I got an email recently from a hunter named Aurial, partially reprinted here with his permission:
I have PUGed a lot of 10 mans, 25 mans, and five man heroics and I have never been out DPSed by another hunter period. Maybe on one boss I lose ground here or there, taking into account procs, crits, etc… I really want to get into a top raid guild to see how I measure up against the big kids, but I have to switch to SV or gem/enchant ArPen. I don’t want to do this for two reasons: One, I love playing MM. Two, I haven’t grouped with an SV hunter who can top me. Yet, no one believes in the agility focused MM hunter.
Once, while having a friend make an gem for a new piece of gear, an on-looking warrior inspected my gear/spec and said, no word of a lie, “lol u need more ArPen.” I said, “This spec works for me.” He said, “nub.” I said, “Well I have yet to meet a hunter who can out DPS me.” He said, “rofl i know a few.” I don’t warm up to “internet people,” and I don’t take the comments of those without punctuation seriously, but it seems I am the only disciple of WHU on WRA. So I ask you, what advice do you have for me?
I thought this was a fascinating situation that bore some serious explanation. We have basically three issues here:
- People saying that he needs to stack armor pen instead of agility, else he’s a “nub.”
- People saying he needs to play SV and not MM (though I’m guessing he’s not hearing that from any of those SV hunters he’s raided with!)
- Guilds he wants to join won’t let him in unless he makes one of these two changes.
So let’s go over each of these issues one at a time.
1. Stacking Armor Pen
If you had people who were really interested in a rational discussion (most likely other hunters — certainly the illiterate warrior wouldn’t be interested) you could tell them that armor pen was nerfed by 12% in patch 3.2.2 making high levels of armor pen pretty much identical to agility stacking in actual raids.
On spreadsheets armor pen looks better because on spreadsheets you never, ever move. The only shots that benefit from armor pen are steady shot, auto shot, and aimed shot. Of those only aimed (the smallest percentage of physical damage) can be used when you’re moving. So the more mobile a boss fight is, the less useful armor pen is.
Also, armor pen is going to get yet worse for hunters in patch 3.3 when every stat will transfer to our pets except armor pen. So while armor pen was the top hunter build previously, the 3.2.2 nerf changed it to on par with agility – except of course the agility build allows us more flexibility and control in raids.
2. SV vs. MM
In terms of MM vs SV, their dps in a raid situation is pretty much identical; however, MM gets more of its dps from instant shots so again is better for moving fights. In addition, MM has better burst control, allowing it to do the big damage at just the right time (like Yeti stuns in TotC). SV has much less burst, and it’s all luck based. SV dps will swing much more wildly depending on whether they get their procs when they can use them (ie: when they’re standing still).
Finally, you could point out that Ensidia is the top raiding guild in the world with tons of world firsts, and they demand the absolute best. And their hunter uses MM spec. Further, his offspec is BM (for fights like Yogg Saron that prefer a BM build). He doesn’t use SV for anything. So, you know… they gonna argue with Ensidia?
3. Guild Invites
Unfortunately, while you can say all this to a guild your apping to it’s unlikely to improve your chances of getting in (though some guilds would appreciate your logic and reasoning, most would just be offended at the suggestion they could be wrong).
You are applying to their guild, and they are saying that they want a SV hunter. If you really want to get into one of their guilds, you should make your offspec SV for them (you don’t have to regem or regear for that after all). Then once you’re in you can show them that while you can do great in SV, you can do even better in MM.
Ultimately they are hiring for a job opening in their raids, and they have a list of the qualifications they want — even if those qualifications are not fully thought through.
So if you want the job, you respec.
i am in a top raiding guild and when i joined i was told i would basically raid when and if no one else was online and they needed a body. I am now one of the best in the guild and have recently had to stop raiding due to, well, life. Anyways – they are begging for me everytime i log on – they love me :p What im saying is – when i joined the guild- i was their bitch. When they wanted replenishment bamn i had replenishment – they wanted me to go BM- which i swore that i would never play, i went BM- then sooner or later you will just become a part of the group and will be able to play what you want.
As far as the Frost’s response i agree with him to some extent. However – and im talking only my hunter who is in extremely good gear – wearing all 245 and some 258 gear atm- SV is better. Which hurts me because MM has and always will be my favorite spec – its just way more fun than SV. But no matter what i do SV is just raping the charts right now and in the end thats where im staying- i mean i gotta be on top! Also- with the yeti stuns – that can be a Survival hunters dream- If mr. icehowl targets you, i always make sure to have black arrow off CD when that time comes and drop an immo trap right after the stun is over, as long as you still get out of the way you are gauranteed a LnL proc with 100% increased damage. – Omnomnom…
GL with the guilds man – hope you get in somewhere
Jgulr of lethon
Have had something like this aswel, a hunter in my guild who is lower on the charts then me getting into a pug instead of me because he was Surv and im MM.
