With dual-specs upon us, and hunter specs in general looking a lot closer in terms of DPS differences than they have ever been before, a lot of hunters are trying out specs they don’t normally play. Along with that, there are a lot of questions floating around regarding our shot rotations– or perhaps more accurately these days, shot priorities. So, I figured I would create this post as a quick reference guide for what you are supposed to be doing when you spec a certain spec. I plan on keeping this post “active” and coming back to it as needed to reflect any future changes, though I’m getting the feeling that we’re approaching some semblance of permanence for this expansion.
Quickly, what this post is and is not:
This is NOT… going to tell you how to spec, glyph, level, or PvP.
This IS… primarily level 80, PvE-oriented and should give you a quick idea on what to do if you just spec’d for a new spec, and spec’d it relatively well, and are running straight into an instance or raid.
Keep in mind that these are not strict rotations, instead, they are priorities: What that means is you are not going to go down this list and fire every shot, and then go back to the beginning and rinse and repeat. It means that you are going to fire shots which are off cooldown and/or need refreshing in this order. Also please note that these are adaptable for various situations, and that I tended to stick the Stings/DoTs first, as a matter of style and just to organize things, although there may be some situations where you don’t want to fire them first– for example, if Kill Shot is available.
So without further ado…
The WotLK Hunter Shot Rotation Compendium:
Last Updated: April 21, 2009 – Patch 3.1
Beast Mastery:
The Shot Priority: Serpent Sting – Kill Shot – Arcane Shot – Multishot/Aimed Shot (optional– can be a mana hog so works best in conjunction with Replenishment) – Steady Shot
Pike’s Notes: Not just Steady spam anymore, although I see plenty of non-hunters and even hunters running around who still think this is the case. Heck, I saw BM Hunters on the receiving end of mockery regarding this just today in trade chat. They are, I am pleased to report, quite mistaken. Beast Masters may not have quite so many shots and stings to juggle as the other specs, but they still have plenty to do and when you combine this with a Bestial Wrath glyphed and talented almost down to a minute, and your Kill Command which is on a similar cooldown, you’ve got lots to play around with as well.
This rotation depends largely on Glyph of Steady Shot— Steady is still a large chunk of your damage as a Beast Master and because it is so weak you need to do everything you can to pull it up, and yes, that includes keeping Serpent Sting up.
The rotation is adaptable on the fly to account for mobs that are nearly dead (when the cooldown for refreshing a Serpent Sting would not be worth the extra Steady damage), as well as deciding to put off Serpent Sting if Arcane and Multi are off cooldown, for example.
Marksmanship:
The Shot Priority: Serpent Sting (one time only) – Kill Shot – Chimera Shot – Aimed Shot – Arcane Shot – Steady Shot
Pike’s Notes: One of my favorite attributes of the Marksman spec is that you don’t have to worry about refreshing Serpent Sting– Chimera Shot does it for you. It will spoil you rotten, I promise.
Note that Multishot is typically not in your rotation as a Marksman– it shares a cooldown with Aimed, and Aimed will generally pack a larger punch for you in the case of most current Marksman specs. However, if there is more than one target, and the tank has a good hold of them all, swapping in a Multi for Aimed will in fact result in a DPS increase. (This is the case with all three specs).
Use Readiness wisely, it can be used for great effect to get double Kill Shots after a trinket pop, for example
Survival:
The Shot Priority: Black Arrow – Serpent Sting – Kill Shot – Explosive Shot – Multishot/Aimed Shot (optional) – Steady Shot
Important! When Lock and Load procs: Be sure to squeeze one Steady or Aimed between your two “instant” Explosive Shots– that way you don’t overwrite your own Explosive Shot DoT. (You may also opt to “wait” between Explosives if you don’t have an instant ready– see the comments in this post for details.)
Pike’s Notes: This is me being biased, but with the introduction of Black Arrow and the current encouragement to use Multishot or Aimed, Survival has gotten a lot more fun and interesting for me in 3.1 than it was, well, pre-3.1. The overall “rotation” feels like a weird cross between Beast Mastery and Marksmanship, with a side dish of “random” tossed in, and it might take some getting used to but it’s certainly not boring.
