I have the same issue myself and thought it must just be me; actually my stats were putting haste even higher (I'll have to post later as work restricts my access to the spreadsheet). Like you, I'll be interested on others thoughts.

Check the lag settings in the tools you're using and maybe read up on how the program models latency. Most tools model around an average latency by putting gaps between casts, then applying haste to mitigate the effect. This breaks down if you use a castbar (like Quartz) that adds latency, allowing you to time your cast starts within the 'red' range and after a GCD, you may not need haste to make up for latency. Some tools let you specify zero lag to simulate this, or simply don't model it because they expect you to do it.

The 2xT10 proc values haste enough (more auto shots) that it received a nice boost among hunters with the set bonus. It does not elevate it to competitive levels with Crit or ArP but it takes better advantage of the haste we're wearing anyway and makes it not worth 'gearing down' against haste.

Personally I'm just not comfortable below 200 haste, and that's with a ret/boomkin in the raid. Beyond that is just butter if it's on my personal BiS. I like my casts to be below 1.6s - I can cope with 100ms between discretional GCDs (which is basically what Steady Shot is).

Still, 95 haste seems a little low in the goal of getting SS into a 'comfortable' range and might be hurting the number of Steady Shots you get into your rotation. Your cast time is 1.7s and 1.65s with a ret/boomkin. That means a hard 200 or 150ms gap between steady shots, or worse, between a steady shot you just cast and a more potent ability.

I think I got the answer in a PM. If you click the 'use rotation test' box it drastically reduces the value of haste. While not lining up exactly with the spreadsheet, it went from the value above to .821. Basically if I was a robot and had perfect GCDs the value of haste would be higher than it is.

One of the problems with the "dps per stat" calculations in both the spreadsheet and my website is that they don't deal very well with stats that don't scale in a consistent fashion. This is why you can get strange results with both haste and ArPen. Haste is particularly problematic in that small amounts of haste will create ripples in your shot breakdown which can sometimes increase your dps and sometimes lower it.

When using the rotation test it's possible to see very high or low values for haste because of these shifts it causes, since all the "dps per stat" does is add 20 of the stat then recalculate the dps and divide the results by that number (I use 20 because it's the size of a gem, Shandara's spreadsheet uses 50). Shandara's spreadsheet calculates dps per stat for haste differently than mine at the moment because if you're below the soft cap then it adds the amount required to get to the cap and averages over that instead of a smaller amount. This may give a more consistent number but it doesn't necessarily tell you that adding one gem of a specific stat will give you that same amount of dps. I may be switching to this implementation for haste, but I'm waiting to get some information back from Shandara first to make sure I'm doing it right.

When not using the rotation test values will scale more evenly for haste since it doesn't shift shots around but rather just estimates how many shots you could fit based on GCD space, but the value of haste will likely be inflated since there's no wait times to skip steady shot for a higher value shot the way there is in the rotation test.

If you want to see how much dps a specific amount of haste will give you, you may be better off adjusting the haste amount in the custom stats and then comparing the dps before and after, rather than relying on dps per stat.

I think it would be pertinent to shed some light on when to switch out of AotV. Also I noticed ArP was missing from the stat list with no real relevance to it, any idea when this might be added? I suppose you can get the information out of spreadsheets and third party programs like Rawr but it would be nice to see this included in the OP.

Noticed this one the OP
Needs to be updated to reflect current times.

Samhainelf, that doesn't even really make sense. First of all, if you go back to this post you can get a rough idea of what the crit caps are you have to worry about. You're not hitting them so there's absolutely no reason to be concerned that master tactician isn't giving you full value, and master tactician is worth a solid amount of dps even if you do have high crit already.

Second, why would you put 3 points in EW? 2 points in EW is enough for close to 100% uptime at much lower levels of crit, and at your crit level you could probably get by just fine with 1 point (at least as long as you're sporting 2pc T9). You should really max master tactician and if you want to scavenge points for imp stings you can take 2 points from EW, 2 points from resourcefulness (each point is worth less than the previous one, but one point still has good value) and 1 point from hunting party (or just go 2/3 in imp stings). You should really use the spreadsheet or web version to find out the best combo for you, but I doubt you'll find any results that tell you dropping master tactician is a good idea.

