The Survival Hunter in WotLK - Page 53

Natalis · 02/11/09, 6:03 AM

Originally Posted by alarge

Your gear is fine. As earlier stated, you want to gem for agility instead of AP, but that won't cause that big a disparity.

I'm going to guess (without seeing a WWS) that the issue is one (or both) of two things:

1. You haven't trained the highest rank of ES. I went for a week myself after switching to SV before I realized that I was using rank 1 ES and Aimed Shot.

2. Your shot choices are bad. SV is considerably different than BM was. You cannot rely upon either a fixed shot rotation or a spam macro. I use (and recommend) the following priority:

a. Kill Shot -- I have this macro'd into my ES, AS, and SS, so I don't really count this.

b. Explosive Shot - If you are in the middle of an LnL proc, you either need to pause for a sec or so (after GCD) between ES's or slip in an instant (Aimed Shot, SrS, or even HM)

c. Aimed Shot (or Multi-Shot if you don't have Aimed)

d. Serpent Sting

e. Steady Shot

Getting the priority and the timing right is the (IMO) tricky part of SV. You can't simply use a rule like ES,SS,SS,SS,ES,...

Fixing both of these issues should add nearly 800-1000 dps right away. Beyond that, it's about raid synergy, trinket procs, etc.

I disagree about using Multi-Shot. Using Multi-Shot (shouldn't have Aimed Shot if you are purely raiding) in your rotation if there is only 1 target at a time on a boss fight (which is basically always the case on Naxx boss fights) reduces your overall damage. This is only true however if your Steady Shot cast is close or hopefully at least equal to the GCD.
Steady Shot is inherently more damage than Multi-Shot.

However, the point about LnL proc is exactly correct. Using another shot like Steady Shot or refreshing your Serpent Sting in between your next 2 free Explosive Shots maximizes your damage because it lets Explosive Shot's dot to tick.

Æthien · 02/11/09, 6:27 AM

Originally Posted by Natalis

shouldn't have Aimed Shot if you are purely raiding

Explain to me why exactly.
Aimed shot is an instant shot that does more damage than Steady shot, it's not hard to use every cooldown mana wise, although nothing really is if you have JoW.
And because it is an instant it is also very nice on fights that require a lot of movement.

Just because something is great in PvP doesn't mean it's useless for PvE.

whylde · 02/11/09, 7:20 AM

aimed is cool, pvp and pve wise.

on a sidenote i just did some vault 25 and it appears to be that my explosiv shot does noticable less dmg then yesterday's fault (critted for 3000-4400 (average 3900 - thats what recount says) and yesterday it was 5,5k. seems to be rather fishy, dps overall dropped ~350

DomiJi · 02/11/09, 7:44 AM

I am a big fan of aimed shot and 1/18/52 or 2/18/51.

Aimed is very nice cause you have another instant shot which gives
you more burst dmg and you can better handle with movement-bosses.
Thats what i thought the last few weeks.

Now i've used the spreadsheet and calculated the difference between using aimed or multi (1/18/52 and 6/14/51)
With my equip i gain nearly 40 dps with using multi (6/14/51) instead of aimed (1/18/52).

Is it correct that the spreadsheet only calculates that with a single target ?
If it's true then the dps gain in a raid situation like naxx should be even more than about 40 dps in my case ?!

Now i realy think about to drop aimed in my rotation and pick up multi?!

Æthien · 02/11/09, 7:56 AM

Jup 6/14/51 is better dps as long as you can stand and shoot.

DomiJi · 02/11/09, 8:04 AM

*please ignore my answer i forgot that multishot has an 1 second cast time*

But multi is an instant shot too ?

If the spreadsheet told us that the multi is better on a single target in a stand and shot situation
then i should be still better in a movement situation ?!

Fierra · 02/11/09, 9:09 AM

Originally Posted by DomiJi

*please ignore my answer i forgot that multishot has an 1 second cast time*

But multi is an instant shot too ?

If the spreadsheet told us that the multi is better on a single target in a stand and shot situation
then i should be still better in a movement situation ?!

MS has a .5s cast time, not 1s. If you can afford to stand still MS if better; if you need to move, AS is better.