Black Arrow is interesting as it cannot be “refreshed” like Serpent Sting: it has a pretty hefty cooldown even with talents that reduce that cooldown. Still, it’s a not-too-shabby DoT and also a big DPS booster, and also your source of Lock and Load procs, that should be kept up anytime it is available.
Explosive Shot is still your ace in the hole here. You are more encouraged to use Multi/Aimed as Survival than as a Beast Master because you are more mana efficient and can probably afford it. Play around with it and see if it works for you.
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…and, that does it! In closing while I can now say I have played all three specs in both instance and raid situations in the past month or two, I still don’t know how much of an “expert” I can be considered especially on Marksmanship and Survival, so please, if you play one of those specs and you have more advice or corrections you would like to throw in, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do to edit your notes in.
And remember: this type of thing is often subjective. I encourage you to read the comments, read other blogs, and do your own research and testing on this subject. I just wanted to make a quick reference that should work fairly well in most situations. *nods*
Nice post! Very informative. I would change a few things about MM, however – you now want Aimed to come before Arcane in rotation because it will stack faster with the Piercing Shots from Chimera. Also, using Multishot instead of Aimed if three targets are available is more damage, so I still use Multishot when viable.
I’m with you on survival – I’ve played around with it a bit and I’m thinking…this is just like Marksman now.
Hey Pike,
Now I understand that this is a (relatively) subjective topic. So instead of saying something is ‘wrong’, I will give my opinion on how I would change things.
First I would place Kill Shot above all else. This becomes especially apparent on single target trash, which goes down fast. I would also go so far as to not put up DoTs for anything that is soon to be downed (~15secs). This can also be applied to the last few moments of a boss fight. Putting a Serpent sting up when a boss is at 1% is a waste of a GCD and would be much better off using either ES or AS if available.
Second during LnL procs I would be much more akin to using AS if off cooldown or updating SptS between Explosive Shots than using a Steady Shot.
Finally the majority of Elitist Jerks posts are showing a DPS increase in opening with Explosive Shot, then applying DoTs. I very much like this as I usually start a boss fight with a MD, and so using ES initially helps both me and the tank.
My current priority is:
KS > ES > BA > AS > SptS >HM > SS
Give it a try on a dummy and see what you get.
Keep up the great blogging.
/peace
My two copper on the LnL proc:
I usually do ES –> Aimed –> ES –> wait –> ES
rather than trying to get a steady in there. I just find that the actual “wait” time in there is less than the cast time of steady+GCD.
Otherwise spot on! (imho, natch)
I find it interesting that Steady Shot here is (and has been) your iconic no cooldown, “spam me” button but has the lowest priority (and is used the most). It’s not unlike fire/frostfire mages, whose priorities go something like Hot Streak > Living Bomb > Scorch rebuff > Fireball/Frostfire Bolt. I wonder if warlocks are in a similar position with Shadow Bolt?
Also, does any class still use rotations? I know mages, hunters, locks, spriests, and retadins don’t…
@ Nass – I was thinking Aimed was above Arcane now but I wasn’t certain. Thanks for the clarification, I’ve edited it in. The Multishot thing too, which I’d forgotten about.
@ Audere – You are of course correct, but I opted to place stings/DoTs first as a matter of style and a way to clarify that those are the things you want to “keep up”. I then noted at the beginning of the post that I did so and that the rotations would probably be adaptable, in the case of Kill Shot. My apologies if it is at all confusing, I was hoping it would clarify things for newer hunters who might be wondering why Kill Shot is first. But if it continues to confuse people I’ll change it. Thanks for the input.
@ Oriniwen – Edited in Aimed, though I think I’ll leave the idea of “waiting” here in the comments unless it is extremely prevalent, mostly cause I don’t wanna hit the the new Survivalists with too much too fast! *nods*
@ Armond – For warlocks I think it would depend on spec. I know for example an Afflock’s DoTs all have different durations (pre-3.1, anyway, I dunno if they’ve changed it at all) so I’d imagine it’s quite hard to have a set rotation as one. Of course the only experience I have playing one is watching my boyfriend do so. >.>
how is waiting effective? If the time is there you might aswell cast somehting so why not hit a steady shot?
