Hunter Shot Rotations

[Air]

I've been using these macros for a little while now, I think it helps my dps out quite abit, even with lag.

#1: I use this one if im bm specced, or use it with some haste trinket or ability.
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot,Auto Shot
/cast [exists,target=pettarget] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

#2: I use this most of time, when there's CCed mobs still around. good for most specs.
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot,Arcane Shot,Auto Shot,Steady Shot,Auto Shot,Steady Shot,Auto Shot
/cast [exists,target=pettarget] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

#3: This is pure dps, no worry about breaking CC. Most likely will run out of mana fairly quickly with this one.
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot,Multi-shot,Auto Shot,Steady Shot,Auto Shot,Steady Shot,Arcane Shot,Auto Shot,Steady Shot,Auto Shot
/cast [exists,target=pettarget] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

You may notice UIErrorsFrame:Show() is removed from last macro, this is because it hits the 255 character limit.

With these macros, it helps with people with severe lag, and allows people to better time their shots. 

A few tips, don't clip your auto shot, let it go through else dps will go down.  Only use aimed shot at the beginning never during the rotation, it resets your auto shot. 

The second and third macro are based around a 3.0 speed bow with quiver to put it at 2.61 speed, and also no imp. arcane shot.  Might be able to throw in an extra arcane shot with imp. arcane shot.  The rotations are based around the cooldown's of arcane shot and multi-shot and to make the best use of the abilities.

To use macro, just keep clicking the macro, it will cast the abilities in sequence, while also doing a KC if you crit.

[Air]

Here's a link that explains this better than I could.

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dgk8jj7m_507mtxj3

[Zario]

Great article.  I have really ignored all of my stings except for scorpid for the last 10 lvls. 

Are we employing this tactic?

"That’s not to say all our Stings are useless, because actually when we play in parties and raids one sting does become very useful, Scorpid Sting. This is a debuff that reduces the targets chance to hit, and therefore, logically, the damage they do… This is very, very useful against fast hitting bosses and mobs, such as ‘The Prince’ in Kara. Keeping this sting up costs us a little on the total damage we do, but makes it easier for the healers to keep our tank up, and frankly that’s FAR more important."

[Air]

The main reason is that serpent sting does a total of 660 damage overall, at a mana cost of 275, with no scaling with attack power.  It's better to weave in a steady shot at half the cost of 110 mana, and usually hits for 400-600 non-crit, and 1000-1200 crit.  Scorpid sting sting helps out alot, it decreases the mobs chance to hit by 5%.  With efficiency, would make it around 90 mana or so.

There's data showing that even with 490 defense cap that warriors and paladins need, theres still a possibility that a crushing blow can still happen with a dual wield mob.  Prince in kara is a perfect example for this.  At 60% health or so, he starts dual wielding which can completely destroy tanks.

[Air]

There's been a new change with how our shots work.  Blizzard added a feature that will toggle spells again unless the name is prefixed with an exclamation mark '!' like /cast sequence !Auto Shot, Steady Shot.  This should help with clipping auto shot.  I've noticed an immediate increase of dps in using this macro.

Beast Mastery Macro: beware this macro is fairly mana intensive because of kill command.  may need to change it to a /castrandom  for kill command instead.
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

I've been playing around with a 1:1 and 1:1.5 macro with this to.  Still trying it out, so beware.

This is a different one;), 1:1
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot,Multi-Shot,Arcane Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

A more normal one, 1:1
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot,!Auto Shot,Multi-Shot,!Auto Shot,Steady Shot,!Auto Shot,Arcane Shot,!Auto Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

Here's a max dps, 1:1.5, 2 specials for every 1 auto shot
#showtooltip Multi-Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot,Multi-Shot,!Auto Shot,Steady Shot,!Auto Shot,Steady Shot,Arcane Shot,,!Auto Shot,Steady Shot,!Auto Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

[Air]

Alrighty time for another post.

Still playing with macros but here is a few BM macro's to use depending on your range weapon speed.

For range speed of >2.8 use:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/cast Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

/castsequence isn't as great as it used to be, usually lower's dps now.  But useful for faster weapons.  Doesn't use Kill Command as much as the other macro.  Could try putting another kill command line after the /castsequence part to.

For range speed of <2.7 use:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Also remember that hand timing will always be better than macro's.  I've actually thought about hand timing everything but always found using Kill Command to be a pain.  So I came up with this macro to help with hand timing.  Just removes auto shot from it, and I can use any special afterwards. Automatically uses Kill command before Steady Shot if its available.

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast[target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/cast Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

What Ive been doing lately is to take advantage of when quick shots proc's and or use rapid fire.   What I do is to manually weave in Arcane Shot and Multi-shot when ever either one is in use.  Also I'd only use Multi-shot during a boss fight, or a fight in which there is no CC.
By weaving shots in, it would look like this:

Steady Shot,Multi-Shot,Auto Shot,Steady Shot,Arcane Shot,Auto Shot

Next up for Marksman and Survival builds.  I find that hand timing is the way go.  The macro's I have are decent but dps does take a hit.

