Hunter F.A.Q Answers

[jimmy valmer]

Why is the cannon off malk considered BIS for bm when crit is the least used stat for bm?

[Azortharion]

Why is the cannon off malk considered BIS for bm when crit is the least used stat for bm?

1) More secondary stats on it altogether (open your calc.exe and check!)
2) In BiS gear, you reach a point of Haste where its value dips significantly. Picking the Malk gun with the bonus to secondary stats Mastery and Crit (or alternatively, the Ancient Archer's Chestguard from Spoils which has the same thing going) is a miniscule simDPS increase over the other options.

The OP specifically stresses that it doesn't really matter, though.

[eschatological]

So someone suggests to me that Fervor > TotH for BM in "Burst AoE situations". His justification is Wild Hunt Beast Cleaves are going to outweigh your Multi Shot damage in "Burst" AoE (not "sustained" AoE, he agrees TotH is optimal there). I'm not buying it, but it does perk my interest.

I'm thinking to myself the only place I could ever see this being viable in current content is on Immerseus. For instance, my guild designates myself and the other Hunter to be solely responsible for adds in that fight. Do you think that saving Fervor for when all of the adds pop, MDing / Barrage adds onto the off tank, once they're grouped tightly Fervor >>> Multi spam, and get a few big beast cleaves on those adds, would outweigh TotH for that fight? Especially if we're only getting 2 or 3 phases where there are actually enough adds to get big AoEs on before they're cleaved down?

I can't think of a way to test this other than first hand, but what do you guys think? That guy sparked my curiosity with that claim, and I wondering if anyone has tested it.

I know guys like Rogerbrown used Fervor on H-Garrosh progression, but that's just cause he likes it. On burst AoE which you *know* about, having ToTH charges up should be much more beneficial, especially for the playstyle of BM AoE, which has us MSing every 4s instead of just spamming a button like chain lightning. ToTH benefits the AS you weave in between MS, IE, and Fervor's focus is almost entirely used up by a MS and a KC, which are both likely to occur in your burst AoE window.

[Thursley]

Fervor always seemed better for BM AOE specifically BECAUSE you don't need to use multishot that often. TOTH is great for survival AOE because it means you can cast a lot more multishots for serpent spread procs; if you don't care about casting more multishots aren't you losing out by taking TOTH? Fervor gives you enough focus to keep beast cleave going a bit more easily and gives your pet an infusion of focus for wild hunt uptime. TOTH is also likely to be at least partially wasted during bestial wrath/rapid fire anyway, though the same is also somewhat true of fervor.

Even aside from that, I'm also curious about the math that says it's better to weave arcane shots in between multishots with TOTH (presumably for the cobra strikes procs, with the extra focus from not using more multishots going to kill command?). Multishot as BM is far from spectacular on its own, but against a decently sized group you're certainly giving up a lot of damage to fish for the 15% chance per arcane shot to proc cobra strikes, particularly since pets have a pretty high crit rate from our gear and spiked collar already.

[Azortharion]

A Multi-Shot every 4 seconds is actually pretty tough and near impossible with Fervor if you wanna be doing Kill Command as well. Which you should.

Focus return/saving is much higher from ToTH, there's no way around it and Fervor's boost to basic attack damage does simply not outweigh this advantage in any realistic case whatsoever.

The "math" that says doing Arcane Shots is worth it is that its focus cost is lower than Multi-Shot on top of it doing more damage (to an extent which the OP specifies). It should only be used so much as to still allow you to KC on cd and keep Multi-Shot up. It's kind of a high-skillcap thing weaving in stuff like that and maintaining rotation, but DPS is DPS.

If you read the AoE section again, it only advises Arcane Shot weaving up till like 4 targets, which is where Multi-Shot DPE is > Arcane Shot (might be 3 or 5?, 2 lazy 2 check).

[jimmy valmer]

Is crows a must for survival?

[Kissthebaby]

Is crows a must for survival?

no but if you are going to use blink strikes then use it with fervor (except on aoe like galakras, spoils, etc. you can use thrill) . crows is better though.

[jimmy valmer]

Ok

So just use crows on cooldown then? Ignore that 20% execute thing?

[Raicky]

Ok

So just use crows on cooldown then? Ignore that 20% execute thing?

For everything other than Garrosh, Yes.

