The other day I sat down and figured out how to do WoW Web Stats, having been inspired by Aspect of the Girl (a fun new hunter and new blog!) and BRK’s commendable help guide. Then I WoW Web Stats’d a normal Steamvaults run that me and a few guildies did to help my boyfriend get Cenarion rep.

This is a very useful tool that lets you analyze yourself and see what you did right and what you did wrong and get hard data for just how often things like Improved Aspect of the Hawk or Ferocious Inspiration are proc’ing. It also tells you your DPS– I managed 613 throughout the duration of the instance and 820 on the final boss fight. I’ve noticed that boss fights are where I really shine in DPS, because I don’t have to be focusing on trapping things and the like. Not to say that I don’t like crowd control, in fact, I actually tend to get a bit miffed if I’m not “Lead CC” in a particular group. But if you’re looking for MQoSRDPS and nothing but MQoSRDPS from me, you probably won’t find it quite as much on trash mobs.

However, I’d like to use some of my WoW Web Stats data to teach you a little about the Beast Mastery Shot Rotation. My previous “Kindergarten” post went over very well (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with still being in kindergarten by the way!), so I thought I would bring you another one.

For starters: What is a shot rotation? Put simply, it is the order in which you use your special shots. It goes beyond that, though: we hunters have an Auto Shot that is constantly going. If you right click on a mob and do nothing else, that is your Auto Shot hard at work. Pew. Pew. Pew.

Auto Shot is interesting, though. It has a hidden timer to it. You can fire most instant cast shots and not interrupt that timer (Arcane Shot comes to mind), but if you fire Steady Shot (a non-instant-cast-shot) at the wrong time, it “clips” your Auto Shot. You don’t get that Auto Shot in and you’ve just cheated yourself out of a lot of DPS.

In order to maximize DPS, hunters have to come up with a shot rotation that takes things like the speed of their weapon into account. This way they can come up with an order to fire their special shots in without clipping their Auto Shots. A lot of us call this “weaving your shots”, because you are basically weaving your special shots around one immovable standard: the Auto Shot.

Marksman and Survival hunters often have to come up with very long and complex Shot Rotations that involve Steady Shots, Arcane Shots, and Multishots all done in a very specific order. It takes a lot of hard work to calculate out a big rotation like that and I /salute those of you that do it.

Beast Mastery hunters are a special case though. Why?

Serpent’s Swiftness.

Taking 5/5 in this talent ups your ranged attack speed by 20%. This means that we don’t have the time that hunters without it do, to weave most of our shots into a rotation. In fact, with a ranged weapon with optimum BM speed (about 2.80), we barely have time to squeeze in one Steady Shot between our Auto Shots.

…but that’s not a bad thing as some people might think right off the bat.

The two most mana-efficient shots for a hunter are Auto Shot (which obviously costs no mana) and Steady Shot. Both of these get you your most damage-per-mana-buck. So the Auto-Steady rotation is not only more mana efficient than other rotations (and thus lasts longer), but the fast speed at which you are firing more than makes up for the slower (but usually damage-heavier) shots of a non-Serpent’s-Swiftness-hunter.

So let’s take a look here and see this in action. Let me show you a small excerpt from the combat log on the final boss in Steamvaults. This is just me: it doesn’t display my party members or things that they did, nor does it display things that Locke did (except getting focus from me); this explains why you don’t see any Kill Commands:

