Nassira’s post got me to thinking about silencing shot. Her point is that it should never be macroed, and always cast manually, and that the utility of the ability is more important to the raid than the DPS.
I agree that its utility is good, but I still macro it to my shots. I just do it in such a way that I can not fire it if I choose, and have it keybound for manual firing should I ever be assigned a part in a silence rotation.
Here’s the line I use to fire it in my MM macro:
/cast [nomod] Silencing Shot
If I hold down any button (alt, ctrl, etc), I no longer fire silencing shots automatically. I have silencing shot keybound, and I have another macro keybound for silencing my focus:
#showtooltip Silencing Shot
/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus] Silencing Shot
Make sure your raid leader knows that marks hunters have a silence, but don’t stop firing this if you don’t have a specific target. It’s 40 DPS for one talent point.
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Hunters in my raid are rarely part of an interrupt rotation due to the fact that our casts really are not instant casts…meaning the time for it to get to the boss at a certain distance is random. Therefore I am a strong believer in keeping my silencing shot with my other shots and leave interruptions to the rogues/dks/etc., except on Vezax of course, which is what 1/14 bosses in Ulduar?
Even better… stay SV, and let some MM hunter in the raid worry about this. I’ve got BA, SS, and shots that take priority. LOL. (Having some fun with this one guys…)
I don’t like macroing shots in, myself… I’d rather hit everything manually, whether the utility is needed or not. I find it annoying if anything I actually need is on cooldown (eg. traps vs Black Arrow) because I’ve accidentally hit the wrong key.
It all comes down to playstyle- I almost never get called on to use silencing shot, and I want to make sure I never forget to fire it. That and I have a lot of shots to manage already.
Ability with 20s cooldown is not an utility interrupt. It only makes sense to use silencing shot as an interrupt in:
1) PvP
2) when melee can’t interrupt (which is very rare)
Using it as interrupt on fights like Razorscale(???) is waste of time and talent points.