BM Focus Fire usage

[Glurp]

I'm wondering at what times people here are using Focus Fire as BM. I'm having trouble fitting it into my rotation currently. I have looked through other Hunter's logs but have found that there's no real set time people use it. Currently I use it during the last 3 seconds of my BW to allow my pet to get an extra Bite through the focus it grats but sometimes I won't have 5 stacks of frenzy before my next BW, which to my understanding is a DPS loss.

How do you use focus fire?

[Zachysaurus]

I actually stopped using it a while back for giggles, didnt really notice a big difference in damage, havnt used it since. When i was using it though, i would hit it right after BW, to give it time to stack up a bit before the next BW. But im just a casual 10m hunter not super worried about crazy dps numbers, so meh...

[Nemesis003]

2 schools of thought... one is to not use it during BW so your pet attacks faster, the other is to use it during BW so that your pet has more focus based with the extra focus regen.

neither seems to of been proven better then the other...

[Tehstool]

2 schools of thought... one is to not use it during BW so your pet attacks faster, the other is to use it during BW so that your pet has more focus based with the extra focus regen.

neither seems to of been proven better then the other...

I'm pretty sure if your pet can get in at least 1 or 2 more attacks with their melee it's better that way because looking at my logs with wild hunt and bestial wrath averaged in my pet's melee was doing 13k hits and 27k crits and with bite they were doing 21k hits and 45k crits. If you are going to use it during BW it should be towards the end so you get that extra 100% damage attack off, but I'm not sure what would be the best way

[Nemesis003]

I'm pretty sure if your pet can get in at least 1 or 2 more attacks with their melee it's better that way because looking at my logs with wild hunt and bestial wrath averaged in my pet's melee was doing 13k hits and 27k crits and with bite they were doing 21k hits and 45k crits. If you are going to use it during BW it should be towards the end so you get that extra 100% damage attack off, but I'm not sure what would be the best way

see i don't see my pet get focus starved when focus fire is up... but i guess it depends on your gear.

[Saoron]

Yea but it's still on the GCD. If it wasn't it'd make sense to get that extra attack off at the end. But an arcane shot would do more dmg than a single bite though. It's better used outside of BW imo.

[Nemesis003]

Yea but it's still on the GCD. If it wasn't it'd make sense to get that extra attack off at the end. But an arcane shot would do more dmg than a single bite though. It's better used outside of BW imo.

thats just it, n-one can prove it one way or the other. Getting more bites in during BW is more damage then an arcane shot just like getting in more pet auto attacks is more. the kick is if more bites > more auto attacks. I honeslty use it when it gets to 5 stacks unless i am already in BW then i do not use the GCD, but if it is up right before BW i pop it first.

[Saoron]

If it's up right before BW you pop it ? As in you consume frenzy stacks and then use BW ? If you didn't mean that then it's fine, but if you did then that is most certainly a dps loss, no arguments there. Best case to use it is if you have 5 stacks and you just finished BW. To keep the high dps momentum with faster cobra shots etc. It's more important to have 5 frenzy stacks during BW than any proper FF timing.

[Deleted]

I just ignore it completely, gives me a extra bind for the rest of my 55 billion spells
And the damage difference is that big at all

[Nemesis003]

If it's up right before BW you pop it ? As in you consume frenzy stacks and then use BW ? If you didn't mean that then it's fine, but if you did then that is most certainly a dps loss, no arguments there. Best case to use it is if you have 5 stacks and you just finished BW. To keep the high dps momentum with faster cobra shots etc. It's more important to have 5 frenzy stacks during BW than any proper FF timing.

Focused fire increases your pets focus regen by quite a large amount, it makes it so your pet actually doesn't focus starve while in BW it allows for them to do more "specials."

[Glurp]

If it's up right before BW you pop it ? As in you consume frenzy stacks and then use BW ? If you didn't mean that then it's fine, but if you did then that is most certainly a dps loss, no arguments there. Best case to use it is if you have 5 stacks and you just finished BW. To keep the high dps momentum with faster cobra shots etc. It's more important to have 5 frenzy stacks during BW than any proper FF timing.

Not using it before BW, just having 5 stacks of frenzy on my pet so it gets more attacks during BW.

[Nemesis003]

Not using it before BW, just having 5 stacks of frenzy on my pet so it gets more attacks during BW.

no-one is saying it doesn't... i'm saying that using it before allows for more pet specials with the increased focus bosst and focus regen while in BW... no-one has proven one way or the other if there even is a DPS difference.

[Azortharion]

no-one is saying it doesn't... i'm saying that using it before allows for more pet specials with the increased focus bosst and focus regen while in BW... no-one has proven one way or the other if there even is a DPS difference.

If your pet has shittons of focus as you are using BW (track it.), keep your Frenzy Stacks.

If not, throw in the FF the GCD before.

I'd advise against using it during BW at all, and if it procs during BW, well too bad.

You need as many tasty globals (you are doing 10% more damage too) as you can get out of the 10 (or 16) second time period.

Wasting that on anything else but a directly damaging ability (e.g not Dire Beast, Serpent Sting, Focus Fire) would be a waste of tasty damage.

With the 4pc bonus, you -could- use Serpent Sting as the first global after Bestial Wrath procs, if it (for some reason) wasn't up before you popped BW. You'll still get the damage bonus used to its fullest (and a Serpent Sting fully ticked is ~3x Arcane Shot's), if you can't don't bother.

[gulder]

Your culinary analogies leave me confused and hungry.

[Windthorn]

Was of the opinion to only use it when you had BW on cooldown. For a good 30 seconds. I prefer 5 frenzy stacks when possible going into BW and the popping focus fire when BW ends ( together with rapid fire if its available) to get focus back up quickly.

[Osmin]

It's a really complicated issue, I've done a lot of testing (with 4piece).. with 5 frenzy stacks, my pet gets 2 extra auto attacks. during BW. That's all it gets you. With focus fire on me, my pet will generally get 1 extra bite in during Bestial Wrath with his extra focus (popping it on the GCD just before BW), and I get 2 extra autoshots. Then of course there is the extra focus regen I get to help keep from running out of focus during the 16 second duration. So the DPS benefit strictly during BW goes pretty clearly in favor of having focus fire active on the hunter rather than frenzy on the pet. The problem is, as pointed out earlier, that using a precious buffed GCD during those 16 seconds on anything other than a damaging shot is going to cost you DPS, 1 less buffed arcane shot is a bigger deal than any of these things.

Moral of the story, never pop Focus Fire during BW. Ideally you should pop it on the GCD right before BW, but even then I'm not 100% sure it's worth it because then you won't have Focus Fire right AFTER BW when you're certainly going to be focus starved yourself, not to mention how long you may have to hold 5 stacks of frenzy to have it ready to pop before BW.

There are a lot of variables here, it's a very difficult thing to pin down exactly, other than that you should never actually press the button during BW. In practice I generally press it just before BW if it happens to have just procced. Otherwise I just watch for the button to light up, and then hit it when I'm low on focus and would have used an arcane shot if my focus were higher. If that makes sense.

[Libertarian]

You also have to factor mastery in I believe. There's a point where your pet can do 55% of your damage or a point where it does 45%.

[Tehstool]

How I use it-

After BW I hit focus fire.

That is all.

[Kavoo]

can I stop using it at all ? too many shit to press already.

[Tehstool]

can I stop using it at all ? too many shit to press already.

I used to not use it at all. Personally, I have it macrod into my my keybind since I won't be mounting up during a boss fight. I still wouldn't ignore it if I were you.