Most off the problems with it and with ArP feel like there comming from Spreatsheets maniacs.
Problem with this is they dont know what the effect of a piece or statincrease is unles they can put it into a sheet.
And like you sayd it doesnt fit most situations where you have to move or do sertain tasks, and not all take buffs into account into a sheet seeing Agi is effected by some raid buffs and ArP is not (and getting decreased by armor redusing effects)
For the Guild thing, im lucky to be in a great guild that lets you play what you are good at and like. I will not join another guild iff they force me to respec, there are more guild out there that will like you for you and your playstyle.
Pure DPS classes are Pure DPS classes? surv,mm,arms,fury,frost,fire,afl,destr Iff you good and can get high on our lovely meters who cares, your good.
Ok iff your a Ret pala and there recruiting a Holy paladin sure, whole different story.
I’m confused where the survival bias is coming from out there. If you check wowmeter there’s more marks hunters high up on the charts than survival.
Optimization and spreadsheets are tools used to beat the high end content of the game. You won’t be doing the hard stuff with 10 frost mages in your raid.
Okay, the English major part of me just died a little bit with that previous post. No offense, but my brain is still cringing from the beating it just took. XD
Aside from that, I have to agree with Frost on this one… whether you are top dps or not, the guild you’re applying to are like employers: they want what they want. If you want to join them, show them you have what they want, then PROVE that you know what the hell you’re talking about. A lot of times, in WoW and out I’ve had to earn the right to do what I know is best for a task. For years, since I began playing in vanilla WoW, hunters have been the outcast/easiest class to play and so it was and still is an uphill battle proving to people that you know your class. Thankfully though, DKs came along and we aren’t regarded AS heavily as the most nub class around, but old stereotypes die hard.
All in all, do what you have to do to earn your chance to prove yourself. If ya don’t like that, don’t join the guild that requires it.
A sensible person would say “Bring the Player, not the Spec”. Unfortunately, many people out there in WoW soak up random information about classes, but they never know the reasoning behind it – so they just burp it up without any understanding.
“SV is better than MM”
“Holy priests can’t tank heal”
I’m sure there are similar misconceptions out there for all classes that silly people that cannot think for themselves hear and remember, but you cannot argue with them because they have no clue why that is so – just that you are a noob if you don’t agree.
We used to have rogue in our raid who played a spec that apparently isn’t very popular. He would often be told by other people to “lulz, respec to rogue spec X”, but would then proceed to top the DPS meters by a huge margin over rogues in better gear.
Sure sometimes a spec is obviously underpowered for what you are trying to do, but sometimes a skiller player in good gear can work wonders. If a guild has any sense, surely they would respond well to an app of a person that can logically lay out their reasons for using a specific spec – particularly if you can show the goods either on a trial run or via logs?
Well, I’d love to take the time to reply to this considering that I’m the class lead of the guild that Aurial applied to, but I’ve got to leave for work in less than five minutes. Just letting him know that I saw this if he reads comments.
Most exclusive guilds remind me of the mall cops in my hometown: a fetish for power and the ability boss other people around without any awareness of what a joke their authority is. Just like most players will only be mediocre, most guilds aren’t worth all the anxiety people have about getting into them. Sounds like Reinn is ready to hold it against Auriel for writing, indicating a hideous guild, in my opinion. I’m hope I’m wrong about that. I hope Reinn sees that a player this dedicated and concerned about his spec and class is leaps and bounds ahead of most players.
I, too, am sick of the conventional wisdom, however inane, being thrown in my face. I don’t ask for advice from these people, so they should shut it.
Just like everyone else on this site will tell you: don’t change to SV and don’t stack ArP just because some “warrior” told you to. The amount of ArP you get from the T9 pieces and other gear is enough to get you up to 550-650 ArP without putting any into gems. Stacking up on Agi is the way to go. Given the same gear, with the right RNG an SV hunter may have a slight edge over an MM hunter in a static fight where there’s no running around or moving around. Since most fights require moving from fire and shit, it doesn’t come as a surprise that MM hunters out-dps SV hunters. But the difference is not that big.
I think everyone should play which spec they like, dont change to other just because most ppl uses the other spec or so. I personally still am a noobie hunter (dinged 80 couple days ago), and most of the things ive learned was in this website, and others with experience. I personally like and defend BM spec, and ive been in some hc’s with other SV hunters and i pass their dps (im talking with my crappy gear, and theirs crappy gear, when i go with SV epic hunter of course i stay behind). I’m gonna give it a try with MM also, but if i enjoy more BM, i keep with it, i personally think that i know a lot about BM, maybe thats why i can still keep up or be better about similar equiped SV hunters, but thats why i also have a MM spec to try them both.
