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.
Monday, September 17, 2007
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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