Serpent Sting
From WoWWiki
| Serpent Sting | |
|---|---|
| |
| Usable by | |
| Class | Hunter |
| Properties | |
| Type | Offensive |
| School | Nature |
| Cooldown | None/Global Cooldown |
| Talents | |
| Talented | No |
| Improvement talents | Efficiency, Hawk Eye, Improved Stings, Noxious Stings |
| Other information | |
| Ranks | 12 |
| Requirements | Ranged Weapon equipped |
| Related debuff | |
| |
- Hunters know that the target is much easier to fight when its suffering incredible physical pain from a poison-covered arrow in their back.
Serpent Sting stings the target, causing nature damage over 15 seconds. Only one Sting per hunter can be active on any one target.
Contents |
Rank table
| Rank | Damage per 15 seconds | Level | Mana | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20 | 4 | 13% base mana | 1
|
| 2 | 40 | 10 | 13% base mana | 4
|
| 3 | 80 | 18 | 13% base mana | 20
|
| 4 | 140 | 24 | 13% base mana | 63
|
| 5 | 210 | 34 | 13% base mana | 1 20
|
| 6 | 290 | 42 | 13% base mana | 2 40
|
| 7 | 385 | 50 | 13% base mana | 3 60
|
| 8 | 490 | 58 | 13% base mana | 4 32
|
| 9 | 555 | 60 | 13% base mana | 5 0
|
| 10 | 660 | 67 | 9% base mana | 14 0
|
| 11 | 990 | 73 | 9% base mana | |
| 12 | 1210 | 79 | 9% base mana |
Notes
Serpent Sting is a poison, and thus can be cleansed by druids, paladins, and shamans, as well as any mob that can cleanse poison. Rogues can dispel it with Cloak of Shadows, and dwarves with Stoneform.
As with most DoTs (and channelled spells) that don't have a direct initial-damage component, Serpent Sting cannot crit. Spell and ranged critical rating buffs do not affect this ability.
Improvements
- Efficiency (Marksmanship Talent): Reduces the Mana cost of your Shots and Stings by 3% per rank (5 ranks total).
- Hawk Eye (Survival Talent): Increases the range of your ranged weapon by 2 yards per rank (3 ranks total).
- Improved Stings (Marksmanship Talent): Increases the damage done by your Serpent Sting and Wyvern Sting by 10%/20%/30% and the mana drained by your Viper Sting by 10%/20%/30%. In addition, reduces the chance your Sting damage over time effects will be dispelled by 10%/20%/30% (3 ranks total).
- Noxious Stings (Survival Talent): Increases the damage done by the hunter by 3% on targets affected by their Serpent Sting.
- Glyph of Serpent Sting increases the duration by 6 sec, from 15 to 21 sec, adding 2 ticks of damage. This adds 484 damage at rank 12.
- The Tier 8 2 piece set bonus increases the damage dealt by 10%.
- The Tier 9 2 piece set bonus allows the damage done by Serpent Sting to critically hit for 100% additional damage (+50% prior to patch 3.2.2).
Tips and tactics
Serpent Sting is a fairly weak damage over time spell, in comparison to those of other classes. To get the most of out it, it should be used in fights that will last longer than 15 seconds. On short fights and trash mobs, the hunter may find it is not an efficient use of mana.
Its greatest utility in PvP is against rogues and druids, to prevent them from entering stealth. (Druids can cleanse it, but will have to shift to caster form to do so.)
Be careful using this spell in situations where your group may use crowd control, as damage over time effects will break it. If you have used Serpent Sting on the wrong target, you can overwrite it quickly by casting Scorpid Sting on the same target, which does not break CC.
In some situations, and depending on talents, Scorpid Sting may be preferred in raids by some people (note: this blog page may be out of date).
Patch changes
As of patch 3.0.2 serpent sting gained bonus damage equal to 20% of the hunter's Attack Power, up from 10%.
As of Patch 2.3 it now scales with ranged attack power instead of spell damage. It was considered to be a nature-spell-damage based attack thus was buffed by all nature and general spell-damage buffs including and not limited to: Wizard oil, Improved divine spirit, Wrath of Air Totem. This is no longer the case.
External links
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