Shot Rotation Tool, Weird Hunter Advice

I decided I am going to go ahead and start developing my Interactive Shot Rotation Tool. It won’t require any user interaction to simulate shooting, but rather an illustrated guide to help those who might be confused about their rotation and might find a visual representation to help get their rhythm. So far it is looking like this:

So far it will automatically generate Auto Shot boxes boxes based off of your weapon speed and align them properly. The small white bar near the bottom is going to be the Global Cooldown indicator. The next step is to animate the movement of the shots at the proper speed. It might be slightly tricky but nothing too major. Currently I am only writing code for 1:1, 1.5:1, and 3:2 rotations, but will probably expand to 1:1 Priority rotations if it is desired once a few people use it.

OK, that’s enough about that thing. I will post updates as it moves along as I am only really working on it during my spare time.

BigRedKitty made a post on his blog a couple days ago that sparked quite a few comments that disagreed with his sentiments. I meant to touch on it when he made the post but I am just now getting around to it.

I will just lay it out that I don’t agree with his methods at all. In fact he made a follow-up post after all the comments on the first post. And judging by some of his rebuttals it’s quite obvious that his raid leaders have different outlooks on group compositions than a lot of other people.

BRK seems to have a theory of breaking his DPS into phases, his 1:1 rotation phase and a “mana regen” phase. The major flaw I find here is that you are sacrificing optimal DPS time. Mana regen should be a proactive solution and not a reactive one. If you are waiting for low mana to try and remedy your situation, your DPS will inevitable suffer. As many of his commenter’s said, hitting the Fel Mana Potion when you are down 2500 mana or so is the ideal solution, as you will burn more mana while the potion is taking effect. I use this method and I am using a much more mana intensive 3:2 rotation for my DPS. And as you can see, it’s working great:

We advocate never even getting to 10% mana. With your double 1h weapons and +30 Intel enchants and shadow priests and mana totems and Fel Mana potions, how the heck are you letting it get that bad? Oh that’s right, you never stop Steady Shooting.

I will agree with his first statement. But the second half? The only proper response I can conjure is “WTF?” Unless you have a mana pool of a level 14 Priest, a set-up like that is going to keep you from running out of mana regardless of what you do. I am quite happy with a Judgment of Wisdom and I am usually OK during long boss fights because of that alone.

If you stopped Steady for just ten seconds and followed our movie-example, you’d regenerate so much mana you’d never have to worry about going OOM and the implications thereof.

Or you could use the Fel Mana Potions from the start, encourage your raid leaders to create more optimal raid groups and you wouldn’t have to stop. A competent raid leader, especially ones pushing into Tier 6 content should know the strengths and weaknesses of each class, including the inherent problems with Hunter mana efficiency.

And if that is completely not an option, once again, proactive mana regeneration rather than reactive.

That’s a sh!t-load of Fel Mana potions, holy cr@p.

Yup. If you want to maximize your DPS, start farming money or picking flowers. The more Fel Mana potion debuffs you have, the more you win the Internet!

I don’t want to get preoccupied with posting silly rebuttals regarding BRK posts, because that’s not really my thing. He has his hole in the wall, and I have mine. Albeit, his hole is slightly larger. But when I play, I play to do the best damn job I can. And when I post, I try to post the best damn information I can.

I won’t pigeonhole myself into a spec, a weapon choice, or a pet choice. I will find what is the best thing for me in my current role. That’s why I was more than willing to drop my Tuskbreaker and my cat for raiding (I still take my cat for PvP) in favor of the Crossbow of Relentless Strikes and a Wind Serpent. And so far, the numbers I can put out show my methods work great.

1900 DPS on Rage, 2200 DPS on Shade of Akama, 1400 DPS on Anetheron, and the list goes on.

But as I said before, BRK isn’t bad, nor am I trying to imply that at all. It’s just an . . . interesting choice in philosophies I guess. But what gets me is this comment left by a poster named Wraiith:

way to go BRK! Lets hope the trolls stick to the wow forums from here on

Trolls huh? People posting alternative, correct (and arguably more effective) advice? Perish the thought.

OK, sorry about the rant. So I guess I can put my money where my mouth is eh? I am going to be late to my guild’s raid tonight. But ideally if I get home before a Hyjal kill, I will Fraps the thing. Sorry if the post “style” today bugs ya, just had to get it off my chest.

As always – comments, concerns, corrects. Leave ‘em here.

(Oh, and I would recommend if you are going to leave a comment on an older post, just e-mail me instead. I don’t seem to get all the notifications about older posts and sometimes miss when new ones are added)