A rotation like that means you will give Arcane Shot a 10s CD instead of its 6s CD. Someone posted in another thread, that for situations where the cooldowns line up to make Aimed and Arcane possible after a Chimera, you take Arcane instead of Aimed so you unlock Arcane from Chimera/Aimed CD's. It'll take a while before they line up again. Doing that will result in higher dps, but it is of course a slightly more complex rotation.

Whitemane:

The returns diminish the better your transaction time becomes on a per shot basis. As such, a fixed rotation will usually yield higher results in practice over the priority queue, because you can automate some of the process to limit the impact of reaction time. Indeed, assuming your gearing All Mail and going for the 4 Piece on Conquerors, the DPS difference is +2.3 by shifting the shot priority to Arcane. In practical terms, that seems hardly worth the alteration for introducing the higher level of complexity.

Some comments:

1) Concerning agility, I wouldn't say that the dodge and armor from agility is pointless. My unbuffed agility results in 2526 armor, which is a quarter of my unbuffed armor. In addition, it results in 16.8% dodge. Both amount to significant contributions in survivability. It is true that only a single point in agility provides neglible benefits to survivability, but with how much agility we have, it adds up and makes a huge difference. I would rephrase the statement to say that armor and dodge contribute to our survivability.

I would also suggest mentioning that agility is a little more important for some specs due to abilities that modify the amount (i.e., SV's Lightning Reflexes for 15% and MM's Combat Experience for 4%).

2) Concerning intellect, you should mention how that it affects the amount of mana you regen from the constant tick part of Aspect of the Viper since that is dependent on your total mana pool, which is dependent on your intellect.

3) I am also hestitant with lumping crit, haste, and armor penetration together into one group.

First, for a guide, I think that it would be beneficial to point out several things about haste. These include that it only affects your autoshot and steady shot speed and that for steady shot that it is capped at getting it down to the 1.5 s GCD. I would mention how much haste is needed to reach that value (after accounting for the quiver). I would also mention how BM hunters have their Steady Shot already at the cap from Serpent's Swiftness and that haste is less beneficial to them.

Next, it is important that for some hunter classes to point out that crit is very meaningful and worth stacking some. For instance, for MMs, our crit modifier is about 280% of a non-crit. Plus, crits of certain shots causing the Peircing Shots affect for an addition 30% damage. This is significant.

Finally, armor pentration has a totally different mechanic than the other two that would be worthwhile to mention how they affect hunters.

4) Concerning shot rotations, I was going to suggest adding in the standard priorities for each of the specs with pointing out some possible variations, but I see you do that later. Here I would state to atree's section below for suggested rotations.

5) Concerning the MM spec, the spec listed is out of date. Since 3.1.3, points should be in IHM now instead of ISS or IB. IHM is now a benefit for most hunter's solo as well as the benefit it provides to other hunters in the raid. For alternate glyphs, Hawk is a great option too since it increases your autohot speed and improves the chances for WQ procs. Concerning the shot priority, I would also mention that depending on glyph choices that prioritizing Arcane Shot over Aimed Shot cam be a possible DPS gain.

6) I would also mention in the MM section Readiness and some of the possible uses for it.

1) Melee attack survivability doesn't matter in a raid situation. Hunters aren't tanking mobs where armor and dodge will ever be useful.

2) I figured that was clear but I'll reword it.

3) I lump them all because they're stats that are good for Hunters but that should never be gemmed for or what you should be basing your DPS on. You get plenty of crit from gear. This isn't meant as a be all end all theorycrafting for Hunter stats, just a basic description.

4) and 5) I just copy the specs/glyphs/rotations from the Best DPS thread. I haven't updated that in a few days.

6) I could go into that a bit more, yes.

Keep in mind everyone that this is a introductory guide to raiding for Hunters. Other data like the values of specific stats or variances in rotations and such are what the rest of this forum is for. This is just for Hunters who are new to raiding and want some basic information and an idea on where to start researching. If I tried to add in every fact for every detail then the guide would be as big as the entire forum and the other threads would be pointless.

Never say never.

There have been and probably will be situations where a hunter is asked to either kite or even tank something, and we have tools for doing so such as Distracting Shot, Traps, Wing Clip, Disengage, and Deterrence. A prime example is in MH kiting the ghouls in order to get the NPCs involved in each wave of attack or tanking the dragon riders before the 2nd boss in BT. I hunter could be asked to tank Mimiron's head, which I have had to do when the other ranged tanks have died. In these situations there will be times where we may take physical damage and our armor and dodge matter.

Even if we are not explicitly tanking or kiting a mob, there are usually situations where we may take physical damage. Looking at my last WWS, 16% of the damage I received was physical. Of the physical attacks on me 8% missed and about 3% were dodged.

I will agree that armor and dodge are not our primary concerns, but they are still important in certain situations.

In the post the first shot in rotation is KS, isn't that shot only available during the last 20% of the mobs health? Maybe I am missing something and if so please set me straight.

Thanks.

So out of all the damage you received you dodged what? 0.48% of it. Big deal, that is completely pointless. In your example increasing your dodge by 1% would have reduced the damage you took by 0.16%. An utter waste of time.

Ok, cool makes sense. Thanks.

