Given that this is a thread for survival hunters and the rhino is an exotic pet and thus is only available to BM hunters, I don't think it'd make sense to list it.

You got it wrong I'm afraid.
Stampede causes damage, and adds a debuff causing all bleed damage to do 25 % more damage.

Piercing Shots is a secondary effect to a crit, just like Deep Wounds. It does add a debuff, but not one that causes the target to take more bleed damage, but instead deals bleed damage.

Also, Stampede has a 1 min cooldown, and with 8 seconds uptime, that's not impressive at all, since Arms warriors and/or Feral Druids can keep a 100 % uptime without sacrificing damage. They do not stack, ofc.

Your post is a bit confusing, so I might have misunderstood you. I cannot see the purpose of comparing two completely different abilities.

Do pets benefit from the hunter's armor penetration? I know the spreadsheet isn't perfect, but can you or anyone else explain besides using the spreadsheet why armor penetration is more valuable than haste? I'm pretty sure that I understand what you're saying, but am still in debate with a guild member over this. His latest response:

I think you need to tell your friend about the "Calculate attributes" button because apparently he missed something quite vital to the spreadsheet.

Pets do not benefit from ArPen or from haste. My percentages were from the total damage done including the pet, but in both cases the damage done by the pet was not included in the total damage affected by the stat (i.e. ArPen affected damage / total including pet).

In his list of abilities affected by ArPen he forgot kill shot btw. The WMO he provided is of a fight with a significant amount of AoE, so not really the best fight for comparison, but he still needs to keep in mind that magical attacks in general don't benefit any more from haste than ArPen, with the exception of any pushback on their cooldowns caused by trying to squeeze in another steady shot. I'm not sure how much of a value you can put on that pushback, but the value of that I guess is what he's arguing is high enough to push haste above ArPen in value.

Really the question is, does the value of ArPen to aimed/multi and kill shot outweigh the gain in other shot output from finishing your steady shots slightly faster. Plus there's the question of how much gain you get in dps from haste vs ArPen on the shots that are affected by both. I don't know how to write an equation to prove that one way or the other, which is why I just listen to the spreadsheet (and yes the numbers do recalculate based on your gear).

Is 3/3 Hawk Eye more viable than 3/3 Trap Mastery?

If you spend a lot of time trying to get into range then yes. The Ulduar bosses are in such huge rooms and often the extra few yards will allow you to do more dps than the buffs from Trap Mastery. All really comes down to personal play style.

I also like that Hawk Eye allows me to stay in place longer to keep Sniper Training rolling that much longer.

One fight that Hawk Eye excels in my opinion is Hard-mode Mirmiron, but in that case its better to drop points in Imp Tracking. What you have to ask yourself is are you losing dps time because you are out of range of the boss a lot, and if the answer is yes then you probably will want to pick it up.

Using Rapid Fire when Heroism activated on boss encounter is better or chain haste effects like Heroism -->Rapid Fire -->Speed potion for longer haste effect on boss fight is more DPS ?

Chain them. Either one is enough to hit the soft haste cap.

Since I never run out of mana in 25 mans, i usually use speed potions. I use these at the same time as rapid fire and bloodlust usually to make my auto shot cast as fast as possible. It is true that auto shot is the second most damage dealing shot for hunters, so bringing the casting speed down allows for the most dps gain.

Thats a calculation I found :

Auto attack speed = base auto attack speed / {( 1 + haste_from_haste_rating / 100 ) * (1 + haste_from_rapid_fire_if_active / 100) * ( 1 + haste_from_heroism_if_active)}

Apparently Ilovemuffins had a 2.8s weapon speed and 8.75% haste at the time so 2.8/1.0875 = 2.5747s attack speed without buffs.

Rapid Fire is 40% haste for 15 seconds.
Heroism is 30% haste for 40 seconds.

15 + 40 = 55 seconds over which we're trying to maximize our damage.

Unbuffed
55 seconds of auto shots at a constant attack speed.
55 / 2.5747 = 21.36 autoshots

Stacking Heroism and Rapid Fire
We'll get 15 seconds of both buffs, 25 seconds of only Heroism, and a final 15 seconds at our normal attack speed.

total autoshots = 15 / ( stacked attack speed) + 25 / ( heroism only attack speed ) + 15 / ( unbuffed attack speed )

[top] 15/(2.8/(1.3*1.4*1.0875)) + 25/(2.8/(1.0875*1.3)) + 15/(2.8/(1.0875))

29.05 autoshots

Chaining Heroism and Rapid Fire
We'll get 40 seconds of only Heroism followed by 15 seconds of Rapid Fire.

total autoshots = 40 / ( heroism only attack speed ) + 15 / ( rapid fire only attack speed )

[top] 15/(2.8/(1.0875*1.4)) + 40/(2.8/(1.0875*1.3))

28.35 autoshots

I have a different question involving the spreadsheet... I almost always see on this forums "Put it on spreadsheet and see which is better" I do not mean to show any disrespect and definitely appreciate the huge effort put in the work, however could anyone tell if it is %100 reliable ? I mean is it closer to pure science or assumptions string. I am aware no black or white exist and everything is in shades of gray since Blizz does not reveal all game mechanics.

