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| Reviewed 2/3/10 Patch 3.3 |
With the ascension of armor pen available on ICC gear, it’s time to take a good look at how the MM hunter armor pen build works.
Historically I haven’t been a huge supporter of armor pen builds. While they certainly posted impressive numbers for skilled hunters in very specific endgame gear, the majority of hunters would not have seen those numbers from pursuing an ArP build. Every week I get emails from hunters who read about armor pen builds on EJ or elsewhere and start stacking armor pen gems in their ilvl 200 gear and can’t understand why their dps went down.
However, the gear situation has changed. With triumph gear now being the easy gear to obtain from grinding heroics, frost gear slowly attainable to the masses and the awesome ICC itemization, it’s now possible for the majority of hunters to pursue an armor pen build if they want to — you can even hardcap your armor pen!
As a final note before we get started: even if you have the gear, you may not see better dps from a hunter armor pen build. There’s more to it than just gathering the gear. Also, you can absolutely do competitive dps without an armor pen build, and MM does not need high armor pen or an armor pen build to do fantastic dps.
The Armor Penetration Advantage
I’m not going to go into detail on how armor pen works — we’ve covered that in our Armor Pen Guide. Suffice to say that 20% armor pen doesn’t increase your damage by 20%, it just reduces the opponent’s armor by 20%.
Armor Pen is useful for all hunter specs, but is most useful to MM hunters who get a bit more of their damage from physical shots, and have talents that boost the damage of those physical shots and combo with armor pen. The armor pen build takes advantage of increased steady shot damage combined with the side effect of piercing shots and the improved steady shot talent.
The Armor Pen Gear
In order for an armor pen build to surpass a standard agility MM build you need the right gear, and there’s more to it than just the armor pen rating. It’s a combination of armor pen, crit, and attack power. In general we try to estimate a passive armor pen rating baseline beyond which you’ll benefit from an armor ben build — we’re assuming that if you have that much armor pen, your crit and AP must be fine too. Keep in mind this passive armor pen floor is the minimum armor pen without gemming for it or sacrificing better gear for it.
Furthermore, at this magical crossover point, you’ll see no statistically viable difference in your dps, even if you’re a bit beyond the crossover. In other words the difference in your dps from the new build is less than the factors of randomness on your dps.
In general I recommend switching to an armor pen model only after you have more than 400 or 450 passive armor pen (that is, without gemming or taking big gear downgrades to get the armor pen). At this point you should see an increase in your dps if you’re doing everything right.
Some other armor pen build notes:
- You do not need an armor pen proc trinket to benefit from an armor pen build.
- If you do have such a trinket, softcaps for the various trinkets can be found on the WHU Armor Pen Guide page.
- Don’t start gemming for amor pen until your passive ArP rating gets around 800. You may even need to wait longer, depending on your gear and playstyle (the exact mark is different for different gear sets).
- Don’t forget to look at leather gear — you will often find better armor pen and agility on leather (at the expense of int).
- Again, MM does not need armor pen to make it a top spec, but at high gear levels MM armor pen builds will outperform non-armor pen builds.
The Armor Pen Talent Build
The armor pen MM hunter uses a slightly different talent build, which looks something like this: MM Hunter Armor Pen Build
The idea here is to use Imp Steady Shot to maximize your extra steady shots, and remove imp arcane since you’ll be dropping that from your rotation most of the time. In addition, truly hardcore armor pen builds (such as those hardcapping armor pen) will usually need at least one point in focused aim because they end up not getting enough hit from all their armor pen gear. If you’re still okay on hit rating, you probably want that point in Imp Hunter’s Mark.
Armor Pen Shot Rotation
Armor pen builds also use a slightly different rotation than the standard MM hunter rotation. Specifically, they drop Arcane Shot from their rotation entirely. With high enough armor pen rating and the steady shot glyph, your steady shot can actually do more damage than arcane shot. But even before that point it can be worth dropping arcane shot because of the extra advantage the additional steady shots give to piercing shots and through the improved steady shot talent.
The point at which you’ll see benefit to dropping arcane is again around 400 – 450 passive armor pen rating. And again, we’re assuming that you have good crit and plenty of attack power at that point (which you will as long as you aren’t doing silly things like massive downgrades in search of more armor pen).
