Well now that we’ve had time to raid, everyone can assess how their DPS is affected. Ferocious Inspiration posted about his guild’s Patchwerk numbers. And it is definitely worth noting that their Hunters are no slouches. We are talking about 3-drake, 5-minute Malygos kills here. Now I am able to post my own Patchwerk numbers. Here is what the final numbers looked like on my Recount:
Update: Here is the WWS report too actually.
This showedModeezy technically doing 200 more DPS than me, but I still ended up on top. And while I don’t think 5k DPS is anything to scoff at, it is without a doubt a DPS decrease compared to 50/21.
My DPS is slightly less than Tyrae over at FI but the numbers are very comparable. Pacmann was very similar to my spec (which happens to be the 2/18/51) except he dropped 1 point out of Improved Aspect of the Hawk. I still haven’t completely re-gemmed yet, as I need to pick-up a few more Agility gems but the market for them is a little nuts right now. But compare those numbers to Tyrae’s guildies in the post I linked above. At the time of his post, they tried to continue running as BM with not awesome results.
Beast Mastery took a huge hit in DPS. Regardless of most personal anecdotes, the math is clear that Beast Mastery got hit hard. Let’s take a look at how my damage broke down for that fight:
Explosive Shot definitely pulled its weight. The number of shots here is important to note because despite the changes, our Naxx run went very well and we managed to get the Heroic: Make Quick Werk of Him achievement. Regardless, we have a few notable things to point out. With the weaving of Explosive Shot, it allowed Auto Shot to provide more damage than Steady Shot due to it’s replacement during the rotation.
The second thing is that Explosive Shot has a huge critical strike chance when specced. As you can see it had a 57% crit rate during the course of the fight.
The third thing is, due to the cooldown reduction, 3 Kill Shots made up more DPS than all of my Serpent Stings. That might have changed if they fight went longer, allowing for more Serpent Sting time, but seeing that my Kill Shots hit for 13k each is kind of fun.
With the respec, I opted to keep my Steady Shot glyph (of course) and my Improved aspect of the Hawk glyph. I replaced the Bestial Wrath glyph the Serpent Sting glyph however. If Serpent Sting only lasted 5 seconds I thought I would have to reapply Serpent Sting too often, possibly holding off on Explosive Shot until it was re-applied.
One thing I made a point to do, which I am sure many people were already doing is refraining from chain-firing Explosive Shot during a Lock and Load proc. One thing I was concerned about in beta was the overlapping Explosive Shots. If your shot is reapplied before all the explosion ticks finish, you will lose the last tick or so when the new shot hits.
To be fair, this might not even be a concern given the travel time of the shot but my rotation during LnL would be ES>Steady>ES>Steady>ES(Non-LnL Shot). I need to revisit a target dummy to see if I can fire them consecutively while at max range without losing any explosion ticks.
So in conclusion, Surival DPS is decent. As good as 50/21 was? Of course not. Blizzard didn’t want it to be. But it’s doing alright. I was honestly expecting to be much lower in the DPS list last night but it all turned out alright. That is to say there are still bugs Blizzard needs to fix. I know Aspect of the Cheetah is triggering the GCD. Kill Shot still has an 8 yard minimum range rather than 5 yards. Things like that.
So how did your DPS tests, raids, etc all turn out? Post your thoughts, comments, Recounts, WWS, etc.
Drotara (or BehemothDan) considers himself a geek on many levels. A web developer and programmer by trade, he has no shortage of geeky hobbies. Whether it's trying to stay current in World of Warcraft raiding, playing competitively in the WoW TCG, Magic: The Gathering with friends, or a night at the local shop playing DnD, it's all good to him!
I should also note that after seeing the incredible mana efficiency of Survival, I am going to start using Multi-Shot in my rotations as well. I ended the Patchwerk fight with 93% of my mana.
I’m glad there are people out there doing the math, I get a little lazy. I’m kind of up in the air about staying BM now. I guess I should get off my butt and get myself to a target dummy.
Aoirselvar’s last blog post..In death we shall not part
What happened to the idea of simply “pausing” between ES shots during a LnL proc? I remember seeing word go around not too long ago that it seemed like the most efficient damage rotation for a LnL proc, but that was back before the 30s CD was enforced.
