BC Hunter Builds?

[nobbie]

I'm a complete newbie to Hunters, and would like to know what a really good, effective PvE solo Hunter spec is for the upcoming expansion (spec for level 70), plus a little bit explanation why you have chosen this or that talent:)

[Luminon]

I'm a complete newbie to Hunters, and would like to know what a really good, effective PvE solo Hunter spec is for the upcoming expansion (spec for level 70), plus a little bit explanation why you have chosen this or that talent:)

A pet build, focusing on making the pet do as much damage as possible, while allowing reasonable ranged dps. In the beastmastery tree you can take the points out of animal handler, bestial swiftness and focused fire and put them into IAotH if you wish. Bestial swiftness is for letting your pet reach it's target before you fire your first shot, the single point in imp. mend pet is for clearing long lasting debuffs off your pet. With marksmanship you can put the points in efficiency and go for the throat in imp. concussive shot. The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

A marksmanship build, depending entirely on your own ranged damage. Less of an easy mode compared to full beastmastery (your pet won't even hold aggro), but much more fun in my opinion and great for kiting. Aside from hawk eye the survival talents can be changed to taste, you can even abandon them in favour of endurance training and IAotH.

I don't reccomend survival for solo PVE.

[Kevin]

I'm a complete newbie to Hunters, and would like to know what a really good, effective PvE solo Hunter spec is for the upcoming expansion (spec for level 70), plus a little bit explanation why you have chosen this or that talent:)

I'm looking at a [url=http://http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-hunter/talents.html?5520300050501015311510505201200000000000000300000000000000000000"]"Speed freak"[/url] build that still buffs the pet a lot. I don't like not having imp mend pet but I can live without it since I still figure I'll have a shaman around when doing stuff out in the world. No imp revive pet hurts more since a lot of the damage I do is boosted by the pet and imp revive means it's worth spending the time to get the pet back up mid combat, but I wanted the extra +hit and some extra dodge for the pet and I didn't want to give up my extra range either. Bestial swiftness would be helpful, but it's been bugged so many times and can be overcome for nearly all solo situations by just having a pet with a charge or dash ability (since it never stacked with those anyway) that I can ignore it, heck good toggling of aspect of the daze can make up for not having this talent in all but PvP environments too.

Some of the keys are that rapid fire goes from a 5 to a 3 minute cooldown, I don't care about the "next shot" bonus from it, it's the cooldown on rapid fire I'm after. Imp AotH being a 10% chance to proc a 15% speed increase should be nearly the same DPS increase as mortal shots upping my crits by 30%. You do have to have serpent's swiftness for this to work out though since that will get you enough shots per unit time to keep the imp AotH up enough. I've always had mortal shots, but if I wanted the range as well as the pet boosts I couldn't get it. Ferocius inspiration is there because I plan to be in 5 mans a lot and upping the groups damage by 3% pretty much all the time will be nice (yes I expect that the pet will crit enough to keep it up nearly all the time). And of course using well timed beastial wraths to up my damage again. But I'll generally have a 5% damage boost (2% from having the pet out, another 3% from the pets crits) as well as the speed increase.

I think +2% more to hit for the pet is fine, especially if the pet can get any +hit from my own gear and I don't care about the extra mounted speed for me. I do want more points to get the pets dodge up though. 9% more dodge on the pet would be a very large increase in survivability since I can simply train the resists into the pet to deal with magical/environmental damage. But I settled for just the 3%. Depending on just how aimed shot works in the expansion I might move the point from aimed over to this talent as well. Beastial discipline seems pretty much useless with having go for the throat.

I'm also hoping that in the raids they are more like ZG/AQ20/MC where the pet can actually be used pretty much all the time. Sure it's a dash in and out on Luci to avoid the curse and I only get one or two goes in at Rags before the pet dies, but I send it in just before the knockback call so that if the tank gets knocked back the pet might be there to eat the hit instead of someone else. BWL was really the first raid instance where you couln't use the pets to help with damage. In ZG and AQ20 a beastmaster pet can off tank stuff right now. Assuming there is stuff like that in the new dungeons I see a beastmaster + pet being able to keep up on damage with the other specs + pet. Though a lot of that depends on how much the pet scales with my gear and just all of what scales.

