So I’m thinking about changing up my spec a bit. I’m currently Survival spec’ed (o/21/40) and its been a pretty good spec. It’s very raid/group friendly, and pretty mana efficient, as well. It works pretty good for PvP, too. I’m thinking about getting rid of Resourcefulness, and taking Thrill of the Hunt down to 1/3, to free up 5 points I need for Master Tactician. The thought of temporarily increasing my crit by 10% is very tempting. But would it be worth it?
Resourcefulness gives me 60% Reduced mana cost on all traps and melee abilities, as well as reducing my trap cooldowns by 6 second. That’s pretty significant. With Clever Traps, my Freezing Trap lasts for 26 seconds with a cooldown of 30. Resourcefulness would reduce my cooldown from 30, to 24. Not bad at all. But is it really necessary? If you really need that extra 4 seconds, you can Scatter Shot (if you’re spec’ed for it, which I will be. Can’t give that up just yet). And the reduced mana cost is nice, but traps aren’t all that expensive anyway. And the melee abilities are not something I’m spamming the daylights out of anyway. Except maybe for Wing Clip, but that’s just a given.
3/3 Thrill of the Hunt gives me 100% chance to recover 40% of the mana cost of any shot that crits. And at 1/3, I’ll still have a 33% chance on each crit. This one is kinda up in the air, for me. Last nite, I did a test run on Dr. Boom. I shot 102 (accidentally shot 2 too many) arrows at him, using only Steady shot and Auto-shot. I proc’ed Thrill of the Hunt 18 times (SS crits, Auto’s didn’t count as there was no mana to get back). Each proc only gave me back 44 mana. Even on an Arcane Shot, that costs 230 mana, you’ll only get back 92. It’s not going to keep you from going dry, but it will slow things down a bit. But how much difference will I see between 3/3 and 1/3. I guess I’ll have to parse it myself and see, but I’m lazy, haha.
So here is my new proposed talent spec. I may switch this weekend and try to get a parse going. But in the meantime, does anyone have any experience with a similar spec? Has anyone gone from maxed Thrill of the Hunt to 1/3 or none at all? Did you notice a huge difference in mana efficiency? Does anyone see a huge, gaping hole in my reasoning?
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
January 26, 2008 at 11:19 am
Trackhoof
Hey, found you on BlogAzeroth – so I’m passing on a little Survival hunter love!
First off, there is no argument. Drop Resourcefulness like a bad habit. Traps are very little mana as is, and unless you’re a melee hunter, you need that mana for lots of shots. (Hey Chief, two Jaeger Bombs over here!)
Secondly, instead of picking up Survivalist, take those five points and get Deterrence / Humanoid Slaying. I’m assuming you want reduction in enemy trap resist, so I’m allowing for 2 points in Trap Mastery, but you should, without a second thought, grab those 3 points in Surefooted. With that and your current gear, you’d almost be hitcapped.
This is something I cobbled together, allowing for both Master Tactician and Scatter Shot, with a couple of the recommendations I made, but with an additional point in Thrill of the Hunt. (No Savage Strikes, sorry)
I personally still have (and love) Scatter Shot, but I haven’t played in a couple weeks, and I’m going to spec to get Readiness when I get back.
I’m personally thinking about going for 5/5 in efficiency; between that and your past experience with having a full set of points in Thrill of the Hunt, how’s your mana flow?
-Track
January 27, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Caleria
Hey, Track! Thanks for the suggestions.
Unfortunately, I got a little antsy and had already switched up my talents by the time you suggested this. But you’ve given me some food for thought, and I may switch things up again after I do some parsing and testing.
I’m actually thinking of dropping Scatter shot and picking up Readiness. But I’m not sure if I’m ready to give up that spell interrupt or not. Plus, I’ve never used Readiness before, so I’d have to get used to having it. Hmmm, I may have to hold off on this a little bit longer.
