Regarding Marrowgar, as long as you use a strat that involves people collapsing in melee at least when bone spike graveyard is being cast, I've been finding it nicer to just start volleying before the spikes spawn. It's 4 guaranteed targets, and faster DPS than going in, dropping a trap, waiting to see if they're on you or not, getting out of melee and then beginning attacks on them. If you're going to have a multishot and disengage up as they spawn though, trap + DE=>Multi might be better total damage.

Gunship I send trying to see how many serpent sting durations I can keep track of in my head, it's fun seeing Volley and Serpent sting as your top 2 abilities after the fight.

Lady Deathwhisper: If you're tasked to add duty, which many hunters are, just fire off a Viper String a few seconds before each add wave spawns. I assume you are on the boss to start, then switching to the adds ~5 seconds after spawn, then going back to boss when they're dead. If that's the case, just fire Viper Sting off on the boss before switching and you'll be at full mana the entire fight. She has 14M mana, it's almost unlimited amounts of mana for you. As far as deformed adds go, just nuke them. If your tanks are on top of their game and/or you have a setup that allows them to be kited, the debuff shouldn't be a worry at all. If they're about to get close to someone, Distracting Shot is ideal since you'll be far enough away to start kiting it safely.

Deathbringer Saurfang: In your specific situation, you are simply doing too much back and forth to keep up a very high DPS output. In this situation, as long as you are doing your roll well and keeping 2 beasts on you when they spawn, you are doing a fine job. I disagree with that strategy, but if that's the way your guild does it, just keep doing your roll perfectly.

Festergut: While being targetted by a Vile Gas is a big DPS killer, hunters have the easiest time of the range, imo. While getting Vile Gas'd 5 times in a fight will give you a lower dps than the fight in which you only got Gas'd once, it's still not the only reason your melee DPS is far surpassing your ranged. Quite a number of factors involved including your raid setup and positioning among other things.

Rotface: Seems like another one of those "this is your role in our raid" things - and people claim that hunters have no raid utility! I can't claim how effective it is with numbers, but an extra 130 resist helps an enormous amount. Once your raid gets better at avoiding all the avoidable damage, it will become less and less necessary.

Putricide: Your traps have 30 second despawn times, it's still VERY easy to drop a trap and move out of range. Trap damage is so insignificant that it is almost useless to use on these mobs. Explosive will get off the initial burst and maybe one tick of the ground effect, for 2k - 4k damage. Immolation trap will be a little more effective since they'll remain on the slime as long for the full duration, or until dead, but still not worth the bother IMO. Unless you're right on top of exactly where the slime spawns, it's not worth the time spent running out of your way. And, yet again, the third phase is dealing Nature damage, and if you are the designated source, it will help. I'd like to see a totem dropped, but your shamans may have more important totems out to buff the rest of the raid. Maybe try working out a week-to-week rotation so you're not always the one getting the short end of the stick.

Blood Queen: You cannot Deterrence a fear. I don't think Iceblock works either. Both of those abilities do work on the damaging Bloodbolt (sp?) that she does while she's in the air, and if your healers are having a hard time healing through this phase, that will be a big help. Otherwise, if you are 6+ yards from people around you, don't worry about it, just keep DPS'ing. As far as the fear RNG length, there's nothing you can do about that. Basically just look for an open spot and disengage back to it ASAP to get away from people to avoid damage.

Some of your questions simply come down to how well and how fast your guild executes these fights.

For Lady Deathwhisper: Yes, if your mages have a macro ready to spell steal Vampiric Might - Spell - World of Warcraft, let them do so. Perhaps consult with them before you go there next time to know whether or not you should dispell them.
From personal experience, this encounter is trivial in normal and things generally die before the mobs become any sort of threat.
Our physical dps tends to go for the adherents since they gain Adherent's Determination - Spell - World of Warcraft when reanimated so the mages and other casters in my guild will generally take care of the Fanatics due to the reduced physical damage taken when reanimated and are free to control the spell steals.
Regarding running out of mana, this is not something I've usually experienced since our first kill, but Viper Stinging the boss is not a bad idea if you know you are going to go oom before the fight is over. We usually burn Heroism/Bloodlust on the pull to speed up phase 1.

