Elitist Jerks Weekly Recap 9/14/12

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.

Delay between Bestial Wraths? 9/3/12

In the Beast Mastery thread, Pathemeous asked, “Wouldn’t it be better to split the two BW apart? This way you can a) spend the time in between them refreshing SrS with CS, b) have 5 KC in BW range instead of 3. Then you have a) The SrS up from start without reapplying it, which you say is a (small) DPS gain, b) more abilities that hit harder than AS in BW range. Surely, if you want to burst than back to back BW is of course better, but on long term this should improve your DPS. In this sequence you can simply put the first LR in BW one, and the second LR in BW two. Delaying a 90 seconds long ability by 5 seconds won’t usually redyce the amount you can squeeze in in a fight

Pichuca replied, “Nevermind you can still get the 5 KCs in there delaying BW 5 sec, and still get the second LR and DB in the first BW. You just need to cast the first DB before BW, the beast will update its damage 1-2 secs after you pop BW. Right after the third KC you can use CoS and refresh the sting if you want to.”

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Lynx Rush Timing 9/5/12

In the Beast Mastery thread, Pathemeous previously asked, “How do others handle LR? Personally, I use 2x LR in the opener. I tried leaving them out but that greatly reduces the burst potential (8K difference IIRC). This would suggest that spending a GCD on Lynx Rush during BW as opposed to an AS is a big gain and therefore LR should be stacked with BW as much as possible without lowering the amount of LR in total.

In a fight that lasts less than ~3:12 minutes, which means there will be room for 3x LR (one in both BW in the opener, one after the CD has ended mid-fight), it would therefore be beneficial to delay LR by 30 seconds after it comes off CD to spend it during the next BW.

Namaris replied, “This is a burning question for me. On longer fights is it better to use LR, stacking it with BW or to just use it every time it’s up. […]”

200% x 9 x 1.2 = 2160% for a Bestial Wrath modified Lynx Rush
200% x 9 = 1800% standard Lynx Rush
Saving LR for every BW gives you 6 total for a 6m 18s = 12,960%

If you don’t save LR for use with BW then over the same period gives 4 x (LR+BW) + 3 x (LR) = 14,040% (note I delayed the use the final 2 LR by 6s to use BW with them).

Fluflis replied, “Same rule as usual applies there, if by waiting to line it up with BW makes you lose one use of Lynx Rush then it’s not worth waiting. If you know that you have time for only one Lynx Rush till boss dies and you can line it up with BW it’s gain. Two Lynx Rush out of BW > One Lynx Rush with BW. Also if you have Rabid macroed with Lynx Rush you don’t only delay Lynx Rush but Rabid as well.

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BM Opener/ Pet Focus Regen 9/3/12

In the Beast Mastery thread, Pathemeous previously asked, “Considering an opener of BW+KC-> LR + Readiness -> KC -> AS -> AS -> AS -> AS -> AS -> KC (allowing 3 KCs in the first BW duration), would it be wise to spend a RF somewhere before Readiness (I made a macro with RF + LR), seeing that the CD will be reset anyway. […]”

Nooska replied, “[…] As for opening, I am not quite ready to make a final determination on what to suggest, but I would currently say something on the order of:
SrS, BW, KC, LR, GT, Readiness, KC, LR, GT, AS, AS, CoS, BW, KC (etc). […]

Fluflis replied, “For the opener you were discussing, don’t forget that on pulls we also use a pot so maybe Rapid Fire is not of best use with all cooldowns stacking at start till we use Readiness but early use means we get to use 2 BW within the pot timer.”

Namarus replied, “Good point, something else to consider, is that generally Rapid Fire for BM is not a very good dps cooldown. However, combined with pot+BW increases pet focus regeneration.

  1. Increasing hunter focus regeneration increases pet energy regeneration.
  2. More autoshots means more potential critical strikes with autoshot while agility bonus from pot is active. This increases pet focus regeneration.
  3. More pet focus means higher damaged pet Basic Attacks which is further increased while BW is active.

