Had my weekend of MM testing, in 25 raiding and a lot more target dummy testing (mostly related to glyph testing). Over 1k shots per glyph is also starting to add up in the pocket book. Not as much as the respecs, but ouch!
Our raid started on Emalon, so we had switching targets and a little bit of running back and forth (my position was out of range of the adds, due to the need to stay spread out, so I had to run over there every time one got overcharged). The MM build, this time with actual MM glyphs, seemed to perform well.
From there we moved into Ulduar, which unfortunately was a progression-style night, which isn’t the best test of dps. We were going after the Iron Council and had a lot of wipes really early in the fight, which leads to really skewed dps numbers. I was generally doing well the whole time, but it gets hard to compare to others when people are dying so soon in the fight.
I did receive this lovely tell halfway through the night from our badass dps warlock though, which always makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside:
Finally after maybe 8 wipes or so, we got the Iron Council down in an epic end battle running right up to the enrage timer. We had maybe half the raid down by the time we were halfway through the last boss, so it was a really rough push to the end.
However, this fight was a nice test of the build. A very mobile fight, constant running into blue circles, out of green circles, and fleeing from the lightening death from above on the final boss (that phase just totally skunked my dps – though it did to everyone’s).
Number 2 on the damage meter here is a very skilled SV hunter with gear just a wee bit better than mine, which is a nice anecdotal look at MM vs SV (though particularly in a progression fight, this is not close to concrete evidence). But added to all the target dummy testings, I’m feeling pretty good that MM has pulled ahead, at least at the Naxx 25 and above gear level (lower gear levels will probably still favor SV).
Also, this fight was a nice test of the Steady Shot glyph. Even allowing for some missed shots, the math suggested that it was a solid #2 choice after serpent sting. And in this highly mobile fight, where I could not hit the optimum shot cycle with all the running (which only sacrifices steady shots after all – the others I can hit on the run) I discovered that I actually did really well, and for every attempt steady shot was still my #2 most damaging shot.
So all in all, a very nice weekend of MM love for Frost.
Same result when I did 25 man VOA with Emalon, one hunter with 5000 dps. MM it is, but Frost, do we have to change the gems too in the gear?
For MM, agility and AP gems are *incredibly* close in EAP value. So close that the answer probably changes based on your gear; however, I think you’re fine going with either. For most hunter, Agility will be just a tiny tiny bit better than the AP gems.
Thanks for the reply!
/cry
Just when I was getting used to SV. Alas, time to reconfigure Power Auras.
I also use the EAP guide here at the WHU for some of my gemming decisions, in which case agi. should still be slightly better than AP. But only just. So yeah, it’s probably a wash, and not worth replacing your SV gems.
i seem to be doing something on mm, everytime i try it my dps drops a few hundred. mind checking me out on the armory and see if you notice anything i should change?? kilyan on the baelgun us server. thanks. love the site by the way, so much in fact im on my phone at work typing this message out.
That certain very skilled SV hunter could also tweak his glyphs a tad, too. He’s running
Major:
- Viper
- Rapid Fire
- Steady Shot
Minor:
- FD
With the copious mana returns SV has, a Viper >>Explosive Shot glyph change could get him significant benefits. Changing Rapid Fire >> Hawk could net an overall boost as well.
I can add an anecdote of my own that refutes the suggested conclusions of yours- a skilled SV hunter who both knows his class and the fight (myself) is typically able to out-DPS (no pun intended) marks hunters with similar gear and skill.
You see, anecdotal evidence is just that. It can’t be used to say anything definitively or universally. In your case, a combination of variables (unique to you) is causing MM to perform better than SV. In my case, the opposite is true. I believe that in most cases involving hunters of “equal” skill where the gear levels are normal mode Ulduar 25 or under, SV will produce better results on average.
I base this belief on the fact that until a hunter is in hard mode Ulduar gear, all the simulators say SV will do more DPS. Of course, they are assuming a tank and spank, which is rarely true. They also don’t include any MM buffs to AOE, and of course can’t simulate a hunter’s skill when it comes to knowing the fights well enough to maximize sniper training uptime.
Yup, we agree that anecdotal evidence is unreliable, which is where all of the testing comes into play. Not only is MM (at the 25 Naxx gear level) showing measurably higher dps on a tank & spank, but MM is far more flexible in complicated encounters, giving it yet more of an edge in highly mobile fights.
We don’t need simulators to show us this – we can use actual in-game data. Just pop over to the target dummy while you’ve got your raid buffs on and run 10-20 full mana tests on each spec.
So, what Frost is saying is that your MM hunters are less skilled than you and that basing your DPS versus less skilled hunters is silly.
If someone posted that, as BM, they do more damage than all other hunters in their guild, does that make it the best spec?
