So basically, you need longer fights to notice the difference? I don't suppose anyone have some sort of timeframe? I'd love to dish out as much dps as possible when Ulduar hits.

Well currently you get to use savage rend once a minute unless you have Longevity (deep BM). The spreadsheet results apply to an infinite duration fight. I don't think you can statistically work out an optimal timeframe, but personally I feel uneasy using a raptor over a cat if I know my dps is only going to matter for a 1 or 2 minute period of a fight, since that's at most 1 or 2 uses of savage rend - if you don't win on that one or both gambles, you lost dps compared to just using a cat.

On the other hand if I'm looking at a 15minute KT fight with alts and pugs, I'd use a raptor simply because there'd be more chances to get a proc and think "cool it worked!".

They're supposedly changing SR to always give the 10% damage buff in 3.1 though (change not on PTR yet), which would make it mirror the spreadsheet more exactly.

Firstly I'd just like to say that I think it's great that you all have figured out the "best dps" on the spreadsheet, keep up the good work!

I've recently started using a program called Rawr. It's still got a long way to go in regards to accuracy I believe, but might be the way to go instead of addons like pawn, as each class' community can work together on the one DLL to make rawr accurate, rather than trying to make up pawn scales etc. It can import items via wowhead and the armory which I think is fantastic, as you can then use it for lower levels too. The shot rotation implementation is completely wrong as at the moment you can set 3xexplosive shot and then your dps goes through the roof! (approx. 7k+ dps )

Anyway, here is my Rawr file which contains all the best DPS settings from the spreadsheet. Hope it helps, and please correct me if it's wrong!

Rawr Hunter File (right click & save as, it's an XML file)

I don't have Microsoft Office, and am thus unable to see the current BiS setup for Survival. Could someone please post it here, with itemnames, enchants and gems? Thank you very much.

Would it not be an increase in DPS if you were to put [Perfect Shifting Shadow Crystal] into [Slime Stream Bands] instead of the [Delicate Scarlet Ruby]? Please get back to me on this because it is what I am currently using and it keeps my meta gem in use.

You don't need to do that under the spreadsheet model because the prismatic +27agi gems activate the meta. Gemming that way would mean losing 9 agility to gain 8 RAP from the socket bonus + 3 RAP from the stamina - not remotely worth it.

Why don't you just use the spreadsheet?
This is generally very spec- and gear-dependent.
Your results might (and probably will) differ from any other hunter's.

16AGI is far superior to 7AGI and 8AP. There isn't even a discussion. The green gem would give you 1AP more, but less crit and that's not even factoring in Survival talents like Expose Weakness or increased Agility which make 16AGI gain even more.

But, your meta is another story. Your best bet is to go for an Enchanted Tear if you want the absolute min/max but it's a small gain over your current one. If you just need a single blue to activate your meta then obviously you get it whatever way you can. I happen to like the Vivid Forest Emerald myself for 8hit and 12stam.

For your current gear, you should recalculate your position.

You want one blue socket in your gear to match the meta gem requirements. You have three blue sockets in your gear:

[Valorous Cryptstalker Legguards] +12 attack power
[Valorous Cryptstalker Tunic] +6 critical strike rating
[Slime Stream Bands] +8 attack power

No you have to choose your gem:
[Shifting Twilight Opal]
[Balanced Twilight Opal]
[Enchanted Tear]

Attackpower is inferior to agilty (about ~2.5:1 for your current gear) for a survival specced hunter, leaving you with [Enchanted Tear] and [Shifting Twilight Opal]. Since strength doesn't benefit your pet and stamina has more %increasement and benefits from hunter vs wild and survivalist versus intellect it's slighty better.
The winner is [Shifting Twilight Opal], but put it in your pants.

And for your actual question, swapping the mentioned gems around and deactivating the meta gem is a net lose of over 100 dps.

Forgive me if I am mistaken, but noted on wowhead [Shifting Twilight Opal] has still not made it onto live servers at this push. I have never stumbled across this gem on the AH over 3-4 different servers either. So it is either very rare, or plainly as posters on Wowhead suggest; it doesn't exist.

Oh well, i'm juwelcrafter since this addon and was never in the situation to use blue gems by myself and it was listed on wowhead. In this case, go with [Enchanted Tear]. Comes out slightly ahead of [Perfect Shifting Shadow Crystal].

For pure stat gain, it's been so since Burning Crusade, before Careful Aim became a must have talent for all specs. The flask is better merely for convenience.

I know this issue has been kicked back and forth a bit, but I just downloaded this version of the sheet, loaded the Best SV Profile, and when I plugged in the flask of endless rage instead of the two elixirs, the dps increased to 6710.99.

"Patch 3.1.0 PTR Notes - Official Update

Added a recipe for Shifting Twilight Opal to the daily jewelcrafting vendor."
It's not in game yet, but incoming soon as a commonly available trainer gem.

I just tried to load my profile to do some testing and I keep getting this "#DIV/0" error appearing in place of all my DPS. When I go to the "Gear Planner" section, the Delta for my Helm and Shoulders both show the same error.

Any idea what the issue is?

I just dl'd it as well and have the same #DIV/0 error.

Also, I've been told that due to AGI's poor scaling with crit that it is better to gem for AP even in survival spec, is there any validity to this or is AGI still the way to go. My spreadsheet puts agi .02 behind AP so it looks like this may be the case.

Yea that worked - odd, I didnt have to do that in the past, but that was also several versions ago, so im sure things changed.

Anyways, thanks for the tip.

A quick question regarding the current spreadsheet.

In the settings tab Explosive Shot ticks are set to default value of 2, why is that? Changing it to 3 ticks increases the DPS drasticly. Please explain

Because after the Initial Hit of the Explosive Shot it ticks two times for additional damage.
So if you change it to the amount of three ticks you would create a new Explosive Shot that
does not exist so far.
So lets say you got a 3500 hit then two ticks for the same amount an additional tick would increase
the overall dmg by 1/3.

Are you sure you plugged in careful aim so that the intellect potion gains the attack power as well?

Careful aim was already in the specc, but I got the same thing as the person above. I did the math on it way back when:

Elixir of Mighty Agility
45 AGI + 15% (LR-> 51.75) + 10% (Kings->56.925) = 56.925 AGI =56.925 AP/.683 Crit + EW AP Bonus= 71.156 AP/ .683 Crit

Elixir of Mighty Agility
45 INT + 10% (Kings)= 49.5 AP/675 Mana

120.656 AP/.683 Crit/675 Mana

vs

180.000 AP

I'll stop play acting like a number cruncher and leave the DPS comparisons to the real ones and/or the spreadsheet.

Ok need some help here. I'm having a friendly debate with one of my fellow hunters from my guild about trinkets. Both of us have Greatness (we both agree it's hands down the best) But we disagree on our second choice. For him he uses Bandits myself I use Mirror. His arguement is that the the raw ap from bandits would out weigh the on proc ap from mirror. Mine is the added crit+the proc gain you more. Spreadsheet wise Bandits comes out on top for dps for me but when in actual use (since I still do have one) I seam to get better dps while Mirror is equiped. Any ideas or am I somewhat close to right about the crit+proc effect?