I don't think this is overpowered because of several reasons.
1. RPPM items - I don't believe there are many if any items in the new tier that we will be using where RPPM is important.
2. Rapid Fire is a completely crap cooldown. So increased usage of a crap cooldown doesn't make Rapid Fire any better than it was.
3. Arcane Shot has increased focus cost so less Arcane Shots. (Have they even fixed getting extra Thrill of the Hunt from proc'd Arcane Shots?)
It doesn't make it better, but it's still a dps boost. We get more haste, which means faster casting of Cobra/Steady Shot, more Auto Shots, more pet attacks and more Focus regen.
Less Arcane Shots, same damage, more time to cast something else. If right now you do 90 Arcane Shots in an encounter, in 5.4 that would be 60 Arcane Shots doing the same damage, however, you get 30 seconds to cast something else instead. Also, for the opener it's even a greater buff consider that as BM right now even without BL good geared hunters cap Focus. So it will be a pure 50% buff for the opener since focus cost can be ignored.
- It won't increase pet attacks by much, maybe you will get an extra Claw/Bite/Smack or a Wild Hunt nothing else.
- There is a limit to haste cast time reduction also, after reaching 1s cast extra haste really isn't doing that much for you.
- Checking on my character I gain 2.03 focus regen with rapid fire, over the course of a fight that regen amounts to what? 1 extra Arcane Shot, big deal.
---------- Post added 2013-06-30 at 03:48 AM ----------
Right and now we will be going from what, two trinkets, metagem and 2-piece and 4-piece to two trinkets and metagem. RPPM will be underrated.
Right now, you need 12695-16941 haste for the 1s Cobra Shot cast time. (estimated numbers from FD's haste calculator, within single digits)
12695 for 10% haste buff + Rapid Fire
16941 for 10% haste buff + Focus Fire
Considering the high uptimes of Rapid Fire in the next patch, I wouldn't see much benefit going over 12695 haste, and put the rest into crit, or whatever is the next best stat (assuming haste is still the best secondary stat next tier).
I have 11.2k haste at the moment, and from looking at how our tier bonuses will be, there won't be RPPM procs(other thank trinkets?) thus Haste might not be the dominant stat.
You fill them with more Cobra shots, simple as that, thus increasing the value of Haste as a result in a weird way.
with cobra shots and AS
As glurp mentioned the legendary meta and trinkets and most likely the cloak as well will be rppm.. and everyone seems to forget why haste pushed ahead of crit in the first place.. we will still be using blink strikes as BM.. so haste will still be a solid stat.. we are only losing 2set and 4set..
That being said, with the new 2 set, a case could be made for dropping some of that haste for more crit.. possibly even mastery for aoe fights.. or just simply go ham on haste for that crazy focus regen and insane wild hunt and rppm uptimes (like enhance shamans).. we'll see how it all works out
+ we'll get even harder hitting weapons which would favor haste over other stats
Also, thing is you want 1sec Cobra Shot in 0ms latency environment. In real life scenario you want that cast even little bit faster.
Crit chance with each additional point of itself looses it's value. ATM, well geared hunter can pull 30% haste 30% crit. In T16, fully buffed it should go pretty easily to 40% of crit (and 50% to all pet's ability + KC) which means value of the crit is not even close to what it was back in T14. I wouldn't be surprised if we see in heroic T16 something like haste > mastery > crit or mastery > haste > crit (if indeed RF uptime will be almost 100%).
I think people still think that's the case. Crit doesn't make you lose dps per 1%. Sometimes it's more or the same due to scaling, but it isn't making you lose damage. I don't think we will ever see mastery > haste > crit. It will most likely be (for BM) haste/crit > mastery.
I didn't say it makes you lose DPS, going from 99% to 100% CC is a DPS gain, however, going from 20% to 30% is higher DPS gain then going from 70% to 80%.
Let's say normal hunter attack does 2 points of damage and lets say hunter fires 100 shots during fight.
With 20% CC on average his attack does 2,4 points of damage
With 30% CC on average his attack does 2,6 points of damage
2,6 / 2,4 = 1,0833 (8.3% DPS gain)
With 70% CC on average his attack does 3,4 points of damage
With 80% CC on average his attack does 3,6 points of damage
3,6 / 3,4 = 1,0588 (5,9% DPS gain)
Testing Malkorok today with 4pc as survival, I was getting some mad ES chains. It's fun as hell to get 8+ ES back to back like that.
Of course, you also get LnL procs where you don't get any extra shots, but I like it, and would love it as a more permanent mechanic.
I have very mixed feelings about the set bonus. What I like about Hunters is that they are fairly predictable in terms of their rotation with very few procs which aren't rocket science to deal with. The set bonus just feels awkward at times where you are stick on very high energy after several Explosive Shots and still are on 2 stacks. I've also seen the Lock and Load buff run out after spamming 12 Explosive Shot.
On the other hand, seeing 350k+ ticks is hilarious. I quite like the set for the most part.