But why?
When I use arcane shot, I can see an increase in DPS. I got 53 passive haste but no DST.

The following Rotation just works fine:

auto - steady - arcane - auto - steady - auto - steady

When I am under haste proccs like quick shots or when rapid fire is up I just do the auto - steady thing.


So why is the arcane shot bad on the 7/20/34 specc? Is ist due to mana problems or what ?

OK, nearly 80 pages of posts, spent quite a long time reading here and elsewhere. So much controversy, emo and contradiction! Ah, hunter theorycrafting, dont you just love it!

My question is really about (and i guess im wanting someone to tell me straight) talent tweaking and where i'm best spending those extra few points, and also about haste and trinkets. So lets start with talents:

1) I'm currently specced with 5/5 iAS. I'm running SSC and TK regularly. There's a lot of trash with sheeping, so i'm using a 1:1.5 macro without multi (no KC - sub question is that good?), and switching to a 1:1.5 macro with multi for boss mobs and when there's no sheep about. I'm keeping 5 points in iHM whatever. (all this on advice from forums), but now i'm seeing plenty of people with those 5 points in iAS spent in MT instead (and since theyve gone there using a point in readiness). What's the current consensus? (since my mana had been good with 3/3 TofH, i was even considering dropping those 2/5 in efficiency and putting them in barrage).
2) Haste. Plenty of talk of spending 2 points in Rapid Killing. But I also read that haste for SV is bad, so i didnt bother and havent been using RK at all. But now further reading people are saying use RK and readiness where possible. And if thats the case, well i have [Dragonspine Trophy] from my BM days in the bank, should i have that equipped? I currently have [Berserker's Call] & [Hourglass of the Unraveller] or [Bloodlust Brooch] (crit vs AP??). Should i be hasting where possible and then switching to 1:1 under haste?

Thanks for any comments.

Here's my macros:

1:1.5 (delete multi for my with sheep macro)

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/castsequence reset=2.57 !Auto shot, Steady Shot
/castrandom Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

1:1 (ok, 3:2 but 1:1 under haste right?)

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast !Auto shot
/cast Steady shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Actually, that was all directed at Wunlastri and Memnauk. So no, those comments weren't directed at you in any way. BUT, now that you've drawn my wrath, I WILL UNLOAD!!! (kidding)

First, my comments about haste, Aym, was more directed at making the macro more fluid. You can run a 2:1 macro rotation without any haste what so ever. But, over the duration of a fight, you will end up clipping Auto Shots. It doesn't have anything to do with the macro, as some have speculated (but that is a different point caused by Kill Command), but has everything to do with the timing of your shots. Personally, I've NEVER been a fan of the 1:1.5 rotation. I despise Arcane Shot with a passion and Multi-Shot never lives up to its potential unless there are multiple targets in your attack zone. THOUGH, I will say that I've given some thought to a modified 2:1 rotation that substitutes a Steady Shot with a Multi-Shot... haven't tried it out but I'm wondering if it wouldn't offer more DPS over the same period of time while offering less of a pushback on Auto Shots. BUT, I digress. The whole point of adding haste for the 5/20/36 or 7/20/34 specs is to make the rotation more fluid. While 80 haste rating is seen as a good spot, especially as it can be achieved with a Felspine and one other piece of gear, pushing 100+ is really the better option for the 3.0 speed weapon.

Second, as for my comments on the 5/20/36 - 7/20/34 vs 0/20/41 specs, I've always felt that you could do mor DPS on shorter fights with the pure SV spec, versus the hybrid, while having little to no item haste. This is even more apparent when you're in a group setting that doesn't offer a Blood Lust or Heroism. And if you add in the lack of a DST, the hybrid spec really starts to lose its power. Again, the powe of the hybrid spec comes from haste stacking. If you don't have anything to stack, you're not really gaining anything over the pure SV spec. And while Master Tactician lacks a lot of true power, mostly because it procs too little, lasts too little, and pushing 50-60% haste offers little, its impact is greater in conjunction with other SV talents than IaotH simply because 15% haste, alone, isn't going to do anything to your rotation to change it to increase your DPS potential. Two Rapid Fires in sequence followed by a haste pot, though, is a huge boost.

