The Survival Hunter in WotLK - Page 3

Nandei · 12/06/08, 7:07 AM

Originally Posted by Korvek

Does hit rating affect immolation trap? I'm at the 8% hit cap but every now and then I still see my immolation trap missing the heroic training dummy. Is it possible that 8% hit cap is only for ranged attacks and 9% is for everything else?

At least in TBC traps used spell hit, not normal hit. Even though the ratings have now been combined to just one hit stat, spells have higher hit cap, 17%. I do not know if spell hit cap has been lowered like ours has been, but even then it is likely a lot higher than 8%.

KraxisSingular · 12/06/08, 8:01 AM

Originally Posted by Nandei

At least in TBC traps used spell hit, not normal hit. Even though the ratings have now been combined to just one hit stat, spells have higher hit cap, 17%. I do not know if spell hit cap has been lowered like ours has been, but even then it is likely a lot higher than 8%.

Undetermined if the spellhitcap is lowered. It is after a little harder to test out, casters can't just autocast-AFK.

However, traps are still spells *grumble grumble*, but spellhit is thankfully less points per %. So we are not sitting at 9% miss for them at least.

Enova · 12/06/08, 1:54 PM

Originally Posted by KraxisSingular

Undetermined if the spellhitcap is lowered. It is after a little harder to test out, casters can't just autocast-AFK.

However, traps are still spells *grumble grumble*, but spellhit is thankfully less points per %. So we are not sitting at 9% miss for them at least.

I wonder if shooting a wand would be subject to the spell hit formula. That would make for a sure way to find out.

However, my question is different. I'm looking at Nandei's idea about Explosive shot. So, why Explosive over Arcane Shot? Why not use both? I've not tested Survival yet, I'll admit it, so the answer might be just as simple as that, but unless Explosive Shot and Arcane Shot share a cooldown, I see no particular reason not to use it. It might be less dps, but Arcane Shot seems to get quite a bit of attention in the SV tree anyway. This might only be my old school mentality from my days as an EW bot, but I just kind of like the idea of weaving some more shots between my steadies.

Cinderglow · 12/06/08, 4:12 PM

but unless Explosive Shot and Arcane Shot share a cooldown, I see no particular reason not to use it.

They do share a cooldown

Zerlu · 12/06/08, 4:15 PM

Originally Posted by Enova

I wonder if shooting a wand would be subject to the spell hit formula. That would make for a sure way to find out.

However, my question is different. I'm looking at Nandei's idea about Explosive shot. So, why Explosive over Arcane Shot? Why not use both? I've not tested Survival yet, I'll admit it, so the answer might be just as simple as that, but unless Explosive Shot and Arcane Shot share a cooldown, I see no particular reason not to use it. It might be less dps, but Arcane Shot seems to get quite a bit of attention in the SV tree anyway. This might only be my old school mentality from my days as an EW bot, but I just kind of like the idea of weaving some more shots between my steadies.

Arcane and explosive share a CD. Also, Arcane doesn't provide enough of a DPS boost (if any) compared to its high mana cost to warrant using it over Steady. The increased Viper uptime will completely negate any benefit.

EDIT: The most intriguing idea I've seen so far in this thread is the fellow who stands just outside the boss hit box, and drops Immo. to proc lots of LnL. While mana intensive, the guaranteed LnL every 24s may just be the damage boost survival could use. Of course thats on top of the nice bonus of NOT having to spam steady shot non stop.

Arcazua · 12/06/08, 6:12 PM

I've always been both a math-head that min/max'es and a heedless player that throws all that knowledge to the wind and does other things. My current spec I'm playing with says quite a bit about that.

A few side comments about SV builds, though I have no LK raid experience yet (even Naxx 10) to draw from, just my theorycrafting:

* Don't forget that SV is about utility. There are a great many talents that might not translate into DPS, but are still remarkable to have under other circumstances. Having traps last an extra 6 seconds for 1 point and maybe a shorter cooldown, or having extra range, or reducing FD resists, or maybe even (dare I say it) having 6% extra dodge are things to think about. DPS? Definitely not. Perhaps even laughable in a raid environment. But you'll have a hard time convincing me not to take up Scatter Shot for 1 point.

