PVP is different now. Everyone dies fast and often, and getting to close range as a hunter is suicide. The spec is setup to bait people in to an ES+TNT/LnL proc. However, this is not the PVP forum so thats all I'm going to say about it.

My observation and subsequent question didn't include anything about viper sting, but was entirely a curiosity about aspect of the viper, and the time (or lack there of) that surv hunters spend in it as compared to other specs.

Considering how AotV is being changed in the next patch, and the JoW bug possibly being fixed, it seems that BM and MM hunters may have mana problems that I don't believe surv hunters will experience, allowing them to never have to use AotV. This would be a clear advantage to their DPS. The data so far has shown that BM and MM specs appear to be doing more DPS at the moment, but my question is would this advantage in mana efficiency with regard to time spent in AotV be enough to put them fully on par with or possibly even surpass the other 2 specs?

It doesn't need to be much to make up for a 1.4 dps difference. say my average steady is 1900 damage and I get one single occurance of pushback per minute I will lose one second on the cast (assuming I have that much cast time to lose) without one point in focused aim, 0.77 with one point. That would mean that I lose 1/6 of a steady shot every minute, or 316 damage per minute or about 5.2 dps. Getting one occurance of pushback every minute isnt really unthinkable, it can be anything. Naj'entus needle spine (small aoe), Teron's shadow blossom, Ros reflective damage, Mother's beams (though tbh I can't remember if they cause pushback), Illidan phase 2, flame splash thingies. kalecgos shadow bolt volley/arcane buffet, twins shadow nova, KJ orb bolts, legion lightning and fire bloom.

The difference in dps is rather small so to me it looks more like a choice based on taste akin to using Cat's Swiftness instead of Dexterity on boots.

I won't argue about this, but currently at level 70 my pet is never out of focus so it's not an issue. If you NEED the crit, then you do. Right now, I don't.

I too have severe reservations around Blizz's apparent decision to balance DPS around bugged JoW, and before seeing results of the previously announced AotV Half Passive and Pet Skill Dmg nerfs.

Can you explain what exactly provides the difference in haste cap between MM/SV? Show some math pls. Its clear with BM quiver + Serpents Swiftness gives 36% reduction (2.0/1.36=1.47). But i dont get the MM/SV math. Both get quiver bonus and in case of raid environment 3% haste buff (19% in summary) so they need 11% more. So why do you state 6% for MM?
PS: Sorry for a silly question i just might misunderstand something and i need an answer to make it clear for myself.

He is living about 4 builds back on the Beta where Master Marskman or Mark of Death, not 100% sure which one it was gave 5% haste and it got changed to either crit dmg bonus or less mana per shot. So SV/MM both need the same haste to reach GCD on SS.

Yup, but I was pretty sure that on the PTR and in the first few days on the patch going live, Serpent Sting was giving back mana on every tick. Hotfix maybe? Now as a 70 BM Hunter, I don't even feel the need to put up Serpent during Viper, and that's possibly the only time I would have wanted to cast Serpent. Just waiting for LK to get the Steady Glyph =(

While I and everyone else assumes it is bugged blizzard haven't actually mentioned it as far as I know.

Nor is it clear that the info that Blizzard refers to is the same as what we see. They often collect data from builds that are ahead of ours, and for all we know they ran tests using a "fixed" version of JotW (assuming, of course, that it's actually broken).

This, right here, is the real key. As players, we want what we want based on what we experience in game. Thing is, Blizz works within a designed model that we are not privy to know. If they're seeing something different then us, chances are that they're seeing it based on a "as it should be" bottom line. Now then, that is NOT to say that they're not prone to error. As it is, the game shouldn't have a broken Pally replenishment, the arenas shouldn't be all messed up, and it shouldn't take me 10+ second to fire and instant shot. But hey, that is how it is.

From my stand point, I do not mind the changes. I was obliterating the casters in my guild in SWP on the damage meters by an obscene amount. Prior to the patch, our best Warlock was putting out 2600 DPS while I, as BM, was hitting 2400 (we didn't stack groups to benefit Hunters like other guilds) on Brutallus. Now, as MM, I'm hitting 3600 DPS, give or take, while still trying to relearn the spec and NOT using rapid fire or readiness (they're awfully damned clunky in their current forms) while they're all scraping at sub-3k DPS. I like standing on top but I don't want to do so at the expense of the rest of the raid. That isn't balance.

What I will say, though, is that if they're going to nerf our benefit of Wind Fury Totem (hey, not a big deal as we've never really benefited from totems), they need to readdress the fact that Steady Shot needs to be back on the 1.5s cast time (WF nerf is a nerf to yellow damage for MM/SV Hunters) and take Rapid Fire off of the GCD. It is my guess that these changes were made during beta because we were operating under the totem benefits. Now that we're going to be taken off, we need to have the adjustmente reverted. Also, this seems like a good thing to use as a means to get Auto Shots placed back to benefiting from Mortal Shots. If you're going to scale the class back down due to how we benefited from X, you can't ignore the changes of Y that were added to prevent the abuse of the WF totem.

