Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsScattered Shots: 4.0.1 hunter gems, glyphs and stat weights
by Brian Wood 
Oct 18th 2010 at 3:00PM
On Thursday, we discussed hunter talents and rotations for 4.0.1, and today we're going to get into gems and glyphs, as well as talking a bit about stat weights. But before we get into all that, a word of caution about rotations.
Many hunters have been playing around with rotations focusing on Arcane Shot only and ignoring the signature shot for the spec. I have to recommend against this. It is certainly much easier, and for some specs (like BM) may actually be a bit more DPS, but it is a bad habit to get into! Expect to see a slight boost to the damage of all hunter signature shots in the very near future that makes these shots clearly worthwhile. It is well worth your while to learn the correct rotation now rather than spending your time developing lazy habits. Be a hunter, not an elf.
With that out of the way, join me after the cut for more info on how to customize your hunter to optimize raid performance in the brief window before Cataclysm hits.
4.0.1 hunter glyphs
Our glyph choices for patch 4.0.1 are going to be different than they will be when we finally get to level 85. Most particularly because we don't yet have access to Cobra Shot, the BM and SV rotations are substantially different than they will become.
As a result of this, our prime glyph choices are surprisingly uniform across the specs. I avoided the new Glyph of Serpent Sting here, but that glyph may be surprisingly good combined with Improved Serpent Sting; however, I have not yet tested this thoroughly enough to recommend it.
Our major glyph slots seem to be mostly focused toward PvP and soloing, with very few options that even tangentially improve our DPS. I'm a big believer in the benefits of using Disengage and jump-disengage for movement, and it's because of those benefits that I recommend the Glyph of Disengage. If you don't make use of this skill to minimize movement, than the glyph will certainly not benefit you at all. Generally, you can choose whatever major glyphs you think will improve your quality of life the most.
Minor glyphs offer is far fewer choices, and it's easier to choose three that are likely to have the most impact (however minor that may be). Again, feel free to swap whatever you'd like here, though I do highly recommend the Mend Pet glyph -- you'll never have to feed your pet again.
Beast Mastery glyphs
- BM prime glyphs
- BM major glyphs
- Glyph of Disengage
- Glyph of Bestial Wrath
- ... your choice
- BM minor glyphs
- MM prime glyphs
- MM major glyphs
- Glyph of Disengage
- ... your choice
- ... your choice
- MM minor glyphs
- SV prime glyphs
- SV major glyphs
- Glyph of Disengage
- ... your choice
- ... your choice
- SV minor glyphs
Stat weights could be argued to be at the very heart of theorycrafting, and it's very complicated to get precise stat weights. When we're talking about stat weights, we're talking about exactly how much DPS do we get from one crit rating or haste rating. How many haste rating is one agility worth? Only by answering these questions can we know with some precision which piece of gear is better or which gem is more desirable.
Of course, there are a lot of problems with stat weights -- more, in fact, than I have room to get into here. Suffice it to say it is complicated to calculate without an actual model of every aspect of hunter DPS (i.e., spreadsheets or simulators) and currently, we still haven't even sorted out exactly how some of the new shot equations actually work. In addition, stat weights are specific to not just your talents but also your gear. In general, by testing a lot of configurations we can usually make some broad recommendations by spec, but even then the "best" gem for your spec sometimes changes as your gear changes.
Right now, no one has created a mathematical model of the 4.0.1 hunter that is close to accurate. Therefore, we cannot calculate exact stat weights.
I cannot tell you that you'll get 1.57 DPS per point of mastery rating or that 1 mastery rating is worth 1.12 crit rating. No one can yet. But we can calculate less precise weights.
Stat priority and reforging
Doing some calculations from both raid parses and extensive dummy tests, we can say with great confidence that 1 mastery is better than 1 crit (thus 1 mastery rating is better than 1 crit rating, as they both scale at about 45.91/point). Thus, if you reforge crit into mastery, your DPS will improve.
Because haste is monumentally complex to calculate without a complete mathematical model (because it affects your number of auto-shots, Steady Shots, Arcane Shots, and possibly Explosive Shots and procs of Wild Quiver and Aimed Shot), we have to resort to exhaustive, controlled testing, which is less precise because there are an insane number of variables contributing to our margin of error. However, a series of half-hour tests under identical conditions (with no one else at the dummy) combined with far less-precise parses suggests with pretty good confidence that 1 mastery rating is better than 1 haste rating. Thus, if you reforge haste into mastery, your DPS will improve.
