Optimising Renataki's Soul Charm as BM

[Rabak]

This trinket is good fun but what are you hunters out there doing to maximise the buff when it's up?

Personally for me, I try to align the last 10 seconds of Blades of Renataki with BW, if I don't have too wait too long (subjective here, I usually wait for BW only if it's <10s cd). not sure whether it's worth delaying BW for this. Thoughts?

During those Renataki-buffed BW, I try to time my 2 KCs such that they are cast on cd, but the rule is that the 2nd KC is cast at 10 stacks (i.e last 2 seconds before buff drops)


I've never really run with fervor ever since switching to BM in 5.2 (found that I had a lot of focus already), but I might consider it to give me that extra punch when both renataki and bad juju are up. I'm thinking that if I do this I might sacrifice on a bit of pull burst, since dire beast + readiness translates to more direct dps rather than fervor + readiness.

I sometimes manual cast SS when renataki is at 8-10 stacks, depending on how much focus I have (if I have low focus then CS will update SS dot anyways)

Lets share our thoughts on this! I'm sure you pro hunters out there have some tricks up your sleeve... grr

[Beace]

My own very personal feeling about this is that when micromanagement reaches the extremes (which I think you're describing), you run a high risk of actually loosing dps or at best breaking even. When you start paying that much attention to a non-reliable trinket proc, chances are pretty good you're not doing the absolute best you could raid-wise and "rotation"-wise. I also feel any time you delay cooldowns (specially short ones like BW), any potential dps gain becomes dodgy. It can work out, but there's also the chance it won't.

That's how I think about it, and I manage to get top 100 logs on WoL pretty regularly despite being far behind the best geared hunters, and being in an average guild. I'm sure there's other hunters that will strongly disagree with me though.

[bendak]

My own very personal feeling about this is that when micromanagement reaches the extremes (which I think you're describing), you run a high risk of actually loosing dps or at best breaking even.

I feel the same way. I often experiment with this kind of thing in LFR to see how it affects DPS. My findings are that when I try to be clever with things like this, the end result is either the same overall damage or sometimes even worse. On a pull the proc is more reliable though, so you might be able to work out a system to inch out a few more dps on pull. However, down the line and depending on the length of the fight you may end up losing that extra cooldown because of any delays you did, which turns the whole thing into a wash. The only thing I tend to delay is focus fire. If it gets to 5 stacks during BW, I wait til BW is done.

[Saoron]

My own very personal feeling about this is that when micromanagement reaches the extremes (which I think you're describing), you run a high risk of actually loosing dps or at best breaking even. When you start paying that much attention to a non-reliable trinket proc, chances are pretty good you're not doing the absolute best you could raid-wise and "rotation"-wise. I also feel any time you delay cooldowns (specially short ones like BW), any potential dps gain becomes dodgy. It can work out, but there's also the chance it won't.

That's how I think about it, and I manage to get top 100 logs on WoL pretty regularly despite being far behind the best geared hunters, and being in an average guild. I'm sure there's other hunters that will strongly disagree with me though.

I don't mean any offense at all by this and I don't mean to sound rude but just because your dps drops cuz of min/maxing, doesn't mean it'll be the same for everyone.. If you're NOT paying that much attention to your procs, you're just doing it wrong.. and you are doing the furthest thing from the best.. the best thing for your raid that you can do as a dps class is do as much damage as your toon allows you to do while following fight mechanics.. They both aren't mutually exclusive.. Just because someone is doing high dps doesn't mean he's gonna fuck up mechanics and vice versa.. They dont' have to be separate.. you can do both and if you can, you should.. If you can't and/or don't want to then it's fine too.. for a casual guild.. But it has no place in progression raiding..

Gaming renataki stacks can possibly be a huge dps gain.. Just got a 500k KC crit tonight .. @op, what you posted is most of what I do already.. just timing KC's with 10 stack and extending a buffed srs whenever possible ends up being a big boost..

[Beace]

I don't mean any offense at all by this and I don't mean to sound rude but just because your dps drops cuz of min/maxing

There's a difference between min/maxing, and micromanaging to the extreme. And no, the best thing for the raid isn't that I put out max dps. The best thing for the raid is that I take minimal dmg, never die, always dps the right targets. Secondary to that is that I put out as high dps as possible, without sacrificing any of the firsts.

And do you realise how little a 500k KC crit means for your total dps in say a 6 minute fight? Specially if you delayed anything to get it.

