Does anyone know if pets are affected by the debuff on the Heroic Protectors of the Endless encounter? I scoured through logs but I can't find a good sample size that isn't affected by cooldowns/potions/Heroism.

According to Rogerbrown (Source, see Class specific tips section), the answer is no.
Thus the BM spec is not advised for this fight.

If we are talking about Purified, it should fall under the category of inherited benefits for hunter pets, as its an attack speed buff. If we are talking about corrupted essence its tricky, mainly because KC is considered damage done by the player for buffs and debuff purposes (last it was tested) by being player activated, but damage from the pet for mastery, logging and threat purposes, so the majority of the damage form the pet may actually be affected. If it isn't then the collective "we" have failed in reporting it, as it is clear that we are not supposed to be at a disadvantage in that situation (see Elegon platform buff being applied to pets).

I’m heard a “fact” on our hunter podcast that I was not able to verify against any other source. The fact was that you should not use Rapid Fire during time of Bloodlust or Heroism as it will cause some focus overcapping. As a MM I tend to use the RF&BL combo during CA phase. Do you think I should start RF only after BL duration is done?

On focuscapping;
There is a prevalent intuitive, but incorrect, thought that anytime you are capping focus, you are losing damage. This is, as said, incorrect. You only lose damage if you could have spent that focus on more damage than what you used. One of the most poignant examples as BM is when you cap focus from casting CoS to extend your SrS. This is only a loss if you could have used an AS and not lose SrS, without delaying KC or other high priority actions. SrS costs 15 focus, which is almost enough for a full AS, so losing an AS to extend SrS is equal to losing an AS to reapplying SrS (losing the GCD, and using the focus).
The BM opening will generally be oveflowing with focus.
As for MM, as long as AiS is not below 1 second you are using all the haste you have. If you are overcapping focus during then it isn't a loss of damage unless you could have used the focus otherwise. Taken over a fight length, the focus lost may add up to 1 or 2 AS, which is the equivalent of the fight being 2 seconds longer or shorter all in all.

No.

It used to be true in Cataclysm that you did not want to stack BL and RF together so that you would have more periods of time to use AI. However, with how poor of a DPS option AI is now compared to AS and with needing its cast time to be below 1.3 to 1.4s to make it worth casting (as compared to the much easier to achieve 1.8 to 1.9s in Cata), that is no longer true. It is best to stack BL and RF for MMs currently in the CA phase.

Another reason for stacking RF and BL in the CA phase is that you should be using the first Stampede then too, and the Stampede pets benefit from the additional haste. Also you have trinket procs and racials available then too to stack for additional benefits. Readiness also provides double DBs that benefit from the stacked haste too.

Will you overcap focus during part of this period? Possibly a little, but I doubt it much since each AI cast uses 50 focus and the cost of each AI cast is constant regardless of the haste until you get its cast time to 1s. You will want to cast as many AIs as possible and only cast the 2 SSs to get SF up after casting to deplete your focus bar initially. The second SS in the pair may possibly cap a bit but after then you should be casting AI whenever you have enough focus and SS only to get enough focus to cast AI except for the pair you need to complete about 20s in to maintain the SF buff.

Remember that capping focus is not bad when you are performing the maximum possible DPS that you can. Capping focus is only bad when it occurs due to non-optimal shot selection. There are plenty of times where MMs are forced to overcap (usually during the SS pair to maintain SF during RFs and/or DB) and most of those times are just part of maintaining the maximum DPS shot selection.

I need to reevaluate the situation if AI cast time is really reduced to a 2.5s base cast from 2.9s. The cast time reduction will make achieving the criteria for using AI more achieveable in more situations. The 2.5s base cast time will make it that the AI cast time is 1.399s with BL and 0% haste on gear with the T14 4P. Only an easily attainable 7.5% haste from gear is needed to get the cast time down to 1.3s in that scenario, which is below the recommended 9.09% haste level. Without the T14 4P, the AI cast time is 1.52 during BL, requiring 8.59% haste from gear to get to the 1.4s cast time and 16.94% haste from gear to get to the 1.3s cast time. Since it looks like BL alone will get AI cast time to within the cutoff range with reasonable haste from gear, it looks like after that change that we may want to not stack BL and RF in the CA phase, but the jury is not out on that yet. The benefits to the CA DPS of the stacked haste and the Stampede may outweight an additional 30s of AI cast time during the fight.

is worth casting focus fire as bm, is an extra CD that require extra attention to an already bloated rotation of short cds and also something to watch 20 sec before a BW every min.

with all the care and all the time you will spend on this spell is really worth it?

without mentioning a free keybind is a free keybind.

here is my hunter armory in case you want to put on on a simulator:
Perro @ Blackhand - Community - World of Warcraft

another question is: extra buffs like protectors heroic buff+fearless from heroic sha benefit the pet in any way?

are those fights a NO for bm and SV would be higher for those 2 specific fights?

my 1st protectors kill was with me as bm since we had no shaman, made the traping for adds really stressfull along with dispelling interupting.

edit: does anyone know what are the hit cap and expertise cap for challenge modes, i seen nothing about challenge modes and would love to see something on it, like gear and stuff. things that count and things that dont.

PD: sorry for my english i dont speak it or write it well. im a long time reader of this forums never had the chance to post until today.

On an AoE bosses, such as Wind Lord, would Thunderstomp out-DSP Ferocity (single target) pet if the hunter is in survival specialization?

Looking for some help in a general AoE situation... say Windlord Phase 1 as example...

As SV is it better to use Multishot as much as possible OR is it better to let serpent sting tick down on all the targets and then use Multi to refresh?

I thought it was the latter, but now I am having trouble finding a definitive answer, so I thought it best to come to the experts.

I tested this on three target dummies and I found that the AOE standard rotation (ToTH) was more dps than just replacing arcane shot with multishot and doing the standard single target rotation. It was around 10k dps deifference, so I can only imagine that the AOE rotation gets better and better with more targets.

There can certainly be some merit to not taking 5 identical pets (or the glyph) at least if you don't have all 8 major buffs covered. For the duration of Stampede any aura on any sukmoned pet is in effect. additionally any pet will autocast its buff if it is not already covered bya "stronger" spell (longer duration cast or aura).
However, switching from ferocity to tenacity or cunning costs some pet dps. You cannot macro or control the stampede summoned pets more than what you can do on your active pet. You can growl with all 5 pets by activating growl on your active pet. Similarly you can activate Spirit Mend if you have a spirit beast as your active pet, and all spirit mends will be cast on the same target (though at 25% effect from the stampede pets).
But you cannot activate any abilities that do not have autocast enabled, and are not on your current active pet, like Last Stand or Roar of Sacrifice.

There is some merit to carrying a tenacity pet in your bag - with growl off - as you can then grab something off the healers or dps in 2-3 seconds if the tank dies and its not a (raid)boss and there is some delay before a res can be given for wahtever reason, or you are close to killing the (raid)boss. This is a dps loss for Stampede though, so especially for the last situation, it is arguably still better to have a ferocity pet, as that might have killed the boss just a little sooner. Also, while packing for your raid groups specific needs is the best, if you have reason to summon your tenacity pet with any regularity, you should probably have a discussion abouut tank survivability/healer issues instead (barring any hinky uses, like pettanking the skeletons on Nefarian in T11).