Finally the patch has come. Whether part of you is cheering or booing, it’s happening regardless. But what is a poor Hunter to do? What will change about our play style? Let’s just jump in shall we?
Obviously we can talk about the elephant in the room. The change to Bestial Wrath and Readiness. This was intended to be a PvE adjustment, as a way of slowing down 50/21 DPS. Getting rid of back-to-back Bestial Wrath also has the far-reaching effects to hit Arena as well. Variations of the Readiness spec is also the most successful Hunter PvP spec for Arena at the moment. Perhaps it will still be. We might lose the extra 18 seconds of Bestial Wrath, but double trap, Intimidation, and Deterrence are still a pleasant dish to serve up.
But as it’s intent to nerf PvE damage, Blizzard felt the need to take a few more steps to tone down Hunters as well. Steady Shot took a huge hit to it’s scaling coefficient. Instead of receiving a bonus from 20% of our Attack Power it is now only receiving 10%. So instead of the calculation looking like Weapon Damage + Ammo + [RAP * 0.2 + 252] we are getting that .2 change to .1. What exactly does that do to our Steady Shot? A lot actually. Given 4400 Attack Power and Frostbite Bullets our Steady Shot like this:
584 + 46.5 + (4400 * 0.2 + 252) = 1762.5
With the scaling changed our Steady Shot now looks like this:
584 + 46.5 + (4400 * 0.1 + 252) = 1322.5
Ouch. In fact my Steady Shot won’t be hitting for 1762.5 again until I reach 8800 Attack Power. So that is a monster change we also have to live with until Blizzard thinks it was much too much.
Now we also have to remember that Beast Mastery isn’t the only Hunter talent tree. The Steady Shot change is going to hurt Marksmanship and Survival just as well. In fact Marksmanship received no notable buffs to compensate for the beating they took with Steady Shot. Survival can probably take comfort in knowing that Explosive Shot was buffed but had the AoE portion removed. The final change Blizzard decided on is doubling the Attack Power coefficient from .08 to .16. So with 4147 Attack Power (which is what I used in this post), expect Explosive Shot to come in just under 1100 damage a tick.
And all that Explosive Shot goodness came with a price. And that was Lock and Load having a 30 second cooldown. So the trap-dancing idea was run, you technically still could if you wanted to, to insure LnL, but the effectiveness of is diminished since you won’t be able to trigger it repeatedly from traps and Serpent Sting.
Jumping back to BM changes for a second, you’ll remember that cats and scorpids were all getting a nerf to “to prevent unreasonable scaling with attack power.” Blizzard’s words. In fact, Scorpid Poison doesn’t stack anymore. You’ll get a single application of the poison. And this also has Arena effects with the new dispel changes, that being that no offensive spell will receive spell resistance. Hammer of Justice, Poisons, etc. All gone on the first try. Sure, if there is more than one debuff they have a chance to get something else, but now they will always get something.
Kindred Spirits and Unleashed Fury had their pet damage bonus reduced by 5% each, and Serpent’s Swiftness also had the attack speed bonus for pet’s reduced to 10% instead of 20.
It’s going to be a rough day as specs are re-evaluated, numbers are re-crunched, and we figure out which spec is coming out on top for PvE DPS. I hope Lunchmoneyy didn’t plan on doing Arena tonight because I have a date with a target dummy.
Thoughts, opinions, the spec you think is going to come out on top, post it here.
I’m wondering if I should give up my exotic pets and go survivalist after this.
I’ve been topping dps meter as survival for the past month, just getting used to the shot rotation. I think several hunters in my guild are going survival after the patch though. That means I’ll be back to bm, the nerfed version.
Haha, look at this stupid-wicked spec:P
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cgbMzxxRVuZ0eVsMZe00robh
Basically, GoGo Arcane shot !?! i mean, Ferocious Inspiration gets 3/6/9 % extra Arcane shot damage, right? hehe, but seriously though, this spec will never work. I just made it to see if i could grab all those talents affecting Arcane shot, and it seems its possible =)
Sillie me…
50/21 has been fun.
Probably time to give my DK more love.
“In fact Marksmanship received no notable buffs to compensate for the beating they took with Steady Shot.”
