Tag Archives: Marksmanship

Hunter News

Survival and Beast Mastery hotfix buffs compared

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Last night, after a month of patch 6.2, Blizzard finally threw some table scraps at poor old Survival hunters. Of course we told them how broken it was time and time again on the PTR, but I guess these buffs are better late than never. Beast Mastery also received a smaller buff, which is more beneficial to it in older T17 gear than it is in newer T18 gear (boo).

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

  • Beast Mastery
    • Bestial Wrath now lasts 15 seconds (up from 10 seconds).
  • Survival
    • Black Arrow, Explosive Shot, and Serpent Sting damage increased by 25%.

I’ve seen a lot of hunters ask if this means Survival and Beast Mastery are “viable” again.

Here’s the short answer: Beast Mastery has always been “viable,” it’s just not been ideal for Hellfire Citadel because of fight mechanics. The fights simply favor Marksmanship. Survival, on the other hand, was not viable. These buffs don’t really change that, but they do make it “less wrong” to play at a non-progression level.

Simulation Craft recently put out an update with the hotfixes so I ran some numbers. Please don’t use these numbers as the sole basis for choosing what to play in HFC. I’m simply using them to illustrate the change these hotfixes have.

Update: The T17 4-piece bonus pet still only lasts 10 seconds even though Bestial Wrath is lasting 15. This will reduce BM’s buff in old T17 gear slightly.

Continue reading Survival and Beast Mastery hotfix buffs compared →

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Hunter Guides, Hunter News, Opinion

Patch 6.1: Hunter specs compared [Updated]

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I originally did these simulations for my own amusement, but I thought I’d share them with you guys. Again, like most sims I post on this site they are done with whatever gear I’m wearing at the time (ilvl 672). Whenever you see “official” comparisons between specs on the actual Simulation Craft page, or on some other sites and guides, these are almost always done with best-in-slot gear. That’s all fine and dandy, but I don’t have anywhere close to BiS so I don’t really care about those sims. I’d rather see how things look in my own gear. Keep this in mind as you read this, and always remember your results will be slightly different.

The first thing I did was compare the DPS differences between live servers and the 6.1 PTR. I went through all the talent permutations and found the highest simulated talents and used those, so each spec was represented as best as possible. I also swapped gems and enchants for each spec (mastery for BM, crit for MM, and multistrike for SV).

Simulated DPS never tells you the whole story, but I think it’s a good tool for seeing what the impact is from buffs or nerfs. Instead of using screenshots from Simulation Craft, I’m testing out some fancy HTML5 charts. Mousing over (or tapping) each bar should give the actual DPS numbers.

New Post: More information about Beast Mastery in 6.1.

Changelog:

Update Feb 19: Numbers updated again to reflect changes in simulation craft. The pet summoned by BM T17 4-piece does more damage. Also, survival pets inherit multistrike damage bonuses. Both of these changes are now reflected.

Update Feb 15: These numbers are now updated with the latest MM and BM buffs from the patch notes (from Feb 13): Focus Fire now grants 8% attack power per stack, Chimaera Shot damage increased by 30.4%, and Sniper Training effectiveness increased by 25%.

Continue reading Patch 6.1: Hunter specs compared [Updated] →

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Hunter News

Patch 6.1: Stampede makes a come back

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If you’ve been following the patch 6.1 news, I’m sure you saw the change to Stampede: It now lasts 40 seconds, up from 20 seconds. A Murder of Crows was so good that they needed to literally double it to make it competitive. From my initial testing, it seems they were successful.

However, there was a possibly unintended side effect because of an interesting relationship between Stampede and Lone Wolf. Whenever you have your standard pet out and use Stampede, it calls the remaining 4 pets. However, when you’re using Lone Wolf it calls out all 5 pets. One would think it should only be calling out 4 pets so that the talent has the same value regardless of your chosen level 100 talent, but this is not the case for marksmanship and survival. I’d like to think this is a bug or an oversight, but who knows for sure? It’s been around for a while, so maybe it is intended. I don’t understand why. Also see the bottom of this post for an important note on another Lone Wolf/Stampede bug.

Anyway, let’s take a look at the Stampede buff’s effect on all 3 specs.

