Hunter Thread 3.33

[Vrede]

So the other Hunter thread is pretty outdated and quite frankly im really bored of bgs so here we go.

Hit Cap
Hunter Hit Cap – [32.78 Hit Rating = 1% Hit]
262.24 Hit Rating – 0/3 Focused Aim
229.46 Hit Rating – 1/3 Focused Aim
196.68 Hit Rating – 2/3 Focused Aim
163.90 Hit Rating – 3/3 Focused Aim

As with most classes, hit rating until the cap (8%) is the absolute best dps increase there is.

Marksmanship
This is by far my favorite spec to play, and is also imo the best raid dps spec.

Talent choices can vary from a few talents, but there are certain talent that remain a must for all Marksmanship specs.

Mana Regeneration
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?hunter#ZzR-zjt26-401,,11159
If you find yourself running out of mana very rapidly and have hit to spare, this spec is pretty common among pve hunters. Rapid Recuperation (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53232) will allow you to stay out of viper longer during prolonged periods of dps.

Focused Aim
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?hunter#ZBf0zRNAX8_GX,,11159
Another common spec includes 3/3 Focused Aim (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53622)
This spec allows more flexibility around the hit cap which is nice, especially since most current higher-end Marksmanship gear lacks Hit Rating.

Focused Aim with Rapid Recuperation
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?hunter#ZBf0zRNAX8BNC,Ye6q-O,12045
This spec drops a point from Improved Steady Shot and puts it in Rapid Recuperation, i currently raid with this spec and prefer it over the others.

Most specs vary between Rapid Recuperation, Improved Steady Shot, and Improved Barrage. Swapping around talents as needed based on current level of content and gear.

Glyphs
The two absolute musts, regardless of spec, are Glyph of Serpent Sting and Glyph of Chimera Shot. The Serpent Sting glyph increases the duration of your Serpent Sting, which in turn increases the amount of damage that your Chimera - Serpent will do.
The two most common varying glyphs are Glyph of Kill Shot and Glyph of Aimed Shot.

A current example of a situation to use Glyph of Kill Shot would be Saurfang in Icecrown Citadel. He has a pretty massive hp pool and will be in Kill Shot range (20% hp) much longer, giving you more use out of this glyph.

Glyph of Aimed Shot is what i would generally use in a common boss encounter. Dps currently is very high and most bosses are not in Kill Shot range very long before they drop dead on the floor. Aimed Shot can hit as hard as Chimera Shot minus the Chimera - Serpent proc, given the amount of Armor Penetration you have.

Shot Priorities
As a Marksmanship Hunter your shot rotation should look very similar to this.
Kill Shot > Serpent Sting > Chimera Shot > Aimed Shot > Steady Shot

Generally, if Chimera or Aimed are going to come off cooldown before your Steady Shot is going to finish, it's best to wait and fire the Chimera or Aimed.
Arcane shot
Due to the heavy Armor Penetration you want to gear for as Marks, Arcane Shot is taken out of the picture. Reason, Steady Shot's damage will surpass Arcane Shot due to your Piercing Shots (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53238). The only time it is a good idea to use Arcane Shot is between dps positions during a boss encounter, such as moving from Void Zones.

Gear Itemization
Once you are hit capped, the ideal piece of gear for you will look something like this Bracers of Untold Massacre. Agility, Stamina, Intellect, Attack Power, Crit Rating, and Armor Penetration Rating.

Leather
Leather, although on rare occasions very good for us, lacks Intellect. In most cases Leather will not surpass mail for this very reason. 100% of your Intellect is also Attack Power which you recieve from Careful Aim (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=34484).

Armor Penetration
Basically, Armor Penetration is beefy for Marks. The only shot it does not effect is Chimera Shot. With about 30% of our dps being Autoshot, Armor Pen (ArP) is a strong stat to have. Without losing out on too much Crit or Attack Power, ArP is always a good choice. As Marks you want as close to 100% as possible.

Gemming
With the current level of gear, gemming Arp is the way to go for Marks. A good marker for when to make the transition from gemming Agility to gemming Arp is if you are right around 800 PASSIVE ARP (armor pen) from gear. You also want to obtain a Deathbringer's Will

For Blue slots you really only want to throw in one Nightmare Tear to get your Meta Gem requirement. Otherwise you want to gem with Fractured Cardinal Ruby.

Addons
Power Auras (http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx)
This is by far one of my favorite addons. It has many different situations that it can be used in. For an example i use it to show whether or not i have Serpent Sting or Hunter's Mark on my target, as well as showing timer on buffs like Call of the Wild, Rapid Fire, and Misdirection. This screen shot is showing the duration left on my Call of the Wild, Misdirection, and Rapid Fire. It also is showing that my current target does not have Serpent Sting (Green Aura) or Hunter's Mark (Red Aura.)
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/1386/wowscrnshot122709233528.th.jpg (http://img14.imageshack.us/i/wowscrnshot122709233528.jpg/)

Deadly Boss Mods (http://deadlybossmods.com/)
Essential for raiding. Displays bars that show ability timers and also announces certain actions in a boss encounter.

Grid (http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/grid.aspx)
Grid is an addon that shows your Party or Raid. It cleans up a lot of mess that otherwise clutters your interface such as party frames or other raid frames. It takes a lot of configuration, but i definitely say it's a must for any raider.

Other than Grid, DBM, and Power Auras, Hunters don't really need many addons. Everything else is just optional such as Bar Mods, Bag Mods, all the random junk that fits each individual's playstyle.

