Dealing with Latency Issues

This week my inbox had a plea for help from a hunter named Tripswitch over on the EU server Emerald Dream.

Please give me your advice on how best to maximise my dps. I have a level 70 Hunter, Tripswitch, http://be.imba.hu/?zone=EU&realm=Emerald+Dream&character=Tripswitch, playing on Emerald Dream, an EU server. My latency hardly ever drops below 600 and averages around 700 and being located in South Africa, I don't think this will improve. I have installed Quartz but not bartender and I have Omen running. I am using the Talon of A'lar trinket but have recently read that it doesn't affect auto shot so have been trying the Bloodlust broach instead. I cannot see a difference between the two when used with the Skyguard Silver Cross trinket. My questions are these - is my high latency an insurmountable problem or can it be overcome with macros? Is the Talon of A'lar useless, as commented on in thott and wowhead? IF not, what macro can you suggest to use with it?

Thank you for any help you may offer.

Tripswitch has outstanding gear. He's clearly progressed through T-4 content and is making headway into T-5. The first issue, by all accounts is the Talon of A'lar trinket. I have heard nothing but bad things about it. All the hunters in my guild that spent time in TK have one. I don't think any of us have ever used it. It's theoretically good for PvP, but not when you would rather have the PvP-trinket & the Skyguard Silver Cross equipped. Trip is also a Beastmaster and very few have arcane shots in their normal shot rotation. My gut still says stick it in the bank and hope it becomes useful in early WotLK.

Poortyr, my guild's hunter-rep and all-around pewpew king maintains a list of recommended shot macros which I'm going to post here for you.

Digging up this old thread to post the 3 macros I use the most often,taken from wowwiki and Stareye. All are spammable,and one is a mana burning macro,use with a keen eye on your mana pool

3:2 macro

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/castsequence reset=target/3 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()

1:1 macro

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/castsequence reset=2 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget] Kill Command
/sript UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

SS/AS/Arcane/KC macro (aka the mana burner)

#showtooltip Auto Shot
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command
/castsequence reset=5 Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

this one clips your Auto Shot by design,but the results are worth it.Try them all and see which works best for you.The first 2 macros listed are contingent on shot speed,the 3:2 being for 1.80 sec and above,the 1:1 for 1.80 sec and below.enjoy!

One note: If you want to fool around with the Talon of A'lar, then try it with the "Mana Burner" macro. This macro would theoretically maximize it's DPS generation.

Now, on to the issue at hand: Latency.

Latency is a Steady Shot rotation killer. The potential for shot clipping grows steadily after 2-300 ms of Latency. When mine blooms over 1000, I generally go watch a movie. All classes are hamstrung by latency, but hunters (especially beastmasters) get pounded. Why? When you're trying to precisely get two shots off together in a span of 1.5-2 sec, every millisecond counts. If you hit 1000 latency, that's a full second. For a mage or a warlock, it can mean that your over-all dps is slower, but for a hunter it means that the rhythm of your shot can be so out of sync that none of your autoshots are being cast. That can be a 40-50% reduction in damage.

That said, consistency is still your friend. If your latency is high but steady, then you can compensate for it and maximize your dps potential and gaming fun. I would start by performing a test.

Step 1: In addition to Quartz, download Recount. It's one of several dps chart options. I'm suggesting it because you can pull up graphical on-screen reports that show discreet data about shots fired, damage done, misses, crits, everything.

Step 2: Load all the macros from Poortyr's list. Keep them all handy. Put the "3.2" macro on you favorite keybound key. Keybinding is essential for the test.

Step 3: Fly to Area 52 and find Dr Boom. From the rocks above him you should be able to target him. Here's where you can start experimenting with your shot selecting, keyboard layout and even your trinkets. Attack him for 2 minutes at a time (using your Hunter's Mark as a timer.)

My first recommendation would be to try spamming your macro key and reviewing your data. The recount chart can actually be kept up when you're doing the test. You may need to reset the data between tests. Still, you should start to see patterns. In this basic test, you want to have your AutoShot & SteadyShot hit almost evenly.

Next try using Quartz as a timer and time your Steady Shot casting.

Step 4: Take the shot method that you are most comfortable with and go farm your favorite mobs. As a skinner, I'm sure you have a few you like.

