I'm not sure how I got invited to the F&F alpha for Battle for Azeroth, but I'm going to try to be useful and not just run around mining. This post will probably be super spoilery if you don't want to know anything about quests and whatnot, it's just going to be a running commentary as I run around Zanchul.
Showing posts with label steady shot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label steady shot. Show all posts
8/4/16
The Return of Hunter's Mark
So I've been using a shot macro since like, Karazhan or Wrath sometime, when I realized I was not effectively using Steady Shot in my rotation. The macro has changed a bit over the years, as shots available changed, haste plateaus affected it, and so forth.
So, Steady Shot is gone for me. I don't really miss it - I like having Arcane Shot back, on demand, free and on the move. I do miss the Aimed Shot mobility, but that's just a matter of retraining myself to stand still for it. I've got Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, and Marked Shot for core shots now, with Bursting Shot as an interesting kind of combination of Barrage and the old Scatter Shot. I went with Murder of Crows for my regular set up, which I've been occasionally regretting when I go to farm old raids and forget that I can't just change it on the fly when I remember, after I'm there, that I kind of want it for that. I love the crows, though, and it feels safer in raids and dungeons since my mastery increases my range now and I don't have as good a feel for how far back is safe to Barrage yet.
So, Steady Shot is gone for me. I don't really miss it - I like having Arcane Shot back, on demand, free and on the move. I do miss the Aimed Shot mobility, but that's just a matter of retraining myself to stand still for it. I've got Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, and Marked Shot for core shots now, with Bursting Shot as an interesting kind of combination of Barrage and the old Scatter Shot. I went with Murder of Crows for my regular set up, which I've been occasionally regretting when I go to farm old raids and forget that I can't just change it on the fly when I remember, after I'm there, that I kind of want it for that. I love the crows, though, and it feels safer in raids and dungeons since my mastery increases my range now and I don't have as good a feel for how far back is safe to Barrage yet.
2/3/11
More thoughts on the /castsequence
I'm running with a spec that looks something like this.
Since actually raiding Tol Barad (three times now), I've dropped one of the Arcanes from my macro, due to focus starvation outside Rapid Fire, and finally realized that dude, I can pop Aspect of the Fox during Felfire and keep my rotation going during all the running around.
No, other than the opportunity to raid-test the macro and tweak for focus consumption, my thoughts on the cast sequence have been centered around two of the other Steady Shot-centered talents: Piercing Shots and Master Marksman.
Ignore, for the moment, that Marksman is bottoming out raid DPS rankings right now. We play Marksman because we love it, right? (There is some irony, I think, that the hunter specs are sandwiching that list.) Besides, 4.0.6 will bring us some changes that will help with that. Aimed, Arcane, Chimera, and Kill Shot are all getting damage buffs. We'll be able to Auto Shot while moving.
Aimed Shot is one of the main things I've been thinking about regarding the cast sequence. We really only use it on proc, and the proc is reliant on Steady Shot and the RNG. The only way to really get more Aimed Shots in is to get more Steady Shots in. Add to this the bleed damage both Steady and Aimed (and Chimera) can inflict. If Aimed Shot hits harder, the target is going to bleed harder. Add in a bleed debuff from an Arms warrior, Subtlety rogue, Feral druid, or one of our own pets (I favor the hyena for this when needed), and we're looking at some nice little boosts.
But again, we need more Steady Shots to get more Aimed Shots. If we prioritize Chimera to be every 10 seconds (in a normal rotation; if you use Kill Shot or Rapid Fire or Readiness, the spacing will vary slightly), that means we've got 9 other seconds of global cool down to work with. Getting Steady down to a one-second cast requires amounts of haste that are more or less insane. How insane? Not quite 9000. Yes, with the two hunter haste talents (Pathing and Improved Steady Shot), you need 8817 haste rating to get your Steady Shot down to 1 second with no other haste bonuses.