[Grogar]

I pretty much do the same, time a KC on 7/8 seconds left and then one on 1/2. If I am multidotting a SS atall, Animus, Council, Tortos and a few other fights then I try to get a few high stack Stings before my second Kill Command. Definitely holding cooldowns for a short time so they are up during a proc is a DPS gain, but ya as you said don't wait to long. The DPS gain of getting 4 KC's in during a proc in comparison to only 3 is pretty huge especially if you get a few really late on in the proc.

[Rabak]

Gaming renataki stacks can possibly be a huge dps gain.. Just got a 500k KC crit tonight .. @op, what you posted is most of what I do already.. just timing KC's with 10 stack and extending a buffed srs whenever possible ends up being a big boost..

Saoron! Glad you're joining in the discussion! Do you usually run with fervor or db? Also, so you always open the same way or do you wait for trinket procs first before clicking the I-Win button? sometimes I feel like I get super unlucky and I don't get any procs on my first BW, and then I see my Mage's opening burst is so consistent. thoughts?

[Saoron]

There's a difference between min/maxing, and micromanaging to the extreme. And no, the best thing for the raid isn't that I put out max dps. The best thing for the raid is that I take minimal dmg, never die, always dps the right targets. Secondary to that is that I put out as high dps as possible, without sacrificing any of the firsts.

And do you realise how little a 500k KC crit means for your total dps in say a 6 minute fight? Specially if you delayed anything to get it.

Again.. I will repeat myself since you didn't get it.. The two things do not have to be separate.. Why are you treating them like they are ? 1st do the mechanics right.. and 2nd do good damage.. ? You do both at the same time.. that is a dpsers job. If you take minimal damage, never die, and always dps the right targets and pull 80k dps then you're not doing it right.. If you pull 250k dps and die to stupid shit, you're not doing it right.. If you're pulling 250k dps AND don't die and follow all the mechanics properly, THEN you're doing it right.. I just don't get your insistence on separating the two..

And no there isn't lol.. by definition 'min/maxing' means the 'minimum' and 'maximum'.. it doesn't mean 'sorta in the middle.. sometimes but not always'.. And that 500k crit isn't the only thing hitting the boss.. you stack cd's together and get huge burst dps.. That 'stacking' doesn't only happen once.. It happens multiple times throughout the fight if you 'micromanage' and it nets you higher dps.. But again you come in with a black/white argument not being able to grasp that people can do more than one thing at a time.. If I get a 500k KC crit that doesn't mean i'm just sitting on my ass and hovering my finger over the KC keybind waiting for renataki to stack up so I can press it and rejoice and then go afk.. I am doing EVERYTHING else that I am supposed to, while ALSO simultaneously micro managing my procs and hitting those 500k crits..

Now if your definition of being a dps is different then like I said, that is perfectly fine.. In a casual guild it doesn't matter how much dps you do so long as you follow the mechanics and you will eventually (with enough gear) kill the bosses.. But again, I am talking about progression raiding.. If you want to say 'micro managing doesn't affect my dps all that much and it doesn't matter much to me' then go ahead and do that and leave it at that.. but don't try to apply that ideology to others.. That'd be like a high school track team member telling an olympic runner that 'nutrition balancing' and exercise isn't all that important.. I don't min/max my nutrition and skip my work outs.. I eat whatever I want and my run time isn't affected all that much.. you shouldn't bother with it cuz it'll end up as a loss anyways cuz you'd be overthinking it'..

Saoron! Glad you're joining in the discussion! Do you usually run with fervor or db? Also, so you always open the same way or do you wait for trinket procs first before clicking the I-Win button? sometimes I feel like I get super unlucky and I don't get any procs on my first BW, and then I see my Mage's opening burst is so consistent. thoughts?

As a default I run with DB since it is the higher dps option but it has a condition of it having 100% or close to it uptime and that it benefits from any buffs available in the fight.. On Jinrokh for instance, summoned pets don't get the pool buff.. so fervor would be the better choice if you're running BM.. Or if it's an aoe heavy fight like horridon.. fervor would be the better choice.. but single target fights where DB gets full uptime, it is def the best choice (especially for short fights since the burst with readiness is much higher)

As far as the opener goes, yes.. I always open the same way.. at most i'll delay a BW by 2-3 seconds to line it up with a proc/buff etc.. But if you open the fight, and see your trinkets aren't proccing then just curse your rng.. it's just bad luck.. but you can't delay stampede and BW and wait for a proc that might not even happen for a minute or so since it's based on rng and not ICD's.. You still have the scope/synapse springs/prepot/RF all going..
I'm guessing you're talking about arcane.. i wouldn't say fire is consistent.. it can be anything from horrible to decent to godly depending on crits.. But yea mages in general just have much higher output than we do.. sad reality.. But they also are slave to the same rng we are.. anyone can get a big bad luck streak and not proc any trinkets..

