Also, even if your current weapon doesn’t allow you to fully utilize Serpent’s Swiftness, your pet still benefits, which helps you keep Ferocious Inspiration going.

Thus, my macros have Kill Command before Steady Shot. It’s a safe bet that after whacking that macro (and landing a crit), the very next thing I’ll be doing is hitting that macro again, so putting it before the shot in the macro still works.

Also, I’ve replaced my vanilla Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, and Multi-Shot buttons with macros that look like the following:

/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast Kill Command
/cast Steady Shot (or Arcane Shot – you get the idea)
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

I’m still in two minds though, because some fights I want to keep my pet by my side, not on the boss (AoE’s and all that). Nonetheless, I found it helpful – most fights I don’t use a macro shot rotation, preferring to play whackamole with Arcane/Multi/Steady cooldowns, and automating Kill Command is helpful.

(btw, don’t throw away Rapid Fire .. reserve it for when you get low in mana: pop aspect of the viper, a fel mana pot, whatever trinket, and rapid fire and sit back doing just auto shots while the FSR kicks in)

As you know I totally agree with you on the zen of shot rotation

/cheer
/applaud

the other day I tried weaving shots with the Wrathfire Hand Cannon, which has an amazing speed of 2.0. SS and quiver bring it down to 1.45. So even if its perfectly timed, the Steady Shot will push back the autoshot by .05s. But you don’t lose the autoshot, its just delayed. Using a hand woven steady shot rotation, I found a large dps increase over my slightly superior 3.0 speed weapon, because of the speed at which my steady shots were going out.

Unfortunately it made Rapid Fire almost useless, because the steady shots become limited by the global cooldown. Plus it drained mana quite fast.

But anyways, to getadelle, don’t be afraid to much of clipping your shots. I’d keep the 2.70 speed bow and just try to work on tightening up your rotation.

Also there is a silencer addon to quiet the gun noise. I haven’t tried it cause I like my boomsticks
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/9480/

When I first picked up steady shot I had a hard time with the weaving as well. A particular hardship was that as soon as I got it right a few times in a row, I’d pull agro from my pet. I was being punished for doing it right.

I recommend all those learning to weave, try to add a steady in every other auto shot rather than all the time so

Auto Shot
Cast Steady
Auto Shot
Wait
Auto Shot
Cast Steady
Auto Shot
Wait

This will give you a good idea of whether you’re actually clipping Auto Shots or not, and save you from mashing the Steady button which is counter-productive.

I just started trying a macro since I needed on with my windserpent anyway (stupid Lightning Breath bug). From what I’ve read over at TKAsomething.com, I would recommend putting a ‘!’ in front of the Auto Shot like so:

/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot

The just recently changed the /cast macros so that a second press will turn auto attack/shot/cast off. For instance this macro would start auto shot on the first press and then turn it off on the second:

/cast Auto Shot

The ‘!’ disables this so that the toggling aspect is turned off (ie: pressing this macro will keep telling the server “turn on auto shot”

/cast !Auto Shot

I guess if this is a kindergarten post, I’m teaching pre-schoolers. BRKU – FTW.

A second note, was my post on owl agro helpful at all, or were you already doing everything I talked about?

Oh…well, I can say /cheer! /applaud! EXCELLENT explanation.

Believe it or not, you really helped me to understand “clipping” even though I knew what it meant: I’ve now internalized it. And triggered an idea for an article…instead of a long-winded comment.

@ Gretadelle – Not a problem, and I’m glad I’m helpful! Your bow is possibly a tad bit too fast especially if you’re just starting out. I wouldn’t say it’s a super big deal right now although getting a slightly slower bow might help you learn.

My bow is a PvP bow and is great for PvP and… is still pretty good for PvE although I wish it was a little faster. Still, being slow, it gives me a bit of a buffer in the case of lag which is nice. I’m hoping to get a slightly faster ranged weapon soon, though in the meantime, having a slow one isn’t killing me.

I would definitely keep the points in Serpent’s Swiftness though, because pretty soon you’ll be able to get weapons with a better speed. I would look into getting The Gunblade off of the auction house if you can. This weapon served me very well throughout most of my 60s. Plus, you’ll get the dwarf racial crit bonus.

The macro is designed so that it only fires Steady Shots and Kill Commands between Auto Shots, this makes it so you don’t have to time it because if the timing isn’t right, it simply doesn’t do anything. Definitely a helpful macro if you are looking for 100% pure maximum DPS but I do think all hunters should learn to time their own shots before they use it.

Thanks for all the questions, I’ve loved answering them! Feel free to ask me if you’ve ever got anymore.

@ Xanthelei – Thank you for your comment, and of course you may link to me anytime! I’ve taken a peek at your own blog and liked what I’ve seen so I’ll definitely be adding it to my own blogroll as well. =D

/dwarfcheer Fantastic!

I’ve been thinking of putting up something on my own blog about shot rotations, but going more into the numbers and theory of it than this. Would it be ok if I linked to this post saying “if you want no real numbers, come here”?

So adding this blog to my ‘check on daily’ list!

@Gret

At level 64, I wouldn’t worry *too* much about it. Once you hit 70 it becomes a much bigger issue. I can’t remember what bows/xbows/guns are available to you right now, but there is a questline in SMV that gives out a VERY nice bow (part of the Cipher of Damnation questline). I’d recommend grabbing that when you’re of the right level to do the quest, if you can’t get your hands on a Valanos bow.