In my mind, you have to look at Thrill of the Hunt, and Efficiency for that matter, as stand alone talents. Let's ignore DPS, time, armor pen, and everything else for a second and focus in solely on your raid composition and your overall longevity. For me, my raid ALWAYS has a Ret Paladin so Judgement of Wisdom is a given. But, I've had moments, most notibly on Illidan in phase 1, where JoW isn't up. As I'm currently specced BM, I can definitely feel the impact of no JoW and no TotH. My regen buff and Efficiency is all that I have available which means that I'm blowing through 30-50% of my 7k+ mana pool when Illy hits 65% for phase 2. On the other hand, on fights like council where my Ret Pally isn't dozing off at the keyboard and JoW is up full fight, I never drop below 50% mana (unless my pet gets punted cause I wasn't paying attention and I need to bring it back up... Imp Revive Pet is still a mana killer). SO, again, all of this comes down to what you have on hand to mitigate mana usage and what you're willing to sacrafice to maintain your DPS over a long period of time.

One last comment that I will make is this: Haste is a good thing. But balancing haste and armor pen is the best option, bar none, for the SV Hunter. I've been tinkering with haste setups for the SV spec for months and everything that I've always seen is that armor pen cannot be ignored. BM Hunters have it easy in the sense that they have 10 talent points spent directly on haste. Because of this, they can load up on Armor Penetration, though TOO MANY do not (and this pisses me off more than anything, but whatever) and just boost their DPS. More shots, even at a lesser RAP level, still means more DPS. More shots, being affected by less armor, means even more DPS. Not having to waste item slots on haste means more slots designated for armor penetration meaning more DPS. Imagine, if you will, a BM Hunter with the Gronnstalker BP, bracers, belt, and boots, and the rogue drops/LWing pieces for the shoulder, gloves, legs, and helm slots, the appropriate rings, and the SW bows. You're talking about near 2k passive armor penetration, combined with 20% passive haste, full time without having anything based on procs. They're still getting massive amounts of AGI and AP so they're losing out on nothing. SV Hunters, on the other hand, are going to have to pray to the gods that they get the M'uru trinket, the Brutallus necklace, and then decide whether they're going to continue to use the Fiends cloak OR ignore double Felmyst daggers and stay with the Felspine.

But back to the point of the above paragraph (was a big of a diatribe), as we are a class/spec based purely on critical hits and relegated to lesser DPS for the benefit of the raid, you have GOT to take into account your own personal DPS. A lot of people have made note of it, which is obvious by all of the WWS logs showing extremely nice damage, but Armor Pen is an obscenely powerful stat that makes our spec line even more powerful. As we're critting more than anyone else, the less armor that affects our shots means that those crits hit a lot harder than they normally would. SO, you're seeing the importance of intelligently stacking armor pen and haste. Ya can't go full bore with one and ignore the other. The major downside to all of this, which has frustrated me to no end, is that we're having to wait forever to get what we need to make this all work. Everyone else can just plug and play with their gear, we're sitting there with lists of items necessary to make our jacked up spec work to it's ultimate end just so that we're as beneficial as a stand alone player in the raid as we are as a raid buffer. Messed up, I swear.

/rant off

After reading through the pages it seems like haste is a good idea for SV.

Looking through the haste items available I've come up with this list of loot that I could get:

53 Felspine
30 Clutch of Demise
25 Cloak of Fiends
28 Hard Khorium Band

A total of 136 haste. This gives a 2.09 speed with AotH. With drums and AotH it's 1.99. With a DST proc/Haste Potion/AotH and drums it's clear that I'll make it into the 3:2 section, but is there any easy way to know if 2.09 will make it into the 3:2 shot rotation without having to get the gear first and go to Dr.Boom?

