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Endgame DPS/Mechanics Guide Reborn
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Post by
Garry
Hello everyone! This guide is a continuation of leth's "How do I shot bow?: Endgame DPS/Mechanics Guide". You will see a lot of the same information here as in his last thread as well as some other threads.
This thread needs a lot of critiquing so please comment and give me feedback and post corrections. Thank you.
Word versions of this thread are available at..
http://garrytheinformer.com/
I. Talent Overviews
Beast Mastery DPS/Raid Spec
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ctbMztxRwu0esx0eVooZL
Some of you may find this spec a little controversial because this is a little different then some common DPS/Raid Specs that you have seen recently. For example
This Talent Tree
. I agree with most of the talents on here. I did however change a few things which I will go over later. For more information on shot rotations enchants etc.. Navigate farther down the page.
Attributes: Hit > AP > Agility > Intellect > Haste > Crit (Keep in mind you still want to reach the Caps/soft caps with the attributes)
Glyphs: Steady, Bestial Wrath, Serpent Sting.
Gemming: Agi/AP, virtually equal.
Changes and Reasons for them.
Improved Tacking 4/5
The reason we put 4/5 in here instead of putting 2 points into
Improved Stings
is because Improved tracking increases ALL ranged DPS where as Improved Stings only targets your stings. Note that since patch 3.0.8 was released when you’re tracking one of them whether it be Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids, and Undead will give you the damage increase to all of them. So as long as your tracking one of them. Your DPS will be increased vs all of them.
Improve Mend Pet
Now even a while back I thought "What in the heck is the purpose of this. I could use this talent point where it would improve my DPS. Well it's important to keep you’re pet alive we all know that. So when your pet is getting pounded by spells or may have a disease on him. Healers in raids won't even think about healing your pet. They are way to preoccupied with the raid members. IMP will allow you to have a chance on cleansing your pet, as well as reducing the mana cost. Which we all know is fantastic because this will decrease the time in Viper!
Frenzy 4/5
Now i'm about to tell you why Frenzy 4/5 and not 5/5. If you know the answer that's great! But this is for the people who don't. So some of you may ask "Why only 4/5 Frenzy? It looks like an amazing DPS boost!" Well let me tell you.
Frenzy 4/5
gives your pet an 80% chance to have a 30% attack speed increase for 8 seconds after dealing a critical strike. Well chances are your pet will Crit every 4-5 seconds maybe even less. So to prevent the buff from "over applying" itself we only put 4/5 Frenzy to avoid wasting a talent point. This applies to other talents too, EG: GFTT and Expose Weakness
No
Beast Mastery
!
With the latest patch(3.0.8) Exotic pets were nerfed incredibly. The DPS difference between an Exotic pet and a normal Raptor or Cat was so small it was deprecated and considered a worthless talent point. If you were to spec into it you would only be doing so for the look of your pet. It would be worth it to spend the talent point elsewhere.
Marksmanship DPS/Raid Spec
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ctbMzZ0eVfoAzMxoxhAox00b
This talent tree has been slightly modified and updated for the highest possible DPS.
This
is a different example of Marksmanship. You will be able to see the changes made and below I will explain the reasons I made the changes.
Attributes: Hit > Agility > AP > Intellect > Haste > Crit (Keep in mind you still want to reach the Caps/soft caps with the attributes)
Glyphs: Steady, Serpent Sting, AotH.
Gemming: Agi
For more information on shot rotations enchants etc.. navigate farther down the page.
Changes and Reasons for them.
Unleashed Fury
was removed in order to make points available for
Survival Instincts 2/2
,
Improved Steady Shot
and
Efficiency
. Unleashed Fury increases your pets damage. This is really the last thing you need because your main DPS source is your bow/gun. Killerrabbit disagrees with me on this. I respect his opinion and you may spec how ever you wish but when I tested my DPS there was a different out come each time. First time my spec was putting out more DPS second time his did more DPS. It went on and off like this. I had about 6 trials. I averaged out my results and my spec did do more DPS but the difference was so minor it doesn't really matter unless you're really nit picky.
