For me with my gear using Shandara’s spreadsheet, as MM, enabling best raid buffs and best raid debuffs, I show the following when comparing Engineering to Blacksmithing:

Boots: The nitro boosts also includes 24 crit rating (in addition to the speed boost). If I replace that enchant with the next best boot enchant (greater assault +32AP) I show a loss of 10.03 dps.

Gloves: I have the pyro rockets macroed into my aimed, steady, kill and chimera shots (along with silencing shot) so that they fire as soon as they are off CD regardless of what shot I may be on in my rotation. Replacing this enchant with the next best enchant (Major Agi +20agi) shows me as a dps loss of 27.04dps

Cloak: The Flexweave underlay includes 23AGI (in addition to the parachute): If I replace that with the next best cloak enchant (Maj Agi +22Agi) I show a dps loss of 1.21

Combined: removing engineering enchants result in a dps loss of 38.28dps

Adding the +20 agi gems to gloves and bracers (with blacksmithing instead) nets me an increase over engineering of only 19.09 dps. Adding the +20 ArP gems to gloves and bracers nets me an increase over engineering of only 18.32dps.

To me the utility of engineering (movement increases, ability to make new ammo in raid, ability to access bank or mailbox in raid, repair bots, ability to access auction house in Dalaran, portals, etc) make it well worth the small dps loss. I also suspect that in the real raiding environment the ability to use nitro boosts and quickly move brings a big dps increase... while other hunters are still running to get positioned, I'm in the new spot dpsing. As another poster also said, you could add saronite bombs to the mix and probably also help your dps (I don’t bother).

You are probably right. Altho, I was just talking about whether or not the glyph actually works. Also, when I test it with the spreadsheet, I do get higher numbers. However, I feel it is not entirely accurate. Let me give you an example:

Last week Iron Council hard mode:
Duration for Steelbreaker only - 1:37 .
Number of auto shots - 60
Number of steady shots - 34

This week Iron Council hard mode:
Duration for Steelbreaker only - 1:36
Number of auto shots - 54
Number of steady shots - 31

I ended up doing less dps (around 500 less) during this week, compared to the week before, even tho I had gear upgrades (2/5 T9) and all my special shots did more damage this week, except for kill shot (1 less crit) and Aimed shot (1 shot less due to the shorter time). However, the loss of auto shots and steady shots probably made the difference (32.6k damage lost from auto shots and 27.5k damage lost from steady shots).

So in the end, it seems that even tho the TSA glyphs does work, it is not better than Hawk, at least for me.

Higher number of autoshots in first example give an impression that you just moved less then than on 2nd example.
If that indeed is the case, one cannot make valid comparisons about the impact of TSA/Hawk glyph.
Maybe you have combat logs of that fight to share?

Whether the TSA glyph or Hawk glyph is better does depend on several factors. The first is obviously gear. The next is your spec, where having talents like Barrage, IB, or ISS makes a difference. Another is the nature of the fight. Is it standstill? Or do you have to move a lot? Another item to note is that the Hawk glyph should not be affecting the frequency of your Steady Shot.

For my gear, according to the spreadsheet and the stand-still situation that favors the Hawk glyph, the TSA glyph was 9 DPS better. For movement fights where you cannot do as many autoshots (unless you are stutter stepping), the TSA glyph is even more beneficial. This is with only having 2/3 IB since I have 2 points in FA. If I regear to get 3/3 IB and 1/3 ISS, then the DPS gain is 14 for me when switching to TSA glyph. The difference is still 14 even if I drop 2 points in IHM to get 3/3 ISS.

In BiS gear, the spreadsheet only shows a 3 DPS gain for TSA, but on movement fights the DPS gain of TSA is much larger.

Thus, although I am currently using the Hawk glyph, I am considering replacing it with the TSA glyph.

That's wonderful.... until the Shaman or DK AP buff overwrite it, then it's useless.

You make an Aimed Shot macro with /cancelaura for Abominable Might and Unleashed Rage in it.

Hey guys, quick question that I didn't see covered elsewhere.

Once you're at the haste soft-cap (super speedy steady shots!), is it worth it to swap the DPS potion you may have been using? I've noticed that Heroism itself isnt a huge DPS spike for me, and typically that's when I've been using said potion.

I've been eyeballing Potion of Wild Magic for the 200 crit, but didn't want to look like a dink using a spell power potion without a little reassurance.

Thanks in advance.

I recently got Giant's Bane so I figured I'd try out MM (after being SV for a long time now). Here is my rotation: Open with SerS, CS, AimS, ArcS, and then StdyS until CS is up then repeat (except for the SerS) I'm also spamming SilentS when it's off CD. Now this is with a given that HM is already on the target. Now with my gear according to the spreadsheet I should be doing more DPS as MM, but for some reason I continue to do better as SV. I have tried to leave out ArcS (even though my ArmPen is only around 505 and I don't use a proc trinket), but that didn't seem to help. According to recount I'll do around 6600 DPS as SV, but I'm only pulling like 5800 as MM. Any suggestions? Other then stay SV until I get some more gear upgrades?

