maybe i can explain why a little more clearly

the spread sheet ignores the
*Damage: stat*
and only references the
*DPS: stat*

you dont need the spread sheet to see the BM dps is greater… just look at the paper dolls… Bm has highest dps.

what the spread sheet missed was the effects of the damage stat in any shot cycle.

a shot cycle fires instant shots based soley on damage and a set cool down, so attack speed becomes irrelevent and is not used

once attack speed becomes irrelevant, so does the dps stat.

extreme example -
shot speed 20
damage 1000 – 1000
dps = 50

now if you arcane shot+multishot
your gonna put out over 2000 dmage in 10 seconds, and thats with out any autoshot damage.

thats 200 DPS

FOUR times higher than the basic stats would lead you to believe.
thats also a hint that slower weapons are better than fast weapons unless your banking on procs.

the respecs were not a waste as you got to see the different stats and this is important to learning as much as we can about our class.

-Axebite garithos server

Switching from BM to Survival, I went from #1 overall dps to #3. The two people above me? A rogue and a warrior, who gained 300+ AP from Expose Weakness and Improved Hunter’s Mark (I specced into it because we were easily taking 8-10 melee DPS and 1-2 hunters each 25-man.).

Survival had very different gear needs than BM or MM. Plus, BRK isnt even trying to say what’s best for everyone, he just saying what is best for his gear.

Anyone debating or mistrusting what BRK is saying here, I highly recommend you try this out. When you first log into the PTR, all your talent points are reset to zero as well as your trained abilities. Visit the armory, print out a couple builds of hunters you know/respect of your faction or hunters that have wiped the floor with you in arena of the opposing faction and try them out. Then hop in a BG for fastest testing or, as I do, head to one of the Hellfire instances to try out your trapping/dps on some elites.

Just don’t forget to retrain your pet when you do this

Granted there are a lot of equipment dependencies and other variables here but it should not be ignored that part of the survivalist build is designed not for one’s personal DPS numbers but rather to give those numbers away to the group, raising theirs much higher than they’d normally be. Therefore to only look at the DPS of the survivalist is no more fair than looking at a hunter ignoring the DPS of a pet when used.

I drain my mana like crazy. I get my dps from number of arrows (shots)out i suppose. I spam my macro with DST proc’ing.

I am considering going BM or back to MM. I have tried MM with macro and DST. However, I ran out of mana on prince with poping a mana pot that made me go up to 90% and ran out with 35sec to spare on the pot cool down. with a crap ton of Mana regen and viper and mana regen food.

Unless I get a shadow priest in my group, Survival with the mana efficiency and thrill of the hunt are for me for now.

About CC’ing. The guild master (hunter) left the guild. He came back. But it seems the guild is not hunter friendly any longer. Meaning, hunters are not CC. They are MD and DPS. I miss CCing. I have CC in Moroes 3 times out of 15. The only reason for that is we did not have a priest to shackle. So saying hunters are for CC is a little puzzling. We are starting SSC and TK btw.

gripe and Ill leave
Blizzard took away all of our interupts in the end game. That is insulting and another story.

I was an MM die-hard until relatively recently, when getting slightly bored I decided to try other specs out. I’m now running with BM through the tier 5 instances and wouldn’t like to go back right now.

It’s a tough choice about the exact spec to go for. I believe the right answer is simply it depends on what you’re raiding, who you are raiding with and what they need from your skills. Every hunter should be reviewing their build as they progress through the raid instances and adjust it best to fit their play style and the requirements of the group.

For Karazhan, I think a MM with some survival for traps is extremely valuable. Why? Because priest and hunter CC is predominant (most mobs not being sheepable) and it’s better to know you have reliable traps rather than proving you’re top of damagemeters. Of course you can spec BM with traps too but for me there are certain “must haves” in the MM tree including Lethal Shots and Efficiency.

Beyond Kara, I think BM comes into its own in damage dealing because I no longer need to trap – most CC comes from mages. I’ve also never needed silencing shot in 25-mans, it simply isn’t effective. One of the previous posters highlighted the constant Ferocious Inspiration buff from BM, which is at least as good as trueshot aura, particularly with your party members doing 800-1000 dps.

However it’s not all a bed of roses, some encounters are more advantageous than others. If it’s not taking too much space I thought I would post a list of 25-man bosses I’ve done and the degree of BM friendliness to them from my point of view.

High King Maulgar: ok for BM, although if polymorphed during Kiggler tanking he may decide to kill your pet
Gruul: ok for BM, but you’ll need tight control over your pet during cave-ins and shatters
Magtheridon: good for BM, but pet will need to avoid conflagration
Void Reaver: hmm fairly poor for BM, you’ll need to avoid pounding and arcane orbs, mending your pet frequently
Lurker Below: extremely poor, your pet will not attack Lurker from a platform
Hydross the Unstable: good for BM
Morogrim Tidewalker: good for BM
Fathom-Lord Karathress: good for BM, but pet will need mending during parts of the encounter.

I hope this helps someone a little. As I said this isn’t necessarily the best way to go for every group but it’s working for me quite well right now. I’m not top of damagemeters in my group but do a decent 800dps through many 10-minute boss encounters and am only outdone by a few players.