The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Hunter Macros
by Vonya
I’m unashamedly a Beastmastery hunter, and some of the concepts and macros here probably won’t apply to other types of hunters. Doesn’t mean you can’t read it, just means I will fling french-accented insults at any who feel the need to complain about how suchandso macro or theorycraft doesn’t apply to hunters without a kittybomb (Bestial Wrath) or Serpent’s Swiftness.
I already know. *winks*
Onward!
1) Feed Pet Macro
Simple, elegant, and useful.
/cast Feed Pet
/use Food of Choice
Replacing ‘Food of Choice’ with the name of whatever you’re shoveling down your beloved companion’s throat this time.
Works best if you’re feeding the same food for a while - if you have three incomplete stacks of different kinds of fish you’re trying to get rid of, it’s less useful.
There are some really sophisticated macros out there for hunters with multiple pets - it will check the pet type and the food type and all sorts of good stuff.
Personally, I like this simple one. If I run out of one kind of food, I can just go in and change the “Food of Choice” part of the macro and keep on trucking.
2) Pet Attack
This is my “two birds with one stone” macro. Every time that I send my pet in to attack a mob, I want my pet to Dash up to it, I want to slap on a Hunter’s Mark, and I want my pet to start attacking.
I keep my pet’s Dash turned OFF, so that he doesn’t automatically use it. This keeps him from using it randomly or wasting it when I wouldn’t want it used. A very small difference, but one that I’ve found useful to me in the past.
/petattack
/cast Dash
/cast Hunter’s Mark
By not specifying a rank of Hunter’s Mark, it automatically casts the best one I’ve got.
I love this macro. It saves me three button pushes that I -always- do together. Rare indeed are the times I want my pet to attack without those other two actions.
If your pet doesn’t have Dash yet, it just ignores that line. If you’re out of mana, you won’t get a Hunter’s Mark. But always, your pet runs in and starts attacking.
The only downfall is for those times when you don’t want Hunter’s Mark - when you have two hunters in the group, it’s wasteful to cast two of them, and if you’re killing a ton of tiny things, it costs a lot to be continually casting Hunter’s Mark.
There is, however, something you should know about this macro.
It does NOT have YOUR character begin shooting.
Why not?
If you’re soloing, you ideally want your pet to reach the mob and growl once before you start blasting away at them. This macro means that YOU choose when you begin shooting, not the macro. You can cast this and twiddle your thumbs before beginning your attack cycle.
If you’re grouping, it would be awfully nice of you to extend the same courtesy to your tank that you would give your pet. Even an awesome tank would love to have an extra second and a half leeway to start building aggro.
The OTHER thing you should realize about the macro is that casting your Hunter’s Mark starts your global cooldown. 1.5 seconds during which you cannot cast a special.
This is actually a good thing, for the same reason I just mentioned above - if you love your tanks, you will NOT begin your shot rotation with an Arcane Shot to the mob, less than a second after your tank instigates battle. This goes double for multi-shot. Let your tanks hit the mob, even once, before you paste your dps all over the screen. Remember, having massive dps is 100% meaningless if you constantly pull aggro and cause problems. Yes, you have feign death, but you probably shouldn’t have to use it two seconds into every single fight. That’s not the tank’s fault, that’s YOUR fault.
Have a heart. Give the tank at least a global cooldown. If you really want to make his day, try using a sting on your first shot cycle rotation, give him *gasp* a whole auto-shot worth of time to get aggro. Your dps may see a small decrease in mobs that die quickly, but the entire run will be MUCH smoother. Fewer deaths and faster, smoother, and more controlled pulls is the name of the game.
3) zomgpewpew!
This is my “all my eggs in one basket” macro.
#showtooltip Bestial Wrath
/cast Bestial Wrath
/cast Rapid Fire
/use Bladefist’s Breadth
What this does is give you a MASSIVE damage increase, every two minutes or so. You and your pet go a little ballistic. Your shot speed goes WAY down (faster, that is), and your AP goes WAY up (more damage).
More damage, faster.
That’s increasing your Dee Pee Ess on both sides of the seesaw. You are now in a whole new class of dpser, my friend.