Deathbringer Saurfang: If your guild doesn't have enough shamans to allow use of earthbind resulting in you being on trap duty, ask for a centered position. Sebudai already mentioned the optimal use of hunters for this fight, but generally you seem to be wanting to do too many things at once which shouldn't be needed if ranged dps switches to the adds when they spawn.
Sure, a distracting shot here and there is fine, but the adds should be finished off before they're able to hit anyone with proper knockback effects from boomkins, elemental shamans and possibly mages if you have none of the the first two options.
In terms of keeping your dps high, I /focus Saurfang and make sure to save my chimera shot for him to keep my serpent sting running. The same goes for Lady Deathwhisper.

Festergut: Your dps will be determined by how many times you get Vile Gas from my experience. I've peaked quite high on this fight without getting a single Vile Gas and I've dropped by more than 1000 dps when being targeted for it roughly five times. Without getting the Vile Gas, you should be able to compete with melee here given your gear levels are equal.

Rotface: Whether or not you need Aspect of the Wild depends entirely on the quality of your healers and dps avoiding the spray and not being close to the big oozes aoe aura. From personal experience, we didn't need it when we lacked a third shaman with five healers. When hard modes come out, the answer to this question will be a no-brainer, I'd imagine.

Professor Putricide: Use disengage to your advantage here and try to stay atleast 15 yards away from the boss, preferably more. It leaves you with more time to dps and react when Malleable Goo is coming your way. On this fight, you want Aspect of the Wild up if you are the only resource for it.

Blood-Queen Lana'thel: The general rule I have is to make sure disengage is ready for the airphase to give the rest of the raid room to spread out. When learning the encounter, deterrence and perhaps healthstone should probably be saved for the air phase. Add Essence of the Blood Queen - Spell - World of Warcraft to Grid or anywhere else you can to ensure you know who is bitten and who is available to recieve the (de)buff.

We're still the only class that absolutely has to stand at range. I know our boomkin stands in melee on that fight, and there's enough leeway with Vile Gas for a couple more caster DPS to do that too. Of course they also risk a large drop in DPS if they have to bring a spore out from the melee clump...as well they decrease the number of targets for Vile Spore so hunters are likely to get shafted anyway. :p

I've tried this and ended up dropping Raptor/Mongoose out of the rotation, simply due to lack of GCDs. As soon as the bonespikes spawn I want to be channeling volley which does work fairly well since there are four targets (3 spikes plus Marrowgar). Standing at minimum range and running in as soon as the Bone Spike Graveyard cast starts, I just don't have time to use two GCDs before this (it's a three second cast, so really I have reaction time + movement time + one GCD, then start volley).

I disagree that vile gas doesnt play a large part in your output there. In your example you are lending the hunter a lot of favorable variables there that arent always present. The assumption of a very fast kill (some of us are still scraping the enrage week to week while downing him, you can get alot more than 4 pukes if your killing him right at the enrage) and also a centralized position (normally reserved for the healer we have standing outside on our runs so we can collapse on to them with the spore). Then there is always the completely uncontrollable possibility of you getting a very nice 2pc t10 proc alongside a WFS proc and a Ahsen Verdict ring proc and having all of that lead right into a puke on you. Its quite a few high damage globals lost. And it can happen more than once in a kill.

I definitely use the cooldowns appropriately, and I make sure not to over rush to get to a spore when its up, theres time to move and weave in your autoshots while creeping that way losing less dps. And on a fight like that I most certainly use a speed pot just before the pull to get the pot cooldown ticking downward letting me pot twice during the fight. But I really don't see how if its a long full 5m kill, and you soak all of what....7 or 8 pukes + movement that I should expect to keep pace with competent equally geared melee who are simply standing and going all in. There is going to be some loss there, and its likely to be noticeable.

