Cobra Shot doing more damage in a fight than Explosive Shot

[Deleted]

Hey guys, this is Pasla (Hunter from Lightbringer-EU). I watch Kripps, and many other hunters in top guilds logs online and i see that they are doing more damage with Explosive Shot in a fight than Cobra Shot. For instance on Argaloth as i saw kripp had 32.3% dmg from Explosive Shot and 29.7% from Cobra Shot. No matter how hard a try not to miss even a milisecond of the CD in Explosive shot i still find my self getting more dmg from the Cobra Shot than Explosive Shot. Any tip you can give me to balance those 2? and get explosive ontop of Corba?

[Deleted]

What kind of shot priority are you using?
And how are you making use of your LnL procs?

My explosive shot is always above my cobrashot which is always 2nd.
Also what is the total dps your doing on lets say Argaloth?

[Deleted]

Well first i apply my hunters mark, then Serpent Sting, Black Arrow, Explosive and then 3 Cobras then again Explosive.. and so on. LnL procs i spam the explosive shot key as hard as i can. On that fight my dps was 14,6K DPS. Top DPS in the raid, fight lasted 4:23 min

Thanks for the fast reply!

[Hendrixstorm]

You wouldn't happen to be testing on a dummy would you? There's some kind of crazy +crit talent for any target above 80% HP for cobra/steady shot.

[Upptagen]

Well first i apply my hunters mark, then Serpent Sting, Black Arrow, Explosive and then 3 Cobras then again Explosive.. and so on. LnL procs i spam the explosive shot key as hard as i can. On that fight my dps was 14,6K DPS. Top DPS in the raid, fight lasted 4:23 min

Thanks for the fast reply!

Never spam LnL. Explosive shot i a 3 second DoT, so throw in a cobra shot between the Explosives.

[Calzaeth]

"Spammin" the ES is not that effective. I believe the number crunchers over at EJ found ES->AS->ES to be the most effective, since our mastery makes Arcane hit like a truck, and clipping ES can make you lose one or more ticks.

Personally, I usually go for Explosive Shot -> Cobra shot three times, to build up focus for next round of waiting for procs, and to be sure that I get all the ticks. Might not be effective though, so I'm trying out the ES->AS->ES one.

Edit: Upptagen beat me to it =(

[Kidman]

You shouldn't spam explosive when you get an LnL proc because by doing that you clip the 2º dot of explosive. What I do is fire an cobra between each explosive or if I'm very high on focus maybe an Kill Command (use this very rarely, only got that much extra focus if I have lots of haste buffs on me), after the 2 free shots i fire a arcane because I'm near 100 focus then the explosive.

Also I never count my cobra shots, I always watch my cooldowns and how much focus I have in order to know what to fire, I always try to be at 30 focus more or less.

Edit: slow post. Calzaeth and Upptagen beat me XD

[NstnctGaming]

Never spam LnL. Explosive shot i a 3 second DoT, so throw in a cobra shot between the Explosives.

As he said, LnL is a tricky one, because even if there is no cooldown for explosive shot, the dot still has to run its course, otherwise you are just reapplying the dot 3 times. When LnL procs hit Explosive Shot, watch for the debuff to wear off, use it again immediately when it runs off, and repeat, you can put shots in between them as well, as he said putting a cobra shot in between them would be most effective.

[Deleted]

What kidman said is also what I do also prioritise explosive shot over your black arrow.

[Deleted]

I see your point, but yeah i am testing on Dummy, i will try and make it to Argaloth later today to check it out over there. Thanks for the help guys i really appreciate it.

[Aroo]

Well first i apply my hunters mark, then Serpent Sting, Black Arrow, Explosive and then 3 Cobras then again Explosive.. and so on. LnL procs i spam the explosive shot key as hard as i can. On that fight my dps was 14,6K DPS. Top DPS in the raid, fight lasted 4:23 min

Thanks for the fast reply!

I surely hope you don't SPAM ES after a LnL proc...
In any case, you are hitting almost 15k. I wouldn't worry too much about "doing it wrong". If you were sub-10k, then it would certainly be a cause for concern.