Another thing, everyone is saying haste is good but what is the actual DPS difference form 2:1 to 3:2. Is it really worth getting haste to get to a 3:2 is the damage is the same as 2:1, you just save some mana.

Personally, I don't much care for the Hard Khorium Band. The ZA and badge rings, combined, are both better overall and the difference between the combination of the Felspine, Demise, and Fiends vs Felspine, Demise, Fiends, and the Band are so minute as to almost not be worth it. On the flip side, pushing 150 haste means that you're much smoother in your 2:1 rotation. Plus, added haste procs make your 3:2 and 1:1 rotations easier to attain.

The difference in DPS between 2:1 and 3:2 is pretty substantial. Remember, the bulk of your DPS, in both options, is being enhanced by the 4 piece T6 set bonus. That means that the more Steady Shots that you fire, the more often that you're taking advantage of the bonus which equates to more DPS. The only time that this changes is when you're in a 1:1 rotation and, at that point, your DPS just spiked to God levels with no down side to mana usage.

1) For a hunter in your (ours actually) area of progression, there does not seem to be a consensus on whether IAS or no IAS is better. It really comes down to which works best for your gear, talents, and personal preferrence. I am a fan of 0/20/41 myself since I like the utility from Readiness and the extra crit from MT to help with DPS, EW procs, TotH procs, etc. Try both specs out and see which works best for you.

I will say that it does seem that you are misusing your points in IAS though. Sounds like you are only using it in situations of crowd control and not using it on bosses, which is a waste of 5 talent points on bosses. You should be optimizing your DPS for bosses and not trash. I recommend two options. These are:
a) IAS build: Put only enough points into IAS for your base weapon speed to get a tight 1:1.5 rotation. If they are any extra points (i.e, don't need 5/5 in IAS), put them someplace useful such as Rapid Killing or MT. Then use the 1:1.5 IAS rotation almost always. Only use multishot in situations of multiple targets with no CC to do extra damage.
b) No IAS build: Your default rotation is a 1:1.5 with multishot, which you use in all cases except around CC. Around CC, you back off to a 1:1.3 rotation with just arcane (auto-steady-arcane-auto-steady-auto-steady). The 5 points not in IAS can be placed in talents such as MT (and Readiness if drop 1 in Toth), Barrage, or Rapid Killing depending on which works best for you.

Whether or not to use KC depends on whether it causes you problems or not. Problems that KC can cause are clipping of autos in your rotation and additional mana usage. If you can use KC without either of those two problems being a nuissance, then go ahead and do so since its additional DPS. Its really a case by case basis, and you just have to see whether using it affects you postively or negatively.

2) Concerning haste. There are two main factions. Those that are at end game and using a auto-steady spam (2:1, 3:2, 1:1 rotations) with haste to try to achive the BM rotations and those that are not as progressed and who get max DPS from a 1:1.5 rotation.

For the end game situation (just mentioning this at high level since doesn't apply to you (or me) yet), more haste effects are almost always better. That includes drums, haste potions, rapid fires, quick shots, DST procs, bloodlusts, etc. In general, also a little passive haste is good as well to help tighten up the base rotation to a true 2:1 when not under dynamic haste effects.

For those of us not able to pull off a auto-steady rotation for max DPS yet, we need to continue using the 1:1.5 rotation. With this rotation, haste is a little tricker. A small amount of haste can be good in that it can tighten up the rotation and increase DPS; however, after that small amount of haste (how much depends on base weapon speed and other passive haste effects), additional haste is lost on the 1:1.5 rotation since you are constrained by your arcane shot and multishot cooldowns and end up with deadtime waiting for those shots to become available. If the haste effect is large enough, then we can switch to a auto-steady spam and get DPS higher than from our 1:1.5 rotation. However, there is a large range of haste (how much depends on base weapon speed and other factors), where the auto-steady spam provides inferior DPS to the 1:1.5 rotation. The general rule for 1:1.5ers is that if that haste effect is small (e.g, drums) then stay with the 1:1.5 rotation, but if the haste effect is large (i.e, rapid fire), then use the steady auto spam. If the haste effect is in between (haste potion, bloodlust, DST), whether to switch to 1:1 or not depends on many factors.