Regarding Festergut, has anyone managed to FD out of his Vile Gas application? I see him target me as he's casting, but have as yet never managed to get an FD off before it hits me. I'm wondering whether:

a) if FD is cast soon enough, would it make him not cast Vile Gas on you
b) if he didn't cast it at you, would he just not cast it, or would be cast it at someone else (possibly the melee, causing a wipe)

I'm not convinced that Volley is actually worthwhile on this encounter, at least on normal mode. I mean, assuming the spikes are properly positioned in melee range, a lot of them will die in less than 2 seconds. In which case you could be looking at hitting these spikes with only a single tick of Volley before they die. I suspect we might be better off just immediately moving back out so we can try to get a Multi-Shot off. So unless the spikes have significantly more health on hard mode, a more fluid move in and then back out right after spikes spawn approach still seems optimal to me.

Compiled list of the effect of Hunter abilities tested during ICC encounters


This list shall contain the following format:

Ability - Encounter - <Tested> Y / <Needs to be Tested> N - Functionality being tested

Examples:

-------------------------------------------------
DT - BQ - Y - Does not deflect Incite Terror
-------------------------------------------------
DT - BQ - N - Deflects Bloodbolt Splashes sourced from other players.
-------------------------------------------------

The 1st example says that Deterrence has been tested to deflect Incite Terror during the Blood-Queen encounter and does not deflect it.
The 2nd example says that Deterrence has not been tested yet to see if it will deflect Bloodbolt Splashes from other players being hit by Twilight Bloodbolt.

Abbreviation List - Possible Hunter Abilities

FD - Feign Death
DT - Deterrence
DE - Disengage
TS - Tranquilizing Shot
AS - Aimed Shot
SS - Silencing Shot
SC - Scatter Shot
DS - Distracting Shot
MD - Misdirection
ET - Explosive Trap
MC - Master's Call
AP - Aspect of the Pack
FA - Freezing Arrow/Trap
WS - Wyvern Sting
NA - Not a Hunter ability, line item refers to functionality not particular to any Hunter abilities


Abbreviation List - Encounters

LM - Lord Marrowgar
LD - Lady Deathwhisper
GB - Gunship Battle
DS - Deathbringer Saurfang
FG - Festergut
RF - Rotface
PP - Professor Putricide
BP - Blood Prince Council
BQ - Blood-Queen Lana'thel
VD - Valithria Dreamwalker
SG - Sindragosa
LK - Lich King Arthas

If anyone has suggestions to flesh out this list of abilities and their effects during ICC encounters then please list the results of your testing. Results can also include the effect of using certain Racials or other non-Hunter specific items but still relevant to Hunter's. Anecdotal information is not satisfactory, only solid 100% true facts. Any results should be backed up by logs whenever possible.


