ticks with the number of SS shots on an average raid.

I think this has been discussed in the past, however, I'll explain it again.

For example

If you have 10% crit and put on the ES glyph you have 14% crit for ES. This is a 25% increase in your crit for ES relative to before.
If you have 40% crit and put on the ES glyph you have 44% crit for ES. This is a 10% increase in your crit for ES relative to before.
If you have 80% crit and put on the ES glyph you have 84% crit for ES. This is a 5% increase in your crit for ES relative to before.

Then you look at the steady shot glyph, which is a flat 10% increase in damage.

After a certain amount of crit the flat damage outweighs the 4% crit.

Which is why top dps builds have been removing the ES glyph.

alienangel · 12/26/09, 6:38 PM

Two things:

a) Which glyph is better is easily and accurately answered by the spreadsheet, since there's nothing complicated to model about either one

b) If you absolutely have to know why the Glyph of Steady Shot can beat out Glyph of ES more easily as gear gets better, it likely has a lot to do with the fact that "gear getting better" for the past 2 tiers means "gear has more ArP" - the relative value of 10% more StS damage compared to 4% more ES crits will be much more for a ICC hunter with 1100 ArP than a Naxx hunter with 150 ArP.

Rivkah · 12/26/09, 6:40 PM

Do also keep in mind when comparing the glyphs that on any movement fight the first thing to get lost in the shuffle is steady shots. You'll likely be doing close to your maximum number of explosive shots on any fight, but steady will vary considerably depending on the type of fight. So if the difference in dps between the glyphs is small it's generally best to stick with explosive. If the gap becomes larger it may be worth switching.

Thetalisker · 12/27/09, 4:57 PM

Originally Posted by Namarus

I think this has been discussed in the past, however, I'll explain it again.

Seriously - put it in an Excel sheet and check it out. No matter what percentage you start with, the damage increase from 4% extra crit is exactly the same. I found it out when I wanted to see at which percentage this switch would be better, and I was surprised by it too - it seems illogical at the first, but if you think it through it does make sense.

Look at it this way - suppose you fire 100 shots, and half of them hit for 1000 damage, and the other half crit for 2000 damage. If you add 4% crit, you'd get 4 more shots that do an extra 1000 damage compared to before. Now start with 70% crits instead of 50% - still those 4% only means 4 shots doing 1000 extra damage each.

And yes, you're absolutely right that, relatively, your crit percentage will benefit more at a lower level, but the extra damage it gives you is the same.

Aieda · 12/28/09, 12:46 PM

When talking about replacing ES glyph everyone is only talking about SS glyph as a candidate replacement. My spreadsheet tells me that Aimed glyph would be the biggest dps upgrade to replace ES glyph with rather than SS, am I completely mistaken about something here?

Saltyone · 12/28/09, 5:18 PM

AiS appears to be a damage gain only in a small window of latency, which the spreadsheet's default happens to fall into (150ms). I've tested this with +200 haste and the graph is the same, though the numbers are inflated.

SrS and ES Glyphs plus:

SrS and SS Glyphs plus:

About Kill Shot

This is a bit of a tangent, but on the topic of glyphs: I see lots of hunters glyph Kill Shot because their number gets bigger. Take caution against this, as it's probably our most misleading glyph.

There are fights where a 6 second reduction to the KS CD is clearly a fantastic usage of a glyph slot, like Yogg minus watchers, Anub ToGC25 and even Deathbringer Saurfang where there is plenty of time sub-20% to cast KS on CD and adds to handle or when you have add duty with mobs that need to die within 9-15s. Most others don’t take much advantage of that CD reduction. Remember it’s not benefitting you if you can’t cast more Kill Shots.

By default, the spreadsheet models around a purely idyllic stand-and-shoot, long-duration fight. It evaluates Kill Shot as if you’re going to get a full 1.2 minutes to use it and keep it on CD. In this time you would only be able to cast 5 Kill Shots (72s / 15s = 4.8). If you glyph for it you could cast 9 Kill Shots (72s / 9s = 8). Feel free to change your own durations in the spreadsheet to revalue the glyph appropriately.