Some things to note, though.
Bestial Wrath is on a two minute cooldown. Bladefist’s Breadth is on a two minute cooldown. You can substitute any trinket with Bladefist’s Breadth, but ONLY if it has pretty close to a two minute cooldown. Otherwise you could use the macro and not get your trinket effect in.
Rapid Fire begins on a five minute cooldown. In the MM tree, you can put up to two talent points in a slot that will decrease the cooldown on Rapid Fire by 1 minute apiece. My recommendation is that you ONLY PUT ONE POINT IN THAT TALENT SLOT. That’s all caps not because I am afflicted with Tourette’s, but rather because it’s important.
Bestial Wrath and trinkets and other shiny tricks made of awesome are only good if you use them.
If you never use them…then they are wasted. They do nothing for you.
SO USE THEM. Use them every cooldown that you can. Don’t pop it as you start a fight, mind you (or your tank will rightfully throttle you). But use it. Trash fights with more than one trash mob? Go for it! You should get the entire time span of the abilities used during that trash fight.
Other classes hate that we know this, because it’s a massive increase in our overall dps.
What does that have to do with Rapid Fire? It starts out with a five minute cooldown. Let’s say you’re magically able to hit this pewpew macro on every two minute Bestial Wrath cooldown. You hit it. You get BW, BB, and RF. Two minutes later, you hit it again. BW, BB. Two minutes later, again. BW, BB. A minute goes by, and the RF cooldown goes up. Another minute, and you hit the macro. BW, BB, RF.
Rinse, repeat.
Now let’s put a single point in that Rapid Killing talent, shall we? Macro. BW, BB, RF. Two minutes. Macro. BW. BB. Two minutes. Macro. BW, BB, RF.
Look at that! You got to use RF a whole two minutes earlier!
Let’s put a second point in the Rapid Killing talent. Macro. BW, BB, RF. Two minutes. Macro. BW. BB. One minute, and Rapid Fire cooldown is up. Another minute, Macro. BW, BB, RF.
You gained NOTHING (at least, as far as this macro is concerned). The time between Rapid Fire use never changes, even though it’s ready earlier.
So, having said that, you have to look at YOUR playstyle. MY playstyle, be it good or bad, is to forget that I have special abilities and trinket uses and soforth. If I leave all three of these damage-upping abilities on their own buttons on my bar, I’m probably either going to mash them all at the same time anyway, or forget that I can use one. At least some of them (possibly not the trinket) will trigger my global cooldown, so it’ll mess with my shot rotation if I use it mid-fight on every fight.
I prefer to put all my eggs in one basket. One button - three cooldowns triggered. If I do something stupid and waste it at the end of a fight, then that’s my fault. I’ve lost all three of those abilities until the next two minute go-round.
So for my personal use, I find that putting all three abilities in one button means that I am more likely to use them. Others may disagree, and all I can say is that you have to evaluate your play style and do what will help YOU the most.
Also, I want to address a common issue here - many hunters dislike using Rapid Fire because it becomes very difficult to weave in your shot rotation. I agree, but with limits. I find that as long as I have a 2.6 or slower weapon, I can still weave in one steady shot every other shot rotation. (I haven’t discussed shot rotations yet, but I will. Those of you confused can just ignore this, I SWEAR I will go over it in detail later.) Arcane shot’s a no brainer. I do use an addon to help me time my shot rotations, it’s called LittleTrouble. I’ll discuss IT more later, too, but the short version is that it’s like a swing timer for my weapon. All it tells me is when I shoot and gives me a “cast” bar to show me how long till my next shot. With that visual aid, I feel that I can more accurately judge my shots and timing.
4) Assist
Lastly, and absolutely most importantly, I have my assist macro. Bound to my number one key, the very first thing I click.
/assist Aensu
(You’ll note I assist Aensu, who is a tank, and thus a HUGE no-no. Why do I do something that I yell at you folks for doing? Because I’m main assist on my hunter, and I can use him to get a target sometimes when I’m pressed for time.)
Assist! Assist, Assist, Assist!!
