Elitist Jerks Weekly Recap 7/22/11

Every Friday Tabana brings you the latest discussions straight from the Elitist Jerks forums with a recap of what was discussed and links to the full posts so you can stay on top of the latest in hunter theorycrafting.

7/16/11

Marksmanship Guide Updated

In the Marksmanship thread, Whitefyst posted that the Marksmanship Guide had been updated with recommendations for shot cycles in the Standard phase with the Tier 12 4-set bonus:

This is notification that I have finally added in the support for the T12 4-set into the Standard phase information in both the OP and the Standard phase details post.

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7/17/11

When to drop the T11 4-piece Set Bonus?

In the Marksmanship thread, Asrial asked: “If I have 4cp t11 359 ilvl, would it be worth dropping the set bonus if I get a 378 [non-set] piece? If no, how many pieces would I need for it to be a dps increase?”

Whitefyst replied:

With how valuable the T11 4-set bonus is, generally obtaining one replacement piece that improves it’s ilevel from 359 to 378 is not enough DPS gain in the piece to make up for the loss of the 4-set. When you obtain one replacement piece, the best option is usually to use that new piece if you have the 5th T11 tier piece that you can still use to keep the T11 4-set [...]. If you don’t have the 5th T11 piece, then the best option is to just hold onto the 378 piece until you acquire more gear.

Even gaining 2 359 to 378 upgrades in your tier slots may not be enough to replace your T11 4-set either (unless they are both T12 tier pieces gaining the 2-set). The answer really depends on which tier slot is being replaced since different slots have different levels of itemization. For instance, a chest piece has more itemization than a hands piece; thus, an upgrade in your chest is a larger DPS gain than your hands. It also depends on the secondary stats on the new piece compared to the old piece. If the new piece has better secondary stats, then the DPS increase is larger than if it has worse secondary stats (such as the new piece not having crit but the old piece did).

My recommendation is to use a tool like Rawr or FemaleDwarf to get a good estimate of whether the change may be DPS increase for you. To get a more accurate estimate, make sure that when you drop the T11 4-set that you adjust your haste level appropriately, take advantage of maybe being able to spec out of a point in Pathing, and adjust your third glyph if appropriate.

In reply to Whitefyst’s suggestion to use Rawr or FemaleDwarf to estimate DPS changes, Vaeryn noted: “Status of the latest version of Rawr (4.2.1 from July the 11th) is still ‘Inoperable’ in hunter’s section which makes that tool practically useless for us in Cata.”

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7/17/11

Dash bug

In the Simple Questions/Simple Answers thread, CedricDur asked:

Has anyone noticed that having Dash on autocast makes the pet use it even if he is hitting the mob in melee? It’s only 30 focus every 32 seconds, but still, bloody waste. Without a minimum range to prevent the skill from going off it will continue doing so even if we were to macro it to our shots.

It was noted that the problem only occurs on mobs, not on a target dummy.

Rivkah replied:

The dash behavior was definitely happening in my Baleroc logs, I noticed it while investigating the Rabid issue. I wasn’t super concerned about it because when I looked at it more closely I noticed it wasn’t interfering with the timing of other abilities (i.e. sometimes it actually cast at the same time as Bite). But it’s still bad behavior and should be resolved as when dash is wasted it won’t be up when the pet actually needs it.

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7/17/11

Sic’Em Procs

In the Simple Questions/Simple Answers thread CedricDur noted:

[During my last raid my pet spent] the majority of the time under 50% focus, sometimes dipping as low as 20 or 10% and climbing up with much difficulty. Perhaps casting Arcane Shot more often instead of dumping all my focus at once would feed the pet better since three Arcane Shots back to back would just overwrite the Sic ‘Em buff. Perhaps even have Power Auras show Sic ‘Em and wait that wee bit between pet attacks so it is consumed?

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In a follow-up to that post, CedricDur commented:

Overwriting the procs is quite possible after testing for about 20 minutes of shooting the dummy. I’m not sure how much of a DPS loss it actually is but I was trying to work a better rotation that did not involved dumping all my focus in three Arcane Shots in a row. Something like Chimera Shot, Arcane Shot, two Steady Shots, Arcane Shot, two Steady Shots, Arcane Shot, Chimera Shot. Because of focus it needs to be very dynamic.

Whatever order works as long as Arcane Shots are not dumped back to back and we’re always casting, but it’s one extra hassle to keep track of. I’m unsure if it is totally worth it.

In reply, Whitefyst suggested using the basic shot cycle of CS-AS-SS-SS-AS-AS-SS-SS instead of the CS-AS-SS-SS-AS-SS-SS-AS cycle that CedricDur mentioned. Whitefyst’s reasoning is detailed in the response.