My only thought that I can work out in my head there is that after the third explosive then the cooldown would have longer to go before its back up, but my steadies are about 1.7s so is that 0.2 seconds above the gcd really going to lower my dps more then the wait on the dot? I can’t see how
I’m not so sure if I like how things are “priorities” instead of a rotation, a rotation for a hunter just makes sense…idk.
Anyway…
I’ve found that BA’s priority is often changed b/c of it’s cd and it’s increase. For example, i find myself waiting to apply it to get the most out of the 6% increase. I find that waiting on certain events in certain situations and boss encounters greatly increases my dps w/ BA. Such as waiting for a spark to land and be killed on Malygos; heroism being popped; using dps trinkets/long cd’s; kill shot about to become availible; and the like. Of corse, this does not mean to not fire BA at all until one of these events happen, but make sure you have it up when they do. To have someone pop heroism with BA’s duration only having 2 seconds (with around a 15 sec CD) left seems like a waste. So if the CD on BA has about 4 seconds left and your raid is about to call out heroism in about 10 seconds, I believe it’s worth the wait. Or if your waiting for a spore to spawn, or a double stack or sparks to happen, shift it’s priority readily, as long as you don’t wait for another entire CD that could happen you should be okay. Just my two since though.
I also find myself refreshing SptS right before I apply BA. I know it’s sort of a 2 second waste in dps that SptS would be giving me if I refreshed it after BA, but also those 2 seconds and the GCD seems much more benefitial to use a ES, MS, or perhaps a SS. I’ll have to work more w/ the charts and dummies though before I can say for sure if this makes any difference and/or how much a difference.
Nice post btw! 😛
During LnL, the ES cd is 1.0 sec (the GCD). If you fire a Steady Shot in between, with its cast time of 1.50-2.00 secs, you delay the next ES by that extra 0.50-1.00 secs. Since LnL is limited in duration, you can effectively lose your last ES LnL proc by hitting Steady Shot in between, because LnL will be over by the time you clear your last GCD.
Thus, if you do not have an instant shot available, it’s better to not hit anything at all.
Another note about Steady Shot: don’t forget to actually use it for SV.
Everything else is instant, so it’s easy to forget, or not use it, because of it’s cast time. SS is 5-11% of my damage, depending on movement. While I don’t spam it, I do “think” of it as spamming, because I’m firing SS unless something else is off cooldown….and with 5 other shots with various cds it can be easy to forget to SS at all if you don’t take that mentality.
@ Voldenmist – I understand what you mean, I feel similarly regarding Bestial Wrath and when to use/not use it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Nice summary of the rotations. Regarding Lock and Load procs I’ve read different things. When Lock and Load procs I currently wait between shots.
ES < gcd + .5 < ES < gcd + .5 < ES.
I think if you try to squeeze an Aimed in there it triggers the gcd, delaying when you can fire your second ES. At any rate you at least want to make sure your ES has finished its ticks before you fire the next one.
Oh, if only Piercing Shots worked with Multishot… what a thing of beauty that would be. But yeah, I rarely use Multi over Aimed now because of Piercing – I reserve it for emergency use like XT adds.
I agree with darkbrew- you get a bit more DPS if you can fire three explosive shots in a row on a lock and load instead of mixing in an instant shot. The only reason to wait the half second after you can fire before firing the next one is so that you don’t overwrite the DOT’s last tick.
As for your survival priority list, there’s some room for additional DPS in there too- my priority list is KS, ES, BA, sting, aimed, steady. My first few “rotations” look like this:
explosive shot
black arrow
serpent sting
explosive shot
aimed shot
steady shot
steady shot
explosive shot
It’s worth waiting a fraction of a second for explosive shot to come off cooldown, but not worth waiting over a second. Also, this assumes you didn’t get an immediate lock and load (which happens), and your steady shots are faster than 1.5 seconds (which with 25 man raid buffs, most hunters’ are)
I was wondering about the order of serpent sting/black arrow. in theory – serpent sting is supposed to increase the damage of all subsequent shots by 3% via noxious stings, so I was wondering with serpent sting should be used before black arrow. or is the damage increase from black arrow similar to shadow weaving and shadow word pain for shadow priests (as in get shadow weaving stacks to 5 and THEN cast SWP, so it will also increase the overall damage from serpent sting if cast first?)
I haven’t been grouping on my hunter lately 🙁 so I haven’t had much chance to test things out other then training dummy and even then not conclusively enough..
