[Survival] What is your opener?

[Aertea]

Its not the best idea to macro it, since in the opening you will likely be using a second Fervor while AMOC is both off cooldown, and on the boss (thanks to the readiness reset). Just make a separate keybind.

[Meleti]

I don't do it but I don't see any particular problem with:

/cast Fervor
/cast A Murder of Crows

I may be wrong on this, but because Fervor is off the GCD the macro should be usable without Fervor being off cooldown. This way you'll save an additional keypress when you are using Crows.

Fervor still needs its own bind for when you are using it without Crows (read: 75% of the time).

[Cutsman]

What macro are you using for Fervor + AMoC? Is it simply:

/use A Murder of Crows
/use Fervor

?

I personally don't use a macro for these abilities, I just use them in quick succession. I use Fervor first because it is off the GCD then Crows. The way I do this so quickly is Fervor is bound to my Mouse (right hand), and AMoC is bound to my keyboard (left hand).

I would be wary of macro ing these abilities together. I suppose it is possible, but in order to not waste focus, you'd have to make sure you're 49 focus or below if you were using the macro. You'll find however that fervor will oftentimes not line up with crows, so you'd need to push your focus above 60 to use crows. To me this sounds like too much micromanaging, but your mileage may vary.

If you do decide to macro these two together, put the /use Fervor line above the /use AMoC line, as you'll need the focus before casting AMoC.

[zenyatta]

As an aside, I see a lot of engineer hunters in this thread. Is that one of the new top proffs? I'm still rocking LW and JC =(

[Tehstool]

As an aside, I see a lot of engineer hunters in this thread. Is that one of the new top proffs? I'm still rocking LW and JC =(

Eng is by far the best profession out there.

[clevin]

Ok, this might be heresy, but aside from short fights does the precise sequence of an opener matter that much? I've always gotten dots up first, Explosive on CD and then set off things like AMOC and Stampede, weaving in Glaive Toss/Barrage. So my opener looks something like ES>BA>SrS>GT>Fervor>AMOC>Stampede, then filling in CS as I need focus, AS as I need to to burn focus and using most abilities on CD (Fervor I might hold a bit depending on my focus when it comes off CD). That opener (or something close) gets my dots running ASAP, gets my short CD abilities on CD early, and gets my longer CD abilities up quickly too. I can see how optimizing an opener on a fight like Jinrokh which can be very short might be worth it, but does it really make much difference on 7+ minute fights?

[Deleted]

MD/HM/PREPOT/PRECAST COBRA
BA
ES
SRP
Rapid fire
Stampede
Fervor
Crows
Glaive toss
ES
Cobra
Cobra
Normal priority until glaives comes off cd
Glaives
Readiness
Fervor
BA
ES
...


Fitting in Arcane shots as i fits my focus and the shots coming off CD

[Hayro1]

Is it just me or is macroing Fervor+AMoC like the worst idea....ever?

[Aertea]

It's all about Eng. In the absolute worst case scenario (a fight that ends exactly on an even minute) the gloves average out to the same gain as other professions. However they also line up with every other CD we have, since they are all on 2-3-5 minute timers. Which boosts he benefit.

Not to mention how useful the sprint is.

[Conando]

Even if it were a DPS loss I would use it for the Goblin Glider. That's seriously like one of the first things I look for in a new raid. Are the bosses interesting? Is there any cool loot? Where will I be able to glide?

Really though, engi springs are pretty great for opening burst. I delay it a bit (like I said, I macroed mine into my Glaive Toss/Barrage button) so that everything is running when it comes up and it seems to work out pretty well.

[mediic]

I modeled my opener off of Devai's opener (of dream paragon). It changes depending on whether you have glaive toss or barrage. This part before the pull remains the same however:

-10. Position pet as close to boss as possible without pulling
-7. If you have dash/dive macro'd into your misdirect macro, you need to cast it at least 6-7 seconds before the pull timer reaches 0 so pet can start fight with full focus.
-5. Hunter's mark anytime before the pull. Doesn't matter when, as it will be refreshed with the first explosive shot, but this HM will buff your first serpent sting.

