Survival Hunter DPS

[werries2]

You need decent agility to make SV hunter work, and then it is down to shot rotations.


A question to my fellow SV hunters, did you notice a drop in DPS over the last two weeks? It is as if ES have been nerfed a bit, It used to be almost 60% of my dps but it is now down to 40%... Where it was easy to go over 4k dps a few weeks ago, it is now considerably harder to break that barrier. And 5k can only be broken on fights where there is a damage boost anyway.
We did lost out Enh shaman during this time, but that loss in dps just seems way to huge.

 

[Cynicster]

Er... Blizz did mention that they nerfed ES, was announced. They originally did it as a silent nerf but eventually owned up to it.
Happened what... a month ago was it?

 

[Pornolio]

Yea What cynic said... was done around 3 / 4 weeks back... hot fixed on the servers.

Silent nerf which was admitted later on. Hunter burst in PVP was OP'd they said. Hunters have been on the Blizz dev's nerf list quite a bit lately.

 

[werries2]

Ah that would explain the drop in dps then Been afk a lot the last 3 weeks with the min of raiding. Guess the difference between MM and SV are really small now, I might as well switch. Since we don't have the 10% ap from the shaman anymore may as well get it from trueshot aura.
MM have always been one of the specs I loved playing anyway.

 

[werries2]

Yea What cynic said... was done around 3 / 4 weeks back... hot fixed on the servers.

Silent nerf which was admitted later on. Hunter burst in PVP was OP'd they said. Hunters have been on the Blizz dev's nerf list quite a bit lately.

Giving hunters a PVP nerf is stupid in my opinion, we are already the lowest ranked class in arenas by a great margin. Why nerf us even more

 

[Stickfigure]

You need decent agility to make SV hunter work, and then it is down to shot rotations.


A question to my fellow SV hunters, did you notice a drop in DPS over the last two weeks? It is as if ES have been nerfed a bit, It used to be almost 60% of my dps but it is now down to 40%... Where it was easy to go over 4k dps a few weeks ago, it is now considerably harder to break that barrier. And 5k can only be broken on fights where there is a damage boost anyway.
We did lost out Enh shaman during this time, but that loss in dps just seems way to huge.

Any advice for shot rotations

Atm with bm I go: concussive shot -> steady shot -> serpent sting -> arcane shot -> aimed shot... Find that that order works best for me

 

[zippy]

Be wary of dps numbers that people throw about. It depends on the situation.

For a start, take trash out of it. I get insane dps numbers on trash in Naxx. 10k, 14k. When we go into the room in the spider quarter where the babe with her 6 or 7 elites are, I whisper the tank to pull all the trash. The more the merrier. Its worthing getting killed for

Also, your dps will depend on whether the RL asks you to do some extra little job. For example, that horrid spider boss who randomly webs someone. My main is an affliction warlock, and changing target to dps the web wrap, just messes my dots up.

Also some bosses require a lot of movement. For some dps classes that is a big disadvantage.

A good boss to measure you dps on is Patchwerk. You should see you what your max dps output is on Patchwerk. You dont even to focus your attention on the boss. Just watch your cast bar and do your thing. On fights like this you can get good practice on your cast rotation and learn how lag affects you. I use Quartz which I find helps me a lot in making sure my dots run their max time and they refreshed with min down time.

 

[Granger]

You guys seem to forget the bonus damage you supply for the entire raid with some of the survival spec talents...

 

[werries2]

You guys seem to forget the bonus damage you supply for the entire raid with some of the survival spec talents...

What bonus damage? We give the raid a lil more mana thats it...


I have made the turn to MM hunter last night, since we lost our Enhance shaman and thus a 10% AP buff. The Trueshot aura have boosted the physical dps groups damage up quite nicely. And I still managed to be within the top 3 damage dealers.

 

[werries2]

Any advice for shot rotations

Atm with bm I go: concussive shot -> steady shot -> serpent sting -> arcane shot -> aimed shot... Find that that order works best for me

That a pvp rotation? Why would you ever use concussive shot in pve?

