M+ build

[Dracodraco]

All you're talking about now is SW but your initial post stated you go with SW and Barrage. The former is a small single target DPS loss, The latter is a rather big one. Absolutely nobody in the top 50 or so uses Barrage on Nythendra/Ursoc/Guarm post patch. Previously, it was close enough to AMoC for single target that you'd have some people with it even in the top 50 for single target fights. Now that's not the case at all.


By the way, even your logs show this. You switched to AMoC for many fights. You cannot just swap to AMoC for bosses in M+ when you're specced Barrage as you stated previously.

First off, I never once stated that I took both SW and Barrage in raids. I stated that I didn't switch to barrage for some fights because I didn't want to waste money on tomes to pad. But lets get into it;

AMOC will be used at best once per boss fight in dungeons - for a total of around 2M damage during it's duration (unless you're doing tyrannical 10's, in which case it's twice). That's a 33K dps loss, which is fair - we wouldn't want to use barrage on single target anymore, so lets say we lose that 33K.
This is however largely irrelevant because not using Barrage means we're doing something else instead of the barrage; Firing an extra aimed shot. Barrage has a longer channel time (3 sec reduced by haste versus 2 sec) and a higher focus cost (60 vs 50) than Aimed shot. It is very realistic that every single time you could use Barrage in a dungeon boss fight, you'd simply substitute it with another Aimed shot, because Movement is a non-issue on every single fight I can think of (or if it isn't, the fight has multiple targets, which makes Barrage worth using).

Now, if you look at my ursoc fights between the weeks, barrage and aimed shot are doing almost identical damage per cast - with a slight edge to barrage, because the barrage figures are with 5% less damage from paragon traits. That being said, Aimed shot is quicker and costs less focus, meaning that the general DPET/DPF is largely equal. In numbers:

Average Barrage (single target): 1.04M*1.05=1.092M damage.
Average Aimed shot (after 5% damage): 1.01M damage.

DPF: 1092K/60 = 18.2K.
DPF: 1010K/50 = 20.2K.

DPE: 1092K/3 = 364K.
DPE: 1010K/2 = 505K.

In the end, a post-patch aimed shot would be efficient to fire off over a barrage *even without the nerf*. Barrage would be relegated to only being used when no vuln is up, or you absolutely HAVE to move.
At this point I'm fairly convinced that THIS is why I'm not seeing any significant change in my dungeon singletarget damage, because you're entirely right; AMoC instead of barrage is something to consider right now. Aimed being better to press than pre-nerf barrage would entirely null this issue though. That being said, obviously picking AMoC, which has a much, MUCH higher DPET *and* DPF yield is going to increase single target substantially (to use your own word).

Oh, and by the way, EN is practically irrelevant at this point and your DPS will to a large degree depend on how quickly the other players in your raid kill adds. Just as an example, I took a look at your logs and the main reason you have more dragons DPS this time is that you had fewer players DPSing the shades, fewer players DPSing the dread horrors and more dread horrors in general (45 instead of 37 to be precise). Even though you had 884 average for your best log pre-7.1.5 (compared to your 892 average now), you had significantly more DPS on the dragons themselves. Edit: And you were still missing 16 artifact traits compared to now back then (35 vs. 51) which is a loss of 8% total damage.

That's why personal anecdotes aren't a good measure to go by.

Bullshit is EN practically irrelevant. Farm content is the only thing to go by right now; By the same logic, TOV is irrelevant because it's outgeared/nerfed, and NH will be irrelevant because we're on progress so "players aren't playing optimally, they're playing for kills!". At which point does logs become relevant if not in deep farm when you can expect tons of people to have very similiar gear?

As for artifact traits, I will concede that I likely didn't have many at the start of december, so lets take a much better fight to compare - Ursoc, where I had my peak on december 28 when I know that I had 41 traits, and this week where I had 51. That's 5% dps difference. Lets throw up some numbers:

496K*1.05=520.8k - 528.4K = 7.6K more DPS after accounting for traits. Keep in mind that while my item level is significantly higher, that's due to changing a ring from a 865 to a 880, and an arans from a 860 to a 885 BTI after the nerf to Arans/buff to jewellery level; My relative power level in terms of gear should remain relatively unchanged, but even if it isn't, 7.6K gives us a a buffer that should account for higher gear level. This is obviously with AMoC vs Barrage, though - but comparing the damage between my logs, a barrage on singletarget did about 1M a cast.

