Me as well. I routinely get it handed to me by a slightly lesser geared hunter because he commonly creams me in the number of SS's. The laggy third Steady Shot just seems too nasty a clip off the Explosive Shot. My spec may partially be at fault for the lack of shots as well. Should I get Rapid Killing back and imp Hawk back? Thanks all.

I'm sorry I guess I should have been more clear. The spec I had in mind for you takes 5 pts in imp hawk and 1 pt in focused fire under BM, then under marks you want 5 pts in lethal shots, 5 pts in mortal shots, 3 pts in careful aim and 1 pt in go for the throat. The 6/14/51 spec can't really fit aimed shot in. If you want aimed shot you can sacrifice the point in focused fire but it's a pretty big damage loss for a little more flexiblity so I don't recommend it.

Instead of using aimed shot you can just use multishot with this spec- just fit it in whenever the cooldown is up. Survival is more like a priority queue than a rotation- basically your priority should be kill shot > explosive shot > multi (or aimed if you have it) > serpent sting (if it's not still up) > steady shot.

With regards to enchants, most of your enchants are fine, but switch your gloves to 20 agil (or hit if you need the hit) and switch to 35 agil instead of 85 AP (110 AP is a little better than 35 agil, but 85 AP is not as good- the difference isn't large tho if you don't want to re-enchant).

Ok thanks that's a little clearer.. I've re-gemed and soon will re-spec and hit the dummies and post back with the results later..

oh and I'll probably keep the chants if you don't think they'll make that bi of a difference.. Thanks for helping me out, once I get back home and get to try this out I'll definitely post back and maybe others can get some help from this as well..

If theres ~2.5 sec left on explosive shot, would casting a steady shot and losing .5 from explosive shot yield more or less dps than waiting? Up til now I'd cast the steady shot, but now im rethinking and need some opinions.


And also, could I get my spec/gems/gear checked out? I'm sure its all good, but outside opinions are nice

@onlydank

Your gear is looking okay. I see you're still using an Expertise ring but I'll assume that's only because you haven't had another ring come your way. Hopefully, the other ring you do get has some Hit on it and will let you swap out some of the Hit gems for Agility ones.

Another suggestion I have would be to get the [Relentless Earthsiege Diamond] meta instead. I personally prefer the agility version of the meta but you may want to test it via the spreadsheet to see if the damage/cost ratio is worth it for you specifically.

Also, the [Perfect Shifting Shadow Crystal] is also a good option instead of the [Balanced Twilight Opal] in your head slot though its only a minor difference.

It looks like you're missing a few of the best in slot enchants such as [Formula: Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats] and, if you're not a scribe, [Greater Inscription of the Axe] from Sons of Hodir reputation.

Yeah, two strong-handed bands dropped last week and I didnt get either I feel like such a nub wearing that expertise ring, but other then the expertise its nice.

As for the meta, I felt like my crit was lacking thats why I went with that...been thinking of switching the AP gem for the green AGI one though.

And sons of hodir rep is a pain :P I'm only at nuetral. I was thinking of getting inscription up to 400 just for the enchant, but gold is a problem atm lol.

We've already mentioned it, Serpent should not be prioritized before Explosive shot and Multi shot.
Here it is in simple form:
Kill Shot > Explosive Shot > Multi Shot > Serpent Sting > Steady Shot

Also, Raid Buffs have an enormous impact on Hunter DPS and here we base our theorycrafting around said buffs.

Everfrost! 350 rep, 6.5g - spawn about 6 per hour all over the Hodir zone.
The quests are easy and pay very well. But the minute you hit friendly with Sons, start looking for those little green shards on the ground, the cliffs, behind rocks. The first one gives you the "Remember Everfrost" quest. They track on Gatherer (so spots can be shared). I currently have 46 spawn points and 3 toons exalted, which took under 2 weeks for each.