As far as mana goes, you can never have enough mana or mana regen. I did ok with 5/5 Efficiency and 3/3 TotH. Back when I was going to Kara, I had no mana issues for most fights. We were doing Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Opera, and Curator at the time. The only one I remember having mana issues with was Curator. And I was usually fine on that as long as I had mana pots. I just kept Viper up most of the time. No flasks or mana oil or anything. And the couple of times we had other hunters with us, I could definitely go for longer than they did before having to pop a pot.
Hmmmm, I may actually need to go out and do some testing on this. Maybe head out to Dr. Boom and just unload, and see how long I can last before going OOM. Then respec and try it again. I may take a look at this sometime this week. If I ever get around to it, I’ll post my results.
~Cal
January 28, 2008 at 1:59 pm
survivalhuntersanonymous
I hear ya. Having it for pure interrupt purposes is key. When I get the time to come back and play the way I want to (and log in some serious PVP time), I’ll be sticking with my current Scattershot build until i get the gear I need. After that, I’m going for Readiness.
The suggestions I’d have for using Readiness would be to treat it like one of three things; Asset, Panic Button, and Reset.
As an Asset, you can pop off multiple long-cooldown instants, one after the other. For example, you can chain together Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, hit Readiness, Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, and Rapid Fire for some serious damage.
As a Panic Button, you use it if your trap cooldown’s all screwy and there’s a big lumbering mob headed right for your healer, or the mob you’re trapping breaks free.
And as Reset, just pop it every so often during Boss fights to give yourself an extra use of Rapid Fire and Misdirection… for example, you pop Rapid Fire after you’ve done some DPS with Misdirection to help the Tank develop a nice ceiling on his aggro, then pop Readiness, wait 3 minutes for the next Rapid Fire cooldown, rinse and repeat. You should be able to shave off a good minute from every two Rapid Fire cooldowns this way, and get two Misdirections for the price of one, thoroughly helping out the raid.
If it doesn’t make sense, just play with it for a while and you’ll see what I mean.
Also, I appreciate the advice on the mana regen issue. I know Curator’s more of a burst DPS fight, so I’d have to break out Hawk for that, as opposed to Viper. Good to know, though; send me an e-mail and let me know how your testing went.
-Track
January 28, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Markus "LAKE" Berglund
Howdy Cal!
First i must agree with most of what Track said. Try to keep yor Viper-use to a minimum. You loose a LOT of DPS you you don´t use Hawk.
But i don´t agree with Track on everything.
I love Resourcefulness. Mostly because the 6 seconds decreased cooldown makes it rather easy to DOUBLEe-trap!
It´s a great skill for all heroics. I have played heroics where I was the only CC. With double freezing-traps and a Wyvern-sting we no problems at all. The stinged mob sleeps for 12 seconds, by witch time the first mob should be almost down. The first frozen mob gets loose after 26 second, but then he is frozen again, in your waiting Freezing Trap.
A few seconds later the second frozen mob is on the loose, but then you should be standing close to the tank and serve the mob on a golden platter, with Concussive Shot and Scatter Shot. After that you can walk back to you ice-block and be ready to freeze him again, should the need arise.
If you can CC two mobs for half a minute (and keep one of them permafrozen) you will get more invites to heroics. Trust me. (^u^)
If you also get the top talent Readiness, you can do a tripple-freeze, but that is more of a gimmick then it is useful in a heroic instance.
With some training it can look like this (I just had to try out Readiness while leveling):
http://www.lake.se/Bilder/Trippelfreeze.jpg
This is my current specc:
http://tinyurl.com/33zxsv
/Breledom of EU-Aszune, Proud officer of Rimfrost.
Lousy at DPS, but good at trapping
January 29, 2008 at 1:16 pm
survivalhuntersanonymous
@ Marcus
I agree and disagree.
I agree that chain-trapping and double-trapping is a useful skill to know; I disagree, in that you don’t need Resourcefulness to chain-trap or double-trap. Planning a pull and having a trap down 10 seconds ahead of time makes all the difference in terms of cooldown and being able to chain-trap.
That extra 6 seconds makes things a hell of a lot easier, though, especially if you’re the only form of CC.
-Track