Scattered Shots: Siege tips and tricks, part 2
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing the finer points of pew pewing in The Underhold and Downfall wings of Siege of Orgrimmar.
Some of you have been waiting 6 weeks for the Downfall wing to unlock, but now all hunters will get their opportunity to turn Garrosh Hellscream into their own personal pin cushion. If you missed the column from a few weeks ago, you can go check out part 1 of the Siege tips and tricks, covering Vale of Eternal Sorrows and Gates of Retribution.
The fights in the latter half of the raid range from purely single target, such as Malkorok, to complete AoE binges like Spoils of Pandaria. In this guide we'll be focusing on mechanics in flexible and normal mode, but some of this can apply to raid finder difficulty. Keep in mind that a lot of the forthcoming tips are simply suggestions and that your mileage may vary. What works for me may not work for you, but this will give you an idea of how our abilities can be utilized on the final six bosses. Stock up on some Tomes of the Clear Mind and let's get started.
The Underhold
Malkorok
Level 60 Talent: Dire Beast tends to be the strongest single target talent if you want to argue tiny percentages, but all are viable.
Level 75 Talent: A Murder of Crows will be the highest damage here since you can use it on cooldown. Blink Strikes is equally good for beast mastery.
Level 90 Talent:Glaive Toss remains the best single target talent. This guide is more geared to flexible and normal mode, but if you do happen to have a heroic weapon, Barrage can begin to overtake Glaive Toss even on single target fights.
Deterrence can block all of the damage from Breath of Y'Shaarj, which is the ability he casts after doing 3 Arcing Smashes. Most raids will put out markers so people can remember where each Arcing Smash hit, but if you are uncertain about where the Breath of Y'Shaarj is going to land you should really pop Deterrence so you don't blow yourself up. Deterrence also blocks damage from the pools you need to soak in the first phase.
Spoils of Pandaria
Level 60 Talent: You will be doing a lot of cleaving and target switching, which makes Thrill of the Hunt and Fervor very strong here to minimize the focus impact of Multi-Shots while still being able to use your signature ability on cooldown.
Level 75 Talent: The mobs here simply die too fast for A Murder of Crows and Lynx Rush to be any good. Blink Strikes is the clear winner, and for beast mastery you would be seriously harming your damage if you didn't take it because of its interaction with Beast Cleave.
Level 90 Talent: Barrage since everything will not always be clumped up and if you aim yourself properly you can hit the whole room with it.
When you are in one of the Mantid rooms, and you get Set to Blow, things can get a little hairy. Deterrence will fully block the damage from bombs so you can run through and soak them if they are becoming a problem. When the larger, high priority mobs are up and surrounded by 2+ smaller mobs, you should focus on the big one while using Multi-Shot as your focus dump in place of Arcane Shot, but other than that don't deviate from a standard shot priority. When it's a bunch of smaller mobs you are usually safe to spam your Multi-Shot button.
Thok the Bloodthirsty
Level 60 Talent: This is a single target fight, so use whatever plays best for you. I stick with Dire Beast.
Level 75 Talent: A Murder of Crows can be cast on cooldown so it will be the highest damage for survival and marksmanship. Blink Strikes does just as well for beast mastery.
Level 90 Talent: Glaive Toss.
Posthaste is a nice talent for all of the running around you will do on this fight, especially if Thok is fixating on you. If you're in a bad spot when you get fixated, or need to swap the fixate for any reason (some raids try and control who gets it since Thok favors people within a certain range), then you can use Feign Death to make him fixate on someone else. Hunters really shine on this fight. We're not affected by the AoE interrupt in first phase, and in second phase we have no damage penalty with all the running around.
Downfall
Siegecrafter Blackfuse
Level 60 Talent: Dire Beast works fine since you spend the majority of your time on the boss, but if you are going on the conveyor belt then Fervor can be quite useful for on-demand focus to get those adds down if you're having any DPS problems.
Level 75 Talent: A Murder of Crows since it can be used on cooldown, but Blink Strikes is just as good for beast mastery.
Level 90 Talent: Glaive Toss is the clear winner here. It will always be up to use on the conveyor, and it can snare the Crawler Mines.
You can use Disengage to get off the conveyor belt instead of having to jump into the tube, but I wouldn't bother unless you're confident in your Disengaging skills. If you're having a panic moment on the conveyor belt, Deterrence will stop the fire lasers from instantly killing you. If you're being targeted with a Sawblade, you can Feign Death during the cast (DBM will warn you) and it will stop the blade from being cast.
Paragons of the Klaxxi
Level 60 Talent: I like Dire Beast since you should be spending the majority of your time focus firing.
Level 75 Talent: I prefer Blink Strikes here for all specs. A Murder of Crows and its 30 second duration can be a problem when each boss dies relatively quickly. It would be a waste to precast it on your next target because it will get healed to full when your current ones dies.
Level 90 Talent: Glaive Toss has a better chance of being available when a priority add spawns, and while Barrage is going to hit everything, remember that damage on the other bosses is wasted anyway.
At first glance this looks like a cleave fight, since you're fighting 3 bosses at a time, but every time you kill one boss all the others are healed to full making cleaving little more than meter padding. Your numbers might be higher if you use Multi-Shot as your focus dump, but your raid will do better if you don't. Binding Shot or Intimidation is very handy for stunning the Blood adds. When Hisek uses his Aim ability, Deterrence will block Sonic Resonance damage (the AoE damage each person in the beam gives off).
Garrosh Hellscream
Level 60 Talent: This fight is so long and has so many different phases that there's no clear winner, so just use what feels best to you.
Level 75 Talent: A Murder of Crows has an interesting benefit here because Garrosh goes below 20% health multiple times in the fight. Casting AMoC below 20% will reduce the cooldown by 1 minute. If you are beast mastery you will want to stick with Blink Strikes for the Beast Cleave damage.
Level 90 Talent: I prefer Barrage, but Glaive Toss will work fine here since the adds are usually clumped up.
If you are tasked with killing Siege Engineers, you might want to take Posthaste so you can move back and forth quickly. Deterrence is capable of saving you from two of the one shot mechanics in the fight -- Iron Stars during phase 1 and Annihilate during the intermission phases. Whirling Corruption's damage is also fully blocked by Deterrence. The Minions of Y'Shaarj can be pulled away with your Distracting Shot (remember, you want them to die away from each other). Intimidation works well as an extra interrupt on players mind controlled by Touch of Y'Shaarj, but stuns won't work once the ability is empowered.
[Thanks to the posters over at the MMO-Champion forums for being hunter guinea pigs and sharing their results.]
Scattered Shots is dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. From leveling your hunter and taming rare pets to learning the DPS value of skill, we've got you covered. If you're stuck in one of the nine support classes, why not move up to the big league and play a hunter?
