If the issue is between imp steady and LnL, then we are presumably talking about a deep marks hunter, who will almost assuredly have Chimera Shot, unless it ends up being very subpar. Then, unless the sting-refreshing effect of chimera counts as applying a sting (meaning it can proc LnL), LnL becomes virtually useless for said marks hunter. If it does count as applying a sting, then it's more like every 10 seconds instead of 12-15.

Additionally, you cannot equate the procs from the two skills, they are very different. For a marks hunter, will 15% more damage and 40% mana savings on a chimera shot outweigh 3 free arcane shots without cooldowns? After all it seems at the moment that steady shots will be hasted down to the global cooldown anyways, so how much more damage will those arcane shots do than the steadies that could have been done in their place? Will steady shots in fact be 1.5 s cast times? (Unless of course the "trigger no cooldown" is being completely truthful, and they won't trigger any GCD either, but I don't see 4 arcane shots as fast as one can click being allowed in pvp.)

Buffing LnL would have to be done carefully; if explosive shot remains strong, then it is a very potent proc for survival hunters, especially in pvp where it can be triggered by every trap. If the % chance to proc from stings is increased, however, it might give at least survival hunters incentive to sting, and perhaps make the sting talents more appealing to them.

P.S. I saw some people saying that wyvern sting is not a total throwaway talent for raiding if you grab it and noxious stings, since you can replace 1 in 4 serpent stings with it for its higher damage, but if you do so then you are not getting the +3% to all damage for its dot duration so... anyways that combo seems like a pvp one to me, unless they decide to make the bonus damage apply to all sources, or even just incoming magic damage or something similar.

Assuming LotP and Improved Kill Command, Kill Command will ensure that the pet pretty much has 100% crit on the first attack. I guess this along with Cobra Strikes would make it very easy to activate Savage Rends. My problem with them focusing on Pet Special Ability crits so much is that they don't really scale. Their damage is set so no matter how much RAP we have, our pets bite or claw isn't going to do more damage.

Also, they say this is for burst potential right? The most it adds is about 561 damage (800 if Beastial Wrathed) over 4.5 seconds and that is assuming Kill Command causes all 3 next ones to crit. I say even as it is it is very underwhelming and would only be used on rare circumstances. It would probably be better in use if it converted some of our RAP into extra AP for the pet.

How about the following - For the next 10 seconds, your pet gains 50% of your RAP as AP.

Assuming 3000 RAP, should be about 1k to 2k of damage (unlikely on the high end due to all 5 of its attacks critting) before armor. Its a 2 minute cooldown and should be treated as such, if you need to, make it so that Beastial Wrath cannot be activated while its going. I just don't like the feel of a 2 minute cooldown being so weak. I am not saying it should be super strong, but the equivalent of a steady shot should not be out of the question.

Incorrect.
What I meant was that with a 6 second cycle, you can replace only Steady Shots with Serpent Sting, as the 15 seconds won't be overlapping with Explosive Shot, thus never creating a Serpent vs Explosive choice in your cycle. Getting an L&L proc 'adds' a 4.5s cycle, so it moves your rotation with 1 GCD, which will force you eventually to get to this choice moment, both options not being optimal DPS. Either you let the Serpent Sting run out and use Explosive first, causing 1 GCD of no Serpent on the target (right on your biggest DPS move), you can Serpent first and then Explosive, wasting Explosive CD, or you can replace the Steady before this Explosive with Serpent, reducing Serpent Sting efficiency at the cost of 3% extra Explosive Shot damage. Overall efficiency loss in the last case is 20% of ticks * 15% chance it happens = 3%.

I have already discussed this at the bottom of my post here, although it was merely to point out the downside of using Serpent Sting over Scorpid.

They don't scale yet. Instead of proposing ways to avoid the 800-lb. gorilla in the room, we should be looking to get to the root of the problem. Making Kill Command work on something besides pet specials just skirts the central problem, which is that at some point, our pet specials are going to do less damage than regular attacks, which makes them pretty unimpressive in light of the fact that they require focus to use. Bite/Claw/Smack could scale with attack power, or more simply, they could just work like the old KC did and be attacks that do (pet damage + x). The latter makes Cobra Reflexes a little less attractive, but it had that same effect on KC too and it was still worth it overall.