Lokrick replied, ” Concretely, we can run that in simc. The invocation below suppresses rapid fire and changes readiness not to wait for it. I checked that the resulting html had the right number of readiness and rapid fires. […]

84903  50.6%  Hunter_BM_T14N
83048  49.4%  BM_no_RF

So rapid fire is worth 1.9k for BM in T14N using the current profiles.

Nooska replied, “My understanding of the point Namarus is making, is that because RF is a pretty lackluster CD for BM, there is really no reason to not use it during BW anymore, even though we don’t benefit from the haste directly, because of the increased forcus regen for both us and pet […].”

Nooska added, “Having just completed a couple of tests on the “internal test bosses” where I let the pet attack the boss till focus was the limiting factor of basic attacks, then observing it for a while, then using RF, I feel confident that RF does affect pet focus regen (despite being ranged haste). Specifically, I observed mostly 5, sometimes 4 seconds between basic attacks (claw in this case) after letting my pet drain itself of focus. Popping RF increased the frequency to just over 3 seconds on average while RF was up. At no time did I myself attack the boss, so GftT was not a factor.”

One thing I can certainly say as a byproduct of this testing, is that crit is worth a lot more than mastery until we get enough GftT procs that the pet is never focus starved for basic attacks, this is likely the reason for the variation in crit value that I observed at earlier simming.

That the pet does not generate enough focus to use basic attacks on cd also explains why haste at lower gear levels seem more attractive (valuation wise), because it affects pet focus regen twice – base focus regen and autoshot speed – neither one nor both combined will analytically make haste = crit at any point for pet focus though.

Azortharion replied, “Based on the math, theorycrafting and my own testing / analyzing of beta logs and the likes, this kind of opening sequence is what I have come up with, ensuring you get the most out of your buffs: SrS (effective opener, makes it easier to start off, too)> RF + BW > DB > LR (or Blink Strike) > KC > Readiness > DB (two beasts) > LR > AS > (two AS’ to make sure the pet has finished doing the first rush) AS > LR > BW + RF.

This ensures that you are using your pet cooldowns within BW range to start with, and allows for maximum spammage of Arcane Shot, having considered the points made above with how RF functions well with BW, but not so much alone.

Nogoal replied, “It’s missing a few KCs there. I usually use Readiness after the 2nd KC so you can have 3 KC on your first BW.”

Fluflis replied, “It has to be Readiness > KC so you can fit a third KC at the end of Bestial Wrath. Same as yours but … > KC > Readiness > KC > DB > Lynx > … > KC (before first BW ends). In the dots I don’t remember how many arcane shots it fits. For the second BW you will have to wait a bit so you ensure you will cast 2 KC in it (wait first RF to end, maybe shoot a cobra to keep sting a bit longer) and you don’t have to use RF at same time with second BW. […]”

Also I believe we can work the same opener even at 90 with GT. Probably casting DB before RF+BW to win that gcd since it is tight for the 3rd KC and then adding the second GT in the dots, while making sure second Lynx is full within the first BW.

And Nooska I remember there was a Blue post explaining that Ranged attack speed affects pet focus regen (but not attack speed) and Melee attack speed affects his attack speed (but not pet focus regen). That’s how those 2 buffs interact with pet. I will have to find it though.

Rivkah replied, “Yes, I did test every haste/attack speed generating ability recently and I determined that was how it was working (and blue confirmed it). What it looks like is that the pet inherits the focus regen multiplier from haste directly from the hunter, instead of generating its own multiplier from the pet attack speed. That’s why the ranged haste affects the pet in regen, but not in attack speed (since the pet inherits the melee attack speed bonuses). So focus fire also gives the pet not only direct regen from using it, but also the regen from the haste multiplier on the hunter.”

One thing I’m not sure about is if the PvP set bonus affects the pet’s regen- I don’t have the PvP gear to test it myself. Currently I don’t have it modeled as affecting the pet but if someone has the opportunity to test it and finds out otherwise please let me know.

