Wednesday, October 22, 2014

How to use the NeedToKnow Addon to maintain the Sniper Training

An intro to my addon setup in the vacuum left by JSHB.  This video focuses on using NeedToKnow in order to more easily maintain uptime on the Marksman sniper training buff.  You will see some of the ways I've substituted-out JSHB however.


Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Bandaging the JSHB Addon

JSHB was not working at all for me following the launch of 6.0.2..  I use it on my hunter and rogue. It did not show up. I could not get /jshb to do anything. Others reported that they had it working but it killed their frame rate, or that it was only partially working.

JSHB is not maintained and hasn't been for a year.  The developer or series of previous developers are no longer playing.

Here's how to fix it.

  1. Backup your Interface folder so you don't get crazed if this doesn't work. ;-)
  2. Stop wow.
  3. Download the latest Release edition of Ace3.
  4. Unzip it.
  5. Open up your Interface/JSHB/lib
  6. Delete the libraries in there.
  7. Copy the new Ace3 libraries into Interface/JSHB/lib
  8. Edit the Interface/JSHB/JSHB.toc file and set "## Interface:" to 60200.
  9. Start wow and make sure the addon is enabled.
  10. Enjoy your borrowed time.
I'm looking to get a permanent replacement to JSHB.  NeedToKnow, which was updated for 6.0.2 has an experimental option to show focus. It's not where it needs to be for real use yet though.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

The Problem with Numbers

The sky is falling!  I really don't want to be this person.  The issue is that we, as hunters, have been on the low side in expansions before.  Blizzard eventually fixed us with various buffs here and there but those always happened after months of progressive raiding occurred.

The sky is falling!  Our numbers are low.  They're like really low.  Like holy priests can out-dps hunters.  All three specs are terrible.  We're half the damage done in simulators of warriors and mages and far far behind everyone else.

The sky is falling!  There are tons of caveats with the sims.  The most commonly circulated ones are "Patchwerk" style.  Hunters are supposed to be the dps-on-the-move class.  So, in a "Helter-Skelter" simcraft set-up, we should be much better.  Well, no.  We should be as close to the same as possible and everyone else should be worse.  50% worse?  That's hard to believe, right?

The sky is falling!  Are the sims right?  Nope!  Many sims are looking at level 90 and frankly, Blizzard doesn't care about balancing anything at level 90 anymore.  Are the sims doing the right conservation of focus for the shots, or prioritizing correctly?  I somewhat doubt it.  The simcrafters are trying to model dozens of specializations.  Even if just looking at hunters, you need to pick some heuristics and tweak focus regen and stat weights (gems, enchants, etc) around it.

The sky is falling!  But Survival just got a buff and others got buffs and nerfs.  That's great, but it isn't great in that it was enough of a buff/nerf.  It's great that Blizzard is tweaking as well.

The sky is falling! Here's the thing the simulators have an easier time and a harder time.  It's easier because there are less stat weighting to consider.  It's easier because there are less abilities to prioritize.  It's harder because there hasn't been enough thought and experimentation by creative people into what should be done.  All that said, on the surface and at first cut, hunters are in the dps basement.

The sky is falling!  For now, just enjoy your time.  Try the new UBRS.  Get your stuff in order. Prepare to level.  Try out MM, BM, and SV.  Try and get some muscle memory going with rotations. Get your addons so you can more easily visualize what you need to watch.  Try raiding if you raid. If Blizzard is watching they'll see the numbers and continue to tweak.