Raiding with Beast Mastery in 3.3.3 and beyond - Page 36

Pentagram · 04/02/10, 7:28 PM

Originally Posted by KraxisSingular

There are specific cases where a Worm might be extremely handy, the latest would be Putricide. Specifically against the the oozes and clouds. The faster stacking debuff from the Worm means that it will stack fully in 7 seconds (add a little considering the Worm might just have used it prior to the spawn), and it is nicely ranged. A Fury Warrior might not get the stacks up very fast at all, with knockbacks and waittime on the clouds. The Worm is a considerably superior option for that fight.

While normal mode, in most cases, aren't failing due to too little physical DPS on them, it does help to get them down faster. Heroic, well haven't done that, but I could easily imagine it would be very much more critical there. The more physical classes you bring for this fight the more value the Worm holds.

Since I'm not a heroic raider at this time, I could also imagine LDW adds in P2 could use some sunder effects, and not to forget Thunderstomp would go a way towards evening with a normal Ferocity pet. I could also see the Worm on LDW in P1 to keep the Sunder effect up for the duration, no need to restack and if there are more dedicated melee/hunters on her they would obviously benefit too.

The Worm has merit, so don't discount it entirely, but I am not terribly convinced that it isn't the largest overall DPS loss of the three options for a normal single target situation (consider not only the pet but also the spec).

Your off tank should be able to apply Mutated Slash - Spell - World of Warcraft to the ooze while being an abomination, which will not stack with Sunder/acid.

KraxisSingular · 04/03/10, 9:42 AM

Hmm... haven't driven an abo so I didn't know it could do that. Even so, you can't be sure the driver has the time to apply it 5 times on every add.

ceelion22 · 05/05/10, 6:44 PM

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is my BM with Aimed Shot. I ran it through a few sims and although it does do less dps than the one without Aimed in a stand-still fight. But it out dps'd by a noticable margin in a movement fight (a la most ICC fights). I find it works for me.

CalicoKat · 05/14/10, 12:11 AM

Originally Posted by Nooska

- Staying in Dragonhawk untill OOM (no switching for BW) - which doesn't happen in any of these rotations

It's been awhile since I've been BM (and, in fact, I'm just off a five month hiatus from the game) but last I remember I was very effective switching to Aspect of the Beast during Wrath and then switching straight back to Dragonhawk when it ended. Is this not done anymore?

Since Glyph of SrS does add damage by not wasting as many GCDs, even if this was the case I'm not sure I'm going to go crazy and advocate Glyph of the Beast here, but having been off the game so long I'm sort of muddling through deciding if I'll go back to BM or stay Marks as I had been for a few months and I'm interested to know where we stand on aspect switching atm.

Nooska · 05/14/10, 6:03 AM

@CalicoKat

The quote you have from me is from the assumptionlist I made for a very specific test - namely whether steadyspam (and nothing else) was viable. It was an assumption implemented to keep the test results consistent across rotations. Changing to AotB during BW will of course benefit the BW glyph more at the expense of IAotH glyph, but looking at the tested values in the same post for the different glyphs, it is in my opinion very unlikely that it would give the BW glyph such an increase in value that it would be worth taking. AotB of course increases in value with gear upgrades as 10% ap is more the more ap we have.
Conclusively, my post isn't really relevant to either question you pose, so don't take it as such.

Rosamonde · 05/15/10, 11:05 PM

Originally Posted by ceelion22

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is my BM with Aimed Shot. I ran it through a few sims and although it does do less dps than the one without Aimed in a stand-still fight. But it out dps'd by a noticable margin in a movement fight (a la most ICC fights). I find it works for me.

That is interesting, Ceelion -- could you show us the numbers from your sims?

fearstalker · 05/17/10, 3:25 AM

Originally Posted by alienangel

The uptime boost from Rowan's is quite significant, around 9% for me as MM, and 11% ish as BM. It's not enough to make the tank gun competitive with a 264 bow for me (may be for a dwarf), but it does massively increase its DPS potential. The latest spreadsheet does include it so someone familiar with BM speccing should probably try it out.

Also, I don't actually see the 2pcT10 bonus being applied on the Pet Calculations tab, and pet DPS actually seems to go down with the gun equipped which seems odd - if the sheet isn't accounting for the 15% damage boost to the pet, it is likely severely undervaluing Rowan's.