But in the end I may take the points out of hawk eye and and aimed shot and get imp revive pet, 1 point in mend pet, and one more point in catlike reflexes.

Even without the pet getting scaling from my gear, if I could have those talents right now I figure my cat pet could push 115 DPS (I could actually use the claw ability because of my crits giving the pet focus) if not more, I'm not always the best at back of the envelop theorycrafting, that's a pretty big increase for the 55-65 it does now.

[swirly]

If I were still playing my 60 hunter I think I'd go for something like this. I'll comment on some things.

Endurance Training over Improved Aspect of the Hawk
I figure that I will always have the new Aspect of the Viper on and so Aspect of the Hawk won't be used. When soloing I find that the two things that slow me down is mana and having to mend my pet instead of shooting (which eats mana as well). Aspect of the Viper should help with the mana part of that some. Endurance Training helps a little with the mending because I can wait longer to have to mend and so may not have to on some fights.

Bestial Discipline over Thick Hide
These points could easily be moved. I just don't feel like Go for the Throat will be enough. This is something that will just kind of have to be tested. It could be that no points are needed in Bestial Discipline. It could be that 1 point is enough. It could be that 2 points is still required. This also depends on what pet you use. If you get a cat pet then having both Bestial Discipline and Go for the Throat may allow you to have growl, bite, and claw all on at the same time. Claw may still use too much focus though. Like I said, its something that will kind of have to be judged in game.

Catlike Reflexes over Animal Handler
Only one point to spare here, but I'm thinking that the added dodge will help the having to stop shooting to mend thing some. I've also never really noticed too much of a miss problem with my pet. I'm sure +hit will add damage, but I'm just unsure its enough to be worth choosing it over the dodge.

Mortal Shots over assorted other things
This one is complicated. I don't really feel like Aimed Shot is worth it, but its required to get Mortal Shots. So if you chose not to get Mortal Shots you would have 6 points to spend. This means being able to get Hawkeye (3 points) as well as Catlike Reflexes (2 more) and Animal Handler (1). This is kind of a tough choice. Hawkeye is very nice to have, but I like the damage from Mortal Shots. So I could see a person going many different ways with this.

If you aren't using a pet with a claw style attack, then you also may not need Go for the Throat. Bestial Disciple should be enough for such a pet. Which means you can take those 2 points and put them elsewhere. Possibly finishing off Animal Handler (1 more point) and putting another point in Thick hide(1 more).

Another option to consider would be Hawkeye + the Slaying talents. If you don't need Go for the Throat then you have 8 points to spend. Thats Hawkeye(3) and Slaying(5) though I'm not sure which slaying would be missing the one point.

Overall I'm thinking Mortal Shots and Go for the Throat are probably the better route to go. Especially if it frees up some points from Bestial Discipline to move to Thick Armor. There seem to be alot of little tweaks in the build that need to be made based on how it plays in game, but overall I think that is what I would go.

[Kevin]

If I were still playing my 60 hunter I think I'd go for something like this. I'll comment on some things.

Endurance Training over Improved Aspect of the Hawk
I figure that I will always have the new Aspect of the Viper on and so Aspect of the Hawk won't be used. When soloing I find that the two things that slow me down is mana and having to mend my pet instead of shooting (which eats mana as well). Aspect of the Viper should help with the mana part of that some. Endurance Training helps a little with the mending because I can wait longer to have to mend and so may not have to on some fights.

Bestial Discipline over Thick Hide
These points could easily be moved. I just don't feel like Go for the Throat will be enough. This is something that will just kind of have to be tested. It could be that no points are needed in Bestial Discipline. It could be that 1 point is enough. It could be that 2 points is still required. This also depends on what pet you use. If you get a cat pet then having both Bestial Discipline and Go for the Throat may allow you to have growl, bite, and claw all on at the same time. Claw may still use too much focus though. Like I said, its something that will kind of have to be judged in game.

