3.2 edit: I’ve gone through this survival rotation guide and ensured that everything is accurate for patch 3.2.
Here it is- the list of things you should choose to fire first. Always choose the higher ability on this list whenever given the choice on a GCD:
- Rapid fire is instant and off the GCD- use it whenever it’s up. I have it macroed into all my GCD shots.
- Kill shot will trigger the global cooldown, and should be used over any other shot that triggers the GCD.
- Explosive shot is your primary damage source. Use it over everything besides kill shot. Note: there’s some discussion about whether you should refresh a black arrow before firing a explosive shot- I believe that my way is slightly more DPS, but if you’re more inclined to reverse the priority, knock yourself out. They’re really close.
- Black arrow (don’t forget to train all ranks!!) is the way we get our hard hitting lock and load. It’s also a shadow damage over time spell, and will magnify all damage you do by 6%. It comes off cooldown every 24 seconds assuming you’re specced right, and lasts for 15 seconds per shot. As of patch 3.2, the internal cooldown on lock and load has been set to 22 seconds, however every tick of black arrow outside this cooldown looks like it has a 20% chance to proc.
- Serpent sting is a damage over time that, properly specced, will increase the damage you do to the mob by 3%. Also, assuming you have the right glyph, it increases your steady shot damage.
- Aimed shot (single target) and multi-shot (multi-target) share a cooldown, and both do more damage than steady shot. Importantly- multi-shot is not getting a 6% buff from sniper training if you’re standing still where aimed will. However, for a small extra mana cost and a short cast time that prevents you from moving, you get the ability to up to triple your shot damage if there are adds that you’re allowed to hit. In fact, many builds skip aimed shot in favor of another point in another talent that returns more DPS. If you have the 4 piece T8 bonus, this becomes even more of a DPS boost because more steady shots means more procs of precision shots.
- Steady shot is the lowest priority shot, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it. You can’t move while using it, but it can proc bonuses for us, and on a stand still fight over time, this shot can be a significant portion of your DPS.
Some general tips:
- If you notice a lock and load proc (for example, using the power auras addon), fire three explosive shots in a row. Don’t fire them back to back though, or else you will be “clipping” the last tick of the damage over time and costing yourself a third of your damage. Fire them exactly 2 seconds apart. That’s 0.5 seconds after the global cooldown finishes. I use the Quartz addon, so have a quartz command “/qt ESDot 2″ macroed into my explosive shot. This displays a small 2 second cooldown bar that will tell me when it’s safe to fire the next shot without wasting that last tick.
- Always be aware of your remaining cooldowns- it’s ok to wait 0.2 seconds for explosive or black arrow to come off cooldown instead of firing a steady shot.
- It’s not ok to wait 1.2 seconds for them- even a steady shot is worth more than 20% of an explosive shot.
Ok, that looks like it for now. As always, keep me honest in the comments.
i guess it’s okay to talk about farming eternals or selling stuff… but that’s the kind of information i am looking for in a hunter blog. great article- as always.
Two questions for you: how to use the new sniper training – wasn’t able to test it yet but is it possible to keep it up in a mobile encounter ?
Are Ulduar bosses trackable ?
Heh, I write about farming eternals when I can’t think of anything about PvE hunters to write. I have committed to one post a day, but I’ll tell you- the writer’s block will get you.
As for your questions: No matter whether you’re in combat or not, if you stand still for 6 seconds, you get the sniper training buff. You also keep it if you move. And some of the ulduar bosses are trackable, but not all of them.
“Don’t fire them back to back though, or else you will be “clipping” the last tick of the damage over time and costing yourself a third of your damage. Fire them exactly 2 seconds apart. That’s 1.5 seconds after the global cooldown finishes.”
Possible typo — Isn’t that 0.5 seconds after the GCD?
Great explanation of the shot priority — makes more sense than anything I have seen on the topic.
Absolute typo. Thanks :)
Nice write-up as always. This is pretty much the rotation I’m using, except that I’ve been choosing to refresh Black Arrow before firing Explosive Shot.
