[7.3] Azortharion's Hunter Guides

[Guzrud]

Anyone have Legendary combos in ranking order for 7.2.5?

Disclaimer...I have only done work for BM this has nothing to do with MM/Surv

While I didnt do a completely exhaustive comparison of all of the combos I think I did enough of them to give you a good idea of the current state of our legendaries for 7.2.5

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...endaries/page3

TLDR is basically there are going to be a ton of viable options that are within ~2% of each other which will give us a ton of flexibility in terms of what we are trying to accomplish in different encounters. I have been working really hard to get a completely bis List done up for 7.2.5 but some basic guildelines for gearing for 7.2.5 that you can plan on doing.

1. 2set/4set is for sure a thing the amount of dps gain is significant cloak/helm cloak/hands seem to be the best 2 combos to run I was able to drop the 2 set used for T19 40 IL before we came to a break even point now your personal stat weights could make the numbers a bit different but I think in its current form there is a good bit of value in T19-2/T20-4

2. Trinkets from ToS seem to be just about equivilant in terms of dps contribution at equal IL so simple rule is if you have a 905 Foci and a 910 EoE drops you can go to the EoE right away. CoF is a bit different when paired with CotW but you will just have to sim that out for yourself as the CoF will have a bit more value when using that legendary.

3. Legendary choices are going to be interesting really. There are so many combos that are really close. If there are encounters that require more turtles the combo with CoTW will be pretty nice while we will give up not much dps for progression. It is actually really nice that we wont have to worry about having "that" legendary to be competitive with other hunters while in all scenarios there will be a "best" setup for single targer and aoe the real takeaway here is that they are all so close in value that just your personal skill would have more of an impact on your performance than which legendary combo you were using.

[BarelyLegalBear]

Is BTI still going to be strong come ToS?

[Tehterokkar]

BTI is still worth 20-25 iLvls. So if you have 905 Foci, a 885 BTI should be equal/better.

[Guzrud]

Compared to what many classes deal with, they are. It's rare not to see a situation where one stat might be slightly ahead while the other two are basically almost equal. At least that has been the case with me for months now. And after Blizzard amped the amount of secondaries on jewelry to help with ilevel being better, as long as the jewelry includes a combination of either mastery, crit or haste, the higher ilevel one *generally* beats out the rest.

Here is the thing that apparently not many people truely understand......You can not have a 100% accurate stat weights for everyone because what happens is with every piece of gear they change.

https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/rJlOfABGZ

These are my current stat weights

( Pawn: v1: "JADAWIN - Beast Mastery (Raidbots)": Class=Hunter, Spec=BeastMastery, Agility=24.73, CritRating=23.19, HasteRating=30.23, MasteryRating=27.07, Versatility=21.36)

So mine currently are Haste > Mastery > Agility > Crit > Vers

The thing is that is in no way, shape, or form indicative of what your stat weights would be or should you use the values that are in that sim for yourself. What people really need to do is just start using raid bots if they are not super familiar with SimC and start working on understanding how each piece of gear impacts your weights and the expected return on them. I have done some SimC work with the PTR model for trying to find a BiS list and have come up with

Haste = Mastery = Agility = Crit > Vers on some iterations

So really its about your particular gear. To make statements like "They arent that close" honestly are just annecdotal to perhaps your gear but that statement is 100% right and 100% wrong at the same time depending on who is simming thier current gear. What we need to start doing as a community is stop trying to box everything up in a 1 size fits all statement because that will rarely be accurate. What would be accurate is to teach people to use the tools that we have available to us to come to the right choice for them individualy concerning gearing and stat choices.

[Tycondriel]

Here is the thing that apparently not many people truely understand......You can not have a 100% accurate stat weights for everyone because what happens is with every piece of gear they change.

https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/rJlOfABGZ

These are my current stat weights

( Pawn: v1: "JADAWIN - Beast Mastery (Raidbots)": Class=Hunter, Spec=BeastMastery, Agility=24.73, CritRating=23.19, HasteRating=30.23, MasteryRating=27.07, Versatility=21.36)

So mine currently are Haste > Mastery > Agility > Crit > Vers

The thing is that is in no way, shape, or form indicative of what your stat weights would be or should you use the values that are in that sim for yourself. What people really need to do is just start using raid bots if they are not super familiar with SimC and start working on understanding how each piece of gear impacts your weights and the expected return on them. I have done some SimC work with the PTR model for trying to find a BiS list and have come up with

Haste = Mastery = Agility = Crit > Vers on some iterations

So really its about your particular gear. To make statements like "They arent that close" honestly are just annecdotal to perhaps your gear but that statement is 100% right and 100% wrong at the same time depending on who is simming thier current gear. What we need to start doing as a community is stop trying to box everything up in a 1 size fits all statement because that will rarely be accurate. What would be accurate is to teach people to use the tools that we have available to us to come to the right choice for them individualy concerning gearing and stat choices.

