Regarding the two-tier system for hits/crits versus the one-tier system, I believe Lactose was the one that showed a very efficient model for understanding that our attacks do work under a two-tier system, so that crits are affected by chance to hit, therefore making it even more imperative to have hitcapped so you can guarentee that out of 100% shots, 100% are hitting, so you're getting the full value of your crit percentage. My own personal tests seem to have indicated this is true as well, and unless this has definitely, obviously, changed in WotLK, I'm going to continue to believe that our attacks use a two-tier method.

This said, I've been looking at Scorpids and Gorillas both for their DPS, and found that scorpids do come out ahead in raid environments due to debuffage, but even in a 10-man raid Gorillas don't seem to fall too far behind, as their DPS over the raid duration is increased due to AoE ability. Of course, if the raid is AoE limited or you need to be careful of accidentally breaking CC< I'd still recommend the Scorpid over the Gorilla. It's just a personal thing I saw one day when doing some quick 10-mans and through heroics.

Does anyone have a macro solution for the random autocast turn on of cower and prowl? It seems when I rez or zone into an instance my pet will randomly have cower or prowl turned on auto cast, it is quite annoying. Does anyone have a macro that would turn both off?

Of course you would. Are you seriously using trash dps as a measure to using a certain kind of pet?

The one solution that's been posted a few times works fine for me -- any abilities you want set off for autocasting, put them on the petbar & turn them off (rclick). Abilities on the bar seem to persist their autocasting state correctly, abilities not on the bar will stay in autocast mode, so those you'll want to leave off the bar.

As for a macro solution, my Hunter's Mark macro is:
This keeps growl off when I'm in a group, and on when I'm solo. You could easilly add /petautocastoff Prowl & Cower as well before the stopmacro to always turn it off, but it's a less elegant solution than the petbar.

The Devilsaur hit box is getting on my last nerve. Tonight while learning 3-drake Sarth I don't think my Devilsaur survived more than 1 or 2 lava waves per attempt, and he was perfectly in the gap. There is absolutely no way that Monstrous Bite should be increasing their hit box by that much. It has to be a bug.

I shouldn't have to level my Cat specifically for 1 encounter because of a very obvious bug.

I have a cat and a devilsaur and i am wondering since both seem to be close in dps...Does the fact that our MT is a druid and mangle increases that cats rake damage? How much does mangle increase the rake damage in comparison to monsterous bite?

And when reading it seems that the scorpid is nothing to forget about as well. How long of a fight does it have to be in order for the scorpid to take over in dps in comparison to the devilsaur or cat?

Don't have a link, sorry. I think the reason it's on two-roll is that autoshot isn't a "real" autoattack. It still counts as an ability/yellow damage (and indeed, for a long time autoshot damage showed up in yellow rather than white).

Testing pethit at the moment, as I promised earlier.
Weird results to say the least.

2250 petattacks, 1/3FA, 1.04% hit from gear (34 hr)
7.7% miss.
3.5% dodge.

the miss is... weird.

Screens will be up later when I have done more tests.

edit: test 2:
2250 petattacks, 1/3FA, 2.04% hit from gear (67 hr)
6.4% miss.
4.4% dodge.

test3:
2353 petattacks, 1/3FA, 3.02% hit from gear (99 hr)
5.7% miss.
3.7% dodge.

It appears that my pe is consistently missing roughly half a % more than it should.

I remember something about the hit cap having been formerly believed to be 8.6%, before everyone went to 9.0%. Was that just always erroneous or could it be something in effect here?

that had something to do with rogues if i recall correctly.

edit:
test 4:
2262 petattacks. 3/3FA, 1.04% hit from gear (34 hr)
7.4% miss.
4.4% dodge.

test 5:
2250 petattacks, 3/3FA, 0% hit from gear (0 hr)
7.6% miss.
4.3% dodge.

I'm getting more and more confused.

Final post of my tests, my cat has bloody stumps where she once had paws and after over 13000 attacks with different setups, I'm no wiser than I was before.

test 6:
2014 petattacks, 8.05% hit, 0/3FA
0% miss.
3.5% dodge.

