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
- Updates to the Guide
- Rivkah’s (Zeherah’s) Hunter DPS Analyzer at FemaleDwarf
- FD: Updates
- FD Updates: Patch 4.3
- Soloing Old Instances for Fun and Profit
- General Comments and Questions
- Soloing World Firsts 11/16/11
- Burning Crusade
- Cataclysm
- Atramedes in Blackwing Descent 10/16/11
Updates to Race and Stats, and Preliminary T13 Set Bonus Information 10/13/11
Whitefyst has updated the Marksmanship Guide with new information regarding the effects of race, stat priorities, and preliminary information about the T13 set bonuses.
To compare races, Whitefyst used the case from the Best Possible DPS thread with a Troll using a bow for the MM AS case.
When doing the comparison, I used the same ranged weapon throughout and adjusted crit rating appropriately for assuming the weapon was the kind favored (or not) by that race. Hence, it does not take into account the stats on the currently available best ranged weapon of each type. Analysis was done using Female Dwarf. Note that Female Dwarf averages the benefit of abilities like Blood Fury (Berserking is now explicitly handled though); hence, in game use of the abilities at the correct time with stacking upon other abilities can result in better DPS than shown below. The difference in DPS between the races with no DPS racial is their base stats at 85.
The races are ranked as follows:
- Troll w/ Bow: “The increased value of haste for hunters along with the best ranged weapon in T12 content being a bow have made Trolls currently the best race.”
- Troll w/o Bow: -380 DPS
- Orc: -465 DPS
- Worgen: -629 DPS
- Dwarf w/ Gun: -657 DPS.
- Goblins: -687 DPS
- Draenei: -846 DPS
- Blood Elf: -961 DPS
- Night Elf: -994 DPS
- Human: -1014 DPS
- Forsaken: -1024 DPS
- Taurens: -1031 DPS
- Dwarf w/o Gun: -1035 DPS
- Gnome: Cannot be a hunter.
See the Race section for additional information.
The Stats section of the guide has be redone and now includes three stat priority sets for different situations:
Note that the order of our secondary stats (crit, mastery, and haste) may change depending on your current gear, shot selection, and reforging situation putting you past a tipping point where changes in stats can cause a reordering of their precedence. However, I believe that the ordering below is generally true for each case, and it is agreed upon by other sources.
- AS focus dump:
- Range DPS >> agi > hit = 2 AP > crit > haste > mastery >> stamina
- Crit is the best secondary stat. Haste is mostly only important up to one of the levels for a tight CS cycle. Mastery is close but behind the other stats. Note that if you are doing a larger number of AIs than ASs that the AI focus dump case may be better.
- AI focus dump:
- Range DPS >> agi > hit = 2 AP > haste > crit > mastery >> stamina
- Haste is the most important stat since it allows faster and more frequent AIs in addition to a faster autoshot frequency. Crit is still important for all of our abilities that depend on it.
- AoE:
- Range DPS >> agi > hit = 2 AP > mastery > crit > haste >> stamina
- For AoE, mastery is the best stat. This is because every attack produced by a single MS has a chance to proc WQ. Crit is the next best stat due to the extra damage generated over all the attacks. Haste is the lowest stat since it only affects our base focus regen and our autoshots and SSs, which are only performed on a single target.
See the Stats Section of the Guide for further information.
The Haste subsection of the Stat section now discusses the increased MM reliance on haste at higher gear levels. Discussion of the T13 set in regard to haste was also added:
With the addition of T13 gear coming soon, an additional third option may become feasible. This is the case of 4 SSs in 5s, which requires 26.48% haste from gear and Pathing. I assume that this case may be feasible in T13 gear since the Best Possible DPS case with T12 gear is not too far below it at 21.57% from gear and 3/3 Pathing. However, at this time I am not planning to do any analysis at this haste level as I did for the previous two levels. This is because at this haste level our AI cast times are fast enough (1.813s) where AI should be used as the focus dump instead of AS. Since AI cast time is not a GCD at this haste level and since casting CS off CD when using AI as the focus dump is not as critical, the corresponding analysis for this haste point is not meaningful.
