Hunter talent discussion
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Burning Crusade Raiding / PvE
Beast Mastery
While Beast Mastery talents may have been neglected in the past, recent upgrades have improved them, as shown by several extensive tests. It's no wonder that this spec has quickly gained popularity in the Hunter ranks, including in many high end raiding teams. Getting gear with +crit and +hit is essential to the viability of the spec.
- Animal Handler is a good talent, increasing your pet's hit chance by 4%. It is the only hit bonus for pets.
- Frenzy has been shown to stay up almost as long with 4/5 as with 5/5, leaving you one free point.
41/20/0 This spec utilized the damage of you and you pet with the best possible results.This spec is a little different than other BM specs because it allows you to spec into endurance training (10% Hp increase on pet and 5% on you )and improved aspect of the hawk (10%chance on shot to increase speed by 15%). This spec can be used in Karazhan all the way through BT ( you will see a huge jumpin DPS when you progress into SSC and TK because of the increase of agility and critical strike rating on the gear. This spec it better with more agility and whenever possible take agility over AP( unless there is a huge difference). And try to always try to get 8 Agility or 8 critical strike rating gems ( or 10 agility if you are rich/ in BT/hyjal.
41/20/0 (This particular build for a Beast Master hunter lacks the talent benefits that increases the pet's damage. Most DPS is based in the pet and its ability to dump focus yet this build does not have Go For the Throat nor Animal Handler which increases the pet's ability to hit bosses and higher level mobs. As well 4/5 in Frenzy is just as effective as 5/5 in it. Improved arcane shot would only have a benefit for a Marksman hunter as it is a stable part of their DPS as opposed to BM's steady shot/auto shot spam. One type of a cookie cutter spec for a BM hunter. Three out of the first tens points in the BM tree are up to the player's preference, one does not have to have Improved Revive Pet but at times it can help.)
Marksmanship
Marksmanship, though frowned upon now by the gods-that-will, can still be extremely useful in Raiding environments, as well as in the Arena and PvP. This spec provides great burst damage opportunities, and marksmen can expect quite hard critical hits. +AP and +crit, in that order, are good stats to look for when creating your gear set.
- Allocating the Endurance Training points into Monster Slaying might be more worthwhile for those not interested in PvP.
Some examples of good Marksman builds:
8/41/12
--Petrus4
Survival Builds
Survival, even if rarely used, or ignored, is a very balanced build between PvE, and PvP. It grants you:
- +8% Critical strike
- +20% Critical Strike Damage bonus
- +2% passive damage
- -4% damage taken
- +4% Attack Power
- +15% Agility
- +15% maximum HP
- +6 sec duration on Freezing Traps
- Entrapment
- A limited crowd control skill in extra (You can just overwrite it with Scorpid Sting, if you're planning to use a trap on it after)
- Increased range
If you choose this build, you should concentrate on agility, because each point from gear amounts to 1.15 agility, which is a substantial bonus. Also consider the 4% extra attack power, which means that one point of gear-agility produces 1.196 attack power. Note: You might want to swap Monster Slaying with Humanoid Slaying, or Endurance Training with Improved AotH.
0/11/50 For pulling, notably in 5 mans, it is most helpful to go fully survival. This allows you to remove two mobs from your pulls, and instantly retry feign death if it fails the first time. This build also allows you to frequently increase the damage of all attackers against your target with expose weakness, and drastically increase your crit chance. This build works best with a fast ranged weapon.
However, Wyvern Sting is pretty useless in the raiding environment. You will not be pulling by yourself, and even if you are, Tanks should know how to pull off of you. Readiness would be more useful if 1) The talent underneath it wasn't pointless (you will have enough crit as surv, and 6% chance is so low) and 2) We had a really long cooldown.
The following RAID spec is pure raidbuff/personal dps (with some points in traps and one waste point because the tree is poorly designed). This is not a spec for people who ever want to win at PvP against someone with equal ability. Raiding Surv Spec 1
But if someone else has full IMP HM and you have a very large mana pool (or a really good Aspect of the Viper): Raiding Surv Spec 2 You can also spec further down into Marks to get 2% more Agi, but 2%, at 1000, is only 20. You decide if that's worth it for you.
BC Well Rounded
Although marksmen and beast mastery builds are the standard favorites, this new Burning Crusade talent build for hunters is very effective. 0/30/31 It maximizes on the best of Marksman while getting all the core talents from Survival that provide good benefits. This build has a bit of room for customization as well, Wyvern Sting could be traded for Trueshot Aura, other points could be moved around per the users preference. This build provides excellent PVP capabilities, deals high damage as well for raids, and more importantly with Wyvern Sting is perfect for the new Arena combat, giving the hunter some cooldowns for once. Evagorn
BC Utility
This build sacrifices some melee survivability and ranged DPS talents in favour of adding more utility to a raiding situation - namely Scatter Shot (useful for mobs that like to explode, like the elementals in Karazhan after the library as you head toward Shade and Illhoof), buffed traps and Expose Weakness (which will proc off every crit in Patch 2.1.0). HunterOfWhelps 0/21/40
Kickerace's Arena Build
This build is strictly for pvp. It provides the respectable dps of marksmanship and essential survivability, so it is fully focused on the hunter rather than the pet. This is because while BM specced hunters rely heavily on their pet for TBW, if their pet is crowd controlled or dead then they are at a huge disadvantage. Also in pvp, it is the hunter that is attacked and killed while the pet is (and should be) completely ignored.
Without going into too much detail, scattershot, deterrence and counterattack, improved wing clip and wyvern sting are incredible crowd control and melee abilities that ensure your hunter can withstand close combat and get back into range for the crucial aimed shot. Virtually all other talent points aim towards maximizing your dps which is the goal for any respectable hunter, namely barrage (as it is often overlooked) since it makes your 2nd best and frequently used physical attack, multi-shot, even better.
While this build will not ensure you are on top of the damage meter in a raid (but still possible) or make your pet an unstoppable force, you are well equipped to face any pvp challenge. MM and BM specced hunters may do more damage in a raid but they also rely on the tanks/pets to maintain aggro and soak up all the damage, while in a pvp fight they will be helpless since a skilled opponent can stay within their dead zone.
This build is gear dependent so make sure you get plenty of stamina and agility (NOT just attack power since agi provides crit, dodge as well as AP anyway), the first being much more important. Your arena partners will love you for it.
WotLK Spec Possibilities
Note: This Section is Intended for Specs that take advantage of 71 Talent points, although our tree has YET to actually be designed for WotLK. http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cx0GdxtoizZxxbRVuGsso A good dps build for solo play in WotLK This build is a good PvE DPS build althogh im not sure but could be good for PvP so give it a try. - Denni1234
General Information
The opinions stated in this article are the beliefs of their owners. If you are looking for success-proven template builds (general specs which allow for point movement), see Hunter builds.
