I know, I haven’t posted in a very long time. I’ve been busy. What have I been being? Leveling my new Shaman. Yup, he was idle for a while, but for the last few weeks, I’ve been concentrating on him unless I’m raiding.
The problem is that with Erwinor, I’ve basically capped him out as far as I can short of heroic badge gear and raiding. I’m exalted with all the factions that I truly care to be exalted with, I have all my heroic keys, 375 leatherworking and engineering, I’ve crafted my epic goggles and Ebon Netherscale set. Given, I’m not exalted with Honor hold, Cenaurian Expedition, and Keepers of Time. I really don’t see that the payoffs are worth the effort.
So I decided to grab one of my alts, dust him off, and get him up to 70 and endgame. Why a Shammy? Well, after a pug run in Shadow Labyrinth when I was a wee little just turned 70 and still wearing almost all quest greens hunter. I got invited to the run by another hunter that I teamed up with in Shadowmoon Valley earlier that day. The group was a Warrior tanking, me and the other hunter, and two Shaman, one elemental, one resto. It was my first exposure to a Shaman at level 70.
All I have to say was that I was impressed. First thing I noticed, before the first pull, was a new buff I’d never seen before. Grace of Air. Hmm, what’s that?
OMFG!!!!!
WTF!!!!!
BBQ!!!!!
77 agility!?!?!?!?! All from one buff!!!!!!!!!! I was taken right there. That one totem was my definition of true Hunter Love. Already I was excited about this run. And it turns out that that was one of the best SL runs I’ve been on, given it took 2 attempts at Grandmaster Vorpil and that was the only problem we had. No loot worth talking about. But I was hooked.
Made a Shammy that night. He got a bit dusty while Erwinor was grinding rep, raiding, etc. but lately I’ve been running out things to do. Then with patch 2.3 and the experience adjustments, I decided that it was time for me to bring up an alt. Erwinor’s dailies would be more than enough to support him, so I wouldn’t have to worry about making money for my mount training, hitting the AH to upgrade his gear every 5-10 levels, etc.
And so now here we are. Everyone, meet Tancameron, Tancameron, meet everyone.
He’s currently specced Enhance, but by the time he hits 70, or maybe once he hits 70, I’m respeccing him to Resto. I haven’t decided when I’m going to switch. I figure my options with him are
1: Respec right now.
2: Stay Enhance until I get in a group that needs a healer and then respec.
3: Wait till 70 and then respec.
#1 will mean I’ll have a longer time questing on my own but I’ll be ready for an instance. And I figure I’ll be looking to get into them as soon as possible to help me gear up.
#2 is almost like #1 but I won’t be as used to the spec when I first get into an instance.
And #3 means that I’m less likely to get into an instance, but I’ll be much faster in my questing.
Well, that's for another blog.
The Totem Dropper
Friday, December 14, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Quartz Addon
If I could only choose one addon, Quartz would be the one I would pick. On the surface, it’s a timer addon. But once you set it up, I can give you a wealth of information. For a hunter, it’s possibly the best performance enhancer you can find.
You get it at WowAce.
First off, it’s a cast bar. In addition to the normal cast bar, it also includes a Auto Shot/Auto Attack (for the lesser classes) cast bar. For a hunter and their shot rotation, these two combined can be a great asset in developing and maintaining a shot rotation. I’ve spent quite a bit of time visiting Dr. Boom and literally staring at the combined cast bars timing my shots and ensuring that I’m not clipping, maximizing my DPS, etc. When I first switched to a Survival spec, this addon is what led me find out that using Arcane and Multi as soon as they were up was actually hurting my DPS, because I was able to watch both my Steady and Auto Shot timers and compare them. Basically the global cooldown was pushing the third Steady in my Auto-Steady-Multi-Auto-Steady-Arcane-Auto-Steady rotation back far enough that it was clipping the next Auto. Without Quartz, I probably would have never known. But enough about that, even though it is a big deal to hunters, the lesser classes are probably getting bored so we can talk shop later. :D
The next thing that Quartz does is what sets it into my list of MUST HAVE addons, is the debuff timers. Not only will they track your debuffs (and only yours, so you don’t have to look through a huge list to find yours) on your target, but it also does the same for your focus target (am I the only one thinking about chain trapping?) With Quartz, and a single glance, I can tell how long my hunters mark, scorpid sting have left on my main target, but also how long my focus is going to remain an ice cube. As a BM hunter this info is a great help in determining what your next move is while chain trapping. And for any class that can be called upon to do CC, or for that matter any class that will be responsible for keeping a debuff up, this can help out.
And just so you know, type “/quartz” to get to the configure menu.
You get it at WowAce.
First off, it’s a cast bar. In addition to the normal cast bar, it also includes a Auto Shot/Auto Attack (for the lesser classes) cast bar. For a hunter and their shot rotation, these two combined can be a great asset in developing and maintaining a shot rotation. I’ve spent quite a bit of time visiting Dr. Boom and literally staring at the combined cast bars timing my shots and ensuring that I’m not clipping, maximizing my DPS, etc. When I first switched to a Survival spec, this addon is what led me find out that using Arcane and Multi as soon as they were up was actually hurting my DPS, because I was able to watch both my Steady and Auto Shot timers and compare them. Basically the global cooldown was pushing the third Steady in my Auto-Steady-Multi-Auto-Steady-Arcane-Auto-Steady rotation back far enough that it was clipping the next Auto. Without Quartz, I probably would have never known. But enough about that, even though it is a big deal to hunters, the lesser classes are probably getting bored so we can talk shop later. :D
The next thing that Quartz does is what sets it into my list of MUST HAVE addons, is the debuff timers. Not only will they track your debuffs (and only yours, so you don’t have to look through a huge list to find yours) on your target, but it also does the same for your focus target (am I the only one thinking about chain trapping?) With Quartz, and a single glance, I can tell how long my hunters mark, scorpid sting have left on my main target, but also how long my focus is going to remain an ice cube. As a BM hunter this info is a great help in determining what your next move is while chain trapping. And for any class that can be called upon to do CC, or for that matter any class that will be responsible for keeping a debuff up, this can help out.
And just so you know, type “/quartz” to get to the configure menu.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Group Buffs
Each of the three talent trees for hunters have a group buff. For Beast Mastery, it’s Ferocious Inspiration. For Marksman, it’s Trueshot Aura. And for Survival, it’s Expose Weakness.
Ferocious Inspiration: Requires 30 points in Beast Mastery Talents
Tooltip at 3/3: When you pet scores a critical hit, all party members have all damage increased by 3% for 10 sec.