Edit:
Hunter: Cynae- Perenolde
Currenty SV- Coerced out of BM since nerfs.
DPS difference? Not really it still sucks. Even with some recent gear upgrades, I think I did more DPS as BM with worse gear. Maybe slow reflexes, lack of practice rotating shots or... How about NEVER remembering to get out of Viper once I have mana back? Possibly a lack of macros as well. I think Im losing valuable DPS time on mark. pet attack, Rapid Fire. Trinket, KC and Killshot with Steady is macro'd just havent found a comfortable way to combine the others.
I find under 2k dps in heroics embarassing what is considered the standard in a 5 man?

Can anyone please link the post that does some theorycrafting about why Serpent should not be prioritized before Explosive shot? I tried to search but could not find it.

A 5 man heroic is not consistent enough to give general estimates. If you have the right group buffs, you can push 5k dps on uncomplicated bosses, 3k possibly being the average over a full run. Obviously you can just end up with 1,5k dps when a boss has you running around 80% of the time.

I'm not sure where the quote is, but I can explain it easily enough.

If your SrS drops off just before your ES is ready, then you should prioritize ES instead of SrS. You will miss 1-2 ticks of SrS, as well as the 3% dmg if you specced into Noxious stings, but the advantage of not delaying your ES by 1.5s outweighs the minimal damage from the SrS ticks and the 3% buff. Some math to back it up, using my averages per Shandara's SS.

Average ES: 1519 per tick, or 4557 without crits over 6 secs.
Average SrS: 620.5 per tick

On average, an ES does over 1.5s for me:
4557/4 = 1139.25

Substituting an SrS to not miss 2 ticks:
620.5*2 = 1241

ES, for the same 1.5s GCD, gives 101.75 more damage even without crits; considering that I have over 50% crit for ES raid-buffed, that easily becomes more like this:

Average ES: 1519-3493 per tick, or on average 7518 over 6 secs (1 crit, 1 normal, 1 avg of crit and normal)
Average SrS: 620.5 per tick

On average, an ES does over 1.5s for me:
7518/4 = 1879.5

Substituting an SrS to not miss 2 ticks:
620.5*2 = 1241

ES, for the same 1.5s GCD, ideally gives around 638.5 more damage for the same time period. Note this is rough math, not counting in the 3% buff that you MIGHT gain from SrS remaining on, etc. This is also with 3/3 in Improved Stings; the difference is even more pronounced if you DON'T have that. Maintaining ES over all your other shots is the clear winner, aside from KS.

Just to mention: KS shold be prioritized because it doen't cause the GCD, but it can't be fired if you shoot something else first. Call me a smart ass, but I would like to avoid any misconception.

--edit: spelling
--edit.Upchuck: That's the way to do it.

Would this be prioritizing?

# Showtooltip Aimed Shot
/cast Kill Shot
/Cast Aimed Shot

Or?

The macro just enforces that priority. The macro makes sure you fire KS when it's up no matter what. It doesn't really change the fact that it should always have priority. Or am I reading you wrong? I agree though with what your saying about macros though. I have all the shots I use in my rotation macro'd with a Kill Shot priority.

Little to do with priority. They simply fire simultaneously as soon as KS is off cooldown. This is only possible with KS, as it does not trigger the GCD.

Hey, Alanise! Good to see you posting here!

Survival is a lot more DPS than BM in 5 mans, primarily because your first shot is an ES. Just make sure you're using your max rank explosive shot. Put your pet on Defensive so you don't need to do an explicit pet attack. Save your CotW/Rapid Fire/trinkets for the bosses or emergencies. Use Mark selectively on high hitpoint mobs.

Load up recount, and practice on the boss target dummies until you're comfortable. Use TellMeWhen to pop an icon whenever you're in combat and viper is up. Send me a tell in the game if you're still having problems.

Really Focused Fire is the clear winner in flat dps (albiet not by much), in a pure Patchwork type of scenario. It's really all a trade off, and going to be based on personal/raid need.

