How is AP any different than crit? Going from 3k AP to 4k AP (again, other stats (esp. crit) staying equal) is going to produce the same DPS as going from 4k AP to 5k AP. But the *percentage DPS gain* is going to be smaller in the second case. How is this ANY different than what you described in your post about crits? Why is AP entirely static while crit isn't, despite the fact that they work almost identically in terms of this "relative concept of diminishing returns"?

Edit: I'm bad at this, appears Selmarix beat me to it.

I'm assuming you mean that you may end up switching the Kill Shot glyph (and not ExS) for Steady Shot, right?

Really the diference betwee KS and Expl glyphs when being compared comes down to fight length. Basically in a longer fight KS glyph would be a much higher DPS increase/1 glyph than Expl glyph. Expl is nice tho because it is beneficial for the entire duration of the fight. I think it is yet to be determined what the usual fight lengths will be for Ulduar, expecially once people get geared properly.

So with the current fight lengths yes Expl > KS, but in the possibility that we have longer fights (which I think would be better) KS becomes much more attractive.

if Ulduar is everything Blizzard is leading us to believe it will be then most of us will be spending a good chunk of time learning our progression bosses. Because of that we might spend weeks without the opportunity to fire even one Kill Shot on the current progression boss, and even then we'll be flirting with the enrage timers. That might effect one's decision to take the Kill Shot glyph or to switch it up occasionally.

As long as the percentage of the fight you spend in the execute/KS phase does not change (which it should not) the fight length has no influence on the relative power of those glyphs. Increasing the fight length increases the number of Kill Shots you get from the Kill Shot glyph, but it also increases the number of Explosive Shots that profit from the Explosive Shot glyph.

That is simply not correct. The difference comes from the power of KS, which is much more powerful than Expl.

Assume a 10 min fight and you have a 50% crit chance (65% with KS due to Sniper Training), so KS crits for 13k and hits for 5.6k. With the glyph of KS you will get 13 KS in 120s as opposed to 8 with out the glyph.
.65 * 5 extra KS = 3 crits & 2 hits
3*13k + 2*5.6k = 50.2k / 600s = 83.6 DPS increase

If you had the same stand and fight type fight where you would fire off an ExShot (54% crit normal 58% crit with glyph, normal tick for 1783, crit for 4154 x 3) every 6s.
Over 100ExShots: 919065 without the glyph, and 947522 the glyph, the difference being 28457
28457 / 600s = 47.43 DPS increase

thus like I said for a longer fight KS glyph > Expl glyph

However this whole discussion is almost a moot point because my original plan called for KS, Expl, and SrS glyphs and this discussion arose out of the suggestion that either KS or Expl glyph should be exchanged for a different glyph.

This is a wowwebstats from our patch kill Wow Web Stats I feel my dps is slightly lower then it should be, spreadsheet says 5.7 and I'm doing about a thousand less then that, maybe you guys will see something in the wowwebstats that i don't, Anyway any help is much appreciated, Thanks!

Here is the wws report of our last patchwerk fight: WoW Webstats You didn't use Aimed Shot/Multi Shot in your rotation. Only 1 multi shot the whole fight. Try to integrate it in ur rota. ES>Multi/Aimed>Serpent>Steady Your gear is good enough that u should get 5.5k+ dps in a 2:30 fight.
You also had some misses.

I also notice you had a few misses in there, which is odd since in armory you're hit capped. Were you wearing anything different?

You also have 3 pts in sniper training but looking at your WWS, you were in range of retribution aura, so either you guys position much better than we do on Patchwerk or you weren't in sniper training range, in which case that's 6% explosive and steady damage that the spreadsheet is calculating in that you aren't going to get (unless you already told the spreadsheet you weren't in sniper training range).

Don't see anything else glaring except the lack of mutlishot that was already mentioned.

It is possible to get retribution aura and to be in range for sniper training :>
Range hunter-pala 28yards or something
Range hunter-patch 32 yards for example...
Melee range is 5 yards, if the pala is on max hitbox u can get the aura.