07:12’17.500 Tawyn’s Auto Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1354
07:12’18.015 Locke gains 50 Focus from Go for the Throat of Tawyn
07:12’19.609 Tawyn gains Quick Shots
07:12’19.718 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 544
07:12’20.375 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 603
07:12’21.484 Tawyn gains Ferocious Inspiration
07:12’21.937 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1072 (53 blocked)
07:12’22.328 Locke gains 50 Focus from Go for the Throat of Tawyn
07:12’22.546 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 614
07:12’24.734 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1370
07:12’25.125 Locke gains 50 Focus from Go for the Throat of Tawyn
07:12’25.531 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 586
07:12’27.265 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 537
07:12’27.843 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 604
07:12’29.671 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1221 (53 blocked)
07:12’30.375 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 566
07:12’30.390 Locke gains 50 Focus from Go for the Throat of Tawyn
07:12’32.187 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 582
07:12’32.984 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 621
07:12’34.593 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 562
07:12’35.187 Tawyn’s Auto Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1420
07:12’35.609 Locke gains 50 Focus from Go for the Throat of Tawyn
07:12’37.000 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1381
07:12’37.250 Tawyn gains Quick Shots
07:12’37.609 Locke gains 50 Focus from Go for the Throat of Tawyn
07:12’37.937 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 617

So did you see what I was doing there with my shots? Here, let’s take out the procs so you can get a better look:

07:12’17.500 Tawyn’s Auto Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1354
07:12’19.718 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 544
07:12’20.375 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 603
07:12’21.937 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1072 (53 blocked)
07:12’22.546 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 614
07:12’24.734 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1370
07:12’25.531 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 586
07:12’27.265 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 537
07:12’27.843 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 604
07:12’29.671 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1221 (53 blocked)
07:12’30.375 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 566
07:12’32.187 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 582
07:12’32.984 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 621
07:12’34.593 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 562
07:12’35.187 Tawyn’s Auto Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1420
07:12’37.000 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1381
07:12’37.937 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 617

Notice that? I am weaving Steady Shots inbetween my Auto Shots and that is the foundation of a Beast Mastery Shot Rotation.

Elitist Jerks, theorycrafting community extraordinaire, has an excellent picture illustrating this, where the little orange box represents using Kill Command if it’s available (and I hope they don’t mind if I borrow it– I’d be glad to remove it at their request):

(Click to enlarge)

So. You’ve got your Auto Shot, you’ve got your Steady Shot (if you are level 62 or higher, that is) and you’ve got Serpent’s Swiftness, and you’re ready to learn how to do your shot rotation. There are a lot of different ways to do this; some people swear by using a timer addon, others just jump straight into the macro (which I will discuss later). Me, I find that learning to weave your shots is pretty instinctive. I went out after getting Steady Shot and played around with it and after a few minutes I just had this “Ohhhh…” moment where everything clicked and suddenly the mechanics of playing-my-hunter changed forever. I don’t know if everybody has a moment like that or if it’s just me. But basically, I recommend that everybody learns how to manually weave their shots first before hitting up a macro or timer– I just think it’s a good foundation.

For me, I have discovered that if I watch my character very closely… if I hit the Steady Shot button immediately after she fires an Auto Shot… well, that’ll do it. After a couple shots are fired you’ll fall into a rhythm and you don’t have to watch quite so closely. (Note: I’ve found that the bow animation sometimes looks funky when you do this. That can be hard to get used to, at least, it was for me. Using a crossbow or gun isn’t so bad though.)

It takes a bit of practice to start weaving in your Kill Commands, too. You can use Kill Command after you crit (if you are level 66 or higher). Kill Command has its own little cooldown, though, so you can’t just spam it. Nor can you use it if you are mid-Steady-Shot cool– erm— up? (Opposite of cooldown >.>) Pretty soon you will get accustomed to keeping track of when you’ve got a Kill Command in queue and you will learn to use it between Steady Shots. It might take a little practice though.

There you have it. That is the BM secret to MQoSRDPS. I know a lot of people probably think it’s easy-mode, and that may be true, but honestly I think it’s all in how you look at it. One hunter’s easy-mode is another hunter’s “functional and elegant“. And that last phrase really describes it to me.