Wow, lots of words for “I think Frost is wrong, simulators are good benchmarks and making anecdotes is evil”.
Why must you force us to visit your site Frost!!!
so i was watching Ensidia’s 25man algalon kill video and around 3:40 the camera switches to the viewpoint of a hunter and I noticed that this hunter was a MM and he also had this addon which has the icons sliding almost DDR style across a bar.
Does anyone know what this addon is called? it looks quiteuseful to have
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=113461 forgot to leave the link sorry!
Nevermind! i found it out. Its called “Watcher” for those who want to know too.
@frostheim I have thought about that, but it’s still not a apples to apples comparison. A large portion of my DPS comes from short term and AOE buffs, as well as target debuffs. Not sure if those affect MM and SV equally. Haste, for example, certainly doesn’t.
I think everyone admits that eventually marks will surpass survival in PvE, but nobody seems to agree when. Personally I’m going to hold off on dual spec until I get my first piece of hard mode gear.
I get to complete my own anecdotal evidence tonight in Ulduar, complete with an almost identically geared SV Hunter who is relatively skilled. Should be fun.
Frost DOES have dummy results to back up his raids, btw. Somehow that seems like it got lost. But with how close they are, I think the (encouraging) moral here is that we now have 2 completely viable raid specs.
Does anyone have a decent feel for how far behind BM is? I am running BM in a mix of ilvl 200 epics (some heroic epics, crafted, rep, boe, etc) and doing around 2.5-3k in 25 mans and I wonder if I should expect to go up to closer to 4k if I specced marks and got used to the playstyle? Or is the difference much less than that? FWIW I am fully hit capped without FA, have ~3.8k ap, etc. I tried survival and I don’t think I am willing to put in the time to get used to the style… hence looking into marks
BM is in the neighborhood of 400-600 dps behind, from my observations.
Cool, thanks for the reply Frostheim.
i hate iron council so hard.
As someone in a good deal of Heroic Ulduar gear, one of the best performing Hunters in my guild, an avid spreadsheet user and decent Theorycrafter, I’ll have to back up Frost on this one.
I typically start talent and glyph changes by running various changes through the Cheeky’s / EJ spreadsheet and see what seems to provide the best fruit, I found that Frost’s 7/57/7 build ended up out performing the pre-built 7/57/7 build suggested in the newest version of the spreadsheet.
I also had serious doubts that glyphing Hawk / Serpent / Steady was going to to give better returns than glyphing TSA / Mark / Kill. From a spreadsheet perspective I was wrong on this one. Though there is obviously a bit of wiggle room in practical application when it comes to glyphing your Kill Shot on a boss-per-boss basis.
After everything was plugged in from Frost’s suggestions, which I found to be the optimal I could find on just a couple hours of testing other options the Rotation Test was showing a projected 250 dps increase, a promising start.
This afternoon I went ahead and made the intangible to reality and did the glyph switching and respecced from Survival to Marks, thats when I hit the dummies.
I went from hitting roughly 3.5k – 3.6k consistantly on the heroic target dummy to 3.7k and eventually touching 4k dps on the dummy with this new MM spec / glyphing.
This is with nothing more than self buffs. Dragonhawk and TSA, no food, no flasks, no buffs. Obviously the dummy was marked.
I’ll be taking this spec into Ulduar in this weeks clears and see how it does, but I’m fully expecting some outstanding results.
Kudos Frost
Do you think those glyphs would be just as effective for someone in mostly iLVL 200 gear with a couple pieces of iLVL 213 gear?
Yes
I’m having some issues getting MM to perform well on the target dummy, using the prescribed rotation (HM Serp Chim Aimed Arcane Steady).
My glyphs in this test are Serpent, Steady, and Hawk. I’m using the cookiecutter 7 / 57 / 7 build described here. Link to armory is: (mix of 10 and 25 gear, with 2 useful Ulduar drops)
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Baelgun&n=Zyrinx
I’m getting around 2400-2500 on the dummy, but the odd thing is that my highest damage shot is Auto Shot, by a large margin:
Auto 29%
Chimera 14.3
Arcane 13.2
Steady 11.6
SerpentSting DOT 9.1
Aimed 6.6
Chimera – Serpent 6.4
…
Other stuff like Wild Quiver and Piercing Shots
So my total Chimera is ~21% and Auto is nearly 30%. Is this normal or am I badly screwing something up?
Yup, your auto shot should be #1 by a good chunk. It looks to me like your Steady Shot is lower than it should be — make sure you’re button mashing so that you don’t lose any precious fractions of a second.
Also, don’t forget silencing shot! Macro it to your steady shot – it doesn’t activate the global cooldown.
frost, just a curiosity
youre a max engineer. why not put the haste or rocket engineering enchant on your gloves? is the 44+ AP better?