No Silencing Shot
The reason for not getting this is because most of the time it is worthless in raids because the targeted NPC will be immune to silencing affects and it does not do substantial DPS to be included into the shot rotation. However this spell would benefit for PVP.
Survival Trap Dancing Spec
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=coZ0eVbohZtb0i0fIhxdAbod
This spec for obvious reason(EG the name) is a Trap dancing spec. This means that your the hunter that traps in instances and raids. Now I don't prefer this spec but some say this spec does just as much or more DPS then the first Survival Spec.
Attributes: Hit > Agility > AP > Intellect > Haste > Crit > Spell penetration (Keep in mind you still want to reach the Caps/soft caps with the attributes)
Glyphs: Steady, Serpent, AotH.
Gemming: Agility, Spell Penetration.
Interesting Talents used in this tree
Savage Strikes
. On occasion when you are trapping or kiting NPC's you will come into melee combat. This talent just assists in you keeping aggro so you can pull the NPC into your trap.
Survival Tactics
. This talent is primarily taken for the reduced chanced for you enemy's to resist your traps. This is a core talent in that it makes the trap chance higher. Which is what
Trap
Dancing is all about.
Trap Mastery
Frost Trap and Freezing Trap - Increases the duration by 30%. Immolation and Explosive Trap - Increases the periodic damage done by 30%. Snake Trap - Increases the number of snakes summoned by 30%. This is a core talent for the reason that it will keep your trapped target trapped longer, which is fantastic because that give you and your party/raid group more time to be killing other NPC's/adds!
Endgame Grinding/Farming Spec
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cVbhzggRwzhesx0eVbo
This spec shows you how how to spec correctly into your talent tree if you want the best and fasted farming possible. It is way more pet reliable giving your pet most of the attributes allowing it to hold 3 or 4 NPC's at the same time. Killing them at a much faster pace putting more gold in your pocket.
Important Talents
Endurance Training
. This will give your pet much more health and making it more susceptible to taking hits, increasing your time in combat.
Improved Mend Pet
. This will decrease the mana cost of your mend pet spell. Reducing the time your in viper and decreasing the amount of times you will have to drink for mana. Also has a chance on tick of cleansing 1 Curse, Disease, Magic or Poison effect.
Go for the Throat 2/2
. You will normally see this 1/2 but in this case we want are pet to have as much focus available all the time to ensure are pets hold aggro and also increasing there DPS substantially.
Post by
Garry
III. Professions
It's smartest to take two gathering professions to make the most money until you are financially secure; that is, until you are 80 and have bought your epic flying mount and have enough money, resources, and income left over to finance the cost of raids in addition to being able to finance the replacement of one or both of your professions according to the following recommendations. The two smartest gathering professions till 80 would be herbalism and mining. I'll normally try and devote 12 hours of gathering a week at least. Now its impossible to track both herbs and mineral veins at the same time. But these to macros make it much easier to switch on and off.
Track Herbs) /use Find Herbs
Track Minerals) /use Find Minerals
Its best then for those macros to have key bindings and then just switch on and off between tracking.
Blacksmithing
tops out at an extra 80 AP net gain through extra bracer and glove sockets, when epic gems are inserted. ...But those don't exist yet. With rare gems, the gain is 64 AP, equal to Alchemy, Enchanting, LW, and Inscription, as below. However, these sockets do leave room for Agility-equivalent gems for Survival.
Jewelcrafting
allows you to equip up to 3 special prismatic gems, a net benefit of 66 AP over rare equivalents, or 42 AP over epic equivalents. Again, the epic ones are not attainable yet, so for now, JC is a better idea than anything else; when epic gems do debut, it will become less of a good idea. But since they're prismatic, you aren't required to put in a crappy blue gem to satisfy your meta, so you get a small gain there too (minus desirable socket bonuses with blue sockets that you would have taken anyway), making it slightly better than Herbalism right now. Also, there are Agility-equivalent gems for Survival.
