Optimising Renataki's Soul Charm as BM

[Rabak]

Thing is, there's several hunters in this thread (including me) that's getting good rankings on WoL without tracking trinkets. That says to me that tracking trinkets isn't important, and doesn't give nearly the results some hunters seem to think it does.

Alright cool I respect your opinion. So out of curiosity, what's truly important then? What aspects of your gameplay do you think could improve on, to really get you to the next level?

[Deleted]

Thing is, there's several hunters in this thread (including me) that's getting good rankings on WoL without tracking trinkets. That says to me that tracking trinkets isn't important, and doesn't give nearly the results some hunters seem to think it does.

So stacking cooldowns with your trinkets doesn't improve your dps? Almost every class does it why are hunters any different? I would like to see those "good" rankings.

[Beace]

Alright cool I respect your opinion. So out of curiosity, what's truly important then? What aspects of your gameplay do you think could improve on, to really get you to the next level?

If you're already getting ranks on WoL today, I don't think there's anything that's gonna "get you to the next level". If you're already that good, any further improvements are very minimal, and the RNG gods will have 10x the effect.

With that said, I think the absolute most important part is to always be hitting something. It might sound obvious enough, but I believe that's the biggest gap there is between a decent hunter and a great hunter. A few seconds of inactivity here and there has a huge effect. Also being as comfortable as possible with the raid fights. Knowing exactly what's gonna happen, and planning for it. Again, it seems obvious enough.

With the mobility we have today these things aren't as important anymore though, since we can do literally everything on the move. There's no doubt the skill factor of hunters have gone downwards.

That's my opinion.

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So stacking cooldowns with your trinkets doesn't improve your dps? Almost every class does it why are hunters any different? I would like to see those "good" rankings.

I don't really have an answer to the why, I can only speak to what works. Back in the day of ICD trinkets it might have made more sense, but not so much with RPPM were you have no chance to plan ahead.

I'm a bit hesitant to post logs because I'm sure someone is gonna spend their time looking for every small error they can find, but here goes. These are the current ones I could find, old rankings disappear very fast.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=6494&e=6951
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=3819&e=4064
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=1073&e=1662

Let's keep in mind that I'm 10 ilvls behind the best geared hunters, and play in an average guild which makes it pretty much impossible to get the really good rankings.

[timoseewho]

It was briefly mentioned somewhere in this thread but buried a bit, so how viable is pooling focus for a hard-ticking SrS during the proc (not focus capping of course)? There's certain risks involved since a mistimed CoS may refresh it late due to travel time. In the end you're firing the same shots but you're trading off hard-hitting AS for hard-ticking SrS basically, is this a trade up?

[Saoron]

Well there you go.. you just made my point.. Durumu is normal mode so that doesn't count.. Majority of top hunters have killed it on heroic so you have basically no competition there.. And that point is further emphasized by your H durumu log where you didn't even break the top 200.. Besides that, the fact that you think 100+ ranks are 'good' and you have no room for improvement speaks volumes on what kind of player you are.. third time repeating this.. If you're a casual player and are content with mediocrity, then that is fine.. just keep it to yourself and don't come to the forums and try to drag other people down to your level by telling them not to aim higher.. Some people are content with participation trophies, others are more competitive and want real ones..

The op was asking for min/max tips that separates a good hunter from a pro hunter.. If you don't have anything positive to add to that topic ("optimizing renataki as BM"), then don't say anything.. Please preach your bible of mediocrity somewhere else.. If you continue on after this, i'm just going to assume you're trolling cuz I don't believe anyone can be that dense..

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It was briefly mentioned somewhere in this thread but buried a bit, so how viable is pooling focus for a hard-ticking SrS during the proc (not focus capping of course)? There's certain risks involved since a mistimed CoS may refresh it late due to travel time. In the end you're firing the same shots but you're trading off hard-hitting AS for hard-ticking SrS basically, is this a trade up?

It is worth it.. The ap boost is the same for both shots, you just have to compare the damage of a single arcane shot vs srs.. and go by how many ticks of srs would it take to out damage a single arcane shot. I can't log in right now to give you exact numbers but just browsing through a log, avg AS crit was 118k.. and an avg srs tick crit was 42.7k.. So if you are able to pool enough focus to let that srs snapshot tick 3 times, it's worth it.. If it won't tick for atleast 3 times then you might as well AS or ideally KC if it's available..

