I don't like this patch anymore..

[Troubleshot]

I'm still very on the fence about the Hunter changes.

I like the focus change as a mechanic. It is still a work in progress to master, but it will come.

What I do NOT like is the game of "Whack-a-mole" that I find myself playing with my new BM "rotation" (It does not really resemble a rotation anymore). I have never been a "clicker", but I honestly think my dps will improve if I start doing it as a Hunter.

After re-gemming/forging, the afore mentioned game of Whack-a-mole, has resulted in a monstrous dps increase of about 10% for me on test dummies... and a bit less in raid combat. It is an AWFUL lot of extra work for very minimal results imho.

Having things a little more complex is fine, but I truly fear doing a 5-man pug with a typical Hunter come Cata.

And multi-shot is just plain hideous. I am being completely serious here when I say that my Disc Priest (in lesser gear) gets better dps with Holy Nova (and it heals!).

[Selethias]

I don't know why people are saying the new multishot is bad. As much as I do not like the hunter changes overall, multishot is as OP as it gets once you get past a group size of 3. I did ICC last week and on the opening trash to Marrowgar I was doing 16k dps on the packs in there. Only time I was anywhere near top 5 of 10 in the raid (I was #2 behind a DK).

[Rhyela]

Those two trash pulls before Sindragosa? Yeah, I did 50k on those as Survival with a trap launcher/explosive trap and multi-shot. It's beast.

[Anansi]

Multi Shot as Survival his monstrous. Multi Shot as Marks or BM is extremely weak. I've gone from loving big trash packs to absolutely hating them, I feel so useless.

I ran my first ICC tonight on my Hunter since the patch and Focus will take some getting used to, it's hard to break routine. DPS is down certainly, I think I could boost it up some by tightening up how I play under the new system but it's not what it was. I was steadily in second spot all night behind my wife's Affliction Warlock (I have to say though it's good to see Warlocks doing great DPS again). Focus is definitely an improvement over mana.

The one area I'm struggling with is managing Focus and shots during Rapid Fire bursts. That one will take practice.

Regarding shot rotation being like whack-a-mole, yes it is. There isn't a regular rotation anymore which trips me up a lot especially with trash and target switching. I do agree that clicking seems to be more accurate than button pressing bizarrely enough. Button presses just don't seem to register as fast as clicks and it's easier to track what you're doing.

[Kalliope]

Multi Shot as Survival his monstrous. Multi Shot as Marks or BM is extremely weak.

Not as marks, no. Do you have a point in Rapid Killing and two in Bombardment? It works okay for me, at least.

[cowmuflage]

It's all right not great but useable i find.

[Anyia]

Multi Shot as Survival his monstrous. Multi Shot as Marks or BM is extremely weak.

It's not up there with dps warrior aoe, but as BM I'm quite happy with the carnage I can wreak with a string of steady-until-full-focus, TBW, multi-until-out-of-focus, Fervor, multi-until-out-of-focus-again. That's something like eleven or twelve multi-shots in as many seconds, and the ICC trash does not seem to like being on the receiving end of it!

I dropped to something like 5 fps on the whelp pulls before Sindragosa the other night due to excessive number of floating numbers. Now if only my trap keybinds would start working so I could throw an explosive trap in there too...

[Gungnir]

As BM go into a trash heavy instance/raid with a worm. When the tank aggros a large trash pack, send worm in, let worm thunderstomp, hit BW, hit burrow attack, multishot till out of focus, fervor, multi till out of focus. Then check your damage meter.

Once you have that down, try it with a launched explosive trap in the mix

[Danielfboone]

You're doing something drastically wrong if your damage is down that much. Mine has been up ever since patch day and is up even more since they buffed us the other day. MM is up by about 600dps and BM is up by about 1800 dps and is once again my raiding spec. Spirit Beasts are also now just as good as any other ferocity pet so Skoll is my regular raiding partner. I have not done any reforging at all either. The only thing that is down is AOE damage, that's way down. I can only do two multis before I need to regen focus and by the time I have enough back---the mobs are dead from mage and DK dps mainly. I don't really care about that though. Hunters are single target damage dealers and as that we do even better than ever.

[Kalliope]

You're doing something drastically wrong if your damage is down that much. Mine has been up ever since patch day and is up even more since they buffed us the other day.

Or maybe you weren't doing something right before the patch.

Or maybe you're just liking the new system.

Or maaaayyyybe the two piece t9 bonus is overpowered with two points in improved serpent sting.

Either way, I was under the impression that most hunters were on the whole experiencing a dps loss post-patch. Saying that anyone is doing something "drastically wrong" seems overly harsh when general evidence seems to indicate that a dps gain is the exception rather than the rule.

[Danielfboone]

But, while I have seen some saying they were slightly down, nobody has ever said they lost as much as the OP did. The only ones I have seen claiming a loss were highly geared MM who were ArP capped before. I have seen many say they are doing better now.

[Kalliope]

But, while I have seen some saying they were slightly down, nobody has ever said they lost as much as the OP did. The only ones I have seen claiming a loss were highly geared MM who were ArP capped before. I have seen many say they are doing better now.

The OP saw a 10% increase.