No, a 1.5 or 1.6 second Steady Shot cast is probably what we're sanely looking at most of the time, without extra haste boosts - that is, for most of our normal rotations. That means that the two bundles of two Steady Shots makes sense, and pairing it with two Arcane Shots will make sure we're not sitting on buckets of Focus.
What about that extra second or so of GCD? We could add another Arcane Shot, but raiding Tol Barad - a fight that is, more or less, the ultimate in stand and shoot fights for 98% of it - has shown that 3 Arcane:4 Steady will leave us Focus starved at points. 2 Arcane:4 Steady makes sure we have enough Focus for our next Chimera. 2 Arcane:5 Steady, however, pushes us past the 9 second mark, towards an 11-second rotation.
At this point I'm going to stick with the 2:4 Arcane:Steady ratio. The half a second is useful for flexibility when you need to pop some extra shot (Kill Shot, Tranq, etc.) or a trap, or perform some other utility action. If you've got the extra time or Focus, another Steady or Arcane can be added, but with the upcoming changes to Aimed, I would lean towards the Steady Shot.
So for now, the macro remains:
/castsequence Chimera Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
Since actually raiding Tol Barad (three times now), I've dropped one of the Arcanes from my macro, due to focus starvation outside Rapid Fire, and finally realized that dude, I can pop Aspect of the Fox during Felfire and keep my rotation going during all the running around.
No, other than the opportunity to raid-test the macro and tweak for focus consumption, my thoughts on the cast sequence have been centered around two of the other Steady Shot-centered talents: Piercing Shots and Master Marksman.
Ignore, for the moment, that Marksman is bottoming out raid DPS rankings right now. We play Marksman because we love it, right? (There is some irony, I think, that the hunter specs are sandwiching that list.) Besides, 4.0.6 will bring us some changes that will help with that. Aimed, Arcane, Chimera, and Kill Shot are all getting damage buffs. We'll be able to Auto Shot while moving.
Aimed Shot is one of the main things I've been thinking about regarding the cast sequence. We really only use it on proc, and the proc is reliant on Steady Shot and the RNG. The only way to really get more Aimed Shots in is to get more Steady Shots in. Add to this the bleed damage both Steady and Aimed (and Chimera) can inflict. If Aimed Shot hits harder, the target is going to bleed harder. Add in a bleed debuff from an Arms warrior, Subtlety rogue, Feral druid, or one of our own pets (I favor the hyena for this when needed), and we're looking at some nice little boosts.
But again, we need more Steady Shots to get more Aimed Shots. If we prioritize Chimera to be every 10 seconds (in a normal rotation; if you use Kill Shot or Rapid Fire or Readiness, the spacing will vary slightly), that means we've got 9 other seconds of global cool down to work with. Getting Steady down to a one-second cast requires amounts of haste that are more or less insane. How insane? Not quite 9000. Yes, with the two hunter haste talents (Pathing and Improved Steady Shot), you need 8817 haste rating to get your Steady Shot down to 1 second with no other haste bonuses.
No, a 1.5 or 1.6 second Steady Shot cast is probably what we're sanely looking at most of the time, without extra haste boosts - that is, for most of our normal rotations. That means that the two bundles of two Steady Shots makes sense, and pairing it with two Arcane Shots will make sure we're not sitting on buckets of Focus.
What about that extra second or so of GCD? We could add another Arcane Shot, but raiding Tol Barad - a fight that is, more or less, the ultimate in stand and shoot fights for 98% of it - has shown that 3 Arcane:4 Steady will leave us Focus starved at points. 2 Arcane:4 Steady makes sure we have enough Focus for our next Chimera. 2 Arcane:5 Steady, however, pushes us past the 9 second mark, towards an 11-second rotation.
At this point I'm going to stick with the 2:4 Arcane:Steady ratio. The half a second is useful for flexibility when you need to pop some extra shot (Kill Shot, Tranq, etc.) or a trap, or perform some other utility action. If you've got the extra time or Focus, another Steady or Arcane can be added, but with the upcoming changes to Aimed, I would lean towards the Steady Shot.
