if you are correct, then yes, at 300dps, they are =… FI and TSA will BOTH only give 9dps…

what about at 350? TSA still gives 9, but FI gives 10.5.. what about 500dps? TSA=9 again, FI = 15 so it scales… whereas TSA will always be “9″

with a base DPS of 300…

to auto shot damage (which I probably should have clarified before..) this means a 9DPS increase.

All things being equal as it were..

using the same numbers, but applying the serpents swiftness to the 1 hunter, which I didn’t add in the previous example, because it was about the 3 OTHER people…

the BM hunter’s DPS jumps to 412!
while the other 3 people get a boost to 313.58(average, for when BM not active) each.. so now, in cluding the hunters, a MM’s group would be 4×309 = 1236, while a BM’s group would be (3×313.58)+ 396 for the BM hunter’s avg(including that FI is up 75%) =1336dps for the group, avg 334 each…
3%damage means MORE than 3%DPS…

that said, I know nothing about EW, but anyone can see that the survival tree is the “team player”… better crowd control, great buffs and more health, leaving the priest to spend more time on the tanks. An SV hunter is the least selfish of the bunch… PERIOD

So using 300dps as our benchmark…

You find:

FI bumps DPS to 309.
300*1.03=309

TSA bumps DPS to 309.
125/14=9+300=309

It certainly seems as though these two talents are being balanced against each other. The difference being that FI increases all damage, where TSA only benefits physical damage. The other offset being that one is up all the time and the other seems up only 75% of the time.

If we work backwards is it possible to find a new threshold for EW and the SV tree? If we need 14ap for 1 DPS and we’re looking to hit 309dps then we need 125 AP (TSA anyone?) so EW must equal 125, which means agi must equal 500. Which is only 435 agility BEFORE LR.

So… when I’m raid buffed and sportin 890 agility my EW provides physical DPSers in the WHOLE raid a 16 DPS increase which I can maintain on my target. 890/4=223RAP. 223/14=16.
16+300=316.

Yeah.. serpents swiftness gives personal DPS the edge once again.. but really. When put in terms like this, who’s the selfish hunter now? Who’s the one depriving the party and the raid of increased damage?

I say it’s the BM hunter. Yup.. these guys are only in it for themselves. Hypocrite.

TSA (rank 7) increases AP by 125… knowing that 14 AP = 1 dps(according to theorycraft website, that means everyone that does PHYSICAL damage, gets 9 DPS… regardless of if they had 250 dps or 350 dps before… it is up 100% of the time.

FI, from this weekend’s test looks to be up most of the time, we’ll call it 75% for arguments sake… and it increases DAMAGE by 3%… this is more complicated, since it’s not a direct DPS modifier, we have to plug it into a formula…

from the theorycraft website:
using my character profile from before the BM respec:
Damage: 671 - 789, 2.4 attack speed, 300 DPS

this can differ based on weapon, scope and ammo… but this is what the FI increases…
and assuming the numbers magically stayed the same after respec(they did not), and FI came on..
damage would be: 711.73 - 812.67 after the 3% increase we’ll use these for comparison, and assume everyone can do this damage when fi is up…

ok, now… lets say they have a weapon speed of 2.4(they don’t get serpent’s swiftness)…

1st scenario, 3 other PHYSICAL damage dealers:
TSA:
3×309 = 927 DPS
FI:
(711.73+812.67)/2 = 317.58 each
952.75 DPS when on (75% of the time, for arguments sake)
900 (300×3) when off
that comes out to an average of 939.56 DPS, on average

but now one of your 300 dps fury warriors(as if) leave and you get a mage that does 300 dps, but spell damage, now you have 2 physical damage dealers and a caster…

TSA:
(2×309)+ 300 = 918 dps

but FI stays 939.56 on avg.

of course if the pet isn’t getting FI, the number can drop fast… say it’s 50% instead:
the FI avg dps is 926

30%: 915

so if you are lucky and getting a lot of pet crits(which you should) FI is better, or if you have casters in your group… but if you are with physical dmg dealers, TSA may inch out the competition…

I’ll address your pts in order.

1 - Adamantite shells. When my gear was not what it is today, I used ad shells for bosses only and for heroics the whole way through. In kara, I only used them for bosses, as going through 4k bullets a night was not helping my money woes. In arenas, I use them every time. In BGs, I stopped using them, unless someone seems to be targeting me repeatedly. Then he gets the wrath of the adamantite shells. As for recent kara use… I have stopped using them on bosses. My dps is to the point where the shells are overkill. I don’t need them to top the charts, and frankly I don’t need the aggro that the extra dps provides. Damn FD cooldown! I think more and more people are using them actually, I seem to have a few people bringing me mats to make them shells on a weekley basis. But if your dps is strong, I would only use them on bosses like gruul or in pvp, where it’s very important to put out as much dps as possible. You WILL notice a dps difference. Try them out a while.

