With Arcane shot cost being brought down to Steady shot cost, Glyph of Arcane Shot really doesn't seem as appealing anymore. It seemed like a must before the mana change, but combine the cost change with the 3 extra seconds on the serpent sting glyph, it seems like serpent sting is the way to go.

I hope this is the best thread to post this in. If not I apologize in advance.

Currently I am spec'd Beast Mastery (50 - 21 - 0) for Readiness with 3 points in Focused Aim. I have recently gotten enough Hit gear to be "capped" at 8% and am looking for some advice on where it would be best to place those extra 3 points for the biggest DPS increase. Improved Hunter's Mark, Improved Arcane Shot, Improved Stings, or Efficiency.

I appreciate any advice you guys could provide.

Gear planner is not correct, you need to equip the item.

For me valorous cryptstalker shoulders are roughly 8dps upgrade over them.

In my opinion and based off of other's posts, the 3/3 Imp Stings would probably be your best option (I did not look up your armory so I assume the rest of your points are correct for the 50/21). However, make sure you familiarize yourself with the "Upcoming Hunter Changes" thread. It discusses the changes that will affect us in patch 3.0.8, which is right around the corner. One of those changes will be Readiness not affecting TBW, which will take the power out of specing 50/21 with 3/3 longevity and Glyph of Bestial Wrath. Read up on that thread.

Did anyone check "cat hunters" gear, enchants or gems?

I have:

+965 AP
+152 haste
+4.43% pet hit
+1.43% hunter hit
+0.18% crit
+33 armor penetration rating
+13.2 weapon dps

He must have messed up something with his pet as it only did 2064 dps.
He either forgot to switch AotB to AotD after first two BW's or then he had no aspect for the rest of the fight.
He doesn't meet the requirements for meta gem (I just noticed it in armory)
He had glyph of serpent sting instead of AotH
He wasted one point in GftT instead of putting it in imp HM
He didn't use potion of speed
Greatness deck 300 agi proc vs meteorite whetstone 444 haste for 10 sec proc

Basically, it was his first raid as 50/21 spec and first raid in the guild. If you plug all the changes compared to me in a spreadsheet the result is 1506 dps lower.

On topic: I asked if someone has similar dps figures to link, not to discuss if scorpid is OP.

This is just more of the same old... remember taking camouflage off the table for reason X, and then giving rogues misdirect and totally ignoring that same reason X? Its tiresome.

Has everyone who was using the IAotH glyph over the SS glyph checked themselves against a new version of the DPS sheet? I believe a calculation was fixed that was vastly overrating the haste from the IAotH proc, which resulted in higher than expected numbers for that glyph: link. It never did make sense to me that the IAotH glyph would produce better results than the SS glyph, but let us know if it still does.

I hope it has not been asked before, because I did not read this thread, I started reading two others entirely and will read this one tonight, but I still felt this might be the better thread to ask.

I'm coming back to theorycrafting (and playing) after a pause of 1 1/2 year, so be easy on me, please

I have 2 questions, which come up while planning my talents. The cobra strikes talent says your next 2 pet specials will have an x chance to crit (after your own crit). Now does this mean the next two "normally non-crit" specials will crit, or simply the next two, no matter what. Because 3 talent points are a lot, if it would mean that these next 2 crits will be wasted if the pet was going to crit one or even both of them anyway.

The other question would be about these glyphs. The glyph of serpent sting lets SS tick for 6 seconds longer. I read the combined use with the steady shot glyph should make sense to get 2-3 more steadies in the duration of the serpent sting for added steady damage.
But the glyph description does not say that the added 6 seconds also add damage, just that the duration is longer. If thats the case, wouldnt you lose dps because you could always get the 10% with the steady glyph by properly refreshing the 15 sec sting, while making the sting just tick longer without upping the damage would just waste you 6 seconds in which you could reapply the 15sec sting for the same damage?
I guess the answer is easy and the 6 seconds also add the appropriate damage, I just couldnt find the info.

Edit: My avatar pic seems pretty out of date now

Serpent Sting glyph had a problem in the beta that it only steched the duration, and didn't add damage. Now it does, and I assume it does on the PTR too (would be a strange reversal). All other DoT lenghteners add extra ticks, and if they weaken the ticks they say so.

Cobra Strikes appear to only get used on abilities that can crit, as has been determined by Scorpid users where Claw is much less frequent than on other pets, but has a much higher critrate.

Thanks. On what base is the damage added to the sting? Does it just add two more ticks with the same damage as the normal 5 ticks? Then if I understand this right, the use of this glyph is simply to save you a bit of mana and some global cooldowns? For example it would save 4 GC's in a 210 second fight, making space for steady shots. Is that right so far?

And yes, lets say I have a cat, cobra strikes would only apply to claw and not to rake or anything else, as far as I understand it. But this doesnt really change my question. Right now I have no idea what kind of crit levels a pet can reach with lvl 80 and all the proper raid circumstances, but I'm pretty sure it will be able to reach something like 30% at least. That would mean that every third claw is a crit, and the chance that the next 2 promised crits from cobra strikes land exactly in the gap between the regular crit, occuring every third claw, is rather slim, which would make a good part of cobra strikes effect wasted every time. Or did I miss something?

You can yell at me if all of this has been discussed already. I will read it thoroughly.

Rake is affected by cobra strikes, because the initial part can crit. As for what you're missing, it has to do with probabilities. While over a large sample we can expect 1 in every 3 specials to be a crit, that's not the same as saying that every third special will be a crit. With a 30% crit rate, you can have 3 crits in a row, or 3 non-crits in a row. You can have 10 or even 20 non crits in a row. That may not be particularly likely but it's possible (just as it's possible to get a crit streak as well). But in any event we can't assume that a special was going to be a crit because the two ahead of it weren't crits. Every roll is independent.

In other words, with a 30% crit rate for your pet, a Cobra strikes proc will change the next two specials from each having a 70% chance not to crit to instead having a 0% chance not to crit. For any given special that crits because of Cobra Strikes, there is only a 30% probability that it was "wasted".

This is all independent of the question of how to value Cobra Strikes or whether people are overrating it. If you have a 0% crit rate, then Cobra Strikes is useless. If you have a 30% crit rate, then Cobra Strikes has an 18% (30% * 60%) chance to proc from any relevant special. If your pet also has a 30% crit rate, then there is only a 70% chance that a cobra strikes proc makes a difference, which results in a final discounted value of 12.6%.