Hybrid DPS a myth?

Hmmmmm.....so......you have no 41st points? Hmm...and only 1400 RAP? I'm sorry, we need heavier dps than you can provide, sorry!

I have come to the realization that the Survival Hunter is severely underrated when it comes to their effectiveness in the dps category. To think, I consistently lead or lose to our rogue in Kara by 1% or less in DPS. Mages, other Hunters, moonkins, feral druids and shadow priests, I beat them all. Until this past week, always with Valano's Longbow. This in and of itself should prove the point. I will give you that my gear is nice, 749 agility and nearly all purped out now, but we all know the reputation....BM is boss and MM is a respectable second. Riiiiiight.

Well, let's be fair, I will never have 2,000 RAP unbuffed until BT type gear. That being said, I WILL have 30% crit without ever stepping foot beyond Gruul's. I will probably approach 35%! This is my focus and it is half the reason I can put out solid DPS. A hunter with 2000 RAP vs my 1400 will likely fall short of me in crit. My survival tree provides me with both 15% agility boost and 3% additional crit. So, I find myself staring at gear that will discount my agility for RAP and you know what....I pass it right along. Crit is where I am going to make my money, I have come to terms with that (being MM for so long, this was no easy task).

As I mentioned, crit is only half the story. The other half lies in the beautiful Surefooted talents. I have 3% additional hit rating for my pve side and 15% root resist for my pvp side. They are 3 of my favorites talent points. They have created the ability to really ignore hit and just let my nice pieces with hit compliment my 3%. I can instead focus on agility and still help my pve abilities at the same time. My miss in my kara runs is .01% which is pretty ncie with my only have 60ish hit rating.

Also, I find shot rotation to be a huge part of my dps. I don't use anything standard or cookie cutter (at least I don't think so!). My rotation is something like this:

A) Rapid fire ->Aimed Shot -> Auto -> Serpent Sting-> Auto - Arcane -> Auto -> Multi-shot (angled if needed) -> Auto -> Feign Death -> Aimed Shot (on the tail end of rapid fire) -> auto and repeat with Steady in place of Aimed from here.

B) RF on CD - Serpent Sting -> Auto -> Steady Shot -> Auto -> Arcane -> Auto -> Multi-shot -> Auto -> Feign Death -> Serpent Sting and repeat.

I have read that multi-shot and Serpent sting are not worth the mana, but I always find that mana is not an issue for me. Firstly, I use Mana Oil and do my raids in Hawk. I drink in between fights, usually for only 5-7 seconds; the next pull comes whether or not I am ready. Considering I grab 80 drinks from the refreshment portal or always have tons of water, this is an easy way to keep mana fresh. In boss fights I simply stay in Viper for the fight and use 1 mana pot if need be. If I have a third paladin with blessing of wisdom for me, then I am golden!

Trapping with Multi-shot as part of your rotation is so easy because you manipulate where you trap....just don't pull your trap with multi-shot! :) Live for the crit!