There are a lot of red flags I'm seeing here. Using a level 60 heroic dummy is basically cheating. I believe there's a 0.2% crit change depending on level? So you're getting about 4.6% more crit than vs a level 83? You're also very well below hit cap; but this is not a factor against a level 60.
The warrior comparison makes no sense - how do warrior buffs compensate for level difference? Why do we assume they are equal?
I don't see the problem with testing against a level 83 at all. Do you have screenshots of partial resists for explosive shot? As far as I can tell it's a physical attack that does fire damage; meaning it's still on the physical attack table and not subject to partial resists. I'm also under the impression that boss resist levels, except for specific bosses that actually have resistance (Supremus), are due to level discrepancies and cannot be overcome by spell penetration or CoE.
That 4.6% extra crit assuming you're indeed correct is still less than LotP gives me. I'm 1% below hit cap which a Draenei gives me.
Here's why the Warrior comparison makes sense; I test on the dummy which brings my DPS to as close an estimate as I can get in terms of my raid DPS.
A Fury Warrior brings the following debuffs by themselves: Major Armor Reduction, Major Attack Power, 5% Phys Crit. This means that under ideal solo testing runs, they are only missing a small handful of the buffs they require to be dealing optimum raid damage.
So when I'm testing my DPS... I'm missing Sunder, using a lower level dummy alleviates that by having less mitigation against me. I'm missing CoE, using a lower level dummy removes resists (our spells definitely do get partial resists when they are off the Physical School). I'm missing 5% crit aura as well as 3% crit mob debuff, using a lower level dummy cuts out the crit penalty of fighting a Boss and helps to simulate my lost 8% crit a little better. I'm missing a ton of AP, the lesser armor helps, but nothing really compensates this loss.
I just don't see the point in testing DPS against a Boss dummy when we never ever fight a Boss in a complete vacuum. I'd rather just move down the hall to lower level dummies and get a picture that's more in line with my actual raid DPS (though still FAR lower).
When we have new DPS players in the guild that are looking to get into the Naxx raids we're running... I get them to test their DPS against the 60/70 dummies because that is currently my closest way of getting an idea of what their raid DPS might actually be like. I really don't care what they can do against a Boss level dummy unless I get the entire raid there to buff and debuff the dummy so we can accurately test it out... it just isn't even a remotely realistic figure.
Like I said, I test my DPS against the 60's and 70's and still my DPS falls WAY short of my true raid DPS. On live servers I'm happy to break 3,500 - 3,600 DPS against the dummies while my actual raid performance is closer to 4.5k DPS.
I'm not trying to BS here or puff out my chest or anything like that. I am trying to provide the most conclusive numbers that I can and the numbers which will most closely represent actual raid DPS.
Got on the PTR, 3900-4000 DPS self sustained against target dummies as SV spec on a character I copied several weeks ago.
This is without a single buff.
This is what you said in a previous post - my emphasis. Now you're saying you're making these other adjustments to compensate for raid buffs you would normally have, which is a contradiction. I'll cut it off here before I start getting nasty, and just say that I disagree with your testing methods and the way you communicate them.
I think we're just getting into semantics now. Before this thread gets anymore derailed, let me just say this:
- My DPS against even a level 60 dummy is always far below that which I achieve in real raid settings.
- This is especially true of Hunter specs that are heavily reliant on magic damage such as Marks and Survival due to lacking the 13% spell damage debuff during testing.
- Thus, any result achieved during a dummy test I assume as being the worst possible scenario that would be reproduced against a Boss level mob with full buffs and debuffs.
- Extensive DPS tests against dummies without outside buffs have led me to conclude that my dummy DPS is roughly 75-85% of my projected 25 man raid DPS. For example, my current Marks build gets me around 3,450 - 3,600 dummy DPS (multiple tests, no I don't screenshot them all, please just take my word on this); in optimal raid conditions it gets me closer to 4,250 - 4,650 DPS.
Essentially Esoth, by testing my DPS against the level 60/70 dummies, I might get a figure that is unrealistic and inflated... but this figure is the closest thing I can get to seeing what actual raiding DPS might be (albeit generally it's 15 - 25% higher).
I hope that maybe makes more sense in terms of the thought process behind my testing.
I am kinda wondering about something in regards of the survival hunters and their traps ( esp. in raiding ).
What would be the most effective way for trapdancing? The reason I am asking this is because of the new explosive shot on it's way and the free shots you get from traps.