Now, one more thing to touch one before I letcha go. The Macro. The Macro. It looks something like this:

/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Auto Shot
/cast Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

Yes, I’ve got it on my secondary action bar alongside all my tradeskills and various rarely-used Aspects. I’ve got it there because sometimes everything just starts lagging really really badly and we’re mid-boss-fight or something and it becomes near impossible for me to time my own shots just because of the lag. So that’s when I pull up the macro, shed a little tear, and start spamming it.

What’s the macro do? Well, it times all your shots for you and completely eliminates human error, meaning it will probably up your DPS.

Why don’t I like it? Because for me, playing my hunter is about having fun and The Macro is just not fun. You sit there and press it over and over again. There is no timing involved. There is no concentration involved. There is no opportunity to enter the little zen-like state I do when I’m deeply in tune with my rotation. It’s just… boring. Not to mention the macro tends to make me do weird things like break CC. I like having more control than that.

Now I’m not trying to decry The Macro. If you like using it, then great! Go ahead and use it if it’s fun for you. But it’s not fun for me. And that’s why I don’t use it. Fun > maximum-possible-DPS. It’s a game, after all. (And besides, I rather pride myself on my ability to often out-DPS hunters who are using The Macro =P)

Well, I hope I have helped a little when it comes to explaining the mysterious Shot Rotation (I say mysterious because I really had no concept of what this was for the longest time when I was starting out my hunter, and I always wondered about it). The whole Shot Rotation playstyle, which really does involve a lot of timing and concentration, is one of my very favorite aspects of the hunter class. Good luck to all you newer hunters when you attempt to go and master it– I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Class Dismissed!

Homework & Further Reading:

Drotara’s Shot Rotations for Dummies
Elitist Jerks Shot Rotations Illustrated

I decided to whip up a little guide about the game’s attributes and what a hunter should be looking for in regards to them. Yes, I’m sure this is kindergarten for most of my regular readers– but I enjoy writing guides that might help out newer players, and I hope this guide will be of some use to somebody who maybe just started playing the game or just started playing a hunter.

The stuff in italics has been taken from WoWWiki and is occasionally cut for clarity or length.

Strength:

Increases attack power with melee weapons. Hunters gain one melee attack power per point of strength.

Strength does not affect your ranged attack power. And if you are a hunter and you’re melee’ing, you’d better hope I don’t catch you! =P This stat can be completely 100% ignored. And if an item has strength on it, it’s probably not for you. (Although of course, there are some items that are still fantastic for hunters even if they have strength. My much-loved Ice Barbed Spear comes to mind. But once you hit level 70– if it has strength on it, it’s probably not for you.)

Agility:

Increases attack power with ranged weapons (not including wands) or melee weapons for certain classes. Hunters gain 1 melee attack power per point of agility. Increases armor by 2 per point. Increases chance to score a critical hit with a weapon. Increases chance to dodge attacks. This is dependent on both class and level.

Repeat after me: “I love agility.” Say it over and over. It is your mantra. Perhaps not quite as much as it used to be… back in the “old days” before I started playing, one point of agility was equivalent to two RAP (Ranged Attack Power) instead of just one… but this is still by far the most important stat for a hunter. Survival hunters in particular. But all hunters should love the agi.

Here’s what agility gets you:
-One point of agility will get you one attack power (there are still people who haven’t played a hunter lately who think it’s two attack power. I’ve run into those people. Sadly, they are mistaken, the times have changed.)
-If you are level 70, 40 agility will get you 1% crit.
-One point of agility will get you 2 armor points. Your pet’s armor scales based on yours so this will also make your pet less squishy.
-If you are level 70, 26.5 agility will increase your chance to dodge by 1%. Now, we’re no rogues; we shouldn’t be taking many hits and thus dodge isn’t a huge deal– but this is definitely helpful for things like PvP. So it’s a nice little bonus.