I was not hit capped during that attempt and the reason i didn't have sniper training was due to the fact that a few pages back ppl were saying on patch that it was better to make sure u were in range of buffs rather then getting sniper training and I did have elixirs and agil food buffs, Even with sniper training my dps stays right around where its at, I've been seeing 4.7-4.9k dps on patch for quite some time, I guess I will work MS into my rotation and see what that does for me, Thanks for the help guys.

Not sure If I can describe that properly, but I'll try.

In the following part I assume a certain critrating for a fixed item budged (for now fcrit) and a certain attackpower (ap) for the same itembudget (for now fap).

Further we assume 1000 Shots where RNG dosen't appear (we assume that, it's not true, but easier for calculations)

So fcrit will increase the damage of some shots (hit -> crit) and by that the overall damage by some percent.

fap will increase every shot by a fixed value and with that the overall damage by a fixed value. Soma values are modified by Crit, since Crit will double (and a bit more) the impact of fap on this shot.

To identify what increases my overall dmg more, I have to compare both for a certain base crit and base ap. There will always be a point where fcrit = fap and where the benefit swaps.

To explain that let's assume two opposite Situations.:

1) I have very hard hitting shots so adding a small amount of dmg ins't that big difference, but changign one shot from hit to crit is big. So if the fixed dmg increase of all shots is probably smaller than dhe double amount of one shot.
-> Crit is more valuable in that Situation.

2) If I hava shots that are barely noticeable, a fixed increase of all shots will probably be mor valuable than double some shots.

So, what do we get of this:
Crit is a percental increase of dmg (not including buffs for chance on crit). Fore a static environment (ap, haste, etc. stay fixed) this is linear ( is that true? Question about ).
Ap is a fixed linear increase of dmg.

This is why the spreadsheet is so important, because all changes are relative to the equipment. And this is a discussion about what is more valuable.

The other discussion is about whether in a static environment Crit really provides a fixed percentage (diminishing returns).

As has already been said, throwing multi-shot in as a steady replacement will bump your DPS significantly.

Looking at your rotation using the Hunter WWS spreadsheet suggests that you might be favouring steady shot a little too much, the ratio of steadys to explosives is a little high. You might want to check that you using ES as soon as it's available. For example, the theoretic maximum on that fight is 87 ES & 15 MS, leaving you needing just 40 SS, and even less when you allow for SrS application & latency. Your numbers are 72, 1 & 54 respectively. There was a discussion earlier in this thread about how long you can delay your next ES for an SSbefore its a DPS loss. You might want to look at the numbers for your situation.

Regarding the Kill Shot vs Explosive Shot glyphs question - If you have Kill Shot fire only as incorporated into all your other shots as a simple macro, it currently will fire every opportunity it is up. Getting the maximum number of Kill Shots is trivial this way. In 3.1 this will not be possible and will compete in the GCD shot space. If you already use it as a separate non-macro'd shot, you will not use it the same once 3.1 lands because it has a GCD. I'm planning on missing about 20% of my possible KS while getting used to the mechanic change.

Most groups I've seen have the melee on the far side of Patchwerk, so typically to stay in range of retribution aura you either need to be within about 20 yards, or you need to stand in a weird spot far away from everyone else. Some guilds do position in such a way that you could be in range of retribution aura and use sniper training, but I figured it was more than likely his was not one of those guilds, which is why I mentioned it as a possible discrepancy between his dps and the spreadsheet listed dps.

In terms of staying in range of buffs, it's primarily about retribution aura- but unless the fight is really short and horn of winter is cast immediately before the fight starts, it will fall off (it has a 3 min duration glyphed)- totem placement can usually get around that problem if you have a shaman though. Typically might is buffed but if you're relying on battleshout and it isn't talented to 5 minutes, you're talking a 2-3 min duration (depending on if it's glyphed), with a 20-30 yard range (depending on talents). So whether you can stand in sniper training range without losing any buffs on Patchwerk is dependent on your raid makeup and fight positioning. In my raid, we only have a ret pali about 50% of the time, so when he's there I usually trap dance Patchwerk, and when he's not I sniper training.

Thankfully nobody will have to care about this in a few weeks one way or the other, when the annoying range requirement is removed. We'll just be cursing at the obnoxious buff that keeps refreshing constantly when we're just standing around in Dalaran.