Anyone saying that SV is better than MM is obviously not good at math, let me put this clear. Look at the fictional table below:
SV Hunter 4553 DPS
Warrior 4001 DPS
Rogue 4000 DPS
Mage 3853 DPS
Warlock 3644 DPS
Tank 1300 DPS
Tank 1100 DPS
Healer 0 DPS
Healer 0 DPS
Healer 0 DPS
MM Hunter 4203 DPS
Warrior 4001 DPS
Rogue 4000 DPS
Mage 3853 DPS
Warlock 3644 DPS
Tank 1300 DPS
Tank 1100 DPS
Healer 0 DPS
Healer 0 DPS
Healer 0 DPS
If you compare the two examples you see the SV hunter does just 200 dps more, of course 200 dps is a lot, but it is simply nothing compared to all the melee dps/tanks and other hunters gaining another 10% attack power.
Of course for someone SV will be doing more damage than MM, but if you are in a raiding guild you should not just think about your dps. If someone tells you that you should swap to SV, just tell them that in a 25-man raid you will increase the raid’s dps by somewhere between 1-1½ person in extra dps. A survival hunter might do more, but in most cases it would not benefit the raid more than a MM hunter, let me illustrate this in a simple table:
10 not-casting dps in a 25-man raid, this dps average 4450 in Attack power this will simply mean that a MM hunter would increase the attack power with 4450, which is like an extra person.
I mean this is simple reason, I know no survival hunter having about 6k attack power!
I am MM and I have been since i got the rotation straight, after having played SV all spring. Guild leaders don’t really know much about hunters (in my experience) unless they’ve actually played one, and generally if they played a hunter before wrath came out, they have no idea what is going on with the class right now, and will throw random terms like armor penn and replenishment in SV at you to sound like they do.
First of all- It is true that *the* very top geared hunters on spreadsheets have arp with a lead over agil, but what people I think aren’t realizing is how much static arp you have to be getting from gear, like the previous commenter said. I’d even go so far as to say you need even more than 650 arp; try to hit the soft cap, which, depending on the trinket is around 730-780. If you’re getting close to those numbers without gemming- then you might consider regemming for arp, but only enough to hit the soft cap. According to my spreadsheet (and i have the highest, maybe second highest gear score of any hunter on my server) I’m still better off gemming agil over arp, I still sit at 540 static arp; I could put on some peices I have from Ulduar and get about 60 more, but I lose dps when I do this. I actually tested this in raid- I spent a week sitting at my soft cap through gems. and my numbers actually were lower than they were when I am agil gemmed.
The problem is that when you start gemming armor penetration, You are effectively losing agility, and no matter what anyone says, its an extremely high priority stat (either first or second priority) and it affects so much, not just RAP but your crit rating as well. so you have to be able to nullify the loss that you take to your agil when you do gem for arp.
In short, If you know how to play MM you should play that way, but be prepared to go SV. You can pull pretty much the same overall damage- slightly lower than MM in TotC because of the aforementioned burst control and more flexibility given by chimera and aimed shot being instants, as well as better timers on your cooldowns. I am MM all the way, but if my raid needs replenishment, I’ve got it for them, and if I need to go SV so i can sleep ppl on faction champs, I’ve got it for them, and I definitely go SV on vezax, and yogg, just so I can avoid going into viper.
Dual spec opens up whole new areas of play responsibility if you are in a raiding guild, and its better to show how useful you can be by saying, not only can i offer x spec, which gives these raid benefits, but I can also offer y spec and offer these different but equally valuable raid benefits, either way I can sustain incredibly high damage, Here is why I gem this way, and I have proof that it works (show them WWS/ recount, whatever you use) *and* I am equally skilled at playing both of these specs.
(ps MM is totally better)
Wanted to ask if anyone uses the addon called spellcast… I use it and was wondering if I should listen to what it tells me?
Very interesting read. I haven’t dealt with this on my server for whatever reason and i have never had any trouble rolling out the DPS. but after reading this i’m going to try MM for our raid night tonight to see how much more i like it. It seemed to me before that i was only really hitting my stride in marks in 25′s for whatever reason, (maybe i just need to learn to play)
When you play all the time it is hard to remember that your gear was once Blue and sub 200 even though you were at level 80. We need to be careful directing people to go MM when their average gear level is below 219 because there are several great posts on this site that indicate that MM does not catch SV until around those numbers. If you are trying to reach the top DPS for your current gear level – spend a lot of time in the guide section of this site and you cant go wrong.
Great advice on dealing with over-the-top Guild members. Frost, I’m in a fairly small guild just getting ready to raid and was wondering if it would it be possible to do a post on how a great guild is run? Bank Tabs, Scheduling, Loot, Etiquette, ect? Im sure we would get a lot of feedback.
START YOUR OWN GUILD!
