Not that it actually does all that much anyway...
It's a tiny dps increase.
Something like 0.6% dps increase for 2/2 RF, 0.6% dps increase for readiness and 1.4% for both.
(I'll try to dig up the calculations)

doh

That was already posted and I believe that yes, there are still reasons BM won't use Arcane Shot if they don't increase the damage it deals as well.

Exactly - hopefully they find a way to make it so that it takes some skill and practice to be a good hunter again. I am a little irritated that they removed so much of the mechanics of the class and now people who used to be horrible at being a hunter are now leading in damage by huge amounts just because they can actually manage to spam a button. Some of this will work its way out because these people couldn't get past half of Kara and they won't make it past half of Naxx. I tend to think (or hope) that they will institute changes that makes it so any idiot will no longer be top damage in the raid, but skilled players that do their research can still compete for the #1 spot in the raid.

I'm answering the same question, but without the implicit value judgments attached. My answer to the question of why people aren't taking the 51-pointer is not because "there isn't any dps justification," because that is not entirely accurate. My answer is, 'because people generally have no idea how to convert survivability and utility to dps because it's hard to do, or they genuinely don't need more survivability and utility than they have.' It's an important distinction. What they are doing is picking between a stack of money and a briefcase that has some money in it, and they are choosing the stack of money because it's a "sure thing." That doesn't necessarily mean the briefcase has less money in it.

While I mentioned some post-nerf considerations, the same issue applies to the OP pets pre-nerf. It's not clear that even a cat or a scorpid does the exact same dps with 16 points as with 20. That was my point about things like boar's speed or heart of the phoenix. Those add dps. It's hard to tell how much, because it's varies by player(s), encounter, and pet, and therefore impossible to make a generalization that would apply to everyone equally.

So what I'm suggesting is that we be a bit more careful in how we answer these questions and discuss these issues, because we are on the verge of slipping into the shorthand of "51-BM sux" the same way we got to "haste sux." As we saw with haste, that eventually got misinterpreted in some hilariously bad ways -- with people contemplating trading ilevel 141 epics for ilevel 138 greens just to get rid of haste. In addition, I was answering the question that you specifically asked, which was where someone would get the points to put in the 51-pointer anyway. The answer is pull one from mortal shots. You'll hardly miss it, because mortal shots is overrated.

You say this, but there are still plenty of terrible hunters that can just barely break even with other classes as is.

Fact of the matter always is a good hunter is infinitely better than a bad one, shot macro or no macro.

Am I reading this right? Is Blizzard planning on making feral staves into a viable option for hunters?

With the armor and feral AP on weapons changes, it seems like they are trying to move from druids being the only class that wants them (and them being the only ones druids want). I looked at a number of the feral staves from Naxx, and if each point of STR was converted into 2 AP, some of them would be as good as, if not better than, the polearms and 2h swords currently available to us. [The Undeath Carrier], for example, would be amazing if the 77 STR were converted to 154 AP.

It certainly would be a welcome change, as the current 2h options for us are severely limited at the moment. I've also always wondered if they were ever going to give us another staff after Lok'Delar.

I guess the only question is, how much are druids going to bitch when we start rolling on "their" weapons?

Have someone tested already "new" hunter on PTR ?

I was unaware the PTR was even live yet.

PTR is live but very laggy.

One bit of good news, [Cryptfiend's Bite] does appear to be fixed and granting the correct amount of RAP.

Thanks for the info, I'll be sure to set my WWS up and get to running tests with the different shot rotations, changes.

What's the best time of the day for PTR testing 4 am?

Wow at serpent sting glyph now. Thats 4 GCD's before I have to refresh it? And its a damage increase for serpent overall isnt it? Seems like it lasting 6s longer per cast will net much less casts of the skill during a boss fight and save you some mana.

It seems Arcane Shot might actually be used now, as for Explosive, I guess we'll have to test it and see if it makes Survival competitive. No mention about Explosive shot DoT effect though, so I guess Survival hunters will still have to alternate Explosive and Steady on LnL procs.

Edit: Clarification.

Ok, that glyph just killed the current Arcane Glyph, I as already not convinced it was better than Serpent Sting glyphed up. I really hope that glyph changes to 20% damage, which would make it very much interesting. Think about it. Steady is 10%, but it is our most spammed shot even post-nerf. A cooldown affected instant like Arcane is limited in how effective it could be. Talenting it would still be rather hard to argue for, but it might just be a viable option. It would begin to sit there in the sweetspot where people can't say one way or the other is best. And I assume that's the place they want stuff to be in, especially for a new 'essential' shot. And one musn't forget, Arcane is not Steady in mana, so 20% less mana is a very small amount (50 mana in fact) given it is only gained over 6 seconds. Poor returns as mana reduction.

