Which spec for my level of gear?

[Charlone 0]

Hi there, first time poster here.

 

I recently returned to the game after a long hiatus and I've begun doing SoO (flexible and some normal 10) with my guild. I am curious as to which talent specialization would be most suitable for my current level of gear.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/dark-iron/Charlone/simple

 

Also, given my current gear, and assuming I follow the hunter guides on this site properly, what kinds of numbers should I be expecting on fights like Iron Juggernaut or Malkorok?

 

This is a log from last night's Malkorok kill. I don't know if I'm doing well, or if I can do better.

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/1MbjkxvtFg8qAZRW#fight=26&type=damage-done

 

Thanks in advance!

[Orthios 271]

I'm going to assume you use the same gear for survival as you do for beast master, since your armory has you in bm gear and your log is sv.  

BM AMR Optimized

SV AMR Optimized Both optimized using Azor's stat weights.

For the log:

Try not to let serpent sting fall off, and on Malk, this should never happen since cobra shot "refreshes" the duration.  The second Rapid Fire shoul've been used much earlier, as could the second AMoC.  Graph of LnL vs ES usage.  Looks really good, maybe work on using ES on cooldown a bit better.  BIg thing is that your first explosive shot should be sooner than 7 seconds into your opener.  Opener should look something like this:

 

 

ToTH:

Precast Glaive Toss
Pre-pot halfway into the GCD
Explosive Shot
Stampede + All cooldowns (macro it all together)
Black Arrow
Cobra Shot
A Murder of Crows
Serpent Sting
Proceed

Outside of this, the log looks pretty good, try not not have any downtime where you aren't casting something, as you had a few moments where you spent 3-4 seconds doing nothing.  

 

Comparable Log.  I had more RF uses due to the 2pc, lower BA uptime since no AoC, but had a higher number of casts per minute (CPM), aka, active uptime.  

 

I'd suggest staying survival, as you seem to have it down fairly well.

[Charlone 0]

Yes, I only have the one set. Which is part of the reason I was wanting to pick a spec so I could reforge, gem, and enchant based on the proper stat priority and get the most out of the gear.

 

I kicked myself for letting serpent sting fall off. I was trying to answer someone's question about the breaths and I lost track of when I needed to hit another cobra shot.

 

I'll work on getting better with my ES usage. I've had a number of times where I wasn't managing my focus properly and didn't have enough to cast ES. I'll definitely take that opener into consideration. I do use a macro with Stampede and Rapid Fire, so I'll just change the order in which I cast stuff.

 

Should I be using RF on cooldown, or should I try to line it up with Heroism if I know when it's going to be used?

 

I'll probably go with SV as you suggest. It's a lot more interesting than the snoozefest that BM seems to be. Though I do like being able to use the spirit beast I spent so many hours trying to tame back in Wrath. It's a shame they took away his moonfire ability though.

[Niix 169]

Opener should look something like this:

 

ToTH:

Precast Glaive Toss

Pre-pot halfway into the GCD

Explosive Shot

Stampede + All cooldowns (macro it all together)

Black Arrow

Cobra Shot

A Murder of Crows

Serpent Sting

Proceed

 

This is an interesting opener. I'm curious to see what your burst looks like with this. Considering Murder of Crows is a pretty mediocre talent on 12/14 fights and the amount of focus it costs to cast it in the opener.

 

I personally would suggest something like this:

 

Precast Glaive Toss.

Pot/Cast a cobra shot

Explosive shot

Stampede/Rabid/Rapid Fire/Racial/Springs

Black Arrow

Serpent Sting

Proceed

 

This works absolutely beautifully for me. I burst close to 1.2M on single target fights if I get a good enough Explosive Shot train w/ my first trinket procs.

 

I just don't like having to cast a cobra in the middle of trying to get all of your cooldowns up. It just slows the pace down so much having to do that so I lean away from Murder of Crows because of this.

 

Whatever works for you obviously keep doing but I would suggest trying both of these just to see which one works better for you. 

[Orthios 271]

I pulled the opener straight from azor's guide at mmo-c, since I haven't played sv in awhile myself.  What you suggest is what I do though more or less when I do play sv.  And yes, definitely use rapid fire on cd, especially once you get the 2pc bonus.  

[Niix 169]

Ah I gotcha. Honestly as long as you're hitting all your buttons in the opener then you will do fine. The order in which you do it, is more or less negligible. Just do what you're comfortable with and make sure you're always hitting something. 

 

Edit: More or less, a good opener and a bad opener will show for sure. As long as you're consistent that's what really matters. 

Edited July 31, 2014 by Niix

[Charlone 0]

This is an interesting opener. I'm curious to see what your burst looks like with this. Considering Murder of Crows is a pretty mediocre talent on 12/14 fights and the amount of focus it costs to cast it in the opener.

