5.1 Huntering

Mine is a BM Hunter, so (most) everything in this post is for that spec.

The EJ and Icy-Veins guides have a couple of holes in them, and a couple of points where they violently disagree.

Question #1: Rapid Fire.
The EJ guide says to stack RF with BW (going so far to say to macro them together). This makes very little sense to me - we've never done that before as BW reduces Focus cost of shots by half, so we try to spam Arcane/KC (i.e., stuff not affected by RF) during BW. The EJ guide also says something about "increasing WH uptime". WH? Is that Wild Hunt? I don't see that in my Pet Spellbook - thought that was an old pet talent that went away in 5.0.4. Anyway, if Pet Focus is that important during BW, we'd be taking Fervor instead of Dire Beast...

Icy Veins says that it's "detrimental" to stack RF/BW. That's more of what I'd expect, though a bit weaker than the "DON'T DO THAT!" that I'd put on it!

Question #2: Multishot usage.
Both guides just say "Spam Multishot when 5+ targets" and nothing more, but that completely ignores how Beast Cleave works. How many targets do you need to replace an Arcane with a Multi every 4 seconds for more DPS (taking Beast Cleave into account)? As far as I can tell, nobody's even asked this question, much less attempted to answer it. I'd imagine that number is less than "5", though!

Question #3: Lynx Rush vs Blink Strike.
EJ hasn't touched the new Lynx Rush at all, while Icy Veins simply says "they're about equal".
Going by the new Lynx tooltip, it's awful (5k total per stack over 15 seconds - ick - there's no way that can be correct). I haven't tried Blink yet, but a friend has and is reporting huge-damage crits during BW. Blink is also more consistent - Lynx performs poorly when it hits a target that's going to die within its duration and doesn't get helped by BW at all.

Observation #1: Focus Fire.
The EJ guide says to hit FF when it lights up (5 stacks of Frenzy), while Icy Veins says basically "use it when it hits 5 stacks, except right before a BW, though you can just take it completely off your action bar and not really lose anything."

I'm going to propose something that makes far more intuitive sense to me: Use Focus Fire right after BW ends. This allows Frenzy to build back up to 5 stacks for the next BW, it gives you haste right after a BW (where you're low on Focus and casting a bunch of Cobra Shots anyway), and you won't hit it at a bad time (using it poorly is worse than not using it at all).

I've been doing this and it seems to be working well, though I've only hit it when it's "lit" at the end of BW - it's probably fine to just hit it every time, lit or not. I'm not SimCraft-literate enough to figure out how to code that - would be nice to try though...

Observation #2: Must-have Raid Pet.
I'm talking about the Pink Flamingo, of course! (Though I'm currently using a purple one, not pink...)
Tallstriders apply the Weakened Armor debuff, but in a unique way - it applies all 3 stacks in one cast, and it hits everything in the area with it! (6 yard radius, IIRC) It's on a 17sec cooldown for BM - makes it awesome for mass trash pulls and bosses with lots of adds. (Will, WindLord)

1) RF+BW stacking is because of the forcus regen RF grans and that our pets are focus starved, so RF = more basic attacks from the poet during BW. Also, RF is a really, really, REALLY weak CD outside of the focus regen benefit. (The EJ guide also originally had DO NOT STACK, until we did some math on it, probably that part icy-veins forgot to lift)

2) EJ doesn't say spam MS at 5 targets (I should know ) - it says to use MS, I'd say at 3-5 targets, and preferably use it once every 4 seconds to keep up Beast Cleave. Personally I rotate between "MS, CoS, CoS", "MS,CoS,GT,*wait*" and throw in tghe odd KC if teh health of the mobs is high enough that it doesn't kill them outright. If FF is up, its "MS,CoS,CoS,CoS" or "MS,CoS,CoS,X" where X is GT, KC or AS depending in whats up - the latter only if focus will be capped before I can get off the next MS.

3) True, I haven't done in depth analysis of the new LR (and I really should rewrite the talent section). The change has the downside of making LR the same issue as MoC - you can't pop it straight after readiness because the stacks are capped at 9. What I do now is wait with the second BW+RF till the first LR is about to fall off - this also gives me some time to use CoS to buff up the SrS that I didn't touch while doing the first BW.