They fixed the Steady shot glyph + Marked for Death talent for us MM hunters, and don’t forget Arcane shot will be in the shot rotation now with the lower mana cost.
This is my intended talent build once servers go live, with the scorpid being replaced by cat/raptor :
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ctbMzZceAsRhzGxoxhVox
Also awaiting to see if the FI-Arcane shot dmg increase is available for all hunters affected by FI, or just the BM hunter him/herself.
@ Norest – it’s a part of the talent, completely separate from the buff. If you take 3/3 FI (the talent), then you will have increased Arcane Shot Damage, regardless of whether or not you have FI (the buff).
Pike’s last blog post..So, We Meet Again, Patch
gonna play what i ve to to stay competitive dmg wise, dont like to be at the bottom of a dmg meter cuz as a dd u only ve that and movement (lol at half the raid dying at heigan :D)
I’ve actually been running MM almost exclusively since I hit 80. Initially I was doing so just because I was interested in playing around with a spec that was a change of pace from BM; I always had the intention of switching back to BM.
Then word of the SS nerf started to circulate.
I decided against switching back to BM, just because I didn’t want to get attached to the huge numbers for a spec that was getting whacked hard with the ‘ole nerf bat once the patch hit. But now that the patch is here and Drotara makes a good point about MM getting zero/zilch/nada to even attempt to compensate for the decrease in SS damage…I think it’s time to go SV.
I’m trying to look at this as an opportunity to give something new a try…it could be fun, right?
Though Drotara makes some valid points about the lack of buff for MM, BM is clearly being pulled more in line with MM. At least what I’ve read over the last couple of hours on ElistJerks, BM is rough equal to MM in theoretical DPS (roughly 5600 dps each in a perfect raid setup according to the spreadsheet). However, Surv is more like 6600 dps (again in the model spreadsheet with a perfect 25 man raid setup/buffs/gear).
So, I guess I need to figure out if the extra possible dps of Surv is worth the shock of trying to play that way since I’ve _never_ seriously specced into it. Hmmmm, decisions, decisons…
@Pike,
Just read your blog post you linked, thanks for the info.
I also want to add, why Glyph of Arcane shot? All 3 specs use very similar glyphs, namely :
- Glyph of Steady Shot
- Glyph of Improved Aspect of the Hawk
- Glyph of Serpent Sting
- Glyph of Hunter’s Mark (debatable)
My rule of thumb – Any Glyph/talent that increases mana effiency, are detrimental because they do not increase DPS. Fights at the moment are too short (for my guild at least) for mana to be a factor. With replenishment +4pcT7 bonus+ JoW, I take roughly 15-20s to regain one full mana bar. I top DPS meters frequently even without points in Efficiency :)
@Norest I agree about mana efficiency. Even during nothing but burn fights like Patchwerk, with proper raid buffs I don’t have to use Viper at all.
The best thing about this patch is going to be the weeding out of the “one button wonders”. Sure I have a shot rotation macro for raid bosses, but I hardly rely on it. Soon you will see the people that truly enjoy the hunter class playing a class to the best it can be.
I have a guildie that has stuck to ret pally for years and never will change. He always is looking for a way to improve his toon, and we as hunters now have to work through a needed but I believe over done nerfing of our DPS. Hope there is room at the dummy’s tonight, got some things to try!
Here is a spec stolen right off from Elitist Jerks. It looks promising. Any thoughts?
Surprising little QQ in this post about hunter DPS being decimated. No real surprises tho, we’ve known about this nerf for almost a month. I’ll try to remain calm. =)
I haven’t decided if I’m respeccing or not. Will have to see how it all shakes out.
riffraff’s last blog post..Upgrade with a glowy red enchant!
@Heloise The spec looks good. The decision to not be a mana battery and the 2 points in IAotH are interesting choices. I suppose of the 3 points in Stings makes for a bigger DPS increase than 3 more in IAotH it makes sense.
Question part 1 – for BM hunters.