@Dmok Well that’s the thing. You know you won’t have another LnL for 30 seconds you might as well keep firing. It may very well be that pausing is better but it feels like I should continue firing. It’s math worth doing for sure. I know there were plenty of fights (Gluth for example) where I obviously just chain-shot ES when LnL procced since I was always on the move.
Looks pretty similar to the numbers I ran in Archavon yesterday. I did a little write-up about it… and I think you’re seeing equivalent results to what I was. I’ve been putting Aimed Shot into my rotation, but I need to do more testing to figure out whether it should or shouldn’t be in there for sure.
We attempted to raid last night, but it was arguably the worst lag we’ve experienced in Naxx to date. =( So we just did the spider wing and then left. Hopefully I can really get to work on these numbers more on Saturday provided the lag isn’t too insane.
Travel time of Explosive Shot is a really good point I hadn’t thought about. I’ll have to toy around with that as well.
Thanks for posting this.
Weezzii’s last blog post..Switching to Survival
No Aim shot? Im surprised by that. I thought I had read that with the Steady nerf that Aim shot will be higher DPS. Any thoughts about Aim? Furthermore, in fights like Gluth, it is just one more instant shot and also could be weaved in LnL procs.
So I was looking at that spec you linked. Had a couple questions.
Why the emphasis on Improved Stings? I know you use Serpent Sting for the whole fight, but is it really that much better than IAotH or FF?
Is it really better to have 1 in GFtT and FA, rather than 2 in one of them?
For some reason, I always thought LnL was an activated ability. Does it proc right away after the cooldown?
With Sniper Training, what do you use to make sure you’re staying in the right range? Seems like that could get annoying on some fights.
Do you use any macros to control shot orders? The sense I get from this spec is the shot rotation matters a lot more than a BM spec.
Also, I’m trying to find a melee weapon (or pair) to replace my Kalu’ak harpoon, something I can get that doesn’t come from a 10 or 25 man or PvP. I was going to use dual Savage Cobalt Slicer, but they got nerfed, so not sure what to go for now.
@Tier4Armor The reason I opted for Stings is since Serpent Sting is always being applied, the 30% more damage from it does make a bit of a difference. There was also some math from EJ (I can’t find it right now) showing that 2/5 IAotH with the glyph is almost as effective as 5/5, especially since haste is going to work a bit different. With BM it was 1. Apply Serpent Sting 2. Get in as many Steady Shots as you can before Serpent falls off.
With Survival, there is much more of a rotation, in fact the new rotation I am going to use tonight is going to include Multi Shot. 1. Serpent 2. ES 3. Multi 4. Steady 5. ES again
Haste at this point will not bring Steady Shot’s cast time to below the GCD like it was when we had Serpent’s Swiftness. So while it speeds up Auto Shot, Steady is kind of stuck.
I have one point in Focused Aim because I was 1% off from the hit cap through gear. (2% now that I replaced my belt). Otherwise it would be somewhere else. And Sniper Training is indeed hit or miss. Fights like Patchwerk range is easy. Maylgos, not so much. Also the Kill Shot crit works regardless of range if I recall correctly, similar to Noxious Stings 2-part effect.
As far as weapon replacements go, are you referring to the Whale-Stick Harpoon (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44053)? Because if so I think you have a great pre-raid weapon with the changes. You will be hard-pressed to find something better.
I am currently weaving my rotation manually.
my SV guides up in my blog bud, letting you know like you asked.
in the 25naxx we did yesterday i hardly broke the 4k on patchwerk so i must do something wrong when i see u guys pulling out those high numbers, i currentlyget totally destroyed by a shadowpriest dk and mage in 10naxx :* its so sad
using 2/18/51 with aimed in the rotation, looks like es aimed serpent steady / on lnl procc its es wait a bit (like 0,5s) es es
we ve no feral/fury/retri in our raids and missing the blood dk or tsa ap buff but that shouldnt account for so much dps difference :*(
cheers
a sad hunter :(
I am going to try 5/15/51 tonight forgoing Stings to see what some of my numbers look like compared to various fights in Naxx last night. I would go 6/14/51 but I need one point in Focused Aim still.
I’m using 6-14-51 myself (no replenishment), sartharion 3d with heavy serverlag isnt really the place to check DPS, did a quick VoA after and pulled 5150 DPs (pet, cat, 788). Wasnt too shabby i thought as one hasnt specced SV since early T6.
