Hunter talent discussion

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Wrath of the Lich King Raiding / PvE

Survival

0/20/51

I've been a Survival hunter since early TBC and have loved every minute of it. When Wrath came out I had a few annoyances including the moving of Readiness into the Marksmanship tree, but the 3.0.8 buffs to the SV tree have more than made up for it. Notes on my spec follow:

• [Lethal Shots], [Survival Instincts], [Killer Instinct] and [T.N.T.] for the extra critical strike chance on [Explosive Shot].
• [Lock and Load] for the two free [Explosive Shot]'s.
• [Master Tactician] seems to be up a hell-of-a-lot with only 4/5 in it, I never bothered with it in TBC.
• [Sniper Training] for the extra 15% (holy crap!) extra critical strike chance on [Kill Shot].
• [Thrill of the Hunt] and [Hunting Party] for mana regeneration.
• [Explosive Shot] because of how awesome this ability is (I've used it since 3.0.2 came out).

Burning Crusade Raiding / PvE

Beast Mastery

41/20/0

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.)

53/11/7 Balanced BM Hunter Build. Contains everything to make your pet do damage, the Aimed Shot from MM and reduces damage taken with a few points in Survival. Using this build myself and it works perfectly. Hope it will work for you too ;)

Marksmanship

10/45/6

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

17/44/0 Another option for Marksmanship. Keeps your pet viable by dealing enough damage to draw and hold aggro in most cases. Also gives you a good heal to keep him going from Improved Mend. Though I leveled with a BM build, once I reached 65 I re-spec'd to mark for DPS. This build seems to work well Solo and group PvE by keeping the mob off you and on your pet. Although a good 2500-2800+ damage pop from your Aimed Shot has a tendency to change a mobs mind. --Mystc

Here is my opinion on Marksman, I chose to go marksman at the beginning of the Wrath expansion, regardless of the mocking and all the "lost abilities". I have found that there have been several pros and cons to the Marksman spec. Pros for example is I do damage so quickly questing truly goes so easy It's almost too easy. I also find myself critting constantly, which in effect conserves mana, however mana costs are still high, so I make sure to pack in some drinks to go. The other pro to Marksman is mainly the ability to be a coward without being a coward, let me explain that, Marksman hunters tend to pull A LOT of aggro in a small amount of time, which, in raids, is not good, so that's why I try to be as far back as I can using lower ranks shots thatn I would really like to, but whatever works to get the job done is fine with me. Now I've also seen a share of cons, for example the right pet to team up with, for example if you are fairly easy to kill you probably want to have a tanking pet to keep you alive, if you find that eanking pets are a bit boring, try cunning, I would suggest to be wary of Ferocity pets however for two reasons, One they have very low health and cannot live long without the BM boosts, and two they tend to do a lot of damage in raids and will pull aggro easy and as I said before we as Marksman hunters also pull much aggro and are rather frail so most likely when our pets are taken we will be next. If you do choose to be a Marksman hunter look for lots of Agility, Stamina, and Intellect. Spirit is good too, but don't overdo that. Remember also that your pet MUST have aggro because once you pull it, it is hard to get rid of, luckily thanks to readiness we have the ability to Feign Death twice :D. Good Hunting 123kiki321

Survival Builds

7/20/34

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.

Survival, although rarely used, has a potential to really be OP. After seeing the low amount of survival hunters, I chose to check why they dislike it so much. What I found was a build so powerful that I hardly care for the other trees anymore. The first thing I grabbed was the stamina boost and that definately made me smile pretty big. After that I saw all the amazing combos you could put together, like the trap cost reducer combined with the talent that causes your next 2 Arcane shots or Explosive shots to cost no mana, trigger no cooldown, or use any ammo. As much as I don't want to say it, I truly do not need a pet at all. I find leveling truly so simple that having a pet is merely a luxury. I came up with a great rotation that kills almost anything in a heartbeat: Start by using Wyvern Sting, while they're asleep place an Immolation Trap down and back away, when they awaken use Serpent sting and follow it with an immediate Concussive shot, Blast him with a Steady shot and just as he reaches you use Scatter Shot, now use those two Free Arcane Shots, if he's still alive use Deterrence, you will most likely Parry and then you can use a Counter Attack, although I doubt he still lives this is the time to just finish him off either by shooting him down, or Meleeing him to death with one or two Mongoose Bites. It sounds like a difficult task and alot of work, but after a while it becomes a habit and you can zoom through almost any quest :D Stats to keep in mind: Agility is always a must for a hunter keep that going, Strength is also going to be a great stat here as you will be doing some melee, and Stamina will make you basically immortal. Attack Power will cause you to hit so hard that you will be able to reduce the effort of your rotation significantly. So good luck with the spec. and try to tell others of its great benefits. :D --123kiki321

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

0/24/37

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.

33/38/0

Solo/DPS build - This build is a good PvE DPS build althogh im not sure but could be good for PvP so give it a try. - Denni1234

41/30/0

Solo/DPS build - This spec contains all talents needed for a 71 point DPS hunter, obviously it would require testing but if talents stay as they are it should work well.

Jebus22's Raid Dps Build 0/40/31

DPS build - This spec contains the majority of the percentage increasing talents. this build will scale very very well with gear. variations can be made by swapping master marksman with expose weakness. the idea of this build is to gain 100% of int added to ap (+4% int), 30% of stam added to ap (with +10% stam), +19% agi, 5% more damage with ranged weapons, and +10% to ap. all with a major crit chance on most attacks

Argonsol's balanced DPS build 50/21/0

DPS build - the idea here is to get maximum damage combined between you and your pet. The combination of bestial wrath (3min cooldown) + Rapid Fire (3 min cooldown) + Readiness (3 min cooldown) means in raid boss battles you can use both bestial wrath and rapid fire two times against one boss ( BW, RF, Readiness, BW, RF) and then only have to wait 3 min before you can repeat the process.

3.1 Builds:

Raid:

• Raid Support (40/31/0)(Ganwolfclaw (EU) Sporeggar)

Some hunters out there that are not into PvP might be wondering what the dualspec has to offer them. They may find this a usefull suggestion. In my opnion I find this specc only worth going for in 25 man raids or maybe when your off to raid a capital or WG, allthough you probably won't get props for raid support in WG. Also before taking this build I would suggest using as a rule of thumb that the lowest dps gear rating in your raid is somewhere around 1900 on WoW-heroes. The major drawback of this build is that it will pretty much cut your dps in half, if however you followed the rules of thumb above it will be like you brought between 1,5/2 extra dps'ers to the raid overall. There is no point in having other hybrid hunters in the raid when your there, probably is no point in bringing an MM Hunter at all. Also make sure that the other hunters understand that your Hunter's Mark goes on the big boss and they should stick theirs elsewhere, don't forget to smack yours on the add that needs to be burned down quick too.