5.3 "Focus Fire Frenzy Bug"

Posted On // 12 comments
I've been reading a lot of reports regarding hunters experiencing a bug involving their frenzy stacks as Beast Mastery. To summarize, these reports are primarily as follows:
 - As BM, hunters pets will not use their special abilities (claw/bite) and therefore will not gain stacks of Frenzy. 
 - This lack of frenzy causes a decline in Focus Fire. 
 - Macroing the special abilities will alleviate this discrepancy, meaning the pet is simply not autocasting appropriately. 

The interesting part to me is that they claim it is only on some bosses, or that it works fine on a target dummy. Furthermore, there are Survival hunters who claim to be experiencing the same thing. Others still claim that swapping their pet out fixes the issue, or that it stops with Blink Strikes. Moreover, others claim that it works sometimes and doesn't others - meaning that for 30 seconds it won't work, but suddenly will again after and so forth. 

As a Marksman hunter I'm in a unique position to offer another alternative to what this bug is caused by primarily just because our damage ratios are different per ability. 
Might's second hunter expressed interest in going Marksman in 5.3 when Binding Shot was swapped to spec only. Prompted by this interest, I started doing some napkin math regarding hunters and noticed a very unfortunate issue. Further down I'm going to share a portion of the post I made on the Might hunter forums regarding this, but to get to the nitty gritty:

Murder of Crows.

edit:  [This is the bug report thread] I've been trying to discuss this problem in. It may not be solely a result of Murder of Crows, but they both may be facing similar cause and effect from this bug affecting all "types" of pets.

If you've been experiencing this pet auto attack bug, I'd like to ask you to share your experience with me so that we can decipher whether or not my hypothesis is correct. Murder of Crows is a strange DoT as the crows act like "pets" - the DoT does not snapshot and the attacks are read separately. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that if "pets" are bugged that it would be affecting MoC in a similar fashion. Alternatively, if it's just MoC that is broken, perhaps it would affect other things with its glitch. That is, Murder of Crows  was savagely brutalizing my proc rate on Capacitance, so my theory is that Murder of Crows is also savagely brutalizing our pets auto casts of Claw. I did try to replicate this on a test dummy, but I was still getting Claw casts with Murder of Crows as Marksman. 

So some questions for you folks with the bug:
1. Are you using Murder of Crows or Blink Strikes?
2. Is your pet not using Claw/Bite AT ALL or only when Murder of Crows is up?
3. Does this other wise work UNTIL you cast Murder of Crows, breaking it indefinitely until swaps?

Here is the snippet from my post:

[...] Which is only half relevant, because during this time I had my hunter autoshot casting on a test dummy in the background...
...And that's the part where it gets extremely infuriating. The Capacitance metagem has an RPPM of 21 with an additional coefficient of 1.1 for marksman and 0.95 for both BM and SV. Despite this, whether as MM or SV all and any autoshots procced one stack of capacitance - which is cool. No other abilities whatsoever procced capacitance - it was only proccing on autos, but it was proccing on any auto regardless of specials, extras, etc used in between. In practice that meant capacitance was stacking once on any auto no matter what, regardless of if haste was 20% or 300%. Where this fucks up in the recent 5.3 changes is here:  Murder of Crows delayed Capacitance regardless of autoshot fires by half the amount.
If you're following with me here, it means this:
lightning strike -> 5 autos -> lightning strike -> 5 autos ad infinitum.
At regular (approx 20%) haste rates this is around 12 seconds from last strike for each 5 stack.
With domestic hunter haste it continued per 5 autos, thus around 8 seconds from last strike for  each 5 stack.
Once MoC was applied, regardless of haste, you were guaranteed to achieve only 5-6 stacks of capacitance during the full 30 second duration. The cooldown on MoC is balls so I sat around all morning dumbfounded testing this in a stupor of this can't be real.
But it was, and the 12-8 second interval between lightning strikes was turned into a 25-28 second interval on any MoC at any haste level. This is TERRIBLE for any hunters opening running MoC because our opening is the best opportunity for our capacitance uptime. The proc is easily as much damage contribution as steady and arcane, so losing it at those  critical moments is extremely unacceptable. Especially when you consider that MoC is not dynamically affected by haste: it will hit 30 times each time no matter what.
On the flip side, the new Blink Strikes works in an opposite manner. It is absolutely affected by haste - and, in fact, haste itself provides the focus regeneration needed to ensure the Wild Hunt. In other words, in the same 30 second time frame regardless of haste, your pet will still land roughly the same amount of Claw/Bites. Which at first makes it seem similar to MoC - both readjust based on agi and proc values, but don't gain "ticks" from haste - when in reality, Claw is being bolstered both by these proc values AND gaining at least a 50-60% uptime on an additional 100% damage. The result of this is an average unbuffed claw sitting at 12k, increasing to 18k under strikes, and again increasing to upwards of 70k under wild hunt.
Putting that against MoC worked like this:
Over 30 seconds and domestic haste buffs from 20% gave an approximate 3.75 lightning strikes. With none, it was 2.5. At an average hit of 65k, thats ~244k under 30 seconds of domestic haste or ~162k without.   MoC, averaging 10k * 30 ticks with a maximum of one strike regardless of haste is a maximum total 365k.
An unaffected Blink Strikes sequence would average 8 claws @ regular damage for 144k plus the free reign of strike procs: no haste being 144 + 244 or a maximum total around 388k.
In other words, under no affect the maximum of MoC was around 365 versus Blinks 390. It's still pennies in the long string of things, until you consider that these 30 second time frames are in MoCs favour. Blink Strikes, unlike MoC, is active throughout the  entire fight - therefore, a 7.5 minute encounter will only have 4 * 30 -> around 2 minutes of up time for MoC with an alternative 100% uptime for Blink Strikes .... And, of course, it would be dynamically boosted by haste. This is otherwise unimportant for hunters not running with the Talisman of Bloodlust because they have predictable uptimes of haste above and below 60% with Rapid Fire having a similar cooldown to MoC (3min for 15s vs 2min for 30s). Berserking only helps. Counterpoint a static 15% haste increase with Steady Focus and ---
Basically, what I'm getting at is fuck murder of crows.

