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Haven't done any testing probably over a week, but the last time I did I couldn't get great numbers from the trials. I was testing on the mobs in the blasted lands, but was missing. A lot. Assuming all those misses converted to hits I'd have seen a smallish increase over live against the same mobs. The best being that I could keep it up infinitely (at one point I went through an entire quiver just because I could).

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=ctbMzgxRwu0esZ0eZx

That's the spec I was using at the time.

On that note, has anybody else noticed a strange number of misses (for instance, the fact that you ARE missing) on the PTR.

I couldn't figure out what the hell had happened the first couple of times I saw an arrow whiz off to the side.

Did some testing today, There are level 70 test dummies in Org now. So I went through about 2 quivers of arrows. Not fun, however I got some interesting results.

As BM with the same build i linked earlier. Swapping to viper to regen mana, no trinkets, no BW, no Rapid fire, Just macro spamming:
-1213 dps
-pet 376 dps
-lackluster mana efficiency. it would take about 6-10 secs in viper to get back to full mana.

As MMhttp://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=cxZ0eqbRVzMeoguAo doing the same thing, no trinkets only hawk/viper and trueshot on.
-1559 dps
-pet 285 dps
-mana seemed to last longer for this spec. I used the 3:2 Macro weaving in Serpent sting and Chimera shots when they were up.

As SV http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=cZ0xZez0iocchxuAhst Same thing here. 3:2 weaving in Explosive, serpents. Hawk/Viper
-1043 dps
-pet 188 dps
-Interesting tree, has potential with 10 more talents to use in BM and MM. Pet is severely weak though due to no extra focus regen. Exlposive trap was also nerfed all to hell with the latest ptr patch.


I wish i had the numbers or just my hunter. The figures i gave accounted for hunter and pet dps. I hope this sheds some light on what we have to look forward to. I do feel that once you can get the remaining 10 talent points from being level 80, i do see BM making a big DPS jump.

*edit* spelling

Edited, Sep 26th 2008 7:12pm by rinkkel

I just set up my hunter to transfer to the PvE test realm (really don't want to deal with horde while I'm testing PvE prowess). I just need to download the client. Hopefully, I'll be on the test realm tonight.

I'll be testing wether or not to use a macro. Technically, the 3:2 macro should still work beautifully, since on the live servers, it works nicely, but clips Autos. If it's not clipping the Autos anymore, then keeping it on an easily-spammable button (mouse wheel) should work great. It would give me back a finger while I'm timing other shots.

I also want to get in a few pets. I'm so curious as to how ****-poor my Wind Serpent is now, and how Cats, Corehounds and Devilsaurs stack up.

Hmmm, macros dead? Makes sense.

So you keep your specials up by situation. Couldn't we use a macro 'specials' rotation to do that? Maybe 3-4 situational macro buttons?

1. Steadyshot macro/keybinding (just spams steadyshot) (autos fire automatically whenever they are up, steadys on their ROF)
2. CC Aware (Steady, Arcane) (just adds the arcane special into it)
3. CC Clear (Steady, Arcane, Multi) (mana burner light)
4. Oh Crap! (Steady + all instant damage specials) (Mana? We don't need no stinking mana! Dump it!)

Now, the above thoughts are just based on the idea that the GCD can take place while Steady is ramping up to fire. The macro would then automatically weave specials in between the steady's whenever the GCD and CD was up for the given special(s). The actual look of it will vary on what your current speed is, so 'mapping' a shot timeline would be speed dependent due to fixed GCD and CD for the various specials. If the GCD delays Steady from starting, obviously, you'd have to use specials only in given instances and that basically takes the idea of specials and putting them into macros and flushes it. I don't know how it will be once LK goes live.

So, I could see no more 'shot rotation' macro but maybe the macro idea isn't totally dead, it may just become a specials rotation set of macros you use in a given situation.

I think my trapping pull assist macro will still be useful but I agree, the shot rotation macros as they are will be history.

I'm still curious about the impact of haste and overall weapon speed. Will we be trying to emulate a sub-machine gun, the big slow elephant gun, or something in between?

Anyone have any real experience with weapon speed and haste? I'm worried that if we all go to fast firing we are all going to burn through ammo at a hideous rate.