So for now, the macro remains:
/castsequence Chimera Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
1/10/11
Of /castsequences and haste
So, due to my own mediocrity, I am the user of a /castsequence macro. During most of Wrath, with our 1.5 second global cooldown, there was only so much wiggle room in the rotation - you could do one Chimera, one Aimed, and a combination of one Arcane and two to four Steady Shots, depending on your Armor Penetration, talents, and haste.
In Cataclysm, our GCD has dropped to 1 second. One second, with instant-cast, no cooldown but the global cooldown Arcane Shots. Steady Shot still has a base cast time of 2 seconds. Chimera Shot's cooldown is still 10 seconds (since I don't glyph it).
Our goal is four Steady Shots to every Chimera Shot. Why? Improved Steady Shot. We want these four in bundles of two. With 1 second of the 10 second rotation given to Chimera itself (GCD), a maximum of 8 seconds will go to the four Steady Shots. With no haste, that gives you time for one Arcane Shot, preferably between the bundles. When haste pushes your Steady Shot cast down, however, you're looking at extra time in your rotation, and face it - you're probably carrying extra focus. Add in Rapid Fire and your Imp. Steady Shot haste and you're probably rolling in focus and GCD time.
This was what I noticed - my focus bar was always too full. My Steady Shot cast is down to 1.54 seconds - that's about an extra two seconds in my rotation, which is two extra Arcane Shots. Obsessively watching focus consumption in a heroic (the only of two heroics I have successfully completed) got me killed on Anraphet, so it probably wasn't the best idea. I had been popping an extra Steady Shot onto the end of my rotation when my haste procs were up, waiting for Chimera to cool down, but more focus doesn't do me any good. Arcane is a focus dump for a reason.
So! The /castsequence now looks like:
/castsequence Chimera Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Arcane Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
With my usual lines for the engineering tinkers, tooltip, error clearing, and such, of course.
I couldn't leave it the way it was and manually add the Arcanes - I really want to be hitting two Steadies before my next Chimera to assure I have the focus for it. The flexibility comes between the Steady bundles. There's still enough room in this for Aimed procs without losing Serpent Sting, although the shorter Serpent Sting duration due to the glyph change does make things a little tighter.
I would say that my DPS did edge up afterwards, but that heroic was really not a good run to judge one's DPS on.
As haste probably continues to edge upwards, additional Arcane Shots will, at some point, be untenable to add - three in a row seems to be about the limit for the focus pool following a pair of Steadies. Further shots added to the rotation will probably be Steadies, depending how the haste goes.
In Cataclysm, our GCD has dropped to 1 second. One second, with instant-cast, no cooldown but the global cooldown Arcane Shots. Steady Shot still has a base cast time of 2 seconds. Chimera Shot's cooldown is still 10 seconds (since I don't glyph it).
Our goal is four Steady Shots to every Chimera Shot. Why? Improved Steady Shot. We want these four in bundles of two. With 1 second of the 10 second rotation given to Chimera itself (GCD), a maximum of 8 seconds will go to the four Steady Shots. With no haste, that gives you time for one Arcane Shot, preferably between the bundles. When haste pushes your Steady Shot cast down, however, you're looking at extra time in your rotation, and face it - you're probably carrying extra focus. Add in Rapid Fire and your Imp. Steady Shot haste and you're probably rolling in focus and GCD time.
This was what I noticed - my focus bar was always too full. My Steady Shot cast is down to 1.54 seconds - that's about an extra two seconds in my rotation, which is two extra Arcane Shots. Obsessively watching focus consumption in a heroic (the only of two heroics I have successfully completed) got me killed on Anraphet, so it probably wasn't the best idea. I had been popping an extra Steady Shot onto the end of my rotation when my haste procs were up, waiting for Chimera to cool down, but more focus doesn't do me any good. Arcane is a focus dump for a reason.