* I question the usefulness of Lock and Load if you aren't trapping. Lock and Load has a max of 6% chance per tick to go off. Serpent ticks every 3 seconds, so you have an expected trigger rate of once per 50 seconds. With the unpredictability of these procs meaning you often miss out on some charges due to timing, and the awkwardness of working the GCD around the 2 second explosions, I'm not sure if you get much from a serpent sting proc other than some saved mana. To be sure, that's worth something, but I don't know HOW valuable it is.

* I also question the usefulness of haste. Although it is true it hastens the triggers of MT, IAotH, and EW slightly, I don't think it really does much for a rotation. People like to use the "but 6 / 1.5 is an integer" argument, without any consideration for the fact that you will never ever fire in exactly 1.5 seconds. With latency considered, 1.7 is a much more reasonably value...after one explosive and three 1.5-speed steadies, you've used up 6.8 seconds. With no haste rating, it's 7.4. Is improving your specials DPS by 8% -- assuming it's even better to keep spamming rather than wait for explosive's CD -- worth over 500 haste rating? Yeah, you get autoshot increases as well, but you're also assuming a perfect rotation of XS-SS-SS-SS with nothing else...you'll fire serpent every 18, you'll have these weird random serpent sting procs if you stick with Lock and Load, Improved Hawk will make it worthless, Rapid Fire will make it worthless, Heroism or any other haste triggers will as well. It seems like way too many itemization points for the cost. Give me an extra 561 agility instead please!

* If Shandara's spreadsheet is to be believed, EW seems to suffer dreadfully diminishing returns per point. I guess I shouldn't be wholly surprised, but 2/3 is good. I would not leave out EW as I have heard some mentioning, because it increases the scaleability of the surv hunter. The only other real advantage surv has in gearing is that stamina actually gives 0.3 AP. With LR and EW, a point of agility gives .63 crit rating (rather than .55) and 1.44 AP. For other specs, it's generally more valuable to stack AP over agi, but this difference essentially reverses the difference. It's not super huge in either direction, but agility is still better. I did a little bit of estimating and decided that it's about 9:4 agi-AP ratio (remember AP comes in twice the quantities) for surv, as opposed to 7:4 for marks and BM. So within about 12%, but swinging the other way.

* Neither PoNE nor Sniper Training are good at all. My instinct is to say that you should use that row to backfill...of course, you'll be backfilling more on the next row since you don't really want more than 2 points in Hunting Party either. Ironic that we have ~3 real points to spend in the last two rows of the tree to reach the ultimate, and then have to plunk 7 randomly, but that's better than 5 points of dead weight (old Master Tactician), right?

ihatepeople · 12/06/08, 7:31 PM

Awesome thread on the Surv spec, i have been anxiously awaiting this thread. Now for my .02 hehe. My armory is up for everyone to see btw, here it is.

The World of Warcraft Armory

I run a sort of "safe" as i like to call it build. I have IAOTH, Careful Aim, and full EW. I took those talents because starting i was severely handicapped in each dps category (haste, hit, crit/agi). However, since upgrading most of my gear, a few of those talents can be revisited and points redistributed.

1. Haste- Since we have a tremendous amount of haste on our t7/t7.5 gear, coupled with the haste we get from rings/boots/capes/weapons, i believe that IAOTH is a beginning talent at best. I currently have 303 haste rating and will only tack on more from gear stats alone when i acquire another 2 pieces for the 4set bonus. We need 523 haste rating to cap steady shot casts, and i firmly believe that hunters can come close to that number with naxx tier pieces and off pieces (10 and 25man respectively). That being said, i think IAOTH is a talent that can be spec'd out of when you acquire more gear upgrades.

2. Hit- Hit is a bit of a bigger issue, as hunters have to compete with rogues (and sometimes warriors and pallies) for off pieces that have hit on them. Again, just like haste, as more hit is gained with off pieces and/or weapons, you can drop points in focused aim. It's just a bit harder to get hit IMO because of different classes needing hit. Of course there is theorycrafting that supports the notion that focused aim is not needed at all, but i like to be capped anyways. I also dislike gemming for hit.