That won't happen every cycle though. Here's a timeline showing what you are talking about for those who don't understand.

Time-line W/O L&L:

1st cycle:
(0) Serpent Sting, (1.5) Explosive Shot, (3.0) Steady Shot, (4.5) Steady Shot, (6.0) Steady Shot, (7.5) Explosive Shot, (9.0) Steady Shot, (10.5) Steady Shot, (12.0) Steady Shot, (13.5) Explosive Shot...

2nd cycle:
(0) Serpent Sting, (1.5) Steady Shot, (3.0) Steady Shot, (4.5) Explosive Shot, (6.0) Steady Shot, (7.5) Steady Shot, (9.0) Steady Shot, (10.5) Explosive Shot, (12.0) Steady Shot, (13.5) Steady Shot...

3rd cycle:
(0) Serpent Sting, (1.5) Explosive Shot, (3.0) Steady Shot, (4.5) Steady Shot, (6.0) Steady Shot, (7.5) Explosive Shot, (9.0) Steady Shot, (10.5) Steady Shot, (12.0) Steady Shot, (13.5) Explosive Shot...

The 3rd is the same as the 1st, so the first 2 would repeat forever and you would never have to hold off an Explosive Shot in favor of a Serpent Sting.

But, with a Lock and Load proc:

1st cycle:
(0) Serpent Sting, (1.5) Explosive Shot, (3.0) Explosive Shot, (4.5) Explosive Shot, (6.0) Explosive Shot, (7.5) Steady Shot, (9.0) Steady Shot, (10.5) Steady Shot, (12.0) Explosive Shot, (13.5) Steady Shot...

2nd cycle w/o a repeat proc:
(0) Serpent Sting, (1.5) Steady Shot, (3.0) Explosive Shot, (4.5) Steady Shot, (6.0) Steady Shot, (7.5) Steady Shot, (9.0) Explosive Shot, (10.5) Steady Shot, (12.0) Steady Shot, (13.5) Steady Shot...

2nd cycle w/ a repeat proc:
(0) Serpent Sting, (1.5) Steady Shot, (3.0) Explosive Shot, (4.5) Explosive Shot, (6.0) Explosive Shot, (7.5) Explosive Shot, (9.0) Steady Shot, (10.5) Steady Shot, (12.0) Steady Shot, (13.5) Explosive Shot...

So w/o a repeat proc we come to your dilemma. Our 15 second cycle is over, ES is ready, and Serpent Sting is down, just as if we'd just started the fight. If L&L procs 2x in a row, we're right back on track with no loss. But, if it doesn't proc more than 1x in a row, what are you REALLY losing? The last option you said is the easiest math so I'll do that. You overwrite the final tick of the Sting and lose 402 (based on 4000 AP) damage 15%*85% of the time on a 30 second cycle (the 15% and 85% being the chance to proc, and the chance to NOT reproc respectively). 402 * .15 * .85 / 30 = 1.7085 DPS loss... seriously... can you even consider this in your calculations with such a minuscule difference?

Is it confirmed that ES's dot won't stack with itself or apply another debuff slot or something? If it doesn't, that seems kind of like an oversight with L&L being there, not to mention Readiness.

I know a lot of dots don't stack when applied twice by the same caster, but there are some that do. L&L makes it seem like it should in order to get the best out of the talent, to me anyway.

Shot travel times are pretty much irrelevant; whatever travel time the second shot has, the first shot also had, so the end result is that the explosive shots will hit the mob 1.5 seconds apart (plus whatever latency/reaction time you have obviously). It probably depends on the scaling of the dot damage if its worth delaying or not.

True enough, I forgotten that the travel time would be inconsequential given the mechanics.

Assuming a 20/5/5 RAP scaling on the initial hit plus the two ticks (total of 30% RAP scaling or the equivalent to a normalised shot dealing 150% damage in terms of RAP scaling), we could evaluate that to having 90% RAP over 6 seconds or 75% RAP over 4.5 seconds.

Waiting would give 15% RAP per second. Just spamming would be 16.67% RAP per second, so under this split it would not be worth waiting from a pure RAP per second conversion.

Obviously, of course, this would simply come down to how much RAP are we packing, and what is the base damage. Other considerations include, can the burn effect crit? If not, then things will swing towards spamming it since the initial hit can crit and it gets a nice bonus to the crit rate via TNT and Survival's innately high crit ratio.