I truly cannot harp on this enough. You have argued, very eloquently, for the use of raid icon marking instead of assisting. I agree that they can make assisting easier, but I will, until the day I die, preach the value of assisting. Call me an old fogey if you want, but I have seen both ways of instancing, done by very capable groups, and assisting is by far smoother and swifter, especially when the unexpected happens.
You are absolutely encouraged to comment with why I’m wrong, should that be your desire. I have never and will never delete a comment just because someone disagrees with me (unless they do so politely and then link to porn or cheap drugs). My comment section should never be filled with good little choir members, preaching back to me (though I love that). Even when I disagree, I love when you guys offer alternatives to what I say. This is a learning blog, not a bible.
Although if you tell me that killing five rats, then two cockroaches in a row and wearing a red witch’s hat will guarantee the Sonic Spear to drop for me, I may harbor doubts.
…it’s possible I’ll TRY it first. But I may not tell you if I do. *winks*
And that, my friends is it.
‘But where is your shot rotation macro?!’, some of you may cry in horrified disbelief.
I don’t have one.
I may use macros to make certain aspects of this game easier or to consolidate commands that I always do all at the same time anyway. But although I intend to try out a shot rotation macro to compare with the way I normally play once I hit 70 and have decent gear to use as comparison, I don’t like them.
Partially, it’s a bit of pride. The ability to say that my dps is MY doing, not a macro. But partially it’s because I don’t feel that I can trust a macro not to clip my autoshots. I don’t trust a macro to do my job for me. And I think that even if it DID work perfectly and up my dps, it would drain the fun out of this class that I love so much.
Personally? I don’t think it’ll up my dps. I have a crackerjack shot rotation, and it works awesomely. Of course I’ll share it with you.
Maybe next time. *winks*
April 10th, 2008
It’s funny you should mention Dash in your pet’s skills list. Dash is awesome. I love Dash. I love seeing my ravager/cat or what-have-you run around like a little maniac biting things. However, when I moved my hunter into raiding dungeons, it occurred to me that there were other pet abilities I’d rather use those training points on. Like the increase to avoiding AoE attacks, certain resistances, and as much Stamina as I can pump into my designated “dungeon” pet. I just found that Dash really has no place in a raid or dungeon unless you’re using your pet to save the caster that just pulled from certain death (Intimidation FTW). Of course, if you find yourself in this situation on a regular basis, then the casters and the tank need to have a talk.
I love your feed pet macro by the way. I’ve seen other people combine it with an emote so that everyone around knows you fed your pet.
I also heartily agree with you about the dps macro. I had never thought to combine all three of those with a macro until one of my regular raiding buddies (a ret pally) started going on about his “God mode” macro, which I learned meant he was popping a bunch of his dps boosting abilities at once, which made me make one also, very similar to what you’ve posted here. I hadn’t thought about only putting one talent point into the Rapid Fire cooldown improvement though, so I may just respec when I get the money and put that extra point somewhere else.
April 10th, 2008
A very interesting post, and normally not one I would have read in any sort of depth/detail. However the guild my hunter is in just did Gruuls and it was absolutely humbling to get to the 8th growth in there and just be getting him down to 55%.
Wetah isn’t geared poorly but I walked out of there wondering just how I could up the amount of DPS that I do without actually changing my gear out.
*Light dawns on marble head*
The macro you list for putting your eggs all into one basket will help tremendously even though Gruuls is an abysmal fight that keeps you from standing still to launch your favorite shots.
I haven’t respecced Wetah since hitting 70, which is something else that Ill be doing. I had a few stray talents while leveling up.
The ultimate solution to the problem is better ammo, better enchants and then better rep to get better head/shoulder enchants and better ammo. Being a hunter can be a wonderful thing but it’s also a curse since many guilds end up with to many so getting run’s for upgraded gear is a challenge.
April 10th, 2008
I never liked the whole use every cooldown I have ability. Normally what I’ll do is pop Bestial Wrath by itself as in addition to increasing pet damage and my damage its converses mana to. That means I can get in extra serpent stings, arcane shots, and steady shots that not only do extra damage but cost less at the same time.
