SV Hunter requiring help please assist!

[flovust]

Hi all im having troubles getting to 8k-9k dps as surv.
I usually average 6-7k dps but i see a fellow guild mate who is a little under geared than me and is also SV beat me on the meters.
I have no idea what im doing wrong? I reforged my helm, cloak, shoulders, chest, gloves and legs from crit to mastery. I see my ExS critt for 6k most the time. But still...

My rotation goes, Hunters mark, ExS, Serpent, BA, SS, SS, ExS, SS, SS, SS,ExS,Serpent, SS, SS, SS, BA, u get the picture.

Here is my gear wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Haomarush&cn=Flovust&gn=Just+a+Dream

and this is my guildmates gear wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Haomarush&cn=Wusoo

(sorry this is my first post on here, so i cant link websites.... apparently not even armory.. youll have to copy and paste >_< )
How can I increase my dps?

[varden33]

Quick tip, ask him!

[flovust]

my question really is, how much dps should I be outputting with the gear I have?

[voltage351]

6 to 7k should be what you are doing right now. You could look at femaledwarf.com and get an idea of what your dps should be for your gear. Your friend has more attack power and more crit so I think that is why he is doing more dps.

[camphor]

Check the latency difference with your friend as well. But in terms of priority and DPS in real raid situations, damage per cast time changes depending on the time to live on what you're fighting. Especially since the change to focus, you have to be looking forward in terms of adds and target swaps. For example, target going to die very soon? A pair of arcane shots might be worth taking instead of blowing your fire trap C/D on a black arrow.

[ariatas]

uhm well as far as im aware you shouldn't reforge for mastery but for haste.

[Deleted]

Don't reforge crit or haste to mastery it sucks for survival at lvl 80 and remove black arrow from your rotation it's not worth using right now unless the boss is moving around alot, trap launcher + explosive trap costs only 10 focus with the glyph, lasts longer, has more ticks so more chance to proc lock and load and the reduced focus cost means you can squeeze some arcane shots in.

I use this macro for my explosive trap, move your mouse pointer where you want to aim then tap the keybind 2 times and you should be ready to fire the trap.

#showtooltip Explosive Trap(Fire)
/castsequence reset=2 Trap Launcher, Explosive Trap(Fire)

[Naveel]

My rotation goes, Hunters mark, ExS, Serpent, BA, SS, SS, ExS, SS, SS, SS,ExS,Serpent, SS, SS, SS, BA, u get the picture.

This is your problem...

As a hunter you don't use a rotation (even before 4.01) but you use a priorty list. If you are not aware of what a priority list is, it's basicly the moment you can or should do something that is higher on your list of priority you should opt for the shot/action highest on your priority list.

Your Priorities are in following order:

1) Apply Hunters mark if it's not applied
2) Kill Shot when target is below 20%
3) (Re-)Apply serpent sting (the moment serpent sting goes under 3 seconds it's save to re-apply it)
4) Explosive Shot (Always make sure that you have enough focus required to shoot this the moment it comes off cooldown)
5) Black Arrow when it comes available or use Explosive Trap (with the launcher, see below in my post though) (Thx for the tips to the following posters)
6) Arcane Shot if you have a lot of focus left
7) Steady Shot if you are low on focus

Another note: use cooldowns like Rapid Fire on the right time, mostly you want to use that together with a haste potion during Heroism/Bloodlust.
Also: If you get lock and load don't fire off 2 explosive shots in a row, that will clip down the debuff of the first debuff. Wait a tiny moment or quickly shoot another shot in between the 2 free Explosive Shots
And!: check below, indeed work with traps, I forgot to mention that, but I also noted down an important downside concerning having more hunters in the raid...

Now it is true that in Survival you will have a lot of moments where you are focus starved, especially with the fact that you need to re-apply Serpent Sting every time. This will go easier once you obtain Cobra Shot in Cata as Cobra Shot adds 6 seconds of Serpent Sting uptime.

I would recommend playing Marksman if you are realy interested in the dps numbers.


On Reforging: do some tests yourselves, some people claim that for surv at level 80 it's better to reforge to haste (as this will increase your focus regeneration), others claim that it's like BM and MM that you should reforge to Mastery.

The truth is actually that there are probably some "plateaus" where certain amounts of haste give you an ideal conversion rate towards having uptime on your shots, with "higher plateaus" giving you an extra Arcane Shot every once in a while. In between those plateaus you basicly "wait too long" for that Arcane Shot to come up.