When I joined up with the top raiding guild on my server, they already assumed that I knew my class and build, so it was up to me to prove that my build worked for me. With that said though, there were already 2 core hunters in our 25 man group, so any advice that came my way I used, and there are now 3 core hunters in the raid. My advice is play with what you know, but be open to try new ideas. As to the question of MM vs SV (I’m SV) we have 3 different hunters with 3 different builds, and who ever is on top of the DPS really depends upon what boss we’re fighting, buffs, even latency, but after many hours of actual raiding, I have to agree with Frost, it’s a dead heat in the practcal applications of the game.
Going to try a MM speck for both raiding and PvP. I do ok DPS wise but ill be interested to drop my BM off speck and see how it work. 1st post by the way great blog
My guild is not large and we are not at all “hard core” raiders. I have been in a couple of pugs with Jguir and can attest to the fact that he can put out some very impressive dps
I am MM spec and the other senior hunter in the guild is SV. He has slightly better gear than I, but we are usually within 200 dps of each other depending on the fight and what our assignments are. Often I am assigned to run about and dps ads so that he can stand still and blast away at the boss because I can do better on the move and he can do better standing still. Neither of us has trouble getting into good pugs when we don’t have enough guildies on to run our own group. I never care much what other folks say to me…”you should have this…or you should not be doing that” unless I get info from a good source…like here or from another hunter on the server who I have seen doing their job well..I just ignore them.
Omogon of Lethon
If a guild would force me to make changes to my spec, I’m not in that guild. I understand if they make demands of my results, including playstyle, dps, etc. But le me worry on how to do it. Fortunately I never had this issue.
Sure, I’ve had people whisping me my spec sucks or so. I also had people whisping me to explain my spec (after seeing my dps
) as it is non standard. Simply don’t spend too much time on that. Be friendly and use /ignore for the persistent. 
On my server, there are almost zero non-SV hunters. I as a MM am extremely rare. Especially those who do end-raids.
I’m even more rare as I gem for AP. Yes, AP. Most hunters dual-spec with SV or use SV as main, and then you must use Agi. I however hate SV. Noting personal, but I just don’t like it, and more importtant I switch between MM and BM. And then gemming for AP is the better option.
Also gemming for AP worked better with the T7 and T8 2pc bonus and now I’m full T9 I still not sure if agi is better as the crit bonus is only 50%. More important it puts more of my dps on my pet and sting (provided you make the required talent changes too compared to the Agi build!). I like that even though I fully admit my peak-dps will be lower than the Agi build during static fights. I however find it more stable in dps for a mobile fight and it just fits better with my playingstyle and habbits of liking the BM tree as second spec. I outdps almost all other hunters except those very few in the top-raiding guilds with fulll Colloseum25 gear.
My point here is not that AP is good, but more, that it is the whole balance. Your style and talents must match your gear and gemming. Some non-hunter telling you to do something without taking everything into account is a noob himself. He’d probably had gfreaked out if he saw my gear and gems. My spec and build is fairly non-standard, but I’m always in the very top dps and in most raids I am the top. It is about the person behind it. Just as Frost says: people must formost know how to play their spec. The rest follows from that.
BTW, taking the ArP build is a very bad thing IMHO. It makes you a one-trick monkey. You will only outdps a agi build by a very small marging in static fights. But almost all raids are mobile, and the ArP fails there terribly. Because:
1) It was nerfed.
2) It requires good and heavy buffing to get crits andAP back up making many pugs and 10-mans less ideal.
3) You are mobile reducing steady and autoshots which benefit from ArP.
4) You must trow in Arcane again, which is lower because of you lack of crit, talents and AP
5) Your sting and pet do less damage, because of lack of AP and lack of focus for your pet.
6) Your CS shot does less damage for all of these reasons.
The ArP build was a perfect example of some hunters who knew their class comming up with something completely new and non-standard. They probably were bashed as well by noobs if they had seen it the first time. It was great at that time. Even Blizzard was surprised by what they came up. However Blizzard nerfed it as they were not pleasently surprised and new colloseum raids made ArP-gemming a thing of the past for most of the fights there anyway. A few still use it, but I would advise against it, as it is very hard to play in mobile fights and the gain is also very slim. Those that use it, do it formost because it makes the rotation simpler, not so much for the higher dps.
I agree with much of this writeup. ArP has been overstated since people began playing with imaginary numbers when they looked at the hard mode Ulduar gear. ArP makes you into an immobile glass canon, and prevents you from effectively using a second spec, as both non-marks options get virtually nothing from ArP.
Another nice rebuttal to this “ArP or nub” argument is that even according to the spreadsheets, ArP marks doesn’t begin to surpass agility survival until you’re at a very high level of gear. Any hunter in, say, half UL25 and half ToC25 gear will probably not see an increase by switching to ArP.
I do, however, have a few finer points I’d like to challenge your science on:
-”MM gets more of its dps from instant shots so again is better for moving fights”: in actuality, I have found SV to be better on movement fights in practice. MM gets a large portion of its DPS from auto and steady shot, which can not be fired while moving. SV loses less when they can’t fire these shots, and assuming that the hunter can make a point of standing still for 4 GCDs every 15 seconds, they can keep sniper training up.