I use shot priority for marks, and really the rotation and the priority queue end up being one in the same. KS > CS > AiS > AS > SS*

*until a shot with higher priority is up. If any shots align use the priority queue. SiS is macro'd to AiS and SrS is a no brainer.

What exactly is the difference between the two for marks? (priority vs rotation)

Very nice FAQ, helped me a lot!

for the "Current Highest DPS Talent Spec and Glyphs" you sad that "This spec assumes you have enough crit to maintain Expose Weakness with only one point. This is a rather steep requirement and requires fairly high end gear. It also doesn't take Hunting Party and loses out on some mana efficiency, so if your raid needs someone to provide Replenishment, you'll need to use one of the specs below."

When I click on the "Highest DPS" link, Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft I see 2/3 in Expose Weakness, not 1/3 glitch?

How much crit I need to have to be able to use that spec? I have 43% crit 5k AP & 1700 agil unbuffed.

And maybe this was already discussed somewhere else, but I noticed Explosive Shot Glyph is not on the "Highest DPS" just want to make sure that that is correct as well.

Thank you

I just copy/paste the top DPS specs from Midnight's thread. At the time of writing that it was a spec with 1/3 EA. It may have been changed since then to 2/3.

For how much crit you'd need, you'll just have to use the spreadsheet and see. It's too difficult to calculate by hand.

Yes, this is correct.

To expound upon Lerastes's reply, the point was moved from Resourcefulness to Expose Weakness. Sacrificing BA up time in order to increase EW up time was found to be a DPS increase. (Even with excellent crit rates, 1/3 will lose a measurable amount of EW up time.)

This should be even more true in patch 3.2 with the (re)introduction of the L&L ICD.

I'm kinda wondering why he put the Kill Shot, Serpent Sting, and the Steady shot glyphs up as suggested major glyphs but then said the best alternative glyph is Steady Shot glyph. I'm not questioning the glyphs he thinks are best suited but the part that he said one of the best glyphs to use is Steady Shot but then he said that Steady Shot glyph is also an alternate glyph...

The steady shot glyph in the talent calculator should be explosive shot glyph I guess.
And u would replace serpent sting with steady shot.

No, the glyphs on the talent calculator are correct. I list glyphs other than what the calculator says for alternatives. I haven't updated it yet.

Oh, if you really think that the glyphs in your talent calculator are correct, then you're off base on MM.

Serpent Sting is a must have, like you have it.

However, Steady Shot and Aimed Shot glyphs are the poorer choices to make. There probably isn't a best glyph to use, but the better ones are Chimera Shot, Kill Shot and Glyph of the Hawk. Maybe Imp. HM also, but Steady Shot and Aimed Shot glyphs are not even second tier glyphs.

Now that I look closely your "top spec" is off base. Here is a correct one: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Sure there are alternates, but the arguments in the details are between how you spread the points among Barrage, Imp Barrage and Imp. Steady Shot. Nobody advocates skipping Imp. Arcane shot, unless you're going for a pure ArP build. To be even more detailed, the discussion is where do you put the low level filler point. The choices are Barrage, focused aim and Imp. HM, and they all are relatively close on the spreadsheet.

To be clear, Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is the basic build. At that point you have a low level filler.

The next filler is at: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Where you have another low level filler point.

Finally you get to: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Where you have 5 points left.

That is where you can decide what to do with those 5 left over points. You could go for Aspect Mastery, or stay in MM with FA, IHM, Barrage, Imp Barrage and Imp. Steady Shot all good options. Aspect Mastery is probably the least favorite spot to put them.

The 'how to gem' should also get cleaned up, as in many cases its a dps increase to not gem for hit, but pick up some points in FA. Especially considering your "top spec" has 3/3 in FA.

Wow this got long. In short, your MM section is very very basic and very misleading. And I write too much.

Well, since this is a guide for people who doesn't already know all this, I think that the guide clearly should point out that the spec you link to only is "best" if you have around 900 passive ArPen, which the BIS profile has. The people who raid at the level where you can achieve this high number of ArPen already know that it's a possibility. So my suggestion is to use a more basic marksman spec.

I expanded on it a bit more. I'll have time to redo the glyphs later today.

Well the spec you copied and the shot order you link don't work with each other. The MM spec is based around 900 ArP and not using Arcane Shot at all,

For an ArP build the shot order is: SrS/SilS/CS/KS/AiS/SS

For a Non-ArP build the shot order is: SrS/SilS/CS/KS/AiS/AS/SS which is slightly different than what you show. You have Silencing Shot in the wrong place.

So you are just copying stuff and not even glancing to see why they did something? I don't think these are the forums to copy stuff without thinking about it.

You're saying that at high gear levlels you don't have took into how MM specs and gems work? I'd say at a high gear level you have the most options and are affected the most by every little change.

I am well aware of how that spec works. I have not had the time to redo the various sections that need reworking. I will tonight.

Silencing Shot is NOT part of a priority list, it is simply macro'd into your main shots. It's pointless to rotate as it is not on the GCD.

Please read my post again as you misunderstood many parts of it.

Again, you listed a spec that says one thing and everything else says something else. It's clearer now that you re-wrote it. If you fixed the shot priority it would be accurate.

I've updated the MM section and redone the Glyphs to have their own section for better explanations.