Did you adjust the target to be level 70? I usually save the sheet with the target being level 73. That makes a 0.6% difference in crit rating.

For everyone who sees a derived stat incorrect, please look at the Calculations tab and see exactly where the error is, in base agility, crit from gear, talents, or level/weapon skill adjustments.

Cheeky: To repeat what Seipher said, why is the spreadsheet password protected on unlocking the cells? Rather frustrating particularly since for some reason you've got Hunter's Mark down as 440 attack power in the calculations sheet when it's only 110?
Please can you post the password so this thing can be played with a bit more properly. I'm trying to add a sheet that will allow me to calculate how much mp5 I need for X maxdps shooting time (most commonly 10mins as most fights last 10mins).

Just a quick comment:
Hunter's Mark starts at 110 RAP, but stacks to 440 RAP (+11 RAP per ranged attack against target, 30 shots to max it out). Refreshing the buff keeps the stack, making the average RAP gain from it ~440 RAP (closer and closer as fight duration increases).

Although my memory might be deceiving me, I also seem to remember Cheeky commenting on the password stuff earlier - somewhere along the lines of wanting to both gain knowledge (if something is wrong, he'll know about it when he's fixing it), and to ensure that the spreadsheet is kept up-to-date. If everyone were to correct minor stuff locally, this would be harder.

That's cool. I can understand the reasoning for the password and so I'll try to add to the functionality of the spreadsheet by saying what I'm trying to get out of it:

1) Crit vs Ap - the great armor choice discussion
It would be EXTREMELY useful to any hunter who's looking through his gear to be able to just very simply check how much attackpower is 1% crit worth given his current stats. I mean...I know that you can mess around with your gear in the gear sheet (lovely work there by the way), but that's a bit too fiddly for someone who's just browsing items. Also, for people like me who use AEPmod it's very handy to be able to numerically convert the value of crit into ap based on the stat's effect on final dps output. We all know that the more ap you get the more 1% crit is worth, I would just love to see this in a "With your current gear, another 1% Crit is worth X AP" equation.

2) Mp5 - what do I need??
This is more of a personal interest I don't know how many people do this. I've noticed you've built a rather nice part into the Shot Rotation part of the spreadsheet which breaks down your mana useage and time-to-oom etc. The only thing is, it doesn't account for mana pots (or more accurately, for me, Fel Mana pots). Fel Mana pots are 133mp5 +/- for example. After playing around with some figures I managed to work out that in 10mins of spamming the rotation calculated in the Shot Rotation sheet I would still need around 100 extra mp5. Basically, it would be nice to have a table where you could work out how much mp5 you would need in a fight with X seconds, with X pot, +/- Viper aspect etc etc.

3) Serpent Sting
I know serpent sting is a bit crap and all that but I do have an elemental dps shammy in my raid who likes to keep his debuff up which does make serpent sting a worthwhile cast instead of a steady shot somewhere in the rotation. Would be nice to be able to factor it into the calculations.

The password would however still be useful for being able to manual play with the numbers here and there.

I will take your ideas under consideration, but realize that somethings which sound easy (such as Ap/crit ratios) are actually a fuckton of work to implement. I try and add requested features as my availability to put the time in is available.

1 - I most likely will not be putting in the Ap/crit calculator, because it requires my doing 3 sets of all equations. 1 for the current gear, 1 for some extra amount of AP, and 1 for some extra amount of crit. That is 3 times as much that can have a bug, and 3 times as much effort to maintain. You can always hand adjust in extra AP or crit rating on the gear page (blue cells) and see the result easily enough.

2 - You can hand code in +133 mp5 on the gear page and see how that effects you time to OOM.

3 - Is the Shaman buff enough to make Serpent Sting worth a GCD or the mana? I can add the shot in as a straight damage with a cooldown equal to the total time the DOT lasts easily enough. I'll try and get that into the next version. I once did some work to incorporate the "ticks" into the shot rotation, but it's not worth all the effort. Everything in the sheet assumes infinite length combat, this should too.

I do not, and will not provide the password. Ever. This is my work, and I know that any versions people have are done by me. My name and a good deal of my reputation in the Hunter community is tied up in this spreadsheet. I do not what variant versions of questionable quality (no offense, but I don't know you) floating around. I have also devoted almost 1000 hours of my personal time to develop this. If my protecting the intellectual property and version control are too annoying for you, don't use it.

