best survival opener

[Alvarie]

I heard dismissing your pet is a good way to proc trinkets. I hate Siegecrafter Belts.

"I can solo the belt, i have everything up even trinkets! *Dismisses pet* PROC PROC PROC....

[Azortharion]

Not really trinket procs right at the start of a fight are more important, especially as BM where you stampede instantly and you can have both a TED and a dexterous proc on top of each other. If you wait there's a better chance they don't proc together which means that 10 stack of TED isn't as good. I'd say without TED it for sure doesn't matter, fuck that trinket. I used to not like the whole pre glaive toss for survival but I have grown to like it, especially with a quick lock n load at the start that means u would be sitting on it for a while if you didn't pre glaive.

How is there a bigger chance of them proccing together if Glaive Toss doesn't have an additional chance to proc them? You just substitute that precast Glaive for a Serpent Sting or something (travel time of which is 40 yards a second, so stand 20 yards away and Serpent Sting at 0.5s and win).

[Kissthebaby]

How is there a bigger chance of them proccing together if Glaive Toss doesn't have an additional chance to proc them? You just substitute that precast Glaive for a Serpent Sting or something (travel time of which is 40 yards a second, so stand 20 yards away and Serpent Sting at 0.5s and win).

Are we still talking about surv or BM. BM I would say ok, less so for survival, where glaive toss isn't as important at the beginning of your opener. Still talking "ifs" though. It's also nice that you get a mega serpent sting by pre glaiving because it will snap shot your procs all through bestial wrath etc.

[Azortharion]

Serpent Sting is just an example of a spell I'd cast instead of Glaive Toss (if I was sure that Glaive Toss didn't have a chance of double-proccing), the alternative is Arcane Shot but that's twice the focus, and probably means one less Arcane during Bestial Wrath (substituted for a Serpent Sting), though that might be outweighed by the huge amounts of opener focus.

[Deleted]

Noobs^ 10char

[Kissthebaby]

Noobs^ 10char

Geek /10 chars

[mediic]

How is there a bigger chance of them proccing together if Glaive Toss doesn't have an additional chance to proc them? You just substitute that precast Glaive for a Serpent Sting or something (travel time of which is 40 yards a second, so stand 20 yards away and Serpent Sting at 0.5s and win).

Pre-cast GT is good because it moves slow and unlike other shots it doesn't trigger combat until it hits the target, which allows you to delay the prepot by 1-2 second and essentially get a free GCD (and a tiny bit of focus regen). Serpent Sting puts me in combat instantly which makes it impossible to pre-pot after the SS even if cast at max range. My Australian latency could be messing with my results, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

[Kissthebaby]

Pre-cast GT is good because it moves slow and unlike other shots it doesn't trigger combat until it hits the target, which allows you to delay the prepot by 1-2 second and essentially get a free GCD (and a tiny bit of focus regen). Serpent Sting puts me in combat instantly which makes it impossible to pre-pot after the SS even if cast at max range. My Australian latency could be messing with my results, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

Hes not arguing that, he was just trying to say it might be worth it to save glaive toss for when you have procs over pre using it because it might not have 2 chances to proc trinkets like we think.

[mediic]

Hes not arguing that, he was just trying to say it might be worth it to save glaive toss for when you have procs over pre using it because it might not have 2 chances to proc trinkets like we think.

In that case I think I'd still be inclined to pre-cast GT because of the 'travel time/free GCD' aspect. I'm curious if GT does have double the chance to proc stuff though, I've heard it does but haven't tested myself. That would kind of hard to test, you'd need a lot of samples and you'd probably want to avoid using RPPM stuff.

