BRK loaded the PTR software and tried out the Beastmaster build he has advocated since WoW 2 was released. The 41/20/0 build has been improved with the addition of Cobra Reflexes as more pet crits will cause Frenzy and Ferocious Inspiration procs. Very very nice for both pet, hunter, and party.

BRK has not seen Avoidance in action, but 50% reduction in AOE damage sounds incredible. We’d love to hear from someone who runs Mechanar or Botanica as a BM-spec with Avoidance.

Now, the other Big Thing in which we were interested was trying a Survivalist build. So we trained as a 0/20/41 with Readiness and Wyvern Sting, 3/3 in Expose Weakness for the 100% proc-on-crit, and 2/2 in Survival Instincts for the -4% damage taken and +4% increased RAP. You can see the results from the respec in the pic above.

BRK’s new agility of 576 makes us weep with happiness, but the loss of 50 DPS - ignoring the loss in pet dps - would have to be overcome by the rest of the party. However this build is quite interesting for instances with its much better crowd control: longer-lasting and less-resistable traps and Wyvern Sting. Also, a much better party buff with Expose Weakness looks tasty. Look, 25% of 576 agility is 144 attack power for all party members, which is more than Hunter’s Mark.

Will BRK try the Survivalist build? Undoubtedly. Will he take a big hit in DPS? Undoubtedly. Will he be a bigger help with his crowd-control abilities? That’s what we’re going to determine.

Now, there is one other thing that really tickled our toes, and that’s the new glow-effect for the Savagery enchant. It’s just gorgeous.

Do you have an experience with your Hunter on the PTR? Let us know!

It took a while, but Botanica is empty of bosses; yep, all five. BM Hunter, Frost/Arcane Mage (who is now Fire, of course), Warlock, (who was absolutely indispensable), Feral Druid, (who cleaned up getting the Dreamer’s Dragonstaff and some boots), and our typical pug’d Holy Pally, (sigh… four healers in the guild and none were on), cleared it.

BRK hit revered with Sha’tar and picked up the super spiffy girdle pictured, as well as the Arcatraz Key and the key to run the heroic Tempest Keep instances. Just a fantastic time, WooT!

BRK got the nice shoulders, but is disappointed at the total and complete lack of agility. If ya look at our little signature at the top of the blog, you’ll see we just barely break 500 agility and is really loathe to take a 25-point drop and the associated RAP falloff if we unequip our current shoulders. Heck, do you have an opinion on which BRK should use? The comments are open.

Yes, BRK has gotten the Test Realm code from a double agent inside Blizz headquarters. (Apparently, any MMORPG programmer can be bought off with promises of either homemade cookies or coupons to Denny’s; who knew?)

We sent the purloined papers to the BRK Code Breaking Detachment and Easy-Bake Oven Training Facility in Grenora, North Dakota, (”Friendliness lives here — you’ll be a stranger only once”). After 24 hours of uninterrupted, unfed, and painstaking dissection by the children of Ms. Stern’s 3rd and 4th grade class at Grenora Elementary, we’re able to present their research to you. Thanks kids, your checks are in the mail.

10. Rogues who refuse to level their lockpicking skill now receive a sliding-scale damage-debuff based upon a formula that relates lock-picking skill to character level.

9. An invisible minature version of DamageMeters, with only the Healing Done code implemented, has been inserted into the core WoW code. It calculates how much healing Priests, Paladins, and Druids cast on Hunter pets in proportion to the healing they perform on themselves. If these classes do not heal a Hunter’s pet sufficiently, they suffer gold or experience losses, and their armory profile will be prominently tagged “Non Pet Healer - Hunters Beware”.

8. The enemy cast bar can now be accessed via a call in a macro. BRK has already developed a macro that will yell at a warrior:

/if enemycastbar() != nul
/y Hey you b@stard! It’s Shield Bash Time, what’s the matter with you!

7. The counter for respecing is implemented on your Armory profile, so everybody can see how many times you’ve respec’d in the past 30 days. If the number exceeds 5 when your profile is accessed, an embedded .wav file will play Beck’s, “I’m a Loser, Baby, So Why Don’t You Kill Me”.

6. Every zone now drops a raw material than can be cooked into a pet snack. In Shadowmoon Valley and Netherstorm, for example, all the demons drop “Shadow Bites”, which can be made into “L’il Debbie Evil Snack Cakes”, which grant your pet +25 to Strength and Stamina for 30 minutes.

5. Fel Reavers are a tamable pet, although they shrink to appropriate size when tamed. Engineers are the only source for their food, “Rosie’s Leftovers”, (+5 BRK Cool Points to the first person to post the correct reference to “Rosie”).