Are these several nerfs going to be at 80? Or are we getting another patch before LK ships?

I think that they said that the nerfs would be in on Nov 13th so on shipment/patch day.

Theres a significant discrepancy in the difference in class DPS at 70 compared to 80, which is where the real balancing is occuring.

You can see lvl 80 DPS here:WotLK: Patchwerk DPS Leaderboard
I'm not saying this is what meters will end up but it is a fair indication of where classes lie overall currently.
Note: You can see that there's a 300 dps diff in the Rogue's dmg from the last build and 600 dps diff in the Mage's dmg which probably is a result of Class Changes, Spec testing.
Further Consideration: I'm not sure what other classes have concluded, but i know that we've TCd the optimal builds for Hunters and that with this in mind, our methods of dps are concrete. I suspect that other classes are still Testing and Theorycrafting, meaning that their DPS potential may still be unkown.

Now, taking the info from that link, and the 2nd post from that link as well, we may be able to conjecture that Hunter MM DPS is above all other DPS, but only by 5% or so in the old build and even less in current build. Then we consider what we all know, that MM depends on bugged JoW and that its been stated we're balanced around AotV and that we havn't had to use it as either MM or as BM.

Taking these *caveats* into consideration, I don't believe that our DPS (neither MM nor BM) are so far ahead that multiple dps nerfs (pet abilities,AotV passive, WF, +10% boss armor) are in order.

Now that said, lets get back to TCing on whatever changes Blizz decides since, at the end of the day, thats what we'll be playing.

Isn't this the same thing that happened to hunters pre-TBC? Arcane shot was nerfed, Aimed Shot was changed to reset Auto Shot, and Auto Shot was given the goofy mechanics because in that period just before TBC hunters were doing pretty crazy damage, despite being balanced at 70.

Well TBC raiding starts, and all of a sudden hunters are a step behind, and now Blizz has to try to make up for it with the massive reitemization, changes to Hunter's Mark, changes to Expose Weakness, etc. It'd certainly be nice if Blizz was a little more open as to *why* they think hunters are doing too much damage, instead of just making blanket statements and throwing out random nerfs.

I think some of us here need to take a step back and look at the fact that, yeah we took some dps nerfs, but they're not nearly as drastic as some people seem to think (some early tests are showing about a 10% nerf to both mm and bm), and the fact that in both live and on the beta realms we are doing drastically more than other dps classes. I fell in love with seeing 6k+ dps just like other people, and seeing other classes 2k behind me made it even sweeter, but we all knew it wasn't going to last, its just not good for the game.

The problem is how is this going to affect us in the long run?

The first thing that comes to mind is the crap they keep pulling with viper. If they would just stop with this active regen thing and change it back to a fixed amount, then we'd have something that was useful in pvp without it getting indirectly nerfed in pve by changing mechanics. The effectiveness obviously would depend on the amount of regen it gave us, but at that point its a very easy thing to test. Take into account the fact that mana return is going to plummet when JoW actually gets fixed, and you're looking at a very big problem with the current rate of viper return.

Does blizzard consider BM number to be the only hunter numbers that are important? Now I'm a BM hunter and have been so for a very long time, so I'm a bit biased in favor of BM, but even I can see HUGE problems for MM when JoW gets fixed, and SV isn't even in the same arena as the other two. Hell SV numbers still look like they're stuck in 2.4, its pathetic.

MM is a mana hog, and people complained about it every day until JoW got bugged, then they stopped paying attention, either pew pewing contentedly, or maybe keeping their heads low hoping blizz would just leave JoW the way it is and never address it. Well I think we can all agree JoW wont be staying the way it is, it gives hunters and shaman too much of an advantage in mana, and therefor dps. Higher levels of int should help the spec later on in the expac, but I still see MM spending more time in AotV than any other spec, and if it isn't doing proportionally higher dps, its never going to be able to keep up with BM.

Then you look at SV and you think, what the hell is this spec even doing here? Its half pvp, half pve, and no actual oomph what so ever. Yeah explosive shot used to be king, and damn was it fun, 3.5k+ triple crits on a single gcd was AWESOME. Overpowered yes, but awesome as well. Then they took a nuclear nerf bomb to SV and it hasn't been touched since. I mean has anyone even seen a SV hunter in a raid, let alone in the top 10 on meters? Explosive shot needs to be tuned to do quite a bit more dmg, LnL proc needs to be more frequent, and the deeper parts of the tree really need some help. The spec just doesn't have enough to put out high dps now. Theres some potential for it to scale well, but I don't see it scaling faster than MM or BM.