Btw, Spirit Beast isn't fixed like that. Spirit Strike's synergy with Longevity is... No mentin of critablity or scaling better. Currently I have seen it from WWS reports to tick about 30% more than my own cat's Rake ticks, and it can not only crit but it has three ticks on top of the hit. But it is good to see this change, it was kinda stupid that the pet almost required Longevity in some format, but didn't work with it. Pretty bad design, but one that has been fixed now.

The overall small changes are moving in the right direction (there is some carrot coming for us), however it doesn't change my own worry about scalability come Ulduar, or even in highly geared raids currently. We'll see I suppose.

Can anyone verify how badly the cat and scorpid were nerfed in the PTR?

Has anyone found a winning shot rotation and spec yet?

Just looking for any new info.

I have read the post by GC where he mentions, skill coefficient is changing for Scorpid and Cat but he dose not explain the new values.

Anyone done some testing to see how much of nerf those two pets recived? I am to a degree, less interested in the actual DPS lose on fight like patchwrek and more interested in knowing what the coefficient value changed too.

Thank you in advance for your reply.

It's a 40% upgrade from the serpent sting portion of Chimera damage over an unglyphed sting.

Even if you treat it "only" as a buffer, it is still a real buff. If all nerfs go through then every buff is welcome, no matter how small it is.

The counter argument is that there are fights that absolutely need every bit of DPS you can pull out. Remember, when your pet dies to bad play, he loses all his buffs when rezzed or reincarnated. For Sarth + 3 10 man, this can mean the end of your attempt. I guess if you're bad, HotP is a dps gain.

No one is bad when they are learning.

Learning what? It's never conducive to let your pet die and you have much more incentive to learn to control your pet if you have a penalty attached to it. HotP just means you can not care to let your pet die.

I can gain the dps advantage that Trev is talking about by playing well and not letting my pet die. I can't gain back the percentage lost of damage from pulling points out of pure dps talents.

I don't think we're talking about simple moron mistakes like sending your pet to stand in the fire. In that scenario, HotP will just give you another chance to be a horrible pet owner and get your pet killed 2 seconds after it pops up.

I really believe you're over generalizing here though. There is no way that this is a black and white "if your pet ever dies you're a bad player" situation. It's all about judgement, and it's actually surprisingly parallel to the judgement that every healer has to pass on when to heal and with what spell. Judgement improves over time, but it can never be 100% accurate. Healers will cast too small a heal to keep up with that last damage spike or cast too big a heal and waste mana on overheals; hunters will leave their pet in the danger zone too long and suffer a pet death or not long enough and suffer a DPS loss.

Take mobile whirlwind bosses for example--Leo, Skadi, and the last boss of Gundrak. On a standard whirlwind, I have no issue pulling my pet back when I see it casting. However, if a mobile whirlwind boss decides to target me and I call my pet back, the pet runs towards me with the boss and gets raped. Alternatively, if I tell the pet to stay where it is, the whirlwind may or may not move out of range of my pet before it dies. This is a fight mechanic that is supposed to be countered by one strategy: run the opposite direction. Unfortunately, that is not one of our pet commands. The pet does not know where the danger is. We have to clumsily try to position our pet second hand, while worrying about our own positioning.

So what do I end up doing on those bosses? I send my pet in for 10 seconds to dps, then call him back to my side until the next whirlwind. Some times he whirlwinds 5 seconds after I call him back--good for me! Some times he whirlwinds 25 seconds after I call him back--crap, that's a lot of potential DPS time I lost.

There's a ton of these "totally screw the pet" bosses. We can't tell our pets to attack the dragon from the side--they automatically go to the front or back based on cower or growl. The best we can do is try to stand roughly to the side, order it to attack, and pray that it finds its way to the safe zone between cleave and tail sweep. Hell, look at Heroic Keristrasza. We're already trying to juggle our rotation with twitching every two seconds, and we have to worry about keeping the debuffs off our pet by toggling passive/defensive over and over. Usually, I end up intentionally trying to send my pet on her tail so he gets sweeped to knock his debuff off every so often. Until the tank turns Keri 10 degrees, then he can't get swept.

The unique position BM hunters are in is that 40% of our DPS is AI controlled, with user directions. That's a condition that no other class deals with, and I don't think that budgeting item points on insurance for that condition is stupid at all. That's not even to consider just plain stupid hitbox/pathing issues. I can dodge every lava wall on Sarth with my gorilla, but eat every damn one of them with my devilsaur.

Heart of the Phoenix is not a free pass to play like a retard. It's Lay on Hands, Shield Wall, Ice Block for pets--an emergency skill you're not supposed to HAVE to use, but covers for unexpected contingencies. Until the pet control system is massively overhauled, to say that 100% of pet deaths are 100% owner faults is blisteringly ignorant.