Note however that you’ll still want to use arcane shot in the following situations:
- Shooting on the move when aimed and chimera shot are not available
- Shooting adds that don’t have sunder or expose armor on them
- At the very beginning of a fight, before the sunder stacks have been applied
The Movement Factor of Armor Pen Builds
Armor pen boosts physical damage only, and most of the physical damage we do comes from steady shot and auto shot. As a result, armor pen builds are very sensitive to movement.
Most boss fights require movement; however, the movement in most of those fights is predictable and can be planned for and mitigated. This is the big area where the armor pen builds really favor skilled players.
Without question every hunter of every spec should be planning and limiting their movement as much as possible. You want to shoot & scoot — pausing while running to let your auto-shots fire. You want to use disengage to cover larger distances quickly. Managing movement is one of the biggest differences between a competent hunter and a skilled hunter. Hunters with poor movement skills can still do just fine and show nice dps numbers under normal builds, but an armor pen build will brutally punish you for poor (or average) movement skills. The vast majority of hunters to not have good movement skills, as a reference.
This is a big deal, so think long and hard about your movement skills before pursuing an armor pen build.
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Wow what a coincidence. Just last night I did a target dummy test run with some of my new upgrades, and noticed my Steady shots doing more damage than Arcane. I was heading to bed, so I didn’t have too much time to look into it more in detail. But this post will definitely help me out when I do more tests tonight! Thanks Frost.
Forgot to ask this in my original comment…why the single point in Focused Aim? Is it solely for the pushback mitigation element of it? Cuz right now I have WAY too much hit without even gemming for it -_-’
Agreed; I didn’t choose to put a point in focused aim, rather I put it in improved hunters mark for that very reason.
Member
The point put into Focused Aim is for the lack of hit rating you’ll have later on when you obtain the gear with more ArP on it. I didn’t put a point in it yet because I’m at 411 passive ArP and way above the hit cap for now.
Later on it will be necessary to put a point into Focused Aim in order to reach the Hit Cap and not waste DPS, either that or gem for it, I think I’ll just put the point there instead.
Member
I’ve been in constant debate with fellow hunters on my realm about ArP MM Builds. I keep telling them that its pointless to pursue until they reach a certain ArP rating and then they will lose a lot of hit with the gear that will get them to that rating. Now I have specific numbers to use in my debates that will help me to convince them to wait before changing their spec and gear. A few of which I know are very skilled hunters but most are still trying to learn the Shoot and Scoot technique in order to get the best DPS from moving. Anway the point I’m getting at is, Thanks for the Information Frost it will certainly be very useful.
Excellent article Frost.
One thing I’d like to add – I personally dropped arcane shot from my MM rotation even before I hit the magic armor pent number (was still at 300ish) because it seemed to improve my mana efficiency. I know that steady is cheaper than arcane, but the difference seems much bigger than 100 odd mana cost difference. This is just based on observation – I haven’t attempted to put any math to it.
One question I’ve been wondering about, is there a CD on the improved steady shot proc? I’ve been trying to spread my aimed and chimera shot with steadies between on low movement fights when I don’t have a mana battery with me (<3 ret pallies), but I don't seem to trigger the proc very often. Any thoughts?
Contributor
I’ve seen a lot of people stay about the same when they switch, because they don’t understand either the point at which you should switch, or the different mechanics of an armor pen. build. I’m at a tricky midway point myself with gear, and while I’m not worried about limiting my movement, I can still outperform skilled similarly geared SV hunters with an MM agility build. I realize many of the benchmarks at the absolute highest gear levels are in ArP. builds, but I think for a lot of us it’s not going to be a monumental increase.
But thank you. This clears up a lot of what has been plaguing WHU comments recently.
This is a well timed post. I’ve recently kicking around the idea of testing an ArP build.
I’ve got nearly full 245+ and have been going strong SV for a while. I had a brief stint as the buff bot hunter in MM spec, but gave it up after a few weeks.
I’ll have to check my ArP and see what it’s at. I’ll probably switch to a normal MM spec just to get used to it again. I’m sure my innitial DPS will drop a bit until I get used to it, but I’ll run a week or two with it and check it out.
