Is anyone else worried as to how Piercing Shots will work? Having 3 abilities it procs from will mean constant refreshing of the debuff. Assuming it ticks 4 times over the 8 seconds, this means that it would never even get the chance to tick since a chimera, aimed, or SS will always be used within the first 2 seconds after it is applied.

Edit: This is assuming that it does not stack and only refreshes.

Speculation on the validity of each proposed change is always fun, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have several comments on each of these that I wanted to chatter on about - but with our limited knowledge I think the most important thing we can consider right now is whether any of these changes are going to change the relative value of stats. Are any stats going to become more valuable and make it so that we want new items for an ideal set of gear heading in to Ulduar?

As far as I can tell, none of the hunter specific changes seem to have any major impact on the stats we gear for. Obviously the information is pretty vague at this point, it depends on how bleeds scale with AP, etc, but for the most part it looks like we are still looking at the same best in slot items. The change to boss armor (look at the comments about warrior's sunder armor) seems to suggest that ArP will be valued a little higher for some abilities, since ArP still scales better the more of it you have, but it has so far to go to becoming a decent stat that I would be surprised if our overall gearing attitude changed. I'd love to hear dissenting opinions if anyone has them.

The change to Sniper Training is quite welcome, though I do hope the Kill Shot portion is still active.
For the rest, I'll have to wait for more information before I can really assess their effect.

Be sure to keep a close eye on the SpiritRegen/Replenishment changes too, just in case they tweak more than just the OOC regen. They've also given a Replenishment to Warlocks similar to that of Shadow Priests.

And, yes, as Esoth pointed out we're still missing enough specific details to really identify effects on dps and the subsequent changing of stat values.

All that I care about right now is that I can go back to not caring about ammo again. That is the best news I've heard from Blizzard in a long time.

It seems that we will only need one arrow or bullet in our inventory, similar to a totem for shaman, is what I inferred from that post. Even though it is early, I would suspect that a change to gear having more haste for mail would be a possible idea to make up the haste lost from quiver/ammunition bag haste. It also could be possible that they put the haste on the arrow we have in our inventory.

I thought that the current marksman dps was the benchmark for hunter dps, and changing piercing shots could alter this. Even though aimed shot scales poorly at higher gear levels, this could make it a reliable shot for marksman hunters after patch 3.1. It all depends if the bleeds for steady, aimed, and chimera are separate debuffs. (But that sounds like a significant buff, so I believe it will just be the highest damage shot in your rotation that applies the bleed debuff). The debuff would not get refreshed every steady shot, aimed shot, or chimera shot, because there would be a higher rank bleed already in effect. This is similar thinking to the spell entangling roots which can not be applied at lower damage once a higher rank spell is in effect. I believe this is what they are going for in changing piercing shots, thus the debuff would be allowed to tick, as opposed to previous speculation of every steady shot, aimed shot, and chimera shot refreshing the bleed effect.

I sincerely doubt that they'll be changing gear to increase their Haste as this would significantly affect Enh Shaman dps in the process.

I too am curious of the effect these changes will have on MM dps and whether or not they're reducing the current over-performing specs. If we see a significant net increase in MM dps it may indicate that they're no longer using MM as the DPS Norm.

In a slight tangent, if the reports of Call of the Wild no longer stacking with TSA and other +10% AP buffs, a re-shuffling of pet points out of Spider's Bite and Call of the Wild could open up the *new pet tier* to non-51pt BM hunters. They would have to make this new tier not signficantly better than Spider's Bite or completely tie it to 51pt BM to prevent other Hunters from picking it up at least partially.

Equally, they might not be giving the amo avaliable the same sort of power as the current 15% haste bonus (although it may be more varied), and hence they're taking other measures to boost MM back to its current DPS position. It would also make some haste suck less for BM.

Having arthas drop an 8th "Undying Bullet of Sindragosa" would be pretty annoying though.

Also if ammo is still split between bullets and arrows, you'd have to match up a new weapon drop with a new ammo drop as well to get full use out of it - best bow in the game, but stuck with a Naxx level arrow since you only got bullets from Ulduar? Sucks to be you.

I suspect that unless they merge ammo types, it'll remain as a vendor item, or possibly a craftable or quest one (token based would work - add in a relic token drop, which each of the relic using classes can use, and hunters can use for an ammo relic).

Right now, the only real limit on Ammo availability is Reputation. I don't consider crafted/vendor-bought to be a real limit since both are plain buyable. I wouldn't be too keen on Ammo being a drop; it's not based on RNG now, it really shouldn't be in the future. Purchasable from badges may be alright I guess but I'm thinking something along the lines of a Quest to kill XXX Boss in whatever Raid would also be ok.

Yea, I was thinking what Catalept said. When they said they will "preserve" the 15% haste bonus from quivers, I'm assuming it would be on the bullet/arrow item they give us. Then it would be equipped in the ammo slot. Sounds like the best plan to me. It will be interesting to see the progression of ammo. As to how it would be attained, they will probably do what they always do, reputation.

I love the sniper training change. Range checking was annoying.

New mortal shots sounds very interesting. I think it would make marks the new DPS spec, seeing as explosive shot doesn't benefit from it. Saw some ballparking earlier, 30% damage + 30% mangle buff + 10k chimera shot = ~4.5k damage over 8 seconds, and I'd imagine it working like deep wounds so stacking would become crazy. I have a feeling it will be changed and tweaked many times on the PTR, then nerfed when it goes live.

Slightly uninterested in the BM changes, still doesn't seem appealing. But I dislike BM in general.

As for trap functionality, chuckable Immo traps anyone?

Also from the changes to FF and Sunder armor I think they'll probably change Acid spit, Spore Cloud, and Sting, to a % armor decrease instead of the static decreases that they are now. I'm not quite sure if this changes the power of those pets greatly, but it would certainly be different.