Namarus replied, “Yes, GC has stated that pet regen is based on hunter focus regen. I think it was 1.25 multiplier. Therefore anything that improves hunter passive focus regeneration will improve pet passive focus regeneration. The point is, it makes sense to maximize pet damage during BW and Rapid Fire is a decent cooldown to use when you use BW for pet focus regeneration. Especially since it is unlikely that FF will be up due to saving frenzy stacks for BW.”

NoGoal replied, “For accuracy and if I remember correctly, he stated that pets have a base of 5 fps and everything affecting hunter’s regen also affects pets. Hunters have a base of 4 fps hence the simplified 1.25 model.”

Azortharion replied, “Will this mean that we will get to experience “crit soft caps” and such for MoP. E.g a specific point / rating that will (in theory) make your auto-shots crit enough to trigger GfTF enough to eliminate all delays in pet basic attacks because of focus starvation? […]”

Nooska replied, “In reality there will be no softcap on crit, because whether you crit is rng, and therefore its is not improbable to not crit several autoshots in a row. All this means is that crit may be more valuable than shown in the sim if you are at high levels of crit, and be less valuable than shown when at a low level of crit. We can do an averaging out and that way determine when you will on average never delay your pets basic attacks – this would be based on focus regen. Doing an averaging will make haste seem more valuable than it is though, since focus regen for the pet double-dips on haste – both from haste directly affecting focus regen, and from haste increasing the frequency of autoshots, thus increasing the frequency of critical autoshots and GftT procs as well. […]”

Summa summarum, we don’t need to worry about getting to any crit softcap making it useless for GftT, even on average. This also shows why fervor is actually quite good for BM, and why we will want to use it essentially on CD, as it averages out to 1.67 fps for the pet, excluding the 50 focus gain – or the same as 0.334 GftT procs per 3 seconds, or 33% crit at 0 haste. (Remember, this is ignoring the instant 50 focus from using fervor).

NoGoal replied, “Even if pets could generate enough focus to never delay a basic attack, they still have Wild Hunt (2x focus cost, 2x damage) to make GftT still useful past that point.”

Nooska replied, “I’m actually not that big of a fan of the current wild hunt, seeing as pets don’t have focus to attack on CD, WH actually reduces the chance for Frenzy / Focus Fire uptime, because it eats (and damages) focus for 2 attacks, but only provides 1 stack of Frenzy if procced (currently), thus being a worse option than simply overflowing focus a bit. I have a hunch (need to check either simmed or analytically) that WH actually also devalues Fervor, due to the same mechanic – it translates directly to damage via WH, but Frenzy uptime probably suffers due to more WH uses during fervor – though the ticking extra fps may make up for it with keeping focus high enough to let basic attacks be cast on CD, but not high enough to lead to more WH.

Your mention of WH does invalidate somewhat my very very napkinny math above, as WH means the initial 120 focus don’t translate directly into 4 basic attacks, but more like 2 WH attacks and then a pause.

NoGoal replied, “Just noticed that too. Pet basic attack is 25 focus so it would ‘only’ require 59% crit chance with 0% haste and 32% with 20%. […] ”

Nooska replied, “Indeed the basic attack only costs 25 focus, so we need 25 focus per 3 seconds, or 8.333 (repeating) fps – let’s round that to 8.4 for sanity’s sake. The pet still contributes 5 fps at 0 haste, leaving 3.4 fps from GftT per second. This becomes 10.2 focus per 3 seconds – or actually, a very clean 10 focus per 3 seconds (15 from pet, 10 from GftT), leading to a required 0.666 (repeating) GftT procs per 3 seconds. At 1 autoshot per 3 seconds that means a sustained focus regen requires a 66.7% crit rate.

Looking at the previous 5 minute fight, and ignoring WH for the moment, we are looking at slightly less of course, due to the starting 120 focus; skipping the math, we indeed need the 59% (or accurately 58.7%) crit for GftT to supply enough pet focus for 1 basic attack every 3 seconds.