I love the new MM …. but I now have to worry about pulling aggro at the start of the fight (even when including FDs) …
Just a question, Is gemming AP over Agi still the way to go for mm?
Ulukai, it’s pretty much a wash. 1 Agi. should be slightly better than 2 AP, but it’s so close that either one is viable. So don’t bother changing your SV gems, but new gems can certainly be AP (after hit cap, of course). See the WHU’s EAP thread (on the main guides page) for stat comparisons for various specs.
…..
I lost to our SV hunter in Ulduar tonight.
He has slightly better gear and is skilled, but I had been topping him or matching him as SV. And it was close. And I had a ridiculously bad Freya fight. And…
…but the repeated tests don’t lie. I’ll just do better next week.
Well nice to see we have 2 raid specs now but i only just got myself use to survial and since i have only just started running Nax and OS I think im going to stick with it for now . I have noticed the tier 7 and 7.5 armour sets seem to have no hit raiting except on the chest piece are people using 100 point to hit trinket or just gemming hit rating ? picked up a really nice sword but i lose both my daggers and there hit rating as well . Seems to me unless i enchant hit and gem hit rating the 7 and 7.5 armours are no good . Any tips on were to get hit i dont really want to do my 2 hand sword since i lose massacare which is +110 AP , i know i can do my glows too looking for any suggestions otherwise i can see this armour set staying in the bank even the WG epic stuff has hit rating Blizzard what were u thinking ?.
Hi Frostheim,
Thanks for this great blog, and all the effort you are putting in to it.
I just dualspecced to MM, I played Surv earlier. Tried to do some dps on the dolls in Ironforge, with no buffs I managed to peak my dps to 3800. And my average was about 3500 DPS.
I followed your recomendation, but I changed one thing, the Glyph of the Serpent Sting to Glyph of Aimed Shot. That is becuase I feel that my playstyle benefits more from Serpent Sting, becuase I usually refreshes the Serpent Sting before it has ended. And the 2 extra seconds the glyph gives dont benefit me. I did less DPS also using the Serpent Sting glyph, about 3200 dps.
@Jarmur
It has been said many times.. Chimera Shot is your big damage dealer, Serpent Sting Glyph gives you 2 more ticks! That means WoW considers the shots damage to have been increased by something like 40% base. Chimera shot’s damage being based off of your Serpent damage you need that glyph. Aimed glyph ftl in this case.
Exactly what Radulf said: we never have to refresh serpent sting – the reason for the glyph is that it increases the damage of our Chimera Shot – a lot! Serpent Sting is the single best glyph for MM by a significant margin!
Is SV still the best spec for a hunter like me- about to hit 80 and START raiding? Everything here says MM’s best when you’re really geared well. I’m now working on getting the “starting gear” you list in the gear page, so I’ll be ready for raiding 10 man.
Thanks
Yup, you want to go Survival!
Cool, that’s what I thought. Thanks for the quick reply- LOVE this site
Fradin – I found the 7.5 set very useful..well all pieces but the head piece I mean…my head was the sniper helm from OS….there is a hit rating trinket called grim toll from 25 man naxx that you will want to take when it drops, but you can reach 165 hit rating without it and have the 4 pieces of 7.5 tier that I mentioned…I’m assuming even tho your SV that you did put 3 points into focused aim in the MM line..you will need to do that if you haven’t…that will give you 3% towards your 8% cap..the 165 hit rating finishes the 5 % you need…as far as your sword goes – I have not seen any 2h sword that a hunter should take…I think you may be the only hunter using a 2h sword..I could be wrong, I’m not always right, but you’ll want to use dual wield till you can grab a staff or polearm from your naxx runs…there’s a couple weapons in eye of eternity also you’ll want to try to get…I know there’s a polearm with hit rating on it from there…what professions are you?…if your a jewel crafter, you can make the hit rating trinket that has the use: spell power with 2 gem slots and gem them 16 hit rating each if your in need for the hit rating..lol..I did that for a while till grim toll dropped for me…but anyways..the main thing is that yes you’ll want to collect the tier 7.5 gear, even if you cant wear it right now still collect it…take any mail dps drops you can and just collect all this stuff and make sure your hit rating is at 165(with focused aim)…
Tsailencer
Antiquus Morte Ortus, Silvermoon (Horde)
I wanted to add that the 2 piece tier 8 and 8.5 bonus is 10% to serpent sting damage…this will help a lot with MM…making the Chimera shot even more powerful…I have 1 piece so far..just 1 to go…I suggest that every lvl 80 be doing 10 man and 25 man VOA for the tier 8 items…make sure to kill emalon first…if you cant kill emalon and the group decides to quit then you won’t be saved..if you go for the old boss first and kill him you’ll be saved and it’ll be harder for you..so only kill the old boss if you’ve downed emalon first.