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7/18/11

Decimation Treads under-budgeted?

In the Simple Questions/Simple Answers thread, Bjoepie asked:

I don’t know if it’s a mistake on Wowhead or if the stats are actually like this in game, but decimation threads seem underbudgeted by 10 points comparing them to the craftable mail items. Mail Armor – Items – World of Warcraft

Does anyone have them already?

Nerec replied:

Have them equipped: Nerec @ Mannoroth – Game – World of Warcraft Seems you’re right with your notice.

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7/18/11

Rabid Bug

In the Simple Questions/Simple Answers thread, KaneParker7 stated:

My pet simply refuses to use Rabid as soon as its off cool down. I had to manually cast it every time to make it use Rabid. I checked all of my pets on the target dummy and they all seem to suffer from it. Am I right in thinking this is a DPS loss?

CedricDur replied that Rabid is currently bugged. “Macroing ‘/use Rabid’ in your shots is a good work around.”

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7/18/11

AOE fights using a worm pet: focus problem, pet swapping

In the Beast Mastery thread, Duw said that on AoE heavy fight with a worm pet the worm is occasionally too low on focus to perform its burrow attack.

Everytime he starts building up focus he then uses it on a basic attack. This isn’t an issue with fevor up or BW, but there are times where both are on CD. Any advice on this? Should I turn off his basic attack when I need to burrow? Should I talent out of Wild Hunt perhaps?

In a related question, Duw asked “is there an up to date comparison of the three different pet specs single target dps as beast master? I’m trying to figure out how long a single target phase would have to exist before it became a dps increase to switch to a ferocity pet after finishing AoE.”

Nooska replied:

In regards to pet aoe. If you have brought out a pet specifically for aoe damage, then yes, you should turn off the other focus costing abilities.

As for the different pet specs, I’ll refer you to the OPs comments on dps differences, and say that the gain from the pet talents alone must equal or exceed 2 seconds worth of damage from you (including possibly delaying KC) as well as the travel time worth of damage from the pet. In general, it would only be worth it if you are bringing a previously absent debuff to the table on the target so you boost the damage of others as well.

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7/19/11

MM Haste in 4.2 vs. 4.1

In the Marksmanship thread, pew_pew asked why the recommended haste rating with three points in Pathing is now 1235 while in Patch 4.1 it was 1346.

Whitefyst replied:

The difference in the haste recommendation between the 4.1 and 4.2 versions of the guide has to do with the fact that we have a different base SS cast time. With the T11 4-set in the 4.1 version, the base cast time was 1.8s, while without the T11 4-set it is 2s. This results in different shot selections per cycle and different haste points. The haste recommendation in the 4.2 version of the guide is consistent with the recommendation in the 4.1 guide for those who did not have the T11 4-set.

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7/20/11

Survival and Haste

In the Survival thread, CedricDur commented:

I was fiddling with Femaledwarf and checking how much I would lose to switch from MM to SV. My first try was a 1.7k DPS loss but after tweaking my build a bit more I reduced it to a (roughly) 800 DPS loss. That’s when I turned my eye towards my reforging, which was still done for MM. The only thing I changed was remove all the haste I could from every item and turn it into crit, or failing that into mastery. Oddly enough it was a 18 DPS loss. I know Femaledwarf is a bit iffy regarding haste but it does make things a bit harder to calculate.

gypó responded, asking “Did you still maintain the required haste for the survival build? The build should still have at least 757 haste rating for the 6 second window, maybe tweak your haste rating to get that and FD could give a less iffy answer.”

pew_pew replied “With 4xT11 you don’t need 758 haste” and referred readers to SV Hunter Rotation Haste Plateaus | Warcraft Hunters Union

JoeF-3 advised against reforging from haste into Mastery for Survival spec:

Mastery is by far the worst survival stat. You should absolutely not reforge out of haste into mastery – you want to aim for one of the plateaus linked above and then reforge the rest into crit. From my experience, femaledwarf sims the value of haste correctly, it’s just that haste’s value is non-linear. If you’re near a plateau, it becomes quite valuable, if you’re just past a plateau it becomes very poor. If fd.com says your haste value is low, reforge out of it into crit. If it says your value is high, reforge into it until the value drops.

SpartanKillian added:

Keep in mind that at the current level of gear, Survival hunters won’t be operating on a strict haste plateau. Mostly likely, you’ll be at enough haste to fire 3 CS and 1 AS between Explosive Shots, or thereabouts, with a 4 CS focus positive cycle with a very slight ES pushback. Obviously, the degree of pushback matters a great deal, so this isn’t a good option for everyone.