The hardest thing I find to do is weave in Steady Shots. I’m wondering if I should take a point out of Hunting party and put it in Hawk (I currently have a 0/15/56 build).
Also, what are you using for glyphs? I’m planning to go with Explosive Shot, Serpent Sting and Steady Shot. I’m giving some thought to dumping Steady Shot glyph for Kill Shot. The problem with Kill Shot is that it only seems worth having if it nets you an extra shot in a fight.
My glyphs are linked in the build- the new wowhead calculator has a spot for them. And indeed, I will be using explosive shot, steady shot, and serpent sting. For now. I might switch one out for kill shot to see how it changes my DPS though.
I just wanted to say thank you.
My DPS has doubled thanks to your help.
BM was great for leveling, but I wasn’t pulling my weight when I grouped.
Now all I need is gear that gold can’t buy.
Glad to hear that! No go find an arms warrior and tell him off.
Steady shot glyph or serpent sting glyph! Which one to pick? x_x I see top guilds like ensidia putting serpent sting glyph instead of steady shot…Any reasons why? thanks!
Nope. I’ve never had the serpent sting one come first in the DPS spreadsheet, and even just reasoning it out, it’s clearly inferior. The serpent sting glyph allows you to spend less global cooldowns on refreshing the sting, however because we prioritize the sting before only aimed/multi and steady shot, those global cooldowns aren’t worth that much DPS. The glyph of steady shot, however, gives us a 10% boost to a third of our damage.
Could you give me your thoughts on this statement by an Ensidia hunter:
Serpent sting vs steady shot basically just boils down to that with serpent sting glyph you free up extra global cooldowns. Those can then be used for direct damage attacks that do more damage than the increase you would gain on steady shot. Regarding minor glyphs, there is just nothing else for pve.
that may be because he’s prioritizing stings before explosive shot or black arrow. Myself, I’ll fire those two before I refresh a sting, which means the only shots I’m pushing back are steady shots. I don’t think (and I will have to do some math later to make sure of this) that I lose as much damage by pushing a few steady shots off the table as I would by reducing their DPS by 10%.
Mate – first off great blog. I have rerolled a hunter and this has been a god send for information and novel stories =)
Now I have an issue with my Explosive shots… I can’t get the following macro to work:
/qt ESDot 2
/cast Explosive Shot
I have bound it to my explosive shot button and my normal 6 second countdown appears but when I get LnL I don’t get a 2,1,0 countdown. Nothing shows. Any ideas? I am currently just trying to guess, time my shots.
Try typing “/qt esdot 2″ into chat and see (a) whether you get a cooldown bar, and (b) where it goes. If you dont get a bar, then reinstall or update quartz. My bar was on the top left, just beside the party frames.
you can also get the addon “needtoknow” and set one bar to “Explosive shot” so you see the 2sec duration .
Cheers guys!
The only problem with this method is that it starts ticking when the debuff gets applied, while you would ideally fire the next one two seconds after the shot is fired, regardless of the flight time.
True, its not optimal dps, but better than being to early:P.
Ahh legend, a cooldown bar not a counter on my spell.
Such a nub mistake. Thanks man.
I thought this was great i went from not knowing what to do and oing 3k dps to 4.5k+ ty for the help :]
Welcome!
I just want to say, when LnL procs, my rotation is ES,MS,ES,ST,ES and then back to my normal rotation. During that time period LnL+GCD give me enough time to use those skills in between my Explosive Shots, And therefore increasing my dps.
It’s been shown that you’ll actually get more DPS by firing 3 explosives in a row, waiting just long enough for them to finish ticking.
i read about aim shot will lower down your dps …
izzit true ?
—
ya and also …. some webside said that firing 3 ES in a row is not better …
bit confussing now
Aimed shot does not lower your DPS, but it may not raise it as much as you think. It’s a little better than multi shot (with which it shares a cooldown) on single target.
