As many of you are aware of, the 4pc Tier Set (for MM Hunter) grants us a charge of Trick Shots for every 40 focus spent. Why is this important to us MM hunters? Because crossing that “40 focus barrier” (which give us Trick Shots) synergizes with the 2pc Tier Set bonus (giving us a 30% damage boost to our next Aimed Shot/Rapid Fire).
To summarize, every time Trick Shots is up it boosts our Aimed Shot/Rapid Fire by 30%. That’s insane damage increase.
And it can be even more fun, since having the Secrets of the Unblinking Vigil legendary might gives a free charge of Aimed Shot for every Trick Shots buff gained. This makes Trick Shots even more valuable.
So, having a precise track of our Focus is essential to knowing when we’ll have enough focus to get a charge of Trick Shots and gain that 30% extra damage per Aimed Shot/Rapid Fire cast.
However, the in-game Focus tracking logic seems to be completely screwed. It sometimes resets itself and that is NOT SHOWN TO US. Consequently, our Weak Auras mismatch the real counting of focus, making it technically impossible to keep track of the Focus count, thus impacting our spell rotation.
The in-game Focus accumulated certainly has a specific set of rules as to when it resets itself (eg: when moving on to the next pack on a Mythic+ dungeon, or moving indoors, outdoors, etc.). But this is neither shown to us nor explained at all.
Does anyone have any clue if Blizzard is already aware of it?
The MM Hunter class seems to be nearly unplayable at its full capacity as of now.
So, with vigil, you’re pretty much going to want to spend all your trick shots on aimed shot, unless you need focus (in which case, use rapid fire). Using aimed shot, even if it is a free one that procs from vigil or lock and load, will add the full cost 35 to the count, and if you go over 40 with this bonus, by the time your aimed shot hits, you will have trick shots applied and benefit from the 2 piece. So pretty much alternate multi shot and aimed shot when you have 2+ targets that you’ll hit, arcane shot and aimed shot for single target, and use kill shot to aimed shot when it’s up unless you have enough targets to make your multi-shot worth more (probably not many).
You don’t have to keep track of it, just try to use one of the three (arcane, multi, and kill shots) right after you finish casting aimed shot (the gcd should be up by then) and then know that your next aimed shot will have trick shots unless you cast rapid fire. I don’t know for sure the timer on the focus reset, I know for sure that your trick shots will reset after 20 seconds though.
All you need is 2 weakauras
1 to let you know when you have a charge of trick shots up and one to let you know when you have a free charge of aimed shot.
The rest is reactive gameplay.
No, that is terribly wrong. With 4pc + Vigil you will drop most of the Muti Shots and Arcanes in between your Aimeds since you get enough focus count your Aimeds. You will only have to use Arcane and MS sporadic. If you alternate them, you are trolling your dps.
That is also not the proper way to optimise your damage. If you dont really care about your damage, you can do it like you say, but if you want to opitmise it, you need the counting weak aura since you need to know when the counter is at 0, since this is the time when you do want to press Arcane or MS to get Trickshots for your next Aimed.
That’s the advice I give to people who want to do 95+% of their dps and have a really easy way to get there. Alternating them will make it impossible for you to get aimed shots out without trick shots, super easy rotation that rarely makes you run out of focus and does pretty good dps.
You aren’t going to be trolling your dps by alternating them, you only have two charges on aimed shot and only a 50% chance to refund them, after all. You need to do something during your downtime, might as well be spending more focus to get a freebie half the time. Precise shot procs are still good and downright ignoring them is the way to actually troll your dps, especially in M+ when you have to move often.
But it’s not required. Of course 100 parses are going to take advantage of every point of focus on that counter. My advice for most people? Trick shots doesn’t stack, don’t go too crazy over it.
The way you described it, you will lose a whole lot more of your damage than that. You are actively ignoring the whole reason why Vigil is so strong with 4pc. If you want to advertise a dumbed down playstyle for bad players you should just tell them to run Serpentstalkers, since theres no point in running Vigil if you dont utilise it properly. Then you can even tell them to alternate.
What Ridley wrote is wrong from a minmaxing point of view since he would occasionally lose a buffed Aimed. What you want to do is disregard the whole playstyle and gimping yourself. It is very far off from 95+%.
