First Naxx run

(Well the second really – our first was about a month ago, and we’ve not been back since so it might as well have been the first).

We weren’t really sure how the group would perform, so we chose to do the first boss from three of the wings, rather than focus on a specific wing. The plan was:

Instructor Razuvious – because we did him two months ago and the two tanks had learned how to coordinate the two mind controlled Death Knight Understudies, so this was a chance to get a quick loot drop and (more importantly) to gauge the group DPS. If we were capable of getting close to 12,000DPS without the tanks contributing, then we could go and try Patchwerk who is a simple DPS race.

The healing on this one is a bit weird – our shammie (Thepatient) got to raid heal, while Anelf and Neombra (our Disc Priest) just focussed on stopping the Understudies dying. Its the first time we’ve had a resto shammie on a guild raid, so it was fun (for me – Anelf – the resto Druid) to see how his heals combined with the others. (Mana regen and total healing output weren’t an issue, so overhealing or overwriting heals wasn’t something we needed to care about).

Tinuviel was less happy about this fight. This was her first raid fight in MM spec, and her DPS was significantly lower than in her recent Heroic runs and on practice targets (only about 1,800). The other (BM-Spirit Beast) Hunter in the raid also appeared to have slightly lower DPS compared to his usual. (Note – lower in absolute terms – not just lower relative to the mages, who were very nicely buffed by the shammies). And this on a fight where you just get to stand and shoot. Tin is now trying to work out what was the problem in that particular fight, and will be writing her own post about it when she has time to study the raid stats. (She’s working today, so doesn’t have time to do any tests). She seemed to be critting a lot less than usual – maybe she was just unlucky with the RNG over that fight.

Patchwerk – We easily hit the DPS target on Razzie, so Patch was our second target. Again, a point and shoot for the DPSers, and a gear check in terms of tank mitigation, healer output and DPS output. For this fight, Tin abandoned her macro and moved to manual shot threading, and moved up to about 2,500 DPS. The other Hunter also improved significantly. Tin’s macro was working fine in Heroics and practice, so its not clear whether that was an issue or if there’s something about Razzie that gimps a Hunter.

In any case, Patch was toast.

Anub’Rekhan – We briefly visited beetle-boy on our first run, but it was after learning the Razzie fight where we’d wiped a few times as the tanks were learning their dance. We were feeling jaded, so we tried the ‘stand and fight’ tactic – trying to heal the tank through the Locust Swarm. We wiped very quickly and called it a night.

This time we were better geared anyway, but we used the kiting technique. Tinuviel got the job of running ahead of the tank on the kites using Aspect of the Pack to keep him out of trouble. This turned the fight into a cakewalk. Even the one kite where Tin got stunned by a loose Scarab while in Aspect of the Pack didn’t cause a problem. (Now I see why people normally hit this guy first).

So that was it for Naxx night 1 –  our three planned bosses one-shotted, and a slightly better geared group at the end. Hopefully we can go back tonight and try out the rest of the Arachnid Wing.

And watch this space for Tinuviel’s Hunter analysis of the fights.

Raid Planning – advice sought?

Finally, a request for your help …

Our guild hasn’t been raiding recently. Our Guild Leader and his wife (who did a great job arranging our raids in BC) are expecting their second child soon, so they can’t spare the time to do everything that’s needed to pull together a regular raid group. Tin and I (and three other guild officers) have now taken on the role of raid organization. This Naxx run was the first one we’ve organized.

We’re already realizing what a hard job it is. Telling someone they can’t come because their gear or DPS isn’t good enough yet is stressful. (I tend to worry that someone might react badly to being told that. Although, in reality, people almost always take it well when you explain the requirements in a constructive way). But the thing I’m finding hardest is telling someone their gear is fine, but they weren’t selected just because there was a lot of competition for their place and someone had to miss out. (For example, we have a lot of good mages in our guild, but you can’t completely fill a raid with mages). Its not the person’s reaction – its how I feel when I’m telling them .

Soldiers of Fortune are a casual guild. We don’t recruit for raiding, and we certainly don’t kick people for being bottom of a DPS meter. But a good number of guildies want to raid, and we want to include as many people as possible – we don’t want people to feel they have to move to a raiding guild to experience raid content.

We want to be successful. And we measure our success on three criteria:

• Success in the raid (i.e. downing bosses) – No-one will want to come raiding with us if we’re spending all night on graveyard runs.
• Making raiders want to stay in the guild – That means spreading the raid slots around as many people as possible. This is a balancing act, because too many changes make it hard for the group to learn to work as team, but too few changes will leave some people feeling excluded.
• Growing our raiding pool – Helping people who want to raid (but don’t have the gear or experience yet) to get to a level where they can come on the raid and make a valuable contribution. We hope to soon have more than one 10-man raid group, and then to move on to 25-man raids.

So, dear reader, are you in a similar position? Can you offer advice on raid planning tactics that work in a casual guild? If so, we’d love to hear your comments on what has worked (or not worked) for you.

Beastmaster 3.0.8 – nerfed too hard? Well err, yes it was – see here.

I just found this just after publishing my article.

Beast Mastery is over-nerfed and could be buffed before Ulduar
We talked about it a great deal today and agreed that we probably over-nerfed BM. Marks is in a good spot and Survival might be too high once we look at the changes we are making to all other classes.

Our plan is to buff BM before Ulduar, but I can’t give you a timetable more detailed than that, and things could change for any number of reasons. We are unlikely to touch Steady Shot for the reasons I have mentioned before. We are more likely to look at Kindred Spirits and Serpents Swiftness again.

Again, huge caveats: Predicting changes we are discussing making but haven’t made yet is fraught with peril. I only wanted to address this issue because it caused a lot of consternation in the community.

I don’t mind admitting when we make a mistake in the hope that it builds our credibility in the community. This was one. It won’t be the last. (Source)

When will they buff it up again?  We have no idea.  Stick with BM for now if you like, or like me, try out a different spec while BM is languishing.  Whatever you do, don’t release your spirit beast into the wilds.

Beastmaster in 3.0.8 – nerfed too hard?

Before I get into my experience of Beastmaster in 3.0.8, I want to comment on a couple of Blue posts by Ghostcrawler.

Firstly:

MM and BM hunter DPS in 3.0.8
From my [point of view] it was more like some smart theorycrafters (possibly even on EJ) came up with some numbers and then a lot of people adopted those as fact and started echoing that MM and BM would be uncompetitive. I don’t feel that the community has really had enough time with the changes to figure out the nuances of specs that many people had abandoned for a long time. I still see discussions about whether raptors or wasps (or moths!?) provide the most dps.

From what we can tell, SV and MM are pretty close. SV may be slightly higher, but not by hundreds of dps. Affliction and Destro aren’t at the same exact number but you still see both in raids (for the time being). MM also brings a really nice group buff (Trueshot Aura) while SV provides Replenishment, and we take those into consideration. (source)

>>  Obviously, what Blizzard were aiming for is for MM and Survival to be pretty close for raiding.  Ghostcrawler is trying to convince us that they think that they have achieved that.  In an earlier post he was asking for concrete evidence from the poster who claimed that MM and BM were broken.