OK, lets look at that, first, your pet has to crit, which means that you want your pet to attack as often as possible. This can be achieved with the pet talent Cobra Reflexes, the BM Serpents Swiftness, having a pet with a focus dump attack (claw, gore, lightning breath) and feeding it focus through the BM talent Bestial Discipline and the MM talent Go for the Throat. You can also increase you pet’s crit rate with the BM talent Ferocity. Next, what does you and your group get? A 3% increase to all party members’ damage for 10 seconds after each of your pet crits. This is the only group buff that helps caster types, as it buffs ALL damage. And so to get the most benefit from FI, you could be in a group of casters.
5-mans: Since FI affects all damage, it is very effective in a 5-man, about the only person it won’t help is the healer.
Raids: For this buff to be effective, the BM hunter needs to be grouped with the heavy hitters, basically the top 5 people on the damage meter (one of which is the BM hunter :p)
Expose Weakness: Requires 5 points in Lightning Reflexes, Requires 30 points in Survival Talents
Tooltip at 3/3: Your ranged criticals have a 100% chance to apply an expose weakness effect to the target. Expose Weakness increases the attack power of all attackers against that target by 25% of your Agility for 7 sec.
OK, so what do you need? One crit every 7 seconds, so if you are using a decent shot rotation, you should be pumping out 5-7 shots every 7 seconds, so you really don’t need that high of a crit % to keep it up. But just to be on the safe side, and hitting those crit-strings is so much fun, let’s get all the crit we can. The Survival talent Killer Instincts can give you 3%, the Marksman talent Lethal Shots can give you 5%. The rest has to come from agility and crit rating. Agility converts at approximately 40 Agi=1% crit, and crit rating at approximately 22 crit rating=1% crit. So now that we’re making sure that we crit as often as we can, what do we do to maximize our buff? Agility, Agility, Agility. This is the one group buff that the hunter’s stats affect the buff, 25% of your agility is turned into attack power for everyone in the RAID. Yup, as well as being the only one that the hunter can increase the buff on, it’s also the only one that affects an entire raid. How? It’s actually a debuff on the mob, it will affect anyone attacking a mob with the debuff. Whether you’re grouped or not.
5-mans: because it only grants attack power, this one is heavily dependant on the group makeup. In a melee heavy group (feral druid, rogue, enh. shammy, warrior, ret pally, other hunters) it is great, but mages, warlocks, elem shammys, shadow priests, and boomkins gain nothing for their spells.
Raids: Potentially the biggest raid buff, plus grouping is relatively unimportant because this is actually a debuff on the mob rather than a buff on players. And the more physical damage dealers there are, the bigger the buff the raid gets.
Trueshot Aura: Requires 1 point in Scatter Shot, Requires 30 points in Marksmanship Talents
Tooltip at 1/1: Increases the Ranged and Melee Attack Power of party members within 45 yards by 125. Lasts 30 min.
I’m sorry, I mean no offence to any MM hunters, but you guys got shafted in the buff area. 125 AP. No help to the casters like BM, and it doesn’t scale off stats like Surv. 125 AP is approximately 9 “white” dps. For FI to beat the buff, the person needs to maintain only 300 dps, not very difficult at the raiding level. And a Surv hunter only needs 500 Agility to provide a 125 AP EW.
5-mans: about the same as a 500 Agi Surv hunter.
Raids: I’m not sure whether this one will affect all raid members or just the MM hunter’s party members. Whichever it is, don’t invite a MM hunter for the buff, invite them for the heavy hitting DPS that they can do, the buff is just icing on the cake.
Ferocious Inspiration: Requires 30 points in Beast Mastery Talents
Tooltip at 3/3: When you pet scores a critical hit, all party members have all damage increased by 3% for 10 sec.
OK, lets look at that, first, your pet has to crit, which means that you want your pet to attack as often as possible. This can be achieved with the pet talent Cobra Reflexes, the BM Serpents Swiftness, having a pet with a focus dump attack (claw, gore, lightning breath) and feeding it focus through the BM talent Bestial Discipline and the MM talent Go for the Throat. You can also increase you pet’s crit rate with the BM talent Ferocity. Next, what does you and your group get? A 3% increase to all party members’ damage for 10 seconds after each of your pet crits. This is the only group buff that helps caster types, as it buffs ALL damage. And so to get the most benefit from FI, you could be in a group of casters.
5-mans: Since FI affects all damage, it is very effective in a 5-man, about the only person it won’t help is the healer.
Raids: For this buff to be effective, the BM hunter needs to be grouped with the heavy hitters, basically the top 5 people on the damage meter (one of which is the BM hunter :p)
Expose Weakness: Requires 5 points in Lightning Reflexes, Requires 30 points in Survival Talents
Tooltip at 3/3: Your ranged criticals have a 100% chance to apply an expose weakness effect to the target. Expose Weakness increases the attack power of all attackers against that target by 25% of your Agility for 7 sec.
OK, so what do you need? One crit every 7 seconds, so if you are using a decent shot rotation, you should be pumping out 5-7 shots every 7 seconds, so you really don’t need that high of a crit % to keep it up. But just to be on the safe side, and hitting those crit-strings is so much fun, let’s get all the crit we can. The Survival talent Killer Instincts can give you 3%, the Marksman talent Lethal Shots can give you 5%. The rest has to come from agility and crit rating. Agility converts at approximately 40 Agi=1% crit, and crit rating at approximately 22 crit rating=1% crit. So now that we’re making sure that we crit as often as we can, what do we do to maximize our buff? Agility, Agility, Agility. This is the one group buff that the hunter’s stats affect the buff, 25% of your agility is turned into attack power for everyone in the RAID. Yup, as well as being the only one that the hunter can increase the buff on, it’s also the only one that affects an entire raid. How? It’s actually a debuff on the mob, it will affect anyone attacking a mob with the debuff. Whether you’re grouped or not.
5-mans: because it only grants attack power, this one is heavily dependant on the group makeup. In a melee heavy group (feral druid, rogue, enh. shammy, warrior, ret pally, other hunters) it is great, but mages, warlocks, elem shammys, shadow priests, and boomkins gain nothing for their spells.
Raids: Potentially the biggest raid buff, plus grouping is relatively unimportant because this is actually a debuff on the mob rather than a buff on players. And the more physical damage dealers there are, the bigger the buff the raid gets.
Trueshot Aura: Requires 1 point in Scatter Shot, Requires 30 points in Marksmanship Talents
Tooltip at 1/1: Increases the Ranged and Melee Attack Power of party members within 45 yards by 125. Lasts 30 min.
I’m sorry, I mean no offence to any MM hunters, but you guys got shafted in the buff area. 125 AP. No help to the casters like BM, and it doesn’t scale off stats like Surv. 125 AP is approximately 9 “white” dps. For FI to beat the buff, the person needs to maintain only 300 dps, not very difficult at the raiding level. And a Surv hunter only needs 500 Agility to provide a 125 AP EW.