So! The /castsequence now looks like:
/castsequence Chimera Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Arcane Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
With my usual lines for the engineering tinkers, tooltip, error clearing, and such, of course.
I couldn't leave it the way it was and manually add the Arcanes - I really want to be hitting two Steadies before my next Chimera to assure I have the focus for it. The flexibility comes between the Steady bundles. There's still enough room in this for Aimed procs without losing Serpent Sting, although the shorter Serpent Sting duration due to the glyph change does make things a little tighter.
I would say that my DPS did edge up afterwards, but that heroic was really not a good run to judge one's DPS on.
As haste probably continues to edge upwards, additional Arcane Shots will, at some point, be untenable to add - three in a row seems to be about the limit for the focus pool following a pair of Steadies. Further shots added to the rotation will probably be Steadies, depending how the haste goes.
8/21/10
Hunter F.A.Q.
So a couple days ago my brother texts me about hunters and Armor Penetration. I'm not a theory crafter - I really haven't got the time what with everything else I do - but I do tend to remember what I read. As such, I'm going to compile the questions I get asked a lot. I'll link back to sources when I can find them.
Q: What's your rotation?
A: After Hunter's Mark, Serpent Sting, and Rapid Fire, Chimera, Aimed, Steady x4. Readiness when Rapid Fire falls off, Rapid Fire again, and resume Chimera, Aimed, Steady x4. Kill Shot as soon as it's available. When moving I may throw in Arcane.
Keeping in mind that I use a /castsequence macro with Kill Command and Silencing also tied to it, if I move, it tends to get lost in the Steadies. So if I have to move, I hit the rotation manually to resynchronize it with the macro.
Q: Does the shot rotation macro work?
A: If you're as bad at doing the rotation manually as I am, yes.
Q: What should I gem?
A: As Beast Mastery, either Attack Power (AP) or Armor Penetration (ArP), depending on your base ArP. As Survival, Agility (Agi). As Marksman, Agi or ArP depending on your base ArP.
The level of ArP at which you switch gemming to ArP is about 400 for BM, and about 800 for MM.
If you want to match socket bonuses, for blue sockets you'll want purple gems with Stamina for BM or Surv, and mp5 for MM. Yes, mp5. Stamina does nothing for a MM hunter's DPS. For yellow sockets you'll want orange gems with either hit or crit rating, depending if you need the hit rating.
Q: Do I really want to drop Arcane Shot as MM at some point?
A: Probably, yes, after you have about 450 base ArP. Drop the talents, drop it out of your stationary rotation, and pick up Improved Steady Shot if you don't already have it.
I don't know if it's worth dropping from BM's rotation at any point, since you probably don't have the points to improve it anyway.
Q: Is it worth hitting Steady Shot over Auto Shot?
A: Steady doesn't clip Auto anymore, so yes, spam it. Your talents and its scaling make it more valuable. If you're not casting something, you're losing DPS. Push a button, dammit.
Q: Haste - should I gem it?
A: No. Just, no.
Q: Where'd you get your wolf?
A: Mulgore. He didn't bark when I tamed him (March 2006).
That's all I've got for the moment - I'll add more as they crop up.
Q: What's your rotation?
A: After Hunter's Mark, Serpent Sting, and Rapid Fire, Chimera, Aimed, Steady x4. Readiness when Rapid Fire falls off, Rapid Fire again, and resume Chimera, Aimed, Steady x4. Kill Shot as soon as it's available. When moving I may throw in Arcane.
Keeping in mind that I use a /castsequence macro with Kill Command and Silencing also tied to it, if I move, it tends to get lost in the Steadies. So if I have to move, I hit the rotation manually to resynchronize it with the macro.
Q: Does the shot rotation macro work?
A: If you're as bad at doing the rotation manually as I am, yes.
Q: What should I gem?
A: As Beast Mastery, either Attack Power (AP) or Armor Penetration (ArP), depending on your base ArP. As Survival, Agility (Agi). As Marksman, Agi or ArP depending on your base ArP.