FD - LM - Y - Does not free you from Bone Spikes
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DT - LM - Y - Prevents damage from Bone Storm
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DT - LM - Y - Prevents damage from Coldflame
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TS - LD - Y - Does not remove Fanatic/Adherent Determination from Reanimated Fanatic/Adherent.
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TS - LD - Y - Removes 'Shroud of the Occult' magic shield from all Adherent types.
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DS - DS - Y - Can be used to force Blood Beasts to attack you for DS duration.
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FD - DS - Y - When used for Blood Beasts you may regain all threat when you pop up(Heroic only)
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ET - DS - Y - Blood Beast AE dmg reduction does not apply to the DoT effect of Explosive Traps
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MC - DS - Y - Master's Call works on the slow effect that Saurfang applies when the beasts are out. (Hard Mode)
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FD - FG - N - If used in the instant he targets you will stop a Vile Gas attack
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DT - FG - Y - Does not deflect a Vile Gas attack
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DT - FG - Y - Does not prevent damage from Gaseous Blight
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DT - FG - Y - Does not prevent damage from Pungent Blight
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DT - FG - N - Deterrence functions the same as it does for (H) Festergut as for PP encounter
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DT - RF - Y - Does not prevent damage from Slime Spray
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DS - RF - Y - Can be used to force 'Big Ooze' to follow you for DS duration
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DT - RF - N - Can be used to prevent damage from Radiating Ooze and Weak Radiating Ooze
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DT - RF - Y - Does not prevent damage and slowing effect from Ooze Flood.
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MC - RF - Y - Provides immunity to Ooze Flood slowing effect.
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FD - RF - Y - Has no impact on Small Ooze spawning off you(contrary to prev report)
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FD - PP - Y - Does not prevent you from being frozen by Tear Gas
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FD - PP - Y - Can be used when targeted by Volatile Ooze to force it to pick a new target. Ooze new target selection also takes several additional seconds. Best used in the second before the Ooze would hit you and blow everyone up.
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DT - PP - Y - Does not prevent you from being frozen by Tear Gas
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DT - PP - Y - Does not prevent you from being struck by Volatile 'Ooze Eruption'
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DT - PP - Y -- Deterrence will work on Malleable Oozes that target you directly. It will negate all damage ONLY if you are the target (and the slow casting effect), and will not affect the AoE damage (or slow effect) if you are splashed. Great help for those times you're targetted by the green ooze and Malleable'd at the same time.
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DT - BP - Y - Prevents damage from 'Shadow Lance'
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NA - BP - Y - Dark Nucleus will stick to whoever attacked them last. Use Scorpid Sting to keep them on you if tanking.
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NA - BP - Y - Pets can prevent Kinetic Bomb from landing indefinitely. Should be on passive and manually sent in to attack to accomplish this. Note that Kinetic Bombs will despawn during the encounter and your pet will need to be resent in to attack a new one.
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FD - BQ - Y - Does not prevent being hit by Incite Terror
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DT - BQ - Y - Does not prevent being hit by Incite Terror
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DT - BQ - Y - Prevents damage from Twilight Bloodbolt
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DT - BQ - Y - Prevents damage from Shroud of Sorrow
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DT - BQ - N - Prevents damage from Swarming Shadows
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DT - BQ - Y - Does not prevent damage from Pact of the Darkfallen
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DT - BQ - Y - Does not prevent damage from Bloodbolt Splash caused by other players
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DT - BQ - N - Prevents Bloodbolt Splash from happening on Twilight Bloodbolts cast on you
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DE - BQ - Y - If player is targeted by Twilight Bloodbolt during Bloodbolt Whirl, and has not yet landed, splash occurs at players original position. If Disengaging out be aware that this functionality could cause additional damage from splash to other raid members and so you should avoid Disengaging in the couple seconds prior to and during Bloodbolt Whirl for positioning to be clear.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DT - VD - Y - Prevents damage from Lay Waste (although you should be shooting, not hiding)(Blazing Skeleton)
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DT - VD - N - Prevents damage from Column of Frost
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DT - VD - Y - Prevents damage from Acid Burst(Blistering Zombie)
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DT - VD - N - Prevents damage from Frostbolt Volley(Risen Archmage)
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DT - VD - N - Prevents damage from Gut Spray(Gluttonous Abomination)
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DS - VD - Y - Can be used to force Blistering Zombies to follow you for the duration (and the casters, technically)
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DE - SG - Y - Can be used while being Icy Grip'd to jump back sooner
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FD - SG - Y - Can be used to prevent being hit by Icy Grip
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AP - SG - Y - Frost Aura damage does not cause Daze affect from Aspect
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DT - SG - Y - Prevents damage from Frost Aura
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DT - SG - Y - Does not prevent damage from Blistering Cold
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DT - SG - N - Prevents damage from Chilled to the Bone
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DT - SG - Y - Does not prevent the application of Mystic Buffet debuff
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NA - SG - Y - Shots that cause magical damage do not proc Backlash or Chilled to the Bone
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NA - SG - Y - Icy Grip can be avoided by using the Frost Tomb to get out of LOS
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DE - LK - Y - If you are being carried by a Valk and it is killed with you in midair, you can disengage back onto the platform. However if the Valk drops you then you will be too low to Disengage back
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TS - LK - Y - Shambling Horror Enrage can and should be Tranq'd. Their enrage has a cast time.
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DT - LK - N - Prevents damage from Shockwave(shambling horror)
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FD - LK - Y - Does not prevent Hunter from being targeted by Valkyrie's
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DT - LK - N - Prevents throwback(Ice Burst) from Ice Sphere
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DT - LK - N - Prevents damage from Ice Pulse(Ice Sphere)
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DT - LK - N - Prevents damage from Pain and Suffering(Lich King)
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DT - LK - Y - Does not prevent damage from Remorseless Winter
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FD - LK - Y - Does not prevent a Raging Spirit from spawning
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DT - LK - N - Prevents damage from Soul Shriek(Raging Spirit)
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DT - LK - Y - Does not prevent damage/trigger of Defile
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DE - LK - Y - The mechanics of Disengage leave the Hunter at their original position until landing. Do not try to Disengage out of Defile or away if you get Defile
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NA - LK - Y - Turn on chat bubbles and use the DBM Alpha version to easily see who has Defile so you can move away from them
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DT - LK - Y - Does not prevent damage from Spirit Burst(Vile Spirit)
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SC - LK - Y - Does not interrupt Soul Rip
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FA - LK - Y - Does not interrupt Soul Rip
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WS - LK - Y - Does not interrupt Soul Rip
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DS - LK - Y - Does interrupt Soul Rip (you likely want to FD before the mob reaches you though)






