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4 edits | [ Cataclysm] How2Hunter 4.0 How-to-hunter 4.0
Basics:
Q: Which tree is the most dps?
A: As of 4.0.3 13066, all three trees were about equal. However, 4.0.1 is going to launch with a slightly earlier build, so I'm not quite sure which coefficients will be in place. According to Ghostcrawler SV is a little bit ahead in "raid gear," but whether or not that remains the case by the time *we* get raid gear is unknown. (TLDR version: they're all pretty close, play what you want. A clear winner may or may not emerge over time.)
By the way, caster dps will likely significantly outpace hunter dps at 4.0.1 release. That's just the way it is; caster dps as of the PTR final build was just really high. Don't panic. The beta continues to be updated and dps formulae continue to be tweaked (the PTR is testing 4.0.1; the Beta is working off build 4.0.3), so there's clearly more tuning to come.
Q: What pet should I use?
A: Doesn't matter for leveling. The days of AoE pulling are essentially over, because we don't have any damn aoe anyway. Tenacity pets probably help a little for soloing group quests, but I did just fine with my old wolf from 80-85 and didn't have to group for anything outside of instances. For instance dps, you want a cunning or ferocity pet (they scale exactly the same in terms of dps stats, but ferocity has SLIGHTLY better dps talents) with a good buff. (There are plenty to choose from.)
Q: So... focus. Things are different now, eh?
A: Boy are they ever. Rather than get into a macro discussion about focus management and the mindset/philosophy behind focus-driven dps, I'll start with spec rotations to frame the discussion and go from there. The rotations themselves should put you on the right path to understanding the mindset, presuming you devote a few brain cells to the matter.
Q:What stats should I be pushing?
A: Agi's good for all three specs. Used to be mastery was OP for survival, but it got nerfed into the ground; now mastery's OP for MM. It'll probably get tuned yet again in the near future. In any event, agility's always a good choice.
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DPS Execution:
(Note: These rotations are designed around level 85 talents and abilities. I'll note where things might be different at level 80.)
MM:
Sting (only once) - Chimera - Arcane to low focus - Steady until Chimera off CD. (Use aimed shot immediately whenever 5 stacks of Master Marksman are reached, unless it would delay chimera past sting refresh, or cause a focus cap.)
-The "new" MM rotation is remarkably like the "old" MM rotation, only that now there are two new mechanics to juggle. One is focus bleeding. Given a 10 second cooldown on Chimera (may be 9 depending on glyphing), you could theoretically make back about 45-54 focus from active regen in between chimeras, and about 40-50 focus from passive regen. Obviously, that's too much; you'd be over focus cap by the time chimera came off CD. The answer to this is to bleed focus via arcane shot. I find the ideal time to bleed focus is immediately after chimera shot, as the cost of chimera naturally "caps" the focus bleed from arcane at a rational value (you're at reduced focus, so you can only arcane shot 1-2 times.) Basically, just hit arcane shot until you have insufficient focus to do so any further, then return to steady shot spam. Presuming that you're in the "worst case" scenario of using arcane to exactly zero focus after chimera, *and* have to spend a GCD on a 5MM aimed (see next section for details on that), you'd still have 3-4 steadies left before the next chimera is due. 3 steadies would net you 27 focus, and the natural regen from the time you dumped to zero until the next chimera would be approximately 24-30 focus- between the two, that's enough for the next chimera to be fired on time.
-The other element to the MM rotation is the 5MM aimed shot. Aimed shot normally has a long cast time (during which auto does not fire) and a terrible damage-to-focus ratio. You'd never use it as a baseline shot. However, once you reach 5 stacks of the master marksman (MM) buff, aimed becomes free and instant. When that happens, you want to always shoot aimed off before your next steady shot (to avoid "wasting" any MM stacks). The one stipulation there is to not delay your chimera for it, (which is ok, since chimera doesn't stack MM), but other than that, you pretty much used aimed shot immediately whenever 5MM comes up.
