Ajik - 514 Hunter Reapp

[Ajik]

Hello all,

My name is Jack. This is a re-application to the guild. I've applied to the guild back in October last year (see my previous app here http://www.sohguild.com/index.php?/topic/12068-ajik-hunter-application/) with no MoP raiding experience and playing a newly max leveled hunter with no prior experience. After running an LFR with Ashin & Feja, it was pretty clear that my single target dps was too low to make a real impact for SoH which was already into heroic encounters at the time; but both Ashin & Feja were very pleasant to talk to and that left me a very positive impression of the guild.

Fast forward four months, I joined a guild called Riot in February, and has thoroughly enjoyed my stay in that guild. However, due to an unforeseen schedule change just a couple days ago (a positive change at that) in RL, I can no longer raid on Sundays, and being a raider with only 66% attendance is out of the question for both the guild and me. So, here am I looking for another guild, and the first guild I thought of is SoH. I looked it up and you guys are still looking for a hunter. This time, I come with MoP raid experience (some heroics) and a much better hunter than before, hoping that you guys can give me another chance to show what I can do.

Here are the updated information:

Raiding Experience in MoP: TIer 14 16/16N (6/16H), Tier 15 8/12N

Updated Armory Link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/gorefiend/Ajik/advanced

Recent WoL: Dumuru http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/w61f2k0lmiqsphph/sum/damageDone/?s=5214&e=5728

Primordius http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-py50biyut9m2sgvq/sum/damageDone/?s=3998&e=4472

If you guys need to see my UI, I will take a screenshot and post the link here when I get off work today. Thanks for reading and hope to hear back from you soon.

[Ashin]

Hello Jack,

I think it's impressive that you kept us in mind, worked on your game play and resume, and then decided to reapply. So, kudos to you.

What I'm seeing on ToT normal modes is definitely better than what you could do the last time around. However, I'm generally a bit reluctant to base performance off normal mode logs. It's heroic modes that really tell the whole story of how well you can balance your class mechanics with the demands of the encounter. That's also where we see you competing against a more skilled and better geared pool of competitors.

Skimming over your T14 heroics:

http://raidbots.com/epeenbot/us/gorefiend/ajik/

Those ranks don't look very strong. We generally want to see someone performing at or above median for their class. You are generally between the bottom quartile and the median. Is there any reason why the T14 heroics shouldn't be considered valid data, compared to the T15 normals that you posted?

I'm going to ask Stridur to look over your logs and provide you with some feedback. At a quick glance they look pretty good. I like that you used your healthstone more than once on Durumu.

[Ajik]

That's a good question. T14 heroics are certainly valid data, but keep in mind that I came into that tier extremely late around the end of January and beginning of February. I was immediately thrown into heroic stone guard, feng, gara'jal, and Elegon without even having experienced them on normal mode at all; and to top it off I was wearing blues and LFR epics, that probably didn't help either. It's certainly true that the heroics will allow the comparison of performance against a pool of better players, but they were probably also at a much higher item level on average than I was at the time. I didn't even have T14 2-set bonus until the week before 5.2 came out.

Second, having played BM in T14 and SV in T15 extensively now, I found myself playing SV better than BM. With SV being much more viable and AOE being a much more integral part of many fights in ToT now, this could certainly affected my T15 logs.

And finally, we've had a string of luck with mail agi gear drops since 5.2, I went from ilvl 490 to ilvl 510 in about two weeks. I think this can also be a contributing factor.

Having said all that, maybe I'm just getting better as a player. I am also encouraged at what I see on my logs, even comparing it to T14 normal logs, I've seen much better performance on my end at this new tier. And I want to get even better, that's ultimately what I strive to do in this game.

PS: I always love to help out the healers, probably because I was one in BC and in Cata.

[Stridur]

Hello Ajik,

Few questions for you

• You said you learn more about your class, can you please explain why your under the hit cap?
  
• You said you look at your logs and shows me you only focus on your numbers when you was missing shots, (something that shouldnt happen unless a boss mechanic) and in your two boss fights you never used a agi pot, can you explain why?
  
• I notice you went for all your gem socket bonus, do you feel 60 Mastery is > 80 agi , or sacrificing 160 agi for hit ?
  
• What did you use to see if it was worth breaking T 14 2pc bonus for T 15 2pc bonus?
  