BM is an easier spec to play. We tend to reward specs that are a little tougher to play if played very well with higher dps. Affliction and Mutilate are good examples, though we went overboard with Mutilate’s dominance over other specs. If BM was simpler and provided the same or higher dps, then you would see 95% BM hunters (which, no suprise, is exactly what we had). Some players will try SV or MM, decide it’s not for them and go back to BM. If they couldn’t make SV work, then their dps may be just fine as BM (or else the drop will be so low that they don’t care). At issue is how much lower BM can be than MM and SV before it isn’t worth spec’ing into. Combat for rogues is too far below Assassination so that you take too big a hit if you choose to opt out of the more demanding Mutilate play style. Make sense? (same source as above)

>>  So it seems BM was deliberately hit hard to force hunters to respec away from the spec that was seen as easier to play, if they wanted to achieve higher DPS.  BM has been punished with lower DPS for being easier to play, and because too many people were choosing it.  While Surv and MM supposedly both have higher DPS as they are harder to play.

>>  Further down the thread he back peddles a little…

Okay, I think this is the disconnect. This is exactly what we want – 3 viable specs. We don’t want BM to be the noob spec that serious players don’t use. We also don’t want it to be the spec that every hunter uses, which I agree is where it has been for some time. 

My comment was that BM can’t be both easier to play and do more dps. We can debate whether or not BM is actually easier to play, but that is a slightly different discussion. Perhaps it is more fair to say that even though skilled BMs can squeeze even more dps out of their attacks, a BM player who did nothing but Steady Shot and use the pet could still do very high dps, which is not what we want. 

If BM becomes too unpopular with these changes, if it becomes no longer viable in PvE or PvP, then we will fix it. The problem was that for a long time BM was the only PvE spec and it had increasingly become the leveling and PvP spec too. 

I think some of my Ulduar comments have been taken out of context or misunderstood. We are making some changes to hunters. Some of them are pretty cool. We will have to rebalance many of the attacks at that time. For example, we are likely to add additional pet talents that increase dps so that the 4 bonus points from BM 51 will inflate player dps overall. 

>>  Further down again, someone clarifies some of Ghostcrawlers comments, and points out the nerfs might have been easier to swallow if the line of thinking about how easy mode BM could still produce high DPS and that seemed unfair had been explained, instead of just saying you are all too high (even those of you who have worked hard on your hunters) and we are squashing you all down.

 

Q u o t e:
For those saying that BM is the more complicated spec and “you actually have to worry about managing your pet”- I just don’t understand the argument. All hunters need to manage their pets, whether it’s doing 15% or 50% of their dps. It doesn’t suddenly become easier to keep your pet out of the flames on Sarth just because it’s doing less damage. 

What I DO know about BM is that I dinged 80, did Sarth in dungeon blues withing 30 minutes and topped the damage charts. BM was easy to hit great damage with crappy gear- maybe SV isn’t quite like that. If that’s the case, I can certainly understand the change. Maybe it isn’t so much about shot rotations but about that hunter in crappy gear out damaging everyone in Vault 25 the day he dings 80. /shrug- who knows? I’m just throwing stuff out there. 

I really do wish BM wasn’t nerfed so hard. It’s really frustrating a lot of the hunters in my guild who I taught to play the spec and worked hard to gear for it. I’m sure they’ll live- but they sure aren’t having fun right now. 

Personally, I’m looking forward to SV- it’s certainly been fun in BGs. I can’t wait to try arena, and tomorrow will be my first Naxx with the spec. Should be a good time. 

My real complaint here is that per-nerf we were told that hunter damage was too high, so that was the reason for the changes. Now we are hearing that BM is too easy, and that is why it was changed. My guess is that the reasons were more nuanced than were expressed in GCs earlier posts, but I think a lot of heartache and frustration could have been alleviated by a statement like “we believe BM is too easy to get great damage with, so we want to tone it down”. At least we’d have understood why we were seeing the numbers we were in the spreadsheets and PTR and GC was saying they were fine.

---

 
Elwynnia said just about everything I was trying to say, probably more eloquently. 

Saying “BM is too easy to get great damage with” may be a good way to explain it. I don’t honestly believe every BM hunter raided while eating a sandwich. But the problem was you could do that, and while better BM hunters might be out dpsing you, you were still doing really high dps. Put another way, BM played badly could beat out a lot of other classes practically with SS and the pet alone. 

We appreciate the data and other feedback. We do want to give the community a little more time to really try to max their dps with various specs and rotations and for us to make sure all the major bugs shake out. As many of you pointed out, the hunter class does have a lot going on and we don’t think everyone is going to be operating near their max potential with all ofthe changes after less than a week of raiding and Arenas turned off half the time. If after that time BM continues to lag behind, we’ll buff it. We just don’t want to do it in such a way that sends every hunter stampeding back to that spec. If that happens, I will have no problem admitting we over-nerfed BM. 

>>  In the last part of that statement Ghostcrawler seems to admit that BM is lagging behind, but puts it down to ‘people not operating at their max potential with all of the changes.”  This seems a weak argument to make, if you tell me that previously 95% of hunters were BM.  BM was nerfed not drastically changed.  The optimum talent spec is not much different.  The shot rotation now includes arcane shot too, but that is not hard to thread or macro.  It should take people longer to learn how to get more DPS out of the harder to play specs they have switched to and are unfamiliar with, than a few changed to play in BM, right?  It seems to me that all of Ghostcrawlers statements point to BM being nerfed to the point that it does have lower DPS than the other specs, and he knows it.

>>  So the question is, was BM over-nerf, and were they right to do so?

I have always said that a hunter is one of the easiest classes to play (especially if you spec BM), and one of the harder to master (and I’ve tried out most classes to a reasonable level).

Yes, if it were the case that a poorly played BM hunter could use a pet and spam steady shot, while eating a sandwich, and still top the DPS and damage charts, then BM was over-powered and deserved to be nerfed.

In my experience (my guild is not one of the highest end raiding guilds) thru Kara in BC, this was not the case at all.  I almost always topped the damage chart (although not always the DPS chart – sustained damage over time), but I was followed by warlocks and mages, the other BM hunters in the guild did not do quite so well.  In Wrath, BM was buffed up some more.  Now, I was hugely out DPSing and damaging those same locks and mages that I had been out damaging but not out DPSing before, and the damage margin was much greater.  I did need to be reigned back a bit, I have no problem with that.   But now, in 3.0.8 they do seem to have over-nerfed BM imo.  I cannot out damage and DPS those same mages that I have always topped on charts ever since I raided and grouped with them (the lock switch to his discipline priest as a main).  My gear is as good, my ability to play my class at least as good, I think, but my DPS is lagging around 400DPS below their’s in heroics.  So yes, BM has been over-nerfed imo.

Is it deliberate to over-nerf BM?

I suspect it is.  Blizzard wants to drive us to try the other specs.  They don’t want 95% of hunters as BM.  They want some of us to try other specs and stick with them.  Later they may buff BM up a bit again, and hopefully will have a more even spread of hunters over the three specs.  If they hadn’t done this, and if I had seen my DPS and damage drop in line with my mage friends, but not significantly below, I would have sighed and said, ‘oh well, I was overpowered post-Wrath, I just need to work on BM and get back to my BC position of just above the mages on Recount.’  It is starting to look like I can’t do that with BM from my experiments.  So I will have to switch in order to get back to where I want to be.

And yes, a Mage is a pure DPS class too, and should be putting out high damage.  But a mage arguably brings a lot more utility to the party than a hunter:  there’s strudel, the intellect buff, and better and easier cc in most situations.  Hunter raid buffs have also been nerfed (expose weakness and Call of the Wild).  Why would anyone pick me over a mage, if my DPS is much lower and they don’t know me?  We get back to the situation we had in the old days when hunters could not get into group, and when guilds recruitment adverts stated ‘no hunters need apply.’

My experience of BM post 3.0.8 – ‘to the ground, baby’

My DPS was way off what it had been – 1,800 instead of 2,400 on a target dummy.  1,700 instead of over 2,000 in a heroic.  Not topping the DPS and damage charts any more.  It was sad and depressing.  I don’t have an exotic pet, my poor kitty has been bruised by the nerf bat even more than I have, so instead of staying with a spec that is just plain depressing, I am moving on.  I have re-specced (again!) back to a slightly different Marksman build from the one I liked so much in testing, and am giving this a try.  You may think I should stick with my old spec and try and make it work, or try harder at Survival to learn how to play it.  But I liked MM, I was fun and suited me.  I pays me money, and makes me choice.  Now I am off to learn how to play like a Marksman!

Survival Hunter Spec in 3.0.8

Edit:  In this post I dipped my toe into Survival Hunting and drew it out quickly.  However, more recently I have tried it again.  Read this article by all means, but then check out my Survival Hunter – round 2 – if you want advice on survival hunters

At the moment, the consensus seems to be that high end raiders can squeeze more DPS out of a Survival Spec in raids than out of the other two specs.  Even the BM Czar himself, BRK, has gone Survival for raiding.  On a Wow Insider podcast recently BRK said, while he might be a BM still at heart, and might still sometimes solo BM, but when it came to raiding, if he could get an extra 400DPS from speccing survival, that’s what he was going to do.

In a throw away comment on in a WOW insider article Zach Yonzon said, “Even Hunters, who were supposed to get a nerf, simply re-specced to Survival and went along their merry DPS meter-topping ways.” 

Sounds incredibly easy right, just respec, get an extra 400DPS and continue topping the damage meters?  No so easy.  Survival is a very different play-style from what you have been used to, particularly the play-style needed to squeeze the maximum DPS from it.  On the same WOW Insider podcast, BRK also mentioned he has spent 2 weeks learning how to play survival, and spends most of his time now, when not raiding, hanging out with his new best enemies, the target dummies.

My respeccing experiment with Survival did not last two weeks, it lasted two days, and I couldn’t part with my 50G to respec fast enough.  

I freely admit that I did not give Survival long enough for a fair test, or learn how to play it properly.  I mostly tried out a Sniper survival play-style, and build leaning towards that, although I also did play with some trap dancing.  My DPS as a new Survival Hunter on target dummies and in heroics dropped to between 13-1500 as opposed to 1900-2200 for a MM build (in one fight where I was trap dancing more successfully I did get survival up to 2000).  Now, I know a lot of this was because I was not playing Survival very well, I wasn’t always getting to range, or trap dancing, I was still learning my shot rotation, and had not found a macro that produced higher DPS than anything I could thread manually.

Now, I researched the theory and my talent build before doing this, and jumped in a lot less blind than many hunters who might try it.  I am sure if I stuck with it, I could make it work.  However, the reason I couldn’t respec fast enough was that I felt it didn’t suit my play-style.  I felt it was a bit too gimicky and mechanical in order to get the higher DPS, it didn’t feel ‘natural’ – it felt like I was playing a the sort of reaction-time game like Simon, where you are waiting for each button to light up before pressing it.  I felt I was too focussed on the shot rotation buttons,whether I was standing 28 – or 32 yards from the mob, or on my trap dancing exploit, and not aware enough of what else was going on around me.  I have always been good at being aware of the fight situation – grabbing the loose mob in an emergency trap, protecting the healer, chain trapping, a bit off off tanking if needed with my pet, alerting the party to a patrol that is about to add.  I didn’t feel I was able to do this so much, as I was much more focussed on those cooldowns and gimmicks of the play-style instead.  Now, I don’t want easy mode.  I liked the MM build I tried precisely because I could do more than just Serpent Sting and Steady Shot, and because it was much more important that my Serpent Sting and Hunter’s Mark stayed on the mob.  So yes, I was using a macro to thread Steady, arcane and aimed a lot of the time, but not all of the time, and I was threading other things in between those.  But at the same time I was still able to be situationally aware and do the other reactive things I like doing in a fight.

So anyway, I decided Survival was not for me at the moment.  I might go back to it at some point.  I am not going to post my spec or suggestions for shot rotations, I know they were not the problem, I knew the theory, I got it from the experts, I just didn’t take the time to learn the execution as I didn’t like it.  I will instead post the links to the experts, below.  

The purpose of this post really is to say that, yes I am sure people are right, that Survival can produce more DPS in raids.  But it is a very different play-style and it will take time to learn, so don’t just jump in blind.  You cannot just ‘respec and go along your merry way topping the damage charts.’  It might also not be as effective in solo and smaller group situations than raids (not sure about the last bit, but most of the big DPS data is about raids, and BRK mentions it not being massively better on a target dummy).  If you want to be survival do you homework and take time to practice before going raiding.  

If you don’t like Survival having tried it, don’t feel bad about respeccing.  Don’t feel you have to spec a certain way because the theory crafters on Elitist Jerks tell you it is possible to get the highest DPS from that spec.  The game is about having fun.  It is about finding a spec that suits how you like to play, and then making that spec work for you.  

Now, clearly if one tree were very much weaker than the others, so no matter how well played, you would still not be able to out-DPS yourself, compared to if you respecced in another tree, you might need to rethink this strategy for raids and groups.  And that was kind of the case previously with an all powerful BM spec, but the nerfs and changes Blizzard have made are in part trying to address that and make the trees more even.  

I am hoping to find a spec that I am comfortable with post-3.0.8 in these brief respec experiments, and then I will spend some time with that one, learning how to play it to the best of my ability and squeezing the most DPS out of it I can.  For me personally, I don’t think that spec will be a Survival Build, but for you it could be.  To find out for yourself, check out these links to the experts:

Lienna’s Log

Elitist Jerks Survival Forum

Big Red Kitty Trap Dancing movie

Drotara Patchwerk DPS as Survival

Testing a Marksman Hunter Spec in 3.0.8

In the past I have been a Beastmaster hunter, Survival hunter, and Surv/MM hybrid for pvp, but I have never tried a deep MM build.  I was a BC baby, and between BC and Wrath, MM was weaker than Beastmaster in most circumstances.  Now don’t flame me for saying that.  There might be lots of legitimate reasons why you personally preferred to be a Marksman, and you pay your money to have fun, so I am not telling you how to play.  But there was lots of data, which showed that, for most players, BM was the higher damage build for raiding, best for leveling, and pretty much the best for BGs too.  Only for arena was it sub-optimal.  In raiding, one Survival hunter in your raid was a boost for the raid buff expose weakness, but you didn’t need more than one.

Now everything has changed.  BM has been nerfed more than the other specs, Survival buffed up with improved Explosive shot.  As yet, there seems to be no cookie cutter spec and no firm ‘best’ build or tree.  One might emerge over time, but one thing is clear, the three trees are a lot closer than they once were, and each is much more viable for raiding and soloing.

So, instead of lamenting the big nerfs to BM, I decided to try out several specs and see which I liked, which suited my play-style and which provided good DPS in the groups I run with.  We are not raiding that much at the moment, so most of my testing is in heroics.  There are too many variables to be completely scientific about it, I will report the numbers, but I am not going to decide on one spec because it shows to produced 100DPS more than another in two different heroic runs.  Anyway, enough rambling, on with the show, I picked Marksman first, partly because of the interesting BRK podcast with Nassira from Diaries of a Marksman, and partly because this was the spec I had not tried before.

My 3.0.8 heroics/10-man raiding Markman Spec here.

About the spec:

Some of the talents are essential – a couple are optional, and a couple of nice optional talents are missed.  You could play around with these optional ones but stick to the core.

The Marksman talents:

Tier 1

Lethal Shots (essential) is a must have (in fact I would take this in pretty much any spec I built)

Focussed Aim (semi-optional) is only needed if you are not at the hit cap (263) – put as many points in this as you need to reach the hit cap.  I changed my hit trinket to a haste one for this build, as well as some of my gear recently so need all 3 points again.  Essential if you are not hit capped.

Don’t take Concussive shot it is a weak pvp orientated talent.

Tier 2

Careful Aim (essential) again for any hunter build.  100% of your intellect as AP.  So if you have 450 intellect, then you get an additional 450 AP.

Improved Hunter’s Mark (optional) – you don’t get as much bang for your buck as with Careful Aim, but it is one of the three places you could choose to move those points from Focussed Aim as you get hit capped, or move other Optional points (e.g. Survival Instincts).  (The other 2 places being Efficiency and Barrage.)

Mortal Shots (essential) – this used to be part of the cookie cutter build for any hunter and it still gives a lot of umph.

Tier 3

Go for the Throat (essential) – you pet is weaker than a BM pet, but he still does a chunk of your damage.  He needs focus for his special spells, you need to take this, at least one point, and preferably two.

Improved Arcane Shot (essential) – in 3.0.8 Blizz lowered the mana cost of arcane shot to match that of steady shot.  It is no longer a mana drain, does a lot of damage, and should be fired whenever it is off cooldown.  Take the points.

Aimed Shot (optional but recommended) – I have this in my rotation currently.  It does a lot of damage and gives you a second (with arcane) truly instant cast shot, you can use while moving.  It also put a debuff on a mob, reducing the healing done to it.  Not many mobs I have come across in heroics and raiding thus far need this, but you never know.  Useful in pvp.

Rapid Killing (essential) – at least one point to reduce the cooldown on your rapid fire.  The other proc seems to go off on mobs that would have given you experience if you weren’t 80 (e.g. mobs that are green or above to you.)

Tier 4

Improved Stings (essential) – you are going to be keeping Serpent Sting up most of the time and refreshing it with Chimera sting, so you want to maximize it’s damage.

Efficiency (optional) – very nice to have, especially if you find yourself running out of mana a lot.  Probably less needed in 25-mans where there will be more chance of shaman and pally mana regen buffs than 5- and 10-mans.

Tier 5

Don’t take concussive barrage, pvp talent.

Readiness (essential) – ooh I love readiness!  a reset on all your cooldowns every 3mins for just 1 point, what’s not to like?  Double rapid fires, double kill shots, an emergency Freeze Trap when your first one gets resisted.  Pop that point!

Barrage (optional) – this is one of the places I would have liked to put some extra points.  Volley used to be a joke pre-WOTLK, it was then overpowered pre-3.0.8.  It has been nerfed back, but is still a good aoe for trash.  Would be nice to buff it back up a bit.  Also, note the increased damage done by Aimed Shot if you are using it in your rotation.  I think this is where my Focussed Aim points will go when I can pull them out (if I choose MM.)

Tier 6

Combat Experience (recommended) overall increase of 8% in ranged AP (if you have Careful Aim), as well as some crit and mana.

Ranged weapon specialization (recommended) 5% damage increase.

Tier 7

Piercing Shots sounded tempting but experience MM hunters like Nassira don’t recommend it, so I resisted.

True shot aura (Did you even need to think about it?  Of course it’s essential, your not an MM hunter without it.)

Improved Barrage quite a weak and more pvp orientated talent and not really recommended.

Tier 8

Master marksman (essential) – more crit and reduction in the mana cost of Steady Shot.  SS might have been nerfed big time, but it is still one of your main shots.

Rapid Recuperation (recommended) – when you really need to bring down a mob, at the end of a long boss fight, you pop rapid fire, now you have more mana to play with kill shot and other shots are much more mana efficient.

Tier 9 

Wild quiver (weak optional)  I have heard and read that this one is underwhelming, there are stronger points around it so I have skipped it.  Up to you if you choose to take it, but remember the essentials.

Silencing Shot (optional) – a lot of raiders won’t take it. A lot of bosses are immune to silence.  However, I have always wanted this one for BGs and for trapping casters.  I still use my Freeze Traps a lot in heroics and even in our Naxx forays.  I am known for being able to trap well.  But trapping casters is always a problem, silencing them to make them run towards you makes it much easier.

Improved Steady Shot (essential) actually it improves your other shots not your steady shot, but you have to be firing steady shot in front of them to get the effect to proc.

Tier 10

Marked for Death  (essential) strong talent.  Just remember to keep hunters mark up on all targets.

Tier 11

Chimera shot (essential) unlike the BM 51 point talent, this is a very strong talent, you wouldn’t go deep marksman without taking it.

Over in the BM tree

Improved Aspect of the Hawk is a strong talent for MM and Surv builds as it gives you bursts of much needed haste.

1/5 in Endurance training is a filler talent, but the best place to put it.

Focussed Fire gives you a straight 2% damage increase, as long as your pet is alive, while also making his crits under kill command more frequent.

Improved Revive Pet is a very useful talent to have for raiding.  Perhaps more so for a BM than MM hunter, because of the huge chunk of your damage you lose if you pet goes down, but still useful for MM.

Aspect Mastery – this is why we are dipping into the tree.  An incredibly strong talent.  Giving 30% boost to Aspect of the Hawk and giving you Aspect of the Dragonhawk.

Unleashed Fury (optional)  - I chose to take Improved Tracking and Survival Instincts over in the Surv tree.  However, another option would be, not to dip inot the Survival tree but to take 5/5 in Unleashed Fury instead and then drop the 2 spare points into optional talents such as Barrage in the MM tree.  This might give slightly higher DPS, and I am tempted to try it if I settle on MM.

Shot rotation/play-style and macros

A typical long tank and spank boss fight might go something like this.

1.  I start by misdirecting onto my tank (who is my focus target) with the following macro:

#showtooltip Misdirection 

/focus [modifier:alt] 

/cast [target=focus,help][help][target=pet,exists,nodead] Misdirection 

/clearfocus [button:2]

2.  I then hit Serpent Sting, Aimed Shot and Arcane shot, to get the sting up there and the misdirected threat onto the tank.

3.  I send my pet in with the following macro, which also applies hunters mark:

/petattack

/cast Kill Command

/cast hunter’s mark

4.  I then use the following shots:

• Arcane and Aimed shots whenever they are off cooldown. 
• Chimera Shot when it is off cooldown to refresh Serpent Sting.  
• Serpent Sting if for any reason it was not refreshed by Chimera (e.g. I was incapacitated by the boss) – Steady Shot glyph and Chimera Shot damage mean this is essential.
• Steady shot in between cooldowns.  
• Reapply Hunter’s Mark in fights longer than 2mins (remember Marked for Death).  
• Recast Kill Command every minute for pet.  
• Let the pet autocast rabid and call of the wild (even as a BM I was not sure if I should be controlling these or not to max damage; I suspect this would lead to more targeted use of them, but them being less often used, so I let him autocast).  
• Use rapid fire and trinkets whenever they are off cooldown and try and time a rapid fire/trinket use to when the boss is at able 25% health, then pop readiness and use another before he is dead.  (I guess I might be able to use readiness at the beginning and end of longer fights, but I usually save it till the end unless I know in advance how long the fight will take).
• Use kill shot every time it is available, readiness allowing an extra one. 
•  I will also be watching my aggro using Omen, and pop more misdirections onto the tank throughout the fight, plus a feign death if needed to dump aggro after a big crit.  
• Need to watch pets health and even maybe through in a mend pet if he’s suffering, I will recall him to my side sometimes to heal up rather than letting in carry on dying under aoe damage, before sending him back into the fight.

 

To make it simpler I have been trying out the following macro:

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0

/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()

/cast kill shot

/cast kill command 

/castsequence , steady shot

/castsequence chimera shot, arcane shot, aimed shot

/console Sound_EnableSFX 1

It will weave Steady, chimera, arcane and aimed shots, casting kill shot and kill command as priorities when they are available.  It seems to work very well.  However, I am not sure whether it gets the priority right, or whether it clips shots at all.  Sometimes I find myself on the beginning of a Steady and I see Kill Shot has just become available, so I move to cancel the start of the steady and manually cast the kill shot.   You have to start off with a Serpent Sting and then watch the buff careful to ensure it has got refreshed every time by Chimera shot.  If you don’t have lag and aren’t incapacitated it does refresh, otherwise you need to weave one in again.

Gear/Stats

My gear is not optimized for a marksman build.  I have chosen Armor Penetration whenever I could over haste.  I don’t have particularly high intellect, and I have shoved +32 attack power gems in every socket I can find.  I am not going to re-enchant and re-socket while testing, but if I stuck to the MM build, I would want some more haste and intellect on my gear.

Results

I took the build for a test drive on target dummies, while soloing, and to heroic Utgarde Keep, Utgarde Pinnacle, Violet Hold, and Culling of Straholme.  

First of all, I have to say how much I liked the build.  It seemed to suit my play style, allowing some macroing, and some manual weaving of shots.  Instant shots for when a lot of movement was required, readiness to throw in some big damage or help with trapping, and silencing shot for pulling those pesky casters.  I enjoyed the big crits, over 11,000 on some Kill Shots, and my damage looked pretty good.  Compared to beastmaster, I missed the stun of Intimidation, and of course my Bestial Wrath, but BM hunters don’t really have a lot of tricks and gimmicky shots to miss.  Soloing did not seem a problem, my bear and gorilla and even cat held aggro well most of the time, and if I did pull a couple of major crits and pull the mob, it was virtually dead by the time it reached me so I just sliced its head off with my sword.

Mostly my damage seemed just about 2,000DPS.  Sometimes it hit around 2,200DPS.  With my gear and previous BM build, I was seeing damage of similar figures with a top end in 5-mans of 2,400DPS (and 2,800DPS in 10-mans).  My cat, Gilgalad, seemed to contribute around 300DPS to my 1,700 – about 15% of our total DPS.  As a BM hunter he had been 35-40% of our total DPS before the patch.

I recorded some of the recount info as screenshots, but I just want to post this one, so that you can see the breakdown of the main shots, and the high crits you can get with the build:

Conclusion

I have to say I really liked MM.  It seemed to suit my play-style, I was glad my pet didn’t feel totally useless, and I felt with more practice and some tweaks to my equipment and gems, I could squeeze more damage out of it.

Any comments from serious and experienced MM hunters on how I could improve my chosen spec or shot rotations would be much appreciated.

Next up is a survival build.

Being Superior

Here’s a quick tip for the Superior achievement passed on to me by my guildmate Kzin last night …

Superior requires you to “Equip a superior item in every slot with a minimum item level of 187″. However, it doesn’t require you to equip them all at the same time. 

So …

If you have one trinket with a level below 187, and the rest of your gear is 187 or above, you can simply swap your 187+ trinket into the other slot to get the achievement.

I tested this with my trinkets, but it should work the same for dual wield weapons and rings.

The Superior achievement has been bugging me for a while, because the Futuresight Rune has much better stats for Resto Druids than a lot of the 187+ trinkets. (I’m after Spirit, MP5 or Spellpower above Haste, so I’m not that impressed by the idea of spending badges on the Egg of Mortal Essence).

Patch 3.0.8 To Do list

Hi all. As you know by now (unless you are hiding under a rock from the nerf bat) Patch 3.0.8 is upon us.  It is not all doom and gloom for hunters. Yes – if you stick to your previous play style of just spamming Steady Shot and not much else, then you are probably going to seeing stars as said nerf bat strikes you repeatedly on the forehead.  But spend a bit of time researching your build, shot rotation, and play style, and I think you are going to find that your damage output will not be badly affected.  That is certainly what I am going to be doing over the next week or so, and I will report my results here.

A very cursory test on a target dummy, unbuffed except for AoDH, emptying a mana bar, with Serpent Sting, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Bestial Wrath, Rapid fire and my cat auto casting his damage skills gave a DPS count a little over 2,200DPS.  Doing something similar before the patch had produced a little over 2,4000DPS.  Most of the difference was lost by my cat.  Not a very scientific test, but the difference did not seem as bad as I feared, so I am going to look on the bright-side, and deal with what I have now, not navel gaze over the difference before and after.

Edit:  Bah – a couple of further very cursory tests only produced DPS of 1835-1860 – more like the drop I expected to see. 

To Do List:

1. Test Specs:  I am also going to be shelling out some gold to test different specs. (Don’t you wish Blizzard allowed you to test specs for free on a target dummy, without having to pay 50G a time to test the difference a talent point makes?)  If you haven’t listened to them already, check out BRK’s latest two podcasts (12 and 13 – itunes links), where he works with Lienna of Lienna’s Log to build a Survival Hunter raid spec and Nassira of Diary of a Marksman Hunter to Build a Marksman raid spec.  Most of my wow career I have been a full BM hunter.  I have, though, spent some time as a raiding Survival Hunter and as a BGing SV/MM hybrid, but have never been a deep MM hunter.  I must say that I was very impressed with Nassira’s podcast. The MM build seems to tie in quite nicely to the changes to Arcane Shot and to some of the things I had been thinking about around the changes.  So I will be testing at least one build from each tree – probably at least 2 BM (51 and 50 with readiness) and at least 2 Surv (trap dancing and sniper builds) and reporting the results.

2.  Test Pets:  The big changes to pets (and particularly to cats (which I do raid with) and scorpids and spirit beasts (which I don’t)) mean that I will also be running some pet tests.

Stay tuned over the coming weeks for the results of these tests and my research.

Tinuviel - Leader of the Cavalry - on her albino Drake

And other stuff:

The patch made some other nice changes, some of which I have already capitalized on.   If you haven’t already done so, check out these:

• Racial restrictions have been lifted on faction mounts – I was able to buy 6 mechanostriders.  Yes, as a Night Elf, I look very silly on them but that was not the point.  This allowed me to achieve Leader of the Cavalry and get my Albino Drake.
• Turn in all those Relics you saved up for Sons of Hodir rep.  I was able to go from Honored to Revered and get a Mammoth to add to my mount collection.
• Cooking Small Feast and Gigantic Feast now turn yellow later, meaning you can finally max out your cooking at 450.  You can also learn 3 new cooking recipes Fish Feast and Worg Tartare both bought with Dalaran cooking awards, and Kungaloosh from a sleeping mage in the Dalaran sewer.
• You can now buy 1 Snowfall Ink for 10 Inks of the Sea from the ink trader in the inscription shop in Dalaran, making the production of Darkmoon Cards a bit easier.
• There are a couple of new alchemy recipes - so alchemists (and I guess people with other professions) go revist your trainer.  Also, flask no longer need an alchemy lab to create them /cheer.
• Alchemy research cooldown has also been reduced from 7days to 3, so hopefully I can finally level my alchemy (if I don’t use all my herbs making Darkmoon cards, which I am obsessed with).
• Some enchantments have had their mats reduced – see here for list.  Unfortunately Massacre remains unchanged.

Hunter pre-raiding level 80 gear – part 2

In my previous article I talked about stats, armor and weapons, in this one I talk about enchants, gems and glyphs.

Don’t underestimate the importance of these.  They add considerably to you overall DPS and damage.  And frankly, people who know their stuff will not be impressed if you turn up to a raid unenchanted, with gaping holes where you gems should be, and no food or potions.  We have a guildmate (not a hunter) who is very keen to run heroics, and is always one of the first to shout out if someone is asking for extra DPS.  However, my cat (and the tanks) can significantly out DPS this pure DPS-class toon.  Checking out his/her gear, almost none of it enchanted, no gems, and completely the wrong head glyph (as well as warrior gear on a caster).  He/she is a really nice guildie, who doesn’t screw up in raids, but non-existent DPS, and the apparent lack of effort to do anything about it in terms of gear (someone has spoken to them and tried to help), makes many guildies, myself included, not want to run with this otherwise  great guildie.  Don’t be this person – be the best you can be – and have people want to run with you – not look at your armory page with derision or despair.

1.  Enchants

(Note:  I usually link to Wowhead – but for the regular enchants I am using the excellent Crafters Tome - I am not sure Wowhead filters always shows up all the available enchants.)

Head

The best is the Arcanum of Torment available at revered from the Knights of the Ebon Blade quartermaster.  Before that, stick to the Arcanum of Ferocity available at revered from the Cenarion Expedition out in Zangamarsh, Outland.

Shoulders

The best is the Greater Inscription of the Axe available at exhalted from the Sons of Hodir quartermaster.  Before that there is the Lesser Inscription of the Axe from the same group.  Prior to that stick with the BC shoulder enchants from your aldor/scryer faction, or for ‘filler’ shoulders while leveling apply a decent armor patch for the HP buff.

Back

The best seems to be Mighty Agility.

Chest

The best seems to be Powerful Stats, giving +10 to all stats.  However, this is an expensive one.  Super Stats is much cheaper and gives +8 to all stats.

Legs

I recommend the Icescale Leg Armor Patch which adds 75 attack power and 22critical strike rating to your legs.  Frosthide adds stamina and agility, also good for hunters, but your will get a bigger DPS boost from the Icescale one.

Hands

There are several choices here Crusher (+44 attack power); Major Agility (+20 agility); Precision (+20 hit, if you need the hit rating): Greater Assault (+35 attack power, for those on a budget).  I chose Crusher.  

Wrists

Greater Assault (+50 attack power); Striking (+38 attack power).  Leatherworkers can also make Fur Lining for their own bracers adding 114+ attack power.

Feet

Superior Agility or Greater Assault.

Waist/Belt

Blacksmiths can now make (and sell on the ah or trade) Eternal Belt Buckle.  This can be applied to a belt to add a gem slot to that belt.

Weapon enchants

1h

There are a couple of choices – Superior Potency (+64 attack power): Greater Potency (+50 attack power); Exceptional Agility (+25 agility); Accuracy (+25 hit and +25 crit)

2h – to glow or not to glow, that is the question.

There are 2 main choices – Massacre which adds +110 attack power and a cool red glow and dripping blood effect, but is very expensive in mats. Or Greater Savagery, which adds +85 attack power, no glow, but which is very cheap in mats.  

So which enchant to use?  I have massacre on my Rune Blade of Demonstrable Power.  I deliberated about this.  The Rune Blade is only a blue sword from a rep reward (although I think it is something like the 6th best hunter weapon in the game).  Some short-legged, big-mouthed hunters (in the nicest possible way) have said recently that you should save your money till you get an epic weapon.  But how soon am I likely to get an epic weapon?  I think my ugly rune blade is with me for some time to come.  I ran Kara dozens of times, and saw Legacy drop just once.  In my hunter-rich guild, I am rarely the only hunter in the raid.  There were three that night.  At the time, my damage counted for the other two combined, but with no DKP (which was introduced shortly after), it was a straight roll.  I had to accept the loss with as much good grace as I could muster, and console myself with the thought that it was an ugly thing (I don’t do pink.)  Anyway, back to the point.  It’s probably going to be a very long time before I get an upgrade to my melee weapon, it too is an ugly thing, it obscures my slender elf when strapped to her back, so for the glow as much as the DPS boost, I shelled out the cash for the expensive enchant.

2.  Glyphs

These are mostly suggestions for a BM hunter.  The minors and some of the others are probably best for all specs.  But MM and Surv might want to check out the full list of hunter glyphs here to see if there is any others that they prefer.

Major:

Glyph of Bestial Wrath  (obviously BM only)
Glyph of Steady Shot (increases damages of SS by 10% when serpent sting is up)
Glyph of Serpent Sting (Allows 2 extra Steady Shots before refresh)
Glyph of Aspect of the Viper (Reduced Viper up-time)
Glyph of Aspect of the Hawk (Increased hasted Auto Shots)

Glyph of Arcane shot (refunds 20% of its mana to a target affected by one of your stings)

I currently have the first three.  Though I am considering trying out glyph of arcane shot, which would mean I would probably have to drop glyph of serpent sting.

Minor:

Glyph of Mend Pet (Allows the pet to gain happiness in combat)
Glyph of Revive Pet (Allows a faster pet rez during pushback spells)
Glyph of Feign Death (Allows more frequent aggro dumps)

Need to get me a Glyph of Feign Death (although I rarely need it twice, and do have shadowmeld), at the moment I have my third slot filled with Glyph of Scare Beast, just because my inscriber can make that one and I do occasionally use it on pesky feral druids in BGs (just for fun).

3.  Gems

The list below is from Elitist Jerks.  It gives a lot of gem options on the surface.  However, as the note says below, and as a lot of min/max hunters (esp. BMs) are finding, the Bright Scarlet Ruby, which adds +32 attack power, seems better for most slots than any other gem.  Hunters are ignoring slot bonuses and equipping Bright scarlet Rubies.  Is the ruby too good?  Or are the other choice poor for hunters?  I would probably say the latter.  I would like to see armor penetration gems, or pure crit rating gems for instance.  For now, I have mostly gone for Bright Scarlet Rubies too.  The penchant for these by hunters has affected the market, and they tend to be the most expensive rare Northrend gem on my server at around 80-110G each.

(Thanks to Elitist Jerks for this list.  I know blogging isn’t about copying and pasting, but the list was so good, and EJ is sometimes a bit inaccessible to people, so I though I would reproduce it instead of just providing the link.)

Beast Mastery
Red: 
[Bright Scarlet Ruby]

Yellow:
[Rigid Autumn's Glow] (*when 16 hit rating or more from Hit cap.)

Blue: 
Not recommended.

Orange:
[Pristine Monarch Topaz] (*if not hit capped)
[Wicked Monarch Topaz] (*if hit capped)

Purple:
[Infused Twilight Opal]
[Balanced Twilight Opal] (*if mana is a non-factor)

Green: 
[Lambent Forest Emerald] (*if not hit capped)
[Vivid Forest Emerald] (*if not hit capped, and mana is a non-factor)
[Sundered Forest Emerald] (*if hit capped)
[Jagged Forest Emerald] (*if hit capped, and mana is a non-factor)
*Green gems are only advisable if to satisfy Meta requirement for both 1 Yellow and 1 Blue gem value. However, when using rare quality gems, using a prismatic gem is generally superior to available greens.

Prismatic:
[Bright Dragon's Eye] (*Jewelcrafting only)
[Rigid Dragon's Eye] (*if severly under hit cap, Jewelcrafting only)
[Enchanted Tear]
*A prismatic gem will fill all the requirements for Meta gem

Meta: 
[Relentless Earthsiege Diamond]

Marksman
Red: 
[Bright Scarlet Ruby] or [Delicate Scarlet Ruby]

Yellow:
[Rigid Autumn's Glow] (*if 16 hit rating or more under Hit cap.)

Blue: 
Not recommended.

Orange:
[Pristine Monarch Topaz] or [Glinting Monarch Topaz] (*if under hit cap)
[Stark Monarch Topaz] or [Deft Monarch Topaz] (*if hit capped, and under haste “soft-cap”)
[Wicked Monarch Topaz] or [Deadly Monarch Topaz] (*if hit capped, and over haste “soft-cap”)

Purple
[Infused Twilight Opal] or [Tenuous Twilight Opal]
[Balanced Twilight Opal] or [Shifting Twilight Opal]-n.y.i. (*if mana is a non-factor)

Green:
[Lambent Forest Emerald] (*if not hit capped)
[Vivid Forest Emerald] (*if not hit capped, and mana is a non-factor)
[Energized Forest Emerald] (*if hit capped and under haste “soft-cap”)
[Forceful Forest Emerald] (*if hit capped, under haste “soft-cap”, and mana is a non-factor)
[Sundered Forest Emerald] (*if hit capped and over haste “soft-cap”)
[Jagged Forest Emerald] (*if hit capped, over haste “soft-cap”, and mana is a non-factor)
*Green gems are only advisable if to satisfy Meta requirement for both 1 Yellow and 1 Blue gem value. However, when using rare quality gems, using a prismatic gem is generally superior to available greens.

Prismatic:
[Bright Dragon's Eye] or [Delicate Dragon's Eye] (*Jewelcrafting only)
[Rigid Dragon's Eye] (*if severly under hit cap, Jewelcrafting only)
[Enchanted Tear]
*A prismatic gem will fill all the requirements for Meta gem

Meta:
[Relentless Earthsiege Diamond]

Survival
Red:
[Delicate Scarlet Ruby]

Yellow:
[Rigid Autumn's Glow] (*if 16 hit rating or more from Hit cap.)

Blue: 
Not recommended.

Orange:
[Glinting Monarch Topaz] (*if under hit cap)
[Deft Monarch Topaz] (*if hit capped, and under haste “soft-cap”)
[Deadly Monarch Topaz] (*if hit capped, and over haste “soft-cap”)

Purple
[Shifting Twilight Opal]-n.y.i.
[Perfect Shifting Shadow Crystal] (until above gem is implemented) 

Green:
[Vivid Forest Emerald] (*if not hit capped)
[Forceful Forest Emerald] (*if hit capped, and under haste “soft-cap”)
[Jagged Forest Emerald] (*if hit capped, and over haste “soft-cap”)
*Green gems are only advisable if to satisfy Meta requirement for both 1 Yellow and 1 Blue gem value. However, when using rare quality gems, using a prismatic gem is generally superior to available greens.

Prismatic:
[Delicate Dragon's Eye] (*Jewelcrafting only)
[Rigid Dragon's Eye] (*if severly under hit cap, Jewelcrafting only)
[Enchanted Tear]
*A prismatic gem will fill all the requirements for Meta gem

Meta:
[Relentless Earthsiege Diamond]

A few notes (from Elitist Jerks):
This is gauged primarily from spreadsheet calculations and existing in-game items. This does not suggest gemming values based on extended time durations (ie. the value of gemming Intellect). The following talents are assumed: Serpent Swiftness for BM, Combat Experience for MM, Hunter vs Wild + Lightning Reflexes for Surv, and Careful Aim for all specs.

In pre-WotLK, agility was consistently a superior stat to attack power, however current calculations indicate that Attack Power gems are currently of a higher DPS value than Agility for the BM spec, Agility are superior for the Survival hunter, and Marksman somwhere in the middle, with Agility having a slight scaling advantage, but dependant on current gearset, with either stat being very close in value. No yellow gems were added other than pure Hit as they did not appear to yield any DPS over Orange options. This is based on pre-3.0.8 calculations.

Stay tuned for part 3 which will cover food and potions.  Mmmm, last months mammoth.

Shuggie – the petless levels

Levels 1-9

Level 10 is when a Hunter gets their pet, so 1-9 don’t help you understand the class very well. (IMHO You don’t really get to know any class until you get your 31 point talent).

My first impression of the Hunter class supports what I’ve always suspected – they are very survivable and very easy to play. Something I didn’t expect is that Shuggie is turning out to be really good fun to play as well. Hopefully that will continue as he levels up. (I don’t like that he can’t heal himself, though ).

Anyway, here’s some information on low level Hunter stuff. Remember this is information for the new Hunter. I don’t expect there will be any epithanies for you level 80s …

Shot rotations

Starting out as a Hunter is very easy. Just stand near to max range from the thing you want to kill and engage Auto-Shot. If the mob is still alive when they get to melee range, hit them with Raptor Strike. Now they’re dead.

The early quests in every starting area include a lot of ‘go and kill x of this mob’ or ‘go and collect y items looted from this mob’, so you get to do a lot of this. One issue I realized early on is if you right click on the mob when you’re out of range, then Auto-Shot kicks in as soon as you get in range. This can cause some small problems when you’re killing mobs that are aggressive to you. There were a couple of times I went to attack; realized I was out of range; saw a better mob to go for; got into range of the original mob while repositioning; found I’d aggroed one mob and shot at the other. 

At level 4, you get Serpent Sting, and your shot rotation becomes: Serpent Sting at max range, auto-shot as the mob rushes you, Raptor Strike when in melee.

You also get Aspect of the Monkey at level 4 – keep it on all the time.

At level 6, you get Arcane Shot. Shot rotation is modified to Serpent Sting, Arcane Shot, Auto-Shot … Raptor Strike. (Repeat Arcane Shot if the mob is still at range when its cooldown is over.

At level 8 you get Concussive Shot. You now have the option of starting with Concussive Shot to slow the mob down, followed by the previous rotation. This increases the chance of repeating Arcane Shot before the mob gets to melee (and increases the chance the mob dies before it gets to you).

(Obviously, casters won’t run at you. That makes it easier for you because you just stand there hitting them with your shot rotation).

Strafing

I’ve never played a class where strafing is particularly important before. I’m quickly learning how useful it is for a Hunter. If a mob gets you into melee range, you can strafe (Q and E keys by default) to get back into shooting range. Strafing is ‘running to the side’ – its faster than running backwards, and keeps the mob in your ‘ranged aim cone’ so you can shoot as you strafe. I try to strafe out of melee range, fire off a concussive shot, then keep at range firing Auto-Shot and Arcane Shot. You have to stop running to Auto-Shot, but you can do the others on the run. 