Well this turned into a fairly long rant, which seems to happen when I start thinking about the people that handle hunter development over at blizzard. God I wish they'd give someone a job that consistently shows they have a strong grasp of hunters in their current state. Anyway I really encourage you guys to not worry so much about the dps nerfs that are simple and apparent. Someone at blizzard is intelligent enough to predict how the easy changes are going to affect dps. The things we need to concentrate on are things which blizzard through out all of beta hasn't shown any ability to fix. AotV's decreased mana return, MM's mana inefficiency, SV's poor performance, and a non-bugged JoW's affect on hunter dps.

And another thing, how the hell did my numbers get in there on Bovii's link. Someone be spying on my meters. >.>

I haven't been seeing as huge a discrepancy as this, but admittedly I havn't been devoting extensive time to Beta. Since I'm not seeing 30% dps differences but rather anywhere from 5-15% you can probably understand why I'm a bit more concered when we lose approx 10% DPS from WF/Armor changes while AotV is still not being used at all.

I think we've all agreed that after the WF/Armor changes are implemented we will have to wait and see if/how JoW fix is incoming, and if/when that happens how swapping to AotV will leave us.

Moving on.

Ill agree with you that drastically higher dps probably isn't the case anymore, on Live numbers are all over the place, and on beta other classes seemed to be catching up even before the newest patch. So i'd agree that a 10% nerf is quite a bit more alarming now than it was a few weeks ago, but probably a good spot to get us down to in order to boost us back up if things like JoW get fixed.

You know, I would be ok if it was completely passive, but massively buffed from it's old incarnation so we aren't spending any more than 30 seconds in viper for a full mana bar. I don't really like the idea of two separate aspects. I have enough buttons as is.

Well the passive regen for 3.0.3 at the moment is approximately half of the 3.0.2 active model for the most part. Haste and proc effects will skew it around though so if they dropped the active and doubled the regen (8% every 3 seconds) it wouldn't be too bad, but that'll be rather boring IMHO. I'd say have the passive regen come from a glyph.

Asking for the passive regen to be removed is asking for a pvp nerf. I rather don't get what the concern for pve is if it's passive or active - the whole point is that it should be sufficient for us to have a decent dps.

If the regen time with the new passive-active AotV is longer than the active AotV - the problem is not if it's passive/active but that the dev's have nerfed it. Given our pve dps, that might be warranted. If it's not we'll have to argue for why it should be buffed. I still don't see why the active/passive element has much to say for a pve hunter.

PvE hunters haven and always have been concerned with it because alot of us knew they would bork the passive percentage and nerf us overall. Thats the only reason we care. I doubt any PvE hunter has anything against the class becoming stronger in PvP. Its just that we would like to see the class become stronger in PvP without the PvE portion suffering because of it. Thats why the idea of two seperate aspects comes up. Because PvE would remain in tact AND PvP would get fixed, rather than what we just got, an OVERALL nerf that doesnt fix PvP mana regen and that drastically damages PvE regen which is a boatload of fail all around.

With such heavy handed changes, its really no wonder once something is fixed that we would rather not have it fooled with at all.

I think people are seeing MM as more of a mana hog than it actually is. OK it absolutely is the least mana efficient spec, no question, but remember, the most commonly used spell in any spec's rotation, steady shot, has a 25-35% mana cost reduction, that's massive. There's more too, come WotLK when BM actually used more than just SS, the most expensive spell in both MM and SV's rottion is going to be serpent sting. Fights in which MM uses serpent sting more than once are likely to be something of a rarity.

Calcing some rough % of base mana drain per second math, with noone having efficiency, everyone wanting to keep serpent up, and haste soft-capped; MM drains 3.67%/sec with a chimera-steady rotation, SV drains 4.11% and BM drains 3.78%. Obviously SV then has TotH which moves it from least efficient to most, and BM has invigoration, but MM also has imp steady which is a solid saving, and potentially RK+RR.

The main effect a JoW fix will have on MM, is that it'll make arcane and aimed shot into DPS losses if used without the supporting talent, but most of the regen lost can be absorbed by simply dropping all the expensive slight-damage-increase shots from the rotation.

I was actually greatly encoruaged to see Aern post 10 percent as the approximate figure. With Shandara's sheet predicting a 9 percent nerf to both specs, this would seem to indicate that our estimating tool is quite bloody good- something a lot of classes can't say right now. This also means that we can start gaming mitigation strategies, confident that our primary theorycrafting aid isn't completely out to lunch.

One of the things that I see happening in a new-viper, no-WF, fixed-JoW environment is the rise of mana-talent min-maxing. For example, in a mana-scarcity model at level 80, taking points out of mortal shots in a BM/MM build and putting them into invigoration yields a dps increase. Similarly, 2/2 rapid recuperation in conjunction with readiness rapid fires while in viper will probably become a norm, and Wild Quiver or maybe even aimed shot goes the way of the dodo to provide those points. Right now, we have the luxury of of ignoring mana talents for "pure" dps talents. If that ceases, look for some of our more lackluster dps talents to be relegated to the "concussive barrage" memorial scrap heap as we try to claw back a few percentage points of dps.