As an example (since numbers vary with base weapon speeds, gear, different latency, etc. conditions), using your base weapon speed of 3.0, my gear and talents, and assuming a perfectly hand-weaved executed 1:1.5 rotation with 200ms latency, theoretically as haste rating is increased, DPS improves by diminishing amounts until you hit around 292 haste rating, at which point haste no longer affects your 1:1.5 rotation. At about haste of 545, the 1:1 rotation starts to provide better DPS than the 1:1.5 rotation. (Note that it is not until haste of over 900 that the 3:2 rotation outperformed the 1:1.5 and the 2:1 never outperformed it. This is because my gear does not bias my DPS towards an auto-steady rotation. If I had either the T5 or T6 4 set bonus and/or the BT exalted trinket which all provide better steady shot damage, the haste ratings at which the various auto-steady rotations out perform the 1:1.5 become lower. This is the situation of which the end game survival hunters take advantage.) Thus, for haste effects topping 545 haste rating, one in this case should switch to a 1:1 rotation but stay with the 1:1.5 for all other cases. The only single haste effect that will pass the 545 is Rapid Fire, which is 628 haste rating. So using Rapid Fires and switching to a 1:1 rotation will increase your DPS during those periods. Bloodlust combined with about 75 static haste or some other haste effects like drums will be enough to warrant switching rotations as well.

As a further illustration using my 2.8 base weapon speed, the 1:1.5 rotation tops out at about 168 haste, and the 1:1 rotation tops it at about 412 haste. So both Rapid Fires and Bloodlusts will result in the 1:1 rotation performing better for me. Haste potions are about 12 haste rating short by itself, but if I switched to a 1:1 then, the DPS drop would be small. Now I could add some passive haste gear (with assuming all stats are the same except for the addition of some haste rating) with between 12 and 168 haste that would both tighten up my 1:1.5 rotation making it perform better and making haste potions by themselves always resulting in 1:1 rotation providing better DPS.

Of course, the results above are for illustrative purposes only and will very with different gear, talents, and real-life playing situations.

I hope that helps you to understand haste effects on a survival hunter better and to realize that using Rapid Fire whenever you can is a good thing and not a bad thing, making the Rapid Killing talent a good talent. In addition, it shows that using DST (325 haste) is probably not beneficial for you at the moment (although it can be as you progress further and can use the end game survival rotations).

Concerning your macros, the second one should actually perform a 2:1 unhasted and can actually chain more than two steadies if spamming it unhasted. A little bit of haste tightens it to better perform a 2:1 without steady chains. As haste effects increase more, the 2:1 eventually becomes a 3:2 and then a 1:1.

Concerning your first macro, there are some aspects of it you should be aware. It does not implement the true 1:1.5 rotation. Instead of casting either multishot or arcane shot after every other steady shot, it will cast one of those two shots after any steady shot that it is available. Thus, you can have an arcane shot and a multishot after consecutive steadies, which will result in a loss of DPS relative to the true 1:1.5 rotation. In addition, depending on weapon speed, latency, haste effects, it can result in additional auto-steadies between the specials. This can be both a good things and a bad thing. For minor haste effects, it results in a loss of DPS realtive to the true 1:1.5 since it pushes out the specials too far; however, as haste effects increases, it can result in higher DPS since allows the hasted 1:1 rotation with inserting specials as they are available for additional DPS. Also, note that it is possible to have back to back arcanes as your special instead of alternating the specials, which is not necessarily a problem. With that said, it is still a fine macro to use. The only macro of which I am aware that implements a true 1:1.5 rotation is a /castsequence macro, and those have their own set of problems. If you have low latency though, you may want to try one out and see whether it works better for you or not than your current macro.