I would start off with Serpent sting > Arcane shot > Steady > Steady > Steady > Arcane
Aimed shot is also nice for an opening, but remember it resets your Auto shot timer, so as BM hunter it is a dps loss if not timed right.

 

[werries2]

Be wary of dps numbers that people throw about. It depends on the situation.

For a start, take trash out of it. I get insane dps numbers on trash in Naxx. 10k, 14k. When we go into the room in the spider quarter where the babe with her 6 or 7 elites are, I whisper the tank to pull all the trash. The more the merrier. Its worthing getting killed for

Also, your dps will depend on whether the RL asks you to do some extra little job. For example, that horrid spider boss who randomly webs someone. My main is an affliction warlock, and changing target to dps the web wrap, just messes my dots up.

Also some bosses require a lot of movement. For some dps classes that is a big disadvantage.

A good boss to measure you dps on is Patchwerk. You should see you what your max dps output is on Patchwerk. You dont even to focus your attention on the boss. Just watch your cast bar and do your thing. On fights like this you can get good practice on your cast rotation and learn how lag affects you. I use Quartz which I find helps me a lot in making sure my dots run their max time and they refreshed with min down time.

Was this not stated a few times in the thread already?

 

[diesel]

Don't try and fool yourself with that statement. Hunters have always had the face roll association. I have been a hunter for quite some time now...
Pre-TBC we were known as AFK-dpsers, and a lot of hunters actually did just that, afk while autoshoot. Admitting that high dps hunters did have some decent aimed shot + multishot + arcane shot rotations. But nothing compared to warlocks during this era.

With TBC, BM hunters were let loose to reign the dps meters with a 1 stroke makro Yea there were some pet management that needed to be done and trinket timing, but even without that BM hunters topped the charts. The difference between a faceroll hunter and a skilled hunter were only a few hundred dps, both were still doing really great though.

The definition of a faceroll class is not that it is easy, but just that it is possible, and that most of your damage is from one or two key strokes. Map the one half of your keyboard to the one ability and the other half to the other ability and do the leeu loop. Hunters and frostmages fitted the faceroll description better than any other class.

With hunters switching to MM and survival now, we have to use 5 and more abilities in a precise order to do decent dps. In my opinion we are now finally a challenging class to play.

Did you actualy raid with a hunter pre-tbc?, Pre-TBC i raided as a MM hunter , TBC i played SV, the topic of this conversation is "Survival hunter DPS"....

 

[werries2]

Did you actualy raid with a hunter pre-tbc?, Pre-TBC i raided as a MM hunter , TBC i played SV, the topic of this conversation is "Survival hunter DPS"....

Yes, and your point is? I answered on a question regarding face roll classes. Don't get your panties in a twist...

I am back to raiding MM spec now though, SV were great but with the ES nerf and our raid group loosing our Enh shaman we needed the 10% AP buff back somehow.

Our raid outfit were asked to help with Ulduar testing, so we will pop onto the PTR tonight. I will give you some feedback regarding the hunter changes, but I have a feeling that SV will not be the top spec anymore.

 

[Pornolio]

Yup... my character has also been copied to the testing realm... just hope its over. Last when I checked, it was 29 days waiting time, so unless you did yours long ago, it might not be there yet

As for pre-tbc / pre Wotlk raiding... I dunno, I have a total different feeling towards what happened with hunters over the years.
I would'nt say we were ever a face rolling class pre TBC, but I only say that because back in the old days, it was harder playing a hunter than it is today.
You could NEVER p0wn the DPS meters, unless you had really sucky people in your raid. Hunter DPS was just not there. (This is MC / BWL / AQ days )
Those were the era's the fire spec mages crushed anything on the meters.
Also way back then, hunters were the raid's main pullers. And this was done without MD's, even pet pulls in AQ40. You were forced to know how to kite mobs, this is no longer needed today. Also things like BWL supression room pulls, omg those were painful. One bad pull, raid wipe, and we are not talking 10 man wipe... 40 man wipe. Nooooo pressure ! hehe.

