The nerfbat hit a bit harder than expected - 16%-25% decrease in my Naxx-10 raid damage. I asked to be taken off the schedule for FWL (because I don't want them to spend the night wiping because of me), but I don't know if they will.
I'm still trying to figure out how getting half as much RAP to 23% of my overall damage (Steady Shot) dropped my DPS so much - I haven't changed anything. There was nothing to change. Marksman wasn't really touched like BM and Survival were.
I'll go hit up the target dummy again and see what my self-buffed numbers look like; I'm not confident I'll be raiding the later wings of Naxx-10 for a while, though. Dropped from ~2000 to ~1500. >.< And ~1500 doesn't cut it for Sapphiron and Kel'Thezud.
1/21/09
1/16/09
Another macro concept
Adapted from the thread on the guild forums where I've been mulling it over.
Another possibility is:
I think the cast sequence would still choke, though, in terms of the 6 second/10 second optimization; the first two iterations would be fine :
It might, however, help the macro be more flexible for variable haste with regards to Steady Shot - since the hunter GCD is static at 1.5 seconds, and Steady Shot's cast can't be made faster than that, if you're not stacking haste to keep it constantly at a 1.5 second cast (and my gear isn't good enough to even try doing that yet), it's Rapid Fire and Imp. Hawk occasionally boosting your Steady Shot cast speed (plus Bloodlust, and I'm liking Potions of Speed recently - need to fish more for more pygmies). The current macro doesn't effectively take advantage of that in terms of the occasional extra Steady Shots, but if the /castsequence + /cast macro does, it might be worth switching to.
I'll try it out on the dummies when I get home if I can fish up enough pygmies to make enough potions to test out the haste effects.
Another possibility is:
/castsequence Arcane Shot, Chimera Shot, Aimed ShotLogically it would run through the cast sequence first on every click; I'll have to see if it will actually go to the /cast line when those three are unavailable. (The downside of doing all this on lunch at work.)
/cast Steady Shot
I think the cast sequence would still choke, though, in terms of the 6 second/10 second optimization; the first two iterations would be fine :
Arcane shot, Chimera Shot, Aimed Shot, (1-2 Steady Shots depending on haste), Arcane will be ready so Arcane, Steady, Chimera, Aimed, Steady, Arcane, Steady, Steady, Chimera, (Arcane would go here except the cast sequence goes to Aimed) Aimed...So the cast sequence will still eat a couple Arcanes. I'm actually not sure purely manual weaving would help, since there may still be times that Arcane is ready at the same time as one of the others.
It might, however, help the macro be more flexible for variable haste with regards to Steady Shot - since the hunter GCD is static at 1.5 seconds, and Steady Shot's cast can't be made faster than that, if you're not stacking haste to keep it constantly at a 1.5 second cast (and my gear isn't good enough to even try doing that yet), it's Rapid Fire and Imp. Hawk occasionally boosting your Steady Shot cast speed (plus Bloodlust, and I'm liking Potions of Speed recently - need to fish more for more pygmies). The current macro doesn't effectively take advantage of that in terms of the occasional extra Steady Shots, but if the /castsequence + /cast macro does, it might be worth switching to.
I'll try it out on the dummies when I get home if I can fish up enough pygmies to make enough potions to test out the haste effects.
1/15/09
Update: the /castrandom
The /castrandom doesn't work like I'd hoped, so I'm sticking with the macro I had been using. Longer macros trying to optimize the 6 second and 10 second cooldowns are getting snarled by variable haste, so I'm just going to stick with it for now. (1900 dps on 10-man Archavon and 2400 on 25-man seems to suggest that I'm doing fine as-is.)
1/14/09
Speaking of Raiding...