The level of ArP at which you switch gemming to ArP is about 400 for BM, and about 800 for MM.
If you want to match socket bonuses, for blue sockets you'll want purple gems with Stamina for BM or Surv, and mp5 for MM. Yes, mp5. Stamina does nothing for a MM hunter's DPS. For yellow sockets you'll want orange gems with either hit or crit rating, depending if you need the hit rating.
Q: Do I really want to drop Arcane Shot as MM at some point?
A: Probably, yes, after you have about 450 base ArP. Drop the talents, drop it out of your stationary rotation, and pick up Improved Steady Shot if you don't already have it.
I don't know if it's worth dropping from BM's rotation at any point, since you probably don't have the points to improve it anyway.
Q: Is it worth hitting Steady Shot over Auto Shot?
A: Steady doesn't clip Auto anymore, so yes, spam it. Your talents and its scaling make it more valuable. If you're not casting something, you're losing DPS. Push a button, dammit.
Q: Haste - should I gem it?
A: No. Just, no.
Q: Where'd you get your wolf?
A: Mulgore. He didn't bark when I tamed him (March 2006).
That's all I've got for the moment - I'll add more as they crop up.
2/3/10
Arcanelessness
Ok, yeah, I just kinda made up that word.
I've been trying out the Arcane-less Marksman build and... I don't know if it's had a noticeable effect or not.
My current Armor Penetration (I've been told I shouldn't use that word in raid chat) is a little lower than I should really have to do it - I think I'm down to 475, with the Scorpion for procs, but I was over 500 when I respeced. But getting 2-piece T10 and going from the T8.5 to the T9 breastplate otherwise made a lot of sense.
Anyway, as much as I love that Marksman is about having lots of shots, I think dropping Arcane makes for a more logcial rotation - and, except for when you have to push extra buttons for Rapid Fire, Readiness, and such, it really is a rotation again: Chimera, Aimed, Steady x4. Kill Shot mucks it up a little, but critting for 20k is awesome (thank you, Void Boss Dude in Violet Hold, and I hate you, combat log bug that prevented me from screenshotting said crit).
Really, with my current level of ArP and the Scorpion, I should be doing a Chimera/Aimed/Arcane/Steady x3 type of thing, and only dropping Arcane during procs, but given the unpredictability of procs, it's really not practical. I'm not that good.
My DPS is definitely up a bit - I broke 8k on I think one of the spiders before Lady Deathwhisper the recently in 25s, and I broke 6k on Festergut in 10s (the night we don't have a log for, damn it, but I did at least screenshot that) - but that's just as likely due to gear changes as the spec/rotation change.
Dropping Improved Arcane from my talents was a bit sad for me; I absolutely loved the talent when it was a reduction in Arcane's cooldown. Ten-second and five-second cooldowns would have been mathematically easier to plan for... if our GCD weren't stuck at 1.5 seconds. Anywho, dropping Improved Arcane let me pick up Improved Steady, and since my rotation is stacked the way it is, the buff from Improved Steady is always going to Chimera.
One nice benefit of not regularly weaving in Arcane is that when I need an instant shot now - say, for web wraps or some such - I have one conveniently off cooldown to use. And I can still toss it in when I have to move.
As my gear gets upgraded (please, please let the cloak and belt be next), my ArP should go up, and it will be a more solid switch, but for now it's at least not hurting.
I've been trying out the Arcane-less Marksman build and... I don't know if it's had a noticeable effect or not.
My current Armor Penetration (I've been told I shouldn't use that word in raid chat) is a little lower than I should really have to do it - I think I'm down to 475, with the Scorpion for procs, but I was over 500 when I respeced. But getting 2-piece T10 and going from the T8.5 to the T9 breastplate otherwise made a lot of sense.