5-mans: about the same as a 500 Agi Surv hunter.
Raids: I’m not sure whether this one will affect all raid members or just the MM hunter’s party members. Whichever it is, don’t invite a MM hunter for the buff, invite them for the heavy hitting DPS that they can do, the buff is just icing on the cake.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Chain trapping videos-part 2
OK, now for the fun part of chain trapping. Doing it while farming. I was out by Toshley's Station farming ravager flesh and leveling my new kitten in this new vid. The things to notice in this one are the positioning and camera movement, I use the exact same techniques in the vid as I do in instances.
Chain_trap_ravager.wmv
And I know, I was only using auto shot in this one, my poor kitty was only 64, I can't expect too much threat from her, so I had to lay off. On the good news, about 15 minutes after the vid, she dinged 65 :D
Chain_trap_ravager.wmv
And I know, I was only using auto shot in this one, my poor kitty was only 64, I can't expect too much threat from her, so I had to lay off. On the good news, about 15 minutes after the vid, she dinged 65 :D
Chain trapping videos
OK, first off, I'd like to thank Big Red Kitty for giving me the idea of making videos and for the idea of trapping a raptor through Refugee Pointe.
In the first video, I'm running a raptor through Refugee Pointe. This video demonstrates the basics of trapping. I use distance and Concussive Shot to keep the raptor controlled between traps and to give my trap cooldown time. Another thing to notice is that while the raptor is trapped, I am firing Distractiing Shot at it. DS does not break the trap and rank 7 creates 900 threat per shot.
Raptor.wmv
Hoped you liked it. Next one will be me farming ravagers around Toshley's Station while trapping a ravager.
In the first video, I'm running a raptor through Refugee Pointe. This video demonstrates the basics of trapping. I use distance and Concussive Shot to keep the raptor controlled between traps and to give my trap cooldown time. Another thing to notice is that while the raptor is trapped, I am firing Distractiing Shot at it. DS does not break the trap and rank 7 creates 900 threat per shot.
Raptor.wmv
Hoped you liked it. Next one will be me farming ravagers around Toshley's Station while trapping a ravager.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Macros-Target types
[target=xxx]
So what is it you want to target? With the targetting ability of macros, you can cast a spell, use an ability, fire a shot, or whatever at a predefined target without changing what you are currently targetting. I touched on this briefly with my trapping entry. By assinging a mob as my focus (using /assign focus), I am able to target this mob with macros, without losing my target on the current DPS target.
For example:
/cast [target=focus] Distracting Shot
This would cast distracting shot at my focus target, while not causing me to lose whatever target I have. This does two things for me, it allows me to maintain threat on my assigned trap mob incase the healer lands the OMGWTFBBQ crit heal while my mob is going from one trap to the next, also lets me do it in a way that prevents me from accidentally launching an Auto Shot into the mob while it is currently trapped (yes, because Distracting shot causes no damage, it is safe to use on CC'ed mobs), and I can do it all without spending time targetting my trapped mob, firing the shot, then retargetting the dps mob. Not bad for a pair of macros.
And now for the various types of targets that you can use. No this is not going to be a complete list, these are the ones that I find useful and have used/are using.
target
[target=target] this one is only useful if you have a pet and it is attacking something that you aren't. Otherwise, this one is assumed if there is no target definition. /cast Steady Shot is the same as /cast [target=target] Steady Shot.
targetlasttarget
I personally haven't used this one but I thought I would mention it, it will target the last target, friendly or hostile, that you had.
pet
Only time I use this is with Misdirection. Otherwise, everything else that I do to my pet is pet specific (Mend Pet, Feed Pet, etc.)
pettarget
Just like it sounds, this will target your pet's target. I use it when grinding/farming with the command startattack, that way, when one mob goes down, unless I have a specific kill order in mind, I just this macro and I'm on the mob that my pet is building threat on.
/startattack [target=pettarget]
focus
The CC target type. I already covered this one's use in that role. There are other ways to use focus but for me, focus makes chaintrapping so much easier and more effecient that I wouldn't want to tie up my focus target with anything else.
mouseover
Yes, you can target something just by hovering your mouse over it. This is how my squishy saver macro works.
/petattack [target=mouseover]
/cast [pet=boar] Charge (this one is a conditional, not a target)
/cast Intimidation
So I just have to run my mouse over a mob that is thumping on my healer, hit the hotkey, my pet will go over and attack it, if my pett is a boar, it will charge over, and I will cast Intimidation. Once again, without changing my current target.
Just make sure you assign this macro to a hotkey, it won't work if you move your mouse to a hotbar to click it :p
Do you cast Misdirection on your tank alot? If so, this one is definately for you.
/cast [target=JoeSnuffy] Misdirection
It's another one of those that makes things like misdirection much quicker, no major mouse movement, one click/button press, and you're done, I like this when running instances so I can start as many fights with a misdirect onto the tank as I can efficiently. And this only takes a minute to redo for every time you get a new tank.
An exceellent example of this target type aiding you is The Curator in Kara, As a hunter, it is my job to burn down the Astral Flares as fast as possible. And by spamming this macro after I kill each Flare, targetting the next one is easy.
/target Astral
/petattack
/startattack
OK, I'm sure you noticed that 1) I changed the format, there's no {} or = in the target macro, and 2) what if you have a toon named Astral in the raid.
For #1, this format will cause you to switch you target completely.
For #2, you could use this format
/target [target=Astral Flare]
/petattack
/startattack
Also, starting in patch 2.3, you will be able to use [targetexact=xxx] if there is a possibility of the macro targetting a raid member instead of your desired target.
So what is it you want to target? With the targetting ability of macros, you can cast a spell, use an ability, fire a shot, or whatever at a predefined target without changing what you are currently targetting. I touched on this briefly with my trapping entry. By assinging a mob as my focus (using /assign focus), I am able to target this mob with macros, without losing my target on the current DPS target.
For example:
/cast [target=focus] Distracting Shot
This would cast distracting shot at my focus target, while not causing me to lose whatever target I have. This does two things for me, it allows me to maintain threat on my assigned trap mob incase the healer lands the OMGWTFBBQ crit heal while my mob is going from one trap to the next, also lets me do it in a way that prevents me from accidentally launching an Auto Shot into the mob while it is currently trapped (yes, because Distracting shot causes no damage, it is safe to use on CC'ed mobs), and I can do it all without spending time targetting my trapped mob, firing the shot, then retargetting the dps mob. Not bad for a pair of macros.
