Misdirect + Distracting Shot?Follow

I was just having a discussion with a fellow hunter and this came up in our conversation..

Typically in long Kara boss fights I use Misdirect on the main tank whenever its up, to help keep him top on the Hate list. I figure its useful for those mages who are determined to be on top of the DPS charts.

My question is.. would it be more beneficial to use distracting shot when misdirect is up.
In theory it seems that the distracting shot would bounce off me and onto the tank.
Normally I use Aimed Shot followed by two Steady Shots and hope for crits.

What are your thoughts?

for a decently geared hunter, arcane shot does more threat then distracting.
And it actually damages the target too.


And i use Aimed > Multi > Arcane because those 2 just fit before the first autoshot so no clipping and fast threat.

Or, your not doing enough DPS to keep up with the tanks tps ;-). Just playing around.



You right on here, I didn't really think about mentioning it, but yeah typically I MD+ Aimed > Steady > Arcane on the 1st MD of the fight, then mid fight I will just MD and continue with my shot rotation. Even without crits that's roughly an extra 2400 threat in a matter 2 seconds on top of what the tank should be doing to hold aggro. Which should be a good enough boost for any tank to maintain aggro.

Exactly why I don't mind doing Misdirection in the middle of a fight. It allows everyone to open up a little more on the DPS.

Appreciate all the info..

Short numbers on arcane vs distracting...

Distracting does a flat 900 threat and cannot crit.

Assuming 5/5 Mortal Shots.
With 1500 RAP you get 498 threat from a hit and 1145 threat from a crit.
With 2000 RAP you get 573 threat from a hit and 1318 threat from a crit.
With 2500 RAP you get 648 threat from a hit and 1490 threat from a crit.

Obviously, arcane gets a lot better as your gear improves, and also as your crit
rate goes up. Still, with 40% crit and 1500 RAP (unlikely scenario yes)
Distracting Shot does seem more appealing to me.
Same with 2500 RAP and <20% crit. Distracting shot is a guaranteed 900 threat.

Anyway, apart from that I agree with the others, with mid-fight MD just stick with
normal shot rotation, auto will probably eat at least one charge anyway,
and for initial pull MD, use Aimed->Multi->Distracting/arcane according to what
you feel like. (The difference is kinda negligable anyway)

Even with these numbers I won't use Distracting shot with MD. Why you ask? Because Distracting doesn't do damage.

My primary role in a group is to do damage. The tanks job is to take hits and hold aggro. I'm helping the tank do his job, with MD, while still doing my job. Granted it's only 1 shot, but that's 500-1500 more damage to the mob if you hadn't used Distracting Shot.

Edited, Jan 16th 2008 8:32am by SynnTastic

It's possible, and knowing the people that write those add-ons, and the types at elitist jerks. It's more than likely they have already done the experiments.

To be done, you need a constant number for threat. Easiest Constant is Damage. With a 1:1 ratio(1 damage = 1 point of threat) you would just have to work the damage, and fire off Distracting Shots at certain points.

You would want to use something that does a constant amount of small damage, like a warlocks rank 1 DoT. Keep using that spell to gain threat, at certain points, say just below 700 threat, shoot a distracting shot. Then try it again at just below 750, shoot a distracting shot.

Once Distracting Shot pulls aggro you have a range within 50 threat of how much threat it actually builds. Then you repeat the process from there trying to lower the number as close as possible.

Pain in the ***, yes, but like I said, speaking of the type of people on elitist jerks and the types that write add-ons like omens, they've probably already done something along these lines.