Since patch 3.2.2 and the armor pen nerf, I’ve been working my butt off to determine whether SV has toppled MM as the best raid dps spec, or if MM still has a tiny lead. I’ve even started secretly hoping for wipes at the end of boss fights — ’cause then I can switch specs after the wipe, get the identical buffs and do the same fight again to collect some data.
In all the testing I’ve done, from dummies to raid bosses, I haven’t been able to find a statistically relevant difference in dps between SV and MM in endgame gear.
Randomonium
What do I mean by statistically relevant? WoW has a random number generator (referred to as RNG), which is why one auto-shot can hit the dummy for 1,050 damage, and the next for 1,350 damage. And the effects of RNG can be pretty substantial. Just go to the target dummy and see: take off any proc trinkets, don’t use your pet or pet abilities, and shoot all out until you run out of mana. Now do it again. And again. In just those 3 data points you can easily see several hundred dps difference. That’s without raid buffs and debuffs, without having to run away from void zones or de-poison yourself. In as perfect a world as you can get you have a margin of randomonium of up to nearly 10%.
In some fights MM seemed to be a bit better, in other fights SV seemed to be a bit better. But the difference was always below that statistically significant line. In other words, it was just randomonium.
WHU Verdict
There is no statistically relevant difference between MM and SV in endgame gear, in actual raid-like situations. Play whichever you prefer.
Frost’s Secret Opinion
Frankly, I still prefer MM. And I’ll tell you why.
Sure, part of it’s just the feel. I hate the spastic reactionary style of SV these days. But more importantly, MM gives you better control over your dps, both in terms of mobility, flexibility, and burst damage.
I did a bunch of testing on this, and MM actually gets slightly more dps from instant shots than SV does (ie: any shot that can be cast on the move). SV gets pretty darned close if you take aimed shot, but MM still edges ahead on mobility. But MM also has real burst control. The 3 min rapid fire cooldown and readiness to reset all hunter cooldowns means the MM hunter can time his burst dps for the moment in the fight where he can stand still and take advantage of it. Not to mention that readiness is a great jack of all trades ability that gives greater flexibility in dealing with disasters (and faction champions).
SV on the other hand gets what burst it has from Lock & Load, preferably while Black Arrow is up, preferably while having the Sniper Training buff. Alas none of these are controlable. Holding off on black arrow more than a second or two gimps your dps more than is worth it, and you have very little control over your sniper training. And even with all that, it’s not the same level of burst that MM can pull out 3-5 times per boss fight.
But again, both specs are not only viable, but damned near indistinguishable. You can top the meters in either spec, and no one spec is factually better. So this is a situation where you should play to your own strengths rather than your classes strengths and play the spec you’re best at!
i have been looking into this as well frost – its weird though because if you go and roll out that RAWR or check some spreadsheets in top end gear (which i have) SV comes out on top on almost all of them. and not by a little. Rawr shows that in my hunters current gear SV will be better by ~1000 dps. thats quite a bit. Raiding in 25 man H ToC i have plenty of wipes to test this stuff out and i prefer MM playstyle – but i have yet to top my SV DPS in an actual raid setting on the same boss. Maybe im just getting good RNG. In the end it almost dissapoints me – i mean i want to play MM dangit!
I am pleased about this. I use MM for raids and instances because I like it better and I seem to get better dps from it. The other top hunter in my guild uses SV for the very same reasons. ( he tried MM and hated it) ……we have contests in daily heroics to see who can purposley drag ag off the tank first LOL
Thanks for doing the work to test this Frost,
Quick question though. Is it still the best Idea to go with SV until tier 8.5 then switch to MM if you feel like it? I have been back to the game for about a month after some time off and am finishing leveling up my new hunter ( Figured it would be easiest to relearn from scratch. ) I have always Preferred MM as a level cap spec and usually spec to it around level 40 when I can get TSA. Am I gimping myself in the DPS department by doing this?
For me. SV has been more erratic than MM. There are times when I would blow everyone away in ToC25 with SV, then in the next raid I would be in the somewhere in the top 6 somehow on the very same boss. But MM has been pretty more consistent netting me an average of top 3 on meters (with a DK and Mage beating me most of the time). So I guess it’s like a gamble for me. If I’m feeling lucky with RNG, I’m going with SV. But if I’m happy with just being top 3 consistently, its MM.
Yay! Thats for the research, and hooray for statistical significance!
I’m in the Survival camp…its become almost “feel” as far as playstyle goes. Second nature, really. (Plus, my raid is sans Shadow Priest, so the replenishment is still nice.)