Continue reading Patch 6.1: Stampede makes a come back →

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Hunter Guides, Hunter News, Opinion

Hunter stats, or why multistrike is your new best friend [Updated]

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Jan 14: This article has received some updates due to hotfixes. Updates are in red.

Multistrike is good. Really good. You should probably enchant all of your gear and gem with nothing but multistrike for the time being. The one exception would be if you exclusively play Marksmanship. In that case, I’d probably still stick with crit — at least until your buffed crit is above 40%. After 40% (43% technically) its value starts to diminish because the extra crit is wasted during Careful Aim.

Anyway, back to multistrike. Even if one of your specs is MM, I’d still enchant with multistrike if you equally play another spec along with it because multistrike is no slouch for MM either.  For Beast Mastery, it’s not light years above the other stats. However, it’s usually at the top, or at least tied for the top (will vary slightly based on your gear). Update 1/14: With the recent hotfix to the value of BM Mastery, the Mastery stat is now the top stat for BM. However, Multistrike is still good and not too far behind. As someone who plays both BM and SV, I won’t be switching my enchants away from Multistrike at this time. Multistrike’s true value is unleashed with Survival. With my gear currently, 1 point of multistrike has nearly the same value as 3 points of haste. Wait… what?

Continue reading Hunter stats, or why multistrike is your new best friend [Updated] →

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Hunting Party Podcast

Hunting Party Podcast Episode 207: Spec Parity

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On this episode, Darkbrew, Delirum, and Solar discuss the latest round of buffs and nerfs to hunters. Just how close are the 3 specs now?

There’s also some talk about raiding and hunter soloing in this final show of 2014. I had to miss this one but I should be back for the next.

The show is broadcast live on Twitch TV every second Sunday at 10:00 am ET (14:00 GMT). In addition to the live show, you can find it at:

Continue reading Hunting Party Podcast Episode 207: Spec Parity →

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Hunter News, Opinion

All 3 hunter specs now close in DPS, play what you want

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Updated: These simulations and some of this information is now outdated after we’ve received more hotfixes in the weeks since this was posted. The overall point of the article still stands, but you should know the following:

  • Survival has the highest single target DPS potential (especially with Focusing Shot, but also Lone Wolf in many cases). Its AoE is also very strong.
  • Marksmanship remains strong single target, but has weak AoE.
  • Beast Mastery has the weakest single target (just a smidge below MM), but it’s AoE is very good.
  • Specs are within 5-10% of each other for single target DPS (varies depending on your gear).
  • Updated simulations for patch 6.1

Original post follows.

A post I made a little over a week ago about spec inequality and bad attitudes towards players who choose not to play the “best” spec ended up generating a lot of discussion in the community. At the time, marksmanship was simply doing more single target damage. I argued it wasn’t such a gap that you should feel guilty for playing something else, but some people have a hard time just saying “no” to extra damage.

Well, we don’t have to worry about this stuff anymore. The specs are now relatively balanced after a couple of rounds of hotfixes. Here is the gist of what was changed:

  • Aimed Shot and Kill Shot damage was nerfed by 10%
  • Serpent Sting damage was buffed by 60%
  • Focus Fire now grants 25% bonus attack power when used at 5 stacks (up from 10%) via the Draenor perk

These changes were enough to get the specs so close together that I feel comfortable in saying you can play anything you want, even in a competitive/progression group. Let’s take a look at each spec’s strengths.

Continue reading All 3 hunter specs now close in DPS, play what you want →

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Opinion

Playing BM: It’s a matter of principle now

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I’ve noticed a disturbing trend as of late. Some hunters are getting kicked from dungeon and raid groups simply because they don’t conform to a very specific set of criteria: Marksmanship with the Lone Wolf talent.  At first I thought it was pretty anecdotal (and it probably still is), but I keep hearing about it. Guildies complained about getting kicked before the dungeon even starts. I’ve seen people mention it in trade chat, only to get belittled by everyone for not playing MM/Lone Wolf. I also saw mention of it in some comments on this blog.

I personally had one experience in a random heroic, but it did not result in a kick. I don’t remember the specific wording, but the gist of it was “lol why are you using BM? Play a real spec, we don’t want to carry you.” Then I crushed them on DPS for the rest of the dungeon and they shut their mouth. If there was anyone else in the group who shared this delightful individual’s mindset, maybe I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to embarrass this fool.