Firing 3 explosive shots in a row is the goal, but you have to make sure not to overwrite the last tick of the DoT. You fire, wait 2 seconds (which is the GCD plus half a second), fire again, wait another 2 seconds, and fire again. To help with this, use quartz and add the following line to your explosive shot macro: “/qt esdot 2″
U are really helpfull :)
i like learning things here ^^
thanks so much …
—–
Will OmniCC help in creating the same explosive shot macro ?
cos i’m using that add on ….
Sorry, I don’t know if omnicc can do that. I do know that the /qt part of the macro is quartz specific, and if any other addon has a command for “show a 2 second cooldown” it probably won’t be with the quartz “/qt” command.
Although aimed shot lowers your overall dps. In most raid situations and pvp situations aimed shot still has benefits that are more important that actual damage. It lowers the amount of healing the target receives by 50% for 10 seconds. Somethings still need to be more important than your own dps scores. Making sure bosses/trash/enemy players receive less healing makes them dies faster than a few extra damage points.
thanks for this, but doesnt it take around half a second for your shots to reach the target if your max distance? so does that matter in the DPS stuff with explosive shot?
Assuming the distance is the same for all three shots, it shouldn’t change anything. You fire the shots two seconds apart, and they’ll land two seconds apart.
i find myself with DPS probs all the time.
I followed the Shot rotatio Strategies from here an a few other sites as well.
I have good gear, ( 4940 gear score), but my dps lets me down all the time. I get really annoyed at the number of times I have been group kicked because of this.
No one in my guild can help me as it has fallen apart,(not because of me)and people in PUGS are very intolerant and verbally abrasive too.
My last episode was pulling 1.9k dps in totc, so off to the Iroforge training dummies for some practice and could only manage 2.8k.
If anyone can suggest what exactly it is I am doing wrong then please do.
If your rotation is done well, and you’ve specced right, then you shouldn’t be seeing that low a number. For starters, if you could email me your armory link: outdps at gmail dot com. After these, the next largest factor in your performance will be your knowledge of the fight.
Link is posted to you, thanks for your help
I’m having the same problem. My gear score is 4690, but my dps truly does stink. I’ve changed shot rotation’s several time’s and have looked at my talent tree along with other hunter’s that are putting out nearly 4k in dps. I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong and would love for any help.
For me the problem is solved. It really is down to shot rotation. I now regularly hit 5k dps.
Let one shot play through its cooldown bwefore hitting the next.
Works for me
same here got 5.1k gs and only do 3k dps in hc’s
perfect examples of why gear score means absolutely jack shit. Its what ppl doing 3k and below hide behind,
‘but i got 5k gs and im still shit’. i cud hit all the buttons randomly and still outdps you, jesus u guys are [cendored] bad:<
For (hopefully but probably not) the last time, Gear Score doesnt make u good, from the sounds of it a skilled player wud rape half of you in quest blues. Learn to play your class properly and stop expecting handouts in what is an already parody of it former self/washed out/dumbed down easy game.
Gear Score doesnt mean you are good, I agree.
The point I was making is that I greatly improved my dps by re organising my shot rotation and slowing it down properly to let each of the shots take its proper effect.
Again, when it comes to good players, High dps does not need to mean a good player. There are those who rely on being carried by raiding guilds to get into the high dps brackets.
I have only played in WoW for just over a year withut a guild to speak of and have learned through my mistakes and knowing when and when not to take advice.
I now regularly hit 5k dps and all through proper shot rotation timing .
@Randy: People are here to learn how to play. Nobody starts out with complete knowledge of everything they need. For example: you, apparently, never learned how to write. While this won’t stop you from beating a newbie hunter on patchwerk, it will stop you from being able to post here again if you don’t change your tone when commenting on my blog.
