Lethal Shots

Real life had me slammed last week, so I was unable to get this post out when I wanted to. But fear not, I am back to my regular posting schedule now.

So far we have covered both Beast Master and Marksmanship shot rotations. That leaves us with (arguably) the most complex rotation of all: Survival. Why, you might ask, do I consider Survival the most complex of the three? Simple, the Lock and Load mechanic. But before we go there lets go over the basic Survival rotation.

The basic rotation follows the same principles of priority as the other specs. It uses the following six shots, which should be fired in the priority listed:

1. Kill Shot
2. Explosive Shot
3. Black Arrow
4. Serpent Sting
5. Aimed Shot / Multi-Shot
6. Steady Shot

Some people would put Black Arrow and Serpent Sting above Explosive Shot in priority, but I don’t recommend it. Explosive Shot is Survival’s biggest hitting shot after Kill Shot. You want to fire it as often as possible and as much as possible. While Black Arrow and Serpent Sting both buff the damage, they are not worth delaying Explosive Shot. You can also omit Aimed Shot / Multi-Shot. Some people have reported a DPS boost including it, while others have reported a DPS drop. You will have to play with it to see which works for you.

Now the complex part of the rotation: Lock and Load. L&L is triggered by the periodic damage of Black Arrow (or alternately a freezing or frost trap). What it does is let you fire two Explosive Shots, neither of which cost any mana or triggers any cooldown, other than the global. So when L&L procs you will maintain your normal rotation until Explosive Shot is off cooldown. Then fire the following sequence of shots:

1. Explosive Shot
2. *any other shot*
3. Explosive Shot
4. *any other shot*
5. Explosive Shot

The third Explosive shot will trigger a cooldown, and you will resume your normal rotation. On steps 2 and 4 you will want to fire your highest priority shot (other than Explosive Shot) that is not on cooldown. The reason for this seperating shot is so that you don’t overwrite the last tick of damage from the previous Explosive Shot. Some people simply pause a second between Explosive Shots (which would lead to an increase in DPS), but in my experience the DOT gets clipped to often without the separating shot.

And as with the other specs, stay flexible. Don’t develop tunnel vision. Misdirect and Feign Death when needed. You know the drill.

While we endure another round of maintenance, here are a few of my insights to get you through.

• I’m home from vacation at last. Florida was nice, but I missed the (relative) peace and quit of my own home. And my bed. I missed my bed the most. I hate sleeping on someone else’s bed. Even if it is comfortable. Yes, it is all in my head.
• More maintenance today. I don’t have a clue whether another patch is coming or not. I really need to catch up on things.
• I am so close to 80 on my Shaman. This has prompted me to start researching gear for him. If anyone knows a good guide for gearing a fresh 80 Resto Shaman leave a link in the comments. I want to get him in heroics as fast as possible.
• Now that I am back at work, Tuesday morning downtime doesn’t bother me as much.
• The Survival shot rotation got a little more complex in 3.1, more on that later.
• I’m trying to decide what alt to level next. My Death Knight is sitting at 60, but I really suck at playing him. But all my other alts are in their 20s. I’m leaning towards working on my Paladin, since he just got to where he is fun to play. Plus I already bought the heirloom shoulders for him.
• Of course those shoulders could just as easily be used on my Death Knight. Decisions…..

Well, that’s all I got on my mind today.

Last week we talked about we talked about shot rotations for the Beast Master tree. The Marksmanship rotation follows the same basic principles of priority but involves more shots, making it slightly more complex.

The basic Marks rotation involves the following seven shots. They should be used in the priority listed:

1. Hunter’s Mark
2. Kill Shot
3. Serpent Sting
4. Chimera Shot
5. Aimed Shot / Multi-Shot
6. Arcane Shot
7. Steady Shot

You should only have to fire Serpent Sting once per fight. After that Chimera Shot will keep it refreshed. Aimed and Multi-Shot share a cooldown, so you will want to use Aimed in a single target situation. Only use Multi-Shot when you have at least 2 targets or you waste mana. You will also want to mix in long cooldown abilities such trinkets, Rapid Fire, and Readiness at your own discretion.