-”SV dps will swing much more wildly depending on whether they get their procs when they can use them (ie: when they’re standing still)”: The biggest proc that SV worries about is lock and load, and I do believe that since they buffed the proc rate to 20% per tick of the BA dot, it’s actually quite predictable. Generally, the number of procs I see in a given fight is very close to the average procs per minute (overall) times the fight timer.
Mmm… natural experiments ftw!
Interesting thoughts on moving (MM) vs standing still (VS) in a boss fight. I just tried my first Onyx 10 man with my guild and we failed pretty badly. But it’s still a new fight for all involved. There were two hunters involved, one MM and one SV (me). I noticed the raid leader put the MM spec to assist the OT with the elites and me on run around and chase the little flying pains-in-the-butt while alternating on boss fight. Seems I spent alot of time running around when I might have served the raid better slamming dps into elites and boss respectively. Long story short..I was pulling better dps than the MM (for whatever reason..I’m not sure) and we kept burning because the elites became too stacked up, overwhelmed the OT, then systematically handed everyone else their own asses.
Perhaps we should have switched rolls…him doing the running fight and me static on elite assist?
SV hunter here. I gave MM a whirl and lost DPS. In retrospect, I think the main reason is that you need to get a feel for a spec for awhile and fine tune it to maximize your DPS. I can take the analogy of a golf swing. If you can drive the ball straight and far with a stroke you are familiar with, do you really want to relearn that to eek out a couple extra yards? That whole ROI thing comes into play.
Jugs: “If mr. icehowl targets you, i always make sure to have black arrow off CD when that time comes and drop an immo trap right after the stun is over, as long as you still get out of the way you are gauranteed a LnL proc with 100% increased damage.”
Did they change LnL again? I was under the impression Immolation Trap gave you a max 6% chance to LnL.
And Ghraal, while I agree with your position on the utility of Trueshot Aura, with the plethora of DKs in raids and on our server, Abomination’s Might or a shammy’s Unleashed Rage will not stack with it. On our WWS parses, those are up near 100% of boss fights.
And finally, on Munken in Ensidia, he will even tell you that the difference in DPS for SV/MM is marginal and that, even if SV is proven to be better, he is comfortable playing MM. That’s what he said in the podcast on OutDPS anyway.
As I said, I play SV…both PvE and PvP..with different specs. I have topped MM and BM hunters always in VoA (that’s the one significant instance I pug) but that’s irrelevant. Gear and player experience/skill trump all.
As for the guild issue, I would do this. Get into a VoA pug and /combatlog. Parse and post the log and submit it with your application. If that’s not enough for them, move on.
Let me reinforce a couple of points here, where I’m concerned I’m being misunderstood:
I do not think you should be able to play whatever spec you want in a raiding guild. A raiding guild has every right to enforce that its raiders are using an optimal spec. I wouldn’t want a BM hunter raiding with me atm, for example. I don’t care how much you love it, it’s hurting the raid. And that’s a legitimate call for a guild to make.
Also, I’m not saying that MM is across the board the better spec. In fact, at around an average 232 ilvl, the two specs put out the same dps in raids — there is no statistically relevant difference. However, I do think MM offers better burst dps control and flexibility.
MM does in fact get more damage from instant shots that can be used on the move. It’s very easy to do the testing on this and if you’re doubtful I encourage you to do so!
There’s a misconception that because MM has auto shot as the highest damaging shot that MM gets more damage from non-instant shots, when in fact it’s just hat MM has so many more shots that no one of them is up there like explosive shot is.
Auto shot is the highest percentage damage shot for MM – but that’s still only about 25% of damage done. Adding up Chimera, Serpent portion of Chimera, Serpent Sting, Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Silencing Shot gives you something around 62% of your damage done, iirc. And that’s not even counting the piercing shots dot from your aimed shots.
But Frost, what about that spirit pet that was at a raid of ours recently? sure, it looked like a wolf, but it was all badass looking with the lightning and stuff.
You have to factor in the Badass variable.
Take a look at this log: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-GPL4FHdR2nvEJZJT/details/9/?s=6104&e=6226
I calculate about 30% of his DPS from the instants you mentioned (although, like you said, not counting piercing’s aimed portion), which leaves about 60% of his DPS as steady, auto, and piercing DoT.
This is not my log- I haven’t raided as MM in a while, however I believe it’s a fairly good representative of a 25 man fight. If you have other data points with which to dispute, please feel free
That looks to me like the parse of a hunter going for armor pen, which I don’t recommend. In addition to a really strange spread of damage, we see no arcane shots fired – and only armor pen prefers steady to aimed. A more likely agility MM parse would look closer to this:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/VRKumHOGXVhX0h06/details/7/?s=829&e=1596
We have only 45.6% of dps coming from auto/steady/piercing/wild quiver — and that’s assuming none of the piercing from aimed, which of course is untrue. Alas we had no SV hunters on the same fight to compare to.