[Miyon]

But, while I have seen some saying they were slightly down, nobody has ever said they lost as much as the OP did. The only ones I have seen claiming a loss were highly geared MM who were ArP capped before. I have seen many say they are doing better now.

Wow, I have been a lot absent from the forums the last week.
But as I've gotten used to the new system, my damage has indeed improved, but I still do less dmg overall than before the patch.
Not much to complain about now, only a few small things like the spirits beasts Spirit Strike, volley gone, and autotargeting mobs after I have killed one.

[Miyon]

Shadow priests are a bad example, since SW:Death was doing excessive damage until they hot fixed it.

I believe that hunter passive damage (i.e. autoshot and pet automatic attacks) is down from where it used to be, so we're far more reliant on getting our ability usage correct, right when the definition of "correct" has changed substantially.

For BM, we now have to:
- use Kill Shot on cooldown when it is available
- use Kill Command on cooldown
- use Focus Fire when the proc alert goes off
- balance Steady Shot vs Arcane Shot to avoid both delaying KC and focus saturation

As usual though, the place to go to read up on the latest and greatest theorycrafting is over at Elitist Jerks (although the Frostheim links Antares offered are useful, too)

Shadow Priests were a bad example, and I havent grouped with that many since then, but most of the times now I usually is above them on the recount meter.

[Worba]

Since I've gotten more used to the new setup, my hunters seem to be doing about the same DPS as before, though I haven't really done any major instance runs - am thinking about running HHOR just to get a better "aftermath" picture.

My fury warrior seems to have gone way up though - not conclusive yet as she too hasn't done any major instancing beyond the silly HH event, so this data is just based on target dummy work, but I can say I love what they did to fury warriors - lots more to do, shouts now are more than just buffs with annoyingly short durations, and no more spamming whirlwind in a single target encounter. Sigh.

[Troubleshot]

It's not up there with dps warrior aoe, but as BM I'm quite happy with the carnage I can wreak with a string of steady-until-full-focus, TBW, multi-until-out-of-focus, Fervor, multi-until-out-of-focus-again. That's something like eleven or twelve multi-shots in as many seconds, and the ICC trash does not seem to like being on the receiving end of it! ...

I do have to admit, that is an excellent rotation. (And its kind of ironic that the best rotation I have seen yet is for AoE, which should not even NEED a rotation.)

But I tend to want things like Fervor and TBW for the single and small pulls and bosses where the burst is needed more. It's possible that i'm going to need to reevaluate that... but it just seems wrong since AoE is typically just for trash, where you should not need to pull out any bells and whistles.

[Danielfboone]

This is what I've been using on the target dummies, but I'm not very happy with it:

opener:

serp / aimed / steady / chim

rotation:

steady x 2 (for the talent proc) / aimed / steady / chim

You should not be using aimed for an opener or in the rotation like that. It now should probably only be used when the free focus proc is up. For me, it seems to be bugged though. The tooltip says it's instant when the proc is up but I still get the cast bar and it doesn't fire until the bar is finished. I can even run around with the cast bar up and the shot goes off at the end even if I'm still running. In a raid situation, the proc rarely happens. My MM rotation is Serpent, then a repeat of Chimera,Arcane,Steady,Steady,Arcane,Steady,Steady.

I'm sticking with BM for raiding and probably everything now. BM actually requires more button pushing than MM does. Who would have thought that would happen?

The only fight in ICC where I have noticed focus being a big problem is Dreamwalker where you have to keep switching targets and hoping focus is not low when a blazing skeleton shows up. BM is a big advantage there since the pet has a longer range than you do and you can still do more reasonable damage even if your big abilities are not ready yet.

[Kalliope]

Finally got to test my dps in VoA as BM.

9.2k on ice boss.

Much better group than the last, so I wouldn't compare this number to my last directly. However, that's a nice jump from my old BM numbers.

[Worba]

Well I finally took my MM hunter into HHOR the other night, and I have to say the results were pretty disappointing - her AOE is now terribad, despite putting just about all possible improvements into it.

And I'm pretty sure this isn't something that can be fixed with a few adjustments here and there, like I can with single target DPS, not since volley left, and MM lost access to improved traps.

That being said, I remain optimistic about MM's single target possibilities - unfortunately before I could really switch over to the single target fighting, the tank got his boss loot, dropped group, and everyone else kinda just split up... something that is all too common with HOR.

Will try again soon as I can.

[Troubleshot]

Well I finally took my MM hunter into HHOR the other night, and I have to say the results were pretty disappointing - her AOE is now terribad, despite putting just about all possible improvements into it.

And I'm pretty sure this isn't something that can be fixed with a few adjustments here and there, like I can with single target DPS, not since volley left, and MM lost access to improved traps.

I think the primary problem with Multi-shot is that it does not "stand on its own" as an ability. With such a high focus cost, you can use it 2 or 3 times... then you are empty on focus.

Since the damage is pretty mild, most mobs will remain after your Multi-shot burst... and you will be waiting an eternity to recover, and hoping for the rest of your group's AoE abilities to burn down the trash while your Focus recovers.

If the trash actually dies in the Multi-shot waves, you now are probably facing a tougher "single target" mob... with little to no Focus. Yippie!

It's almost better to ignore Multi-shot altogether in 5-mans.