Hunter + Singletarget fight = DI ?

[Asrialol]

I wouldn't give it to the Resto Druids. I would give it to the Hunters on fights that wasn't progress, because if your raiders are high ranked on WoL, it attracts attention. My guild had the top 3 DPS spots on Madness 25 Heroic for a while and we got a lot of attention for it, people literally came to the realm asking about stuff.

DI is good for Survival because of the 3% dot damage that also affects Explosive Shot. Each tick's damage is increased by 3% which is major. Is it better than Shadow Priests and Mages? It depends entirely on their gear, I believe. If the Dark Intent is enough haste for them to gain an additional tick, then it's probably a good idea. Though, these days high end priests tends to gear with DI in mind..

Also, if your resto druids needs 3% haste and 3% HoT healing to stay competitive amongst the other healers, then the druid is doing something wrong. Healers shouldnt have to rely on certain buffs to be able to keep the raid up, healing is a team effort. If it's a fight that's healing intensive or has mechanics where healing is needed, and your DPS seems to be where it should be, then I dont see a issue giving DI to a resto druid.


Just to emphasise my point; Explosive Shot is the main and hardest hitting ability Survival Hunters have. Balance Druids and Shadow Priests hardest hitting ability isn't their DoTs. 3% DoT damage on Explosive Trap and Serpent Sting on AoE can also be very, very powerful.

[Vaelkyri]

I do beleive that he numbers need a review, pretty much every priority order is 4.1 or earlier.

Since then their has been substantial buffs to BA and Exo shot as well as a much higher gear and crit.

Prolly wont be top, but would be better then it was.

I do know from experience that surv hunters can maintian 100% uptime now.

[Zeta333]

I would like to see a review of this, if not to help me get DI a little more but to better allocate the buff around.

[Asrialol]

I did some very quick napkin math testing Hunter, Mage and Shadow Priest on 3 different logs where they didnt have DI and all casters had Legendary, and Hunters had Vishanka heroic which I assume is affected by DI, as well as the Legendary. Either way, the difference in damage was quite similar between Fire Mage and Hunter in each example, with the Shadow Priest usually pulling 200k~ ahead each time.

Hunter Difference: 615344

Mage Difference: 613677

Priest Difference: 824294


I got about the same results here from each log I tested, I'd love it if someone could try various logs out there to confirm / get different results. It's a bit tricky to get some reliable results with this, since it's hard to see if a Mage got max benefit from Combustion, which is a quite amazing DoT. Then again, massive RNG in the picture here.

Either way - Survival Hunter is a perfect candidate for DI.

Oh, and didnt find any Balance druid who was actually doing competitive DPS. Sue me. On my tablet atm and writing much on it isn't fun.

[timoseewho]

I can get DI in my raids, though I'm parsing 49k on Ultraxion without it so...

This info is absolutely useless..

Like most have said, your fire, balance, shadow, affliction specs should get it over you.

[Mahadev]

I wouldn't give it to the Resto Druids. I would give it to the Hunters on fights that wasn't progress, because if your raiders are high ranked on WoL, it attracts attention. My guild had the top 3 DPS spots on Madness 25 Heroic for a while and we got a lot of attention for it, people literally came to the realm asking about stuff.

DI is good for Survival because of the 9% dot damage that also affects Explosive Shot. Each tick's damage is increased by 9% which is major. Is it better than Shadow Priests and Mages? It depends entirely on their gear, I believe. If the Dark Intent is enough haste for them to gain an additional tick, then it's probably a good idea. Though, these days high end priests tends to gear with DI in mind..

Also, if your resto druids needs 3% haste and 9% HoT healing to stay competitive amongst the other healers, then the druid is doing something wrong. Healers shouldnt have to rely on certain buffs to be able to keep the raid up, healing is a team effort. If it's a fight that's healing intensive or has mechanics where healing is needed, and your DPS seems to be where it should be, then I dont see a issue giving DI to a resto druid.


Just to emphasise my point; Explosive Shot is the main and hardest hitting ability Survival Hunters have. Balance Druids and Shadow Priests hardest hitting ability isn't their DoTs. 9% DoT damage on Explosive Trap and Serpent Sting on AoE can also be very, very powerful.

Why does everyone still talk about the 9% DoT damage when discussing the benefits of DI? It was quite some time ago that it was changed so that only the warlock gets the 9%, and the recipient only gets 3%. I would hope at least the moderators would get their facts straight.

[Zeherah]

I did some very quick napkin math testing Hunter, Mage and Shadow Priest on 3 different logs where they didnt have DI and all casters had Legendary, and Hunters had Vishanka heroic which I assume is affected by DI, as well as the Legendary. Either way, the difference in damage was quite similar between Fire Mage and Hunter in each example, with the Shadow Priest usually pulling 200k~ ahead each time.

