I ran every race through FD to get some data.

Parameters for the test were; Naked, except Amber Messenger as a ranged weapon (it was the 1st one on the list)and a pet Core Hound. Both Pet and Hunter spec were copy-pastes of the suggested in this thread.

Results:


Separated Alliance and Horde with boxes. I underlined highest per Alliance and Horde in green.

As you can see Orcs were the only ones to break 2700 dps, pulling about 100 more dps than the next closest race. I realize dwarves get a racial from guns and the weapon tested was a bow. Now that might put the dwarves over draeinai, the real winner is still Orcs.

This is maybe a stupid question, but with my actual blue gear :

- AS does 6150 damage, 17% crit. Proc Cobra strikes and Sic' Em ! Don't depend on my pet position. With glyph and talent, it costs 22 focus.

- KC does 8500 damage, 55% crit with Killing Streak include. Depend on my pet position. Cost 37 focus without proc, 27 with proc.

So : with low crit rate, why use KC over AS ?

On a dummy, I do more damage without KC.

I have a theory about the pet talent Wild Hunt that may be germane to this discussion. Basically the talent increases [Bite] damage by 120% at the cost of double focus cost. To me this says dpf increase.

The question then becomes how can I work it out so that I don't WASTE focus though when [Bite] is going to cost 50 focus and still use it enough that it's a dps increase. I believe that by macroing it to Kill Command (and taking it off autocast) you can create a scenario where it will be used with the damage increase of Wild Hunt without going over the focus limit.

Please note that the small amount of testing I have done was at level 80 with avg ilvl 232. Also note that if only one point is taken in Wild Hunt then this is not going to work because it depends on a 50 focus cost [Bite] ability.

If anyone else would like to test this and confirm or correct my theory I'll be checking in.

Also, the macro I'm using for this is:
#showtooltip
/cast [target=pettarget] Kill Command
/cast [pet, target=pettarget] Bite

One of the best things about this macro is that if your pet is ever getting close to the focus cap you can still press it again to dump some focus and still be able to use Kill Command on the next cooldown. You'll just have to press it once more within 2 seconds after that Kill Command to get it back on track to be cast together. Having both cast together also makes it a fairly big burst of damage which is always useful.

ps [Bite] = Bite, Smack, Claw, etc.

Macroing bite to KC reduces the amount of bites to half. Instead of being cast every 3 seconds you cast them every 6 seconds. This costs you frenzy on the pet, which costs you focus fire speed on yourself. It also reduces the effect of Cobra Strikes, and roughly halves the effect of Invigoration. So you are reducing your own haste thereby reducing your passive focus regen. You are reducing your active focus regen through invigoration.
All this is given up for a very very slight buff of 10% more damage to Bite - 2 Bites = 200% Bited damage or 100% every 3 seconds, 1 "big" Bite is 220% damage every 6 seconds, or 110% damage every 3 seconds.
Just to make sure you are reading the talente Wild Hunt correctly I will quote it here;
Wild Hunt does not need more focus for the pet to cast bite, it is just a passive increase when the pet is running high on focus, and you will not be gaining any significant damage by macroing it to KC even if got the full WH benefit on every bite as opposed to every 3rd or 4th bite (which is what I'm shwoing on the stat derivation model)

First off, on a dummy you are not raidbuffed, and your target is not raid debuffed.
Secondly; Kill command does (849 + (RAP * 0.43)) damage, while Arcane Shot causes 100% weapon damage plus (RAP * 0.042)+252. This means that, eliminating weapon damage for a second, KC does 1% RAP + 597 damage more than arcane shot. So for KC to do more damage 1% RAP + 597 > Weapon Damage. This means that changing your ranged weapon out fast will favor arcane - if your weapon is of a "higher level" than the rest of your gear AS will benefit more, as the RAP is derived from all your gear while weapon damage is derived solely from your weapon. This also means that any buff that increases your RAP (like Kings, Might, SoE) will favor KC.
Now back to your question;
Arcane shot does 6150 damage and has 17% crit. This means the average damage from Arcane shot (crit and non-crit) is 7195.5 (excluding cirt damage increasing meta etc). Kill Command does 8500 damage and has 55% crit (I'm not sure why you 'include' Killing Streak, as KS does not increase crit, but damage after 2 consecutive crits). Thismeans the average damage from KC is 13175 or 183% of Arcane Shot (and that is a glyphed arcane from what you are writing). We will assume glyph for KC (as per the first post in this thread), so the focus cost for KC is 37, for AS 22, that means the focus cost of KC is 168% of AS, while doing 183% damage of AS - with your gear. The DPF - with your damage examples - is 327 dpf for AS and 356 dpf for KC - excluding Killing Streak proc.

