[WoD] Kill Shot vs Serpent Sting

[Spl4sh3r]

If we are in WoD which would deal most damage in a typical 5min single target fight. Serpent Sting or Kill Shot? Seeing as Survival Hunters will have Serpent Sting while the other specializations will have Kill Shot. I am not a log reader or the type that uses meter so not sure which is higher in damage overall. Then I would also like to know for a none-Survival Hunter how much damage their Serpent Sting is doing so I can see how much they lose of their damage.

[Daetur]

We have no idea or any way to calculate or determine that right now, since the numbers on those abilities may and probably will be wildly different in Warlords, along with the relative power of other hunter abilities. Any calculations that would be made using current numbers would be pretty much meaningless.

[Illana]

right now, unless you have multi execute phases, serpent sting does a significant amount more than kill shot.

[Daetur]

right now, unless you have multi execute phases, serpent sting does a significant amount more than kill shot.

If we're really going to calculate this, don't forget that MM and BM will be able to use Kill Shot starting at 35% in Warlords- a 75% increase in the window in which KS can be used. Which is of course subject to change. Just like everything else, including the relative damage of these abilities.

Let's look at this, for a BM hunter:

From one 5-minute DPS test (greater accuracy would be achieved with many, longer tests, or with a night's worth of logs, but this is just for illustrative purposes), my Serpent Sting did the following:
Total Damage: 93,025,925
[15:26:47][W:From] [Daetur-Proudmoore]: 7. Serpent Sting (DoT) 101 3,439,184 (3.6%)
[15:26:47][W:To] [Daetur-Proudmoore]: 9. Kill Shot 12 2,918,426 (3.1%)

If we then take into account the Warlords of Draenor perk that will allow Kill Shot to be used at 35%, up from 20%, we get a 75% increase in Kill Shots, and then if we remove Serpent Sting we get:
Total Damage: 91,775,561

Serpent Sting: 0
Kill Shot: 5,107,246 (5.6%)

This is a loss of about 10% DPS. However, this data is essentially meaningless and completely lacks context- how much DPS are other specs and classes losing or gaining? How much does Rapid Fire affect current Serpent Sting damage? Are we actually losing DPS when we take into account the other Draenor perks, or are we actually going to see a relative damage buff even with the Serpent Sting loss (perks such as "Focus Fire now also grants 2% increase to attack power per Frenzy stack consumed," " Increases damage done by Kill Command by 20%," "Increases all damage done by your combat pets by 20%," and "Your pet's basic attacks have a 20% chance to reset the basic attack cooldown and make the next basic attack free," along with damage buffs to Arcane Shot, Beast Cleave, and Cobra Shot? Are any other shots going to be buffed to compensate for the loss of Serpent Sting? Has Blizzard even done numbers passes yet on damage balance, or are the just changing mechanics right now and are going to balance later?

[Windthorn]

Taking KS out of survival is gonna kill that spec for PvE'ers IMO or certainly give BM/mm the advantage on that front, more an observation though than anything

[Daetur]

Taking KS out of survival is gonna kill that spec for PvE'ers IMO or certainly give BM/mm the advantage on that front, more an observation though than anything

Unless of course Survival's sustained is higher overall outside of execute range, which we have no way of knowing until we start getting numbers passes and raid testing in beta.

It's fine and valid to voice concerns about possibilities that these changes present, but we really can't talk numbers with any sort of purpose yet.

[Artemishowl]

This is merely Alpha and this is just a first open door to diversifying our class. They could add some sort of interesting dot for post 30% maybe? Highly unlikely, but perhaps the dots from survival will scale fine to be competitive without KS

[Windthorn]

Do you guys remember when there was a talent in wrath for the survival tree that made KS hit harder than it did for mm

[Deleted]

Doesn't really matter anyways because compared to shadowburn and execute, kill shot is shit for SV.

[Arrowstormen]

I have faith that Blizzard will tweak numbers to get as close to equality between the damage of the specs as possible.

[Glurp]

Go outside, stop making stupid threads no one knows the answer to and wait for the beta invites to come out. There is literally no point trying to discuss values at this point in time because 1) no one knows them and 2) number balancing hasn't even been considered yet.

[Spl4sh3r]

I was just curious what the difference was now Of course I know it will change, especially seeing as the stat squish is coming.

[Deleted]

Well depends of encounter
With multiple fast executes (low HP Adds multiple phases) Kill shot will become superior otherwise just like every DoT class SrS cant be beaten
I wasnt verry hapy when i saw that change Kill shot will miss me after all these years but looking outside SVV becomes more like other Multidot Specs and with exception on Shadowpriests no one of them have strong execute skill (Affli warlocks say goodbay on their one too).Maybe they will implent damage increase mechanic in future state of testing but will wait and see