If I look at the current raid encounters there aren't many moments where a hunter can use his trap skills ( or am I mistaken?? ). So how would you do your trapdancing to use the free expl. shots to the best use? or not use traps at all?
- Thus, any result achieved during a dummy test I assume as being the worst possible scenario that would be reproduced against a Boss level mob with full buffs and debuffs.
Please don't take offense, but this just isn't the way testing works. Lowering the level of your target changes different things than applying raid buffs. Not all of these (indeed, not many of these) changes are linear, and so you are not providing clean data by testing in this manner. Does it result in numbers that are closer to your observed raid dps? Yes, because both effects slide the damage scale to the right. Does that mean data against L60 dummies is freely comparable to raid dps? No.
This is especially true with changes like those the 3.0.8 PTR is making, that involve substantial re-alignment of rAP coefficients. rAP does not increase with lowered target level; rAP does increase with buffs. Conversely, crit scales much more quickly with lowered target level than with buffs (not only do you gain the crit-per-level bonuses, but the ~5% "missing crit" vs. 83 bosses vanishes).
Oh, and there are no partial resists on Explosive Shot unless something fundamental has changed.
If you are going to post "unbuffed" values, post unbuffed values against the target that we use as a standard candle in testing. If you are going to post buffed values, either drag some friends to the dummy with you or post WWS statistics of actual raid content. Simulating the latter with a novel benchmarking opponent while claiming the former is disingenuous.
Originally Posted by Pilgrim
What would be the most effective way for trapdancing? The reason I am asking this is because of the new explosive shot on it's way and the free shots you get from traps.
If I look at the current raid encounters there aren't many moments where a hunter can use his trap skills ( or am I mistaken?? ). So how would you do your trapdancing to use the free expl. shots to the best use? or not use traps at all?
There is quite a bit of discussion on this topic only a couple of pages back, including analysis of which opponents are viable. Short version: Immolation trap, when possible (or Explosive for add-swarms). Depending on what values go live, it may be worthwhile to stand at range 5-6, step in, trap, step out.
I'm not sure how you're doing this. My Explosive Shot is hitting for 1250 a tic. The best that I got was low 3k DPS and that was against the lvl 60 dummy. But then I went to tinkering with macros and trying to include Aimed Shot and everything went to pot.
SO, for the sake of testing, while your gear is edging mine, thos that are curently testing on the PTR, give us a run down of what you're doing.
- Are your numbers on the 80 dummy?
- Are you trap dancing?
- What is your spec?
- What macro, if any, are you using?
On the side note, Steady Shot hits for absolute garbage. My non-crit SSs, with 4500 self buffed RAP, are running aroung 650-750 damage. My auto shots hit harder than this. What a waste for an attack that has a base 2.0 casting speed.
To make myself Clear I was attempting to say I was supporting Crank in his damage only I was pulling 3k on the Heroic 80 Dummy. Went Back today to get some Screen Shots and noticed the dummy I was testing on was at 0.3% so my Macro was Auto Kill Shotting every 15s. Removed Kill Shot and saw Parses from 2.5 -2.7k From Full to Oom.
I was not Trap Dancing
0/20/51 - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Macro - (Minus Kill Shot Command Due to Dummy Health)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Kill Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Steady Shot
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Rest comprised of KS/Aimed/Arcane. Aimed and Arcane were fillers on a total of 5 LnL procs over 6 Minutes of testing (periods to regen mana inbetween not included).
Was Tracking Humanoids but not relevant because Mechanical dummies are not listed as to be included in 5% damage increase.
Side Note: BoomKin's Earth and Moon Debuff Does effect Explosive shot if anyone was Wondering.
Last edited by TheSkilledOne : 12/26/08 at 1:32 PM.
It's easy to say that, but have you actually tested it?
Thrill of the Hunt
Gives you a 100% chance to regain 40% of the mana cost of any shot when it critically hits.
Illumination
After getting a critical effect from your Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Holy Shock heal spell you have a 100% chance to gain mana equal to 60% of the base cost of the spell.
This implies that if Thrill of the Hunt IS base mana (like Illumination), then it should behave like Illumination and return 40% of the base, unmodified mana cost.
I used to be a pally main before my hunter, and I should point out they changed illumination to not stack with the cost reduction through Divine Illumination. Pretty sure this is still true, so I would suggest going to test it on PTR to be certain.