Over 400 passive ArP Rating? I’m assuming that this is only really viable if running in 25 man gear. I run almost exclusively 10-man and have nowhere near that much ArP on my gear. Granted, I’m SV so this is all academic to me – even if I wanted to switch to my 2nd choice spec for more DPS, I get to stay SV (my preferred spec) because I’m the one bringing replenishment to my raid.
i agree with Ysyll. focused aim pont better on the IHM i think. i didn’t tested yet but now i put there 3 point and 1 to the Rapid Recupation and i havn’t T. Aura.
Dergidan
I run 10 mans mostly and reached 399 ArP.
you’ll notice once getting higher end gear that hit will be a missing stat (commonly crit/ap/arp). likely why frost added focused aim point. Currently im sitting on 576 ArP and have been pondering this change. However my movement skills seem to be my downfall even in an agil MM spec, so i will keep agi MM it until i hit 675 ArP or higher I think.
So, shortly before ICC dropped I had started pondering if it may be time to try out MM. I pulled up rawr and femaledwarf and started playing around with the specs and noticed right away that I was going to see a minor (around 200-400) dps increase by re-speccing marks, so I figured, what the heck. Everyone who plays marks seems to love it.
I ran through two oom/viper cycles with vendor arrows and respecced, then ran through two (very poorly executed, I realize now) oom/viper cycles with vendor arrows and saw a fairly significant dps increase. I then realized that TSA is not passive, so I popped open power auras and made an aura to tell me when TSA is not up. d’oh
Here lately, with all of the Armor Penny goodness we are seeing to start showing up my rating hit a bit over 400 and I stumbled across the threads on the forums about removing arcane (what? how can that be?” and decided it was a decent time to try it out, so I headed back to the dummy and ran through 4 rapid fires with arcane and 4 without and was amazed by how much damage I gained (likely I had some good crits and damage rolls in there, artificially inflating a teensy bit).
What has me excited after reading this article is that there are 6 hunters in my guild (yeah, 25s get crowded…) and I am the lowest geared in the guild, but consistently #2 on the meters, and almost always one of the last dead on a wipe. It sounds like I might actually be a good hunter, this excites me!
…Ga.h. I actually meant to ask something rather than blather on like that.
My spec is fairly different than the one you posted. After I removed arcane from my rotation I spent a good 45 minutes to an hour playing around on femaledwarf thinking I would just dump those extra points into Imp Steady and be done, but I actually found that it was modeling points into Imp barrage as about a 50 or so DPS increase over Imp Steady.
Of course, I have three points in Imp HM for those 10 mans where I am the only hunter. I didn’t try pulling those points out and moving them into Imp Steady. Maybe I will look at that this evening.
Dues Payer
The Focus aim point was only if your below the hit cap, armour pen builds have interested me but so far i have not seen anyone put them to good use or knows how they work properly so I have always stayed away. I am a good hunter in my mind and i tend to out DPS hunters with better gear in alot of situations but still not sure if its what i will do but thanks for the update Frost always intersting to get more hunter info.
I run 10 mans exclusively…except for the odd 25 VoA or Ony pug (don’t have any loot from there anyway). I have around 500ArP without chasing it. All the gear that I took to get there where all logical upgrades for an Agi based MM hunter and all the gear is available from 10mans or heroics.
In fact I actually harassed Frost over the weekend about this (mostly due to the fact that there was horrible information being posted in the Arp vs Agi and MM spec guides and wanted to clear some stuff up)
Frost kindly gave me a sneak peek at this post and I switched (got my talents wrong but that can be fixed). So far I have not seen much difference in dps for the new heroic bosses and the brief stint in ICC hasn’t thrown up any warnings. Hopefully I can get this to work with my raid group. I have a feeling that due to the somewhat haphazard way we end up downing most bosses I will be switching back to the Agi build to ease my movement woes.
BTW Bindura on Saurfang (US) for those who want to take a look at my armoury for a gear check.
i have a lot of Hit rateing so i don’t have the 1 point in [Focused Aim], but i find that i do more dps by only haveing 2 points in [improved steady shot] and then having 2 points in [improved Hunter's mark]
i have 541 arp atm.
