Hunter Aoe ( A request for help)

[Salidir]

Hello folks, a month or so 5.4 hit I joined a serious 25 man raiding guild, we are currently pressing Heroic modes at the moment. I've been playing my hunter since the second week of vanilla and i consider myself good at what I do. I'm great with single target, however throughout mists I've been having trouble with Aoe.

So i have a few questions to ask.

Firstly I'm BM and it's my prefered spec.

Is it is beneficial to serpent sting multiple targets in aoe packs? for example the waves on Galakras. I can understand stinging an alternate target if it's up long enough for the sting's full duration, but what about more than one?
Or would I better suited to rely on Multi-shot spam(beast cleave) with Barrage? Furthermore should I just alternate multi-shot and cobra shot as the meat of my aoe rotation and ignore KC and arcane shot?
What about explosive trap is it worth the gcd and time taken to place anymore?

Any kind of insight would be appreciated, and I thank you all in advance.
Honestly i miss the days of laying an explosive trap and chaining volley, good ol days. haha.

[Littlepinch]

I use Barrage and Thrill of the Hunt on aoe heavy fights as BM, TOTH will allow you to chain more mutishot's without stopping to cobra as much.

I wouldn't put sting up on mutiple targets ( takes too many gcd's that could have been used on more multishots to activate beast cleave ).

I don't end up using explosive trap because the adds are normally not in 1 spot for too long, so if im not going to get the full dmg off of it. Id rather just get off another multishot.

Hope some of this helps!!!! Cheers

[Dimmune]

I multishot every 3-4 secs, unless B is up I just spam that or barrage. Afterwards I will use Kill Command and weave a Cobra Shot while Multishotting every couple seconds to keep the Beast Cleave going. I usually own any AoE dps in my group, including the ele Shaman, whose bad imo lol.

[Deleted]

Unless you have a stupid amount of adds (Dont have the math currently, but I'd say over 7) then use KC on cooldown still. You only really need to multishot once every four seconds to keep your beast cleave buff up on your pet. Only take barrage if the mobs are a bit spread out, glaive toss is much higher aoe damage if you can hit all of them with it. On a fight like Galakras, you can drop an explosive trap in between waves at the area they will be tanked at for extra dps (I drop a snake trap too because I'm cool). Try and select the mob that is most central to the pack of mobs too, to make the most use out of Beast Cleave and your cloak procc.

[Salidir]

The problem I have with weaving KC in with everything in aoe heavy situatuions (galakras, dark shaman slimes, protectors etc.) is i never seem to have enough focus. so I guess this is why i default to multi spam.

[Prag]

TotH, for whatever reason, makes weaving in KC's on CD feel a bit smoother. No math or anything behind this, just a feel of the talent.

[Musca]

TotH, for whatever reason, makes weaving in KC's on CD feel a bit smoother. No math or anything behind this, just a feel of the talent.

Hardly any math needed, TotH makes multi-shots cheaper => more focus left for KC.

[Trictagon]

You stop casting kc during aoe at the point where multishot does more damage per focus than kill command. This value changes with gear, how many targets are up, and whether or not BW/ToTH are up. If both multishot and kc do the same damage per focus, you multishot rather than kc in order to reduce rapid fire cd (assuming you have t16 2p).

[Haygirlhay]

it's been my personal experience that the Thrill of the Hunt talent is damn good. it has a chance to proc a 30% reduced focus cost for your Multi-Shot everytime you use an ability that costs focus. also, look into using Barrage over Glaive Toss. you'll hit more targets (and be generally more satisfied with the ability's feel). Lynx Rush is a great cooldown that works in tandem with Rapid Fire. forget about Kill Command during your high burst aoe phases. the cost far out weighs the potential profit if you're just trying to aoe your ass off as BM.

another good tip is work on getting your new 4 set because it works beautifully with Bestial Wrath. if you take a look at The Beast Within passive, is states, "While your pet is under the effects of Bestial Wrath, you also go into a rage causing 10% additional damage and reducing the Focus cost by all shots and abilities by 50% for 10 seconds." your 4 set states, "Offensive abilities used during Bestial Wrath increase all damage you do by 4% and all damage your pet does by 2%, stacking up to 5 times." download weak auras and pay attention to this. using Bestial Wrath is going to dramatically decrease your focus cost. having your cooldowns/DOTs/internal cooldowns readily visible is going to help you. knowing what you're doing with your character is the biggest dps increase you're gonna get.

don't ignore some subtleties as well.

Explosive Trap might not be your strongest ability, but it's an aoe ability that doesn't cost focus. if you're an orc, you're granted the special ability, Blood Fury. just pop it before you unload. your biggest hurdle is going to be learning how to evenly and steadily maintain your focus so you don't run yourself dry. don't blow every little thing until you have to Cobra/Steady Shot 6 times in a row to repeat the process. Multi-Shot maybe 4 times, then throw in a Steady Shot/Cobra Shot or two. learn to understand what you're doing. being a hunter is all about being versatile but also about being sustained DPS.

hope that helped. :3

[[after reading some of the other posts, i gotta say that a lot of fights are interchangeable. if you're going to pull a BOSS with this method, i don't recommend it. if you wanna aoe your pants off and do it right, switch to Survival so you can spread your lovely DOT everywhere in one easy button press. i remember vividly switching from BM to SURV last tier for Horridon and for cheesing the Primordius fight.]]