This is a chart that shows the number of additional Kill Shots that occur within that 1.2 minutes when glyphed. The biggest thing that stands out to me is that you’re spending a Glyph slot for N additional attacks (depending on how many seconds are spent sub-20%) on the tail end of a boss fight, having been unused for the majority of the encounter just because it’s averaged out across the entire fight duration.

In some crude PHP: (48 GCDs * 1.5s = 72s)

for ($i=0,$max=48;$i<=$max;$i++) {
print(($i*1.5).":\t".floor($i*1.5/9)."/".floor($i*1.5/15)."\r\n");
}

To me the big question is do you want to buff the 84 Steady Shots cast in that 6 minute fight by 10% or would you rather squeeze in an extra 3 or maybe 4 attacks? Are you really going to see much of a sub-20% HP phase once all of your raids' DPS classes with Execute abilities start using them?

Mustacheride · 12/28/09, 9:55 PM

Salty Definitely has a point that I go over with people quite a bit. I don't go through a whole lot of 6+ min fights. Another thing to add to it is the sub 30% of a fight is on avg one of the fastest points in a fight. Your raid comp can nerf the effective of the glyph. Were not the only class with an execute.

Sukula · 12/29/09, 1:53 AM

Just look around. There are many fights with adds, a loooot of adds. From Ulduar to Ice Crown on 2/3 encounters exist some kind of target that must be nuked fast as possible. KS glyph give me an opportunity to switch fast and deadly to help raid to complete the objective. The number of fights that require your mobility is only increasing now. Naxxramas' time is gone

Rivkah · 12/29/09, 2:16 AM

I wrote this up for the Blizzard hunter forums but given this topic sometimes comes up here I thought I should post it here as well.

Working off the assumption of 104.8% being the correct cap (which I believe it is, but it's possible there's some weird mechanic with the crit depression and I'm not sure if it's been fully tested), here are the potential soft caps to consider for SV:
1) KS + MT: 79.8%
2) KS: 89.8%
3) ES (glyphed) + MT: 86.8%
4) ES (not glyphed) + MT: 90.8%
5) ES (glyphed): 96.8%

Normal Raid buffs add the following:
- 5% crit from feral/fury buff
- 3% crit debuff on boss from mutilate rogue/ele shaman/paladin
- 51 agil from gift for .8% crit (after agil multipliers)
- 10% agil from kings (about 3% crit assuming 2500 unbuffed agil)
- 178 agil from imp SoE for 2.14% crit
Total estimated from raid buffs: 13.94% crit

So basically before taking into account trinket procs you're looking at about a 90.86% display crit cap before buffs for most abilities, 80.86% when MT is procced. 65.86% is when you start seeing KS cap with MT procced. Until you reach that point you are likely getting full value for your crit, although with trinkets procced you may be crit capping.

Trinket procs (this assumes 3 pts in Hunting Party and kings for Agil to crit conversions):
- DBW Heroic Crit Proc: 15.25% crit
- Dark Matter: 13.33% crit
- DBW Crit Proc: 13.07% crit
- DBW Heroic Agil Proc: 10.95% crit
- DBW Agil Proc: 9.38% crit
- DV Heroic: 7.98% crit
- DV: 7.04% crit
- DMC:G: 4.68% crit

The spreadsheet and my site can't really account for all the possibilities of crit capping since it's impossible to predict where the overlaps will happen accurately between procs. But this gives some idea about what the numbers are that you should be looking at before worrying that your crit might be too high.

Update: Forgot survival instincts in my original posting, numbers updated.

Sulik · 12/29/09, 1:10 PM

Deleted*

NextOne · 12/30/09, 8:32 PM

Hi,
With repop of ICC instance I get 2 pieces of T10 with the bonus "Exploit Weakness".

- According to WowHead comments it seems there is no internal CD for this bonus. Is it true ?
- As a Survival Hunter should I update my template ? May be it is better to move points of Improve Sting to IAotH now ? Or should I get, at least, the soft cap of 522 ?