If the burn effect can crit, then we will have to balance the DPS increase in spamming versus the potential mana returns on letting the extra chances for Hunting Party to proc off, but I'm sure Blizzard has already seen that little boo boo so in my humble and possibly wildly inaccurate assessment, it's probably not worth waiting for the extra tick. Indeed, it's probably not worth spamming Explosive -> Arcane -> Explosive in the first place since Arcane only gets 15% RAP for its singular hit and it has a lower crit synergy to Explosive, given Explosive has a 20% RAP coefficient on the initial hit of course.

Final nail in the coffin for arcane shot would be the fact that Explosive deals fire damage, and is thus innately armour piercing, much like Arcane so that advantage is well and truly negated.

I'm trying to work out the breakpoint for the ratio between the initial damage and the dot ticks but it's been too long since I've done multi-variable calculus and I'm getting my numbers stuffed up, either that or I'm barking up the wrong tree in my approach.

I must say, I'm really liking how Survival is shaping up. A few little tweaks here and there and I can envision having a lot of fun with it.

People have reported the ticks can crit and proc talents.

Do they proc TotH? That would be something interesting, though I suspect it wouldn't make it out of beta.

The problem here is that after your first cycle it will be choosing EITHER Serpent Sting or Explosive, as this is the optimal moment for both to use.
A repeat proc would indeed be solving the problem, but it will only happen in 2,25% of sting casts, and only on half the Serpent Stings (namely those right before Explosive, try the same thing with Explosive, Serpent/L&L-proc combo at the start). If Explosive Shot is the best choice in DPS, then you should change your non-proc 2nd cycle to:

2nd cycle w/o a repeat proc:
(0) Serpent Sting, (1.5) Steady Shot, (3.0) Explosive Shot, (4.5) Steady Shot, (6.0) Steady Shot, (7.5) Steady Shot, (9.0) Explosive Shot, (10.5) Steady Shot, (12.0) Steady Shot,...

3rd cycle = 1st cycle
This will most likely be the best-case scenario, where you simply cut down your L&L-proc cycle a GCD to keep both Noxious Stings and Explosive Shot CD up.

I have already argued that Imp Tracking might not exactly be a 'normal' +damage talent in that it has no conditional on skills used. Nor does it preclude petdamage. Now, of course it might be that it only means all the damage that the Hunter does, but it simply doens't state that. It simply says all damage caused. That would make it a vastly better option per point than FF. At this time we can't assume it means the Hunter alone until tests are done or we are told explicitly.
In any case, FF used to be best for BM (compared to the other specs), now it is worst. I find that ironic considering it is in the BM tree and there is no option to exchange it for another DPS talent.

Btw, since when has Bestial Wrath been anything but 50%? It hasn't been buffed unless it was nerfed first. In any case our pet specials are weak save for a specific few. 60% on an ability that hit for 150 at best is not anyting worth mentioning. And we don't know yet if Kill Command is a pet ability that is affected by Longevity. If it isn't then any synergy with Bestial Wrath goes out the window after the first application. And I wouldn't call it a finishing move. A finishing move is something like Evicerate or SWD. Not 60% on a weak damagedealer. I would call that a momentary boost. Given the two classes I took abilities from it would be like giving the Rogue a 60-20% boost to three offhand attack and the same to tree ticks of SWP. I don't think either of them would be impressed with that new 'finishing' move. They would spam it, true, but so will we.

FI uptime has nothing to do with it. With Cobra Strikes, even at 1 point, it shouldn't be an issue.
Btw, what do you mean by:
Cobra Strikes would be even more powerful then since pet specials would be much more powerful. Kill Commands left and right, and critting to boot. Not likely to happen unless they nerf normal pet damage.
I still say Kill Command should be normal pet attacks, and then we can go to work on the specials at another time.

Kutak, you are missing the earlier comments on the matter. My comment was meant to be towards the earlier statement that LnL is fine because the MM talent Improved Steady Shot used the same 15%. Not as a comparison between either for an MM hunter. MM Hunters wouldn't likely get much benefit from it since Steady Shot hits for more than Arcane Shot (and Chimera would have to be able to proc LnL anyway, which I think is unlikely).