Youre giving bad advice under the pretense of giving good advice for average players. Youre still wrong. Dont tell them to run Vigil and then ignore the playstyle, thats just bad. Again, if you want to have an easy mode, tell them to go Serpentstalkers.
Well you could do arcane - aimed - aimed but you’re going to run out of aimed charges quickly. You won’t get three in a row with all trick shots even if you start with 35 from an earlier aimed shot. Spending more focus on the other shots while your charges of aimed shot are recharging is probably a good idea when you have 0 charges and won’t have one within a global.
Serpentstalkers is a poor choice in single target and an even worse choice in AoE. And the rotation also uses rapid fire centrally. Vigil is easy mode even if you’re min-maxing, but alternating vigil + 4pc can’t get easier and the dps is solid. You have to reach level 60 but it’s worth it.
It really shows that you dont understand the playstyle and still want to give advice. Why dont you tell spriests to drop SW:P from their rotation to make it easier?
Its really weird how you say that Serpentstalker is a poor choice after you want people to play an ever poorer choice. Honestly, Vigil isnt really easy mode, but it might very much seem so to poor players. It was rather obvious when i made my rant post about the playstyle, but was met with a whole lot of people who didnt understand my gripe because they dont even play the spec properly.
Yes, you can. Please check out a guide to understand the playstyle with the legendary.
This is what moving the goalposts looks like. First you want to alternate the shots every time, now it is just when you have 0 charges? Please, stop posting. Youre giving bad advice and make yourself look foolish.
You don’t even play this game. What do you think is an average player? They’re going to be keeping track of their buffs? Average players are just trying to figure out what the heck killed them half the time. They’re not going to be min-maxing a counter they can’t even see. Get a grip.
Again, then tell them to run Serpentstalker. Tell them to use the weaker legendary instead of using the legendary that has 10% more potential while telling them to use it at 60% efficiency.
At least now i know why youre misinformed.
That guide is simply wrong/outdated. The way it is written it seems to assume that Aimeds who proc Trickshots dont consume the buff themselfes. Also, check out the “last edited”, its from february, before the patch was released.
Icy Veins is generally a good and up to date guide. You might also want to cross reference this with actual logs. There is no good log that alternates shots.
I do this with my own logs. Oh wow, my math is correct! I don’t care about guides, I know how to use raidbots and excel too. I knew necro was going to be the best mm covenant for output in M+ for months because they all used the covenant legendary to begin with and the kyrian legendary was and still is trash.
My own logs alternate shots. Here’s one from tonight. I kept up with the warlock and then some. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/nykAYgVPma37p2Bb/#fight=last&playermetric=dps Want to show me your amazing min maxxed 26 logs?
Your math?? Please stop it. You dont do any math, its getting more ridiculous every time.
From your own log: Your average cast of Multi did 13,2k damage, your average cast of Aimed did 53,7k damage. How on earth can you justify losing Aimeds just to cast more Multis? Where is your math on that?
Youre doing 23s, so you cant be a completely terrible player, but even under Trueshot youre alternating?? That is just terrible gameplay. You could do so much better if your basics would be right.
But its not. And before you want to link Warcraftlogs that shows NL a tiny bit ahead of Kyrian, thats heavily skewed by lowlevel dungeons where the packs are dead after the bombs go off and any Kyrian cant get any value of their area-bound ability.
This is not a debate about who is a better player, but about what is the best way to maximise your damage. Its unlikely that anything you or i do in a singular log is going to impact this discussion. But if you still want to have at it: My main is Aldrathor-Eredar.
Because those Aimed Shots you are talking about DO NOT EXIST. There is no charge available. Multi is the next best thing because not only does it do a little bit of damage with precise shots, but spending that focus gets you more shots at a free reload. Sure, Theoretically you could plop down volley and get 7 buffed aimed shots. But how in the world are you going to stand still for 7 aimed shots in a key?
Just check out the very first pull. Its with Trueshot and there are 8 Aimeds and 2 RF as the first casts. Not a single MS or Arcane in that sequence. This is insanely more dps than if i had alternated my shots there. You are losing out massively with your playstyle. I know youre dug in your trenches now and its very unlikely that any kind of evidence can convince you at this point, but you should really look into this, because youre losing a lot of damage.
