Kill Command

[Klakk]

I only recently turned 85, and I confess, I have spent more time since collecting my pet stable than gearing. However, that was the reason that I started a hunter, and I will not apologize for it.

That said, I am still a fairly competitive guy, so gearing and shot rotation are slowing coming into play. My guild has a glut of healers, and a shortage on DPS, so the hunter could move over into a new main, as long as they allow me to raid as a BM. I do not think that will be an issue.

My specific question is about Kill Command. Every guide I read calls it our "Bread and Butter" or basically revolves the entire world around it, but I cannot figure out why. I fully understand that it does less damage than two arcane shots, but that it does it in one GCD. That, coupled with most of a Cobra Shot in the second GCD, makes for a DPS increase with Kill Command... supposedly. However, every bit of math that I do shows that, if I PERFECTLY manage my focus to always have 37 focus every 6 seconds for KC... I can do 200-300 more dps in a 13k dps stack. Or, I could just roll my fingers over random hotkeys and have fun with it.

KC synergizes with two talents... that do nothing but give it a tiny damage boost every 18 seconds, at best. Arcane Shot synergizes with roughly my entire spec, as well as my pet's spec. The extra pet damage Arcane shot gives more than makes up for the KC damage loss.


At what gearpoint will KC start making sense to use? As in, makes a meaningful difference in my total DPS to be worthy of the additional micromanagement.

[Worba]

For my BM hunters yes I use it regularly. For my others, I still use it occasionally:

1) When solo'ing something really tough - since KC's threat comes from the pet not the hunter, this is great for holding aggro even if it's not otherwise as optimal as arcane shot, chimera, aimed or etc

2) As a spacer for SV - when lock n load procs, I use exp shot / KC / exp shot, with KC in the middle while exp shot is on CD. This is preferable to using arcane as filler because arcane consumes a charge of LnL.

[7seti]

I only recently turned 85, and I confess, I have spent more time since collecting my pet stable than gearing. However, that was the reason that I started a hunter, and I will not apologize for it.

That said, I am still a fairly competitive guy, so gearing and shot rotation are slowing coming into play. My guild has a glut of healers, and a shortage on DPS, so the hunter could move over into a new main, as long as they allow me to raid as a BM. I do not think that will be an issue.

My specific question is about Kill Command. Every guide I read calls it our "Bread and Butter" or basically revolves the entire world around it, but I cannot figure out why. I fully understand that it does less damage than two arcane shots, but that it does it in one GCD. That, coupled with most of a Cobra Shot in the second GCD, makes for a DPS increase with Kill Command... supposedly. However, every bit of math that I do shows that, if I PERFECTLY manage my focus to always have 37 focus every 6 seconds for KC... I can do 200-300 more dps in a 13k dps stack. Or, I could just roll my fingers over random hotkeys and have fun with it.

KC synergizes with two talents... that do nothing but give it a tiny damage boost every 18 seconds, at best. Arcane Shot synergizes with roughly my entire spec, as well as my pet's spec. The extra pet damage Arcane shot gives more than makes up for the KC damage loss.


At what gearpoint will KC start making sense to use? As in, makes a meaningful difference in my total DPS to be worthy of the additional micromanagement.

You are using your focus badly. Draining your focus bar completely just makes things harder. Keep it partly full and you will still fire just as many arcane shots and have focus for Kill Command or Multishot when you need it.

This mod might be helpful:
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/i ... cused.html
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/i ... elper.html

Just keep your focus bar in the green and blue except for BW and multishot spamming. Use Kill Command every cooldown, it will increase your damage. For BW, make sure you have at least 3/4 of a focus bar and then you can get 10 seconds of solid Kill Commands and Arcane shots without needing to fire cobra shot.

[Arrol]

Heres a question i've been dieing to know the answer to:
does our mastery (increase our pets damage)
Increase our Kill Command damage?
Cus while i looks as if a player damage source it is applied through the pet. so say i had mastery to increase my pet damage by 20%
Will that 20% apply to Kill Command?

