@Daragh: I'll run some numbers a bit later today based on my own WWS reports, but it basically comes down to whether the extra 1-2 Steady Shots that the Serpent Glyph gets you come out to be more dmg or less dmg than having all Steadies during the reduced Serpent do more dmg. On the surface, it seems the Steady glyph would win out, so I agree with you there.

To be precise - I just did the math for the BM thread yesterday (I think it was)

You need to fight for 105 seconds to gain 2 extra steadies for SrS glyph to outperform Steady glyph
Caveat: This applies only when choosing between steady glyph and SrS glyph

In other words, you need to do more damage with 2 steadies that are not buffed by 10% than the extra 10% to all the remaining steadies in those 105 seconds (actually 106.5 seconds, as you need to fire off the last steady as well).

Its not a simple equation as how many steadies you get off depends on shot priority (or rather, how many other shots you have) as well as other cooldowns used.

There are 70 GCD's in that period where you use 5/7 of those for serpent sting (depending on whether you have it glyphed or not)
If you fire Arcane shot (or explosive which replaces it) on every cooldown you get off 17 (not accounting for LnL in any way)
If you fire aimed/multi on every cd you get a maximum of 10 more steadies replaced.

Disregarding cooldowns like Bestial Wrath, Rapid fire an other long CD abilities (not entirely valid, I know, but..)

70 gcds
5 Serpents
17 Arcanes/explosives
10 Aimed/multi's
----------
38

This leaves you with 38 steadies, so:

2 Unbuffed steadies must do more damage than 10% extra damage to 38 steadies - I just don't see this ever occuring on average, thus at the absolutely most optimal situation for the SrS glyph, Steady glyph will win out over it.

LnL might change this number, but you have to reduce the number of steadies by 18 or more to see any significant effect over the long run.

this equation takes into account a near perfect shot rotation. As in the player hits of the shots on a well timed and focus regime... now throw in some good ol human error and lag and I think the figures will end up playing silly buggers on you.

The good thing about the steady glyph is that it lets the human error factor come into play and you can still bank on 10% extra damage.

This being said I am looking foward to seeing the figure Mugsley cause maybe the difference might be insignificant over a small period of time but prove to be vital over a longer one...

Yup, the true value of both glyphs is it gives a little leeway.

SrS glyph lets you move a bit more, deal a bit more damage while not being able to reapply (or stand and shoot, Heigan fight dance phase for instance - though reapplication isn't a problem here)

Steady glyph lets you deal more damage with every shot, which over 10 shots is worth 1 more shot you haven't had to fire.

If you are MM of course, SrS glyph wins head over foot because of the increased damage by CS - and by virtue of having that 1 more shot to fit in less steadies.

for BM it might be a more interesting thing to look at because of less filler shots (before SS) and the fact that we have 3-4 glyphs to fill 2 spots from 3.1 - BW glyph is 'mandatory' leaving 2 spots for Steady, Serpent, Hawk and KS glyphs (And, by my own entering, though I'm leaving that position, Aspect of the Beast glyph)

People seem to ignore the hunters mark glyph, I think its a good glyph considering a BM hunter is always looking at boosting up his RAP and applying the hunters mark on a target is a no brainer... whats your take on this glyph ? I think it's a serious 3rd place contender...

As Chimera Shot has two damage components ("You deal 125% weapon damage" and "Instantly deals 40% of the damage done by your Serpent Sting.") the question I have not found an answer to is:

Is the weapon damage part affected by ArP?
The Serpent Sting part isn't physical damage so most likely it isn't, but the "basic damage" effect may be?

I think every class needs "better" glyphs. It almost seems like Blizz through in a ton of useless glyphs and now we have to suffer from picking a select few. Glyphs should be beneficial in every way, but if its not something we regularly use then why bother making the glyph itself? For example: Glyph of Aimed Shot, reduces the CD by 2 seconds? This isn't even useful unless we want a shot with a 50% damage reducing shot in our rotation (maybe for PvP purposes, but even then, there are better glyphs to take its position).. I don't know, it just seems like there are too many useless glyphs for every class, not just hunters.

So for, MM glyphs in 3.1

Glyph of Serpent Sting

Glyph of Kill Shot

Glyph of Chimera Shot (or, if you're not haste capped, Glyph of TSA for extra piercing shot procs)

Since steady doesn't scale very well anymore the glyph will become less usefull the higher gear level we are

Both components are nature damage and completely ignore armor. They are also both subject to partial resists.

For those confused about what I was saying, it was for Surv spec.

Glyphs would be

Kill Shot
Explosive Shot
Serpent or Steady

Serpent was slightly ahead for my gear, but they're basically the same

Explosive seems definitely not affected, but looks like conflicting data on Steady. Anyone else have any tests that confirm it either way?

deleted

New ptr patch is up. I noticed the following things right away in the 15 minutes I was on (heading to bed here so no extensive tests).

