BRK Hunter Guide Movie: Shot Rotation Magic
The purpose of this movie is not to epeen and show you how much DPS we can do. Frankly, our DPS in this movie is low. We’re not raid-buffed, we have no pet-damage, we don’t have party-buffs or elixirs or agility food or anything. The purpose is to show you why we have many more Auto Shots than Steady Shots in our WoWWebStats reports and the reasoning behind our madness.
Our 1:1 Auto/Steady rotation is based upon two phases: DPS and Mana Regen.
During the DPS Phase, we running with Aspect of the Hawk, go Bestial Wrath when it’s available, and use the 1:1 Auto/Steady rotation.
During the Mana Regen Phase, we switch to Aspect of the Viper, slam a Fel Mana potion, pop Rapid Fire and our RAP-trinket, and do only Auto Shot damage. This allows us to go into non-casting MP5 regeneration while our Fel Mana potion does its thing and keeping our DPS as high as possible.
Once the Fel Mana potion has run its course, we go back to Aspect of Hawk and the regular Auto/Steady rotation.
We’re sure you’ll have questions and we’ll do our best to answer them.
The 10.8 MB movie can be downloaded here.
Cipher on 19 Apr 2008 at 11:19 am #
question? Is it better to use the 1:1 Auto/steady shot rotation versus say a macro that adds the Kill Commandwhenavailable/auto/steady rotation and spamming it? DO you cut your auto shots when you spam that macro?
Pii Piiro on 19 Apr 2008 at 11:27 am #
Thanks for the vid BRK. I went to Dr. Boom the other day and messed around for a couple hours and ended up acing my macro use by a lot and was able to pass the 1K barrier easily
BRK on 19 Apr 2008 at 12:49 pm #
Some people love the macros, some do not. We advocate eschewing the macro, but we won’t yell at you if you try one and like it.
Sade on 19 Apr 2008 at 1:41 pm #
The idea of cycling mana regen phases like that had not occurred to me at all. Next time I’m specced into Beast I need to try that.
Penetratrix on 19 Apr 2008 at 2:07 pm #
I’m gonna head down to Dr.Boom to play around a bit, this is a good idea.
I’m MM/SV hunter and keep aspect of the viper up during bosses, and keep up a steady multi/acrane/auto/SS rotation pop a mana pot quickly in the fight and stack rapid fire with +150agil trinket when its safe to pump out full dps. I very rarely run out of mana during the fight. I’m wondering if my method is actually lowering my overall dps or if its effective for shorter boss fights like those in kara, but perhaps not as effective on long fights.
Cauthon on 19 Apr 2008 at 2:13 pm #
Good lord, BRK, this is terrible advice.
First, Fel Mana potions give the same regen regardless of whether or not you’re in or out of the five second rule. It’s silly to use them like that. Also, your OO5SR regen is so pitifully low as a hunter, the regen is pretty small. On my T6 hunter, for instance, I have 92/32 MP5. So you’re gaining 60MP5 while cutting your DPS in half. That’s silly, BRK. Not using Kill Command, which costs around 75MP5, gives more gain at a much smaller dps loss. Moreover, Rapid Fire reduces the cast time of steady shot! You’re utterly wasting Rapid Fire like that.
Here’s a better strategy.
Always use AotH (it’s well over 100dps) unless you are less than 10% mana, then switch to AotV. Use Fel Mana potions as soon as you are 2500 mana under your cap (why 2500? because you’ll use 700 more in the time it takes for all its ticks to go by). The good (and bad) side of AotV is you get more regen the less mana you have, but generally you get enough to maintain a steady shot rotation without running out of mana, so if you get THAT low, just go AotV and stay there using only steady shot.
If necessary, get two one-hand weapons and put +30int on each. Make a macro to switch to them. When you need mana, switch over, hit AotV. Keep steady shotting. This will give you around 30mp5. Plus, put Superior Mana Oil on both, giving you 28 more mp5 (and 14 more mp5 than a single weapon with the oil on it gives).
Use Elixirs of Major Mageblood. Try to get in a group with a Shaman or Shadow Priest. Get a paladin to use Judgment of Wisdom. Get a Mark of Conquest. There are tons of strategies, but for the love of god, don’t stop steady shotting! Never, ever stop steady shotting. Ever. You aren’t a priest, don’t try to play games with the five second rule.