Edit:
More on topic, SW and Trick Shot both seem fine now. The former is slightly weaker for single target but allows spread cleave instead of stacked AoE only. Volley, however, comes with a fairly steep single target DPS loss now so taking it for boosting will generally still be fine but you might want to look into the other options for pushing and boosting tyrannical +10-12 keys.

In the end I don't think we're arguing way different points; It's largely semantics. Point is that Sidewinders should do comparable or very slightly different damage now than compared to pre patch (be it slightly up or down; you think down, I think up), while Trick shot sacrifises AOE capabilities through sidewinders in favor of slightly more single target. Either way, I stand by what I've stated: Your single target in dungeons using Sidewinders should remain at the same level, unchanged, compared to pre patch. We haven't lost anything.

We still do absolute shit damage, though.

Not sure why you'd go anything but BM for M+ at this point given it got significant buffs to its AOE and is in a better position to make use of hunter utility.

BM has gaps in the rotation where you can use things like Binding Shot, Traps, Interrupts etc with no loss of DPS. It also brings battle res and pet taunt. It only lacked slightly behind MM pre-patch, then got significant buffs to Blink Strikes, Volley and Multi-shot.

having 7.5% more damage in MM due to 51 vs 35 traits, MM specific legendaries and lower item level relics is a personal reason, for one. No matter how significant BM's buffs were, it's not outweighting all those things. It was far more important to gear up healers and tanks than a second DPS spec that seemed largely irrelevant for a pure DPS, which means relics are generally, for most people, going to be a tier below their main wep. Likewise, having zero BM specific legendaries but bursting shot bracers+marked shot ring for MM is also fairly huge.

[Deleted]

if you own the legendary belt then MM in m+ is awesome (volley / trickshot /explo) I can outdeal most classes without much effort.

In this week (teeming/skittish) I usually pull 700-900k dps in total. Feel better than before.

[Angrox]

I've been enjoying 1/1/1/3/1/3/2. piercing shot builds great, focus on marked shot procs during TS and make sure u use PS during vuln window.

[GT4]

First off, I never once stated that I took both SW and Barrage in raids. I stated that I didn't switch to barrage for some fights because I didn't want to waste money on tomes to pad. But lets get into it;

AMOC will be used at best once per boss fight in dungeons - for a total of around 2M damage during it's duration (unless you're doing tyrannical 10's, in which case it's twice). That's a 33K dps loss, which is fair - we wouldn't want to use barrage on single target anymore, so lets say we lose that 33K.
This is however largely irrelevant because not using Barrage means we're doing something else instead of the barrage; Firing an extra aimed shot. Barrage has a longer channel time (3 sec reduced by haste versus 2 sec) and a higher focus cost (60 vs 50) than Aimed shot. It is very realistic that every single time you could use Barrage in a dungeon boss fight, you'd simply substitute it with another Aimed shot, because Movement is a non-issue on every single fight I can think of (or if it isn't, the fight has multiple targets, which makes Barrage worth using).

Now, if you look at my ursoc fights between the weeks, barrage and aimed shot are doing almost identical damage per cast - with a slight edge to barrage, because the barrage figures are with 5% less damage from paragon traits. That being said, Aimed shot is quicker and costs less focus, meaning that the general DPET/DPF is largely equal. In numbers:

Average Barrage (single target): 1.04M*1.05=1.092M damage.
Average Aimed shot (after 5% damage): 1.01M damage.

DPF: 1092K/60 = 18.2K.
DPF: 1010K/50 = 20.2K.

DPE: 1092K/3 = 364K.
DPE: 1010K/2 = 505K.

