Just wanted to post for my first time, long time reader.

Some things that I have been trying that have so far worked well for me.

First my armory to explain:
The World of Warcraft Armory
Talents
The World of Warcraft Armory

I have been one of those SV Hunters playing around with adding Aimed shot to my shot rotation. So far I believe it has been working pretty nice for PvE and the limited PvP that I do. I put together my shot rotation like this.

Aimed shot or optionally Multi shot (instant cast) first to have the rest of it's rotation burned since it's CD is the longest. This also helps in PvP of course as I want to stack as many debuffs for the dispell lottery as I can.

Then Serpent Sting (instant cast) Due to the cool down relationship between Aimed Shot's CD 10 sec and Explosive shot 6 sec I favored putting it here in the rotation, yes I miss the 3% nox sting damge buff and as you see latter I'll burn a bit off my serpent sting but so far I am ok with that.

Next up Explosive shot (instant Cast) Putting it 3 CD's in is not such a problem for me since they are all instant cast and more importantly lets me fire on the run with all 3 of these shots allowing for trap dancing and regaining range or letting me be mobile during a fight and that's really important for max dps during PvE or PvP .

Finally 2-3 Steady shots (depending on Aimed shot and Explosive shot CD)This is the part I am less comfortable with as I know I am burning time (clipping) my Serpent's sting if I only go for 2 before I repeat the rotation but frankly for me Explosive shot and Aimed shot tend to be more flexible as well as do more damage.

Finally I am using Glyph's Improved AoTH, of Aimed shot (for the mana refund) and of Steady shot
It's a comfortable rotation to keep up as my mana regen is high but clipping Serpent sting sure hurts but I don't really wont to replace it with another SS as that would be wasting 'up" CD times. Is there anything that any of you would suggest to me that I am not seeing that would really help? Do you see any huge downside to what I am doing?

Thanks in advance for any help.

First off, Multi-Shot is not an instant cast; it has a .5 second cast time, so it cannot be used while moving. And instead of Aimed Shot first, try starting with Explosive Shot; as a SV hunter, that's our main damage dealer, so it should be first in virtually any rotation. After that, Serpent Sting so as to take advantage of Noxious Stings, and then either Aimed Shot or Steady Shot is what I consider best. While I've TAKEN Aimed, I don't currently use it in my rotation; Steady provides a slightly higher (~60) damage per shot and still costs less. With 3.1.08 however, this is likely to change since Aimed is having its mana cost brought down to the same as Steady Shot, and Aimed will also do a fair bit more. A good rotation post-patch would likely be:

Explosive -> Serpent -> Aimed -> Steady -> Explosive -> Steady, etc.

Edit: removed unnecessary quote information and typo. Ugh.

Well the reason I had Aimed first is this is my rotation for the patch sorry I did not say that. I also wanted something I could repeat with ease or more importantly interrupt for lock and load procs to no lose track. If I put Explosive first it wouldn't get the 3% damage buff from nox stings and I wouldn't have the Aimed shot to Explosive shot CD working as well since AS has a longer CD than explosive so my repeat time could be off.

It's not really optimal to have a set rotation. You're better off using a priority queue. Explosive > Aimed > Serpent > Steady, or something along those lines. Since explosive shot does more damage than aimed shot (or single target multi-shot) you should always use explosive shot first, if multiple shot cooldowns come up at the same time.

Also, I'd like to correct Fierra in that aimed shot is not having it's mana cost reduced next patch. That change was applied to arcane shot.

A priority queue can be the wrong thing to do during a LnL proc, as you want to do ES/SS or Aimed if up/ES nearly all of the time.

I believe you mean the mana cost of Arcane Shot is being brought down to the same as Steady Shot with the upcoming patch 3.0.8. However in a SV rotation the only feasible time to utilize an arcane shot would be inbetween Explosive Shots on a LnL proc so as to not over-write an ES charge (or if a target is immune to fire damage ofc).

First, thanks to Mako and Goz; I did read that incorrectly. Comes from reading PTR forums at work!

I don't use a set rotation or macros myself; I watch all my cooldowns manually, since I trapdance. On the issue of Arcane shot, it's only on my bars anymore for the rare time I find fire-immune mobs; the time it takes to either shoot a steady shot in between ES LnL procs or use Aimed/Serpent in between them (or just wait the extra time, I think .5 secs, for the dot to fade) increases your dps far more than simply spamming ES for LnL; doing so clips the last tick, sharply reducing your dps.

Actually Mako, it was generally concluded spamming ES is bad, as well as weaving in an AS, referring to Cranch here. Unless you have very low latency and/or have excellent timing for all of your shot applications, weaving in an extra instant or a StS is better, especially for someone new at it.

edit: Had to find my reference!