I spammed my ES with the backthought that as soon as I’ve run through my proc, the sooner ES will get back on rotation again, drawing out a proc too long can indeed lower the overall dps as it doesnt have a long cd to beginn with.
Trying to get Sniper training to work i got a LnL proc to give 7-8 ticks still out of the total amount possible.
Shanx – EU – Silvermoon
Hey Dro, I have a question about Glyph of Serpent Sting. It’s my understanding that it doesn’t add new ticks of the DoT to cover the extra time added but instead it just spreads the damage out more. If this if the case doesnt that mean your sting is doing less damage over all for a fight than an unglyphed one? It seems to me that with out the glyph I can apply the sting more times over the course of a fight with bigger ticks than with it. So while someone with the glyph does 2500 damage over 21 secs (picked that number just for the sake of discussion) a person with no glyph will have done that same 2500 damage in 15 secs and has already gotten 2 ticks into a new DoT while the first person is still waiting to reapply. I may be mistaken so please correct me if I’m wrong, but that is how it seems to me.
@Falfurius It is my understanding that it just adds ticks equal to the same amount of the Serpent Sting. However I think I will verify that tonight on a tummy with and without the glyph and see.
I am at a loss, why is the Harpoon better then 2 Fangs of Truth?, especially if you need the +hit
?
Your math on Kill Shot is a little off there. “3 Kill Shots made up more DPS than all of my Serpent Stings”, but kill shot is only applied to the final 20% of the boss and serpent sting is throughout. A longer fight would allow for more Kill Shot in your total damage.
Also, did you notice Kill Shot is off the GCD?
@Lupius What I meant is that, according to Recount and WWS, 3 Kill Shots did more damage in total than all the Serpent Sting over the course of the 3 minute fight. It was more of a humorous observation than anything else.
I was referring to the line after that, in which you implied that in a longer fight you should have more serpent sting damage than kill shot. I think it should be the other way around.
I would actually be willing to say neither of those two. The ratio should maintain itself assuming equal proportions of over 20% health to sub 20% health.
just saw your wws log, well….u got all the buffs i am dreaming about (feral,retri,tsa,meleeshami and only 1 pala)
:*( talkin bout casterheavy raidcomposition, yea we got one
I actually tried running with Spirit Beast in Naxx last night.
Let’s just say it didn’t go too well and leave it at that. :P
Tora’s last blog post..The demise of raiding BM
I tested 6/14/51 alone on boss dummy , no buffs just Dragonhawk i manage to get 3100 dps, with 0/20/51 I got about 2775
I’m an average hunter in average Naxx gear that switched from BM to SV because of the patch. I am finding that I am doing just as much (if not a little more) than the previous 51/20 I was sporting.
I was satisfied with last nights PW kill. We managed to get the achievement and I had a strong showing against the OP mage in the guild. Whats interesting is the BM hunter Narsci sticking to her guns (pun intended) and doing well with her Spirit Beast.
http://wowwebstats.com/6muek2bdm6v51?s=231486-274016
All is not lost if someone like me can still do ok.
- Glu
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Jaedenar&n=Glucian
Is anyone else experiencing a cancellation of scrolls when Darkmoon Card=Greatness procs? I know pre patch this was not happening. I sure hope this is a bug they plan to fix.
@ Falfurius
The Serpent Sting glyph adds ticks. Just re-verified on the dummy.
With 3/3 Imp Stings and 3/3 Noxious Stings I had 5 ticks over 15 seconds that produced 2772 dmg.
With 3/3 Imp Stings, 3/3 Noxious Stings, and Glyph of Serpent Sting I had 7 ticks over 21 seconds that produced 3994 dmg.
^ I’m also 20 kinds of fail because I swapped my aspect between those attempts. Regardless… the point stays true.
While it’s on my mind, anyone know if they fixed the pet hit sharing? I ran a test on the target dummy and it looked like they did:
2967 total attacks
63 misses – 2.1233…%
262 hit rating – 6.89%
9% – 6.89% = 2.11%
2.11% ~= 2.1233…%
However as I watched the numbers go, I saw it float to as low as 1.5% then shoot up to as high as 3.2%.
I did NOT bring out my Spirit Beast and test Spirit Strike for it’s hit chance (which I in turn am going to ask if it’s the same 9% or is it in fact 17% chance to miss) but I assume it’s going to scale properly as well.
