I remember there previously having been discussion about removing 1 point from longevity. I think the theoretical increase you see comes from cooldowns lining up better and / or letting a focus starved pet get off more attacks total. Whether the theoretical increase equals a real increase depends partly on what part is weighted - i.e. if its a focus starved pet then it will imeediately become a real dps increase due to the pets ai getting to do more - if its "just" the cd's lining up better, then you will probably not see anything in a real environment if you have the cooldowns macroed together for instance.

In regards to the invigoration increase - what did the points for invig come out of? Invig will be a dps boost on any fight where you run out of mana and have to go to viper to regen - and it might be a bigger gain than the loss of whatever points you removed. This increase should be actual and directly visible in any real fight that follows the spreadsheet model (fightlength, buffs etc).

Wohoo, found a reason to dig the BM thread out : )

Maybe yes, but it´s only a 10 sec window and Invigoration only procs vom Basic Attacks (3-4 during BW). With a 15% chance on each Arcan, it´s a 27% probability of not getting Cobra Strikes at all. (0.85^8 = 0.272). Sure right now my pets critchancen ist around 70% (->2% of not getting a proc with 3 attacks) and my Hast around 30% (Ingi glooves; -> 52 passive regen). Assuming Gylphe and one Invigoration proc 76 focus is enogh. But being 85 soon and low on hast and crit we´re going to pool to 90+ focus to be on the save side.

My point is: Befor BW you have to pool as much focus as possible and Kindred Spirit is helping us a lot with it. 10 extra focus per fight ~ no DPS at all (very little), but being able to pool higher with out losing focus does the trick.

Something else:
How to use Focus Fire?
In theory our pet has 5 Stacks after 15 sec (Bestial Discipline, no autoshots) and we can use it on CD with always having the full benefit (20 petfocus + 15% hast for 15 sec), but in reality this holds not true. Should we still use it on CD?

So far FF is going to be kept on CD unless it's during BW. FF provides us with a steady haste buff to bring our SS (and CoS in Cata) cast times down to the GCD (1sec). FF is BM's version of to ISS.

I've been toying with the idea of specing down MM to pick up ISS (since I seem to pair up my SS alot). Any theory on potential DPS gains versus other talents at 85?

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is my basic idea (Also doubling as my soloing/extreme soloing build, therefore the point in Imp Mend Pet)

Still debating whether 3/3 Pathing will return better yields than 3/3 ISS. I am guessing it is fight-dependent. More movement gives advantage to Pathing, while less movement gives advantage to ISS.

In the interest of Cataclysm launching tonight we are going to close the current threads. I have sent a PM to the OP to see if they wish to continue their much appreciated work in the Cataclysm thread. In the meantime if you are interested in authoring the Cataclysm thread (or assisting) please send me a PM.