alarge

Ok, I respec'd last night from BM to Survival. I'd played so long with a spam macro that it seems wired into my DNA now, so I started the night trying to build a "maybe less than optimal, but still usable" shot macro. By the end of the evening, I had given up. Sometimes I can fit 3 steadies between ES's, sometimes only 2. LnL procs require a totally different approach. I now have serpent sting, ES, and SS all on different buttons and I pretty much run off of cooldown management now.

Which brings me to my questions:

1. How the heck do you guys monitor your cooldowns? Currently, I have to split my attention between my action bars and the boss -- action bars for ES cooldown and KS becoming available, boss debuffs to watch for my serpent sting wearing out. I was able to do this marginally well by the end of the night in a heroic, but I have real fears about my ability to do this well and stay out of the fire in a raid.

2. What do you use to notice LnL procs? For me, the signals are too subtle -- I basically have to notice that I'm not getting an ES cooldown any more, which may take me a couple of seconds.

3. Once LnL has proc'd how are you managing pacing at that point? I think I kind of wavered between spamming ESs and interleaving ESs with SSs. Neither approach feels very good, but I'm afraid the action is just too hot and heavy for me to carefully time things without some external support.

4. I think I've seen some folks continue to macro KS into their SS with a macro, but it seemed like I got "stuck" when I did that last night ("ability not ready" stuckage). Anyone else have an issue with this?

5. What do you guys think is the right way to handle Rabid, Kill Command, and Call of the Wild? When I was BM, I ran with a scorpid (so Rabid and CotW weren't issues), but I macro'd Kill Command and Beastial Wrath together (along with trinkets and Rapid Fire). I probably had some abilities off cooldown longer than necessary that way, but it seemed like superpositioning them gave me a nice ability to really turn on the DPS when it was needed.

 

Dralmoo

1) There are a lot of cooldown addons available. I like CooldownWatch, but there are plenty of other ones. Use that to monitor your key short term cooldowns near your character.
2) I use a Custom Event in SCT, MBT or PowerAuras would also work.
3) There is a lot of discussion in the survival thread about handling LnL procs.

5) Macroing KC/Rabid together still seems reasonable, you'll lose 1 possible KC on average, but they have a lot of synergy. CotW seems best saved for Bloodlust still.

 

• Relwin

1. Comes with experience using the spec. Practice, practice, practice. I could do the pre 2.4 steady rotation by rhythm after a few weeks.

2. Try PowerAuras.

4. There's actually a syntax for this that was posted by Har today. Search around for it.

5. Same way as when you were BM. Stack cooldowns for when you need DPS.

 

Kargesh

Maybe a Haste Prob with this Macro .. Here is a Screen "Just OOM"

I have no special probs with this Macro.



9.33 % Haste

 

Bikiniwax

EventAlert is an excellent mod for alerting you of Lock and Load procs. I highly recommend it.

EventAlert : WoWInterface Downloads : Buff/Debuff/Spell Mods

 

RSkillz

I see you're using the following lines in your macro:

/castsequence Steady Shot,
/cast Explosive Shot

Can you explain in plain english how to read these lines?
would it be: Cast steady shot and when on cd cast explosive shot?

I'm asking this because a few pages back I spotted the following lines in a macro:

/castsequence , Steady Shot
/cast Explosive Shot

Will cast Explosive Shot on the first iteration, Steady Shot on the second, and attempt to cast Explosive shot on the third.
If Explosive Shot is available due to LnL proc, it'll successfully cast it, but if it's not available, it'll just fail and nothing will happen. Obviously, it'll cast Steady Shot on the fourth iteration regardless, but with unsuccessful Explosive Shot from the third interation, it'll just happen on the third gcd.
I believe this macro should have a slight delay compared to manually weaving, since it is basically same as alternating between pushing Explosive Shot and Steady Shot button, and attempting to cast Explosive Shot while it's not available would cause a slight delay.

Just wondering which one is better.

