Yes, it's possible. There is also the issue of the Orc Racial bonus, as well as Ferocious Inspiration. I'm still playing around with the numbers, and so far the best approximation I've been able to come up with is my original formula, when the pet is Happy. That formula matches every change in AP I've tested. However, once the pet drops down to Content, the formula gets thrown out of whack completely. Either way I'm ok with what I have shown, since I doubt most hunters even care about the numbers if their pet isn't Happy.

Something I tried to look for was taking into account the +spell coefficients that are normally used for casting class DoTs. Instants are assumed to have a 1.5 casting time for purposes of calculation, but I'm at a loss as to what the coefficient should be for an 8-second DoT. All the previous ranks are 10 seconds (of 5 ticks), but the last rank of Scorpid Poison is 8 seconds (of 4 ticks), so I'm not quite sure how the math for it works out.

Most dots get 1/5th of your spell damage on each tic. A 15 second dot with 3 second tics is the baseline.

Have there been any numbers posted about the raid dps value of Cobra Reflexes? I know it speeds up attacks and slightly lowers the damage for each attack (which affects Kill Command), but has there been a final determination on this?

Is CR a no-brainer for a raiding BM hunter?

Its a must really, for more FI.

For instance runs, I usually bring my boar from the "old world". I have him leveled to 70 now, but even when he was 60, he could tank a 65 no problem. With the right group buffs and a sporling snack (go go pet stam ), I can get him to 9k health and almost 13k armor. Shattered Halls becomes a cake walk, as even if the "tank" I have in the group sucks, I can still tank 2 mobs with the boar. And with charge stun, and Indimidate stun, and war stomp, I have 3 ways to get mobs off the healer, until my boar or the group tank can pick it up.

Even in regular grinding, the boar is not too much dps behind my cat, maybe about 10-20 dps or so. But this is easily made up in the fact that im not pulling aggro off of him, and can keep my own dps up.

Now I havent been into kara yet, nor any of the 25 mans, so I would suppose that my boar even with that much health and armor, would still probably get 1-2 shotted in alot of situations. Any thoughts on the viability of the boar being used for instances besides 5 mans?

Best thing about the boar, it will eat ANYTHING. lol. i love asking mages for 3 stacks of bread and 3 stacks of water.

Boars are great for soloing (and charge is nice for some pvp situations). For everything else, I'd take a dps pet (cat, ravager, or wind serpent).

If you're running 5-man groups that depend on your pet's ability to tank, you've got other problems.

PS. Windserpents eat conjured bread too.

Macros are not better than hand-timing your rotation. The macros are effected by lag, since you can anticipate lag you can start your specials a tad early. BM rotations are tighter, so lag is going to effect them more than MM/Survival.

The best hunters will do better dps without a macro, but most of the ones who are having trouble will benefit by using a macro.

The main line for a Steady Shot -> Auto shot macro is this:

/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot,Auto shot

Your old guild made you leave for respecing to BM? Wow.

I can't hardly say that you suffered a loss, since a group that is that narrow minded probably has a number of other factors restricting their growth.

As Cheeky stated, macros are susceptible to latency issues. Furthermore, if you're stacking haste your macro won't help you as much. This because you'll frequently find yourself attacking at variable speed, meaning your macro reset time will be screwed up (there were previous posts in this thread addressing this issue, I recommend flipping back to about page 11-12 and reading those). On top of this, learning to time your shots will simply make you a better player. The macro is handy if you're unfamiliar with timing and you're marks or survival (slower weapons) and still learning things, but ultimately it's a crutch.

Sorry, but you're wrong.

Alot of folks misunderstand the "reset=x" portion.
The reset is the # of seconds of NOT pressing the macro key before it goes back to the start of the castsequence.

Haste effects will not interfer with a simple auto, steady castsequence.

Latency might

Not essentially kicked out as much as ridiculed constantly even though I was #1 DPS quite frequently... and I got an offer from a MUCH better guild.

The only reason I was really considering a macro was because I wasnt sure how fitting in KC was really going to work, could some one elaborate on how they do? Or dont you?

If you are timing your shots manually you can still make a macro for each one that has KC as the beginning lines. You can also save yourself some money by adding in some /equip lines for cheaper ammo.

I assume that if you are BM you will prodominatly be using Auto/Steady and perhaps Multi rotations. If this is the case it would be quite simple to do a: /cast Kill Command /cast Steady Shot macro, this to the best of my knowledge would be the best way to use Kill Command, without taking time or focus out of your rotations.

Are you saying Beann that Steady Shot is not affected by ammo DPS?

Correct.

LAtency is something I hear alot about in terms of effecting our shot rotations, DPS and macros, but i have never had anyone quantify it and say if you have X latency you should adjust in Y manner. Anyone have any wisdom to share on this subject?

Taz

Well i am in the Caribbean and have arounf 400ms or more pretty much constantly. My DPS seems to very wildly using the same technique I will sometimes do great other time my dps wil be in the crapper.

Is there a spec you would consider more forgiving to a high latency hunter?

Taz

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I have to disagree with your conclusion here. I understand your math and I agree with your that "25% to crit, 1 point in BD" will generate the same total focus as can be burned. I disagree that this will result in your pet having enough focus at all times. The regen is simply too bursty and the buffer of focus is too small to look at it as an average.

A double crit with a regen tick can restore 149 focus in half a second or a dry streak can leave your pet generating 12.25 focus per second for some time. Neither of those scenarios are particularly unlikely, and the small buffer means you will be wasting/starved for focus fairly often.

Starving focus on a pet can have a cascade effect of missing skills, dropping frenzy, dropping FI. Bestial discipline is likely better at preventing that than GFTT, simply because it's reliable. I'd be very careful of taking points out of it.

Hmm.. why not try BM with a slow bow? Then you only have to use 1 special per auto, and it should give you plenty of room to work with. My main issue with latency atm is that it's spikey, so I'll get a few rotations in fine, then chain cast 2 autos etc. etc., or spend 5s casting a steady. If your ping's like that, and not a steady 400ms, then I don't think any spec will make the rotation doable.

Yeah i was thinking BM, problem is I think EW has a place in a raid group and as hunter class lead and hunter with highest AGI I see that duty falling to me.

Taz

I don't agree with "best hunters = 0 macro"

As BM with 2.1 speed (2.9 original - sunfury)and using lots of haste effects (troll, kiss, abacus, 3min rapid, imp.hawk), and 50-80ms ping i found myself to be best of with auto-steady macro + manual MS & Arcane.
Though Arcane is slowly getting forgotten.

Manually timing shots seemed "right" but actually i always fired 2-3 shots less in same time frame (5 min) opposed to macro. (did testing without haste effects + hasted later) Hasted results for manual auto - steady were disaster, had maybe 2/10 seemingly perfect runs.

But as MM i don't stand macro at 2.54 speed, im better without and timing manually - got used to Rhokdelar trough bwl, aq40, naxx (yes 46x TheDog said no..)

Macro might not be best for dps, but reduces need to focus on autoshot bar for 4-5h. Thus increasing "amount" of focus for other things. Like CDs, mana, pressing HS right time, KTM, CCed mobs, other players(like other hunters, that are under your lead) or raid leading. Generally increasing performance in other areas.

Just mu Point of View on Macro thing.

PS. reset=3 is not required. reset=target might be helpful tho. (resets macro if target is changed)

That right there is the reason why you can use a macro without issue. Try performing the same rotation with the macro at 250+ ms ping and you'll see a world of difference. I know I almost never see ping times lower than 110 in raids, and I play in the US on a US server over a fiber optic connection. You have a great connection to Blizzard's servers.