Not Understanding Hunter Weapon Choice - DPS/Damage Overall

I did a test with the following parameters. Based off the stats I’m not sure what damage stats to look for on ranged weapons since speed/dps don’t seem to matter. Do hunters just look for the raw XX-XX weapon damage and not worry about speed/dps numbers other than ammo speed usage?

Me: Level 37
Crit: 4.48% Ranged /w both weapons
Bows: 185/185
Guns: 186/185

Weapons: Both 7.5 Ammo /w no Quiver or Pouch Bonus
Long Redwood Bow - 2.9 AS/14.3 DPS/+3 Scope
Shrapnel Blaster - 1.9 AS/17.4 DPS/+3 Scope

Both Tests: Killed 4x lvl 30 Young Panthers and 1x lvl 31 using only Autoshot

Overall Recount Numbers
Test 1 /w Bow: No Improved Aspect of Hawk Procs
Equipped Bow DPS - 50.1
Equipped Bow Dmg - 127-154
DPS - 74
Damage Total - 3226

Test 2 /w Gun: 2x Improved Aspect of Hawk Procs on last Panther
Equipped Gun DPS - 53.7
Equipped Gun Dmg - 91-114
DPS - 55
Damage Total - 3331

If I remember correctly weapon damage is not what is so important with hunters, it’s the stats that matter. I remember hunters blowing people up with grey weapons in duels for this reason.

It doesn’t matter as much until higher level (or to 60), but the reason we want specific speeds and not faster weapons is because of clipping auto shots. With a faster than 3.2~ speed weapon, you will clip auto shots with Aimed Shot, which is a DPS loss (Rhok’Delar is the only sub-3s weapon we use given it’s just that good until BWL).

Slower weapons also have higher top end.

So when I was playing in vanilla weapon speeds were not normalized, so slow weapons could out-perform faster weapons that had significantly more dps due to the nature of multi-shot, aimed shot (anything that adds weapon damage + damage)

But I believe this classic version has normalized weapon speeds somewhat. However, slower weapons 2.9+ ideally 3.0+ are better even at lower dps due to the nature of the hunter dps rotation at max lev

Any idea how are the calculations done to do all those damage stats? I’m just trying to wrap my head around the numbers produced and how Blizz calculates that stuff because logically to me it does not compute. lol

With quivers you still want 3.2+ speed. Pre-60 it doesn’t matter as much as bosses don’t last long enough, but you want to minimize the amount of clipped Auto Shots you don’t fire.

Slower weapons hit harder with auto shot, which is a large portion of your damage. I believe Classic is running with normalized weapon damage calculations for Aimed Shot and Multi-Shot, but harder hitting auto shots that you don’t clip (slower) are still a DPS increase overall.