I have another hunter that raids with me that has about the same gear as I do and is AGI gemmed as I am. I am speced MM and he is SV. He normally does more dps than me, but not by a large margin. Until recently, I could not figure out why until I realized the 10% buff he is getting from my TSA. I am not too concerned with being the top DPS as long as we down the boss but I am wondering how things would change if I went to SV and he lost that buff. Has anyone else run into this?
I get where you’re coming from Frost, but there’s something to be said for the guild only being able to require you to meet the needs of the group. Frankly, a lot of wannabe guilds require specs from their players when the raid groups aren’t good enough to warrant those kinds of standards. If I’m holding you back, then I can change or leave (or get gkicked). However, requiring a certain spec from applicants, in the cases of most guilds, is just people pretending they’re good enough to need the best. Usually not so, and usually they have no reasoning behind it. They just memorize stuff from the wow forum.
I stand by a person’s right to spec as they please and work with their guild from there if they’re not performing up to standards.
Even still, I love your site and the information it provides. I’m still an woefully inexperienced hunter, but I’m learning lots from you. I appreciate your reasoning, which is something that is hard to find elsewhere on WoW topics.
Keep in mind that the 10% bonus from TSA is also replicated by other classes. So just because you have it doesn’t mean you’re giving the raid something they don’t already enjoy
(Of course if you’re MM you MUST have it, just in case. Never skip your spec’s raid buff. Pay yer dues).
I have to agree with Frost here. His logs seem very similar to mine. After autoshot, the next 4 pretty much always are pet (let us not forget about him, as he does often over 15% of my damage and rarely below 10%), CS, CS-sting, sting and arcane. All 4 which are mobile-proof.
Steady sometimes pops up there, but if you analyse further you’ll see that is then because of quantity. (Obviously) If a fight is that static, the dps will be higher anyway and most likely not the main issue the raid has. My point: I rather have a good minimum dps during hard/mobile fights, than a higher dps overall but more problems during mobile fights.
But most SV’s seem to do pretty fine in mobile fights too. So I cannot really say it is an major issue.
For me the main reason – if I didn’t dislike the SV spec so much – to switch would be because it is not so dependend on getting your sting and mark on it. MM dps tanks if there is no sting and mark on it. When there are many adds, SV has an edge there IMHO.
In the end I believe it is however mostly playing style. You can raid well with every spec, even BM. And even BM dps is high enough to meet any minimum requirements for even the hard-modes provided he knows what is is doing. Sure it is easier with SV/MM but my (second) point is more that the obsession over getting the final 10% extra dps should not cause us to loose focus that teamwork and knowing the boss is by far more importtant that thelast bit of dps.
“Finally, you could point out that Ensidia is the top raiding guild in the world with tons of world firsts, and they demand the absolute best. And their hunter uses MM spec. Further, his offspec is BM (for fights like Yogg Saron that prefer a BM build). He doesn’t use SV for anything. So, you know… they gonna argue with Ensidia?”
Okay, this I agree with! MM can be great, but it requires ArP. Do you know what their hunter stacks? ArP! Now you condradict yourself with..
“That looks to me like the parse of a hunter going for armor pen, which I don’t recommend.”
You’re arguing with Ensidia? Wat?
Ensidia’s hunter specifically stated that he thinks armor pen and agility are now equal, which measures up with testing and theorycrafting.
Naturally he’s still running armor pen because that’s all the gear that he has back from when armor pen was on top
Hmm, here is an interesting situation, Armor penetration VS Agility and MM or Surv. I’ll be honest, even with the latest patch that nerfed us, MM is king! And with the right fire rotation, there is no hunter in 25 man raid that can take me down, unless he is a JC with MM spec, and still, his fire rotation is messed or has the gems but not the better ones he is toasted. But sometimes I do not get my biggest numbers, and that’s ok, because a 10 man or 25 man do benefit from my Aura and they do some serious damage.
I like the back and forth there between Frost and Euripedes.
I like the appeal to authority (Ensidia) less, but that’s just being nit-picky (especially since it’s likely a very valid appeal to authority). But we should start appealing to the WHU.
“Well Frostheim says you’re wrong!”
“Wait, who?”
“No, WHU.”
“What?!”
*maniacal cackling*
Then they won’t think you’re a nub anymore. They’ll just think you’re crazy.
Perhaps I’m the only one that would rather have ArP be an important stat. To me “cap hit then stack Agil” is a boring dynamic. Working within both hit can ArP caps while trying to max out agility/AP would be much more interesting.
