Survival and Focusing shot

[Deleted]

Heya all, been browsing the forums for a long time and i notice that not many people are playing survival (due to its lower damage i guess), and even less people using focusing shot - normaly i read reports of people using EM for AOE +5 and LW for Single.

When i see guides they normaly put focusing shot in the middle ground simming actualy quite OK, but nobody seems to be using it (?).

The drawback is ofc not being able to cast it while moving and i think this is what makes people so scared to the point of not even trying it, or at least trying it for a few hours and then drop it.

I actualy tried for several days now due to stubborness and the fact i absolutely hate cobra shot dreadful Damage-per-execute-time and very low focus regen. After a couple of days geting some "brain-muscle" to stop jumping and moving while casting focussing shot, i actualy find that after geting used to it, it provides a lot of flexibility to off-set the movement cap.

a) provides you with much less downtime while AOEing, especialy when TOTH procs and you get "fast" 50 focus
b) provides you with more uptime on barrage. With good gameplay it's easier to always have the focus for everything especialy barrage
c) gives survival a higher skillcap. Survival seems more of a brainless spec of spammy keys, focusing shot gives the all "not moving for 2,4s and then burst shots" a realy interesting gameplay skill cap


I know that EM is just easier and you get to keep your cobra-shot mobility, and Lone Wolf gets you rid of the pet wich is actualy a plus in some encounters, but all-in-all i ended up with Focusing shot as my go-to ability with decent damage and actualy more chalenging and fun gameplay. Many people will just answer "zomg i don't want to lose my mobility", but in fact i find that those 2,4s of no mobility in the longer run gives me more flexibility of always having loads of focus, can use much more arcane shots for quick burst, etc.

Actualy wondering if any SV out there tried it and still uses it, or just gave up. I understand i may be gimping myself in a min-max scenario, but even in sims Focusing shot is not all that terrible so i'll just try to perfect its gameplay a little bit more to see how it goes in HighMaul.

[jpthepope]

I play survival only and actually in many of the post of mine since the patch started i have been calling for people to at least test it at least. It has done the best in all my live test and its by far the best in aoe and great in st. tonight is going to be my first heroic raid test with it so i will test it out and switch between talents if need be. I do recomend though on fights like tec where moving will be determined by frequent boss abilities you should consider lonewolf, because too much movement can kill FS pretty quickly.

[D R E A D E D]

Not a lot of people are playing SV over MM, and its terrible for MM because you have long casts and high-focus abilities that make it hard to prevent focus capping or under-pooling. Can't really comment on SV

[DeicideUH]

I have a theory that Focusing Shot + Steady Focus may be quite powerful. Since you only need to cast a single Focusing Shot to activate SF, you can pretty much have SF active all the time, providing you with 120 passive extra focus per minute. Have not tested it yet, thought.

[AdrianCC100]

I have a theory that Focusing Shot + Steady Focus may be quite powerful. Since you only need to cast a single Focusing Shot to activate SF, you can pretty much have SF active all the time, providing you with 120 passive extra focus per minute. Have not tested it yet, thought.

Really? I didn't know that.

After trying it, I average 15.5K DPS on the target dummy (With only food buff). That's 2,000 more DPS than I get with Lone Wolf or Exotic Munitions.. The fact that I never have to worry about focus is really cool. I can sit there and spam every spell without delay and just 1 Focus Shot gives me full focus. I will try it in my raid tonight. I tried it with both Steady Shot and Thrill of the Hunt... You can spam more Arcane Shots with TotH, so I get slightly more DPS with TotH than I do with Steady Shot.. But both are pretty good with Focusing Shot..

[Deleted]

Really? I didn't know that.

After trying it, I average 15.5K DPS on the target dummy (With only food buff). That's 2,000 more DPS than I get with Lone Wolf or Exotic Munitions.. The fact that I never have to worry about focus is really cool. I can sit there and spam every spell without delay and just 1 Focus Shot gives me full focus. I will try it in my raid tonight. I tried it with both Steady Shot and Thrill of the Hunt... You can spam more Arcane Shots with TotH, so I get slightly more DPS with TotH than I do with Steady Shot.. But both are pretty good with Focusing Shot..