And now for the various types of targets that you can use. No this is not going to be a complete list, these are the ones that I find useful and have used/are using.
target
[target=target] this one is only useful if you have a pet and it is attacking something that you aren't. Otherwise, this one is assumed if there is no target definition. /cast Steady Shot is the same as /cast [target=target] Steady Shot.
targetlasttarget
I personally haven't used this one but I thought I would mention it, it will target the last target, friendly or hostile, that you had.
pet
Only time I use this is with Misdirection. Otherwise, everything else that I do to my pet is pet specific (Mend Pet, Feed Pet, etc.)
pettarget
Just like it sounds, this will target your pet's target. I use it when grinding/farming with the command startattack, that way, when one mob goes down, unless I have a specific kill order in mind, I just this macro and I'm on the mob that my pet is building threat on.
/startattack [target=pettarget]
focus
The CC target type. I already covered this one's use in that role. There are other ways to use focus but for me, focus makes chaintrapping so much easier and more effecient that I wouldn't want to tie up my focus target with anything else.
mouseover
Yes, you can target something just by hovering your mouse over it. This is how my squishy saver macro works.
/petattack [target=mouseover]
/cast [pet=boar] Charge (this one is a conditional, not a target)
/cast Intimidation
So I just have to run my mouse over a mob that is thumping on my healer, hit the hotkey, my pet will go over and attack it, if my pett is a boar, it will charge over, and I will cast Intimidation. Once again, without changing my current target.
Just make sure you assign this macro to a hotkey, it won't work if you move your mouse to a hotbar to click it :p
Do you cast Misdirection on your tank alot? If so, this one is definately for you.
/cast [target=JoeSnuffy] Misdirection
It's another one of those that makes things like misdirection much quicker, no major mouse movement, one click/button press, and you're done, I like this when running instances so I can start as many fights with a misdirect onto the tank as I can efficiently. And this only takes a minute to redo for every time you get a new tank.
An exceellent example of this target type aiding you is The Curator in Kara, As a hunter, it is my job to burn down the Astral Flares as fast as possible. And by spamming this macro after I kill each Flare, targetting the next one is easy.
/target Astral
/petattack
/startattack
OK, I'm sure you noticed that 1) I changed the format, there's no {} or = in the target macro, and 2) what if you have a toon named Astral in the raid.
For #1, this format will cause you to switch you target completely.
For #2, you could use this format
/target [target=Astral Flare]
/petattack
/startattack
Also, starting in patch 2.3, you will be able to use [targetexact=xxx] if there is a possibility of the macro targetting a raid member instead of your desired target.
Monday, September 17, 2007
20 points that no DPS hunter can live without
OK, first off, this is only my opinion. NO I'm not going to give you a point by point breakdown on how these talents will affect you in situation x with gear y and against mob z. And just because I don't start every sentence off with "It's my opinion that....." just assume that it's there.
There are 3 talents in the marksman tree that are so good that no hunter DPS build should be without. Those three are Lethal Shots, Go for the Throat and Mortal Shots.
With 5/5 in Lethal shots you get 5% increase in critical strike chance with ranged weapons. That's a big increase and the only other talent that compares is Killer Instinct in the Survival tree, which requires 20 points in Survival to unlock and is only a 3 point talent. 5% more crits is essentially 5% more DPS by itself, and that not counting the bonus damage from Mortal Shots, but more on that later.
Go for the Throat is all for your pet, with 2/2 it gives your pet 50 focus every time you crit, and remember, you have that 5% increase in crits from Lethal shots, so your pet can pump out more DPS. This is of course assuming that your pet has either claw, gore, or scorpid poison to dump all that focus into. If your pet doesn't have one of these three, all that focus will probably go to waste.
And last but not least, Mortal Shots. This one increases you crit damage by 30% with 5/5.
Here's a bit of an example of the value of these talents. I'm just making up the numbers for damage as I go. Hunter A doesn't have any of these talents, he has 20% crit rating. He goes out, and over time, 1 in 5 shots crits for 1000 damage. Now that same hunter respecs and gets these three talents. goes back out and this time, 1 in 4 shots crit for 1300 AND his cat/ravager/scorpid/rapter/boar is launching claw/gore/scorpid poison attacks like crazy. Now lets look at the math. In 100 shots without these talents, our hunter gets 80 normal attacks for 500 damage each, 20 crits for 1000 damage each and his pet gets nothing extra. For a total of 60000 damage. With the talents he'll get 75 normal at 500, 25 crit at 1300, and his pet will have 1250 extra focus to DPS with. Total, without pet damage: 70000 damage. An increase of 16.7% in the hunters DPS. And i'm not going to bother with the increase in pet DPS because that would change depending on what pet you have.
What you use the other 7 (you have to get Aimed Shot to open up Mortal shots) is your option, there are a few good talents there that can help you depending on what you want/need.
There are 3 talents in the marksman tree that are so good that no hunter DPS build should be without. Those three are Lethal Shots, Go for the Throat and Mortal Shots.
With 5/5 in Lethal shots you get 5% increase in critical strike chance with ranged weapons. That's a big increase and the only other talent that compares is Killer Instinct in the Survival tree, which requires 20 points in Survival to unlock and is only a 3 point talent. 5% more crits is essentially 5% more DPS by itself, and that not counting the bonus damage from Mortal Shots, but more on that later.
Go for the Throat is all for your pet, with 2/2 it gives your pet 50 focus every time you crit, and remember, you have that 5% increase in crits from Lethal shots, so your pet can pump out more DPS. This is of course assuming that your pet has either claw, gore, or scorpid poison to dump all that focus into. If your pet doesn't have one of these three, all that focus will probably go to waste.
And last but not least, Mortal Shots. This one increases you crit damage by 30% with 5/5.
Here's a bit of an example of the value of these talents. I'm just making up the numbers for damage as I go. Hunter A doesn't have any of these talents, he has 20% crit rating. He goes out, and over time, 1 in 5 shots crits for 1000 damage. Now that same hunter respecs and gets these three talents. goes back out and this time, 1 in 4 shots crit for 1300 AND his cat/ravager/scorpid/rapter/boar is launching claw/gore/scorpid poison attacks like crazy. Now lets look at the math. In 100 shots without these talents, our hunter gets 80 normal attacks for 500 damage each, 20 crits for 1000 damage each and his pet gets nothing extra. For a total of 60000 damage. With the talents he'll get 75 normal at 500, 25 crit at 1300, and his pet will have 1250 extra focus to DPS with. Total, without pet damage: 70000 damage. An increase of 16.7% in the hunters DPS. And i'm not going to bother with the increase in pet DPS because that would change depending on what pet you have.