3. Master Tactician/Sniper Training- I never liked MT in BC and for some reason i don't like it in Wrath. I still believe that 5pts to spend for that 10% chance proc is way too much. But, Sniper Training is not really a better option. It seems to me that Sniper Training is a pvp talent for when you are in the open fields ( or in arena) mowing people down. As has been said in this thread numerous times, being 30+ yards away from the boss means you are also 30+ yards away from a healer or buffer. IIRC shaman totems have a 40 yard range. I tried Master Tactician for awhile, and i still didn't like the proc rates on it. However, Sniper Training doesn't seem like a very feasible talent either. So it's a tossup imo between whichever talent is mechanically more sound for you.

4. Expose Weakness- Since i have been combing these forums since Wrath came out, i have found that 3/3 EW is not necessary anymore (wasn't really in BC either in endgame). As Smogh said, with the rogue poison bug still going strong critting and keeping EW up is not a real big issue. Also with a feral druid in raid, any decent gear surv hunter imo should/could be sitting on 40% crit (relative to the current ingame gear levels). I will be speccing to 2/3 very soon as unbuffed im at 33%.

My ultimate goal once I acquire the gear that lets me spec completely out of IAOTH and Focused Aim, is to use a spec like this:

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

I plan on trying out my dps in raids with that spec and seeing how i fare from a Surv aspect.

Zerlu · 12/06/08, 9:41 PM

Originally Posted by Arcazua

* I question the usefulness of Lock and Load if you aren't trapping. Lock and Load has a max of 6% chance per tick to go off. Serpent ticks every 3 seconds, so you have an expected trigger rate of once per 50 seconds. With the unpredictability of these procs meaning you often miss out on some charges due to timing, and the awkwardness of working the GCD around the 2 second explosions, I'm not sure if you get much from a serpent sting proc other than some saved mana. To be sure, that's worth something, but I don't know HOW valuable it is.

* I also question the usefulness of haste. Although it is true it hastens the triggers of MT, IAotH, and EW slightly, I don't think it really does much for a rotation. People like to use the "but 6 / 1.5 is an integer" argument, without any consideration for the fact that you will never ever fire in exactly 1.5 seconds. With latency considered, 1.7 is a much more reasonably value...after one explosive and three 1.5-speed steadies, you've used up 6.8 seconds. With no haste rating, it's 7.4. Is improving your specials DPS by 8% -- assuming it's even better to keep spamming rather than wait for explosive's CD -- worth over 500 haste rating? Yeah, you get autoshot increases as well, but you're also assuming a perfect rotation of XS-SS-SS-SS with nothing else...you'll fire serpent every 18, you'll have these weird random serpent sting procs if you stick with Lock and Load, Improved Hawk will make it worthless, Rapid Fire will make it worthless, Heroism or any other haste triggers will as well. It seems like way too many itemization points for the cost. Give me an extra 561 agility instead please!

LnL is indeed a faily weak talent, but it is still a DPS increase, and there really aren't any better places to stick the talent points. Being bad at math, I really can't do much theorycrafting, but as soon as I get off work tonight I will be trying out the above method (dropping a trap to initiate a LnL proc) and generating some data from that. While Immo. trap in general isn't very a very good source of damage, with Ebon Plague and Trap Mastery, there is a chance the benefit of being in melee and dropping traps may outweigh our more turret-like method for dealing damage.

I'm going to use WWS to record any numbers, and this (Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft) spec

As for the usefulness of haste, we can essentially assume that its importance isnt as high as when we all only used steadyshot. While it is nice to get our Steadies to 1.5s, I'm not sure it should be a priority ahead of agi and RAP. Right now haste only increases white and steady damage. While these are significant sources of damage, it will not be near as important as stats that increase our damage across the board(like RAP and Agi.)

EDIT: Began testing, then had errors with WWS. I'm not sure if its just me, or the new WWS is quirky, so will hopefully have that figured out soon.

Smoggers · 12/07/08, 5:41 AM

People that are saying iaoth is a poor talent because it's scales poorly against our t7 are contradicting themselves. If you're looking at iaoth assuming end-game gear, then you need to be weighing it against the actual best-in-slot items for us, which isn't our tier7.