Pets
Ferocity (http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#0Md00sc00hooo)
The Ferocity Pet Tree is pretty cookie cutter, it should look like this.
Wolf
Currently the most common pet among Raiding Hunters. Wolves have the ability Furious Howl (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64495), which increases your Attack Power by 320 for 20 seconds with a 40 second cooldown.

[Randalsmash]

Interesting to read. It is worth noting however that Maverick raids as survival and still pulls roughly the same numbers as MM hunters so just because EJ says MM should be the highest dps ever for hunters it also comes down to playablity and if you are able to maximize all of the theoretical dps out of a MM build. Theorycraft is just that theory in an ideal setting.

[Vrede]

i didn't judge what i said off elitest, it's just my personal opinion. And actually if Maverick would like to add on with a survival post it would be pretty cool.

[Vrede]

<crickets>

[Vrede]

Updated for Icc Gear

[Vrede]

There are several plateaus of ArPen (arranged based on Arpen from gear ALONE, before gems).

0~400 - Spec MM + Imp Arcane Shot - Stack Agility Gems

~400- mid700s - Spec MM w/o Imp Arcane Shot and drop it from your rotation- Continue to Stack Agility Gems

~720 - Soft Cap for NES Needle-Encrusted Scorpion
~730 - Soft Cap for Runestone Mjolnir Runestone
~780 - Soft Cap for Grim Toll Grim Toll

800+ Spec MM w/o Imp Arcane Shot - Stack ArPen Gems to the moon assuming you have the gear to do so w/o losing too much AP and Crit%.

This guy took the time to explain Arp a little better than i did=P

[Ghanos]

Check out the parses this week. Both hunters had a lot of attacks blocked on Festergut.

It appears to only reduce normal hit damage by ~300, however, I'm pretty sure that blocks can't be crits. So, you lose potential crit on a block, which costs much more than the 300.

Bottom line, there's no reason not to face Festergut's back to the hunters.

[Ghanos]

West disagreed with my analysis, so I did some further digging and spawned a discussion on EJ.

Summary: Hunters attacking bosses from the front negatively impacts hunter DPS by a significant amount.

Details:

- Hunters are not on a one roll system like melee.
- Level 83 mobs have a 6.5%(?) chance to block a frontal attack.
- Magical based hunter attacks such as Arcane, Volley, and Chimera - Serpent Sting can crit and be blocked (Minimal 76 damage reduction. Makes sense because caster attacks aren't subject to block).
- Most physical attacks cannot be both a crit and a block. This is where the DPS loss comes in. Some are proposing it's a 3 roll system with a third roll for a block downgrade, but I think it's basically the same as 2-roll with block being first priority.
- Attacks that do not seem to be able to crit and be blocked are:
Multi-Shot
Aimed Shot
Chimera Shot
Wild Quiver Auto Shot
Quick Shot
Silencing Shot
Kill Shot
- Steady Shot is a physical based attack that can crit and be blocked. Chimera Shot is a magical attack that cannot be crit and be blocked. (I wonder if this a coding error?)

For Reanimated, the biggest effect has been on Festergut, since the boss is tanked facing the ranged DPS. However, I've noticed also that Heroic LK seems to be showing some blocked hunter attacks as well.

When possible if hunters are with the ranged DPS, then we should try to always face the boss' back to the range so that hunters don't incur a 5%-6% DPS penalty.

The discussion on EJ is in the Hunters: Simple Questions Simple Answers thread and there's a link to the ~18 month old thread on crit/block interaction.

Hopefully, this disturbance in The Matrix isn't a sign of pending doom for the world :).

[Syrio]

On LK I try to position myself on the backside of the boss, on that fight there is no point in the tanks doing anything differently, it can be up to the hunter. On Festergut I agree it would increase DPS but at this point I don't think it matters, if we wipe on Festergut, we suck.

Pretty sure Chimera Shot is intended to be a magical attack.

There is a lot of blocking in PvP so it kind of trains you to shoot from behind as much as possible.

Anyway, an interesting discussion nonetheless.

[Ghanos]

Pretty sure Chimera Shot is intended to be a magical attack.


Of course, I just meant that it seems like there's only one magical attack that can't be a crit and blocked (Chimera Shot), and there's only one physical attack that can crit and be blocked (Steady Shot).

If those two were reversed, then there would be consistent alignment of magical and physical hunter attacks with regards to block.

[Atreas]

Do you guys refresh SS after a Stinger's proc? Have you seen any dps delta by doing so?

Atreas

[Atreas]

"Say Chimera Shot or Aimed Shot have one second left on the cooldown. It is better to cast another Steady Shot rather than wait that one second for the Chimera or Aimed."
This is a dps loss not a dps gain, don't you think so?

[Syrio]

For the proc, I only refresh on fights that I know I can carry that the entire way, i.e. something like Festergut or Rotface, as opposed to something where I know it will drop. I am not sure if that is the right way to go or not, it is just what I do.

For the cooldown, I always fire an additional Steady. I believe that is the preferred way although I have not modeled it myself. My gear is a bit lacking so its hard for me to directly compare my performance against Vrede, I do know that my rotation is more Steady-heavy than his.

[Vrede]

Yes Atreas it is a dps loss, and i forgot to update this crap. Also do not refresh during Stinger, only during Exploit Weakness proc. Chimera refreshes serpent to current RAP, but you can roll the % damage gain from 2piece.

[Atreas]

Thank you for the correction Vrede.
I noticed you are running a 3/3 Hawk Eye. How is this new setup working out?
A.

[Syrio]

That is entirely for the Heroic LK fight, since you are moving in and out of range the entire time. Not sure if its an increase or not but it does help with spheres on the transitions and moving rapidly around the room.