I suppose you could do

/castrandom arcane
/castrandom multi
/castrandom steady shot
(and variations)
That would cast the first one in the list that was off it's CD, but you'd need at least 3 different buttons anyway, at which point it's probably easier just to hit the buttons.

I totally am not saying that macros generally are dead. I use macros for lots of stuff, and they're awesome, I just don't think it really makes sense to use them for shooting. at anyrate for BM you're only going to be hitting steady and maybe serpent, so a macro is no good.

HASTE
Haste doesn't affect the GCD for us, so for the most part all it effects is white damage. The reason haste was so huge before was because of rotations, which are dead. As BM you're under 1.5 steady's without any buffs and MM and SV get there, or very close at least, with raid buffs. That's one of the reasons the raid gear is worrying. There's a lot of haste on it. in TBC you wanted to be slightly under 1.5 just for that extra gap room, in wrath there is no gain. This also means that heroisms, rapid fire, drums etc sort of aren't that good anymore. too bad.

The unlinking of steady and auto increased ammo consumption. Sorry. Slower weapons will probably be better as they will generate more mana per hit in viper. This is of course normalized for the white damage, but specials aren't affected in frequency by weapon speed so they'll return more mana faster. Of course you'll use slightly less ammo as well.

@TBW it's broken on beta atm, so I wouldn't be surprised.

On a OMGBROKEN note, cats have been hitting 2k raid dps. lol

Edited, Sep 29th 2008 7:31pm by Xsarus

Screenshots can be found on the elitistjerks forums-

http://http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t28573-hunter_wotlk_talents_abilities_discussion/p125/

Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

I'm probably going to be going pretty far off cookie cutter for a bit.

Just wanna try something new really, and while leveling and doing 5 mans, what difference does it make?

Tried PAY NO ATTENTION TO THIS(I think, points might have been a little different) the other day on the PTR. The dps wasn't magnificent, though it was better than I expected, but the crits were fun.

Edit: Gah, Wowhead updated to the new build apparently within the past few hours, but it made my talent tree look... not so good.

This would be my new version on the current build one: This




Edited, Oct 1st 2008 4:17pm by Ieatrocks

Rinkkel, I can't WAIT until I can have Beast Mastery, Kindred Spirits and GFtT. I did a bunch of testing in The Exodar (about the only place I could get a dummy to myself), and I found that my Cat did almost identical DPS with 46/15/0 as it did with 51/10/0, which really says to me that GftT is an extra 20% DPS increase for the pet.

I played around with Beast Mastery a little bit, but I found that the extra point into Mortal Shots is a higher return to DPS than my pet getting Rabid if you're using a Cat. Maybe it'll be worth it to take BM with a Devilsaur, but I haven't had time to level mine up to 70.

Edited, Oct 1st 2008 5:37pm by ProjectMidnight

I just noticed that surefooted doesn't give hit anymore. :(

Meh. I have fun telling all the idiots on the PTR to go F*ck themselves when they ask "How do I get to Northrend?!"

"How do I make a DK?"
"Where's the barber?"
"What are these for?" (Testing dummies)
"lol, What is everyone doing?" (Testing dummies)

eh... Who am I kidding? I resent everyone who got a Beta key and left me on the PTR to test with the morons. Although, there is probably a pretty big idiot convention on the Beta servers. Blizzard doesn't seem to have taken anything into account when passing the keys out. A guy I know, who botted his first character 1-70, got banned, came back a few month later and did it all over again got a beta key.

I'm not worried in the least. Have you seen the amount of haste on T7 gear? In full T7, SV hunters may out-DPS BM hunters. Yes, I know that we can stack a ton of haste and not have to worry about "wasting" it because of auto-shot clipping, but after a small amount of haste, BM hunters get the cast time of Steady Shot under the 1.5 second GCD, and then haste only effects about 40% of our DPS, so it becomes less desirable. It takes a lot more haste for SV hunters to get to that point, so they can fully benefit from all the haste in WoTLK.

BM hunters are already there with just quiver and SS.
SV and MM hunters need 17.4% haste to close the gap. (assuming quiver haste stays at 15%)
So if you can count on 1 shaman in your raid, you dont need haste anymore.

a.k.a. any hunter with a decent raiding guild will try to avoid haste as much as possible.

Hit actually affects crit due to our rolling system, so always always get hit first. Also, where did you get 1.39?