Hi everyone! I saw this website long time ago and forgot to save it. So glad i found it again. I’ve played a hunter for 3 years now, but didnt get a chance to raid until a few months ago. I’ve learned from mistakes, from pulling 600dps in H UK when i first hit 80 before ulduar, to being one of the tops dps in my guild (not top), Ive been gemming agility, enchanting agility, eating agility and i cannot do more than 6k dps on 10man ICC its always between 4-5.5kdps, I am survival Spec and I can pull most of the time 4k in heroics,but i care about raiding, not so much heroics. I’ve played with other hunters that pull 7-8 in 25s and 6-7k in 10man.. they are MM and gem Arp, but I dont have enough Arp to do that yet. Ive ask around and other hunters just tell me “Send pet, autoshot and AFK” that doesnt help me at all. Also asked around in other websites and noone ever replied. Id love some advice. Maybe is something small im ignoring.. maybe something bigger, I dont think is the gear, ive had hunters with tier8 outdps before. Here is the link to my character http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Velen&n=Sheccid My husband plays a rogue and he can pull 1k more dps, our gear is about the same..I dont wanna be third or forth in dps. Any comments or advice will be more than welcome.
I’ve just had a quick 5s look at your armory, 1st thing i noticed, you have far too much +hit. Raid hit cap you only need 242 from memory.
Any thing above 8% is a waste, you do want to stay at 8% tho as pets inherit the hit and expertise only in round numbers (ie just below 8% they’ll round down to 7%)
Maybe swap some hit for something with more haste? Will depend on what other items you have to swap around. I guess the trinket could be something you could look for an alternative: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50198 or maybe the old mirror of truth. I’m sure someone can recommend a better item.
You caught me when I logged out without some gems and enchants too- I just got some upgrades and haven’t been able to finish getting my setup done. As for the hit, it’s 230 for a Draenei, however I’m caught in a weird position where there is now way I can get under hit cap without trading more DPS than I am wasting on hit :\
It looks to me like you’re stuck in the gear score mind set. Mark of Supremacy is an awful trinket for someone as far over the hit cap as you. Swap it for a Mirror of Truth which provides crit instead of hit. The Mirror will proc about once per minute which nets you the same overall AP bonus as the Mark. It may be an ilevel 200 item, but it’s worth more dps than that 245 trinket you’re using. Also, I would trade your chest for the T9 chest. You’re losing a lot of dps without the T9 2 piece bonus. Even the 232 T9 chest will net you more dps than the 245 chest you’re wearing. As a final note I would change the enchant on your boots to +16 agi. 16 agi is worth more than 12 crit and you certainly don’t need the hit.
I should have said swap your helmet for the T9 piece. It’s stats are itemized better for MM, which is your current spec. You also have the wrong meta gem. You should be using the 21agi/3%crit gem along with a Nightmare Tear somewhere in your gear to activate it. On a side note your current meta isn’t active. You don’t have 2 blues so it’s not doing anything for you.
Hi again! about hit.. all i can think of is replacing boots enchant from icewalker to agility, thats the only enchant i got with soem hit, other than that cant change head or shoulders.. im hoping to get the Arp trinket and give it a try on MM ive used MM once in first boss ICC 10 and saw a decrease on my dps , minor.. and well still gem agility wondering if i should gem Arp :/ although i only have 387 Arp atm. im getting more upgrades but not top dps or damage yet >.> second or third in 10s and 25s by rogue and warlock >;( http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Velen&n=Sheccid more comments, advice anything to help a fellow hunter here XD will be appreciate it thanks!
My comments above were actually for you Shecc.
A couple more notes as I dig deeper. I would swap the Hawk glyph for Kill Shot. I find that I get a few more kill shots per fight with that glyph which usually nets me more dps than the little extra haste from Hawk. I would also strongly urge you to get the feign death minor glyph. Feign death gets resisted occasionally and reducing the CD by 5 seconds can be a massive help in those situations.
Hey, thanks for the tips but i have a problem, in ICC 25 I pull around 6k dps but I have noticed that there are other hunters that have almost the same gear as me but pull over 10k dps, does rotation really make that much difference in raids and/or PvP???
Yes, and in addition to rotation, overall cooldown usage plays a part. Make sure that your use something every single global cooldown.
Been reading through this blog, a lot of good tips, was wondering how you suggest getting rid of some hit on this toon? Im way over and it sure seems a waste. Any toher suggestions on glyphs or spec would be appreciated.
managing hit is hard. The best thing to do is not go over it much in the first place, but that means being selective with the gear you roll on.