Theorycrafting Cooldown Usage

[Solarflair]

Hey guys I wanted to discuss a few things about Hunter cooldowns and what you all think about it.

First off, I wanted to talk about Rapid Fire and Call of the Wild - most people reccomend you use these together in a macro. Why? Apart from more burst DPS, wouldn't it be nice to have CotW go off automatically off cooldown and save Rapid Fire for when you need it on 'x' spot in the encounter? I mean apart from more burst what incentive does it offer that I'm not seeing, or is that a valid point?

Next I want to discuss Rapid Fire and Timewarp/Lust/Heroism - I've also read to make sure these aren't up at the same time, any reason for this as well, is it just better to roll them instead of stacking them up? The only reason I could see this being beneficial is if you could use Cobra Shot as a filler instead of Arcane when Lock n Load was up.

Any insightful responses welcome
Solar

[Biged781]

Hey guys I wanted to discuss a few things about Hunter cooldowns and what you all think about it.

First off, I wanted to talk about Rapid Fire and Call of the Wild - most people reccomend you use these together in a macro. Why? Apart from more burst DPS, wouldn't it be nice to have CotW go off automatically off cooldown and save Rapid Fire for when you need it on 'x' spot in the encounter? I mean apart from more burst what incentive does it offer that I'm not seeing, or is that a valid point?

Next I want to discuss Rapid Fire and Timewarp/Lust/Heroism - I've also read to make sure these aren't up at the same time, any reason for this as well, is it just better to roll them instead of stacking them up? The only reason I could see this being beneficial is if you could use Cobra Shot as a filler instead of Arcane when Lock n Load was up.

Any insightful responses welcome
Solar

1. Because they don't scale linearly. Combining them does more damage than they do on their own, so you do more total damage when you blow them at the same time. You're shooting faster, and doing more damage with each shot. The result is higher overall damage than it would be to shoot faster for a period with normal AP and then shoot at normal speed later with higher AP.

2. Because you will cap out and waste the extra attack/cast speed. You are global cooldown bottlenecked at that point, so more speed doesn't help and you are throwing away potential damage.

[Solarflair]

Thank you!

[Asrialol]

Hey guys I wanted to discuss a few things about Hunter cooldowns and what you all think about it.

First off, I wanted to talk about Rapid Fire and Call of the Wild - most people reccomend you use these together in a macro. Why? Apart from more burst DPS, wouldn't it be nice to have CotW go off automatically off cooldown and save Rapid Fire for when you need it on 'x' spot in the encounter? I mean apart from more burst what incentive does it offer that I'm not seeing, or is that a valid point?

It's actually really simple if you look at it like this. Rapid Fire makes you shoot more, Call of the Wild makes you shoot harder. Using them at the same time means that you are able to get off more shots that are then boosted by Call of the Wild. Had you used Call of the Wild after or before Rapid Fire, you wouldn't of been able to fire as many shots as you would've with Rapid Fire, due to the lower haste. More shots = more dps, and harder shots = more dps. But, more shots that are also harder will grant you more DPS than if you used them seperately. Simply put, with Rapid Fire you will be able to fire off more powerful shots than if you'd have no haste buff.

Next I want to discuss Rapid Fire and Timewarp/Lust/Heroism - I've also read to make sure these aren't up at the same time, any reason for this as well, is it just better to roll them instead of stacking them up? The only reason I could see this being beneficial is if you could use Cobra Shot as a filler instead of Arcane when Lock n Load was up.

Any insightful responses welcome
Solar

Most Survival Hunters these days has around 1100 haste or so. This means Cobra Shot has an 1.62 sec cast time in a raid environment. With Rapid Fire, this cast time goes down to 1.16 seconds. With Heroism on top of that, it goes down to 0.89 seconds. However, the global cooldown of Cobra Shot will always be 1 second, meaning any cast time below 1 second is actually "wasted". You will still have to wait that whole GCD in order for your next ability to be used. This is one of the major reasons why stacking haste cooldown isn't really worth it as a Hunter. The only real benefit you get from stacking them is more Auto Shots.

[Solarflair]

<3, thanks!

[zloitima]

but again, u don't want call of the wild and rapid fire in the SAME macro, reason is the second your question, RF/bloodlust
I would put my CotW and other +AP abilities like orc racial or trinket in the same macro and leave RF on it's own
now, u can use the macro 1st with bloodlust, and then use it again with RF later
all depends on the fight and length of it of course

[Oricc]

pretty much what everyone else has said. In general you want to stack procs of different stats because they have synergy (agility actually has synergy with itself too) and you don't want to stack up too much haste because you may go under the GCD on Cobra shot.

so to maximize DPS: stack procs of different stats, stack agility with itself and avoid going under the GCD on cobra shot casts.

[Deleted]

On the matter of Rapid Fire with Bloodlust, there is some leeway, you don't want to delay your Rapid Fires by too much, since not using it on CD is theoretically a DPS loss, of course that can change from fight to fight depending on the duration and location of BL. Remember that even if you go slightly under GCD for a certain amount of time, it isn't as bad as it seems, your auto shots are still firing much faster and you are regenerating focus like nobodies business, in the past I've had so much focus regeneration during burst that I didn't have to cast Cobra for over ten seconds.

All in all, it really doesn't matter that much if your only hard cast spell is under GCD for a brief period.

Edit: I'd probably also have to agree that your potion and CotW should be used with Heroism and not Rapid Fire where possible, since that would give the highest simultaneous CD uptime.