Overall, your heroic experience is kinda low can't even see log on the real important fights like Vizler demonstrates alot on dps player for example. You would be joining a heroic progression guild so you have to be ready thrown into heroic fights. They are plenty of info on fights especially from Hunter POV. As a pure dps class and wow having duel specs for years now, any pure dps class should know how to play any of his 3 specs. Logs are important but not just for numbers but how your surviving, pots, player taking damage of something that they shouldn't and it shows good idea how your prioritizing your shots. Good luck

Edited April 2, 2013 by Stridur

[Ajik]

Hello Stridur,

Thanks for the quick reply. All questions are valid, here are my answers:

1. I'm under hit cap because I do not want to sacrifice another piece of gear to reforge into hit instead of crit, overcapping hit will sometimes sacrifice stats resulting in lower dps. I am currently 0.22% undercap. So assuming 1000 shots, it will miss 2 shots on average, but 998 other shots do more damage or have a higher crit rate. Overall, this is a dps increase.

2. I am months behind coming into T14, resulted in me many many weeks behind the quest line. I'm now stuck at the test of valor quest, still need a week to complete that.

3. Current guild does not require potting. Since my current guild is doing normal modes, potting isn't really required. If SoH requires potting in every single fight including farmed contents and normal modes, I will comply. And I'm self-sufficient when it comes to obtaining raiding materials. And not sure if I'm understanding the "missing shots" statement correctly. I think you are saying that if a fight is 6 minutes long, and an explosive shot has a 6 second CD, then it should be expected to show 60 explosive shots or a number very close to that in the log? So looking at Dumuru specifically, the fight is 8:33 minutes, so if done perfectly, we should expect to see 85 explosive shots. My log shows 78 explosive shots.

4. This is kind of related to question 1. No, 60 mastery isn't better than 80 agi. However in this case, getting 160 hit bring me closer to the cap. Alternatively, I can gem 160 agi, but will then be undercapped too much resulting in me needing to reforge another piece of gear into hit instead of crit or haste. And the overall dps doesn't change in either of these situations, tested this on target dummies.

5. Simmed using femaledwarf. I think it's not so much that whether T15 2-set bonus is better than the T14 bonus. It's the fact that the two T-15 pieces I got were overwhelmingly better than the ones I had. One of the pieces replaced a LFR epic.

Hopefully that answers your questions. And thank you for the hints at the end. I've been looking into fights on fatboss, icy-veins, tankspot, etc. Have the last four bosses that I haven't done and the first 3 heroic mode fights covered so far.

[Ashin]

My followup to your response:

#1 What are the weights you used for Hit and Crit in order to make the decision that this was a higher DPS strategy for you?

#3 The mindset of most of my DPS is that I would have to beg them not to pre-pot (as I literally did on Amber Shaper HM). They all chug two pots per fight because of their competitive natures - they want to score the highest that they can. I understand that they aren't required for normal modes or farm content. But your answer here is a bit more of a casual mindset.

Makes sense that you would move to T15 2-piece early if you were coming from LFR gear.

[Stridur]

1. I'm under hit cap because I do not want to sacrifice another piece of gear to reforge into hit instead of crit, overcapping hit will sometimes sacrifice stats resulting in lower dps. I am currently 0.22% undercap. So assuming 1000 shots, it will miss 2 shots on average, but 998 other shots do more damage or have a higher crit rate. Overall, this is a dps increase.

This is false. The hit and miss ratio doesnt work like that, you can even see in your logs you didnt fire 1000 shots and missed . Stat weights are Agi > Hit/Exp (7.50%) > Crit > haste > mastery, someone who isn't hit capped will always be doing less DPS than someone who is Period, And when you're a DPS class, your job is to do as much DPS as possible, and if you aren't hit capped, you're not doing that, so you're not doing your job, Having 25% instead of 26% crit wouldnt make much of difference as being below hit cap.

2. I am months behind coming into T14, resulted in me many many weeks behind the quest line. I'm now stuck at the test of valor quest, still need a week to complete that.

You completed chapter 1 achievement on 2/18 , its been 7 weeks where you can do plenty of stuff during outside raids to cap ( as you have to do any way since raids wont cap you) LFR, heroics, dailies etc.. and until yesterday you hit 5k out 6k.

3. Current guild does not require potting. Since my current guild is doing normal modes, potting isn't really required. If SoH requires potting in every single fight including farmed contents and normal modes, I will comply. And I'm self-sufficient when it comes to obtaining raiding materials. And not sure if I'm understanding the "missing shots" statement correctly. I think you are saying that if a fight is 6 minutes long, and an explosive shot has a 6 second CD, then it should be expected to show 60 explosive shots or a number very close to that in the log? So looking at Dumuru specifically, the fight is 8:33 minutes, so if done perfectly, we should expect to see 85 explosive shots. My log shows 78 explosive shots.