@Weezzii
Thanks man, appreciate the info. Looks like I need to go buy a new glyph.
@Shmii
Hit cap is 8%
To Lupius,
The 9% I used was the pet’s base miss chance and not the hunter’s.
Great post Drotara. We had our 25 man Naxx today and I had remained BM for it. There are 3 hunters in our raid. One went Surv and the other MM. We are all comparatively geared at the moment and it was clear that BM has been hit hard. My damage and DPS was significantly below the other 2 hunters with Surv being the clear leader on most fights. The result is that I have just spent this evening researching and then respeccing, regemming and reglyphing and am now Survival. I hope I can adjust to the new playstyle. I must say that I like the idea that Survival is not a rotation based spec but rather a prioritisation one.
Okay I need some help, I have been doing SV on the training dummies, using one of the recommended specs and rotations (if you can call it that), and my DPS as SV is less than it was for me as BM. Only by about 50, but still, it’s less. Maybe it’s a gear thing, or I am doing something hugely wrong… =S
Pike’s last blog post..Aspect of the Hunter
Tough to tell without seeing what sort of damage breakdown you’re producing (as well as which shot prioritization). I armoried you just to check out which spec you were actually using, but it’s still showing you as BM.
Currently I’m finding some success with:
Serpent Sting > Explosive > [Kill Shot] > Aimed > Steady
All shots done “manually.”
In regards to the previous sub-conversation about being able to shoot Explosive Shot on a LnL proc at max distance with the hopes that travel time of the next Explosive Shot wouldn’t overwrite the first: from what I’ve found, you can’t do it. You either have to hesitate before shooting, or weave in another shot. At the moment I’m opting to weave in either an Aimed or Steady Shot between each.
I’m not sure if this is true or not, and hopefully someone can enlighten me if I’m wrong — but if you’re comparing BM dps versus SV dps on the dummy, you’re results will be inherently “off” because the Improved Tracking talent isn’t working in your favor due to the dummy being a Mechanical.
@Pike Survival is definitely going to require completely different gemming and what not. As Weezzii said, without seeing some actual numbers and what not it’s hard to analyze what might be wrong.
Drotara’s last blog post..Post-Patch(werk) DPS
I know this might be slightly off topic, but I would have to imagine that SV dps, being that it is so much higher then MM and BM atm, is going to be knocked down relatively soon.
If I had to guess, MM dps is probably where they are going to want our class to be at, since they pretty much left it alone, and tried to bring SV up and BM down to the same point. Of course, they overcompensated quite a bit, which is isn’t really that surprising.
In a perfect world, where all three specs were even dps, which would you be?
I’m rather enjoying the move to SV. I think this might actually become my preferred spec. That may fade when the “new-ness” of it goes away though.
Hopefully they do re-visit BM. I think the recent idea suggested of revamping the pet talent trees to give exotic pets added DPS talents that can’t be otherwise gained is a good one. The problem with a simple fix along those lines is that Blizz sees BM dps as being too easy (for producing the amount of damage that it was previously). So some sort of change will have to come in the form of “shots”… changes to the hunter tree, not the pet tree.
Weezzii’s last blog post..Not Heroic. Heroic Challenge, prz!
Yeah, suppose I just wanted to see if I was maybe forgetting something obvious so I figured I’d ask here, I know you guys probably don’t have time for a in-depth report on my gear/spec/etc. Which is fine, I actually wound up spec’ing to MM which has resulted in a DPS increase and is a lot of fun. I may just have to give Surv a go later, maybe when I’m more geared or something.
Pike’s last blog post..Aspect of the Hunter
In a perfect world, where all three specs were even dps, which would you be?”
I would be BM for sure, but that’s just me =P
Pike’s last blog post..Aspect of the Hunter
I am very impressed with all the work your guys are doing, im still kinda shellshocked about the 3.0.8 update, and still cant figure out how to replace my macros and so forth. I was a BM and am now speccing survival due to the changes. Can you share some light as to how the shot rotation should be, and if so does anyone know how to program it or script it? Any help would be appreciated.
@Dormoon: As far as SV goes, a macro for a rotation will most likely lower your damage. I strongly advice to go for manual weaving instead. I’m using a ss-ss-ss-Es rotation and adapt to procs and reappliance of serp.sting.