Thanks for the post, Guzrud, this makes a lot of sense to me. Just to clarify though, previous posts (including some posts by Azor) mention that haste is not currently simming correctly in RaidBots or in SimC, are we to assume the same with your findings above, or have you found a way around that?

Thanks!
Uni

[lazypeon100]

Question, how is our talent situation shaping up? I really enjoy one with the pack, is there any legendary combo where changing to One with the Pack wouldn't be a bad choice? Would I have to change from killer cobra to aspect of the beast if using the Boots as one of my legendarys if I were to use one with the pack?

[Nubulous]

Here is the thing that apparently not many people truely understand......You can not have a 100% accurate stat weights for everyone because what happens is with every piece of gear they change.

https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/rJlOfABGZ

These are my current stat weights

( Pawn: v1: "JADAWIN - Beast Mastery (Raidbots)": Class=Hunter, Spec=BeastMastery, Agility=24.73, CritRating=23.19, HasteRating=30.23, MasteryRating=27.07, Versatility=21.36)

So mine currently are Haste > Mastery > Agility > Crit > Vers

The thing is that is in no way, shape, or form indicative of what your stat weights would be or should you use the values that are in that sim for yourself. What people really need to do is just start using raid bots if they are not super familiar with SimC and start working on understanding how each piece of gear impacts your weights and the expected return on them. I have done some SimC work with the PTR model for trying to find a BiS list and have come up with

Haste = Mastery = Agility = Crit > Vers on some iterations

So really its about your particular gear. To make statements like "They arent that close" honestly are just annecdotal to perhaps your gear but that statement is 100% right and 100% wrong at the same time depending on who is simming thier current gear. What we need to start doing as a community is stop trying to box everything up in a 1 size fits all statement because that will rarely be accurate. What would be accurate is to teach people to use the tools that we have available to us to come to the right choice for them individualy concerning gearing and stat choices.

The bolded above is pretty much my stat weights at 911 ilvl right now. They are so close to eachother other than Vers

[gyrados]

maybe im confused here but it seems that mm is getting nerfed in 7.2.5 am i correct ?

[Lokica]

maybe im confused here but it seems that mm is getting nerfed in 7.2.5 am i correct ?

You are confused.

[Illana]

base damage of skills going up, vunerable damage bonus going down. No change except bad hunters will do better dps.

[Eapoe]

base damage of skills going up, vunerable damage bonus going down. No change except bad hunters will do better dps.

Don't you mean all Hunters dps going up? Even a skilled MM Hunter will see an increase when playing with certain skills that still know how to monopolize on it. I get what you're saying, but there's still player ability for min/maxing Vulnerable windows based on talents, correct?

[Illana]

probably should say, that the most noticeable difference will be for hunters struggling to use the vulnerability window correctly

[scorpor]

probably should say, that the most noticeable difference will be for hunters struggling to use the vulnerability window correctly

The changes are actually a buff for everyone. Even very "skilled" mm hunters will benefit from them, there are always those moments where you just barely miss the vulnerable window because of movement/doing boss mechanics and it feels really bad because you lost so much damage. You don't feel as penalized anymore.

[Ravenzedd]

The changes are actually a buff for everyone. Even very "skilled" mm hunters will benefit from them, there are always those moments where you just barely miss the vulnerable window because of movement/doing boss mechanics and it feels really bad because you lost so much damage. You don't feel as penalized anymore.

...Or you just stop casting the aimed shot instantly and go into your next vuln window.

This situation almost never occurs if you play well, I can't even remember the last time this happened honestly. Maybe during elisande or something when windows become a bit more flexible because of the haste buff.

But yeah, this is not a buff to skilled hunters.