Was the nerf to SS enough to warrant rotating in Arcane and Aimed shot into your rotations, much like the other 2 hunter specs? Aka all rotations are now a priority queue of sorts:
Serpent Sting
[ arcane / explosive ]
[ aimed / multi ]
Steady Shot
Where you prioritize skills at the top, and only use steady when everything else is on cooldown? (of course, I this rotation guideline would be for all specs, but I was wondering if BM hunters would follow it now to or not)
———————–
Question part 2 – for SV hunters
With LnL now on a 30s CD, resourcefulness is out as a dps talent. But is trap-dancing really gone? Does the 6% extra damage from sniper training outweign the guaranteed LnL proc every 30s as opposed to an average LnL proc interval of 50s?
———————–
Question part 3 – for MM hunters
Yes SS damage was nerfed, but would the increased mana efficiency from arcane shot amongst others make up for the damage lost?
My hunter is fast approaching 80, but is still a week or more off the pace. I was a SV hunter through all of TBC and my guild loved me for it, but I am looking for information on all specs at 80.
@Heloise and Dro – I’ve been playing with versions of that spec and the Theoretical Max DPS spec. What I’ve seen through the spreadsheet is that putting 2 points into Hunting Party loses around 20 dps, so it’s a mater of min/max vs. utility.
IotH only needs 1-2 points and the glyph, unless you are going to go to 5 in order to get Focused Fire, which is a pretty darn big dps increase. At least, that’s what my half-assed results have shown. Stupid work getting in my way…
Going to try something along the lines of 33/38 for tonight. Nothing fancy just boat-load of AP and crit,cheap shots, and trueshot for the guild. Then see how the numbers roll.
Remember that Arcane Shot isn’t cheaper. It was made to be the same mana cost, unglyphed, as Steady Shot. The benefit in Arcane is the increased damage from FI. So as BM, yes, it is definitely going to be worth adding to your rotation.
I am still hesitant to pick-up Sniper Training. I still don’t like how many fights don’t allow that kind of range. Malygos, Sartharion, Thaddius, etc. That isn’t to say it practice it isn’t a DPS increase however.
If you were gonna go for BGs and Arena, what type of spec would you go for Drotara?
@Alwayz Hmmm. With the current game, even with the change, Bestial Wrath is still seems like the strongest competitor. Like I mentioned, double Deterrence, Intimidation, etc all are still powerful tools even if we lost 18 seconds of snare and CC immunity. I think given the way Arenas are right now (lots of burst damage) BW is still going to be powerful tool hard to pass up.
For Battlegrounds, find whatever you enjoy most and blow the crap out of some squishies. :)
I just re-specced to Surv. today
I am liking the massive DPS I am getting back, however
I am confused what my shot rotation should look like?
I think Im going with
Serpent Sting, explosive Shot, Multi Shot, Steady, Steady, Explosive, etc.
I am wondering, should I get Aimed Shot and sub it for Multi?
should i even be using multi at all?
is it better to just use Steady instead of Multi for single boss battles?
I just finished my first Raid as surv specced DPS,25 man OS, and man my DPS got better over the 11/53/7 MM build I was using before.
As for my shot rotation I used serpent sting, explosive shot, steady, steady, explosive etc. I ended up close to 3K DPS overall with most of the trash pulls doing close to 3600 or more.
Sadly even though I rolled a 90 I still got beat out for the T7 token, I almost cried.
Im kinda annoyed atm because I really loved the old MM spec with improved res pet for arena’s @ 70
and now im having to run double bw which is being nerfed!
so im kinda confused maybe I should stick with single BW and see how it feels or
Dive into the old MM kinda build or maybe even drop lock and load and go for chimera or something for extra burst
I wonder if the new explosive shot will make survival viable im not sure
I went 1/19/51 and topped dps on Patch, Grobbulus, and all of Spider and Plague wings aside from Loatheb. Had a tard moment and was running around trying to get close to spores when I still had upwards of 45 seconds on the buff.
Overall I’m pretty satisfied, now we just have to wait and see how long it takes for explosive shot to get nerfed.
I went MM/SV for a change. Ran with all guild Hunters which tonight we ran 5. All of us end with in a 100k of each other. 3MM’s and 2 BM’s. I went from being top 3 every raid to 8th. My complaint is the Hunter tree’s are somewhat equal to each other but we are behind other classes. Nothing pissed me off more than losing to a Shadow Priest. I had 2 deaths all night which slowed my overall dps (obviously). We had slow night only cleared 2 wings in 3 hrs.