Explosive Shot absolutely gets partial resists against the Heroic dummy. I tested this last night to be 100% positive. Chimera Shot and Arcane Shot are subject to the same.
So as far as testing goes...
Heroic Dummy:
- Accurate base crit rate due to -5% crit tax applying. However doesn't really come close to approximating raid crit rates. I'd rate this as a poor approximation of a 25 man crit rate... it would be missing ~12-13% crit from all the buffs/debuffs (5% LotP, 3% Judgement, plus ~400 missing Agility = 4.8% from Kings, Horn, MotW)
- Technically accurate spell resists. However you will never see a partial resist in an actual raid, so Heroic dummies are very poor representations of your Explosive Shot damage. I'd rate this as a very poor representation, robbing a bit of damage from a big chunk of your Explosive Shots is completely unrealistic.
- 13,000 armor. This heavy physical damage tax is never seen in a raid though, it gets dropped to ~7,815. I'd rate the mitigation as a somewhat close approximation though, certainly closer than the 60 dummy.
Expert's Dummy:
- You gain a bit of crit % against this thing, probably a difference of 8 or 9% crit going from the Heroic dummy to the Expert's dummy. It's still a few percentage points off a 25 man raid crit rate, but it's a fairly close measurement.
- No spell resists. This is the way it is when raiding.
- Low armor. This is not a fair approximation of a raid boss' physical mitigation. However when you take into account the armor debuffs and attack power gains you'd see in 25 man content... I think you'll find your unbuffed white DPS against the lvl 60 dummy is actually lower than it is against a boss.
So anyway that's my view on it. I just don't see anything realistic at all about testing my DPS against the Heroic dummies. I'm missing 12-13% crit, I'm getting partial resists on LOTS of ES ticks, the physical mitigation penalty is way high.
I am kinda wondering about something in regards of the survival hunters and their traps ( esp. in raiding ).
What would be the most effective way for trapdancing? The reason I am asking this is because of the new explosive shot on it's way and the free shots you get from traps.
If I look at the current raid encounters there aren't many moments where a hunter can use his trap skills ( or am I mistaken?? ). So how would you do your trapdancing to use the free expl. shots to the best use? or not use traps at all?
thanks in advance
I can only really think of 3 bosses (kelthuzad,grobbulus,helgen) where standing 5 yards from the boss would be detrimental to the raid.
Are you people sure about the no partial resists on bosses? I am seeing roughly 3% of mitigated damage on Explosive shot, most of which is from partial resists. This is in all my wws reports. An example: Wow Web Stats. This is from the last 25 man raid I was in, Naxx clear + Sartharion. Of course 3% is a small amount, but still.
If I am being ignorant about something that is a well known feature of wws or the combat log, please enlighten me
What you're probably seeing is a small amount of DPS time while missing CoE on the mob.
They're using Earth and Moon, but again - from everything I've read, level-based resistances cannot be overcome by spell penetration or any other means. Granted, I tend to follow hunters closer than casters so if this is no longer true, someone let me know.
Regardless, the resist amounts I'm seeing on there do not follow what has previously been known about partial resists - that they can be mitigated by 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%. Nothing in between. You've got lines like: "Io Explosive Shot hits Anub’Rekhan for 2109 Fire. (Critical) (85 Resisted)" in your log though. The number it says is "resisted" does not take into account actual damage after debuffs (like Earth and Moon) are applied, but even still, 85/2194 is not even close to a multiple of 25%.
Anyone else have logs that show some kind of resist with explosive shot?
So I've been doing some pretty unscientific testing of my Survival spec on the PTR -- that is to say, I've been pewpewing until I went OOM and then hitting FD and seeing what I clocked in at.
~3k DPS consistently on the level 80 dummy, ~2500 on the level 83. Individual Explosive Shot ticks upwards of 3.8k. The trap stuff takes some getting used to [I haven't actually done "trap dancing" yet, per se, since I can just stand right on the edge of min. attack distance for ranged and drop a trap that'll get tripped by the dummy -- in a real PvE setting, it'd be almost impossible to absolutely tiptoe the line like that, so I guess I'd just run into melee every 24 seconds] but it's a relatively long cooldown to monitor. The real work is figuring out when you've got LnL up so it doesn't go to waste; LnL doesn't reset the cooldown on Explosive Shot, just makes the next two cause only a GCD, so you often wind up wasting LnL proc duration with an Explosive Shot that's still on cooldown.
