“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.”

We would prefer a less confrontational introduction, but we’re putting our Big Boy Void Reaver Greaves on and not retaliating with similar style. We can accept that someone may not agree that our methods are The Best, but terrible? We think our weekly raid statistics are pretty solid proof that our techniques work.

Now nobody said Fel Mana potions had anything to do with MP5, but we do want to regen as much mana as we can, in as little time as possible. That’s why we do everything possible - Fel Mana, AotV, and non-casting MP5 - at the same time, to maximize our mana-regeneration phase’s efficiency.

“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.”

We certainly aren’t cutting our DPS in half, that’s an overstatement. With the combination of Rapid Fire and our RAP-trinket, we are able to maintain a very high DPS rate during our non-casting phase, although we readily admit that our DPS is diminished. But it’s only for 10 seconds, during which period we regenerate ~60% of our mana. That’s the tradeoff we want you to recognize as a Win.

Max mana regeneration, minimum time, that’s what we want to achieve.

“Here’s a better strategy. Always use AotH (it’s well over 100dps) unless you are less than 10% mana, then switch to AotV.”

AotH grants 155 RAP, not 100 DPS. An additional 155 RAP will not achieve an additional 100DPS in any way, shape, or form. It’s statements like that that make an otherwise reasonable argument suspicious.

If one has Improved Aspect of the Hawk, AotH will proc it and that will jack your DPS considerably. However, a level 14 hunter can have 5/5 in IAotH and there’s no way he’ll do an additional 100DPS with it. AotH’s DPS modification is unique to each hunter; do not try to correlating the additional RAP to anything without knowing the specific hunter you’re talking about.

We advocate never even getting to 10% mana. With your double 1h weapons and +30 Intel enchants and shadow priests and mana totems and Fel Mana potions, how the heck are you letting it get that bad? Oh that’s right, you never stop Steady Shooting.

If you stopped Steady for just ten seconds and followed our movie-example, you’d regenerate so much mana you’d never have to worry about going OOM and the implications thereof.

“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).”

That’s a sh!t-load of Fel Mana potions, holy cr@p.

But Fel Mana potions have a two minute cooldown. You mean to say that with non-stop Auto/Steady, you won’t burn 2500 mana in two minutes? That doesn’t sound right…

“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.”

And if you’re running with nothing but AotV, you’ve just wasted those 5/5 points in IAotH. We would rather spend 10 seconds in Mana Regen Mode than half a boss fight with zero mana and perpetual AotV.

If you’ve run out of mana and the boss is still alive, you Failed. The simple solution is to get around 25-35% mana, chug a Fel Mana, switch to AotV, keep your DPS high with Rapid Fire and a trinket, and regen almost all your mana in 10 seconds. Switch back to AotH, let the IAotH procs fly, keep your DPS massive and your mana reserves high.

Do you all not see the benefit of taking a small DPS hit to regen all that mana? And when you have the mana oil and totems etc., you’ll only be getting to 35% mana once or twice every boss fight, anyway. The most we ever chug in one fight is three, and that’s against Lurker Below where we’re never in range of any mana-regen constructions. Look at our DPS and total damage reports; does it look like we’re suffering?

AotV does do more regen at lower mana-levels than higher, which is why we recommend not slamming a Fel Mana as soon as you can consume one. We want to combine our Fel Mana potions with AotV. As you saw in our demonstration, we went from ~30% mana to 87% mana in 10 seconds. Any remark that stopping Steady Shots for 10 seconds, while we regain 60% of our mana pool, is bad because its hurting our DPS, is something with which we will not agree.

“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).”

We specifically did not cover Raid Buffs and How They Help. But we find it very interesting that some people are willing to sacrifice their 95 non-casting MP5, yet get special mana-regen 1h weapons with Intel enchants and mana oil, and develop a melee-weapon swapping macro, to gain 28 MP5.

“Use Elixirs of Major Mageblood.”

We use Elixir of Draenic Wisdom. EoMM is 16MP5 for one hour, EoDW increases Intel and Spirit by 30 for one hour. We don’t have the math in front of us, but we recall reading that, for hunters, EoDW provides more mana, (could be wrong here; we didn’t do the math ourselves.)

“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.”

No no no. Of course you want to be in a group with a shadow priest, but they belong to the healers. You are there to assist the raid, not the other way around. Always assume you’re getting zero mana-regeneration help from the raid and prepare accordingly.

Wisdom is 2nd on the list of pally buffs, but not before Kings. And if you can get your raid to stop putting Salvation on you and give you Wisdom instead, you’re golden.

“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.”

You’re really gonna get upset when we tell you our rules for going Auto/Arcane/Multi instead of Auto/Steady. Ha!

When you’re about to pass the main tank on the aggro list and your Feign Death is resisted, you’re going to stop Auto/Steady then, we hope.

You’ve got 5% of your mana left. You could switch to AotV, slam a Fel Mana potion, stop Steadys and in 10 seconds get your mana back to 50%, or you can swith to AotV and keep slamming Auto/Steady - except when your mana goes to 0% - never getting your mana back, and never seeing another IAotH proc. You’re recommending chooseing the latter?

Our non-raid-buffed, casting MP5 is zero. Our non-raid-buffed, non-casting MP5 is 67. Raid-buffed with Arcane Intellect and potions and everything else, we want to say we’ve seen our non-casting MP5 in the 150s and higher. Play games with it, indeed we can, and we do.

Are we trying to say our method of 1:1 Auto/Steady is the One and Only Way To Do It? Nope. Does it work? Sure does, our little movie shows you just how nicely we can regenerate our mana in a small amount of time.

“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[m], save BW for the Heroism and use RF separately since using both together will cause clipping and GCD issues.”

Exactly. Since you cannot be positive what the rest of the raid is going to do, either coordinate explicitly on what spells will be cast when, or use your BW when appropriate; at the beginning of fights, not randomly when the cooldown is up. Bestial Wrath is more than a damage-multiplier, it’s also a mana-reducer. Use it wisely, not hidden in a shot-rotation macro.

For the record, the comment we dissected was passionate and heartfelt. He disagrees with us, and that’s totally cool. We like debate, we like presenting as much information to the hunter-reading public as we can.

We kinda do request that you resist calling our advise “terrible” until we start telling y’all to put Strength or Block enchants on your gear, though.