I love reading all the comments at the end of these blogs which tackle the theory of top dps; especially comparing the rational with the irrational. Frost is straight up logical about the way he approaches his gear and spec. He spends hours testing and presents a “casual version” of a scientific report for others to review and discuss. Finally he presents a conclusion based on his experiments that MM and SV are statistically as good as each other; but prefers MM for its controllable burst damage.
This is then rebutted by SV does way more damage; MM is the king, no one in PUGs can touch me in my current spec. SV burst is controllable, just drop a trap just before you get charged by Icehowl. MM pwns SV because I buff the entire raid. You are arguing with Ensidia wut?
Some of these are in the league of /ignore like Mr. warrior telling you need to stack ArP, others are comments on something they don’t understand fully and should be discussed. Such as; “Frost, you recommend Agi, but Ensidia’s hunter stackes ArP. Why the difference?” would have been more appropriate. Other comments give useful tips for specific boss tactics are highly situational.
Untill someone can produce reasoning on par Frost’s, rebutting MM and SV are the same for overall raiding, I will keep believing what he says. These things called Frostheim goggles are being applied to this applying to a guild scenario. As hunters who have paid our dues we know that MM and SV are very similar for dps. But that does not mean that the other classes know that. If you want to join the top raid guild and they want a SV hunter, respec. You are not going to lose dps and you will keep the guild happy. They might be having mana problems and need an extra source of replenishment. Once you have proved your worth as an SV hunter you can always prove to them that MM is as good by respeccing for a couple of raids and rocking the damage meters again. If you are of the opinon that I can raid in whatever spec you want because you really love your current setup. Guildes with spec requirements are not worth your time; you are probably not paying your dues.
Part of paying dues is enduring the hunter noob sterotype; and proving to people you know how to play your class.
@ Arthemystia-lol as you can see I already use Frost and the WHU as “the” authority on everything that is Hunter.
Wow theres alot of posts on here which is good to see so many hunters and what they truely believe in and want to help there fellow hunters out. I personally have both specs SV and MM i normally play MM as i prefer the harder shot rotation and gives me more options on what i can do however under certain circumstances like Freya in Ulduar i switch to SV for my guild so i can sleep the dragons and take them out of the fight till we are ready to combat them. I am happy to switch specs at anytime if i think or the raid knows it will be better for a certain fight. In our guild we have some top end raiders who have been at the top end but most of those guilds seem to lose the fun and raiding with them becomes a job. Our guild now has alot of fun and we are still slowly progressing through the end game content, we took down Maly on our 2nd go on the weekend which alot of people had never been there before. I have found through my experience that it is better to raid with people who you like and want the same goals which then makes the game fun for all then being stuck with a bunch of dictators who are just waiting on someone to stuff up so they can complain about them or bag them over the vent channel.
PS I am agility specced all the way as it suits both SV + MM
Guys, guys. Just do what our class was always intended for. Tanking and PvP, both in BM. This MM-v-SV talk is just silly. Now get to it!
Long time reader, first ever comment posted. This one got to me.
I’m in a top raiding guild on my realm. I’m also SV and stack agility. Further, I almost always top the DPS meters (grr, feral druids!!). Even so, I STILL get the “why don’t you stack ArP?” comment every once in a while from guildmates. This happens so often that I’ve stopped giving a full answer and now just say “ArP isn’t affected by raid buffs, but agility is” and that is usually enough to make others drop the topic.
I enjoy arguing with Frost because I can count on a 100% reasonable argument, with no messy bits. In fact, I enjoy it so much, I occasionally find myself playing devil’s advocate just to draw him out
Anyways, in the absence of a log with an agility marksman hunter, I’m going to concede that my point is not provable, however I still posit that whether you gear for agility or armor pen, the marks spec loses a higher percent of its DPS when the hunter moves than SV. The caveats are that the SV hunter has to be able to keep sniper training up while moving, and there can not be much AOE (as volley for marks is clearly superior than volley for SV)
I’m having a very difficult time deciding what should be my main spec. SV seems simpler, more mana efficient, but a little lower on the dps for me. Marksman is definitely more complicated, and I find myself cooldown watching a whole lot more than I should, but I do get better dps out of it most of the time.
However, lets say that I am one of three hunters in a raid, and I have a choice between my Surv raid spec and my MM raid spec, and I know that one of the other hunters has TSA. Doesn’t it make absolute sense for me to go Surv? In fact, if there is no statistical difference between Surv and MM based on gear (especially if you have an agility based MM hunter like I do), isn’t it a waste to have more than 1 MM hunter in a raid if the others could go surv and still get TSA, provided it’s a generic fight and there’s nothing special that favors MM that is. I don’t know. Sometimes I miss the days of spamming steady shot back in Kara and still beating all the mages.
It is not a waste to have more than 1 MM hunter any more than it’s a waste to have more than one SV hunter. You should play whichever spec give you the most dps.