edit:
Some relevant bug report threads:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8891579796
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8874267604
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8874267590
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1536255491
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8874267590

Might Heroic-Mode Entries, Primordius + Iron Qon [ToT Raid]

Posted On // Leave a Comment
Seventh Heroic was PRIMORDIUS
I was playing as MARKSMANSHIP

Primordius is a strange and terrible mix of several hunter options. On one hand, we have the capability of doing the highest damage to the boss over nearly every other class. On the other hand, we are capable of providing decent AoE to blow up adds, especially including barrage being a cone that will hit all targets in front of us. Yet, on a third hand (mutant powers, stay with me here), we're also still fantastic utility capable of target swapping to where ever we're needed most with the highest form of DPS mobility.

That said, I feel all three specs on heroic Primordius have valid capacities. To what degree, I'm unsure. In my case I was filling more of a utility role and my performance is full of smoke and mirrors to the true potential of a hunters single target on Primordius. However, my suggestion is that if it's between Beast Mastery or Survival, go Survival.  Not because you can AoE pad for higher numbers, but because Survival will be the least affected by the random generator that Primordius' oozees provide you with the buffs of and simply because Survival is the most forgiving.

In my case, I was given the sad, dismal bitch job of aiding with Viscous Horrors. But don't get me wrong: Since I was playing Marksman, this was actually a very intelligent move. Each time a new Horror spawned, a marksman hunter is placed back into Careful Aim. Of all the class choices to help "burst" down the first half of a Viscous Horrors health, a Marksman hunter is one of the best.

Therefore, don't expect any magic performance tips from this video on how to make your damage through the roof on Primordius. Also don't expect magic tips on how to get yourself a fresh buff by killing an ooze. In this video, I am fed the first 4 stacks of buffs so that I can get on the oozes faster. Note that I said 4 stacks - if this is what you are doing, then it is better to save that 5th stack for when you are done helping with the first 3 Horror's and are preparing to switch your focus more towards Primordius (until you're needed again). The nice part about this is that you will not have your buffs falling off at the same time as the tanks. If you get 5 stacks right away, the next time the tank calls for your help because his buffs are falling off is the same time you're not going to be very useful since your buffs are falling off too. Delay this by getting 4 at the start instead and you are golden. You'll get more uptime from your 2 minute buff on Primordius.

It is an absolute dismal sin not to have your range finder on. This is the fight where you absolutely have to watch where you are going. It is more unforgivable to walk over people on Primordius than it is to fail clearing out a Ji-Kun nest or AoE padding when your burst is needed. Be very aware of the space around you, the people around you, where they are moving and how much attention they are paying.

Spacing issues seemed to be alleviated once we kept the boss on one side of the room with the horrors in the other, rotating around the same general location. This also made life easy for the add killing team who needed only to turret on the three lanes opposite.

Chances are you are capable of soaking Caustic Gas, and therefore I suggest doing so as often as possible.