[Kissthebaby]

Ok

So just use crows on cooldown then? Ignore that 20% execute thing?

Yes /10chars

[Shiallia]

Have a quick question, are these stat wgts still correct for BM Hunter???

Q: What are your stat weights for AskMrRobot/ReforgeLite/similar?

BM:

MH DPS: 0.51
Agi: 1
Exp/Hit: 1
Haste: 0.47
Mastery: 0.45
Crit: 0.41
AP: 0.34

If they not correct, anyone able to help me with them and make them correct? cause i been using default for robot LOL, my dps is pretty decent still, but i know it can be better, and i noticed my stat priority is wrong....been going hit/exp cap of coarse, than HASTE > CRIT > MASTERY, but mastery needs to be before crit, if u look at my Armory, u will see my crit is VERY high and mastery low..., and i compared my stats with top ranking pve hunters, and they are haste > Mastery

As its telling me to remove all my agil gems for haste gems, and reforging alot into mastery....and i see alot using agil gems, so the stat wgt for agil seems wrong

Heres my armory
Well cant post links yet :P, so Armory Shiallia-Hyjal Thanks

[jimmy valmer]

What about when there are times when no real boss is available like galakras adds and spoils. How should crows be used then? Perhaps use crows on the adds with most health like bone crushers and the mini bosses in spoils?

[Illana]

What about when there are times when no real boss is available like galakras adds and spoils. How should crows be used then? Perhaps use crows on the adds with most health like bone crushers and the mini bosses in spoils?

you dont use crows on galakras and spoils....

[Artemishowl]

What about when there are times when no real boss is available like galakras adds and spoils. How should crows be used then? Perhaps use crows on the adds with most health like bone crushers and the mini bosses in spoils?

You should be using BS for those two fights as survival.

[Azortharion]

The stat weights are correct, if it wants to do Agility gems you did something wrong.

The stat weight for agility is normalized, e.g 1 - for AMR to suggest haste gems, its weight would have to be 0.5 or above (because then 320 haste would be > 160 agility), but that is not the case.

I use the stat weights exactly as you see them to this day and I have no problems. I'd triple-check how it's set up in AMR.

- - - Updated - - -

EDIT: You're definitely doing something wrong, I just did you with the stat weights set right and it all looks fine: http://i.imgur.com/YBIzoMX.png

[Enkae]

1) More secondary stats on it altogether (open your calc.exe and check!)
2) In BiS gear, you reach a point of Haste where its value dips significantly. Picking the Malk gun with the bonus to secondary stats Mastery and Crit (or alternatively, the Ancient Archer's Chestguard from Spoils which has the same thing going) is a miniscule simDPS increase over the other options.

The OP specifically stresses that it doesn't really matter, though.

i know it doesnt matter but just curious, at 582 would pick a H malk gun over a H galk bow ?

[Nnug]

i know it doesnt matter but just curious, at 582 would pick a H malk gun over a H galk bow ?

Yes /10chars

[eschatological]

The Galk bow is actually awful, in terms of total raw secondary stats. I still don't know why they made a whole range of weapons with secondaries that added up to different numbers.

[Thursley]

It's actually a designed feature of the ilvl system. Items that split secondary stats as evenly as possible use their budget most efficiently in terms of absolute number of stats provided. The more heavily weighted secondary stats are toward one in particular, the less overall stats you get. Taken to the extremes you can see it with the timeless isle items that have a lot of one secondary stat for their item level but no second stat, and the legendary cloak that has a greater total number of secondary stats because it divides its budget among three different stats, but less of each of the three.

Basically if you want to go really heavily for one stat over anything else you can do that (depending on the itemization available anyway), but it will cost you value in terms of overall amount of stats gained.

[Juanpierre]

For 100% optimal usage, use it manually (with Dextrous), for 99.99% optimal usage, macro it into everything.

New to raiding on hunter, and having a blast with it. I had some questions about CDs and lining them up. I have a one button macro for using BW, Rapid Fire, Blood Fury, and springs. I try to hit it in between GCDs. Due to the 2 set bonus and AoC, they don't line up anymore. I have WAs to let me know the timers on each. So a couple questions:

1. Is it better to wait on some (like Blood Fury or springs) to line up with BW? Or use each on cooldown?

2. If on cooldown, then should I macro all cooldowns with all my abilities instead of using a separate macro that I have to manually hit off the GCD?