Cauthon
PS: Bonus tip, use BW and RF at the same time at first, then each when they’re up on their next cooldown; at the 6 minute mark, both will be up again. If you expect herois, save BW for the Heroism and use RF separately since using both together will cause clipping and GCD issues.
IMHO on 19 Apr 2008 at 2:44 pm #
When I read this article, I was a little surprised. Stop steady shotting? Nevah! So when I read Cauthon’s response, all in the hunter world was good again.
Chug mana/fel pots as early as possible and continue to do so as necessary. Having plenty available is what coming to a 25-man raid *prepared* is all about.
As a last resort, I’ll switch to AotV at 10%, but I will never stop the Steady-Auto Shot/Kill Command rotation. And using RF with BW is a gimme for me. The damage is insane.
Anonymous on 19 Apr 2008 at 2:50 pm #
I 100% agree with Cauthon. Why wait until you are low on mana before taking a Fel Mana Pot. Just does not make sense. Take the first pot, asap, i.e around the 2500 mana loss mark mentioned above, that way you have the maximum use of cooldowns throughout the fight.
Shandar on 19 Apr 2008 at 5:42 pm #
Also agree Cauthon. I have read BRK from the start and attribute alot to you and your sight in making me the hunter that I am. I refer any new hunters that are willing to check out your sight. But I have always disagreed with your coments about shot rotation. I will watch your video this evening I think I understand the phases your talking about but feel you have several flaws in your logic. But I am open to new Idea’s will do some DRBoom testing. Yeah Fel Manapots are timed released. The advantage is that you can take them before consuming the mana so therefore get additional pot cooldown in fight. I only use Fel Mana Pots for the first pot of a fight and then use superior mana pots.
Taconite on 19 Apr 2008 at 9:01 pm #
Thanks for the video. I have been doing the non-stop dps until out of mana, while popping pots when I can then switching to AotV. I am going to try BRK’s advice next time I am in a long boss fight to see what works better. I think most people will have a problem with the advice because it is unconventional, but thinking outside of the box is not a bad thing. Plus, I definately cannot argue with BRK’s results.
Dancingion on 19 Apr 2008 at 9:32 pm #
I’m gonna buck the trend and agree with BRK here, why wait until 10% to pot? Its like waiting until you are 129% of the tanks threat before you feign death.
And besides, if you can give out better advice, maybe you should make a blog that we’ll all flock too.
Pike on 20 Apr 2008 at 1:47 am #
Gotta admit I haven’t given much thought to mana-regen phases or various strategies involving mana regen up to this point. To be fair I’m still in Kara, so my typical “Karazhan boss mana strategy” goes something like this… Fel Mana Pot at about 50% mana, and I’ll typically pop a regular Mana Pot again right towards the end of the fight. I can keep AotH up the whole time and I can keep my auto/steadys/kill commands going the entire time, and I’ll have mana the whole time (unless something goes drastically wrong).
BUT that said, I can see how you might have to worry more about this type of stuff post-Kara. I can sorta see where both BRK and Cauthon are coming from here. (That’s why I love this blog: such good discussion/debates!) Definitely something to look into on my own
Spithoof on 20 Apr 2008 at 7:30 am #
You never know what’s better actually… Personaly i use BW/RAP trinket/RF to get as much mana regenereated as possible without considerable drop in DPS (i measured about 10% of DPS lost). I give a solid 1K+ DPS… Another hunter uses the same stuff right after the FD to get as much DPS out of that as possible, but runs AotV after 75% of the fight or smth like that providing the same 1K+ DPS…
But that’s a normal fight where you are just standing still and shooting (Morogrim), Void Reaver for example won’t give you a chance to get max DPS from that combo and you’re lost in the bottom of DPS list…
What i will advice is to have fel mana potions with superior mana potions. When you’re down one manapot - pop one with your RAP trink and BW and then you have 2 minutes to get rid of your manapool and start the manaregen phase… That gives a bit more DPS and it may be that 1% of Morogrim …
Waynebrady on 20 Apr 2008 at 1:03 pm #
to Spithoof
If hes using AoTV for 75% of the fight then his mismanaging his mana pot cooldowns. Meaning his prob. chugging his first one when he is down on mana already lol, that’s really not the way to go.