[Nerfgun]

I've had GT proc both my trinkets before on the pre-cast pull. . . I must say that opener on thok was godlike. . . I think I did 1.2 mil or something and held it over 1 mil for a good 20 seconds. . . too bad we wiped on that attempt . . . QQ

brb sacrificing more goats/guild members for better procs next week . . . if anyone ask . . . tell them I'm doing gardening. *winks*

[Azortharion]

Well it's not that much of a free GCD over say an Explosive Shot cast at 0.5s at a 20-25 yard range which would be very unlikely to lose you one over trinket durations (as Glaive Toss is guaranteed to), and honestly, even if Glaive Toss does doubleproc, Explosive Shot ticks have 3 chances to - albeit with intervals, but a 90% chance theoretical chance of one of the 3 ticks (hit-tick-tick) to proc your trinkets seems pretty strong to me over the hit-tick 2 chances from Glaive Toss, although at a smaller interval. Add auto shots etc. to that and what I brought up before about Explosive Shot opening not losing you a use with trinkets (if LnL procs within reasonable time which it usually does) makes this seem kinda ideal to me.

EDIT: Will also likely waste you less focus, which is a minor concern but worth mentioning. If you use my Opener, you go Explosive > All cooldowns + BL/Hero on that pull which would almost immediately regen 15 focus you spent precasting Glaive Toss, so the focus regen of Glaive Toss would be its travel time + BL is popped for that focus regen, then a GCD wait for Stampede at which point your focus is capped at 100 and just chilling till you use your first Black Arrow. Explosive Shot doesn't necessarily fix this but I think you'd be less likely to cap out and "waste" focus.

[mediic]

Well it's not that much of a free GCD over say an Explosive Shot cast at 0.5s at a 20-25 yard range which would be very unlikely to lose you one over trinket durations (as Glaive Toss is guaranteed to), and honestly, even if Glaive Toss does doubleproc, Explosive Shot ticks have 3 chances to - albeit with intervals, but a 90% chance theoretical chance of one of the 3 ticks (hit-tick-tick) to proc your trinkets seems pretty strong to me over the hit-tick 2 chances from Glaive Toss, although at a smaller interval. Add auto shots etc. to that and what I brought up before about Explosive Shot opening not losing you a use with trinkets (if LnL procs within reasonable time which it usually does) makes this seem kinda ideal to me.

EDIT: Will also likely waste you less focus, which is a minor concern but worth mentioning. If you use my Opener, you go Explosive > All cooldowns + BL/Hero on that pull which would almost immediately regen 15 focus you spent precasting Glaive Toss, so the focus regen of Glaive Toss would be its travel time + BL is popped for that focus regen, then a GCD wait for Stampede at which point your focus is capped at 100 and just chilling till you use your first Black Arrow. Explosive Shot doesn't necessarily fix this but I think you'd be less likely to cap out and "waste" focus.

What's the drawback of doing as you say, but in addition precasting GT at -2 sec?
-2 GT
-0.5 Prepot + Explosive > All CDs + BL/Hero

Missing out on procs for the initial GT? I think the benefits outweigh the negatives.

[Azortharion]

What's the drawback of doing as you say, but in addition precasting GT at -2 sec?
-2 GT
-0.5 Prepot + Explosive > All CDs + BL/Hero

Missing out on procs for the initial GT? I think the benefits outweigh the negatives.

There aren't really any benefits to it other than it being another chance at proccing your trinkets on pull, which all abilities are, but it's a fair point.

Do you wanna maximize the chance of getting good RNG, but being unable to make the very most of it

or

Do you wanna rely on the fairly slim chance of getting good RNG, but being able to make the most of it when it happens.

I prefer option #2 for the most part, because it gives me an edge over #1 people when the stars align and trinkets proc like I want them to for big dick DPS, but if you're preferring consistency, #1 might be favorable. In any case the difference is minimal (but not insignificant).

But yeah, the drawbacks would be as you say, you miss out on a lot of damage from Glaive Toss and that's it.

[Glurp]

I thought the point of pre-casting GT (for Survival) was that it didn't initiate combat until it hit the target meaning you could fire it at -3 (standing max range from boss), Explosive trap at -2 then prepot + SrS at -1.