What you use the other 7 (you have to get Aimed Shot to open up Mortal shots) is your option, there are a few good talents there that can help you depending on what you want/need.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
BM Damage
From the pet right?
Not completely, while a BM's pet is the strongest of the three specs, that is not the only way that a BM hunter is able to do large amounts of damage.
Let me start off by saying that I have nothing against the Marksman or Survival Specs, and this is not in any way an attempt to say that BM is better. I play BM because that is what I like, not because I'm convinced that it is the "best" spec.
So lets look at the talents that a BM hunter has that make the damage fly.
Improved aspect of the Hawk: 5/5 While Aspect of the Hawk is active, all normal ranged attacks have a 10% chance of increasing ranged attack speed by 15% for 12 seconds.
From personal experience (and I could be wrong) I've found that during long fights (anything over 30 seconds) where I'm not running around trapping but able to stand a DPS, the haste buff from this is on about half the time, which amounts to an approximate 7.5% DPS increase from these 5 points.
Focused Fire: 2/2 All damage caused by you is increased by 2% while you pet is active and the critical strike chance of your Kill Command Ability is increased by 20%
OK, we're going to ignore the Killl Command part of this talent right now since it's a pet attack. The first part however, means a 2% damage increase on ALL damage, just for having my pet out. It could ba a level 1, just tamed, untrained pet, and I'd still get the damage buff.
Ferocious Inspiration: 3/3 When your pet scores a critical hit, all party members have all damage increased by 3% for 10 sec.
While this one is dependent on the pet getting a critical hit, as long as the pet is level 70, trained decently and fighting, it will have a crit withing the first 10 seconds, and from then on be able to maintain the buff as long as it's alive. And that 3% counts for ALL damage for ALL party members. Now this one I will say is the best party buff of the three trees. Why? It is the only one that helps casters as well as melee, Trueshot Aura add 125 Ranged and Melee Attack power and Expose Weakness adds 25% of the hunters Agility as AP to all attackers on the mob the hunter just critted. Neither of those give anything to spell damage and neither scale as well as Ferocious Inspiration. While the 125 AP or 25% of hunter's agility to AP would mean quite a bit to a warrior in all greens, a warrior in mostly all/all purples would not gain as much. But FI would give both of them a 3% damage boost.
Serpents Swiftness: 5/5 Increases ranged combat attack speed by 20% and your pet's melee attack speed by 20%.
This is the #1 damage buff that a BM hunter gets, 20% attack speed increase=20% base DPS increase.
The Beast Within: 1/1 When your pet is under the effects of Bestial Wrath, you also go into a rage causing 10% additional damage and reducing mana costs of all spells by 20% for 18 sec. While enraged, you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.
A 10% damage increase for 18 seconds every 2 minutes. Doing the math means that over a 2 minute fight, the hunter gets, overall, a 1.5% increase in DPS.
Shot Rotation
With the increased speed that a BM hunter shoots at, they do not have the time to put more than one shot in between each of their autoshots without delaying the autoshot. Because of that, the typical shot rotation for a BM is Auto->Steady->Auto->Steady... I normally use this because Steady has the best damage-to-mana ratio. Using only Steady Shot lets me use Aspect of the Hawk for more DPS and still be able to maintain mana with pots and drinking between fights.
BowX-bow/Gun speed
To a BM hunter, the bow speed is very important to their DPS, with the haste buffs from Serpent's Swiftness and a 15% quiver, a BM hunter's weapon speed is reduced by 27.5% without IAotH up. That turns a 2.7 weapon speed into a 1.96 or a 2.8 weapon speed into a 2.03. This allows the hunter to shoot a Steady Shot between each autoshot without delaying autoshot, with just enough time for latentcy and IAotH. Steady Shot is a special shot that causes [RAP*0.2 + 150 + Average Weapon Damage] damage. To get a weapons
Average Weapon Damage (AWD) just multiply its DPS*Speed.
Now for chart time:
For this I'm going to use 65 DPS as the base DPS for the weapons, 2.7 and 3.0 for the weapon speed and 1500 for the RAP.
Speed---Mod Spd---# of Steady/min---Steady Dam/shot---Steady Dam/minute
--2.7-------1.96--------------30.6----------------625.5---------------19172-------
--3.0-------2.18--------------27.6----------------645-----------------17793-------
The extra Steady Shots with the quicker weapon ended up with 1379 more damage in one minute, that results in an almost 23 DPS increase. This is of course ignoring misses and critical hits.
Not completely, while a BM's pet is the strongest of the three specs, that is not the only way that a BM hunter is able to do large amounts of damage.
Let me start off by saying that I have nothing against the Marksman or Survival Specs, and this is not in any way an attempt to say that BM is better. I play BM because that is what I like, not because I'm convinced that it is the "best" spec.
So lets look at the talents that a BM hunter has that make the damage fly.
Improved aspect of the Hawk: 5/5 While Aspect of the Hawk is active, all normal ranged attacks have a 10% chance of increasing ranged attack speed by 15% for 12 seconds.
From personal experience (and I could be wrong) I've found that during long fights (anything over 30 seconds) where I'm not running around trapping but able to stand a DPS, the haste buff from this is on about half the time, which amounts to an approximate 7.5% DPS increase from these 5 points.
Focused Fire: 2/2 All damage caused by you is increased by 2% while you pet is active and the critical strike chance of your Kill Command Ability is increased by 20%
OK, we're going to ignore the Killl Command part of this talent right now since it's a pet attack. The first part however, means a 2% damage increase on ALL damage, just for having my pet out. It could ba a level 1, just tamed, untrained pet, and I'd still get the damage buff.
Ferocious Inspiration: 3/3 When your pet scores a critical hit, all party members have all damage increased by 3% for 10 sec.
While this one is dependent on the pet getting a critical hit, as long as the pet is level 70, trained decently and fighting, it will have a crit withing the first 10 seconds, and from then on be able to maintain the buff as long as it's alive. And that 3% counts for ALL damage for ALL party members. Now this one I will say is the best party buff of the three trees. Why? It is the only one that helps casters as well as melee, Trueshot Aura add 125 Ranged and Melee Attack power and Expose Weakness adds 25% of the hunters Agility as AP to all attackers on the mob the hunter just critted. Neither of those give anything to spell damage and neither scale as well as Ferocious Inspiration. While the 125 AP or 25% of hunter's agility to AP would mean quite a bit to a warrior in all greens, a warrior in mostly all/all purples would not gain as much. But FI would give both of them a 3% damage boost.
Serpents Swiftness: 5/5 Increases ranged combat attack speed by 20% and your pet's melee attack speed by 20%.
This is the #1 damage buff that a BM hunter gets, 20% attack speed increase=20% base DPS increase.