My 25 man raid group brings anywhere from 3-5 hunters. Of which 4 raid as SV and I raid as MM. I picked to be our MM hunter to bring the trueshot Aura and the improved glyphed hunter’s mark.
While the DPS is pretty similar, If you have 2 or more hunters I’d have at least 1 go MM to give the rest buffs.
Amazing – thanks for the insights. It seems to me I really have to check out MM and compare again. At the moment all my raiding hunter guys (incl. me) in guild are raiding with SV specc. And we love it! But the boost pos. of MM could be the edge we need to nail some stuff even faster.
I’ve been using a Survival “stings” build since I got the 2 piece T8 and T9 bonuses (basically dropping Sniper Training for Imp Stings in the MM tree). I expect that this would help out on most fights.
I used the online analyzer and figured that if Sniper Training was up for less than 50-60% of a fight, a Stings build would provide more DPS. It seems a bit more manageable too, not having to ever worry about standing still.
You do lose a little bit on Target Dummy fights like Patchwerk, but there really aren’t that many of those and the loss is pretty minimal.
I’d love to try MM for real, but my 10 man composition is really mana starved most of the time.
As always excellent info!!
I would be interested to know for new 80s and 80s in heroic dungeon gear is SV still the spec?
I have been looking for a reason to go MM. I was real excited when I saw your post. I though you might give me an early xmas present. It is not to late…put on a fake beard and start typing.
What MM type are you running? ArP or well not ArP? Meaning grimtoll/mjolnir alt normal gear like in survival? I am currently running normal MM, havent got my hands on any ARP. Any chcane of a comparions between ArP mm and non Arp?
I just recently started experimenting with MM as well and have a quick question…What does your recount look like after a fight i.e. what are your three most damaging shots. I did a 25 man Ony last night. I got 3rd overall damage done behind a mage that totally killed me due to the whelp slaughtering and the 2nd place was a DK I believe that was pretty much equal to what I did. Anywho, on to my point, my recount showed that my auto shot, steady shot & serpent stings were the top three damage dealers. Now, I fired chimera shot at every chance so I assumed that it would be the top dog but it wasn’t. Something I am doing wrong or just how it happens to work out usually? Critaddict on Gul’dan if you are interested. I follow the shot priority and all that good and for the most part, i am competent
What i also like to know is indeed was that a compare between a Arp gear to Survival or Agi build MM.
I myself run a Agi build, first off all im having trouble finding the time to raid much, butt my 3 fellow hunters i run most with are Surv and i can still keep up even tho my gear is much lower then them nowadays.
In our guild there are 6 raiding hunters, the lowest one (gear and exp) has a nice buff build (glyph/tallent hunter mark) butt he is not raiding much atm.
To Critaddict, normaly my recount shows:
1 Auto Shot
2 Chimera Shot
3 Steady Shot
just a note on pvp side: MM is generaly better for battlegrounds and SV for arena.
Thanks Thundar. I need to figure out why mine was lower (it was 4th). Meh…chalk it up to learning the spec since I started off as BM (came on during BC) and then went Survival until pretty much this week
Hi guys, what do u tell about my hunter : > ? i don’t know, need more agility or haste ?
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Chamber+of+Aspects&n=Ryba
Being a fan of SV, i’m kind of irritated that all of the higher end gear (ToC10-25) has armor pen attached to it. Kinda sucks
Confession: I stay MM for no reason other than because I hate reapplying Serpent Sting.
Isn’t MM better if you stack armour pen?
@Critaddict, if you have t9 set bonus then serpent sting (dot) SHOULD be your 3rd dps, with auto still in first. Steady is usually second too I think can’t remember..
Anywho If you don’t have t9 2piece bonus, you really need to look at what you’re doing because chimera then should be in 3rd.
I just have to say though, my serpent sting is usually my 9th dps and it went to 3rd like that when I got the t9 2set
@Critaddict
I wouldn’t make any assumptions based on Onyxia recounts, that fight has a lot of variables involved.
I use an agility focused MM build.
Hi guys, anybody wanna talk about my hunter character? how to increase my dps : >
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Chamber+of+Aspects&n=Ryba
thank you so much for doing this stuff. it’s good to know.
@ Purp – Yes, I have the two piece bonus so that thanks for clearing that up.
@ Zyrinx – I wasn’t placing TOO much faith in the Ony recount. But was a little concerned
Thanks for the input from everyone.
