This is pretty much what I do if you look at the rotation section of the OP, except that I do it for all 4 phases of the fight - CA, standard, Term, and KS phases, and I do it with trying out various shot selection choices with accounting for focus usage so that I can try to balance it out over time (a balance rotation may require a mixture of 2 different cycles to balance focus usage - the max DPS cycle and a focus regen cycle with the difference between them usually being a SS). I had a nice spreadsheet made up that modeled all of the reasonable choices with taking into account various glyphs as well with all I had to do was get average shot damage numbers from FD and plug them in to see what rotations/glyphs were best at different gearings.

The problem is that this spreadsheet was created with AS as the focus dump instead of AI, and it is taking me a while (with being busy at the moment) to retool it. Once that is done, I will update the rotation section with taking into account inputs from the community, such as yours.

Edit: I just finally had the time to read your post fully, and there is one major problem with your analysis. It uses 2.4s instead of 2.9s as the base AI cast time. Thus, your results are going to be off what you can actually implement.

Edit: Delete please. That's what I get for reading MMO.

It was 2.9s on the PTR as well and that is how it's been implemented in SimCraft for several weeks now. If anyone has concrete numbers on Aimed Shot damage that they can post along with your AP and whether or not you had Hunter's Mark up or any other debuffs were on the dummy that would be quite helpful. If not I'll run the test when I get home from work in ~3 hrs and put the results here. I believe we'll be pushing a 4.0.6 release of SimCraft shortly after Aimed Shot damage is confirmed.

No debuffs on the target, level 85 training dummy. No Hunter's mark.


RAP: 829 (naked +Themios)

04:29:33, Drall's Aimed Shot hits Training Dummy for 1 Physical.(5259 Overkill)
04:29:51, Drall's Aimed Shot hits Training Dummy for 1 Physical.(4701 Overkill)
04:31:05, Drall's Aimed Shot hits Training Dummy for 1 Physical.(4837 Overkill)

a few non crits.

Recount info:

Aimed Shot Crit 8, Avg 9408, Max 10546.

Was able to get some more 1 on 1 time with the dummy without it being debuffed.

Aimed Shot Test 2

Type Avg Max Count

Hit 4943 5468 11

Crit 9285 12278 9

Hope that's helpful.

Edit: The later test with gear on suggests this conclusion was wrong.

Also consider you lose out on auto shot damage while casting aim shot?

Full gear, no pet, 11788 AP with Hawk up.

Aimed Shot

Type Min Avg Max Count

Crit 38021 39978 42005 17

hit 19268 19613 19972 3

Aimed Shot!

Type Min Avg Max Count

Crit 39747 41425 43988 3

A few posts back I had some preliminary quick analysis of the a couple possible rotation options for those with the T11 4-set bonus. For those like myself that do not have the T11 4-set yet, here is the corresponding analysis:

The first is the case with in a 10s CS rotation doing 1 CS, 1 hardcast AI, 4 SSs, and then either a 5th SS or a MMM AI proc.

4 steady, one hard cast AiS, one instant AiS.
4*2.0/1.15/1.1/x+2.9/1.15/1.1/x=8 (9 seconds between CS, because of the CS GCD, minus instant cast GCD)
6.324+2.292=8x
x=1.077

5 steady, one hard cast AiS:
5*2.0/1.15/1.1/x+2.4/1.15/1.1/x=9 (9 seconds between CS, because of the CS GCD).
7.905+2.292=9x
x=1.133

which is 7.7% and 13.3% haste including Pathing, which doesn't sacrificing too much crit and mastery to accomplish, although it will sacrifice a decent amount. Note that this 7.7% to 13.3% range has a nice overlap with the previous 5.4% to 12.9% range we have for a 1.5s SS cast to a 1s SS cast during RF. Thus, it has a lot synergy. At these values the SS and AI casts are at (with not including any additional focus from the AI glyph):
07.7%: SS = 1.468s, AI = 2.129s with focus cost of 94 and focus regen of about 90.5 so a net of -0.35 fps
13.3%: SS = 1.395s, AI = 2.023s with focus cost of 94 and focus regen of about 93.3 so a net of -0.07 fps

With including the effects of the AI glyph with assuming at least a 33.3% AI crit rate when not in the CA phase and assuming 3 AIs every 2 cycles (2 hardcast and 1 MMM proc), that is 5 focus saved every 20s or 0.25 fps. Thus, you are only short -0.1 fps in the lower end and focus positive in the higher end. So even at that low crit rate, you only need about 9.6% haste to be focus positive. The ideal here from a haste perspective is to be as close to the 13.3% haste from gear and Pathing as you can be without giving up too many stats in crit and mastery.

Hence, with 3/3 Pathing, this means that you need between about 4.56% and 10% haste from gear or about 584 to 1280 haste rating with at least about 772 to be focus balanced with the AI glyph.

I am not listing an analysis for trying to add an extra SS into the rotation since it just is not feasible for people who do not have the gear to support the 4-set bonus since it requires 27.5% to 30.9% haste from gear and Pathing.

That doesn't differ too much from loading your profile into FD (which at the time of testing still uses 1.448 as RAP-coefficient for AiS).