Herbalism
comes in third with 66.7 AP on average along with
a weak self heal
, this can however be usefull in raids. Use on boss fights when ever its up to give the healers less to worry about.
Alchemy, Enchanting, Leatherworking, and Inscription
each have a net benefit of 64 AP, a tie for a close fourth to Herbalism, but these benefits are all passive at the cost of 2.7 AP relative to Herbalism.
Engineering
's value is variable, with gadgets and gear and Engineer-only enchants (which are lame for Hunter DPS) being used situationally, but it's something Hunters should consider with
ammunition making
,
Jumper Cables
(we are the class that can make use of them with the greatest consistency), an
ilvl 200 epic helm
, etc.
The other professions pale in comparison. Tailoring offers literally nothing; Skinning offers 32 crit rating; Mining offers extra max health. These are lame.
*Fire Leaf shares a cooldown with some or all explosives, combat pets, and/or other useless cooldowns.
IV. Gear and Items, part 0
Mini-article: The hit cap
One can ensure that they never miss a shot by improving their chance to hit. One's pet behaves in the same way.
Need to know
- the hit cap is 263 or 8% without Focused Aim. Focused Aim in no way causes crit deppresion. Some of you may have heard this. In fact it is nonsense.
How is chance to hit calculated?
It's more accurate to say that your chance to miss is what is being calculated. Your chance to miss is a function of your
weapon skill
and the target's
defense skill
. (Both of these skills appear on the Skills tab of your character sheet, default keybinding "K.") These are just numbers that reflect how good you are with your weapon and how good you are at not getting hit by other weapons, respectively. The maximum is always 5 times your level. At level 80, this means that maximum skill is 400. It is clearly in your best interest to get relevant skills to 400 as soon as possible. To do this, simply engage in combat using the weapon whose skill you want to improve (or get hit by physical attacks, in the case of defense skill) until it increases. You may have to engage mobs closer to your level in order to achieve the higher skill levels.
All discussion about the hit cap assumes maximum weapon skill.
All enemies and NPCs (including your pet) have all weapon and defense skill
IV. Gear and Items, part 1
a)
FAQ:
Leather or mail?
Use whichever gives you the better overall DPS.
However, the main advantage to using mail is Intellect; you get AP from it through the Careful Aim talent, and the more Int you have, the less time overall you spend with Aspect of the Viper on. Most of the time, mail will be the better idea. If you're gonna aim for leather, be kind to Rogues and Druids and let them have leather first, since they can't use the mail that was designed for you.
Dual Wield or 2-hander?
Use whichever gives you the better overall DPS.
The only difference is enchants. Trapdancing specs will prefer 2 handers due to actually using them once every 24 seconds.
Bow, gun, or crossbow?
Use whichever gives you the better overall DPS.
If you're a Troll, pretend that Bows all have 45.9 crit rating on them (for Dwarves, the same with Guns).
Slow or fast ranged weapon?
The difference is fairly small. Faster weapons trigger procs more often; slower weapons get more mana back from Aspect of the Viper per hit. Faster will be better in non-Viper situations, but otherwise it's a bit moot. Damage done by individual shots is normalized.
Should I use piece X or Y?
Keep reading and you can decide for yourself!
b)
Stat-related mathematical information:
This will provide you with basic informatin on stats. For much more great and in-depth information go
here
.
45.9 crit rating = 1% crit chance.
1 Agi = 1 attack power + .012% crit.
32.79 haste rating = 1% haste = attack speed drops such that in the time it used to take to use an attack 100 times in a row, now you can do it 101 times. This is calculated by taking (attack speed) / (1+haste%).
