I've looked over this thread a few times and can't seem to find any reference to the AofB bug you're speaking of..

Can someone quickly explain it?

On a personnal note, this forum has helped me improve as a hunter so much, so thanks to everyone!

/bow

There was a bug where AotB increased the pet's attack power by more than 20%, instead of 10%. That has now been fixed. So BM pets are back to doing their old damage, if you don't count that bug (and a few nerfs to specific pets).

The attacks during Frenzy have a chance to pop Frenzy, refreshing the 8 sec timer?

Yes. This is one reason why you can get such a high uptime for it without maxxing it.

Just to wrap it up, if they fixed the AotB bug, then that would mean it's no longer advisable to switch to it during BW right?

Or is it still recommended that we switch from AotDH to AotB during BW?

Thank you.

There's an option in the spreadsheet to model switching to AotB during BW. For me I lose dps in the spreadsheet when I try that, but I can't say whether that's true for all gear/buff levels.

I've been trying to make sense of something and need some help.

I've noticed that if I use haste elixirs or haste food that my DPS goes up by a considerable amount. I've tested this via dummies and running Heroics.

I'm BM spec and thought we're already at the haste cap? I'm guessing my auto shots are firing more often, thus increasing my DPS?

That is exactly correct. The haste cap isn't a hard cap, but rather the point at which the value of Haste is diminished because it no longer applies to Steady Shot (because Steady Shot already has a cast time at or below the GCD). Haste will always add DPS because your auto shots fire more often, but the DPS increase is inferior to the increase you can get from other stats such as AP or Crit once you have reached the cap.

Trapdancing SV on Patchwerk? I don't see any evidence of that (no trap activity in the log file). Not to mention that if the BM hunter wasn't glyphed/gemmed/enchanted for AP instead of agility (which would contribute a lot more to his DPS) - he was only 2% behind on overall boss damage (with 80% presense, versus the other hunter's 100% presense) and only about 100ish raw DPS behind the lower SV.

Looks like BM might be closer to back on top with the right gear optimization.

We are not a high end raiding guild, so I give you a few of our parses merely to demonstrate the relative merits of BM vs MM and SV since 3.0.9, not to show the highest dps the spec is capable of. Like most of my guild, I am geared in Naxx-10/heroics items, with a few blues and a few Naxx-25 items.

The fights are long because we only had 20 people available this weekend, and thus do not show the highest burst damage.

Patchwerk WWS

I am using this 52/14/5 spec and a cat, while the hunter second on the meter is specced MM also using a cat. The third hunter is also specced BM but with a devilsaur, although he has made a number of what I would consider sub-optimal gear and talent choices that have made a large difference in his performance.

EDIT: Also, I think his pet was bugged for part of the fight.

Razuvious WWS

Our SV hunter was not able to join the raid until later in the evening, so I am including the Razuvious fight as the only stand and deliver single target fight where we went head to head last night. As you can see, the damage output is very close although he edged me out. The MM hunter is third (our other BM hunter had to leave early).

At our level of raiding, it is those who pay attention to theorycrafting who shine, so I do not claim anything except that two hunters with similar gear and similar interest in theorycraft can be competitive with one another specced BM or SV.

thats a pretty tight fight, rosa, i didnt notice anything to suggest the surv hunter was doing any trap dancing. (not saying you suggested he was, just pointing it out.)

i'd say the surv hunter even slightly out-gears you, which makes this an even tighter call.

one suggestion: try to keep your serpent sting up more often. the other two hunters got 70 and 73 ticks, you got 59. they got 58k damage out of there's, you got 36k.
that 22k damage would have put you in the number one spot. maybe get a Dot timer mod to help you keep it up more.

edit: not being critical, stellar dps considering your gear level! i'm milling around the forums trying to figure out if BM is still viable. these WWS parses are very helpful. thanks!

This isn't exactly true in all cases. With the spreadsheet, I've always seen Agility gems give higher DPS than Attack Power gems if the raid contains a paladin with 3/4 (or better) Improved Blessing of Kings. Even without this, though, re-gemming for AP instead of Agility is typically less than 1 DPS difference per Scarlet Ruby replaced (16 Agi -> 32 AP) on the spreadsheet, so I would imagine that re-gemming wouldn't have changed the outcome of this WWS appreciably.

