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9:49 am
Lodge Muse
July 3, 2010
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You've been 
for a month, and you are ICC geared? And doing tops in DPS? I think I need a bit more information, and perhaps it's own thread for your query. What raids specifically are you talking about? 10 man or 25 man? What is your average dps at this point? I compared my gear to yours, and you out-gear me at the moment (Niika of Moon Guard) and I am now running 7-9k dps in 25 man with advice from the other hunters here as Marksman. I compared my numbers at Femaledwarf.com and my dps shows a drop, yet the SV hunter who outgears me in my raiding group does between 9K and 10K. I see that Metrix (ArP MM) and Monkeyspanker (Agi MM) and Huntnu (s/b Arcane MM) in your guild (Marksman) outgear you, however, how are your numbers compared to theirs? I am guessing based on gear, gems, and enchant choices that Metrix might be a challenge to you, as well as Monkeyspanker?
I have been Marksman/Beastmaster since Niika was 10. One thing I find is that someone who does not have a high level geared hunter, currently raiding, always seems to tell other hunters that "you should be an Arpen Marksman hunter" and yet, does not have the research or the skill to back up that advice. I tried Survival for a while, and Marksman felt 'true' to me, so I stuck with it, even though at the time, SV was the way to go on the meters.
I guess what I am saying, based on your guild, your gear, and what you are selecting for gems, gear, and enchants, is that you REALLY know what you are doing. If your numbers are not there, then, something is off and it can be tweaked. Let us know what raids you are running, what numbers you are comparing too, and we can go from there? I would also suggest creating your own thread for yourself as well. Just a thought, so that other hunters don't think that you are answering Agroboy's posts and not looking for your own advice.
1:19 pm
Officer
May 29, 2010
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Are you happy with SV spec? If you are, then I would say stick with what you enjoy. Especially if your pulling top dps in the raid. I find in the raid I'm in that the Hunters are doing good dps because they like the spec they have chosen and know the ins and outs of it.
9:02 pm
Proprietor
June 22, 2008
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Thanks for the website praise Tonic. 
I looked at your armory and it seems I caught you in your PvP gear.
Anyway, here are my bits of wisdom (I use that term loosely).
MM may allow you to pump out more DPS, but the difference would likely be minimal. In order for MM to outperform Survival, you need to have:
- A decent amount of armor penetration. I'd say at least ~500.
- A high damage weapon. Your stakethrower is great, but unless you have the armor pen to go with it, you're going to need a Zod's in order to see a difference.
- A good handle on the MM spec. e.g., knowing when to use cooldowns, managing movement and properly timing auto-shots, etc.
- Replenishment in your group. This isn't such a problem in 25 mans, but in 10 mans or heroics you may find yourself mana-starved if no replenishment is available.
MM can be great, but all of the pieces need to be in place first.
To know if MM is right for you… you're just going to have to try it.
However, I repeat, don't go all goofy and regem all armor pen. The MM armor pen build is a good idea if:
- You're good with the play style
- You have 0 or so armor pen before the gemming
- You have at least a 255 DPS ranged weapon
These qualifiers eliminate the majority of hunters, including myself. Unless you're in a progressive raiding guild with access to the best loots and you are a skilled MM hunter, you're likely better off sticking with SV.
Now… since I know you do some PvP, here's one bit of advice…
You'll benefit a lot more from a Spider build that includes Roar of Recovery, and either Bullheaded or Roar of Sacrifice.
Try this build: http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc…..d00osM0rzo
Wolverine Bite and Wild Hunt are totally unnecessary with a non-BM pet.
Cheers
2:41 pm
Niika said:
You've been
I have been Marksman/Beastmaster since Niika was 10. One thing I find is that someone who does not have a high level geared hunter, currently raiding, always seems to tell other hunters that "you should be an Arpen Marksman hunter" and yet, does not have the research or the skill to back up that advice. I tried Survival for a while, and Marksman felt 'true' to me, so I stuck with it, even though at the time, SV was the way to go on the meters.
I guess what I am saying, based on your guild, your gear, and what you are selecting for gems, gear, and enchants, is that you REALLY know what you are doing. If your numbers are not there, then, something is off and it can be tweaked. Let us know what raids you are running, what numbers you are comparing too, and we can go from there? I would also suggest creating your own thread for yourself as well. Just a thought, so that other hunters don't think that you are answering Agroboy's posts and not looking for your own advice.
