Blog reader and frequent commenter Shmii sent me an e-mail a few days ago letting me know that he was starting to try his hand at LUA. And I must admit, his first endeavor is actually a very useful tool. He wrote a very simple mod that tells you the exact casting time of of Steady Shot as well as how much “dead time” you have between that and the global cooldown. Considering the in-game tooltip doesn’t update with your haste, I found this very interesting and very usable to help determine if you might have reached the effective haste cap for Steady Shot. For example, take a peek at this screenshot:
You can download his mod right here.
Now being this is his first attempt at mod writing, there are some simple steps in to get this to work. Download and extract that mod just like you would any other UI mod, into your Interface/Addons folder. Then, in-game, make a macro called Shmii (or whatever you want to call it) and add the line /script SSGCD(). Drag that button on to your bar and there you have it. The exact casting time of your Steady Shot and the time you have leftover until the GCD. Just hit that button any time you want to know the timing. It will update when you are under the effects of Bloodlust, etc etc., so feel free to it hit as you raid to see what your time is at. Very handy.
Big thanks and props out to Shmii for taking the initiative to learn LUA and for writing such a surprisingly informative mod for his first time behind the wheel. Any questions you have with the mod or any trouble getting it to work, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do to help.
I am working from home today. It’s snowing. A lot.
Not quite as useful for BM hunters given that with Quiver/Pouch and Serpent Swiftness we’re already breaking the 1.5 barrier (BRK has the math here http://www.bigredkitty.net/2008/12/16/add-is-not-addition/) but very useful for MM/Survival hunters to try and squeeze out every last ounce they can without ‘wasting’ the extra.
Congrats Shmii! :)
Long time reader 1st time commenter. Wonderful blog…I check/read it daily. You have made some comments that lead me to believe you life in Utah. Am I right?
It’s true. Home to the “Greatest Snow on Earth.” At least what our license plates tell us. :)
Drotara’s last blog post..Friday Ramblings: White Raiders can’t Dance
Hey! me too. Im in Northern Utah! Small world….LOL…me reading a blog from a guy in Utah who is also is a Horde Hunter.
Wait…. snow? wuzzat? I know Ice.. I know Rain… Thunderstorms…. Tornado… Nope… nothing on this ’snow’ substance. What is this, another one of those ‘northerner’ things they keep warning us about down here? ;)
Indeed, snow does suck, and btw, still can’t dance due to my utter pastiness =P
I think the utter pastiness comes with the territory. :)
Drotara’s last blog post..Friday Ramblings: White Raiders can’t Dance
To Indigo Haze,
If all you want is the knowledge of being GCD capped then your really just need to see if you have 2 / (1.5 * 1.15) = 1.15942 => 15.942% haste or more in the tooltip when you mouse over your speed in the ranged attacks window. Assuming you aren’t BM, and are neglecting Quick Shots being up (In which case you only need .819% haste with 5/5 in IAotH).
The reason I decided to write it is because of the way autoshot pushback functions in 3.0, that’s why I incorporated the “time wasted” line. Coupled with a swing timer (like quartz has), you can manipulate movement and your autoshot pushback ever so slightly (Heigan with Cheetah or Viper on for instance). That being said, this is more of an ideal situation type of thing, where latency and environment can hinder it’s use. That and it’s good to know without busting out a calculator.
A guildie told me the other day I missed the Glyph of IAotH as well, so I’ll put that in there and I also want to double check my formula to create the denominator for calculating haste with Ratingsbuster. I did a quick scan through it and didn’t find it so I’ll keep looking for a (possibly) more accurate exponential equation. Right now Curse is giving me issues for uploading it as well, that way I’ll be able to get it off Drotara’s site, but once I get those three things done I’ll announce it here again.
PS. Yeah I know about BRK. I posted in the thread before it the exact same numbers and how they were formed a bit before he posted that post.
I’ll host it as long as you need Shmii. :)
I’m not sure what you’re talking about on “autoshot pushback”. Last I was aware there was no shot clipping by any special shot happening short of the animation glitch/audio glitch of Seady/Auto going off within sub-tenths of a second of each other…
Oh, and the ‘wasting’ reference was along the lines of excess haste vs time wasted in general. Getting it down to as close to 1.5sec as possible unbuffed is very desirable however I think most people would view extra hast as a waste when they might be able to substitute more Agi/Crit/Raw AP on the gear (Enchants, Gems, Scopes, etc)
It’s the same way for melee, and it is the same way as it was before 3.0 (I worded that poorly in the first post). If your moving while your swing timer is about to finish, the next autoshot will be pushed back, it’s not clipping from Steady Shot, but clipping from movement.
