Hunter talent discussion

[swirly]

I've been feeling like there is a lack of information here and so figured that a good idea would be to try and start a thread that could add some. Since I have the most experience with hunters, I'll post what I think about some of the talents and others can post what they think about them and about any others that I don't meantion. It seems to me that a thread where people can see what others think about various talents could be a good thing.

Beast Mastery Talents

These are probably the only talents I will really discuss because thats where my experience is. I'd love for somebody to come along and post numbers comparing any damage gains from boosting your pet to any damage gains from boost yourself through the other trees, but that person won't be me.


Level 1

With these talents not requiring any points having been spent in the tree, they are ones that people can give thought to getting in any build.


Improved Aspect of the Hawk
Rank 1/5: Increases the Ranged Attack Power bonus of your Aspect of the Hawk by 4%.
Rank 2/5: Increases the Ranged Attack Power bonus of your Aspect of the Hawk by 8%.
Rank 3/5: Increases the Ranged Attack Power bonus of your Aspect of the Hawk by 12%.
Rank 4/5: Increases the Ranged Attack Power bonus of your Aspect of the Hawk by 16%.
Rank 5/5: Increases the Ranged Attack Power bonus of your Aspect of the Hawk by 20%.

To me, this seems like a good deal. I run around with Aspect of the Hawk on pretty much all the time. So making it give me more damage just seems like something that makes sense to me. Its possible that you may gain more damage from putting 5 points in another skill, but I've not looked into that and so to me this seems like a good place for 5 points.


Endurance Training
Rank 1/5: Increases the Health of your pets by 2%.
Rank 2/5: Increases the Health of your pets by 4%.
Rank 3/5: Increases the Health of your pets by 6%.
Rank 4/5: Increases the Health of your pets by 8%.
Rank 5/5: Increases the Health of your pets by 10%.

This is another talent that I just love. Keeping my pet alive is very important to me. If it dies in a tough fight then there is a good chance that I'm going to be next. So for me, this talent is nice. I can see builds that are centered more on the other trees not caring about this as much. Their thinking would probably be that its more important for them to do as much damage as possible so as to kill the mobs faster and in that way make their pets not need as much life. It could also be less useful for group play where there is another character doing the tanking and so your pet doesn't need to take the hits. So it may really be more of a solo oriented talent.


Level 2

These talents require 5 having been spent in the tree already. Since both of the earlier talents seem useful to me, I don't think its tough to get to this point.


Improved Eyes of the Beast
Rank 1/2: Increases the duration of your Eyes of the Beast by 30 sec.
Rank 2/2: Increases the duration of your Eyes of the Beast by 60 sec.

This talent seems to be useless to me. I've never found a situation where I needed to use Eyes of the Beast and so increasing the duration of it just seems pointless. Maybe there is a use for it that I'm missing (scouting or some such), but I'm doubtful that its a big enough use that its worthy of 2 talent points.


Improved Aspect of the Monkey
Rank 1/3: Increases the Dodge bonus of your Aspect of the Monkey by 1%.
Rank 2/3: Increases the Dodge bonus of your Aspect of the Monkey by 2%.
Rank 3/3/: Increases the Dodge bonus of your Aspect of the Monkey by 3%.

This talent might be useful if you are planning on getting hit alot. Most hunters use their pet so that they don't get hit in most situations. This is not to say that they never take some hits, but the majority of the time it doesn't happen. For the right build this could be a useful talent, but for most of them it seems too situational to be worth the points.


Bestial Discipline
Rank 1/5: Increases the maximum Focus of your pets by 4%.
Rank 2/5: Increases the maximum Focus of your pets by 8%.
Rank 3/5: Increases the maximum Focus of your pets by 12%.
Rank 4/5: Increases the maximum Focus of your pets by 16%.
Rank 5/5: Increases the maximum Focus of your pets by 20%.

