WoW Heroes is a quick way to check realm rankings because it can quickly parse guild rosters according to specific classes, so all I needed to do was update the hunter rosters of the Alliance guilds that have entered Dragon Soul on Eredar by cross-checking with WoW Progress.

Incidentally, I am ranked 22nd as of this posting as Survival. The first Beast Mastery hunter appears in 26th place. This is a marked difference compared to just a few months ago when as many as nine out of ten were Marksmanship.

RaidBots is reporting as of this morning that in the top 100 normal 25-man combat log parses, Survival median DPS is dead even with Marksmanship at just over 35,000. Although 25-man raiding is where groundbreaking progression is usually made, one should not ignore 10-man raiding data. RaidBots reports that in the top 100 normal 10-man combat log parses, Survival median DPS exceeds Marksmanship by over 1,000 — at 30,000 to 28,800. Beast Mastery median DPS rounds out the normal 25-man data at 30,600 and 27,300 at normal 10-man.

But reading numbers don’t really mean anything. What conclusion can we draw from this?

The most important factor for a certain class/specialization combination to appear on these DPS aggregators is raid representation. If there are more people playing these specific combinations in the top 100 parses, the more accurate the sample will be and the higher that combination will place on the DPS rankings. RaidBots tells us just how accurate the sample representation is for these combinations.

At normal 25-man, Marksmanship appears in 1,068 samples; Survival appears in 986 samples; and Beast Mastery in 854 samples.

At normal 10-man, Marksmanship appears in 1,095 samples; Survival appears in 1,064 samples; and Beast Mastery in 881 samples.

Upon brief inspection of the ratio of samples for the respective raid compositions, one can estimate that Survival hunters are more likely to raid in 10-man rather than 25-man, even if only slightly. The increased representation of Survival hunters in 10-man raiding means they are also receiving more upgrades, pushing Survival median DPS higher and allowing it to exceed over Marksmanship.

Of course, there are still more people raiding as Marksmanship as can be seen from the sample sizes I previously mentioned. Why is Marksmanship median DPS not higher then?

The answer is because more top hunters are raiding as Survival over Marksmanship. For example, the Eredar realm ranking I initially posted in the beginning of this entry may not represent the entirety of the situation, and Marksmanship could still represent 60 percent of the population. But if the cream of the crop and those on the groundbreaking edge of progression are using Survival, its median DPS will skew toward a higher value.

Marksmanship may still exceed Survival DPS in theory according to ideal simulations, but live data show otherwise because of players’ behavior.

Of course, the purpose of this entry is not to brag. It is to investigate the proc damage that is done by this bow.

Your ranged attacks have a chance to deal 7040/7950/8970 damage over 2 sec.

The tooltip may lead you to believe that this is a static damage caused by the bow. This is, however, not the case because the damage is not physical damage, but magical damage. More specifically, it is fire damage.

It will appear in your combat logs as a buff called [Speaking of Rage].

Yesterday, <Dark Days> overcame the big stumbling block that was Ultraxion, with three healers even. As I’ve been logging (almost) all of our progression fights since the new patch dropped, I was able to get a sense of just how strong this weapon is. According to my combat log from the Ultraxion encounter, which is very static and has no movement involved, Speaking of Rage procced 16 times, accumulating to 160 ticks of fire damage.

This means every proc of Speaking of Rage produces 10 ticks of fire damage in just two seconds. Compare this to three ticks of fire damage per Explosive Shot in two seconds. Of course, the damage is less than than of Explosive Shot, but those are some very fast ticks.

Another detail you may observe is that ticks of Speaking of Rage can make critical hits. During this fight, 33 out of 160 ticks (20 percent) did critical damage to Ultraxion. While this may not be too surprising given previous behavior of the [Flaming Arrow] proc from the two-piece bonus of tier 12 armor, it is information that cannot be derived from the tooltip alone.

The final detail you may observe is that Speaking of Rage is hitting harder than it should in my case. With an average of 891.1 damage per tick, Speaking of Rage does 8911 damage per proc of the bow. Because I have been running Dragon Soul primarily as a Survival hunter, this is leading me to believe that mastery buffs the damage of Speaking of Rage.

So let’s do some mathematics.

