Yeah, I'm seeing a difference of less than 1 dps using both T7 BiS set and an Ulduar gear set. So if they're roughly the same, what is the incentive to NOT take aimed shot? That 0.5 seconds could be a big deal in some situations, but the added uptime in replenishment is hardly noticeable between 2/3 and 3/3 Hunting Party with realistic amounts of crit.

Just to chime in on the SrS glyph debate with the hard data I calculated earlier.

SrS glyph frees up 2 GCD's every 105 seconds if SrS is kept up optimally - less if SrS is allowed to fall off (as you already push the SrS)

105 seconds is 5 cycles of the glyphed SrS and 7 cycles of the unglyphed.

(Now I'll shut up and let the SV hunters take back the thread )

A quick look at your gear suggests a few places for you to regem/enchant right off the top of my head:

* Replace the orange agi/crit gem in your helm with a +16 hit

* Replace the purple gems in your chest, bracers, and legs with Vivids (+8 hit, +12 sta)

* Replace the red gem in your legs with a Glinting (+8 hit, +8 agi)

* Replace the enchant on your hands with +20 hit

By my count, this will give you an additional 68 hit right there. Add hit food and you are over the cap (actually, you could keep the red gem in your legs full agi with hit food).

Destinova, with the changes to focused aim, it's not necessarily critical to avoid the talent, but whether you can spare the points for it will depend on how badly the raid needs your replenishment. If you drop down to 1/3 hunting party, that spares you a point you can invest in focused aim assuming the uptime remains sufficient (yes it does give agil but it's still one of the weakest damage gains per talent point at the moment). You can also optionally take the point out of aimed shot and put that in focused aim- the damage gain is roughly the same as you get from hunting party, although you do lose the flexibility of having the instant cast. So those changes would free up 2 points for focused aim.

You'd have to check the spreadsheet to see for yourself how it compares to your other options, but according to my sheet resourcefulness is worth about double the amount of dps gain that aimed shot and hunting party give so I wouldn't scavenge there.

Looking at your gear however, I would definitely start by replacing the agil/crit gem in your helm with agil/hit or straight hit, and those 3 AP/stam gems need to go anyhow- hit/stam would definitely be a better option in your current situation, or you can even ignore the socket bonuses (the 8 AP on the bracers at least is really not that much) and go for a full hit gem. You can also switch your glove enchant to 20 hit (it never should be 44 AP for survival anyhow, 20 agil or 20 hit are really the only good options). So I'd see what you can do with the gear and then you'll know how many points in focused aim you really need.

Im curious what would be a good build for the pet then? Wolf ofcourse.

Wowhead

Cheers.

With my current gear and best results spec, Wild Hunt comes out barely better for me.

YMMV.

I remember reading earlier in this thread that someone was reporting imp stings was more dps per point than the agility buff from hunting party.

Assuming you don't need replenishment and want to spec for max dps, wouldn't that make 0/17/54 the spec to take?

I'm unable to access the spreadsheet right now to verify =(

For my gear in the sheet, imp stings was coming out with a very small dps lead over hunting party (about a 3dps gap). I need replenishment in my raid so I haven't considered seriously going with imp stings but if your situation is different it may be worthwhile.

Imp Stings is generally going to be better in the spreadsheet, but as with so many other things one of the two requires perfect timing to get the numbers, the other doesn't require any special input. Meaning if you can't manage your stings as well as the spreadsheet, then Imp Stings will rapidly drop down in added DPS. So if any talent is within a handful of DPS per point added, I would always pick that over Imp Stings since I don't presume myself the Serpent Sting God of WoW. At times I will lose a tick or fail an application.

How much of a benefit is one point in Go For the Throat? Couldn't that point be taken out and put into Hunting Party for a 0/15/57 build and offer better dps? I am unclear as to how much of a benefit that one point offers.

With so much talk about which talents to take, I decided to do some number crunching on the survival talents. Here is a break down of how much DPS each talent is worth in total and per point spent.

Basic hunter numbers were used based on Shandara's spreadsheet using all current best in slot gear. A 15/56 spec was used. I arrived at these numbers by just taking the appropriate talent points out of the spec and then subtracting the new dps total by the total DPS (which turned out to be 7011.77) A wolf pet was used.