Hopefully it'll be an in-combat flag for that talent to activate

I would like to provide further information on Mixology, so the guide can be updated accordingly; here it is:
Flask of Endless Rage provides a total 244 AP, or 64 extra, which is on pair with the other professions;
Elixir of Mighty Agility provides 45*1.35*1.15 = 69.8625 agi, which rounds up to 70, excluding Kings, for a total 77 agi raid buffed
Elixir of Mighty Thoughts provides 45*1.35 = 60.75 int, which rounds up to 61, again, excluding Kings, for a total 67 int raid buffed
77 agi = 0.924 crit chance
EW provides 77*0.25 = 19.25 AP, so the pair of elixirs gives a total (77+67+19.25)*1.1 = 179.685 AP, which rounds up to 180, including AP buff, and the Flask gives 268.4, which rounds down to 268. Overall, Flask is 268 AP and the pair of elixirs is 180 AP and 0.924% crit.
Spreadsheet shows that with Mixology, the pair of elixirs and the flask have less than 1 dps difference if mana doesn't matter, but the larger mana pool is a 30 dps increase if mana ends sometime during the fight.

So if I am indeed wrong about the duration of the fight mattering in the comparison of those two glyphs it can be said that KS glyph is better than Explosive glyph? That is what you are saying correct?


I was not previously aware that KS was going on the GCD, that sucks. I suppose it would just be a matter of tracking when the target was below 20% and altering your priority properly. Those of us who use Power Auras should just make an aura to let you know when KS is available, I would imagine that would solve that problem just fine, but I will have to test that and verify that.

With this in mind and what some others have said about how we will be learning in Ulduar and thus might not be getting to below 20% as frequently and especially on new bosses. If I decide or rather if someone proves to me that either glyph of steady shot or glyph of Hawk would be better options than glyph of ES or KS, even tho KS glyph is theoretically better I will probably choose ES glyph and replace KS glyph.

Currently though I am planning on choosing KS, ES, and SrS glyphs.

I don't think that's really a valid reason for not using the glyph. You still have to get the boss to 0% for it to mean anything (well unless there's a boss like Archimonde) so reglyphing doesn't solve the problem, it just makes you look a bit better on the meters on learning attempts. A more valid reason for not using that glyph during learning fights would be if there were a boss with a very important burn phase early or in the middle of the fight, but the end phase was trivial.

I'm not sure if I'm completely following you. First off, I don't think the debate was ever whether AP or Crit is more valuable. I think by now everyone realizes that in certain situations (be them the entirely theoretical "5000 AP and 10% crit" or "1000 AP and 80% crit" situations, or more realistic ones) either AP or Crit can be more valuable. This is understood by, I think, pretty much everyone. The actual value of AP and Crit both scale with each other.

What I'm getting at is that AP essentially scales no differently from Crit, yet people consider Crit to have this horrible case of "diminishing returns" while they don't seem to realize AP functions the same way. You basically seem to be jumping to the absolute conclusion that crit is a "percental increase of dmg" while AP is "a fixed linear increase of dmg."

As long as you keep the AP the same (and again, this is completely negating the affects of other stats like haste and ArP) crit does *not* scale in a "percental increase of damage". Going from 5k AP and 0% crit to 5k/1% gives you a larger percentage increase in damage than going from 5k/40% to 5k/41%. This is the part of your post that is false: crit (again, given a static AP) is a linear increase in damage with a varying percentile increase.

To Bengomore, this is something that would probably best be left testing on the spreadsheet. You can alter the length of the fight in question and start swapping out glyphs to see which is better. I don't have the spreadsheet in front of me currently, unfortunately.

No, he's saying that the relative value of each glyph is independent of the duration of the fight. That does not mean it's completely independent of other factors under the player's control. Crit, AP & shot damage could still affect the relative value of each glyph to a given player.

Hi everyone,

Couple of questions:

1) What pet from the ferocity tree do you use/think is the best for personal dps increase.
2) Are you still trap dancing after picking up the Sniper Training talent? And if so, are you dropping traps on CD?