Arcane and Steady Shot: What and Why
BRK has discussed Aimed Shot and how it should not be used in a shot rotation. So what are we left with? Multi Shot, Arcane Shot, and this new fangled thing called Steady Shot.
{Dana Carvey’s Grumpy Old Man} “Steady Shot? When I was a young hunter, we used pieces of little rocks as ammo, and they had sharp points on em. They made our fingers bleed when we touched em, you could only carry 5 at a time, and you could only fire once ever 20 seconds. We died alot, but that’s the way we liked it! You young punks… you don’t know how good you’ve got it.”
We know what Multi Shot does; it breaks sheep Pfft. But what about Arcane and Steady Shot. Just what are the mechanics behind these things? Let’s take a look.
Arcane Shot Rank 9 - An instant shot that causes ( RAP * 0.2 ) + 273 Arcane damage, has a six-second cooldown.
Steady Shot Rank 1 - A shot with a 1.0 second cast-time that causes ( RAP * 0.3 ) + 150 Physical damage. Causes an additional 175 against Dazed targets, uses the global cooldown of 1.5.
Those are pretty nice, aren’t they. Spiffy. Now, lots of people are head-over-heals in love with Steady Shot, but BRK not so much. Why? Because of the math.
Buster has a RAP of 1600.
Buster’s Arcane Shot = ( 1600 * 0.2 ) + 273 = 593
Buster’s Steady Shot = ( 1600 * 0.3 ) + 150 = 630
And if they crit with 5/5 in Mortal Shots:
Buster’s Arcane Shot Crit = 593 * 2.5 * 1.3 = 1927
Buster’s Steady Shot Crit = 630 * 2.5 * 1.3 = 2047
Steady Shot looks nice, BRK, you might be saying. WooT! But… aren’t we forgetting something?
Steady Shot is Physical damage, and as such, is mitigated by armor. Arcane Shot ignores armor, but is affected by resistances to arcane magic.
How does this affect us? Well, what if we are going against a mob that mitigates 30% of physical damage, how do our calculations change:
Steady Shot = [ ( RAP * 0.3 ) + 150 ] * ( 1 - Mitigation Percentage )
Steady Shot = [ ( 1600 * 0.3 ) + 150 ] * ( 1 - 0.3 )
Steady Shot = 630 * 0.7
Steady Shot = 441
Ooo… that’s not good at all; now Steady Shot does less damage than Arcane Shot - 441 versus 593, a difference of 152. But what if your RAP is really high, will Steady Shot do better then?
Buster has a RAP of 4000 and is fighting a mob who mitigates 30% of physical damage:
Buster’s Arcane Shot = ( 4000 * 0.2 ) + 273 = 1073
Buster’s Steady Shot = [ ( 4000 * 0.3 ) + 150 ] * (1 - 0.3 ) = 945
That’s a difference of 128, so the gap is closing, but it seems that Steady Shot’s vulnerability to armor-mitigation cannot easily be overcome by RAP alone. Actually, with a mitigation of 30%, Buster’s RAP would have to be 16,800 for Steady Shot to match the damage of Arcane Shot.
But that’s for a single shot. What about damage over time?
Arcane Shot has a 6 second cooldown, but is an instant cast. Therefore, in one minute, it can be fired 5 times. With five shots, excluding crits, Arcane Shot will do 2965 damage.
Steady Shot has a 1.5 seconds cooldown - the global cooldown - and a cast time of one second for a total cost of 2.5 seconds per shot. Therefore, in one minute, it can be fired 24 times. With 24 shots, against a mob with 30% physical damage reduction, and excluding crits, Steady Shot will do 10,584 damage.
Well that settles it. The Arcane Shot cooldown just nuked the beejuz out of its usefulness, right? Well, not quite; we’re not taking Auto Shots into consideration. Arcane Shot does not interfere with Auto Shots at all, whereas if you try to get 24 Steady Shot in one minute, that stops all Auto Shots from firing.
So to our previous calculations, let’s now suppose that you equip a gun that does 600 damage per Auto Shot and has a fire rate of 3.0 seconds per shot. That’s 12,000 Auto-Shot damage in one minute, less 30% for the damage reduction, which is a total of 8400 damage. With Arcane Shot not affecting the Auto Shot damage at all, we can say that our Arcane/Auto Shot rotation will do 11,365 damage.
11,365 versus 10,584. Arcane/Auto Shot seems to win the DPS War against a spammed Steady Shot, for our gear at least. But there is one more area of concern, and that’s mana consumption.
How much mana does 24 Steady Shots consume? 2640 mana.
How much mana does 6 Arcane Shots consume? 1380 mana.