O1) Hit it when it lighst up, also before BW - UNLESS - you would cap the pets focus with the gained focus - the increased speed on the pets autoattacks does not make up for the extra basic attack (and increased focus regen) from FF during a BW - again, our pets are focusstarved, and anything we can do that will dump more focus into them during a BW is an increase (except using haste on gear)

O2) Must have raid pets vary based on your compostion. I raid 10 man and my 2 musthaves are a Sporebat for the 5% spell haste, and a Hyena for the 10% attack speed - both buffs noone else brings.
On the must have list apart from that is Core Hound and Quilen. Bloodlust (Ancient Hysteria) and Battle ress are invaluable if needed - and it only takes 2 seconds to switch out a pet for a brez if needed.

On the simcraft (and FD) you should also beware that they not only tend to overvalue haste, but tend to do so massively. Haste is practically worthless compared to crit and mastery for damage, at least at currently obtainable gearlevels (looking all the way up to full heroic elite gear level).

Note: This is all anecdotal from a middling-level player - I've not done any math, only observations from heroics, LFR, and some target-dummy experimentation...

Nooska wrote:1) RF+BW stacking is because of the forcus regen RF grans and that our pets are focus starved, so RF = more basic attacks from the poet during BW.

Ok, this is why I'm confused. My pet is never, ever focus-capped, or even close. All that "stacking" RF/FF+BW is going to do is move where the Claws ("Basic Attack" is clumsy ) hit on the timeline, not how many total Claws you get during the fight.

When I use RF/FF outside of BW-time, I pick up a minimum of 2 "free" shots that I wouldn't have had if I stack it with BW. I can't believe that "20% extra on a Claw" is more damage than 2 extra Cobra Shots (plus replacing a Cobra with an Arcane down the line)...

Nooska wrote:Also, RF is a really, really, REALLY weak CD outside of the focus regen benefit.

Really? I like RF, hitting it 20 sec before BW lets me have a full-ish bar going into it, which seems like a decent thing to do.

Again, if pet-focus is THAT important (enough such that 20% extra on a single Claw > hunter benefit from using RF for himself, Fervor seems like a far better choice than Dire Beast... 100 extra pet focus every 30 seconds...

Nooska wrote:2) ... it says to use MS, I'd say at 3-5 targets, and preferably use it once every 4 seconds to keep up Beast Cleave.

Ok cool, this makes sense.
Actually, that brings to mind something else - how many targets do you need to have to make throwing an Explosive Trap and/or Snake Trap a gain? (taking into account clumsy UI targeting - I only throw them after a Cobra as I can get the reticule positioned during the Cobra cast)

Nooska wrote:O1) Hit it when it lighst up, also before BW - UNLESS - you would cap the pets focus with the gained focus - the increased speed on the pets autoattacks does not make up for the extra basic attack ...

But macroing Rabid in to BW is? (instead of leaving Rabid on auto-cast - more uptime, but less "within-BW" time)

Nooska wrote:On the simcraft (and FD) you should also beware that they not only tend to overvalue haste, but tend to do so massively. Haste is practically worthless compared to crit and mastery for damage, at least at currently obtainable gearlevels (looking all the way up to full heroic elite gear level).

So it should be: hit/exp cap > crit > mastery > haste?

That'd be nice, though doing a search even now shows that nobody has any clue about it and everyone is saying different things. *laugh*

You are correct that RF just shifts the basic attacks, but using it during BW (especially in the beginning of the fight) means more of the basic attacks get the BW benefit, which means a net increase in damage.

On teh stat weighrs its strictly speaking agi>hit/exp cap>crit~mastery>>>Haste (I'm desperately trying to shed my last 1k haste for crit or mastery, its not as easy as one would expect). Agi isn't so far above crit and mastery that you want to gem pure agi, but you want to gem agi in every slot - with the exception that you may want to use a hit/exp gem if you are lacking either, as they are "better" stats for outputting damage even though agi will add more damage averagely (its actually the same argument thats on tankadin stats with avoidance being more TDR but control being better)

I would advice leaving rabid on autocast, because while the attacks are better during BW, the cooldowns mean you lose quite a bit of extra attacks, which quikly nullify the gain that all of them are under BW but more seldom.

