LnL: Doin’ it wrong

So Lock ‘n’ Load.

The best practice is to delay your Explosive Shots by 0.5 seconds between each. This always seemed like fail to me: “Why am I wasting time when I could be casting something?” The logic was iffy at best in my opinion. Sure, Explosive Shot is our best shot and we want to fire as many as we can. But to stop everything when LnL procs? Wha…? So I’ve been weaving shots in between LnL Explosive Shots for a long time now. The meters seem to like me well enough, no one else runs SV in my guild (except for specific fights and only then under protest), life was good.

Then I read this article. Hunters, especially new SV’ers, go read it. I’ll wait.

…

So I read it and went, “Huh”. No numbers, just the standard this-is-the-best-way-to-do-it-so-do-it. But why? Chanting “Moar Explozive Shootz!” isn’t going to change my mind.

Math time!

Method:

Using data from my guild’s most recent 25-man boss kill (Putricide; we downed Valithria afterward, but dps numbers can be tossed out the window on that fight), I ran three rotations: one in which I wove other shots in between my LnL Explosive Shots, one in which I delayed my LnL Explosive Shots, and one in which I wove non-Steady Shots in between LnL Explosive Shots but delayed LnL Explosive Shots instead of firing a Steady Shot. Rotations were on a 6-minute Patchwerk-type fight, the last minute of the fight in Kill Shot range, maintaining strict adherence to the SV standard shot priority: KS > ES > BA > SrS > Aimed > SS. Average shot damage = (hits + crits) / (number of shots). This averages procs, Heroism, pots, and cooldowns. Auto shot damage was calculated using the average auto shot damage on Putricide multiplied by the shots/min on my last Saurfang kill. Due to target switching and moving, the number of auto shots on Putricide was too low to provide an adequate basis. Pet damage = (my damage) * 14%. Four LnL procs are expected in such a fight assuming 0/3 Resourcefulness and a 6% LnL proc rate on Black Arrow. I assumed they occurred early because, well, I’m lazy and it was easier to fill in the rotations if I got the LnL procs out of the way early. Lag was assumed to be zero, Steady Shot was soft haste-capped. I used the same glyphs I used on Putricide (my normal SV glyphs): Glyph of Explosive Shot (which did not effect the numbers), Glyph of Serpent Sting, and Glyph of Kill Shot.

Results:

DPS of weaving: 10058.8, -1.97%

DPS of delaying: 10255.32, 0%

DPS of hybrid method: 10136.44, -1.16%

Download the Excel file (okay, so it’s a Word doc. WordPress won’t let me upload an Excel file) to see the numbers yourself.

Discussion:

How does delaying succeed? Moar Explosive Shots. The delaying rotation fired 68 Explosive Shots, the hybrid rotation fired 66, and the weaving rotation 64. With each Explosive Shot hitting for 19k, that’s 38k more damage than the hybrid method and 76k more than the weaving method. Damn. In addition, the delaying rotation fired the most Steady Shots. I’m not quite sure how, but that’s what spreadsheet says. The weaving rotation snuck in one additional Kill Shot, which offset one Explosive Shot and one Steady Shot.

So when am I switching to delaying? Dunno. This was an artificial test. Tests have limits. The big difference between what I did here and what I do in game is the shot priority. I adhered to the SV standard shot priority, which I don’t normally do. This is fodder for another test, but the math on that is tricky and is more than I care to do. Maybe later.  Here, if a higher priority shot was off cooldown, it was fired. In game, I will delay Explosive Shot for Serpent Sting and Black Arrow. I aim for a 100% uptime on Serpent Sting and I will delay Explosive Shot a second, maybe two, for Black Arrow. Bad habit, I know, but what’s the point of Black Arrow if I’m wasting it on Steady Shots and auto shots? Plus, the fire-moar-Explozive-Shootz philosophy does not mesh well with the stack-yer-buffz philosophy: what’s the point of stacking buffs if I’m wasting them on Steady Shots and auto shots? But, as I said, that’s another topic for another spreadsheet.

Second, and perhaps the biggest obstacle between me switching to the tested and proven best method, is Recount. If I was sucking on the meters, languishing with hybrids and BM hunters (ba dum SHHH! ), I would swap immediately, without hesitation. However, I’m doing quite well, thank you very much. However, the raid expects that every man will do his duty. If I can pump out an extra 200 dps just by delaying Explosive Shots when LnL procs, okay, I will…try. I don’t want to be fussing over relearning my rotation while doing progression. “Lyr! You didn’t get out of the explosion!” “Sorry, LnL came up and I froze for a second as I forced myself not to weave another shot.” That’s fail.

But maybe Recount is the enabler I need. If I can nab even just an extra 100 dps from this, that could move me from 3rd to 2nd or even to 1st on some fights. Is that reason enough to try? Hmm…

For those wondering why I didn’t just use the spreadsheet…well, there are times when it just doesn’t do everything you want it to. Maybe it can be manipulated to calculate the differences in these rotations. I don’t know how to do it, I didn’t want to spend the time doing it, sometimes manual methods work just fine.

For those wondering why I didn’t just look this up on Elitist Jerks…well, there are times when you just gotta do the work yourself. Sit down, do some maths, see the numbers, all by myself. I can’t get gear during weekly maintenance, so perhaps I can improve my dps some other way.

For those wondering why it’s taken me nearly 15 months to run these numbers…well, there are times when you just gotta open your mind. This was one of those times, humbling as it may be for yours truly.