Changes/Fixes:
1. CotW's range issue has been fixed, Standing at max range from my pet both my melee and ranged AP increased by 10%. (Live has a max range of 20 yrds for the RAP increase)
2. Ammo stacks of 1000 actually read "1000" instead of "*".
3. Sniper Training affects Black Arrow (both actual damage and tooltip).
4. It appears Improved Stings got a wording change, now reads: "Increases the damage done by your Serpent Sting and Wyvern Sting by 10/20/30% and the mana drained by your Viper Sting by 10/20/30%. In addition, reduces the chance your Sting damage over time effects will be dispelled by 10/20/30%." Underlined the change for effect. Reads like a nerf to Viper Sting.

Still Bugged:
Hunter's Mark still doesn't affect BA.
Noxious Sting still doesn't affect BA.
BA still scales off the greater of the two attack powers, melee or ranged.

While this does seem like a nerf to Viper, it is also a nerf to Scorpid. While Scorpid is pretty useless for PvE, it can be a clutch ability in PvP against melee and other hunters.

This is live. They changed it in, hm.. 3.0.8 if i remember correctly.

Edit:
It should be, given what Bornakk was replying to here: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Enraged and CRAZY Gnomish Eng, Demands Answer

Granted that the damage increase shown up, I should expect it to be off the GCD.

Lowered to 45 seconds is nice, and might be something worth looking into. I'll take a look at it right now on test to see if it is.

Edit 2:

It is off the GCD and 45 seconds CD.

Its very funny i reportet the cotw bug i think 6 times on the ptr with the bug tool and opened several threads in the blizzard german bug forum nothing happened....

One post in an inofficial forum an the thing is done in the next ptr build -> maybe somebody can open a post about the lagging eu servers too?

Confirmed: ES does not receive the BA damage bonus in the newest build 9767. I went back and retested steady shot without any points in EW or MT. Apparently, the 300 shot sample size in my original tests was not large enough to overcome the contribution of these talents. I also was able to retest serpent sting and it is properly receiving the BA bonus. As I mentioned in an earlier post I removed the SrS glyph for this test so BA & SrS both have a 15 second duration. I put up BA followed immediately by SrS. Since BA falls off prior to the last tick of SrS only 4/5 ticks benefit and I would expect a 4.8% increase in average tick damage instead of 6%. Notice that the minimum tick damage is the same for both runs. This represents that last tick that does not benefit from BA.

Explosive Shot - Not affected
Without BA:
Average Tick (Noncrit): 557 Max: 579
Average Tick (Crit): 1328 Max: 1375

With BA:
Average Tick (Noncrit): 554 Max: 577
Average Tick (Crit): 1319 Max: 1373

Steady Shot - Affected increased 6.2% noncrit/5.6% crit
Without BA:
Average (Noncrit): 466 Max: 511
Average (Crit): 1109 Max: 1213

With BA:
Average (Noncrit): 495 Max: 543
Average (Crit): 1172 Max: 1286

Serpent Sting - Affected increased 5.06%
Without BA:
Average: 217 Max: 218 Min: 217

With BA:
Average: 228 Max: 231 Min: 217

To be fair, after your post in this thread it was posted as a bug on both the european (en) forums and the US forums with reference back to this thread.
I think we created enough noise for someone to remember to bring the paper to the team - or its been fixed for a while internally and just haven't gotten pushed till now.

I saw Dresorull was answering some bug posts on the PTR forum yesterday, so I quickly bumped the BA not affecting Explosive Shot thread from the third page with my results from here. Lo and behold it worked, and Dresorull posted, so they are aware of the issue now. Since it's only been a day, I'm not surprised it didn't make it into this PTR patch, but will hopefully make it into the next one. Hopefully we'll see fixes to the other issues with BA (since they are also aware of them.)

Noxious Stings not affecting Explosive Shot is pretty serious, I'll do some tests later tonight.

PS I'm not sure how BA would ever effect Immo trap (possibly pre trap and pull mob when cd is up?) am I missing something?

BA using the same mechanic as Improved Tracking is actually a very viable hypothesis, until I remembered that BA does affect serpent sting. That brings up something else I want to test. Does Noxious stings affect Serpent Sting? Is it even supposed to? The talent's wording would indicate yes.

EDIT: I had no idea Imp Tracking was changed to include periodic damage. I'll test it when I test Noxious Stings, or was it tested (within this community) back when it was released? With all these bugs that we're seeing (to be honest it's hard to keep track) I'd rather be sure.

Quite serious that Noxious issue.

Anyway, they changed Imp Tracking a few patches back so the 'non-periodic' part was removed (I believe it was when they also changed the entire track specific to just tracking). Of course I haven't actually tested if it works with periodic damage. Though my own anecdotal experiences say so since Volley wasn't included before, but now it definately feels like it is.

And Noxious Stings should definately affect Serpent Sting, all damage is all damage.

actaully i used specced into ba+readiness to test it.
it doesnt have any game breaking effect but it can maybe hint on a bug with the mechanics

I also forgot adding that BA doesnt affect scatter(again not like it matters much)

nooska- wasnt the non perodic tooltip was actaully of noxious stings? for some reason thats what i remembered.

It was definitely Improved Tracking.

just tested noxious stings does affect itself pretty much noticable