The Beast Within: 1/1 When your pet is under the effects of Bestial Wrath, you also go into a rage causing 10% additional damage and reducing mana costs of all spells by 20% for 18 sec. While enraged, you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.
A 10% damage increase for 18 seconds every 2 minutes. Doing the math means that over a 2 minute fight, the hunter gets, overall, a 1.5% increase in DPS.
Shot Rotation
With the increased speed that a BM hunter shoots at, they do not have the time to put more than one shot in between each of their autoshots without delaying the autoshot. Because of that, the typical shot rotation for a BM is Auto->Steady->Auto->Steady... I normally use this because Steady has the best damage-to-mana ratio. Using only Steady Shot lets me use Aspect of the Hawk for more DPS and still be able to maintain mana with pots and drinking between fights.
BowX-bow/Gun speed
To a BM hunter, the bow speed is very important to their DPS, with the haste buffs from Serpent's Swiftness and a 15% quiver, a BM hunter's weapon speed is reduced by 27.5% without IAotH up. That turns a 2.7 weapon speed into a 1.96 or a 2.8 weapon speed into a 2.03. This allows the hunter to shoot a Steady Shot between each autoshot without delaying autoshot, with just enough time for latentcy and IAotH. Steady Shot is a special shot that causes [RAP*0.2 + 150 + Average Weapon Damage] damage. To get a weapons
Average Weapon Damage (AWD) just multiply its DPS*Speed.
Now for chart time:
For this I'm going to use 65 DPS as the base DPS for the weapons, 2.7 and 3.0 for the weapon speed and 1500 for the RAP.
Speed---Mod Spd---# of Steady/min---Steady Dam/shot---Steady Dam/minute
--2.7-------1.96--------------30.6----------------625.5---------------19172-------
--3.0-------2.18--------------27.6----------------645-----------------17793-------
The extra Steady Shots with the quicker weapon ended up with 1379 more damage in one minute, that results in an almost 23 DPS increase. This is of course ignoring misses and critical hits.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Macros: part 2
To start out, type /m into the chat box, that will open your macro interface. Then click New. You will need to name your macro and pick an icon for it. If you pick the ? icon, your macro icon will be whatever spell/ability/item that will happen when you click the macro. This one is nice when you put in conditionals or use castsequence (more on those later) into the macro, the icon will change based on what action will happen. For this example I will use the hunter ability Misdirection. I'll name it Misdirect and choose the ? icon.
Once I have that, I'll click Okay.
Now on to the heart of the macro.
The basic format of a macro is as such:
#show
/cast Misdirection
OK, this is a pretty simple macro so far. the first line #show tells the game to put the macro name in the tooltip when you mouse over the icon. You could use #showtooltip to show the spell/ability/item in the tooltip. The second line tells the game to cast Misdirection. This, however, is pretty weak as far as macros go. To use Misdirection like this would mean I would have to target whoever I was Misdirecting on and then hit the macro. Not very effecient in the middle of a battle.
So lets tell the macro who to target.
/cast [target=pet, exists] Misdirection
That will cause me to cast Misdirection on my pet whenever I use the macro AND I have a pet out. That works great, until I'm in a boss fight and I REALLY don't want to Misdirect onto my pet but onto the main tank.
/cast [target={tank's name}, exists] Misdirection
Now this will Msidirect onto the tank as long as I spelled the name correct, and they are alive. But lets assume, that at the begining of a fight I want to Misdirect onto the main tank, halfway through the fight onto the off tank, and still be able to Misdirect onto my pet whenever I need to. For that, we'll need conditionals:
/cast [modifier:alt] [target=pet], exists Misdirection
/cast [modifier:ctrl] [target={off tank's name}, exists] Misdirection
/cast [target={main tank's name}, exists] Misdirection
Now this one will cast Misdirection on my pet if I hold the alt key while clicking on the macro, the off tank if I hold down the ctrl, and the main tank if neither is held down. All with one button so you don't fill up your action bars with the same action. And you do not have to use the same ability, each modifier can have a different action attached to it.
/cast [modifier:alt] Mend Pet
/cast [modifier:ctrl} Revive Pet
/cast Call Pet
that would cast mend pet when I pressed the alt button, Revive pet with the crtl button, and call pet if neither.
Now suppose you want to execute a series of actions, in order. For that, we use castsequence.
/castsequence [target=pet] Misdirection, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Multi Shot
Here's how this one would play out: Press one: I cast Misdirection on my pet, Press two: Arcane shot, press three: Steady shot, and press four: Multi shot.
That's all for now, I'll expand on target types, modifiers, conditionals, and castsequence in further posts here.
Once I have that, I'll click Okay.
Now on to the heart of the macro.
The basic format of a macro is as such:
#show
/cast Misdirection
OK, this is a pretty simple macro so far. the first line #show tells the game to put the macro name in the tooltip when you mouse over the icon. You could use #showtooltip to show the spell/ability/item in the tooltip. The second line tells the game to cast Misdirection. This, however, is pretty weak as far as macros go. To use Misdirection like this would mean I would have to target whoever I was Misdirecting on and then hit the macro. Not very effecient in the middle of a battle.
So lets tell the macro who to target.
/cast [target=pet, exists] Misdirection
That will cause me to cast Misdirection on my pet whenever I use the macro AND I have a pet out. That works great, until I'm in a boss fight and I REALLY don't want to Misdirect onto my pet but onto the main tank.
/cast [target={tank's name}, exists] Misdirection
Now this will Msidirect onto the tank as long as I spelled the name correct, and they are alive. But lets assume, that at the begining of a fight I want to Misdirect onto the main tank, halfway through the fight onto the off tank, and still be able to Misdirect onto my pet whenever I need to. For that, we'll need conditionals:
/cast [modifier:alt] [target=pet], exists Misdirection
/cast [modifier:ctrl] [target={off tank's name}, exists] Misdirection
/cast [target={main tank's name}, exists] Misdirection
Now this one will cast Misdirection on my pet if I hold the alt key while clicking on the macro, the off tank if I hold down the ctrl, and the main tank if neither is held down. All with one button so you don't fill up your action bars with the same action. And you do not have to use the same ability, each modifier can have a different action attached to it.
/cast [modifier:alt] Mend Pet
/cast [modifier:ctrl} Revive Pet
/cast Call Pet
that would cast mend pet when I pressed the alt button, Revive pet with the crtl button, and call pet if neither.
Now suppose you want to execute a series of actions, in order. For that, we use castsequence.
/castsequence [target=pet] Misdirection, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Multi Shot
Here's how this one would play out: Press one: I cast Misdirection on my pet, Press two: Arcane shot, press three: Steady shot, and press four: Multi shot.