Niika – Im top dps of the hunters usually. Metrix is usually 2nd, but I beat him for whatever reason. That being said, there are a rogue, mage and others that beat all the hunters . And yeah, for a month, maybe 6 weeks, but I hooked up with some friends from the BC days and they have helped me get geared and in the game (I took a long break, but was quite a wower in vanilla and BC)
Thing is, raiding ICC25 and RC25 I find myself doing about 7-8k which seems low to me from what I've read and from what femaledwarf estimates. I am on a laptop, and I have to run at low res and even then my latency is not that great, but I feel like I could be doing a bit more. I feel like I understand the rotation and mechanics and maybe there is nothing more to be done but gear up some but I was wondering if MM would help. That being said, and after reading some posts, I enjoy survival more so I am guessing I will stick with it and try to squeeze my way up the meters.
I plugged my char into femaledwarf and then plugged in a MM spec and saw a 1k dps drop! That scared me away a bit. I can't help but feeling like maybe I have some setting wrong there though since it estimates something like 9k for my current gear and I am not even close to that (I do realize that it is only an estimate and it seems none of the ICC25 fights are very hunter special).
I also have an issue with Rapid Fire and when to use it. It seems of minimal benefit to Suvr since I rarely get more then 3 or 4 steadies off in the 15secs it is up. I usually just pop it in the beginning of a fight once I've burned through all my specials once.
Gar, thanks for your advice, its really the most succinct I've found on the web, I was considering whether to re-gem and I won't . Since you brought up Roar of Sacrifice, any ideas on how to best use it? The whole dynamic of pet abilites with separate targets is new to me and I'm think I could be utilizing it better.
3:23 pm
Lodge Muse
July 3, 2010
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Hheheheee… It sounds like you have a level of comfort where you are now, which is awesome. The only thing I would recommend considering is moving to agi/crit gems on your yellow sockets that have an agi bonus, like your belt. It's a small increase, but still an increase.
If all you do is enter in a new spec on femaledwarf.com you *should* see a DPS decrease. Bear in mind that everyting you are doing from glyphs to buffs to shot rotation, supports your SV spec. You also have to change those other things to truly test it, and pay particular attention to the MM shot rotation (guess what I always forget! hahaha!)
I find that myself and my other two hunter friends are constantly on the run in ICC, compared to the rogues and mages et all who get to sit back and pure dps. Can't tell you how many times i have growled low as the Bone Spike warning popped up and i've had to dps down three of my buddies in short order, while the mage is chuckling on Marrowgar and tossing aoe's all over the place. It is funny to me when the raid leader hands out the assignments for everyone to kill, then she starts on the "…and now, the Hunters will do X" LOL
I think it's being discussed in another thread, but for speed buffs on a fight longer than 3 mins, I hit my pot right before the tank pulls, then hit rapid fire in my rotation; wait 30 seconds though the rotation, then Readiness. Towards the end of the fight, when Bloodlust is called for, it is ready again, and i'll RF, then do my rotation then Readiness. I think Helz and Gar brought up a suggestion to use it with Kill Shot active, to get that added burst in as well, but I hve yet to try it. I think the guys had some good suggestions.
I am on a laptop as well, my ping is low, but damn, have I had lag lately. I need to work on that for movement issues.
3:44 pm
Proprietor
June 22, 2008
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Tonic,
I would use Rapid Fire when your Needle Encrusted Scorpion procs. Power Auras are great for alerting you to things like that. Although SV doesn't benefit as much from Rapid Fire as the other specs do, it's still a boost. Regardless of how many steadies you get in during the buff, you're still jamming in a lot more auto-shots. Using it during the 165 armor pen proc from NES will make it that much better.
8:01 pm
Proprietor
June 22, 2008
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I just wanted to post a quick update to a post I made earlier in this thread.
I can verify that there is no physical damage element to Chimera Shot. Even though the shot states that the initial hit is based off of weapon damage, it has no physical quotient – it's pure nature damage… always.
So… that leaves Aimed, Silencing Shot and Kill Shot as the only three instants that are augmented via armor pen.
I mention this because a lot of players misunderstand the mechanics of armor penetration. It's not a straight bonus to damage in the way agility and attack power are, because it only works on a portion of our shots. Furthermore, the shots that benefit most from the stat require you to not be moving when they are cast.
I assume some of you already knew that Chimera was 100% nature all-the-time, but I figured I'd post it for those who did not (myself included). 
3:10 am
Lodge Muse
July 3, 2010
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Thanks Gar, that is great information. I frequently get hunters into guild who assume that arpen is the way to go as soon as you hit , and get upset when their numbers don't match, and throw MORE arpen at their dancing selves.
Thank you for the tip on using RF when the Scorpion procs.
PA scares me…. that's a huge leap for me. I'm trying to bite the bullet this week. My screen is to cluttered for me and i'm trying to justify what to remove i order to bring it in.
5:20 am
Grunt
July 14, 2010
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@Tonic
What Niika said about the femaledwarf site is 100% accurate. if you're not changing to the 7/57/7 MM spec and updating your glyphs, as well as your shot rotation (enable common shot rotation), you are not going to see a DPS increase. for the most part SV and MM use the same gear, enchants, and gems. they are only slight differences.