Fine our trees are equal but now we are out of line with all other classes. From top 3 always to bottom is not understandable from then nerfing so much at one time rather than incremental adjustments. I have raided this spec before its been a while but I have always been a button pusher. This does frustrate me although I am still missing some vital gear. Mainly grim toll for hit so I can move FA points over.
I will be going SV hoping for better results than all my guilds Hutners did last night. Bye bye 50/21. They nerfed us to hard imo.
Just wanted to report that I myself, as 51/20/0 BM both before the patch and after the patch (though I moved three points from Focused Aim into Imp. Arcane Shot), have noticed a slight DPS gain.
Yet to test it in a raid situation but I’ve heard a few other BM hunters who are now weaving Arcane also report a net DPS gain.
I’m happy.
Pike’s last blog post..The Coolest Thing That Has Ever Happened to Tawyn. Ever.
@Pike are you using Exotic pet? I was temped to go something similar and probably will tonight. Are you using Serpant sting?
@ Harvesting – No, I’m using a cat. Keeping Serpent Sting up, using Arcane when the cooldown is up, using Steady inbetween.
Pike’s last blog post..The Coolest Thing That Has Ever Happened to Tawyn. Ever.
Last night in guild VoA25 (we had 21), I didn’t get LnL to trigger until the 4th or 5th serpent sting. My damage composition looked something like 35% auto, 28% explosive, and 22% steady, unlike the theoretical 50-60% explosve reported by EJ. Still topped the meter at 3.7k dps though.
@Pike I had similar results on the test dummies but was WAY down in raid….like 800dps down. This nerf is a little ridiculous. You won’t have a gain if you’re spec’d BM.
Ah, well, I haven’t tried it in a raid yet. I imagine a lot of it has to do with the pet nerfs and various buffs, I mean, simply Blessing of Might on the pet did ridiculous things to DPS pre-nerf. Perhaps it will be in raids where the biggest difference is… not as much of a problem in a five-man.
Pike’s last blog post..The Coolest Thing That Has Ever Happened to Tawyn. Ever.
Update; just did Archavon25, I put out slightly more DPS than I used to as 51/20/0. 2928 wearing mostly mis-enchanted blues (I’m a cheapskate when it comes to ‘chants on blues =P)
Seeing as I was floating around 2700ish on most Naxx bosses pre-nerf (3600 on Patchwerk being my highest), I reiterate my earlier comment: I am happy =)
Pike’s last blog post..The Coolest Thing That Has Ever Happened to Tawyn. Ever.
Played around a bit last night with a 7/13/51 build and liked what I saw, plus it was fun to play around with a new rotation last night (though it’s nothing more complicated than mashing together SS, ES and Steady) and I find that Lock N’ Load keeps me on my toes.
I’ll get to put it to the test tonight in raid, but withi nothing other than self buffs I’m seeing the ticks of ES go off for about 3500 if they crit…and with this build, I’m finding that I crit *alot*. I’m a bit concerned about mana efficiency, but we’ll see how it plays out once the raid buffs come into play.
So we are mostly all hunters here looking to maximize DPS. Any word on what pet to bring to raids? Cats got a nerf right?
@Pike….25 arch is always high…see what u do in naxx. My Naxx numbers were way down using my 50/21/0 build. 3600 on patchwerk in blues with no chants??…don’t think so. Your dmg meter must have a x2 modifier slipped in somewhere.
I did a 2/18/51 and while I lost dps (about 800ish) on the dummies, I noticed about the same dps in the 3 heroics I ran. This was with might, and a kitty. I would say I am adv. geared… mostly purples a few blues and one ring that’s still a green (yeah i know) and I am very short on enchants.
If I remember right there was a post here about the dps drop off getting worse the higher geared you became, diminishing returns on AP if I remember right. This might be the reason some people are not seeing a huge drop while others list a1500ish dps drop. (my 2 cents)
Didn’t have time to get into a raid, and guild dosent raid till sat, so I’ll have to wait and see.