A question: Does the talent build you have posted here assume that you are the only hunter in the group and your mark will be the one active on the boss?
A note on hit: if you are way over the hit cap often you can gain more dps by dropping an item with large amounts of hit for one with no hit a tier below. For instance Marrowstrike is better for dps than Orca-hunters harpoon (tested using Shandara’s EAP values for my character) unless you are using most of the hit. The triumph vendor trinket is worse than drops from heroics if you are not using the hit.
“And poor Draenei”
If you are way over the hit I suggest dumping the point into ImpArcane or ImpHM where you will gain some benefit untill you can get gear without hit. Hell even efficiency would be better, if only to delay going into viper for 10 seconds.
Dues Payer
your movement factor is the main reason i dont go arp. i consider myself a good hunter, humbly with no peen to flex, but i really try to do my duty. frost or freezing trap, always MD, and help bring casters to tank with silencing shot, i know how to kite and jumpshot and blah blah blah, that sorta thing. but i know where im weak and that the auto shot move-pause-move-pause is a big one for me right now. and since im MM, and auto being my biggest damager, i know arp would hurt me right now (plus im not at the 400-450 passive). ill work on, and one day may regem and respec.
arp is fine to me, i love your attitude on it. i hate the whispers i get that are like “youre either armor pen or noob.” i riled a rogue up in LFG because he wouldnt drop it. i learned a long time ago to stop feeding trolls. ignoring a troll or not taking them seriously sends them into all sorts of fits.
i aint saying that im way over hit cap.. but im on 268.. so no need for the talent.. and not its not based on im the only hunter in raid.. but sure if you can get another hunter to get improved hunter’s mark then it would be better.. but you can never be sure that there are other hunters in the raid if you pug and stuff.
but yea if no other hunter in the raid have improved hunter’s mark then i gain more dps on having it than not.
Quivering correct me if I am wrong. (Anybody in fact)
If you were to switch over to an ArP build and rotation would the total average damage done per second by your autoshots change? Forget movement! If you were to switch your talent build, went to the test dummy and just autoshotted would that dps change?
I don’t believe it would!
It will only change when you start stacking ArP instead of Agility. Until that point the movement issue should only affect the amount of steady shots you can get off. If you do have to move a short distance you will have arcane shot to fire in place of a GCD for steady. If you have to move further thats when you disengage. In fact looking at that build and assuming no other hunter marked the target I reckon this talent tree will lower your autoshot dps.
Azkas sorry the question about Imp HM was aimed at Frost. Based on his previous methodolgy this Frost would have tested both using ImpHM and dropping it, perhaps even combinations. If this is like the SV talent build, Frost believes that you get the most “personal” dps by not spending the talents in ImpHM even without getting the buff from someone else. I raid with a SV hunter therefore dropping those talents will likely hurt the overall raid dps, therefore dropping them is not an option for me.
The movement factor is a very important one, which I only began to understand halfway thru Ulduar. In my case, I found that my DPS on Hodir was embarrassing compared to other similarly geared hunters. On self-examination, I found that I was running all over the place like a headless chicken during the fight, trying to run to fires, lightning buffs and avoiding the falling ice. Since then, I’ve always tried to be mindful of the way I move (I’m still a bad mover, but at least I’m aware of it now). Economy and precision of movement makes a tremendous difference in DPS, whether or not you are ArP MM, tbh. But ArP MM rewards good movement more than any other spec currently.
Come to think of it tho, I’m agi-MM now, and your shot priority/ rotation sounds exactly like what I’m doing now. Are agi-MM shot priorities supposed to be different? O.O
Admin
Agi-MM shot priority is basically the same, except you use arcane shot.
Imp Hunter’s Mark is a talent that gets less attractive the better your gear is. ImpHM provides a static RAP increase, whereas other talents scale much better with gear. In general the primary reason to take ImpHM is when there are other hunters in the party and the gain to all of you is more than the loss to you personally. Generally if you have 3 hunters, you want one of them to have Imp HM, and probably the glyph too.
Heavy movement will cause you to lose steady shots and auto shots. Very skilled movement can virtually eliminate the auto shot loss, and greatly mitigate the steady shot loss. While most hunters accomplish this to some degree, very few accomplish it very, very well.