And this trade is made when you compare AS with manually applying SrS.. But if you time a CS to refresh it (to atleast a 3 tick duration) the benefit gets higher in favor of SrS.. Cuz CS is part of your regular rotation anyways.. You're just shifting the shots and cobra'ing earlier and moving the instants to after the snapshot.. instead of the other way around..

[timoseewho]

Heh aite ya I was just kind of going through my head about that earlier, makes sense.

Though I think there may be a little more than just comparing 1 AS with 3 SrS ticks. So assuming BM and that we're hovering around 30 focus with 9-10s left on proc, so we got 90 focus to pool and assuming 1.5s CoS casts, so 9a (also need some wiggle room for travel time) to 'cap'. In that 6s or more we could have gotten off more than 1 AS. However the one good thing about the super SrS way is that if done correctly, that tick is at highest possible damage as opposed to half assed AS'. I'm just babbling:P.

[mizunokizu]

A few things that many know that I just wanted to contribute to this discussion.

a few have hit on this but if attention is drawn away from fight to keep track of buffs it will be a dps loss no matter what you line up, if you are constantly focusing on delaying bestial wrath you could lose out on an additional cast, or delay shots and lose several thousand dps just trying to line up bestial wrath with the 10 second mark.

IF you have an addon that calculates when to hit BW or buff uptimes so you are not actually focusing on that buff then yes by all means you should always do it, so really this discussion should yield the question of is an addon possible to keep track of lining it up.

BW is worth lining up with Rentakis though, and juju as well, and potion, but i dont know if this is mentioned yet but Rentaki has a proc not counting haste of .62 per minute. Haste brings that up but only permanent haste not including trinket procs or potions, or i believe heroism so if you intentionally lined up you would be losing atleast 1 cast of bw for a fight and there may be addons that track probabilty of an rppm proc and i would actually really like to see that because seeing those actively tracked would be cool and kind of sci-fi appearance "Your trinket has 67% chance of procing, your trinket has 72% chance of proccing" would be tight

[crooklyn]

lol this guy posts normal logs and green rankings

[Ijanaak]

The guy is wrong about optimization, but not everyone is gonna manage to break free of green rankings every time, just in all fairness.

[Rabak]

A few things that many know that I just wanted to contribute to this discussion.

a few have hit on this but if attention is drawn away from fight to keep track of buffs it will be a dps loss no matter what you line up, if you are constantly focusing on delaying bestial wrath you could lose out on an additional cast, or delay shots and lose several thousand dps just trying to line up bestial wrath with the 10 second mark.

IF you have an addon that calculates when to hit BW or buff uptimes so you are not actually focusing on that buff then yes by all means you should always do it, so really this discussion should yield the question of is an addon possible to keep track of lining it up.

BW is worth lining up with Rentakis though, and juju as well, and potion, but i dont know if this is mentioned yet but Rentaki has a proc not counting haste of .62 per minute. Haste brings that up but only permanent haste not including trinket procs or potions, or i believe heroism so if you intentionally lined up you would be losing atleast 1 cast of bw for a fight and there may be addons that track probabilty of an rppm proc and i would actually really like to see that because seeing those actively tracked would be cool and kind of sci-fi appearance "Your trinket has 67% chance of procing, your trinket has 72% chance of proccing" would be tight

Agree to disagree on the "lining up of shots part". Its counter-intuitive for me to not monitor your procs and lineup some heavy hitters during them. Again, micromanagement is really difficult and it takes a lot of practice to decide on the fly when to carry on the "tight rotation" and when to break away from it to line up a proc. It is by no means mandatory but can you imagine mastering it? How could it not be a buff to dps?

Loving the idea of probability calculation of rppm trinkets. At least offers some kind of predictability with procs. But I don't think predictability was what blizzard was going for with rppm lol. nevertheless, I'd keep a lookout for any!

[Sre]

Not really sure why it's such a big deal to just track your trinket procs and do some basic math (seriously, it's at most double digit <20 quick math) and determine if you can delay a few seconds to increase your damage. I've been fiddling with my opener a bit but it's crucial to get your double BW rolling in that opener quickly so that final KC (KC #5 I believe) lands in the last 2 seconds of Renataki's with all your CDs up. After that it's just praying Renataki's procs at the right times.

