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Your going to want to use cobra as a BM because the wasted focus on reapplying Serpent is a dps loss. The Imp SrpS does very little atm, the haste from pathing is actually way more beneficial. Those numbers and the post was from ptr and much has changed since then, plus this is all moot come Cata where all the specs are fairly balanced atm and getting closer (beta).
And to clarify Aimed shot should almost always be used only during the MM proc, or for an opener. Basically, it's still an instant, you just can't use it as often. I've actually found that MM plays almost the same as it did before the patch, if not easier.

The fact is that all of our mechanics and abilities and numbers are balanced around raiding, and at 85. This means some classes/specs will feel severely more broken than others. Blizz knew this, but they had to release a prepatch. All the balancing and fixing is just for the time being, beta is looking good to go and raid testing is starting soon.
@Cowmuflage, if you really feel that you don't want to play your hunter anymore, you have every right, and hey it might turn out that you love your new main class even more in cata =D. But I would advise, as others have wisely stated before me here, to just give it some time, or wait till Cata.

I personally loved the idea of all the changes when I first heard about it. I went and trained at dummies on ptr, etc. feeling good about the changes; however, as soon as the patch dropped I was lost. Practicing and using the spec in raids and groups is much harder than it seemed. Despite this, since I was trying to level my new pets, I had to constantly run Heroics for each. At first it was painful, I couldn't react or anything, was wasting focus. Missed volley dearly D:...But, soon enough it was clicking. I was playing normally and it felt like it did before, natural. My dps went up, I could react, even provide utility. Heck I did 12k on a dungeon boss as BM O.o..we got nerfed tho heheh.
I'm now loving this patch and the coming expansion, but I owe it all to the old college try.

3-4 Hunters at level 80 > 80 DK 80 Warlock 80 Warrior 80 Hunter and Another 80 DK.

Ask Korii; we defended XRoads easily.

From a PvE perspective AoE with the MM build is fairly okay at the moment as is Surv.
From PvP perspective, with scatter and many other abilities being able to spam now, concussive being one, it is far easier to kite people around.
Along with the boosts to our pets and mend pet ticking for percentage now. Soloing Raid bosses has become so easy its not even funny. Seeing Mend pet with no focus cost or anything makes it easy to pump out 4.5k heals every 2 seconds on my pet while spamming just as much for damage.

In my opinion, I'm fairly pleased with it so far.

Ryai wrote:BM used to have a Cobra Shot buff- well steady and cobra. It was removed, and SV got talents or whatever to buff Cobra Shot. Yes BM can use it and I want to use it, but with a lack of a glyph to make it do the 10% more my steady does, it's not viable for me. Meaning, yes Tah, it is a SV shot first and formost. Like Kill Command is the replacement BM shot.

Also, cobra shot is not the priority SV. The "specials" are Chimera, Explosive, and Kill Command to their respective trees. Yes, SV does want to use CoS since the mastery and need for focus benefits greatly from it, more so than BM, which is why I assume they deemed it necessary to move it to the SV part of the spell book. It's also why they gave BM a signature shot as KC instead. Just because CoS is on another tab of the spell book doesn't mean BM isn't supposed to use it. Cobra shot is a "priority" to both trees. The case of the MM talent for using SS instead as BM to buff haste is valid, but no theorycrafting or w/e has been adequately done on the matter. Also, we can't even get those points on live.
Even though your not running out of focus as BM, the cost of reapplying versus getting off another Arcane shot is not worth reapplying Serpent just to use SS.
Not trying to bash or anything, srry if I came off kinda authoritative, but this information is already been discussed and from a dev/designer point of view it makes more sense this way.


lul Zinagaro at xroads fighting, I always liked pvp there. Yea, I also found pvp pretty smooth once I got it figured out and bugs were fixed. AotFox would probly make it even easier.

Even though your not running out of focus as BM, the cost of reapplying versus getting off another Arcane shot is not worth reapplying Serpent just to use SS.

And? Serpent Sting still lasts 13 seconds or so- in those 13 seconds I've already gotten off 2 kill commands and arcane shot. Hell, it's NOT the sting that drains me from using AS, it's Kill Command because I always have to make sure it is used as soon as it's up, where as imo, the imp sting gives me a chance to be lax on reapplying sting for 1/2 seconds- because honestly that's only gonna make a matter for dps in raids, not dungeons.

Besides. BW+Efficency = almost 10 arcane shots in a row. So I really doubt I'll be missing out on much. Because as I said I'm not focus starved using sting like I do, I get focus starved because I'm not used to focus yet and I'm still ingrained in the 'Arcane/Steady' rotation of ye olde mana usage.

Then everyone is also ignoring my point in the first place. SV buffs Cobra Shot. SV benifits more, from Cobra Shot, because Cobra is nature- SV buffs elemental damage. Therefor, Cobra Shot is buffed for SV more than BM.

So it means really it's going to come down to, is haste + SS glyph more effective for a BM hunter, or is Cobra Shot more effective, once we hit 85. Or will Cobra Shot be like ye old Starfire glyph, you weave it into the rotation when you want to top off serpent sting and nothing more?

Or tldr;

Cobra shot does + dmg for SV. For BM and SV it ignores arp or whatever. It extends Serpent Sting.
Steady shot does same damage for all speccs. It can be boosted by a glyph. With MM's talent, it can give you 15% haste.

So in all honesty I think it's probably going to come down to how you play, because I remember being told back when BM could still use aimed shot that no multi shot did more damage on single targets! when multi shot really didn't do more damage than aimed shot when I tested it, and I still did decent dps when supposedly my dps should have been lowerr.

Cobra and Steady are the new Aimed and Multi.