Feedback on BM/Mark Template?

[Brista]

Ok, this is my planned build for my Hunter...Any feedback is appreciated...

31 BM/20 MM is an amazingly strong spec, especially for those of us who remember the much more fragile class before the talent revision

First let me say you've got every important thing right. Bestial Swiftness, Frenzy, Ferocity, Unleashed Fury, Bestial Wrath and Intimidation from the BM tree. Lethal shots, Mortal shots and Hawk-eye from MM.

So what I'm offering is just fine tuning on what is a very good, very fun build

BM tree

With BM my view is that the pet tanks just fine and that you should optimise for damage and not worry about making it tougher with talents. In PvP the pet is so tough that you can often get away with sending it alone into a raid full of people, even a cat pet like mine. In PvE solo it tanks an elite or two my level fine, sometimes I'll mend pet but it's pretty tough. In PvE group your pet won't tank and will only off-tank if the tank can't grab AoE aggro. Very rarely will its capacity to survive matter

So let me point you to a very obscure dps talent: Bestial Discipline 2/2 increases focus regeneration of your pet by 20%

Claw 8 costs 25 focus and does 43-59 damage. Focus regenerates at about 20/2 seconds (iirc) so 2/2 Bestial Discipline gives you approx one extra claw attack per 12 seconds, working out to about +4 dps. This is a decent boost for 2 talent points

This assumes you are using Claw as your only auto-cast attack, possibly supplementing it with manual uses of other pet skills (Dash is an awful skill to leave to the AI)

You could perhaps drop to 1/2 Mend Pet - casting Mend Pet will still probably decurse your pet without needing 2/2.

The other choice I would make is to put less points in Endurance Training and go for 5/5 Improved Aspect of the Hawk. I like this buff a lot

Remember that as well as the pet talents you get pet skills too. I maxxed frost and shadow resists and took a lot of extra life and armour on my cat. That's part of the reason why I'm comfortable without the tanky skills from the BM talent tree

MM tree

I really like Aimed Shot. I have the timing down now so that the first split-second an opposing player knows about me is when the pet arrives and the Aimed Shot lands. There is no finer way to open a fight against an unsuspecting player

If you're not worried about pvp then it's more marginal. However +3% Hunter's Mark isn't a lot. It's just over 3 ranged attack power which is about 0.23 dps to your ranged attacks.