Is this entirely true for BM now though since Auto Shot is the bulk of the specs damage?

It's not the bulk of it; it's probably slightly behind your special shots. Together, all hunter DPS is still going to be just a bit more than half of your hunter+pet DPS, meaning it's definitely not the bulk of that.

Haste is still likely to have less value than it would for MM or SV anyway. It may be doing a higher percentage of your total DPS, but your auto shots are still going to hit for less due to having less AP.

I've been a BM Hunter since creation never going more than 20 into another spec (let the boos and hisses commence). I've been researching and hunting, and in BC I was top 5 DPS every raid. Then came 3.0.1, and later the nerf of 3.0.8. Since then I've managed to eek out a measly 2500 DPS (2 WWS reports. Mayb have been prior to getting hit capped. may not... Naxx Night 1 and Naxx Night 2 on most raids (granted some bosses are a little less than faltering as BM... Halgrim!!!!!!!).

Currently I raid with a Devilsaur, but a pet-off at a dummy showed me that my Dino only out-DPSed his cat by 15 over a 5 minute period. I'm an Orc he's a BElf and we both have 2xT7. Since then I've been raising a cat to replace the Devilsaur, but I am willing to go furthur. My Armory Linky

My Current macro that I spam is:
/console sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/cast [target=pattarget,exists] Rabid
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Kill Shot
/cast Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

I use Glyphs of Bestial Wrath, Hunter's Mark and Steady Shot. All of my cooldowns are built into a single 2 minute macro for Bloodfrenzy, trinket and BW (BW also has its own icon for use outside of the macro due to the glyph). My pet is specced for all the requisite DPS talents (CR, Bloothirsty, Spider's Bite, Call of the Wild, and Rabid along with requisite points to get there). I would prefer to keep the 51 in BM for the extra tier of talents come 3.1.0, but until then I am willing to switch it up.

I want back in the top DPS slots. I don't want whispers about how BM is dead and SV is the only way to raid! Help me guys and gals of EJ. I don't know how to get my DPS any higher these days!

Sorry for the late reply. Yes there was trapdancing on Patchwerk - not necessarily particularly good TD, but enough to get 7 LnL procs on a ~2:50 kill. There's no trap activity since I wouldn't expect frost traps to show anything. I also apparently let my serpent sting fall off quite a lot as evidenced by getting several fewer ticks than the other hunters, so there could probably have been a few more LnL procs in there if I remembered to keep the sting up.

This week was slightly better (WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay in Engrish), but again I don't think our BM hunter was trying terribly hard, and his pet got BoPd at least once during the fight...

He was still extremely competitive on many fights though, so it does seem BM is quite viable again - I wish people would stop BoPing the devilsaur so we could compare better >.>

@koralath: If nothing else, leaving arcane shot out of your rotation is causing you a significant DPS loss, particularly now that it has the same mana cost as SS. I would also suggest you use Shandara's spreadsheet to evaluate whether or not your glyph/gem/enchant choices are optimal for your gear & raiding situations. You should also model whether or not you'd get more DPS dropping a point from GftT and Beast Mastery so that you can max out cobra strikes

I wouldn't recommend weaving MS into the rotation. He needs to add Arcane Shot and Serpent Sting into his rotation if he's not already using them, but not MS.

As far as the pet issue, cats are currently inferior dps to either devilsaurs or raptors. Devilsaurs have a slight edge but due to their enormous hit box issue, most min/maxers are running with raptors I believe. The difference between the two isn't that great.

Could you please be so kind to specify, why MS shall not appear in the rotation? I was wondering because spreadsheet shows a damage increase once MS added into rotation.

I know I saw in the past that a KS/AS or a KS/SS macro works, and I saw that a KS/AS/SS macro doesn't work, but is there a working SS/AS macro??

Unfortunately in all my attempts of only using auto/steady/arcane have resulted into less dps as opposed to weaving in multy or even Aimed (which I am still trying to take for a little ride) in my rotation.
I would like to attach a WWS taken recently that maybe one of the guys here can tell me (How and why) not including one of those two specials could have yielded better result than I had on the encounter.

The only reason I can think of for not using Multi-shot would be if you're having mana issues. If mana is not a problem Multi is attractive because it hits harder than a Steady. (Replacing as many Steadies with harder hitting shots like Arcane and Multi is a good thing since the nerf to Steady Shot.)