When I use Rapid Fire I use it in conjuction with an AP trinket which currently for me is the Bloodlust Brooch(which I highly recommend buying first with heroic badges as you won’t find much else that replaces it PvE wise). When those two abilities are active I don’t do steady as I’ll clip auto shots and just do Arcane shots and Serpent Stings. Making sure that before the AP trinket wears off that I cast a fresh serpent sting.
April 10th, 2008
Great post, Vonya. I’m always looking for better macros, and your ZOMGPEWPEW rocks! Funny thing is, I do the same things as this macro does, but without a macro–how silly is that? Why I never thought to combine them in a macro is beyond me, but that will be fixed asap.
The other skill I like to pop when I have Bestial Wrath up is the pet stun (hanged if I can remember it now, and of course I’m at work so can’t look it up…grrrr!). Not sure if that can or should be included in the macro, but it’s nice to toss in there with BW, especially in PvP.
Have you thought about combining your Feed Pet with Mend Pet? (Modifier applies in combat to mend; else it feeds.)
Since I’m playing my hunter more and more, and my priest much less of late, glad to see the swing to huntering!
April 10th, 2008
@Strayfe
You’re right, Dash is less useful inside instances. I haven’t yet found a need to beef up my pet’s resistances for an instance, but if I did, Dash would be the first thing I’d drop, to be certain.
For instancing, that reduction of AoE damage talent is absolutely priceless. And kudos for choosing stam over armor for an instance pet.
Also, I totally need to add an emote to the feed pet macro.
/em grins as Roshii playfully tosses his cured ham steak into the air and catches it lightly before finally giving a mock-ferocious purring growl and tearing into it.
On Khuuna, I had two pets - one for instancing and the other for soloing. Kept me from having to respec constantly, but I found that I didn’t really spec them all -that- differently, so I think I’ll just have the single pet this time round. We’ll see whether I regret it on either score - if my dps or soloability suffers, I’ll snag another, easy as pie. =]
@Wetah
Depending on what your dps was (I’ll assume from what you’ve said that your personal dps was subpar, and not the combined dps of the entire raid), getting a good weapon and ammo (the one from the druids in the swamp at the least, the one from karazhan rep at the best - no reason not to, with the specialty ammo vendors in Shattrath) is the best thing you can do for your dps.
Beyond that, gear upgrades can tweak, but the culprit is probably shot rotation rather than stats. A supergeared hunter with a poor shot rotation will get outdps’d by a hunter who understands their and is still wearing pre-heroic gear any day of the week. =]
@Sonvar
How often do you use your trinket combo? If you save it for bossfights, you might find you can up your dps considerably by using it on trash fights, too. What’s your speed on your ranged weapon? (I’m assuming you’re BM, so I’ll add the calc for the serpent’s swiftness). If it’s slow enough, using an addon like LittleTrouble (which I will probably post next week) could help you figure out the timing.
Lots of assumptions there, feel free to let me know if I went off course. =]
@Kestrel
I like to have a little more control over my pet stun - especially since most tanks actually prefer to get hit, and don’t like having randomly stunlocked mobs. I use it on runners and casters (though I’m a bit slow on the caster one - I need to get quicker to peel off those mana burns and heals.), and since it doesn’t do extra damage, I’ll let it sit on cooldown without worrying about it.
Although I don’t pvp. I could see wanting someone to stand STILL, dagnabbit while your pet is at his most powerful. Definitely makes sense to me.
The feed/mend thing is interesting. I don’t know if Blizz is ever going to implement the “feed while in combat” rumor, but I do sometimes toss my pet a heal after combat is over.
Feed pet is one of the few common buttons I have that isn’t bound to a key on my Nostromo. I’ll actually reach over and click it when necessary, since I always do it out of combat, so I’m never in a “zomg, shovel that food down your gullet NOW, soldier! Chew! Chew! Chew!” panic.
It’ll swing around as we play one group or the other - I’ve got a couple of good newbie priest posts waiting in the wings as well. *grins* <3
April 10th, 2008
one I have used in the past while instancing on my hunter was set up to cast misdirect on my focus target (either my pet or the groups tank depending on what I am doing) the folks I have grouped with have liked it anyway. I cant remember exactly how its written at the moment, and cant look it up since I am at work. but I think it was as simple as:
#showtooltip misdirect
/cast [target=focus] misdirect
of coarse I have to change focus manually, but I rarely need to change midfight. If i find that I needed to change quickly I could always adapt it over from my priests shackle macro.