At the 20% haste (indeed an arbitrary number) we would require 38.9% crit for sustained pet focus regen, or the 32% you correctly state. If FF increased our and our pet focus regen (I don’t believe it does, but will go check in a minute), we would have pet focus sustainability under FF with “merely” 27 % crit and raid buffs. During RF and and BL we will have sustainable pet focus regen with respectively 19% crit and 28.2% crit respectively – not factoring in raid buffs, so in practice 14% respectively 24% crit.

This does influence when we should use RF in the opener sequence, namely at least 3 seconds after our pet is on the target, making it our 4th (or later) GCD, with the starter being BW, GT, KC(BS),LR/MoC(KC),(DB), RF, Readiness.

With the value RF gives to pet focus regen combined with GftT, it should definitely be used before readiness. The question is whether it will be most advantageous to save the next RF till the third BW (1 minute after the second BW). My gut feeling is its best to stack with BW now (or just prior to, to get up pet focus) for sustaining pet focus during BW, and the 3 minute CD will be up before Readiness in any fight where we get 2x Readiness, so we will get the same 2xRF in between Readiness as we would if we popped it immediately.

Lokrick replied, “Simc and FD both showed it to be a win to be under rapid fire for stampede. The increased focus then helps all the pets to get in another basic attack before vanishing. Simc was showing it to be worth delaying the second round of rapid fire until the second set of stampedes (at 5 minutes and change) if the fight was going to be long enough. There have been just enough changes since that initial analysis (e.g., rabid nerf) that they should be re-run, but that delay is worth considering.”

Nooska replied, “With readiness and stampede both being 5 minute cooldowns, I would think that RF would be up automatically with stampede, since we could simply delay stampede for the few seconds it takes to get the pre-readiness stuff going, then readiness and stampede+RF. I am curious as to how SimC gets RF to be a benefit for stampede though – RF is ranged haste, the stampede pets don’t use focus […]

Rivkah replied, “Stampede pets work just like our normal pets. They start out at full focus, have all the same talents including wild hunt and the same basic regen mechanics including inheriting the hunter regen multiplier (they don’t get the attack speed from RF but they definitely get the regen). They don’t benefit from things that are designed to affect our active pet, like focus fire, cobra strikes, go for the throat and fervor (although they do stack frenzy for themselves, you just can’t consume it with focus fire). […]”

So yes, RF is a big benefit for stampede given that it can make the difference not only in the total number of basic attacks they do but also whether they count as wild hunt. I also haven’t modeled it, but it’s possible that forcing focus fire to activate regardless of stack count before (or right after) casting stampede may be beneficial as well, so that your stampede pets will have more focus regen during the short time they’re active.

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Overlapping Haste Buffs 9/1/12

In the Marksmanship thread, Whitefyst wrote, “One correction over previous statements that I have made is that it does now result in maximum MM DPS to overlap BL and RF effects, preferrably during the CA phase. The reason for this is the low maximum speed to cast AI. While in Cata where AIs during BL were well below the cutoff point of 1.8s resulting in a huge DPS gain, AIs during BL in MoP are currently too slow to be worthwhile casting AI. However, the increased speed to AI during the CA phase where due to AIs always critting and the cutoff point being much higher, it is a huge DPS gain currently to have faster AIs and to cast more of them. […]

Outside the CA phase, it is a small benefit to overlap RF and BL; however, the benefit is small enough that it affects your DPS very little if your guild decides to use BL during a period where RF is fully on CD. Thus, do not sweat stacking them, but on a preferential basis stack them if you can. What also effects the situation is that we do a lot less SSs too. Hence, we haste a lot less SSs than we used to by chaining BL and RF instead of stacking them and causing SS casts to be below the GCD.

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MM Stat Priorities 9/2/12

In the Marksmanship thread, Whitefyst wrote, “Now that I have had the time to research MoP stat priorities more, it appears that in T14 gear that haste will be preferred over crit and mastery. […]

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Murder of Crows 9/9/12

In the Marksmanship thread, Fluflis wrote, “A comment I wanted to do about A Murder of Crows is that unlike Dire Beast you can’t have double Murder of Crows with Readiness. You will have to wait full 30 sec till you use the second. Lynx Rush on the other hand you can use the second after 4 seconds, inside the first agility potion timer. I know it probably doesn’t affect much the outcome since it is mostly dependent on the time range of a boss kill (and I assume is already included on the gain from spreadsheet) but I felt like it could be of some importance.