But you're taking into account that you'll have drums available. For my raid group, we have maybe 2 people in the entire raid that uses drums and that is in the caster group. So, if you're in a situation where drums aren't available or you can't take full advantage of them, what is the added DPS value of the additional haste compared to full time armor penetration? We know that 80-100 haste puts you in the 2:1 groove. We also know that additional haste makes adjusting to 3:2 and 1:1 rotations smoother. But when you take haste into account, you have to really plan for how your group setup is going to be. I maintain that sacraficing stats, especially a powerful one like armor pen, for the sake of a single drum to ease the transition inbetween rotations is advisable.

Lets look at the numbers. Assuming a 3.0 speed bow and 0 latency, you get the following:

Ring, neck, cloak, and Felspine w/ no procs: 2.4 draw speed
Ring, neck, cloak, and Felspine w/ drums: 2.29 draw speed
Ring, neck, cloak, and Felspine w/ Hawk proc: 2.09 draw speed
Ring, neck, cloak, and Felspine w/ drums and Hawk proc: 1.99 draw speed

Neck, cloak, and Felspine w/ no procs: 2.44 draw speed
Neck, cloak, and Felspine w/ drums: 2.33 draw speed
Neck, cloak, and Felspine w/ Hawk proc: 2.13 draw speed
Neck, cloak, and Felspine w/ drums and Hawk proc: 2.03 draw speed

So, as you can see, you're gaining 4 one-hundredths of a second in speed at the expense of armor penetration. With both gear setups, you're still not at a 3:2 rotation with drums and you only hit that with either an Improved Aspect of the Hawk proc or the Hawk proc w/ drums. You could try and squeeze a 3:2 rotation with just the drums and 4 pieces of haste gear but that is gonna be just ugly with the amount of clipping that is going to happen.

Just my opinion on my complete and total lack of any sort of outside impact.

When choosing talent points for an Imp AS build, weapon speed determines how many points to put into that talent. Make sure to verify this on your own but I have found 4/5 Imp AS to be the best choice for a 3.0 weapon. When I was in T5/T6 gear with no haste, I found 0/28/33 and 0/25/36 to be the best performers. The former was beastly with points in RWS.

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Lightning Breath
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot
/castrandom Arcane Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1


This was the macro I used. It has been a while, so the "castsequence" part may be obsolete. The point is 5/5 Imp AS is not always "better" than 4/5 or 3/5. Later I found it was necessary to throw 5 points in when using the badge x-bow.

I've gone away and had a think and it occured to me that we don't need any haste to actually get to a 3:2 rotation, we just need a different macro to swap to whenever DST or IAotH procs, or deliberately not spam the current macro too much. I've spent some time using cheeky's spreadsheet and it turns out that skipping haste items except Clutch of Demise all together and simply manually swapping to a 3:2 whenever DST or IAotH procs is best. It may take a little bit of getting used to but overall works out better (at least Cheeky says so).

If anyone is wondering I used 2x Shiv of Exsanguination instead of Shivering Felspine, Thalassian Wildercloak instead of Cloak of Fiends and Signet of Primal Wrath + Angelista's Revenge instead of Hard Khorium Band.

Thanks for the response Whitefyst & binky

Well ill go respecc (thinking BM for vashj ) but after that you've definitely talked me out of iAotH which im not keen on cos i tend to miss it. these procs have such short durations im missing the trick on them.

i'd gone 5/5 iAS based on cheeky's xls - it was the highest dps. i do have a 3.0 speed, but with a small 25 haste on my badge chest; my shot speed is 2.57. i have to say this one felt really nice, hardly any sticking points, and i can see the rotation working with the spam macro well. hard to test that on vashj, such a tuff fight and a lot of running around and downtime. but i'm going to try readiness when we start afresh tmrw on TK & SSC.

btw, ive just tamed myself a fresh wind serpent which needs some loyalty training. im wondering why people are using

/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Lightning Breath

why not just have it on auto?