If you are using barrage:
0. pre-pot
1. Serpent sting
2. Explosive shot
3. Black Arrow
4. Fervor + A Murder of Crows
5. Stampede + rapid fire + racial
6. Barrage
7. Cobra shot for t15 2 piece proc
8a. If LnL has procced, use up all procs
8b. If no LnL proc, explosive shot
9. Readiness + Explosive shot
10. Barrage
11. Normal priority

If you are using glaive toss:
0. pre-pot
1. serpent sting
2. Explosive shot.
3. Black arrow
4. Glaive Toss
5. Fervor + A murder of crows
6. Stampede + Rapid Fire + racial
7. Cobra shot for t15 2 piece proc
8a. If LnL has procced, use up all procs
8b. If no LnL proc, explosive shot
9. Readiness + explosive shot
10. glaive toss
11. Normal priority

Some notes:
- This rotation focuses on squeezing as many explosive shots out as possible, as it is our highest damaging move.
- Using explosive before black arrow in the beginning is important as you want explosive to be on cool down before any LnL procs can take place
- Barrage is used under rapid fire to lower its cast time, but I use glaive toss before fervor to reduce the chances of fervor focus capping me.
- The timing on the second black arrow is somewhat critical (after readiness). Though normally clipping black arrow is impossible due to its 20 second duration and 24 second cool down, using readiness in the opener means you can re-cast black arrow at any time. Ideally, like any other DoTs, black arrow should be reapplied when there is one tick left on the duration of the original black arrow. Black arrow ticks once every 2 seconds, so it should be refreshed when there is <1.99 seconds remaining on its duration. However, you will squeeze more damage out of black arrow if you can re-apply it during your trinket procs. This is especially true if you have a renataki's, as re-applying during the last 2 seconds of the renataki proc will snapshot black arrow with a high amount of agility, meaning that clipping one tick is okay if you can get the 2nd black arrow going with high agility. Thus, depending on the timing of my trinket procs, I may clip one tick (by casting when there is <3.99 seconds remaining on BA duration) just so my second black arrow can enjoy the snapshot of my trinkets. I have found with this rotation however that generally both my black arrow and trinket durations will end within 1 second of each other, giving me time to re-apply without clipping ticks.
- If my trinkets proc a second time during the first rapid fire, I tend to cast rapid fire again when it comes off cool down, as you can fit 5-6 seconds of the initial pre-pot into the 2nd rapid fire, though if trinkets didn't proc again it's worth waiting until they proc again before using rapid fire so you can overlap as much attack speed increase + trinket bonuses as possible. This of course can vary depending on the situation of each individual fight.

These threads are always good for a laugh. It's funny how everyone has their own 'perfect' opener.
Anyway, chiming in to say I agree 99% with this guy. Especially the notes about ES, BA and trinket timing.

I'd question why you cast Serpent Sting before Explosive, going by your logic.
I've also considered precasting Cobra for the procs/free damage but it means you need to waste 1-2 seconds of pre-pot. Not sure if it's worth the trade off.

[Glurp]

Is it just me or is macroing Fervor+AMoC like the worst idea....ever?

It's not quite as bad as you put it, but it is pretty bad. It's not going to completely ruin you but it's definitely not a good thing to do if you want to maximize your DPS. Sometimes you just have to face the fact that some people don't want to do everything perfectly and there's not much more you can do for them than give them a priority list and tell them "do it."

[jinsu]

These threads are always good for a laugh. It's funny how everyone has their own 'perfect' opener.
Anyway, chiming in to say I agree 99% with this guy. Especially the notes about ES, BA and trinket timing.

I'd question why you cast Serpent Sting before Explosive, going by your logic.
I've also considered precasting Cobra for the procs/free damage but it means you need to waste 1-2 seconds of pre-pot. Not sure if it's worth the trade off.

you can only fit so many gcd between each explosive shot..so probably using serpent first just ensures that it gets full benefit from all trinket procs where as you would end up having to delay it till the next explosive or delaying something else like glave toss.

[3clipse]

So the thing is, with long cooldowns like Rapid Fire/Stampede/Readiness, the 15-20 second variation in opener probably won't affect how many times you can use them during the fight, which means overall DPS won't really be impacted.

I think opener really comes down to what you can consistently pull off that is the most smooth and effective.

re: Serpent Sting, Serpent Sting is the highest damage per focus and damage per global that we have, you want it ticking before anything else goes off.

[Rekuja]

Anything works tbh, it all depends how well you maintain the rotation... serpent/blackarrow constantly up, crow on CD, keep eyes on serpent sting to refresh with cobra, etc etc

surv is very smooth, easily the best rotation for hunters.