I haven’t tested if crows continue when their target dies and attack a different target. That would be worth noting in a fight with adds to take advantage of the reduced cooldown timer in a boss fight.

Whitefyst replied, “Good point. I mean to put something in about how MoC works, and that is how I have been playing it and modeling it, but it appears that I did not. I will put better explanations now that we know its behavior better once the 5.1 version comes out. Note that FD does model this behavior correctly and will not use the 2nd MoC until 30s after the first. And although its true that you can have double MoC with Readiness and have it be worth while, Readiness still gives you the second MoC 90s earlier than without Readiness and is still a large DPS boost.”

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Survival Opener 9/9/12

In the Survival thread, Fluflis wrote, “Since I don’t see it anywhere mentioned, concerning the opening I believe casting a Black Arrow and after the Readiness Explosive trap (if bosses actually activate it) would give the maximum chance for LnL since you can’t have double Black Arrow. […]”

Rivkah replied, “It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure that it’s actually worth doing. Some things to note:

  • Unless you’ve just cast BA you may be pushing back your next BA (even if the BA DoT is close to full duration, you will push it back a bit as the duration is shorter than the CD)
  • Explosive trap does roughly half as much damage as black arrow per tick in good gear
  • Although you will increase your LnL proc rate slightly, there is still a 10 sec ICD on LnL, so there’s a limit on how much you gain from this
  • The usual hassles associated with trap placement such as fiddling with position, target moving, etc.

Danshot wrote, “[…] with all of our new CDS, what’s the ideal survival hunter opening rotation?”

  1. multi-shot
  2. stampede
  3. crow
  4. db
  5. rf
  6. readiness
  7. stampede
  8. db
  9. explosive shot
  10. black arrow

That means our first black arrow would be so late though.

Lilbitters replied, “I have been doing a bit of testing with my opening rotation and have discovered a few things that might not be easily apparent, although they do make sense when you think about it. An example is delaying Stampede to be almost the lowest priority ability just above Cobra Shot and Arcane Shot. Although it’s our highest damage per execution time ability, because of it being such a long cooldown and not being reset by Readiness, there isn’t an immediate need to cast it early, as long as it still benefits from haste effects and the pre-pot. […]”

Trying various priority rotations in FemaleDwarf led me to the settle with the following opening (which is partially troll specific, Berserking allows for enough focus regen for an additional Arcane Shot to replace a Cobra Shot at the 15th GCD). […]

-03: Hunter’s Mark
-02: Misdirection
-01: Virmen’s Bite (Pre-potion)
+00: Black Arrow, Petattack (Heroism/Bloodlust activated)
+01: Rabid, A Murder of Crows
+02: Rapid Fire, Berserking, Dire Beast
+03: Glaive Toss
+04: Explosive Shot (needs 0.19 delay for non-Troll)
+05: Readiness
+06: Dire Beast
+07: Glaive Toss
+08: Explosive Shot
+09: Stampede
+10: Multi-Shot
+11: Explosive Shot (LNL)
+12: Explosive Shot (LNL)
+13: Explosive Shot
+14: Arcane Shot (Cobra Shot for non-Troll)
+15: Arcane Shot
+16: Arcane Shot
+17: Arcane Shot
+18: Black Arrow
+19: Explosive Shot
+20: Rapid Fire, Cobra Shot
+21: Cobra Shot
+22: Glaive Toss
+23: Arcane Shot
+24: Virmen’s Bite, Arcane Shot

  • Priority: BA,aMoC,RF,DB,KS,GT,ES,Ready,Stamp,Multi,AS,CoS
  • Arcane at min focus:60
  • Uncheck don’t save for Serp
  • Check don’t save for aMoC

I used the same approach for coming up with a Beast Mastery opening which is below. [See original post for Beast Mastery Opening]

[…] I was going from the results from FemaleDwarfs simulated shot breakdown, however I came to realize that FD is using a GCD for Readiness, when in fact it does not use a GCD. This may require a shift in shot selection during the opening, but the priority should remain the similar.”