April 10th, 2008
Instead of the food macro I use King of the Jungle. You can have permitted and barred foods so you’re not feeding it all that basilisk meat you’re grinding for your mage alt! When the pet gets hungry you get a feed pet button pop up and when you mouse over it it opens up a rows of buttons that show the permissable food you have in your bags at the time.
April 10th, 2008
I have Wolfslayer’s Sniper Rifle which has a 2.7 speed and yes I am BM ( Won’t change it either unless it becomes necessary)
Normally I don’t use Rapid Fire and the trinket on trash just the AP trinket. With trash I alternate on trash pulls between using TBW, the Bloodlust Brooch, and Rapid Fire. It is only bosses that I use Rapid Fire in conjunction with the Bloodlust Brooch
April 10th, 2008
Erm…sorry about the sonic spear thing.
It seems I may have been a bit lucky?
http://wowguildbank.com/wtf/2008/04/09/ding-the-last-one/
April 10th, 2008
@Dechion
Oooh, that’s a good one, I need to get my hunter up to that level so I can use it and recommend based on use, but I’d say that’s a definite winner.
@Hulan
Aha, very nice. I’ll bet a lot of people would love that. It falls into my “neat, but doesn’t really accomplish anything I can’t do on my own” category of addons. I tend to be something of a neat freak with my bags, so my pet food is always at the top of the next-to-last bag, in case I run out of macro food and resort to a standby.
That being said, if I wasn’t so paranoid about having too many addons, it sounds really handy - take some of the “whups” out of pet feeding.
@Sonvar
*jealousy* That’s the coolest looking gun in the game. Seriously. Big congrats!
Sounds like you’ve got a rotation up where you could use a cooldown on every trash pull. Definitely nothing wrong with that, imo.
Also, I was using Valonis’ Longbow on Khuuna - the speed is 2.8, and that tenth may be just enough to negate being able to weave a steady shot for me during a Rapid Fire. Even then, I was more apt to get a correctly woven SS every OTHER autoshot, and not every single one (If I tried to push it, I’d clip)
It would be something I’d have to test, since I couldn’t say for certain if I’d be able to do it.
That being said - if you use Rapid Fire on bosses, it must be because it ups your dps for that fight, right? Why not use it on trash? *curious*
April 10th, 2008
I would recommend NOT dropping Dash for 5-mans or beyond. Closing the gap between your pet and the mob as quickly as possible will lead to an increase in damage.
We use this macro in my guild for MDs:
/cast [target=focus] Misdirection
/5 Casting MD on %f
Our hunter channel is, for me, /5, so I’m simply announcing to the other hunters that I’m doing it. Not so much a big deal anymore since MDs can no longer overwrite each other, but still very nice to have.
April 10th, 2008
@Esoth
I’ll agree with your Dash theory - on one condition.
The hunter can control the pet, and isn’t impatient. (okay, that’s two conditions. Sue me.)
That may sound contradictory - obviously dash was MADE for impatient hunters, right?
But if your raiding team uses raid icons to mark kill orders and your hunters have itchy trigger fingers - the pets dashing in early could be bad. Same for hunters who blindly assist and send their pets into very much the wrong group of mobs.
The patient hunter, who waits for the tank to engage target before sending in the pet, will get a lot more dpS from their pet arriving sooner at the target. In fights where the hunter stands far far away from the target to avoid AOE (for example), it is also super useful (though pets often die in that situation anyway, sometimes regardless of frequent Mend Pet applications).
I have seen and heard of some rather spectacular wipes caused by misapplication of hunter pets in raids.
Also, I always liked it when our hunters announced a misdirect to the tank - another bit of information to file away during the fight, so I don’t panic if I see a multishot fly off. =]
April 10th, 2008
Thx. I really like the gun too. Though I’ll mention before that I had a skill of 1 in guns. Took me 2210 bullets to get to 350 skill rating.
