I've always timed my shots off animations, which ends up being the hardest thing to adapt to with a new weapon. It also makes me refuse to use any sort of shapechange item, like Torment of the Worgen in Karazhan - the different animations mess with my timing.

Being turned into a human in Escape from Durnhold has been one of the most annoying experiences to date :S. I feel so clumsy (and short!).

I'm also impressed by all you folk who use guns and xbows. I tried using a gun for the first time in over a year, and the animation is so much less varied than the bows I'm used to. The bang is easier to hear than a swish though.

Because I've timed shots like this for two years? I'm used to timing things based on animation, and it's always worked very well for me. Having to look at a separate cast bar would just require me to re-learn what I'm basing my timing on and muck up my screen with more UI elements.

It's funny that we usually end up agreeing on stuff Breaker, it just takes a page or two for it to happen!

I used to be like Elendril, but Steady Shot + changing weapon speeds from 3.4 to 3.2 totally threw me off, so I just got Sorren's mod. Turned off all that other garbage so I just have a little Autoshot bar right above my minimap. I don't even look at it though, unless I am a) shapeshifted b) using haste abilities.

Something that has helped me adjust my timings with different classes of weapons and new weapon speeds.

I set up a LittleTrouble auto shot cast bar right on top of a eCastingBar. I set the alpha on the LittleTrouble bar to about 25% so I can see the eCastingBar under it and set them to the same size. This way I have a great way to see if I need to adjust my timing.

If the steady shot cast bar gets to the end first I'm in good shape, if both bars get to the end at just about the same time I need to start steady a fraction of a second earlier, if the LittleTrouble bar stays filled I'm delaying my auto shots and really late/early.

Once I have my timings down the bars go away but they are great for getting that timing down in the first place.

This is what I've been doing, too - you *seem* to be able to do the same with a faster weapon, but it's still delaying your Auto Shot with that 0.5s 'lag', I think.

I don't consider looking at a UI mod's castbar and seeing it start at 1.3 on steady to be proof that steady is a 1.5/1.15 sec =~ 1.30 sec cast. Anybody got something more substantial?

Do you believe the default UI castbar?

What's your methodology? When you cast, say, dismiss pet, you see the full 5.0 seconds using the same method? Or do you see something more like 4.8 seconds?

Also, please explain where in the default UI castbar you can see the casting time as a number.

Does anyone know if Enchant Ring - Striking works for ranged? Is it like scope damage?

;)

Try getting any castmod that shows remaining time. The ones I've checked the code for don't calculate time by including hastes, etc, only print [pseudo] CastingTime - TimeSpent.
CastingTime is not calculated in any way, and is obtained directly from the default Blizzard UI stuff.
All castmods I tried in beta when I tested this the first time gave exactly the same result as people here have mentioned: 1.5 second cast for Steady Shot without quiver, 1.3 second cast for Steady Shot with quiver. Every time the shot fired at the end of the bar, not before or after.

All cast mods register for the same event, the cast time event. It is provided by blizzard and it reports the casting time of spells. It also reports added cast time due to damage taken, spells canceled, interrupts and such.

I didn't see this before just now, sorry. First off, you seem to have added bulletDPS instead of multiplied it.
Second, you're using WeaponDPS instead of WeaponDamage.

Auto Shot's damage range with 1800 RAP and [Marksman's Bow] equipped, 2/2 Focused Fire + 5/5 Ranged Weapon Specialization and +10 damage scope:
Minimum: 1.05*1.02*(32*2.8+1800/14*2.8+206+10) = 712.9
Maximum: 1.05*1.02*(32*2.8+1800/14*2.8+207+10) = 713.9
DPS (15% quiver): ((712.9+713.9)/2)/(2.8/1.15) = 293
If equipped, your paperdoll will show slightly lower values, due to a tooltip bug with Ranged Weapon Specialization not affecting ammo.

Edit: This just in - I kill threads.

I did a spreadsheet to try to figure out how crit rating, agi, and ap stack up against each other and I need a second opinion. I used a basic rotation of steady->auto every 2 seconds with 1900 ap, 20% crit, 2.4 speed 64 dps bow, 32 ammo, 10 damage scope, marks speced and level 70. I came up with

1 ap = crit rating / 1.8 = agi / 2.3

Raid buffed with 3k ap and 30% crit I got

1 ap = crit rating / 2.2 = agi / 2.6

These are just loose numbers but I noticed that 1 agi is still better than 2 ap and for raiding, 1 crit rating is better than 2 ap. I didn't take into account the dps your pet gains from more ap so it might even out to where 2 ap = 1 agi.

There's one thing that I never hear about, but I'd expect the hunter community to be up in arms about: raid buff scaling.

I brought it up earlier in this thread to a rather lackluster response. Is there a good reason why Hunters (and their pets) don't scale with the same buffs that melees enjoy? Windfury totem, Unleased Rage (Shaman talent), and Battle Shout don't affect hunters. That's up to 381 AP, 10% of your AP, and a 20% chance for an extra attack with 445 attack power. That's a pretty significant improvement in damage output for rogues and warriors, but hunters get no benefit from it (aside from Battle Shout affecting pets).

It's a bit depressing when Alliance rogues and warriors are ooohing and aahing over Windfury totem while we get nothing.

So, I ask, is there a reason why Hunters don't scale with buffs like other physical damage classes do?

I guess to answer that fairly you would need to do a comparison across classes.

Break down all the physical damage classes by what percent of their overall damage each ability contributes. Then compare how AP scales each of those abilities. Finally compare how AP gains are modified by talents.

Rough numbers for hunters ranged damage:

Marksman Hunter with 2k ap, 20% crit
[(2.86 * 3) + 7 + 1.65 + 2.8] * 1.1 = 22.033

So with a 3.0 speed weapon, a Marksman Hunter's ranged DPS would scale at about 22% of his AP gains.

If other physical damage classes scale at about the same rate then we definitely should get those buffs. If they scale slower than us, then those could be working to prop them up.

Could you provide access to this spreadsheet? I'd like to understand how you got to your findings.

No. It is dirty and I'm doing a bunch of things on it that barely make sense me. However I can tell you what I did to ge the numbers.

First I plug in a base set of numbers that are relevent to my DPS. Then I figure out my dps with them. Then I add 1 ap to the numbers and refigure out my dps. Then I do the rest with 1 crit rating and 1 agi. Then I do a few calcualtions

(+1 crit dps - base dps) / ( +1 ap dps - base dps)

tells me how much more powerful 1 crit rating is compared to 1 ap. I then substitute 1 crit dps with 1 agi dps to learn how much more powerful agi is compared to ap.

Hunters dont get glancing blows. Thats a 12% auto attack damage reduction we dont get.

That sounds very much like what I did in my old spreadsheet. If your numbers are correct, it should work. You can easily test it though...
You have your current setup, this gives you A dps. With this setup, it tells you 1 RAP = B crit.
Add 1 RAP, this gives you C DPS. Write it down.
Remove the 1 RAP you just added. Add B crit. This is D DPS.
C = D?

I've come up with a spreadsheet that should allow you to easily see those changes. You can hand code different additional values (crit rating, hit rating, AP, etc.) and instantly see what your DPS increase is based upon your chosen shot rotation. It also shows you what weapons speeds are ideal for Auto/Steady cycles. (Main reason why Hemet's kicks Rhok's ass.)

It's not perfect, and for non-Trolls the base stats are off, but if anyone is interested you can download it at Havoc-Guild

I'd appreciate any feedback I can get on this, since I'd like to make it more useful to both myself and others. I'm hoping to have an updated version by the end of the week.