Everglade · 02/11/09, 10:57 AM

I have found, in practice, that aimed shot does not help DPS, for any build, BM, MM, or SV. Its damage is too low, plus the added downside of a high mana cost, thus, lowering total DPS per mana bar. Honestly, the math supports using Aimed Shot, but time with the practice dummies shows better results with out it.

[Edit]
Also, if you're having to move around a lot, rather than worry about instant shots, use that time to trap dance.
[/Edit]

DomiJi · 02/11/09, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by Everglade

I have found, in practice, that aimed shot does not help DPS, for any build, BM, MM, or SV. Its damage is too low, plus the added downside of a high mana cost, thus, lowering total DPS per mana bar. Honestly, the math supports using Aimed Shot, but time with the practice dummies shows better results with out it.

That is quite interesting cause i've made nearly the same experience in naxx last week.
We're three hunters in naxx and one of them comes nearly close to me in recount.

Actually it was more an accident but for a few seconds i dropt the aimed shot in my
rota and cast only explosive shots and steady shots. my dps gain and now there
was a clear difference between us. I thought it could be that my connection is too slow
and may cause of some lags i perform better with only casting explosive shots ?!

Sore82 · 02/11/09, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by Ingmar

No offense but this is hardly a comparison, your WWS of this week covers a 1.37m kill, while the other one is 2.37m. It's pretty obvious that the heroism / rapid fire uptime % is a lot higher, which means your DPS took a fairly large hit.

Average ES tick this week: 1863 with 77% crit, last week: 2182 with 71% crit.

The only reason I posted them was to show that getting past 6k is still very possible, regardless of how fast you kill Patchwerk (this week was 2:13, week before was 1:37 (speed run), and the week before that was 2:37).

I really think one of the best fights to look at what our potential DPS (as well as many other classes) can be on a somewhat realistic fight is Loatheb without killing any of the spores. For this fight, I was able to stand still about 90% of the time (had to adjust as the tank adjusted) and was able to use most of my shots when available (had to not use MS a few times due to spores being very close to Loatheb).

Regardless, the purpose of me posting the previous weeks wasent to try and say each week was exactly the same - only that the DPS potential is still their regardless of how fast you do it. As I stated, my gear was the only thing that was pretty consistent through the weeks.

mako · 02/11/09, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by Natalis

I disagree about using Multi-Shot. Using Multi-Shot (shouldn't have Aimed Shot if you are purely raiding) in your rotation if there is only 1 target at a time on a boss fight (which is basically always the case on Naxx boss fights) reduces your overall damage. This is only true however if your Steady Shot cast is close or hopefully at least equal to the GCD.
Steady Shot is inherently more damage than Multi-Shot.

However, the point about LnL proc is exactly correct. Using another shot like Steady Shot or refreshing your Serpent Sting in between your next 2 free Explosive Shots maximizes your damage because it lets Explosive Shot's dot to tick.

Please don't spread false information. Both Aimed and Multi-shot do the same damage (aimed having the advantage of being instant, and benefiting from sniper training if specced into it), which is considerably higher than current steady shot damage. Unless mana is an issue, it is unquestionably a dps increase to work one of the two shots into your rotation for single targets, seeing as it's simply replacing one steady shot with one higher damaging attack over the course of one gcd.

As discussed several times before (in this thread), on LnL procs the optimal usage is to shoot an explosive shot, wait an extra .5 sec beyond the global (2 seconds total) and then fire another steady. Interleaving shots is an option primarily useful for players with poor latency and/or slow reaction times as well as those who are lazy.

Esoth · 02/11/09, 11:36 AM

Originally Posted by Everglade

I have found, in practice, that aimed shot does not help DPS, for any build, BM, MM, or SV. Its damage is too low, plus the added downside of a high mana cost, thus, lowering total DPS per mana bar. Honestly, the math supports using Aimed Shot, but time with the practice dummies shows better results with out it.

[Edit]
Also, if you're having to move around a lot, rather than worry about instant shots, use that time to trap dance.
[/Edit]

Practice dummies don't require any movement so aimed will only have a slight benefit. Unless you spent an insane amount of time at one, RNG will also give you varying results in a way that makes it impossible to see the real benefit aimed shot might provide.

