[7.3] Azortharion's Hunter Guides

[Youn]

Any chance you played around with felmouth frenzy food and the new specs?


Note: I only play marksman... So, yeah.. I guess that should say with Marksman.

[Thursley]

In the MM guide the top priority listed is to cast Marked Shot when it procs. Does that still hold true with the recommended L&L/Patient Sniper/Sidewinders talents, or is it just in the simplified case? It seems like with Sidewinders and Patient Sniper using Marked Shot right away is cannibalizing Vulnerable time from Sidewinders and potentially losing damage, particularly if you get lucky with L&L procs. I think the last paragraph of that section (beginning "In essence, your rotation...") might be trying to expand on this interaction but if so it isn't clear, at least to me.

Also a minor thing: in the section about Cooldown Usage you talk about not delaying Trueshot for the second use of the ring, but it should be not delaying for the third use of the ring.

[eathdemon]

a quick question, do we have a sense for how close to mm bm will be in legion. if I can avoid it, I dont want to give up the ability to dps while moving.

[Azortharion]

I updated the guide to reflect your concerns and clarify it.

Generally, I'll not clarify things here, because if you had to ask in the first place then it means the guide is not clear enough and I'll go fix it in the guide instead.

[BarelyLegalBear]

That's the problem i'm having with the BM section. Overlooked it, i'm a heroic raider, don't really do mythic but if my guild wants to do that this expansion then I will need to adjust to the best spec. Currently i'm MM/BM but I really don't like how Sidewinders is practically mandatory. How much worse is BM compared to MM?

[eathdemon]

it seems, atleast from a little bit of ptr testing I have done, bm is close enough in pre patch, but yes that is my concern for legion. I am mn now, but want to switch to bm to keep my mobility if bm doesnt fall to far behind.

[Nythiz]

In the MM guide the top priority listed is to cast Marked Shot when it procs. Does that still hold true with the recommended L&L/Patient Sniper/Sidewinders talents, or is it just in the simplified case? It seems like with Sidewinders and Patient Sniper using Marked Shot right away is cannibalizing Vulnerable time from Sidewinders and potentially losing damage, particularly if you get lucky with L&L procs. I think the last paragraph of that section (beginning "In essence, your rotation...") might be trying to expand on this interaction but if so it isn't clear, at least to me.

Don't forget that Marked Shot also benefits from Vulnerable. And marked shot does more damage than aimed shot (WAY more damage if you marked multiple targets), so the benefit of vulnerable isn't wasted.

The MM rotation is a priority. But unless I'm mistaken (which I could be, since I haven't played yet on beta nor PTR); there is set sequence of spells to cast when you proc Marking Target. Once that procs it's basically:

Sidewinders (applies vuln + hunters mark) > Marked Shot > Aimed Shot > Aimed Shot (> Aimed Shot)
It's almost always 2 aimed shots unless you have a certain amount of haste and a LnL proc.

After that you have like 5 seconds until the next Sidewinder charge comes back, in which you're fishing for Marking Target procs, using up LnL procs (*), using barrage and when we get our artifact Wind Burst.

-----

* Question from my side:

Guide states:

If you have chosen Lock and Load, nothing changes in your rotation, though you should try and spend the procs while Vulnerable is active, and as quickly as possible.

Without Patient Sniper this is pretty clear. Just make sure you have Vulnerable up (3 stacks preferably of course) and use LnL procs as soon as possible.

With Patient Sniper this is a bit trickier.

On one hand you:
a) Don't want to waste procs by holding onto LnL
b) If you have enough focus, than the only benefit of holding on to those LnL procs for a Vulnerable window is the fact it's instant. Which will save you 2x 0.5 seconds or less (depending on haste) compared to a hard casted Aimed Shot.

On the other hand:
a) With a certain amount of haste having a LnL would allow you to get those 2 instant Aimed Shots off PLUS another hard cast. Which might be beneficial during the high damage window
b) I'm not sure how comfortable you are on focus. Marked + 2x Aimed costs 130 focus, which is quite a bit.

My gut feeling says spend it asap (unless you can sidewinder in the next 2 or so seconds), as wasting procs is a huge waste.

[Ehuehuecopter]

Glad i dropped a 735 Kira last week...but really MM feels so awkward on RNG procs.....

With AS marked procs a lot

With Sidewinders, oh wow kill me.

[Nightcrwler]

Tried out MM a bit last night based on Icy Veins guide, talents etc. I'm obviously still getting to grips with the rotation but I feel like I'm constantly focus starved. This makes me think that my rotation might feel better if I replace say my tier shoulders with a mastery heavy piece and losing the 4 piece bonus.

Would this greatly reduce my dps to not warrant such a change? I'll test it out tonight when I get home from work but I was just wondering if somebody else tried it.