4. The Beastmaster talent, “Improved Pet Mend” has been changed so that it that allows hunters to wear + Healing gear and have the effects applied to their Pet Mend spell. The graphic has been changed to remind Blizzard that Improved Pet Mend means just that, improve pet mend!

3. The Marksman talent Combat Experience has been renamed Combat Idiocy. Every hunter who puts points into CI will have their armory profile’s character picture modified so that it shows their toon wearing a big red clown nose, a huge rainbow wig, and a cardboard sign that says, “My pet is ashamed of me.”

2. Feral Druids in Dire-Bear Form will have their butts strategically shaved so that if one zooms in, one will see the words, “Warrior Tank? My big hairy @ss.”

1. The new spell Aspect of Big Red Kitty grants all members of the party 100% of the hunter’s Haste for 10 seconds when the hunter crits with any shot, and it cause the hunter to emote, “In the name of BRK, Burn It Down! YARG!”

A great honkin’ BRK WooT of Thanks to Leksi for sending us the WoW 2.1 Patch Notes for Hunters. Yes, every class is gonna get buffed/nerfed but who do you and BRK care about?

Us. D@mn right.

A new “Avoidance” ability can now be taught to hunter pets. This effect reduces the damage they take from area of effect spells and abilities.

Intewesting… BRK can see how this might really be helpful in instances and keep our pets alive longer. Since our guild has been running Mechanar lately, Hobbes is speced with Arcane Resist Level 5, but still takes a beating. The question will be, just how many training points will be sacrificed to train Avoidance. If it cuts into BRK’s dps, we just might have to ignore it.

* A new “Cobra Reflexes” ability can now be taught to hunter pets. This effect increases attack speed but reduces damage.

Stop the F-ing presses. Beastmaster Hunters, this is Infinite Cosmic Power! More attacks, more crits, more Frenzy and Ferocious Inspiration procs. You could stop with the patch right here and we’d would give it a BRK Growl of Approval.

* “Arcane Shot”: Casting lower ranks of “Arcane Shot” than your maximum rank will now reduce the bonus you receive from attack power.

Thus goes away a beloved high-RAP Marksman trick, and introduces yet another reason to go BM. Heehee.

* “Aspect of the Cheetah/Pack”: Wand damage will again correctly daze players with this effect active.

Wand damage? Are there squishies out there think they can survive BRK with Bestial Wrath with a wand? What are we missing?

* “Clever Traps” now affects “Snake Trap”.

Tiny Survivalist buff, but it was a “nerf” that, frankly, BRK didn’t know existed; it didn’t affect our decision to not go Survivalist. It’s nice, but um… this is more of a fix than a buff.

* “Entrapment” (Survival): Effect duration reduced to 4 seconds and is now subject to diminishing returns in PvP.

If you’ve been listening to BRK, you’ve been avoiding this talent. If you haven’t, well then, now’s a good time to start.

* “Entrapment”: The tooltip has been corrected to indicate it works on “Snake Trap”.

/snore

* “Expose Weakness”: The chance for this talent to trigger has increased to 33/66/100% chance at 1/2/3 talent points.

Ahhh. A sweet Survivalist buff, and a sure reason to foster some love for this neglected and abused tree. Honestly, BRK has seriously considered respecing Survivalist for the Wyvern sting and taking the DPS hit. This buff is another aromatic scent wafting from the Survival tree. Now if we can just get the massive loss-of-dps Funk out of the air.

* “Ferocious Inspiration”: This ability will now trigger “Kill Command” correctly.

Thank you. Next!

* “Flare” cool down increased to 20 seconds, and duration reduced to 20 seconds.

Hey! You rogues don’t have anything better to do than kvetch about Flare? Go practice your lockpicking and shet ep.

* “Frenzy”: This talent can now trigger from “Kill Command”.

How sweet it is. Thank you. Next!

* “Frost Trap”: This trap no longer breaks stealth from its slowing effect.

I told you rogues to get back to class and be quiet. Who runs the blog for rogues, anyway? Can’t you find your people something better to do, like teaching them that Imp Sap is mandatory for non-PvP?

* “Go for the Throat” no longer causes additional threat.

The following commentary is totally stolen from the BRK Comments, originally by Zeej, who gets +5 BRK Cool Points.

“Removing the additional threat from GFTT is actually a very good thing, the additional threat was not applied to your pet but to you. For example, if you sent your pet on Mob A and it pulled Mob B and Mob C by proximity, the first time GFTT procs B & C think you’re “buffing” your pet in some way and turn to you, even though you haven’t done any damage to them, much like you were healing your pet. This is the threat that’s been removed.”

So ain’t that just ducky? BRK thinks so. Another instance of you guys coming through with the goods in the clutch with mustard, and the spicy stuff, too, not that yellow watered-down food-coloring variety for 99 cents at the 7-Eleven on the end-cap with the five-day-old generic bread and the cereal in the yellow box called, “Cereal”. But we ramble. Next!

* “Hunter’s Mark”: This ability now becomes stronger each time the target is struck by a ranged attack.

/blink

Do we read that right? Our bonus RAP from Hunter’s Mark increases as we have successful hits? By how much? Can we see the math? Pretty-please?

* “Improved Hunter’s Mark”: Adjusted the tooltip to indicate this talent only grants melee attack power equal to the base ranged attack power on the “Hunter’s Mark”.

OK. Thank you. There was a question on this?

* “Kill Command” has been removed from the global cool down. The shout animation has been removed.

OMG!! It’s Party Time! Does BRK now grab the mob by the throat and shake him like a rag doll like we asked, too?

* “Readiness”: Now resets the cool down on “Misdirection”.

A severe crippling of the Survival tree is now fixed, and BRK rolls the idea of just how helpful a Survival hunter with two Misdirections, improved freezing traps, and Wyvern Sting would be… pretty spiffy, no?

* “Revive Pet”: The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate the pet returns with a percentage of its base health. It will not get an increased percentage of the bonus health it receives from a percentage of its master’s stamina.

Why not just bring my pet back with one health point and be done with it. Sheesh.

* “Scatter Shot”: This ability will now trigger “Kill Command” when it critically strikes.

BRK wonders if any Marksman hunters are going to care in the least, and the answer we come up with is “no”.

* “Survival Instincts” now also increase attack power by 2/4%.

If you were going deep into the Survival tree, you could basically choose +4% health or -4% damage taken. Now, you choose +4% health or -4% damage taken and +4% RAP. That’s a fun choice made more fun. It’s like having two ace pitchers and trying to choose a number one starter. It’s a problem, no doubt, but a good one to have.

* The quest creature, Death Ravager, is no longer able to be tamed.
* The Razorfang Ravager can now be tamed.

If ya like yer ravagers, there ya go. For the rest of us, /yawn.

* Hunter “Mend Pet”/”Improved Mend” Pet Changes:

Whoa whoa whoa! An entire section for this stuff? BRK is scared…

* Replaced the current “Mend Pet” channel spell with an instant cast heal over time.

/blink

Jumpin’ Jehosephat! BRK is stunned into silence. He cannot speak. Nothing escapes his lips. He feels a bit faint, actually, he’s gonna get some cocoa.

* No combat reset, resets global cool down

Resetting the global is hardly a bad tradoff for a Heal Over Time. Next!

* The mana cost has been reduced and the heal value increased.

Can I get an Amen, brothers and sisters!

* Duration on Heal Over Time increased to 15 seconds in 3 second increments.

Preach it! Bring it on home!

* Changed the graphic to better represent the Heal Over Time effect on the pet.

Graphic? Um… thank you. Ok. That’s not quite the “home bringing” we expected, but the journey was so wicked, who are we to complain.

* The “Mend Pet” heal over time buff is now able to be dispelled.

Intewesting… is anybody gonna waste time dispelling a Mend Pet buff? Honestly, anybody? Bueller?

* Bonus healing gear will no longer effect “Mend Pet”.

Awww… no more hunters soloing Azuregos.

* Added a 10% and 20% reduction to the mana cost of “Mend Pet” in “Improved Mend Pet” talent (Beast Mastery).

Smells like a talent spec review might be in order; BRK may actually reconsider his position on these two…

But don’t hold yer breath.

So what insanity is this? Well gentle readers, BRK has been requested to become a blogger at WoWInsider. As soon as we sign our contract, we’ll be developing content for publication (and Phat Loot!)

Of course, the length of time between the ink drying and the beatings commencing shall probably be negligible. Editorial control, rabid spelling fanatics, grammar police…

Goodness, if my editor is a Horde Priest, we might have killed him one or two hundred times. That would be Bad for BRK Business, wouldn’t it. Oh dear.

Now BRK has three (yes three!) posts in Draft Mode. Whether they will be published here or on WoWInsider (The Best Warcraft Blogging Site in the Universe!) it remains to be seen.

