Aspect of the Viper and how/when to use it

[Vicena]

So Ive been trying to figure out how to properly use Aspect of the Viper and lose as little DPS as possible, Ive heard from hunters ingame that dropping to 10% and steady shot spamming your way back up is the way to go, but wouldnt that waste far too many uses of Chim, Aimed and (for me currently) Arcane Shot?

[Neiras]

If im running out of mana I switch to viper when im doing my steady shots and switch back to dragonhawk when chimera and aimed shot are out of cooldown, I never use chimera, aimed shot or kill shot with aspect of the viper on. but dont worry about it once you get decent gear you won't have to worry about mana if you have a paladin using judgment of wisdom in your raid, the only fights you have to worry about mana are the gunship (if you're hard on the axethrowers) and the lich king but you can easily recover to full by attacking the spheres in the transitions phases with aspect of the viper on.

[DarkenedHue]

Forgoing Chimera Shot and Aimed Shot altogether until you gain back a good amount of mana will cost you a lot of DPS, yeah.

The best way to go about regenerating the most mana with the least possible DPS loss will involve you alternating between Aspect of the Viper for when you're casting Steady Shots, and then back again to Aspect of the Dragonhawk to cast Chimera Shot and Aimed Shot (or even Arcane Shot, depending on its relative damage to the other shots at your gear). Basically, you pair your hard-hitters with AotD, and when those are on cooldown and you're just filling with Steady Shot, switch to AotV to gain some mana. That, by far, is the best way to incorporate AotV into your rotation for when you need mana.

You also needn't really wait until you're at 10% mana. You can pre-emptively do this well before that if you know you're gonna be running into mana issues later at some point. Ideally you try to do this when procs aren't up and when DPS isn't absolutely critical at that point in the encounter, obviously. That said, keep in mind that you don't want to use it more than you need to. Ending a fight with 70% mana because you used AotV too much will mean you lost more DPS than was necessary.

Some other general tips with regard to mana management that bear mentioning:

- Multi-Shot, as well as the initial damage from Explosive Trap are good ways to gain mana back from AotV if there are enough targets in range affected by those abilities.

- Make sure you have a source of Replenishment always running in the raid, as well as the Judgement of Wisdom debuff from a Paladin on whatever it is you're attacking. These buffs account for a massive amount of your mana gained throughout a fight, especially the judgement.

- Viper Sting regenerates very substantial amounts of mana (upwards of 6-7k) when cast on targets with large mana pools. There will be fights where you can use this to your advantage so as to avoid having to go into AotV at all.

- The Rapid Recuperation talent is an immensely potent mana regeneration tool which oftentimes eliminates the need to go into AotV entirely. More often than not you'll find the 2 talent point investment to be worth it when you consider its gain in terms of how much less time you spend in AotV. It's probably in your best interests to give it serious consideration.

[jrwh]

Two things have been mentioned, one has not.

You can alternate Viper Aspect for Steady Shots and Dragonhawk for Chimera/Aimed/Kill if you need to use it to gain mana. You can also Viper during downtime if a particular boss fight has transition phases where you're not fighting.

If the mob has a decent amount of mana, which most bosses with mana do (like 200k+ mana pool), putting a Viper Sting on it and using Chimera once should instantly give you full mana.

You can, and should, have and use mana potions to mitigate or prevent entirely any DPS loss you might suffer from needing to use Viper Aspect.

[Bastardbottle]

Get a microfone and yell innervate me, me best dps, me cant shoot without mana. Dont ever even think of using viper, your guild/mates need your uber dps.

[giedrius759]

Hello, Viper Aspect + Volley on adds and u can get full mana in few seconds (depends on amount of adds). I dont know what gear u have that u get oom, try talents with mana cost reduce on shots and talent which gives u mana back when u are using Rapid Fire skill. Dont forget mana potions.

[SilverFlash]

Hello, Viper Aspect + Volley on adds and u can get full mana in few seconds (depends on amount of adds). I dont know what gear u have that u get oom, try talents with mana cost reduce on shots and talent which gives u mana back when u are using Rapid Fire skill. Dont forget mana potions.

Nope,thats fixed,multishot and explosive trap(at least according to msbt) will recover mana however.As DarkenedHue suggested,try to get a raid setup that has replenishment(ret,spriest using MB even with 4pc t10 if there are no rets or destro locks),a paladin using judgement of wisdom(prot or ret) and improved leader of the pack from feral tanks(i don't remember if the talent is used in feral dps as well,i haven't played feral dps for years) and resto druids specced into revitalize should provide you with sufficient manaregen,at least for 25n for the entire fight so you don't have to change aspect(as for heroic,you can consider using a mana potion instead of the second haste/wild magic potion if you're in dire need of mana-you can use the improved mana potions if you have engineering).You could also buy a stack of int buff scrolls to give your manapool a small boost if there is no mage in the raid.Also,learning the encounters is crucial,as i tend to switch to viper for instance right before pp phase change(on normal) so i can recover some mana using the break given by the stun.Or for bpc,you can switch to viper while keeping up the kinetics if you're on that duty.Or Sindragosa air phase,especially if you're marked for tomb.