Rivkah replied, “I’ve fixed the GCD issue, thanks for bringing that to my attention. One thing to note is that making sure you get as much of your stampede as possible overlapping with as many haste CDs as possible is beneficial because the extra focus regen can affect the number of basic attacks and the number that benefit from wild hunt. Troll berserking affects pet attack speed and regen as well (unlike rapid fire which only affects the pet regen), so making sure stampede gets most of it is also valuable (dire beast also sees a benefit, again unlike rapid fire). I’m not sure if it outweighs the slight delay you might incur on other abilities but it’s something to keep in mind.”

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Thrill of the Hunt for SV 9/13/12

In the Survival thread, Malabarba wrote, “Question on Thrill of the Hunt for Survival. I was practicing some rotations with TotH and noticed that I’d frequently get a streak of Lock and Load and Thrill of the Hunt triggering one after the other. Occasionally this would happen when I was already at a decently high level of focus. In this case, I’d try to fire off as many of the shots as possible (preferring explosive shot over arcane shot), but would spend so much time firing free shots that Serpent Sting would fall off. (And unfortunately it’s not like BM’s Bestial Wrath where you can fire a Cobra shot first to prevent you from needing to refresh until right at the end)

Ideally, you want a few things to be the case:

  1. With Thrill of the Hunt, you want to get the Arcane Shots fired off ASAP so that you don’t trigger it while it’s already active, thus wasting one of the free Arcane Shots.
  2. You don’t want to let Serpent Sting drop off;
  3. You don’t want to fire a Cobra Shot when you’re close to capping focus.

I kept running into a conflict though and am not sure what’s the best way to handle it: I figure if focus isn’t high, a Cobra Shot is easily interleaved because it doesn’t cost focus, so won’t trigger a new Thrill of the Hunt. But if focus is high, Explosive Shot is on cooldown, and Thrill of the Hunt is active, we don’t really have a very good focus dump to prevent us from capping except perhaps for a manual application of Serpent Sting.

So where’s the approximate breakpoint for focus capping and using a cobra shot to keep Serpent Sting up versus letting serpent sting fall off and applying it after you’ve burned through all of your Thrill of the Hunt procs? (Or is there something else I’m missing entirely)

Lilbitters replied, “Using Multi-Shot would be a better solution, as it does more damage than casting a normal Serpent Sting, extends the DoT at full duration (which is better than just a 6 second extension from Cobra Shot), and utilizes the excess focus that would otherwise be wasted if you were focus capped. You also get the potential benefit of it hitting a secondary target if one happens to be in range.

Whitefyst replied, “Lilbitters previous post has the best answer since it better uses the focus, “extends SrS”, and does good damage. However, I do want to point out that you should not overly be concerned with overcapping focus. […]”

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Glaive Toss Bug Part II9/7/12

In the Mists of Pandaria thread, Wyxz wrote, “I made a video reproducing the issue: Glaive Toss Glitch (Build 16048) – YouTube

On first thought I believed that this glitch had something related with Glaive Toss and Murder, because the glitch started to happening when I traded lynx rush for Murder. But if you see the video every time when the bug occurred if you pay attention at Lord Blastington’s Scope of Doom the buff refreshs the duration constantly while the glitch are up. And the glitch only trigger when my Glaive Toss cast procs the Lord Blastington’s Scope of Doom buff.

I thought that maybe can be a bugged dummy issue, I tried to dps the dummy upstairs near the entrace of enchant trainers/Tier 4 and 5 exchange NPCS of Scryer’s tier and the glitch still happening.

Video has been recorded at Beta Client, Lost Isles Realm at build 16048.