Haste is a bit complex in another way, because there are certain haste plateaus where you hit a "magic" spot in your rotation, and dropping just a couple percent suddenly removes an entire shot from your rotation. Still, the general rule seems to apply in most situations.
Another important factor to consider, however, is that while haste seems to be the lowest DPS stat for hunters in a 4.0.1 world, it takes less haste rating to get 1 percent haste than it does crit rating to get 1 percent crit. You will have to drop your crit by 1 percent to get 1 mastery, but you'd have to drop your haste by 1.4 percent to get the same 1 mastery.
Ultimately, it looks like mastery is our best secondary stat after hit rating. So reforge to hit until you're at the hit cap, then reforge to mastery. Take it away from either haste or crit -- I'm sure there'll be endless debate about which is best (everyone's reporting different numbers, most within the margin of error). I don't suspect we'll ever settle which is best for level 80 -- we're too busy working on those complicated models for level 85.
Whether you take from crit or haste, the difference will be small enough that it'll be lost in the mess of RNG, so don't stress about it too much.
Gemming your 4.0.1 hunter
Gemming is a pretty easy discussion to have. In the vast majority of situations, you want to use agility gems; agility remains our best stat, aside possibly from hit rating. If the socket bonus is a nice agility bonus, go ahead and use agility/crit gems for yellow sockets. You'll want to use one blue or purple gem for your meta socket requirement, which will most likely be a hit rating gem.
If you are below the hit cap, you still do not want to use more than one hit gem! Get your hit rating by reforging!
If you reach the hit cap via reforging, you're sacrificing either haste or crit rating to get the superior hit rating. If you do it via gemming, you're effectively sacrificing the agility you could otherwise put in that socket. You're better off getting your hit through reforging and stacking as much agility into your gem sockets as is reasonable.
Scattered Shots is dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. Our Scattered Shots Resource Guide takes aim at everything from improving your heroic DPS, understanding the impact of skill vs. gear, and getting started with Beast Mastery 101 and Marksman 101.Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Scattered Shots
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Neil Oct 18th 2010 4:54PM
I used to think a lot of our problems would be cured with Aspect of the Fox, until I did some more PvP and reading.
Imagine you're in an arena match. You use Aspect of the Fox so you can regen on the run. You empty 4 shots into an exposed player who promptly hides behind a pillar.
Now you have zero Focus, and no one to shoot at to generate more focus with Steady (which you'd have to be out in the open and stationary for 6-7 seconds to even get a useable pool of Focus back anyway) ... so you're left standing still for 14 seconds doing absolutely nothing.
With current gear our focus regens at 7 per second. So that's about 14 seconds for a full bar assuming you do nothing for all that time.
But wait! If you get hit while in Aspect of the Fox, you get a whopping 2 focus back! So if you stand in the open and absorb 11 direct hits, you'll have enough to fire ONE Arcane shot back. You'll also be dead.
BGs are only playable now because of the chaos and if you're able to maintain any damage rotation it's because you're being ignored. And right now, we're being ignored because we do next to no damage with the resil buff.
Of course, this is all moot because we're "balanced for 85."
I'd love to see how Blizzard plans to make Hunters even remotely competitive in Arena under the current focus system. Because even in Beta at 85 the regen is just as pathetic.
Hunters are, right now, what Rogues used to be in Vanilla. Our focus issues are the same rogues had with energy back then. Now every Rogue has a different ability to regen energy that's different for each spec ... Hunters have ... Steady Shot.
I'm honestly astonished by how half-baked the Hunter changes are that have been pushed to Live. We can deal with the problems in PvE but for PvP there's an astonishing amount of work to be done with the Class.
I think this is why Hunters have had zero blue posts in the past week. Fixing Warrior coefficients is a simple tweak. Looking at the beta experience hunters aren't even close to being ready for 85 and will probably see more tweaks and updates than any other class in Cata.
I just hope it doesn't take them as long to fix us as it took them to fix my poor Shammy.
Sprawl Oct 18th 2010 6:01PM
Is there any definitive word on what the Survival mastery applies to? "Elemental Damage" could be a tricky thing seeing as how Black Arrow (Shadow) and Arcane Shot aren't necessarily elemental and even whether Nature damage (Serpent Sting and Cobra Shot) are.
Neil Oct 18th 2010 6:48PM
Looks like Blizzard is finally getting around to fixing us broken hunters. Word on the forums and a text from my guildie confirm a hunter hotfix today!