[Beace]

wall of text

I'm well aware one of the logs are on normal. Two other logs are on HC. The Durumu HC kill you speak off was our first kill, so I dunno why you'd bother to criticize it. And yeah, I think ranks between 100 and 150 are good, when you take all things into consideration. As I've already said, it's impossible to get really high when you're behind on gear, and your guild kills thing slow. And you calling logs around the ~100 mark mediocre, makes me really wonder about you.

Noone gets awesome results on every fight every week, you should know that. Just look at your own logs: http://www.worldoflogs.com/guilds/21...alendar/06-13/. You have some good rankings here and there, but you're certainly not putting out top 10 logs every week (or even top 50) as it sounds like when you write.

Anyway, we've gotten off track. The point is this: If doing this trinket micromanaging was very important to do max dps, every top hunter would be doing it. Every such hunter would be occupying the top slots on WoL, and it would be impossible for anyone not doing it to break in. That's obviously not the case.

[Ijanaak]

Not really sure why it's such a big deal to just track your trinket procs and do some basic math (seriously, it's at most double digit <20 quick math) and determine if you can delay a few seconds to increase your damage. I've been fiddling with my opener a bit but it's crucial to get your double BW rolling in that opener quickly so that final KC (KC #5 I believe) lands in the last 2 seconds of Renataki's with all your CDs up. After that it's just praying Renataki's procs at the right times.

The opener is always gonna be a little trickier I think because you still want to optimize the use of your pre-pot as well.

[Spiralphoenix]

Sigh.. if you have new theorycrafting that all the top hunters missed out on.. then please share it but back it up with real numbers and not just an out of your ass estimation.. Non-buffed srs = 83k total damage.. Renataki buffed srs = 175k.. that's a ~210% increase.. 92k more damage.. And that's outside of a raid.. with higher crit chance, that'll be even more damage.. so I don't know where you're pulling up those 20-30k numbers.. I mean I didn't even have to test it out to know that your '20-30k' statement was just absurd.. Do you even know how much agi you get at max stacks ? You honestly think it would only give 20-30k more damage ? Mind blown.. Because of that i'm not even gonna bother with your KC numbers..

PS: you have wrong gems on.. might wanna look into that. I'd tell you which ones specifically but you clearly know better.



^ What he said.. I'm done with the argument.. people are just way too dense.. Can't seem to fathom that people can multitask and they know not to delay shit by too much so it ends up a dps loss.. They think they know better than majority of the world top hunter player base and that when ppl say micro manage, that equates delaying KC and BW by like 50 seconds or something.. It is only ever by a couple seconds and that ensures highest agi advantage.. But yea like I said, if you personally can't do it, doesn't mean it's a bad thing.. It's just like playing the right spec.. Some people still play SV on single target encounters and just because they are comfortable with the spec and see a dps loss when they switch to BM (cuz they dont' know how to play it properly), that does NOT mean BM is not superior.. It just means you can't utilize it to it's full extent..

You're just being ridiculous here.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...2c&usp=sharing

Just tested those numbers myself. One with no buffs except AotH, one with only AotH and renataki at 10 stacks.

I may have underestimated the buff to SS slightly, but you're overestimating it, or including a lot of other buffs, or not properly accounting for crits. That's ~57k difference between renataki buffed SS and unbuffed (accounting for crits, and difference in crit chance). My arcane shot is hitting for 50-55k with a full buffed renataki. That's not accounting for crits, at all, which would push the average to around 80k. Making SS not worth recasting on a target that already has it. Not to mention that you wouldn't get all 5 buffed ticks anyway unless you let it fall off, which would be bad, and also not to mention that you're likely not going to be able to push off casting cobra long enough to get even 4 buffed ticks.

You don't need to delay things by 50 seconds to make it a loss, and that's a silly thing to even say. Nobody was saying that. Everyone here understands that the delays were speaking of are the range of a few seconds. You're just massively, massively overestimating the difference you are making, and speaking of all the benefits while not taking into account any of the possible losses. I also like that you seem to speak for the entire playerbase of "top" hunters, or that they are all even present in environments such as this.