Bestial Wrath was, I believe, originally 100% for 12 secs. It was then nerfed to 50% for 18 seconds.

Improved tracking is unlikely to be anything but an increase to the hunter's dps. A 5% raid-wide dps increase would be.. powerful.

Kill Command is fairly weak at the moment. At a 2 minute cooldown it will grant a total of 120% pet special damage (60% of one, 40% of the 2nd and 20% of the third). Even if they are all used on Bite/Claw/Smack (which are by far the biggest part of the pet's special damage), that would be a marginal amount.

Napkin math:
120 seconds cooldown.
Only Bite used, i.e. it fires every 1,5 seconds.
Bite does an average of 330 damage at level 80 in my spreadsheet with rank 11 (120-170 damage base, average 145, adjusted for talents/procs/etc by 325%)
The first bite will get a 60% bonus: 198 damage extra
The 2nd bite will get a 40% bonus: 132 damage extra
The 3rd bite will get a 20% bonus: 66 damage extra

A grand total of 396 extra damage over 120 seconds = 3,3 dps

That's of course with every proc/ability averaged out. Likely if you time it with some procs, hit Bestial Wrath and then use KC you get a little more damage.

I see no reason ever to use KC, since it'd replace a steady shot (which deals about 5 times as much damage).

In that case it has to have been pre-TBC, which I think makes a comment that BW has been buffed rather... outdated. And in any case 50% for 18 seconds is less than 100% for 12. So in effect it was nerfed (not that I don't think it wasn't right perhaps).

I don't think KC will be on GCD. If it is, then no spec worth their salt will ever use it. Save in situations where the pet can hit but not the Hunter.

Obviously Imp Tracking won't affect the raid. While not precluded in the text, I think that is more than just wishful thinking. But petdamage is not unreasonable. If it isn't, then yes this talent would scale worse for BM. But there aren't that many options that add similar damage even so.

Throughout this debate of 'optimal firing solution' for a LnL proc, it seems that we are assuming that ES/AS will need to be spammed in order to utilize the entire buff. However, what if the LnL proc is a 15s buff? Then we can have a firing cycle of:
Sting (LnL Proc), ES (1.5), Steady (3.0), Steady (4.5), ES (6.0), Steady (7.5), Steady (9.0), ES (10.5), Steady (12.0), Steady (13.5), Sting (15.0), ES (16.5)... and back to normal Steady x4, ES rotation until another Sting proc.

Of course, this assumes that LnL will wipe out any existing ES cooldown, but the advantage is that you always see the two ticks from ES. The only place I see this losing out is if you get two LnL procs in a row, because that fourth ES doesn't come in after the three free ES.

Ignore my comments on Bestial Wrath; I was thinking it was 30% on Live for some reason. It's the same on both. I must have been thinking about when the 30% hunter damage from TBW got nerfed to 10%. Maybe it used to be 30% for both, which got changed to 50/10 + mana reduction ... but I digress. Either way, it was a mistake on my part.

Speaking of mistakes, I'll go out of order and address your last question -- that should have read Cobra Reflexes, not Cobra Strikes. I'll edit it after this.

You're right that we would need an answer to the Longevity question, but in all fairness Kill Command just got changed to a 2 min CD so there's no reason it would have been included on Longevity before. It certainly isn't out of the question that it would get added. But in any event, synergy doesn't just mean things where the timers line up perfectly (see, e.g., Chimera Shot & Serpent sting -- the duration of the Sting doesn't perfectly match the cooldown on the shot, but they certainly have synergy). Rapid Fire had "synergy" with The Beast Within in TBC in that you could pop them both for an added boost, even if the CDs didn't line up. What I really meant is that you can take advantage of an extra 50% boost if you pop BW and KC at the same time, irrespective if you had to wait an extra 30 seconds or so for the CDs to match.

The finishing move comments were not an endorsement of the ability (it's terrible in its current form) but rather a clarification of where Koraa said they were trying to go with it. Similarly, I agree that having it work on pet specials as currently designed is stupid, but having it work on normal attacks just avoids a glaring problem that should be addressed anyway. The central problem is that pet specials do less damage than normal attacks at certain gear levels. That's a fundamental design flaw. If you change pet specials so that they always do more damage than normal attacks, then you don't have to tinker with KC to make it work on normal attacks, and the pet-special-oriented abilities become more attractive as a result.

