Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Patch 4.0.1 - Raiding

Well, I have completed my first raid day on my hunter. From memory my DPS wasn't all that different from before. I was very surprised, particularly on Blood Queen, where I finished on 14.5k DPS (7th overall) WITHOUT having been bitten. So hunter DPS (at least mine) seems to be competitive still. The only other fight I participated in was Blood Council and I finished 3rd with 11.8k DPS.

At this point in time I don't worry about my DPS on trash, as it is useless, but on Boss fights I think hunters are still pretty good. My rotation generally goes something like Serpent Sting, Chimera Shot, Arcane Shot, 2x Steady Shot, 2x Arcane Shot, 2x Steady Shot, Chimera Shot, Arcane Shot, etc. etc. and firing off Aimed Shot whenever it procs. I once again have Rapid Fire, Readiness and Call of the Wild macroed together which I generally pop after my first 3 shots, and then whenever the cooldown is up and effects have worn off.

One thing I was discussing with my fellow hunters during raid is, that we find ourselves bar-watching far too much, keeping an eye on cooldowns and procs. I will definitely have to look at getting PowerAuras set up and possibly Ghost:Pulse or something similar to keep an eye on when Shots come off cooldown.

Overall I found it enjoyable to raid as a marksman hunter and not all too different from how it was. I love the fact I don't have to worry about my mana anymore, and the fact I can effectively raid with whatever pet I want (Razor, my purple Winterspring Frostsaber is finally number 1 again).

Please let me know how your raids have gone and as always keep on hunting,

Serebihm

5 comments:

  1. I had thought for Marksmanship you'd want to fire Steady Shot x2 after putting up your Mark and Sting so as to get the ISS proc going as soon as possible.

    Have you tried that and compared it to your current set up and assessed the DPS? I certainly find it more cumbersome to start with two Steadies, so if it's not really advantageous to get that proc up, that would be nice.

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  2. hhhmmmm, I'll have to try this when I get back from my holiday. I certainly hadn't considered opening with ISS procs. Thanks for the tip :)

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  3. About the extra need to focus on spell cooldowns I found out that this addon is really helpfull:
    http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/shotwatch.aspx

    You can even prioritise your shots so that he shows the one you should be firing first according with the different cooldowns.

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  4. My muscle memory can't seem to forget that Aimed Shot is no longer instant. 4 years ago, aimed was long cast, and then it was instant, and I'm so used to the instant that my fingers keep smacking the hotkey even if the proc hasnt fired, so it's slowing me down.

    Pet choices are much more fun -- i basically pop the pet that can offer a decent raid buff or debuff and go. makes me feel like im helping with more than just my green dps bar.

    cheers!

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  5. I know how you feel about Aimed Shot...I immediately had moved it to a different hot key so I wouldn't fall into that trap.

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