I do use Rapid Fire on Trash Mobs. Obviously not as much since it has a bit longer of a cooldown.
April 11th, 2008
Heya Vonya,
I’m going to enjoy this more and more as it progresses, as I have been levelling a hunter alt for some time now and are just short of level 55, and will be in outlands soon (yaya)
After playing a holypriest and a resto druid for so long it’s been a refreshing change to play a fun dps class
April 11th, 2008
Nice post. Thought I’d chip in with a few of my own macros. Note: all of these are designed to use the “?” icon.
1. “PEW PEW”
I have caused so many deaths in my career as a Hunter due to WoW’s insipid “you hit attack, but your target died a split second ago, I’ll just target that mob over there that your group’s been avoiding, kk?” behaviour, that I ended up creating this monster:
#show [mod:alt]Dual Wield;[mod:shift]Command;Auto Shot
/stopcasting [mod:alt]
/stopattack
/stopmacro [mod:alt]
/startattack [nomod:shift]
/stopmacro [nomod:shift]
/stopmacro [target=focustarget,noexists]
/target focustarget
/petattack
/startattack
Here’s how it works (assuming you’ve put it on a button bound to the 1 key.) Pressing 1 will turn on auto-shot. Note that I did NOT say “toggle.” You can spam 1 as much as you like, and it will only ever turn auto-shot on. Hitting Alt+1 will turn auto-shot off, and cancel any casts in progress. This is also known as the “crap, it’s trapped, don’t shoot; DON’T SHOOT!” button. Pressing Shift+1 will cause you to acquire your focus’ target, send your pet in to attack, and turn on auto-shot. The way I typically roll in instances is to have the tank set as my focus, and this allows me to quickly move over to a new target.
I believe that macro is one character short of the limit…
2. “Goodbye, cruel world!”
The obligatory Feign Death Right Now macro. Stops any attacks in progress, and makes me play dead.
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/stopattack
/cast Feign Death
3. “Kill it! KILL IT!”
This is for use instead of normal Kill Command: causes it to target your pet’s target (this is useful if your pet isn’t actually attacking the same thing you are.)
#showtooltip
/cast [target=pettarget] Kill Command
4. “You’re next, buddy.”
This one combines Hunter’s Mark and Misdirection in a semi-intelligent fashion. If your target is hostile, it casts Hunter’s Mark. If your target is friendly, it will cast Misdirection. If you have a friendly focus target and nothing directly targeted OR you have Alt held down, it will cast Misdirection on your focus.
Again, this was designed with the tank as my focus in mind. Target the mob, Ctrl+Z to mark it, Ctrl+Alt+Z to misdirect on to the tank, and then fire away!
#showtooltip
/use [target=focus,help,mod:alt] Misdirection; [exists,nohelp] Hunter’s Mark; [exists,help] [target=focus,help] Misdirection; Hunter’s Mark
5. “Here boy, here boy!”
This macro will try to intelligently choose between Call Pet, Revive Pet and Mend Pet. If you hold down a modifier key (Alt, Ctrl or Shift,) or your pet’s corpse is visible, it will cast Revive Pet. If you don’t have a pet out, it will cast Call Pet (it can’t tell that your pet is dead if you can’t see the corpse, sadly.) Otherwise, it casts Mend Pet.
#showtooltip [nopet,modifier] Revive Pet; [nopet] Call Pet; [target=pet,dead] Revive Pet; Mend Pet
/cast [nopet,modifier] Revive Pet; [nopet] Call Pet; [target=pet,dead] Revive Pet; Mend Pet
6. “It’s a trap!”
Here is my all-in-one trap macro. From this, you can cast any trap you like. I keep this bound to one of my extra mouse buttons, which is great for PvP. The traps are:
(none): Freezing Trap (single target frost)
Alt: Frost Trap (aoe frost)
Shift: Immolation Trap (single target fire)
Shift+Alt: Explosive Trap (aoe fire)
Ctrl+Alt: Snake Trap (aoe… um… snakes?)