Your edited part makes no sense - there's no reason to assume that movement time can always be applied to trap dancing time. I suspect that a lot of the times you are forced to move, you are probably moving AWAY from something trappable.

Takeaim · 02/11/09, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by Fierra

MS has a .5s cast time, not 1s. If you can afford to stand still MS if better; if you need to move, AS is better.

MS is always better when there are multiple targets. However standing still or moving against single targets, aimed shot comes out ahead because it costs less mana but does the same amount of damage.

And you should not see a dps loss from using either in 25 mans. Mana regen is so crazy right now, especially for hunters. They also do more damage per global cool down than steady shot.

RobotChicken · 02/11/09, 1:31 PM

I've recently been wondering how much of a DPS decrease it is if you are casting a Steady Shot for example 1 second into ES being off cooldown. This seems to happen a lot with me (because I still can't get out of my old BM habit of just ramming my skull on the Steady Shot key). To put it into a question, how long before ES is off cooldown should you not be casting Steady Shot? Let's say ES is 1 sec away from being off cooldown, and let's say that my Steady Shot's cast time is 1.5 sec. Should I stop and wait for ES to be off cooldown, or wait for ES? Let's also ignore Aimed Shot/Multi-Shot. From what I understand the answer is "yes," but I'd like some opinions.

Faerdael · 02/11/09, 2:27 PM

I've recently been wondering how much of a DPS decrease it is if you are casting a Steady Shot for example 1 second into ES being off cooldown. This seems to happen a lot with me (because I still can't get out of my old BM habit of just ramming my skull on the Steady Shot key). To put it into a question, how long before ES is off cooldown should you not be casting Steady Shot? Let's say ES is 1 sec away from being off cooldown, and let's say that my Steady Shot's cast time is 1.5 sec. Should I stop and wait for ES to be off cooldown, or wait for ES? Let's also ignore Aimed Shot/Multi-Shot. From what I understand the answer is "yes," but I'd like some opinions.

Here is the way I see that: the idea behind waiting for your next explosive would be to increase the total number of explosives you get in the fight. Putting Lock and Load aside for a moment, lets take your example of 1 second left on your Explosive shot cooldown. Lets also assume that a steady is capped at 1.5 seconds. Also, I'll take the numbers from a Simulationcraft Sample Output: Explosive Shot = 11922 damage per execute; Steady Shot = 2663 damage per execute (these are not likely close to your numbers, but fine for an example).

Casting steady would cost you .5 seconds on future Explosive shot cooldowns, meaning you would have to defer 12 such steady shots to gain 1 extra explosive shot. This means you would either have 12*2663 = 31956 damage via steady shot, or 11922 damage from that extra explosive shot.

The actual breakpoint is going to vary based on the damage you put out on those shots (check Shot Rotation tab on spreadsheet), your actual steady shot time, and your latency, but there is the general idea, I think.

Esoth · 02/11/09, 3:29 PM

Originally Posted by Faerdael

Here is the way I see that: the idea behind waiting for your next explosive would be to increase the total number of explosives you get in the fight. Putting Lock and Load aside for a moment, lets take your example of 1 second left on your Explosive shot cooldown. Lets also assume that a steady is capped at 1.5 seconds. Also, I'll take the numbers from a Simulationcraft Sample Output: Explosive Shot = 11922 damage per execute; Steady Shot = 2663 damage per execute (these are not likely close to your numbers, but fine for an example).

Casting steady would cost you .5 seconds on future Explosive shot cooldowns, meaning you would have to defer 12 such steady shots to gain 1 extra explosive shot. This means you would either have 12*2663 = 31956 damage via steady shot, or 11922 damage from that extra explosive shot.

The actual breakpoint is going to vary based on the damage you put out on those shots (check Shot Rotation tab on spreadsheet), your actual steady shot time, and your latency, but there is the general idea, I think.

I think it would basically look something like the following.
Steady speed (worst case, no haste): 2/1.15 ~= 1.74

Wait: (ES+SS*2)/6 = (11922+2663*2)/6 = 2874.7
You have time to get two steadies and it will always take 6 seconds (the cooldown of ES).