Ok, I always see people use Kill Shot towards the front of their shot rotations and just would like to know how you use it there since my kill shot cant’ be used until the boss or whatever I am killing or shooting is down to like 30% health or whatever?
Am I missing something here?
It’s a priority system. You use whatever shot is highest on the priority tree AND is available. You can’t use Kill Shot for the first 80% of the encounter, but once that boss breaks 20% HP, you better be using Kill Shot the second it’s up every time it’s up 😉
Theldaris: There has been much number crunching and theorycrafting done on the differences between waiting between ESs during LnL or weaving Steadies between ESs. Depending on your latency and how good your timing is, generally waiting .5 seconds between ESs is a DPS increase because you’re not delaying ES at all. Weaving in a steady can delay your next ES and this is less desirable because delaying ES means less ESs overall through a fight and overall less DPS.
Voldenmist: In my opinion waiting on BA is less than ideal since BA is the way to get LnL procs (granted on fights with adds you can get LnL procs from frost and immo. traps, but they share the same CD with BA) now and since LnL no longer has an internal cooldown it has a chance of proccing immediately.
Leah: Black Arrow is higher priority than Serpent because BA is what can give us Lock and Load procs. The damage boost from serpent is nice, but it is generally not better than, say, delaying Explosive to refresh serpent since explosive does so much more damage than serpent and the 3% boost to one shot is negligible.
Lasty to Pike: It may be worth adding in that Black Arrow is pretty much the way to get LnL procs in PVE now since they changed the mechanic from Serpent proccing it. On fights with adds you can still get LnL procs from frost or immo traps, but it’s a matter of timing since they share a CD with BA and you do want BA available when you switch back to single target on the boss.
“One of my favorite attributes of the Marksman spec is that you don’t have to worry about refreshing Serpent Sting– Chimera Shot does it for you. It will spoil you rotten, I promise.”
Hehe … so true. 🙂
@ Theeah – Edited in the Lock and Load stuffs, thanks!
Did you realist that this would start such a debate? LOL
Anyway, I’m all MM and have tried SV so here’s my comments:
Marksman
The rotation can vary depending on your haste and and reduced CDs you might have with glyphs. For me I start with SrS > CS > Arcane > Aimed > Steady. With my gear, having arcane before aimed means arcane and chimera don’t come off CD at the same time. Might be different when I get the CS Glyph. When kill shot it available it takes priority over any other shot. Shame it’s not macroable anymore.
Survival
The order of shot application to start between SrS, ES and BA is optional. I personally prefer to open with BA > ES > SrS.
However, one thing I do think you should change is what you do when Lock and Load procs. You should fire 3 ESs in a row with 0.5 secs in between them. This 0.5 will ensure each shot hits for the max as the extra tick of fire damage isn’t overwritten.
Otherwise, good post! No comments on BM as I’ve never tried it and it’s your class :p
Great rotations – thanks! Far prefer a good shot rotation than a macro 🙂
Guys in addtion to Patti’s post, how did you cast the Kill shot when the boss is less than 30%??
Not sure about other PVE Surv hunters, but in playing around with Aimed Shot it seems (even with slightly reduced mana cost than Multi Shot) the ranged dmg increase isn’t worth the mana cost ~420 mana per 10secs to increase the dmg. I, at least couldn’t maintain longevity of dmg over say an eight minute encounter if I was spamming multi shot, so I’m inclined to think putting priority on a similair costing ability will do not better.
I beleive steady shot (glyph with increase base ss dmg if serpent sting applied) to be a great source of consistent dmg along with explosive shot and lock and load (throw a mutli shot inbetween one of your free explosives). Perhaps if you substituted the mutli shot in this instance a slight dps increase would be seen.
“Black Arrow – Serpent Sting – Kill Shot – Explosive Shot – Multishot/Aimed Shot (optional) – Steady Shot”
Interesting rotation, but one flaw.
Kill Shot can’t be used until the target is at 20% or less health.
@ SurvivalHunter – hence why I mentioned that early on in the post =P
oops, sorry, missed that part.
when my lock n load procs i always do explosive – arcane – explosive, maybe is shouldnt and go with SS in between, but my fingers r stuck like that now! D: