f13.net

Here's what I came up with for a BM build. (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?4520300052521225013503245000000000000000000000000000000000000000#none)

While I'd like to have Hawk Eye, there's no room for it. 

I'm currently very unhappy with my  MM spec, although I couldn't wait to go back to it after switching to BM to level from 60 to 70.  My equipment is not very good, and I'll probably end up upgrading to BG stuff if I play my hunter much at all.

Please critique, thanks.

Before I look, what are you doing with your character besides PvP? Raiding? Farming? Instance runs? That'll help fine-tune things.

AV and farming herbs, maybe a little world pvp.  No arenas, instances when my friends get tired of my whining but that's like once a month if that.  They like my lock much better.  Even my shadow priest is more popular.

That's pretty much it.

Well then,  I'd say it's a decent spec for what you're thinking of doing.  I'd Drop imp. hunter's mark in favor of Eagle-Eye for AV, and put that last point into Go for the Throat, though. It's only 100 AP for your pet when farming and you're going to really miss that range in AV, I know I do.

If you want to pick-up a damage-buff FI is > than Imp Hunter's mark by a huge margin.  IHM only affects melee, while FI is a straight damage increase for everyone. Casters, melee, your pet and you. 

I'd also probably drop Catlike Reflexes.   It's meant to improve pet's survivability in Raid-encounters so they can dodge cleaves.  I didn't pick it up and I don't notice much of a difference in raiding.. general farming/ pve it's not going to make a big dent at all.

I'm torn on saying drop Spirit Bond, but you're farming and it's incredibly useful there.  It's a pity you put 47 points into Beast and didn't pick-up TBW, though.

I'd suggest something more like this (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?5020300152501205310510505201205000000000000000000000000000000000).

(Admittedly, it's pretty much what I'm about to respec into).

The point in "Bestial Swiftness"  can go anywhere in it's tree -- I just needed to spend a point to open up a tier. You could move the two points out of Bestial Discipline into Spirit Bond (or Endurance training -- that was a tough one for me to give up, but Improved Hawk is better), since Go For the Throat should proc often enough. Make sure your pet has a focus dump if you use either. Rapid Killing means you can use Rapid Fire a lot, and you'll have damage boosts often enough from killing enemies in PvP.

Make sure you spec your pet with Cobra Reflexes (faster attacks = more crits = Ferocious Inspiration up more often. a 3% buff to all damage is nice. Works for you, your pet, anyone in your party in AV, etc). In PvP, the Beast Within and Bestian Wrath are good for getting attention paid to you or your pet (seriously, half the enemies in the area will suddenly turn on your pet. It's really not that powerful, but a giant red pet is an eyecatcher) if you're being a distraction, or want to take attention off something else. (I do that more than I thought I would).

It's a decent group PvP spec -- you're constantly buffing your group (any damage -- melee, magic, etc, unlike Trueshot) without costing mana, you're getting extra damage off of killing blows, you're going to be proccing Hawk, Rapid Killing, and FI a lot for serious damage, and you have the full benefit of Serpent's Switfness and Lethal and Mortal shots.

You do lose Hawk's Eye, which I'm going to miss. It is nice in AV.

[Edited: Stupidly copied your build as the link, instead of my suggested one. Fixed now].

I figured Catlike Reflexes would be good for pvp.  I'll take it out if it's not.

TBW is about increasing my damage, right?  My melee is laughable no matter how much that would beef it up - does it also increase ranged damage?

Ok, changed it up a little.  How's this? (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?4520300052501225310513205200000000000000000300000000000000000000)

TBW is all damage, and reduces mana costs too. It's nice. Animal Handler isn't worth it -- miss chances against equal-level opponents are pretty low as is, and the speed is better if you use bestial swiftness + dash/charge/whatever.

I finally posted a correct spec on my link, which I think is a slightly better PvP spec unless you're going pure survival.

Improved Concussive Shot simply isn't worth it -- it's only useful in WSG, and even then it doesn't proc enough. Better to use the pet + Intimidate (with Bestial Swiftness + dash/charge they'll catch up). Better yet, get a boar -- charge has a stun, then you can slam Intimidate, and you sill have the CS snare.

You really want 5/5 in Lethal Shots, for more use of Kill Command (more crits = more kill commands). I really need a macro to automatically trigger kill. Rapid Killing for PvP is really nice, and your pet will never run out of focus with that and Bestial Discipline. Aimed Shot is useless, but Mortal Shots is worth the point.

Pet spec is more vital. You really do want a PvP only pet. You want cobra reflexes, and avoidance isn't that bad as there's a lot of AoE in PvP (AE spamming mages, mostly). You want high Frost, Fire, and Shadow resists as well. Extra health (too much cuts through armor in PvP).

TBW is about getting out of all CC.  As a mage/warlock, I really hate it. :)

TBW is basically THE reason to even be bm specced.  It does increase all your damage by 10% but the main thing is that it makes you unCCable for the 18 seconds it last, which is normally more than enough time to finish off one person without much trouble.  Catlike reflexes isnt bad for farming, but ferocious inspiration is much better.  Animal handler is actually quite good for raiding, your pets miss rate goes up quite a bit against boss mobs, but if you are not doing any raiding i wouldn't worry about getting it.  This (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?5120020052501224310510505201205000000000000000000000000000000000) is my default raiding spec for maximizing damage output, all i do is weave steady/auto shots and consistently top the damage charts in my guild.  Skipping mortal shots is probably a bad idea, even for hawk eye.

That's basically my spec, except I ignore Animal Handler in favor of thick hide. But that's for PvE -- and I still use my UBRS warg as my PvE pet.

I think I'm going to try this one.

I appreciate all the input.  Thanks much, everyone.

Heh Threash. Your spec is the exact same as mine except for one point.  I just couldn't give-up all of Spirit Bond when I respecced, so I've got one point in it and miss one in Mortal Shots.  I really should fix that, but meh.

When i get 2 pieces of tier 5 ill drop mend pet for spirit bond.

Well that's just sense right there.  Tho, tbh wonder iff it's still useful tol keep a point in it for cleansing purposes.

Well so far, at least in raiding, i havent run into any fights were the dispel came in handy.  If it got rid of leos dot it would be invaluable but it doesnt.

cobra reflexes:
I can't find much info on this. Do you have it? Is it really only learned from King B? Can anything but a cat learn it?
Same questions for avoidance.

Its learned from the pet trainer, you dont have to do anything special to get either of them, any pet can train both of them.  They are both a must for pvp and pve and every pet should have them.

Nah, pet trainers have it. Cobra Reflexes increases attack speed by 20% but lowers damage -- I think overall DPS is the same with or without it. Avoidance drastically boosts your pet's chances of getting hit with AoE -- or maybe the damage from it. Don't recall.

Actually cobra reflexes is a very good dps increase overall.  Avoidance gives 25/50% less damage from AE attacks, it used to be chance to avoid (hence the name) but that was deemed too powerfull.

Ah thanks. It was put in while I was taking a break fom the game and it never occured to me to look at the pet trainer. Duh.

I have a Hunter alt.  It's only 52 so I have a lot to learn about them, but this site was extremely helpful if you want to take a look.  It has the patch notes for the pets for 2.2.0 and just about everything else you want to know about pets.

http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/index.shtml

I'd be curious to see what you think, now that you've had time to play with it.

I haven't really played with it much yet, but once I do I'll let you know :)

I just broke up my 5/8 GS bonus (goodbye +30 stamina, +40 to all resists for pet) and moved from Endurance training (+10% pet health) to Improved Aspect of the Hawk. My pet is squishier than I'd like now.

Frankly, though, I think it's time to retire my UBRS warg. He's got Furious Howl and Bite (or is it Gore? The long cooldown one) -- both on long cool downs. But the improved Regen and Go For the Throat, I'm not dumping enough focus. I need something like claw -- instant use, no cooldown.

I could pull my cat back out and respec him, but he's only level 60. I have a ravager in the stables, but he's my disposable pet -- I was hoping to get a warp stalker later.

If I recall correctly, there's some really fast cats in Blade's Edge.  Grovestalker Lynx.  Wow, can they interrupt.

I still have my undead pig from EPL for charge that I use in pvp.  I should probably get some kind of cat.

All cats are the same speed..hell all PETS are the same speed now, and have been since 1.8 or 1.10-ish.

Used right the pigs are a huge pain in the ass, since you can use their stun separate from intimidation.  They're probably a better PvP choice for arenas these days because the healers are the ones with the interrupt-break talents. As soon as you combine them with a Pally running Conc. aura you'll never stop a heal going through just from damage.

I'd switch, but I hate boars; I only arena for fun, and damnit I've had the same cat since level 10, even when people told me I was stupid for not dumping him for King Bang or some other FOTM pet.   :-D

I have my snow leopard from Kharanos myself. :) I play to keep him. I'll probably keep using the UBRS warg until Blizzard finally just makes your pets ding when you do. (Seriously, there is NO POINT to having an actual level grind AND a loyalty grind AND all the fucking feeding I do. Oh, and plus the whole damn 'Doesn't get any quest XP' either.). I can tolerate TWO of the three. Ditch level grinding pets, or ditch loyality griding pets, or ditch making me feed the damn things. One of them needs to go now that all pets in a family are the same.

That'll happen as soon as someone at Blizz actually plays a hunter as a main.  :-P 

I was kinda ticked-off when I discovered that warlock pets ding at the exact instant you do.  No need to even resummon them. Gah.

Boar stun is only an immobilize so it doesnt interrupt spell casting unfortunately.

God, don't get me started on lock pets please, they are so incredibly superiors to ours.

My wife got her shiny new felguard a few weeks ago (she had quit playing for a bit, due to work). So we're equal level, me and my BM-specced hunter w/Warg and her and her shiny new felguard. And we're playing, and I'm thinking "Shit, that isn't so bad. Ghost (my pet) is keeping aggro and doing more damage than her felguard.".

Then about two days later she says "Oh, I totally forgot I have to [do warlock shit] to my pets! My felguard's been upgraded now.". It fucking rapes faces. My full BM pet can't keep up, can't keep aggro. And worse yet, if it's a bad place for a felguard she just whistles up her damn felhunter, or Succubus, or VW.

Me? I can name my pet. Go me.

Yah but you and your pet feel neither pity or remorse?  That's gotta count for something right?

One of her pets fucking eats buffs to heal itself. The other has a goddamn intercept and stun. Another has fucking CC that lasts longer than 3 seconds, and another one fucking buffs the whole party constantly. And they're always her level, goddammit.

Sadly, Blizzard needs another class review for everyone -- just for Hunters alone some of our aspects need to be looked at (Aspect of the Wild? Aspect of the Beast? Cheetah/Pack?), and our pets need another revamp because they've got a lot of old shit that made sense back when pets were different (levelling grind meant people wouldn't all switch to some overpowered rare elite that was instantly their level) but make no sense now. Not to mention "You get three stable slots, but really only two because you need to learn pet tricks".

On the game-wide scheme of things, it's mostly just irritating small stuff -- but some of it's so easily fixable that I can't help but wonder why it's still there. (Updating/revamping Aspects? A lot of balance work, a lot of design. Auto-leveling pets to your level, leaving in the loyalty grind? Fucking cake-walk. Learning pet tricks from fighting them, not training them? Middling amount of work....). 

I have a 70 hunter, 70 lock, 65 priest.  My lock is and has always been affliction specced.  My hunter is now BM spec.  Even so, my warlock pets are so much better than my hunter pets.  It's no contest.

I try to play my hunter and keep going back to my lock (or priest, or babyshaman or babywarrior).  I am not the jump-around-FPS-PWNUNOOB type of player that many are, it's not my playstyle.  I haven't had the reflexes of a 20 year old in 30 years.  (I think that's partly why I abandoned my first toon, a rogue at 53.)

Hunter does need a look.

I just think the description of The Beast Within and Bestial Wrath is hilarious.

What kind of game advantage does immunity to Pity and Remorse give?  Are there debuffs Pity and Remorse?  Well, if there are, lucky you, you and your pet feel neither.

Actually it is kind of overpowered.  My demon pets are always crying and regretting.

Attack speed wasn't normalized, just run speed and overall DPS.

No, all pets are 2.0 speed, and can be faster through talents and training cobra reflexes.  I had the wrong patch number, however.  1.9 was the run speed normalization.  2.0.1 was the attack speed normalization, at least according to WoWwiki, petopia and wow insider.

For those with arena points, the new Hunter weapon is nifty.  Only costs 1k points, and has no rating requirement.

Here's a link: Vengeful Gladiator War Axe (http://wowhead.com/?item=34014)

I previously was dual-wielding Amani Venom Axe (http://wowhead.com/?item=27424) and Emerald Ripper (http://wowhead.com/?item=28524) with +20 agi on both, giving me a pve-wunnerful 27.4% crit.  Without the +35 agi enchant, the axe puts me right about there (27.33%) and only 29 RAP off from where I was.  The enchant will fix the RAP and toss-on another % of crit, as well as the armor-ignore effect  Niiice.

I should get on an Arena Team.

Thats extremely good for 2 weeks of playing 10 games in a horrible team.

3 weeks.  You only get 300 points if you fall down to the 1300 level.. which a horrible team  is likely to do that first week.   

Still, your point stands. Fuck, just get 4 other hunters and form a 5-man that way.  There's plenty of us about.

Outfit with Barov Peasant Caller (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=14022).  Insta 5x25.

Haha i loved that damn trinket pre bc.  Theres actually a new version coming out from ZA that summons 3 "voodoo gnomes" to fight for you.

Here is what I just respec'd to (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?0520310051501224310510550201205000000000000000000000000000000000)

I will probably miss spirit bond and the full imp-mend, but FI and the focus regen are just too good to pass up if you use a focus-dumping instant like claw.


Oooo that axe is pretty nifty. Did not realize there was a hunter only one that did not have the 1850 personal rating requirement.

Do you need that point in imp pet rez for any particular reason? Seems like it could be moved to Imp Mend pet.

I hope the link has just screwed the spec, because there are some odd choices in there...

Which choices do you call odd?  Just wondering.

That is what I have found to be the highest DPS spec for my gear/type of play.

The only oddity I see is splitting points between rez and imp. mend.  Both are useful, though, so I don't see it as a huge 'omgwtfruthinking.'

I needed the point low to move up the tree, so I used it on rez.

Imp mend I just like the cleanse for soloing, which is 80% of what I do right now.

Improved aspect of the hawk would obviously be higher dps than endurance training, but i assume you expect your pet to tank stuff? the extra hit points and armor are really not necesary, your pet can tank regular mobs just fine with the defaults and thats all it should ever be tanking anyways.  Max imp rez for a raid setting, ignore it otherwise, same with mend pet.  Spirit bond is useless unless you have nothing else to spend the points on (i took it after getting the 2 piece tier 5 set bonus).

Here is a build the hunters in my last guild were using http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Cenarius&n=Phayde
This is mainly a raiding build though it still leaves your pet pretty buff, just missing armor boost. Bst right at the moment is massively overpowered compared to other hunter builds because of the unbalanced way haste is dealt with by the game. Serpent swiftness is _huge_. 30% haste? When item haste is typically one or two percent? The same unbalanced effect makes 2 pt slice and dice the unbeatable finishing move for rogues as they can essentially keep it up 100% of the time.

Unfortunately for hunters, that 30% speed boost is really the only thing keeping us in the game from a raid dps point of view. You need a 2.7+ weapon to really take advantage of the haste though as anything faster will start to clip your autoshots with a steady shot cycle.

Good 'ole Gargresh and Hobbes. (http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/hunter/talents.html?0520300052501205313510550201200000000000000300000000000000000000)


However, I have a cat and maybe you have a different pet.  I found some of the choices and mix and match of your BM Tree to be a little odd.  Taking the improved hit rate over the improved dodge was a little odd to my mind.

Different Strokes I guess.

I don't have either improved hit or improved dodge -- but I'm not raiding right now, and that two points goes into Improved Mend Pet (clearing effects is more than worth it!). Raiding I can definetely see both of them (more hit = Ferocious Inspiration up more, which makes everyone happy. More dodge = less damage, makes your pet alive longer) -- but that's five points and I don't know where you can cut that without ditching mortal shots.

Hawk's Eye just isn't worth it right now -- although I do miss the extra range.

Overall, I do like the beastmaster tree better than the other two trees -- but it's still not as mindblowingly awesome as the Mage Frost tree, wherein I could happily stick all my talent points as a mage.

I couldn't do without Improved Mend Pet.  Which is why, er, I have it.

I know two mages who have 62 points in Frost.  It's pretty fucking crazy.

I noticed -- I was thinking of the two points the other linked spec had in the +hit talent. I don't see two points I could drop off the BM tree (although I could lose the point in that 30% outdoor run speed -- but I think I needed a point at that tier and that was it.

Giving up clearcasting is hard, but I can't find 10 points to give up in frost. Too freakin' awesome. The msot fun is when you get two or more frost mage's together, and Winter's chill maxes out in two hits and the crits start rolling.

I dropped it recently and haven't noticed a difference in pet survivability.  Since they added-in avoidance and toned-down cleave as much as they did, my pet lives a lot longer.  The 3 pts in dodge seem kind of superfluous now.

Of course, I found I just don't want to give-up that point in spirit bond, as useless as it is.  Here's me. (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Alleria&n=Ayarae)

I should probably also swap-out the T4 helm for Mulgar's War Helm to see if the extra crit is better than the 3% crit damage metagem I've got.  I suspect it's not by a long shot.

You know what it is ?  I can't take incomplete talents.  They look so fucking messy.

Your spec gives me hives before I've even read it.

:)

Yeah it bugs me a little bit like that, too.  However, I just ignore my talents page 99% of the time, so it's not a HUGE deal.

Still, I really SHOULD put that SB point somewhere else.

I got used to part talent builds when I was marksman and had enough bst to get 1 pt in improved pet heal. Cures I got by spamming rank 1 pet heal which has the same abilitiy to cure poison/dis/curse and the low rank was so cheap to cast it was a way more efficient curing spell, especially with the 45%? chance rank 1 improved gives you.

How long does a Hunter's Feign Death last? I ganked a Hunter just now, but he used it and I had no idea what was going on. In PvP, do I have to wait for him to get back up, wait for his ability timer to run out, or can I just hit him?

FD lasts for 5 mins then at the end you stand up.  It was more fun when you died after the 5 min timer, but hey, people bitch and things change.

When they feign, just retarget ad keep hitting them.  It doesn't make a hunter immune to being retargeted or to damage done (aoe or direct).. if it did it'd be godly above and beyond the awesomeness it already is.

Thanks. It really confused the hell out of me and his pet was just enough of a distraction to keep me from wondering whether or not I had missed the Honor Points scroll up my screen.

FD in PvP has one use: Doing it causes pets/NPCs to drop target, and force other players to click on you again.

Sometimes a hunter will do it just on the off chance the guy about to kill him will actually think he's dead and go elsewhere, but I've only had that work for me once -- I timed a FD perfectly with an incoming frostbolt -- since I was the last alliance standing (World PvP) the fact that the mage and his two buddies ignored me was pretty good proof they thought I was dead.

It wouldn't have worked if they hadn't ganked my pet first, since it's a big freakin' clue the hunter's just faking when his pet is still rampaging.

I had a DOT effect on him while he was running away. His health was almost out and he spawned his pet and feigned death. I'm smacking myself in the head right now, because as soon as I left the area, I realized what had happened.

a) I'm a total tard because the feign death trick gets me every time.  But then I also suck at all other aspects of PvP, so at least I'm consistent.

b) If feign death makes you lose your target, the least that they could have done for taunt in PvP is make your target switch to the warrior who just taunted you.  But everytime it comes up, people point out that Blizzard was worried that people wouldn't want to lose control of their character.  That's why they didn't implement fear, or (wtf?) mind control.

/soapbox off

Taunt would be *WAY* more annoying then either of those two. Would boil down to you having to spam your FocusTarget macro's every 6-10 seconds.

The neat thing about FD breaking target, is it can stop a casted spell if you see it coming. Often that is the difference between a hunter dieing, and killing that mage winding up pyro or something.


There is also the hunter version of "vanish", where the hunter drops a snake trap then FD's when stuck in close quarters... like say a AV Tower. The individual snakes cock up most people's targeting so much the hunter gets time to slink away or reset himself.

I always find it amusing when I dot up a hunter and they FD, but then they just lay there hoping I'll forget about them. I see the dot damage numbers float up from their corpse.

Since the 2.3 patch, I'm back to playing my hunter a lot.  It's as powerful as my 'lock (or as some would say, as overpowered as).  Haven't changed my spec since going to BM, but did get the Khorium gun and elite engineer goggles, plus a couple of pieces of S1 gear off the bg vendor, so had some major gear upgrades as well.

I killed a MS warrior yesterday in AV (twice) at Snowfall gy.  I did have to pop a health potion and pull out all of my tricks (darn, forgot to use my peasant caller!) and barely survived, but killed him.

Also soloed a pally, which I don't think I've done since low levels.

I haven't gotten my pvp trinket yet - my gear is so lacking that I don't know when I'll get it.  I'll wait and get the 2 min cd one rather than go for the 5min cd one.

Now I need to find an arena team.

Reading my earlier posts on this thread with regard to TBW - what a terrific talent that is.  I love it.

Yes, yes it is.  It's superawesomefantastico!

I hit a ridiculous amount of crit on my gear this weekend, with the addition of the Black Belt of the Eagle (pattern dropped, woo!) and the boots off of our first Astromancer killin The Eye.  Combined with a 'whopping' 15g for my respec right now I decided to see what'd happen if I went and specced Survival.

Wow, what a waste that whole tree is.  I'm at 31.89% crit as a BM w/o my boots being enchanted.  As a Survival hunter it only pops up to 38% AND I lose that wonderful 20% haste.  Sure, I've got a lot more control of situations what with having wyvern shot, scatter shot and clever traps, but it's just not worth it.  Way too chance-based and far to little gain from all those points in talents.

Survival has always been the "what the fuck is this supposed to do" tree. It's literally only specced by 2% of hunters. What you do is spec Entrapment and be a giant asshole in AV with Frost Traps.


Which is where I've seen the real difference with the hunter changes. In the small scale stuff, I haven't really felt a "wow hunters are harder to deal with now", but in AV, with a dozen per side being allowed to stand off at max range, it gets pretty stupid. Half the zerg on either side is MS'd now  :ye_gods:

Fortunately for the Alliance, it doesn't matter because no one ever heals!   :rimshot:


[At least from what I remember way back playing Alliance]

The alliance heals just as much as the horde does on my battle group.

My holy priest friends won't go to the bgs anymore.  They will on their alts but not on their holy priests.  They go down way too fast.  Apparently the heals haven't scaled the way the dps has.

I wouldn't know - my priest specced holy for 2 levels and I hated it so much I wanted to delete the character.  Back to shadow and all is well.  I'm a poor healer - I really don't like the role at all.

Survival is a raid-wide physical DPS buffbot these days. It is entirely gear dependant, requiring as high a crit rate as possible to keep EW up at all times.

Other than that, it is meh. BM is still the best hunter DPS spec for raiding, and the most utility for 5 mans/soloing. Though I wish I was marks every time I do arena, so I might have to do that next week, heh.

Wow, that is awesome. Mind posting your gear or armory link? If you did already, I am too lazy to search for it.

You'll have to search it out, as work has finally blocked any and all xml-processing pages.  Character is Ayarae of Alleria (us).  My spec's still survival, though, as I was busy yesterday up until I got invited as a replacement for Gruul.  Oddly enough it made me realize how much our dpsers suck, since I still hit #7.   :awesome_for_real: