The "majority" of encounters don't require you to be running or jumping and shooting at the same time for the whole fight. Standing still for a multishot isn't the same as standing still for a steady shot. It's only 0.5 seconds. Any fight that doesn't allow you enough time for a multi wouldn't allow you to use auto shots either, and that's the largest damage percentage shot for BM. In short, if your movement issues are that severe to where you need aimed over multi, then you probably shouldn't be specced BM for that fight at all.

Plus, even though Aimed does better when you want to shoot without stopping, it does worse on any fight where there are non-CC'ed adds, and there are a fair number of those too. Trying to "fix" BM raid dps through abilities that most BM raiders don't take is a long shot -- that's what happened with Catlike Reflexes. It's not going to work unless you really buff the crap out of Aimed Shot for BM, which may over-buff it. And since most BM hunters use Aimed Shot for PvP, where they are trying not to buff BM, that opens a whole new can of worms.

BW used to prevent the disorient effect from the Eredar Twin's Conflagrate, but still cause the damage from it to go through, so it seems quite plausible - Vile Gas seems to do a very similar disorient effect which can be PvP trinketed out of.

Ferocious Inspiration - Spell - World of Warcraft

Wowhead's datamined 3.3.3 Ferocious Inspiration. This is in line with how Ghostcrawler is talking about the ability.

Tried this for fun using the spreadsheet... kind of ridiculous...

Using an ArP build I can reduce BM to steady shot spam (plus killshot) and only lose 155 dps. Yes, no serpent sting either.

Rotation: Serpent > Killshot > Aimed > Steady
With glyphs: Steady shot, Serpent sting, Bestial wrath
11,111 dps


Rotation: Killshot > Steady
With glyphs: Imp. Hawk, Killshot, Bestial wrath
Swapped out T10 gloves to break 4pc bonus and replaced with Logsplitters. Also changed my tainted twig of nordrassil to Hersir's Greatspear to replace +hit loss on gloves.
10,956 dps

You can boost this slightly by putting aimed shot back in the rotation but it only ends up being around a 40 dps increase because you will lose approx 5% crit on pet specials from the cobra strikes loss.

Quite a bit of extra effort for only 150 dps. I played with this on PTR and saw a similar gap even without being able to benefit from the killshot glyph on target dummies.

On my sheet putting SrS before or after killshot in the priority list is only a 1 or 2 dps difference so I didn't think much of it.

Swapping hawk and SrS glyphs in the first build results in the same DPS for me, the glyphs appear to have equal value. I just prefer SrS in that case cause I have to apply it less often.

As for multishot vs. aimed shot it's a debate that's been had. Some people prefer the extra theoretical damage and some prefer having an extra instant shot on hand. If I dropped aimed shot and put a point into improved tracking instead the gap between the builds would remain pretty much the same.

So even using your suggested changes, the gap between a "normal" rotation and just spamming steady shot remains the same for me.

You are correct that adding serpent sting to the 2nd build and replacing the one glyph results in an increase, but then it wouldn't just be steady shot spam which was the whole point

Edit: Re-reading your post something dawned on me... I was so concerned with keeping the talent builds the same that I forgot about it. Drop aimed shot from the 2nd build's talents and put that point into imp tracking. End result is 11138dps which is higher than the first build! Of course if I did the same with build 1, it would also go up the same amount, but you'd lose the benefit of an instant shot.

After having mulled over it most of the evening (its 11 pm right now) I've decide to play around with the idea a bit more (tomorrow).

Could you link the spec you have been using for the calculations so I start at approximately the same place as you (to start by looking at gear).
Also, what fight length and sub 20% health length do you have?
I assume you've been using the latest spreadsheet (93i) where the 3.3.3 ptr changes are in (the one to FI in particular adding 9% damage to SS)

I think its an interesting thought to have a utility spec that sacrifices instants for spam and can bring a lot of different things to the raid - in particular 10 man - by switching the pet out.

I have to be honest, I would probably never have thought about switching SrS out of the rotation entirely - but it does take away a good deal of dps on the short duration fights - and when you apply it just before it stops "working" (I'm thinking Blood Princes - I know I've applied it quite a number of times to have it tick for max 1 SS if not less before the orb moves - its awareness and learninng the fight, but it still annoying - even as MM)
I am quite looking forward to 3.3.3 and being able to raid as BM again by bringing some utility we are sorely lacking in 10 man.

Right.
Having thought about kabes posting I played around with the spreadsheet (93i).
I decided the following assumptions;

- The same spec for all the rotations (I went with 54/14/4 to pick up anything that would increase dps for SS and other shots as well)
- That I wouldn't use Aimed in any rotations as that would require a talent point to be taken out of something else and therefor shifting specs - otherwise there would be a wasted talent point in the non aimed rotations)
- Standard 25 man buffs (the ones that come preloaded with the spreadsheet)
- Standard fight length from the spreadsheet (6 minute duration, 1.2 minutes at sub 20%)
- Standard latency (150 ms)
- Standard "Max time to wait for CD's" (800ms)
- To not go with BiS gear, as thats relatively meaningless for most people - I went with what I happen to have from 10 man ICC and before.
- I did regem for ArP, as thats the whole basis for the postulation
- To not simply stack in favor of SS and retain the 2t9 bonus (which I have and most people will keep untill 4t10 I suspect)
- Staying in Dragonhawk untill OOM (no switching for BW) - which doesn't happen in any of these rotations
- For all rotations Rapid fire and Bestial Wrath are popped when available (but I won't mention it in the results)
- Using a wolf pet because rotations have the smallest impact on the wolf (as opposed to a devilsaur where reality means timing certain things to the pets specials)
- To test 4 rotations; 1) pure Steady spam, 2) Steady spam with SrS up, 3) Steady spam with KS on CD, and finally the "regular" rotation of 4) Killshot, SrS and Steady.

For the first set of tests I used the following glyphs;
[Glyph of the Hawk], [Glyph of Steady Shot] and [Glyph of Bestial Wrath] because off the bat these made as much sense as anything else to me.

I will present the numbers (which are the specifics for my setup, but should probably be taken more in the abstract)
The numbers will be presented in this format: [Total DPS] - [Hunter DPS] / [Pet DPS]
I decided to note all 3 numbers as it would be interesting to see how the different rotations affected the pet dps as well as the hunter dps with the total actually being the less interesting number.

I also did a pure auto with RF and BW on CD for baseline;
4340,78 - 2231,53 / 2109,25

Set 1 (Hawk, BW, SS)
1) 7586,62 - 4796,53 / 2790,09
2) 7919,65 - 5143,29 / 2776,36
3) 7717,11 - 4927,23 / 2789,88
4) 8049,78 - 5274,37 / 2775,41

What is immediately aparant is that using SrS is a dps loss for our pet - this is of course due to SrS replacing a steady shot and thus fewer steadies for cobra procs.
What is also immediately apparant is that Serpent sting is a significant dps gain - this is of course due in part to the SS glyph.

In this thread is has been suggested that the [Glyph of Serpent Sting] is better than the BW glyph, so I decided to switch them out - as the purpose of this test wasn't to find the best steady spam setup but to examine the viability of contemplating it;

Set 2 (Hawk, SrS, SS)
1) 7538,42 - 4784,13 / 2754,29
2) 7953,87 - 5209,75 / 2744,12
3) 7668,49 - 4914,45 / 2754,04
4) 8078,46 - 5334,62 / 2743,84

Again, we see that applying SrS is a slight dps loss for our pet, but a significant larger gain for our personal dps. The other interesting thing is that the loss of BW is an immediatley apparant loss for the pet, the hunter gains more than the pet looses, so under these circumstances SrS glyph is definately more valuable than BW.
After doing this test I had to admit that so far I had stacked the deck against the steady spam - because if we wanted to truly try that out I had 1 or 2 totally wasted glyphs in the above tests, the Steady glyph in both and the serpent sting in the second test.
I looked at glyph choices that wouldn't be relevant for the different rotations and still be somewhat of a gain - I looked at them with an eye on "what would I use if I knew I wasn't using X"
So I made Set 3 with [Glyph of Rapid Fire] instead of the SS glyph from the first set.

Set 3 (Hawk, RF, BW)
1) 7602,06 - 4811,98 / 2790,09
2) 7734,97 - 4985,61 / 2776,36
3) 7732,73 - 4942,85 / 2789,88
4) 7872,15 - 5096,73 / 2775,41

Once again we show that SrS is a dps loss for our pet.
This set shows about the same differences as kabes mentions - droppig SrS for pure SS (no KS) results in a net loss of ~130 dps - while we personally gain dps our pet looses it. Remove 2t9 and it will probably be even close as there will be not crit ticks.
Adding in KS is a slight loss for the pet over pure SS spam, but an overall gain. The interesting part here, I think, is that dropping KS and using SrS results in slightly higher DPS - which isn't interesting except, KS can only be used sub 20% so using SrS instead of KS will be more consistent dps than using SS and KS.
Again the "normal" rotation comes out on top by ~270 dps in this set.

I did a 4th set where I exchanged BW for RF glyph (compared to the first set), but my later test made this set pretty irrelevant.

For the question at hand; "Is it viable to contemplate Steady spam" none of the sets will answer the question themselves, as the sets are differentiated by the glyph choices. These choices should be balance out against what you want to use, thus;
To find whether SS spam is viable, the best set for each rotation must be used, so as to give each rotation the best scenario.
Optimaly I would have changed the talent points from 5/5 Mortal shots and 4/5 Improved tracking to account for these 2 talents, but I decided not to on the basis that
- Mortal Shots affects Steady Shot and Kill Shot equally
- Improved Tracking affects autoshots, Steady Shots, Kill shots and Serpent Sting equally
- 5/5 Improved Tracking and 4/5 Mortal shots would only increase the relative value of serpent sting compared to the other shots, and serpent sting is already showing an increase from being added - no pertinant information would be gained from increasing the relative value more.
Autoshots should be the same for all sets as the spreadsheet averages out IAotH - a simulation might have yielded different results as procs wouldn't fall at the same points in a fight - therefor the spreadsheet give sus the better answer for this question.

Thus the best results across the sets are:
1) 7602,06 - 4811,98 / 2790,09 (RF, BW, Hawk)
2) 7953,87 - 5209,75 / 2744,12 (SS, SrS, Hawk
3) 7732,73 - 4942,85 / 2789,88 (RF, BW, Hawk)
4) 8078,46 - 5334,62 / 2743,84 (SS, SrS, Hawk)

From this, the loss from the "normal" rotation of (RF > BW >) KS > SrS > SS to pure steady spam is ~470 dps (or 5,9%). The loss from the normal rotation to Steady spam with KS on CD is ~345 dps (or 4,3%).
Under the right glyphs the contribution from Killshot over the course of a full fight is considerably less than the contribution from SrS - and I doubt any of us would consider dropping those killshots during the last part of a fight.
To be fair, the actual contribution of KS should probably be looked at in a pure sub 20% scenario and looked at in the those terms and I won't infer any value on KS alone from these calculations (nor would I suggest that any valu can be inferred for KS).


At this time I decided to check the validity of my glyph choices and see how they affected the 4th rotation - the normal rotation - because it came out on top on every set, just to make sure I hadn't made any gross errors.
Therefore I tested the glyphs that would provide any sort of dps increase to the standard rotation.
I did this by using the same rotation and removing all the glyphs and just adding 1 at a time;
First I did a baseline to get delta values of the glyphs;

No glyphs:
7716,57 - 4976,80 / 2739,76
(interesting the spreadsheet has some hidden digits resulting in what appears to be a rounding error loosing 0,01 dps)

[Glyph of Steady Shot]
7909,27 - 5169,50 / 2739,76 Δ 192,70 - 192,70 / 0

[Glyph of the Hawk]
7807,70 - 5067,94 / 2739,76 Δ 91,13 - 91,13 / 0

[Glyph of Kill Shot]
7798,40 - 5057,66 / 2740,74 Δ 81,83 - 80,86 / 0,98

[Glyph of Serpent Sting]
7788,50 - 5044,66 / 2743,84 Δ 71,93 - 67,86 / 4,07

[Glyph of Bestial Wrath]
7765,39 - 4989,98 / 2775,41 Δ 48,82 - 15,44 / 33,38

[Glyph of Rapid Fire]
7732,01 - 4992,24 / 2739,76 Δ 15,44 - 15,44 / 0

I have ordered the glyphs by the delta value.
This "test" suggests that the greatest increas in dps will be had from Hawk/SS/KS combo with a combined suggested delta of 365,66 (or 4,738% increase over the baseline). Plugging them in results in a dps of
Hawk/SS/KS
8080,67 - 5339,94 / 2740,74 Δ 364,10 - 363,14 / 0,98

Actual delta is 364,10 - or 4,718% increase over the baseline.
Slightly less than expected; the pets contribution is precisely as expected, however the hunters contribution is 1,56 dps lower than the suggested delta - the most logical reason for this is having to hold shots slightly because of the decreased CD on KS.

Here is where common sense kicks in - as I've stated many times, KS glyph only helps sub 20% - so the real dps gain over the fight length is dependant on consistantly downing the boss - if not SrS glyph might be a better option.
Of course, while I'm doing all this I had no excuse to not test that as well.
SrS glyph comes in 4th place on the delta "chart" above, and on conjunction with Hawk and SS suggest a delta of 355,76(or 4,610% over the baseline). Plugging that in results in;
Hawk/SS/SrS
8078,46 -5334,62 / 2743,84 Δ 361,89 - 357,82 / 4,08

Actual delta is 361,89 - or 4,690% (rounded) increase over the baseline.
Sligtly more than expected; the pets contribution is, once again, exactly as expected (I blame the rounding "error" from the baseline for the extra 0,01 dps) while the hunter contribution is 6,13 dps over expected. Exactly what plays in her eI am not sure - but again I am led to believe that the GCD / KS distribution is simply more optimal with less waiting time - the odd thing here is that at no point is a steady over the gcd, the latency should be fixed for all shots as they all take 1 gcd, but I assume it must be a question of latency/time to wait for CD playing together nicer without the KS glyph.

The really interesting thing to take out of the last setup is this;
The dps loss from dropping KS glyph and grabbing SrS will only be a 2 dps (with these numbers) or 0,03% loss - and only if you consistently down bosses.


---

I would love to see others using their actual gear to double check the results I've given - both for the rotations and for the glyphs, but please use the same assumptions as I listed in the beginnig so its comparable (easiest way you can do so is download a fresh 93i spreadsheet) - and please point out if you think I stacked the deck against either scenario through the spec (though, as explained I don't think I did)

---
TL;DR

The normal rotation; (RF > BW >) KS > SrS > SS will yield nontrivially higher dps over any rotation that drops serpent sting - with or without SS or SrS glyph (or even without both).
KS adds less dps oer a fight than SrS, but should be kept due to real dps increase when available.
Additionally the highest yielding glyphs for BM are (in order of yield for the rotation) SS> Hawk > KS > SrS > BW > RF - though in any practical situation you will more likely see a higher consistent yield from SS + Hawk + SrS glyphs than from SS+ Hawk + KS.

@Rosamonde

I've been thinking about the idea of adding a note about the pet families that can bring specific debuffs - mainly for the 10 player environment - under pet choices - and dps specs for cunning and tenacity pets.

To give an example, my raidgroup doesn't have a single warrior, and only 1 rogue to apply the major armor reduction debuff. A little work with the spreadsheet shows me losing roughly 100 dps by bringing a dps specced worm (over a wolf) with a raid gain of more than this - in comparison our rogue says he would loose more dps by keeping up expose armor. My thoughts on this are partly to let the people in charge know it can be a benefit to ask a BM to loose some personal dps for raid gain, but also to let all our BM friends know which pets to keep ready and when it can be a benefit to not simply bring personal dps.

Thoughts?

This is a good idea, especially for 10 man raids. I'll put some thought into it this weekend, but meanwhile if you or anyone else has any other pet buffs that you have found to be useful to your raid comp, please post them -- this can be very situational, but I will add any that seem to be widely applicable to the OP. What pet(s) do you use to make up for a gap in your raid comp? What bosses/dungeons are you working on with them? What is the dps loss to yourself vs the gain to the raid?

I had heard that worms and wasps could be useful in the absence of the appropriate classes, but since my raid has all the buffs and debuffs in 25s, and makes an effort to get all the important ones into our 10s, I don't have any personal experience with this.

Carrion Birds are quite nice for their AoE AP reduction debuff. They are non-exotic and ferocity pets too, so non BM hunters can use them at minimal DPS loss too.

Personal experience with them:
- The cooldown on their Demoralizing Screech is the same as the debuff duration (10s iirc), so if you leave everything on auto-cast, you only get around 70-80% uptime on the debuff, which may not be acceptable.
- To work around this, you can turn off their focus dump ability, which gets the uptime over 90% (I think I still saw it drop off a bit), or you can get a second hunter in the raid with a carrion bird, and both use them with everything on autocast.
- I last did the math in T8 for a 10 man raid of non-BM hunters, but 2 hunters using carrion birds with their focus dump enabled was better raid DPS with 100% uptime on the debuff than 1 using a wolf and 1 using a bird that only does half-DPS because of not using its focus dump.
- The debuff is unfortunately weaker than Vindication and talented Demo Shout (maybe untalented too?) so getting a player to provide the debuff if possible is still better for the tanks.
- Being a weaker debuff, the bird won't be able to apply/refresh it if a pally procced Vindication from an AoE move, which may lead to downtime when Vindication drops off (again assuming an AoE scenario)

Demoralizing Screech has been buffed some patches ago and is now exactly as strong as it's (fully talented) counterparts, with 575 AP reduction at max rank. For comparison, the untalented druid and warrior versions only reduce AP by 411.