As I said before, Vishanka does not benefit from (or proc) DI. I tested this a few weeks ago.

I assume the numbers you compiled were based on the dot damage increase, since there's not an easy way to account for the value of the haste increase. At this point I think it's clear that SV is among the top beneficiaries from the dot portion of the buff (possibly above everyone but shadow priests), at least on a single target fight, since on multitarget fights you see a large uptick in dot uptimes for some other specs, but not really for hunters.

The important question is how to value the haste increase. Casters as a general rule see a far more significant benefit from that haste, especially if it gets them to another tick on their dots, which is something hunters can't benefit from. This is not as easy to compare, and it's the big reason why SV hunters are still likely not a better option for DI than some of the other top caster dot classes.

[Libertarian]

As I said before, Vishanka does not benefit from (or proc) DI. I tested this a few weeks ago.

I assume the numbers you compiled were based on the dot damage increase, since there's not an easy way to account for the value of the haste increase. At this point I think it's clear that SV is among the top beneficiaries from the dot portion of the buff (possibly above everyone but shadow priests), at least on a single target fight, since on multitarget fights you see a large uptick in dot uptimes for some other specs, but not really for hunters.

The important question is how to value the haste increase. Casters as a general rule see a far more significant benefit from that haste, especially if it gets them to another tick on their dots, which is something hunters can't benefit from. This is not as easy to compare, and it's the big reason why SV hunters are still likely not a better option for DI than some of the other top caster dot classes.

On a fight like warmaster or zon'ozz, I would easily give it to the dotters. But on a fight like spine, ultraxion, hagara or yor'sahj, I would at least consider hunters/mages. Also, this depends on 10 or 25 and the skill level of your players.

[Dracodraco]

As I pointed out in that other thread - hunters have roughly 50% dmg from dots, and shadow priests has roughly 75% dmg from dots (mind spike/blast/SW are the only non-dots). This means that if a hunter is pulling 50K, he'd get 25k dmg that benefits from DI - but if a shadow priest is pulling 40K, he'd get a 30K benefit. This is before haste ticks have been considering, of course. So hunter is a big nono - you'd need to be doing 50K as a hunter, and have shadow priests pulling about 33K for it to be better on a hunter singletarget. And if you have 33K spriests, you've got some other issues to sort out first.

[Argg0]

The new SP Mind Spike rotation drastically reduces the uptime of DoTs (to about 80%) and reduces the % of damage from dots (to about 45%) while also placing Mastery above haste. The DI stack will always drop and stay off for a while during Shadow Fiends.

Hunters have a lot of crit, SS uptime is 100%, explosive is about 50%, but shot often, enough to keep the buff up and Black Arrow is about 80% uptime. Hunter DoT damage is hovering 50%.

Hunters are a very viable choice for DI, probably above SP if you take the Warlock damage into account, but I don't think it'd beat a Fire Mage.

[Saisen]

What about the lock? Giving it to an arcane mage or an elemental shaman makes no sense to me as the lock's stack up time would be horrible. DI's damage potential should be the lock and his target combined not just the person he is putting it on.

[Deleted]

As I pointed out in that other thread - hunters have roughly 50% dmg from dots, and shadow priests has roughly 75% dmg from dots (mind spike/blast/SW are the only non-dots). This means that if a hunter is pulling 50K, he'd get 25k dmg that benefits from DI - but if a shadow priest is pulling 40K, he'd get a 30K benefit. This is before haste ticks have been considering, of course. So hunter is a big nono - you'd need to be doing 50K as a hunter, and have shadow priests pulling about 33K for it to be better on a hunter singletarget. And if you have 33K spriests, you've got some other issues to sort out first.

if you run a setup where the amount of shadowpriests is bigger or equal to your locks then you are obviously right. we run with 3 locks and one sp. so there are 2 di that are to be distributed between the other dds.

[Dracodraco]

if you run a setup where the amount of shadowpriests is bigger or equal to your locks then you are obviously right. we run with 3 locks and one sp. so there are 2 di that are to be distributed between the other dds.

We run 2 spriests 0 locks. Care to hand us one <.<?

And for some reason, our spriests keep refusing to use mind spike. They're stupid, I know, but apparantly they're convinced that it is less dmg to switch to mind spike during shadowfiend. God knows why.
In any case, an extra dot tick for moonkins will be a much bigger dps gain (through the haste) than a hunter will get from the 3% elemental dmg, even if they do less dmg through dots. I don't know about fire mages as I don't play one, but I'm 99% sure about boomkins atleast.

[Deleted]

Our warlock always puts DI on the Sv hunter i our 10men. Perfect uptime and still very usefull for the hunter.

[Illana]

if it's affecting explosive shot then it's definitely better for surv hunters than some of the other non-conventional classes.