In other words, since the designers seem focused on pet specials (Kill Command, Cobra Strikes, Owl's Focus, Invigoration) I would prefer that they simply made pet specials scale across the board. It solves scaling issues, reduces the effect of certain pets being desirable for no other reason than they actually scale, etc. One very simple way to do its is make the focus dump dps specials (bite/claw/smack) work like Sinister Strike/Old Kill Command and do (Pet damage + X). It increases the value of focus regeneration talents, since the focus abilities actually pack a punch.

But yes, if the designers decide to make no further changes to pet specials aside from bug fixes than I agree with everyone else that KC needs major reworking. Heck, I think a lot of things do if they keep specials lackluster generally.

That's what I said. The decision comes 30 seconds after the L&L proc. My math is spot on with what you said. On a 30 second cycle, you would lose 1 tick of Serpent Sting when you get a L&L proc w/o getting a 2nd proc immediately after. The chance of getting a proc is 15%. The chance of NOT getting a proc is 85%. So, that would occur 15% * 85% of the time. 402 * 15% * 85% = 51.255 damage lost on average per 30 second cycle. 51.255 divided by 30 seconds = 1.7085 damage per second lost.

If you're not spamming it, then you're wasting cooldown time. What you suggested may be most efficient depending on how powerful the ticks are as you'll be cutting off 1 ES tick by spamming it (assuming they don't stack). But, you'd only need 1 steady in between so it would be:

(0) Serpent Sting, (1.5) Explosive Shot, (3.0) Steady Shot, (4.5) Explosive Shot, (6.0) Steady Shot, (7.5) Explosive Shot, (9.0) Steady Shot, (10.5) Explosive Shot, (12.0) Steady Shot, (13.5) Steady Shot...

In this case, everything would flow w/o coming across the choice of Serpent or Explosive but it would be effectively getting 2 ES's extra per proc, instead of 3.

It seems that we have, once again, managed to position ourselves on the same side of the fence, yet not see it.
Well, technically speaking I would rather that pet specials scale with AP and remain relatively weak. If pet specials get turned into (swing+bonus) we would have to see a number of far reaching changes. Either normal pet attacks would be nerfed as a consequence, but then focus becomes more important than ever and specs without BD and/or GftT might suffer a little too much, or talents like Cobra Strikes would need a massive overhaul. It would be hard to balance I think. Scaling with PAP for specials would be the simple yet logical solution. While it would grant Surv and MM a slight advantage in terms of PAP, the BM talents should more than make up for it.

I feel I should clarify why I compaired LnL and Imp. SS. I did it because I feel asking for LnL to be buffed is to much. I think LnL is FINE as is.

LnL
It is a Tier 4 talent.
It has TWO ways to proc one of which is a 100% chance on a 30 second cool down (AoE packs anyone?) and another which is a 15% chance on a spamable (thought it will never be) ability (aka, boss fights).
The proc: grats 3 mana-free abilities that do not incure the cooldown of said abilities (assuming the gcd is still applied)

Imp. SS
It is a Tier 9 talent.
only 1 way to proc this which is to spam steady shot (a very spamable shot that will be spammed) for a 15% chance to proc.
The proc: +15% damage and -40% mana on 1 (potentially 2 if you want to use aimed shot) ability.

Looking at it another way... If their placement in the talent trees didn't matter (you have equal access to both), which would a PvP'r take? which would a PvE'r take? I'd argue that the answers would be LnL for the pvpr and ImpSS for the PvEr. Once you start factoring in other talents that apply within the trees, I would argue that the answer of LnL for pvp distances itself from ImpSS (i.e. gets better faster), while the gap between which of these two talents is better for PvE shrinks mostly due to the increadible synergy that Explosive shot has within the survival tree.

Summary: Just looking at LnL and doing some napkin math makes me say that asking for LnL to be buffed is rediculous as it is already so increadibly good. However, blizzard has the last say. If they feel LnL needs to be buffed for PvE purposes then they will buff it.