No. To test this you can look at the spreadsheet and the Serpent Sting tooltip. Even if you literally took off all your gear except weapon, Steady shot would still do nearly as much damage as Serpent Sting for less than half the mana. That's how bad Serpent Sting sucks.

Just to recomment what I just wrote...

It may not be worth a GCD or the mana when you have either Steady/Multi/Arcane available. But somewhere in the rotation you will find that you get about 1sec which ticks over an Auto cast (this will happen when both Arcane and Multi are on cd) which could be more efficiently used with a serpent sting.

YES it is a lot of mana but at the same time I'm trying to nuke, I'm not trying to save mana. Can talk about mana once the maxdps equation is figured. Also, with Stormstrike activated (a common dps shammy talent) Serpent Sting does just under 800dot.

The original one wasn't locked

Could you add [Insidious Bands], and "Scroll of Agility V" to the spreadsheet?
I've tested the agility scroll, and it stacks with battle elixir + food + raid buffs.

It seems odd to me to hear talk about whether a shot is worth the mana or not. Mana is something that is renewable and totally replacable by the use of potions/oils. Surely if people are willing and able, to go to extroardinary amounts of effort, to simulate the potential of the hunter class, then they should be willing and able to go to that extra effort in game to maximise their potential. The best way I have found is to spec Herbalism. With minimal effort I have Fel Mana Pots by the dozen.

As I read more and more about AEP and people views of how to represent it, it seems more and more obvious to me how we should be approaching things. We're a DPS class and will always be compared to the rogues/mages/locks out there. When we fire a shot, there are only five factors that determine how hard it hits. Weapon Damage, Ammo, Attack Power, Crit Rating and Hit Rating. We should also include Haste in this, as if we fire one shot, we're probably going to fire a second.

If people are willing to put as much effort into providing endless mana in the way of potions (which isn't that hard), doesn't this open up a lot more potential? and allow us to solely focus on what matters the most ..... DPS?

Or maybe I'm talking nonsense. I'm kinda new to all this theorycrafting business

I'd be more concerned about what you're replacing in order to fire Serpent Sting. For Beast Master Hunters, you'll probably more often than not have better / more damaging abilitites at your disposal, while Marksman / Survival Hunters might have some time now and again to throw it up there, due to having more 'dead time' between shots.

I think mana potion use is pretty much a given since 2.0. I agree with you that it's important, but I don't think serious DPS hunters are ignoring it by making spreadsheets

Also, proactively using Fel Mana potions does not supply one with "endless mana". 3200 mana / 120 sec cooldown = 133 mp5, or 26.6 mana per second. I usually use much, much more than 26.6 mana per second.

If we had to wait till zero mana to use a potion, you'd have a point. Thankfully we can use them the second that our mana is low enough so that we can gain the full benefit. With mana oils, int/spirit buffs ,not to mention sh.priests and mana totems, blessings, guardian elixirs and the correct usage of potions. We've also got efficiency and Thrill of the Hunt there, if we find we're struggling after all that.

With all this access to 'free mana', I find it odd that so many hunters opt for int-heavy mail armours, when there are outstanding leather armours that are swimming with Agility and Attack Power out there. They typically have more stamina too, which is also nice. Armour rating is of absolutely no use to us at all(unless we pvp) and should be disregarded, in my opinion.

With SV spec and 2.9 bow I have time for extras. Next Serpent Spine Bow is mine so even "more" slack time inc.

I use those free times for mark / mend / pot / scorpid sting if possible. Largely depends on lag that night and situation of course.

auto
steady+multi
auto
steady
auto
steady+arcane
auto
steady
auto
steady+free
auto

This is kinda idea behind my rotation and would produce 11shots/10seconds if perfect while in reality its more like 10/10 or 9/10 looking at my WWS logs.

At time of that steady+free you get MS cooled down but sometimes not quite yet and its safer to do something else. Next combo (after +free) would indicate steady+multi but at same time you have arcane cooled down and you just had "specials duo" so its safer to go for arcane... chaos rotation (explained later)

There are 2 steady shots in upper model without special there in and they act as GDC dampener after dual specials, only thing I can imagine putting there is KC witch I intend to try.