If it is on autocast then anytime a mob is stunned or the pet gets rooted it will stay out of physical attack range and could position itself poorly. Its just safer to have it written into the macro so the Serpent goes where he should for the duration of the encounter.

Hey guys. I have a few questions here.

1. I use my Hunter for both PvE and PvP. I'm looking at a respec because I recently found out that with 26% crit chance, MT is a lot better than IAotH. What I am wondering is whether it is worth it to get Wyvern Sting for the 12 second disable and go 4/5 MT or to skip WS and go 5/5 MT. I've had Wyvern Sting in my build for a while now and found it useful on some occasions both PvE and PvP, however I just want to know what you guys think about it.

2. There's something wrong with my shot rotation. I am using Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix, I have IAotH (soon changing that, like I said in #1,) and DST. When I am doing spamming my shot rotation button with no haste buffs, there is about 0.75-1 second pause between Arcane Shot and the next Auto. I'm wondering if this is something that's wrong with my rotation or if It's normal to have this pause.
I first noticed this with the shot rotation Auto-Steady-Arcane-Auto-Steady-Auto-Steady. I changed it to Auto-Steady-Auto-Steady-Arcane-Auto-Steady to see if that would make a difference but the same problem still occurs and I think It's affecting my DPS negatively.

3. When using talents like MT and EW which have a chance to increase your AP or Crit Chance, what's the formula used to determine what the increase in DPS and/or other stats are.. In Cheeky's it shows that I have 26% crit chance, but putting 5/5 MT in ups my crit chance to 30% and I'm wondering what the formula is to reach this number.

Thanks.

Ah, but Illidan is a bit different fight from those we contemplate about in Sunwell. On Illidan, i never seem to have any mana problems after phase 2, for hereafter i have ample time to regen a bit in phase 4, and i can even pop viper to speed up the regen a bit. Standing around doing nothing, then shooting some demons, and then doing nothing for a bit more time is enough regen, so in these situations the benefit from TOTH doesnt help *that* much.

In BT you would also not use as much leather gear as that which you find in Sunwell, and your int would be higher, thus your regen couped with the breaks in combat, will be higher. My focus is on the enrage-timer fights, or where your mana drain will be excessive.

I had to ask, since i was a bit baffled about the comment. I saw an increase by going from 20/41 to 7/21/32 (yes, i took Scatter shot because i was never a fan of 1/3 TOTH), even without any passive haste at all. Sadly, i miss 20/41, because as you say, i do feel like im pushing out more DPS with another rapid fire every 5 mintues or so. I still wonder if i will ever be able to stack enough haste to go back to a 20/41 spec, cause i love readiness ever so much. Master tactician is also something i embrace, whenever i can have it, for while the talent is weak in its position, its still a strong talent for a crit spec. Can any math experts come up with a suggestion on weather or not that will ever be possible? I suppose i will have to get my hands on a DST to warrant that change, and even then, 5 in iAotH might still be a bigger improvement.

I crave for readiness these days, as our guild is trying out on twins. A misdirection on Sacrolash'es second tank (we're piling up on the ledge and killing Sacrolash first) would open up for a bit more DPS time for everybody, and help out a lot.

My current speculation still stands though: 3/3 TOTH over 2/2 focused fire. More mana regen for our diminishing mana pools as we pick leather with agi instead of int, over 2,3% total damage. Thus far, nobody has been able to come with suggestions, and i didnt have any fights tonight (we tried on twins) where i would be firing away constantly for several minutes, to get any real data.

Aside from Cursed Vision of Sargeras or Duplicitous Guise, what leather items do you see as having no "better" mail equivalents in SW?