I play MM in raid because I find it more fun but also I expect that offering a dps boost to the other raid members with trueshot aura helps get the boss face down taking a dirt nap.
@ultra I jammed your toon through Shandara’s spreadsheet and my quick analysis produced this.
If you switch you haste to agility gems and enchants you are looking at an increase 25dps unbuffed.
That was cloak enchant Major agility
Belt gem delicate cardinal ruby
Pants gem deadly ametrine
I only saw that you were crit capped after my analysis; so dropping the socket bonus on the pants and taking another delicate cardinal ruby or two (to replace blue gem) may produce better dps but I can’t be bothered to check that as I quit out of the spreadsheet and did not save the settings. A side note I used your SV spec and my wolf talent build…I recommend you use your wolf for raiding but respec his talents. Use this bulid instead
http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/2008/12/best-ferocity-hunter-pet-talent-build/
I also used the following shot rotation
http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/2009/01/suvival-hunter-shot-cycle/ with an added Rapid fire thrown in the spreadsheet for good measure.
I didn’t look at talents or glyphs or your MM spec as your gems seemed to be geared towards SV.
Of course the best way to make sure your hunter is pulling out all the shots would be to research the best builds; gems; shot rotations, glyphs and pets for raiding.
Lucky for us this is all under the hunter guides tab. Gems are outdated but you get the idea.
Learn how to use Shandara’s spreadsheet for your own theorycraft and learn what your core raid group uses as buffs and debuffs. These are important for making the right gear/gem/enchant choices.
Happy Hunting
Ok thanks for the info frost as always but i thought the same my main is a sv and mm spec too which allows me to change around a bit if needed but i tend tyo use mm almost always these days love the harder shot rotation and tends to give more to do and alot more options.
I like both MM and SV personally but with my lagg i tend to like MM better i dont miss the LnL procs so my dps isnt getting gimped as bad cause of missing the proc
I have been MM since level 1, and I love it. I tried SV for PvP but didn’t care for it. So I use my MM raid spec for battlegrounds and BM for “extreme soloing.”
The other hunter in my raid group is SV, and she and I go back and forth. Often I was topping her but since she upgraded her rifle in Ony 10, I have been lagging a bit. Eitherway, she and I are always at the top with the mages, warlocks, and rogues behind us.
One thing I do love is my raid versatility with MM. I get to do all the cool jobs, while the SV hunter is told to stand and shoot. Abilities like Aimed Shot and Silencing Shot are so handy.
@ Zyrinx- Dropping Sniper training is the wrong move without a doubt. Learn to stand still for longer. Drop points from hunting party and resourcefulness 2/3 resourcefulness or even 1/3 is better than dropping Sniper training by far.
@Bindura- there is no crit cap, what are you talking about?
@Ultra- you are way over hit cap and have a lot of problems with your spec. Your choice of trink is.. not a good one, the haste trink that is. Besides it putting you way over hit cap all by itself haste is not a very useful talent for us, I’m sure a lot of raid members questioned your decision to roll on that. It does look like you’ve gotten lucky with the rolls though. Take a point of of Expose weakness, 2/3 is all you need, grab a point in ‘Go for the Throat’. Drop a point in resourcefulness and both points from improved aspect of of Hawk and put them in Noxious Stings. Also- stop gemming for stam. Also.. your glyphs.. are you serious? Every single one of them is not even close, Frost trap on a pve spec?? Hawk for a SV hunter? Hunter’s Mark for an SV hunter with no points in Improved HM? Drop them all and pick up: Serpent Sting, Explosive Shot, Kill shot, Mend pet, Revive Pet, Feign Death. Do these things and you will improve. Here is my hunter for comparison- ignore the pvp gear and spec.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormrage&n=Rãd
Note: I highly recommend dropping sniper training for Imp Stings once you have the t9 2-piece set bonus. In mobile fights, you will not have complete sniper training uptime and you do not get the full benefit out of the talent. Once you have critting serpent stings, 10% of that is more damage than sniper
If the bloke has over +100% chance to crit I’d say that his chance to crit was capped…
@me lol at epic failure to read sheets… 43% chance to crit. Hang my head in fail shame
@ultra sorry about the broken posts; but if you gem your pants with 2 delicate cardinal rubies and ignore the socket bonus its a 3dps increase, over using a shifting dreadstone and deadly ametrine (same settings as before).
The trinket issue, sorry to tell you … my calcs have the incisor fragment and meteorite whetstone as better for your dps. If you equip the banner of victory from ToC change two of your gems (belt and pants as per original post) and re-enchant your cloak for agility you are set for glory.