The only other [minor] annoyance was making sure Serpent Sting had 100% uptime, which is made slightly more complex for Surv than BM just because you're constantly watching your Explosive Shot button to make sure it's cooling down due to the 4% chance a random Serpent Sting tick will proc LnL, on top of monitoring your shorter-than-BM-or-MM trap cooldown.
*Haven't been able to post updates in a while, Christmas stuff!
My DPS average in 25-Man raids has seemed to level out lately at around 2600-2700. I did finally pick up my forth piece of the T7 (two valorous, two hero), and I also grabbed the bow off of Razuvious. In spite of my initial hesitation to try trap dancing, I'm finding that it's actually quite fun, and, moreover, deals quite a bit of damage when utilized correctly.
As Armory has been anything but dependable lately, I'd also like to take this opportunity to ask what the current gear level would be for those SV hunters who are regularly passing 3000DPS. I'm personally having trouble surpassing this level (I suspect my haste rating) in spite of having almost 500 more RAP than even the BM hunters in the raid. At this point, I am wearing the valorous chest and legs, and the hero helm and gloves. My shoulders and belt are still in need of a heroic upgrade, although the rest of my gear should hold up fairly well until I take the valorous badge boots.
Admittedly, I forgot to do my homework and took [Cryptfiend's Bite] before having looked fully at the [Wraith Spear]. We tend to finish 10-man Naxx in two evenings, though, so I really don't doubt that it'll drop again the next time I'm able to join in.
Overall, if you guys are consistantly doing over 3k raid DPS, I'd like to know whether it's just in a 10-man level raid, or if you're geared to the teeth and bull-rushing 25-man Naxx.
Sanremuile, I'm geared fairly well and I'm running 3-4k on most fights in Naxx, my best Patchwerk was about 4500. But I was still getting over 4k on Patchwerk back a month ago when my gear was worse than yours (I'm just starting to dabble in trap dancing myself but I haven't specced to take advantage of it yet). These dps numbers from Naxx 25- in general you'll see significantly lower numbers in 10 and it's harder to compare there since it depends so heavily on what buff classes you have.
Your gear looks like it's coming along nicely, and you shouldn't have much trouble replacing the belt and boots with badge gear if you don't have luck elsewhere (I wore the heroic UP belt till recently, the hit on it is really nice). Your spec looks a bit suboptimal- you should really try to find a way to get 1 pt in GftT, that's a fairly significant dps bump for 1 talent point- probably best to just take it from sniper training, although if you get serious about trap dancing you'll want to move those points out anyhow and rearrange it some more. Your hit is also a bit low- I tend to run low as well but as alliance I usually can arrange to have a draenei in party for hit aura, and that wouldn't be available to you, so a little more hit could help your dmg output. Without seeing a WWS I can't say if there might be an issue with your rotation or other factors.
In regards to cryptfiend's bite, I remember some mention of it being bugged for RAP, it may not be giving you as much as it should. Not sure if they've fixed that yet.
Sanremuile, if it drops, and no feral druids need it, you should consider [The Undeath Carrier] as it's switching to something like 100 Agility, 151 Stamina, 51 crit and 153 AP next patch. I picked one up and am looking forward to equipping it, as I'm not sure there's much better for a survival hunter at this point.
Actually, after all of my experimenting between the varying specs, I'm no longer so certain that my changes have had any real reflection on my performance. Sniper Training is still fairly feasible (in my opinion) while trap dancing, as disengage will usually throw a hunter back far enough to get a head start on the 30yd rule--it's just difficult sometimes, and closer could possibly be better.
My real headache starts when I look at hit rating; I see several SV hunters completely skipping Focused Aim in the MM talent tree and, even while being under their hit cap, continue to do very large amounts of damage.
I really like this build, and can see it has a very obvious use: trapping. Now, I suppose I really would not have any trouble reaching a full hit cap, but in the absence of Focused Aim, it becomes something I'd have to put much more focus on. I've cleaned up my rotation considerably, and I am usually seeing 3000DPS on the button in bosses which involve FUBAR DPS application, however, the numbers that I'm seeing don't seem to hold up against the information I'm receiving.
How are you guys managing to preserve such high DPS numbers in the absence of Focused Aim, and, if my gear is fairly moderate, what sorts of things could I possibly be doing wrong? (In the WWS listed, DPS was incredibly low because of the worst server lag the guild had seen to date; Maexxna became impossible, as she would eat the tank immediately upon frenzy while our healers waited on 30sec instant cast heals.)
