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.
- Marksmanship
- MM: Gear
- MM: Shot Cycles
- MM: Stats
- Survival
- SV: Shot Mechanics
- Explosive Shot Clipping 7/22/11
- Kill Command as Focus Dump for Survival 7/24/11
- SV: Stats
- SimulationCraft for Hunters
- Updates and Suggested Improvements
- Careful Aim Updates, Haste Proc Trinkets 7/26/11
- Tier 12 4-Piece Set Bonus 7/27/11
- Soloing Old Instances for Fun and Profit
- Burning Crusade
- Kael’Thas: Is the Staff Broken? 7/26/11
7/27/11
Tier 12 4-Piece Set Bonus
In the Marksmanship thread, Arash asked what would happen if the T12 4-Piece bonus and Resistance is Futile procced at the same time:
I was wondering if someone has the 4P-SetBonus and knows what happens if RiF and the Bonus Proc at the same time. I was thinking it would result in gaining the Cost for KC as Focus, which would usually result in having 100~ focus. Does anyone have information on that?
Whitefyst replied:
I do not have the 4-set yet so I cannot say for sure.[...] How it should work logically is the same as for MMM AI procs where they do not consume the 4-set proc since they cost no focus. They are technically a different version of Aimed Shot and KC than the focus costing version. Thus, I expect that the RiF KC would work as normal, and the 4-set proc would be used on the next focus costing shot.
kby, who has had the 4-set for over a week, said it does not check focus, is only consumed on abilities that use focus, and has no internal cool-down:
I have been trying to abuse it but I have really only been using it for chimera or hardcasting aimed, never have used it on kill command, and randomly if I don’t see the proc and I’m spamming my arcane shot key. So I have just adapted to keep my rotation.
Palioh contributed additional information on abilities that consume the proc:
It actually isn’t consumed by all focus costing abilities. Aimed, Chimera, Multi, Explosive, and Kill Command are the only abilities that are benefiting correctly from the proc. I know for a fact that Serpent Sting does not consume the proc, but I’m not on my Hunter atm to test Silencing Shot and Tranq Shot. I do not think those two count either though.
7/27/11
Tier 12 Four-Piece Bonus Proc Bug Part II
In the Marksmanship thread, Azulor added to last week’s discussion of the Tier 12 four-piece bonus proc bug:
[...] Arcane Shot wastes the proc, greatly devaluing the bonus if one doesn’t adapt their rotation to the procs and use a different spell than Arcane. My suspicion is that hardcasting Aimed is the best approach, at least if you can stand and shoot in peace, but using KC is less of a break from the usual rotation and will result in smoother focus management and ISS uptime control. If one does not adapt one’s rotation, then one won’t be getting the free Arcane Shot and I am not certain the current haste recommendations are optimal. Actually, even adapting to the procs with KC, I think it’s not yet clear which haste levels will result in smoother play, but I think it’s possible higher haste levels will end up being best.
Whitefyst considered impacts of the Arcane Shot Tier 12 4-piece set bug at length and concluded:
Although the AS bug is impactive and does not allow us to take full advantage of the T12 4-set proc, the impact is really not too large where I would not worry too much about it beyond trying to use KC in place of AS for the procs. I am sure that the odds are that we would probably lose more than that 68 DPS trying to totally change up the rotation in order to avoid the situation 100% of the time.
7/25/11
Shot Cycles and Haste at 100ms Latency
In the Marksmanship thread, ybvj is playing with 100 ms of latency and having difficulty performing 5 Steady Shots and two Arcane Shots per Chimera Shot cycle. Increasing haste to 19% has not solved the problem.
Whitefyst replied:
As clarification, the 12.93% haste level is the level to allow you to be able to perform 5 SSs in a tight 10s CS cycle at 0 latency. However, it does not mean that you are supposed to cast 5 SSs every cycle. The ideal situation is still to only be able to cast the minimum 4 SSs per cycle required to maintain ISS (doing so results in about 0.4s of deadtime in the CS cycle at this haste level); however, for focus balancing reasons, we often need to cast a 5th SS.
As a reminder from the guide for the Standard phase unhasted:
- Without the T12 4-set, I recommend at this haste level performing the following base cycle with MMM AI procs replacing the extra SS on every 3 of 4 procs and an AS on the other procs to include focus regen cycles to balance focus:
CS-ASx2-SSx5
Hence, this cycle performs the 5th SS on roughly 5 of 8 cycles. With Termination, the 5th SS is not needed when Termination is active- With the T12 4-set, I recommend at this haste level performing the following base cycle with MMM AI procs replacing an AS. In addition, to balance focus an AS needs to be replaced by a 5th SS as needed, preferrably on cycles with neither a MMM AI or T12 4-set proc to reduce focus wasting.