I don't know, I think we've done a decent enough job this time on figuring out where we agree. I'm not certain we would need to see too many far-reaching changes with a swing+bonus mechanic, at least not unless you count that change itself. The bonus doesn't have to be huge -- Sinister Strike at max level is only (normalized) weapon damage + 68, and there's nothing saying that pet specials would even have to go that high. The object is to keep it so that specials do more damage than a normal attack. I wouldn't rule out maybe needing to rework focus costs again or focus regen, if it turns out that pets can spam abilities so easily that it looks like they get an extra attack every 1.5 seconds by default. Limited resource abilities end up broken if the resource isn't actually limited. And of course, swing + bonus just ensures normal attacks do less damage than specials -- the same result can be achieved with an AP coefficient. It's just slightly easier to know that a special hits harder if it says it adds damage to the value of a normal attack is all.

If special attacks remain crappy (albeit scaling) attacks then a lot of other things don't work. As a larger issue, every ability that works on pet specials is going to be one where the hunter says "I wish that worked on normal attacks instead." First, there's Kill Command, as discussed. Second, there's Cobra Strikes. From a damage perspective, hunters would rather receive 3 normal pet crits. Of course, in terms of proccing Invigoration, they are happy that it works on specials. But that seems a little sloppy in terms of design -- Cobra Strikes and Invigoration aren't explicitly linked, and there's nothing saying a BM hunter needs to have Invigoration (they could not feel the need for a mana regen talent for a variety of reasons). And while semantic arguments aren't the most powerful ones, something just seems "off" about the fact that overall we seem willing to accept that there isn't something flawed about "special" attacks being worse than normal ones. What's really the point of calling them special? This even happens in the pet trees -- is a 30% chance to get a focus-free special after using a special really worth much if the specials remain lackluster?

But no matter which side we fall on in terms of the absolute value of specials, it's clear that they should be a lot better if the deeper BM talents are going to focus so heavily on them, especially for BM to remain comparable to the other specs. 3 guaranteed pet crits at current values is really poor compared to extra damage on Chimera Shot, no-CD, mana-free explosive shots, etc. just as an example. And that's not even counting the increases from just getting those new shots period along with comparatively better stings. Obviously some of the changes to MM and SV are playing "catch-up" to BM (from a PvE perspective at least), but there's something to be said for BM hunters to "feel" like the their upgrades pack some "oomph" too, and it gives Blizzard the flexibility to add mechanics that emphasize pet specials without running into complaints every time.

I'm really sad to see what has been done to KC being left unchanged. I can’t help but feel betrayed by Koraa’s statement that we would be amazed or whatever. I’m amazed at how horrible it is. Shandara’s napkin math is pretty much what I figured, sub 4.0 dps increase on a 2 minute cooldown.

While I wait for a key, someone in the beta please post that math, get them to realize it’s a horrible change for every spec of hunter. I don’t want old KC either, thought it was fine, but I wouldn’t mind a scaling option either. Grogzor’s suggestion to make it 50% RAP to pAP is a really good one.

On paper, Lock and Load seems decent, but for raid viability it is lacking I think.

The problem is two-fold.

First, the low proc chance on shots that aren't use constantly (although you can, in fact, spam them).
Secondly, a free shot still takes a GCD to fire off. It replaces another shot (usually Steady shot).

Napkin math (roughly the same I used in the spreadsheet):
At 1 serpent sting every 15 seconds, you'll get a proc roughly every 100 seconds.

With the information I have (400-500 base damage, 20% RAP scaling), Explosive does about 2.9k damage for my gear level/stats at level 80 (2.1k initial, 400 for each tick).

Serpent Sting (without Imp. Stings) does roughly the same damage as Steady, so using it doesn't hurt.. much.
Each Explosive replaces a Steady, which does roughly 1.7k damage.

Every 100 seconds you gain (if you even get all possible ticks on the free Explosive shots) 3* 1.1k = 3.3k damage.

That's a whopping 33 dps.

Add in Scorpid Sting and you get a proc roughly every minute (3 scorpids, 4 serpents fit in a 60s window).

But... you have just fired 3 shots which do 0 damage, replacing 3 steadies. The 3 free explosive shots you get, that replaced a steady, now in fact have replaced 2 steadies each, leading to a dps LOSS. A minor one, about 10 dps.

The only thing that goes up your is mana efficiency

EDIT: On the upshot, you are maintaining Scorpid Sting in your rotation for a marginal dps loss.