There's been a bit of discussion over the new hunter aoe in the recent patch and wondering how different talents affect the hunter aoe and how many mobs are needed to make multi-shot worth firing over other higher damage shots. One thing I noticed last night for Survival is that the new Serpent Spread talent seems to get the "DK treatment" for aoe's. I didn't test it on Saurfang adds, but on trash the serpent sting dmg wasn't being reduced by the aoe cap leading to some insane numbers on large packs making serpent sting the highest dmg component. Here's a sample parse Serpent Spread Parse. Multi-shot itself acccounted for only 4.5% of the damage while the serpent sting portion was close to 60% combined on the whelp packs before Sindragosa.

I'd really like to try it on Saurfang heroic next week but it looks like it makes multi-shot viable dps with smaller groups where the dmg from the 6-9 seconds of serpent sting would be greater than the damage of an explosive shot or other focus costing shots. Without serpent spread a much larger number of adds would be needed to use focus on multi-shot over Explosive shot.

Edit to inline numbers:

Serpent Sting - 689243 36.6%
Explosive Trap - 557256 29.6%
Improved Serpent Sting - 435700 23.2%
Multi-Shot - 85011 4.5%

Yeah, I'm planning to try it on Saurfang this week as well. I also think it has the potential to be good on Lich King during the Val'kyr waves. Survival's Multi-Shot is just really powerful. I think it's actually pretty close to being usable even in situations where it will only hit a single mob.

Some other oddities I've noticed are that, at least at level 80, Black Arrow and Explosive Shot (other than with LnL) aren't really worth casting. Can anyone confirm that I'm not insane here? Furthermore, although it seems like Explosive Shot at least becomes good at 85, Black Arrow doesn't. It seems strictly worse than Explosive Trap. I just plain stopped spec'ing it on both live and beta. Black Arrow does less damage per target, it costs more focus, and it ticks less resulting in fewer LnL procs.

I've only been using Black Arrow to get LnL procs. However Explosive returns to pre-patch numbers with stacked mastery. That requires reforging hit (easy) and crit. For Black Arrow I've been really focus starved and I've been dropping Black Arrow when starved or delaying it till I can afford the focus without delaying explosive for more than a second. Not having Cobra Shot to refresh Serpent Sting really hurts since the damage from serpent sting and the bonus to all other damage by 10% (Noxious Stings) makes it worth keeping up.

From Sindragosa with 20.05 mastery (40% total bonus elmental dmg): Sindragosa Parse
Normal Tick - 35 4847.8 169673
Crit Tick - 99 10390.2 1028629

Focus starvation on Black Arrow is easily solved by replacing it with Glyphed Trap Launcher + Explosive Trap (10 focus vs 35 focus). Against stationary targets this is probably much more optimal considering the dramatically increased chance of proccing LnL (10 ticks with ET vs. 5 ticks with BA).

I'll probably try that this next week. I was trying to use Black Arrow this week to see if it was possible to do a rotation with it for movement heavy fights (Marrowgar, Putricide, etc) where explosive trap isn't as useful. But I think you're right that even if the damage isn't worth it, 10 ticks versus 5 chances for LnL procs and at a lower focus cost (though clunkier to use since it requires 2 key presses) makes it explosive trap the better option in the rotation. I need to find a good keybind combination to work trap launcher + explosive trap into my rotation.

I've been doing a castsequence macro for Trap Launcher -> Explosive Trap. I'm not sure if there is a less clunky way to do it though. One thing I like is that Trap Launcher lasts 15 seconds, so as long as the trap cooldown has less than 15 seconds on it you can press Trap Launcher whenever it's most convenient.

This is definitely true and I a bug I reported both on live and on beta. Currently, Explosive Trap's initial damage component is not scaling with RAP. Naked or fully geared in 346 blues/277 epics, it is doing the same damage range of 240-320, even though the tooltip scales as it should.

On Serpent + Saurfang adds: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

It was our first run with the new talens and I sure messed up a lot - but with talented Serpent+Multi I was rankend No 2 in Dmg done to beasts without even moving or re-targeting (Multi on Saurfang, Steady for Focus woven in)

The second Hunter did not spec into it and came very close behind me - so it seems that the talent might not be a big dmg boost but it definatly makes this fight a lot easier (if your on beast-duty as a hunter)

And while we all know that trash is not relevant...same report has me on no 1 in trash dmg - mostly due to serpent talented

The traps, in general, seem to have really awful damage output. Immolation is still horrible, Explosive got the AoE treatment so it's horrible, and Snake Trap is Snake Trap and thus has no reason for existing. Black Arrow is a horrible joke of an ability that costs too much Focus and does too little damage to be worth it, save for the fact that it's not stupid like traps and thus is a bit (and only just a bit) more reliable for proccing LnL than launching a (terrible) trap. Explosive Shot, meanwhile, costs way too much and scales way too poorly to justify using UNLESS you stack the hell out of mastery. If you can't do that, it's absolute garbage outside of LnL, which is so wrong that it sort of makes my eyes bleed.