CS-ASx3-SSx4The 100ms latency case is kind of an “ideal” latency case for this haste level. When performing a 4 SS cycle, it makes up for the deadtime in the cycle and results in a tight CS cycle. However, on 5 SS cycles, it results in about a 0.3s delay in your CS cycle.
Since the goal is to perform that 5th SS cast as seldom as possible to balance focus and with the T12 4-set reducing the need for the 5th SS cast, I do not recommend acquiring additional haste to try to tighten up the CS cycle on 5 SS cycles. It results in more deadtime on the 4 SS cycles and costs you additional crit and mastery.
7/25/11
MM Alternatives Without the 10% Raid Haste Buff
Whitefyst was asked what the ideal thing to do would be for a hunter whose 10-man raid is often without the 10% physical haste buff. While the default answer would be to switch to Survival, Whitefyst listed several reasons why that might not always be the best answer. Impacts of playing without the haste buff were discussed, and it was recommended to use the Glyph of Rapid Fire:
Where the real impacts of the loss of the haste buff occur is during the much more shot flexible dynamic haste periods where both our SS and AI cast times are longer, although regen is still slightly better. In addition, obviously autoshot and related damage is less without the haste buff.
In this situation, I definitely recommend the RF glyph since the extra haste is fully utilized during RFs to [decrease] both SS and AI cast times to 1.03s and 1.49s, respectively.
How much haste from gear would be needed for the 4 SS cycle with 4 GCDs for CS and ASs at 0 latency?
10 – 4 = 6 = 4 * 1.6884761 / x
x = 1.688471 / 6 = 1.12565 or 12.57% or 1610 haste ratingThis is equivalent to the 2.33% low haste on gear case (5.4% with 3/3 Pathing) with the haste buff since both have the 1.5s SS cast time. Thus, you need 10.54% more haste on gear to make up for the 10% haste buff if normally at the 5.4% haste case. The RF glyph still fully takes advantage of this situation with getting your SS cast to exactly the GCD during RFs.
Note that this case is essentially your haste for the 12.93% haste case with an additional 3% haste to fully make up for the loss of the raid buff.
Tables and additional information are provided in the post.
7/22/11
In the Survival thread, Starwind asked for verification of a statement made in the SimulationCraft thread regarding Explosive Shot refreshing rather than clipping the DOT.
Hituro posted a log from tests performed on a training dummy.
Lokrick examined the log and found 8 SPELL_PERIODIC_DAMAGE events.
That is consistent with the analysis in the sim thread: ES acts like other Cata dots in that it clips and extends the current dot after its next pending tick. In your log, the last tick of the second shot was clipped.
Urrarg stated that while the first tick of the second Explosive Shot clips the last dot of the first ES, the third ES does not clip the second ES:
I found that if I spammed explosive shot to [queue] it up and make sure it fired *just* as the GCD popped I would only get 8 [ticks of ES] (second one was always clipping the first es). But If I waited to see the GCD pop up and then hit the shot [...] then there was no clipping. It seems there is a slight time delay when the first exp is not yet registered as a dot and so gets clipped. The 3rd one showed no change between spamming to [queue] and waiting.
Lokrick posted preliminary data from a SimulationCraft analysis of Lock and Load:
I’ve been playing with shot sequences for lock and load proc to leverage this dot change, but I wasn’t getting the right number of dot ticks. After a few iterations on my own, Caltiom reminded me of how to avoid clipping the dot. I eventually ended up with:
actions+=/explosive_shot,non_consecutive=0,if=dot.explosive_shot.remains<=(tick_time+travel_tim e)&!in_flight
But I was still getting only 7 ticks instead of 9 ticks. It turns out that there is a (simc) bug in the refresh of dots that tick when applied (i.e., on their the zeroth tick). Most dots don’t tick immediately, and most dots that do tick immediately have a cd that limits their refresh occurrences. Thus, ES during LnL may be the only place where this is an issue. I did a local hack (add 1 to num_ticks in action_t::travel for a ticking dot that is supposed to tick on zero) and ran a few sims. That gives me the correct number of ticks (9) in the sim, and is indeed a minor dps improvement over the default profile:
DPS Ranking:
32215 50.0% ES_ES_AS_ES
32184 50.0% Hunter_SV_T12H
31776 33.0% ES_ES_ES <—unverifiedHowever, in examining the output, the resulting shot sequence for the putative “ES_ES_AS_ES” during LnL is not typically ES ES AS ES; it’s more like ES ES AS AS ES or ES ES CS AS ES. This is because the remaining dot duration after the second shot is much more than a second.