Finally some expected results >.>

And the screenshot:


sorry for the large SS but I haven't figured out how to do the thumbnail thingy.
As for the results: they confuse me... you math mastermind people figure it all out...

All testing was done on the heroic dummy in Stormwind.

Test 5 also has ~0.5% off though, but 0.4% less miss than expected, where all other tests (except nr 6) had ~0.5% more misses.
And what are the odds of getting ~0.5% more misses than expected 4 times in a row with roughly 2250 attacks each?
Virtually zero I imagine.

Maybe pet hit doesn't work like you are expecting it to be. If some more people do likewise tests as you with different hit rating and always atleast 2000 attacks then we could plot all results and see if there is actually any logic to discover between hunter hit and pet miss.

I did plot your results, mine and 2 other I found on EJ already and I can't find the logic yet.

I dont know if this was brought up in the BM bible or not, but has anyone done testing on imp Aoth glyph vs AotB. Since the extra haste on the glyph would only give us a few more white shots, would it be more beneficial to use the AotB glyph if you switch aspects every 1.17 for the 2 percent extra ap by you and pet?

I'll go do a few more tests, no more respecs though, 0/3FA it is and stays for me :P

not promising to do em tomorrow, but sometime before monday I'll post results with some more like 4, 5, 6, 7 and possibly other % of hit...

Also, calling all hunters to do the same... I'm intrigued and I want to get some decisive results.

This is what I gathered so far. The squares are what you would expect if the base miss is 8% and each 1% hit on the hunter would reduce the miss chance by 1%. The crosses are the data from our tests.

nope, those are 7.99% hit from gear encounters.

Ah yes, hard to see that though.

Funny that our own Hitrating rises and falls with value compared to where it will put us in terms of Hit%. That last single Hitrating that will put us at the next percent will actually be worth hell of a lot more than quite a bit Crit/AP/Agi/Int. Meanwhile, if we are sitting at X.05% Hit then the next couple of hitratings won't be worth all that much since our pet won't benefit.

Hmmm... Since I'm far from capped at the moment I was planning on going 40 Hitrating food, but if that just sends me just below the next percent then I'm better off getting some AP or Agi food, perhaps even Crit food (since that is pretty low too).

Hitrating management suddenly got a lot more complicated if you aren't capped with gear.

Is anyone else having troubles with pet threat using a scorpid?

Last night in naxx my pet was pulling almost 4k TPS and riding the tank's ass in all the boss fights in threat. I'm guessing that scorpid poison has a high threat modifier. And no, growl was not on before you ask :P

Anyone else seeing this? Should i start asking paladins to be ready to salv my pet?

Well, I haven't experienced something like that with a Scorpid, but I have with a Wasp.
I was in Gundrak heroic and my poor Wasp kept getting killed, with no Growl mind you. The other Hunter's pet didn't suffer any ill effects...

Maybe the specials themselves have some sort of inbuilt threatmodifier like Thunderstomp?

Animal handler increases your pet's expertise, which reduces the boss's chance to dodge (not affected by hit rating, which determines the bosses chance to try to dodge)

What does the 2/2 10 expertise points translate into?

This sounds as if it helps pets swings/attacks land more often, is that correct?

Does this mean that this talent 2/2 in some way helps or works with say 2/3 FA which puts me at 6% leaving my pet at 6% as well?

Or perhaps it's no way linked to hit at all, and I would still need to get personal 8% from my gear so that my pet can have 8% therefore both of us are capped, and then spend those 3 points into perhaps otherwise useful/valuable talents.

So if I understand it correctly, they gave us FA to help lower needed hit rating, however it doesn't work with pet hit, so we still have to gear with hit as if the talent doesn't exist?

However, if I know I will always be having a draenei in party then I could be at 7% hit from gear also going to pet, without FA of course, then that would drop the 8% cap to 7% and both me and pet would be set?

Trying to get where I need to be with only Heroic/Crafted/Badge gear atm.

Thanks if you can clear some of that up.

Skunkone: Expertise lowers your pet's chance for it's attacks to be dodged or parried. It has nothing to do with your pet's chance to hit.

Also it has been said that FA does not transfer to your pet