With my mastery at 14.38 according to the Armory, it would have increased magical damage by 14.38 percent. Dividing the average damage value by the damage gain will provide me with the average base damage.

8911 ÷ 1.1438 ≈ 7791

This calculated base damage is still above the 7040 advertised by the tooltip, which leads to the conclusion that Speaking of Rage must have a damage range. As I did not have Recount running at the same time of the log, I was not able to determine this range at the time of writing.

However, if Speaking of Rage does indeed scale with Survival mastery as this preliminary data suggests, it could have an interesting implication where the bow can actually do more damage in the hands of a Survival hunter. Given equal gear and skill among three hunters utilizing the three different trees, Vishanka would have the best added value for the Survival hunter.

Pradzha (US-Thorium Brotherhood) of the hunter blog Piercing Shots will be this week’s guest. In his own words, “Piercing Shots is all about playing a PvE hunter, with no restriction on spec or level, although I do concentrate on end-game raiding.” Pradzha’s writing makes complex topics in the game easy to understand, from outlining the thought process to solve what I call Focus panic to analyzing top guild Paragon’s comments about haste.

I will be in the middle of a guild raid, but I will still be hanging out in chatroom with other members of the Blog Azeroth community. Join me in supporting this exemplary member of the hunters’ union.

Reverted a bug fix that caused Bombardment to be consumed by the next Multi-Shot. Fixing this bug proved to be a significant dps loss, so Bombardment once again lasts for its full 6 second duration regardless of the number of Multi-Shot casts. The tooltip will be updated in a future patch to reflect that this change is intended.

Why did this happen? Last Thursday, some time after the official patch, Blizzard snuck this addition onto the patch notes.

Bombardment now only affects the next Multi-shot cast.

If you don’t remember, Bombardment is a fourth-tier Marksmanship talent that reduces the focus cost of the next Multi-Shot by 50 percent when you critically hit with Multi-Shot. It sounds pretty straightforward right? Well, not quite.

Judging by the wording on the initial change in the 4.3 patch notes, the developers had not foreseen the current usage of Bombardment, where Marksmanship hunters would blow all their focus with sequential Multi-Shots, regenerate it with Steady Shot, and then repeat the process.

If one were to logically read the tooltip for Bombardment, it would be assumed that every Multi-Shot has a chance to proc the Bombardment effect. This meant that if it were to proc consecutively, one could fit in four Multi-Shots before depleting all 100 focus.

Multi-Shot (original, 40 focus)
Multi-Shot (Bombardment proc, 20 focus)
Multi-Shot (Bombardment proc, 20 focus)
Multi-Shot (Bombardment proc, 20 focus)

Apparently this was not Blizzard’s intention. They did not intend on allowing the reduced-focus Multi-Shot to proc Bombardment, meaning one could only fit in three Multi-Shots at maximum.

Multi-Shot (original, 40 focus)
Multi-Shot (Bombardment proc, 20 focus)
Multi-Shot (original reset, 40 focus)

Upon initial inspection, one would think this reduces DPS. Well, it did, so the change was reverted.

But the confusion doesn’t end there. Why mention a six-second duration? There was no indication whatsoever that Bombardment has such a duration. Although I don’t have a definite answer since I have been unable to test this, I have one speculation.

Under extreme haste conditions, one may be able to fit in as many as five Multi-Shots in a row because by the time you consume 100 focus for the initial four shots, you will have regained another 20 while under haste. Bombardment procs when Multi-Shot hits its targets, which is typically at the end of the first global cooldown. Spamming four more Multi-Shots that are all affected by Bombardment uses four 1.5-second global cooldowns, which total up to six seconds. This is the maximum duration of Bombardment because you would have to regain focus again after it is depleted by using Steady Shot.

Bombardment remains one of the least studied abilities of Marksmanship hunters, and there isn’t much data available on it at the moment. However, I don’t think this will be the last time we see its effect come into discussion because the ability will also feature as a Marksmanship passive ability in Mists of Pandaria as well.

Ultraxion will be a stumbling block for many guilds who don’t raid Heroic Firelands. It was for us on Saturday night. Our best attempt was 10 percent, and while we kept inching closer and pulling every trick up our sleeves, we conceded he was too much, at least for now.