I tried to do a brief analysis to gauge how I did on Primordius as Marksman despite having been on Viscous Horrors. Therefore, I went looking for the Survival and BM hunters with the best performances and the most similar timestamps. Here are the two I chose:
Beast Mastery, Bowflxx - http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/6njg0s0kj76c4j4b/analyze/dd/source/?s=1636&e=2104&target=1
Survival, Milky - http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-jsbaa9ocmhp1lcrt/analyze/dd/source/?s=4619&e=5083&target=34

First off, props to the first one for that fantastic performance on the boss target as Beast Mastery. If you're looking for a log to analyze to improve single target on Primordius as a hunter, do a cross comparison with Bowflxx's. Fantastic job and really highlights the potential of all three specs on this fight.

This is what I wanted to know: Their DPSe on the boss and their DPSe on the Horrors in comparison to mine. The BM hunters DPSe on the boss was 150k and 0k on horrors; the SV did 120k to Primordius and 23k to horrors; I, as marksman, did 77k to Primordius and 59k to horrors. That means for pure throughput the BM did the best with 150k focus on Primordius, while the SV's throughput was 143k split between two focuses with a higher prioritization on Primordius and my throughput was 136k split fairly evenly between the two. Since it's not the case that we benefit from target swapping and that part of "damage discrepancy" will result on Primordius from raid environment and buff selection, I'm actually okay with these results. I think, given the opportunity, that a Marksman full time single target could give the single target focus of 150k a good run for its money. In all cases there is room for improvement, and there are definitely things I would do better, but the main thing to take away from this is that there is no clear cut correct path. I don't feel I would play SV and BM as well as I do MM without a least a weeks worth of practice first, so such a small discrepancy between the higher ranking players on a fight between a class spec that is highly undervalued and considered inferior while also being given a disadvantageous job is fine by me. Pick what is the best for you and the best for your raids role.
Raiding is about the raid.
Also: Make fun of Jade for raiding Marksman. Don't worry, I fear for Marksman in the face of 5.3 Blink Strikes. 




Eighth Heroic was IRON QON
I was playing as MARKSMANSHIP

Iron Qon. This was the big one to me because it was the one I was being made fun of the most for still sticking with Marksmanship. My hunter honour was put on the line. To others, it is without any shadow of a doubt the correct method to pull Beast Mastery. Popular opinion, however, should never dictate action. Beast Mastery, for me, is barely a 200 DPS difference in simulation. Indeed, that is a difference: but one I can negate by playing Marksman better and taking advantage of its perks. Iron Qon is another fantastic example of the equality of hunter specs, and also of the dangers of damage padding.

In the first fire phase, there's not much to do as ranged. You spread out and DPS the dog. Every once in a while you might have to break someone out of a cloud, which you should definitely be prepared for. As a  result you will be spread out as ranged to avoid arcing lightning damage. There will also be a tornado being blown around, but it's incredibly difficult to miss and likely won't be aimed at you anyway. For the most part, though, this lets you focus entirely on doing your opening precisely. This is the benefit Marksmen and Beast Masters always hope for at the start of an encounter. Always push damage onto Qon when he hops off a dog: I'm not entirely convinced DoTs stay on him, but it's cheap for a survival to do and he otherwise retains the damage dealt to him when he's on foot.

The second phase provides slightly more differentiation. You can, and should, strafe away from where you were standing when an Frost Spike goes out. There is an animation below your character if it's on you or not. It is also possible to deterrence the ice bolt that goes out, but chances are you'll miss the timing. There are more effective places for deterrence. Windstorm: The only time it will kill you is if you are hit by a tornado. Never, ever play chicken with a tornado. For each lane, wait for the passing tornado to go through. It is far easier to clip a tornado trying to walk in front of it than it is walking behind.  If you watch the video, you'll also see that I dispel the myth that you are considered in the same spot you started disengage until you land. We don't work that way. I have no issue using disengage to get past the final two lanes of tornadoes with my last ticks of health to spare. If this is too risky for you, then play it safe with deterrence instead.

Watch your range finder. There's no reason to walk into someone without/with arcing lightning when you have it/don't simply because you weren't paying attention or weren't being conscientious of available space.  You can avoid doing this most of the time even if you have a spear being thrown on you. Soon after the third dog will show up, and there's really nothing special about this beyond having to sit on your hands if your area of the map gets handed a dead zone.  Jump over Frozen Blood.