Additional data and information is presented in the post.
7/24/11
Kill Command as Focus Dump for Survival
In the Survival thread, zakaluka15 discussed FemaleDwarf simulations using Kill Command instead of Arcane Shot as a focus dump :
FD tells me something strange today: once you reach a certain ilvl pretty close to 370, kill command becomes favored as sv’s focus dump over arcane shot. Using an armory import of myself with a couple key upgrades added manually, I would gain ~70 dps by focus dumping with kill command, and replacing glyph of ArS with glyph of KC. It appears to provide a larger dps boost as RAP scales. FD still favors all pet focus talents over improved kill command – probably because kill command already has such a high crit rate. Another 10% crit would only give KC about 7% more damage overall.
7/21/11
Crit vs. Mastery for Survival part II
Continuing last week’s discussion in the Survival thread concerning Crit vs. Mastery, evanmartyr asked at what point Mastery becomes more valuable than Crit:
The way I’ve been thinking about crit is thus:
Assume you have 1000 dps and 0% crit. Gaining 1% crit would be a 1% increase to your dps, increasing it to 1000 + 1000(.01).
Later on, you get another % crit. Since this crit gain has no bearing on the shots that were previously upgraded to crit, your dps would increase to 1000 + 1000(.01) + 990(.01). As you continue to add crit, the value of each 1% of added crit goes down (relative to just the hunter, not taking the pet into account).
So, at a certain point, the damage gain from adding 1% crit would be under that of adding 1% mastery, given that [...] mastery scales with a given amount of our dps [...]. Using the same situation from before, with 1% mastery from 0 you’d go to 1000 + 1000(.01) = 1010 dps, then to 1000 + 1000(.01) + 1000(.01) = 1020 dps, etc, since the mastery increase isn’t a modal thing, it scales directly. Also, you’re not going to start out with 1000 dps with mastery since it doesn’t affect all your damage sources.
Of course, this method of viewing crit scaling vs mastery doesn’t take into account Sick ‘Em or Culling the Herd, or pet damage, which skews the numbers sharply in favor of crit…but for how long? At a certain point, since pet scaling is generally so minor, Mastery’s better than crit…but the question is when; and when, if ever, is it also better than haste (assuming 2pcT12).
Bovii explained crit is only subject to diminishing returns at extremely high levels:
The reason you’re seeing this is because, in effect, what you’re saying is true. When it comes to modeling and stat weighting, people tend to look at things in a vacuum. And, even more so, they look at things in terms of averages with stat conversions. This is why you see 1% crit = 1 DPS. That isn’t saying that if you add 1% crit, everything will hit 1% harder every time but rather to say that, over a given period of time, it will average out to that.
The ultimate problem with Crit stacking has always been and will always be that it is 100% random number generated. On the attacks that you don’t crit, you’ve wasted a ton of stats. Then again, if you turn your back on crit, you’re reducing the overall damage that you could do because you’re no longer getting the benefit of 2x damage from crits.
To really put it in perspective, it goes like this:
Haste – Affects Auto Shot and Cobra Shot only; Extremely limited to specific plateaus and causes a DPS sink hole by purposely extending beyond those points. Once at a plateau point, additional haste only affects Auto Shots.
Mastery – Affects all spell based damage we do (everything except Auto Shots); Benefits from having NO diminishing returns as it is a static benefit to everything you do. Investing X amount of rating to get an additional 1% damage will not hurt you. But, it does only impact about 85% of your total damage as Auto Shots gain nothing.
Crit – Affects everything; In terms of stat layering, falls in between Mastery and Haste. Due to the random generated characteristic of Crit, adding 1% additional crit will not equate into 1% additional DPS as there are diminishing returns. Problem is, though, that these diminishing returns only occur at extreme levels of crit.
Bikiniwax then stated: “Crit doesn’t have diminishing returns but scales linearly. Although an old example [...] you can see the explanation here which I think is still valid today. Hunter stats and scaling”
Bovii clarified that diminishing returns on crit refers to the points invested for return on value:
Crit does have diminishing returns, just not in the sense that most people think. For every 180 rating, you’ll always gain 1% crit. That never changes no matter how much you have. So, in that respect, what you said was right. But, at certain levels of crit, you get to a point where there is a diminishing return in points invested for the return on value. How much difference is there between 50% and 51%?