Personally I feel they made the class easier to play over the years, but they increased the theoretical knowledge required to perform at peak levels. You had to know what shot clipping is, you had to know what macro's worked and which of them did'nt (famous !autoshot comes to mind )

Unfortunately it also resulted in completely clueless people just copying other people's macro's and then p0wning the dps meters with little guidance. They just knew... hammer this macro, and gem / enchant your gear as follow. Thats where the whole facerolling thing came in. How many hunters never updated their macro's when the syntax changed in macro's ?

Nowdays the tanks just charge in and pull, there is no longer a requirement for tricky pulling shots from hunters.

**edit - As for the survival dps thing... yes, I am very concerned how they are changing the trees again. As Werries stated, I also have a feeling the MM build will be superior, unless the black arrow shot is really very good. But then again, its waaaaaay to early to speculate, there will most likely be another 20 changes before uldar goes live.

 

[werries2]

Yes, we were asked to copy our chars over a few weeks ago, I slept though and did it last weekend. Knowing people on the inside helped though, and my char was available to test last night already. But after the whole download I had only half an hour to run around before I got too tired.

Pornolio, I agree hunters were never a face roll class in terms of topping dps. But in all honesty can you name any class that could top charts and play "face roll" ? My argument is that a face roll class is where it is at all possible to to do it, and in that regard hunters can do it. Pre tbc you could do damage with just activating autoshoot. Not great dps but it was possible?

 

[Pornolio]

Ahhh but thats where you are mistaken Werries

The whole facerolling joke came in when people starting making fun of classes where they can top dps meters while not even putting any effort in.

Pre-TBC we could just autoshot and go make coffee (ok not really that bad, but you get the idea). We could do damage, but it would suck, and honestly our dps did suck waaay back then. So the margin between sucky dps and REALLY sucky dps was not big in terms of effort required.

You associate facerolling dps with being able to do damage while not even being on your pc, where the whole facerolling joke started actually back in the days when Warlocks had those insane buffs, and he could walk into BG's and pretty much roll his face on the keyboard and kill any opponent, or thats how this whole facerolling joke started.
I recall this other funny site where they joke about how you need a 40 man raid force to kill a lock with all the strategic positioning points. Hehehe very good site, if you havent seen it, just drop me a PM and I will send you the site URL... definately a laugh.

Maybe it was different on Shadowsong back then, but on Bloodhoof thats how it was for me. The whole facerolling joke went over to hunters, when we had hunters bashing macro's and topped dps meters, but that was waaaay into TBC at that time.

 

[Blatman]

In my experience hunters have been labeled the 'noob' and 'farm bot' class way more than the facerolling class.

Haven't seen it in Wotlk not that I have looked but there was always some hunter named jhwhegf faming elements in Nagrand in TBC.

 

[Pornolio]

Hehehe very very true Blatman...

Its because hunters made excellent farm bots... they could grind forever with literally no downtime. Nowdays with the updated Warden, MMO-Glider bots have been nailed very hard. You dont see to many bots nowdays.

 

[diesel]

Yes, and your point is? I answered on a question regarding face roll classes. Don't get your panties in a twist...

I am back to raiding MM spec now though, SV were great but with the ES nerf and our raid group loosing our Enh shaman we needed the 10% AP buff back somehow.

Our raid outfit were asked to help with Ulduar testing, so we will pop onto the PTR tonight. I will give you some feedback regarding the hunter changes, but I have a feeling that SV will not be the top spec anymore.

My point is all my years raiding with a hunter i have never felt that doing good dps was as easy as rolling my face across the keyboard, its quite clear you have a major problem with BM hunters late TBC and to be fair its understandable but to put all hunters in the same category and label them facerollers is foolish.

 

[Craz0]

ive always hated those guys that call hunters one button noobs now i use to raid an MM spec hunter (so i cant really speak for the others but u gotta have the perfect rotation in ure shots and u gotta watch the cooldown very closly for ure chimera because if u miss it once and not fire it wile ure sting is still active on te target u can lose quite abit of dps its a class u gotta have a lot of concentrtion with if u wanna go into thhe high dps spots