There are many leather items in SW that are awesome for any spec hunter, namely:

[Leggings of the Immortal Night]
[Gloves of Immortal Dusk]
[Bladed Chaos Tunic]

Just to name a few, there are olot more. Also, as seen above with the gloves, there are many LW'ing recipes that produce great leather items for hunters, chest, etc

I wouldn't exactly argue that. My understanding from reading this thread is that you want a certain amount of passive haste rating from gear. Adding upon that base amount (80 is a number which has been thrown around a few times) can help tighten your rotation if you lack drums, or give you the ability to switch to the BM rotations more smoothly (thanks to Whitefyst for the very nice summary on haste in a previous post). Stacking haste with pieces like [Fletcher's Gloves of the Phoenix] and [Embrace of the Phoenix] is something that's been considered not worth doing if there are other pieces with more worthwhile stats. And in this case, there are.

Compare [Fletcher's Gloves of the Phoenix] with [Gloves of Immortal Dusk] for example. There's some extra AP and a substantial amount of armor penetration and crit rating on the leather gloves compared to the mail ones. Add to that an easier to obtain socket bonus (as we're stacking agi gems more than anything else) and you've got a pretty clear advantage.

The same goes for [Embrace of the Phoenix] versus [Bladed Chaos Tunic]. Another option is [Vicious Hawkstrider Hauberk] off M'uru, which comes down to your current gear more than anything else (can you spare the loss of int? Do you care for 5 more points of agility over the leather chest?) I do agree with you on the legs though, as the extra agi's worth the sacrifice of some armor pen and you have to get intellect from SOME pieces of gear. But even the legs are up for debate.

In the end of course, it all comes down to what's available to you. Considering the fact that the tunic, for example, is both a druid AND a rogue chest (and personally, I pass on leather upgrades for the rogues right now - not sure what most guilds' policy is on that), you have to wonder if either of the mail chests aren't a better choice. Although we all know Sunwell will be the last 25-man before WotLK, and seeing as how most hardcore guilds are already at Twins/M'uru, it's going to get cleared quite a few times still. So leather might not be out of reach.

The thing is, the only thing that you're sacraficing by going full leather is mana. You actually gain AGI and AP, compared to the same mail pieces, plus a greater amount of armor penetration. If you're pumpin gout 80-120 Haste Rating with off armor pieces, then why lower your DPS potential to stack more haste, especially when it won't be that beneficial, at the expense of additional DPS?

The only way that I'd choose a mail item (from those listed above) versus the equivalent leather piece is if I'm in a situation where I can maintain the same amount of haste and armor penetration. BUT, as the SV (and the random MM Hunters) are trying to get to the sweet spot for haste, you're almost in an impossible position meaning that you're forced to go with all leather. You've still got to maximize your AGI levels, Armor Pen is still the best stat available to all Hunters of all specs, and there isn't a good enough BP to allow you to swap out the Leather BP for a mail equivalent and drop the Felspine for dual Felmyst daggers. And dual wielding the Kalecgos Fangs actually drops your stats while also losing a gem slot so that isn't a possibility.

Sadly, if you're going to pump out as much DPS as you potentially can, you're pretty much looking at all leather w/ the Gronnstalker belt, bracers, boots, and shoulders w/ the Felspine, Brut neck, and the combination of Madness/M'uru trinket/DST. I imagine that you could try and go with the mail equivalent pieces but that is going to come down to a choice of mana longevity, pot usage, and personal DPS needs.

Going with the leather pieces mentioned, I see a slight (12) dps increase, a decent (3.15) crit increase, oom 15 seconds sooner and no change in EW benefit. While I will not argue these pieces will increase personal dps in the short run, I will point out their weakness in SW fights. With the exception of Felmyst, all of the SW bosses present significant mana management issues. M'uru is probably the most difficult so far, in those regards. If, however, you always have the perfect Hunter group with all the mana support possible, I can see taking the leather. Unfortunately, this isn't the case for me. Thinking on the numerous M'uru attempts so far, I can't foresee any way I could afford to lose any intellect.