Settings:
- No pet
- No raid buffs/debuffs
- Rotation limited to SS and AiS

Shot Breakdown	Cooldown	Focus	FPS	Damage	Frequency	#	DPS	% Dmg	Avg Non-Crit	Avg Crit	Crit Rate
Aimed Shot	0.00	50	8.17	28846	4.92	61	5865.32	54.7%	20044	41290	41.43%
Steady Shot	0.00	0	3.09	5310	2.91	103	1822.96	17%	3737	7698	39.71%

Possibly a silly question since I haven't managed to log in yet to see how auto behaves, but can all these analyses keep analyzing just our spells without including autoshots? The more full aimed shots we cast, the more autoshots we delay don't we? Depending on whether autoswing just pauses during the aimed cast (like during a warrior Slam), resets during it (like switching a weapon), or is just suspended from firing but still ticks up to firing point (like in vanilla/BC) a rotation that fires aimed 0.1s later than another could have significantly different autoshot DPS while having similar special ability DPS. Is there a justification for ignoring it in the static analysis above?

Getting the same results in SimCraft using the 1.44 PTR coefficient. Looks like it wasn't changed after all.

An opening rotation consisting of Serpent Sting, Steady Shot x2, AiS, and then Cobra Shot to refresh the sting (with AiS being the primary shot) provides a substantial dps increase over using the standard Chimera Shot and AiS dump rotation while in Careful Aim range. A simple dummy test with both rotations shows an approximate 1-2k Dps difference. Once out of Careful Aim range, you revert back to the original rotation of Chimera Shot with AiS as a focus dump, and then when under haste effect again you use AiS as the primary shot (Chimera becomes the refresher of SS). I may be missing something, but it definitely appears that using Cobra Shot over Chimera Shot in Careful Aim range is the way to go at this time.

Bug found:

When MMM reaches 5 stacks, the free, instant AiS procs with a slight delay. When the proc occurs during your hard cast AiS, both the casting AiS and the ensuing instant AiS cost NO FOCUS!

Until this gets fixed, we should definitely try to take advantage of this by always following an SS with an AiS at 4 stacks of MMM, regardless of ISS buff.

Any thoughts on how to actually model for this situation?

You can't realistically cast an AiS after every Steady when you're at 4 stacks. RNG means you might not get the 5th proc for 5-10 seconds, meaning you'd be losing ISS uptime & delaying Chimera. IMO, just consider it a bonus to DPS when it happens.

Anyways, I wouldn't count on this being live for too long. 2 free AiS (one instant), followed by a full focus bar worth of shots in PvP is insane burst, similar to S6 Destruction, which was nerfed in 24 hours.

I´m seeing consistent results, Aimed does the PTR/FD damage, the master marksman bug can be insane. Using prepot I can sustain 40-45k DPS during the first 30-40 secs on the boss dummy. 22-25k sustained over 5 mins while the target is above 80% health. Can´t wait to test this on raid.

Can you post a combatlog/worldoflogs/wowmeteronline of this 45k dps you're getting? I haven't been able to get close to that.

Use WoL and you can see data over time.
Or you could just upload your combatlog.txt somewhere for us and we can analyze it as well.

Edit: Or you could upload an image of the recount dps over time graph as well.

I'm not able to sustain 22k+ dps over 5 minutes on the >80% target dummy solo and self-buffed, so if you're able to do that, it'll be worth my while to study your log.

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Here it is.

That was the less crowded dummy I could find. The only debuff present was CoE, not big deal.
the discrepance between efective dps and DPS is the time from writing /combatlog to start attacking, and from stop attacking to write it again (obvious). The highest DPS on recount was 36k this time, after the 1º RF. RNG didnt favour me this time that much. Any way, 22k+ dps as you can see

My average values seem to be very close to yours, however your doing about 2k dps more and your pet is doing 200dps more.
Would you mind sharing the rotation you used?

I´m opening with my CDS, followed by 2 AiS. SS to regain focus and again AiS. I´m not using neither SrS/CS during RF, only SS+AiS. after that, the "standard" rotation. AiS whenever its possible, and CS to Refresh SrS. What I try to do is to force the MMM bug, I do SS in pairs, and after reaching 3 MMM stacks, I do SS until the fourth stack. When I reach it, I shoot one more SS followed by an AiS. That way you have always a 60% chance to retain the 50 focus cost. Glyphs are RF, SS, and AiS

My pet has 2/2 WH. Also I´ve removed as much mastery as I could, reforging it all to crit or haste if the piece already had crit. I am at 11.3% haste (1150 rating).

Anyway, I wouldn´t give too much credit to those numbers, as said, they´re are very anecdotal and Boss fights may differ a lot.

I'm curious about Pathing here. I'm only able to drop my Haste to a rating of 523, which puts me well over 4.4% with 3/3 Pathing. Since I'm 2/3 OwN and 2/3 Frenzy, would it make sense to drop points in Pathing and fill out those talents to get closer to the 4.4% Haste? I'm not sure what values Haste is going to have after that 4.4%, thoughts?

EDIT: Even femaledwarf shows a DPS increase with those changes (and my gear). It makes sense, but is a little surprising given how it has been treating Haste lately.
EDIT2: Going to 0/3 Pathing and leaving 1 piece of gear not reforged puts me at 4.5% Haste, but I'm left with nowhere to put 1 talent point. FD also shows this as a DPS loss (I put 1 point in Imp. SrS), but with 1/3 Pathing it was also showing Haste at 6 DPS per point, which I can only chalk up to FD being FD.