Raid buffs I normally have are: Kings, Might, Wisdom, GotW, Fort, Spirit, Int, Hit (group racial), Endless Rage Flask, Fish Feast, and TSA. We rarely have a fury warrior or feral druid so I know I'm missing the Crit buff and bleed buff.

First, I believe you are way off mark here and must have missed the last 50 or so pages in this thread. Haste is not really a goal of MMs. Even prior to 3.1 when it was more valuable relative to other stats than it is now, it was still at the bottom of the barrel. Since 3.1, it is even less desirable since crit became more important with the DPS boost from Piercing Shots and since ArP started becoming more available for stacking.

Here is why. Haste only affects your autoshots and your steady shot. Getting to the haste softcap just makes sure that your steady shot is to the GCD. Considering the proc rate of Quick Shots and other hast effects such as Rapid Fire, Bloodlust, and Speed Potions, your SS shot is at the GCD a good 60-70% of the time already so that all the haste to the softcap is doing is speeding up your autoshot and then your SS only 30-40% of the time.

Now I will admit that with you having the Chimera Shot glyph that making sure that your SS is at the GCD 100% of the time is more important than for hunters without that glyph since SS delays push back your CS. But even in this case you are giving up a lot of other more important stats to get haste.

For illustration, here is the breakdown of value for each stat for my character (left) and yours (right):

Hit + 1 1.788/1.474
ArP +1 1.547/1.216
Agility + 1 1.497/1.461
AP + 2 1.249/1.136
Crit + 1 1.229/1.310
Int + 1 0.723/0.643
Haste + 1 0.589/0.521

As you can see, haste is at the bottom of the barrel. It is about 3x worse than Agi and ArP (for me), more than twice as worse than AP and crit. Heck, it is even worse than Int.

Your stacking of haste is costing you a lot in other better DPS stats. You may have good ArP, but the haste has cost you agi, crit, and AP. For instance, your crit and AP are is 37.15% and 4176 compared to my 48.34% and 4631 despite the fact that my total ilevel is only 83 higher. So each time you hit, you are hitting for a lot less.

Some other places where you may be off the mark and costing yourself DPS include your spec, your pet's spec, your gems (regemming will gain about 57 DPS), and your glyph choices (although there is some synergy with your glyph choices and haste stacking). I suggest that you may want to do some more reading up on this and other hunter threads.

Now to answer your question. For my character, the speed potion is worth about 325 DPS while the crit from Wild Magic is only worth about 246 DPS. Hence, the potion of speed is about 80 DPS better for me. For you character, the difference is not as large since you need the crit a lot more than the haste. Even so, the speed potions is 20 DPS better at 283 DPS. Of course, the crit from the Wild Magic potion can still be better in some situations, such as on a high movement fight since a lot of the speed potion effect is wasted if you are not doing SSs and autoshots due to moving.

Thanks for the help. Just as a note, though, I haven't been intentionally stacking Haste so much as using what's been made available to me. Unfortunately, it just so happens that most of said pieces have haste prioritized on them.

When I was talking about the haste soft-cap, I was, like you mentioned, speaking with Quick Shots in mind. Also, been meaning to regem to ArP, but waiting for a few more elusive pieces before I do that. Going to go hit up my bank and see if there's any stuff floating around that I've picked up that may work a little better.

Also, thanks for the heads up on the potions question. Appreciate it.

Your issue isn't just your gear, although the lack of ArP is a problem, it's your group make-up. Without a warrior and feral druid for sunders and mangle/trauma, MM lags SV in DPS at all but very high levels of Armor Pen, and that will only get worse in 3.2.2.

Using myself as an example, when raiding without Sunders & Mangle/trauma I would have to have over 900 ArP fulltime AND the [Mjolnir Runestone] before MM will out DPS SV. With both those debuffs on the boss, MM produces higher DPS than SV in my current gear (269 ArP) without the trinket.

With a high amount of ArP from all the ulduar and totc gear, including the totc 5man normal ArP trinket I was wondering whether it will provide higher dps simply going for high ArP (lets say around 80%) without the use of Grim Troll or Mjolnir Runestone, considering full gems and so on.
If so and if anyone has done these test - what would be the best or the minimum ArP required to make that setup better than the commonly used ArP cap on the proc of on of the trinkets.

There was a point where regemming full ArP+Banner was an increase over ArP/Agi+Grim. I forgot what the break point was, but I was in mostly BiS Ulduar gear minus cloak, pants, and a few rings. Since, I've just gone for full armor pen and use the banner. The only problem with going this route, is with 3.2.2 on the horizon in a few weeks (the Onyxia thing is supposed to be in November, so sometime in the next 4 weeks I assume), is that gemming/gearing for full ArP isn't that amazing anymore. I re-ran the numbers last night for current vs PTR and I lose some dps as is. The difference is also 75dps in favor of Agi I believe if I was to regem.

I'll have to double check the sheets that I have open when I get off of work. I'll edit this post in about an hour or so.