Finally, when all three dogs come to play, there's only slight leeway for AoE padding. You must still burst these dogs down so that Roshak does not cause any problems. For sure, take advantage of what AoE you have, but not at the expense of having the raid die when you could have pushed the phase faster by focus targeting. Healing is rough. This is the one bane and criticism I have with most people comparing SV performances. My damage throughput for the encounter was 148k with 6 multishot hits, the best beast master I could find who out paced me did 159k with 7 multishot hits, and the best survival was 165k with 34 multishot hits. It paints a picture when the difference in casts is that high. So, again, my closest comparison was this 159k fella, and combined with a 5 ilevel difference of a few key items worth several thousand DPS and a few mistakes I can polish up, I'm still pretty confident with that result. Going through the several pages of parses for all three specs makes it very clear their potential is all incredibly similar. Always compare to someone who seemed to do better, though. The difference between BM and MM might (will) change in 5.3, but until that data is available: Play what you do best, then play its performance to help the raid.

Deterrence is very good for the final burn. I also suggest saving cooldowns for a bit in order to use them when they're most needed, but ultimately you will have to make that call for the specific timing of your encounter. 

Might Heroic-Mode Entries, Ji-Kun + Council of Elders [ToT Raid]

Posted On // Leave a Comment
Yikes, it's been a while. This Ji-kun kill was apparently a month ago. That means these are probably old news to some of you, but to those of you coming in for these now or in the future still, here is Ji-Kun and the Council of Elders.

Fifth Heroic was JI-KUN
I was playing as MARKSMANSHIP

I know, I know - Jade, Marksmanship? Still? You haven't given up on this yet? Surely Survival is the better choice for Ji-kun.
And it is! Assuming that your alternative spec is Beast Mastery. Beast Mastery is uselessness in its pure form on Ji-Kun, and any hunter running a BM/SV spec will absolutely want to play Survival. This is also true of any group that is having trouble clearing out their nests. In my case, however, there was no issue clearing out my nests. In fact, I'm fairly certain that with just a healer and myself, I could've cleared out any of the lower nests before they became an issue as Marksmanship. This is similarly true of the upper platform with a nutriment, but that's more because it's more single target oriented than the bottom nests.  My point here is that the boss is Ji-Kun, not the damage meter. Clearing out your nests really quickly as SV and having high damage isn't the goal. As you'll see  from the video, my performance on Ji-Kun was phenomenal as Marksman and when I went in to look more specifically for damage comparisons and performance bench marks I found that my damage on Ji-Kun was actually higher than most of the high parsing Survival players.

I know without any shadow of a doubt that I can pull off higher single target with Marksman than Survival, so that's exactly what I did.

So Ji-Kun. The heroic mode of this is very similar to the normal modes with the exception that during some nests a large, single target guardian comes into play. The nests that these affect have to kill the guardian in addition to the rest of the eggs. For us, this meant having a designated group for each nest, ensuring the same people went to the same nest each time around. I was on one of these Guardian nests, so you will see both the upper and lower platforms in their heroic edition if you watch the video.

This is the main thing I have to stress about this fight, and it's the one thing people still don't believe me on. You have three wing flight charges, and for each charge, you want to combine this both with a flight to the platform and with picking up a nutriment. It is possible for every single nest - it just takes more careful planning on others. In the worst case scenario, err on the side of caution. This fight is not so difficult that killing yourself in order to get a nutriment is better than or equal to no nutriment at all. However, if you can do it - why would you not?

To avoid Caw, begin strafing when her cast gets to 0.0. Don't walk into other people, though, as they may be the target of Caw themselves.

Do not play Beast Mastery here. every time you are in the air your pet despawns. Whether or not he gets the nutriment buff becomes void if your pet is constantly spawning and despawning.
Some quick things to consider: A warlock portal is the easiest way to avoid a downdraft that has its druid roar missed. Alternatively, you can coat the main platform in ice by throwing a trap at Ji-kun and using the Glyph of Black Ice. Do this only as last resort or if the rest of your raid is aware, as it can make the green pools hard to see.
One more: If you are going to a Guardian platform and your tank is not there, you will get the first attention from the bird. It can crit you and one shot you, so it is important that you know if you are arriving on the nest first. If you are, make sure you have deterrence up. Once you land, your pet will pull aggro from you. If it doesn't, you can feign. If nobody else has reached the nest by this point, you may wind up having to revive Fido.  Oh... This also marks the first kill I recorded off my stream rather than frapsing, so I apologize for the slight drop in video quality.

On the upper nest, prioritize the eggs before the guardian. This is true whether you have a nutriment or not. The guardian will die from cleave, but the eggs have significantly more health on the upper nest than the lower. It is unacceptable not to clear out a nest.