Defeating Ultraxion is all about numbers. Can you put out enough damage in time to kill him? Can you heal enough before he enrages? Let’s take a look at the numbers for 10-man raiding.

56,688,720

Ultraxion’s health

6 minutes

Ultraxion’s hard enrage timer

5 minutes 30 seconds

Ultraxion’s approximate soft enrage timer

157,469

Raid DPS to beat hard enrage timer

171,784

Raid DPS to beat soft enrage timer

13,123

Average tank DPS to beat hard enrage timer

14,316

Average tank DPS to beat soft enrage timer

26,245

Average damage-dealer DPS to beat hard enrage timer

28,631

Average damage-dealer DPS to beat soft enrage timer

The assumption is that the DPS value of a tank is on average one-half of the DPS value of a damage-dealing class, using two tanks, five damage-dealers, and three healers for the standard 10-man raid composition.

Actual 25-man Dragon Soul for <Dark Days> begins this Friday. If you are looking to transfer realms, why not choose Eredar and join us on the Alliance side? We are looking for competent and experienced DPS and a few more healers.

However, I decided to go back in a couple more times through the raid finder to see how I could improve my hunter progression raiding. I’ve made a couple of observations for the first four bosses, which could be helpful if you often “spec dance” (as opposed to an “aspect dance”).

Morchok (and trash)

• Boulder Smashes from Earthen Destroyers are hard to see sometimes, especially since they are swirling white things on the pale blue snow. Keep on your feet. It probably doesn’t hurt much to just be on Aspect of the Fox and run around, especially if you’re pulling two of these at the same time.
• There aren’t many trash mobs before Morchok, so Marksmanship or Beast Mastery might be a better choice than Survival here.
• As a single target fight, Morchok is more favorable for Marksmanship and Beast Mastery. If you are assigned as someone who has to take a Resonating Crystal, being in Survival will hurt because as you are moving around from crystal to crystal, you won’t have the extra Cobra Shot crit from Sniper Training often.
• Remember that you can position yourself during Black Blood of the Earth such that you can still shoot while behind a shards.

Warlord Zon’ozz (and trash)

• Once again, trash mobs favor Marksmanship and Beast Mastery because they’re static and are spread apart, so you won’t be able to do much area damage.
• Marksmanship may be the favored talent choice for this fight because of the shorter Rapid Fire cooldown, so you can activate it every time Zon’ozz goes into his diffused phase. If Rapid Fire is not ready by then, you still have Readiness.

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping (and trash)

• Survival is nice for the trash here since every pack of three globules are close together, and area damage can probably help kill them faster.
• For Yor’sahj himself, you’d probably want to go Marksmanship or Beast Mastery. When the globules form, I often use an Aimed Shot to open as Marksmanship since it can drop the globules’ health a couple of percentage points immediately after they spawn, especially with Careful Aim in effect. This should make killing your globule faster. Beast Mastery could probably use Bestial Wrath when it’s off cooldown to help as well. The amount of movement also makes this fight unfavorable for Survival in my opinion.
• If you get a black globule, put down and Explosive Trap on his feet. It will help with killing the additional mobs faster.

Hagara the Stormbinder (and trash)

• Obviously Survival will shine during Hagara’s trash because there are so many of them.
• Hagara herself is another story, however, as I think Marksmanship would be the most viable talent of choice for the fight. For some reason, my pet always dies during the storm phase when everyone is trying to connect the Lightning Conduit. At this point, I’m going to assume that pets themselves can act as a conduit, so they’re also conducting and taking damage but not receiving enough heals from just Mend Pet. I’ve not tried if Beast Mastery pets can survive this phase, but I think the amount of target switching in this fight makes the talent a less favorable choice anyway. Once again, more movement also means less time spent with Sniper Training active as Survival.

None of these observations have any scientific backing to them. They are just my gut feeling, but feel free to let me know other hunter pointers or observations any of you have made.