That's all for now, I'll expand on target types, modifiers, conditionals, and castsequence in further posts here.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
No clever Traps? No way?
OK, this is for everyone that thinks that a hunter without the talent Clever Traps can't chain trap effectively. For this example I'm using the trap times and cooldowns for myself. I have no points in the Survival tree, so my Freezing Trap will hold, unresisted, for 20 seconds. I do, however, have two pieces of the Beast Lord set so my trap cooldown is 26 seconds. That leaves 6 second of time between my trap breaking and me being able to set another trap.
So what happens in that 6 seconds? For starters, yes, I have a plan. That is the most important thing I can do to survive those 6 seconds and keep my assigned mob under control.
Concussive Shot-after trapping the mob, I run as far as is safe while keeping the trapped mob in range, once the mob breaks free, I hit my concussive shot macro, that by itself will usually buy me the 6 seconds plus.
OK, but what if there's no room to run?
Scatter Shot-A short range (can be used at point blank) shot that dazes the target for 4 seconds, at which point, I only have 2 seconds left.
The other part of chain trapping that is dependent on the tank, or whoever is pulling, is timing. If I have the opportunity to place my trap and then wait out the cooldown, or most of the cooldown, before the pull, I can pull my mob with a combination of distracting shot then concussive shot which will burn up the remainder of the cooldown before the mob reaches the first trap.
Here are 2 examples of timing and how they affect a hunter's trapping.
Example 1:
0:00 hunter places trap, tank pulls
0:01 hunter pulls mob to trap
0:02 mob reaches trap, trap timer starts
0:22 trap breaks
0:26 hunter's trap CD is up, drops 2nd trap
In that example, after the first trap, the hunter had 4 seconds of time between the trap breaking and the trap cooldown coming up.
Example 2:
-0:10 hunter places trap
0:00 tank pulls after signal from hunter
0:01 hunter pulls mob to trap
0:02 mob reaches trap, trap timer starts
0:16 hunter's trap CD is up, drops 2nd trap
0:22 trap breaks
0:23 mob reaches 2nd trap
0:42 hunter's trap CD is up, drops 3rd trap
0:44 trap breaks
0:45 mob reaches 3rd trap
1:05 trap breaks
1:08 hunter's trap CD is up, drops 4th trap
See what 10 seconds can do for a hunter? It bought the hunter 33 seconds of trap time, and that is assuming no room to manuver and saving our "OH $H!T" button. In your average trash pull 33 seconds is one or two mobs down. And this is why we love our tanks that give us a few seconds before a pull.
Obviously this is assuming no resists or early breaks. At that point, it's time for the "OH $H!T" buttons.
So what happens in that 6 seconds? For starters, yes, I have a plan. That is the most important thing I can do to survive those 6 seconds and keep my assigned mob under control.
Concussive Shot-after trapping the mob, I run as far as is safe while keeping the trapped mob in range, once the mob breaks free, I hit my concussive shot macro, that by itself will usually buy me the 6 seconds plus.
OK, but what if there's no room to run?
Scatter Shot-A short range (can be used at point blank) shot that dazes the target for 4 seconds, at which point, I only have 2 seconds left.
The other part of chain trapping that is dependent on the tank, or whoever is pulling, is timing. If I have the opportunity to place my trap and then wait out the cooldown, or most of the cooldown, before the pull, I can pull my mob with a combination of distracting shot then concussive shot which will burn up the remainder of the cooldown before the mob reaches the first trap.
Here are 2 examples of timing and how they affect a hunter's trapping.
Example 1:
0:00 hunter places trap, tank pulls
0:01 hunter pulls mob to trap
0:02 mob reaches trap, trap timer starts
0:22 trap breaks
0:26 hunter's trap CD is up, drops 2nd trap
In that example, after the first trap, the hunter had 4 seconds of time between the trap breaking and the trap cooldown coming up.
Example 2:
-0:10 hunter places trap
0:00 tank pulls after signal from hunter
0:01 hunter pulls mob to trap
0:02 mob reaches trap, trap timer starts
0:16 hunter's trap CD is up, drops 2nd trap
0:22 trap breaks
0:23 mob reaches 2nd trap
0:42 hunter's trap CD is up, drops 3rd trap
0:44 trap breaks
0:45 mob reaches 3rd trap
1:05 trap breaks
1:08 hunter's trap CD is up, drops 4th trap
See what 10 seconds can do for a hunter? It bought the hunter 33 seconds of trap time, and that is assuming no room to manuver and saving our "OH $H!T" button. In your average trash pull 33 seconds is one or two mobs down. And this is why we love our tanks that give us a few seconds before a pull.
Obviously this is assuming no resists or early breaks. At that point, it's time for the "OH $H!T" buttons.
Macros: part 1
Macros, these are the things that can turn a good player into a great player. With macros, and many other things in Wow, the preperation time can determine how well you do.
For this example, I'm going to show you how to make a healing macro with a mouseover target.
To start off, type /m and hit [enter]. That opens up your macro interface. Now click New. A side window opens that lets you name the macro and choose an icon for it. Let's name it Heal (I know, not very imaginative of me, I'm a hunter, give me a break :p). And for the icon, select the ? at the top, that way, the spell's icon get used for the macro icon. If you want to, pick a different one, but I like to keep the icons the same as the original, keeps me from getting confused.
OK, once you have the name and icon done, click OK.
Now for the macro itself. For the first line:
#show or #showtooltip
#show puts the name of the macro in the tooltip when you mouseover the icon, #showtooltip puts the spell tooltip there.
Then:
/cast [target=mouseover, exists] {whatever heal you happen to want}
Ok, now what does all that mean? Here goes:
/cast-tells the game to cast the selected spell, pretty simple
[target=mouseover, exists]-tells the game to target whatever your mouse is over, it could be a characters picture, their toon, whatever. The exists is to prevent you from casting if your mouse is not over anyone.
You could also use target=target (that would cast the spell on whoever you had targetted), target={tank's name} (that would cast the spell on your tank, just make sure to spell the name correctly), or target={dumba$$ hunter that can't chain trap, but is very good at pulling hate off of the tank} (I don't think that one needs an explaination)
Last is the spell you want to cast, whatever heal you choose. And once again, I'm a hunter, the only heal I know is mend pet, and since that wont work on a WAR tank (I haven't tried it on a druid tank yet, hmmmm......) I'll let those that know healing choose that. Another thing to add is the rank, suppose you wanted to use a downgraded heal just use {heal spell}(rank x) where x is the rank you want to use.
That's all for now, next I'll go into modifiers.
For this example, I'm going to show you how to make a healing macro with a mouseover target.