Focusing shot is "growing" on me tbh. The movement restriction is not all that bad once we get some practice into it and teach our brain to use it in our advantage. It does require us to have a little bit more awareness of environment hazzards to avoid by moving but... thats part of the player skill, right?

Focusing shot + Thrill of the Hunt procs makes AOE more bursty, wich is usefull in certain situations aswell. Also focusing shot + barrage makes it easier to use and less worries about CD clash with Black arrow (both focus-demanding shots), so i notice i can get way more confident with the usease of Arcane Shot, wich promotes a gameplay you can "squeeze" a little bit more dps on bursting adds.


All in all, i'm starting to see a lot more advantages in focusing shot than disadvantages the more i learn to use it ... basicaly gives us more options, instead of a gameplay that is mostly stale and predictable.

[Uriel]

I play Surv cause I didn't like BM and MM is too mainstream for me (Also I've heard that the rotation sucks) The Main Drawback of MM is the Snipertraining mastery. Blizzard said that Movement is the strong point of being a Hunter which justifies the weak DPS, so why should I limit myself even more going back to Wotlk Style while playing MM?

I tried exo ammo and even if it did on par damage I wouldn't use it. The constant ammo switching before and after a Fight is annoying.

Haven't tried focusing shot yet since it offers the same problem like MM, however the increased focus reggen might be worth it IF you don't accidentally focus cap.

Lone Wolf is actually more great that just the damage difference. Not only can you offer more buffs than just 5 (5 Pet slots) and you don't have to do Pet management or pay attention that it doesn't run off and pulls stuff
What I discovered yesterday is: I replaced my Buffpets with a crane and a Nether ray and I built two macros to summon the pet, cast Battlerezz / Hysteria and dismiss it immediately again which cost me about 3 seconds for massive support push. I did test them in a 5man and everybody was surprised that they get Heroism although no no castable class was in the Group.

Sure your personal damage suffers a little, yet the group damage is very worth it. So even if they buff Exo ammo to reach the sky, I think I'll stay LW because of the amazing support we now can bring.

Focusing shot might be worth in a Raid environment where all Buffs are present and several people can Brezz and offer Heroism.

[Deleted]

What I discovered yesterday is: I replaced my Buffpets with a crane and a Nether ray and I built two macros to summon the pet, cast Battlerezz / Hysteria and dismiss it immediately again which cost me about 3 seconds for massive support push.

Can you post them here? I'd really love to have a one button HT macro.

[AdrianCC100]

Focusing shot is "growing" on me tbh. The movement restriction is not all that bad once we get some practice into it and teach our brain to use it in our advantage. It does require us to have a little bit more awareness of environment hazzards to avoid by moving but... thats part of the player skill, right?

Focusing shot + Thrill of the Hunt procs makes AOE more bursty, wich is usefull in certain situations aswell. Also focusing shot + barrage makes it easier to use and less worries about CD clash with Black arrow (both focus-demanding shots), so i notice i can get way more confident with the usease of Arcane Shot, wich promotes a gameplay you can "squeeze" a little bit more dps on bursting adds.


All in all, i'm starting to see a lot more advantages in focusing shot than disadvantages the more i learn to use it ... basicaly gives us more options, instead of a gameplay that is mostly stale and predictable.

I'm actually convinced Focusing Shot is THE level 100 talent for Survival.. It's just giving me better DPS output than the other two... At least so far in the 5 mans I have been testing it. I'll be doing raid testing later tonight, but it looks promising.

