WoD Beta: Survival Tier Bonuses

Last (and possibly least): a look at the tier 17 Survival set bonuses.  I'm sorry to say that they're not quite as impressive as the BM or MM set bonuses.  Between when Blizzard released the t17 bonuses to test, and when I got around to writing this, the SV 4-piece bonus received a fairly significant buff, indicating, I think, that they at least are aware that the set bonuses were fairly lackluster.  It seems more than possible that these set bonuses might change again before long, but just in case they don't, I thought I'd go through how they're looking right now.

(2) Set (Survival): When you cast Black Arrow, you automatically trigger Lock and Load.

This is somewhat fun.  Though not quite as powerful as BM's or MM's 2-piece, it provides an opportunity for planning out a little bit of burst damage.  

With the increased (even after the last round of nerfs) daage of Black Arrow, you can't quite delay BA until right after you cast an Explosive Shot.  Though, around when there are less than 2 seconds left on the CD of  ES, it does become (most likely, still RNG to factor) worth it to delay BA until right after the Explosive Shot.  

Other than that situation with Explosive Shots, Black Arrow is going to be at the top of our priority list, including keeping Serpent Sting up (though there shouldn't be any occasion where you have to choose between the two).  

The other area this really affects is your opener.  Just like we used to pre-casting Ice Trap, the 2-piece gives us a chance to force proc LnL on our opener, while all of our trinkets and pre-pot are up.  At early x-pace haste levels, this does mean we'll have a fairly limited options on the opener.  My favorite opener looked like this:  

-1 - Pre-pot

-1 - Arcane Shot (must be 40 yards back)

Pull - aMoC (or stampede, perhaps)

+1 - Explosive Shot

+2 - Black Arrow

+3 - Explosive Shot

+4 - Explosive Shot

+5 - Explosive Shot

+6 - Cobra Shot

...

This opener leaves us with almost 0 focus left after that last Explosive Shot, and we're actually almost out of focus when we cast Black Arrow.  Depending on our gears haste rating, we might have to wait a small fraction of a second before casting the last Explosive Shot.  

Another option I considered, was if we used GT to begin. We would run out of focus before getting off all of our explosive shots if we used GT and Arcane at the beginning, so instead we'd have to push it back until after the last ES. If we did that, we could either use arcane shot at the +6 sec mark, or a second and a half later after a cobra shot, depending on whether TotH proc'ed or not.   However, in this situation, we'd be delaying losing three ticks of Serpent Sting, and the damage from an Arcane Shot and 3 ticks of SS is about 33% more than just a Glaive Toss.  

Regardless, the point of all that is, while having a guaranteed LnL proc in the pull might not be as impressive as two back-to-back Bestial Wraths, or that 45% increased crit damage at the end of Rapid Fire, at least it's something. 

(4) Set (Survival): When you hit a target with Explosive Shot, your multistrike damage is increased by 50% for 3 sec.

Out of four 17 - 20 minute training dummy fights, during the fight I had this buff up the least, it's up-time was around 90%.  On the other three fights, it's up-time was >99%, which at this point we're assuming is the intended mechanic of bonus.  The only effect it's going to have on players is making Multi-strike a bit more valuable as a stat on gear.  If we still had DoT snap-shotting, there might be a way to take advantage of the extra stats, but as the mechanics are working in WoD, there shouldn't be any change to our rotation.

Neither of these set bonuses, as they exist right now, look like enough of a buff to bring SV to a very viable place in tier 17.  Perhaps these could create some fun times soloing, or using SV in other PvE situations, though.  We still haven't received any explanations of the recent nerfs SV has received to Black Arrow or Explosive Shot, so, though it's doubtful, there must be a chance that SV has the potential to do more damage in a way we haven't considered.  Unfortunately, I'm afraid that blizzard has sort of painted themselves into a corner, in a matter of speaking.  Both of the other Hunter specs' tier bonuses rely heavily on their being a spec CD that they can use.  That's been true for a while now, that at least one of the set bonuses would augment a CD.  Perhaps I'm too quick to judge, but with SV having no CD or Execute outside of talents, they seem to be coming up short on ways to make effective, fun tier set bonuses.  

The biggest help doing all of this testing has been, is I'm finally getting used to refreshing SS with my Arcane Shot instead of Cobra Shot, so my up-times are back up where they should be.  It's the little things in life, so they say.  

For anyone curious, the following are the stats I had when testing:

Weapon Damage	952-1430
Agility	4566
RAP	5023
Haste	14.12
Crit	30.72
Mastery	20.39
Multistrike	16.47
Versatility	3.59

Here are my shot values in this gear, with LW, aMoC, TotH and Glaives:

	Tick/Hit	Crit Tick	Per cast ave:	Focus Cost	Cast/GCD	Dam/Sec	Dam/Focus	Focus/KDam.
Explosive Shot	4846	9634	21235.63	15	1	21235.63	1415.71	7.06
LnL Exp Shot	4846	9634	21235.63	0	1	21235.63		0
Black Arrow	4550	9082	69268.29	35	1	69268.29	1979.09	5.05
Glaives	5328.0	10232.0	16609.84	15	1	16609.84	1107.32	9.03
Arcane	8881	17910	14196.43	30	1	14196.43	473.21	21.13
Arcane TotH	8881	17910	14196.43	10	1	14196.43	1419.64	7.04
SS	2141	4341	3339.69	0	0	∞	∞	0
aMoC	2357	4726	59411.76	30	1	59411.76	1980.39	5.05

I'm never sure how much information people who read these types of blogs are interested in, but if anyone would like more numbers, feel free to leave a comment.