I really think Survival could benefit from Thrill of the Hunt being made into a proper focus generation talent a la Combat Potency, Black Arrow being either straight-up removed or at the very least reworked to not be bad AND cost less (25 Focus at most), as well as traps finally getting a much needed revamp that Blizzard seems completely unwilling to ever do. (Why they're so in love with ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE TRAP MECHANICS I'll never understand. They're so bad that they're honestly pathetic and shouldn't even exist at this point. They're an embarrassment when viewed in context with all the really nice changes they've done to pets, Focus in general, etc.)

Explosive Shot (and, by extension, Chimera) needs to have its scaling reworked so that it's always worth casting, regardless of gear. If you're speccing into Survival (or, respectively, Marks), you should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS want to hit that button when it comes up, even if you're in the worst greens ever. Right now, that is not really true. The whole idea that your signature ability is really only desirable vis a vis Arcane Shot (sans specific procs) at high gear/mastery levels is completely retarded. Period.

Basically, outside of Serpent Spread being awesome (and that being possibly due to a bug), Survival's probably in the worst shape in my mind. SEVERE Focus issues (even with Cobra Shot), SEVERE scaling issues on its primary shot, SEVERE issues with LnL because Black Arrow is just an awful ability and traps are absolutely worse in every way except cost, and SEVERELY outdated talents. It's like they forgot that the tree existed.

There is anotherthing to mention for comparing BA vs. traps: basic critical damage multiplier (in survival) for Serpent Shot, Black Arrow, Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap is 150%. Toxicology makes it 175%/200% for Black Arrow and Serpent Sting, but does not change critical damage multiplier for traps.
On the other hand survival mastery increases damage for Serpent Shot and Traps, but keeps BA damage intact.

Also on Lady Deathwisper and few other bosses I've got bad triggering rate for Explosive and Ice traps. Traps sometimes are resisted by bosses. It's not that big issue for LnL procs as you have 2 options for triggering it, but damage of Explosive trap is being lost for resisted trap.

On the other hand, Saurfang is a perfect boss for trap launcher. With proper talents for ice trap you can increase crit rate, freeze adds and trigger LnL in a perfect time.

So I tried out trap launcher with Explosive trap last night as a replacement for black arrow and it made for a much more focus stable rotation. The only fights I still had to use black arrow on were Princes and Putricide. The rest were movement stable enough to use explosive trap to trigger LnL (didn't do LK). It made a world of difference with the focus starvation problems on fights that didn't have a lot of movement.

Has anyone else seen the following bug with Trap Launcher?

Two hunters are in a raid. Hunter A hits trap launcher then immediately afterward hunter B hits trap launcher. Hunter B fires his trap. Hunter A's UI stays lit up but cannot fire a trap until the internal cooldowns wear off.

If anyone has seen this, have you also found any sort of workaround other than calling over voice chat? We have 2 SV hunters in our raid group and we may both be in the raid at the same time. If Trap Launcher is preferred to Black Arrow, this could impact our DPS unless we can find a workaround.

Tested out the new explosive shot, I'm coming up with (0.22 AP + (699 to 799)) * 3 now (From 0.18 AP + (417 to 501)). It's almost comparable to Arcane Shot for damage-per-focus now.

As a nice un-announced change, Black Arrow was seemingly increased, as well, to 0.178 AP + 3593 (From 0.115 AP + 2765). It now out-does Explosive Trap for damage until 8537 AP.

Can anyone confirm whether or not the wind serpent's +8% magical damage applies to SrS, BA, and ES?

That might explain why I saw this multiple times last night with two Survival hunters in our ICC 10 man runs. It did this every single time I tried to use it to launch a frost trap on Blood Beasts... So yes, I saw this last night as well.

I saw it on other bosses too, but Blood Beasts was the one that I noticed it most due to trying to toss the trap 5 seconds before the beasts came out. The other hunter did say he was tossing his trap at 5 seconds as well.