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7/20/11

Best Bosses for Gold

In the Soloing Old Instances for Fun and Profit thread, roacher13 asked “I understand that many of the bosses that are easy to solo have had their gold drops nerfed. Which ones do you all think are still worth going for each week based on gold/time spent to kill?”

CedricDur responded:

With the amount of gold that can be made in Cataclysm there is no actual worthwhile boss farming. 250g a boss is a pittance. An almost clear of TK grants around 800-900g for about an hour, but an hour a week, not every day.

Still, if that’s what you’re after then Tempest Keep is a good start. The first two bosses are easy as pie, Solarian is annoying until you get the hang of her and Kael *can* be soloed but there is some sort of pet bug that makes the pet unresponsive. That’s fatal since once the boss loses interest in the pet he comes to you, Mind Controls, and you kill your pet thus resetting the encounter.

Shandara advised those attempting to solo Kael’thas:

Remember that you need the staff _and_ be within 30 yards of your pet all the time for Kael’thas, otherwise he will disorient your pet and come for you.

I usually put my pet on passive and run behind the statues and then direct my pet to move to a good spot. With misdirect Kael’thas should run almost completely to your pet. Then I switch to defensive and stick my pet on Kael. With that the fight is over, since the MC is timed giving you a 20-25s window to dps each time.

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7/20/11

Tier 12 4-piece bonus proc bug

In the Marksmanship thread, Palioh  noted that the 4 piece tier 12 proc was not working for Arcane Shot, stating “I will get the buff, cast Arcane Shot, lose the 22 focus from the shot and lose the buff. I have reported this on the bug forums, but I was wondering if anyone else with the 4 piece is having this issue as well.”

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7/21/11

Reforging with T12 for Survival

In the Survival thread, Necrofurion asked “Now that we are replacing the t11 set with t12 what [will be] the best way to reforge? Will it be [to] spam haste once hit caped or just go for the first plateau and reforge into crit and maybe mastery (for flaming arrow increased damage)?”

In reply, Hituro said:

I’ve just got my first 2 pieces of t12 tier (and a requisite number of off-set pieces, polearm, bow, wrists, cloak, belt, shoulders) and I’ve been playing around with the reforging trying out the minimum and maximum haste cases for my gear. Currently I can reforge down to about 1200 (with reforging to crit > mastery) or up to 2016 (without enchanting for haste). Interestingly both dummy tests and FemaleDwarf show the same thing. I’m better with mid-range haste (1400-1600) than either the 1200 or 2016 ratings. It’s not a big difference, but reforging down to 1200 from 1600 loses ~18dps and reforging up from 1600 to 2016 loses ~60dps (that one surprises me less).

As expected I get more dps reforging to crit than to mastery.

Looking at future upgrades (this is on FemaleDwarf only though, I don’t have the gear to test) like the tier chest, and neck the same pattern holds, I get more dps reforging above 1400 haste than down towards 1200 or lower

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7/21/11

Crit vs. Mastery for Survival

In the Survival thread, evanmartyr said:

Given that both Mastery and Crit scale numerically identically (same amount of crit/mastery rating = same % of actual stat gains, ie, rating required for 2% mastery is equivalent to rating required for 2% crit), and crit has diminishing returns, whereas the only “diminishing returns” on mastery is a static amount in that it doesn’t effect pet or autoshot damage, but everything else), why does crit give more dps gain than mastery at this point in our gearing? I’ve picked up a few pieces out of Firelands, no 2pc yet, but I did a raid having reforged to mastery and I saw a decrease in Baeleroc dps with no significant gear changes other than reforging, and no difference in raid buffs (no responsibilities during the fight, either; just turret the boss).

I mean, I understand that crit outweighs mastery at the moment (or at least seems to), but I can’t figure out *why*, unless the mastery has some inherent weirdness where it scales like crit does that I’m not getting.

quietstrm07 replied that crit could scale higher for a couple of reasons:

1) All shots are affected by increased crit while mastery only affects shots which deal spell damage (as noted, this really only affects autoshot)
2) If you are spec’d into Sic’Em!, the more you crit with Explosive Shot or Arcane Shot, the more often your pet will receive free basic attacks. This allows them to pool their focus which in turn gives rise to more opportunities for the pet to deal damage under the effects of Wild Hunt

On the thought of crit having diminishing returns, unless my understanding is wrong, crit only has diminishing returns really once you reach the crit “cap.” As far as I know, this point is unable to be reached in current gear.

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7/21/11

T12 4-Set Bonus Details for Marksmanship

In the Marksmanship thread, Whitefyst stated

In an effort to further reduce the size of the MM guide while still maintaining good information for those that are interested, I have moved the T12 4-Set Bonus detailed discussion into this post since it contains information that is beyond what the average player necessarily cares to know and since it is information that is only relevelant for T12 content.

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