The haste soft cap is at 15.94% haste (assuming you have a 15% quiver equipped). This is when Steady Shot's cast time reaches 1.5 seconds. After this point, Steady Shot's cast time is limited by the global cooldown; after this point, haste will only truly affect Auto Shot. The haste soft cap can be met with Serpent's Swiftness,
Improved Moonkin Form
,
Swift Retribution
, or haste from gear. (Note that Improved Moonkin Form and Swift Retribution, like all raid buffs, don't stack.)
32.79 hit rating = +1% hit chance, or, more accurately, -1% miss chance. See the article on the hit cap above for more information. You need 6% to cap hit in a heroic, and 8% to cap hit in a raid.
15.4 Armor Penetration rating = 1% armor ignored. I would worry about this stat a lot less. It will benefit you but not nearly as much as agility or attack power.
Expertise is useless to you.
It only applies to melee. (No, it doesn't scale to your pet.) Do not take gear with Expertise at all costs; some exceptions may occur when the other stats are still better than what you've got on.
Strength is useless to you.
It only applies to melee AP. (Only ranged AP scales to your pet.) Do not take gear with Strength at all costs; you will get more than laughed at. There are no excusable exceptions to this rule at endgame.
In general, when picking a ranged weapon, its tooltip DPS is the primary concern, followed by stats. Of two bows with equivalent DPS but different speeds, the slower one will return you slightly more mana in Aspect of the Viper, but the faster one will generate slightly more procs like Go for the Throat and Improved Aspect of the Hawk. So speed's essentially a tossup.
Note that your preferred stats in any given situation are extremely dependent on gear, buffs, and situation. For example, in a longer than usual fight, you would prefer Intellect more than normal so as to spend less time in Viper. It is always best to check
the spreadsheet
for your specific statistical preferences.
c)
Gearing up:
Go browse Wowhead!
Like so
. That will return all level 80 epic mail chestpieces that a Hunter can use, that don't have spell power or Strength on. That is, it will return every epic chestpiece you might ever care about. Browse gear for every slot and find some feasible gear to shoot for, using what you learned above. The comments on each item are generally a good resource. Try to eventually be able to correctly decide for yourself what gear you should be wearing, keeping the hit cap in mind.
Other good resources for gear choice are the other sticky threads in this forum. Check them out!
Post by
Garry
:
VI. Putting It All Together: How Do I Shot Bow?
All of the above is theory on how to maximize your DPS. In order to make it work, you have to actually cause maximum DPS correctly. How you do that depends on several factors; the method by which you perform your DPS (i.e. the order in which you fire your shots) is referred to as your shot rotation.
a)
Shot Rotation
Shot Rotation break downs:
BM:
Serpent > Arcane > Aimed > Steady
MM:
Serpent >Chimera > Arcane > Aimed > Steady
SV
: Explosive > Aimed > Steady
More Information:
Priority rotations are the way to go: fire the shots that cause the most DPS first. This will be Explosive/Chimera, Aimed, multishot(if theres more then 1 NPC),Serpent, Arcane (unless you are Survival), and Steady, more or less in that order.
If you are not MM, refresh Serpent when it expires. If you are MM, fire Chimera Shot on cooldown: the tooltips are a bit misleading, Chimera - Serpent always does damage equal to 40% of the total damage that an entire Serpent Sting would do, not how much has been done already.
Frost trap does not currently activate the 30 second cooldown on LnL. Making it a far superior choice over Immolation trap.
On topic of LnL, the absolute best way to do it is to do 3 explosives back to back without clipping, but as long as you don't clip, it won't be much of a dps loss.