Member
To throw in my two cents I’m certain I will be sticking with Agility MM for now. As Frost said, most hunters aren’t that great at movement, and I totally agree with him. I know I’m terrible at the aptly named shoot and scoot technique and am dreadful at the jump shot, so there is no way I could ever benefit more from the ArP build. But as I continue to read this I think I will have to give it a try when my gear gets to be that point. I hope that by then, I’ll have mastered all that needs to be mastered.
Which brings to me to a question for Frost that just may be too broad to answer. If there was one thing I could improve or master what would it be? I have all the basics as far as specs, gems, enchants, shot rotations, etc. go, but if there was one skill you think all hunters should be experts at, what would it be? Like I said it’s really broad and definitely subject to opinion, but seeing as I take your opinions to be fact when it comes to hunters, I would really like to know.
(I suppose anyone else who’d like to answer me is more than welcome. If a hunters skill and knowledge were compared to a ladder, I’d definitely be on one of the bottom rungs.)
Happy Hunting!
I personally think its movement all major boss fights include movement you can have the greatest dps but if you can’t move you die its that simple. Its about staying alive and lasting the fight too !,you need to watch the enviroment and be aware whats around you while still doing your shot rotation thats what i believe makes a truely skilled hunter. Like saving the healer while dpsing 3 adds by using a freezing trap if they draw agro , the thing i like about hunters the most there a major team player . They have range , traps, MD’s for the tanks and can look after the healer while dpsing and topping the charts there awesome .
If the healer is drawing aggro there are problems in your raid that a hunter cant fix. (exception being heroic 25 man anub)
That aside, part of being an endgame raiding hunter is the ability to “scoot and shoot” Staying out of the “stupid” damage mitigation, kiting, and target switching, while maintianing full or nearly full dps take some skill, but is a needed skill for those that hope to ever clear all level appropriate content. you can tell a good hunter from recount. Damage done should be near the top of the raid, damage taken near the bottom, and no “fails”.
Instead of putting a point into IHM, consider putting it into Hawk Eye, to help with positioning, and limiting necessary movement.
Member
I used to be horrible at “Shoot and Scoot” then I ran the Safety Dance over and over and over getting the entire Heroes and Valorus set. (I now hate running Naxx with a passion) Being able to continue normal DPS while still completeing the Safety Dance is a good start (in my opinion) to know if you have an understanding of “Shoot and Scoot”. I know there are other methods to learn from but thats the one that helped me.
I just wanted to point out (correct me if I’m wrong, I can’t find the post on EJ at the moment) that projected best dps builds actually take points in Focused Aim because of it transferring as expertise to your pet. since those are pretty much floater points anyway and there arent a whole lot of better places to put them.
Nice post I’ve been thinking of when to start gemming for armour pen as i’ve now got 650ish from gear but I still get the feeling that swapping my agi gems for ArP will see a dps loss.
Member
I have a questions, and this applies to most hunter builds, i have a tendency to use improved hunters mark, or dump all 3 talents in there, reasoning for this is..i notice a tremendous amount of dps diffirence without it, and with it. So my question would be, seeing that you gain 250 more attack power on that target with it on, what are the benefits of not having it..or what is it that i seem to be missing?
here is an interesting thing about MM ARP build. AP is always a great stat, but base damage increase is always better. example. if you can proc imp steady, or increase you base damage from AS through barrage, and it means you dont pick up imp HM you are better off. Also there is the prob that all of us i am sure run into. You cast HM(imp) then some other hunter decides to overwrite yours. seem to be a hard habit for hunters to break. When that happens you just effectively lost those talent points
What (major) glyphs are recommended in this build? Serpent, Hawk + Steady Shot?
Razoel, the benefit of not having improved hunters mark are
1) don’t have to be afraid by non potty trained SV hunters or hunters in general who use stupid macro’s. Unfortunately there are tons of them. Even among those who do 25-man heroic raids, there are many who it seems still don’t know or don’t care how HM works.
2) If there is another hunter specing for it, you get it for free. If you raid in fixed groups, this is something worth considering.
