Kill Shot, take 2

Okay, so I'm still not greatly impressed with Kill Shot, but... I went to do the Harold Lane quest last night, all by myself, since I've been able to, for the most part, kill equal level elites without a ton of problems in Wrath thus far. And Harold Lane is a 72e, and Duskhawk's currently 73.

I had to wait through two Alliance groups killing him, totally guessed wrong on his spawn point with my explosive trap, and had to Misdirect onto the bear every time it was up. (I'm also experimenting with Aspect of the Beast, since, having soloed in Viper for over a year, I'm not going to cry about not having Hawk up when I don't have points in Imp. Hawk. I don't know yet if it's helping on the bear's threat.) But anyway, I basically popped Misdirect, hit Rapid Fire, and started mashing my boss rotation macro, with occasional Serpent Stings, since I've got the glyph that gives me back mana from my Arcane Shot when I have a sting active. I pulled aggro once, didn't dare Disengage for adds, and between Feign and MD got him back on the bear. But I also had to pop a potion because of the fur throwing (has to be the greatest ranged attack animation in the game that I've seen). Then I noticed that I'd hit the %'s where Kill Shot was up, and, wanting to get the fight done as fast as possible, I tossed one off. Crit for ~4550.

Now, I've always been a Marksman hunter (other than the two hour BM experiment, and Mabs's 2 or 3 days trying out Survival). I've always had Aimed shot, from its glory days sniping out of Shadowmeld on defense in Arathi Basin on down till now. And while I am one of the hunters who feels it's been gutted* (low level hunters have no real burst damage now - Chimaera is level 60 minimum, and Kill Shot is 71), 4500 crits are bigger than I've ever seen before - and I'm using the same gear set as I was raiding at 70. (Well, ok, I swapped out my Violet Signet for the ring I got from killing Harold Lane.) Aimed shot topped out for me around 3500. Occaisionally, on a fully sundered mob, I'd flirt with 4k. 3k-3.2k was much more common, and on anything with decent armor, I was probably looking at 2.8k. I'm not sure what kind of armor Harold Lane had, but if I can find mobs that actually flee, it's probably going to be a nice closer.

*At this point, Multi and occasionally Arcane are critting harder than Aimed for me. If I can train myself to think of Aimed not as a massive critcal and as more of a called shot, I'll probably be less disappointed with it.