3.0.8 PTR Changes

Look Ma, answers! Seriously, start reading that particular thread at the link, as we have already discussed this quite a bit.

Most of the PTR dummy dps tests I've seen with survival spec hunters have the pet in the 350-450 dps range. At that point, would it be productive to go with Focused Aim and sacrifice some hit for more stats? My thinking is that the chunk taken out of our pet's dps would be a good deal less than the current 50/21/0 setup and the individual dps gain would outstrip the pet loss.

I haven't seen any argument yet that would point me in the direction of not maxing FA. Seems obvious to me that I'd gain more stats (esp crit) by banking +hit items and wearing high crit/ap/haste items when it's very easy to get the +hit from salmon/draenei/FA (and wearing only 3% from gear). I assume it all depends on what gear you have at your disposal, or maybe the 1-3 talents spent elsewhere really would be more dps (aimed/imp ss(lol)/imp aoth)? I dont see it.

The major issue is that the FA +hit does not transfer to your pet. This might seem minor for SV, especially as so little of our dps is concentrated in the pets, but at higher levels it truly is easy to get hit-capped through purple gear and buffs, etc. Also, why spend talent points on something you can max through gear? Shifting those three points over to IAotH and/or making sure Improved Stings is maxed out provide more benefit in virtually every spreadsheet iteration I come up with.

Argument works both ways. i.e. Why spend the time gearing for it when you can max it easily through talents. On the spreadsheets, are you taking into account that when you max FA you then need to change gear for best in slot items. I'm sure the numbers favor the talents if your wearing the same gear (going over hit cap).


Edit: Also, I'm still under the impression that Blizz is considering FA not transferring to pet a bug, along with the rounding issue of our hit %.

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - [BUG] Focused Aim and Pet HR - 2 issues

With my current gear as 6/14/51 Surv spec and a cat pet: 4950 DPS - 3773 personal, 1177 pet
Using a Betrayer of Humanity with 35 agi instead of Black Ice, 3/3 FA, 0/2 Focused Fire, 3/5 Imp AotH, same pet setup: 4933 DPS - 3774 personal, 1158 pet

Dropping hit from gear and getting it from talents is a DPS loss, not only in terms of pet DPS through their lost hit rating, but in the Hunter's own performance because of the talents lost. Losing 1/2 FF and 2 points in Imp AotH almost completely nullifies the gain in stats from using Betrayer of Humanity and 35 agi instead of Black Ice with a weapon chain. There's no reason not to gear for hit rating.

Even if FA did transfer to the pet I wouldn't be surprised if it was STILL a DPS loss because of talents. You'd still be giving up points in MM, losing 3 points in Mortal Shots, or in BM for FF and Imp AotH, to get that hit rating that's so incredibly easy to get on gear. I'd test it but I don't have an unlocked spreadsheet at the moment to play with the calculations.

If your pet could do roughly 1000dps in a raid as MM/Surv (perfectly normal number), if you are missing on 3% of those attempts, then you would be losing about 10dps overall per point spent in Focused Aim, plus you would be short 3 talent points that would otherwise go into damage talents.

The thing about hit is that it is so damned cheap to increase through hit rating. For example, its only 32.79 rating to get 1% hit as opposed to say crit, where its 45.91 rating to get 1% crit. Now 1% hit isn't significantly better than 1% crit, but hit rating is significantly better than crit rating. To elaborate, compare Focused Aim to Lethal Shots. 3 points in FA is basically 98.37 hit rating while LS is 137.73 crit rating, even though hit rating is budgeted on gear the same as crit rating.

That's why hit rating is such a good stat to gear/gem for - its cheap! Better to spend talent points on direct damage related talents than on supplementing your cheapest costing stat if you can avoid it. Now sometimes it may be better to spend on FA depending on gear situations - thats what the spreadsheet is for - but generally speaking, if you can get capped with non-gimped gear, it is likely your best bet.

Well, thats really a personal discussion between you, your gear, your spreadsheet and a test dummy (and possibly your doctor). The more haste you have and the fewer steadies we end up with in rotations (very likely) will diminish the value of IAotH. You could probably hamburger 1 point in FF and say its worth about the same as 1% hit or 1% crit, but its all very gear specific.

I've specced FA before, I'll probably spec FA again at some point (especially if T9 mirrors T6). No one is saying you should never spend points there, but if you had a full set of level 213 gear options, your best choice is almost certainly going to be hit on gear over spending talents.

delete me plz

I am just wondering one simple question which has been asked by many and not been answered it seems. (in favor of the LnL discussion)

Is it benefitial to use Aimed shot or Multishot on a single target 25 man encounter?

Further more I wonder what would be considered the "haste cap" with AotH glyph and speecc(maybe fewer points?) i have 400 haste on my hunter if that helps at all with the calculations ^^.

Also a combined question of those 2: Viabale to use 2 points in Go For Throat?, Rapid killing?, AS?, Imp. stings?
Those are to me the alternatives to imp. AotH. With 1 point manadotry in GFT, I like raid killing alot, since it simply gives a nice dmg inc, although if this is lower then any gained by these others the tell me so


And on latest patch notes i saw a deacrease in ES dmg, although many have spoken of a increase on PTR? please explain ^^

1.Aimed, less mana. If there is more than 1 target up, Multishot.
2.You have enough haste to get SS at 1.5 secs. everything over that is an auto shot dps increase
3. It is of my opinion and most here, that only 1 point into GFT is needed to keep up with the pet's focus demands. As far as Imp AS/Imp Stings/Rapid Killing, it really depends on your spec, but if you are survival (you are posting here), I would use that last point in Imp Stings, but Rapid fire is ok as well.