Posts
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Beastmastery in 4.0.6 Post-Hotfix
I show BM as vastly more potent than it was. I also show it besting SV by a small margin (without factoring in AoE).
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Hot fix makes senseless overuse of Aimed Shot dumb
This is coming in on Tuesday:
Hunters
- Aimed Shot damage has been decreased to approximately 160% weapon damage (at level 80+), down from 200%.
- Aspect of the Hawk now provides around an additional 2000 attack power at level 85.
The change also helps out SV and BM a bit too.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Marksman Hunter DPS in 4.0.6
Talents
I am using a 7/31/3 Marksman talent build for all my non-AoE fights. I've heard a few questions about talents in the past week or two. First, you want one point in Rapid Killing so you can get Rapid Recuperation's big benefit of +50 focus. Second, I put two points in Frenzy and three in Pathing. This works best for my gear. For other gear levels reversing the two may be marginally better.
Glyphs
I am habitually addicted to double-tap Kill Shots. A better Glyph to take would be Chimera Shot. It's not radically better especially with the current de-emphasis on Chimera Shot. If you have double-tap Kill Shots wired into your fingers and you like to hit readiness right after to do a second round, then I recommend the following. If you don't, then go with the Chimera Shot glyph instead of the Kill Shot glyph. The major and minor glyphs are good but not huge DPS differences.
Shot Priority
If you have call-outs on the timing of a boss pull, you can tee-off with a manual cast misdirecting Aimed Shot against a marked boss. Pre-pots are kinda expensive and you lose ~3sec on the AiS cast time, so it's not exactly worth it in a majority of situations.
Generally speaking for Marksman, you want to always be casting steady shot in pairs of two to keep your haste buff up.
You want to toss your chimera shot to refresh your serpent sting. It is possible to get better DPS right now by gaming the system by tossing a cobra shot, saving the focus and using it on manual cast aimed shots -- while the boss is at 80% or above. If that was a confusing sentence, don't worry. I don't recommend this. The shot priority you want is to do your two steadies, take your chimera shot when it's off cooldown to refresh the serpent sting, and use the manual long cast Aimed Shot as a focus dump. If you can't do Aimed Shot because of moving, then and only then you can dump some focus by using an Arcane Shot.
You will always take the focus-free instant Aimed Shot as soon as possible.
Definitely don't forget to use Rapid Fire twice at the beginning of a fight and twice at the end. Not only is it better to get to use it twice, but at the beginning you are in the Careful Aim health range and at the end you are in the Kill Shot health range. (Make sure to get an extra two Kill Shots with that readiness.)
Gems
Your meta gem is new. It's most likely still a little pricey. It is worth it. You should ignore socket bonuses in almost all cases and gem for agility. If the socket bonus is too incredibly tasty stop and consider that agility is at least twice as good as crit. Often it's three times as good. Do the math.
Reforging
Reforge everything that can be made crit into crit. Then reforge everything that isn't crit into hit until you meet the hit cap of 961 hit rating. Then the rest to haste until your personal soft cap, and then mastery. You can find out your personal haste soft cap with a nifty little tool. Or you can see what works for you by playing with the shot simulator and varying your haste and raid buffs. There probably wont be too much wiggle room anyway.
Note: I was planning on letting things settle down, but it's time for an update. That said, we have a nerf to Aimed Shot en-route. I authored this post in anticipation of that, but also with the current state of play.
I am using a 7/31/3 Marksman talent build for all my non-AoE fights. I've heard a few questions about talents in the past week or two. First, you want one point in Rapid Killing so you can get Rapid Recuperation's big benefit of +50 focus. Second, I put two points in Frenzy and three in Pathing. This works best for my gear. For other gear levels reversing the two may be marginally better.
Glyphs
I am habitually addicted to double-tap Kill Shots. A better Glyph to take would be Chimera Shot. It's not radically better especially with the current de-emphasis on Chimera Shot. If you have double-tap Kill Shots wired into your fingers and you like to hit readiness right after to do a second round, then I recommend the following. If you don't, then go with the Chimera Shot glyph instead of the Kill Shot glyph. The major and minor glyphs are good but not huge DPS differences.
Shot Priority
If you have call-outs on the timing of a boss pull, you can tee-off with a manual cast misdirecting Aimed Shot against a marked boss. Pre-pots are kinda expensive and you lose ~3sec on the AiS cast time, so it's not exactly worth it in a majority of situations.
Generally speaking for Marksman, you want to always be casting steady shot in pairs of two to keep your haste buff up.
You want to toss your chimera shot to refresh your serpent sting. It is possible to get better DPS right now by gaming the system by tossing a cobra shot, saving the focus and using it on manual cast aimed shots -- while the boss is at 80% or above. If that was a confusing sentence, don't worry. I don't recommend this. The shot priority you want is to do your two steadies, take your chimera shot when it's off cooldown to refresh the serpent sting, and use the manual long cast Aimed Shot as a focus dump. If you can't do Aimed Shot because of moving, then and only then you can dump some focus by using an Arcane Shot.
You will always take the focus-free instant Aimed Shot as soon as possible.
Definitely don't forget to use Rapid Fire twice at the beginning of a fight and twice at the end. Not only is it better to get to use it twice, but at the beginning you are in the Careful Aim health range and at the end you are in the Kill Shot health range. (Make sure to get an extra two Kill Shots with that readiness.)