Nandei · 12/07/08, 5:43 AM

Some more about Explosive shot:

Explosive and Arcane Shots indeed share a cooldown. They also have the same mana cost. These things were so self-evident to me that I forgot to mention them, sorry for that. (I have been Survival myself already in pre-Wrath 3.0, to provide replenishment for the raid, so my perspective is a bit biased towards the SV spec

)

There are some more added benefits to Explosive besides just the damage, which alone is in my opinion enough to justify using just Explosive. Unfortunately I haven't had any addons to see it properly, but with just the default scrolling combat text, it does seem to me that all three charges of Explosive shot give a mana return when in Viper. Each of them also have a change of critting and proccing Thrill of the Hunt. I haven't really been paying close attention to it but I would think that any of the three ticks can also proc Replenishment, Expose Weakness and Master Tactician.

So it seems to me that Explosive shot is not only better dps, but also more mana efficient than Arcane shot because it is returning more mana with more Thrill of the Hunt procs and when used in Viper.

I will try to test this later on when I get back home.

Edit: Each tick of Explosive does give as much mana back as one Arcane shot in Viper, but Thrill of the Hunt ticks are only 1/3 of an Arcane proc.

Arides · 12/07/08, 8:24 AM

I don't think we can easily discount Lock and Load without discounting the one very strong point of the tree right now, and that is the synergy of its talents. You have Serpent up anyway because of Noxious Stings (which I'm assuming is in any build with access to Glyph of Steady Shot), and a proc gives you multiple uses. The Explosive/Arcane/Explosive or 3x Arcane on Explosive immune mobs (or vice-versa) is obvious, but you can also spread 3 individual Explosives on 3 individual mobs, all of whom then proceed to proximity tick each other. And all of those ticks, and all of those proximity ticks, can crit [NB: I don't know if it's been determined if each crit possibility is calculated separately or if it's determined on the initial hit]--put a HaT rogue in the party and things will die so fast if you blink you'll miss they were even there.

Since trap procs are guaranteed, L&L is a given for any trap-heavy playstyle. I'm not entirely enamored yet of the aforementioned trap dancing in a raid environment, due to both the DPS lost during movement time and the very real possibility of getting clobbered while in melee range, but it does bear further looking into. (The much-maligned Freezing Arrow has obvious advantages here, and I use it heavily while soloing for low-mana chain killing--unfortunately mobs that break the effect through immunity do not set off the L&L procs, which makes it useless on most bosses I've seen so far).

Namarus · 12/07/08, 12:59 PM

1. Haste- Since we have a tremendous amount of haste on our t7/t7.5 gear, coupled with the haste we get from rings/boots/capes/weapons, i believe that IAOTH is a beginning talent at best. I currently have 303 haste rating and will only tack on more from gear stats alone when i acquire another 2 pieces for the 4set bonus. We need 523 haste rating to cap steady shot casts, and i firmly believe that hunters can come close to that number with naxx tier pieces and off pieces (10 and 25man respectively). That being said, i think IAOTH is a talent that can be spec'd out of when you acquire more gear upgrades.

It is going to take a long long time before you can spec out of IAOTH, and rather than aiming for gear with haste, you should just accept gear with haste, and try for other pieces that do not have haste. IAOTH is a stepping stone for Focus Fire. I really do not see any reasonable survival hunter spec'ing out of this for a long time.

2. Hit- Hit is a bit of a bigger issue, as hunters have to compete with rogues (and sometimes warriors and pallies) for off pieces that have hit on them. Again, just like haste, as more hit is gained with off pieces and/or weapons, you can drop points in focused aim. It's just a bit harder to get hit IMO because of different classes needing hit. Of course there is theorycrafting that supports the notion that focused aim is not needed at all, but i like to be capped anyways. I also dislike gemming for hit.

I also suffer the problems with hit, especially trying to pick up melee weapons with hit, since rogues are trying to get them all. 2-handers paladins, deathknights, and warriors all want them. Leaving hunters with a hard choice for a stat stick melee weapon that melee do not want.