I don't think that was "generally concluded" - it doesn't look like anyone agreed or disagree with him at that point.

Since you bring it up, I think Cranch's model is flawed. In the interweave example, he retraps at 25.6 so I'm assuming he has resourcefulness. In the spam example, he fires a steady shot at 25.6 and then retraps. Why would you do that? That's his third steady shot after an explosive shot too, which means he would be dropping a trap right as explosive shot comes off cooldown - effectively wasting it. Really in both cases he would optimally retrap at 24 seconds, but even if we do 25.6 seconds and remove that unnecessary steady shot in the spam example, spam comes out ahead. Those are also low numbers for those shots. With greater AP, the gap between spam and interweave is going to expand (in favor of spam).

Wouldn't opening with serpent sting be the most beneficial as it increases all the other damage by 3%? My rotation when i was Surv (respecced BM because we had 2 replenishments already) was Serpent>>>>explosive>>>steady. After the patch i will still probably open with serpent sting, followed by: explosive>>aimed>>steady.

Power Auras will track Lock and Load procs visually.

That would depend on if the 3% damage gain on your first explosive shot outweighs delaying the ability to cast your next explosive shot by 1.5 seconds (GCD).

As for usage of L&L, I'm not advocating spamming 3 Explosive shots, but rather waiting 1/3 of a GCD before shooting off the next one so that each shot is allowed to tick in full. In theory, it's trading 1 second for 2/3 of an explosive shot (vs spamming 3 and cutting off 2 ticks).

When Aimed Shot gets its mana cost lowered, will it be a more viable talent than 1/2 Focused Fire? I'm thinking it will, but I just want to be certain.

Are you serious? It is Arcane, not Aimed getting the mana reduction as stated numerous times above.

Instead of asking whether or not the SS glyph will add additional dps (it will) we should be asking if another glyph will add equal (w/better synergy somewhere) or better dps than the SS glyph. If the answer is yes then change glyphs. If the answer is no then continue to use the SS glyph.

I'm curious, with the mana reduction of Arcane Shot, and Trap dancing, if Putting points into Improved Arcane Shot is worth it? I mean, in raids, fully buffed, I've seen Arcane Shot hit for some pretty big numbers without those points, and since it should be being used more, has anyone tried to see if it's Viable?

Also, I was toying around with a SV/MM build,

Here

and I noticed that You can still get Chimera Shot And Lock and Load, and wondering if is it at all viable to do your normal Rotation of 5 SS and Chimera, and then if you get a LnL proc to spam Arcane shot, and then continue on. With the Mana reduction, that doesn't seem like it would be such a bad thing.

Any thoughts?

Two problems with that build/concept: 1) You are forced to spend a lot of points in 'filler' talents just to reach L&L; points that add zero to your raiding damage and 2) Without trap dancing the proc chance of L&L off of Serpent Sting is terribly low.

Not saying this isn't worth testing at a target dummy, but with high-dps BM talents missing, I cannot see this build becoming a winner. Test it out with & without trap dancing and let us know!

It's not a Deep SV build. It's more of a MM build, but Since LnL is THE SV talent, I thought I'd ask about it here.

Ok sorry, i misunderstood you.

I was thinking you were first asking about weaving AS as a deep SV and then talking about your hybrid build.

Undocumented changes from mmochampion,

Survival
* Lock and Load now has a 30 seconds cooldown.
* Explosive shot damage has been slightly decreased and now deal {RAP*0.16+428}-{RAP*0.16+428} Fire damage at level 80. (Down from {RAP*0.18+476}-{RAP*0.18+476})

The slight nerf to ES doesn't seem to be that much, but the LnL looks to have a huge impact to Trap dancing.

I dunno, it seems like they're telling us that it's not supposed to happen more than once every 30 seconds.... like something else hunters have.... HEY! Lets make that ability trigger Lock and Load! GREAT IDEA BLIZZ!

Honestly I'm relieved to see they're doing something about the trap dancing situation, but if they really want to discourage trap dancing, now that the 30 second cooldown is in place they should buff the procrate off stings significantly. Looking at WWS reports, I'm seeing less than 1 lock n load proc per minute from natural causes so it'll probably still be worth going in and dropping traps to proc it. I'm glad resourcefulness can no longer be considered a dps talent at least.

The new L&L nerf would go well with allowing freezing arrow to proc it, even if the target was immune. Will this mean that we don't want to reduce trap cooldown via talent anymore as survival? What would the benefit be at this point?