I still say spriest/boomkin makes better use of it though

[Arcanimus]

speaking as a lock, you as a hunter would never ever get DI over a SP, Firemage, Moonkin, resto druid.

you might have the uptime, but the overall DPS you would get is a lot lower than the other classes

DPS Ranking


Uptime Ranking


So whilst it may make sense for a Surv Hunter to get DI over a Fire mage for uptime, the fire mage and thus the raid as a whole benifits more.
if you have any of the others that are above the fire mage in the list and DI is not going to them, then your warlock needs to be slapped and if its a case of a GM/RL demanding then quite frankly your GM/RL is a tool

I absolutely refuse to believe that a Frost Mage will provide more effective raid dps than a SV hunter as a DI target.

Proper ranking (not proven yet, but its what I follow)
Spriest
Boomkin
Fire Mage/Surv Hunt
Kitty
Sub rogue
DPS DK
Assassination rogue
Ret paladin
Enh shaman
(Other)

@azryiel: Surv hunter's primary damaging ability, as well as its other damage augmenting abilities are all periodic effects. I see no reason why one is not a viable target.

[Zeherah]

I attempted to test for more current values for dark intent using Simulationcraft. I'm not an expert with configuring it so I might have made some mistakes (I'm fairly sure something is off with shadow priests since their ranking came in lower than I expected). I used the default configs for all specs (except I changed the SV hunter to have 2 pts in wild hunt), and used a demonology warlock for the DI source, since that seems to be the most popular spec at the moment. These are using a Patchwerk style fight config (obviously for multi target you'd see different results).

Ranked by Raid DPS gain:

Balance Druid: 1981 personal dps, 2045 dps for lock, total: 4026 dps
Fire Mage: 1786 personal dps, 1973 dps for lock, total: 3759 dps
Shadow Priest: 1616 personal dps, 2090 dps for lock, total: 3706 dps
SV Hunter: 1259 personal dps, 2124 dps for lock, total: 3383 dps
Feral Druid: 1310 personal dps, 2027 dps for lock, total: 3337 dps
Ele Shaman: 1199 personal dps, 1570 dps for lock, total: 2769 dps

Ranked by Dark Intent Uptime provided:

Shadow Priest: 99%
SV Hunter: 99%
Balance Druid: 97%
Feral Druid: 97%
Fire Mage: 94%
Ele Shaman: 72%

I'll go back and run some of the less high ranking specs later, but I figured the important values are the ones for the dot specs.

[Libertarian]

I attempted to test for more current values for dark intent using Simulationcraft. I'm not an expert with configuring it so I might have made some mistakes (I'm fairly sure something is off with shadow priests since their ranking came in lower than I expected). I used the default configs for all specs (except I changed the SV hunter to have 2 pts in wild hunt), and used a demonology warlock for the DI source, since that seems to be the most popular spec at the moment. These are using a Patchwerk style fight config (obviously for multi target you'd see different results).

Ranked by Raid DPS gain:

Balance Druid: 1981 personal dps, 2045 dps for lock, total: 4026 dps
Fire Mage: 1786 personal dps, 1973 dps for lock, total: 3759 dps
Shadow Priest: 1616 personal dps, 2090 dps for lock, total: 3706 dps
SV Hunter: 1259 personal dps, 2124 dps for lock, total: 3383 dps
Feral Druid: 1310 personal dps, 2027 dps for lock, total: 3337 dps
Ele Shaman: 1199 personal dps, 1570 dps for lock, total: 2769 dps

Ranked by Dark Intent Uptime provided:

Shadow Priest: 99%
SV Hunter: 99%
Balance Druid: 97%
Feral Druid: 97%
Fire Mage: 94%
Ele Shaman: 72%

I'll go back and run some of the less high ranking specs later, but I figured the important values are the ones for the dot specs.

If that's true then the new order is most likely: Balance > Shadow > Fire > Survival

Assuming of course everyone is equal gear and skill. But based on that and what Zeta was originally asking. I would definitely give him the DI over the priests.

[Zeherah]

I ran a new report with some other specs mixed in for more details. Note that this data is only as good as Simcraft's simulation support for each spec, but here's my result data (again based off a demo lock in T13 heroic gear on a single target fight):
Dark Intent Raid DPS Gain By Spec

[zakaluka]

Zereah, consider copying kilee's t13H profile into the sim you use to generate your DI ranking. Simcraft's default T13H profile for spriest doesn't account for usage of the 4-set bonus. As well, the t13H balance druid profile is about 100 haste below 2nd haste plateau with NG, so balance comes in about 200 dps higher using the default profile than after manually reforging it.

Your results look almost identical to hers, however, the spriest using spike spam + AA/fiend for burst comes in just barely behind a legendary sub rogue. Although the difference is very miniscule for 2nd-5th case.

Kilee's current summary of DI rankings on H2P, with updated dps profile for T13H:
http://www.howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=1202