Fubar rotation (to show why no dual specials):

0.0 Auto
0.2 Steady Cast (0.2 lag)
1.5 Steady Fire
1.9 Multi Cast (0.2 lag and 1.5 GDC starts)
2.5 Multi Fired (0.5 auto cast begins)
3.0 Auto
*0.4 of GDC transfers in next part

Results in: (starting each part with 0.0 for easier comparison)
0.0 Auto (or 3.0 if you wish)
0.6 Steady Cast
1.9 Steady Fire
2.3 Specaial (serpent, arcane, scorpid)
2.8 Auto
*1.0 GDC transfers in next part = bad

Result: (steady+multi here would be disaster)
0.0 Auto (or 5.8)
1.2 Steady Cast
2.5 Steady Fire
3.0 Auto
*0.0 GDC transfers in next part

First batch of shots is good, second is also good but price is third that completely sux... except if you replace steady with instant (serpent/scorpid/arcane) witch I sometimes do because of poor GDC management and auto fires at 2.54 then with clear GDC on next batch where you have "Steady+free" time till CDs come up again.
- This is one part where its possible to replace steady with sting.

Try to avoid "steady+GDC, auto, steady+multi". With extra GDC move besides Arcane, Steady, Multi this might mean managing dual specials+GDCs with extreme precision (due CDs being ready more than you can probably handle)
And because Steady+Multi takes ~2.2 seconds (0.2+1.3+0.2+0.5) and is not generous for having GDC lock on start of its auto shot from previous special. (needs clear GDC at start to work)

Dead time is rare due GDCs and fast CDs, but I dare to say that with 2.9 weapon i have managed to pull 1 extra instant shot/move each ~20sec. (scorpid sting duty). Its time when i have both Arcane and Multi on "same" CD. (producing 2x auto,steady, auto in a row).
- This is second part where its doable

**
Can anyone please convince me going on 1:1 rotation and stack haste after entering BT?
Or try and find issues/improvements in this rotation I have set up.

Mana considerations aside, serpent sting is a waste of the GCD 99.9% of the time.

As to why we wear mail, because that is our gear niche. If the hunter mail is designed so poorly that we would rather wear rogue leather we should be bugging designers to change it. Jumping into other classes loot will create unnecessary drama. It also takes any flexibility out of your group/raid setup and cuts what you can do outside of raid time.

Excluding the shadow priest with all of those other things it is still very possible for an SV/MM hunter to run out of mana before the end of the fight. Maybe a resto shaman w/ tide would also be enough to push you into the "infinite" mana realm too if the timing of the tides was done right. Regardless, using full consumables I still have to switch to viper or drop to a lower special-count rotation while waiting on mana pots on the longer boss fights.

Check out my spreadsheet (here) if you want quick comparisons of damage gains from rap vs crit (be sure to input your current values so it reflects your valuation instead of mine ).

This is the single biggest obsticle I'm finding right now. Rogues and droods still get upset when I want to need on leather drops, despite me repeatedly passing on epic mail items.

For example, the two Kara gloves that we like are Gloves of Dextrous Manipulation and Gloves of Quickening. Now, any hunter with half a brain should prefer the former by a mile, but convincing a raid of that is very hard. All people see is leather=rogue loot. We're being made to settle for sub-standard gear by blizzard.

I realise that I've drawn the thread OT and I'll cease the conversation there. My apologies

[Veteran's Chain Bracers] 's socket bonus of +2 Resilience is not being applied (not a big deal I'll admit, but I figure you want to hear of any bugs)

EDIT:
[Merciless Gladiator's Crossbow of the Phoenix]'s crit rating should be 15 not 13

[Pristine Fire Opal] is listed as having 10 stam and 4 hit rating, when it actually grants 10AP and 4 hit rating.

Cheeky, is there a way to see DST uptime/calculations?

Not yet. I don't have good ppm values for the trinket. Get me one and I should be able to generate rough approximations pretty quickly. I'm hoping to get some information on that trinket in the spreadsheet soon, at least a table of different attack speeds that can be seen with it, and combined with Quick Shots.

Soon as I get it to drop I'll get whatever information I can ><