I can confirm that regemming to Agi is, while very minor, a DPS increase over ArP once 3.2.2 comes around. I did notice though that [Banner of Victory] is still ahead of most trinkets DPS wise if you don't have Mjolnir.

I had a question which, after searching this thread and others, remains unanswered (to my knowledge).

I currently do not subscribe to the focused armor-pen philosophy for my hunter. I realize on a static mob with full debuffs it is easily the most effective method of maximizing dps, but for my play-style I find it detrimental on any fight requiring mobility or frequent target changes -- at least at my current gear level and options.

The question I had relates directly to armor penetration however. At what point of passive armor penetration (I suppose based on the PTR data rather than live) does it become more effective to ignore arcane shot and its respective talents and place those 3 points into talents such as improved barrage or improved steady shot?

Per the spreadsheet I'm finding that even with my paltry 350ish armor penetration rating and unusual spec (HM hunter for our raids) I may find a dps increase by dropping arcane shot from my shot selections and using 3 points in imp. steady shot or imp. barrage instead.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I dropped Imp Arcane and Arcane from my rotations in early ulduar for IHM, so that sounds about right.

If you're discounting ArP heavy builds endorsed by the spreadsheet on the grounds of high mobility requirements though, you should be discounting builds that drop Imp Arcane as well, since you're generally replacing those arcanes with steadyshots, which you can't during high mobility.

Well, you definitely don't need to be gemming ArP in order to drop Arcane Shot to get a DPS gain - steadyshot + piercing shots outpaces arcane shot well before gemming arp.

For the (few) fights where I'm moving around a lot, I'm usually survival anyway since it's easier to get Hawk Eye as survival, and most such fights feature adds which both discourage specs reliant on Hunter's Mark and serpent sting and encourage higher killshot crit rates.

ArP MM is more mobile than an Arcane MM.

Arcane will never be on CD for the ArP build, so, whenever you need to move you can shoot it if the other two instants are on CD, while on the Arcane MM build it will frequently be on CD.

About the target switching... both MM suffer... so, I see no reason not to go to ArP.

Gemming however, I don't recommend unless you can achiev really high %s, like 80%+.

I was originally writing this response as a private message, but decided to post it in the thread instead since it may have value to others.

The answer to your question does not only have to do with ArP (although that is a factor). It does not take much ArP at all to make the switch worthwhile. How much depends on a lot of other factors due to cross-coupling of stat effects so it is not worthwhile to quantify a number.

In addition to ArP, what I find to be a another discriminating factor on whether to drop IAS and switch to the ArP rotation is your crit rate. Since 3.1 and the introduction of Piercing Shots, crit rate has become more important for MM hunters. If your crit rate is high enough (which yours is more than high enough at over 50% unbuffed), then it pays to drop ArS and use an extra SS since it procs PS and ArS doesn't.

Other benefits of this change include:
1) A slight mana savings since Master Marksman reduces the cost of SS but not ArS
2) If you move the points in IAS into IB, it will greatly increase your AiS damage as well as your AoE damage
3) Easier and more consistent rotation to implement since it is always CS->AiS->SSx4

Here is a comparison with your current spec and the priority rotation on the left and the updated spec and ArP rotation on the right:

ArS: 5109 / 4443
SS: 4768 / 4768
AiS: 7199 / 8050
DPS: 8070 / 8112

This is a 42 increase in DPS with the 337 ArP you currently have. The SS that replaces your old ArS does do about 340 less damage (510 if you average 1.5 ArS per old rotation) but your AiS does about 850 more damage more than making up for that difference. Plus, as your ArP/crit % increases, the difference will become even larger.

Of course, you will still need to use ArS on certain fights like Hodir and Vezax where magic damage is buffed. In addition, when moving and having no other instant cast shots available, you will want to use ArS too, but even in these movement fights that you are concerned about, the loss in damage in ArS by losing IAS is made up for by having those points in IB buffing your AiS instead (with assuming a single ArS per rotation).

Has anyone done any testing to see whether it's still possible to overwrite an IMH or a glyph'd mark with a regular Hunter's Mark? I remember the bug being reported but can't find any follow up posts about its being fixed.

There was a blue response to the bug post stating that it was working as intended, so blizzard doesn't consider a weaker mark overwriting an improved mark to be a 'bug'.

Edit: Here's a link to the response from Blizzard, World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> [Bug] Hunter's Mark being overwritten 3.1.3

I have a few questions about whether or not im getting the most out of my dps. should i be using wrathstone or switch back to using grim toll (thorim wont drop runestone) For me I'm using serpent, steady and chimera glyphs just curious if any of the other glyphs out there are better for mm i know serpent is best one and i hear steady is a bit bugged or something?

And is my gear good enough to drop arcane shot out of my rotation for an extra steady shot. (yes i know my melee weapon sucks general wont drop lotrafren and anub hasnt dropped archons yet) plan on getting belt from anub arak so i dont need focused aim anymore.

Last question would replacing wrathstone with deaths verdict be a good combo using deaths verdict and greatness and do the agi boost stack with each other? dont have deaths verdict atm also.