As to teh Explosive Trap, I generally also only use it right after CoS (for the same reason) - its focus free so in that sense its always a gain to pop it if you have about a second available between the finish of a CoS and the next MS and GT is on CD. However in practise I only use it if the group will stay up for at least 10 more seconds (not necessarily all of them) and there are 4+ or if there are 8+. At 8+ I also use MS as much as possible while maintaing Beast Cleave.

As to liking hitting RF before BW, I understand the feeling, as I've also mentioned on EJ and wowhead, haste feels nice, it just doesn't provide much benefit. As for hitting BW witha full focus bar, its not really worth it. If you hit BW and RF together (and they do line up perfectly for every 3rd BW - excluding the extra BW+RF you get in conjunction with readiness every 5 minutes) you don't need to have a full focus bar. I can spam all my focuscosting shots during BW+RF and I still gain more focus than I use. If you have enough focus for a KC (40) before you hit BW, you will have enough focus to get throughh the BW - and afterwards you want to hit CoS anyway to extend SrS.

On haste, I just want to say, I like it as well, I like having 1.3 second CoS or lower, but it just doesn't contribute much dps compared to crit and mastery. Sure it increases focus regen, but crit is actually better at it when looking at our pet, and we gain more invigoration procs from more basic attacks. Untill every basic attack is cast on CD and is a wild hunt attack, our pets can use more focus. I imagine in the coming tiers haste will become more valuable than it is now due to crit reaching a critical amount (no pun intended) where the increase in GftT procs is not significant, and haste becomes the better focusgenerator for the pets - but at that point I am also forecasting that mastery will rise above crit (and way above haste as the relative value isn't changed) because so much of our damage is attributed to the pet (I regularly have over 50% on a fight like Feng, meaning mastery is more than 1% damage increase per 600 rating, with no cap, and therefore better than crit from a pure "increased damage output" crit keeps up through GftT though)

Oh, I completely agree on haste on gear - it's always seemed bad for BM to me.

It's just funny that EJ is the only place saying that - IV, maxdps, noxxic, etc ALL are showing (crit > haste > mastery). AskMrRobot is doing that too.

For crit/mastery - do you want to try to keep them even (or some other specific ratio), or they're just both good and you want to minimize haste at all costs?

For RF, I wonder if I'm underestimating GftT procs - you'd be shooting more autoshots during BW time and each crit is 15 petfocus... Hmm. Frenzy is still a bit odd to me - everywhere is saying "2nd priority when lit (behind KC)", but when I run simcraft (which does that) I get basically the same (sometimes higher) DPS if I just comment the FF line out and simply never cast it. I doubt Blizz would make a "rotational" skill that's just as good not to use, so I still think we're "doing it wrong". *shrug*

Dumb Theorycraft question (as I've never really graphed things out):
If I cast KC at time 0.0, the GCD ends at 1.0, and KC is available again at 6.0?

So for a Cobra time of 1.9s, a basic cycle would look like this?
0.0: KC
1.0: Arcane
2.0: CoS
3.9: CoS
5.8: wait
6.0: KC

Nooska wrote:... every basic attack is cast on CD and is a wild hunt attack...

I don't think Wild Hunt exists any more... Checked both my spellbook, pet spellbook, and wowhead and it's nowhere to be found.

WH exists in effect - its been folded into the basic attacks; like Claw


On KC, yeah, the effective CD is 5 seconds as the first second is eaten up by the GCD, so you can do KC every 6th GCD. It pays to delay KC by up to .3 seconds, so you want 2x CoS and 2 x AS if you have a casttime of 3.3/2 = 1.65 or lower (like during FF, RF or BL - if you have 2 of these you will be using 3 CoS and 2 instants between each KC).

