On (MM) hunters

[DFE]

I have gone through many Hunter blog posts and spent way too much time at the Darnassus target dummy so I thought I might share some of the knowledge. What I post here is a compilation of blogs and my own experience and while it might not be absolutely 100% correct, time and raid parses have proven it.  This post will be focused on MM but I might enhance it.

MM or SV?
Currently the general top DPS spec is MM with exceptions of Saurfang, Putricide and Valithria encounters where SV can force lots of LockÃ,´nÃ,´Load procs.
However, MM requires higher gear levels, on average 245 ilvl.
Ultimately, it will always come to your own decision, which spec feels better for you.
BM, despite the latest buff is still underperforming but has WAY easiest rotation.

What is the MM rotation
Basically, there are three types of rotation
1) Low ArP (see below) / high mobility:
This is used when your ArP rating is below 400 - or in another words, when Arcane Shot (AS) is doing more damage than Steady Shot (SS)+Piercing Shots talent. And also when you know you wil need to move and Disengage is on cooldown
Chimera Shot (CS) - Aimed Shot (AiS) - AS - SS - SS - SS.  Silencing Shot (SiS) when available (but not during SS cast, you would interrupt it)

2) Low ArP priority rotation:
This one gives marginally better DPS then 1) but ONLY if mastered and it requires watching cooldowns on abilities. I  prefered 1). There is a priority list and you hit the highest damaging ability available:
CS > AiS > AS > SS. SiS when available.

3) High ArP rotation:
You can safely use this after you surpass 450 ArP rating. AS is doing less damage then SS+Piercing shots talent so you leave it from your rotation
CS - AiS - SS - SS - SS - SS.  SiS when available.

It is not worth fire 5th SS and delay CS a bit because at higher ArP level you very likely will have too few haste and casting of 5th SS would delay CS for just too much to be a DPS gain. In fact  four SS give you 0.5 - 1 sec window where you can correct your position, rotation, use some abilities and stuff

Is MM rotation modified in fight?
MM has the advantage that there are not many things that change his rotation in fight.

1) Kill shot: well, if you can, use it. If you have it glyphed, it fits almost perfectly to your 10 sec rotation. If not, nevermind

2) T10 2pc proc: 15% damage increase from T10 2pc bonus persists on Serpent Sting (SSt) ticks and Serpent portion of CS when you refresh SSt with CS.
If you have 2T10 + 2T9, you should fire SSt instead of SS if the taget will live more than 40 sec
If you have 4 T10 pcs, you will want to fire SSt only if your target will be alive at least one minute.
Obviously, you only do this during first proc

3) Movement: if you can, plan your movement beforehand. You have 3 seconds of free movement without gimping your DPS if you move during CS - AiS sequence. Just dont forget to stop for a split of a second when Autoshot is ready. You can move 20 yards in 3 seconds

4) New add spawn:
If it is a small add that you should go down in less than 10 seconds, ALWAYS begin with Arcane Shot. It ignores armor and this new add will be fully armored. Dont bother with Hunters Mark or SSt for this.

Opening a fight
Nothing hard here. It should be communicated between the hunters who will be marking. Misdirect to tank, Serpent Sting, Silencing shot, Rapid Fire if your trinket(s) procced, Chimera Shot, Arcane Shot (target is still not fully sundered), Aimed, Readiness, Misdirect (optional), and from here your regular rotation begins

Stacking cooldowns and trinkets
Obviously, Rapid fire (40% ranged haste for 15 secs) + your trinket proc (say 1000AP) is better than Rapid fire alone and trinket proc alone. You ALWAYS want to stack Rapid Fire with either trinket proc or T10 2pc proc AND Caal Of The Wild (5 minutes CD). You will probably need an Addon for watching procs - I love Power Auras, was using NeedToKnow, too. Also very handy is an addon that displays internal cooldown on your trinket(s) so you can better time your RF with procs.

If you dont have [ITEM]Deathbringer's Will[/ITEM], your best proc is T10 2pc bonus. You should use your second RF as soon as you see it proc. Use the first one for you best trinket proc (for MM: WFS - DV - NES - DMC:G).
If you have DBW, use both 1st and 2nd RF for first proc of DBW.  At around 3:10 into the fight your third RF is available. Wait 15-20 seconds for DBW to proc and stack it. Use Readiness again so that you can stack 30 secs of DBW with 30 secs of RF. Usually something else will proc along the way, too (your second trinket, T10 2pc, T10 4pc, Ashen band...)

Armor Penetration
ArP works only for physical shots and currently only Warriors and Kitties can do more physical damage than MM hunters (Blood DK does the same percentage but is not a top DPS spec, Combat rogues do almost 10% less physical damage and Assassination almost 20% less).
This is unique stat in sense that it doesnt stack linearly but exponentially. What does it mean?  Increase of 100ArP at 300 ArP level will net you low DPS gain than increase of 100 ArP at 800ArP level.
Why is that? ArP removes armor at a rate of 1% per 14 ArP. Armor reduces physical damage and is subject of DIMINISHING RETURNS. That means the more armor you have, the less utility has 1% increase in armor.
SO, at 0 ArP, you ignore 0% of armor, boss has 10K armor and mitigates 40% of incoming damage). If you add 280 ArP, you ignore 20% of armor. Boss will have 8K armor (37% damage mitigation). Hence 280 ArP gave us 3% DPS gain.
Now if you have 910 ArP, you ignore 65% of armor (boss mitigates 19% of damage now). Add the same 280 ArP as we did before so that you ignore 85% of armor. Now the boss mitigates only 9% of armor and you earned 10% damage increase. Now you see how does it stack exponentially
What does it imply? That you dont want to gear for ArP instead of Agi unless you have high ArP rating from gear (recommended is to start gemming for ArP at 700-800 gear ArP level).

Mark of Supremacy
When is it worth to equip this trinket? Basically, if you drop below 180 Hit rating when unequipping this then you should keep it. If you drop below hit cap but above 180, then either gem for hit or use Focused Aim talent point to reach the hit cap (for Alliance it might be only 7% - 236 Hit rating) because of draenei in your party) and throw this trinket away. If you dont drop below hit cap even after unequiping this trinket then there is only one reason you prefer this trinket over DMC:G or even Mirror of Truth and the reason is Gearscore. In this case you are doomed to burn in huntard hell for eternity

Gemming
Agility MM:
1 slot
Red or blue: 20 Agi
Yellow: 10 Agi+10 Crit (or Hit if you are under the cap)
2 slots
Red and Yellow: 20 Agi, 10 Agi+10 Crit (or Hit if you need)
Any other combo: 2x 20 Agi
3 slots
Always 3x 20 Agi

ArP MM:
20 Arp everywhere

How best meet requirement for meta:
Put your Nightmare Tear into blue socket on item with 1 red and 1 blue socket

Any other gemming combination is sub-optimal


Sorry if I forgot something, I will try to update this post.
I am pretty sure that if you follow these guidelines, you will pimp, not gimp your DPS.

DFE

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So you want to be a hunter? Go check this:
useful abilities in ICC by encounters

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