Doing more complicated things doesn't automatically mean you get more DPS. I can multitask just fine and if the numbers actually supported doing such things, I would do them. Please, direct me to this well done theorycrafting that shows definitively that delaying KC in the general case (as in, taking into account the full range of changes that doing this causes) for a couple thousand more agility on it is worth doing.

And really, when you resort to personal insults, you're just being a child. My gems have absolutely nothing to do with this argument.

Edit: Tired, made a few mistakes. Difference is 74k, closer, but still not worth it.

[Ijanaak]

You're just being ridiculous here.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...2c&usp=sharing

Just tested those numbers myself. One with no buffs except AotH, one with only AotH and renataki at 10 stacks.

I may have underestimated the buff to SS slightly, but you're overestimating it, or including a lot of other buffs, or not properly accounting for crits. That's ~57k difference between renataki buffed SS and unbuffed (accounting for crits, and difference in crit chance). My arcane shot is hitting for 50-55k with a full buffed renataki. That's not accounting for crits, at all, which would push the average to around 80k. Making SS not worth recasting on a target that already has it. Not to mention that you wouldn't get all 5 buffed ticks anyway unless you let it fall off, which would be bad, and also not to mention that you're likely not going to be able to push off casting cobra long enough to get even 4 buffed ticks.

You don't need to delay things by 50 seconds to make it a loss, and that's a silly thing to even say. Nobody was saying that. Everyone here understands that the delays were speaking of are the range of a few seconds. You're just massively, massively overestimating the difference you are making, and speaking of all the benefits while not taking into account any of the possible losses. I also like that you seem to speak for the entire playerbase of "top" hunters, or that they are all even present in environments such as this.

Doing more complicated things doesn't automatically mean you get more DPS. I can multitask just fine and if the numbers actually supported doing such things, I would do them. Please, direct me to this well done theorycrafting that shows definitively that delaying KC in the general case (as in, taking into account the full range of changes that doing this causes) for a couple thousand more agility on it is worth doing.

And really, when you resort to personal insults, you're just being a child. My gems have absolutely nothing to do with this argument.

In my experience the differences you yourself cited are a massive difference.

For starters, casting cooldowns like Bestial Wrath instantly as it comes off cooldown doesn't always mean you are going to get an extra Bestial Wrath at the end - and if you have determined that you can delay a moment to try and optimize the cooldown, it's going to be all profit - in addition to that, tweaking your shot rotation/priorities based on procs confidently actually makes the game more fun.

I mean when I look at it in its cut and dry form - someone who chooses to do the simplest version of acceptable... it seems like all they care about is loot to play Azeroth Barbies with their character... which is fine, but make no mistake, that kind of contentment will get you negatively scrutinized in guilds that require certain standards... and while those standards don't affect that many people, it will often be the difference between you being chosen over another trial for progression... and just to be clear - it is more fun to TRY and optimize, even if you fail. Failing to optimize is actually okay, and it's better than never trying to optimize...

... because worst case scenario it's a wash and best case scenario, you try it enough times till it's always an increase - and now Hunter is suddenly more fun to play - and they've done a LOT of things to make Hunter more boring, mainly by making it easier - so these things first and foremost increase the fun of the game because it provides additional personal progression beyond just getting gear.

I think that's why people find it obnoxious when those will argue against optimization... it just seems like an absurd stance to take in a game that is in large part ALL ABOUT progressing.

[Spiralphoenix]

In my experience the differences you yourself cited are a massive difference.

For starters, casting cooldowns like Bestial Wrath instantly as it comes off cooldown doesn't always mean you are going to get an extra Bestial Wrath at the end - and if you have determined that you can delay a moment to try and optimize the cooldown, it's going to be all profit - in addition to that, tweaking your shot rotation/priorities based on procs confidently actually makes the game more fun.

I mean when I look at it in its cut and dry form - someone who chooses to do the simplest version of acceptable... it seems like all they care about is loot to play Azeroth Barbies with their character... which is fine, but make no mistake, that kind of contentment will get you negatively scrutinized in guilds that require certain standards... and while those standards don't affect that many people, it will often be the difference between you being chosen over another trial for progression... and just to be clear - it is more fun to TRY and optimize, even if you fail. Failing to optimize is actually okay, and it's better than never trying to optimize...