Catlike Reflexes over Animal Handler
Only one point to spare here, but I'm thinking that the added dodge will help the having to stop shooting to mend thing some. I've also never really noticed too much of a miss problem with my pet. I'm sure +hit will add damage, but I'm just unsure its enough to be worth choosing it over the dodge.

Mortal Shots over assorted other things
This one is complicated. I don't really feel like Aimed Shot is worth it, but its required to get Mortal Shots. So if you chose not to get Mortal Shots you would have 6 points to spend. This means being able to get Hawkeye (3 points) as well as Catlike Reflexes (2 more) and Animal Handler (1). This is kind of a tough choice. Hawkeye is very nice to have, but I like the damage from Mortal Shots. So I could see a person going many different ways with this.

If you aren't using a pet with a claw style attack, then you also may not need Go for the Throat. Bestial Disciple should be enough for such a pet. Which means you can take those 2 points and put them elsewhere. Possibly finishing off Animal Handler (1 more point) and putting another point in Thick hide(1 more).

Another option to consider would be Hawkeye + the Slaying talents. If you don't need Go for the Throat then you have 8 points to spend. Thats Hawkeye(3) and Slaying(5) though I'm not sure which slaying would be missing the one point.

Overall I'm thinking Mortal Shots and Go for the Throat are probably the better route to go. Especially if it frees up some points from Bestial Discipline to move to Thick Armor. There seem to be alot of little tweaks in the build that need to be made based on how it plays in game, but overall I think that is what I would go.

Gear makes a huge difference in some of this as well. Part of the reason I did some of the differences from what you did and why I think I'll still run with Hawk is that I've gotten used to being in top end MC/AQ20/ZG gear. The only time I need to use mend pet is when grinding elites, and the tougher pet (they scale some with gear) woud change that a lot as well. But yeah I had very similar thoughts.

The big difference was that back of the envelop calcs showed that with serpent's swiftness imp AotH might actually be more damage than mortal shots. Having the 10 points at the top of tree also loosens up some of the other stuff.

But yeah beastial discipline is still a tough call, but since I'm already sitting on around a 30% crit rate I think go for the throat will be enough. But I could end up doubling up on them. And yeah I keep looking to see how to tweak 2 more points into catlike instead of just 1. I might drop the +hit talent, but I tend to fight mobs that are higher level than me a fair bit while leveling and that is where it will help most for the pet keeping aggro and doing damage.

Of course I expect a few respecs to happen. :)

[Luminon]

The big difference was that back of the envelop calcs showed that with serpent's swiftness imp AotH might actually be more damage than mortal shots. Having the 10 points at the top of tree also loosens up some of the other stuff.

Are you sure? IIRC attack speed increases are cumulative, so the added benefit might be little. For instance say you have Rapid fire (40%) a quiver (15%) and serpent's swiftness (20%); you'll be attacking at 40.8% weapon speed :w00t:if you add a IAotH proc to that it'll go down to 34.7% weapon speed, only a 6.1% effective increase. Not that that's not impressive, but I don't think it measures up to mortal shots, especially considering you can get both if you're willing to drop hawk eye (like this).


(you might want to fix your talent spec link btw; http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classe...00000000000000)

[Kevin]

Are you sure? IIRC attack speed increases are cumulative, so the added benefit might be little. For instance say you have Rapid fire (40%) a quiver (15%) and serpent's swiftness (20%); you'll be attacking at 40.8% weapon speed :w00t:if you add a IAotH proc to that it'll go down to 34.7% weapon speed, only a 6.1% effective increase. Not that that's not impressive, but I don't think it measures up to mortal shots, especially considering you can get both if you're willing to drop hawk eye (like this).
(you might want to fix your talent spec link btw; http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classe...00000000000000)

yeah I know I can get them both but I'm not sure I'm willing to give up Hawk Eye

And I'm trying to figure out when the link to the build broke... Odd.

Edit: Oh I forgot that hunters mark helps melee now as well. Yeah I'll have to tweak it again.

[swirly]

The only time I need to use mend pet is when grinding elites, and the tougher pet (they scale some with gear) woud change that a lot as well.