3) As Frost said, it is a static AP buf, so it only scales with ArP, Crit and haste. So it scales less than some of the other +x% based talents. Therefore in theory at some point it will be better to use oter talents. However, if you do the math, in most cases that point has not been reached. Certainly not for most 10 mans. But it depends greatly on the fight.
So why would you use it?
a) You need a certain amount of talents to get to the next tier of talents in the MM build. Some hunters like Rapid Killing. Others – like me – don’t. I found it not usefull to get one extra rapid fire every 3 min, at the expense of two talent points and delaying my readiness for at least 15 secs. But others – like Frost – will certainly disagree. Anyway, so sometimes putting the points there is simply a matter of not placing the points in a different talent.
b) as said, when you got other hunters in your group one of them should take it for sure.
c) it is a nice AP bonus both for static and mobile fights. Some talents work less well in mobile fights. This one does however (even though of course mobile is less shots getting the bonus) relatively better compared to bonusses to autoshot or steady shot. If you are – like me – a lousy mover this is a good talent.
d) even though it doesn’t scale as well in theory, for now it is still a very nice bonus when talking about absolute dps gain. Even in static fights. So even if another talent may be better for your case, you won’t be trowing away too much dps. It is a safe bet, when in doubt.
I checked last night and I have 416 unbuffed ArP, 56.12% crit, and 5491 unbuffed AP.
I’m just nervous to swap out all my gems and check the effects (I’m a poor hunter <2000g). I'll try and swap specs and compare target dummy numbers without gems and might take the leap to regem depending.
I'm guessing the bonus to the spec all revolves around using Rapid fire (and wolf howls) in conjunction with your ArP trinket procs. It's doable, but will require bit more finesse.
I'll run some tests and see how it looks. I'm not as big into theory crafting and doing a million tests on the target dummy, but I'll report if they seem to be within the RNG of the current SV build I use. Even still target dummying doesn't take into account a lot of buffs that scale differently with specs and mana replenishment in raid. So, the tests only give evidence to one thing. Which spec seems better DPS against target dummies in IF.
Given the ArP build and the way it works, we can assume Glyph of Steady Shot would be good for the amount of StS’s we’ll be using. But is Glyph of Hawk worth it over the Kill Shot glyph specifically for an ArP build? I’m borderline on these 2 due to the insane Kill Shots we can get in the current level of gear but then again, more haste = more StS’s and Autoshots during the fight.
Thoughts Frost/Anyone?
2 things.
First, thanks for the reply on MM-Agi shot priority, Frost. I actually dropped arcane shot from my agi-MM arsenal (except when shooting on the move), for the reasons you mentioned, and because my ArP is in the 500+ range. Does this suggest that the shot priority for Agi-MM also depends on your current ArP?
Secondly, as people here are mentioning, there are hunters who somehow macro HM into their rotations. Even when I specifically tell them I have IHM and plead with them not to override my mark.. Can someone tell me what this is all about? Why would someone waste a GCD to refresh a mark that doesn’t need refreshing?
I can’t speak for other’s that macro, but I macro hm with focus assist… however, I keep an macro when needed on a secondary bar which is absent of hm
Member
noob hunter question, but how can you tell if another hunter has iHM without checking them?
(i only ask, because i am not in a raiding guild [nor could ever get in one] though i do get to do 10/25 VoAs when we have WG, which is rare…)
still learning, still hoping for a chance at the weekly (in full tier 9 with help from WHU for gems); thanks for all the posts and the constructive comments, really helps!
Member
Without a Warrior on hand, is the ArP build a moot point?
I realize most advanced theory craft requires all the right combinations of buffs and debuffs. It assumes a fully geared raid of 25 players that are at least as good at their respective specs as the reader is (in most cases better).
What about in 10 man content when you don’t have all that? Is it even worth trying to do an ArP build?
Has anyone tried to macro Steady Shot with Kill Command and Silencing Shot? I have this done with Aimed Shot and Chimera and tried it with steady. But it seemed to be clipping Auto and/or Steadies so I un-macroed it. I’m assuming this was the case.
I ran it by the test dummy doing it both ways, and there was a tangible increase with it un-macroed.
My first data point: My hypothesis on autoshot!
Previously I metioned that if you stack Agi as MM your autoshot dps would be the same using both builds. I also suggested that wearing the same gear a SV hunter’s autoshot dps would be very close (if not the same) to an Agi MM hunter’s.
