MM hunter 5.4 shot rotation

[wilegenuis]

Many changes were done to the MM shots in 5.4, AS, AI, Readiness, MoC, Stampede and more however I don't see a major change to the rotation as a result.
As far as I see it is basically still:
SrS -> RF -> 2XSS -> MoC -> DB (I use TotH, but it is not the max DPS option) -> CS -> GT -> Stampede -> AS -> AI -> SS
And while hasted or while CA use AI instead of AS.
Thoughts/Comments?

[Glurp]

Nothing really has changed between now and live, a few minor things but nothing that will need a lot of work to adapt to. I honestly prefer not to list Cooldowns in a shot rotation as you should just be using them when you need them and you'll likely just complicate things for no reason.


- Keep Steady Focus up
- Keep Serpent Sting up
- Chimera Shot on cooldown
- Kill Shot on cooldown
- Glaive Toss/Barage on cooldown
- aMoC/Lynx Rush on cooldown (if talented)
- Dire Beast/Fervor on cooldown (if talented)
- Aimed Shot to dump excess focus above 80% or during Rapid Fire/Bloodlust
- Arcane Shot to dump excess focus otherwise
- Steady Shot to generate focus

[ATron52]

Rotationally, 5.4 gives MM two completely viable options - Aimed Shot focus dump and Arcane Shot focus dump. Generally speaking the difference between the two rotations will be tiny, we're talking .5% or so favoring Aimed from what I'm seeing. The biggest change is that if you cast Arcane, you'll most likely favor crit as a secondary stat the whole tier, and if you cast Aimed you'll want haste. Again, the differences between the two play styles is minute and the results I'm seeing more or less put them equal to one another for everything but BiS T16 gear. The difference is also well within the margin of error for sims, further equaling them out. Personally, I'll probably stick with Aimed as it's a style that I really enjoy. Switching from Arcane to Aimed (including gemming and reforging for haste instead of crit) I'll see a jaw dropping 40 DPS increase. Absolutely minimal and practically no difference at all.

Regardless, the basic priority Glurp described is very accurate for both Aimed and Arcane casting. The only point I would like to make is that during the first 20% of a fight, it will *probably* be better to drop Chimera Shot, SrS, and Glaive Toss and instead only hardcast Aimed with AMoC, Dire Beast, and Stampede.

These are just my personal findings and I would encourage you to try different things once the patch drops to see for yourself what works best for you. FemaleDwarf and SimCraft are excellent resources but there's way too much emphasis on what they qualify as the most efficient build / rotation when there are many other factors to consider.