Here, I see three failed casts, presumably because you had to move, and something that can happen 1/16th of the time. Of course you wouldn’t need to alternate during volley, that’s the main benefit of the volley talent. But you could and the rotation’s less clunky, you can move when a mechanic is less than a global away from hitting you, and you wouldn’t risk running out of focus/charges because you didn’t get lucky with vigil procs.
I see how it could be useful in a level 16 dungeon where packs die in 10 seconds. But for the long term, more consistent profile which you’ll need as your tank chain pulls 10+ mobs at any given time, you might consider that trick shots is capped at 6 and multi shot is uncapped, and that you’ll need to still be doing good damage after your burst is over.
There is only one interrupted cast and with how much more damage Aimed does, i could have interrupted 3 and still done more damage than i had done with alternating. But i knew i shouldnt have used one of my own logs since i pretty much just do the necessary dungeons at this point.
And surprise, surprise, its pretty much the same thing on the very first pull.
What you are now trying to say (moving goal posts again) about movement is just distraction. Of course you can move less freely while casting Aimeds, duh. However, this was not your point. You wanted to alternate the shots every time, not just when you have to move.
Your little slight with the 16 dungeons should be busted with above log and lets look into your claim about Multi being uncapped. In the above log, an average cast from Aimed did 63,3k damage, while the average MS cast did 21,4k. Aimed in this case is even dragged down by single target casts during boss fights. There is no reasonable pull in a dungeon where MS would do even close to the damage of an Aimed, it would probably have to be around 40+ mobs.
This isn’t really up for debate. If you have 5 focus or more (can be tracked via weakaura), using Aimed Shot will spend 35 focus, go over the 40 focus threshold, and trigger and be buffed by Trick Shots. Then it’s a 50% chance for a free Aimed Shot charge from that. It’s far more damage than a buffed Arcane Shot. The only time to use Arcane Shot or Multi Shot is if your next Aimed Shot will not proc Trick Shots or if you have no Aimed Shot charge and you need to force Trick Shots. Or perhaps during heavy movement.
The Icy-Veins guide is largely considered by the community to be the superior option when it comes to hunter guides.
Here’s what it says about 4 set:
With the 4PC Tier Set Bonus, you should ignore Precise Shots and focus on maximizing Aimed Shot casts.
You could also go run a simulation and look at what the sample ability usage looks like. People have spent a lot of time optimising the APL to yield the highest number possible and that’s pretty much all the math being done for you, no need for a napkin.
But all of this is getting beyond the original point of this thread. There is no actual way to track the focus counter in game so we’re left guessing. And with the fact that said counter resets almost seemingly randomly as there is no consistency in what does or does not, this can lead to desynchronisation. The concern has been voiced by Jayeasy, the author of the tracking WeakAura, in the set bonus thread.
On massive trash like De Other Side and Halls of Atonement, I think it’s better to stick with Surging Shots Legendary with Double Tap/Rapid Fire with or without 4P. With less trash, Vigil could be better with 4P.
I will deal with 4P procs monitoring when I get my 4P next week.
The auras simply don’t reflect the true focus counting because of the reset logic which has not been disclosed by Blizzard yet (even though only one from the WA website seems to be working more precisely).
Spot on. You are on the same page as I’m. Focus tracking is simply mandatory for this legendary. Blizzard has to present us with the logic for when focus gets reset so we can start adapting our Weak Auras to the in-game counting.
I partially agree with you. You advice makes it simple to play. But playing like that, at some point, you might still be caught off guard by not having spent enough focus to cross the 40 focus barrier (even worse if you’re not tracking focus in real time). This leads to a gameplay very far from the class’ full potential.
Casting Arcane/Multi/Kill Shots (like you said) unnecessarily after an Aimed Shot loses the whole point of having the 4pc Tier Set. That’s where you might be misinterpreting it. The main reason for keeping track of focus is to NOT DO what you’ve just said about overcasting Arcane/Multi shots after an Aimed Shot. It it to avoid casting Arcane/Multi Shots when you can otherwise cast Aimed Shot which will benefit from the upcoming Trick Shot buff (resulting in +30% damage).
So basically we do have to keep track of focus. By doing so, we might easily increase our output damage by a considerable amount. That’s for sure.