Tsailencer
Antiquus Morte Ortus, Silvermoon (Horde)
@Frost
Thanks for the response… the percentages I posted above were from a very small sample (1 mana bar) but I wanted to just not the general trend of 30% white damage, and see if that was normal.
I’ll try spreadsheeting my setup to see what my DPS “should” be and I’ll give it a go on our next raid.
Man it’s good to be back… I took a 1 or 2 month break from WoW and what do I see when I get back? My beloved MM’s packing a heavier punch and regaining it’s rightful place among the skilled! =D Heh, kidding, kidding (well, only partly, lol).
I am quite excited to see that my dedication to MM, even during the whole SV craze, has paid off in the long run. I stayed MM simply because it matched my mobile playstyle the best and it was fun! Relearning the entire class/new playstyle wasn’t fun for me, so no switch on this hunter. But it’s good to see that MM is swinging on par/above SV now.
So good to be back!
Frost – nice work on MM. It’s kind of funny, just started messing with MM myself but haven’t done Emalon or any other good DPS measures but it’s just blowing away survival on the training dummies. Just wanted to post and say I has been primarily SV so I am stacked AGI and can pull up to 4k on the heroic training dummies (usually 3.5 overall) using MM now.
Also, the number of instants is insanely good for Ulduar.
So, Frost, does this mean you’re an MM raid hunter now?
I am indeed a MM raid hunter once more. It feels a bit strange — haven’t been MM since vanilla. When BC’s patch 2.0 came out I went to BM to follow the dps, and only now has the dps curve twisted back to MM. It’s kinda like going home again
Well SV’s day in the sun was sure short as hell. But no matter. Ever since I put down my bear for a cat (then wolf) and switched away from BM, my sole purpose has been dps.
Except tonight’s Nax run. My guild leader/MT/etc. promised me I could kite Gluth adds with my Crocalisk as a BM. Tickle me excited. Now if I could get the Beast-Tamer shoulders from Hyjal Summit to drop, my tank-gear would be complete and I could maybe tank some low-end heroics.
It was all lies! No add-kiting! Let this be a lesson: if your dps is sick, you don’t get to do other stuff when you feel like it. The “stragglers” get to change roles at will. The best I can hope for is a request for Tranq. Shot when a rogue’s not around, or an occasional MD to our off-tank.
But there’s worse things than “be awesome dps all the time”….we could all be Warlocks instead.
Unfortunatly I wasnt as satisfied with MM in raid practice as I was hoping.
It did “comperable” damage with Survival once fully raid buffed. In a couple fights it out performed, in others not so much. Over all I still think Survival is a solid choice, and your mana bar will last about 3x longer.
I agree with you Aurick, I’m full T8.5 + alot of ulduar gear, basically only missing 2-3 items.
I tested MM several times and end up with lower dps than my SV build.
It also depends alot on our crits and procs so, I don’t know what to say. I managed to gather 45% crit unbuffed and sometimes (often) my shots only crit for like 35%….
I also found out that playing MM I crit alot less ..
I also stacked 23% arp, still lower dps.
Anyway I might give it more tries but for now I stay SV.
We did our Heroic runs Friday night. First stop was Laviathon and XT. On XT I went MM, did about 3200 dps, about 100 more than a SV hunter with a little lower gear than me. Our next stop was Naxx. First stop there was Pathwerk. I did about 3400 while the other hunter did about 4400. Switched to SV for Grobbulus and I did about 4300 and the other guy did about 3700. For my gear, my dps is better as SV, but the raid dps was overall better as MM. On Patchwerk, we had 5 people over 4k dps, 4 of them ranged, while I was MM, on Grobbulus I was the only one over 4k. So, I would say it just depends on the situation. I’ve been in my current guild for about a month, and there are about 6 raiding hunters. In my last guild, I was pretty much the only one. Thanks for the guides here. They have helped alot, and put me at the top of the hunter dps meter.
Also, I hit the dummy before the raid Friday. The difference for me was MM did about 150 dps more than SV there, with pet on passive.
Mixed reviews here as well, though MM did the best in Ulduar for me, which is where it counts. Because of mana, it blows for 5-mans and even with another battery has underachieved for me quite a bit in Nax. I also only have one t8 piece, and the 2 piece bonus helps MM a ton, so I’m cool with it for now.
Hi there
Dont suppose you have a more detail look at your Dmg?
Hey, just decided to respec back to MM after a small time away from wow and i seem to be doing less DPS as MM than SV, weather or not this is due to getting back into the right shot roation of MM from SV or what im not sure, i think i have the gear all right but i seem to be doing 200-300 less DPS as MM now, if you can please check me out on the armory, Descremerce, Stormscale EU 80, thanks alot