I'd like to revisit this, if one of the spreadsheet gurus could verify what is going on. According to the online spreadsheet, Rowan's is still above even the Season 8.1 weapons by a reasonable amount, while the other gear ranking sites have it the other way around of course. I'm assuming the gear ranking sites aren't factoring in the 2pc T10 uptime. Is the regular spreadsheet showing the same thing?

Nooska · 05/17/10, 4:13 AM

For me, Rowans Rifle is showing as BiS BM ranged if you don't have access to icc25 (not sure about icc10 heroics) in Shandaras spreadsheet. I would tend to agree with you that the ranking sites don't factor in secondary effects from the increased speed - i.e. uptime of "on hit" procs without ICD.

fearstalker · 05/17/10, 2:03 PM

Originally Posted by Nooska

For me, Rowans Rifle is showing as BiS BM ranged if you don't have access to icc25 (not sure about icc10 heroics) in Shandaras spreadsheet. I would tend to agree with you that the ranking sites don't factor in secondary effects from the increased speed - i.e. uptime of "on hit" procs without ICD.

Playing with it some more, with my gear (arcane in the rotation, not gemming Arp yet, just at that threshold), the online spreadsheet is showing Zod's as a 15dps loss, the 8.1 pvp gun as a 108 dps loss, and heroic Stakethrower as a 49dps loss. The heroic Stakethrower is the one that really suprises me.

It appears that the online spreadsheet is placing Rowan's firmly between the 264 and below, and the 271 and up weapons. Any of the 271+ showed some dps increase.

Is the gun really that good, or is the online sheet overvaluing something? (One other thing I noticed, if I replaced my current Herkuml War Token with DBW, the other 264 weapons were closer to Rowan's with Zod's being the closest, but Rowan's was still ahead of the other 264 weapons).

Nooska · 05/18/10, 6:27 AM

With any trinket that stacks an increasingly powerful buff/debuff on hit, speed will always be valued higher. Apart from getting more autos in the same length of the fight at the full stack, it also reduces the amount of specials that are used at lower stack values. This, however, is only valid for fights where you don't targetswitch a lot (though with targetswitching the speed component is higher in value as you, again, build up the stacks nontrivially faster).
I think a lot of people looking at Rowan's forget that the actual value a ranged weapon brings to the hunter is first and foremost basedamage and speed (some specs like slow and some like fast though). Looking at Rowan's compared to Zod's (for instance);

Rowan's / Zod's
255 dps / 255 dps
2.1 speed / 2.8 speed
77 stam / 51 stam
0 agi / 34 agi
26 hit / 0 hit

This is cleaned of all nonused stats (dodge, parry and str on Rowan's), and shos us that the real difference is 34 agi or 26 hit (and Rowan's has a marginally higher survivability from the extra stam) and the speed. Rowan's has a damage variable of +/- 129,5. Zod's has a damage variable of +/- 173 - which, when compared to the speed, is exactly the same damage variable over time as Rowan's. The faster speed will give you benefits for any on hit proc that doesn't have an ICD - and even a minor benefit for those that have an ICD - thos without ICD will be refreshed more often, those with an ICD will be refreshed faster after coming off the ICD, and will thus begin the new ICD faster possibly resulting in more uptime total by maybe gaining 1 more proc in a fight. The net result is, that the higher speed and the loss of 12 item points (thats all it really is as hit = agi in itempoint distribution even after we clear away the useless stats and disregard the stamina) will consistently have you doing more damage due to higher proc uptime.
The cost of a lowerdamage ranged is that our steadies suffer a bit as they are based on weapondamage, but by the time you would reasonably have Rowan's most of the damage in your steadies will be coming from your AP and the difference in base damage of Rowan's and Zod's is 178,5 average (range: 135 - 222) - which is only 49 damage more than the +/- damage deviation on the rifle itself.

KraxisSingular · 05/18/10, 10:21 AM

Yes, Steady is based on weapondamage, but in such a way that it is actually the weapon DPS that factors in. Meaning, two weapons with the same stats and DPS, but different speed, will do the same Steady damage.

So BM really only loses damage in the Multi/Aimed department with a fast weapon. This is then made up for by the proc effects. In particular T10-2 and Improved Aspect of the Hawk.

Btw, you forget about Zod's proc, while it is pretty much crap, it still amount to a fairly significant amount of damage.

Nooska · 05/18/10, 1:39 PM

I didn't actually forget the Zod's proc, I just didn't have any info that was useful to actually include it - though that proc would also help in the uptime of "on hit" procs I assume.

