I'd like to see the shot cycle concept extended and decoupled from the Aimed Shot timer and cooldown. The cycle idea is a clever mechanic that emphasizes timing and synchronization. (I’d even argue that the shot cycle is the secondary combat system for the raiding hunter – an innovative update to the Focus bar.) However, Aimed Shot cycles are a poor way of implementing cycles because they limit both cycle and itemization diversity.

Why not move Aimed Shot to the pyroblast camp, where it is only viable as an opener, and replace its dps in raid situations with synergistic, timing-based combinations of other abilities? Perhaps Improved Arcane Shot could give a damage bonus that depends on when during the Auto-Shot timer it is fired. For example, given a hypothetical 3-second Auto-Shot timer, give a 0% bonus if Arcane is fired at the exact same time as Auto, and a 50% bonus if Arcane is fired at the halfway mark, 1.5 seconds after Auto. Scale linearly between these points, similar to troll berserking, and you have a mechanic that allows dps to scale effectively in raids without overwhelming pvp balance.

If aimed shot is on X number of shots per second and based on weapon skill slower will be better even if autoshot is seperated from it entirely.
The only immediate solution to the retarded mechanics atm would be to make aimed shot like eviscerate and decouple it from your weapon.
QQ I guess... QQ

I'm apalled to see people seriously suggesting that aimed shot do 200%+ weapon damage. Didn't we learn with the original version of Mortal Strike that % bonuses on hard hitting physical attacks is a TERRIBLE idea with the rate gear scales in this game?

The current form of aimed shot can take off 50% or more of the life of most cloth users. If they doubled the damage of it, we'd be in 1 shot land. I seriously doubt that hunters believe they should be able to 1 shot people with aimed shots.

backstab and ambush?

the assumption would also be that it's not doing double its current damage, but double some other amount of damage - it's currently weapon damage + extra damage, and the suggestion is that it be multiplicative rather than just +dmg.

I wouldn't mind making aimed shot basically PvP only like that as long as they add some other instant shot or something for PvE. Either buff arcane shot or add in a new shot of some type.

Who knows, maybe that's what they have in mind. I saw a new spell called "Venom Shot" that looked like arcane shot but with nature damage. http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/spells/29636-.html

Your very own suggestion was 200% weapon damage + 250. Now I'm not a hunter expert, but I'm pretty sure hunter autoshot has listed damage somewhere in the 400-500+ range with high level epics, so doubling a 500 shot then adding 250 would be significantly larger than the 600 bonus on the current aimed shot. And any new gear you get would see double the benefit on that aimed shot.

I really don't think modifying hunter's hardest hitting attack to potentially hit harder is the answer.

Also in regard's to backstab and ambush, I wouldn't really call daggers "hard hitting" ;)
It takes some serious gear and/or luck to get an ambush to hit as hard as a hunter using bloodseeker can crit his aimed shots (although I suppose in a low gear situation a 200% bonus would be less than the current 600), and there's that pesky requirement to be standing behind someone and be in melee range to ambush.

What about something like:

1) Eliminate "banked" autoshots.* Shot timer is reset when aimed shot fires. They inherently skew cycle damage towards weapons with hasted speeds > (aimed shot cast time) which is the very slowest of slow weapons, and have a surprisingly large impact on both burst damage (aimed is effectively 200% now...just that a crit on 1 doesn't necessarily mean you crit on both, which would be the case if aimed itself was 200% weapon damage) and sustained damage (where fast weapons take it in the shorts by lost autoshot time).

2) Have "aimed shot" also grant a buff, where subsequent shots gain some % of weapon damage, 10-20%. Have it last much longer than the aimed shot cooldown, but lost when you move. This is to compensate the loss of the banked shot in cycle dps, and possibly boost hunters sustained damage back into the range of the more pure dps classes.

You'd still have optimal speeds, where clipped or unclipped cycles would yield peak DPS, but I don't think that's what needs to be eliminated. When I hop on my hunter alt, that's alot of what makes the class feel unique and enjoyable, the fact that my DPS is highly dependant on my timing and rhythm, as opposed to just mashing buttons as fast or faster than the next guy (and in the more complex scenarios, the proper order).

*For scaling reasons, you'd also perhaps want to look at how aimed shot damage is calculated. Possibly a reduction in aimed shot cast time to 2.5 or a more complex scaling based off of unhasted weapon + AP + ammo + scope DPS where you're getting a net return on your time...i.e. 3 seconds to cast, and gaining effectively 3.5 or 4 seconds worth of damage.

maxian, in every other tooltip in the game, weapon damage refers to paper doll damage range. That's why the 200% figure you threw out was jumped on.

Hmm, I've never really noticed that. I always knew weapon damage as the actually damage range on the weapon, which is accurate, AFAIK.

And if I came off sorta... bitchy or something, that was not intended.

<3

Edit:

Ack, I've been pwnt. I never pay much attention to tooltip wordings usually. But Blizz has a history of making tooltips with either poor wordings, or outright inaccuracies. "Weapon damage" really should refer to the actually item itself, and something else should be used for "(weapon damage + AP x speed)", for clarity's sake.

So make it 150%. 125%. Whatever. The point is the mechanic change, not the actual %. I'd support a nerf to potential damage as long as we get a +crit talent such that average damage stays about the same or goes up some, but it's not "omg I crit you die in 2 hits", it's a fairly often-critting attack that doesn't take 1/2 your life.

Not accurate at all. Sinister Strike is "in addition to your normal weapon damage", weapon damage referring to normalized weapon damage (damage range + AP/14*norm). Mortal Strike is "deals weapon damage plus 160" and again weapon damage refers to normalized weapon damage. I can't think of a single tooltip where weapon damage *doesn't* refer to either paper doll weapon damage range or normalized weapon damage range - I can't think of any, specifically, which refer to weapon tooltip damage range as "weapon damage".