To be honest, most of my opinions on things comes from all the time I spent grinding silithus bugs. So my use of mend pet is mostly based off of grinding those elites. Even in normal leveling gear one doesn't really use mend pet too much except for when fighting elites, multiple adds, or when doing things they shouldn't be doing (soloing instances and such heh).

I'm also figuring that the addition of steady shot and the improvement of arcane shot will make more draws on mana which will make having Aspect of the Viper up all the time even better. As you say though, gear does effect this alot. Better gear means more mana and mana regen and so less dependence on Aspect of the Viper. I'm still wagering that it will be the most used though. : )

[nobbie]

Thanks for the infos, guys. Since talent respeccing costs me just 1 copper in the BC beta, I'm going to try some things from your suggestions and get back later.

Just curiuous: Why did no one choose "Improved Concussive Shot" with its Stun chance? Is this mostly a PvP talent, or generally not that hot?

[nobbie]

A bit OT, but related to Hunter skills anyway:

Does any (BC beta tester) know where I can teach my Blood Elf hunter's "Dragonhawk" pet further ranks of its unique ability "Fire Breath" beyond rank 1?

I hope Blizzard didn't just make this fine pet with its nifty AE fire attack a beginner pet for Blood Elves, which cannot be upgraded.

[Luminon]

Thanks for the infos, guys. Since talent respeccing costs me just 1 copper in the BC beta, I'm going to try some things from your suggestions and get back later.

Just curiuous: Why did no one choose "Improved Concussive Shot" with its Stun chance? Is this mostly a PvP talent, or generally not that hot?

I found imp concussive great for pvp and small group play, but to get anything out of it you need to max it out, and there's better talents around to spend those points on.

A bit OT, but related to Hunter skills anyway:

Does any (BC beta tester) know where I can teach my Blood Elf hunter's "Dragonhawk" pet further ranks of its unique ability "Fire Breath" beyond rank 1?

I hope Blizzard didn't just make this fine pet with its nifty AE fire attack a beginner pet for Blood Elves, which cannot be upgraded.

Pet specific skills can be learned by taming another of the same type that has it and then keeping him around for a while untill the message you've learned the skill appears. Thottbot says the highest rank fire breath seen in the beta is 2, but not where it's from.

[nobbie]

Pet specific skills can be learned by taming another of the same type that has it and then keeping him around for a while untill the message you've learned the skill appears.

Ok, but which pets have "Fire Breath" in the level 20-30-40-50-60 areas?

[Luminon]

Ok, but which pets have "Fire Breath" in the level 20-30-40-50-60 areas?

Only other dragonhawks can have the skill, there's two ranks, level 1 and level 60 respectively. So you'll have to wait untill you see a dragonhawk over level 60 and get rank 2 from him. I don't know which specific pets have them, none of the major database sites lists them yet.

[nobbie]

Only other dragonhawks can have the skill, there's two ranks, level 1 and level 60 respectively. So you'll have to wait untill you see a dragonhawk over level 60 and get rank 2 from him. I don't know which specific pets have them, none of the major database sites lists them yet.

Found the answer already. The "Fire Breath" skill seems to be unique to the Dragonhawks from the Blood Elf area and scales with your pet's level. It was initially 6 fire damge over 2 seconds (rank 1) and is now 42 fire damage over 2 seconds at pet level 23.

[Brista]

In general I think Beast Mastery will always be the strongest to solo with

Your own damage is restricted by the requirement to not pull aggro. OK, there are counters (Misdirection, FD and so on) but using a counter every time on trivial pulls is not efficient

With Beast Mastery you can send the pet in and start autoshot and the pet will usually keep aggro. With MM you need to allow time for the pet to reach the mob before you open up. Plus BM pets move faster and Spirit Bond is a very good soloing talent

Reports from some Hunters in Beta are of growl working exceptionally well so this may be less of an issue

If so there is another reason to consider: simply that you can win stand-up fights with BM you couldn't win solo with MM. That I've found to be true in the current build may or may not hold true for BC. It is possible to win fights with MM that you couldn't win in a standup fight by kiting. I've found kiting very risky and quite time-consuming. It's all very well being able to kill some super-hard elite in 20 minutes of kiting it along a road but I doubt you'd want to solo that way especially if it takes you a death or two before you actually get a kill

