/slap forehead

Forgot about that. Have been trying to do it as Survival, and it is honestly, a pain. Doable in a few cases, but BM just makes it that much easier. And daily farming is also easier with BM, while Explosive generally takes a huge chunk of life from a mob and followed by Aimed will make it nicely close, unless you are lucky with crits, the mob will now stick on you. Either waiting for te pet to Growl up or running around kiting/wing clipping/whatever you do takes longer than outright killing as BM.

Off-topic but what I find works nicely while farming is not using the pet so much as a tank but as a snare, to slow the mob down so that it's dead by the time it's in melee range of you - pull with explosive+steady, then let pet charge mob when it starts running towards you (unless TNT procs of course). This roots the mob for a bit, and it's likely dead by the time it finishes running to you, so you don't need to run anywhere to loot it.

This is limited by the charge cooldown of course, but the pet can start on the next mob it doesn't have charge for while you loot, or you can pop an MD - currently none of the daily quest mobs have enough health to live longer than a 41 yard run under raid DPS gear damage anyway.

@TrevvyTrev

Actually the problem arises (would arise) because I am BM spec primarily.
Explanation: We have 3 hunters, and usually bring 3, so another sv or mm wouldn't bring anything except some dps, while bm brings FI - and I like the spec, and I'm the dps officer, so I say its okay as long as we don't need to squeeze out every ounce of dps.

Come dualspec I can either choose to be BM(solo)+BM(Raid) or I can be BM(Raid)+MM/SV.
If the CD on pet switching is long, I cannot switch to a MM/SV spec for specific bosses. I mention thaddius because that is one of the fights I can really see how the design of the fight hurt my dps - simply because the pet doesn't get the damage increase, so I only get half the increase others do. Thaddius isn't a problem though, but that kind of fight in Ulduar progression with dualspec an option means I cannot stay BM, as we would have to squeeze out more dps getting our hunters (including me) to rely less on pet damage.

In Ulduar progression, being primarily BM, I would not be able to be effective on bosses that "require" me to be another spec, because if the CD on pet switching is much longer than a bossfight, I would be stuck with a pet that wasn't specced for my BM role because I couldn't bring my exotic back - which would then invalidate the other half of the 51 pt bm talent - we would get dps increase from it, but the exotic pets - forget them (which makes me sad, I like my core hound )

Truly, though - if your guild requires you to respec with such frequency (which I'm not sure is the case) then I would have a hard time sticking around. Hunters are not the same as lolfury, to so speak, will not break the raid if we are seeing 200dps less than a different spec.

You are referring to a specific case (switch spec and pet for one boss fight then switch back again for both after the fight is over). If you are concerned that the time to switch the pet is too long to make this possible I would suggest in this specific case that you don't switch the pet and only switch the spec for the single fight. Afterwards you will be running your original spec (BM) and have your original pet (Core Hound).

I won't be surprised if the final design for hunter dual spec includes the ability to switch a pet every time the hunter switches a spec but at this time it is all spectulative including the nature of the fights in Uldaar. We don't even know how often/if we will need to switch specs on top of the class changes that will occur in 3.1.

Way late in the thread for this, I know, but the bleed effect makes me happy just because I rely on Chimera Shot so heavily (the change to Viper Sting was kind of depressing due to this as well) to the point that my first instinct in any combat is to Hunter's Mark (Imp. HM with Glyph) and then Serpent Sting (Imp Stings and Glyph when I hit 80 Extending the time).

The idea of, if I understand this correctly, popping Serpent Sting, letting the time run down a bit (more damage and gotta let tank build aggro), throwing out Chimera Shot which will reset the sting, , do quite a bit of burst, and THEN add 30% bleed...

Granted raid-wise it's only useful for bosses really, but I've manged to jump up two or three places on the damage meters after a boss fight.

Bolded part is incorrect. As proven numerous times, the duration of the sting has zero effect on the bonus damage from chimera.

Trap Dancing: If Blizz are happy with the mechanic then the Trap Specialisation talent we have been promised could focus on some form of reward for movement rather than a reward for standing still. This could open up two specs for Survival - trap dance spec and stand-still spec.

"Portable Stables": Is there a need to penalise our pet choices with a CD? Do Warlocks get penalised for chosing one demon over another? I'm in favour of an out of combat Call Pet that can call any slot of your stable you chose. You may not NEED to call a new pet each fight but why add a penalty via a CD? If Blizz are really concerned about penalising pet choice then perhaps have all pets summoned with a lower level of happiness.

They aren't adding any penalty, because it's not like you can switch pets now. People are complaining because they are REDUCING the penalty, but not as much as people would like them too. That's a pretty huge difference.

Now I understand why people don't think hunters should have to use a stable to begin with, and I probably wouldn't complain if they got rid of it. But for some reason they like having that system, and if there wasn't a CD on switching pets then there almost isn't any point to having stables at all. Complaining about the CD (which is still unknown, by the way) is like complaining about someone giving you $10 when you would rather have $20.

I don't think a portable stable will be that much of a benefit in a raid. Even if you are bringing different pet for each boss, you can still manage that by quick exit out of the instance to the nearest town. Usualy 5min top flight time even if you don't get summoned back. For me the real problem is when I also need to change the pet specc. Like bringing a tenacity pet for roar of protection and then havning to off tank mobs with it. Unless you already have 2 tenaciuty pets you still need to run to a trainter to change the talents between max armor and max dps.

Petswitching realy shines in casual play. When you've just found a rare elite and can quck swicth to a tank pet. Or you've just found yourself in middle of PvP and need the additional stuns and snares. Or you just feel too lazy to run to town.

So, the design of trap dancing is not intentional. That's what you are standing on, right? 100% chance LnL procs from traps and 6% chance from serpent sting. Let me say it another way. You have a 100% chance that your most lethal and most dps producing shot ES, can be used with no mana cast and no ammo cost 3 concecutive times when LnL procs, and that is not intentional.

In no way should any hunter for any reason melee. A brief Wing Clip when needed ok, and a trap set (not to melee) but to proc a RANGED adility to optimize dps is EXACTLY what is intended. Why does setting a trap equal melee???

Frost trap slows mob so you can get out of melee range, Freeze trap locks up a mob, again so you can get out of melee range. And, Explosive trap deals additional damage while a target is rooted either by threat created by a tank or assisted from a rooting trap, say by a druid, while you deal RANGED DPS. What is the problem here?

How is this fighting at melee range? Im not fighting at melee range because I lay a trap. Hell Patchwerk, if you have a set spot your tank pulls to you can set a trap and be at range HOURS before patchy is even there.

What are you saying? Blizz came up with the complicated design for the hunter to be,,,, Hey, lets make him stand 30 yards from everything and never move. Wont that just be a hoot. Mega fun for all.

Oh and hey on content like Sartharian 3D lets just leave the hunter in group 6 stand by. I mean he cant stay 30 yards from anything in that fight for more than 30 seconds, maybe. And as its NOT intended for a hunter to trap dance he most likely will never have practiced it, so he will be absolutly usless in this fight. Bravo!! Content I can't take part in because I maintain "I shall not melee because I am Hunter and I dont lay trap because it is in melee range to do so." WTF.