Using Shandara’s spreadsheet I found that there is less than 2..85% difference between a SV and and an ArP MM autoshot dps. SV 1604; ArP MM 1649 (my char&raid buffs)
What does this mean?
It means that if you are a poor mover, by switching from SV to MM or MM ArP build you will be losing pretty much the same dps through lost autoshots.
Agi MM and ArP MM saw no real difference in autoshot dps (0.2%)
If I mostly run 10 mans should I still drop points out of Hunters mark?
“You want to shoot & scoot — pausing while running to let your auto-shots fire.”
Do you run for a few seconds and then shoot for a few seconds? Do you have to be standing still for a period of time before autoshots fire? How exactly does this shoot & scoot work?
Going with what Rooger asked…
You mention that “At the very beginning of a fight, before the sunder stacks have been applied” as a time when one should use Arcane shot.
So is it worth going into an armor pen build, and dropping Arcane shot etc. if we don’t have a warrior in our group to stack sunder armor, like in a 10 man raid?
Admin
Yes, but the amount of armor pen you need goes up by a chunk. Keep in mind that the major armor debuff can be applied by warriors, rogues, and the BM hunter pet, worm.
So let’s say we are hit capped and do not need the one point in Focused Aim, where does that floating point go? In my current set up, I am hit capped (or would be if I put ice walker on my boots) but have one point in Focused Aim. I could switch the enchant, be hit capped and have a free point. Where is the best? Improved Hunter’s Mark? Leave it in Focused Aim? When playing in the spreadsheet, for pure DPS, it looks to be IHM but maybe there is something I am overlooking.
NVM my last post…finally re-read the article and see you do in fact suggest to put in Imp. Hunters Mark. Hooray for A.D.D. reading.
Hey.
Thanks for interesting reading
i wonder, is haste for MM total phail, if not, how much should you go for?
Hello.
a question about silence if u ar a raider why use it u can’t use it in bosses?
@ Adwadad
To quote Frostheim on the value of silencing shot…
“it’s another instant shot that does damage. Sure, the damage isn’t a lot; however, it does not trigger the global cooldown. Thus you can macro this shot onto your Steady Shot (or all shots) so that you get the extra damage without costing you a global cooldown!”
I have a question. My hunter is ArPen softcapped with the Needle-Encrusted Scorpion trinket proc. While some of my gems are Armor Penetration, many of them are agility gems. My question is, should I just replace these gems with Armor Penetration gems to try and push as much ArPen as I can get, ignoring the fact that I will go over the cap when the trinket procs. I haven’t seen any guides addressing this problem specifically, it’d be a great help if you could clarify this for me.
@Shakrukh
Had the same problem. If you are softcaped, stay at it. Putting more arp gems would give minor dps increase, i would rather wait for better gear and trinkets drops than waste gold for regem
Member
hey all, quick question about the suggested build in the main article on this page. Why Survival Instincts? it will essentially only boost your steady shot by 4% since Arcane becomes only a movement shot, when if you go BM to Aspect Mastery, that affects ALL your shots and your autos. Here is my MM armor pen build, thoughts would be appreciated: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#ctbMzZ0eAoRhzGIstzAox:fib
I’m using Grim Toll and Banner of Victory till Deathbringer’s Will drops ^^ Currently 643 PrP with no trinket proc
Admin
…. you’re spending 4 talent points to get 90 attack power. That is not a good deal.
Keep in mind that your Steady Shots are your most fired shot, and they proc your piercing shots bleed. Boosting that is very good. The problem with your build is you waste 3 talent points where they won’t help your dps at all to get aspect mastery.