Anyway, as much as I love that Marksman is about having lots of shots, I think dropping Arcane makes for a more logcial rotation - and, except for when you have to push extra buttons for Rapid Fire, Readiness, and such, it really is a rotation again: Chimera, Aimed, Steady x4. Kill Shot mucks it up a little, but critting for 20k is awesome (thank you, Void Boss Dude in Violet Hold, and I hate you, combat log bug that prevented me from screenshotting said crit).
Really, with my current level of ArP and the Scorpion, I should be doing a Chimera/Aimed/Arcane/Steady x3 type of thing, and only dropping Arcane during procs, but given the unpredictability of procs, it's really not practical. I'm not that good.
My DPS is definitely up a bit - I broke 8k on I think one of the spiders before Lady Deathwhisper the recently in 25s, and I broke 6k on Festergut in 10s (the night we don't have a log for, damn it, but I did at least screenshot that) - but that's just as likely due to gear changes as the spec/rotation change.
Dropping Improved Arcane from my talents was a bit sad for me; I absolutely loved the talent when it was a reduction in Arcane's cooldown. Ten-second and five-second cooldowns would have been mathematically easier to plan for... if our GCD weren't stuck at 1.5 seconds. Anywho, dropping Improved Arcane let me pick up Improved Steady, and since my rotation is stacked the way it is, the buff from Improved Steady is always going to Chimera.
One nice benefit of not regularly weaving in Arcane is that when I need an instant shot now - say, for web wraps or some such - I have one conveniently off cooldown to use. And I can still toss it in when I have to move.
As my gear gets upgraded (please, please let the cloak and belt be next), my ArP should go up, and it will be a more solid switch, but for now it's at least not hurting.
3/17/09
PTR musings
I haven't been on the 3.1 PTR at all. I haven't felt motivated this time, since the changes aren't as big as the 3.0 PTR (we're not getting two new tiers of talents, and whatnot).
The changes that have been put forth for hunters, though - not the ammo changes, or the pet changes, but the tweaks to the Marksman talents - they're going to require some spec and rotation tweaking.
Why? Daze, Chimera, and Steady Shot.
I'm using a Chimera, Aimed, Arcane, Steady x3 or x4 rotation. I'm looking at this spec. So I'm going to want to switch things up - probably Arcane, Aimed, Chimera, and then my Steady Shots, however many I can squeeze in with Haste. (Three or four.)
This hinges on the changes to Concussive Barrage - Chimera and Multi will have 100% daze chances. PVP change? Oh, no. This is to buff MM hunter's Steady Shot damage in PVE. (Okay, maybe not, but it's how I'm going to use it.) Add onto that the bleed from Piercing Shots which Aimed, Chimera, and Steady will add...
Yeah, bosses are immune to the daze. This rolls Concussive Shot's effect into Chimera and Multi, though - which means you have a multi-target daze. For non-boss situations, this is going to up Steady Shot damage, as well as give a hunter more kiting options.
Oh, right. Who still kites nowadays?
The changes that have been put forth for hunters, though - not the ammo changes, or the pet changes, but the tweaks to the Marksman talents - they're going to require some spec and rotation tweaking.
Why? Daze, Chimera, and Steady Shot.
I'm using a Chimera, Aimed, Arcane, Steady x3 or x4 rotation. I'm looking at this spec. So I'm going to want to switch things up - probably Arcane, Aimed, Chimera, and then my Steady Shots, however many I can squeeze in with Haste. (Three or four.)
This hinges on the changes to Concussive Barrage - Chimera and Multi will have 100% daze chances. PVP change? Oh, no. This is to buff MM hunter's Steady Shot damage in PVE. (Okay, maybe not, but it's how I'm going to use it.) Add onto that the bleed from Piercing Shots which Aimed, Chimera, and Steady will add...
Yeah, bosses are immune to the daze. This rolls Concussive Shot's effect into Chimera and Multi, though - which means you have a multi-target daze. For non-boss situations, this is going to up Steady Shot damage, as well as give a hunter more kiting options.
Oh, right. Who still kites nowadays?
1/14/09
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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