Regarding steadyshot, are you sure its not base weapon damage? I was convinced by others that I was wrong when I said something to that effect either earlier in this thread or in one of the others - I believe its only the AP contribution that has been normalized so a slower weapon is more damage.
If you are right then even that slight advantage to Zod's (and the other 264 weapons) is gone, which makes Rowan's even better for BM as all thats lost is 12 itempoints - and the jokes that are made about "huntards" with strength, dodge and parry - which are easily ignored when you know that its one of the best weapons out there for you.

fearstalker · 05/18/10, 4:29 PM

One last play with the numbers with the online spreadsheet, I played around with some other variables, different pets, gemming for Arp, and Rowan's still is sitting between the other 264 weapons and the 271+ weapons. But, Zod's is close enough that I might start carrying a stack or two of arrows for pet-unfriendly situations.

(And I've gotten really good at explaining to pug raid leaders why I'm using Rowan's. I think I'm gonna macro it).

alienangel · 05/18/10, 5:44 PM

Originally Posted by Nooska

I didn't actually forget the Zod's proc, I just didn't have any info that was useful to actually include it - though that proc would also help in the uptime of "on hit" procs I assume.

Regarding steadyshot, are you sure its not base weapon damage? I was convinced by others that I was wrong when I said something to that effect either earlier in this thread or in one of the others - I believe its only the AP contribution that has been normalized so a slower weapon is more damage.
If you are right then even that slight advantage to Zod's (and the other 264 weapons) is gone, which makes Rowan's even better for BM as all thats lost is 12 itempoints - and the jokes that are made about "huntards" with strength, dodge and parry - which are easily ignored when you know that its one of the best weapons out there for you.

Steadyshot is definitely normalized for weapon speed in all respects - other attacks are not, but steady is pretty unique in being a perfectly normalized attack - it will scale with weapon and ammo DPS, but no other characteristics of a weapon (well stats and procs too obviously, but speed won't matter).

I've unfortunately had to wade through quite a lot of threads on the official forums or Wowhead where some poor innocent asks whether the tank gun is worth buying or not, I and one or two others explain how and when it's good (and how extremely good it is then), only to be swarmed by people bring up all the "lolhuntard tank" and "felglacier bolter is better noob" stuff that you mention - this has happened in literally around 12 threads now, so I think any recommendation to use the gun has to be accompanied with the warning that "idiots will make fun of you for using it, and refuse to accept you could possibly be right no matter what you say or show". If you happen to be BM these people would likely be making fun of you anyway though.

The standard summary is:
- 264 quality DPS, which scales your autoshot, steady shot, and wild quiver (and to a lesser extent piercing shots) DPS, every bit as well as any other 264 weapon
- dramatically higher 2pcT10 uptime, which affects all damage you and your pet do - particularly good for BM since the pet component matters more, and the uptime increase appears to be amplified by serpent's switftness
- hitrating is useful; stats on ranged slot always fairly minor anyway so wearing tank stats in the slot isn't a massive loss
- lower dps from instants than slower 264s have, but potentially higher than sub-264 weapons - mostly hurts MM, since Chim/Aimed/Silencing all affected, while Explosive, Black Arrow, Serpent Sting, and Arcane in the other specs aren't affected by weapon damage
- wild quiver unaffected for fast speed: procs are of lower magnitude, but are more frequent
- more frequent GfTT procs, but shouldn't really matter for level 80 hunters (fast weapons were a huge buff for hunters when 2.0 came out though just because of GfTT and Wind Serpents)
- more frequent Imp AotH procs
- benefits from dwarf racial, which only one other 264 does
- all the above mean that if you have 2pcT10, the weapon is solidly competitive with (or better than) 251 ICC weapons as MM and SV, and competitive with (or better than) 264 weapons for BM, for PvE - PvP maybe you prefer a slower weapon, I don't know.

KraxisSingular · 05/18/10, 6:18 PM

Don't bother to teach the idiot masses, it just isn't worth it. Mostly they are same dumbasses that don't use GS the right way and other stuff like that. Basically they don't want to learn and you will only get a bloody nose for your efforts. Concentrate on those that do want to learn or those you can speak with one on one.

Originally Posted by alienangel

- 264 quality DPS, which scales your autoshot, steady shot, wild quiver and piercing shots DPS if MM, every bit as well as any other 264 weapon.

My bold.
Technically not true since you lose PS damage from Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot. But in terms of total Steady damage it is most certainly just as good any any other 264 weapon (with the reservations of stats, but as noted it isn't even that bad).