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Stat priorities 9/13/12

In the Mists of Pandaria thread, Whitefyst wrote, “[…]Using Zeherah’s profiles for each of the three specs on FD, I see the following stat priorities for optimal DPS in the T14 gear:

BM: Mastery >> Crit > Haste
MM: Haste >> Crit >> Mastery
SV: Crit > Haste >> Mastery

With BM being the best DPS spec atm, its high mastery gearing does not work well with the gear priorities for the other 2 specs. However, when I did some testing in FD with converting from a primary spec to a secondary spec, I was a little surprised with some of the results.

In these settings the DPS for each with using the “optimal” reforging is (note that these DPS settings are with using a Tauren (so racial independent) and no profressions chosen):

BM: 84451
MM: 82554
SV: 82436

However, there are large impacts with switching specs with the reforges for the initial spec. Here is what I see:

BM to MM: 81302 (-1242 DPS from MM)
BM to SV: 79537 (-2899 DPS from SV)
MM to BM: 83791 (-660 DPS from BM)
MM to SV: 81692 (-744 DPS from SV)
SV to BM: 85247 (+796 DPS from BM)
SV to MM: 83204 (+772 DPS from MM)

Now I expected some incorrectness in the comparison since these set-ups may not be 100% optimal (I know the MM setting was not 100% optimal); however, I was completely surprised by the fact that the SV set up was much better for both BM and MM then their set ups. […]

What this tells me is that the set ups we have been looking at to compare DPS between the specs in FD are not optimal and that we really have to rethink the mastery is king concept for BM DPS, especially early in MoP when natural crit amounts are lower and the extra crits resulting in more GftT procs and higher pet basic attack frequency and higher WH uptime may be more important than the mastery. Also the higher focus regen from haste on gear may be valued more initially too.

What I would suggest is for Zeherah to please start a Maximize DPS in FD thread with posting her current best setups for each spec for both the true optimal case and the optimal case with no racials and common professions (by this any 2of the set that provides about equal benefits). That way we can leverage the community’s insights on how to optimize the hunter specs within FD and hopefully result with a better baseline for comparison

Lokrick replied, “When I originally built the simc profiles, I used Crit > Mastery > Haste for BM. That remains in the Raid Dummy sim and T13H profiles. The T14 gearsets don’t keep that same priority (e.g., BM T14 prioritizes mastery as you say).”

At this point, we have a pretty high confidence in both simc and femaledwarf for accurately simming a profile. The next step really is improving the profiles for both simc and femaledwarf. I know that for both Zeherah and I, most of our available time at this point goes to tool development (e.g., I need to add stampede glyph, aoe sim support, etc.). So realistically, other people will need to start and drive those threads.

I only just discovered a nice enhancement Zeherah made to help move between the tools: the debug info in femaledwarf includes an export of the simc gear and talent profile. Plug them into with an (optional) action list if you need finer control over the sim or actions (e.g., you want to simulate vs. a particular sequence of raid events and movement, or just look at CA phase).

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Missing FPS Values 9/7/12

In the Hunter DPS Analyzer thread, NoGoal wrote, “I’m guessing it doesn’t influence DPS results but the FPS column lacks numbers for KC and DB. I could easily calculate and check numbers for all the listed ones. Using this profile, I have +1.77 FPS for Dire Beast (5/2/1.41) and -5.87 for Kill Command ([60*40+12*20]/450s). Adding the +4.2 passive regen and 0.88 from invigoration (15%*20*132/450s) I end with -0.08s FPS; -36 focus over 450s. Can you check and add these?”

Rivkah replied, “Sure, I just fixed it. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. The kill command issue was a display bug (since I’m doing some hacks to get it to show up both in the pet and hunter report). Dire beast wasn’t supported for fps because it’s not actually costing or regenerating the focus on cast, so I had to implement it a little differently (based on the dire beast pet attack count) but it should be showing up now.”

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Skull Banner Supported 9/7/12

In the Hunter DPS Analyzer thread, Rivkah announced, “I added skull banner support. Based on my testing it looks like skull banner does affect pets. […] I changed it to model it as non-stacking since stacking seems too powerful so it likely won’t be allowed.