No Wait: (ES+SS*3)/(1.5+1.74*3) = 19911/6.72 = 2962.9
You're extending your rotation by 0.72 seconds for the sake of an "extra" steady shot. I realize lag is going to be a factor too, but in most cases you're not going to have 0% haste from gear like in this example.

alarge · 02/11/09, 4:22 PM

Originally Posted by Esoth

I think it would basically look something like the following.
Steady speed (worst case, no haste): 2/1.15 ~= 1.74

Wait: (ES+SS*2)/6 = (11922+2663*2)/6 = 2874.7
You have time to get two steadies and it will always take 6 seconds (the cooldown of ES).

No Wait: (ES+SS*3)/(1.5+1.74*3) = 19911/6.72 = 2962.9
You're extending your rotation by 0.72 seconds for the sake of an "extra" steady shot. I realize lag is going to be a factor too, but in most cases you're not going to have 0% haste from gear like in this example.

Using this approach, you can ask: "How long can I delay my ES to shoot an extra SS before it is a dps loss?"

Specifically, you have

(ES + SS*2)/6 = (ES + SS*3)/x

Solve for X and it will be the maximum time alloted for you to fit in the 3 SS's before it is a DPS loss. X-6 is the amount you could delay the subsequent ES.

Using the above numbers, you have:
2874.7 = 19911/x
x = 6.99

So the longest you could delay your following ES is ~1 sec before you get a DPS loss.

For me (my gear is not as good as the previous poster), I have:
ES = 9378
SS = 2149

So we get:
2279.3 = 15825/x
x = 6.94

So the longest I can delay my ES is ~0.94 secs.

Based upon these results, I would expect the max delay roughly be near 1 sec for most folks.

Everglade · 02/11/09, 5:12 PM

Originally Posted by Esoth

Practice dummies don't require any movement so aimed will only have a slight benefit. Unless you spent an insane amount of time at one, RNG will also give you varying results in a way that makes it impossible to see the real benefit aimed shot might provide.

Your edited part makes no sense - there's no reason to assume that movement time can always be applied to trap dancing time. I suspect that a lot of the times you are forced to move, you are probably moving AWAY from something trappable.

A few hundred shots at a practice dummy should give you a decent sample size. Yes, the more time spent the better, but I think the odds are against RNG skewing results that greatly.

As for using times when you have to move for trap dancing.. lots of bosses are approachable when movement is required.
OS (use the melee hole in the firewall), Vault, celling falling on you, run up and drop a trap, Getting out of a Sapphiron blizzard, dropping a poison cloud behind Grob, switching sides on Thaddius, etc... If you look for the opportunity, there a times to drop traps when you're already needing to run around. But yes, not all bosses have that opportunity.

Thayer · 02/11/09, 8:03 PM

Originally Posted by Everglade

A few hundred shots at a practice dummy should give you a decent sample size. Yes, the more time spent the better, but I think the odds are against RNG skewing results that greatly.

As for using times when you have to move for trap dancing.. lots of bosses are approachable when movement is required.
OS (use the melee hole in the firewall), Vault, celling falling on you, run up and drop a trap, Getting out of a Sapphiron blizzard, dropping a poison cloud behind Grob, switching sides on Thaddius, etc... If you look for the opportunity, there a times to drop traps when you're already needing to run around. But yes, not all bosses have that opportunity.

Crit returns for a "few hundred shots" can vary as much as +/- 5 percent, and even over 1000 shots, RNG has been shown to swing as much ad +/- 3 percent. So at 50 percent crit on a level 80 dummy from behind, sometimes you will get 45 percent returned and sometimes you will get 55 percent returned over 200- 400 shots. Over a 1000 shots even you will get a return of 47 percent to 53 percent at its worse, and a +/- 2 percent crit swing is within acceptable derivation tolerances.

This is just crit alone, and is not considering proc variances, average damage variance, and variance in crit bonus (with the meta gem it can swing from 202 percent to 209 percent over 1000 shots).

Otherwise, a "few hundred shots" is not going to give you any information you can count on substantially. The odds are pretty high in favor of RNG actually, so that is why I use 12,000 shot tests to get my basic information, and at times that is not even enough.

