FYI the way you have the macros on the main page will leave error messages disabled, which I unhappily discovered earlier when I had full bags but no notification.

The bottom line here will turn them back on.

I was wondering what build gives the highest dps.
53-18-0 or 53-11-7 (I'm using an exotic beast)

Since i can't make the spreadsheet work it's kinda hard to figure out with which one to go.

I played as BM in TBC, and I'm getting back into WoW currently. I read alot about steady shot no longer clipping auto shots. What exactly has changed with auto and/or steady shot?

In TBC you needed a bit of haste rating to reach a 3:2 rotation (auto steady steady auto steady ...). Has that rotation changed by the those new mechanics?

Thanks alot in advance.

In practical usage, I find its not worth it. The mana cost is too high and the return is too low. You are better off just weaving Arcane Shots and Steady Shots while keeping Serpent Sting up.

As is mentioned in the first post of this thread, as part of WotLK Blizzard unlinked auto-shot from the rest of the special shots so shot clipping is no longer an issues.

As is also mentioned several times in this thread and others, SS was nerfed in 3.0.8. It's AP contribution was reduced and Arcane's Shot mana requirements were lowered to match those of SS at the same time. As such, the BM shot priority is is now SrS > AS > SS

Please do a modicum of reading.

Your second sentence is a blanket statement that might not apply to everyone. Some people may be better off just using arcane and serpent for mana efficiency reasons, but others have so much mana regen available to them that they would benefit from the extra dps. From a purely damage perspective, steady shot is the lowest priority shot and should only be used if you don't have a higher damage shot off cooldown. But you are absolutely correct in that Multi should be the first shot to drop from the rotation if you're going for efficiency.

It has changed in that a steady-auto ratio is no longer a useful metric for anyone. You can't clip auto shots with specials anymore, so you no longer have to keep track of how many auto shots you're firing -- nothing you do besides movement will affect whether they go off. Additionally, steady shot is the least important shot you have, as mentioned above. Instead of worrying about ratios, you want to keep a sting up (provided the target isn't about to die), use arcane as much as possible, and if mana permits, use multi-shot or aimed shot. Once all those are taken care of you fill in idle time with steady shots.

Thunderstomp deals nature damage, so is a magical effect - however;
They changed it a while back to scale with ap instead of sp, or vice versa (I can't for the life of me remember)

Regardless, for the sake of the following we assume it scales with your + spellpower; Remember the +spellpower isnt "increases damge done by [Spell power]" but "Increases damage done by [spell power] * [Coefficient for this spell]"

That means that more spellpower will always result in more damage, but how much more depends entirely on the coefficient.

A change in patch 3.0.3 will be the reason for that:

I remember having 2k hits and 3k+ crits with it earlier.

I did a search but it only seemed to refer to back when the 50/21 readiness spec was around. Using a Cat how many points in Longevity is optimal, also how many with or without the BW glyph? I'm trying to figure out how to spend my points in Cobra Reflexes and Longevity.

Hello is still better socketing AP instead of Agi? I have from gems 161 agility (JC) or 322 Ap.

161 agi:
161 ap
1,932% crit

Since the new pet talent scales on AP, I would assume AP..

Does BM scale with a ranged weapon upgrade as well as the other two trees?

When you tick up a new tick of gun/bow from 200 to 213 to 226, etc, do you get the same benefit in all 3 trees? The delta in actual damage of the weapon would appear to propagate back into real DPS increase less due to so many more talents in BM increasing the pet dps which is not weapon based.

Any thoughts?

Having a better ranged weapon will make your auto shots, steady shots, aimed/multi shots, and chimera shots hit harder, the rest (arcane, serpent, explosive) are AP based. Since all specs have all those shots except for chimera, MM probably gets the most benefit from having a better weapon, but a weapon upgrade is still the single best dps increasing item for a hunter, no matter the spec.

Any data on Spirit Beasts and how they compare now?

I'm afraid Spirit Beast would remind the same - more like a vanity pet, as Spirit Strike won't benefit from new AP scaling talents.

But it will benefit if hit contribution to pets is going to be increased. Because Spirit Strike is magical attack and needs 16% increased hit chance.