Well there we go. In this instance with this gear, you’re much more mana-efficient to skip Steady Shot spamming; more damage for less mana consumed. Could this change based upon your ranged weapon’s stats? Of course. Is BRK gonna go through every ranged weapon in WoW and repeat these calculations? Pfft. No.
But what you can do is use the examples here to calculate what your own Arcane and Steady Shot damage is, find out that damage’s mana-cost, then determine which method is better for you. Post your results in the comments for all to see, why doncha.
Edit: BRK has discovered conflicting information on the equations governing the mechanics of Steady Shot; basically, the tooltip is being said to be inaccurate. An f-ing d@mn mess is a term more conducive to BRK’s mood at the moment. More research is being conducted.
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19 Responses to “Arcane and Steady Shot: What and Why”
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You can still weave steady shots between auto and arcane rotations if you time it right, and any good hunter would
arcane>auto>steady>auto>arcane
This is not a discussion on weaving shots. It’s just Arcane/Auto vs Steady spamming. Nothing more, nothing less.
And before you say arcane>auto>steady>auto>arcane is what “any good hunter would” do. let’s see the math backing that statement up. Maybe there’s something better, maybe not. BRK isn’t going to say so until he does the math for himself.
Why do you discount the insertion of steady shot between auto? Aren’t the arcance shots being ‘weaved’ between the autos also?
It is perfectly do-able to auto>steady>repeat without any effect on your autoshot dmg (assuming a weapon speed about 3 -ish) - and fire off an arcane when CD is up instead of steady.
This maximizes dps from ALL the 3 shots with no loss - HOWEVER as you said it is extremely mana intensive.
There are castsequence macros to do it.
I’m not offering any math - MATH? PFFFFF
I don’t do math! But consistently being in the top 3 on dps in Kara says alot (using only non-epics)
That’s a whole lot of incorrect information… where to begin:
At a base level it’s RAP*0.15 and RAP*0.2 for Arcane and Steady respectively.
ArcaneShotDamage = DamagePercentageBonus*RWSMod*(ArcaneShotBonus + RAP*0.15)
SteadyShotDamage = DamagePercentageBonus*RWS*(150 + WeaponDamage/WeaponSpeed*2.8 + 0.2*RAP + [Dazed: 175])
Steady Shot is not 2.5 seconds per shot, it’s 1.5 MAX. The GCD begins the moment your Steady Shot does.
Steady Shot has a cast time of 1.5 seconds, modified by quiver and haste effects. However, because of the GCD, a shorter cast time for Steady is meaningless.
These few facts break the math on your theorycraft post.
With 1600 RAP, 20% Crit and a 2.8 speed weapon (Steelhawk Crossbow) you’re looking at:
384.44 DPS at 37.78 Mana Per Second using only Arcane and Auto.
572.32 DPS at 54.21 Mana Per Second using only Steady and Auto.
397.78 DPS at 73.33 Mana Per Second using only Steady.
With your weapon and (Consortium Blaster) and Crit Rate, you’re looking at:
352.50 DPS at 33.06 Mana Per Second using only Arcane and Auto.
585.25 DPS at 63.25 Mana Per Second using only Steady and Auto.
So basically, the complete opposite of what you concluded in the post is true.
hmmm..i like to use concussive shot b4 using my steady shot.. maybe that would give some more weight (and mana consumption) to steady shot. however, in instances, most bosses are immune to concussive
Thottbot Arcane Shot Formula: (RAP*0.2+273)
WoWWiki Arcane Shot Rank 9 Formula:
[RAP*0.2+273]
Allakhazam Arcane Shot Rank 9 Forumla:
{RAP*0.2+273}
I’m curious, where did you get your formula, Drey?
BRK is not claiming that either of these analysis rotations is anything close to a real Shot Rotation. We are not advocating using them. We do not believe they are better than any weaved rotation at all.
It’s just a simple mathematical analysis, that’s it, that’s all.
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=203610423&pageNo=2
That post is based on the research and testing from Lactose, Eej, and many others at the elitistjerks forums.
http://elitistjerks.com/showthread.php?t=9274
They’re the same formulas I use for my own spread sheet (where the DPS numbers I posted earlier came from) and match up exactly with my own in game testing as well.
I understand you’re not saying “use these”, etc… I was just pointing out that the conclusions are incorrect because of the incorrect data used in said mathematical analysis.
The overall point being you’ve got a post on your main page saying “In this instance with this gear, you’re much more mana-efficient to skip Steady Shot spamming; more damage for less mana consumed.” when that’s not correct. It’s less damage for less mana consumsed, and the damage to mana ratio is nearly identical between the two (a difference of ~1.3 points of damage per mana spent) You’ve got a following here and if people start quoting you elsewhere, you’d want your information to be correct right?
