The tale of the tape on hunters

[Coltimar]

I will first admit to being a hunter noob. I understand enough to be able to identify what talent does what and how to use it. My hunter is one of my best geared toons in my second team but does fairly poor dps in comparison with a destro lock and boomkin. My hunter is survival specced. I have tried several macro combinations and settled on one very similar to what Fur posted in his compilation thread.

My question is this; is survival the best way to go to do decent dps in heroics? I have read a lot of people say "Go BM" but it seems that you give up dps potential in order to make macroing easier. I don't have a mage for replenishment so I rely on my hunter for that, but I don't really need it in most heroic fights. Would someone who has gone both routes please clarify the pros and cons of each?

Here is my hunter Rasteel He is still specced the way I leveled him (messed up around level 62) and in some noobish gear but I rotate him in my main team for ToC and badge runs. My second team will begin going alone as soon as I get things like this sorted.

Thanks for the help.
Colt

[accretion]

What is your SV hunter dps currently? Is there anything else you like/don't like about SV vs. BM? Or are you just looking to go maximum dps no matter what?

[Coltimar]

My main goal is to increase my DPS output. In level 80 normal dungeons he is pulling around 700-800 dps. I enjoy SV fine. I do plan do try 10 man raids in the future but I have some gearing etc. before that happens.

[Zamok]

What macro are you currently using?

That dps seems real low even considering your gear.

The difference in DPS output between BM and Survival isnt that huge anymore. If you want to raid with the guy just dual spec BM/Surv. As BM you are going to be able to manage boxing a lot easier than trying to manage all the SV cooldowns. Then flick back to SV for raids to maximise dps.

These day I beleive the difference is about 15% dps between equally geared BM/SV (cant find the thread on EJ will keep looking). The small loss of dps in Heroics is well worth the ease of managing a hunter whilst boxing which is mostly made up because of the constant 3% overall dps increase for the party from FI.

[accretion]

For maximum dps output, I've found BM to be superior to both SV or MM, at least for my boxing style. Some of that could be due to my macros, familiarity with the spec, etc. But the bottom line is that my dps has jumped from ~1800 as a MM in 3.1, now to ~3100 as a BM in 3.2.2. A little bit of that can be traced to a few decent gear upgrades, but I gained ~700 dps from the spec change alone. The bump to BM in 3.2.2 was also VERY noticable.

I'm still testing macros, but my current versions are found in this thread.

On another note, if'n I waz you, I'd plop down ~1K to buy a few ilvl 200 gear upgrades. They'll make a big difference and won't break the bank.

www.wowhead.com/?item=Giantmaim Legguards
www.wowhead.com/?item=Trollwoven Girdle
www.wowhead.com/?item=Seafoam Gauntlets
www.wowhead.com/?item=Ice Striker's Cloak
www.wowhead.com/?item=Trollwoven Spaulders

...just to name a few.

[Coltimar]

Here is my macro:

• main dps
  #show Expolsive Shot
  /click MultiBarRightButton1
  /click MultiBarRightButton2
  /click MultiBarRightButton3
  /click MultiBarRightButton4
• button 1
  /castsequence reset=combat Hunter’s Mark,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
• button 2
  /castsequence reset=combat Black Arrow ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
• button 3
  /castsequence reset=combat Serpent Sting,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,
• button 4
  /castsequence Steady shot,
  /cast Explosive shot

I am missing the Lock-n-load procs sometimes, I know. I spent a ton of cast gearing my 2nd team tank and healer so I am out of Frozen Orbs, Titansteel bars and cash, lol. I am building back up but I will check out the trollwoven stuff. I have the Giantmaim bracers and a nice, new cloak.

[Ualaa]

With my admittedly undergeared Hunter, a MM click castsequence build put out a lot more damage then my previous BM build or the SV build I tried. Granted, I did not experiment too long with SV or MM, but the MM build blew away what I had in BM and the SV was not even at the BM level. The toon isn't 80th even, so this is vs trash basically.

[Multibocks]

Why dont you drop the hunter and use the lock for replenishment? I mean they do great dps in destro and replenishment is a nice bonus.

[Coltimar]

I do have a lock and she is destro now. I just need the dps. And if I drop the hunter my party would be one short! lol I don't have anything else to fill the spot.

[olipcs]

I respecced my hunter from SV to MM because With LnL and Serpent-sting-management I felt that I'm loosing quite a lot dps, because I couldn't (or better: I'm too lazy) react to the them.

I choosed MM because of the following:

- It is as a raid spec as viable as SV
- Serpent Sting management is so much easier since it only needs to be applied once
- It only uses one DoT (Serpent-Sting) in contrast to SS + Black Arrow for a survival build, which I felt is an advantage because in heroics my DoTs often can't do their full potential (ok, technicaly percing shots is also a dot, but you don't have to manage it)
- TSA is also nice for the Pet and the Tank
- there is a good 1-Button-Macro on the tka-something-forum

I never regretted the change (although I realy liked to play SV solo), because now my hunter does quite good dps (over the hole heroic arround 2k, on boss-fights arround 3k (remeber I don't have a shaman for heroism )) in my team without alot of micro-managing (i rarely use readiness).

On the negativve side, I have to say, that on a long fight he would have some mana-issues, but in heroics there are nearly no long fights, so that is mostly not a problem (on trash I simply switch him to AotV for a short time)).

Edit: when reading accreations post, i'm alittle bit tempted to try out BM, as I haven't done it since wrath for more than a week...