RF is basically a 40% increased focus regen cooldown. While our attacks cost 50% during BW, the pets is still full cost. We have 4 fps base, and the pet has 5 fps base (1.25xhunter fps), so with RF the pet goes up to 7fps, or 21 focus per 3 seconds (the cd on basic attack). We have a base casttime on autoshot of 3 seconds, with RF that becomes 2.1 seconds, and with an entry level of crit of ~20% (I'm at 26% in non-heroic level gear with raid buff) that averages out to 1.4 fps for the pet (4.3 focus per 3 seconds) for a total of 25.3 focus per basic attack CD (slightly focus positive).
Without RF the pet gains 15 focus per 3 second base and 1 (20%*15 focus/3 seconds) fps from GftT, for a total of 18 focus per basic attack cooldown, which is more than slightly focus negative.

With RF, starting at any focus level, you will get the full possible amount of basic attacks during RF (and thus BW.
Without RF, starting at an arbitrary 50% focus (60) you would get a delay after the 2nd basic attack
60-50(BA0)(10)+18(28)-25(ba3)(3)+18(21)-0(ba6)+6(27)-25(ba7)(2)+18(20)-0(ba10)+6(26)-25(ba11)
As you can see, not only does it delay the third BA (at 6 seconds, starting at 0), it pushes the 4th completely out of BW.
With RF, starting at the same 60 focus, you spend 50 on the first BA, gain 25.3 before its off CD for a total of 35.3, spend 25, gain 25.3 for 35.6 (and so forth).
60-50(BA0)(10)+25.3(35.3)-25(ba3)(10.3)+25.3(35.6)-25(ba6)(10.6)+25.3(35.9)-25(ba9)(10.9)

If we start at 120 focus for thepet without RF it looks like this:
120-50(BA0)(70)+18(88)-50(BA3)(38)+18(56)-50(BA6)(6)+18(24)-0(ba9){+1(25)-25(ba9.2)(0)
If you start at 120 focus for the pet with RF, you get almost fully WH attacks during BW;
120-50(BA0)(70)+25.3(95.3)-50(BA3)(45.3)+25.3(70.6)-50(BA6)(20.6)+25.3(45.9)-25(ba9)(20.9).
As you can see, only one of the basic attacks during BW isn't a double damage attack* when using RF, and to have that be a double damage attack as well, all you need is an additional 4.1 focus over 9 seconds (which is equivalent to 6% crit or 9% haste). You end the BW phase with 20.9 focus and an additional 5 seconds of focus positive rotation. On the other hand, not using RF with BW results in the same amount of attacks(just barely), the same amount of high powered attacks, but then a dry spell. Considering an opening where we use readiness to get another BW shirtly after the first one, the BW+RF means that the pet still has focus when we start the second BW+RF, where not using RF will lead the pet to be focus starved even before the BW, leading to 4.2 seconds between basic attacks (on average) in the second BW, or a maximum of 3 BA as opposed to 4 with RF.

Using RF early and with BW additioanlly helps build up Frenzy faster, and the faster you have FF up, the faster you get it again - FF is 30% focus regen benefit - almost as much as RF, and can be used - on average - every 53.75 seconds with the 4.2 second interval between basic attacks.. If we use the 3 second interval that we get from starting with RF+BW x 2, it will be up at 37.5 seconds instead. Lasting for 20 seconds thats another 20 seconds of 3.2 second basic attack intervals leading into 40 seconds for the second FF, and thus it should be up about 50% of the time (at 0 haste).

This also tells you why crt is actually better for focus regen than haste is it takes 50% more haste for the same regen benefit (on average) as crit provides through GftT - and more BAs through GftT means more focus regen for the hunter through Invigoration. As well as why haste is so abysmal for BM - we have a 30% haste buff up 50% of the time and a 40% haste buff up an additional 8% of the time (more with readiness)

*- averaged GftT procs

I think the reason the other sites don't have this listes, is becaue they have simply simmed it, rather than mathed it out and analyzed the interactions.

(Sorry if it became a bit disjointed, I went back and forth to add illustration and better explanations, but I lost the overview of whether it made sense as a whole - I hope it does).

I think I followed that!

(Aside: The more I look at this the more complicated all the interactions are. Sheesh!)

Couple quick questions before I look any further:
How many attacks does a Dire Beast get? Is that affected by Haste at all, including RF/FF?