Zeel · 02/12/09, 4:31 AM

Fellow hunters,

I've been using this and all the other threads at Hunter Class Mechanics as my guideline to determine
how I could best improve my results in PvE.
I believe my gear, enchantments/gems and rotations (shot-priorities) are as they should be.
I've been fine-tuning my talents now and then to find the best suitable for my needs but they have always
been what is considered "valid" talent builds here at EJ forums.
Still I seem to be about 1000 dps behind equally or worse geared hunters.

I would be extremely grateful if you guys could take a look at my yesterday's Naxxramas run and see if something
could be found to improve my personal results.

Whole raid can be found here: WoW Meter Online

and some of the individual bosses can be found here:

- Maexxna: WoW Meter Online
- Patchwerk: WoW Meter Online
- Grobbulus: WoW Meter Online
- Loatheb: WoW Meter Online

Character name is Zeal.

Few points of interest:

My talent build yesterday was 6/14/51 and I respecced last night to 2/18/51
( now that I look at it there seems to be 1 point forgotten. it still should be 2 / 18 / 51 )

I also had [Tunic of Masked Suffering] instead of [Valorous Cryptstalker Tunic] and 3 of my gems
were +hit instead of +agi.

We did not have retribution paladin in raid so those buffs were missing.

I used cat with standard dps build.

I suppose there are several issues that could be improved raid-wise and even thou I´d be very happy to hear them
all, I'd like to focus on my personal play as it (hopefully) is easier to adjust than raid synergy.

I did not intend this post to be yet another "omg-I-can't-dps" - type of post even thou it may seem like it.
It's just that I've always tried to push my knowledge and awareness of this class to the max and now I've
found myself in a position where I cannot make decent results and I have no idea whatsoever how to personally
improve.

uiemad · 02/12/09, 4:33 AM

Originally Posted by whylde

aimed is cool, pvp and pve wise.

on a sidenote i just did some vault 25 and it appears to be that my explosiv shot does noticable less dmg then yesterday's fault (critted for 3000-4400 (average 3900 - thats what recount says) and yesterday it was 5,5k. seems to be rather fishy, dps overall dropped ~350

Mine and the other sv hunter in my naxx group 10 man were seeing something similar. I cant tell you exactly how much my ES was doing last week but im pretty sure it was more. and my dps on bosses was about 200-300 less than it was last week.

Ingmar · 02/12/09, 5:23 AM

Originally Posted by Zeel

1000 dps behind equally or worse geared hunters.

Whole raid can be found here: WoW Meter Online

My talent build yesterday was 6/14/51 and I respecced last night to 2/18/51
( now that I look at it there seems to be 1 point forgotten. it still should be 2 / 18 / 51 )

I also had [Tunic of Masked Suffering] instead of [Valorous Cryptstalker Tunic] and 3 of my gems
were +hit instead of +agi.

We did not have retribution paladin in raid so those buffs were missing.

I used cat with standard dps build.

Well tbh, the fight length at for example patchwerk (5.01) is about the worst time you can have., if you'd take a 2-3 minute kill the CD/heroism usage would be far more optimal. I'm guessing you are taking those kind of WWS's to compare yourself to.

Checking your raid setup I see only 1 shaman, and he put down:
Mana Tide Totem(R1) : 1 Times
Flametongue Totem(R8) : 1 Times
Mana Spring Totem(R8) : 2 Times
Stoneskin Totem(R10) : 1 Times
Wrath of Air Totem(R1) : 1 Times

And together with Horn of Winter(R2): 2 Times ( 03:03 , 60% ) in your buff list, this means you lacked a lot (168 if I recall correctly) of agility during 40% of the fight there.

Abominable Might : 89 Times ( 03:49 , 75% ) means you lacked 10% AP over 25% of the fight.

Rampage(R1) : 11 Times ( 02:20 , 46% ) means you lacked 5% crit over 54% of the fight.

All of this makes me wonder how far away you were during the entire fight, or if the meter is just missing some information. Besides that, I'm not sure if you were using mammoth cutters and elixirs + food if you were going for max DPS.

Zeel · 02/12/09, 7:34 AM

thank you for your reply. You are correct in in the matter of distance. I tried to position myself there so
that I'd get the benefit of Sniper Training - Spell - World of Warcraft.
That might have resulted my lack of all the buffs.