[Dracodraco]

...Or you just stop casting the aimed shot instantly and go into your next vuln window.

This situation almost never occurs if you play well, I can't even remember the last time this happened honestly. Maybe during elisande or something when windows become a bit more flexible because of the haste buff.

But yeah, this is not a buff to skilled hunters.

It's still better to cast an unbuffed aimed shot than to sit at focus cap and throw arcane shots out until you get a proc, and that does happen occasionally in hectic fights. Likewise, while Marking Targets is "usually" up when you need it to be for a quick target switch / with a little planning, sometimes it isn't. I personally found Krosus especially bad for that, because all of the adds have so low HP that I usually end up getting around to 3-4 of them before they're all dead, but I don't get nearly as many vulernable procs, which means I'm either chugging arcane shots into them, or unbuffed aimeds. Situations do arise, and even if you don't believe so, it's a QOL "buff" to any hunter. It makes RNG have less of an impact on the spec, which is good. You're deluding yourself if you think "skilled hunters" won't find it to be superior to the current version.

[Turtel]

But yeah, this is not a buff to skilled hunters.

It is a buff to all MM hunters, regardless of skill level, on average. Even if there is no movement or target switching involved, there is a nonzero probability that you can go up to 10 autoshots in a row without a Marking Targets proc, which is 30 seconds (modified by haste) without a Marked Shot, so even if you were deliberately not using Windburst in order save it to apply Vulnerable whenever you had bad luck (which is likely a DPS loss), it would still not be enough to maintain Vulnerable. EDIT: I think the PPM was actually increased to 7.5 following patch 7.1.5, so the 30 seconds would presumably drop to 20 seconds, but the point was that you will eventually get a string of bad luck and be forced to cast an Aimed Shot without Vulnerable, which you have no control over.

I just checked my most recent simcraft result (i.e. a 100% perfectly performed rotation) and found that on average it cast 0.4 non-vulnerable Aimed Shots out of 77.7 Aimed Shots (in a 5 minute Patchwerk fight), or 0.5% of Aimed Shots. Although realistically speaking, the actual percentage would be a lot higher due to non-perfect rotations being performed, in addition to things like movement/target switching. So it's a small effect, but still definitely a buff, even when the rotation is performed flawlessly on a Patchwerk fight.

However, from a metaphysical perspective, it can be argued that this 'buff' is effectively a nerf to skilled MM hunters. The reasoning goes as follows:
1. Blizzard uses actual ingame raid data to balance classes.
2. With these changes, less skilled MM hunters will do better DPS on average, increasing the average parse of MM hunters.
3. When Blizzard looks at their data to determine how much to buff/nerf different specs for the balance pass, this will mean MM hunters will experience a smaller buff (or bigger nerf) than they otherwise would have.
4. Since skilled players don't experience as big of a DPS gain from these changes, this means skilled MM hunters will be worse off after the balance pass.

From this same perspective, these changes can also be seen as a nerf to all MM hunters on fights that are low on movement and target switching, but a buff on movement/target switching heavy fights.

[Illana]

Do they take all available data or just a set amount like middle 30% of parses? Guess we'll never know

[Khrux]

Azor trolling with the icy veins updates?

Survival t20 is outdated from weeks ago and BM references both the 2 charges baseline *and* the fucked up wild call blizzard tried out for less than a week?

Is he that out of touch or just plain trolling. The guides basically all read "play MM everything else is shit" yet the other 2 specs are full of outdated information....

[Deleted]

I don't think it's trolling, but yeah, he must have copied from his old notes since they contradict themselves (mention of wild call being 60% and lowering the CD by 3 seconds but also mentioning baseline two charges from DB). The target switching is also vastly improved with the 40y to KC.

Just wait a bit and he'll fix it.

[Eapoe]

Azor trolling with the icy veins updates?

Survival t20 is outdated from weeks ago and BM references both the 2 charges baseline *and* the fucked up wild call blizzard tried out for less than a week?

Is he that out of touch or just plain trolling. The guides basically all read "play MM everything else is shit" yet the other 2 specs are full of outdated information....

The guy is busy, give it time. Pretty sure his guides don't update completely until a few days to a week goes by. I'm more confused about the fact you use his guides and then ask if he's trolling just because it's not updated day 1 of a patch. Pretty sure that's a great example of biting the hand that fees you.