Caverns of Time: End of Time

• [Windrunner's Bow], 378 ilvl bow. (Echo of Sylvanas)
• [Cloak of the Banshee Queen], 378 ilvl cloak. (Echo of Sylvanas)
• [Dead End Boots], 378 ilvl mail boots. (Echoes of Baine, Jaina, Sylvanas, and Tyrande)
• [Arrow of Time], 378 ilvl trinket, slightly weaker version of [The Hungerer]. (Murozond)
• [Time Twister's Gauntlets], 378 ilvl gloves. (Quest reward)

Caverns of Time: Well of Eternity

• [Breastplate of the Queen's Guard], 378 ilvl mail chest. (Queen Azshara)
• [Thornwood Staff], 378 ilvl staff. (Mannoroth and Varo’then)
• [Legguards of the Legion], 378 ilvl mail pants. (Mannoroth and Varo’then)
• [Mannoroth's Signet], 378 ilvl ring. (Mannoroth and Varo’then)
• [Alurmi's Ring], 378 ilvl ring. (Quest reward)
• [Legion Bindings], 378 ilvl mail bracers. (Zone drop)

Caverns of Time: Hour of Twilight

• [Dawnslayer Helm], 378 ilvl mail helm. (Asira Dawnslayer)
• [Dragonsmaw Blaster], 378 ilvl gun. (Archbishop Benedictus)
• [Betrayer's Pauldrons], 378 ilvl mail shoulders. (Archbishop Benedictus)
• [Cinch of the World Shaman], 378 ilvl mail belt. (Quest reward)

Patch 4.3 arrives. It has been 22 weeks since our last content update, and 51 weeks (almost one year) since the release of Cataclysm. This is the mother of all patches because:

Our intent is to start acting even more on our Mists of Pandaria philosophies of encouraging players to approach the content they want to, how they want to, and be able to work toward meaningful player progression.

That statement is a side commentary that accompanied yesterday’s announcement about Conquest point reward changes. All the changes in 4.3 are pointing toward the envisioned gaming philosophy for the next expansion.

Changes for hunters primarily come from buffing the Beast Mastery and Survival talent trees. It appears that the changes to Focus Fire and T.N.T. never made it to the official patch notes that was posted before the entire Battle.net site went down for maintenance. For now, I will mark them as undocumented until they have been confirmed in-game.

Beast Mastery

• Animal Handler now increases Attack Power by 30%, up from 25%.
• Focus Fire now lasts 20 sec, up from 15 sec. (Undocumented)
• Widow Venom now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.

Survival

• Explosive Shot damage has been increased by 15%.
• T.N.T. now has a 10/20% chance to proc, up from 6/12%. (Undocumented)

Pets

• Burrow Attack (Worm ability) now does approximately 20% more damage, and has an increased area of effect.
• Froststorm Breath (Chimera ability) now does approximately 20% more damage, and has an increased area of effect.
• Monstrous Bite (Devilsaur ability) now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.

Although there were no changes planned for Marksmanship (which indicates just how strong the tree is already), there is a puzzling change that affected Marksmanship’s Trueshot Aura buff. Results are still inconclusive as to how this affects the DPS balance between hunters and other melee classes.

All raid and party buffs which grant group members 10% increased attack power have been changed slightly. They continue to provide 10% increased ranged attack power, but now provide 20% increased melee attack power.

• Trueshot Aura: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 20%, up from 10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 10%.

If you are part of a progression raiding guild, it’s time to dust off that guild standard because it’s gotten a bit more useful.

Guild Standards are again useable in Firelands. Duration has been increased to 15 minutes, the effect has a 100 yard radius, and now affects dead players.

For the rest of the patch notes, visit the Battle.net blog entry.

What is the first thing on your to-do list when the realms go live? I’m going to transmogrify my ranged weapon to the classic [Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix].

Giving thanks sometimes can feel like a very superficial thing these days. We thank others when they congratulate us after earning an achievement. We thank raid leaders when they loot us that shiny epic we really need to increase our just-as-superficial item level. We thank our random party members for finishing a dungeon run without any problems. We thank our new friends and colleagues when we join a new guild. World of Warcraft bloggers thank each other for commenting on our posts, sending in e-mails, and listening to our podcasts.

Even so, allow me to say once more. Thank you.

When I returned to the game a year ago, the hunter blogging landscape had completely changed. All of the familiar faces of hunter blogging from Burning Crusade were nowhere to be found. I had to relearn my way through the community again to pick up where I left off. Of course, the friendly faces of the Twisted Nether Blogcast did not change much.