@Gar
Thanks for the update on Chimera!
6:12 am
Jedi
August 1, 2010
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Try stacking haste cooldowns as much as you can, RF, BL/Hero and speed pot, spreading them out is not nearly as effective due to the multiplicative nature of haste.
As far as the when to switch to MM guidelines Gar posted, honestly the ArP portion is utterly unnecessary, the switch can be done at 0 ArP and still be equal or a gain depending on weapon and other stats, mainly crit and AP. A good baseline is at least a iLevel 226 weapon and around 4,000 AP totally unbuffed and 35% crit, again totally unbuffed.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft……#038;sid=1 Link to a guide if you want to doubt my words, it's too bad I can't get the name and avatar that the guide was posted under to update to my current ones 
9:20 pm
Proprietor
June 22, 2008
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Indomitus said:
As far as the when to switch to MM guidelines Gar posted, honestly the ArP portion is utterly unnecessary, the switch can be done at 0 ArP and still be equal or a gain depending on weapon and other stats, mainly crit and AP. A good baseline is at least a iLevel 226 weapon and around 4,000 AP totally unbuffed and 35% crit, again totally unbuffed.
Maybe for the top 1% of MM hunters. They might be able to run neck-and-neck with a pretty darn good survival hunter at that gear level.
A good survival hunter will wax a good MM hunter with a 226 ilvl weapon, zero armor pen and equal stats.
I don't need a guide or spreadsheet to draw that conclusion.
Not trying to be contradictory… it's just my opinion, based off of personal experience, and I don't want others to get the wrong impression.
MM is a good spec later in the game.
I'm not one to devour others' opinion with a knife and fork; It's all about what actually works.
9:33 pm
Proprietor
June 22, 2008
Offline
Niika said:
PA scares me…. that's a huge leap for me. I'm trying to bite the bullet this week. My screen is to cluttered for me and i'm trying to justify what to remove i order to bring it in.
That's the beauty of Power Auras… the footrpint can be very small. I prefer to only display auras as alerts, rather than when things are active. I have it display my buffs full duration, but beyond that, not much else.
I'm actually planning on adding a few new auras to my setup, as well as minimizing the overall layout even further.
My suggestion would be to import a few of my aura strings and see what you think. You may want to adjust them to better suit your needs, but at least the basic setup will have been taken care of.
I highly endorse the use of Power Auras as both a PvE and PvP addon. I love it!
3:28 am
Jedi
August 1, 2010
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Garwulf said:
Indomitus said:
As far as the when to switch to MM guidelines Gar posted, honestly the ArP portion is utterly unnecessary, the switch can be done at 0 ArP and still be equal or a gain depending on weapon and other stats, mainly crit and AP. A good baseline is at least a iLevel 226 weapon and around 4,000 AP totally unbuffed and 35% crit, again totally unbuffed.
Maybe for the top 1% of MM hunters. They might be able to run neck-and-neck with a pretty darn good survival hunter at that gear level.
A good survival hunter will wax a good MM hunter with a 226 ilvl weapon, zero armor pen and equal stats.
I don't need a guide or spreadsheet to draw that conclusion.
Not trying to be contradictory… it's just my opinion, based off of personal experience, and I don't want others to get the wrong impression.
MM is a good spec later in the game.
I'm not one to devour others' opinion with a knife and fork; It's all about what actually works.
The numbers I posted were ones that were tested multiple times, not just by me but by a large number of other people. When you have 2 equally skilled players in the same gear, after the threshold has been reached, they will do roughly the same DPS, but as the level of gear grows MM starts to pull ahread due to much stronger scaling with ranged weapon damage, and a somewhat stronger scaling with ArP.
6:30 am
Lodge Muse
July 3, 2010
Offline
Gar, I am going to try it. Helz is sending me some stuff and I am game to pretty much try anything. I believe first, what I need to do, is work with my Bartender and get the number of screenies down. I am working in my macros as well, and getting those hot-keys processed.
Moreso than any of my other 's, I find hunters are constantly shifting, their movements is subtle and quite as the hunter they embody. There is a part of me that wonders if Blizzard intends this to be true, and it interests me.
10:30 am
Proprietor
June 22, 2008
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The numbers I posted were ones that were tested multiple times, not just by me but by a large number of other people. When you have 2 equally skilled players in the same gear, after the threshold has been reached, they will do roughly the same DPS, but as the level of gear grows MM
starts to pull ahread due to much stronger scaling with ranged weapon damage, and a somewhat stronger scaling with ArP.
In that case, I'll take your word for it. I've just never seen it happen.
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