Well whether they get better or not is not the issue, we can perfectly well figure out how much better they can get, what i'm interested in discovering is how they compare at typical rates, you can happily go adjusting for critrates as much as you like after that.

I'll compare Beastmastery to Marksman here because Survival is to say the least..tricky


Assumptions: 10k mana pool - is that a bit high?
As stated before, Master Marksman is around 25% saved on a steady shot, which at 5% base mana is 63 mana saved per steady
Marksman will have a 10.5 second cycle including 6 steadies and 1 Chimera - so we have Master Marksman coming out at 180 mana/5 equivalency.
I think any typical build will always have *some* points in efficiency built in to it, lets say for this example we have 3 points, thats 6% off all shots, so ((6*(252*0.06)+(807.35*0.06))/10.5)*5
62.23 mana/5 equivalency

Total = 244.23mana/5 - bit more or less depending on how many points you can afford to squeeze into efficiency

Can Invigoration match that?

Lets put hunter critrate at 30% for sake of argument(doesn't seem unreasonable given raidwide buffs etc)
Lets also assume that the pet is going to use a special on every CD(1.5s)

In a best case scenario(the hunter crits at even intervals so as not to overlap any cobra strike effects) the hunter will proc cobra strikes once every 3-4 shots, lets say every 5 seconds - nice for simplicity, that will return 200 mana per crit, add to that the pets native special critrate of 20% of the rest of the specials(20% of 1.33 specials in the remaining 2s - 25mana average?) leaving us with 225mana/5 in ideal conditions.

Credit to Blizzard, thats actually pretty nicely balanced

There are a couple of things off, but it's a nice comparison.

Firstly, a BM Ferocity pet is going to have 5% base crit + 10% talent + 9% pet talent, so 24% crit unbuffed, it will be a bit higher raid buffed (LotP or a similar buff alone will bring it up to around 29%, other agility-based buffs will give it a few extra %).

Secondly, I think we can also assume that a MM build will have Efficiency but a BM build will not.

Maybe the talents themselves account for the about the same reduction in netto mana expenditure. However, replacing a steady with a chimera every 10.5 seconds is an increase of [(807.35-252)*0.94]/10.5 * 5, or approximately 249 mana per five. That's with 6% efficiency.

As such, even if the strength of the talents are comparable, mm has a large (249 mp5) overhead in mana spent not accounted for in your comparison. This might be (and is) mollified by serpent sting a bit, I guess.

-- Mana cost numbers taken from above post.

Edit: Ah right, you initiated the discussion with pure steady. Sorry!

True, forgot about the pet talent, but I think its safe to say Invigoration is somewhere in the mid-200s with a 10k mana pool(if someone can get back to me on that I can adjust my post)

And yes, as I stated before, its Chimera shot thats causing the problems with Marksmans mana, not the regen talents
Although, at a rough estimate, improved steady shot should be up for around 75% of Chimera shots or so giving a 15% discount on it, so there's something at least.

New build coming, first thing I've noticed is Seperation Anxiety is gone and replaced with Kindred Spirits, a flat 20% damage boost for pets and 10% movement speed for both hunters and pets while active. Nerfed Aspect Mastery to only 30% on Hawk ap boost.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?hunter

I believe the Aspect Mastery change had already occurred prior to this most recent build. I like the Kindred Spirits talent though. A flat 20% damage increase to pets and a 10% increase in movement speed is pretty nice.

Also, I'm not sure if this was done in a different build, but Improved Tracking now says "Increases all non-periodic damage done to tracked targets by 1/2/3/4/5%."

Aye, I missed that. If the talent's wording is indeed intended the way it seems to be, it seems that you have a 15% chance every 3 seconds of Serpent Sting to get 2 free shots. Thats not too shabby, since you'll usually always have serpent sting up anyway. Seems like a solid DPS boost. I'll take 2 mana free, cooldown free, and ammo free shots any day.

Explosive Shot's AP coefficient down from 20% to 8% on the main target, 2% on adjacent targets.

Ouch.

Explosive shot took a mayor nerf this build didnt it? Now at [8% RAP+238] per tick, I believe it was [20% AP+X]?

Im no tester, so I don't know how imba it was, but this seems like a rather steap reduction.

I'm wondering if it was lowered because of the Lock and Load change? Since if it's proccing more often we'd be using Explosive more often and this is their way of balancing the fact?

You may be correct. However, if thats the case and the second ticks have been nerfed to only 2% RAP, is it worth waiting for it or are you better off casting to simultaneous explosive shots when LnL procs? Or am I misunderstanding how the 2 ticks after work? I just reread the talent and I'm not so sure...

Heh I'm actually wondering if we may just be better off using Arcane shot now.

This is looking like it is making L&L a "must-have" talent if you're going deep enough for Explosive.

Arcane shot scaling is 0.15 of RAP (compared to 0.24 for ES.)

Kind of seems like overcompensation to me, especially after the flat damage addition nerf it got last time.

Explosive Shot will still be scaling better than Arcane as AP gets higher because it does damage three times, but still. Ouch.

Unlikely. However it's starting to be quite painful beating on the 51 point talent.

Future changes.

Those are some rather large changes. Scatter in Survival, good for getting people off your back ... Aimed as instant will be huge in arena, allowing a much easier application of the MS style debuff, yes? I cry losing readiness in the deep Survival though.

Marks Hunters also just got another shot for their rotation.

[edit]

They added another change

- Surefooted is swapping places with T.N.T. (so Surefooted is now in tier 2)

This is a bit confusing...

Viper hasn't changed much for PvE. It'll return the same amount of mana in the same amount of time, right?

Viper changed for PvP. Hunters could get stuck in a sticky situation with being out of mana and forced to attack to get it back.

Now, if this was causing problems for "balance", then is it intended that hunters do so poorly in arenas?

I'm confused by these changes. Rather, not the changes themselves, but why did they do this all the sudden? The only one that makes sense is making Scatter more obtainable. Perhaps that was the entire reason for some of the swapping, but the Aimed change is still odd.

Aimed as an instant potentially puts it into our ratations, no? So long as you time it right after an auto-shot, I would think.

I mourne the loss of Readiness in Survival, since I actually considered it worthwhile now to use with Traps + Disengage + double/tripple Explosive Shot, but getting Scatter as an 11 point is nice. A buff to Trap Mastery is always welcome.

Rolled my eyes about AotV, though. Evaluate it as an option for a future patch, eh? Glad I'm not too big into PvP.

Im really curious about the trap mastery. What do they plan to do to make it interesting 41pt talent.

Readiness moved to MM might be yet another way to try to improve mana situation. Readiness = more Rapid fire uptime = more benefit from Rapid Recuperation.

As for instant Aimed shot - it's an interesting change, however I have the weird feeling it will be tied with AS nerf or get reverted after some serious whine on the forums. Maybe I'm pesimistic, but I prefer to not be surprised in a bad way