Updated 3/31/10 9:30AM CST

If you're getting a longer kill than the time I stated earlier, you're also getting to cycle through a full second set of cooldowns. Because I waited until Vile Gas was out at an opportune time, I didn't get to cycle through a full readiness/rapid fire rotation a second time. Yes, a single Vile Gas debuff can cause you to lose DPS - that I'm not disputing. But, if you have a central position, you shouldn't be moving at all - that's an issue with your strategy. There's only 20 or so rogues beating out hunters at the moment on the fight according to public logs - that alone should be enough to tell you that we're fairly close - my parse isn't public and it would have slid comfortably into third.

DT - LM - N - Prevents damage from Coldflame
Does not appear to.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FD - FG - N - If used in the instant he targets you will stop a Vile Gas attack
I was pulled out of the FD animation once, closest I was able to get. Signs point to no.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DT - FG - N - If used in the instant he targets you will deflect a Vile Gas attack
Probably not possible, you can be Vile Gassed with DT running.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DT - FG - N - Prevents damage from Gaseous Blight
Nope.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DT - FG - N - Prevents damage from Pungent Blight
Did not test -- I'll try tonight.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DT - RF - N - Prevents damage from Slime Spray
Logging was inconclusive, I'll reattempt tonight.
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DS - RF - N - Can be used to force 'Big Ooze' to follow you for DS duration
Absolutely. It is possible for hunters to be the ooze kiters (although you shouldn't).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DT - RF - N - Can be used to prevent damage from Radiating Ooze and Weak Radiating Ooze
Did not test -- I'll attempt tonight.
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DT - RF - N - Can be used to prevent damage and slowing effect from Ooze Flood
No. Master's Call appears to work, however.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DT - BQ - N - Prevents damage from Swarming Shadows
Does not appear to.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DT - BQ - N - Prevents damage from Pact of the Darkfallen
Did not attempt to avoid this -- it seems like a bad idea.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DT - BQ - N - Prevents damage from Bloodbolt Splash caused by other players
Did not attempt this because I did not hug other people.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DT - BQ - N - Prevents Bloodbolt Splash from happening on Twilight Bloodbolts cast on you
Inconclusive (no one near me), but I believe this to be the case. More testing required.

Additionally:

DT - VD - Y - Prevents damage from Lay Waste (although you should be shooting, not hiding)
DT - VD - N - Prevents damage from Column of Frost
DT - VD - N - Prevents damage from Acid Splash
DS - VD - Y - Can be used to force Blistering Zombies to follow you for the duration (and the casters, technically)