-So to review, the constant rota is Chimera-Arcane dump to under 22 focus- steady until next chimera, with 5MM aimed shots thrown in whenever they proc so long as they don't delay chimera. The one stipulation I have to make here is that if you anticipate movement, don't mindlessly dump down after chimera (unless not doing so will focus cap you). Hold your arcanes for movement and use 'em then. (Note: if it's going to be *sustained* movement, you can just pop AotF and continue the normal rotation. However, MM suffers the most from sustained movement because it is more autoshot reliant than the other specs due to its tree bonus.)
-As an aside, best use of MM readiness hasn't really been worked out yet for PVE. Early rapidfire during trinkets and lined up to double Chimera is probably going to be the answer, but it's not as concrete since there's only one "nuke" shot with a cooldown in the rotation.
SV:
Sting(once)-Black Arrow(not every cycle)-Explosive-Cobra-Cobra-Cobra (arcane used as necessary to dump focus; KC used during high-focus LnL)
-This rotation *assumes* that the explosive vs arcane damage balance for you is good enough that you want to use explosive. This is not always the case; arcane has horrible AP scaling, but scales with weapon damage; explosive has good AP scaling but is weapon damage independent (as of 4.0.3 13066.) Presuming that Explosive is your nuke of choice, you will cobra approximately 3 (perhaps 4, if haste is sufficient) times in between explosives. 3 cobra will net you 27 focus; natural regen between explosives will net you 24-30 focus. Explosive costs 44 focus, so you will be building 8-13 focus per cycle even before thrill of the hunt. Every 3 cycles or so you'll have to refresh black arrow, which costs 35 focus, so that is where that extra focus is spent.
-There are 2 wildcards that gum up this seemingly stable focus situation. One is thrill of the hunt, which will give you a partial focus refund on 15 percent of your shots, and the other is lock and load, which causes no-cooldown no-cost explosive or arcane shots. The "overage" generated by thrill of the hunt is relatively easy to manage. If after firing an explosive shot you find yourself with over 35-40 focus left, fire an arcane shot. The idea here is that you want to have no more than 40 focus baseline after an explosive shot because you may generate up to 55-60 focus in between explosives (more, if ToTH procs), and focus capping is bad. (If you find that one arcane shot is insufficient to keep you from focus capping before the next explosive shot, you can fire another arcane shot immediately before you cap. Try not to fire two arcanes, however, immediately after an explosive, even if you anticipate that you will have to fire another arcane before the cycle is over. Hold the second arcane until capping is imminent. Firing two arcane in a cycle can leave you focus starved for black arrow refresh if you estimate your regen incorrectly.)
-The second wildcard is lock and load. If you get a lock and load and are below 50 focus when it starts, you should be able to execute it as explosive-cobra-explosive-cobra, and then dump focus with your CD-reset full-cost explosive immediately thereafter. If on the other hand you are above 50 focus when the lock and load starts, go with explosive-kill command-explosive-cobra-explosive. Kill command is not good damage-per-cast-time for survival, but it's the only thing you can do to burn focus during a lock and load, and at the moment conventional wisdom is that wasted focus is worse than lower DPCT. (This may not hold at high levels of mastery.)
-Note: Since you will not have cobra shot when you first start leveling, you will be using steady shot if you spec survival right off the bat. This makes the rotation exceptionally more complicated, since you must now plan for serpent sting refresh (presuming you're in an instance or fighting an elite where you actually need to worry about refreshing a sting). If you find yourself in this situation, I recommend substituting 2xarcane for the explosive shot unless your arcane damage is less than half that of your explosive damage. It's easier to manage focus with the 2x arcane rotation, since if you need to refresh serpent it's a simple one-for-one substitution with one of your arcane shots for almost the same focus cost. (BTW, you may be using this 2x arcane rotation anyway if your arcane outscales explosive at your weapon damage/stat level.)
BM:
Serpent Sting (once)-Kill-Arcane (floating)-Cobra-Cobra-Cobra
-I'll talk about BM cooldowns first, since there are several.
