Elitist Jerks Weekly Recap 4/27/12

Every Friday Tabana brings you the latest discussions straight from the Elitist Jerks forums with a recap of what was discussed and links to the full posts so you can stay on top of the latest in hunter theorycrafting.

Best Initial Rotation when Hunter’s Mark can’t be Applied before the Fight? 4/15/12

In the Simple Questions/Simple Answers thread, Fincher asked, “I have a Question about the initial rotation for fights like Ultraxion where you can’t apply Hunter’s Mark before the fight: What to do first?”

Start Attack and cast Hunter’s Mark or use other stuff first, like Kill Command on BM, Explosive Shot on SV? What about Serpent Sting; is it advised to cast it before Hunter’s Mark or after? Also is it recommended to cast Serpent Sting before or after using your main damage source like Kill Command as BM or Explosive Shot as SV?

Whitefyst replied, “Hunter’s Mark (HM) is a big AP boost for you and your pet. Hence, if you are the only hunter in your raid and the target will live longer than 20-25s (which Ultraxion does for most raids), you want to cast HM as soon as possible and then start specials.”

For situations like this, it’s good to have a HM macro that will start attack when pressed with certain modifiers. Until you cast HM, all of your attacks are gimped. If there is more than 1 hunter in the raid, then assign the lowest DPS hunter with the duty to cast HM at the start of combat. Some things to remember: If you cast Serpent Sting or Black Arrow before the HM, then the AP for these abilities will be at the lower non-HM amounts until they are recast or refreshed.

Nooska added, “And to follow up on Whitefysts response, since you specifically mention BM, you want to do HM, then BW before KC and SrS.”

Fincher replied, “Are you sure? HM tooltip says it gives ranged attack power so I didn’t think the pet also benefits of HM.”

Also, it gives a set amount of attack power while Serpent Sting gives 10% which I believe is very much for when close to BiS in all items and fully epic gemmed. Serpent Sting also starts ticking faster if I start with it. But if you still say HM is better even after this I will change the rotation.

Whitefyst replied, “Our pets inherit from our ranged AP for their AP.”

If you can Serpent Sting instead of HM first, Serpent Sting does not start ticking faster, it only ticks 1 GCD sooner. Thus, the only thing you lose by the 1 GCD delay in Serpent Sting is a 33% change to lose the last tick of Serpent Sting depending on where in the 3s Serpent Sting cycle the fight stops.

If you cast HM first, then Serpent Sting does more damage right away due to that extra AP instead of waiting until it gets refreshed/recast to that higher AP if you reversed the order.

Regardless of whether you do HM-SrS-then start the rotation or SrS-HM-start the rotation, Serpent Sting is still on the target before you cast any other damage ability (except maybe one autoshot – but it may be hitting the target anyway before the SrS debuff is up for the extra damage). However, the Serpent Sting damage bonus only affects our ranged attacks; hence, if you do Serpent Sting first then HM, your pet’s initial attacks will be at lower damage (unless it was in the process of running to the target).

Either way, in the grand scheme of things, it really does not matter which you cast first, but casting HM first works out slightly better from my math.

Nooska added, “HM is better.”

Whitefyst has gone into it on SrS, though SrS should be pushed 2 gcds more as BM: [HM, BW, KC, SrS] for 4 reasons:

  1. You want BW up first to get the damage bonus to run for the entire duration (untill refresh) of your first SrS.
  2. You want to keep KC on as tight a cycle as you possibly can.
  3. SrS doesn’t increase a BM’s damage (apart from its own contribution)
  4. If you apply SrS before BW or KC, you will have to reapply it, since it runs out before you run out of focus for KC and AS and hitting a CoS – it does not if you keep it tight and push it those 2 gcds.

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Faction Champions Soloed: New Combination (Resto Druid, Holy Paladin, Shadow Priest, Hunter, Death Knight, and Enhancement Shaman) 4/21/12

In the Soloing Old Instances for Fun and Profit thread, Durendil wrote, “Made a kill of Faction Champions, new combination. Durendil vs Faction champions – YouTube

Because of the high damage, I actually had to kill 2 dps asap, then kite the 3rd while the 2 healers (that resto druid is dynamite) tried to out-heal my dps. Thank god there was a hunter that forgot mend pet.

Caribald replied, “Nice job! I never actually tried killing a dps first, but I also think I’ve had a paladin in every combination I’ve faced. I’m surprised you didn’t use Widow Venom though, I think that would have made killing 2nd/3rd dps a bit quicker (not sure if it’s worth using a global on it on the first target).”

Durendil replied, “Kind of forgot. [...]”

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High Priestess Kilnara and Toravon Videos 4/24/12

In the Soloing Old Instances for Fun and Profit thread, Steevnash wrote, “I’ve noticed a few videos for these two but information is pretty scarce, so just in case someone was interested in a little more of the particulars of these encounters I’ve put up How-To videos for High Priestess Kilnara for the Swift Zulian Panther and Toravon from Vault of Archavon for the Grand Black War Mammoth: High Priestess Kilnara, Toravon

Goldschakal replied, “[High Priestess Kilnara's] actual cooldown on leash is only 10 seconds, so if you get unlucky, can get three leashes in 30 seconds, which would kill you. Attack her only while she casts Shadow Bolt, while you have Intervene ready or while she is channeling Tears of Blood. [...] There is no need to kill her adds. Simply reset her adds with feign death. Overall you will save about 5-6 minutes each kill and you take much less risk to die in p1. [...] You can watch my video: Zul Gurub Kilnara Heroic 2man – YouTube Its 2-man, yes, but it’s the same tactic I did use to kill her various times solo.