[Deleted]

Don't forget that Marked Shot also benefits from Vulnerable. And marked shot does more damage than aimed shot (WAY more damage if you marked multiple targets), so the benefit of vulnerable isn't wasted.

The MM rotation is a priority. But unless I'm mistaken (which I could be, since I haven't played yet on beta nor PTR); there is set sequence of spells to cast when you proc Marking Target. Once that procs it's basically:

Sidewinders (applies vuln + hunters mark) > Marked Shot > Aimed Shot > Aimed Shot (> Aimed Shot)
It's almost always 2 aimed shots unless you have a certain amount of haste and a LnL proc.

Then you are overwritting vulnerable and wasting it.

The magical ideal non-existant scenario is:

1.You get a HM proc-> SW
2.As many AiS as you can fit before vulnerable goes off.
3.MS (still inside the vulnerable window from point 2).
4.Point 3 applies a new vulnerable window so AiS +AiS...
5.Now 12 sc has elapsed since the last HM proc (6s+6s) and since HM is 5 rppm (+ haste) you get a new HM so point 1 again(this is the ideal situation of course).

This implies pooling focus before you use SW.

The only situation where you want to MS on a vulnerable window over AiS is multiple targets are present and some will die before the window is almost about to finish.

My doubt is Barrage > AiS even in a vilnerable window or only without the debuff ?

[Nythiz]

Then you are overwritting vulnerable and wasting it.

The magical ideal non-existant scenario is:

1.You get a HM proc-> SW
2.As many AiS as you can fit before vulnerable goes off.
3.MS (still inside the vulnerable window from point 2).
4.Point 3 applies a new vulnerable window so AiS +AiS...
5.Now 12 sc has elapsed since the last HM proc (6s+6s) and since HM is 5 rppm (+ haste) you get a new HM so point 1 again(this is the ideal situation of course).

This implies pooling focus before you use SW.

The only situation where you want to MS on a vulnerable window over AiS is multiple targets are present and some will die before the window is almost about to finish.

My doubt is Barrage > AiS even in a vilnerable window or only without the debuff ?

You are correct.
That was my bad. I didn't know that when you picked sidewinders that marked shot also still applied vulnerable (patch wasn't live on EU yet when I wrote that). I read the rotation guides, but that one slipped past me.

Barrage > AiS even in vulnerability according to the Azor priority list.

The scenario of a more "static rotation" has come up quite often I must say. It takes some time getting used to, but it's not too bad I must say. My biggest annoyance is how Sidewinders doesn't act like Barrage, but rather stops when it hits your target. So if you target something at the front of a cluster of mobs, you might not hit them all.

[Deleted]

Which spec is going to be better for mythic+? I'm deciding between SV and BM.

[Dracodraco]

Which spec is going to be better for mythic+? I'm deciding between SV and BM.

Neither. Marksman is far superior to both in the current state of the game.

[Riistov]

Neither. Marksman is far superior to both in the current state of the game.

That could change though depending on trinkets/set bonuses, etc.

Everything is going to be fluid as I expect that we will see a numbers balancing soon based on feedback.

[Divinexve]

How superior is MM to BM in a 110 raiding scenario? Does BM even get played at all during any point next xpac or should I just dump all of my AP into MM.

[Dracodraco]

That could change though depending on trinkets/set bonuses, etc.

Everything is going to be fluid as I expect that we will see a numbers balancing soon based on feedback.

Sure. Everything could change with any patch and fine tuning. He asked for an answer now, though, so he got an answer based on the current situation.

As for how superior, they do fairly equal damage, but every bit of MM's aoe is essentially 100% free, while BM has to actively attempt to do AOE.
Add that MM has no pet that needs to be in melee range of a target to do damage (and let's not forget the dire beast), and that MM can target switch faster because of that.

[jon234]

Is there a weak aura for Way of the Mok'Nathal? as if there was im sure it would simplify that even further than it already is. following that does one refresh Mok'nathal with less than 4 seconds left? or just wait as late as possible to do it.

[danik9579]

Thanks dude awesome guides

[Deleted]

Is there a weak aura for Way of the Mok'Nathal? as if there was im sure it would simplify that even further than it already is. following that does one refresh Mok'nathal with less than 4 seconds left? or just wait as late as possible to do it.

The author of WA put in a neat function with the new build, if you hit new you can select "from template" and then select icon, which lets you select a wide variety of spec-specific buffs and debuffs.

Furthermore, you want to refresh WotMN with ~2 seconds left.

[Azortharion]

What do you believe to be magical about the 2 second number? That's needlessly high when you have enough downtime to just tunnelvision the timer and refresh at 0.5s or below that.