They apparently didn't like people ignoring Chimera and Serpent and just spamming Arcane.
... so they nerfed Arcane Shot by 30%.
Seriously. Words fail.
Krytture Oct 19th 2010 9:44AM
Wow, what a horrible way to fix the issue...
Benameji Oct 20th 2010 11:18PM
They also increased the damage of the primary shots (EP, CS, KC) 15%-25%
Benjamin Oct 18th 2010 7:04PM
Allison Robert! please do a kitty article like this!
James G Bentley Oct 18th 2010 8:21PM
As far as wether or not to reforge Crit of haste. Is there a case to be made that we should reforge whichever stat is higher to give the highest mastery bonus? If the two are very similar in stat weight (or at least, difficult to tell apart because of the math), because we know Mastery is significantly better than both of them, then wouldn't it make sense to just choose whichever one gives more mastery ie. with 105 crit and 20 haste on a piece of gear, reforge the crit to mastery because you get around 40 mastery where with the haste you would only get around 8 (obviously these are exaggerated numbers but you get the point).
Furthermore, even if we did find that haste is better than crit, or vice versa, I think there would still be a certain difference between the amounts your gear has that would merit the conversion of the larger volume stat over to mastery, even if the larger volume stat were the better one. For example, lets say, it turns out crit is better than haste (keep in mind, this is ignoring the "magic" haste numbers and plateaus for the sake of simplicity). So, crit, is better than haste, so much better in-fact, that one point of crit is 100% better than a single point of haste (1crit = 2 haste) now lets say, (again, using exaggerated numbers for simplicity) that Mastery is a further 100% better than crit! (1 mastery = 2 crit = 4 haste).in this scenario, given a piece of gear with 100 crit, and 100 haste available to be reforged, you obviously reforge the haste to mastery, because, hell, reforging the haste would quadruple the amount of benefit those stat points have on your DPS, while reforging the crit would merely double the benefit.
Now, lets consider a pice of gear with 200 crit to be reforged, but a only measly 1 haste to be reforged (again, remember, exaggerated numbers). again, you might say: "well, we always reforge haste to mastery because it quadruples the benefit of those points, while crit merely double the benefit", however, in this scenario, you would be wrong. doubling the effectiveness of 200 points of crit would, without a doubt be a bigger increase in DPS than quadrupling the benefit of a single point of haste, even if we do lose 200 crit, we are gaining 200 Mastery which is a significantly bigger bonus than 1 mastery at the cost of a single point of haste. the reforging of haste is still more cost-effective, however the reforging of the crit has a significantly larger benefit to your overall DPS.
I would like to see (after some good analysis of the stat weighting of haste versus crit comes out) what the magic stat distribution is that will make us change our minds about which stat to reforge.
Also, if my math makes no sense and is completely wrong, that's fine too, I didn't really put a lot of thought into it. However, if it is correct, then while we are still having trouble deciding which stat to reforge, a good guideline might be, reforge whichever one you have more of?
I dunno, just my 2 cents, feel free to down-vote should this be a load of bunk.
Benameji Oct 20th 2010 11:25PM
I'm no number cruncher - so I experimented with my SV build by just reforging all my excess haste AND crit to mastery. I lost about 5% of each - Crit down to 59% unbuffed and haste down to a measly 15.6%. My mastery stands at 15%. Between last Tuesday's ICC 10 normal run and this week's my dps increased by over 1000. Some of that is playing better, some is the hotfix, but some, I must conclude, is a result of mastery.
Zrob Oct 18th 2010 7:33PM
Just a thought here...
There's no Mastery gem yet, but there is a hit gem.
Why not gem for hit (if below the cap) and reforge excess hit for mastery?
Masterwolf Oct 18th 2010 10:55PM
Because Agility > Mastery > Hit
ZaVaZ Oct 18th 2010 11:25PM
WWBRKD?
nh4416 Oct 19th 2010 12:03AM
LOL...let's ask him
BRK - "Family stuff? Tomorrow is our son’s eighth birthday, so we had to get a Sponge Bob birthday cake. And a massive Lego set. And a Club Penguin igloo. And a Phineas and Ferb game for the DS."
Thiron Oct 19th 2010 4:11AM
I have to disagree with limiting agi/hit gems to one. Gemming blue sockets for agi/hit is better then going full agi because of socket bonuses imho. You aren't chosing between 10 agi and 10 hit, you're chosing between 2/4/6 agi and 10 hit. Lowest socket bonus is 4 agi, and I think that's still worth going agi/hit.