I dont know I hate the method personally, it works yes but you could do better dps if you take pre emptive mana pots when your still high on mana. It’s going to be more expensive though.
xanthelei on 20 Apr 2008 at 3:01 pm #
As both BM and Surv, I always popped my first FMP at about 50-55% of my mana pool and kept plugging away in Hawk. That way by the time I got to my “Oh Noes, u need mana noob!” alert FMP would be back up and I wouldn’t HAVE to swap from Hawk to Viper. Chug a pot, and keep going. With Major Mageblood and Superior Mana Oil on my 2hr, that’s all I’d need on a fight like Prince. No wasted mana swapping Aspects, and I can save RF and trinkets for when we need to burn him down.
I’m now Surv, and run AotV all the time, and this still works for me with that minor change as Surv.
So something’s going right for my setup! Not saying the DPS phase/Mana phase is wrong, just that with MM and SMO, for me, it wasn’t necessary. I still only used 2, maybe 3 mana pots on Prince, and he’s by far my most taxing fight for mana.
Waynebrady on 20 Apr 2008 at 6:48 pm #
@xanthelei
lol thats exactly what I do, the trick is to chug a mana pot or fel mana pot BEFORE you are out of mana. Fel mana pots work best since you could literally take them almost at the begining of the fight because of how they work. Usually I am cheap though and use a mana pot first , relatively early.
I dont raid surv. and havn’t raided MM in a long time but they are more mana intensive than bm if you want to do good damage with them.
Grim News « For the Horde on 20 Apr 2008 at 10:13 pm #
[...] the man himself (or themselves) has posted another excellent BRK Hunter Guide Movie, this time about using the 1 to 1 auto shot - steady shot rotation. (Side bar: I don’t know [...]
Eightlives on 20 Apr 2008 at 10:20 pm #
I think we really need to see another video BRK, with you trying both methods, and comparing the results.
Being a druid primarily, and levlling a hunter alt for dps / cc reasons for my guild, I must say my “caster sense” tells me the mp5 is the way to go route, as I’ll sometimes let a bloom pop to get some 500 mana back in the five second window, but I could be wrong.
the new exilezone aka porta viii » world of warcraft on 21 Apr 2008 at 5:32 am #
[...] We’re sure you’ll have questions and we’ll do our best to answer them. from BigRedKitty [...]
Aspect of the Girl on 21 Apr 2008 at 4:56 pm #
[...] BRK’s Shot Rotation/Mana Regen video post and the follow up post. Be sure to read through all the comments. Lots of good tips within the [...]
Not So Much « For the Horde on 22 Apr 2008 at 12:18 pm #
[...] one last one. BRK has an awesome blog that tonnes and tonnes of people read. The trolls in his comments? Not so [...]
the new exilezone aka porta viii » world of warcraft » shot rotation on 23 Apr 2008 at 5:23 am #
[...] rotation. Tinha-a treinado sem macro rotation, mas com a ajuda de um addon. Segui o conselho do BigRedKitty, mas a quebra de DPS não me agradava. Via-me ali parado a vomitar auto-shots. Como não tinha [...]
Wardocter on 27 Apr 2008 at 6:03 am #
BRK’s video seems to make sense, but………
First of, I never run out of mana, just use a mana pot rotation and get your first mana pot down asap (could also be a fel mana pot). I really never run out of mana even on 15 minute boss fights. This means I can keep my 1:1 shot rotation up. On long fights I use a Major Mage Blood Potion and I always use mana oils. Some fights I switch to dual wield, with 2 mana oils on them.
Second, Why would you use Rapid Fire while regen mana. Rapid Fire makes you get more shots in, in 15 second time slot. During this time slot you should pop all your dmg multipliers, like trinkets and bestial wrath (if available). You will use your trinkets and abilities more efficiently and get more dmg out of them. So also do a full 1:1 rotation.
Hunters should get married to Shadowpriests and make sure they are grouped with them. If you are grouped with and SP then you can leave the mana pot rotation and switch to a haste pot rotation. Use bestial wrath and trinkets with the haste pot as they are on the same CD and use rapid fire any time it is up.
Currently if I have no SP or resto Shammy in my group, I will start the fight with a haste pot and pop all my CD’s (wait 10 seconds before doing this, or your MT will not be happy). I will still not run out of mana.
This means on boss fights I average 1300+ dps. My dps on Teron Gorefiend, which is a static dps fight (no moving around) was 1450-ish without a Shadowpriest. With a Shadowpriest 1580-ish. This was using haste pots ofc, and making sure I never need a mana regen phase. I rarely switch to AotV but on some fights popping another haste pot is neccesary, if I have no SP and still want the haste then I switch to AotV before I go take my second haste pot.
I hope this makes any sense, sins english isn’t my first language