[7seti]

Heres a question i've been dieing to know the answer to:
does our mastery (increase our pets damage)
Increase our Kill Command damage?
Cus while i looks as if a player damage source it is applied through the pet. so say i had mastery to increase my pet damage by 20%
Will that 20% apply to Kill Command?

I assumed it did, but to be honest I have no idea. Mastery is a rather poor stat for BM in any case, so I reforge it off my gear whenever possible.

[Klakk]

Perhaps an analogy... if there is a road trip that is eight hours long by traveling the interstate, I really do not care if I can save 5 minutes by cutting down a series of 50 odd, unmarked, country roads.

That is roughly how I am seeing kill command at the moment. At what gear point will the country roads be able to save me an hour?



But I think I have the answer already. Kill Command and a great deal of micromanagement offers me a 3% increase in DPS over my random button pressing... I do not see that as worthwhile, and other people do. Thank you much for you answers.

[7seti]

Perhaps an analogy... if there is a road trip that is eight hours long by traveling the interstate, I really do not care if I can save 5 minutes by cutting down a series of 50 odd, unmarked, country roads.

That is roughly how I am seeing kill command at the moment. At what gear point will the country roads be able to save me an hour?



But I think I have the answer already. Kill Command and a great deal of micromanagement offers me a 3% increase in DPS over my random button pressing... I do not see that as worthwhile, and other people do. Thank you much for you answers.

I'm not sure what math you are using, but I'm quite sure Kill Command is more than a 3% damage increase at any gear level. There is a reason why every guide you found calls it our "bread and butter" ability; it's because it is. It's the BM spec's equivalent of Chimera Shot or Explosive Shot.

I know most people on this site subscribe to the "play how you like" philosophy, but it has to be said: a raiding BM hunter who does not use Kill Command is playing the spec wrong and their damage will suffer as a result.

This is an excellent up-to-date guide on the BM hunter rotation:
http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/201 ... -rotation/

[CrystalKitten]

I have an 85 hunter and mage. My hunter is a little more undergeared than my mage, however, I've noticed, when I can bother to pay attention, that my Kill Command generally hits for almost as much as my pyroblast procs. I use it when ever I can. Depending on the fight, I usually have a rotation something like KC, cobra, cobra, cobra, KC arcane arcane, cobra cobra, repeat. And that generally keeps my focus at a comfortable level. Sometimes i change it up, depends what kind of buffs I have, and how much base focus regen I have, and all that.

I'm starting to play with using BW when ever it's off cooldown, and then timing that with my next KC, AND a trinket I have that increases my mastery by 1260 (trink is just a little higher cd than BW, so I can generally use it every second BW)... I don't have any dps meter, but I've had no complaints so far.

But yes.. as far as to whether kill command is worth the focus... Considering that the hits seem at least similar to some of my pyroblast hits on my mage (Kariin @ dragonmaw if you wanna see her gear, is mostly purples).

[Klakk]

Actually... every single guide proclaims Kill Command because Kill Command is proclaimed by Elitist Jerks. Their website sets the standard, and all the others work inside the framework. EJ are just the kind of people that DO care if taking the back country roads can save them 5 minutes. Unfortunately, EJ's stance of being academically correct does not always equal functionally correct for the masses. While they can navigate the country roads... the potential for failure on a massive scale is extremely high.

Even in the case where people do learn to navigate the country roads, issues arise. What happens to your convoluted rotation when you have to move to avoid the bad? The simpler rotations can work out to be higher dps because they are less affected or recover faster from interruption. It is one thing to drive the country roads in the daylight... but what happens when it is night time, or a thunderstorm? or Both? A good many EJ type theories only work when applied with other EJ type people around them... think of them as other cars on the road. Many of the EJ theories rely on a fight finishing quickly, during the effects of a short term buff, and tend to fail when applied if the fight last longer than that buff's duration because of a lesser performance by others.

As such, while I take everything from EJ with the perspective and grain of salt that should be exercised, not everyone does. As one site after another plagiarizes the work of the site before it, the conclusions are understandably the same. The lay person, having read the same information in several locations, looks upon it as independent confirmation... when in fact it is all still just single source research.


Now, all that said... I am not coming to "revolutionize" BM hunters, and I am not claiming that any or all of these guides are incorrect, or that anyone is wrong when following them. I am certainly not advocating a different dps strategy. I am asking, or trying to ask, or rather I asked and no longer feel that there is an answer, the VERY SPECIFIC QUESTION of "at what point did KC become a significant dps increase?" I define a significant increase as a double digit percentage increase.

I assure you, I have read a number of the guides on BM hunters already, even if they are in short supply. This includes the one you have linked. Please note, all of them... and I do mean ALL of them, are very long "do what I say" and very short on "and here's why it works best". The EJ posting described it, noting that the theory was based on KC's higher crit chance and single GCD use, coupled with a Cobra Shot to fill the second gcd and refill 9 focus. This was noted in my very first post.

Now, however "quite sure" you are that using KC at all levels is best, let me assure you that you are flat out wrong there. At all of the lower levels, KC fills in nicely as a burst attack in PVP to help get the kill, and nice for soloing as the threat goes to the pet, but is never a PVE dps increase. This is fairly universally agreed upon. This is because Arcane Shot's power comes from a constant, and KC scales much better with Ranged Attack Power. KC's superior scaling is the crux of this question. Most notably, does this scaling equate a huge increase in overall dps? I am not asking if it IS an increase. I already know that it IS an increase. I also know that at my gear level, the increase is very, very minor.

I know it is minor, because I am capable of doing both rotations in a semi-same environment, and I can note that minor increase in dps. I know it is currently minor because I can take the values of arcane shot and kill command, along with their real world crit percentages to arrive at a mathematical conclusion. I can also see a minor increase in a simulator, http://www.femaledwarf.com/ , which is far more capable of running an exactly perfect rotation than I can.

So, do you, or do you not, know of roughly what RAP I require to make KC a 10% dps increase over just spamming Arcane Shot every time I have some focus? In the time it took to write this, I suppose I could have just done the math.






Given that Arcane Shot has so much synergy with so many talents and pet interaction, I cannot simply do the math on Arcane and KC. However, my estimates put it roughly 17k RAP. Thank you all for your answers.

[Arrol]

i kill command crit for somwhere in the 20k range. arcane shot crits ar around 8k. so 2 arcane shot crits is less then 1 Kill command crit. and the arcane shots take more focus and 1 more GCD

THATS WHY YOU USE KC ALWAYS

[Kurenio]

I did not take the time to read all of this(read like half), but mastery is an important stat for bm only beaten out by crit and agi. Mastery increases all damage done by our pets since KC is done by our pets its damage is increased by mastery. Therefor mastery increases our main attacks damage. Getting in an extra cobra shot from haste does not in any way out perform a damage increase to our main attack. Not only that all our other pets abilities increase in damage so that factors in as well. Looking at a hunter personal dps Mastery is a horrible state for BM, but overall with your pet included it is alot more important then haste. I haven't tested it since 4.2 hit, and what the mastery nerf might do the the priority, but in 4.1 Mastery outweighs haste by a bit. Me reforging for master over haste when there was crit on the gear is what allowed me to constantly out DPS every MM and survival hunter I went up against. Even the one who out geared me ended up below me on the dps and dmg meters. So don't listen to all these sites saying haste > mastery, because they are dead wrong, and I have proved that by doing more dps going mastery > haste which allowed me to pull more then their so called the max dps of a BM hunter at the end of the fight. Pulled over their prediction for MM with it.

[GormanGhaste]

Frostheim on Kill Command

Basically, BMs will have a much greater chance to crit with Kill Command than Arcane Shot. Also, Kill Command's damage is buffed by 20% when Bestial Wrath is active.

[Klakk]

Ok... this is just getting silly.


Are you people posting nonsense as a way to initiate new posters? =D

[CrystalKitten]

I'm not sure why you think people's posts are non-sense I know for a fact that right now, my KC does more damage than Arcane shot, which is what you asked (and what many other people are saying). I'm in moderate gear, ilvl 350 or so, but some items aren't even heroic.

I paid closer attention earlier, and my arcane shot does about 8-9k damage, non-crits, while my Kill command does 10-11k non-crits (I noticed 11k arcane crits, and 25k KC crits when soloing). Now, I'm very much the "play as you wish" player, and I like the idea of a bad-ass pet, so I have BM-focused glyphs when possible, and my shot glyphs are admittedly not specced to arcane shot, and I also do enjoy trying to stack mastery when ever I can. However, some quick math shows that even a 12% increase from the prime glyph wouldn't quite get you all the way up to par with KC alone.

I'm not sure what kind of "proof" you are looking for from people.. but it's not exactly like I can go back to being a level 70-80 with moderate gear and slowly scale up to see just WHEN kill command is the most effective. I'm not sure how much theory crafting goes on here, but maybe a board dedicated to it might be a better place to ask if you're looking for something more specific? All i know is that right now, kill command is a beast. Doing my Deepholm quests and my little sparkles often takes those twilight villains down to 1/4 health with one chomp.

[GormanGhaste]

Ok... this is just getting silly. Are you people posting nonsense as a way to initiate new posters? =D

If you don't understand our arguments, we'd be able to help you better if you ask specific questions. In what way do you disagree with Frostheim's post?

[Caanin]

Wow, this is why I struggle understanding all the technical apsects of rotation and statistics!!!
Kurenio brings Mastery into this argument by saying it should be valued higher then Haste based on our pets dps value as a BM hunter (I've often wondered this very argument) and it slams head on against everything you see from WHU and EJ.

I'm not a raider, my career is of the non 9-5 variety and my schedule is so hit or miss I can rarely manage to squeeze raiding into my game life. Since I'm not a raider I spend little if any of my limited game time trying to figure out the convoluted and complicated mathematics of mastering the damage output of the hunter class!!! To those of you who do all this complicated work to solve all the inner workings of my favorite class I thank you and Salute you!!! To the OP, and Kurenio as well, I feel in the end, while your arguments may or may not hold merit, without all the hard statistics and mind numbing calculations to support your theorys, you are basically barking up a tree. Just do like I do and enjoy the game as you would prefer.

[Kurenio]

Well I may not have charts out the ass.... I have proved for atleast 4.1 that EJ and WHU were wrong in saying go haste > mastery. By out preforming everything they said I couldn't do at maximum dps. With less then full 359 and without 4 set tier bonus. That being said never trust a site that claims something is the best without trying things out for yourself. I probably spent 3-5k in gems/respecs/reforge/rechants and all that stuff to figure out the absolute best set up in actual playtime. Not that of a dps chart, but the actual thing.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Out of curiousity, why even bother asking if you aren't going to listen to the answers supplied? KC will end up being a static DPS increase at eighty five with all factors taken into account. It's been proven in numerous places, and in my own experience as well. If you disagree then do it your way, no one is forcing you to use KC.

[twilightsky]

Here is a simple way of explaining it that i use on other people who try BM and dont use KC. Kill command is like Survivals explosive shot or like marksmanships aimed shot. It does far more damage on a BM hunter i use it all the time if you crit with a kill command you can proc to get a stronger kill command mines usually crit for around 38-43k if your not using Kill command and just spamming arcane shot i question why? your not an arcane mage o_O you don't use arcane damage as your only output your pet is your biggest source of damage so you let it do the damage and not you. Simple as.

[erwil]

Here is a simple way of explaining it that i use on other people who try BM and dont use KC. Kill command is like Survivals explosive shot or like marksmanships aimed shot. It does far more damage on a BM hunter i use it all the time if you crit with a kill command you can proc to get a stronger kill command mines usually crit for around 38-43k if your not using Kill command and just spamming arcane shot i question why? your not an arcane mage o_O you don't use arcane damage as your only output your pet is your biggest source of damage so you let it do the damage and not you. Simple as.

^
Correct, except that the MM equal ability is actually Chimaera Shot (exception is the 100-90% health range of the boss when Aimed Shot gets hard cast). Kill Command, Explosive Shot and Chimaera Shot (depending on the spec) are the ones you make sure you always have focus to use on cooldown.