3. Master Tactician/Sniper Training- I never liked MT in BC and for some reason i don't like it in Wrath. I still believe that 5pts to spend for that 10% chance proc is way too much. But, Sniper Training is not really a better option. It seems to me that Sniper Training is a pvp talent for when you are in the open fields ( or in arena) mowing people down. As has been said in this thread numerous times, being 30+ yards away from the boss means you are also 30+ yards away from a healer or buffer. IIRC shaman totems have a 40 yard range. I tried Master Tactician for awhile, and i still didn't like the proc rates on it. However, Sniper Training doesn't seem like a very feasible talent either. So it's a tossup imo between whichever talent is mechanically more sound for you.

Master tactician is a solid talent when you have low crit. In BC this became a mediocre talent as people geared up because they had so much crit, and it suffered from diminishing returns as such. However, right now, when people are still gearing up, it is an excellent filler talent to increase dps.

With regards to sniper training. Unless your healers are sitting right on the mob, there is no way your out of range of your healers while using sniper training. In terms of being out of range of totem, get your deathknights to horn of winter or sit with your elemental shaman. There are many fights in all content instances where you can use your sniper training to good effect. It's just a matter of looking for the opportunities to use it.

4. Expose Weakness- Since i have been combing these forums since Wrath came out, i have found that 3/3 EW is not necessary anymore (wasn't really in BC either in endgame). As Smogh said, with the rogue poison bug still going strong critting and keeping EW up is not a real big issue. Also with a feral druid in raid, any decent gear surv hunter imo should/could be sitting on 40% crit (relative to the current ingame gear levels). I will be speccing to 2/3 very soon as unbuffed im at 33%.

Unless your crit is terribly low at the moment raid buffed, you should put 3 points in, however, with 2 your uptime should still be excellent.

My biggest annoyance at the moment is with lock and load, when it procs 90% of the time my explosive shot is on cooldown, rather than immediately refreshing your explosive shot, you have to wait for your cooldown to complete before you get the benefit of your lock and load, this often wastes about half the total cooldown time. Often as a result I am having to substitute a sub-optimal ES->AS->ES to use up the proc.

KraxisSingular · 12/08/08, 12:15 AM

Originally Posted by Namarus

I also suffer the problems with hit, especially trying to pick up melee weapons with hit, since rogues are trying to get them all. 2-handers paladins, deathknights, and warriors all want them. Leaving hunters with a hard choice for a stat stick melee weapon that melee do not want.

My biggest annoyance at the moment is with lock and load, when it procs 90% of the time my explosive shot is on cooldown, rather than immediately refreshing your explosive shot, you have to wait for your cooldown to complete before you get the benefit of your lock and load, this often wastes about half the total cooldown time. Often as a result I am having to substitute a sub-optimal ES->AS->ES to use up the proc.

I would say stuff like Wraith Spear is pretty much optimized for Hunters. Loads of Agi, not too much Stamina and jampacked with ratings and AP. That's the normal Hunter approach. While Warriors and DKs are looking at Str first and foremost, and often a lot more Stamina. This polearm isn't that great for them. It is a perfectly viable and acceptable weapon going from blue... sure. But even to selfish twohander people it should be obvious. Just like no idiot would roll on tankguns, even if they had higher DPS (heard of an MM with a 1:1 rotation back in the day with Rifle of the Stoic Guardian).
Blizzard has become better at balancing the gear out a bit towards intended roles. But with more stats to shuffle around it is of course also easier.
But the best thing is just being sensible about it in general.

I didn't know LnL worked like that. I tohught it was refresh and pop away. This sucks, and should honestly be changed. It is an annoying factor (how many other procs have to wait for unrelated CDs?), and it lower the DPS of a spec that isn't exactly matching the other specs, nor does it provide that much to a raid any longer.

ihatepeople · 12/08/08, 3:54 AM

Originally Posted by Namarus

It is going to take a long long time before you can spec out of IAOTH, and rather than aiming for gear with haste, you should just accept gear with haste, and try for other pieces that do not have haste. IAOTH is a stepping stone for Focus Fire. I really do not see any reasonable survival hunter spec'ing out of this for a long time.