Gems
Your meta gem is new. It's most likely still a little pricey. It is worth it. You should ignore socket bonuses in almost all cases and gem for agility. If the socket bonus is too incredibly tasty stop and consider that agility is at least twice as good as crit. Often it's three times as good. Do the math.
Reforging
Reforge everything that can be made crit into crit. Then reforge everything that isn't crit into hit until you meet the hit cap of 961 hit rating. Then the rest to haste until your personal soft cap, and then mastery. You can find out your personal haste soft cap with a nifty little tool. Or you can see what works for you by playing with the shot simulator and varying your haste and raid buffs. There probably wont be too much wiggle room anyway.
Note: I was planning on letting things settle down, but it's time for an update. That said, we have a nerf to Aimed Shot en-route. I authored this post in anticipation of that, but also with the current state of play.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Thoughts on the latest 4.0.6
I'd like to be level-headed about the changes that come around in the PTR. Clearly SV hunter damage is a bit too high. I would like to see them add an interrupt for SV and knock off about 5% damage. They appear to simply want to knock off about 20% damage.
Below are the current testable changes:
So on the surface, it's clear they'd like to make MM much more potent, BM a little more potent, and SV far less potent. That said, they're going to shift the earth a bit more with two rather huge changes; 1) Cobra and steady will eventually benefit from haste, and 2) Auto-shot on the move -- without stutter steps.
I know I don't need or even want the auto-shot change. I find myself on the verge of attacking the wrong mob plenty of times and just need to move until my fingers can find the escape button. (Since you can no longer click the ground to unselect your current target.)
Other important questions:
#3 - Is SV still getting the -5% to agility nerf too?
#2 - Will the Chaotic meta gem requirements benefit SV more than MM?
#1 - Will SV start firing Arcane Shots instead of Explosive Shots now?
Below are the current testable changes:
Beast Mastery
- Animal Handler now provides a passive 25% bonus to attack power.
- Arcane Shot damage increased by 15%.
- Hunters can now use Auto Shot while moving.
- Cobra Shot will eventually benefit from haste.
Marksmanship
- Chimera Shot's overall damage increased by 50%.
- Aimed Shot weapon damage increased to 200%. In addition, the base cast time has been reduced to 2.4 seconds, down from 3.
- Arcane Shot damage increased by 15%.
- Hunters can now use Auto Shot while moving.
- Steady Shot will eventually benefit from haste.
Survival
- Black Arrow damage has been reduced by 15%.
- Explosive Shot damage has been reduced by 15%.
- Serpent Spread still possible
- Hunters can now use Auto Shot while moving.
- Cobra Shot will eventually benefit from haste.
So on the surface, it's clear they'd like to make MM much more potent, BM a little more potent, and SV far less potent. That said, they're going to shift the earth a bit more with two rather huge changes; 1) Cobra and steady will eventually benefit from haste, and 2) Auto-shot on the move -- without stutter steps.
I know I don't need or even want the auto-shot change. I find myself on the verge of attacking the wrong mob plenty of times and just need to move until my fingers can find the escape button. (Since you can no longer click the ground to unselect your current target.)
Other important questions:
#3 - Is SV still getting the -5% to agility nerf too?
#2 - Will the Chaotic meta gem requirements benefit SV more than MM?
#1 - Will SV start firing Arcane Shots instead of Explosive Shots now?
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Fun in Heroics
Last night I ran Grim Batol heroic. It was with my guild so it was a blast. What made it so? For three of us it was our first time. We cleared it in 45mins. On two bosses we were three-manning it. (I was one of the dead one of those times!) Why was it fun? We didn't know the fights but figured them out on the fly.
What else has been fun in heroics? It's usually the unexpected.
I had to train-trap a big ugly heroic mob for four minutes while a pug tank fixed his router.
With only me and a healer up (who tried to dps), I kited a different big ugly heroic mob around while widdling its 1M health down.
I got called into heroic Deadmines while doing my TolB'd dailies. I unfortunately still had my gorilla. After the tank went down to the whirling blades of the robot in the forge the healer somehow thought to heal the pet. I threw on growl and MD and the damn pet took hardly any damage.
Being SV, my only boss interrupt for the first boss in heroic Shadowfang Keep is to use my Gorilla and pummel up to every 30sec. I was astonished that I was able to do it. Pummel works a lot better than it once did.
In general, the heroics feel like five man raids. Like raids, pug raids can really really suck. This is magnified by pug players that you will never ever encounter again from other servers. But if/when you have a good group the runs challenge your abilities and certainly keep you awake.
What else has been fun in heroics? It's usually the unexpected.
I had to train-trap a big ugly heroic mob for four minutes while a pug tank fixed his router.
With only me and a healer up (who tried to dps), I kited a different big ugly heroic mob around while widdling its 1M health down.
I got called into heroic Deadmines while doing my TolB'd dailies. I unfortunately still had my gorilla. After the tank went down to the whirling blades of the robot in the forge the healer somehow thought to heal the pet. I threw on growl and MD and the damn pet took hardly any damage.
Being SV, my only boss interrupt for the first boss in heroic Shadowfang Keep is to use my Gorilla and pummel up to every 30sec. I was astonished that I was able to do it. Pummel works a lot better than it once did.
In general, the heroics feel like five man raids. Like raids, pug raids can really really suck. This is magnified by pug players that you will never ever encounter again from other servers. But if/when you have a good group the runs challenge your abilities and certainly keep you awake.
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