Our group was going to the last set of nests in the sequence. For us, this was purple. The shadow priest, Gyrobine, who went with us wrote up this sequence of events for that particular nest set:
Sequence of events for Group 5 (purple), in order to make optimal use of Feather charges and the Primal Nutriment buff:
The lower nest spawns after the second Quills is finished (Quills -> Downdraft -> Quills).  Start running to the platform as soon as the Quills finishes channeling.  There is a Nest Guardian with the 5 hatchlings.  The next Feed Young is in 42 seconds, so if everything dies by then, we can use a feather to both fly up, and pick up a Primal Nutriment.  This is generally easily possible and we sit at the nest waiting for 5 seconds or so until 3 seconds are left on the timer, before flying up.
After getting back up to the main platform, there is a Quills, then a Downdraft.  At the end of the Downdraft is a Feed Young, which we take and then go to our upper platform (right above our lower platform).  This nest will have a Nest Guardian with the three eggs.  The tank that goes up will be delayed, so serious survivability cooldowns will be needed if you get there first.  If you don't have powerful CDs, then you might want to make sure someone who does have them gets there in front of you.  Once up there, we have 30 seconds to kill the three eggs and the guardian before Feed Young goes out.  This should be doable if everyone makes it there on time with the Primal Nutriment buff.  If not, then we still have another 8 seconds to kill them and drop down before Quills comes out.  If we still haven't killed them before Quills is damaging the raid, then we stay up top until after Quills is done.
There is another Feed Young between dropping down from the Upper Platform, and going down to the lower platform, if a feather wasn't used to pick up a Nutriment before the Quills.  Right after this is a Downdraft, at the end of which all three DPS and healer need to immediately drop down to the lower platform.  At this point, we have only 30 seconds between the Downdraft finishing and being able to catch the next Feed Young, so ideally we are on the platform as soon as the eggs spawn.  Our successful attempts at this involved the healer helping to kill the adds.
Once back on the main platform, there is another Quills and Downdraft, with Feed Young occuring 10 seconds after the Downdraft.  We've never actually needed to go up and kill the nest on the Upper Platform, though.




Sixth Heroic was COUNCIL OF ELDERS
I was playing as SURVIVAL

This one is definitely a survival fight. The health of all the bosses much reach zero, so as much as you can push on them via Improved Serpent Sting the better. However, it is the order of events that makes this fight what it is. That means it is not a blanket AoE fight like Horridon or Tortos-killing-bats. Similarly to how a single target must die during certain transitions of Horridon, or that whirl turtle waves must be met, here too you must meet a damage threshold for each Elder you are pushing.

That means if you are just AoEing like mad, barraging and multishotting and explosive trapping, you are not being a conscientious raider.  Yes, your damage will be higher. But that means you're making other people pick up your burst slack. If they are perfectly compensating this for you, then by all means. However, if your raid is constantly hitting full power or not pushing targets at the right time, or heaven forbid not killing Loa spirits, it's time to put barrage down and pick up the glaives. You must target switch and you must do your job, first and foremost, before trying to have the highest damage possible. The order in which your raid tries to do this will dictate this more closely, but chances are if you're burning Sul you will not have the luxury as much as you would like.

You can disengage out when Sul is casting Sand Trap. This isn't a major point since you can also just strafe out without any consequence, while if you disengage then you must stop casting cobra (if it happens to line up that you want to disengage in the middle of a cobra). More importantly, you can use Master's Call to remove yourself or anyone else from a Sand Trap. This is useful if your dispels aren't going out, or the healers need help. I have my Master's Call set up to cast on myself or my target, and the macro is included below.

Currently you have the option of either picking up Silencing Shot to help with interrupts or Binding Shot to help with Loa Spirits. In 5.3 you get Binding Shot for free, so not putting this down will be a major disservice to your raid. Binding Shot is Marksman only in 5.3, I'm crazy. Nonetheless The Binding arrow will pick up the Loa Spirit when it spawns, so instead of relying on your slower/rooter to pick up the Loa Spirit immediately, rely on yourself to give them the buffer they need. If you're marksman. Or we're talking about past performances. Nothing is worse than a hunter asking why the Loa Spirit is so slow to be rooted or slowed, when they are capable of holding it in place to allow the other players to target it. If this is not an issue, Silencing Shot is your friend.

There is no excuse not to switch to the Loa Spirit or the Twisted Fate. Down time is not an acceptable play style. On that note, if your targets are dying on time, use the opportunity to Multishot and cleave ISS onto any surrounding targets at least once. At that point you can go back to single target in order to kill these adds on time.
This video is our second kill, not our first. Sorry about that.  First and second are usually similar anyway.

<Macro's here when servers are back up.>