*deleted - very sorry. I missread a previous post and responded out of context*

Yes it will. Spirit Strike scales from the pet's AP, and the new talents will increase the pet's AP gained from the hunter.

The result doesn't change even if pet spellpower is used, as that is based on inherited AP too.

Can you back it up? Not that I think you are just spewing stuff, but I saw a report that a Tenacity pet with the very efficient Wild Hunt before it was fixed and reduced only Thunderstomped for about the same values it does on live. Indicating the effect on spellpower is quite limited.

Of course with the fix/reduction they could have made it affect spellpower like it should. Which would make sense, since now it is is the scaling that is boosted rather than any added effect, which would naturally not impact spellpower.

Sure. Before I start I should note that I was incorrect about pet spellpower, which seems to be a direct number derived from the hunter's AP and not a coefficient of the pet's AP. That actually makes the question easier to answer though.

I started on the PTR with a spirit beast pet, with the normal dps talents trained except for Wild Hunt ("WH"). Pet had 1580 AP, and 505 spellpower. I manually clicked spirit strike on the level 60 test dummy, and recalled the pet. I disregarded any test involving a crit just to make it easier, and I waited for Ferocious Inspiration to fade before doing the next one. There were no changes to hunter AP during this test, and accidental autocast boosts (Call of the Wild, Rabid) were disregarded and the abilities were disabled for subsequent tests.

Unbuffed Spirit Beast Spirit Strike numbers:

1: 246 initial + 238 tick
2: 237 initial + 259 tick
3: 252 initial + 254 tick

I didn't do a lot of test runs to establish a baseline, even though SS has a damage range. This is because a) I didn't really want to spend a ton of time trying to re-prove assumptions that we have been operating under for months, particularly when the contrary assertion provided no proof whatsoever, and b) I had other things I needed to do. If, however, later tests show an increase that cannot be attributed solely the RNG damage range, then we'll have proven that it scales.

The next test I just gave the pet Spiced Mammoth Treats, still no WH:

1: 263 initial + 260 tick
2: 246 initial + 246 tick
3: 253 initial + 235 tick

One of the results seemed higher, but it's not enough to exclude the damage range as the culprit yet. So I just trained both ranks of WH, mounted and dismounted so that it would apply, and verified that the pet's AP was higher. Pet had 2003 AP, and spellpower was unchanged at 505. Still no change in hunter AP:

1: 280 initial + 275 tick
2: 291 initial + 291 tick
3: 287 initial + 279 tick
4: 278 initial + 281 tick

These final results are significantly higher than the initial tests, to the extent that we can exclude the damage range as the sole contributor. As there were no changes in pet spellpower or in hunter RAP, the remaining explanation is that SS is scaling with pet AP. More importantly, the source of the change in pet AP was WH, which essentially disproves the previous assertion that

because it pretty clearly does benefit from the new AP scaling talents. As for Thunderstomp, I have no knowledge of the report to which you're referring so I can't say what is going on there. One possible thing to consider is that if the test was conducted after the change that made Thunderstomp available to all tenacity pets, then that could explain things. GC said that the numbers might look a little different because they had to change Thunderstomp to be a single scaling rank instead of multiple ranks like before. So it may do more or less than it does on Live at various gear/buff/experience levels.

Seems like solid enough evidence I would say. No need for deeply controlled tests, just something that clearly defines changes for the higher with Wild Hunt.

Around 15% it looked like. And with base damage taken into account it might just even out to fit very well.

After some thinking, it appears that there aren't that many pets left that base their specials on Spellpower. However Thunderstomp was changed exactly to become one such ability when it did the insane numbers early on. It might be the only ability unchanged since it is somewhat of a special case.

But then again the guy that did the very imformal test might have messed up on the mounting issue, making sure that TS would never get the bonus.
But overall I suppose it is good to sweep all lingering suspicions away now rather than later.

Would adding more hit give spirit beast less of a chance to miss spirit strike? Since it is a spell, do we have to get as high as a ranged casters hit cap wise in order for it not to miss as often as it does?