-Focus Fire: As of this writing, it looks like the cooldowns on focus fire are different on Beta and the PTR. On beta, FF is on a 30 second CD, which means it should be used whenever it's up. On PTR, it's being reverted to a 15 second CD, which means you may need to delay a bit for frenzy to reach five stacks. As to whether it's more dps to fire it on cooldown even if frenzy's not at 5 stacks... good question. On the plus side, now that BW's been reduced in effectiveness, most believe that holding frenzy stacks during BW isn't worth it. So that little bit of complexity's gone.
-Fervor: Never use fervor during BW unless you've literally run out of focus. Otherwise, use Fervor whenever it's off CD and you're below 40 focus. (If you know a high-movement period is coming up, you might save fervor for that since it will let you spam more arcane without having to switch to Fox to cobra back focus on the move. BM is generally the spec least impacted by movement.
-Bestial Wrath: should be used on cooldown, though immediately before a kill command is best so as to get the maximum number of kill commands during the wrath.
-The BM rotation is more of a philosophy than a rotation. The baseline nuke is Kill Command. You fire Cobra in between Kill commands, using arcane rather than cobra whenever you're over 60 focus. That part is relatively simple; the spec is more about cooldowns than it is about rotational execution.
-It should be noted that things change drastically when you use Bestial Wrath due to the focus cost reduction; you can basically spam arcane so long as you're over 20 focus, while still hitting KC on cooldown.
-As with Survival, BM changes slightly during early leveling since you won't have cobra shot. Assuming you're fighting something that will live long enough to require a sting refresh, simply raise your "arcane line" to around 80 focus rather than 60 focus immediately before serpent sting comes off cooldown. During bestial wrath you should be able to refresh a sting at will.
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General principles:
-If in doubt, play conservatively with your focus. It is far easier to dump focus if you get too much than it is to rebuild focus if you put yourself in a hole.
-Plan your movement. Being forced to move with low focus can make you ineffective for quite a long time, or force a double aspect switch.
-Do not AoE lightly. Multishot costs a fair bit and doesn't hit very hard.
-Watch threat. Tanks don't really get going until vengeance gets rolling. Early threat can be very dicey, especially since we can frontload pretty heavily if we so choose.
-Always be shooting. There should never be "dead" time in your rotation, with the exception of some *very* small gaps between your last gen shot and your nuke coming off CD. If you're standing around waiting for focus to regen, you're DOING IT WRONG. Either be genning or spending. Never just wait.
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"Terrible, Terrible Damage!" | | |
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1 edit | Spec Discussion:
PVE DPS:
-Survival: (3/7/31)
BM tree:
3/3 One with Nature: There's some debate as to whether this talent is better or worse than Bestial Discipline; with the buff to Aspect of the Hawk, OwN (nice acronymn, eh?) has proven to be superior in my personal testing. YMVV.
MM tree:
2/2 GFTT
3/3 Efficiency
2/2 Sic 'em!
SV tree:
3/3 Pathing
2/2 Impoved serpent sting: these are discretionary points. If you're going to AoE at *all,* take them; ISS in conjunction with serpent spread actually does more damage than multishot itself.
2/2 Survival Tactics: these are discretionary.
3/3 Trap Mastery
3/3 Thrill of the Hunt: note that this no longer works off crit.
2/2 Lock and Load
3/3 Resourcefulness
2/2 TNT
2/2 Toxicology
1/1 Wyvern Sting
2/2 Noxious Stings
1/1 Hunting Party
3/3 Sniper Training
1/2 Serpent Spread: Discretionary. See notes on Improved Serpent Sting. One point is sufficient to activate the ISS effect.
1/1 Black Arrow
Notes: The level 80 version of this build would have to drop 5 points. By necessity, this would mean you couldn't take Sic 'em. The remaining three points should probably be dropped from OwN, as both GFTT and Efficiency are *very* strong.
Glyphing:
Prime: Arcane, Explosive, Kill/Rapid. (Not sure how good kill is; rapid's definitely bad.)