The Gear Section of the guide has been updated with preliminary information regarding the Tier 13 set bonuses:
The 2-set bonus is that SS casts provide double the focus base gain. This effects the normal 9 focus that SS generates but does not affect additional SS focus generation from Termination. Hence, each SS generates 18 focus instead of 9 focus. With 1/2 Termination, each SS generates 21/24 focus instead of 12/15 focus. This bonus is very powerful. […]
The T13 4-set bonus provides a 30% haste proc on AS casts for 15s. This is basically a mini-Bloodlust and is also very powerful since that much haste will result in additional AIs. The current understanding of the proc is that each AS has a 40% chance to proc it and that the proc has an ICD. Using a binomial estimation, a 40% proc rate means that on average a proc should occur after 2 ASs (64% chance) and that we should almost be guaranteed a proc after 5 ASs (92% chance). Whether an ICD exists and its duration is still to be determined. Current FS implementation assumes a 45s ICD.
The trouble with this powerful bonus is that it is actually counter to the focus dump choice trend as gear scales. As gear scales and we have more and more static haste and sources for dynamic haste effects, we tend to want to cast a larger percentage of our focus dumps as AIs, with casting AI all of the time as our focus dump being the ultimate goal. […]
Read the new section regarding Tier 13 Set Bonuses for more information about the T13 set.
See the complete list of updates to the Marksmanship Guide.
Animal Handler and Explosive Shot Changes Now Supported 10/14/11
In the Hunter DPS Analyzer thread, Rivkah announced that the latest PTR changes (enabled when you turn it on under settings) are now supported.
Currently only the Animal Handler and Explosive Shot changes are supported. I think the Thunderstomp one may be incorrect (since it looks to be a significant nerf) so I left it out for now till I can confirm the implementation. Note that I also have a lot of PTR items enabled on the site- you don’t have to turn on PTR support to use those, but I haven’t added support for upgraded JC gems yet as that’s a bit more complicated to implement only when PTR is enabled.
The explosive shot changes looks to be extremely minimal on paper- not sure if the notes from MMO match everything they’ve applied to the shot.
Explosive Shot Buff Applies to the Entire Shot 10/15/11
In the Hunter DPS Analyzer thread, Rivkah said, “I had a chance to go on PTR this morning and was able to test explosive shot and verify that it’s actually the entire shot the buff applies to and not just the base damage.”
My tests were seeing a formula of roughly 449 + 26.912% RAP but that may be slightly off. I’ve changed the PTR support on my site to reflect those changes.
In the Soloing Old Instances for Fun and Profit thread, adamjmac said “Nice job on Northrend beasts. I spent soooo much time on that… I figured out the pet switch but kept getting paralyzed to death on the second part, and eventually gave up. You seem to be able to knock out the world firsts on bosses I’ve tried and hit a wall, so all the credit to you.”
My question is how do you figure out the details of mechanics, like when exactly the paralyze spray will happen, etc? Are there specific patterns to look for, or are things often just random? Do you perhaps set up custom timers or use a stopwatch to try to predict when things will happen? I suppose it doesn’t help that I’m not familiar with any old raid content so I’m trying to learn from scratch.
Durendil answered that there are many things to know about soloing:
- You have about 50 skills, lots of talents, 3 different types of pet with abilities and talents: Know your class. […]
- Usually soloing requires you to use skills you’d never use in raid – summon, dismiss, taunt, dispel. […]
- There are many consumables out there – potions can come in handy in specific fights.
- Finally: learn the fight […]
See our complete WHH recap of Durendil’s post at How to: World First Soloing as a Hunter
High Warlord Naj’entus in Black Temple 10/19/11
In the Soloing Old Instances for Fun and Profit thread, Asrial posted that High Warlord Naj’entus in Black Temple had been soloed:
Did it in a basic PvE BM spec due to Kill Command being better. Basically you start the fight by Misdirecting to your pet, you do some dps for around 10-15 seconds, then you go 80-85 yards away, and spam Kill Command. When he casts the Shield up, you Dismiss your pet and wait for him to come to you. Then, Feign Death and a split second go back up and resummon the pet, he does a slight reset and loses shield but his health doesn’t reset.
Might not be entirely legit due to using this Feign Death method, but it works at least, and it means you wont necessarily have to get a friend to help you with that first fight.
Atramedes in Blackwing Descent 10/16/11
In the Soloing Old Instances for Fun and Profit thread, Sarahjane posted that Mionelol had soloed Atramedes on her hunter and linked a video of the kill.
Onin replied, “To echo the YouTube comments, I can hardly believe that a turtle is able to survive the damage of a T11 boss. But this kill suggests that there may be more potential kills in T11, if not now, then with the next tier of gear. Time to start experimenting!”
Sarajane said, “To be fair, Atramedes’ melee damage was pretty weak in comparison to other bosses from that tier. Most of his damage was AOE damage, which isn’t really an issue for our pets.”
See our WHH recap, Hunter Solo: Atramedes
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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