I finally breached 500 Arpen and decided it might be worth my time to respec and remove Arcane from my rotation. Here are the changes I’ve made:

GLYPHS: Swapped Glyph of Chimera Shot for Glyph of Steady Shot

TALENTS: Removed points from Improved Arcane and put one into Rapid Recup, one into Improved Steady Shot, and kept one point in Improved Arc, though that will probably get switched to Improved Hunter’s Mark very soon, since we have had so many hunters recently…

PET TALENTS: Swapped one point in Bloodthirsty for one point in Charge (unrelated to ArPen switch, but I figured I’d mention it)

No, I have not re-gemmed. I don’t feel that 540 ArPen is enough for me to warrant losing such a large amount of Agility, which stacks with buffs and provides two stats and not just one. Perhaps after a few more gear upgrades, I’ll consider it. Even then, I’m not sure it’s the right move, but I’ll do the research soon (and share it).

Between Saurfang the previous night and Saurfang the night after, I gained approximately 550 DPS. This is, of course, situational, as I’m certain my performance was anything but perfect on either night. We also had a different group makeup, which could account for a DPS change as well. However, 550 is still significant enough to warrant keeping the change for now and trying it again with the previous group makeup.

I did find that having 2 points in Rapid Recuperation instead of 1 made a HUGE difference in my mana efficiency, as I was having issues maintaining Dragonhawk after long pulls, and halfway through Saurfang. That could also account for some of the DPS increase, since I did not have to switch to Viper at all on the second night.

So many variables, so little time. I wish I could dive into all of this, but with my new semester starting up, I simply can’t put the same effort into it that I used to. I don’t like taking advice from others when I haven’t done the math myself, and that’s exactly why you shouldn’t simply do what I’ve done in this post and call it a night…make comparisons! Take notes! Do math! Run tests!