Improved Aspect of the Hawk: It’s Good Enough
“Dear BRK, I was looking over your talent tree, as well as that of my first math-heavy Hunter-mentor and noticed something. My mentor, when he went to BM and after crunching numbers, went to something that looks almost exactly like the BRK tree except there’s 5 points in Improved Aspect of the Hawk rather than 3 in Thick Hide and 2 in Improved Mend Pet. What he had in mind was for raiding and instancing.
“So is Thick Hide there to help with Cat family armor or is there something else I’m missing? Grimia”
Let’s talk about Improved Aspect of the Hawk, shall we?
You’re spec’d with IAotH. You’re running around Skettis killing Warp Hunters for the meat to make Warp Burgers. When does IAotH always proc? On the killing shot, right. Does the tooltip say 10% chance from any shot? Yes. Does it work that way? No.
Are we saying the tooltip is wrong? No. What we ARE saying is that ATotH is a stingy, heartless, cruel son-of-a-bleep and NEVER procs on the first shot when we’re grinding, which is we NEED it.
/outraged primal scream
IAotH in a grinding spec? BRK says No; he’s been burned by the IAotH Mistress enough.
You’re spec’d with IAotH. You’re running Shadow Lab trying like crazy to get your Sonic Spear, (hold the snarky comments). You’ve got Aspect of the Hawk active because IAotH will only proc if AotH is running. You’re on Murmur and IAotH has proc’d a few times, which is spiffy. You’ve been DPS-ing like a Mo Fo because you just KNOW this time he’s gonna drop that d@mn spear. Murmur is down to 50% and… you run out of mana. Ooo, that’s not good.
Your party had a warrior, healer, mage, rogue and thee. No external supply of mana-generation was available so you really should’ve been running Aspect of the Viper, right? But then your IAotH wouldn’t have proc’d!
Confucius say that if you regularly run without a Shaman or a Shadow Priest or a massive supply of Fel Mana potions, you’re going to need Aspect of the Viper. And if that’s what you’re running, might as well dump those 5/5 points in IAotH.
You’re spec’d with IAotH. You’re raiding Karazhan with a Shadow Priest and a mana-totem-slinging Chamois… we mean Shammy. Your guild alchemist dumps Fel Mana potions on you like John the Baptist. You’re running Aspect of the Hawk, getting the full benefit of your 5/5 points in IAotH and are the envy of every hunter everywhere. Good job, you lucky, smug b@stard.
If you’re a lucky, smug b@stard, you can go right ahead and enjoy IAotH and forget the other lower talents. If you’re like BRK and never know from one week to the next who’s going to be in your raid, we recommend you not bother with IAotH because you don’t know if you’ll be running AotV which will make those 5 talent points worthless.
If you’re like BRK and aren’t given the luxury of going 5/5 in IAotH, what are your choices? Improved Revive Pet can be helpful if your pet is dying a lot, we admit. However, if you spec your pet with Avoidance and the proper resistances, we have yet to find a boss in Kara that will nuke your pet regardless of how much attention you pay to him. This includes Nightbane, against whom Hobbes took craptacular amounts of fire damage and never died.
BRK takes the armor-bonus talent because, frankly, everything else stinks. What’s left, really? Pathfinding? Pfft.
Bonus Coverage: BRK was in Kara Group 2 and we cleared through Nightbane, yes. But Kara Group 1 got Prince down to 1% before wiping. Can ya go give Brigin - tankage extraordinare - some plate-love. The poor guy is thinking about respecing Arms.
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20 Responses to “Improved Aspect of the Hawk: It’s Good Enough”
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You’re spec’d with IAotH. You’re running Shadow Lab trying like crazy to get your Sonic Spear, (hold the snarky comments).
/snarky comment withheld
*grin*
It’ll drop, BRK…someday.
You’re spec’d with IAotH. You’re running Shadow Lab trying like crazy to get your Sonic Spear, (hold the snarky comments).
Let’s see, I was in SL, had IAotH running, Shammy at my side (love them Shammys), Murmur goes down, should I continue with the snarky comment?
Hey BRK,
It sounds like your email fan was mostly speaking of a raiding build. In the case of kara, eh yea you may not need it Imp AOTH will only really help on longer dps fights like prince and nightbane. But in 25 man raids where you dps for 5-10 minutes many fights imp AOTH is butter.
Figure it this way, if you look at cheeky’s spreadsheet thinger it says AOTH is up 5x% of the time so lets say 50%. So if you have 5/5 filled in you get .5*15% so a 7.5% increase in the hunters dps! Better than ranged weapon specialization? Heck yes! Now does using hawk decrease your mana regen? Sure it does but in a raiding enviornment you need to be chugging pots anyway.
Personaly I get a shadow priest more often than not because I do the raid groups. The only diffence then is I pop haste potions as opposed to mana onces.
Imp Hawk good for farming? Heck noes!
Imp Hawk good for regular 5 Mans? Heck noes not enough hp to get cranking!
Imp Hawk good for Prince/Nightbane+? Heck yes its part of the hit 1000 dps sustained magic!
Shifttusk
I’ve run SLabs once. BRK should take a look at my armory profile. Lleu on Spinebreaker. I didn’t even know Murmur dropped it…. But I has it now!
/runsbacktohisblog
I had IAotH from level 10 all the way to my late 60s and then I found this blog. Since dumping it, I’ve never looked back. Sure, it was nice to have while leveling (and it DID proc for me often enough while grinding to make it worthwhile) but now it kind of throws off my steady shot rotation AND I am in love with the other talents that dumping it allowed me to get. So really, it’s not a horrible way to spend your talents but I agree that there are better ones.
BTW in instances (granted, I’m not much of an instancer/raider so take that with a grain of salt) I usually keep AotH on, not AotV, regardless of not having those points in IAotH. Although after the patch improves how AotV works, I may have to reconsider that.
Quote:
“The poor guy is thinking about respecing Arms.”
man …how many time we have geared up a tank and then they go arms …
/banging head on keyboard
i totally believe in w/e u want to spec, go for it but it is so irritating when we pass to the guy or farm all the mats for resist gear and then it sits in his bank.
Secndworst
hey everyone. I am a tank at heart, just respeccing for the Prince fight alone. This assuming that we take Prince on a seperate day. If we don’t then I am still going as protection and tell prince to shove his infernals up his ass.
after 2.2 patch, IAotH MAY be better..
run AotH until a little below 1/2 mana, swap to viper, build mana back up and then swap back to hawk… maybe?
There’s always the ability to compromise - mp5 gear substituting for AotV. There’s some good hunter gear out there still with +agi and +rap alongside mp5, or simply using +2mp5 gems in a alternate set of equipment to swap out for the longer fights, without that large a loss in overall damage, imo.
Though rather than chewing through my mana like it’s going out of fashion, more often than not I’ll just simply do nothing but weave steady shot the entire fight. The way I see it, steady shot is the most mana efficient skill a hunter has. That, and I generate enough aggro as it is. If I were to arcane/multi shot all the time, even with the mana to back it up - I invariably end up getting aggro off the tank because I gain it too fast. And we are talking with a good tank, after a misdirection, and even after a feign, I manage to somehow catch back up to the tank’s threat before feign death has cooled down again.
But in short, it’s either more base damage and less special shots used, or less base damage and the ability to use more of your special shots. I think it comes down to personal preference and play style really, rather than being able to definitively say one is better than the other - unless someone wants to do a nice complex calculation like they did for the Hunter AEP’s.
Ralowae here, 70 Hunter, zangermarsh.
I have damn good luck, and IAotH still hates on me… I got sonic spear on my 7th or 8th slabs run, the other hunter in my guild needed 34 runs before he saw it. Every time an upgrade gear piece has dropped in an instance, I’ve won it, either from not having another hunter about to roll on it or noone else needing it for an upgrade. And still, IAotH just never was useful enough for me. It never proc’d when it would have done good. Take the 3 in thick hide and the 2 in improved mend pet… I’ll never not take them.
There is some decent amount of fault in the logic on why someone should not pick iaoth.
Most of you guys are saying iaoth isn’t useful because you run aotv instead. the reason why you run aotv is because iaoth doesn’t proc enough or is useful when it procs.
If you are running Iaov anytime before you are 25% mana you aren’t maximizing your dps. 1) with decent gearing you should be able to sustain your dps with a autoshot steady shot routine with aspect of the viper on. 2) If you are ending your fights with subtantial amounts of mana, then you aren’t planning your fight very well. 3) iaoth is a damn lot of AP you are throwing away by not using it.
In the next patch, Blizzard is going to make the equation easier for you guys by making viper less effective at higher mana pool levels and more effective at lower mana pool levels. Basically, they are saying, you shouldn’t be using aotv to start a fight, but even now you shouldn’t be either. Gruul’s and Magtheridon are long fights indeed and it stretches my mana pool to the maximum and I’m constantly having to mana pot every 2 minutes and swapping between viper and hawk, but I can tell you that I’m in hawk aspect more times than not, because of the amazing amounts of AP you get from it and if I’m going to be using Hawk, then I’m better off for having improved version of it. Sometimes when I stack rapid fire, iaoth, and dragonspine all proc’d at the same time, even aimed shot becomes a good alternative in my shot routine.
I am only level 36, and for me the points used in IAotH would be useless. I have tried it before on another Hunter I leveled up and it just isn’t there as a usefull talent to have.
Even on long fights, I fail to see the need for points spent there, could just be me but oh well.
Well well well, you are overreacting again. Hit that “Beast within”-Button while posting?
IAotH is just not that Mana-Burner you talked about.
Hey we’re not talking about grinding. For Grinding its AotV, Hands down.
In any 5-,10- or 25 Man I always run with AotH (well expect while tanking Giggler…).
Do I have to take 1-2 Mana Pots?
Do I sometimes, especially fpr those first kills, use Dark Runes?
Hell Yeah!
I am a Hunter! My job is DPS that boss down. Usually when you kill that boss you need no Trapping or other support. You have to put every tiny bit of DPS on the table.
We surly agree that there are classes, on an equally geared and skilled situation, that can out-DPS a hunter. (*looking at those darn Warlocks*).
So lets talk a look at the Prince for example. You stand at range, move away from an infernal sometimes, and DPS as if there were no tomorrow (BTE: enfeeble and trolls berserker racial rock).
Now you get that sweet AotH proc. Great.
You get enfeebeld same time. Even better, pop berserker (as a troll).
And your trinket CD just came up. DPS-Heaven here i come!
Many people just don’t really understand AotH and try to stick to their Rotation. That can’t work. Sure, you have to adapt. But hell, we are reading/ writing this blog. Chances are we do care about how to sucessfull play as a hunter. Adapt or die (or FD)!
I confess I do have a heavy tendency towards every mane-bringing stat there is (mp5, int, Manaoils, whatever) and prefer them over Stam, but again balance your hunter so it fits your playstyle.
I like this blog, but there is no way I’d do everything just the way BRK says. I got my own style and Damage Meters proove that it ain’t all wrong.
I’m still marksman for the synergy (we have surv and Bm covered for our 25 mans… and for some silly reason they stick us all in a group together because it’s easier to heal the melee if they’re in one group… I don’t gripe unless they take my feral drood away, but until the raid changes… one of each hunter in a group with a feral druid is pretty nice!) and just respeced to grab IAotH.
I’ll be trying it out for a while, seeing how I like it. For 25-mans I keep hawk up alot on boss fights. No Shadow Priest, no shaman, just using a ret paladin to keep wisdom judged. For long fights I can get by using only a few mana pots. If we’re chain pulling a Kara farm run, you can bet your britches I’m using AotV… but on Void Reaver? Hell no! We need all the dps we can muster (not really… but I can pretend we’re still close to the enrage limit)
But j is on the money for raiding. If you have to use health pots for a fight… well, you or your healers are messing up (or you need to get a warlock and a healthstone). If you want your raid to progress and be worth any amount of salt, pot every 2 minutes. No excuse. Use lower level pots if you need to, go buy some PvP pots! I know I don’t always use supers! Fel mana pots are great for hunters. You turn mana into pain, which means you’re just like mages… who pot every 2 minutes… So should you! Pot every 2 minutes if needed and end every boss fight with less than 500 mana. Now you’re learning to walk upright rather than crawling around on all fours like the many huntards! Do that and see how much you have to use AotV. I know I still use it sometimes, but not much.
The only reason I’m thinking about ditching IAotH is because of the randomness of it and the shot-clipping I get with a 2.9 speed weapon and my extended shot rotation. Not sure if it’s perceived clipping or true clipping yet, have to do some tests on some tank and spank fights where I can mostly stay still like Mag p2 and Gruul.
As for the Sonic Spear… you can check my armory profile. I’m nearly exalted. I’ve run Sethekk Halls maybe twice, Crypts never. All non-quest LC rep is from SL and heroic SL… I’m waiting to see if I get exalted or Legacy 1st. The last hunter 2-hander I saw drop was in DM east. Fankriss never yielded his Barb, one warrior got Nef’s big sword, and I was totally going to roll on the next one!
But I’m getting used to my Hellforged Halberd. Sometimes my guildies can’t find me in a raid to trade because to find a hunter, all they look for is the sonic spear, and I’m practically the only hunter on the server without one.
Hellforged Halberd wielding Dwarfs represent!
@ TheCasualHunter - As a level 36 you are entirely right. Although at a low level autoshot does generate a much higher portion of your dps its not big enough where a 7% dmg increase is a huge deal. It scales as you hit higher levels and your gear scales. You’re also not in fights where this kind of proc is beneficial yet. You are however doing alot of soloing at a lower level where 5% increased mitigation (armor) for your pet is a big deal and while not 70 and raiding this is a hands down better choice.
But if you take to raiding at a higher level procs like this are absolutely great, haste makes for alot of dps and Imp AOTH is 15% haste thats up half the time!
@J - I whole heartedly agree and I think our opinion is mainly due to the fights we’re doing. Gruul takes several minutes of pew pew 5-6 usualy 10-12 grows at 30 seconds a grow. Void reaver is a 8-10 minute fight. Magtheridon takes FOREVER. In fights like that haste procs = time where you can cool your jets and mana regen and make it possible to save your pot cooldown for haste potions for more dps.
I agreed with your comments except one where you said Imp AOTH+ Dragonspine+Rapidfire means time to aimedshot. I still never use aimed except on MD cooldowns. I find when i get all 3 hastes up, my attack speed goes to .99 with the sunfury I change my rotation to:
Auto-Steady-Auto-Arcane-Auto-Multi-Auto-Steady-Auto-Auto-Auto-Arcane
When I get to this point my mana consumption soars but I’ve seen upwards of 1800dps. I generaly swap to this rotation any time I get IAOTH+DST at the same time and even without berzerking/rapidfire I see 1500-1600dps.
@Ralowae - Your opinion on ImpAoth vs Thickhide may change in a raid. You’re trading armor & hp for tons of dps. I’d never recomend dropping imp mend pet but ThickHide/Endurance training are not raid friendly talents. Armor does nothing for pet survivability in most fights.
What I did notice was alot of good concern over MP5 and Regen. Now we’re talking its why on the AEP system MP5 is the highest valued stat for us. But theres a solution to stacking shammy gear. Its called proper groups in raids. Think about the most beautiful thing for your group, it periodicaly heals your pet and gives you mana. Its a shadow priest. BM hunters give 3% dmg (85% of boss fights in raids) to their party. If you set a good party you’re going to be rocking pack Those who need mana and minor healing together with a shadowpriest! And give them a buff as well:
Ponder this dps group:
1xBM Hunter
1xShadowpriest
1xHealerShamy
1xWarlock
1xMele (Enhancement Shammy works wonders for 2nd blust)
BM hunter gives 3%dmg to Shadowpriest,Mele,Warlock
Healer Shammy Gives + SpellDmgTotem & Mana Stream for casters and can swap in tranquil air if threat is an issue
Warlock Gets 3% DMG & enough mana/hp to lifetap and spam shadowbolt like a madman while keeping all dots up
Mele Person gets 3% dmg and additional heals if they are a shaman they give your pet unleashed fury and SOE & GOA totems. They get mana back and can use their pot cooldown for haste pots and will have mana to top themselves off releaving the raid healers.
Group makeup is huge to maximizing your raids efficiency. That group would put out over 5000dps with only 4 dps people while giving the mana efficient shamy healer the ability to use earthshield full time and literaly spam LHW and chainheal.
Shifttusk
Vaer, try the mod called Quartz. My mage friend turned me to it and it works wonders in terms of accounting for the latency. Should be able to address that “percieved” clipping.
…Improved Aspect of the Hawk has always been very kind to me, actually… maybe I’m just lucky? >.>
*hides from the mob of disgruntled hunters*
Chamois?! grrrr…
Murmor at 50%?
Stop healing murmur!
Yay! Thanks for the answer BRK, and thanks for your comments everyone.
What I have found myself doing so far is mostly what J said (’tho switching probably before 25%, I’ll have to try holding out longer). And even then it depends somewhat on the boss. Our guild is still mostly in Kara (trying for Gruuls a few nights when we do have 25+ 70s on) but I know some fights I can just keep AotH up (Maiden) but others I have to switch to AotV. So I think I will go and respec back to Imp AotH, next time I hit IF. Thanks!