Solo Hunter woes

[Kevin]

The thing is Woad is now 59 and a half and has two talent points (soon three) that she does not know where else to put.  Is Spirit Bond's regeneration really all that bad?  We had an unfortunate pull last night in the Eastern Plaguelands, two monstrous plaguebats and two frenzied plaguehounds.  After two bats and one dog Woad feigned death and let her poor cat fend for herself.  It took a while and they were very close.  They were both down to a sliver of life but the plaguehound won.

The patch program tells me I need to reinstall World of Warcraft, so it's not too convenient to go on line to check the other talent choices.  Any suggestions given that hers is a beastmaster build?
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For me it's an easy switch. I don't have improved mend pet right now and the points will go there instead as the chance to clear out a debuff looks very nice.

Spirit Bond will help you in some situations, but again, look at your total health, take 2% of that, see how long a fight lasts and see if one tick of that every 10 seconds (yes it ticks once every ten seconds it isn't spread out over that time you get the full 50 or 80 or whatever at 10 second intervals) will even matter. In the situation you described I would have just started to run away if the pet had aggro put on cheetah, get some distance so you out run the pet (so it doesn't die) cancel cheetah if you think they'll hit you, call the pet back and pick them off in a better situation for you.

The old spirit bond allowed me to off tank in instances, and since we didn't have a warrior in my level range (and I'm still tanking with the pet a lot of the time because of how small the guild on Terenas is) it was quite nice. I would trap or double trap something and it broke lose I would turn on spirit bond and tank it. Getting 30 HP every second meant the healer could ignore me for most of the fight. It also meant that since the pet was healing me the pet was putting out that much more aggro so if the healer had to heal the pet they weren't going to pull aggro either. Getting 65 HP every 10 seconds really doesn't help now. It would be better if you and your pet got like 20% of your spirit HP regen because that would tick faster.

Maybe I just don't like how much it was nerfed and can't see past that.

Marn's current spec with the last 4 points going into Mortal Shots.

Bestial swiftness was a test point to see if it stacked with dash (it does not) or made prowl faster (it does not) so that is another pointless point that will get pulled and put into mortal shots.

This spec has put me #1 and Meowry (Swamp Jaguar) #2 on the damage meters in quite a few group runs and I don't have good gear yet, though the Maraudon reward bow does help. Bestial wrath is nuts. Cat has a base 1.2 attack speed so that gets below 1.0 under frenzy and she is under frenzy most of the time. The bestial wrath hits are doing over 100 damage each and critting at times around 250 and this is a faster than 1.0 attack speed. So the cat will average over 100 DPS on runs frequently right now. I'm over 120 DPS easily right now as well. That's at L56 with so so gear and just jagged arrows since I don't have an eng that can make the good bullets to trade in for the good arrows. :) And to speed up runs since I'm tanking and doing a lot of the CC at times (we end up 4 manning a lot of instances) I don't do a lot of special shots so that I can lay freeze traps faster and keep moving without drinking.

Intimidation is awesome too, solo or groups. It always gets aggro back and it gives you a way to stun mobs. It's an awesome way for hunters to protect healers. Stun the mob with intimidation then send the pet back to the mob by the MT the intimidated mob will come back to the pet after the stun is off and the MT can get it back. Or the MT can go pick it up while it's stunned. Of course like I said with the pet being the MT or the MA a lot of the times for us I don't get to do that as much.

Just some thoughts. I have a blast with Marn's build. :)