I also suffer the problems with hit, especially trying to pick up melee weapons with hit, since rogues are trying to get them all. 2-handers paladins, deathknights, and warriors all want them. Leaving hunters with a hard choice for a stat stick melee weapon that melee do not want.

Master tactician is a solid talent when you have low crit. In BC this became a mediocre talent as people geared up because they had so much crit, and it suffered from diminishing returns as such. However, right now, when people are still gearing up, it is an excellent filler talent to increase dps.

With regards to sniper training. Unless your healers are sitting right on the mob, there is no way your out of range of your healers while using sniper training. In terms of being out of range of totem, get your deathknights to horn of winter or sit with your elemental shaman. There are many fights in all content instances where you can use your sniper training to good effect. It's just a matter of looking for the opportunities to use it.

Unless your crit is terribly low at the moment raid buffed, you should put 3 points in, however, with 2 your uptime should still be excellent.

My biggest annoyance at the moment is with lock and load, when it procs 90% of the time my explosive shot is on cooldown, rather than immediately refreshing your explosive shot, you have to wait for your cooldown to complete before you get the benefit of your lock and load, this often wastes about half the total cooldown time. Often as a result I am having to substitute a sub-optimal ES->AS->ES to use up the proc.

With regards to IAOTH and haste, i understand your argument but still disagree. I don't even have to really "aim" per say for gear with haste on it, it's just that almost every decent piece of raid gear mail has haste on it. Like i said, I am at 303 haste without even trying very hard and picking up gear that I think is a solid upgrade. Just like you said Master Tacitician and 3/3 EW were in essence crutches for lower geared individuals i believe IAOTH is a talent for people with low haste. I myself am in that category at this point in time, but not for long. As for focused fire, it is a very good talent. However, i view it in a double-sided way. On one hand, it provides more dps with the 2% more damage and the increased crit while kill command is active. On the other hand, the 2% damage is the only thing that is ultimately appealing imo because its a solid increase. The increased crit for your pet while kill command is active is very good, but being surv we have none of those delicious benefits from our pet critting on attacks like BM hunters do. So you will get more dps from your pet and ultimately yourself, but i think that miniscule gain and the 7 points you allot for that gain can be better suited to other talents in the MM or Surv tree.

An idea i had was to take those 7 would be points from the BM tree and put 5 of them into the MM tree so i could max out Improved Hunter's Mark and Mortal Shots. Then in the Surv tree, taking both Sniper training and Master Tactician. Your comments on Sniper Training made me rethink it a bit and your sentiments do make sense. However, i do stand strong on my beliefs about IAOTH and haste. I'm not too bull-headed as to ignore clear cut solid arguments though, so i recognize what you're saying as good advice. My spec will also stay like it currently is for a bit longer. I don't have all the gear that want to have to try out my dream spec, so I'm staying with this spec for now. Again, my ideal spec is something like this:

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

Winged · 12/08/08, 5:33 AM

Originally Posted by Cilithan

3.6 Weaponspeed

With the unlocking of Autoshots and Specialshots weaponspeed no longer dictates the weapon of choice. DPS is the most relevant, followed by the stats on said weapon. With two more or less equal weapons in said respects a fast weapon is probably favorable for SV Hunters because of on crit/hit procs like EW, TotH, Mast Tact, ImpAotH, Hunt Party, GftT.

TotH can only proc on Styles, so the speed not relevant for it, the same ist true for Hunting Party which can only procc on Explosive, Arcane & Steady Shot.

Originally Posted by Cilithan

In WotLK with the unlocking of Autoshots and Specialshots max dps rotations depend on what damage an ability deals relative to others. Manacost per shot is also a factor since the use of more expensive shots may mean more time spent in AotViper. Atm Explosive Shot is the most damaging ability for SV Hunters. A solid rotation seems to be Serpent Sting followed by Explosive shot every cooldown and Steadyshots in between while using an instant like Arcane Shot when forced to move. Reapply Serpent Sting everytime it drops off (mind: refreshing Serpent Sting before it runs out is a dps loss).

There is no reason to use Arcane when moving because it shares its CD with Explosiv Shot.