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Hunters Mark Bug Fixed and other Tweeks 9/8/12

In the Hunter DPS Analyzer thread, Rivkah wrote, “I just made a change which will bring all specs down a bit in dps, but especially BM. It turns out I had a bug where I was accidentally applying hunter’s mark to the pet damage which is incorrect. It’s fixed now.”

I also did some tweaking for readiness. There is now a configurable setting for the maximum time to delay readiness for a cooldown (up to a max of 20 seconds). Note that right now it doesn’t have a cap on how long it waits, just that if it is due to cast and we have one of the supported abilities coming off cooldown within that time period, it’ll wait to be cast. I might change it to have a firm cap on the delay instead (so that it won’t keep pushing it off if new cooldowns come up) but I’ll wait and see how this works out. Right now it will not apply the delay if the fight has 30 seconds or less left.

Note that the original behavior only applied to rapid fire and was 20 seconds. I’ve changed the default to 15 but added in delays for dire beast, murder, lynx rush, beast within and powershot.

Additionally I’ve made things a little smarter with regards to rapid fire. If you have maximum focus speed for haste cooldowns set, it will not delay casting rapid fire for it if readiness is off cooldown, since it seems wasteful not to use rapid fire if you’re about to cast readiness anyhow and get the cooldown back up. I applied similar behavior to suppressing bestial wrath and rapid fire at the same time- if you turn this setting on, it will only be applied if readiness is on cooldown or not enabled.

I also configured serpent sting and black arrow not to cast if there are only 5 seconds or less left in the fight.

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Pet Attack Bug 9/13/12

In the Hunter DPS Analyzer thread, NoGoal wrote, “I’ve tried to reach a point were the pet could use its basic attack on cooldown (3s) but it seems like it’s impossible, even with absurd amounts of haste (1315%) your tool only go down to 3.28s. Is it due to a possible bug or is it because pets have a slight delay before they use an ability? With the BM profile linked above, the frequency of basic attack is 3.41. Does it mean that Frenzy/Focus Fire and Invigoration won’t scale (much) with gear?

Rivkah replied, “There is a known issue in game with pets where they won’t send the request to use their next basic attack until after they’ve gotten confirmation from the server that it’s off CD. So even when full on focus it won’t happen more often than every 3.3 sec on average (this actually varies a bit depending on latency and stuff in game, but based on log analysis, 3.3 sec seemed a reasonable average to use for simulation).

If you wish to turn off this behavior you can check the “Don’t Emulate Known Bugs” option in the settings- currently this is the only bug I support via this setting.

While having more regen will mean you will have less basic attack delays, it’ll also mean you can perform more wild hunt attacks. But there’s definitely a practical limit on how much you can increase your Frenzy/Focus Fire and Invigoration. Keep in mind that when we hit 90 our regen will go down as our gear won’t be as good relative to level (which means we’ll need more haste rating for the same amount of haste) so it’ll be harder to maintain minimum basic attack delays.

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Bloodlord Mandokir Soloed 9/8/12

In the Soloing Old Instances for Fun and Profit thread, Mamman wrote, “Friend of mine soloed Bloodlord Mandokir a few days ago, using snake trap to avoid resets during decapitate and binding shot to avoid the dinosaur killing spirits. Video at 85 Hunter Solo: Bloodlord Mandokir (Cataclysm ZG HC) (World First) – YouTube

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Kologarn: Avoiding Grip9/13/12

In the Soloing Old Instances for Fun and Profit thread, Sepultura wrote, “Not being grip is very easy. He never uses grip if you got the beam on you or if you tanking. All you got to do is timming this by taking some hits at beginning to delay the grip thing. After that the grip will be at same time as the eye beam meaning you will not get grip.”

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A full index of all Elitist Jerks posts recapped at the Wow Hunter’s Hall is maintained in the Index of Elitist Jerks Hunter Forum Posts: MoP Edition. Posts  regarding soloing are archived in our WHH Soloing Guides/Compilations: 

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