Cheers. That was what I thought.

I've done some testing on the subject and came to some pretty odd conclusions: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IAHF7OMJ My conclusions were that with only a 15% quiver haste, the ideal unhasted weapon speed is ~2.36. With serpents swiftness and/or quick shots the ideal unhasted weapon speed becomes ~2.54. Strange imo.

That file is either corrupted or a format I'm unfamiliar with - *.xlsx? Excel can't open it. Can you post your methodology here so we can discuss it? The unhasted speeds you posted seem a little low to me (rather, low if you account for variable latency and response time). More info would be great!

*.xlsx is the new format Microsoft Office saves Excel files to. Sadly, it isn't backwards compatible, so Xeno will have to explicitly save his file as a *.xls file in order for you to check it out. Or you could go buy the new Microsoft Office =p.

Sorry, there you are: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7AAFOM51 it triples in size and I guess it loses the conditional formatting.

Lovely work...thank you.

Few questions:

1. What your ping like?
2. Have you run this with a full rotation, ie, auto/steady/multi/auto/steady/auto/steady/arcane/auto/steady ?

While I certainly do have a lot of interest in beastmaster speeds, I do feel like this study is ultimately going to be of more use to marksman and survivalists. I feel like they have further to go before they hit a speed which is on the verge of "too fast".

By knowing the benchmarks (and testing them for different ping rates, etc) we can really plan which bow/spec combinations bear improvement through haste effects. And really nail down which procs will force you to adjust your shot rotation.

I am definitely confused by the fact that an auto/steady speed study came out with two different conclusions with or without serpents swiftness...unless gcd's and cast times are affected differently by different haste effects/talents...seems like the steady shot speed barrier should be the same regardless of if you got there through gear or through talents.

When you say steady doesn't reset auto's CD, you're talking about the hasted bowspeed between-auto time, and not the ~.5 sec cast time of auto shot itself, right?

Or are you saying that auto shot in fact always comes out with steady, with no .5 sec interval? If true, I should never be able to move (or esc) to interrupt the following auto but not the steady, assuming my between-autoshots timer is ready (e.g. opening with steady). Also, if I get a hasted speed slightly faster than 1.5s, I should be able to spam steady shot with autos always getting through.

My understanding was that there's a .5 sec gap between steady firing and auto (if ready).

The 0.5s autoshot casting time can take place under the GCD of steady shot (and thus don't have any negative effect on your rotation) if this last one as a casting time inferior or equal to 1s, right?

For exemple:

0s Casting Steady Shot and GCD starts
1s Steady Shot is fired and Auto shot start "casting"
1.5s Auto shot is fired and GCD end

1.5s Casting Steady Shot and GCD starts
2.5s Steady Shot is fired
3s Auto Shot is fired and GCD ends

I'm pretty sure it works like that but i prefer to check with the pros

Correct.
The post I quoted, however, said something about the 0.5 Auto Shot primer taking place when a spell starts, not finishes - which is wrong.

Correct, but I highly doubt you could get this arrangement to work with the gear provided. To get steady shot to a 1s cast, you need 50% haste (1.5/1.5=1). If you have 50% haste and a 1.5 second hasted attack speed, your weapon speed would have to be x/1.5=1.5, x=2.25. There are no level ~70 rare or epic ranged weapons with a speed between 2.20 and 2.40; the closest would be Wrathfire Handcannon at 2.0 (also, The Boomstick, but that has stam/def on it) and Barrel-Blade Longrifle at 2.60. Neither of those would necessarily be a bad choice, but it's probably not worth making your rotation difficult to maintain and use non-optimal gear for a minor increase in damage (especially when superior alternatives are available).

I realize your post was theoretical (regarding the auto shot delay timing) but I thought I'd just throw this in there: The gear available simply doesn't support some of the timing arrangements that we can think up.

A latency change of ~0.05 seconds from one Steady Shot to the next, combined with button spamming?