Why I am asking the question is, currently my spreadsheet shows 1Arp > 1Crit Rating for my gear (0,87dps vs 0,82) and I am not sure if this is natural/entirely possible or is it due to some error or bug.

Also when I remove the raid buffs from my char, again Crit moves forward and the situation is Crit > Arp (0,57 vs 0,47)

I have 41,5% Crit and 244 Arp unbuffed currently...

Thanks in advance for any constructive replies.


PS: I did not know if to put this question on spreadsheet title or here.. But decided to put it here since placing it on the spreadsheet page could look offending.

Crit is valued higher in both my MM and SV sheets.

Have you pushed the button 'Calculate attributes' ?

If not the data isn't entirely correct.

A lot of SV hunters are finding ArP outweigh crit with high ArP values, especially if you have a Mjolnir Runestone or Grim Toll. Removing sunder/faerie fire (debuffs) is going to hurt your ArP value quite a bit so that's not surprising.

First, the auto shot calculation above is missing 15% haste from "quiver." Accounting that, you shoot 33.41 auto shots stacking and 32.61 auto shots chaining, so you gain 0.8 auto shot. Now, the thing is your steady shot doesn't gain much either. Take the above settings. Your steady shot has casting time of 2/1.15/1.0875 = 1.5992 sec. Now, between stacking vs. chaining, there are only 15 sec where stacking doesn't get to haste cap. So, you gain 0.62 steady shot by chaining over stacking ASSUMING you only fire steady shot (10 steady shots vs 9.38 steady shots). I'm pretty sure 0.8 auto shot is better than 0.62 steady shot and, in reality, you don't even gain 0.62 steady shot.

A factor you're missing is that you may also be able to blow an attack power ability or trinket at the same time, thus getting in the maximum number of shots for that time.

Also, your shot rotation is going to vary a lot, depending on spec. You may not be using Steady Shot much.

I think a major factor is being overlooked here. The question of whether chaining or stacking haste is more complex than just autoshot versus steady shot. The primary reason for chaining haste abilities was to make sure Explosive shot was not delayed (or to keep delay to a minimum). Everyone needs to go back and review posts 851 (and 847) where it was demonstrated that 3 specials between explosive shots is clearly better unless the delay is more than ~0.85 seconds. Now consider post 59 where it was determined how many points you would need to take in IAotH to achieve steady shot at the haste cap. The best dps build uses 6/14/51 so you can run very low haste without an issue and looking at the BiS gear you only get 6.92% (227) plus 3% from your ret paladin or 9.92%. This brings steady shot to 1.82s, but you get plenty of haste from IAotH. However, what if you are the popular 0/15/56 replenishment build? You are stuck with a 1.82s steady shot. In this case it could still be better to chain your haste abilities/potions. I am doubtful that choosing some gear with more haste than the BiS for 6/14/51 will result in a dps gain for 0/15/56 due to the loss in stats that carry more weight than haste. The real question is whether stacking haste (speed potion/rapid fire/heroism) for increased autoshot damage is greater than loss of damage from explosive shot delay over the length of the entire fight. Having "on use" trinkets (eg Wrathstone) just complicates the issue further.

If you had 9.92% haste, your steady would be casting at 1.58sec because you have 15% "quiver" haste (why do people keep forgetting this. It's not like quiver haste affecting steady is a new thing). You delay explosive shot at most by .24sec. More times, there will be instant shots in between to make that delay lower. Let's say 0.2 sec to make math easier. Then, over 15 sec period where haste cap isn't reached, there will be 0.5 sec delay of an explosive shot. Will that slight delay give us an extra explosive shot at the end of a fight? Unlikely. So I think that effect is negligible (but so is chaining vs stacking as they don't even gain you a full auto shot). Also, imo the reason best spec includes IAotH is mostly for FF and that those 6 points don't do much in other talents (since proc chance increase talents like EW and TotH rapidly drops in value as you put more pt in them thanks to diminishing return).

I think you're right, but nevertheless haste, like all stats but ArP (as far as I know), becomes more important (in DPS/point) the less you have compared to the other stats. Simulationscraft already tells me I gain more from haste than from crit with my gear and a 0/15/56 build.
Even though the difference between chaining and stacking is rather small Dardon is right, it's not a simple decission between Auto Shot and Steady Shot, but it's about not delaying Explosive Shot an keeping a tight rotation. If you time your Rapid Fire well, you would make sure most of you instants are already on CD (because they are not affected by the haste).

So in an ideal situation it should look something like this:
ES-BA-SrS-AS-ES-<RF>SS-SS-SS-ES-SS-SS-AS-ES-SS-SS</RF>
In worst case it yould be:
<RF>ES-BA-SrS-AS-ES-SS-SS-SS-ES-SS</RF>

With the umbers from sihyunie you gain between 0.32s and 0.56s. Of course if the fight is short enough this might change nothing, but anyway you won't gain this time back. You're whole rotation till the end of the fight will be delayed by this amount and it might make the difference betweeen another Kill Shot at the end or not.

Correct me if any assumptions or conclusions here are wrong.

You are right of course regarding the quiver haste (it was late last night, my apologies). However, we must also consider latency of 150ms or so.