Major: Mending, Misdirection, and... whatever. (All hunter majors suck for PvE dps.)
Minor: Mend Pet, Feign Death, Pack
-Marksman: (7/31/3)
BM tree:
3/3 OwN
3/3 Bestial Discipline
1/3 Frenzy: Highly discretionary.
MM tree:
2/2 GFTT
3/3 Efficiency
1/2 Rapid Killing: Discretionary
2/2 Sic 'em!
3/3 Improved Steady Shot
2/2 Careful Aim: terrible raiding talent, but the only dps contributor available. Good for misdirects if nothing else.
1/1 Silencing Shot
3/3 Piercing Shots
2/2 Bombardment
1/1 Trueshot Aura
2/2 Termination
2/2 Rapid Recuperation
3/3 Master Marksman
1/1 Readiness
2/2 Posthaste
1/1 Chimera Shot
SV tree:
3/3 Pathing
Notes: For the level 80 build, definitely drop frenzy; after that, it's a toss up whether you should drop one from pathing and 3 from bestial discipline, or 3 from pathing and one from bestial discipline. Given how poor MM pet contribution seems to be, I'd probably keep 2/3 pathing.
If you're anticipating doing a lot of add-killing/target switching, moving discretionary points into Marked for Death MIGHT be worth it... but it's a pretty terrible talent regardless.
Glyphs:
Prime: Aimed, Arcane, Steady. (I personally dislike glyph of Chimera, but YMMV.)
Major: Mending, Silencing Shot, Misdirection (doesn't really matter too much... did I mention that Hunter majors suck?)
Minor: Mend Pet, Feign Death, Pack
-Beast Mastery: (31/7/3)
BM tree:
2/2 Improved Kill Command
3/3 OwN
3/3 Bestial Discipline
1/2 Spirit Bond: Discretionary
3/3 Frenzy
1/2 Mend Pet: Discretionary
3/3 Cobra Strikes
1/1 Fervor
1/1 Focus Fire
3/3 Longevity
2/2 Killing Streak
1/1 Bestial Wrath
1/1 Ferocious Inspiration
2/2 Kindred Spirits
1/1 The Beast Within
2/2 Invigoration
1/1 Beast Mastery
MM Tree:
2/2 GFTT
3/3 Efficiency
2/2 Sic 'Em!
SV Tree:
3/3 Pathing
Notes: The level 80 version of this build would have to drop 5 points. Drop 3/3 Pathing and 2/2 Sic 'Em.
Glyphing:
Prime: Arcane, Kill Command, Kill/Rapid.
Major: Mending, Misdirection, Bestial Wrath.
Minor: Mend Pet, Feign Death, Pack | |
| Reserved for Changelog/Update notes
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"Terrible, Terrible Damage!" | |
 JobbieKeep It SimplePremium
join:2010-08-24
Mexico
kudos:1 | reply to CpnObvious
Thanks for this update. Appreciate your efforts for the Hunter comunity. | |
 stvnbrsPremium
join:2009-03-17
Cary, NC
kudos:5 | reply to CpnObvious
Thumbs up! But you couldn't post earlier so I had something to read at work?!?! o.O | |
 HarddriveProud American and Infidel since 1968.Premium
join:2000-09-20
Phone Room
kudos:2 | don't read it now and wait for tomorrow. | |
 seaquakePremium,MVM
join:2001-03-23
Millersville, MD | reply to CpnObvious
Lots of good info there. I'm just wondering if I'll enjoy playing a Hunter in 4.x as much as I do in 3.x. We'll see.... | |
| reply to CpnObvious
Nice info about hunters, even if it's useless for me personally as I don't play hunter =) | |
stvnbrsPremium
join:2009-03-17
Cary, NC
kudos:5 | reply to CpnObvious
Nice read, I waiting till today for it and is almost better than reading the paper. Think you could possibly go over talent specs? BTW, kitties are finding that with the new stat changes, it is best to drop crit and level out haste, mastery and Agi. Can you comment on this for hunters? | |
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1 edit | said by stvnbrs:Nice read, I waiting till today for it and is almost better than reading the paper. Think you could possibly go over talent specs? BTW, kitties are finding that with the new stat changes, it is best to drop crit and level out haste, mastery and Agi. Can you comment on this for hunters? I'll do what I can with talent specs, probably this evening. There's significant uncertainty with regard to some talent decisions, so it'll be a bit squishy.