To be honest, I was at first skeptical with the presence of the new hunters on the block like Frostheim and Euripides. Over time, I realized the dedication they have to the hunter community. Although Warcraft Hunters Union has become a powerhouse, Frostheim wants the rest of the hunter blogging community to thrive as well. Maintaining both OutDPS and Hunting Party Podcast must be a good amount of work for Euripides.

There are also those who are up-and-coming bloggers who may never reach the same fame among the average players, but their contributions to the blogging community have also been invaluable with thought-provoking observations and comments. A simple thank you to Dakona, Durendil, Faeldray, Garwulf, Gavendo, Jcsway, Laeleiweyn, Lyraat, Morynne, Peregrina, Phyllixia, Quori, and Zanbon just for your writing. This list is as exhaustive as my reach can be, but don’t feel left out if your name hasn’t reached my ear yet. If you keep writing, it will in due time.

But Thanksgiving is not just about thanking; I would also like to give back.

I realize there isn’t much I can do personally as an individual, but I would like to get to know my readers and other bloggers better. If you are interested in connecting, I would like to add you as a friend on Real ID.

This means, if you are an Alliance player, I am willing to utilize the cross-realm party function and run dungeons with you. Sometimes connectivity is the best form of support among bloggers, and if we aren’t glued to our own blogs, we are usually glued to our characters. I’ve always believed that the best way to get to know World of Warcraft bloggers is to observe them in their own environment, which is why a long time ago I visited Pike on her home realm. Even if you are a Horde player or a non-hunter or a non-blogger, you are welcome in my circle as well.

While this is an open invitation, understand also that there is a certain level of privacy that should be observed connecting with people who are previously strangers. I hope all of you know how to respect this.

With that said, feel free to send an e-mail with your information to 35yards [at] gmail [dot] com, and I will reply when I’ve added you as a friend in-game. Thank you in advance if you are accepting my invitation. Even if you won’t accept it, I still thank you for supporting the community by reading this post.

• The first thing you will and should notice are the passive weapon skills. The tooltip on this passive trait has been reworded from the current version in Cataclysm. Instead of saying that hunters can use certain melee weapons, the new version states that “hunters perform best” using ranged weapons. Additionally, they will be able to equip axes, daggers, fist weapons, polearms, staves, and swords. This clears up any and all misconception about the removal of the ranged weapon slot. What will actually happen is that all classes will see their third weapon slot (currently used for ranged weapons, relics, librams, idols, etc.) removed. Specifically for hunters, our ranged weapons will become two-handed weapons much like the way we use staves and polearms today.
• Something we usually take for granted at level 85 is Mail Specialization. This is currently acquired at level 50, a ten-level gap between the time you are able to train wearing mail armor and the time you acquire this passive trait. That means if you are able to obtain a full mail armor set prior to level 50, you receive no benefit from it. In Mists of Pandaria, this armor specialization is automatically given to you at level one. Oddly enough, you still cannot wear mail armor until level 40.
• Another curious implementation is the Focused Aim passive trait, which reduces pushback while casting Steady Shot or Cobra Shot by 70 percent, given at level one. Why reduce something if you don’t get a chance to experience the non-reduced deficit in the beginning?

Now let’s look at the class-specific spells.

• Noticeably absent from the Beast Mastery spellbook is the Ferocious Inspiration raid buff. There has been no indication as to where this has gone, especially when Trueshot Aura and Hunting Party remain available to Marksmanship and Survival hunters.
• It’s nice to see situational talents like Concussive Barrage from Marksmansip and Entrapment from Survival make it into their respective spellbooks.
• Another noticeable change is that Careful Aim will be now an exclusively Marksmanship hunter trait and thus no longer provides any benefit for Cobra Shot.
• For Marksmanship hunters specifically, it appears Improved Steady Shot will disappear for good, allowing for a less rigid shot rotation than the one we are currently forced to employ.

Do you have any favorite spells that missed the cut? Unfortunately, we still won’t be getting Eyes of the Beast back. Next week will be a special presentation as we explore the new talent tree tier-by-tier from every day from Monday to Saturday.