Honestly I don't get the skipping focused aim. If you are actually going to stack hit it makes sense, but if you're not hit capped it still gives a fairly large dmg benefit compared to other talents. I generally aim to be within .5% of the cap with a draenei in party, if there's not one there I usually swap in gear or go with hit food. Keep in mind that although hit is a valuable stat in a vacuum, when evaluating gear choices you have to look at the item as a whole and not just focus on meeting the cap. Also keep in mind that currently focused aim doesn't improve pet hit (although blue posts seem to indicate that might be an oversight, I know at one point on beta it did affect pet hit and I was rather surprised to find on live that it had changed).
One thing though I've been confused about is the hit cap itself. Original information had it at 9% but I've read a lot of stuff now which is saying it's 8% (and the spreadsheet itself is configured at last check to base off 8%).
I looked at some WWS reports of mine and the 8% seemed to be consistent with what I was seeing in raids so I switched to new boots that dropped me down about .5% below the 8% cap (as opposed to the 9%). I didn't have a draenei in that raid and so my miss rate should have been roughly about 1.5%, but what I found instead was that on some fights I was getting no misses at all, and on some my miss rate was much higher than 1.5%. I realize that the RNG is going to lead to inconsistencies, but that big a differential from fight to fight was very surprising to me and I'm not really sure what to think. I'm going to sit down later with the reports and see if I can make sense of it but I was just wondering offhand if others had similar experiences with major fluctuations in hit rates.
The build you linked Sanremuile does not look like a trap build to me- it just looks like a build with hawk eye moved to entrapment and trap mastery picked up. Entrapment is not really a raiding talent for the most part and can actually get you in trouble on some fights. I have heard some folks consider picking up savage strikes for trapdancing as you can squeeze in a raptor strike when laying traps. But the biggest trap talent for a trap dancing build would actually be resourcefulness to cut down on the cooldown so you can trapdance more often.
Also in regards to sniper training, getting more than 30 yd from the mob takes longer than you may think. I recently installed a range display mod, and I was rather surprised to find that on many fights my eyeball guesses as to what was actually 30 yd was much closer. On some fights you have to back up super far (especially Malygos) to get that 30+ yd. Making sure to backup far enough to qualify for sniper training is actually fairly time consuming on most fights and is definitely not consistent with trap dancing except on the fights where you are not laying the traps directly on the boss.
I've been aiming for 8% hit from gear for a while now. I am using mostly uncommon quality gems, so its been very easy and not too expensive to balance the hit by switching gems around when I get some new piece of gear. I rather go bit above the cap than fall short at all. Could be a legacy of me being a BM for the most of TBC, but I just like having my pet hit capped aswell now that it is possible.
Focused Aim is transferred to pet, the problem is that it doesn't stack with hit from gear. I just checked and at least yet this is not changed in PTR.
With my 8% hit, I have not seen any real misses for me or my pet outside Archavon, and there the few are explained by getting caught in the cloud. Pet is of course getting parries and dodges, and I get the odd "other" miss when the boss/add I am shooting at is already dead.
Originally Posted by sanremuile
Also, do Traps themselves carry a Hit Rating cap, or do they simply miss sometimes beyond my control?
In TBC, traps used spell hit, so I would assume that they still use the spell hit scaling and cap. This would mean that the hit cap for them is 17% spell hit or 446 hit rating. With the 263 hit rating to cap our shots, spells already get 10% to hit and then there are the raid buffs that increase it some more: 3% from Improved Fairie Fire or Misery. With this we'd get 13% out of 17%, which would leave 4% chance to have the trap miss. I haven't been trap dancing, merely used traps in fights where it is convenient (Thaddius, fights with adds), so I don't have enough data to verify this assumption.
With my 8% hit, I have not seen any real misses for me or my pet outside Archavon, and there the few are explained by getting caught in the cloud. Pet is of course getting parries and dodges, and I get the odd "other" miss when the boss/add I am shooting at is already dead.
I'm pretty sure that my pet needs 9% hit, tested on target dummy with 8% on hit (no FA) and about 5k swings.. pet was at exactly 1% miss.
5k isnt the biggest sample, maybe i just got screwed by rng once more.
It should be mentioned that haste is very important to a surv build, at least up until you get your steady shot cast to 1.5 secs (the haste soft-cap). This requires about 18% haste, 15% if you have a boomkin or ret pally with the 3% haste talent. Since you always want 3 steadys for every ES (not counting L&L), decreasing steady shot cast time lets you decrease the time betweeen ES's to reach the 6 sec ES cooldown.