And yes, haste loses a significant portion of it’s total potential worth once your GCD capped, it’s not pointless, but it’s not something to focus on when looking at gear. Don’t refuse gear because it has haste, but look at the values it gives and reduce it by a significant chunk, for Patchwerk types of fights at least. You can’t deny that haste still gives utility despite GCD capped by still reducing the time to cast (AOE moments where your taking damage and didn’t spec into Focused Aim). That being said, it does suffer from diminishing returns in that aspect exponentially.
I tend to use the term utility in a vaguer sense than most. To me utility isn’t just crowd control and interrupts, but how it can benefit you without really helping your DPS a ton, if at all. If I’m still not making the points clear enough feel free to say so.
I also feel like an idiot for not looking through the libraries that Ratingsbuster relies upon to function. Yeah. I’m a newb. >.>
I wrote 2 addons for my Rogue that patch 2.0 destroyed, don’t feel too bad about ‘reinventing the wheel’. ;)
The problem I have with “don’t turn down haste” is, Haste goes against the iLevel. If I have haste on an object then I’m going to have less Agi/RAP/Crit/Hit/ArP on that item. If there are 2 items with identical iLevels I’m going to side with the one that’s not giving me haste as it’s most likely going to do more for my DPS than the haste would. Now if there are no comparable iLevel items then it’s a question of “what do I gain” as a whole… if I have an item that gives me X and another item that gives me X + Haste, I’d be an idiot not to take the Haste item. At that point you’re speeding up AutoShot and that always leads to more DPS. Later when I’m comparing items and I have X + Haste vs X + y… odds are y > Haste.
The part I’m concerned about after looking more closely at things…. Volley is shortened by Haste… But it still reads as “damage per second”… If that’s true then I’m doing LESS damage with Volley than I should since it’s been reduced in time. Any ideas on how to look at the time between “hits” in a format like what this addon is doing for Steady? Doing the math on log files would suck (but since you can set multiple-decimal time stamps not impossible) since you’d have to run the test for a while…
I don’t think anyone would disagree with you Indigo on that statement. I know if I had to choose between almost identical items and one had haste and one had another useful stat, I would side with the other stat at this point. The thing is just that there is SO much haste. Hard to avoid it really.
Hmm, for Volley maybe just unequip all your items that provide haste, stick some arrows in your backpack and cast Volley on a single target dummy and then record how many times Volley ticks damage, ignoring the actual number. Put the gear back on and then record the ticks a second time and first see if there is a difference there.
Drotara’s last blog post..Friday Ramblings: White Raiders can’t Dance
I know about giving up stats for haste, but people talk about it like it’s going to make your DPS worse if you have any haste on the gear. All I’m really trying to say is that it still has value. In fact until your GCD capped it has roughly the same value as hit.
I personally am our guilds token MM hunter, no one else is giving the 10% AP bonus which is quite honestly a big boost. But that’s neither here nor there. People who are using the mob mentality that “haste is bad” tend to get the wrong idea’s about what it really does.
Take these two legs for instance, one is an ilevel of 200 (Giantmaim Legguards – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43458 ), while the other 213 (Leggings of Colossal Strides – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40201 ). If someone were to think that haste is bad, and to avoid it. Then they might think that the two are comparable in DPS, but they clearly aren’t with any understanding of the mechanics of hunters. That’s what I’m trying to say.
I’m not to sure what your asking about Volley though. Haste will in turn effect the time between “hits” as well as the total time spent channeling (further proof is Mind Flay and the Spirit Beast bug, yes it’s a bug and isn’t supposed to function that way). With the same formula used to calculate the time between attacks, you would use for the entire channeling time. Just alternate the numerators for whatever suits your needs. Like Volley has 1 second between “hits” unhasted, thus it should have .724637s between attacks without Quick Shots or any haste rating, and the standard BM / Quiver setup.
I just hit up a target dummy and it hit them for 6 attacks, with 3.39% haste (111 rating) and my 15% quiver. Which coincides perfectly with the 6 second volley and 1 second between attacks unhasted (keep in mind the first hit doesn’t start when Volley is initially casted). 6 / 1 = 6 attacks, pretty elementary. So it should be safe to say that haste effects the time between “hits”.
I’m afraid to do that test. ;) We’re already being nerfed, I don’t wanna get hit more.
Haha, fair enough. :)
Drotara’s last blog post..Friday Ramblings: White Raiders can’t Dance
Until my other comment gets the A-OK, I’ll let you know right now that Volley gets its 6 hits in no matter how much haste you have. :P If you pop Rapid Fire and Volley, your going to have some great quick AOE DPS. Almost every half second a “hit” will go off.
All fixed. I need to fix that comment approval for people who have posted comments before. :)
Drotara’s last blog post..Friday Ramblings: White Raiders can’t Dance