In the end, a post-patch aimed shot would be efficient to fire off over a barrage *even without the nerf*. Barrage would be relegated to only being used when no vuln is up, or you absolutely HAVE to move.
At this point I'm fairly convinced that THIS is why I'm not seeing any significant change in my dungeon singletarget damage, because you're entirely right; AMoC instead of barrage is something to consider right now. Aimed being better to press than pre-nerf barrage would entirely null this issue though. That being said, obviously picking AMoC, which has a much, MUCH higher DPET *and* DPF yield is going to increase single target substantially (to use your own word).

The problem is that DPS for single target is basically unchanged if you take AMoC if you're going with SW. Taking e.g. the last 7.1 and the latest 7.1.5 Simc versions and mythic default profiles, Barrage was a 0.5% single target DPS loss back then whereas now it's a 5.5% loss. That means you will directly see that 5% loss in your single target compared to pre-patch as well when going with Barrage for single target now.

By the way, this topic is about M+. I merely added that the same change that applies to M+ also applies to all fights that have single target and spread cleave as well as extra information. I don't know why you posted your raid logs to begin with when all they do is confirm what I stated.

Bullshit is EN practically irrelevant. Farm content is the only thing to go by right now; By the same logic, TOV is irrelevant because it's outgeared/nerfed, and NH will be irrelevant because we're on progress so "players aren't playing optimally, they're playing for kills!". At which point does logs become relevant if not in deep farm when you can expect tons of people to have very similiar gear?

As for artifact traits, I will concede that I likely didn't have many at the start of december, so lets take a much better fight to compare - Ursoc, where I had my peak on december 28 when I know that I had 41 traits, and this week where I had 51. That's 5% dps difference. Lets throw up some numbers:

496K*1.05=520.8k - 528.4K = 7.6K more DPS after accounting for traits. Keep in mind that while my item level is significantly higher, that's due to changing a ring from a 865 to a 880, and an arans from a 860 to a 885 BTI after the nerf to Arans/buff to jewellery level; My relative power level in terms of gear should remain relatively unchanged, but even if it isn't, 7.6K gives us a a buffer that should account for higher gear level. This is obviously with AMoC vs Barrage, though - but comparing the damage between my logs, a barrage on singletarget did about 1M a cast.

Most EN fights at this point are purely about padding and have a distorted fight duration that isn't going to be representative during progress (when your damage actually matters). As for the rest, your single target DPS with AMoC is irrelevant to this topic. You suggested not taking AMoC for M+ (which is a valid choice). M+ is the topic here. If anything, you'd have to look at your single target DPS for fights where you took Barrage if you want to make a point.

In the end I don't think we're arguing way different points; It's largely semantics. Point is that Sidewinders should do comparable or very slightly different damage now than compared to pre patch (be it slightly up or down; you think down, I think up), while Trick shot sacrifises AOE capabilities through sidewinders in favor of slightly more single target. Either way, I stand by what I've stated: Your single target in dungeons using Sidewinders should remain at the same level, unchanged, compared to pre patch. We haven't lost anything.

We still do absolute shit damage, though.

The issue (if you may call it so) is that barrage is now a very significant single target DPS loss that it wasn't pre-patch. Pre-patch single target DPS was balanced around having extremely good spread cleave with the same spec. Now single target DPS is in the same position (bottom of the pack) but you actually have to spec into the spread cleave and lose even more single target DPS by doing so. This is very noticeable on e.g. Helya where the only hunter pulling decent numbers post-patch has basically all of that come from decaying minions. His Helya DPS is literally as high as their tank's.

In the end, Blizzard will either need to bring up Barrage for single target again (which they won't do because it brings back the old talent imbalance and it might not even be enough between other range DPS getting buffs) or they need to buff overall DPS (which they will do).

[Dracodraco]

The problem is that DPS for single target is basically unchanged if you take AMoC if you're going with SW. Taking e.g. the last 7.1 and the latest 7.1.5 Simc versions and mythic default profiles, Barrage was a 0.5% single target DPS loss back then whereas now it's a 5.5% loss. That means you will directly see that 5% loss in your single target compared to pre-patch as well when going with Barrage for single target now.