We went into 25-man Sartharion last night with 23 people (22 at the last boss because of a connection issue). Six druids; one hunter. (I think four or five shaman.) Raid makeup phenomena aside, we one-shotted all the drakes and Sartharion himself. (I died at about 25% because I somehow ended up tanking all the little flame guys. >.< Go go magic Volley aggro.) It was the third time I'd been in there, the first time I'd seen the 25-man version (first time the guild had, actually), and the 2nd time I'd actually seen the Sartharion fight. I got the 22-slot bag last week. This week I got the 25-man badge bag. :) After that, we broke down into two 10-man raids and killed him twice more. (Dragon fights have always been popular with us, I guess.) I could actually really use the gloves - any gloves, actually, since I'm still wearing S4 gloves - but I really like the place overall. (Onyxia is my favorite old-world raid. Magtheridon was my favorite TBC raid.)
My DPS numbers averaged around 2000 overall, dropping to 1700 on some of the 10-man drakes (I think I lost Strength of Earth in that group) and pushing around 2400 on Tenebron in the 25-man (we don't do the portal, and I popped my Speed potion).
My DPS numbers averaged around 2000 overall, dropping to 1700 on some of the 10-man drakes (I think I lost Strength of Earth in that group) and pushing around 2400 on Tenebron in the 25-man (we don't do the portal, and I popped my Speed potion).
Patch Notes Update, and more about shot rotations
There are some tasty new changes to the PTR patch notes for 3.0.8 - nothing removed, but three new bullets:
The Explosive Shot change doesn't affect me since, well, I'm a marksman hunter. The Tranq. Shot cooldown reduction is great, though - Gluth was the first thing that came to mind when I saw that. It'll just make it easier to keep things dispelled so that it doesn't pressure the healers to do it.
Going back to my shot macro, I've been thinking about the math more, and there really isn't much I can do to improve it. The criteria for it (my criteria, anyway) is that it use my 3 hard-hitting instant shots as often as possible, in the priority of Chimera, Aimed, Arcane. I want to be getting to my Chimera Shot in the rotation every time it's available, within the limitations of a 255 character macro, in order to keep my sting up. It's a free sting refresh. (I was not initially sold on Chimera Shot when I originally saw the MM tree, but like Silencing Shot, which I didn't spec into until probably 4 months after hitting 70, it's grown on me.) Manual weaving would actually be the best way for me to utilize those three instant shots, but I've had to admit to myself that my focus is, well, problematic. I get distracted by movement on the screen. (I had to turn off both the in-game screen flashes and the ones from Omen.)
So... the maths. The hunter Global Cooldown (GCD) is 1.5 seconds. That doesn't change. Every shot in your rotation has to budget a minimum of 1.5 seconds before you can do any other shot (besides autoshot, which is now in it's own happy little world of constancy). Steady Shot has a 2 second cast time until you start adding haste. I don't know how the haste numbers work in relation to Steady yet - i.e., how much haste pulls Steady down to a 1.5 second cast. This is my next area of research. But with basic GCD numbers, you can get in 7 shots in 10.5 seconds; you have to wait till 10.5 because otherwise you're sitting at a 9 second rotation, and your Chimera and Aimed aren't ready yet. 10.5 is your number. Three of those shots are dedicated to your instants - Chimera, Aimed, and Arcane. Chimera hits the hardest and refreshes your sting, so you can sacrifice optimizing Arcane for that (or manually weave... I used to be able to...). Those three shots are 4.5 seconds of your rotation, leaving you with 6 seconds to fill with Steady Shots. You're only going to get 3-4. Three with no haste; four with optimal haste.
If you hit optimal haste, though, Rapid Fire, Improved Aspect of the Hawk, and such become mostly unnecessary; you can't get any faster. If you're spec'd into these, it may make more sense to manually throw in an extra steady when you're proc'd into one or more haste effects (OMG Potions of Speed, seriously). Haste doesn't need to be the first stat you stack - your haste-buffing abilities and those of your group (Bloodlust, etc.) will help; you might find out what kind of gap you need to close between those abilities and reaching optimal haste to squeeze in an extra Steady and go for that, though. Haste will always speed up your autoshot, and if you do hit optimal haste, you can move those talent points around (and re-glyph!) to get more bang (or twang) for your buck.