DPS talent break downs for survival:

7011.77 total DPS
Improved Tracking- 276.17 (55.234 dps/point)
Trap Mastery- 64.63 (21.543 dps/p)
Survival Instincts- 111.17 (55.585 dps/p)
Survivalist- 35.27 (7.054 dps/p)
TNT- 157.25 (52.417 dps/p)
Lock and Load- 419.26 (139.753 dps/p)
Hunter vs. Wild- 378.27 (126.09 dps/p)
Killer Instinct- 133.09 (44.363 dps/p)
Lightning Reflexes- 340.35 (68.07 dps/p)
Resourcefulness- 128.3 (42.77 dps/p)
Expose Weakness- 236.42 (118.21 dps/p)
Thrill of the Hunt- 50.41 (16.803 dps/p)
Master Tactician- 263.3 (52.66 dps/p)
Noxious Stings- 161.09 (53.7 dps/p)
Black Arrow- 763.97
Sniper Training- 242.05 (80.68 dps/p)
Hunting Party- 52 (26 dps/p)
Explosive Shot- 1992.81
Lethal Shots- 222.73 (44.546 dps/p)
Careful Aim- 323.19 (107.73 dps/p)
Mortal Shots- 405.56 (81.112 dps/p)
Go for the Throat- 383.46
Aimed Shot- 23.94

Talents ranked by total DPS:

1. Explosive Shot- 1992.81
2. Black Arrow- 763.97
3. Lock and Load- 419.26
4. Mortal Shots- 405.56
5. Go for the Throat- 383.46
6. Hunter vs. Wild- 378.27
7. Lightning Reflexes- 340.25
8. Careful Aim- 323.19
9. Improved Tracking- 276.17
10. Master Tactician- 263.3
11. Sniper Training- 242.05
12. Expose Weakness- 236.42
13. Lethal Shots- 222.73
14. Noxious Stings- 161.09
15. TNT- 157.25
16. Killer Instinct- 133.09
17. Resourcefulness- 128.3
18. Survival Instincts- 111.17
19. Trap Mastery- 64.63
20. Hunting Party-52
21. Thrill of the Hunt- 50.41
22. Survivalist- 35.27
23. Aimed Shot- 23.94

Talents ranked by DPS/Point:

1. Explosive Shot- 1992.81
2. Black Arrow- 763.97
3. Go for the Throat- 383.46
4. Lock and Load- 139.753
5. Hunter vs. Wild- 126.09
6. Expose Weakness- 118.21
7. Careful Aim- 107.73
8. Mortal Shots- 81.112
9. Sniper Training- 80.68
10. Lightning Reflexes- 68.07
11. Survival Instincts- 55.585
12. Improved Tracking- 55.234
13. Noxious Stings- 53.7
14. Master Tactician- 52.66
15. TNT- 52.417
16. Lethal Shots- 44.546
17. Killer Instincts- 44.363
18. Resourcefulness- 42.77
19. Hunting Party- 26
20. Aimed Shot- 23.94
21. Trap Mastery- 21.543
22. Thrill of the Hunt-16.803
23. Survivalist- 7.054

With the upcoming patch, I'm wondering what our shot rotation will look like now, I'm thinking Rapid>ES>BA>AS>SrpS>SS. For LNL proc: ES, AS, ES, SS, ES.

As has been repeated many times before for max dps (assuming you don't have serious lag issues) you should only be casting ES during LNL, waiting 0.5 sec after the gcd between each shot to make sure you don't clip the ticks.
Only if you have problems with lag should you weave in a different shot between the ES's during LnL.

Rapid > KS > ES> BA > Serpent Sting > AS > SS ---- LNL: ES > .5sec wait > ES > .5 sec wait > ES

Would be better. I'm only questioning if BA would come in front of ES. Since BA would increase ES's damage...it would make sense. But in the middle of the rotation, is it necessary?

One of the first issues we'll have to examine in the new patch is the mana curve. If JoW can still sustain us for the durations of fight we experience, prying all the points out of Thrill, HP and Aimed Shot and packing them into the 5 hawk, 1 focused fire BM config shows a 120 dps increase for me in mostly t7 content BiS- and that's even not glyphing for hawk. Then again, the sheet also says I won't go OOM in a 5 minute fight with JoW and either BoW or Mana Spring. The raw dps potential of 6/14/51 is still there; the real question is can it be properly employed, or will movement and mana concerns eviscerate its output. I know there is general skepticism on this point; I share that skepticism. But it still needs to be kept in mind; 100+ dps potential isn't small.

There's a 1.5 second global cooldown, you wait .5 seconds after that.

So, technically, you're correct, you wait a total of 2 seconds after you fire the last shot.

It's like at 0.5 first explosion, then wait 1.5 for the Global Cooldown and go again.

On LnL procs you fire the shot and wait for .5 seconds after the GCD ends. Doing this prevents you from clipping shots.

Edit: Oh i was too slow >.<

Using the rotation tab of the spreadsheet, the answer is yes. Having BA first products an extra 50-60 ES shots that occur while the BA buff is up across 5000 shots. Of course that's only a 1% increase in ES shots affected by BA so it's likely not to matter in a practical setting.

I don't follow. Putting BA over ES when both are off cooldown means that after 4 BA you will have lost an entire ES, for a gain of 6% * 4 ES dmg, or 24% of one ES. Are you including LnL procs or something?

Of course. You can't ignore the proc's in the overall damage