2 - The kara groups I run have two rogues, a feral druid and a hunter or two. The rogues complained about lack of TSA immediately With TSA, it’s clear which people benefit. Our physical dps people get to top the charts almost every time, barring death. TSA is an obvious GOOD increase in dps and we structure the party accordingly. FI is harder to judge. My top dps people all appear to be closer in overall dps, so I’d say that’s a measure in itself. But since EVERYone benefits, it’s hard to say that x-class got better dps this run due to FI. And on a per week basis… well so many purples drop in kara… are they doing better due to FI? or to equip upgrades? HArd to tell. I will say this though, two FIs up at once makes shit die REALLY fast. The stacking thing is nice. I have not tried out EW yet, and still maintain that my findings would be skewed based on the amt of agi that I have. But two things I noticed with the 0/31/30 build. The one talent that adds like 6% crit appears on the paper doll. But that other talent that gives shots (3%?) extra crit does NOT reflect on paper… Also, the talent that gives hit rating… I had 135 crit rating before it… and the same after. So it doesn’t register either. I don’t like that it doesn’t show up. It makes people less likely to stick with a spec unless they’re good with making it shine, cause on paper it looks poor. So far 31/30 seems to provide approx the same dps for me as 8/41/12. But I can’t help but feel that some of the talents in SV are just pointless filler to get to the agi and crit bonus talents. And I’ve lost all ability to solo mobs effectively. I spike dps to 900 or more excluding pet and end the fight with 128dps because of meleeing the rest of the time >_< Plus I strongly advocate the 8pts in BM for pet health and armor, and I miss it But like I stated before, giving up 148 attack power for 5.5% crit plus the crit that doesn’t show up on paper doll seems worth it to me.

Let me address the arena issue before I get to Guy’s comment. I see a lot of comments about arena fights, and I will say that I too find arenas tough on hunters. But there is only one arena that I really have trouble with. The one with the bridge. God I hate that arena. It was built to destroy hunters. The others, I find relatively easy. My 2v2 team is warlock/hunter. My rating on that team is crap now, because I stopped playing 2v2 and my partner picked up a mage that’s horrid at pvp, so ignore that rating But fear spam plus dot plus my burst damage is dead people fast. Keep in mind, most people will pop their trinket to get out of the first fear very fast, so your hunter trap is golden in that case. Also, if a rogue gets on a lock, they cry like a little girl. So, as a hunter, you back up and blast the rogue tht is on the lock. You have the potential to kill the rogue faster than he can kill your lock. And probably faster than anyone else can kill you. And in case you haven’t heard, lots of people think locks are overpowered. I tend to agree. If I kill one and they kill me, and it’s left to just the lock and one other person, I know it’s in the bag. If your lock partner cant kill just about everyone one v one, find a new lock partner

3v3 is me, shaman, feral druid. We only started this team 2 weeks ago and we’re holding steady above 1500 rating, so I’m happy. Our shaman can withstand a buttload of damage. He just stands there and takes it. Unless it’s a warrior, then we will kill the warrior to get it off him. We take out mages first, or priests. I can force a pally to use his bubbles almost as fast as a rogue can. So pallys are my responsability if they’re present. Will we cut the mustard as we rise in rating? I don’t know, but for now, we win enough that it’s a blast. I’ll get a few more matches under my belt for 5v5 before I talk on that. So far, in 5v5, I must have an extra tall flag, because I get ganked before any other player…. always. They will take me out before a priest. Maybe it’s those opening crits. TSA/AotH/BoM/MotW/Bloodlust/Rapidfire/BloodlustBrooch –>multishot crits that hit for over 3k per person. It doesn’t take them long to find me. Wow I talk a lot…. I’ll get back to your question in a short while Guy

From there, we overcome the LOS issues and my deadzone pretty well. Both druids have spec’d to include the instant 3k heal and it saves me when someone gets close.

Way to break it down.

A couple of questions I have spawned from this..

1.) Do a lot of people use Adamantite shells? I haven’t been, mostly because I just don’t have the time to farm that much. But are they being used? And to what extent? Only for trash? Only for bosses? All the time? Fill me in, maybe I could be persuaded to use them more than I am.
2.) Damage increase.
a. So MM has TSA
b. BM has FI
c. SV has EW.

What classes or peeps are you noticing have more DPS than what you are used to seeing? For instance, as expected, when I spec’d SV we saw a rise in the DPS of our rogues and one fury warrior. When you were BM did casters get higher? Did rogues miss TSA? Which is providing the raid with more benefits do you suppose?

Lastly.. to those inquiring about not getting EW when flushing out LR…

I know I mentioned this in my article about SV posted in this blog, but here’s me saying it again differently..

EW is backloaded, TSA is frontloaded. On the very first shot a MM is going to hit with more power, as a SV needs a crit hit inorder for EW to proc. That is why his hybrid build is the way it is, remember, Zem likes his BIG crits for finishing fights fast (can’t say I blame him). And TSA is one point to front load the damage where as EW is 5 points to backload it.

Nearly everything is backloaded on SV though so it will never look good on paper but always produce damage on par with the other specs.

-guy