Hunterology: Shot Rotation and Quartz
Hunter Shot Rotations, Quartz, and the Honorary PhD in Mathematics we should all get
Blizzard has some happy news for the hunter community: provided the changes go on as they have said, Steady Shot will no longer clip Auto Shot! Why is this a big deal? Right now, Hunter DPS, while generally very large, has an overwhelmingly complicated interrelation of speeds, cooldowns, and hidden mechanics only surpassed by Enhancement Shaman and Windfury! The upcoming change eliminates most of the complication, hunters rejoice! But until Wrath of the Lich King, or any preceding patch that contains these mechanics changes, Hunter DPS remains a complicated endeavor.
Quartz
Quartz is a casting bar addon that has a ton of features useful for many classes, but it is an almost mandatory addon for a hunter looking to maximize their MQoSRDPS. Here’s a basic rundown on how it works for you:
The first element that is important is the swing, or shot, timer. It just tracks from left to right across it’s length. When it hits the right end, your shot goes off. As a note, I have found there is about a half-second delay for the animation to process, but the time the shot is sent to the server seems consistently applied when the swing timer gets filled.
The next most important element is the cast bar. It show the spell or ability you are currently casting. It shows the total time the spell should take to cast and fills from left to right as the time goes by. If the cast time increases due to pushback, it pushes the cast bar to the left and makes a note within the text of how much longer the cast will take. The right end of the bar has a red section. This section represents the lag in communication time between the server and you. What is important about this section of the cast bar is that if you send the command to begin a spell, it won’t reach the server until after the current spell is finished.
What does that mean, you ask? Every time you click a button (okay, not every time, some commands are processed on the local client, but most) your computer sends a message to Blizzard’s servers saying “I want to do something now!” Blizzard’s servers decide whether you can or not, and then send a message back to your computer and you either do what you want to, or you get a voice telling you you can’t do that yet and see an error message pop up on your screen. If you send a command during the red “lag” time, the servers won’t think you’re busy when they get the message and will let you do it without you having to wait until you really are done.
Shot Rotations
The hunter specs have different needs as far as DPS styles go. Beastmaster hunters have a fairly easy time of dps, Survival and Marksman hunters have a lot more work to so. Not that any one is better than another, they all bring different tools to the table.
Beastmaster hunters are going to provide the most dps. Don’t yell at me, yell at Blizzard. Personal DPS is high, pet DPS is high, Ferocious Inspiration is a great buff to party members. The nice thing about FI is that it helps casters out too, not just physical dps.
Marksman hunters are going to have solid personal dps, but it’s going to come at a cost of pet DPS (minimal) and mana efficiency (terrible). Trueshot Aura is a nice party buff if you are in a physical damage party but it’s lack of scaling weakens its effects as your raid dps improves.
Survival Hunters bring arguably the best buff: Expose Weakness. It buffs physical damage for the entire raid, not just the party. Downside to this is issues with mana (though not as bad as marksman hunters), good, but generally not excellent, personal DPS, low pet DPS, and a general lack of excellent gear to provide the insane agility values they require.
These differences result in a considerably different playstyle for each spec, but they all come out of a single theory on shot rotation: Steady Shot should always take less time than an Auto Shot, and it does not reset the shot timer. Before I get any further, it is important to mention that Auto Shot has a hidden “cast time.” As your shot timer ticks across, the last .5 second is a “cast time” for auto shot. If you move or take an action during that half second, auto shot is either delayed or reset, depending on the action. The trick, then, is to get your Steady Shots to fill up the dead time before that half-second cast time on Auto Shot.
The 1:1 rotation
The 1:1 rotation is the mainstay of the Beastmaster shot rotation and the basis for the rest. What it means is one special shot to one auto shot. Every Auto Shot has it’s dead time filled with one steady shot. The reason this is so useful for Beastmaster hunters is the haste effects of the Serpent’s Swiftness talent and the proc effect of Improved Aspect of the Hawk. It pushes shot times short enough you can’t really fit any more in-between.
The 3:2 rotation
The 3:2 rotation is used by Beastmaster hunters when they aren’t under haste effects (if it fits within their shot times as enhanced by Serpent’s Swiftness) and is the basis for Marksman or Survival hunters. The idea is that you fit three special shots for every two auto shots. For this style, you use the red “lag” time of your first Steady Shot to cast in instant shot, like Arcane Shot, before the Auto Shot cast time. Arcane shot is the best one to weave, but the cooldown on it might push it out of the 3:2 rotation. In a raid setting, Scorpid Sting is good to alternate it with. If there are no crowd-controlled targets, Multi-shot can be used as well. Serpent Sting is better than nothing, but the DPS and DPM it provides make it a sub-optimal choice.
Why this involves math
Any time you are not dealing damage is wasted time, hence the steady shot-auto shot rotation: you fill the wasted auto shot time with more damage. Rotations involving more shots are filling dead time with more shots and thus more damage. The hard part is figuring out just how much dead time is available to fill. Hunters are always dealing with haste effects so this is never as straightforward as it seems. Happily, Steady Shot and Auto Shot both scale with haste, so as long as Auto Shot is a half-second longer than Steady (it would take a lot of haste to get to that point) you can follow the 1:1 rotation. Steady Shot also does not reset the Auto Shot timer even in the half-second cast time it only delays it. If haste effects are pushing them that close, the Auto Shot only gets delayed. DPS is not as high as theoretically it could be, but it is better than losing the shot entirely. So the 1:1 rotation-no problem.
The 3:2 rotation, on the other hand, makes things much more complicated. For Beastmaster hunters, this rotation should only be used when not under haste procs. Under haste, just go 1:1. I’d suggest the same for Marksman and Survival: when you hit rapid fire or are under Heroism/Bloodlust, just go for a 1:1 rotation. When using a 3:2 rotation, the time of two Auto Shots needs to equal the time of two steady shots, plus a 1.5 second global cooldown, plus half a second for the Auto Shot cast time, plus any time for you to accommodate lag. Accommodating lag is why Quartz is so important for hunters.
The cast times are influenced by any passive haste on gear as well as your ammo pouch. Depending on how much haste you have, what your weapon speed is, and what ammo pouch you use, those numbers will change. It is important to balance all of those issues out. For the most part, Beastmaster hunters are going to look for the fastest weapon they can find. Since Auto and Steady shot will both scale, they will want the hits coming fast and steady. Marksman and Survival are going to want weapons that scale with haste to the exact interval they require to accommodate their shot rotation. Err on the side of slower weapons. A slower weapon will have more dead time (allowing easier shot weaving) and individual hits do more damage. A slower weapon for a Survival or Marksman hunter will probably result in higher DPS, even if they are the same DPS values.
Visiting the Dr.
Before trying to get all of this going in a raid you will probably want to get some practice on timing your shots, maybe play around with different weapon speeds and ammo pouches. Best way to do that is grab a few stacks of cheap ammo and go visit Dr. Boom in Netherstorm. Stand on the barrels and he won’t be able to damage you while you can fire away at him until you run out of arrows (or bullets, for the gun-lovers). Just dismiss your pet before you do that-no one wants to get blown up by bomblings.
But no clipping!
The absolutely most important thing to consider when using a shot-rotation is to not “clip” Auto Shots. If you begin casting Steady Shot before Auto Shot completes, the Auto Shot is delayed for the length of the Steady Shot and Auto Shot’s half-second cast time. That means the Auto Shot is losing up to two seconds per cast which is a huge sink for your dps.
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