[Luminon]

In general I think Beast Mastery will always be the strongest to solo with

Your own damage is restricted by the requirement to not pull aggro. OK, there are counters (Misdirection, FD and so on) but using a counter every time on trivial pulls is not efficient

With Beast Mastery you can send the pet in and start autoshot and the pet will usually keep aggro. With MM you need to allow time for the pet to reach the mob before you open up. Plus BM pets move faster and Spirit Bond is a very good soloing talent

Reports from some Hunters in Beta are of growl working exceptionally well so this may be less of an issue

If so there is another reason to consider: simply that you can win stand-up fights with BM you couldn't win solo with MM. That I've found to be true in the current build may or may not hold true for BC. It is possible to win fights with MM that you couldn't win in a standup fight by kiting. I've found kiting very risky and quite time-consuming. It's all very well being able to kill some super-hard elite in 20 minutes of kiting it along a road but I doubt you'd want to solo that way especially if it takes you a death or two before you actually get a kill

Sadly most super-hard elites are snare immune anyway (think spellmaw in winterspring :wacko:), but those usually hit so hard your pet won't survive either. For grinding I tried both BM and MM specs, and allthough the BM one has far less downtime and is increadibly easy to play I found marksmanship more fun. There's nothing like opening with aimed+multi, feign death, aimed + multi again, then kite as needed.

A bit OT, but related to Hunter skills anyway:

Does any (BC beta tester) know where I can teach my Blood Elf hunter's "Dragonhawk" pet further ranks of its unique ability "Fire Breath" beyond rank 1?

I hope Blizzard didn't just make this fine pet with its nifty AE fire attack a beginner pet for Blood Elves, which cannot be upgraded.

A couple of things about pets: you'll want a pet with < 1.5 attack speed for continuous frenzy procs. Also I reccomend getting a cat type pet, their stealth skill is incredibly usefull when you make a bad pull or get unwanted aggro; you can then feign death without having your pet get eaten.

Here's a great pet guide and a pet skill calculator.

[nobbie]

A couple of things about pets: you'll want a pet with < 1.5 attack speed for continuous frenzy procs. Also I reccomend getting a cat type pet, their stealth skill is incredibly usefull when you make a bad pull or get unwanted aggro; you can then feign death without having your pet get eaten.

Here's a great pet guide and a pet skill calculator.

Thanks for the pet guide link. So, Stealth is limited to Cats only? That would let me choose a Bear (tank) and a Cat, because the stable slots in BC still don't allow more than two stabled pets (so that you can go out and learn new skills/ranks from a temporary pet).

[Delc]

Get a boar imo. The charge is awesome for soloing, and PvP. Plus they eat everything, including conjured food. Nothing more annoying that getting a bunch of food from mobs that your pet won't eat and having to vendor it and buy something else.

[Luminon]

Thanks for the pet guide link. So, Stealth is limited to Cats only? That would let me choose a Bear (tank) and a Cat, because the stable slots in BC still don't allow more than two stabled pets (so that you can go out and learn new skills/ranks from a temporary pet).

'Tank' pets are overrated IMO, their survivability isn't much better and their aggro generation usually worse. I'd recommend getting a low-maintainance pet, like delc suggested, and one with a type specific skill you like; then see which you prefer playing with.

[nobbie]

I now have two pets - a tank (Big Samras) and a cat (Humar the Pridelord), and am satisfied so far. The bear is a bit more durable when you get i.e. 2 adds during a pull, but versus single targets I can hardly notice a difference. The cat dishes out a bit more damage, and the bear loses a bit less life during the fight. The bear tanked the unique werewolf Fenros in Duskwood notably better, though. He lost less life than the cat, and held aggro better (Fenros = lvl 32, me = lvl 29, bear = lvl 28 at that time). Note that this is the BC expansion, so they might have improved pets.

Another question:

Which of the three leatherworking branches should I take after skill level 225 for my PvE solo Beastmaster build? Tribal and Elemental both look good, but Dragonscale has Mail armor. I'm quite undecided what to take.