[Puerto]

As a Hunter I find it hit or miss when trying to line up cool downs for trinket procs and what not. You start delaying to much, you miss out on a Kill Command or Explosive Shot. Our class is all about getting as many Explosive Shots or Kill Commands in during a fight, and since they are on short cooldowns, delaying them too much or too often could mean a DPS loss.

Now timing your second potion for when both trinkets proc.. that's another story

[Conando]

Timing a buffed SS is nice and maybe slight delays in KC could be beneficial under Renetaki. It's just really not that extreme though.

To give an example, you're not really just gaining a hugely buffed KC if you game it to be at 10 stacks. There's a tradeoff - you're exchanging:
a mostly buffed KC paired with a fully buffed arcane shot (or GT)
for
a mostly buffed arcane shot, a fully buffed KC, and a chance that the delay will cause you to lose a KC over the course of a fight.

Even if that's a small DPS gain, the couple of times you make that choice over a fight (a fraction of the 8 or so procs you might get over the fight) isn't an extreme DPS change. It's absolutely nothing like the min/maxing some classes do (like Destro warlocks gaming their Chaos Bolt usage).

[Saoron]

There's a fine line when delaying starts to be a dps loss.. and i'm sure most of the top hunters know where that line is and tend to not cross it And yea it's really not hardcore min/maxing like some other classes.. it's just having an addon to monitor your procs and shifting some shots around.. basically all there is to it.. some people make it out to be much more complicated than it is..

[Beace]

some people make it out to be much more complicated than it is..

And some make it out to be a huge dps gain, with no chance of failure.

Though to be honest, I'm surprised there's other HC raiders in this thread that agrees with my viewpoint. Expected it to be more unpopular.

[Aurelas]

With my play style i hate delay abilities, delaying abilities throws me off and i fall behind, the most i ever delay for is BW for 1-2 seconds while KC comes off CD. The trinkets proc often enough that if you try and maximize dps for every single trinket proc throughout the fight you will most likely not be paying attention to the fight nearly as much. I just find trying to do what you guys are saying is too much effort .

I still hold a couple top 25/50/100 ranks (heroic) for BM and i don't min/max trinkets so its not a make or break thing. (aimed at hunters viewing this thread to improve dps)

And ofc still holding high standing dps in my raid group.

[Spiralphoenix]

The difference between a 14s (as in elapsed duration of the trinket effect) renataki KC and 18s rentaki KC is 15-20k damage, tops. Delaying pushes back all future KC's, do it enough and you're losing KC's during the fight, with a full KC on average being worth quite a lot more than 15-20k. It's really not worth it at all, the benefits would be minimal - on the order of a few hundred DPS out of 150+ thousand, if there's any benefit at all - with a high potential to be misjudged.

The difference between an un-rentaki-buffed SS and 18s renataki SS would again only be 20-30k total increased SS damage across it's duration compared to normal SS ticks. An 18s rentaki arcane shot is much more, at the cost of 5 additional focus.

[Puerto]

Timing a buffed SS is nice and maybe slight delays in KC could be beneficial under Renetaki. It's just really not that extreme though.

To give an example, you're not really just gaining a hugely buffed KC if you game it to be at 10 stacks. There's a tradeoff - you're exchanging:
a mostly buffed KC paired with a fully buffed arcane shot (or GT)
for
a mostly buffed arcane shot, a fully buffed KC, and a chance that the delay will cause you to lose a KC over the course of a fight.

Even if that's a small DPS gain, the couple of times you make that choice over a fight (a fraction of the 8 or so procs you might get over the fight) isn't an extreme DPS change. It's absolutely nothing like the min/maxing some classes do (like Destro warlocks gaming their Chaos Bolt usage).

Timing SS? That doesn't work at all. Once you use Cobra Shot to replenish focus, your SS damage will change depending on modifiers up at the time.

[Spiralphoenix]

Timing SS? That doesn't work at all. Once you use Cobra Shot to replenish focus, your SS damage will change depending on modifiers up at the time.

Yes, some people have suggested do it at high focus and postpone using cobra for as long as possible. It's definitely something that has been seriously suggested on this forum.

[Rabak]

No one said that extreme micromanaging would be easy, but I believe it to be the next step to next-level hunter play.