We’re all up in the air here; please give us a little time to recover. We have to find a moving van, clean out the closets, donate our old clothes to the Stormwind Orphanage, find out if the Blood of Our Enemies has to be removed from the carpet or it’s allowed under our lease… all the typical pre-move events.

We want to take a quick opportunity to thank the people who read BRK. We are averaging over 1000 unique hits per day, and that boggles our minds. If the world economy takes a plunge this quarter, I think the World Bank might come a’knocking, looking for answers.

But we want to especially show our appreciation to those who comment. If you’re new here, take a look at the comments. They are impassioned, articulate, intelligent, and creative. Nothing makes us more proud of this blog than our friends.

Thanks to you all.

Damh and Hobbes

A Warcraft argument. Now, we’re not talking about forum trolls and “your mama” rebuttals, we want to talk about classic knocking of heads, deeply held beliefs being challenged and overturned, and people so mad they throw their computers out the window and into the pool.

At one point there was the Protection Warrior vs Feral Druid tanking argument that made many warriors just up and quit WoW. The competing factions were so vitriolic and so adamant in their positions, the rest of us just stared in wild wonder at the beauty of it all. Has anything topped that war, before or since? It was wonderful, and BRK kinda misses the first day of WoW 2.0 when the #1 dps warrior in our guild basically tried out his new Fury spec, then sat down in the EPL and cried at the horror of his rage-nerf.

Nowadays, there are some clearly colossal disagreements among the healing classes. The Priest/Paladin/RestoDruid battles are pretty intense. Shadow Priests seem to really get a lot of people upset; they’re sometimes called a better hybrid class than the two hybrid classes. Our buddy at PaladinSucks.com has some true feelings on the squishy healers,

“I love it when Priests refer themselves to as primary healer in an effort of trying to make sure that there is only one best healing class in the game - themselves, that is.”

And that’s what we’re interested in today: who frosts your biscuits, puts pepperoni in your oatmeal, shaves your cat, leaves his twice-skidmarked undies in your pink-sachetted hamper?

Of course, BRK is very familiar with the Beastmaster vs. Marksman “pleasantries”; heck, we’ve contributed to them in fascinating detail and with great personal satisfaction.

But who else is getting yelled at?

A Rogue without Improved Sap is looked at strangely in instances, but BRK feels they’re much more deadly than before in PvP. They seem to be pretty balanced. Are the rogues up in arms about another class?

Hey Vending Machines? Is anybody putting a crimp in the mages’ style? Who do you guys want nerfed? And I don’t mean the goobers who beg for food/water/ports for free; we get that.

Warlocks are mad at everybody; that’s just their style, and BRK accepts this. But who are they torturing in effigy? You guys got a story to share about a class that ticks you off?

Alliance Shaman, are you getting a fair deal? BRK has been in a pug with a 70 shaman, but hadn’t a clue how best to use him. Is that typical, and does that get make you madder than when you crashed your spaceship?

Horde Paladins, same deal. Do the Tauren and Undead have a place for you in their parties, or are you being left back in Undercity, listening to the Lady singing?

Let it loose, people. BRK wants some ammo.

Mechanar is a very fun instance. Pulls done in the proper order with good crowd control will pretty much ensure some success. No “Fear” to worry about, nothing insurmountable for the average-geared pack of 70s. Mage or rogue are very nice to have, but for the 2nd boss, a hunter is the schiznit.

Nethermancer Sepethrea is really an optional boss; you don’t have to fight her to get to the final boss. She has:

• 130,000 Health
• Melee damage of approximately 1500 on plate
• Arcane Blast for 500 damage
• Frost Attack for 700 damage and a nondispellable debuff that reduces attack and movement speed
• Dragon’s Breath will disorients targets in a frontal cone for 3 seconds, temporarely removes disoriented targets from threat list, but is dispellable
• Knockback will occasionally knocks the primary target away, reducing the target’s threat permanently

Thank you WoWWiki, all hail to thee.

But this isn’t the problem. Gonna take a direct quote to save some time:

“When pulled, Nethermancer Sepethrea summons two fire elemental pets, which are immune to all forms of crowd control. Each pet randomly selects a player to lock aggro to, requiring the two players selected by the pets to kite them around to avoid damage. The elementals will eventually cast Hellfire, and upon its completion, pick new targets to lock on to. While moving, the elementals leave a trail of fire that persists for a moderate amount of time and will cause damage to anyone that happens to stand on it. The elementals will despawn upon Nethermancer Sepenthrea’s death; killing them is not feasable.”