Step 5: If after steps 3 & 4, you feel that the latency & shot selection is still causing you loads of problems, try a re-spec to Marks or Survival. Both slow your shots down. The longer the lead-time, the more chance you have to compensate for your high latency. Survival hunters are very gear dependant, so you may find this problematic. Marksmen on the other hand have a very similar feel to Beastmaster (only slower) and have a lot of tricks (even in Raids) that are overlooked. A good MM can keep up with Beastmasters, especially in situations where the BMs can't use their pets. Also, MM's are great in PvP with scatter shot & silencing shot.

Good luck!

Trinkets & Gear

Today, I secured the Badge of Tenacity for Rhus. For the unaware, this little blue trinket is one of the best feral tanking trinkets in the game. I have been told by multiple sources that Bears are still using it in Sunwell. That says a lot. The 308 Armor is multiplied by 400% in bear form. The extra boost of agility when I activate it gives me a big boost in dodge and is one of the closest things a bear has to an "oh shit" button.

So, my tanking trinkets are set with the Badge and the Darkmoon Card: Vengeance. The question now is which do I keep equipped when I need to use the Medallion of the Alliance? I plan to pose this question to my "experts" and make sure to share their answers with you.

My druid's wishlist (excluding raiding & 10-mans) is nearly completed. I'm just a few badges away from the Band of the Swift Paw and should secure the Vindicator's Band of Triumph in short order. I plan to get at least one more piece of PvP gear, the Merciless Gladiator's Dragonhide Gloves, but it's for PvP, not for my tanking set.

So very shortly, I will be running out of non-Kara/Raid upgrades for Rhus. Sure, there's more stuff out there, but most of it is from honor & badge grinds. With Wrath a few months away, I don't feel the desire to grind Skyguard or Ogri'la when Beroth has already been through it.

Observations from a PvP n00b

For the better part of two years, I never got into PvP. I play on regular servers. During the first year of play, my gang leveled a set of alliance toons, then horde toons then got into raiding. During the second year, we had Burning Crusades & raiding. Now that I'm not raiding & I'm waiting for WotLK, I've spent more and more time in PvP on both my hunter & druid. Of course, the big reason is the gear for feral druids. Even with the lame bonuses to healing, the Merciless Gladiator's Sanctuary set provides much needed help for a non-raiding Bear who wants to tank. I thought I would provide some of my observations, for PvP n00bs like myself. Again, I am not a PvP expert. These are just my observations.

General Flag/Base Control
Every Battleground (except WSG) have bases to control and hold. You'll see a lot of people in BG chat yelling "Fight at the Flag" and/or "Don't fight on the road." What does this mean and what do I do?

When your team controls a base or flag, it's essential that you never let the enemy draw you away from it. A sneaky rogue or druid can come around and cap it on you if you do. You've got to fight at the flag and interrupt people trying to cap. Fighting away from the flag or chasing runners is the worst thing (and I do it all the time still) you can do. It's better to die on the flag than live on the road.

However, this is not true when your enemy is defending. Fighting on the flag that you're trying to capture allows defenders to interrupt your allies trying to cap. Lead them away and do everything you can to distract the enemy. I've helped capture numerous flags this way.

The 2-Minute Trinket
The most cost-effective piece of PvP gear you'll ever get is the Medallion of the Alliance. This 8k Honor item provides 20 Resilience & removes all movement impairments on use. The 2 minute cooldown means you'll get to use it more than once in a battle ground. The 5-minute trinket has no resilience & isn't that much cheaper. The next more expensive trinkets are not cost-effective for the amount of resilience they provide. It's also something that you can keep in your inventory when you aren't PvP'ing. Several instance bosses stun. Some heroic instance fights have mobs that will stun and eat your healer for breakfast. There are also some raid bosses that nearly require raiders to have this trinket.

Warsong Gulch
My friends (even the ones who PvP a lot) avoid this like the plague. Even those saving for a PvP set will simply make an excuse to avoid getting the pants. I've done it, but not enough to provide suggestions.

Eye of the Storm
The most effective strategy I've seen for EotS is to immediately divide, attack 3 bases and most importantly ignore the flag. Even if you can't get three, it usually puts the opposition into a defensive mindset. Once you've gotten your 2-3 bases, defend them. At this point, steal the flag from the middle, but do not cap it right away. Once a lead is established, you can concede a base and take the middle to start running the flag. This strategy almost always works but a surprising number of players ignore it and go right for the flag.