By the way, this topic is about M+. I merely added that the same change that applies to M+ also applies to all fights that have single target and spread cleave as well as extra information. I don't know why you posted your raid logs to begin with when all they do is confirm what I stated.

I know full well it's about M+, but as I wanted damage numbers from various pre and post patch shots, and I don't have a habbit of logging all my M+ dungeon runs, I sort of had to use what I had - raid logs . It doesn't change the message.
This being said - using barrage *at all* is a dps loss on single target right now. I don't have simC available at work, but I'm curious - as you seem to have the sims at handy, have you tried comparing taking barrage pre-patch on single target, to not taking barrage at all now (eg, no talent), and which numbers are you getting? As obviously, you'd never use barrage post-patch on single target. Or is that a 5.5% loss compared to taking AMoC? In essence; If you pick the barrage talent, is the APL still trying to execute barrage on a single target, or does it suppress all casts (acting as if no talent is picked). I know you wrote that picking AMoC over barrage results in the 5.5% increase, but I'm very curious if that's because it's that much stronger, or because Barrage is still being cast when it shouldn't be.

Most EN fights at this point are purely about padding and have a distorted fight duration that isn't going to be representative during progress (when your damage actually matters). As for the rest, your single target DPS with AMoC is irrelevant to this topic. You suggested not taking AMoC for M+ (which is a valid choice). M+ is the topic here. If anything, you'd have to look at your single target DPS for fights where you took Barrage if you want to make a point.

And that exact reasoning is fucking bullshit. If anything, progress fights are going to involve even more cheesing than right now - remember how we actually had to do AOE damage to ilgynoths blobs in 865 gear compared to now, where breathing on them would kill them? Or how most hunters tended to save their second trueshot for wisp waves to blow them up because that was a huge deal in the fight, getting rid of them ASAP? Progress is all *about* figuring out the optimal way to squeeze everything out of your class and abuse the heck out of it to get ahead.

As for comparing my singletarget with barrage, that's fair, but ultimately useless, because I didn't pick barrage on any single target fights so I can't - I can only argue math and own observations, and my own observations are that I don't see any significant shift in singletarget damage in M+. If this is because of the general single target buffs outweighting it, the item level scaling (I have an extremely high ilvl, so I will have gotten more stats than most), or something else entirely I can't say, but I will repeat and stand firm: Our singletarget damage in dungeons really do not suffer with sidewinders/barrage.

The issue (if you may call it so) is that barrage is now a very significant single target DPS loss that it wasn't pre-patch. Pre-patch single target DPS was balanced around having extremely good spread cleave with the same spec. Now single target DPS is in the same position (bottom of the pack) but you actually have to spec into the spread cleave and lose even more single target DPS by doing so. This is very noticeable on e.g. Helya where the only hunter pulling decent numbers post-patch has basically all of that come from decaying minions. His Helya DPS is literally as high as their tank's.

In the end, Blizzard will either need to bring up Barrage for single target again (which they won't do because it brings back the old talent imbalance and it might not even be enough between other range DPS getting buffs) or they need to buff overall DPS (which they will do).

That's obviously a trade-off, though. You'll notice that Lextalionz https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done killed the boss while it was still bugged; this ment in P3, good add killers had to focus adds rather than the boss (the boomkins are abnormally low as well), and his damage was hugely inflated because of this add-damage. Take #2, Darahion - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&target=53 and you can see that he is, in fact, entirely competitive with the rest of the raid on boss damage - apart from the rogue, of course.

Notice that they're both using sidewinders and barrage, though - but you see the exact same pattern for Devai and Pussirotta (two of the other top 10 hunters). They both killed it while bugged, and did abysmal boss damage with the sidewinders/barrage builds, but absolutely huge add damage, BECAUSE ADDS WERE BUGGED. Other hunters killing it post-fix are doing a lot more boss damage (but obviously, they're still trending towards the bottom).

I do think that Blizzard could easily get away with giving us back everything they took, and we'd be in a somewhat balanced state;
But either way, time will tell what they do. Barrage becomming a single target increase again is however, as you say, very unrealistic unless they buff Crows to be even better.