I'm currently using the following macro:

1:1.5

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/castsequence reset=2.57 !Auto shot, Steady Shot
/castrandom Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Upon reviewing our WWS logs, I noticed the following:

00:38'48.792 Yokatsu's Auto Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 782 Physical damage
00:38'49.503 Yokatsu's Multi-Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 956 Physical damage
00:38'51.277 Yokatsu's Steady Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 823 Physical damage
00:38'52.089 Yokatsu's Auto Shot crits Leotheras the Blind for 1696 Physical damage
00:38'52.089 Yokatsu's Arcane Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 924 Arcane damage
00:38'54.362 Yokatsu's Steady Shot crits Leotheras the Blind for 1893 Physical damage
00:38'55.214 Yokatsu's Auto Shot crits Leotheras the Blind for 1717 Physical damage
00:38'56.831 Yokatsu's Steady Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 819 Physical damage
00:38'57.323 Yokatsu's Auto Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 816 Physical damage
00:39'02.346 Yokatsu gains Misdirection
00:39'10.230 Yokatsu's Arcane Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 880 Arcane damage
00:39'13.471 Yokatsu's Auto Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 697 Physical damage
00:39'14.339 Yokatsu's Multi-Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 859 Physical damage
00:39'15.855 Yokatsu's Auto Shot crits Leotheras the Blind for 1722 Physical damage
00:39'17.534 Yokatsu's Steady Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 821 Physical damage
00:39'18.362 Yokatsu's Auto Shot crits Leotheras the Blind for 1808 Physical damage
00:39'18.378 Yokatsu's Arcane Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 924 Arcane damage
00:39'21.034 Yokatsu's Steady Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 736 Physical damage
00:39'21.846 Yokatsu's Auto Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 826 Physical damage
00:39'30.878 Yokatsu's Auto Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 703 Physical damage
00:39'37.832 Yokatsu's Auto Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 718 Physical damage
00:39'37.832 Yokatsu's Arcane Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 880 Arcane damage
00:39'40.261 Yokatsu's Auto Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 730 Physical damage
00:39'41.644 Yokatsu's Steady Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 728 Physical damage
00:39'42.926 Yokatsu's Auto Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 792 Physical damage
00:39'43.714 Yokatsu's Multi-Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 867 Physical damage
00:39'45.730 Yokatsu's Steady Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 801 Physical damage
00:39'46.457 Yokatsu's Auto Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 686 Physical damage
00:39'46.457 Yokatsu's Arcane Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 880 Arcane damage
00:39'49.347 Yokatsu's Steady Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 739 Physical damage
00:39'50.301 Yokatsu's Auto Shot hits Leotheras the Blind for 712 Physical damage

My question is, I'm not seeing as smooth of a rotation as I would expect - is there something wrong with my macro?

this is actually something im gonna look into and might be going to aim for.
and maybe 1:1.5 instead of the 3:2 macro, when QS isnt active.

I am the SV hunter in our guild and have gone back through every single page of this thread. I like many others simply stacked +agi when I became Surv and figured "this is my role". I am trying to improve my gear in order to maintain a quality EW on my targets and push the limits of my own DPS as well. I thotoughly love the 20/41 spec and 2x RF makes for a nice DPS boost over my old spec of 25/36.

I only have a simple question. Our guild just got Illidan down this past week. We are looking at 5/5 and 9/9 and any nights left over in SW. Looking at my gear I am debating whether to go T6 helm/chest for my 4pc or get Prowlers and wait till Kalcegos for the 4pc T6. Most of the other pieces of my gear I am happy with. However, if anyone sees any improvement feel free to say so.

I will try to lend more to the conversation when I feel anyone could learn something from me. However, at the moment I am just trying to leech and absorb off alot of you guys.