For LnL, you can maximize DPS by hitting ES > Arcane > ES to "spam". It does "waste" focus, but uses your LnL proc faster (and increase dps). Plus it doesn't focus cap you. It's really situational, depending on your current focus usage and your time to live for your target. I use "waste" loosely here, because instead of getting two free ES (which are more expensive focus-wise), you get one free ES and one free Arcane.

Edit: seems others beat me to it...

At the start of the fight, your CS damage might be due to having Careful Aim. As the fight progresses, this extra crit skew at the beginning becomes marginalized.

What you should look at is damage per shot and compare that. Then compare the number of CS you get with your desired results. You may find that you spend more time in CS and maybe focus-capped? I couldn't say without looking at a parse from you and your comparison model.

ES Coeffecient: RAP*0.273 + 453
CS Coeffecient: RAP*0.017 + 276

Because of the stronger coefficient for ES, it should always be prioritized, especially as agility increases.

[Kallixenia]

Put a CS in between ES when LnL procs. Pay attention to your haste, though– I've found that under Rapid Fire, Heroism, and a couple ther haste-increasing buffs, I need to apply 2 CS to keep from overwriting the ES.

[GeordieMagpie]

My explosive is stronger BUT Cobra shot does decent damage, which is good because we have to spam it for regen. So if this is intended, Thanks to Blizz.

[Deleted]

I lurked your Armory Pasla, expecting to see a mid 346 with some 333's mixed in that, not a fully pimped 354.

You must be doing something horribly wrong. With your gear you should be pushing about 20k dps, not 14. Drop the Argaloth trinket, it's crap. You're not at 8% hit, with .3% under you will miss some, that outta drop about 2-300 overall.
Reforging for haste is stupid atm; either you do it when you can muster enough for a 4cobra/cycle, you can't reach it yet, so extra haste after reaching 1.66*7 cobra cast time is wasted until gear levels rise enough to comfortably go for a 1.5s cast without gimping everything else, then we'll talk.
HEREIN LIES YOUR PROBLEM! If you're not delaying Explosive, you're waiting on it too much, since the added haste makes wait time before each explosive, so you got wasted time in there.

Work on that.

Other than that, spamming explosive during LnL is actually 2nd highest dps short of es-as-es. You get 7 ticks out of possible 9, which is however higher dps that anything else suggested.
When you're really low on focus sure, go es-cobra-es-cobra-es, other than that, avoid it. A good solution for a medium focus situation is es-cobra-as-es, but then again it depends on your ba cd as well.

Edit: one more thing, with focused aim, make sure to ignore arcane shot at the first 20% of boss' hp, just keep spamming cobra even if it focus caps you. Even then, your ES should account for about 5% more dmg than cobra at the end of the fight

[Aljaser]

I think there may be an issue with recount on this as well. I find Cobra always topping my list of abilities, but I'm also sitting right at the 13K my theoretical DPS should be.

[Deleted]

As others have said, never spam LnL, instead do it like this -> ES - CS - ES - CS - ES, if BA is ready throw that in instead of an CS.

[frejborg]

Have you looked at those top hunters stats? RAP, Haste, Crit, Mastery? I would think that's where the answer would lie, or perhaps in your gameplay.

[The Doctor]

sounds like if you weaved cobras into your LNL procs, you'll get more effectiveness out of your explosive shot, giving them the time to do all the damage that it could do. it should be where it is and surpass cobra.

in short: stop spammin' lnl, explosive shot is a dot. you don't spam serpent sting, do you? and do you know why? because it wouldn't do you any good.

[Deleted]

You're not at 8% hit, with .3% under you will miss some, that outta drop about 2-300 overall.

I am siting at 8.07% hit atm

[Pope]

since our mastery makes Arcane hit like a truck

sorry, my hunter is only at level 70, but isn't survival's mastery "ELEMENTAL Damage" ?

I was under the impression that elemental damage is frost/fire/nature.

Or is it frost/fire/nature/shadow/arcane?

I play an enhancement shaman, so I have nearly the same Mastery, but deal no shadow/arcane damage.