Alliance Strategy called out in chat usually looks like this:
1 FRR, 2 MT, 3 DR. Don't go for flag until we've got 3. Call out inc.

Arathi Basin
I love/hate Arathi Basin. If I'm in a good AB, I can stay there forever. There's nothing better than a hard-fought AB, win or lose. There are a lot of strategies for AB, but the most effective I've seen involves going for 4 bases but basically defending a triangle of 3 base using 3 defenders on each base and a roaming group of 6 running from base to base assisting in their defense.

Alliance Strategy called out in chat usually looks something like this:
1 LM, 2 GM, 3 BS + ST. Call out inc.

Alterac Valley
There's so much to say about AV that I can't do it all here. If you've never been, it can be very VERY confusing. Start by reading in a good, basic strategy guide like the one at Wowwiki.

The basic idea is to destroy your opposition's resources & kill their boss before they can destroy yours. Alliance usually sends groups 1-5 south to take Frostwolf Relief Hut & the East & West Frostwolf Towers. Groups 6-8 usually go to Iceblood Garrison, kill Galvangar & then take Iceblood Tower & Tower Point. Once all these things have fallen, they kill the boss, Drek'Thar. Defense usually "happens" but it's not the primary objective. If the Horde slow the Alliance down, they usually win or turn the whole thing into a turtle.*

Lately, the Horde have been using a heavy "back-capping" strategy involving 7-10 players re-taking Iceblood Tower & Iceblood Graveyard. If they are fast, it's very effective and they can re-take Tower Point and win the game fairly quickly. I have yet to see the Alliance effectively manage this. In these situations, Alliance wins only because of bad horde play or by out-muscling Drek and extra warmasters with extra tanks & healers.

*Turtle: Turtling is a strategy when one faction or another is forced to concede everything but one location. It's usually seen in WSG & failed AV's. Usually, it's just a time-sink. A WSG turtle can force the opposition to get frustrated and sloppy, but usually means you're going to waste 30-40 minutes for 60-70 honor & 1 badge. An AV turtle usually involves most of the Alliance being forced back and defending the last bridge to Dun Baldar. It's a slow, hard grind but can be rewarding for both factions if it's the battle-ground's holiday weekend.

Farewell & Hello

It's been months since I've posted in the blog. No point in going through the wherefores and the whys. Basically, some changes happened after returning from my raiding absence to make me rethink the whole raiding thing. I've been spending 80-90% of my WoW time leveling & gearing my feral druid, Rhus. It's been great. I reclaimed that missing something about the game that I lost when I became burned out from raiding. So in June, it was a quiet farewell that I made to raiding with QSS. Beroth is still a "friend" in the guild and I still keep tabs on their progress.

So, what am I doing? Playing Rhus with a small group of friends. We are unfortunately too small of a group to do Kara runs and some of the group is still raiding with various guilds, so there's been no pressure to find the extra people to do it.

Early in the summer I challenged myself with a question. Could I get myself geared enough to tank all the heroics without ever setting foot in a raid instance? The answer, with some help, is still undecided. I've had to farm a lot of material and/or rep for "charity epics." I've spent lots of coin on buying patterns for BoP gear like the Boots of Natural Grace. I got my Cenarion rep for Earthwarden & my SSO+Scryer rep to make the Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve one hell of a nice piece of gear. The other part has been a big PvP grind. I've already collected 3 pieces of the Merciless Gladiator's Dragonhide set and am working on a 4th. It's an excellent Kara-level bear alternative and can be worked on at your own pace.

I've also spent hours reading through the blogs of two friends and excellent Feral Druids: Karthis' Of Teeth and Claws & Flyv's Warcraft Blog. Both blogs have been invaluable in teaching me about attack rotations, gear itemization & for giving me ideas about what to go after. Rhus (my druid) may never be as geared as them or see the bosses they see, but I like to think that I'm making the most of things. Damn has it been fun trying to get non-raid Alts through heroics, learning to PvP on a completely different toon & trying to get my 2x2 team up and running.

I'm working on some questions for Karthis & Flyv about specific gear and for heroic strategies. Since I only get 4-6 badges per week & can only grind so much honor and/or reputation, I've got to be selective about my wishlist.

More to come? Perhaps...