[GT4]

I know full well it's about M+, but as I wanted damage numbers from various pre and post patch shots, and I don't have a habbit of logging all my M+ dungeon runs, I sort of had to use what I had - raid logs . It doesn't change the message.
This being said - using barrage *at all* is a dps loss on single target right now. I don't have simC available at work, but I'm curious - as you seem to have the sims at handy, have you tried comparing taking barrage pre-patch on single target, to not taking barrage at all now (eg, no talent), and which numbers are you getting? As obviously, you'd never use barrage post-patch on single target. Or is that a 5.5% loss compared to taking AMoC?

It's the DPS loss from not taking AMoC. It doesn't actually use Barrage.

And that exact reasoning is fucking bullshit. If anything, progress fights are going to involve even more cheesing than right now - remember how we actually had to do AOE damage to ilgynoths blobs in 865 gear compared to now, where breathing on them would kill them? Or how most hunters tended to save their second trueshot for wisp waves to blow them up because that was a huge deal in the fight, getting rid of them ASAP? Progress is all *about* figuring out the optimal way to squeeze everything out of your class and abuse the heck out of it to get ahead.

As for comparing my singletarget with barrage, that's fair, but ultimately useless, because I didn't pick barrage on any single target fights so I can't - I can only argue math and own observations, and my own observations are that I don't see any significant shift in singletarget damage in M+. If this is because of the general single target buffs outweighting it, the item level scaling (I have an extremely high ilvl, so I will have gotten more stats than most), or something else entirely I can't say, but I will repeat and stand firm: Our singletarget damage in dungeons really do not suffer with sidewinders/barrage.

There's a difference between maximizing damage and padding. Once padding comes into play, you'll always have disproportionately much sustained AoE/cleave compared to progress. E.g. for Il'gynoth even during progress you couldn't perma AoE the bloods. Now you can tell everybody but one player not to use any AoE/cleave and have that player AoE/multiDoT permanently. For dragons, the same is true for shades. In addition to that, many guilds don't even bother soaking plants any more so they can AoE the adds permanently. For Cenarius, most of the top logs involve a lot of damage on drakes that not only aren't supposed to die, they actually aren't allowed to go low HP during progress or they start AoEing. For Xavius, most of the P3 tentacle damage is basically useless when it comes to killing the boss.

That's obviously a trade-off, though. You'll notice that Lextalionz https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done killed the boss while it was still bugged; this ment in P3, good add killers had to focus adds rather than the boss (the boomkins are abnormally low as well), and his damage was hugely inflated because of this add-damage. Take #2, Darahion - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&target=53 and you can see that he is, in fact, entirely competitive with the rest of the raid on boss damage - apart from the rogue, of course.

You realize the second hunter is 150k DPS below the #1 non-hunter and his whole raid was doing terrible DPS? He's at 99% for his class whereas the second best DPS in the raid is at 59%. Are you telling me the single target DPS is competitive when a 99% hunter competes with and even loses against e.g. a 13% demon hunter? They literally took longer than our first kill post-nerf, that's how bad their DPS is.

Notice that they're both using sidewinders and barrage, though - but you see the exact same pattern for Devai and Pussirotta (two of the other top 10 hunters). They both killed it while bugged, and did abysmal boss damage with the sidewinders/barrage builds, but absolutely huge add damage, BECAUSE ADDS WERE BUGGED. Other hunters killing it post-fix are doing a lot more boss damage (but obviously, they're still trending towards the bottom).

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...c=Marksmanship
That's the boss DPS with the highest barrage/SW hunter at 290k. Other classes are getting upwards to 488k. That's what you're calling competitive?

I do think that Blizzard could easily get away with giving us back everything they took, and we'd be in a somewhat balanced state;
But either way, time will tell what they do. Barrage becomming a single target increase again is however, as you say, very unrealistic unless they buff Crows to be even better.

They'll just apply some random damage buffs. Probably either a fairly big buff to aimed shot or decent buffs to everything.

