I'm looking for some analysis on options for Survival specced Hunter pets. Original post points us to Raptor, Cat, and some pets I haven't tinkered with, Wasp and Moth. Spreadsheet seems to like the Moth for me, but how useful is the Wasp's debuff in a raid environment/heroics?

Anyone done extensive testing on either the Wasp or the Moth and can relay their experiences?

Although I haven't run with a wasp myself, it doesn't seem like an incredible advantage if a target cannot steal or turn invisible. How often during a raid does your target stealth? This seems more like a pvp ability.

The stealth removal is just the icing on the cake. The real benefit to running a wasp is an armor reduction debuff. I don't know if it stacks with sunders, or if it's viable to bring to a raid situation. Looking for some first-hand experience with them.

Wasp sting is a minor armor debuff and stacks with sunder, but not faerie fire, curse of recklessness, or sporebat's spore cloud.

EDIT: punctuation
EDIT2: spore bat != moth

I'm pretty sure it stacks with Sunder (though don't quote me on this). It doesn't however stack with Faerie Fire.

I think he was referring to the spore cloud used by Spore Bats, not moths. Spore Bats have a similar armor debuff, but they're Cunning pets and not worthy of serious consideration.

Yes. For clarity:

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Changes to Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking
Spore cloud wasn't mentioned there, but if you search this forum you can find references to people testing it. Here is where Shandara updated the spreadsheet after tests confirmed it:
WotLK DPS spreadsheet

I have half the math done regarding a trap dancing compared to a sniper training patchwerk kill. IE, standing next to boss and dropping traps or standing at +30yards. It really isn't clear which is better so I will try and shed some light tomorrow. My engineering problem solving class moves so slowly that it has been my hunter problem solving class but besides that I haven't had much time to do anything.

There is still a great deal of talk about this trap dancing idea which, I think, Blizzard has specifically tried to rule out as a reasonable concept. This is illustrated by putting a 30 second cooldown on LnL and upping the proc rate off Serpent Sting, and WWS reports showing max LnL procs over the course of the fight (1 per 30 seconds). It is not a guarantee, of course, but I think Blizzard has (and may continue) to make every effort to prevent trapdancing from being viable. It goes strictly against what they have said is their idea for the survival spec, and hunters in general.

I was messing around with LnL on a target dummy, just to see how reliable Serpent was at proccing it, and it really didn't seem nearly as bad as everyone is suggesting. Would it be nicer if it were higher to simply force procs? Of course.

I'm pretty sure in a situation you can use Sniper Training, it will almost be invariably better to just proc it with Serpent. There are going to be a lot of fights that you can using trap dancing in a reliable fashion because of the nature of the fight, but on any Patchwerk-esq encounter, I really can't see a 6% increase on all of your special shots (assuming Aimed > Multi) being lower, or lower enough to merit trap dancing.

Just napkin math, but if every explosive shot does 6000 damage, and you fire 10 per minute minimum, you're looking at basically 1 LnL proc vs. 2 per minute. It is unlikely (but possible) your sting will not proc a LnL.

60,000 + 12,000 = 72000 with trap dancing
60,000 + 6000 + 3960 = 69960 with sniper training

Within almost 2000 before factoring 6% damage into either Aimed or Steady shot. I would say streaky crits would affect the damage difference more than trap dancing...

I have yet to see anything else about this, but frost trap does NOT appear to proc the internal 30-second CD on LnL. Using the in-game stopwatch, a friend and I have tested and procced a second LnL within that 30 seconds. Obviously, this will require some more extensive testing, but it appears that using frost trap over immolation may net an increase in dps.

If this turns out to be the case, then changing the spec from trap mastery and putting that point into resourcefulness or some other dps talent may lead to a further increase.

WWS only registers gains, not refreshes. If you see just one Expose Weakness gain, it means that a) you had it the whole time or b) you lost it at some point, but it did not proc again for the rest of the fight. With the high crit rates of Survival hunters especially raid buffed, the first one is more likely. Or if the second one happens, the length of the remainder of the fight is so short that it doesn't matter anyway.

I looked over my previous Naxx25 WWS (pre-patch) and in many fights I too have very few, or just one EW in the report. For example: Loatheb. Just one EW gain there, but if you search the log file for "Expose Weakness", there is one gain and a lot of refreshes, the last of these just a second before Loatheb dies.

Thanks Nandei! The more I was thinking of it I realized that had to be the case.

This is good news since it means I have a spare talent point to redestribute all of a sudden

Wasp AR reduction does in fact stack with sunders/devastate. And is raid wide. In terms of comparable dps to cats/raptors...that really depends on your raid. If you raid caster heavy then the AR reduction is really only benefitting you. And under that condition it appears to be equal. If you raid melee heavy then the AR reduction benefits lots of people. My guild raids melee heavy and I am one of 2 SV hunters. While the AR reduction may let rogues/wars/dks overtake us on certain fights one of the two of us always brings a wasp for raid max dps.

I think so, too. But you have to consider that, as I wrote a page ago, you perhaps have to sacrifice some meleebuffs (totems, retribution aura etc) that have a 30y range.

It seems to make more sense to proc LnL with freezing arrow rather than explosive trap. This would let you stay far enough from the target to make use of Sniper Training, but would also have the same effect as if you were setting an explosive trap. On top of that you don't clip your autoshot by running up to and back from the target. Although with an 80% chance to proc on Serpent Sting, it might make more sense just to wait for that instead of wasting a GCD on freezing arrow.

Bosses are IMMUNE to Freezing Arrow. It won't proc on anything that's immune to the trap effect. And what do you mean, 80% on Serpent?

I'm guessing he's simply stacking the 10% proc chance 8 times--which is, of course, bad math (and I always thought it was 7 ticks, glyphed).

Anyway, assuming it is 7 ticks, your chance of a LnL proc off of a single sting is ~52.2%. (1-.9^7) If it's 8 ticks, you're at 57%.

Which makes me wonder how valuable sniper training is period. Not so sure I am willing to give up those buffs that I may lose by standing further than 30 yds away. The latent 15% crit to kill shot is also nice...Maybe those points would be better spent in hunting party afterall.

And to those of you who bash the spec jumpers...sorry. I would go 23/23/23 if it gave me optimal DPS. I do however agree with bashing those who do not at least research the new spec they are jumping to before asking a question answered several pages back...

Do you guys not bring healing or elemental shaman? I havent seen any enhancement shaman raiding yet, myself. But 30-35 yards and you still have pally auras and H/EL shaman totems. They dont stand 5 yards from the boss. Usually more like 15-20. So you can still receive said buffs. The only buffs you lose out on are shouts (usually replaced by might and/or commanding isnt too pressing to have) and heals from lazy healers that dont want to cast a normal heal (mostly fixed by Circle of Healing nerf, though I do still have a shaman that wont heal me because I dont get hit by chain heal...), Dk+Shaman AP modifiers are a 45 yard range, along with Druid/Warrior crit modifiers.

TLDNR: You really don't miss out on many buffs.

Actually I mentioned it a few times. I also tested it on the PTR and posted combat logs to show you can get back to back LnLs.

I am not sure if they kept it in for pvp purposes, but it is one of the few bugs in 3.0.8 that they have yet to comment on.

I haven't had the chance to test it out in naxx yet, but it was very easy to get back to back LnLs on Sarth. Nor have I had time to test if resourcefulness can actually allow us to proc LnL every 24sec or if frost is just on a different LnL timer....

I am thinking the best way is to either drop an immo for the initial LnL then apply Serpent Sting wait for the next LnL proc and use frost from there on in, or just wait for serpent to LnL and skip the immo altogether.