 

bluetang

I want to make a macro for soloing (ahh mindless farming) that will reapply mend pet every 14 seconds but be part of my steady spam. I suppose I could do it with [mod:shift] but I usually farm late at night and don't really want to use too much brain power and actually pay attention to my pet. I thought about reset=14 but if I put that in my steady macro it will be reset with every click. Is it even possible to have an ability reset in the middle of a crappy steady macro? Save me from having to pay attention while I farm mats!

Thanks!

 

Zeel

#810 @ The Survival Hunter in WotLK

 

Namarus

You realise that your shot rotation for LnL procs is a DPS downgrade?

You should be doing ES->ES->ES with a pause between each ES. Since ES is 2s, the GCD will take you to 1.5s and then waiting the extra 0.5 will result in a higher dps output.

 

Macloud

I've tried this both ways, with ES x3 on LnL and also what I mentioned above. I wasn't aware that anyone had definitively proved that one was more powerful than the other. I've read through pages of speculation though.

 

Arcadios

I am a disabled WoW player with limited dexterity in my hands so in light of this I use a shot rotation macro to assist me to play the game more effectively. Given my situation I think I am a decent player who understands the class pretty well so the macros were never there to mask a huntard, just a means of making the game more accessible for me. That being said, prior to the 3.0.8 patch I was using the following macro:

#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

That macro along with manually applying Serpent Sting worked very well for me. Now with Arcane Shot needing to be added to the rotation I am struggling a bit with my limited dexterity and hitting Arcane every cooldown. Is there anyway I can modify my existing macro to fire arcane every time it is ready? I tried adding it in but Arcane would not fire. If I had to manually hit Kill Shot that would be fine because it is only needed maybe twice in a bossfight. If the mods would prefer it, feel free to send me a PM.

 

Fimbo

The short answer is NO Arcadios. Read back in the thread for explanations as to why you can't use the two /cast commands. (Kill Shot being an exception to the rule).

The only way I could think of for doing this would be by using something like AutoHotKey, but you would clearly be violating the T&Cs to do that so I elected against it.

Moving to Survival means you will have many many more button presses to contend with as well.

I sympathise, as I have had similar issues, but I fear you will need to find a new way to adapt to playing.

 

Einskaldir

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/castrandom Kill Shot, Arcane Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Steady Shot

The /castrandom for Kill Shot and Arcane Shot seems to work pretty well for me, it will fire Kill Shot when the HP requirement is met, and will fire an Arcane Shot almost every time it is not on cooldown. Of course this causes my next Steady Shot to be delayed by the GCD of Arcane Shot, but is this the way to go if you want to have both Steady Shot and Arcane Shot in the same macro? I can't use the spreadsheet to check since it won't allow enabling of macros, a limitation for being on a Macintosh apparently.

Also, I noticed several macros that have a Null command in it, like /cast Steady Shot , Null (with the spaces around the ,)
What does the Null command do exactly and why would it be good to use?

 

Peldin

Don't think I've seen this but I thought it might be useful for hunters who fight sartharion (especially 10-man sarth+3)

/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Tranquilizing Shot

If you have ever done Sarth you know that lava blazes spawn in the fight and they enrage. In just normal Sarth or even 25-man Sarth+3 this isn't really that big of a deal... but after doing 10-man Sarth+3 where your dps is very critical, I've found tranq shotting mobs without losing much dps to be very helpful.

Basically all you do is put your mouse over an enraged lava blaze and hit your hotkey for tranq shot. If you are SV it's best to do this when Explosive Shot and Aimed shot are on cd so that the only dps you are losing is one steady shot. You won't have to switch your target off of Tenebrom or Shadron or whichever boss you are dpsing. And tranq shot won't fire at anything that's not enraged so you don't have to worry about wasting a GCD.

If you have a hard time getting the mouse over a lava blaze, just spam your hotkey for this macro while moving your mouse around the screen and eventually you'll tranq an enraged lava blaze if one is up... soon as you see your tranq shot go off, get back to your normal rotation on the boss.