@ Zynjyn – I do have enchants, most of them just aren’t the best-of-the-best ‘chants. And it was 3548 on Patchwerk to be precise– I know it is not 6000+ or whatever but I don’t go for best-spec-ever, and my loot luck is horrific x_x Hence all the blues I’m still wearing. As I said I was usually hitting 2700 or 2800 on Naxx bosses pre-patch, we’ll have to see what happens post-patch I suppose. I do think you may see a bigger number drop if you are more geared, because of scaling. Which is why I in my blues am not seeing one really.
Pike’s last blog post..The Coolest Thing That Has Ever Happened to Tawyn. Ever.
@Dworrin – I did Vault last night. My mana went almost nowhere. It was a little surreal.
Remua’s last blog post..3.0.8, Day 1
@Remua – That’s good to hear, because even on all these short fights I still found myself slipping into AotV every now and then as MM…and AotV hurts the soul.
I’m in the process of trying out SV as well. I was a little hesitant at first.. especially after going through my early tests at the dummy.
I pugged into a 10 and 25man Vault a bit ago and did very well (wws shows approximately 5200dps). For those worried about mana concerns… I ran OOM just as the fight ended at 4 minutes (again mind you, this was a pug). I should have used Arcane Torrent one more time than I did… but I suppose it worked out fine in the end.
Yesterday in 25m vault, I hit about 3800 dps using an ES/aimed rotation with imp. Hawk glyph and serpent glyph. With 6 second now to extra ss time it helped a lot with managing LnL procs.
Although I just had aimed arbitrarily because I was just messing around I still don’t know if its a dos increase esp. since the CD doesn’t match with other shots. Need more testing
We are doing one of our 25 mans tonight so I am curious to see how my DPS turns out.
Allright, cleared 25 Naxx on Tuesday night with the other BM hunter in the guild. Interestingly enough there was never a dual proc of Ferocious Inspiration up. One was up almost constantly, but a second icon never popped up. Did I miss a blue post saying they don’t stack anymore or was there something else screwy going on?
Also, I’m assuming that the +3% dmg ret pally buff also doesnt stack with FI right?
I did two wings of 25 Naxx last night and just to test things and to see how much we were hit I didnt change my shot rotation, spec or anything at all that I had done in there the week before and I dropped on average 1500-2000 dps. I went from being 1 or 2 in the raid down to about 8. I am going to look into Arcane Shot now and also looking at what pet may bump my dps up a little but was really quite a shock to have such a huge loss. I was thinking maybe a 10% over all loss which would have been about 400 on aveage but for me it was close to 40% and that is just crazy imo. Granted that we only took 20 people in to work on the acheivement and cleared 2 wings with 20 easy with our only wipe being a deliberate one when we were attempting “safty dance” which we got :D but still would not have thought that it was that hard. I am was (and still am) my guilds highest dps hunter and will do anything to bring my best game to a raid so look like I might be doing a lot of number crunching and testing over the next week or so.
Some notes came across my attention during the raid tonight:
1. Kill shot is off the gcd. You can fire it along with any other shot at the same time.
2. Mirror of Truth is worded differently now, but the effect still applies to ranged attacks.
i switchd to survival once this patch hit and i wasnt doing too bad on the damage meter
but one thing i have noticed is that once every third rotation of es ssx3 es im hitting about a 1.5 to 2 sec window where i can just hear my bow pulling back and not casting my first steady not sure if its bc im about 100 off of hast cap for 2.00 shot speed or what it might also be a macro i use or didnt get rid of …. any suggestions??
another thing is is it really worth weaving in a arcane or a aimed shot to get a little more dps??
@ Havic
I just switched to SV also I noticed same sound bug with my gun. I see my shot go but sound is bugged.
Man, I wish my account was active atm, since I’ve been playing SV for so long and so many people are switching to it… makes me sad that I won’t be so unique anymore. As for rotations, I’ve always used a rotation that used serpent sting, steady, explosive, aimed, steady, etc. and reapplying serpent as needed. @havic, I’ve had aimed weaved in since they changed it to an instant, but I would suggest running a dummy and seeing if the dps increase will justify the loss in mana… I’m thinking that it does, especially when raid buffed and not having to worry quite as much about mana.
I’m wondering how many people will still stay BM though? I mean, I chose SV even though I knew I would be taking a dps hit in comparison to BM, but now that the shoe is on the other foot, will people stick with what they know, or flee to the ‘top’ dps spec?