What can also be seen there is that most of the raid was dead before Patchwerk was down. Hence the long duration
of that particular fight.
But Patchwerk is not the whole issue here, although it's one of the most reliable penchmarks in Naxxramas.

Looking at my overall performance in raid it's clear that there still is some other factors as well.

I compared my result from the Patchwerk fight with 2 random hunters with about equal spec and gear

hunter 1:
DPS: 6065
combat time: 02:11
amount of damage: 6.11%

hunter 2:
DPS: 5430
combat time: 02:36
amount of damage: 6.52%

me:
DPS: 4231
combat time: 05:06
amount of damage: 9.91%

usage % of different shots and the buffs we applied were about same with us all.

Ingmar · 02/12/09, 8:38 AM

I think you missed my point (or I'm missing yours), and what probably would be best is to have another hunter in your raid having the exact same circumstances to have a proper comparison.

Because, in this particular comparison you are comparing a hunter with 40/131 = 30,5% heroism uptime + another 15 sec from RF = 42% hasted combat time to your 55/300 = 18,3% hasted combat time. Since I don't have the details on the other hunters I can't judge CD usage etc, but I'm guessing the trinkets were about 2 min CD or 45s ICD which is nearly ideal for that combat time. Don't forget that a retribution pally is a pretty big buff as well, which you say you missed during the raid.

This, along with you missing around 500AP and 168 agility and 5% crit for a large proportion of the fight makes a huge DPS difference pretty possible.

xursa · 02/12/09, 9:10 AM

Originally Posted by Zeel

Fellow hunters,

I've been using this and all the other threads at Hunter Class Mechanics as my guideline to determine
how I could best improve my results in PvE.
I believe my gear, enchantments/gems and rotations (shot-priorities) are as they should be.
I've been fine-tuning my talents now and then to find the best suitable for my needs but they have always
been what is considered "valid" talent builds here at EJ forums.
Still I seem to be about 1000 dps behind equally or worse geared hunters.

I would be extremely grateful if you guys could take a look at my yesterday's Naxxramas run and see if something
could be found to improve my personal results.

Whole raid can be found here: WoW Meter Online

and some of the individual bosses can be found here:

- Maexxna: WoW Meter Online
- Patchwerk: WoW Meter Online
- Grobbulus: WoW Meter Online
- Loatheb: WoW Meter Online

Character name is Zeal.

Few points of interest:

My talent build yesterday was 6/14/51 and I respecced last night to 2/18/51
( now that I look at it there seems to be 1 point forgotten. it still should be 2 / 18 / 51 )

I also had [Tunic of Masked Suffering] instead of [Valorous Cryptstalker Tunic] and 3 of my gems
were +hit instead of +agi.

We did not have retribution paladin in raid so those buffs were missing.

I used cat with standard dps build.

I suppose there are several issues that could be improved raid-wise and even thou I´d be very happy to hear them
all, I'd like to focus on my personal play as it (hopefully) is easier to adjust than raid synergy.

I did not intend this post to be yet another "omg-I-can't-dps" - type of post even thou it may seem like it.
It's just that I've always tried to push my knowledge and awareness of this class to the max and now I've
found myself in a position where I cannot make decent results and I have no idea whatsoever how to personally
improve.

Well there are holes here. Fist off I can't view your meter, so that hole is mine. What does "standard cat dps build" mean? We are talking about "your" dps right, not the combonation of the two. Your a survival hunter. What is your shot rotation? Are you hit capped, soft haste capped. What is your crit%. Specifically during the raid after all buffs are issued. Do you use the same ammo as the other hunters, for example Mammoth Cutters. What group where you in? Sometimes additional buffs are applied to raid groups spicifically. If you were 30 yards out then you might be missing buffs had you been closer. Any trap dancing to proc LnL and allow more ES (your most damaging shot) The list of questions I have are endless. Making my point that "helping" you is best by saying that "practice makes perfecrt" better yet "Perfect practice makes perfect". There are a lot of great threads here and many good teachings, but its foundational. It starts you on your way. Sounds like your on your way. Just keep plugging away and putting the time in like the people here have who publish this information. Have you used WotLK Hunter DPS Spreadsheet ? Great tool!!