As to stat values, it's fluctuated wildly throughout the beta, especially with the complete mastery overhaul. Secondary stat value in particular is going to vary a lot by spec. The only universal truth is "Agility is tasty," which has been the constant refrain of hunters ever since vanilla launch.
I'll try to review stat weighting at the same time I do specs, but I'll caveat it in advance by saying the jury is still out on almost everything besides agility and mastery, so it will be a pretty speculative discussion (and our estimates on mastery are only valid for level 85; there is no valid data for level 80).
Edit: In case anyone cares, the reason why stat and spec values are still uncertain is that Blizz hasn't been forthcoming with shot damage formulae. MMO is data mining one thing; blizz is announcing another; testing is showing that BOTH are wrong (or more accurately, that neither is describing the totality of shot behavior). For example, MMO might report massive RAP scaling changes to arcane shot... but then when the changes go live, it's clear there's been a weapon damage component tweak that wasn't reported. On the flip side, Blizzard's description of weapon damage contribution has thus far been patently incorrect, and what little they've said about it in public was probably off-the-cuff and not based on their actual formulae. So until we nail down just what damage calcualations we're working with, precise stat and talent valuations are *extremely* difficult.
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"Terrible, Terrible Damage!" | |
stvnbrsPremium
join:2009-03-17
Cary, NC
kudos:5 | Take a look into haste. It seems to weigh more for kitties than crit now if you can believe. Around the 40% mark is where DM are starting to take place. I am curious if it is the same here as well. | |
| Haste is a very problematic stat for hunters. It will *probably* continue to be a tertiary stat. (See my edit to the post above for discussion on why I can only say *probably* at this point.)
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"Terrible, Terrible Damage!" | |
 bckck5
join:2010-02-16
Ballwin, MO | reply to CpnObvious
i wish there was a rogue thread like this.... | |
| reply to CpnObvious
What's your Armory link? Just curious... | |
| Sorry, I don't throw out character information as a matter of Policy. (I've had some bad experiences with in-game 'net stalking).
On a less depressing note, I've updated the spec section.
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"Terrible, Terrible Damage!" | |
| said by CpnObvious:Sorry, I don't throw out character information as a matter of Policy. (I've had some bad experiences with in-game 'net stalking). On a less depressing note, I've updated the spec section. You ever manage to get those heroic set pieces yet? I managed to snag another piece and the heroic northern lights pants... hmmmm *drool*.. and the 277 wrist.. | |
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1 edit | Actually I did. Got the helm even though it's lower armor value than the chest (same stats) just because the helm turns purple when it goes heroic and screams "HEY LOOK, I HAS A HEROIC PIECE." Yeah, I'm a clown, I know.
I ended up with exactly half of my gear at 264 and half at 277. Not likely to pick up much else; we're carring 4 active hunters now, and 2 of 'em need gear like a LOT, so at this point I'll probably just stifle my gearing ambitions and wait for cataclysm.
It's kinda sad, I finally hit a gear point where I could go 3/3 FA with a haste/crit 2hander and stay arp-capped, and my dps really jumped... being able to use a 277 stat stick instead of sticking with a 264 to reach arp cap was a pretty signifcant boost- and I'm going to get to run a grand total of 4 raids in that setup before 4.0 hits and I have to go back to gemming for hit and agi. Doh.
However, this has NOTHING to do with 4.0, so I'll bring us slightly back on topic by saying that I'm still working on those stat valuations Stvnbrs asked about, and by reminding everyone that with both heroic presence and focused aim no longer providing hit (well, HP does, but to the draenei toon only), you'll have to re-gem for full hit cap if you're going to raid as an 80 post 4.0.