Go for agility above all other stats. If an item has +agi, +stam, +int, and possibly +attack power, and is mail (or some sort of two-handed weapon; most likely a polearm), then that is bona-fide Hunter Loot and you’re allowed to ask for it. (If anyone has an issue with it, tell ’em they can take it up with yours truly!) Really your only competition will be from enhancement shammies, and c’mon… isn’t there already enough shammy loot out there? =P (The Shaman Loot Drinking Game needs to be invented if it hasn’t been already. Good thing I don’t drink or I woulda been completely wasted months ago. Shammy gear… shammy gear… shammy gear… *twitch*) Edit: My challenge has been met! Znodis’s Shaman Gear Drinking Game.

Stamina:

Stamina provides 10 health for each point for all Classes/Mobs/NPCs (except from the first 20 points of Stamina that provide 1 health for each point instead). It also increases health points of a player’s pet for classes with pets.

Stamina is good because it lets you live longer. In PvP, Stamina is king; in PvE it’s probably not as important as your “main stat” (unless you’re a warlock or tank, in which case it is a main stat) but it’s still very important for all classes.

If you are a hunter, your pet’s stamina scales with yours so more stamina for you will also improve your pet’s staying power, health-wise.

If you are gearing for PvE, it’s definitely okay to forego stamina for something with agility; in fact, you should be doing that in most cases. But you don’t want to neglect it entirely. A dead hunter isn’t going to be doing a lot of Sustained Ranged DPS. There are things you can do to help with your stamina if you need to, for example, you can use [Nethercleft Leg Armor] instead of [Nethercobra Leg Armor] until you feel that your stamina has reached a decent level. (That’s what I’m doing right now, in fact.)

Intellect

Increases mana points. Each point of intellect gives 15 mana points (except from the first 20 points of Intellect that provide 1 mana for each point instead). Increases chance to score a spell critical strike. This increase varies by class and level; in general, the relationship is linear as intellect increases, with a small amount of base crit chance. The rate of increase is generally based on the amount of intellect a class is expected to have at a certain level. As of 2.4, Intellect will increase the amount of MP5 generated by Spirit.

Hunters don’t cast spells (at least, not “normal” ones) so we can ignore the bit about spell crit. What’s important for us is that the more mana we have, the more shots and other special things we can use before we have to use a potion and/or switch to Aspect of the Viper. Don’t underestimate the value of mana and intellect. If you have ever ran out of mana in a battleground or something you’ll understand how powerless it makes you feel. (For this same reason, I feel a sort of twisted pleasure in putting Viper Sting on every hunter I can find in PvP. Forgive me, my fellow hunters.) Intellect should not supplant Agility and Stamina as the stats you want to focus on but you should still definitely pay attention to it. Note: Marksman hunters will, in general, love the Int more than usual. Because they’ve got a lot of shots to put into their rotation.

Agility, Stamina, and Intellect are really the trinity of stats for hunters and you will learn to love them.

Spirit

Increases health and mana regeneration. Spirit affects all characters’ mana and hit point regeneration rates in and out of combat. Health regeneration from spirit is not active while in combat, except for trolls who gain 10% of their normal health regen in combat from the racial ability “regeneration.” Mana regeneration is active in combat except for the five seconds immediately after casting a spell (the five second rule). Some class talents and spells allow some mana regeneration during this period.

Spirit is an interesting stat; it’s obviously not nearly as vital as the afore-mentioned trinity, but I also don’t see it as being a necessarily useless thing to have. It will decrease your downtime between fights, even if not by much, and I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.

That said, for the most part, this stat can be ignored if you’re a hunter. If you wind up with something that has Spirit on it, then hey, it’s not gonna hurt anything. But if you have a choice between Spirit and Agi/Stam/Int, well, I hope you’re gonna pick the latter. (And if you have a choice between Spirit and Strength, you’re gonna pick the former. *nods*)

Well, it’s getting close to midnight as I
write this and I’ve had a rather long day, so I’m going to post this and hope it doesn’t have any major glaring errors. But, as always, if you do find one or otherwise want to make a comment or ask a question, please feel free to do so!