I didn’t get to logon until almost 9:30 pm. I don’t know why Drenden always seems to be one of the last realms to come online. But once the dust settled I did manage to run a heroic and take the car out for a drive. Here are my initial thoughts.
- I went with the 0/15/56 spec. I haven’t had a chance to get any of the new glyphs yet.
- I went with this spec for my wolf. I may reevaluate this (the talents, not the wolf).
- Survival seems a little crowded with shots. I guess if you trap danced it probably feels like business as usual, but if you didn’t you’ve not got another shot/cooldown to contend with.
- Black Arrow is nice, but it doesn’t seem to proc Lock and Load as often as it should. Maybe in a raid environment it will seem better. The fights in these heroics are too short to get a good assessment.
- I like not having the range restriction for Sniper Training. I also like not have to be in a certain range to fire Kill Shot.
- The wolf is nice, but I need to work on micro-managing his pet specials. I tried to macro Furious Howl with Kill Command and Call of the Wild. This works but Furious Howl is on a 40 sec. cooldown, Kill Command is on a minute cooldown, and Call of the Wild is on a 5 minute cooldown.
- Despite the changes to Explosive Shot, it seems to be doing more damage now than before.
I’m raiding tonight so hopefully I’ll have some comparative data to look at.
Explosive shot does more because black arrow increases damage by 6%, and sniper training gives it another 6%. I wouldn't bother trying to time cooldowns- I'm just going to make sure they autocast as fast as the wolf can cool them down. If that means I don't have one for the next heroism, that's fine. At least I didn't have to micromanage the abilities before heroism was popped.
As a side note, my math shows shark attack as better DPS than wild hunt. I am fairly sure I forgot to carry a one somewhere though- so let me know if you keep wild hunt and how it compares 🙂
If you want a PvE Wolf Spec for a Survivalist, Try this. http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#0Md00sc00hooo
You could move the point in Wild Hunt into wherever you might think you need it.
As far as furious howl goes, it's best to let it on autocast really. I find it's a great Idea to blow the cooldowns early, so once the tank has aggro, send in the wolf and blow the cooldowns. It's not easy to time Furious howl with anything else because of the odd cooldown time in comparison to all the rest of our abilities.
As far as shot bloating, there's an easy way to alleviate that. You have Aimed shot for a PvE spec, but that's kinda silly. Don't you have enough shots to go through as it is? Plus, I like the idea of Imp. Aspect of the Hawk. http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cxZ0eVoZx0ci0cIhebA0sd:NAfMz0
I know Noxious stings is powerful, but wouldn't the haste granted from IAotH help to do more damage? I honestly don't know for sure, but it's just a hunch.
I hope I helped, and take everything I said abotu survival with a grain of salt.
Klinderas,
Thanks for the Wolf spec. I changed to that spec, only I took Euripides advice and sunk a point in Shark Attack.
I also posted today about my talents. I made one minor change to what I had before and I took a point out of hunting party and put it in Hawk.
Haste only helps our auto-shot and our Steady Shot cast time so it isn't that great of a stat.