That last paragraph is purely specculating from my end but from what I have seen from numbers and small tests I'm doing while working on an add-on I'm writing, I can say that it's a plausible myth (My add-on is Hunter Got Focus, check it out, I heard a lot of people saying they increase their dps with my add-on as you get a better visual reference of what is happening with your focus)

---------- Post added 2010-11-07 at 03:04 PM ----------

Don't reforge crit or haste to mastery it sucks for survival at lvl 80 and remove black arrow from your rotation it's not worth using right now unless the boss is moving around alot, trap launcher + explosive trap costs only 10 focus with the glyph, lasts longer, has more ticks so more chance to proc lock and load and the reduced focus cost means you can squeeze some arcane shots in.

Interesting to know (as I don't play Survival myself). I do want to add though that the debuff a mob gets from an explosive trap (that gets you your lock and load) is unique. So if you have 2 Survival Hunters in a raid, they are going to steal away the debuff from each other (overwriting it). So make sure you that you as hunters have a type of rotation or priority on that trick...

[Spl4sh3r]

uhm well as far as im aware you shouldn't reforge for mastery but for haste.

To much Haste isn't good either that would give you to much Focus

[Thaya]

As Survival, I didn't reforge for mastery at all - it wouldn't affect your pet - around 12-15% of your damage, neither it will affect auto- and steady-shot which would be another 35-40% of the damage done by you (minus the pet).

[Deleted]

Well right now there isn't exactly one 100% fool proof way to do decent numbers, depending on your gear, latency, playstyle and such one can trump ahead, you just have to find it. I had great numbers pre patch in agility MM build, being 264 geared with almost no 277 and it worked. Now, MM works horrible for me, however 21% mastery reforged survival does great. Guild has stopped 25 mans, so I've no idea how 30% buff and full buff range would turn out, but comparatively on something like VoA25 pugs I comfortably do 11-12k, which is decent for the gear level. As MM, I'm either doing something completely wrong or it's just not working out, I'm having a really hard time breaking 8-9k. I'm not on the trap launcher bandwagon, I still use BA, since I've found plenty of times that the huge boss' hitboxes fail to trigger it, and I've yet to experience a non LnL BA. Playstyle preference

It takes some time to adjust, since you'll find yourself horribly focus starved and often missing Explosives and/or BA's, but when it starts clicking together and you'll know exactly what your focus will be 5 shots ahead, then it becomes pretty easy. We're just forced to plan ahead, and when you achieve that, even arcane shots will find a way to get weaved in here and there. Also note when you pop Rapid Fire / BL all hell breaks loose and don't forget about arcane shot at that point, since you get focus capped in that situation pretty fast, spamming it correctly adds a fair chunk of dps.

Another thing is of course playstyle; Not wasting something like an explosive shot on an add that dies in 2 seconds; having a good nameplate overview and kill shotting low hp stuff at the appropriate time, planning your movement ahead so you know you can unload with full focus when you can stop etc.

Also make sure you prioritize explosive shot. That meaning, if the cooldown of explosive is half a second away from completion, and your focus is just about right, don't cast another shot, but ALWAYS wait that small amount and never delay explosive shot. You either delay it for 1.5s-ish with a steady, or even more if you reapply sting / BA and then
have to steady some more to pool for explosive, and you lost 15k damage in mere seconds immediately.

If you ever played survival before, like all of us did from 3.0.8 until 3.2, the whole adjustment isn't difficult, if not, I do understand it can be a bit overwhelming. But then again, if you take your time and learn how to do good right now when we're missing cobra shot and effectively making our lives much more miserable, you'll become an amazing hunter when cobra shot is available.

[tessla]

There is so much bad advice in this thread:

Reforging: Do not reforge anything except for Hit after you are over the cap. Mastery is going to be prime with Cobra Shot, but for now your top three damaging abilities are: Explosive Shot, Auto Shot, Steady Shot. Crit is superior.

Black Arrow vs. Explosive Trap: This was correct. You should be using Explosive Trap since it costs 25 less focus with the Glyph of Trap Launcher. Black Arrow will be better on high-movement fights, and will be superior come Cataclysm when it gets a damage buff. Right now Explosive Trap is less focus, more damage, and procs LnL more frequently.

Haste: You should aim for about 20% Haste. Again, DO NOT REFORGE YOUR CRIT. Also, because you can focus starve yourself, do not reforge your Haste.

Priority List: The one posted above is almost correct. Explosive Trap is always more important that SrS. Also, if you have multiple Hunters in raid you can take HM off your bars as any of the other Hunters will follow that priority list to the letter and cast it for you. Just a tid-bit of advice :P

[MMONew]

Femaledwarf is very broken right now so it's very unreliable

I would say 8k is probably what you should be aiming for.