Now to illustrate the way this changes, I will provide the numbers from the stat derivation model from the first post (fully raid buffed and with active meta);
AS - avg hit 9602, avg crit 19781, crit% 36
KC - avg hit 13679, avg crit 27358, crit% 56.5
The average hit for AS is 13266.44, the average hit for KC is 21407.64.
Finally, one very important point, to exceed the damage of KC with AS you need to use AS twice, doubling the time, and thus costing dps.
DPF, on your gear, KC is better, on the stat derivation AS is slightly better - but realistically we have to take into account that 1 second of a CoS we can fire together with the KC to make up for the extra 1 second spent casting arcane Shot to exceed the damage done by KC - which on the stat detivation model (where AS beats KC) comes out to 6.77 focus at an average casttime of 1.33 seconds. Taking the focus regen into account the DPF for KC on the SDM comes out to 708, opposed to the AS 603.
DPS/DPCT, on both models, KC is a clear winner (we are only talking about that 1 gcd where you can use KC out of 6).

So I have Surv Spec as my main and BM with my Spirit Beast as my back up. Has anyone else felt like they have had to use their spirit beast healing to keep themselves alive because of healer mana issues? I am pulling anywhere from 10-14k on fights as Surv, but the number of fights I am practically left for dead is to numerous. I leveled up as BM with my Spirit Beast and I think I noticed almost instantly when I respeced my MM spec to Surv how much of a crutch my pets healing was for me. It might not be as much damage, but I would say that for the average hunter who pugs his heroics that if they have a spirit beast then a BM spec would be the best spec to play in the majority of situations.

The vast majority of heroic damage can be avoided, at the very least to bring it down to a level easily managable for the healer. In my experience I have found that as long as I've kept up any relevant CC, avoided standing in anything nasty, and either stacked or spread where appropriate, I take very little damage. Don't forget to fully utilise MD and Tranq shot to enhance this further. Clicking lightwells and standing in the relevant green/blue circles is also of importance!

Is froststorm breath still a cone AoE? I messed around with a chimera in 4.01, but it's breath generally seemed to miss half of the mobs I was trying to AoE, and trying to line up the pet to cone mobs properly seemed like a lot more trouble than it's worth.

I sourced my list from pet/Raid Buffs @ WHU

Here was my goto list of hansome looking pets I chose to fill in the blanks, your welcome to utilize it it leans toward SV usable types.
The pet(s) you choose for your encounter will depend on 3 main factors
1. Composition of the Party: Is it Melee or Caster heavy. For example say a large portion of the DPS is using bleed type damage, in that case maybe a Hyena with a bleed damage buff will be the best.
2. Boss Type: Is this a boss that is Melee or Caster Based. For example you have a boss that does allot of spell AOE, you can bring a pet with spell damage reduction and help the healers
3. What other buffs are already being brought by other party members. This will be the more difficult factor for most to determine, unless you are an expert on every class and know what they are casting. A raid leader will be a good resource to help sort and determine which pet buff you should supply.

Another good point to be aware of is raid pre-preparation. If you know the bosses you are going to face on an encounter you can stack your available pets with one tailored to each fight.

I’ll probably roll with some standard config like 3 + Damage and 1 Spell Debuff and 1 Melee Debuff

One tip:
I plan to name each of these pets a shorthand description of the buff type they have to make selection and tracking easier. It will also let other raid members know and track which buff

There's an addon that tells you which buffs your group should have.

RaidComp - Addons - Curse

I use that on my Hunter. In heroics it isn't too hard to tell which buffs are present and which are missing, but in 10-man raids it'll end up being more useful.

Ok I have a question. Would steady shot actually be better than Cobra Shot? Because you can get a Glyph of Steady Shot as well as spec for extra speed with steady (at 85, 2nd tier of Marks: Improved Steady Shot) while Cobra Shot has next to nothing buffing it up. Experimenting with it myself, I was wondering if anybody else has tested this?

Can you add section for reforging please, because apparently many hunters thinking that reforging is something like enchants and they have to do it on every slot of their gear, at the end they find themselves whatever the reforged stat in one of their gear slot they are reforging it back in another slot.
So basically (correct me if I’m wrong) we are supposed to
-gem all red and blue with [Delicate Inferno Ruby], yellow with [Adept Ember Topaz].