I have considered rewriting the macro with /castrandom, to see if that will solve the rotation problem:
- Arcane Shot: Mana cost lowered to match the cost of Steady Shot.
- Explosive Shot: Damage increased substantially, and additional scaling added to compensate Survival Hunters for the decrease in power of Steady Shot. No longer deals damage to secondary targets.
- Tranquilizing Shot has had its cooldown reduced to 6 seconds, down from 15.
The Explosive Shot change doesn't affect me since, well, I'm a marksman hunter. The Tranq. Shot cooldown reduction is great, though - Gluth was the first thing that came to mind when I saw that. It'll just make it easier to keep things dispelled so that it doesn't pressure the healers to do it.
Going back to my shot macro, I've been thinking about the math more, and there really isn't much I can do to improve it. The criteria for it (my criteria, anyway) is that it use my 3 hard-hitting instant shots as often as possible, in the priority of Chimera, Aimed, Arcane. I want to be getting to my Chimera Shot in the rotation every time it's available, within the limitations of a 255 character macro, in order to keep my sting up. It's a free sting refresh. (I was not initially sold on Chimera Shot when I originally saw the MM tree, but like Silencing Shot, which I didn't spec into until probably 4 months after hitting 70, it's grown on me.) Manual weaving would actually be the best way for me to utilize those three instant shots, but I've had to admit to myself that my focus is, well, problematic. I get distracted by movement on the screen. (I had to turn off both the in-game screen flashes and the ones from Omen.)
So... the maths. The hunter Global Cooldown (GCD) is 1.5 seconds. That doesn't change. Every shot in your rotation has to budget a minimum of 1.5 seconds before you can do any other shot (besides autoshot, which is now in it's own happy little world of constancy). Steady Shot has a 2 second cast time until you start adding haste. I don't know how the haste numbers work in relation to Steady yet - i.e., how much haste pulls Steady down to a 1.5 second cast. This is my next area of research. But with basic GCD numbers, you can get in 7 shots in 10.5 seconds; you have to wait till 10.5 because otherwise you're sitting at a 9 second rotation, and your Chimera and Aimed aren't ready yet. 10.5 is your number. Three of those shots are dedicated to your instants - Chimera, Aimed, and Arcane. Chimera hits the hardest and refreshes your sting, so you can sacrifice optimizing Arcane for that (or manually weave... I used to be able to...). Those three shots are 4.5 seconds of your rotation, leaving you with 6 seconds to fill with Steady Shots. You're only going to get 3-4. Three with no haste; four with optimal haste.
If you hit optimal haste, though, Rapid Fire, Improved Aspect of the Hawk, and such become mostly unnecessary; you can't get any faster. If you're spec'd into these, it may make more sense to manually throw in an extra steady when you're proc'd into one or more haste effects (OMG Potions of Speed, seriously). Haste doesn't need to be the first stat you stack - your haste-buffing abilities and those of your group (Bloodlust, etc.) will help; you might find out what kind of gap you need to close between those abilities and reaching optimal haste to squeeze in an extra Steady and go for that, though. Haste will always speed up your autoshot, and if you do hit optimal haste, you can move those talent points around (and re-glyph!) to get more bang (or twang) for your buck.
I have considered rewriting the macro with /castrandom, to see if that will solve the rotation problem:
/castrandom [Chimera], [Aimed], [Arcane], [Kill Shot]I don't know if that will really work, though, or if it'll just pop Steady and ignore the instants that are available. (I didn't sign up to raid tonight, so maybe I'll remember to test it.) I would hope what that macro would do is pop an instant when there's an instant available, and then pop Steady when everything else is on cooldown. I kind of doubt I'm going to be that lucky, though. I don't really care what order the instants go off in most of the time (I don't have the Hunter's Mark related talents... I've been through that story, right?), as long as they're all getting used as often as possible.
/cast [Steady]
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