Your just looking at the kill for the boss not all attempts on him thats why you dont see the miss shots. You missed with arcane shot and cobra shot which is huge, that could make your SS fall off loss of focus , dps, and next time it can be signature shot. The potting should be not because of your guild requirements, it should be you as player to bring the most you can of your class. Then you complain its your gear when your not bringing all you can.

4. This is kind of related to question 1. No, 60 mastery isn't better than 80 agi. However in this case, getting 160 hit bring me closer to the cap. Alternatively, I can gem 160 agi, but will then be undercapped too much resulting in me needing to reforge another piece of gear into hit instead of crit or haste. And the overall dps doesn't change in either of these situations, tested this on target dummies.

I dont know what your using to reforge but I took your toon, gem , enchant, hit cap and expertise cap all correctly, plus extra socket in my gun and resulted in almost 2500k - 3000k dps increase. Looks like you just used Mr robot and didnt even adjust the stat weights which is off for hunters.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Stridur

[Ajik]

I currently use 4.2 for agility, 2.8 for hit, and 1.4 for crit. So losing 80 agility and getting 160 hit + 60 mastery is a gain, but I suppose looking at it another way, I can also gem for 160 agility, getting 80 agi losing 160 hit, but find hit somewhere else, but will need 234 hit to hit cap. In a perfect world where I can reforge to exactly 234 hit and lose 234 crit (I can do it on my cloak and reforge to 235 hit), I will only be gaining about a raw score of 5, that's less than a +1.5 agility gain, but also losing about 60 mastery in the process. Currently, 0.75 is the weight I use for mastery, and 60 mastery would equal to a score of 45. So overall, I'm losing in terms of score if I hit cap it. I'd love to hear your opinion on this, maybe I should adjust the weight slightly? It seems reasonable for what I've read so far.

Yes, I agree. I've been casual for too long, two expansions to be exact. I miss the days in BC when I chug mana potion religiously as a healer, not because I was low on mana, but because the timer is up. I suppose when most people around me don't do that anymore, I get lazy too. It's a good point, I need to completely change this habit.

[Ashin]

but find hit somewhere else

Yes. Your logic is not wrong, but because of the reforging system as well as flexibility with enchants or gems in a few places, the actual margin for that kind of decision making tends to be very small now. A fifth of a percentile may be within that margin - I don't know.

[Ajik]

This is false. The hit and miss ratio doesnt work like that, you can even see in your logs you didnt fire 1000 shots and missed . Stat weights are Agi > Hit/Exp (7.50%) > Crit > haste > mastery, someone who isn't hit capped will always be doing less DPS than someone who is Period, And when you're a DPS class, your job is to do as much DPS as possible, and if you aren't hit capped, you're not doing that, so you're not doing your job, Having 25% instead of 26% crit wouldnt make much of difference as being below hit cap.

Then is this article wrong? http://blog.askmrrobot.com/2012/11/how-mr-robot-feels-about-hit-caps/ I will do some testing tonight with my current set-up and then with hit capped.

You completed chapter 1 achievement on 2/18 , its been 7 weeks where you can do plenty of stuff during outside raids to cap ( as you have to do any way since raids wont cap you) LFR, heroics, dailies etc.. and until yesterday you hit 5k out 6k.

Yes, there is about a week and half that I couldn't get my valor point capped. Family related matters. Not making an excuse for myself or anything. I made it to all the raids, but really couldn't spare any more time on WoW for that period of 10-12 days.

Your just looking at the kill for the boss not all attempts on him thats why you dont see the miss shots. You missed with arcane shot and cobra shot which is huge, that could make your SS fall off loss of focus , dps, and next time it can be signature shot. The potting should be not because of your guild requirements, it should be you as player to bring the most you can of your class. Then you complain its your gear when your not bringing all you can.

Agree, I'm changing this habit. Thank you for pointing this out.

I dont know what your using to reforge but I took your toon, gem , enchant, hit cap and expertise cap all correctly, plus extra socket in my gun and resulted in almost 2500k - 3000k dps increase. Looks like you just used Mr robot and didnt even adjust the stat weights which is off for hunters.

Could you tell me what you use for reforging? I used to use wow reforge, but it doesn't seem to work anymore. Also, in my previous post where I answered Ashin's questions, I mentioned my status weights, could you check to see whether the stat weights I'm using are off?