The hard part is being aware of what else is around you. Its very easy to strafe into another mob. If I do aggro adds when strafing, I generally use a subtle technique I learned on my Priest and Mage – the technique is called ‘run for your life’.

(I suspect strafing will become less important again once I have a pet to hold aggro).

Another technique is to run through the mob, hitting him with Raptor Strike as you pass him. Turning slows him down, so you can get to range on the other side. If you’ve got good mouse coordination, you can jump and turn around as you run, firing as you go.

Gear

In the starting areas, grey gear drops quickly, so just equip what you can from drops and quest rewards – cloth or leather. At this level, you don ‘t get any itemization (just armor), so go for the best armor you can find and equip new weapons if they increase your DPS.

Anelf mailed Shuggie some low level crafted gear to await his arrival in Kharanos. The first green items (items with stats on them) become available from about level 5. I’m prioritizing Agility and Stamina at these low levels. Strength or Intellect is fine if they come from upgrading the two primary stats (Intellect > Strength). And Kibeth has sent him a level 5 gun she made.

Food

I’m a terrible cook – in game as well as IRL. The highest level I’ve reached on any alt so far is about level 85. I didn’t bother learning cooking when I got to Kharanos, so Tin has had to explain to me very carefully and very slowly (using words of two syllables or less ) how important it is for a Hunter to be able to make food for their pet.

First Aid

Learn First Aid. And start skilling up on the Linen Cloth that drops. Then you’ll be able to bandage your pet if he gets into trouble. (Rather then have him die and the mob come on to you).

Bag Space

For someone like me, who has never played a Hunter, the first thing you notice about bag space is how little you have. One bag slot is taken up by your ammo pouch/quiver. Later on – when you have your pet – you need to carry pet food around as well. This loses you 2-3 more spaces (probably more really, because you’ll want to keep the all meat that drops so you can cook it later). I tend not to go higher than 16-slot bags Netherweave Bags, as these are very cheap per slot (the price rockets for 18-slot and higher). But I can imagine a lot of Hunters are beating a trail to Haris Pilton .

Ammo

Keep an eye on your ammo. You get through 200 shots quicker than you realize. On the other hand, don’t do what I did and completely fill your ammo pouch as soon as you find an ammo vendor. Otherwise you’ll waste time grinding for the cash to buy your early talents.

 

Next up: Level 10 and your pet quest.

The time has come …

… to roll a Hunter.

Yes, as the nerfbat of Damocles hangs over Hunters everywhere, I (Anelf) have chosen this moment to roll my own.

I’ve never rolled a Hunter before, because Tinuviel has so many Hunter alts. I’ve generally rolled classes that run alongside and support her (i.e. healers). Tin plays a lot more than me though, so her alts tend to level faster and leave my alts behind. However, she’s recently lost a little of her altitis and is focusing on Tinuviel (her Hunter main) and Kibeth (her Death Knight, who is rapidly becoming her primary alt). In the meantime, I seem to have taken over the altitis bug.

I set myself a new year’s resolution to finally roll a Hunter (after playing for two years), so best bite the bullet. I like to roll an alt some time before I start to play them seriously, level them up to about level 10, and park them in an inn to get full rested XP. Then I hop between my alts, making sure I maximize the rested bonus across them all.

First choice I have to make is what race to roll. But which is best?

The three Alliance  classes that can hunt are Night Elf, Draenai and Dwarf. Racial characteristics that are useful to a Hunter are:

Night Elf

Quickness – gives +2% dodge. This is particularly useful for PvP (which I don’t do).

Shadowmeld – Won’t be quite so good once its ‘fixed’ in 3.0.8, so not a fantastic racial for Hunters (who have feign death). Very useful again for PvP – you can stealth and wait to ambush the enemy.

Draenai

Gift of the Naaru – A racial HoT. A great addition to Mend Pet.

Heroic Presence - gives +1% Hit Rating. This is a great racial for raiding, and means less itemization has to be spent on Hit Rating.

Dwarf

Stoneform – Increases armor by 10%, dispels poisons, diseases and bleeds, and grants immunity to these debuffs for 8 seconds (3 minute cooldown). This is a fantastic racial for raiding and PvP. (I laugh in your face, rogue ).

Gun Specialization – gives +1% crit chance with guns.

Find Treasure – Not a Hunter-specific talent, but really cool to be able to easily find hidden treasure chests. Shows gathering quest items on your minimap as well. This ties in well with all the other Hunter tracking skills.

 

For the Horde, we have Orc, Tauren, Troll and Blood Elf. Racials that are useful to a Hunter are:

Orc

Blood Fury – A 15 second Attack Power bonus (2 minute cooldown). Scales with level.

Hardiness – decreases the time you’re stunned by 5%.

Command – Damage done by your pet increased by 5%.

Particularly good racials for a BM Hunter.

Tauren

War Stomp – A stun. Good for escaping someone who has you at melee range.

Endurance – gives 5% health increase.

Combined with the inconvenience of their large size, the Tauren racials really don’t lend themselves to Hunting. Only choose this class if you really like cows. (Its a shame about the size – which really is a problem indoors – because I love the Tauren areas).

Troll

Berserking – Increases Haste. Scales as your health decreases.

Regeneration – Increased health regeneration – good for every class.

Beast Slaying – gives 5% damage bonus on beasts (great for leveling or if you’re grinding your skinning).

Bow Specialization – gives an extra 1% crit when using a Bow.

Da Voodoo Shuffle – 15% reduction in duration of all movement impairing effects. More important for PvP.

Another race with good Hunter racials.

Blood Elf

Arcane Torrent – Silences enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds and returns 6% of your mana. (Mana is increasingly important to Hunters since the expansion, but you’d hope to keep your enemy more than 8 yards away).

The weakest Hunter racials of all. And the Belf laugh is like scraping polystyrene down a window.

 

I’d like the support of my alts (and my guild), so I’m rolling an Alliance race on Antonidas. For me (a non-PvPer) the choice is obvious – I’m going to roll a Dwarf. I tend to go with female toons. (This was initially because Tin dared me to, but then I carried on because they’re smaller – they don’t block the screen – and they’re nicer to look at for four hours a day ). But I’ll make an exception for Dwarves – I’m going to roll a male Dwarf. (If you read Pratchett, you know that you can’t tell the difference between male and female dwarves anyway).

For professions, I’m making him a Skinner and a Herbalist. I like to give my alts gathering professions, as its an easy way to make money. (They pick up a manufacturing profession when they graduate). Skinning is easy to level as you quest, and you don’t need a tracker for it. Herbalism will give my Hunter an extra pet heal – Lifeblood – to make up for not being a Draenai. After all, not all healers are as pet-friendly as Anelf.

Finally, a name. I was pretty disappointed that Adwarf was taken, as was Ahunter, so I have to move away from my favored naming convention. Being a Hunter, I decided to give him a name starting with ‘H’ (like ‘Harry the Hunter’ or something). And Dwarves have Scottish accents, so I settled for Shuggie (Shuggie is Scottish for Hugh).

And so Shuggie is born. Until I get bored with him, I’ll be blogging his progress as he levels, and passing on the advice Tinuviel gives me as he gains talents. Hopefully this will be helpful to any new Hunters reading this blog, and give you experienced Hunters a chance to laugh at my ineptitude .