[Deleted]

Did anybody tested What better is. Piercing Shot or Trick Shot? Piercing Shot for lower <7 M+ or Trick Shot all day?

[Dracodraco]

It's the DPS loss from not taking AMoC. It doesn't actually use Barrage.



There's a difference between maximizing damage and padding. Once padding comes into play, you'll always have disproportionately much sustained AoE/cleave compared to progress. E.g. for Il'gynoth even during progress you couldn't perma AoE the bloods. Now you can tell everybody but one player not to use any AoE/cleave and have that player AoE/multiDoT permanently. For dragons, the same is true for shades. In addition to that, many guilds don't even bother soaking plants any more so they can AoE the adds permanently. For Cenarius, most of the top logs involve a lot of damage on drakes that not only aren't supposed to die, they actually aren't allowed to go low HP during progress or they start AoEing. For Xavius, most of the P3 tentacle damage is basically useless when it comes to killing the boss.

Dunno, first week we had 2x hunters on them pretty much permanently marked shotting (didn't get a zerg-kill, second week we had significantly more gear and I tapered off while our other hunter still went full out), a long with general AOE. As for everything else, it's not really relevant to hunters apart from Dragons, as hunters can't really cheese anything on any boss that doesn't allow for mass AOE (those two being pretty much only dragons and ilgy - elerethe with a bad raid).

You realize the second hunter is 150k DPS below the #1 non-hunter and his whole raid was doing terrible DPS? He's at 99% for his class whereas the second best DPS in the raid is at 59%. Are you telling me the single target DPS is competitive when a 99% hunter competes with and even loses against e.g. a 13% demon hunter? They literally took longer than our first kill post-nerf, that's how bad their DPS is.



https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...c=Marksmanship
That's the boss DPS with the highest barrage/SW hunter at 290k. Other classes are getting upwards to 488k. That's what you're calling competitive?

I never said hunters were competitive with other classes. I said he was competitive with their raid, and that his boss damage was good in comparison to his raid, because he didn't have to focus on the adds - you mentioned helya and the #1 parse as an example, and I pointed out that the January 11th kills were an abnormality because of the P3 bug, and that hunters were usually 20-40M higher on helya if they didn't have to be on add-duty in P3 (thus meaning he'd have been significantly ahead of the tank on boss damage ;P).
I don't think you'll ever find me arguing that hunters are in a good spot. You will find me arguing with things that I find issue with, such as stating that it's "especially bad" on helya, then quoting a log that's bugged and thus skewing the reality of how "bad" it actually is. Hunters are still fucking shit at single target damage, there's absolutely no denying that, and heavy buffs are hopefully on the horizon. But it's important to not overstate the issues by referring to abnormalities.

They'll just apply some random damage buffs. Probably either a fairly big buff to aimed shot or decent buffs to everything.

Eh, hopefully they're not dumb enough to place even more importance on aimed shot. Damage already tanks if you are forced to move during deep vulnerable, having an aimed shot buff try and make up for 10-15% more overall damage would just reinforce that even further. I feel as if the artifact ability and marked shot are probably the best places to put a straight up damage buff, because with sniper training we really don't like hitting them when they're ready. Everything needs to be "juuuuust right" so we don't waste deep vulnerable time.

[Fleuria]

Can confirm Draco was still destroying dungeon damage and it was roughly equal to what is was prepatch.

[Deleted]

if you own the legendary belt then MM in m+ is awesome (volley / trickshot /explo) I can outdeal most classes without much effort.

In this week (teeming/skittish) I usually pull 700-900k dps in total. Feel better than before.

How is your rotation with this setup?

[Deleted]

How is your rotation with this setup?

I usually try to stack my belt-buff as high as poissble while still getting off my trickshot AiSs and run jump in while im recharging my focus to use explo or open with an exploshot

oon bigger pulls (like maw) I usually wait for the tnak to pull everything oon topm oof him then use my exlposhot -> disengage/trueshot - multi-marget midair -> if I got 15-20stacks i shoot aimedshot with trick shot -> then spam multi+market until I reach 15-20stacks again (depends on how many stacks I get per multi)