Trying out Marks

[Anansi]

About Ulduar gear level you should drop arcane shot even if your going agility.

Roughly speaking you want to consider dropping Arcane Shot when your Steady Shot consistently does more damage than Arcane. So watch your Recount numbers and WWS reports if you have access to some.

But, even then, this will only be a DPS boost if you're pretty good about managing your movement, since losing Arcane Shot is losing an instant cast.

[Epicfail]

Actually, if you find yourself doing a lot of AOE, stay Agi gemmed and you'll end up doing more. Arp will pass that quickly on the single target dps though, if your equiped for it. Soon enough we'll be worrying about mastery stats instead of arp, so just get better "hunter" gear.

Personally I have no plans for gemming Arp. I have the NES, but I'd be willing to bet Death's Verdict/Choice and Fanged skull will blow it away after the mastery changes.

Definitely take Arcane shot off the rotation if you have enough Arp. It works as a "I gotta move, but I don't want to waste a GCD" shot.

[Adam-Savage]

I was pulling little over 5k dps on Festergut thursday night and I forgot that I could put Trueshot Aura on. I guess I'm just used to surv.

[Kalliope]

I was pulling little over 5k dps on Festergut thursday night and I forgot that I could put Trueshot Aura on. I guess I'm just used to surv.

Depending on what other classes you run with, you may not have lost the equivalent of the TSA buff.

[Adam-Savage]

What is TSA ?

[Kalliope]

What is TSA ?

Trueshot Aura.

If you run with an enhancement shaman or a blood dk, the buff will already be covered.

[Chrizesu]

What is TSA ?

Trueshot Aura.

If you run with an enhancement shaman or a blood dk, the buff will already be covered.

They made it so the glyph stays active however.

[Kalliope]

What is TSA ?

Trueshot Aura.

If you run with an enhancement shaman or a blood dk, the buff will already be covered.

They made it so the glyph stays active however.

Yes, I was pointing out that while the OP had accidentally been running without TSA, the TSA buff may have been covered by his raid, so it would not have been an accurate representation of his marks dps without TSA.

[Gimlion]

Although, all this gearing and gemming/stats stuff discussion is kinda pointless and silly this close to cata... Damn Blizz and their massive game-changes...

[Adam-Savage]

When I go all out on the Heroic boss I usually do about 4500 dps. That's not bad for heroics.

[Kalliope]

Although, all this gearing and gemming/stats stuff discussion is kinda pointless and silly this close to cata... Damn Blizz and their massive game-changes...

Perhaps. But it's going to be relevant for the next several months, so we might as well do things right as they are currently.

[SpiritBinder]

Although, all this gearing and gemming/stats stuff discussion is kinda pointless and silly this close to cata... Damn Blizz and their massive game-changes...

Mr Blue Says:

If you are a melee DPS class, druid tank, or hunter, expect to see:

A lot more Stamina. Bear-form Stamina scaling will be lowered as a result.
Strength if you wear plate. Agility if you wear mail or leather.
Existing Attack Power becomes Agility and Stamina.Armor Penetration becomes Haste or Crit.
No Intellect on melee gear. Hunters won’t need Intellect since they will no longer use mana. Shaman and Retribution paladins will get mana and spell damage in other ways.

Which means if you have 940 ArmP, as I currenty do, It will be converted to 940 Crit, or haste, or a bit of both so dont stress it to much.
I did the same thing when just before Icc came out and we were getting gear previews. I saw all the ArmP and I was like Hmmmm, they really want me to be MM dont they... I figured out that It would probably be a good 6-10 months before cata came out any way, so it was still gonna be worth learning MM none the less If it was going to increse my dps as much as was forcast. And Fyi, It did, and then some

[Adam-Savage]

Well my Armour pen is only 245 right now.

[Chrizesu]

Well my Armour pen is only 245 right now.

That actually may be lower then my survival hunter's incidental ArP.

[Kalliope]

Well my Armour pen is only 245 right now.

