Kill Command vs Arcane Shot

[Helix 1]

Hey, as the topic says I'm comparing these 2 abilities. I'm still leveling my Hunter as I haven't played it as my main since WOTLK.

As of level 85 Kill Command costs 40 focus and hits for 14900 damage rounded down.

Arcane shot costs 20 focus and hits for approx 9200 damage...

In order for the ability to actually be worthwhile it needs to do double the damage at least right? As of 85 the Arcane shot crits are more than half the Kill Command crits. Do the abilities scale differently at 90? I'm not really sure if Kill Command even belongs on my bar and if it doesn't do more damage untill level 90 I struggle to understand what goes through Blizzards mind giving it to BM Hunters at lower levels...

Anyway just curious how this changes at level 90, if it does at all, if it does could someone please explain the mechanics and reasoning? If not I guess it's a useless ability.

[Tehstool 10]

At level 90 it gets better a lot better. How much mastery do you have?

[Helix 1]

Thanks for the reply, can you tell me what your Kill Command / Arcane Shot hit for? Just out of curiosity...

Currently 27.89% Mastery.

[Tehstool 10]

I have 31.10% mastery unbuffed and my arcane shot is hitting for 35k-70k and my kill command is hitting for 80k-160k.

[Jademcian 0]

Do the abilities scale differently at 90? I'm not really sure if Kill Command even belongs on my bar and if it doesn't do more damage untill level 90 I struggle to understand what goes through Blizzards mind giving it to BM Hunters at lower levels...

Anyway just curious how this changes at level 90, if it does at all, if it does could someone please explain the mechanics and reasoning? If not I guess it's a useless ability.

Arcane shot is better for the focus cost as you're leveling, yes. This is partially because arcane shot is based on your weapon damage while kill command is based on your RAP, and leveling in Pandaria will provide you with vastly superior blue weapons. I leveled entirely in my heroic Dragon Soul gear, and I never actually noticed a huge discrepancy between arcane and kill command (though truthfully I wasn't paying very much attention).

You'll see it jump up to its normal expectation pretty much as soon as you hit 90.

Edited March 2, 2013 by Jademcian

[Ultoraison 1]

In order for the ability to actually be worthwhile it needs to do double the damage at least right?

This is actually incorrect.

2 AS means 2 GCD.

If you cast KC you only use 1 GCD and you can use the second to cast half a Cobra Shot.

Hence what you need to compare is 2 AS against 1 KC + 1/2 CoS, or in other terms 4 AS against 2KC + CoS.

4 AS will cost you 80 focus while 2 KC + CoS will cost you 80 - 14 = 66 focus.

Then you just have to calculate the damage of both terms and see which one has the best damage/focus.

Besides this is only true if you are never capping focus.

If you slay an enemy from time to time and spend the rest performing other quests related tasks you don't care about focus, all you want is killing enemies faster. Thus you will use the highest DPS ability, regardless of its focus cost. So even if KC has slightly better damage than AS, you will still use it sometimes.