... because worst case scenario it's a wash and best case scenario, you try it enough times till it's always an increase - and now Hunter is suddenly more fun to play - and they've done a LOT of things to make Hunter more boring, mainly by making it easier - so these things first and foremost increase the fun of the game because it provides additional personal progression beyond just getting gear.

I think that's why people find it obnoxious when those will argue against optimization... it just seems like an absurd stance to take in a game that is in large part ALL ABOUT progressing.

The differences I cited are losses.

Nobody is arguing against optimization here, we're arguing against claims of optimization that makes worlds of difference with no real proof behind them. Will your KC do more damage if you use it at 10 stack renataki vs 8 stack renataki? Yes. Will you actually gain anything after you do that 3 times and lose 2 KC's over the overall fight length, as well as have conversely less-buffed arcane shots that you filled in the delay with? Doubtful.

Sure, delaying bestial wrath near the end of the fight when you know you're only going to have one more use to try and line it with a cooldown is a no brainer. There is no potential for loss there. Nobody is arguing against these things...

[Megazorrd]

I track my trinks too brahs! Fatal be killing my rank 1s though

[Ijanaak]

Well there's a lot more factors that go into all this than just a slightly weaker kill command. I mean, on the same token it could be argued that if you kc at 17 seconds and your Cobra Shot after that lands at 19 seconds and then you delay your next Cobra Shot with Fervor after that - the increased snapshot damage you get on your Serpent Sting ticks beyond Renataki's expiring would more than make up for your slightly weaker Kill Command.

To be honest, these things do actually occur to me as they present themselves. I'm not like trying to brag or anything - just from my own recollection, I do know that when these split second decisions happen I make a conscious effort to select the correct one - and in some cases I can see the situation happening ahead of time based on my current cooldown numbers against the remaining Renataki's seconds and know what I'm gonna do at the crucial point when it comes up.

I do make errors sometimes, usually when my attention is heightened additionally like for example, when I'm in melee on Heroic Durumu trying to stay tight in the safe zone of the maze and ahead of the beam... or on Heroic Lei Shen during the final phase where I'm moving away from the Lightning Whip and running against the Winds to reach the Thunderstruck drop zone.

Yes - I do make errors in situations like that, but when all things are less crucial and intense - as they can tend to be on normal modes... I do feel like the optimization is easier than some people in this thread have led on... and while I don't have 2 attempts from the same Patchwerk fight from the same week to draw on and give examples - I can guarantee that the difference between not just this one type of optimization, but ALL types of optimizations will mean the following:

1. More arcane shots fired.
2. Higher Serpent Sting ticks from Renataki snapshots
3. Higher average Kill Commands
4. Less Cobra Shots during trinket proc uptime and thus more overall buffed shots.

Then when you consider a lot of cooldowns that overlap create compounding DPS profit I feel like all these optimizations do make a huge difference. I mean, just on a test dummy the difference between my normal serpent sting crits and my Charm/Juju tick serpent stings(as survival) is like 85k+ and thats just on a target dummy with self buffs... I mean obviously if you are just testing a simple delay on a target dummy to test overall damage when you switch one thing, like getting a higher KC one or two times without taking into account the other factors that come into play - I could see how you might discover a dps loss now and again... but I can tell you this, there is a MASSIVE fluctuation in damage between getting some timely procs and not - the difference between say, me losing to another hunter by 2k and losing to that same hunter by 20k can be just a matter of more timely procs - even if they are the same amount of procs... but I can say that if the effort is there then it'll be paid off with higher damage more consistently in time - if that's what you're interested in.

But once again... more than just being generally optimal, it's more fun to try and be better - even if I try and fail... all I know is when I try and succeed my parses are strong.

[Deleted]

I don't really have an answer to the why, I can only speak to what works. Back in the day of ICD trinkets it might have made more sense, but not so much with RPPM were you have no chance to plan ahead.

That's not true. Hunters are one of the few if not only class that can force trinket procs. As Troll hunter you got 3 major haste cooldowns that give you enough haste that your trinkets have a very high chance to proc.

[Sre]

I track my trinks too brahs! Fatal be killing my rank 1s though

Mega, stop getting Renataki procs in Jin'rokh pools. Fuck.

-Sincerely, Sre