To start off, type /m and hit [enter]. That opens up your macro interface. Now click New. A side window opens that lets you name the macro and choose an icon for it. Let's name it Heal (I know, not very imaginative of me, I'm a hunter, give me a break :p). And for the icon, select the ? at the top, that way, the spell's icon get used for the macro icon. If you want to, pick a different one, but I like to keep the icons the same as the original, keeps me from getting confused.
OK, once you have the name and icon done, click OK.
Now for the macro itself. For the first line:
#show or #showtooltip
#show puts the name of the macro in the tooltip when you mouseover the icon, #showtooltip puts the spell tooltip there.
Then:
/cast [target=mouseover, exists] {whatever heal you happen to want}
Ok, now what does all that mean? Here goes:
/cast-tells the game to cast the selected spell, pretty simple
[target=mouseover, exists]-tells the game to target whatever your mouse is over, it could be a characters picture, their toon, whatever. The exists is to prevent you from casting if your mouse is not over anyone.
You could also use target=target (that would cast the spell on whoever you had targetted), target={tank's name} (that would cast the spell on your tank, just make sure to spell the name correctly), or target={dumba$$ hunter that can't chain trap, but is very good at pulling hate off of the tank} (I don't think that one needs an explaination)
Last is the spell you want to cast, whatever heal you choose. And once again, I'm a hunter, the only heal I know is mend pet, and since that wont work on a WAR tank (I haven't tried it on a druid tank yet, hmmmm......) I'll let those that know healing choose that. Another thing to add is the rank, suppose you wanted to use a downgraded heal just use {heal spell}(rank x) where x is the rank you want to use.
That's all for now, next I'll go into modifiers.
Chain Trapping
Trapping, something all hunters can do, but only a few seem to be able to do it effectively. To trap in a grroup requires a bit of preparation. First, make a few macros. I always have my trap mob as my focus, that way I can fire a shot at it without having to target it and then retarget the DPS mob. So my first macro is:
Focus
#show
/focus
Use of this one is simple, target your trap mob, hit this macro, and you're good. The targeted mob is now your focus, and you can target it for your shots with a simple [target=focus] line in your shot macros.
Next one is my pull/threatbuilding macro. I use Distracting shot because it gives a good bit of threat, and I can hit a trapped mob with it without breaking the trap.
DistShot
#show
/cast [target=focus, exists] Distracting Shot(rank 7)
/stopcasting
OK, for a line by line breakdownof the macro:
#show-this is so when you mouse over the macro, your tooltip will show the name of the macro.
/cast-tells the game that you want to cast something
[target=focus, exists]-targets your focus, IF it exists, for whatever the macro is casting.
Distracting Shot(rank 7)-tells the game to use your rank 7 Distracting Shot, you only need the rank part if you want to downgrade the spell, ie. rank 6, rank 1. If no rank is specified, it will choose the highest rank of the spell.
/stopcasting-just in case you have your trap target targetted, this will stop your autoshot, so you don't break your own trap. This is mainly for when you are using distracting shot to build extra threat so the mob comes after you instead of your healer.
I also have macros for Concussive Shot and Scatter Shot:
ConcShot
#show
/cast [target=focus, exists] Concussive Shot
/stopcasting
And
ScatShot
#show
/cast [target=focus, exists] Scatter Shot
/stopcasting
I use those two to buy myself time while my trap is still on cooldown and the mob is out of the trap.
OK, now that you have the macros made, time to go get used to them. I like to practice on the ravagers outside of Toshley's Station in Blades Edge Mountain because then I can farm ravager flesh for Ravager Dogs while I'm practicing, but go wherever you want to. Before you begin, remember to put your pet on passive to prevent him from bailing you out. So go out, target a mob, and hit your Focus macro. Drop a Freezing Trap, and hit your DistShot macro. While the mob is running towards you, hit your ConcShot, it slows him down so you burn up a bit more of your cooldown. Now take a few steps away from the icecube and wait. As soon as you can, place another Freezing Trap. Once the mob breaks free, hit your ConcShot, and watch as it slowly makes its way to your trap. For fun, if you have it, hit it with Scatter Shot before it gets to the trap. Now for the challenging part, start farming while keeping a mob trapped, extra points if you skin the mobs as well.
This is how I learned to chain trap. It cost me a few deaths, but in the end, the compliments that I have gotten have far outweighed the corpse run and repair bill.
Focus
#show
/focus
Use of this one is simple, target your trap mob, hit this macro, and you're good. The targeted mob is now your focus, and you can target it for your shots with a simple [target=focus] line in your shot macros.
Next one is my pull/threatbuilding macro. I use Distracting shot because it gives a good bit of threat, and I can hit a trapped mob with it without breaking the trap.
DistShot
#show
/cast [target=focus, exists] Distracting Shot(rank 7)
/stopcasting
OK, for a line by line breakdownof the macro:
#show-this is so when you mouse over the macro, your tooltip will show the name of the macro.
/cast-tells the game that you want to cast something
[target=focus, exists]-targets your focus, IF it exists, for whatever the macro is casting.
Distracting Shot(rank 7)-tells the game to use your rank 7 Distracting Shot, you only need the rank part if you want to downgrade the spell, ie. rank 6, rank 1. If no rank is specified, it will choose the highest rank of the spell.
/stopcasting-just in case you have your trap target targetted, this will stop your autoshot, so you don't break your own trap. This is mainly for when you are using distracting shot to build extra threat so the mob comes after you instead of your healer.
I also have macros for Concussive Shot and Scatter Shot:
ConcShot
#show
/cast [target=focus, exists] Concussive Shot
/stopcasting
And
ScatShot
#show
/cast [target=focus, exists] Scatter Shot
/stopcasting
I use those two to buy myself time while my trap is still on cooldown and the mob is out of the trap.
OK, now that you have the macros made, time to go get used to them. I like to practice on the ravagers outside of Toshley's Station in Blades Edge Mountain because then I can farm ravager flesh for Ravager Dogs while I'm practicing, but go wherever you want to. Before you begin, remember to put your pet on passive to prevent him from bailing you out. So go out, target a mob, and hit your Focus macro. Drop a Freezing Trap, and hit your DistShot macro. While the mob is running towards you, hit your ConcShot, it slows him down so you burn up a bit more of your cooldown. Now take a few steps away from the icecube and wait. As soon as you can, place another Freezing Trap. Once the mob breaks free, hit your ConcShot, and watch as it slowly makes its way to your trap. For fun, if you have it, hit it with Scatter Shot before it gets to the trap. Now for the challenging part, start farming while keeping a mob trapped, extra points if you skin the mobs as well.
This is how I learned to chain trap. It cost me a few deaths, but in the end, the compliments that I have gotten have far outweighed the corpse run and repair bill.
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