That actually may be lower then my survival hunter's incidental ArP.

Yeah, that's a very low amount of ArP.

A much wiser hunter than I once told me that only a fraction of upping your dps as a hunter is rotations/movement/etc. The rest is making smart gearing choices.

Might want to have a look around (possibly here) for gear with more of the "good stats." I already talked to you about your gems, so that one's up to you.

[Adam-Savage]

I will pick up the shoulders after my daily heroic.

[Anansi]

A much wiser hunter than I once told me that only a fraction of upping your dps as a hunter is rotations/movement/etc. The rest is making smart gearing choices.

Skill will outperform gear. While yes, making smart gear choices is very important, knowing how to maximise your dps via shot priority, cooldown management, movement etc will yield better results than gear.

A well played Hunter in lesser gear will out-dps a poorly played Hunter in superior gear. Now this is assuming some equivalencies of both character and gear level of course.

[Sarayana]

A much wiser hunter than I once told me that only a fraction of upping your dps as a hunter is rotations/movement/etc. The rest is making smart gearing choices.

Skill will outperform gear. While yes, making smart gear choices is very important, knowing how to maximise your dps via shot priority, cooldown management, movement etc will yield better results than gear.

A well played Hunter in lesser gear will out-dps a poorly played Hunter in superior gear. Now this is assuming some equivalencies of both character and gear level of course.

I totally agree with you Anansi, but I think what Kalli is saying is that hunters scale incredibly with gear. Yeah, of course you have to have the right priority, spec, and understand movement and such. That's pretty much a given. But two equal players with about a tier difference in gear ilevels will see a huge jump in performance between the two. And picking up gear that's wrong for your spec will just only get you so far.

[Kalliope]

A much wiser hunter than I once told me that only a fraction of upping your dps as a hunter is rotations/movement/etc. The rest is making smart gearing choices.

Skill will outperform gear. While yes, making smart gear choices is very important, knowing how to maximise your dps via shot priority, cooldown management, movement etc will yield better results than gear.

A well played Hunter in lesser gear will out-dps a poorly played Hunter in superior gear. Now this is assuming some equivalencies of both character and gear level of course.

I totally agree with you Anansi, but I think what Kalli is saying is that hunters scale incredibly with gear. Yeah, of course you have to have the right priority, spec, and understand movement and such. That's pretty much a given. But two equal players with about a tier difference in gear ilevels will see a huge jump in performance between the two. And picking up gear that's wrong for your spec will just only get you so far.

Yes, I was going for that last point moreso than the rest. Two hunters with the same level of gear and with presumably equal skill on movement and such will have differing numbers if one of them makes better choices on which pieces they're using and how they're specced. For example, I saw a JC hunter who managed not to activate their belt's socket bonus because they stuck the JC gem in the wrong socket (and they could have had the bonus otherwise). It's a very small difference, but if a hunter makes that sort of choices on all of their gear and favors less important stats over others, there's going to end up being a larger difference.

The two things tend to overlap, though. A hunter who really knows their rotations and executes them well is also going to know how to balance their gear well, which means that they can potentially get higher numbers out of lesser gear, due to excellent execution and smart stat balancing. I agree that overall, the physical execution will make more of a difference than the gear choices, but my point is that part of the player's overall execution is making smart gear choices.

My apologies for the poorness of the original wording; I ended up downplaying the physical execution too much.

[Chrizesu]

A much wiser hunter than I once told me that only a fraction of upping your dps as a hunter is rotations/movement/etc. The rest is making smart gearing choices.

Skill will outperform gear. While yes, making smart gear choices is very important, knowing how to maximise your dps via shot priority, cooldown management, movement etc will yield better results than gear.

A well played Hunter in lesser gear will out-dps a poorly played Hunter in superior gear. Now this is assuming some equivalencies of both character and gear level of course.

This is so true with any class. You should have seen the elitist I outplayed on my badge geared mage.