If you are Survival, and Lock and Load procs, you want to avoid overwriting existing Explosive Shot DoT ticks. Either wait a half second between firing Explosives so that the previous Explosive finishes ticking before your next one lands, or weave a different special in between Explosives. Don't waste LnL charges on Arcane Shot, this costs you a lot of damage.
b)
Other Tips
Tips on being effective in a raid:
Pop all your cooldowns all the time, but only when you won't risk overtaking the tank in threat. You really don't want to have to FD when all your cooldowns are active. If you can, try to time your cooldowns so that they go off together when threat is not an issue. (The exception to this rule is that Trolls' Berserking and other haste effects should be used separately.) If you can't use all your cooldowns together, that's fine; you lose more by waiting to do so.
Know what's going on in any given fight. That means reading strategies, watching videos of those strategies, and knowing what everyone else's role is too, so you can be aware of exactly what's going to happen.
Misdirect properly and every time the cooldown is up. If there's more than one Hunter in a raid, designate one person to coordinate Misdirections over Ventrilo or in a separate chat channel.
With an undergeared tank, consider placing Scorpid Sting instead of Serpent Sting; what you sacrifice in DPS here may allow your tank to live through a fight if s/he is having trouble staying alive. However, Insect Swarm, a Druid talent in the Balance tree, is identical to Scorpid Sting and the two don't stack.
Heal yourself. Use bandages and Healthstones and potions. Use Mend Pet whenever necessary.
Follow the kill order designated by your raid leaders. Use Hunter's Mark on every mob that is being focused by the majority of the raid, if you have Improved Hunter's Mark and the glyph.
Feign Death often, as needed. Use a threat meter mod like Omen to track the threat of you and your raid members, so you can see when you are in danger of overtaking the tank in threat; most guilds require this regardless. Make sure your threat is cleared on Omen before you get back up; it might take a second and it's worth the wait. (Omen is available at
Curse
.)
For a list of other use full hunter addons go to Garry's
Hunter Addon/Mods!
Post by
Garry
The Majority of this was taken from Hungryshadow's thread, Level 80 Pre-Raiding Hunter Gear & Enchant Guide. Which you can find
here
.
Overview of Enchants/inscriptions.
Chest
:
Enchant Chest – Powerful Stats
This is important no matter what spec you are. Its well rounded and there is no better enchant for you chest DPS wise.
Cloak
:
Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed
I would recommend this to Beast Mastery hunters. Increased haste will benefit you a little bit more then Major Agility, not much but every little thing helps. If you meet the haste soft cap do not get this. Agility will be more important.
Enchant Cloak – Major Agility
This is recommended for Survival and Marksmanship hunters. Agility is the main attribute all hunters should be focusing on. However it especially benefits Survival.
Agility will benefit the following
Lightning Reflexes
Expose Weakness
Master Tactician
Bracer
:
Enchant Bracers – Greater Assault
Recommended for all Hunters.
Gloves
Enchant Gloves – Crusher
Recommended for Beast Mastery hunters. However Enchant Gloves - Precision is more beneficial then Crusher. You can find the link to Precision below.
Enchant Gloves – Major Agility
Recommended for Survival and Marksmanship hunters.
Enchant Gloves – Precision
This is recommended for Beast Mastery hunters. Keep in mind that if you are Beast Mastery you will want Precision over Crusher.
Boots
:
Enchant Boots – Greater Assault
Recommended for Beast Mastery hunters.
Enchant Boots – Superior Agility
Recommended for Survival and Marksmanship hunters.
Enchant Boots – Icewalker
This enchant is good but the enchants above are recommended over this.
1H Weapon
:
Enchant Weapon – Accuracy
Recommended for Beast Mastery hunters.
Enchant Weapon – Superior Potency
Recommended for Beast Mastery hunters. However Accuracy will be a better bet in increasing your DPS.
Enchant Weapon – Exceptional Agility
Recommended for Survival and Marksmanship hunters.
2H Weapon
:
Enchant 2H Weapon – Massacre
Recommended for all specs, Beast Mastery, Survival, Marksmanship.
Enchant 2H Weapon – Scourgebane
As you notice this does give more attack power but only to undead. I would say this is a temporary enchant as it would be worthless if you not fighting undead. This enchant is especially good in Naxxramas.