7/26/11
Careful Aim Updates, Haste Proc Trinkets
In the SimulationCraft for Hunters thread, alienangel suggested several changes:
- The default action list generated upon import should be updated to account for the 4.2 change to Careful Aim
- The line to hardcast aimed shot in Hunter_MM_T12H.simc and also Hunter_MM_T12H_Arcane.simc should be updated for the new Careful Aim boss health range.
- “Profiles that include haste proc trinkets like Hungerer or Prestor’s Talisman of Machination often perform better for MM if you hardcast aimed shot during their haste procs. [...] leads me to wonder if there’s a way to tell SimC to make something conditional on the type of proc from Matrix Restabilizer. I see SimC is correctly making it proc different stats based on which stat is highest (which changes because of procs from Hungerer), and lists them with separate proccounts for matrix_restabilizer_crit and matrix_restabilizer_haste – but I can’t seem to add a conditional for say buff.matrix_restabilizer_haste.up without crashing SimC.”
Zimeron responded:
#1 and #2 are fixed in SVN, thanks for pointing that out.
#3 is a unique condition based on gear, so we won’t change the defaults. Currently we don’t have a way for you to track which type of buff you received from MR, I’ll see if that’s possible to separate out. For now if MR only procs haste when Hungerer is up, you can check for both of those procs to cast AS, granted it’s not 100% since Hunger can expire before the hasted MR does, but it’s the best you can do for the time being.
[e] I did #3 in SVN as well, each stat buff is its own unique buff, matrix_restabilizer_haste, etc.
7/27/11
In the SimulationCraft for Hunters thread, Hirgux asked if the T12 4-piece set bonus was modeled correctly:
I tried a few days ago with my hunter replacing 4t11 with 4t12, both hitcapped and 4t12 with the suggested haste rating of ~13% but simc tells me that 4t11 (3/4 heroic) is ~250 dps better than 4t12 (4/4 normal).
Zimeron replied:
We currently have the free cost applying to Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Chimera Shot, Explosive Shot, Multi Shot, and Kill Command and auto shot has a 10% chance to proc it and no ICD on the buff. The set bonuses from T11 may also just be flat out better than the T12 ones and the extra stats aren’t enough to compensate yet, but that’s just conjecture.
KergeKacsa said “I tried to check if I got the T124set procc (buff.burning_adrenaline.up), but it didn’t worked. Could you please put it in?
Zimeron answered: “For simplicity we’ve always referred to tier bonuses as tierX_Xpc. If you look at your buff list to see the available buffs, you’ll notice that burning_adrenaline doesn’t exist, but tier12_4pc, does.”
Azulor added: “Right now there is a bug with t12 4-piece: Arcane Shot wastes the t12 4-piece proc (called Burning Adrenaline), so that the proc is consumed but no focus is saved. Ideally one can cast KC or perhaps even Aimed Shot in the cases where it procs and CS is far from being ready, but it’s not always possible to do that.”
7/26/11
Kael’Thas: Is the Staff Broken?
In the Soloing Old Instances for Fun and Profit thread, invaderbravo noted problems using the Staff of Disintegration:
I’ve been watching YouTube videos [of] hunters soloing Kael in Tempest Keep, and a lot of the comments are saying the staff is not properly working. I’ve tried to solo this as well and I’m not seeing a cooldown [or] any effect when clicking the staff after it’s equipped.
Mericet explained:
Unless they changed it since a few months ago, the staff applies a buff to you called Mental Protection Field, which acts like a paladin aura for anyone within 30 yards of you. Macro it to steady shot or something like that, activating it is not on the GCD. After that, as long as you stay within 30 yards of your pet he won’t be stunned or disoriented. If your pet is getting the 10 second disorient, it means you were too far away. 30 yards is not a lot to work with, especially when you’re killing the phoenix; you just have to get used to not kiting it away from your pet into the room and rather staying near the statue at all times.
Hirgux confirmed “staff is working fine.”
CedricDur then asked “If it were so would it not appear in the pet’s debuffs? [...] Sometimes it is disoriented, and we see the pet milling aimlessly while having the Arcane Disorient debuff counting down. Many others the pet is clean, no debuffs, and is stuck for a long time. It works just fine on the Councilors phase, just not on Kael itself.
Alieta replied: “The staff gives you and your pet (in 30yrd range) a buff, not a debuff. And if it gets disoriented you are too far away, nothing else. Just stay fd´d if that´s happening.”
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
Loading ...