Member
Just a question:
I’m in a raid that sometimes has another hunter, sometimes not. I want to switch to this spec and try it out but there’s no guarantee that I’ll always have a 3/3 hunter’s mark around. Is it still worth it, or should I try to put points in hunter’s mark to make up for it?
reply to my original post 2 up: Frostheim I totally understand your point from a target dummy standpoint. Makes perfect sense. But in a raid situation, even with the Avoidance buff, pets still die. I’ve found a 4 sec brez of my pet to not always be a waste of points. Doesn’t come in handy unless your pet dies of course, but if it does you take a pretty big dps hit. Not only do you lose your pet’s dps, but the 2% you get from Focused Fire. You may be totally right, just throwing it our there to discuss. 4% +crit for just one of your shots, even your most fired one, doesn’t seem that much better (but I’m not a number cruncher, I rely on y’all for that ^^) Do you spend 10 secs on a brez for your pet if it dies or let it stay dead? Do you not have that problem ever? I use a wolf, standard raid build.
Admin
Your pet shouldn’t die in the vast, vast majority of fights. As an example — nothing in TotC would kill my pet. The only fight in ICC thus far where my pet is ever at risk is blood prince council (glittering sparks) and even then as long as I hit cower, the pet is just fine.
If your pet is dying a lot, I’d be really fascinating to know how the heck that’s happening. It’s not like I pay a lot of attention to mine, and she’s just fine.
I’m just wondering what the dps difference is between 1 point in Imp Hunter’s mark with 3 points in imp barrage and vis a versa. I mainly run 25 man content and its my job to bring the trueshot aura and improved hunters mark for my hunting partner and I just switched to the latter of the two builds I just suggested and I just want to make sure I’m not losing too much dps.
So i have one question i think i know the answer but just checking acording to this guide even if im at 449 armp i should not put any armp gems in until i hit 700 armp? is that correct?
Yes Bashel that is correct, I’m currently at 462 arp and using a build similar to this one and dropping arcane shot was a nice dps boost for me. I won’t even think about gemming for arp until I can hard cap it, which will be a very long time.
OK thank you very much Schmevan
Im currently at 942(67.31%) ArP and at 1027 (73.38%) with food buff and potion. Im gonna go for 1400 arp rating(100%) and all I need is few armor pieces from frost emblems. I noticed than when I changed gemmin from agility to ArP my dps raised by ~1000. For doing that I have to give up the new set 4 bonus (When serpent sting deals damage I have 5% chance to get 20% ap for 10 seconds). So should I get that 4 set bonus and get my ArP to around 1100 unbuffed or leave the set bonus and get to 100% arp ?
Well I got almost the same problem
I already got the 4 pcs set bonus but I loose a Lot of ArP
if I use the 4 pzs and I get around 55% crit with it so my trinket should process a lot but at least on dummies it isn’t I got Need to Know tracking it and the process of the 4 pzs is a weird proc cuz it sometimes procs like 3 or 4 times and other times it just proc 1 or 2 times and well I don’t always get the same dps output if u need u can look at me on the armory
my char name is Drìff I’m on drakkari
Btw I’m currently at 476 ArP but I can switch to a neck 226 that gives me ArP but reduces my crit, agi, etc… Everything but hit and I can also change pants to a264 pair that has 77 ArP but I’ll lose the bonus also got 251 not tier hands with ArP but again I lose set bonus and a bit of crit
Hi Frost! I’m a long-time reader of the blog but never commented before.. sorry about that
I was talking to my guild officer (a survival hunter) about even with a way better gear than me(a MM hunter), he can’t even compare to me in DPS. And he asked to me why don’t stack ArP so i can be more awesome! And, a day after i was doing the weekly (Sartharion) 25 man, ALL BUffs, with the best hunter in my server(who stacks ArP)…and even with that he was doing 800-900 less dps than I. That get me thinking, so i use a spreadsheet, used his armory, and made a calculation with his currently gear, and the same gear but with all agility stas(deadly ametrine, delicate cardinal ruby and 1 nightmare tear).. and even with the spreadsheet who immitates the Patchwerk… the dps with agility gems got 300dps better!
Now i ask u… Is there anytime where ArP can beat?? Really?(I really want to know!)
“I recommend switching to an armor pen model only after you have more than 400 or 450 passive armor pen”
vs
“Don’t start gemming for amor pen until your passive ArP rating gets around 800.”
???
Just a thought, but wouldn’t it be better to put an extra point into Imp Hunters Mark opposed to Rapid Killing?
I say this because readiness is on a 3 minute cooldown, and one point into Rapid Killing would put it at a 4 minute cool down.
Plus, I gain around 907 extra ap.
Your thoughts?