What this doesn’t tell you is that the elementals are really, really slow. The fire-damage is hellacious, but as long as the main tank and healer are free of them, the fight isn’t too bad. But is there any way we can increase our odds in our favor?

1) Be brilliant enough to bring a hunter
2) Skip her

That’s right, bypass her completely. Take out the four mobs in front of her, then move on to the tunnel leading to the final boss. Kill the Calculator, and we’re ready to come back to Sepenthrea.

Sepenthrea’s elementals are very slow, but she is very fast. If we can separate her from them, we can fight her elemental-free. But how? BRK shall tell you.

Sepenthrea is fast, but Hobbes with Dash Rank 3 is faster. You’ve cleared the tunnel and the last boss. Everybody gets in position: at the back of the tunnel, just outside and their backs to the final boss’s chamber, tank in front.

Your lovely hunter turns off Dash and casts Eyes of the Beast. Channeling your pet, you run toward Sepenthrea. Go right up on her dais and, when you aggro her, turn around, left-click Dash to kick in your +80% speed, and run back toward the party. Your Eyes of the Beast should run out just as your pet gets back to your party, with Sepenthrea hot on his trail.

Now Sepenthrea is aggro’d on your pet, not you, so FD won’t help. If your tank cannot get aggro immediately, send your pet to attack with growl off. It’s better for your pet to die than for your tank to not gain aggro; dragging your pet all over Mechanar isn’t going to help.

Once the tank has aggro, three or four sunders plus a Misdirection/Aimed/Steady/Arcane combo, then the party can dps with a vengeance. Get Sepenthrea down before those slow elementals show up and they’ll die before they even reach you.

Legendary did this trick last night and it worked just perfectly. Be sure to let us know how it works for you.

Our friend Bashinhammer has come through with a Question. Let’s get right to it, shall we:

“For the hunter just starting in Outland, what faction reputation would you begin to build first and why? And is there level specific faction rep one should consider as one gains levels?”

Now then, we’re going to assume he wants ‘Hunter Gear’ and which factions provide some good stuff. As you level, you’re going to build reputation with each faction you encounter. Some are worth the effort, others, nah. Let’s run down the list of what we remember:

Honor Hold - Hellfire Peninsula, your first faction in Outland, and if you build rep with them at lower levels, will pay off after you hit 70. They have the Hellforged Halberd at Revered, and the super-spiffy Veteran’s Musket at Exalted.

Cenarion Expedition - Zangarmarsh mushroom-land, you can get Warden’s Arrows at Revered, but otherwise, this is not a big one to worry about. Don’t stick around them for hunter gear. However, as Misfit pointed out, the Glyph of Ferocity is obtained at Revered. It permanently adds 34 attack power and 16 hit rating to a head slot item. This is nifty-keen, and BRK is headed back to get one.

Sporegarr - Again in Zangarmarsh, but on the west side. Nothing gear-wise for reputation, but a tremendous quest reward, the Survivalist’s Pike, is granted from them. Don’t miss this one; BRK held onto his until his Terrok’s Quill was found.

Kurenai - We go to Nagrand next, and they actually have some fun stuff for us. A beautiful epic quiver, 18-slots and +15% attack speed, for reaching Honored makes this a must-do for you bow-users. As BRK has mentioned before, they are quite easy to make Exalted, and besides your neat-o Talbuk (no pink ones, very very sorry) you can get a Far-Seer’s Helm. BRK recommends you stick around Nagrand and farm those ogers to get it before going to Blade’s Edge Mountains.

Consortium - Netherstorm offers some truly great faction rewards with the Consortium. Your epic ammo pouch, 18-slots and +15% attack speed, for Honored can be found here. Grind out Revered and you can have a Consortium Blaster like BRK uses. Really get silly, go for Exalted, and you can pick up a Guile of Khoraazi dagger that gives +24 agility and +50 attack power. However, if you bought or made an Ornate Khorium Rifle and don’t want the dagger, you can skip this one.

Aldor/Scryer - Most people select their faction in Shattrath City based upon their professions, and you cannot go wrong with either. If you’re like BRK and disdain those money-sinks, remember that, at their core, Aldor is +damage gear and Scryer is +crit gear. Pick the faction that matches with your play style.

Lower City - The refugees of Shattrath have nothing for Hunters. Bupkis. Pfft.

Sha’tar - Can you say Blessed Scale Girdle? Good. Revered with these Naaru gives a truly beautiful mail belt that just oozes BRK-happiness. We wants it, which is when we love running Mechanar and Botanica.

More on our exploits in Mechanar later today, Elune willing. We also want mexican for lunch, so that might slow us down a little.

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.