Those small and easy changes theoretically produce 95 more dps in a stand and shoot boss fight unbuffed than your current set up
I personally like MM the “readiness” is very useful skill really impa. It has saved me in many wipes….
Something else… m8s what is your opinion for BM spec and arena?
Hello again guys, Really thanks 4 helping me, i make some changes, what do u think now?
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Chamber+of+Aspects&cn=Ryba&gn=Breath
Frost- In my build I am able to keep Sniper training and get 2/3 improved Stings easily, I could even drop another point from resourcefulness and get 3/3. I attempted to discern my combat uptime of Sniper Training and couldn’t really figure out how to tell but I feel like it’s still well worth it to have +6% damage on shots that account for at least 60+% of my damage. Even if the uptime in combat was only 50% that buff would still account for at least 3% of your damage while the last point in Improved Stings is worth less than 1%. All this not mentioning the +15% chance to crit on your highest damage dealing shot. I think you’ve been away from SV too long.
Ultra, still a number of problems, drop two points in Hawk Eye and put them back in Improved tracking, a straight 2% damage buff is big- especially since everything in ToC (unlike Ulduar) is trackable. Drop a point in resourcefulness- with the increased proc rate of LnL it can actually hurt you so it’s a free point to grab, drop either 1 or 2 points from Hunting party and put them all in Noxious Stings, Max Noxious Stings out. Drop Glyph of Hunters Mark, that glyph is only worth it if you are fully talented into Improved Hunter’s Mark in the MM tree which you pretty much don’t want to do unless you’re MM and raid with more than 1 hunter. You should pick up the minor glyphs I mentioned before, they’re cheap and theres no point not having them. Feign death, Mend Pet and third one is optional, I usually take aspect of Pack glyph (can help in 25ToGC on Icehowl). Your wolf is not talented right, drop heart of the phoenix, our pets have decent survivability in ToC, drop one point from Bloodthirsty- they only need one and they’re always happy. Drop two points from natural Armor, pet doesn’t need it. Drop Charge- it’s a pvp talent. Pick up all point in avoidance and Rabid and you should be set. Just copy my wolf’s spec, its the cookie cutter wolf spec so it’s going to be your best bet 99% of the time. Until you know what you are doing, just use the cookie cutter specs. Mine is pretty close.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Stormrage&cn=Rãd&gn=Deus+Modus
Oh yea Ultra- I don’t believe those two trinkets stack.. soo.. find another one.
i know about trinket
but i got only 128hit, 512haste cooldown from toc25 ;p ok change in progress ! Realy thanks Radulf !
Well the haste one isn’t horrible I guess, just a shame you don’t need the hit, and the haste is just no ideal, but it will still help.
ultra… I’d still drop the haste gem for deadly ametrine in the pants
Thats also why I offered 3 trinkets that you can get from daily dungeons for a rapid upgrade; with banner of victory being the best choice and Incisor fragment the worst.
A side note ran your current set up through Shandara’s again and you have theoretically picked up 125dps unbuffed. Swap to deadly ametrine and the banner of victory (using mirror of truth for one trinket and a static +84 to crit custom trinket as the benchmark) you will theoretically gain another 55dps unbuffed. If you can afford it, Darkmoon card Greatness would also be a good choice for your trinket.
Hope you rock the damage meters when it comes to raid time.
all changes done, i’m waiting now only 4 banner of victory
I think its better, really better. How many armor penetration rating its best 4 hunters ?
Thanks a lot people
u can re-check my wow armory site when update finished
I hope its all good now
and i can ownage now 
thanks Bindura & Radulf 
Hunter’s rox !
page update
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Chamber+of+Aspects&cn=Ryba&gn=Breath
Ultra…..I have done much research on hunter dps on many sites including elitistjerks forums, after the over haul u have already done I would suggest dropping your imp stings and filling in your resourcefullnes, giving you a black arrow 6 sec faster CD. Not only will it improve your dot dam but gives you a better chance to proc your lock and load…. oh and while your explosive shot ticks off its periodic damage “let it”, before reapplying it during lock and load for max damage. oh, lol and your hit cap is 263, you dont need to have it at 378 LOL
just got my second piece of T9 and emphasized serpent sting accordingly. must say i got a nice boost to dps enabling me to consistently breach 6k even on movement fights. i’m an SV hunter.
damn bro keep up the good work…you know your stuff…we need more non-downy hunters in wow
ima beast
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Daggerspine&n=Topramon