Actually, is the Dire Beast damage affected by current hunter AP? (I've macroed my Orc's Blood Fury into Dire Beast as I forget to use Fury otherwise - want to make sure that's the optimal skill to do that with...)

DB ans Stampede pets update dynamically.
Off the top of my head I don't remember how many attacks the DB gets, but I think its 7 - I'll look into it tomorrow and reply then - right now its way past my bedtime, I'm just procrastinating right now (and its 1 am - well almost)

So I've been mapping out "shot timelines" for some various (Focus Fire) strategies, tracking focus and number of shots and such. Been an interesting exercise!

From what I've put together, you get the same number of shots whether you use FF "when lit" (3 times in 2 minutes) or "after BW ends" (once a minute). 10 KC, 13 Arcane, 17 Cobra, 4 Glaive Toss per minute either way. Note that a big reason for this is because FF costs a GCD - if that weren't true you'd get a full extra Arcane shot off every 2 minutes.

The "FF when lit" cycle is a bit more focus positive (+21 per minute) then just using it after BW (+12 per minute). I'm assuming 50% uptime, hitting it at 0, 40, 80 seconds.

A couple of things I've found while working through this:
- I used to think of each shot individually (looking at current focus, time remaining on KC, etc). That's bad - it's far better to "think" in 6-second blocks and plan the whole block out at once. I'm pretty sure I was delaying KC for 1 sec. or so many many times before and I'm not doing that now, which is nice.

Blocks:
"BW": A 12-second block: KC, 5*AS, KC, 3*AS, CS. One of the AS will be a GT. The last AS won't make it into BW-time with non-zero lag (so it'll cost 20, not 10), but it fits into the cycle with no KC delay.
"CCA": KC, CS, CS, AS.
"CCAA": During FF, you can get KC, CS, CS, AS, AS into one block with no delay on KC.

- You want to use Dire Beast right after the KC after BW ends. If you do that, Dire Beast and Glaive Toss don't ever come off cooldown during the same "block", which is very important. If you replace a Cobra with an instant there (i.e., go KC/CS/DB/GT), you go focus-negative and the whole cycle gets off kilter. (Also, you're not "wasting" a BW-GCD with DB.)

Timing looks basically like:
- BW/KC at time 0.
- Dire Beast at 13 and 43.
- Glaive Toss at 4, 19, 34, and 49.
- Repeat at 60.

Doing this, you get 2 Cobras off every block every single time.

- The last thing is that if you're midway through a block and FF lights up, you want to wait until after the next KC to hit it. If you do that, you get 4 "CCAA" blocks (where the first one is actually FF/CS/CS/AS) instead of just 3 if you hit it midway through (as KC/CS/FF/CS doesn't give enough time for an AS that block). The last Cobra (in the 4th block of FF) barely starts in time - it's probably even better to do KC/AS/FF/CS/CS when FF lights up - that gives you another second of leeway on the back end.

Haven't looked at RF usage yet - that's next on the list!

Related question: Is your current advice to stack RF/FF? (i.e., you RF/BW and FF lights up - are you hitting it or waiting until the RF ends?)

RF with BW regardlesss, and FF on 5 stacks, regardless (rarely overlaps in my experience)

By request:
Priority queue for BM is:
^SrS>KC>[L75>L60>L90]>KS>AS>CoS
The talents may shift around a bit dependant on specific choice, and with 9 combinations of talents from those 3 levels, you will have to sim for yourself whether putting one ahead of the other is a worthwhile dps gain. I am making the assumption of L90 being Glaive Toss and L60 being Dire Beast for most, in which case the above is correct.