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Problems with Kael’thas Part III 4/23/12

In the Soloing Old Instances for Fun and Profit thread, Malackai replied to an earlier discussion concerning problems with the Kael’thas encounter,”The levitation bug goes back longer at least it never worked for me ever when I started soloing since November last year, so I always use disengage near the ground; however, I have indeed noticed the sneaky MC more often during the phase 5 start and after the patch I have also noticed something else that threw me off.”

The last reset I tried last week my pet seemed to be extremely buggy during phase 3; constant stuns even with the staff equipped and in 10 y range of the pet even when refreshing the buff, and a strange MD issue (or it looked like it). I have been soling this boss for over 3-4 months and I never ever had any trouble with phase 3 (all advisors at once). Normally I put the pet on Capernian while mding Telonius and Sanguinar to my pet and I usually get through it with near full health or around 80% full while keeping my pet up. However, last week I have been wiping on phase 3 for oven an hour and when I did finally got to phase 4 I was at a abnormal low health while my pet was full health.

What happened was this: I put the pet on Capernian, I activate md and shoot Sanguinar, Sanguinar starts running to my pet but the moment my auto shot left my bow sanguinar did a 180 degree turn and came charging right back at me. At that point I got feared and I had 3 advisors wailing on my back and in some tries even all 4 of them. This pretty much persisted for over an hour before I finally managed to get to phase 4 with about 40-50k health left. It was like the threat transfer wasn’t working properly and they were acting like the “pvp” boss in MGT. This was an extremely weird situation and I am wondering if someone else noticed something similar.

I also noticed some similar behavior during the trash mobs in TK as well. Just for extra info my pet was a beetle and had Growl and Thunderclap activated.

Caribald replied, “Remember threat transfer from Misdirection fades after 30 seconds, so if your pet has only been hitting one of the advisers the others will eventually attack you instead.

From your description it sounds like your pet is getting disoriented from Capernian which will make the advisers go after you. Make sure the staff aura is up on your pet before they revive, and stay in range of your pet so it stays up. If you get feared more than 30 yards away from the pet, get in range ASAP with a Disengage and reapply it, but ideally you would stand close enough to your pet that you won’t out-range it even if feared in opposite directions.

If your pet gets disoriented, try putting up a Mend Pet on it and Feign Death. I’m almost certain that Feigning will make them go back on the pet even when it’s still disoriented. Reapplying the staff aura will not break any existing disorients, only prevent new ones, so Feigning is your safest bet if that happens. Just make sure to get back and reapply staff aura when the disorient is gone.

About the fear, I’m not entirely sure of the range of it, but I’m pretty sure it’s big enough to make the aura disappear from your pet if you out-range it. The safest tactic is to simply periodically misdirect the other advisers to your pet so your pet always has SOME threat on all advisers, while never letting the aura drop off the pet.

If you have the apm (actions per minute) to do it you could also switch your pet’s target after a few Growls to make sure it has permanent threat on them all. Also, if you stay close enough to not get feared too far away, you will also have Disengage ready for when you get knocked away by Thaladred. Remember, once he gazes you, he resets any threat and gives you 10k threat, so it’s pretty easy to get him off you and back on the pet with a misdirect and one global, but he might still knock you away.

I prefer killing Capernian first, which will remove any problems with disorients on the pet. Basically at the start of phase three I will misdirect her, as well as Sanguinar and Telonicus to the pet. I will send the pet on either Sanguinar or Telonicus while I burn Capernian with chain Misdirects until Thaladred comes in range, at which point I’ll Misdirect him as well. Every time Thaladred switches to me, I MD to get him off me ASAP.

When Capernian dies, I re-misdirect Sanguinar and Telonicus, perhaps feign to clear healing threat at some point as well. Then I just burn Thaladred with a finger ready to misdirect as soon as he changes targets to me. Sending the pet on the other target of Sanguinar and Telonicus means neither of those guys will target you again, as long as you Misdirect once you start killing them.

With Capernian and Thaladred down, I kill Sanguinar to get rid of the fear. Remote Toy from Telonicus doesn’t matter with the staff aura, so it’s easier to get in position for phase 4.

I might do a narrated guide on this next reset, it really seems like a lot of people are having trouble.

Malackai replied, “the buff is up before the advisers are rezzed at all times and I even keep reapplying it but sometimes the pet still gets disorientated for no apparent reason even when I am close.

Mind you this has been happening for the last two resets before I had no issues at all in phase 3. Yesterday it even happened that my pet had the daze/disorientate animation and just stopped responding completely I could not call him to me it didn’t attack it just stood there doing nothing I only got it solved by dismissing and recalling it out. Even with reusing the staff aura. [...]

And yes I am aware the threat fades after 30 seconds but the weird thing was that he came back straight away without my pet being dazed and my md didn’t even run out yet at that point.

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A full index of all Elitist Jerks posts recapped at the Wow Hunter’s Hall is maintained in the Index of Elitist Jerks Hunter Forum Posts.

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