[harky]

Crit -> Mastery is a DPS gain as SV at 80. The advise to not reforge at all is silly and ill informed.

Anyway, the main reason you seem to be out DPS'd by someone in worse gear is... he's not in worse gear. Your gear is pretty even. You have more Haste/Mastery, he has slightly more Crit and isn't quite hit capped. However, he also has more Agi than you and is using a 264 weapon vs you with a 251. Did you not notice him with a weapon nearly 30 DPS higher than yours?

He should be out-DPSing you. That said you should also be easily breaking 9k in that gear. So you probably do need to work on your rotation a bit.

[tessla]

Crit -> Mastery is a DPS gain as SV at 80. The advise to not reforge at all is silly and ill informed.

Your post is silly and ill informed.

Anyways, I out-right DEMOLISHED one of my guilds other Hunter in DPS last night in Ulduar. He out-gears me by quite a bit, is even using H-LK10 Xbow, but he left all his Crit reforged to Mastery from playing as MM. I can put up a SS if you do not believe me.

Per point:

Crit is 1.6******* DPS per point.
Mastery is 1.4****** DPS per point.

I can get you the exact numbers, but once more...REFORGING YOUR CRIT INTO MASTERY AS SURVIVAL IS A BAD IDEA AND WILL RESULT IN A DPS LOSS.

I hope putting it in caps will force it through some people's heads. Until we get Cobra Shot we shouldn't even consider reforging to Mastery. I don't know why anyone thinks that it is a DPS increase to go into Mastery. It's been posted a hundred times over to not do it, people have actually calculated the DPS of each stat, and there are plenty of logs supporting it. STILL

"DUR DUR DUR Explosive Dmg Buff is DUR GOOD"

Crit is better.

[harky]

Per point:

Crit is 1.6******* DPS per point.
Mastery is 1.4****** DPS per point.

This is based off math from FemaleDwaf, which as many have already stated... is wrong. People are easily outperforming the theoretical maximum DPS given from FemaleDwarf.

BRB lowering my DPS by ~200 by changing my reforging... No thanks.

[tessla]

This is based off math from FemaleDwaf, which as many have already stated... is wrong. People are easily outperforming the theoretical maximum DPS given from FemaleDwarf.

BRB lowering my DPS by ~200 by changing my reforging... No thanks.

No idea what to tell you. I can out DPS any Hunter who has retorted their Crit to Mastery and my own tests have shown that doing so dropped me about 800 to 1000 on dummies and in raids.

Femaledwarf has some screwy calculations, but when corrected it is only going to show an even wider gap.

I have run tests with the same gear and spec and dropped by a very notable degree. But... you read a forum post so like, dur I'm wrong.

[harky]

But... you beat this one other hunter this one time so like, dur I'm wrong.

Fun fact: I do more on target dummies when reforged to Mastery than I do when not reforged too. Around 3-400 DPS less.
Second fun fact: I also do around 200 more in raids and up to about 500 more on stationary fights.

The problem with anecdotal evidence is you can never be sure exactly why you got the result that you got unless you take a comprehensive look. Did they get bad luck on LnL? Did they use BA when they could have used ET? Etc, etc. And just to note, if you're losing 800+ DPS on a dummy test you're doing something wrong, or aren't testing properly. Using the DPS scalings you posted an 800 DPS loss would mean you somehow reforged ~4,000 crit rating.

Either way discouraging someone for testing for themselves in their own gear is never going to help anyone.

[tessla]

No I also tested for an hour on the dummy and the other Hunter was using ET. So should I put up some logs? You ignore half of what I say so maybe...like...8?

[conqq]

Don't reforge crit or haste to mastery it sucks for survival at lvl 80 and remove black arrow from your rotation it's not worth using right now unless the boss is moving around alot, trap launcher + explosive trap costs only 10 focus with the glyph, lasts longer, has more ticks so more chance to proc lock and load and the reduced focus cost means you can squeeze some arcane shots in.

I use this macro for my explosive trap, move your mouse pointer where you want to aim then tap the keybind 2 times and you should be ready to fire the trap.

#showtooltip Explosive Trap(Fire)
/castsequence reset=2 Trap Launcher, Explosive Trap(Fire)

#showtooltip Explosive Trap
/cast reset=2 Trap Launcher, !Explosive Trap

That should be more effective.

Edit: Trap Launcher doesn't trigger GCD as far as I'm aware so a /castsequence macro is unnecessary.