Figured out the Wolverine Bite Formula - it's 5 damage per level +5. So the tooltip on wowhead makes sense now.

A level 70 Cunning pet has a 355 damage tooltip for Wolverine Bite. 72 is 365, 75 is 380, 76 is 385.

Apparently, the PV change to 1% is a bug? Can anyone confirm or deny? Makes me wonder if the "nerfs" were on purpose, or bugs/mistakes.

No one can confirm or deny it - it's not actually on Beta yet. The PV thing and the Hunting Party change are ONLY on the updated Talent Calculator on the official site.

Depending on another Hunter having IHM you could go for Focused Aim, which would be a real DPS booster on certain fights. Hexlord anyone? He undoubtedly not the last boss with such a mechanic.

And I would actually drop a point in Cobra Strikes and put it in Longevity. A near 1.5 min CD on BW fits better than a 96 second CD does. And of course pet specials like Savage Rend and various others will benefit greatly with 10% extra reduction.
Besides, Cobra Strikes is up for 4.5 seconds at least. In that time I wonder if we won't be seeing at least 3 crits for most of the time at T7. That should be enough to have it refreshed for most of the time. The extra point just feels like a relative waste to me.

But where to put that possible Frenzy point... Was thinking Spirit Bond or Endurance Training. But Master's Call could be a possible choice depending on what we will face, and even how it works. Rooted in place by a boss? Masters Call might help in some cases.

I suppose if you're only running with one paladin and a boss has a spammable snare, you could use Master's Call to break your tank out during the short Hand of Freedom cooldown. Maybe there will be a frost mage boss that does sick shatter combos, and the only way to save your tank will be to free him with Master's Call! BM Hunter utility!

According to the WoW WotLK official talent calculators, Potent Venom now gives 3% again. I guess it was bugged. Anyone else notice?

Just noticed the same. The talent is still crap though. It just went from crap to terrible and then back to crap.

Yeah, the main problem still remains and that is the 3% increase in damage isn't worth the damage loss in using Serpent or Wyvern Sting.

I'm drawn to Potent Venom for the following reason. I was comparing damage/mana for arcane shot, and serpent sting.

Assumptions: 5000 RAP, 35% crit

Arcane shot normal = 492 + .15*5000 = 1242
Arcane shot crit = 1242 * 2.3 = 2856.6
Arcane shot normal mana = 540
Arcane shot crit mana (with TotH) = 0.6*540 = 324
Arcane shot normal damage/mana = 1242/540 = 2.3
Arcane shot crit damage/mana = 2856.6/324 = 8.82
Weighted arcane shot damage/mana = 0.65*2.3 + 0.35*8.82 = 4.58

Serpent sting:
Assuming 5/5 imp stings and 3/3 Potent Venom

Serpent sting damage = 0.1*5000 + 1210 = 1710
Serpent sting mana = 680 * (1-0.3) = 476
Serpent sting damage/mana = 1710/476 = 3.59

So yes, serpent sting is less damage/mana than arcane shot, but now the next step is to compare the "lost" damage from a GCD used by serpent sting to the next 15s where your damage is increased by 3%.

So in 15s, lets say you just chain cast steady shots. With a 3.00 bow and 15% quiver, you have a autoshot timer of 2.61s and a steady shot cast time of 1.5s (with haste it would be faster, but let's establish a lower bound here)
In 15s you can fire off 15 / 2.61 = 5 autoshots
In 15s you can fire off 15 / 1.5 = 10 steady shots

So 15 shots have 3% increased damage. I'm getting lazy, but let's assume each steady shot and auto shot hits for 1200 damage. (all without critting) (This is a conservative estimate at lvl 80, esp. the no-crit part).
15 * 1200 * 0.03 = 540 more damage.

Adding this on to the damage of serpent sting, 1710 + 540 = 2250
Mana cost of serpent sting = 476
Damage/mana = 2250 / 476 = 4.73

This is now higher than the damage/mana of arcane shot, and this is assuming that the subsequent steady and autoshots don't crit. As a lower bound, it shows that the 3% damage over 15s can and does indeed outweigh the lost GCD which you could've used on an arcane shot.

Masters Call is on a 1 min cooldown, if there was such a gimick in a fight (and it was a big issue to avoid snares on the MT) I think most guilds would just use a druid, who can break snares at will, as the MT. Two pallys can provide 20 sec every 25 sec (so 80%) snare avoidance which would probably be good enough, with a 1 minute CD I don't see Masters Call being all that useful even on a snare-gimick fight.

Of course this all depends on the fights in WotLK, it might be a great talent for 5mans, solo play or for getting us out of bad spots in 25 mans. As it is now I might drop a point from Imp. Mend Pet into Masters Call, or use it as the filler point that would otherwise go to making Frenzy 5/5 instead of 4/5 if Beast Mastery turns out to be a worthwhile talent, otherwise I think I'll be skipping it for more damage oriented talents in other trees. If Masters Call was a tier 1 talent I'd definitely take it over putting a filler point in Endurance Training.

That requires Imp Stings where the points could have been spent elsewhere. And to get PV you have to drop points in Master Tactician or Hunting Party, or ultimately also Explosive Shot (which looks to be the least effective choice to drop).

And you calculate against Arcane Shot which is already rather ineffective. Lets try to calculate against Steady Shot and Kill Shot since they will be the staple of any spec.


Normal Steady Shot of a 100 DPS weapon with 65 DPS ammo against a 30% armoured target: 280 (normalized average weapondamage for a 100 DPS weapon) + 182 (assuming the ammo will also be normalized to 2.8 speed) + (5000*.2+280) = 1742. 1742*0.7 = 1219
A crit = 1219*2.3 = 2805
Normal mana: 280
Manareturn with TotH: 0.6*280 = 168
Normal DPM: 4.35
Crit DPM: 25.04
Overall DPM: 4.35*0.65 + 25.04*0.35 = 11.59 DPM

Normal Kill Shot, same stats obviously, and assuming it is normalized to 2.8 speed too, and the target is below 20%: (280 + (5000*.15+325) + 785)*0.7 = 1498
A crit = 1498*2.3 = 3445
Normal mana: 475
Manareturn with Thrill: 0.6*475 = 285
Normal DPM: 3.15
Crit DPM: 18.13
Overall DPM: 3.15*0.65 + 18.13*0.35 = 8.39 DPM

So in the deparment of manaefficiency it isn't terribly great compared to what is to be expected to be used, and I think we can expect better weapons than 100 DPS, perhaps even greater ammo as well (and I don't know if ammo has an impact on Kill Shot either, I left it out at this time). However, if experience shows mana is a non-issue then it would actually be a boost to the DPS. Since talented up the sting isn't that far behind in DPG (Damage Per GCD), but the added 3% is going to help it along enough.
The losses in talents are going to hurt it though.

[EDIT] Damn, forgot to add Sniper Training for both shots. I think we can safely assume that it will be a great talent to use.