Remember, don’t develop tunnel vision. Stay flexible. Move out of AOE, Misdirect, Feign Death, and drop traps when needed.

Out of all three specs, the shot rotation for Beast Mastery is the simplest. This simplicity is due to your pet providing such a large percentage of your overall DPS. (Now I’m not implying that playing Beast Master is easier, pet management can be a challenge in its own right.) Of course, rotation is not the best word to use anymore since Autoshot is un-linked. A Hunter now has more of a shot priority, but for simplicity’s sake I’m going to continue to call it a rotation.

Now that shot rotations are based on priority, you will pick which shot to fire based off of cooldowns. Each shot available to you will be prioritized based on damage. Higher damage shots (which naturally have longer cooldowns) will be at the top of your list. You will then fire the shot with the highest priority that is not on cooldown. It may seem random, but you will get used to it.

There are four shots in the basic Beast Master Hunter rotation. They should be fired in the following priority:

1. Kill Shot (Only when the mob is at 20% health or less.)
2. Arcane Shot
3. Serpent Sting
4. Steady Shot

There are also two other shots which can be put in the mix, both of which would be between Arcane Shot and Serpent Sting:

1. Aimed Shot (If specced into it.)
2. Multi-Shot

In my experience, the inclusion of these shots leads to a decrease in DPS. Aimed Shot has a high mana cost meaning more time spent in Viper, and Multi-Shot does poor damage against single targets. You can include these shots at your own discretion though.

There are other skills that are not included in the rotation due to long cooldowns, such as Bestial Wrath, Rapid Fire, trinkets, Hunter’s Mark. Again, these you will want to mix in at your own discretion.

The important thing to remember is to stay flexible. Don’t lock yourself in and develop tunnel vision. Misdeirect and Feign Death when needed, drop traps to help with kiting, pull adds off of healers, etc.

If you haven’t already, go ahead and read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.

Well, I really don’t know what to say here. When I wrote Part 1 & 2 I had grand plans to finish it all up with some macro goodness. Well after about 3 hours of research and fiddling yesterday, I had come up with nothing better than manually weaving shots. So instead I am going to go over some addons that should help you out.

First up is Serpent Sting. The main thing here is to know when you need to reapply the sting. If you refresh to early, you waste mana, too late and you take a DPS hit. I track this in more than one way, that way no matter where I am looking on screen, I can monitor it. Here is what I use to track it:

• XPerl – There is an option for your Target frame to make the debuffs from you larger. Crank that up and watch the countdown.
• Quartz – While this is a casting bar replacement, it also has a frame for target debuffs.
• KHunterTimers – This is an all around good addon to have for any hunter. It displays a countdown of almost all Hunter abilities.

Now lets look at Arcane Shot. It has a short cooldown, so you are going to use it often. Ideally you want something that really grabs your attention. Here is what I use:

• Heatsink – This is a simple cooldown timer. It has a handy feature of a second frame that you can put in a more noticeable position that pops up when an ability only has a few seconds left.
• Combat Text – This is a pretty generic one. There are several different scrolling combat text addons that all will throw a notice up on your screen when an ability comes off of cooldown.

Now the one good thing that did come out of my macro trials yesterday was some DPS test. I didn’t go all out with WWS, just some simple Recount numbers. Before my re-spec I was putting out right at 2k DPS with AotH and AotV as my only buffs, and a Moth for a pet.

I then changed my spec to the one listed in Part 2 and ran the same rotation. Sadly I did not see the increase in DPS that I was expecting, which means I will have to revisit my spec and see what I can change. I have received a few suggestions for changes, so I will have to see what I can come up with.

As always, leave your thoughts and comments below.