Now unlike previously we are actually in a position of being able to approximate a rotation this time around. Namely in a 6 second cycle we have a few permutations of what to do.
At 0 haste they look like this outside of BW+RF.
1) KC, CoS, 3xInstants
2) KC, 2xCoS, 1xInstant
These 2 are the base, looking at focus fire we get the following additions:
3) KC, Focus Fire, 2xCoS, 1xInstant
4) KC, 2xCoS, 2xInstant

All cycles can be completed in any order (apart from KC being either first or last, depending on how you look at it), except cycle number 3, since using a full focus fire speeds up the CoS enough to have 2xCoS and 2xinstants, but only if FF is used before the CoS in the cycle - I suggest that FF be used immediately following KC.
The above cycles are listed at 0 haste. The reason for this is that the breakpoints in haste, where they allow us to "do more" in a 6 second cycle is respectively 33% and 100% haste in the non FF cycles, and 3% and 70% in the FF hasted cycles. There is a benefit of the first ~3% haste which we probably can't shed anyway, as they make the cycle tighter if we don't have the 10% attack speed buff - if we do have the 10% attack speed buff, we just have a bit of room in the rotation - but not enough to cast another shot.

Cool, this looks good to me.

Couple of nitpicks, and a couple unanswered questions...

Make sure you put the bit about haste being COMPLETELY worthless up in the stats section too. (I have 2 different 476s where I have a 483 for the slot but don't use the higher one because it has haste.)

In a "casting FF cycle" - you want it (after KC, before CoS), but for that cycle you can do KC / Instant / FF / CoS / CoS / KC - this gives you a little extra leeway on the "back side" of the Focus Fire (in case GT or DB come off cooldown right then, you're not strictly limited to KC / CoS / CoS / Instant / Instant in the 4th FF cycle). Note that Focus Fire gets you an "extra" shot in 4 cycles - it doesn't last the entire length of the 4th, but long enough to start 2 Cobras at 1.5s in that 4th cycle (barely).

I believe (though I haven't simmed it) that it's best to always have 2 CoS per cycle unless you're nearly capped and going to run a 3*Instant/1*CoS cycle anyway. This may involve delaying DB or GT a few seconds at points, but you need the discipline to do that. (Blocks of 2*instant/1*CoS are going to focus-starve you, plus you're not following the Always Be Casting rule!)

The main question left (to me) is still Rapid Fire usage. I'm taking a completely wild guess at this, but I think the rule should be that you do everything you can to maximize Focus Fire uptime. Note that, for this purpose, Wild Hunt attacks are bad! Each Wild Hunt condenses 2 Claws down to 1, and you lose a chance at a Frenzy stack. It seems better to me to try to not overlap RF and FF - wait for the FF to end before hitting RF (and if both are available at the same time, use FF first and use RF immediately when FF ends).
RF+BW at the start, as that gets the Frenzy counter going fastest.

One other question (though minor) is how to deal with Serpent Sting once you have the 16-second BW. I don't know whether it's better to cast a Cobra sometime during that (probably at the cost of 2 Arcane Shots), or just reapply Serpent after the BW ends. May not be a big thing either way, but More Arcane Shots is Better (due to Cobra Strikes and related feedback loops). I've been using a CoS during the BW, may try some target dummy experiments reapplying afterward though.

One fun thing getting this right: Simcraft shows my char at 64k DPS (no food/flask, only self-buff from Shale Spider), and I ran 5 minutes on the target dummy last night at 70k! (Only 1 stampede, too - simcraft runs 6 minutes and gets 2 stampedes)

Silly question. Does frost trap proc lock and load still and do raiding hunters use it or is it just black arrow?

Taking it from the bottom;
Frost trap and LnL - I believe so, and I believe so.

On SrS with 16 second BW; I would simply pop SrS once inside the BW - currently SrS is 2 focus during BW (a botched reduction that just applies a flat 10 focus redutiion to SrS at all imes when it went from 25 to 15 (and under BW from 12 to 2, rather than from 12 to 7)

WH is not bad for FF uptime - it is not good either, the impact is negligable, and for overall dps WH is better because it packs the damage into a shorter timeframe. RF+FF is great for focus, and great for letting the pet get the most damage out.

The most often used cycle will indeed be the one numberd as 2, but with the idea of getting more 1s in there, as 2xAS > 1xCoS ind amage. All four notations are just "within the cycle you do this", and you can do them in any order. I generally do the instant first if I have GT or DB up or have the focus to do an AS, as that means less chance of overcapping focus (which in this case could be converted to extra damage) - mainly due to Invigoration procs.

I'll make a note of revisiting the "stats" section for haste, but since its an EJ guide (with a reformat for wowhead) I have to think carefully how I write it up.