The last straw came when I received two separate emails from readers about this issue. One of them has been repeatedly kicked from dungeon groups, and even criticized by his own guild mates for not conforming to what has become known as the “best” hunter spec/talent combo. The other person was actually kicked from Highmaul groups for playing BM. Both of them were asking for advice. They asked if BM and SV were really that bad? Should they just give up and play Marksmanship with Lone Wolf?

Continue reading Playing BM: It’s a matter of principle now →

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Hunter News, Off Topic, Opinion

Ready for Highmaul

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I’ve been keeping busy enough in game that I almost forgot that World of Warcraft has this thing called raiding. Also, is it just me or does it seem a lot longer than 2.5 weeks since launch? Feels like at least a month for me. At any rate, I am ready to jump into normal mode Highmaul, hopefully tonight if enough guildies are ready for it. I’m “only” ilvl 636, but that is being brought down quite a bit by the fact that I still have my legendary cloak equipped and a 615 trinket. I also have not been running challenge modes, so the rest of my gear is either crafted or 630 stuff.

I do actually have some nice pieces. Most notably is my gun, Shrediron’s Shredder of the Savage. I’ll be upgrading that to stage 3 (ilvl 660) today which is going to be a huge weight off my shoulders. Why? Because traditionally I have terrible luck with ranged weapon drops. I know everyone says this, but I truly mean it. I spent the entirety of Throne of Thunder with a 516 heroic scenario weapon. I killed Lei Shen with a heroic scenario weapon. I went into Siege of Orgrimmar with a heroic scenario weapon. My raid never sees ranged weapon drops. It never saw one in Siege until a year after the fact, and the only reason I got one before that was because of bonus rolls.

So no, crafting this gun was not a waste of money. It lets me enjoy myself without worrying when I’m going to finally get a half decent weapon. I achieved this by having 3 toons cranking out Gearspring Parts. My main crafted the gun and the first upgrade, and an alt is crafting the second upgrade. The third alt had been churning out Didi’s Delicate Assemblies so I could reroll the gun to “of the Savage” (multistrike+crit). Now that third alt will be relegated to making my Wormhole Centrifuge, Blingtron 5000, and other fun engineering stuff.

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Hunter Guides

Managing Sniper Training with WeakAuras

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It’s unfortunate that Sniper Training doesn’t have some sort of built-in graphic or spell alert. Out of every hunter proc or passive, Sniper Training probably needs something like that the most. If it were up to me, I’d have it display something like a circular aura around the player’s feet that changed color based on its status (active, recharging, or expiring). Alas, we have nothing besides the tiny buff icon up in your list of buffs.

I’ve developed a bad habit of jumping and strafing as I DPS.  My Sniper Training uptime would be atrocious without some sort of addon to help me out.  Good uptime will be key to maximizing DPS. Perhaps one day I’ll get better at it and won’t need such prominent WeakAuras, but it is not this day.

There are several addons that can help you manage Sniper Training, the 3 most popular are probably WeakAuras 2, NeedToKnow, and TellMeWhen. I’m a fan of WeakAuras and use it for all my other stuff, so that’s what I’m going to focus on here.

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Hunter News

[Hunter Buffs] They should have sent a poet…

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I present to you, the great hunter buffing of 2014:

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

General

  • Arcane Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Cobra Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Explosive Trap’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Kill Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Multi-Shot’s damage has been increased by 30%.
  • Steady Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.

Marksmanship

  • Aimed Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Chimaera Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.

Survival

  • Black Arrow’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Explosive Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Serpent Sting’s damage has been increased by 15%.

Hunter Pets

  • Hunter Pets now inherit 60% of the Hunter’s Attack Power (up from 33%).

Talents

  • A Murder of Crows’ damage has been increased by 80%.
  • Barrage’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Dire Beast’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Exotic Munitions’ damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Focusing Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Glaive Toss’ damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Powershot’s damage has been increased by 15%.

Can I get a ‘hell yeah’? It’s also worth noting the overpowered specs from other classes also received nerfs. This will hopefully bring everyone closer together.

The bad news? Requires realm restarts to take effect. Can we get someone to trip on the power cord or something? Please? Or do we really have to wait until Tuesday? 😛

Continue reading [Hunter Buffs] They should have sent a poet… →

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