The point of this article is maximizing your damage output, not minimizing your expenditures.

In that case, [Formula: Enchant Weapon - Greater Savagery] should be removed. You wouldn't put Massacre on a 2h you plan to upgrade soon, and likewise, you wouldn't put Accuracy on a 1h you plan to upgrade soon.

Just want to mention that there are some WotLK mobs that are immune to fire damage (as mentioned regarding Explosive Shot) namely fire elementals in Ahn'kahet and Ulduar. (trash mobs before General Vezax)

Both parts of Chimera Shot are nature damage and I would rephrase the Serpent Sting part to "is based on the damage Serpent Sting does over it's full duration." except if you know it explicitly calculates the damage over 21s even without the glyph. (just a matter of wording but this might keep the fact accurate through possible changes)

As of 3.1.3 Improved Hunter's Mark is better than other filler talents like Improved Barrage or Improved Steady Shot even for your personal DPS, while the glyph isn't worthwhile with less than 3 hunter's in the raid. (Exact numbers have to be checked with the spreadsheet)

Master Marksman now solved the MM mana issues due to the 3.1.3 changes.

Rapid Recuperation is disputed as of 3.1.3 because the mana isn't necessarily needed anymore, before it was a key mana management for MM in longer bossfights.

T.N.T. 6% damage increase to the shot that does 35%-45% of the hunter's damage is more than a good filler I think.
While Lock and Load though having the potential for a big DPS boost is often doubted because of it's unreliable RNG effect.

Professions:
Jewelcrafting can give 33 agility instead of 66 AP too. (just because you mentioned the choice with blacksmithing)
Engineering gives Nitro Boosts to boots (16 crit rating and 2s runspeed increase at 3min CD), Hyperspeed Accelerators (340haste for 10s at 1min CD) or Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket (fire damage every 45s) to gloves.
Tailoring has Swordguard Embroidery (300AP for 15s proc at 45s ICD) to cloaks.


I hope this was helpful and I didn't push things to hard.

Great work so far Garby. I'll try to summarize some of the recent extensive theorycrafting regarding the viability of Armor Penetration especially with the increasing availability of ArPen gear for you to add.

Basically, for MM Hunters, once the static (non-proc) value of ArPen reaches approximately 650 (including ArPen from gems), ArPen has the possibility of outweighing Agility as the stat that most contributes to dps. Those with on-proc ArPen trinkets such as [Mjolnir Runestone] would see this threshold much earlier, around the 550 ArPen range.

Theorycrafting shows that MM Hunters at this threshold would procede to spec out of Imp Arcane Shot in favor of Imp Steady Shot and Imp Barrage and subsequently completely remove Arcane Shot from their shot priority for a net dps increase. This would result in an MM Hunter Shot rotation of: Chimera Shot, Aimed Shot, Steady Shot x 3(or 4 depending on Haste)

The theorycrafting for ArPen geared MM Hunters also shows the increased value of the Imp Aspect of the Hawk and Steady Shot glyphs over that of the Kill Shot glyph currently described as the best min/max glyph. This also means that it may be best to mention ArPen gems as possible BIS once you're able to achieve the respective thresholds.

The ArPen theorycrafting has only been "proven" as increased dps for MM specced Hunters. You may also wish to add a caveat that while theorycrafting shows ArPen as ideal at the thresholds mentioned above, the theorycrafting is based on a standard stand-and-shoot fight where one is able to execute shots optimally - not something that is true for most RNG based movement-requiring boss fights. Also, the difference between DPS from 1 Agi and DPS from 1 ArPen at these thresholds is still quite small but increases quite fast the more ArPen you have.

Edit:
I would also like to add that Shandara's Spreadsheet has been updated with the ability to model waiting for a better shot. It's possible for users to set this wait time in the spreadsheet.

The "Enchant Weapon - Superior Potency" is omitted, provides 65 AP to a weapon.

I am a new hunter, and have never dealt with shot rotations, so perhaps that is why I didn't understand this comment:
"Shot macros have moved from a sequence system favoring macros to a first come, first serve sequence that is harmed by their use. Macros are now simply a crutch for lazy or poor players, and this section will not list them."

Explaining why macros are out now (why is a first come first serve sequence better? What is meant by that?) would probably be helpful for others like me, who are coming across this class never having played it pre-3.1

What has changed to make a more dynamic approach to shot rotations better than a set, macroed sequence?

For 1 Handed weapon, you should replace [Enchant Weapon - Greater Potency] with [Formula: Enchant Weapon - Superior Potency]

Just wondering if anyone have the exact dps value of the stats we benefit from as hunters?
Ex:
Agi: 2.69
ArP: 2.70
AtP: 2.1:
Int: 1.1

These are just examples ofc.
Would really apreciate if someone had a list of these, so i could finally configure my Pawn addOn.
if you could possibly list them for Surv, MarksMan and possibly Beast Mastery, i would be a very happy hunter

Not possible. The value of each stat constantly changes with each piece of gear you acquire.

Suggest you download the spreadsheet and plug in yourself, or use Rawr.

If this is still being maintained:

As of 10/27/09, Marked for Death provides the benefit of having Glyph of Steady Shot, without glyphing for it. That is, without the glyph, a target debuffed with your serpent sting will take 10% more damage from your steady shots.

Another excellent post I'd like to see included here would be this post on armor penetration in 3.2. It'd clean up a lot of the posts in the hunter forums about armor penetration.