This strikes me as an interesting talent. It seems like it could be useful in long fights to help your pet keep aggro or maybe to try and enable a pet to use growl, bite, and claw with them all on auto-cast. I never use it though. It seems interesting and useful, but I just never really have a problem with my pets focus. Generally I run with growl and bite turned on, but with claw turned off. I think that even with 20% more focus, claw would drain your pets focus very fast. So I think that in actual use, its just a talent that proves to not be worth the points.


Level 3

Level 3 requires 10 points having been spent in the tree. Since I don't really like any of the Level 2 talents, I think that if you are planning on going this deep, you should do so by getting both Level 1 talents.


Improved Revive Pet
Rank 1/2: Reduces the casting time of your Revive Pet spell by 2 sec.
Rank 2/2: Reduces the casting time of your Revive Pet spell by 4 sec.

This is another one of those talents that I would call interesting. Its also another one that I don't use. Revive pet has a 10 second casting time I believe, so if you put two points in this, it will reduce it down to 6 seconds. I guess my problem with this skill is that it doesn't really do anything that can help you in combat. All it does really is help you revive your pet after the fight is over. Seems liek kind of a waste. Now, you could maybe use it in combat if your pet dies. I think that in that situation you are likely to be in too much trouble to be able to revive your pet even with the time cut down to 6 seconds. There have been a few fights where I have had enough time to revive my pet, but I'm just not thinking tha tit happens enough to make it useful and also that when it does happen that 4 seconds would make alot of difference. So its really just not worth 2 talent points.


Bestial Swiftness
Rank 1/1: Increases the outdoor movement speed of your pets by 30%.

Another talent that I just love. Technically you could do without it and just wait a little longer for your pet to get somewhere, but the extra speed does really help alot. It increrases the chance that if you send your pet at a mob and then fire off a shot at it, that your pet will be able to pull the aggro off you before the mob gets too close. It also is good for speeding up the handling of adds when they happen. Yet another use is for chasing down mobs that run. Its just useful in so many parts of the game that for 1 point, I think its a must get if you have gone this far into the tree.


Unleashed Fury
Rank 1/5: Increases the damage done by your pets by 2%.
Rank 2/5: Increases the damage done by your pets by 4%.
Rank 3/5: Increases the damage done by your pets by 6%.
Rank 4/5: Increases the damage done by your pets by 8%.
Rank 5/5: Increases the damage done by your pets by 10%.

If you are looking at the Beast Mastery tree, then you are probably wanting to make your pet better. There are two ways to do this. One is to make your pet be able to take more hits. The second is to make your pet do more damage. Obviously this talent is ideal for the second path. Its actually good for the first as well just because there aren't really any other good talents at this Level and you may want to get a talent at a further level. There isn't much to say about it though because its rather simple. More damage is a good thing in my mind.


Pathfinding
Rank 1/5: Increases the speed bonus of your Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack by 1%.
Rank 2/5: Increases the speed bonus of your Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack by 2%.
Rank 3/5: Increases the speed bonus of your Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack by 3%.
Rank 4/5: Increases the speed bonus of your Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack by 4%.
Rank 5/5: Increases the speed bonus of your Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack by 5%.


This talent is kind of like Improved Revive Pet. In most situations, all its going to do is save you time outside of combat. I am hesitant to really say a talent is woth the points if that is all that its going to do. Now, with that said, there are a few combat uses for this. First is running away. More speed while running does seem like it would increase the odds of you successfully getting away. The other is for kiting. With this talent, mayeb you could run away from a mob a ways, jump, turn, shoot, and repeat much easier. This especially applies to PvP where I hear about this more often. (though I've never done any PvP myself) So maybe it could be useful for that reason. I don't know if PvP builds really want to go this deep into the tree for it though. Overall, I think the talent is not worth the points though.


Level 4

Requires 15 points having been spent in the tree. With Unleashed Fury being the only skill in the previous level that I consider worth getting, its probably how you accomplished getting this far.


Thick Hide
Rank 1/5: Increases the Armor rating of your pets by 2%.
Rank 2/5: Increases the Armor rating of your pets by 4%.
Rank 3/5: Increases the Armor rating of your pets by 6%.
Rank 4/5: Increases the Armor rating of your pets by 8%.
Rank 5/5: Increases the Armor rating of your pets by 10%.