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:ctrl,mod:alt] Snake Trap; [mod:shift,mod:alt] Explosive Trap; [mod:shift] Immolation Trap; [mod:alt] Frost Trap; Freezing Trap
7. “Not enough buttons!”
I also have a large number of “switch” macros that let me choose between a few different abilities using modifiers. They all basically have the same structure, so here’s the most immediately useful one: normal click fires off max-rank Arcane Shot, holding down Alt will fire Rank 1 Arcane Shot, and then stop attacking (aka: pull shot.)
#showtooltip [mod:alt] Arcane Shot(Rank 1); Arcane Shot
/cast [mod:alt] Arcane Shot(Rank 1); Arcane Shot
/stopcasting [mod:alt]
/stopattack [mod:alt]
I use these sorts of macros for my stings (both serpent and scorpid on a single button,) for Distract+Concussive, Eyes of the Beast+Eagle Eye, Food+Bandages, Steady Shot+Kill Command, etc.
Also, in regards to making your kitty emote stuff when he gets fed, I direct you to Petemote which BRK seems rather enamoured with: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/3538/download/44867/
April 11th, 2008
Wow, a reall nice set of macros to work from
Vonya - my dps was supbar to me, not raid wise … give or take during each try at the big drooling ugly I was 5/6 most of the time. You are right about a good shot rotation beating a better geared poor rotation since thats what I was doing.
I can’t stress enough how important it is that when your doing boss fights that a hunter is properly geared and enchanted. Your ammo should always be the best you can get and the enchants should be the ones that make the most sense for your situation. (Unless your rich, putting putting a pricey enchant on gear your replacing or outgrowing soon doesn’t make sense).
Once you are geared up as best as you can (no empty gem sockets please) you then have to look at a shot rotation. I have the gladiator crossbow which is nice 3 sec speed, makes doing shot rotation macro’s easier. Just about the most mana efficient and high dps rotation is the simple kill command/steady/auto shot rotation. That little macro does several things, it flattens out your agro gain rate so you can better predict when your going to pull agro. Being mana efficient means you can go much longer before being OOM, and the longer you can go the more damage you can dish out. The steady shot I believe scales a bit better than the arcane shot (when your ranged AP is 1000 they both produce the same damage and people doing end game content have 2k RAP) and its on a faster timer. As much as many people hate playing a 1 button hunter, it’s pretty much a given that you will out dps someone who is using the same shot rotation but is doing everything manually. So if your given the chance to settle down in a fight use that button
So in the end I failed myself by not blowing every cooldown when it was up, by not having a devil may care shot rotation macro, by not being enchanted properly (though im close) and probably worst of all I didn’t stack the mortal shot talent (30% more damage on a crit). Feel free to look up Wetah on the US Trollbane server, she is a work in progress.
It’s always good to evaluate your performance after a fight, win or loose to see what you did or didn’t do and how to fix it. I’ve been working my mage and druid for so long that I hadn’t re-evaluated wetah in a long time, suffice to say it was a bit painfull
April 12th, 2008
@Weta
I’d just like to counter your claim that “it’s pretty much a given that you will out dps someone who is using the same shot rotation but is doing everything manually.” I’ve spent several hours out at Dr. Boom on my hunter testing the exact same shot rotation done both manually and with a macro. The end result, which I was rather surprised at myself, was that the macro did 10% less dps. The macro actually *DECREASED* my dps when used.
That’s not to say that it will always happen like that. In my specific circumstances, I believe it’s a combination of lag, and the tightness of my shot rotation. Quite bluntly, I can compensate for lag better than a macro can (even with a few mistakes here and there,) and it shows in the damage meters. Blanket statements like “macros are always better” will cause problems when they end up not being true.
April 21st, 2008
[...] searches I found an amazing macro that I totally love. It kills things. Fast. Ego calls it ZOMGPEWPEW and ‘all the eggs in one basket’ macro. I changed it a bit from the one she listed [...]
April 21st, 2008
[...] time and to immediately cast Frostbolt again to get me right back into my dps cycle. The idea was inspired by the hunter macro I read on Ego’s site a few days [...]
August 28th, 2008
[...] have discussed some of the key tenets of hunter theorycraft in my posts on Hunter Macros and [...]