To get to Focused Fire, you have generally have to 3 points from Improved Stings, a point from Aimed and a point from Hunting Party, presumably. Aimed is slightly > Multi, Hunting Party is going to be dependant on your raid's needs. Mobility isn't that extreme an issue currently where you can't spend .5s casting (perhaps Heigan dance excluded), and neither is mana currently. Speccing Aimed over FF seems to be a close runner up competitive when you can stay in Sniper Training range, otherwise it falls a bit further behind (also when we get v3.1 Sniper Training, the mobility advantage of Aimed will be somewhat diminished, since to get the Sniper Training benefit to the shot, you have to stand still).

Improved Stings is a little interesting. It appears slightly better than IAotH on its own accord (I see a few points difference on paper) - however I am starting to question that a bit in actual practice. The spreadsheet assumes perfect use of serpent sting, and missing or overwriting just 2 or 3 ticks will probably make IAotH perform better for you, since there is no possible user error in IAotH. But purely on paper, going deeper than 2 points in BM doesn't pay off unless you get to Focused Aim.

Also if we see a boss that needs a healing debuff in Ulduar (or beyond), its going to likely fall onto a hunter to provide a healing debuff, since having a warrior spec Arms or making a rogue use wounding poison will be a much bigger dps loss for those classes than it would be for a non-BM hunter, in which case your descision on aimed may be made for you.

According to this: ezMooks 3.0.9 Hunter Stuff , assuming you have the hawk glyph, you need one point in IAoH to get below 1.5 seconds. I'm below 1.5 seconds which is why I can't figure it out & assume it's latency. Adding to the confusion for me is the fact that WoW shows my average latency to be about 150ms, but I clearly have lag spikes - on rare occasions it takes 20 seconds for an action to complete & on Heigan (which I've never been able to get through), other players have noted that my motion is jerky. Any suggestions?

So it's still not worth it if you want some nice PvP utility and another instant shot? Personally I think the benefits of Aimed Shot outside of a raid situation can somewhat offset the minimal DPS loss from not taking focused fire. Improved Stings and Aimed Shot are great if you do any sort of PvP. Maybe I'm misreading the talent, but it seems to me that a 1% damage increase isn't going to help that much. Is the 10% pet crit on 3 of their specials the real reason to take it?

You're still in mostly blues, with even some BC items. Especially after 3.0.9, I would recommend you stick with BM for a while longer. SV does scale better, but it should only be substantial once you start to have a majority of epics and such. Right out of the gate, the raid buffs on your pet should outweigh the extra damage you'd do with SV.

As for 5 mans, I always find myself wanting for mana, and either stopping for periods of time to drink or switching to Viper much more than is typical in a raid. Combined with the lack of many buffs, your dps will just not compare. The closest I've come to worrying about benchmarking is to compare dps of the other folks in the group, bearing their gear in mind. But heroics really aren't that hard, so it shouldn't worry you very much.

Thats really beyond the scope of what anyone but you can decide. If you pull info from the Best Available DPS thread, it shows currently 6532 dps for 6/14/51 and 6497 for 2/18/51 (mind you that neither of these have replenishment). Its all really a trade off; I doubt there are alot of hunters that go 3/3 EW and 0 points in hunting party because it nets them 2 extra DPS. Personally, I'm 1/18/52 currently because of previous raid comps/crit rate compelling me to get 2 points in hunting party, although I may be changing to 6/14/51 spec soon (although I still won't go 3/3 EW).

Yeah, the BIS setup is only the highest theoretical dps as dictated by the spreadsheet. Do not by any means use it as a "I must spec this way or I will underperform". The differences in dps from 6/14/51 and 2/18/51 are fairly marginal if you're looking at the total amount of damage done, and in most cases Latency/UserError/BadRNG or other factors will affect your dps more than swapping those 4 talent points.

I'm one of those that also prefer the utility of Aimed over Multi and feel the need to spec into Hunting Party because of raid composition and my tendancy to spend free time PVPing.

@RobotChicken: For me, yes the utility of Aimed and HP is worth losing the what I feel to be fairly minor relative dps loss of speccing into FFire. Everyone should decide on this themselves.