One aspect which people debate is whether you should take Imp Hawk if you aren't at the gear haste soft-cap. Imp hawk can provide a 3-21% haste buff depending on the number of ranks and whether you use the glyph. Many people propose just putting in one point and using the glyph to reach 9% and then using about 6-9% haste from gear (which is easily doable without really concentrating on obtaining haste gear) to reach the 18%. However, the problem with this approach is that Imp Hawk isn't up all the time- in fact with a 2.8 speed weapon (2.26 with quiver + 9% haste) it's up considerably less than half the time. My approach is that it is worth putting more points into Imp Hawk in order to improve its uptime; with 4-5 points in it plus the glyph, its uptime reaches over 50%. Those points which put you over the haste soft-cap don't decrease time between ES's when Imp Hawk is up, but they do increase Imp Hawk uptime which is important. I'm not sure at what amount of haste it's worth putting less points in Imp Hawk or dropping it all together, but at low haste levels I doubt that alternative placement of these few points could be more beneficial.
@Rivkah
In regards to your hit comments, Focused Aim hasn't been transferring to pets, making gearing for it a bit better. 8% seems to be the agreed upon new hit cap; not just for hunters but for all non-dual wielding classes. There's a post in the class mechanics general forum that discusses it. Hit has only been transferring to pets in whole numbers rounded down, so if you are aiming for 0.5% below the cap keep in mind that your pet will be 1% below the cap. The way most gear is, you're not going to be sacrificing agility or AP for hit either - the counterparts to gear with hit on it will instead have haste or armor pen or crit, or some combination, which aren't the greatest stats.
I do have a question about sniper training for those that are using it. My main concern is that trying to keep this range may end up putting you outside of the range of various raid buffs. Strength of Earth (if you've got an enhancement shaman dropping it) and Leader of the Pack come to mind. For those raiding with it, have you noticed a problem keeping both range and raid buffs?
So I've been doing some pretty unscientific testing of my Survival spec on the PTR -- that is to say, I've been pewpewing until I went OOM and then hitting FD and seeing what I clocked in at.
~3k DPS consistently on the level 80 dummy, ~2500 on the level 83. Individual Explosive Shot ticks upwards of 3.8k. The trap stuff takes some getting used to [I haven't actually done "trap dancing" yet, per se, since I can just stand right on the edge of min. attack distance for ranged and drop a trap that'll get tripped by the dummy -- in a real PvE setting, it'd be almost impossible to absolutely tiptoe the line like that, so I guess I'd just run into melee every 24 seconds] but it's a relatively long cooldown to monitor. The real work is figuring out when you've got LnL up so it doesn't go to waste; LnL doesn't reset the cooldown on Explosive Shot, just makes the next two cause only a GCD, so you often wind up wasting LnL proc duration with an Explosive Shot that's still on cooldown.
The only other [minor] annoyance was making sure Serpent Sting had 100% uptime, which is made slightly more complex for Surv than BM just because you're constantly watching your Explosive Shot button to make sure it's cooling down due to the 4% chance a random Serpent Sting tick will proc LnL, on top of monitoring your shorter-than-BM-or-MM trap cooldown.
I just copied over to PTR today and my best while trap-dancing the heroic dummy was 3600 dps with a few RNG LnL procs off Serpent Sting. Note that the dummy was under 20% hp, so I was 8 yards out most of the time for Kill Shot. That forced me to do the dance for real rather than having the dummy just trigger the trap at 5 yards.
I have no idea what the optimal raid spec will be, but I took 2/2 GftT because putting 1 point into Rapid Killing is fairly useless. An option would be to move one point from both GftT and Mortal Shots into Rapid Killing I guess. I took both Sniper Training and most of the typical trap-dancing talents except Savage Strikes. I wanted to test both at the ame time as well as stay flexible enough for fights that disallow either. I tried a 7/13/51 build also, but my initial conclusion is that a variant of the specs with 0 points in BM will fair the best. Obviously one could go full trap-dance or forego it completely and drop some points into Improved Stings.
The biggest annoyance with trap-dancing was finding the right time to run in. Too early and you waste an extra Explosive Shot. Too late and you risk losing an extra trap at the end of a fight. Another annoyance is missing the fact that Serpent just proc'd LnL as you start to run int to lay a redundant trap.
12/26/08, 2:57 AM
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