 

Peldin

Another one for Sarth+3 if you are required to bring a Tenacity pet for Roar of Sacrifice

/target (enter main tank's name here)
/cast roar of sacrifice
/cast last stand

Simple. Effective. Required. (For when your tank is taking 80k breaths)

 

RSkillz

Is there a reason you added /cast !Auto Shot in your macro?
When Kill Shot is cast and it's not available yet, it will cast an auto shot.

 

Ferretmonger

@ Arcadios:

What I've found to work quite well is the following macro (results may vary)
Yes, I know I'm probably going to get spanked for using a "/castsequence reset" but it does seem to work quite well with almost no clipping or delayed casting.
I tried manually weaving my Arcanes like any good Hunter should but with my latency (+-400ms, South Africa FTL) it becomes extremely hard to do it efficiently without losing too much DPS time. This macro however seems to have done the trick.

Comments/feedback/criticism welcome.

 

Munu

doesnt castrandom mean it casts a random spell from the following list? thus even if the 20% hp requirements are met, it might still fire arcane over kill shot, which would lead to a dps loss ?

 

forzakenSH

what is the command to make the error sound stop in a macro? I used to know but old age is getting to me

 

Dahal

I used this macro for a while, but it seemed to me that I lost some DPS. Normally I had the macro
#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

When I started using the other macro, with the /castrandom, it seemed to me that I lost some DPS. This loss of DPS might be because of the /castrandom function inside the macro.

Also, I'm looking for a macro that does the following:
When we start the fight I put serpent sting up, but I might forget to use my chimera shot so then it'll cast serpent sting again. Though if serpent sting is already on the target it will cast chimera shot.
Is there anyone that could make such a macro?

Regards,
Zegarr

ps. This is my first post so please be kind

 

Kithicor

Saying this before Relwin!

Should check stickies. Since this is an elitist jerks thread, only the most dps (for hunters) are encouraged and macros are not. Manual shot rots are prime, I would recommend practicing on target dummies. You can find the max DPS shot rot in the Shot Rotation section found Here

 

Terranigma

Ok, after alot of testing i came up with some good dps on a training puppet, here my stats, what i do and my dps.

lvl 80 hunter

1118 agi
4420 ap
272 hit
32.47% crit
483 haste

(armory : The World of Warcraft Armory)

Macro:

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/castrandom Explosive shot, Aimed shot, Kill shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Making sure that serpent sting and hunters mark is refreshed each time and when no cooldowns or lock and load is ready, i spam steady shot. I'm using the mod cooldowntimers2 (CooldownTimers2 - Addons - Curse) so i don't have to look at my action bar all the time and when a cd runs out i get a big cubic icon on my char with text "explosive shot ready" (for example), then i spam the macro ofcourse. I also watched bigredkitty's movie about the rotation and it's nice, but this one makes it more simple + more dps then he got.

So roughly without putting a trap to be able to trigger lock and load more often i come on around 2900-3000 dps as a survival hunter while i'm using a raptor pet who does around 460.2 dps. this is without any buffs ofcourse

(post edited since i now have hit cap)

 

dangerbird

This one might be even easier:

/target Enraged
/cast Tranquilizing Shot
/raid Tranq'd a firey guy!
/targetlasttarget

Doesn't require mousing over or targeting the flame guy - just intermingle spamming it with your regular rotation when you see an enrage.

 

Masterdragon

I dont believe the name on the mob changes from "Lava Blaze" to "Enraged Lava Blaze". Most enrages don't change the mob name or add Enraged at the start. Course I'm not so much paying attention to the name of the mob I'm tranq'ing but I belive the Sartharion adds only gain an "Enrage" buff and double in size but still retain the name "Lava Blaze" which would cause that macro not to work.

 

KraxisSingular

The moblist on Wowhead doesn't include any Enraged mobs, so I guess they don't change names.
But that doesn't really invalidate the macro overall, just the target. Change that to Lava and it will be plenty fine.