I will most likely work my way to a ss-ss-Ms-Es or a ss-ss-As-Es rotation eventually as I find a DPS upgrade in either with my current gear.
Steady shot is as of 3.08 a joke damagewise and should pretty much only be used if you cant find a random rock on the ground to throw instead. It’s become a true filler that is doing less damage Autoshot.
This is a bit troubling as Blizz stated early that they wanted white attacks to be much less part of our total damage. Then again, the reason was that if you can do great numbers with a major part of your white attacks – then there will be hard to differenciate between a ‘good’ and a ‘not as good’ player. Hence the boost to Arcane and Explosive shot.
Still having specials doing less damage per shot than white attacks can’t be something Blizzard at the moment can be too happy with, just saying.
@Pike
That’s really strange that your DPS would go down (however slight) after switching. Without doing anything with gear, glyphs or gems, I saw a solid 300 DPS increase just by going with the 2/18/51 spec and the basic Serpent, ES, Aimed, Steady. I expect more of an increase after adjusting the rest.
For me, I’ve always seen MM as the “ideal” DPS spec, where damage breakdown should be 85% hunter and 15% pet. BM should do similar damage but with 75/25 breakdown and in my mind SV should do slightly less damage overall with more focus on utility (traps, buffs, etc).
@ Shanx,
Thanks for respoonding, i am currently doing a Serpent, ES, SS, SS, SS, ES, then renewing or using ES when the option is available. I using the talent build that was given above mentioned. I am going to link my wow armory so you can look and see if there is something missing gear wise, i and using duel swords with some stats for hit rate cause it was so low. yesterday i ran heroics and my dps with what i have and rotation is about 1800, this cant be good, i did notice im doing crazy damage against bosses :-( lol. Here ya go guys pick at it and let me know:
Player info
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Alexstrasza&n=Dormoon
Talents:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Alexstrasza&n=Dormoon
I don’t see Survival getting nerfed yet. According to one of the blues, while Survival is ahead, its not be a huge margin. And don’t under-estimate us Pike. :) If you are interesting in an analysis I bet you would get a lot of helpful responses. :)
Drotara’s last blog post..Post-Patch(werk) DPS
I have not seen mention here of the tactic I’ve been using for LnL procs; slipping in an Arcane between the two Explosives. You need not worry about the ticks overlapping, and since it is an instant as well you can pull this rotation while on the move. Now that Steady has been nerfed Arcane does significantly more damage and won’t cost you any more mana. It there some con to this strategy I haven’t noticed?
@ Naruat
Arcane and Explosive are the 2 shots affected by LnL. So if you use Arcane, you’re eating up one of your LnL “charges”.
Weezzii’s last blog post..Not Heroic. Heroic Challenge, prz!
Arcane Shot is going to be a DPS decrease over using another Explosive Shot.
Drotara’s last blog post..Post-Patch(werk) DPS
Distance to the mob makes no difference on Explosive tics as the travel lengt is equal for all 3 shots; making GCD the only factor in how often your shots hit.
Further explanation: The only relevant factor on these tics is the time from the first shots hit to the next one (and the last). Since the first shot will have the same traveling-distance as the latter, the time-gap between the shot-hits will be 1,5 secs.
>> Arcane Shot is going to be a DPS decrease over using another Explosive Shot.
I was wondering about this, how do Arcane shots shape up against Explosives? Are they close enough to not go all the way into SV to get Explosive at all?
Varshak’s last blog post..On Hiatus
Well im very happy cause im following alot of the advices i see here, i do have a question, i just got differet weapon to raise up my agility, crit and AP however since i was duel wielding i loss a ton of hit rate %, its at lik 4.5% where as it usedd to be 7% with the 1% from focused aim, any suggestions no how i can get it back up there, enchants and so forth? i attached my character info let me know irally want to max out dps in raids when invited and so forth.
Player info
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Alexstrasza&n=Dormoon
Talents:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Alexstrasza&n=Dormoon
@Varshak Well considering my Arcane Shot is doing 1734 damage and Explosive Shot is doing about 1300 x 3. (All non-crits of course) I guess it depends if you really didn’t want to go full Survival but still wanted LnL.
Drotara’s last blog post..Post-Patch(werk) DPS