D@mn right we do. And when we cannot trust the f-ing tooltip to give us the correct formula calculation, we get really PO’d. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
We will be rewriting this post after we can get some 2x confirmation about the basic formulas. Not gonna go through this a second time.
Grrrr… we are not amused.
i love watching you fight over a this stuff
i put on what ever gear i can get and i go kill stuff i might not kill as fast as you do but i bet i enjoy my self more without doing all the math but i guess if you enjoy math it might make the game better for you but i never was any good at math so i just make it up as i go =P
Adrus/Yen
Erhm Learn your class mechanics:
Physical Crit = 2xbasedmg
Hunter With Mortal Shots = 2.3xbasedmg
Buster’s Arcane Shot Crit = 593 * 2.5 * 1.3 = 1927
Buster’s Steady Shot Crit = 630 * 2.5 * 1.3 = 2047
Where you get 3.25 as the multiplier is beyond me!
“Learn your class mechanics” does not endear you anybody. If you want to play like that, go on the Forums.
BRK has frequently used TKASomething as a source of game mechanics information where it lists Ranged Crit as a 2.5 modifier.
However, we now see that this site hasn’t been updated since the 1 Agi = 2 RAP rule was modified. BRK will no longer consider TKASomething as an authority on game mechanics.
If one uses the Theorycraft section of the Hunter wiki at:
http://hunterguide.wikispaces.com/Theorycraft
You will see that they use the 2x modifier for Ranged Crit, which backs your statement. However, they don’t say how they arrived at that number; that it just “is”. BRK does not like being burned by bad formulas and mechanics; it affects *our* credibility. Before we endorse this, we’re gonna continue our research.
If you have a comment - rude or not - with supporting documentation, BRK is all ears.
I’m not sure of where to find it but any physical crit is 2x dmg while casting is 1.5x dmg before talents. Now the strange exception to this is arcane shot which is still 2x dmg although its a magic based attack.
Hey Damh, you missed one thing in your first calculation. You can fire the arcane shot 10 times per minute, not 5. 5 x 6 = 30, not 60. This doubles your arcane damage as well as your mana use. While this only helps the arcane case, I just wanted to point it out since no one seemed to even notice. I do have to say I have tried to be a better hunter and drool over BRK since I have found this site.
DhunterD
Hey you should really check out eliteist jerks webpage if you want theorycrafting info. They are the most respected and credible theorycrafters in regards to Wow.
For straight up dps, weaving auto steady is the most mana efficient way to increase your dps, you can throw in auto and multi in there if you want and I think it will increase dps but it is very mana intensive.
I don’t waste the mana on concussive shot as the mana to damage ratio is definetly not wirth it. Mana efficiency = less downtime = not having to use viper = extra 150 ap from staying in aspect of hawk.
Also if your with a pally you can get might instead of wisdom if you stay mana efficient. (might = greater than kings for straight up dps, kings provides more hp mana and crit though , same goes for your pets.
Pressaria 70 hunter
Illidan
So has this tooltip thing been cleared up? It doesn’t look like the post has been updated.
It seems incorrect that, “if you try to get 24 Steady Shot in one minute, that stops all Auto Shots from firing.” no matter how fast i mash steady shot theres always an auto that gets through in between them.
/cast [target=pettarget] Kill Command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Auto Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:show()
This macro allows you to spam 1 thing, without having to worry about auto shot/steady shot weaving thing you all talk about. It also cast Kill Command whenever that’s possible. I find it extremly useful for pve. Before i got this macro i was using every second of my raiding time, watching my character shoot so i could press steady shot at the right time. Now i can finaly relax and play the game.
And if you can get an auto shot in between your steady shots when you spam it, your weapon is WAY too fast. Get a weapon with around 3.00 speed.
Btw i did not make this macro myself, i have no idea how to make macros like that.
Also i’d like to tell you something else. In theory - yes, arcane shot might be better, but when you are dpsing you just dont use arcane nor Multi shot. Waste of mana.
I have some mod that shows me the autoshot timer for my weapon, currently a gyro-balanced khorium destroyer, and math aside, I know that if I wait till right after the autoshot fires that my steady shot will beat the next autoshot.
And I can do that all day. It doesnt eat hardly any mana if you have the 5/5 marksman thingyamabob.
I love my grammar and run-on sentences!
/agree with mike. I click steady shot right after the auto shot goes off and always goes off a split second before the next auto shot. I’m talking like 0.1 second before the next auto shot. Basically it’s spaming steady shot with the extra damage of 1 auto shot after every auto shot without and extra cooldown.
In fact, i can usually hit the kill command while the auto shot is going off and still get the next steady shot in without slowing the rotation down.