Rings (Enchanters Only)
Enchant Ring – Assault
Recommended for all specs.
Leatherworking Patches (Leatherworkers Only)
Fur Lining – Attack Power
Recommended for all specs.
Nerubian Leg Reinforcements
Recommended for all specs.
Leatherworking Patches
Icescale Leg Armor
Recommended for all specs.
Nerubian Leg Armor
Recommended for all specs. Although this may be less expensive it won't benefit your DPS as much ace Icescale. It's better to invest the gold in Icescale despite the cost.
Inscription Shoulder Patches (Inscriptors Only)
Master's Inscription of the Axe
Recommended for all specs.
Post by
Garry
Patch Notes:
Patch 3.0.9
Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
Serpent’s Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.
Pets
Lava Breath now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
Poison Spit now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
Cited Sources
How Do I Shot Bow?: Endgame DPS/Mechanics Guide
How To Spec Survival for PvE Guide - 3.08
- Was a lot of invalid points here. I had to filter through them.
Killerrabbit's Post
Hungryshadow's 3 in 1 Guide
Change Log
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
- Removed +6 to stats recommendation. +50 AP is better in all cases
Friday, February 20, 2009
- Added info on Hit Cap mini article.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
- Edited Marksmanship spec again. Removing 2 points from
Piercing Shots
and putting them into
Improved Steady Shot 3/3
as well as
Efficiency 5/5
Friday, February 13, 2009
- Changes made to enchant guide. Made haste enchant to cloak no longer recommended for Marksmanship hunters.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
- Changes made to Marksmanship. Removed 2 points from
Barrage
and placed them into
Piercing Shots
.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
- Changes made to Beast Mastery. Removed 2 points from
Invigoration
and placed them into
Improved Tracking
.
Monday, February 09, 2009
- Changes made to survival spec. Removed 2 points from
Hunting Party
and put them into
Sniper Training
.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
- Creation of thread and major foundation of thread is made.
Post by
Janube
I figure you're done with reserved spots, as the last one was five minutes ago.
"Improved Tracking will bug you, I know because it bugged me! Always having to track a new target manually. The mod Track-o-Matique will automatically track the type of NPC you are attacking. You can download this mod from my other thread at this location. Hunter Addons/Mods!"
The talent was changed with 3.08. Now whenever you're tracking humanoids, dragons, giants, beasts, demons, elementals, or undead, you get the DPS buff against all of those types.
So as long as you track one of them, you don't have to switch unless you want to see their positions on the mini-map.
Post by
317997
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Post by
Garry
This is a little sneak peak of the Endgame DPS/Mechanics Guide Reborn. Much more will be added later.
This was my very first sentence of my guide. Yes i'm obviously going to add a guide for survival.
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142942
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Post by
Garry
Expose Weakness 2/3
Like I explained before we only get Expose Weakness 2/3 to ensure the buff does not over write itself. If this happens you have a worthless talent. point.
Actually you only stick 2 points in EW because that is enough to ensure near 100% uptime. Overriding itself is irrelevent.
Hunting Party 3/5
Same exact explanation as Expose Weakness. I don't know whether to call his a core talent or a filler. Its great to have 3/5 because that keeps he buff on basically all the time, increasing your Mana regeneration incredibly. Again this is important because you want to minimize the time you are in viper.
You can get away with 2/5 which will also keep near 100% uptime.
Overwriting itself is not irrelevant at all. If its not then why don't you put 3/3 in expose weakness? Because then its a waste. I suppose it Hunting Party 2/5 would do alright but just to ensure that its always on I like 3/5 and theres really no other core talents it can be placed into anyway. It would just be another filler same as this.
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Post by
Garry
Thanks guys for all the corrects. Takes ages to get anything done so bear with me here. I'll try and fix my mistakes the best I can.
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