[jpthepope]

I have a theory that Focusing Shot + Steady Focus may be quite powerful. Since you only need to cast a single Focusing Shot to activate SF, you can pretty much have SF active all the time, providing you with 120 passive extra focus per minute. Have not tested it yet, thought.

i use that for sv, its really easy to maintain 100 percent uptime and the known focus your going to have at all times is well worth it. I did 21k st on heroic kargath (no warcraft logs but we got a twitch video of it) which means that the more targets you add the more focusing shot takes over (since LW does nothing for aoe)

[Uriel]

Can you post them here? I'd really love to have a one button HT macro.

OK here they are:
(Better copy paste the skills from your book, since I don't know how they are called exactly on english Clients)

#showtooltip Gift of Chi-Ji(Exotic Ability)
/castsequence reset=5 Call pet x
/cast Gift of Chi-Ji(Exotic Ability)
/cast dismiss Pet
/Y attempt to resurrect %T!

X needs to be the number of the Crane

Hysteria

#showtooltip Ancient Hysteria(Exotic Ability)
/castsequence reset=5 Call pet x
/cast Ancient Hysteria(Exotic Ability)
/cast dismiss Pet
/Y attempt to cast Heroism!

X needs to be the number of the Nether Ray. Replace Heroism with whatever it is called for Horde

Keep in mind that you have to stand still to dismiss your pet. Also Battlerezz has a quite short range and the Pet needs to be close to the fallen friend, not you. I was confused at first, since both skills state that they are exotic abilities, however it does work for me. Hopefully Blizzard doesn't nerf this. Both call pet and the skill are off the GCD so all you really need to make sure is that you dismiss your pet properly,

[AdrianCC100]

After testing on Brackenspore and Tectus in 635 ilvl. I was doing 18,000 to 19,000 as Survival.

[Uriel]

I have a theory that Focusing Shot + Steady Focus may be quite powerful. Since you only need to cast a single Focusing Shot to activate SF, you can pretty much have SF active all the time, providing you with 120 passive extra focus per minute. Have not tested it yet, thought.

I tested that combo today with my Surv Hunter. Focusing shot and steady focus did the least damage of my tries, while Focusing shot and TOTH came in second close to Lone Wolf TOTH. FS+TOTH has potential, especially in aoe situation it pulls ahead, but the difference is too small in my eyes to be worthwhile. Keep in mind that I didn't move while testing, so in heavy movement fights FS TOTH falls behind imo. Not to forget about the Brezz Hysteria support LW can provide.

however it is hard to compare Surv DPS imo, since a lucky string of Lock n Load proccs can fuck up your numbers, so maybe my results aren't that meaningful

[Laqwanda]

I'm actually convinced Focusing Shot is THE level 100 talent for Survival.. It's just giving me better DPS output than the other two... At least so far in the 5 mans I have been testing it. I'll be doing raid testing later tonight, but it looks promising.

According to many guide sites (ie noxxic and others) for ilvl 630 focusing shot is hands down the best dps option. But once you hit ilvl 666 you should switch to LW. So if you in nothing but heroic or flex gear focusing shot is unquestionably the best option for dps as Survival.

[AdrianCC100]

According to many guide sites (ie noxxic and others) for ilvl 630 focusing shot is hands down the best dps option. But once you hit ilvl 666 you should switch to LW. So if you in nothing but heroic or flex gear focusing shot is unquestionably the best option for dps as Survival.

Why would Focusing Shot fall off with higher gear level? Just wondering.. I just don't see how LW will be better than Focusing Shot in higher gear level if it's not that way currently for me.

[Uriel]

Why would Focusing Shot fall off with higher gear level? Just wondering.. I just don't see how LW will be better than Focusing Shot in higher gear level if it's not that way currently for me.

I don't know, but I guess its because Cobra scales better with Mastery and that more haste makes the increased Focusgeneration of FS obsolete.

[Flaks]

With SV I've been running Exotic Munitions and not doing too bad on target dummy at about 17.5k.

MM on the other hand I net significantly higher dps with Focusing Shot than either of the other talents in dungeons and dummies. The Steady Focus perk with it sounds interesting though TotH is just too good.

I'll probably try out SV with Focusing Shot some time but I use it mainly for PvP.