With the 3.2 changes to engineering it is important to include the benefits this profession applies to hunters.

Cloak: Flexweave Underlay gives +23 agility.
Gloves:
1) Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket for a 1654-2020 critable single damage attack with no GCD every 45 seconds.
2) Hyperspeed Accelerators for 340 haste for 12 seconds out of every 60.
Boots: Nitro Boosts for +24 critical strike rating.

The selection of 3 tinkers you can apply I would argue are significant improvement over alternative enchants. The debate over using Hyperspeed Accelerators or a Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket is also one that I have still not seen settled.

Dragon's Eye gems are listed as prismatic, which they aren't anymore.

The "An Overview of Shots" section lists Chimera Shot as doing physical damage and nature damage on the Serpent Sting effect, when in fact both parts do nature damage.

I must agree with Tolmandary here. I have been finding that the hand mounted rockets are super useful if running low on mana. In addition to the gear perks the benefits I have found that Jeeves/Moll-E are always a welcome site if a run has started to go bad and people need bag space or a need to repair.

I know you might not want to open the whole ArP can of worms, but you may want to mention that it scales exponentially, so its importance varies significantly based on how much of it one has.

Some Minor corrections:
1) please remove all AP related gems from the MM section. There is no situation where an MM hunter would benefit more from AP than Agility. Suggestion: replace the straight AP gems with their ArPen equivalents

2) Gems section needs to be cleaned up. Several dead links, several missing links

3) Mention [Glyph of Aimed Shot](Glyph of Aimed Shot) in the glyphs section under MM; this glyph will handily beat SS on movement fights.

4) Mention [Glyph of Trueshot Aura] in the glyphs section under MM; while I don't personally use it, it is certainly a viable option (provided a /cancelaura macro is used)

5) Link for [Eternal Belt Buckle] in the "Enchantments" section is dead.

6) Suggestion: add the temporary buffs to the professions section ([Drums of the Wild] and [Drums of Forgotten Kings] for LW, [Runescroll of Fortitude] for Inscription) In a min/max 25-man raid these buffs are irrelevant, but in a 10-man these definetly have some impact on party composition.

7) Under the rotations section (MM only), put in a note that depending on your ArmPen, it may be a DPS increase to replace Arcane with Aimed, or drop Arcane altogether.

8) For the stat values section, make a note that ArmPen is superior to crit for MM hunters.

I believe you need to split up your stat priorities list for each spec. Yes, for Surv, Agi > Crit > ArP > AP(since ArP doesn't affect 45% of your damage - ES/SrS). But for MM it would be Agi > ArP > Crit > AP, since you have a lot of data 'based on the spreadsheet.' The spreadsheet shows ArP > Agi once you surpass a certain amount of passive ArP. This is currently the most debated part of gearing any hunter and should/needs to be addressed more in depth.

Secondly, the last 20% on the spreadsheet is modelled at the same length of time as the first 20% of the fight. Look at all the execute classes there are that will explode their Damage Output in the last 20%. This is THE quickest part of the fight not matter how you look at it (with the exception of course being Anub'arak) and Kill Shot can not be taken at face value from the Spreadsheet. In my armory import on the online spreadsheet I have Chimera Shot giving me an 82 DPS bonus over Kill Shot (I plugged in 90ms since that's what I raid at).

Third, the 'Gem' section needs to be updated for marksmanship. Delicate Cardinal Ruby will be the only red gem they should use, and no hunter should ever, EVER, gem for haste. Haste should be avoided like a fat chick at a bar. Yellow slots (with a +Agi bonus only, otherwise put in red) should be filled with Deadly Ametrines only, unless of course, under the hit cap fully talented.

Hello I am not a nub hunter by any means but there are a few thing i wish you would clarify. Like soft and hard caps for crit,haste and arm pen.when do you stop working on crit to improve a lower stat like arm pen ect. At this point i have a little less than 60% crit unbuffed and im sure that is plenty but i could be wrong.

Hello, I would like to know what would be a good assist macro. I know how to set the MA as my focus. Then I would like to assist him by sending pet, casting mark and casting serpent. I can then continue my rotation.

Thank You in advance.

I tested this, and found this to be incorrect. I was surprised when I initially read it, because I've always Interleaved my ex. shots.

The cooldown for LnL begins as soon as LnL procs, so there is no advantage to firing all the 3 shots consecutively, and even less to leaving dead space between those shots.

To test this I used a frost trap on a training dummy, triggering the LnL, I fired no ex shots, since the LnL buff is 10 seconds, and the CD 22 you'd expect the total time for the next LnL would be 32 seconds, but 24 seconds later, in line with my ice trap CD I dropped one on the dummy again and triggered another LnL.

I also tested this by pacing my ex shots through the 10 seconds, and was again able to trigger another LnL 24 seconds after the LnL proc. There is no correlation between the LnL cooldown, and how the ex shots are used. It's therefore a better management of time to use the next shot in your priority to break up the ex shots, as long as you can use all of them within the 10 second effect timer.

^^ you would want to use the Explosive shot procs up as quickly as possible. By waiting to use the procs, u potentially lose out on explosive shots later. So by firing Explosive shot procs off quickly, (with about .5 sec between to make sure all the ticks are used before the next shot), you can get back to your normal rotation until your next LnL proc.

nvm