For fights with CC use:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill Command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot,!Auto Shot
/castrandom Arcane Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

For fights with no CC use:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill Command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot,!Auto Shot
/castrandom Multi-Shot,Arcane Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

What these macro will do is a Steady Shot, than Auto Shot.  Than randomly choosing to do a Multi-Shot or Arcane Shot.  As you can see this is a 2:1 rotation.  Steady Shot, (Multi-shot or Arcane Shot) and than a Auto Shot.  rinse and repeat.  When your waiting on timers fall back to a Steady Shot, Auto Shot rotation.  Same as earlier /castsequence macro, it won't be using Kill Command as much.  More mana, but at the cost of dps.

[Nixphire]

/cast Hunters are OP.

You and two handed warriors. You three shot me every day and I have 300+ Resilience
/script QQ:off

<3

[vakiller]

im not to good with setting up macros but why is there not aimed shot worked in with the shot rotation?
like (aimed shot,auto shot,steady shot,auto shot ,arcane shot, auto shot, steady shot ) and repeat?

[Air]

Aimed shot resets your auto shot which causes your next shot to be delayed for 3-4 seconds.  The issue with it is that in 3-4 seconds a hunter can do the same amount of damage of an aimed shot and more.  Aimed shot is really only useful as an opener in mding the tank or building threat for a tank.

[Jarekai]

Am curious to know more about these in the wake of the last few patches. Basically since the release of WotLK. I will give them a try myself but was just curious to see what other's thoughts were regarding their effectiveness pre- vs post-patch.

I'm especially curious about Aimed Shot. Are those statements still true?

[Air]

The macro's will still work, but lot's has changed and these macro's aren't optimal anymore.

Auto shot fires independently of specials now.  So having auto shot in a macro isn't needed.  Kill command has changed so it doesn't work off of crit's from the pet, instead just an on use effect similiar to a trinket. 

Aimed shot no longer delays auto shot, so auto shot should continue to fire when aimed shot is being casted.  From what I've seen so far, most hunter's don't bother getting aimed shot, and instead opt with a: steady shot, talent special (explosive shot or chimera shot) and rinse and repeat.

I think there's still a hidden cooldown of 0.5 sec after an auto shot, but I'd have to check to confirm that.

Right now, you just want to macro your special's, and throw in pet special's since the firing of pet ability's are currently bugged.

I'd suggest a seperate macro for your trinkets, so you can pop them all at once, and to include kill command along with it.  Keep readiness out of the macro, and to use readiness after you've used the macro, to use it again.

Make sure your hit capped, which I believe is 8% (about 265 hit rating) for hunter's.  I'd suggest doing that without talents for hit.  This way you can free up talent's for other thing's.

[Jarekai]

Thanks for the suggestions Air. I've noticed that my Hit Rating has dropped quite a bit recently as I've upgraded some key slots. I'm using food and/or elixirs to make up the difference so I think I'm ok for now, but definitely worth keeping an eye on. This is pretty much at the top of my list of stats to monitor.

I've got Kill Command and Kill Shot embedded into my Steady Shot macro so I think I have that covered.

Regarding Aimed, I like using it while waiting for Chimera to refresh. It's instant and seems to do pretty decent damage (moreso than another Steady would). The only drawback is that it shares a CD with Multi-Shot. I think Multi was at one time considered to be a core component of every rotation, even against single targets (you would certainly know this more than I). In most of today's discussions however, it seems many have switched from Multi to Aimed instead (the basis for why I began using it).

Anyway, the proverbial drawing board is getting quite a workout from me lately. I'll keep at it though until I'm satisfied with the results. Thanks again for the feedback.

[Tony]

Regarding Aimed, I like using it while waiting for Chimera to refresh. It's instant and seems to do pretty decent damage (moreso than another Steady would). The only drawback is that it shares a CD with Multi-Shot. I think Multi was at one time considered to be a core component of every rotation, even against single targets (you would certainly know this more than I). In most of today's discussions however, it seems many have switched from Multi to Aimed instead (the basis for why I began using it).

I think you are spot on with that. I, by no means, have spent any time with my hunter in dungeons, but I have spent numerous hours in WSG and AB with him at 49. I stopped playing him right around the time they made Aimed shot an instant cast. I was reading about the advantages of both here, and it really depends on if its a single target or a mob. In pvp, there was no way that I would want to wait for the 3 second (or however long it used to be) cast time for Aimed Shot, but I do know that even if I did use it,  I was getting more crits off of my multi shot, be it single target or multiple.

If you look at the base mana cost, obviously you are getting more bang for your buck with Aimed shot, but from my experience (remember its based on level 49 pvp) I would get much higher dps if I forgot about aimed shot and used multi shot particularly when they put them both on the same cool down. Alot may have changed since then, I dont know... Thats my $0.02

[Zario]

Check BRK for survival spec shot rotation macro.  Because of the special nature of kill shot, you can put it outside of your castsequence line so you never miss a ks opportunity.  Otherwise I have explosive steady steady, keeping serpent out of the macro and refreshing when needed. I also have a seperate explosive shot macro for trap dancing lock n load.