It’s interesting that you find the MM rotation complicated, as it’s actually simpler than SV since it can actually fall into a rotation, as opposed to waiting on BA, SS, and L&L. I recommend checking out Power Auras if you find yourself looking at cooldowns in any spec, however.
My guild’s two other main hunters and I do make sure we’re running at least one MM and one SV for complimentary raid buffs in raids. But yeah, no harm in two of the same spec. Play what you want, especially since 98% of us likely aren’t playing in guilds with requirements like the ones mentioned in the main article here.
Managing Readiness and Rapid Fire isn’t always easy, but I’ll agree with Frost that MM is probably the easier spec to do respectable dps in. L&L can easily be mismanaged and you need more attention on DoTs in SV.
Also, frost! Given the immense amount of dialogue here, let us know if you hear back from this guy about how the situation turned out.
I would like to see how his dps compares to mine, maybe i can show him something special
I am my Guilds SV Hunter, and our other 2 are MM. We maintain a balance and I am only ever out dpsed in ANY fight sometimes by a insane Mage we have.
For example last night in the twins inn ToC 25 i ended the fight with 9500dps, in a VoA 25 v the newest Boss, i average 7300dps.
Tbh i think MM/SV is balanced and in some fights SV have the advantage, in my experiece ive yet to see a MM out dps me in any fight and the 2 MM in my Guild are second and fourth best geared on my Server, i am only 5th best geared.
Well as stated above I decided that i would respec MM for our raids tuesday night. Since we can clear ToC 10 Reg relatively quickly I figured I would test out the MM spec. And while my dps was a little under what i was hitting I enjoyed it. I really saw some increases in DPS from other folks with TSA. However the biggest thing was right after Icehowl went down someone in vent “Ghost did you change spec’s?” apparently our shamans nearly went OOM much quicker than they normally do. this discussion went on for a bit until finally after clearing ToC and moving on to the trash of onyxia “Ghost would it kill you to change back to survival?” So i feel like in the needs of my guild’s raids I’m going to have to stick surv. i like some of the aspects of marksmen but obviously time/experience means i’m more comfortable in survival. for our 25 man later this week i may try MM depending on the other hunters in our group.
In my 10-man there are two of us Hunters, both dual-specced MM(Agi)/Surv (I typically run in Surv and he is usually in MM). We’re geared about the same and regularly top DPS – in those few fights we aren’t top DPS, we are top damage done.
We all looked heavily at the ArPen hype and found that while it provided spectacular results in a couple fights, overall flexibility was gone, with less than spectacular results most of the time (there are 3 MM(ArPen) Hunters in our 25). Combine that with losing effectiveness (due to gemming) when switching specs for strategic reasons or just for fun and neither of us could really see the overall benefit of a few hundred DPS gain in just a couple situations.
I use both SV and MM depending on the type of Boss I am dealing with and of course what type of class in the raid group to boost my dps.
I have hit raw 1320 ArPen(Gems used of course but no food/potions) and what happens is your crit rate becomes total crap around 40% or below. ATM with proc ArPen is at 100% and crit is 50% with MM (Aglility gemmed). SV has total different set up of course with agility gemmed but different gear. Little over 6k Attack Power and 48% crit(using 90 dex and AP trinket with dex proc for both think its called death something but I play on korean server so dont really no the exact name for it.)
With SV I do constant 8k ~ 8.5k dps on 25 man Koralon. And 7.5k ~8k as MM. I am one of better hunters in the server but there are better ( have insane players with insane dps on our server) But interestingly the top hunters here do NOT stack ArPen.
From my experience stacking ArPen what happens is,
1. In any 10 man raid. Your DPS is pretty much crap. Pretty much all the players in the server do ToC-10(Heroic) PUGs and 45th and under is considered failure. And will be booted from the raid without notice if your dps is under 5k as a pure dealer. And this happened to me once while Arpen Gemmed.
2. Even during 25 man raids, if there happens to be no feral druid and certain type of classes missing your DPS is again going to plunder.
These are just from my experiences and other players may have different views on it but I can safely say agility gemmed SV or MM, is versatile and can cope with any type of raids.
(Sorry my english sucks)
Im an SV hunter but i dont stack ArPen i stack agil as thats what ive found to be the most effective at doing big amounts of dp. Ive used one spreadsheet ONCE to see if it was accurate and worth the effort and to be fair it was i came up with the same dps as i was capable and showed me what i needed to do to get more. Nowdays with my scourgestalker and windrunner set bonus making serpent sting crit with an extra 10% dmg im doing around about 4.7k to 5k dps and i have to say im below the hit rating cap and without focused aim in talents. Im in a raiding guild myself and i dont raid that often with them as i dont have time but i can keep up with the best in the guild down to the fact i know my class, know my procs mys cds, everything needed to know about this class which in my opinion is what everyone should know before they they start stacking everything cos a “warrior” told them