Hunter survival spec and rotations/strategies, etc

I'm gonna make a huuuuge post as I think it's easier to have a read and play before hitting the dummies.

Talents and Glyphs:
Here is a link to the talent tree I have for Survival spec, including glyphs.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cZ0eVoohZx0ci0cIhxdNhsu:NAi0zM

Bars:
My bars are a bit messy and Fungum nearly had a heart attack when he borrowed Arrow for a bit last year But they give an indication

As you will see when you check the tooltips, these are basically in order of cooldown. this just helps when starting cos u go 1 2 3 4 etc!

Rotation:
I had some help with the rotation from a random hunter and I'm sure it can be improved but here it is...
You will see why the above layout works well for the rotation

Hunters mark (pref pre-fight to allow mana to go back up)
Black Arrow
Kill command (does not share the 1 sec CD of spells)
Serpent Sting (has no CD but lasts half the CD of black arrow )
Explosive shot
Aimed shot
Concussive Shot
Steady Shot

Now we are at the end of our list... take a look at the bar as you do this and you will see explosive cool down so here we go again...

Explosive shot
Aimed shot

Now we see that Black Arrow is at 50% CD, this means that serpent sting is expired on the target

Serpent Sting
Explosive Shot

Now we play the cooldown game, you only use Concussive and steady when all others are cooling. Steady has an improved damage when hitting dazed targets so we always hit it after concussive but only when we have that time for it to cast

Also, the cast bar for steady shot is mis-animated so you can tap the next shot the second you see that one sec cd swing round for all spells.

Lock and load - get the addon and hit the following asap

Explosive shot
Arcane shot
Explosive shot

You need to make a shot-sandwich or you will clip the dot and miss up to 2k of damage to the target. Arcane works because it shares a cooldown with Explosive

Pets:
I have a wolf (he's my vanity pet )
Bear for off-tanking if I wander off in the wrong spec and don't wanna change it
Cat for dps in instances, I'm finding he's pretty good for the dailies too
Jormungar worm for BM spec (He's exotic)

Pet spec:
I'll write this one out cos I don't know where to find a calculator for it..

Ferocity: 18 points
Cobra Reflexes x2
Great Stamina x1
Bloodthirsty x1
Spiked Collar x3
Avoidance x3
Rabid x1
Spider's Bite x3
Call of the wild x1

Gear/Stats:
My mana pool is too small at 11k, we need 15k at least for raids
Health, you want 20k+
Gear-wise, grab anything that is better, remember that we are being un-nerfed for Cataclysm and Agi will become your new best friend Leather is fine, just remember that you will have to drop one or two stats to wedge yourself back into mail items..

The only decent wep I have found is Marrowstrike which drops from ToC HC from the bitch with the monsters :s

Tactics:
Pet:
Always have growl and cower off, remember also that prowl, etc slow the pet down and can cause issues with him not keeping up. Keep him alive - set him passive if needed at bitchy bosses or in places of hellish aoe. I have found that my cat can survive the black knight but bites the dust every 5 secs in Halls of Stone.

Hunter:
You will have noticed you are drinking a lot in heroics... this is down to low mana pools and lack of aspect. Whenever you take a break, switch to aspect of the viper to gain mana, never be afraid to do this during a fight, they would rather a steady dps than you sitting in a corner drinking half the time. A tank may wait for the healer to gain mana if you are lucky but he will never wait for you.

Avoid aspect of viper at bosses, if the tank was noob enough to pull when you were oom then he can put up with the crappy dps. Places like ToC, uk, up you can go viper for trash and dragonhawk for bosses. In raids, stay dragonhawk and play the mana game by switching when oom and drinking at every opportunity.

I find I am in combat a lot so a good trick is feign death then hit your drink, your char will sit up and drink despite the rest of the team fighting.

If you want to skin, I always cheetah to catch up

Never let your dps drop in a raid, in a wipe, lowest dps is often booted

If you need to AOE, Viper all the way! Volley is the most ridiculous mana drain you have ever known and it is pointless doing a dragonhawk volley unless there was a noob pull or a large group and you are in need of a fast kill (or are raiding).

Use distracting shot when the healer is in trouble then run to the tank and FD, if you FD straight off the healer gets it back The other option here is to aoe over the healer..

Pots:
Get whatever balances you out... I suffer from a lack of hit rating and use pots to balance out..
I recommend a mana pot if raiding but save cash wherever (we all want epic flight )
Agi pots rule and flasks last thru death (I can't be bothered grinding mats )

Ammo:
Mammoth bullets or saronite razorheads, get loads while they are 3g a stack and avoid the 10g fee when there are none at AH, better yet get an engineer on your payroll (I'm levelling one atm)

Addons:
I use lock and load to tell me when the talent procs. This is really handy as I don't watch my character when I play. 1st time you see it, drag it to a nice place
I use Atlasloot to check for gear for my characters, this is also useful as when you hold shift, you can compare stats
I use recount for damage, if you click your name you get a breakdown of the stats for individual shots