Explosive shot Question

[Deleted]

Hey, long time reader first time poster here. Been playing hunter since vanilla but I am a bit confused about the Lock and Load proc, few guides saying completely different things. My question is basically when lock and load procs do I prioritise it and just spam Explosive shot even though Black arrow and/or Serpent sting are about to fall off my target or do I weave black arrow or cobra shot to refresh serpent sting in between Explosive shots? Same question applies for kill shot when I get in the execute range, do I just spam Explosive shot?

Many thanks

[Tehterokkar]

Explosive shot > all in DPET, highest prio if LnL is up.

[TJ]

A lot of people seem to say a lot of different things regarding this question.

I will prio BA over ES if LNL is not on cd. But say if LNL procs off the last BA tick then I will spam ES until the LNL cd is at 2 seconds, then I will use BA so that the first tick has a chance to proc LNL again and I'm not losing any uptime on it. I would also let SS fall off and let yourself get focus capped (if you get that lucky with 4set procs) since ES's damage output outweighs them. That's just me.

[Shockymonkey]

I keep spamming ES even if I cap focus and dots fall off as well in execute phase.

[Deleted]

Thanks guys for your hasty responses gonna try it out spamming ES under Lock and Load in SoO tonight

[Illana]

Explosive shot > all in DPET, highest prio if LnL is up.

BA has higher DPET

[Nemesiz]

A lot of people seem to say a lot of different things regarding this question.

I will prio BA over ES if LNL is not on cd. But say if LNL procs off the last BA tick then I will spam ES until the LNL cd is at 2 seconds, then I will use BA so that the first tick has a chance to proc LNL again and I'm not losing any uptime on it. I would also let SS fall off and let yourself get focus capped (if you get that lucky with 4set procs) since ES's damage output outweighs them. That's just me.

Exactly what I'm doing, seems to work for the better atleast.

[shanattah]

I use BA if I'm at 90+ focus

[TJ]

My DPET is anyone is interested. Does make sense from what Simcraft says to prio BA always. Is Simcraft simulating LNL procs from BA to determine it's strength as well? Or is it pure damage?

[Illana]

My DPET is anyone is interested. Does make sense from what Simcraft says to prio BA always. Is Simcraft simulating LNL procs from BA to determine it's strength as well? Or is it pure damage?

wouldn't make any difference even if it didn't. You do the most DPS by spending a global on the highest DPET skill you can use.

[toasttemp]

wouldn't make any difference even if it didn't. You do the most DPS by spending a global on the highest DPET skill you can use.

Quick question, in your guide you have glaive toss above explosive shot in the priority list. Should it be the other way around then, according to DPET?

[Illana]

Quick question, in your guide you have glaive toss above explosive shot in the priority list. Should it be the other way around then, according to DPET?

it would indeed.

Nice catch, updating

[Tehterokkar]

BA has higher DPET

BA costs focus, so counting in the focus costs, ES wins.

[Illana]

BA costs focus, so counting in the focus costs, ES wins.

this is assuming you will not have enough focus for the next shot, which almost never happens

so no, ES does not win.

[eschatological]

DPET includes focus cost. What I'm unsure of is whether the sim is saying BA > ES at its full 25 focus cost, or BA > all ES. I think probably the former, but differentiating between the two is probably too much parsing to do in-fight, especially when your 4pc procs and you don't munch that LnL proc.

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As an aside, I prio BA over ES when BA is about to fall off.

[Illana]

DPET includes focus cost. What I'm unsure of is whether the sim is saying BA > ES at its full 25 focus cost, or BA > all ES. I think probably the former, but differentiating between the two is probably too much parsing to do in-fight, especially when your 4pc procs and you don't munch that LnL proc.

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As an aside, I prio BA over ES when BA is about to fall off.

If DPET includes focus cost on simc then BA is over 50k ahead.

If it does not, I'm not really sure how you factor in focus cost into DPET because it stands for Damage Per Execute Time. I cannot see where focus cost comes into it as long as you have enough focus to fire the highest priority shot

[Thursley]

Won't DPET only be the whole story if the full duration of the DOT is counted? Delaying black arrow only loses you the fraction of DPET you would have gained at the end of the fight if you hadn't delayed it based on the number of ticks you lost. The same is true of explosive shot, but it has a shorter cooldown, duration, and tick frequency. For example, if there are only 5 seconds left in the fight, you would always cast explosive shot over black arrow, right? It's not as apparent but your actions at earlier parts of the fight can be viewed the same way, because they impact how much damage you can squeeze in before the fight ends.

There are other factors at play too, such as the timing on lock and load or lining up black arrow with a proc that is running out. I'm not saying you should just use explosive shot over black arrow, the point is that you can't just look at DPET and call it a day.

[Illana]

Won't DPET only be the whole story if the full duration of the DOT is counted? Delaying black arrow only loses you the fraction of DPET you would have gained at the end of the fight if you hadn't delayed it based on the number of ticks you lost. The same is true of explosive shot, but it has a shorter cooldown, duration, and tick frequency. There are other factors at play too, such as the timing on lock and load or lining up black arrow with a proc that is running out. The point is that I don't think it's fair to just look at DPET and call it a day.

that's a very good point actually

with assurance though there's possibility of a bit of multidotting but for complete single target fight I need to take a more detailed look into this.

[Namor of Muradin]

I have been using BA before it drops off even if LnL is procc'd. I try and time it so there are 2-3 seconds left when I press it to allow for travel time and so it refeshes without losing any ticks. Sometime I do it too promptly (right when BA comes off CD) and this is something I have been focusing on delaying until it get closer to dropping off. I don't have any math to support his approach (as opposed to letting it fall off), but it just seems to make more sense to me to have the dot ticking than not, even if I am potentially pushing the next regular ES by one GCD. I don't worry about SS falling off if LnL is procc'd. My uptimes with BA tend to be higher than my SS uptimes as a result.

[TJ]

Won't DPET only be the whole story if the full duration of the DOT is counted? Delaying black arrow only loses you the fraction of DPET you would have gained at the end of the fight if you hadn't delayed it based on the number of ticks you lost. The same is true of explosive shot, but it has a shorter cooldown, duration, and tick frequency. For example, if there are only 5 seconds left in the fight, you would always cast explosive shot over black arrow, right? It's not as apparent but your actions at earlier parts of the fight can be viewed the same way, because they impact how much damage you can squeeze in before the fight ends.

There are other factors at play too, such as the timing on lock and load or lining up black arrow with a proc that is running out. I'm not saying you should just use explosive shot over black arrow, the point is that you can't just look at DPET and call it a day.

This is definitely true, you would only prio BA over ES if you could get the full duration (maybe 1 tick fewer), just as you would use KS over ES if you only had 1 second or so left on the mob. It definitely goes without saying you would multidot BA if possible, this again follows the previous rule of getting the full duration.

I'm honestly not sure whether to prio ES or BA or switch depending on certain situations.