Joan Oct 19th 2010 8:44AM
Dear Frostheim,
In the opening paragraphs of your article, you mention that hunters aren't using their signature shots enough, but you don't say what those are. My hunter just hit level 40, and maybe it's noobish of me, but I thought the signature ability was the one you get for picking a spec, or maybe the 31-point talent. For beast mastery (my spec) however, neither of those are a shot. What am I missing?
Biscathy Oct 19th 2010 1:13PM
hey there, since the patch comes out, my dps sucks, i'm trying to follow all the tips u gave, but i can't do mote than 6.5k on dps...
i'm on the hit cap, on the cap of crit... but my dps sucks!
anyone can see my char and try to figure whats the problem, if the problem is some item or just my rotation... plz
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gurubashi&cn=biscathy
tazaxle Oct 19th 2010 1:52PM
i had a hit rating trink that was lying in the bank, i swapped it with one of my other mediocre trinks and reforged all that extra useless hit into mastery, dps went from ave 5k on dummy to ave 6k on dummy ;)
obama barack Oct 25th 2010 10:06AM
Should I reforge all my haste into mastery (im an SV hunter, hit capped). Also, My helm requires 2 blue gems to activate the meta gem. Should I use both for hit cap, then convert excess through reforging, or should I ignore the meta gem and just use 20 agi? Thanks
Malkavier Oct 25th 2010 11:12AM
Agility > Crit > Mastery > Haste > Hit is what I've found out in testing and ICC/Naxx/Ulduar runs, with Crit and Haste sometimes being interchangeable on the rankings.
Caveat about Mastery: It's broken for the Marksman spec, it isn't scaling properly nor is Wild Quiver seeming to work like advertised. This has been mentioned on the official forums by Hunters doing testing for Femaledwarf, Huntsman's Lodge, etc.
Another Caveat: 3.00 speed ranged weapons are scaling better than 2.9 or faster weapons. This is more than likely a bug that was re-introduced (it's happened before, and it was fixed but now seems to be back) during patch 4.0, then 4.01 hit and made it even worse - this ties into Marks/SV Mastery more than BM, but still affects things like Arcane Shot in a major way.
Current consensus by above mentioned testers on the official forums is that the iLvL 264 Wrathful Bow/Crossbow are best in slot. The issue with guns scaling better with Arcane Shot than bows/crossbows was fixed during one of the rolling hotfixes. Normal/Heroic Zod's are actually a loss in DPS currently for all specs.
As for gemming: Agility gems are by far still the best value, but if you're a Blacksmith and get the extra gem slots for gloves + wrist slot, I've found that adding in the +20 Haste gems works miracles for Focus regen. Putting Agility gems in every slot seems to be leading to diminishing returns, as at that point, putting a Delicate Cardinal Ruby in those two extra slots would have given me 0.26% to Crit and a tiny amount of AP and Armor.
Don't ever gem for Crit or Attack Power, it's a waste of a good gem slot, especially now since we are so reliant on Haste for focus regen.
Old rule about gem slots and slot bonuses are still in effect: Activate your Meta Slot as appropriate, ignore all other slot bonuses since +20 Agility gems give you more than any slot bonus offers (currently a max of +8). This will more than likely change in Cataclysm when Mastery gems and Mastery bonuses appear on the new armor sets, making it even more worthwhile.
15% Mastery for a Beastmaster will give you +25% to pet damage on ALL attacks. I've not done any testing with Survival and Marksman I gave up on when I noticed none of the numbers added up or worked as advertised (and later had my suspicions confirmed via official forums). What this translates into for a BM? Kill Commands that while in Bestial Wrath can easily critical for 15k or more every 6 seconds, and critical for a minimum of 5.6k (on bad RNG) and top out at 10k+ while not under Bestial Wrath on Sindragosa, for a picture of what it means. Last night I had a Kill Command critical for on her for 32.6k with Bestial Wrath in effect.
These are just my opinions and findings so far.
Throkwa Nov 1st 2010 12:19PM
I tryied to reforge haste into mastery, but when i look in my character panel, I see that once I change haste into mastery, the DPS goes down (to be noted, i am a total noob at this, even though I am lvl 80). Thanks for your answer.
Throkwa Oct 26th 2010 3:44AM
Forgot to mention I am a Survival Hunter