[Nokie]

Hi guys,

I've got a question that may be basic/obvious to most of you but it's been nagging at me for a long time:

What is the reasoning/details behind the notion that one should stack as many cooldowns as possible for the ‘multiplicative’ effect? What does that really mean? To me, this sounds like a high ‘burst’ of damage over a short period of time. But in a RAID fight of 5-10 minutes why is such a short period of high burst damage more desirable than the same amount of damage smoothed-out over a longer period of time?

In other words consider the two scenarios (trying to keep the numbers simply for example purposes only):

Scenario 1: You do 10 million damage total over 5 minutes (avg of 33.3K DPS). The first 30 seconds represent a ‘big’ portion of that damage and lets say you do around 100K DPS due to your stacking of CDs and benefiting from that multiplicative effect and the remaining 270 seconds of the fight you average around 26K DPS. At the end of the fight you still did a total of 10 million DPS

Scenario 2: You do 10 million damage total over 5 minutes (avg of 33.3K DPS). But you don’t do anything fancy with the stacking of CDs to benefit from the multiplicative effect and end up with a pretty steady output of 33.3K DPS over the 300 seconds.

Why is scenario 1 a better approach to take (i.e. all of the discussion around the ‘best’ opener in this thread)?

Am I missing something?

[Deleted]

Lets put it this way, you use synaps springs (engi gloves) and for example berserking (troll racial) you will not only do abilities that hit harder, but you will be able to fit more of them in, in that period of time.

[Nokie]

Lets put it this way, you use synaps springs (engi gloves) and for example berserking (troll racial) you will not only do abilities that hit harder, but you will be able to fit more of them in, in that period of time.

Thanks for replying Joyful,

I get that stacking the springs and troll racial will make your abilities hit harder but how is that better than using spring and the troll racial back-to-back while following the same priority system?

Why will you be able to fit more abilities in that period of time? Is it that the haste is higher and you have a shorter GCD and thus can fit in 1 or two more abilities in the same timespan?

[Cutsman]

The reason why an opener is important is because it is the best time to stack damage because it lines up with your pre-pot. The scenarios presented by billimek are not realistic. No hunter (or player in general) is going to see that his or her hunter had a great opener and sit back and chill for the rest of the fight. If you are capable of pulling 33.3k dps sustained, you are not going to be lazy and pull 26k intentionally. In both scenarios the hunters will pull 33.3k dps sustained but in scenario one the hunter did research and had a better opener which thus resulted in more overall damage.

Having a great opener is in fact optimal for most fights. Anyone who has wiped to a boss' enrage when the boss had 100k hp left and forgot to pre-pot should know this.

Having a "correct" opener (including pre-potting, squeezing out as many of your most powerful attacks as possible, and layering as many dps increases as possible) is also flat out strategically important for some fights. One that comes to mind is heroic sha of fear. Because most guilds don't kill the terror spawns, the first phase becomes increasingly difficult as it goes on. Having a correct opener is important as it is somewhat less possible to play properly while dodging a million penetrating bolts. While this isn't as much the case for hunters because we can dps fully on the move, all other ranged classes will be limited in what they can cast and thus rely more on their opener for their overall damage output in phase 1.

In general, having the proper opener is important for any fight when you need to push the boss out of the first phase as quickly as possible, or any fight where it is an overall dps check (like gara'jal) because you typically bloodlust off the pull to line it up with pre-pots.

[Conando]

I'll use an extreme scenario and ridiculous numbers because it makes the math easy.

Say there's a fight that's three minutes long. And then say that you're playing a class that does terrible damage but then has one big ridiculous cooldown that lasts a minute. Of all the damage you do during the whole fight, 50% of it comes in that one minute ridiculous cool down (meaning that each other minute you do 25% and 25%).

Then say that you have an on use trinket that you can use once and it buffs your damage for one minute. By using that trinket during your huge cooldown minute, you're using it to modify 50% of your total damage. Had you used it in one of the other two minutes, it would only be modifying 25% of your total damage. That's why it's beneficial to stack.

When people talk about stacking cooldowns, they're not just talking about stacking unrelated damage cooldowns (like Stampede and Crows), it's about using big abilities and then using trinkets/potions/cooldowns that modify your stats/damage to cause those big abilities to do more damage.