 

I personally would suggest something like this:

 

Precast Glaive Toss.

Pot/Cast a cobra shot

Explosive shot

Stampede/Rabid/Rapid Fire/Racial/Springs

Black Arrow

Serpent Sting

Proceed

 

This works absolutely beautifully for me. I burst close to 1.2M on single target fights if I get a good enough Explosive Shot train w/ my first trinket procs.

 

I just don't like having to cast a cobra in the middle of trying to get all of your cooldowns up. It just slows the pace down so much having to do that so I lean away from Murder of Crows because of this.

 

Whatever works for you obviously keep doing but I would suggest trying both of these just to see which one works better for you. 

 

What would you suggest instead of AMoC? Blink Strikes?

[Niix 169]

What would you suggest instead of AMoC? Blink Strikes?

 

Yeah, AMoC is only really better on longer fights, and fights where your pet actually attacking anything is low. IE: Thok if you do high stacks of Fixate and Garrosh where the fight is super long. Paragons has a bit too much target switching for me personally but I'm sure if you kill them fairly slow you could get a good uptime on it.

[Orthios 271]

What would you suggest instead of AMoC? Blink Strikes?

Yes, blink strikes is very stron on anything where you switch targets fairly often, ie. anything but malkorok and iron jugg. AMoC is also good against Sha (if you don't have to attack the add in the back), Thok, and siege crafter if you don't have to do belts (lol ya right).

Ah I gotcha. Honestly as long as you're hitting all your buttons in the opener then you will do fine. The order in which you do it, is more or less negligible. Just do what you're comfortable with and make sure you're always hitting something. 

 

Edit: More or less, a good opener and a bad opener will show for sure. As long as you're consistent that's what really matters.

Yeah, I've been focusing on playing marksman a lot recently, and have been pulling some pretty decent numbers with it.

[Azortharion 60]

There is absolutely 0 reason to use Blink Strikes over AMOC for anything but Galakras and Spoils from a DPS-standpoint.

 

And in reality, not in any other situation either.

[Niix 169]

There is absolutely 0 reason to use Blink Strikes over AMOC for anything but Galakras and Spoils from a DPS-standpoint.

 

And in reality, not in any other situation either.

 

There are frankly a lot of reasons to use Blink strikes over AMoC. There are fights that they perform at or within 2% of one another. But if you look at pet damage on a fight like Sha of Pride.

 

This is a log from Kisstehbaby, one of Whatever Were Awesome's hunters:

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/jz9cgqTG8MZdxAKt#fight=6&type=damage-done&source=15

 

Look at pet basic attack damage, and look at the total damage done by AMoC.

 

AMoC did 5.4 million damage over the whole fight. His pet did a total of 18.6 million damage. An additional 50% from Blink Strikes would've given him a total of 9.3 million extra damage. There's simply no comparison. Your burst might be higher but the numbers don't lie.

[Azortharion 60]

There are frankly a lot of reasons to use Blink strikes over AMoC. There are fights that they perform at or within 2% of one another. But if you look at pet damage on a fight like Sha of Pride.

 

This is a log from Kisstehbaby, one of Whatever Were Awesome's hunters:

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/jz9cgqTG8MZdxAKt#fight=6&type=damage-done&source=15

 

Look at pet basic attack damage, and look at the total damage done by AMoC.

 

AMoC did 5.4 million damage over the whole fight. His pet did a total of 18.6 million damage. An additional 50% from Blink Strikes would've given him a total of 9.3 million extra damage. There's simply no comparison. Your burst might be higher but the numbers don't lie.

 

.. wut T_T

 

Blink Strikes increases BASIC ATTACK damage (aka Claw/Bite/Smack), it says this in the tooltip.

 

Even if it didn't, the guy uses Stampede glyph, VASTLY overvaluing the melee damage done by the pet.

 

His pet (in the very log you linked) did 6.53 million Claw damage, aka 6.53/2 = 3.265 = 3.27.

 

Aka Blink Strikes would've given him 3.27 million more damage, not.. 3 times that.

[Niix 169]

.. wut T_T

 

Blink Strikes increases BASIC ATTACK damage (aka Claw/Bite/Smack), it says this in the tooltip.

 

Even if it didn't, the guy uses Stampede glyph, VASTLY overvaluing the melee damage done by the pet.

 

His pet (in the very log you linked) did 6.53 million Claw damage, aka 6.53/2 = 3.265 = 3.27.

 

Aka Blink Strikes would've given him 3.27 million more damage, not.. 3 times that.

 

My apologies man. I did some testing and you're right. I was misinformed that Blink Strikes affected more than just the pets claw/bite. Taking a look at most of the top parses on basically every fight, Murder is what most of the top ranked hunters are using. I'm definitely switching to that this week that's for sure.