Not dying to mechanics and proper target switching should be a given; those are the most basic requirements a raider should have. Good players can do all that while maintaining a near optimal rotation. It's my belief (again, MY belief only, not enforcing it on others) that the best players line up their shots to procs, pool focus for when multiple procs align, while keeping their rotation as tight as possible

Ideally your procs and shots come off cd all at the same time (I joke with my fellow raiders when this happens, "the stars aligned" lol) but of course real life isn't like that. The ability to make the best decision on the fly when to delay and when to maximise uptime; that's the difference between a good player and a great player.

I personally don't delay my BW when no trinket procs are up. when I DO slightly delay, it is when the trinkets have already procced, then I time my BW for the last 10-11sec. Since BW is on a 1min cd, it's a little forgiving to delay it by a little bit.

As for KC, I don't delay it at all unless I'm in the final 10 seconds of renataki, at which point I will try to look at it as a BW-esque window. This means trying to fit 2 KCs, and timing it at 2s and 8s.

[Saoron]

The difference between a 14s (as in elapsed duration of the trinket effect) renataki KC and 18s rentaki KC is 15-20k damage, tops. Delaying pushes back all future KC's, do it enough and you're losing KC's during the fight, with a full KC on average being worth quite a lot more than 15-20k. It's really not worth it at all, the benefits would be minimal - on the order of a few hundred DPS out of 150+ thousand, if there's any benefit at all - with a high potential to be misjudged.

The difference between an un-rentaki-buffed SS and 18s renataki SS would again only be 20-30k total increased SS damage across it's duration compared to normal SS ticks. An 18s rentaki arcane shot is much more, at the cost of 5 additional focus.

Sigh.. if you have new theorycrafting that all the top hunters missed out on.. then please share it but back it up with real numbers and not just an out of your ass estimation.. Non-buffed srs = 83k total damage.. Renataki buffed srs = 175k.. that's a ~210% increase.. 92k more damage.. And that's outside of a raid.. with higher crit chance, that'll be even more damage.. so I don't know where you're pulling up those 20-30k numbers.. I mean I didn't even have to test it out to know that your '20-30k' statement was just absurd.. Do you even know how much agi you get at max stacks ? You honestly think it would only give 20-30k more damage ? Mind blown.. Because of that i'm not even gonna bother with your KC numbers..

PS: you have wrong gems on.. might wanna look into that. I'd tell you which ones specifically but you clearly know better.

snip

^ What he said.. I'm done with the argument.. people are just way too dense.. Can't seem to fathom that people can multitask and they know not to delay shit by too much so it ends up a dps loss.. They think they know better than majority of the world top hunter player base and that when ppl say micro manage, that equates delaying KC and BW by like 50 seconds or something.. It is only ever by a couple seconds and that ensures highest agi advantage.. But yea like I said, if you personally can't do it, doesn't mean it's a bad thing.. It's just like playing the right spec.. Some people still play SV on single target encounters and just because they are comfortable with the spec and see a dps loss when they switch to BM (cuz they dont' know how to play it properly), that does NOT mean BM is not superior.. It just means you can't utilize it to it's full extent..

[Deleted]

Im not delaying abilities an awful lot personally, outside the fairly obvious focus fire during BW and burst with 2nd pot. Worth keeping in mind that delaying your abilities towards the end of the fight is usually much more forgiving, ie once you know that you will certainly not get another BW in before encounter is over.

[Beace]

No one said that extreme micromanaging would be easy, but I believe it to be the next step to next-level hunter play.

Not dying to mechanics and proper target switching should be a given; those are the most basic requirements a raider should have. Good players can do all that while maintaining a near optimal rotation. It's my belief (again, MY belief only, not enforcing it on others) that the best players line up their shots to procs, pool focus for when multiple procs align, while keeping their rotation as tight as possible

Ideally your procs and shots come off cd all at the same time (I joke with my fellow raiders when this happens, "the stars aligned" lol) but of course real life isn't like that. The ability to make the best decision on the fly when to delay and when to maximise uptime; that's the difference between a good player and a great player.

I personally don't delay my BW when no trinket procs are up. when I DO slightly delay, it is when the trinkets have already procced, then I time my BW for the last 10-11sec. Since BW is on a 1min cd, it's a little forgiving to delay it by a little bit.

As for KC, I don't delay it at all unless I'm in the final 10 seconds of renataki, at which point I will try to look at it as a BW-esque window. This means trying to fit 2 KCs, and timing it at 2s and 8s.

Thing is, there's several hunters in this thread (including me) that's getting good rankings on WoL without tracking trinkets. That says to me that tracking trinkets isn't important, and doesn't give nearly the results some hunters seem to think it does.