My survival opener (assuming it allows for 40 yd pre-gt and explosive trap) has always been:
-3 GT
-2 Explosive trap
-1 Prepot + SrS
0: Explosive sot
1: Stampede (and berserking if you have it)
2: Black arrow
3: Fervor + AMoC
4: Rapid fire + Arcane shot spam.

[Deleted]

I thought the point of pre-casting GT (for Survival) was that it didn't initiate combat until it hit the target meaning you could fire it at -3 (standing max range from boss), Explosive trap at -2 then prepot + SrS at -1.

My survival opener (assuming it allows for 40 yd pre-gt and explosive trap) has always been:
-3 GT
-2 Explosive trap
-1 Prepot + SrS
0: Explosive sot
1: Stampede (and berserking if you have it)
2: Black arrow
3: Arcane shot
4: Fervor + AMoC
5: Rapid fire + Arcane shot spam.

No idea why you wouldn't use your RF on the pull, or Arcane shot before Fervor/AMOC.

[Glurp]

No idea why you wouldn't use your RF on the pull, or Arcane shot before Fervor/AMOC.

The entire point of RF as Survival is to make Cobra shot a faster cast to get more GCDs in a fight, so using it on pull essentially wastes 4 seconds of it, therefore I feel it is better to save it until you start using Arcane shot. I don't really feel like working it out because it serves no purpose to me but delaying RF that 4 seconds could potentially give you ~3 extra GCDs in a fight because of being able to fit more Cobra shots during that RF.

The Arcane shot before Fervor/AMoC was a typo because I wrote it in then forgot about AMoC, fixed now.

[mediic]

There aren't really any benefits to it other than it being another chance at proccing your trinkets on pull, which all abilities are, but it's a fair point.

The other benefit is pre-casting is essentially the same as having it off GCD for the first cast, and at a slight focus discount due to regen in flight.
These are all absurdly tiny benefits/drawbacks in the grand scheme of things, it's good to keep that in mind in these inane 'best opener' threads.

- - - Updated - - -

I just did some testing on the dummies to verify combat/travel time stuff, when procs occur for various spells (cast or impact) and whether they miss out on the agi bonus from the proc they caused and found something odd.

tests done with 0 armor, green weapon and AoC/Haaroms

Explosive Shot and Serpent Sting trigger combat instantly upon cast. You can't pre-pot during their travel time like you can with GT, even if you macro it and stand at 40 yards(/cast Serpent Sting; /use Virmen's Bite)
Glaive Toss doesn't trigger combat until it hits the target, and it doesn't proc trinkets until it hits the target. It can fail to proc from the initial hit and still proc very late from a return hit on another dummy. This reinforces the idea that the double hit from the glaives gives it twice the chance to proc (on single target) as other spells, but it's not confirmed (too much work).
Spells which trigger procs don't gain the benefit of that proc, except for return GT damage (GT hits dummy, trinket procs, on the return it hits another dummy and does increased damage)

All of those were expected, here's the strange one:
Explosive Shot can not proc trinkets...
After a few test shots I added /stopattack into my explosive shot macro so autoshots wouldn't interfere with the procs and the trinkets never proc'd again. I tried it like 100 times and /cast Explosive Shot; /stopattack will not proc trinkets. I tried it with Serpent Sting and GT and they proc trinkets just fine.
What's up with that? o_O

[Azortharion]

Okay, I give in.

Pre-Glaive Toss master race.

[mediic]

Okay, I give in.

Pre-Glaive Toss master race.

One of us, one of us, one of us....

lol

- - - Updated - - -

I just confirmed the explosive shot bug with another hunter.
Add /stopattack to your explosive shot macro so autoshots won't interfere and spam Explosive on a dummy for 5 minutes and your trinkets will never proc.
I'll tweet WatcherDev and see if I can get a response.

edit2: I tested the Dismiss Pet proc'ing trinkets as per the complaints above and I can't recreate the issue. Dismiss Pet doesn't proc trinkets for me.

[Deleted]

Dismiss pet can proc TeD, and usually as SV you wont have that equipped.