Edit: In case anyone is wondering what Bountey and I are blathering about, my raid (much like Ghastly's) has something like an 80-90 percent heroic vanq token drop rate. (We saw nothing but vanq AGAIN last week. Every single one.) So it's been something of an ongoing saga to see if I ever snagged a heroic token before Cata.
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"Terrible, Terrible Damage!" | |
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| From what I've been reading/hearing, with the DPS output from the nerfed KC and Explosive Shot lacking, people are only spamming Arcane for maximum damage. You in beta seeing anything different?
Also in 4.0.1, MM is supposedly going to rule because BM and SV need Cobra shot, which they don't get until higher levels.
I've been on the PTR messing around (couple heroics) and my dmg output seems far greater than before. Good and bad. Good because YAY damage! Bad because I hear they may be removing the 30% ICC buff since dmg has improved across the board. | |
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3 edits | said by wasntme:From what I've been reading/hearing, with the DPS output from the nerfed KC and Explosive Shot lacking, people are only spamming Arcane for maximum damage. You in beta seeing anything different? Also in 4.0.1, MM is supposedly going to rule because BM and SV need Cobra shot, which they don't get until higher levels. I've been on the PTR messing around (couple heroics) and my dmg output seems far greater than before. Good and bad. Good because YAY damage! Bad because I hear they may be removing the 30% ICC buff since dmg has improved across the board. -At least on the beta, arcane-spam SV and explosive SV are pretty close, mostly because explosive gives more opportunities for sic 'em. In terms of personal damage, arcane-spam is slightly higher because arcane's significantly better DPF than explosive. (It's only slightly higher because using explosive gives an opportunity for one additional cobra shot per cycle) In 12984 arcane spam was about 500 total dps ahead; in 13066 it had dropped to being about 200 dps ahead (that was the mastery nerf patch.) It's widely assumed that blizz would like to buff explosive shot so that it's the clear choice to use on CD, but they're holding back because SV's over-tuned in raid-level epic gear. I listed the baseline rotation as containing explosive because that's what it's *supposed* to be, but you should test it to see whether or not arc-spam is better for you. (See the OP's survival section; it discusses this a little more).
-KC was re-buffed on the beta. (Technically, it was buffed, nerfed, buffed, nerfed again, and now it's back to buffed. Blizz has openly admitted to problems with handling KC scaling.) It definitely hits harder in the most recent beta build than BM arcane, so BM is back to KC on CD, at least on beta servers.
-I'm not sure if MM will "rule" or not in 4.0.1. MM was doing significantly less dps than BM or SV until the mastery re-balancing. MM caught up when mastery started contributing significantly more to its damage. So while BM and SV will lose cobra, MM will lose a pretty big chunk of damage contribution from mastery (there isn't any on lvl 80 gear, though you can reforge it). I personally suspect that MM will post better numbers because it will be much easier to maintain its focus stability than BM or SV, since BM and SV will still be manually refreshing their stings, but that'll be a result of ease of execution more so than inherent spec strength. That's all speculation, of course.
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"Terrible, Terrible Damage!" | |
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| said by CpnObvious:-I'm not sure if MM will "rule" or not in 4.0.1. MM was doing significantly less dps than BM or SV until the mastery re-balancing. MM caught up when mastery started contributing significantly more to its damage. So while BM and SV will lose cobra, MM will lose a pretty big chunk of damage contribution from mastery (there isn't any on lvl 80 gear, though you can reforge it). I personally suspect that MM will post better numbers because it will be much easier to maintain its focus stability than BM or SV, since BM and SV will still be manually refreshing their stings, but that'll be a result of ease of execution more so than inherent spec strength. That's all speculation, of course. From what I tested on the PTR, I saw MM as higher (not by a lot, but noticeable). Of course that was 2 builds ago.
Can't wait to try out the new focus more though. Somewhat apprehensive about it all still since my experience with rogues and druids made me dislike focus (a lot).
I got so good at mana management over the years on my hunter. I hope that can translate over to focus. | |
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