This is yet another interesing talent in my mind. Its actually one that I've gotten a few points in and may go back for more. More armor means less damage to my pet and so means it surviving better. This seems especially good on the high armor pets. I just wonder how much it is actually needed though. If a hunter's pet survives just fine without it, then it could be a waste to get it. If a pet starts getting into trouble, then its a very useful talent. Right now I've not really decided about it. I've put a few points in it to fill a gap between levels, but I'm not sure if I will go back and finish it or not. Just kind of depends on how things go as I level farther.


Improved Mend Pet
Rank 1/2: Increases the amount healed by your Mend Pet spell by 5%.
Rank 2/2: Increases the amount healed by your Mend Pet spell by 10%.

Yet another talent for me to show some love. This talent just seems useful quite a bit to me. Its nice after a tough fight when there is another fight you want to get started on quickly. Its also nice in the middle of a tough fight when your pet is trying to hold off some tough add while a party finishes off another mob. Its useful solo as well for when you are fighting tough mobs where its vital that your pet stays alive. Of course, me saying this makes me think that the Thick Hide talent I jus ttalked about is actually very useful. I mean, if I am needing to mend my pet mid-fight, then it would seem that more armor would help me not have to do that so much and so be a godo thing. Either way though, I think that Improved Mend Pet is a great talent that anyone going this far should get. I think that there will always be situations where your pet is doign alot of work and getting beat on pretty harshly and so will need you to be spending some time healing it. This talent helps alot with that and allows you to get in a few more shots between heals.


Ferocity
Rank 1/5: Increases the critical strike chance of your pets by 3%.
Rank 2/5: Increases the critical strike chance of your pets by 6%.
Rank 3/5: Increases the critical strike chance of your pets by 9%.
Rank 4/5: Increases the critical strike chance of your pets by 12%.
Rank 5/5: Increases the critical strike chance of your pets by 15%.

Critical strike pumping talents always seem kind of questionable to me. It just seems to be odd to be going out of your way to pump something that only happens some of the time. Its like you are increasing the inconsistency of your character. Its a big part of the game though and talents that do it are everywhere and are in fact very useful. Its the same with this one. Basically, if you have come this far into the tree then you probably did so with the plan of getting this talent and the one that requires it. Like I said earlier for another talent, more damage is good. So yeah, if you have come this far then you will probably be getting this.


Level 5

This level requires 20 points have been spent in the Beast Mastery tree. What points you spent to get here in the last level is actually the most complicated choice so far in my mind. All three skills in the previous tree seem overly useful and worth getting. The most obvious choice is Ferocity since a skill further down requires it. I actually don't do that though. I generally get Improved Mend Pet and then get 3 points into Ferocity. That gives me the 5 points I need for this level.


Intimidation
Rank 1/1: 290 Mana 30 yd range Instant cast
Increases the threat caused by your pet by 50% for 10 sec.

I've heard people in many places say that new abilites for 1 point are almost always worth it. I find myself questioning them alot of the time though. I mean, if you are only going to use that ability on very rare occasions, then wouldn't the point be better spent somewhere else? Thats kind of how I feel about this one. In most situations my pet gains plenty of aggro as is. So when do I need him to gain 50% more threat for 10 seconds? Maybe if a caster has pulled aggro and you need to get it back real quick. I can see it being very useful for that. It could be especially nice if the caster, for some reason, doesn't stop attacking when he draws it. I guess basically my problem with this is that in a group with smart players it shouldn't be needed. The truth is though that you won't always have that and so maybe its worth it. I have no clue if I willever get it or not though. Currently I'm leaning towards not.


Level 6

Requires 25 points having been spent in this tree. Since the previous level only has 1 skill and it only requires 1 point, there is some filling to do here. Personally, I haven't put the one point into that skill even. Instead I went back and finished maxing Ferocity and then put the rest of the needed points into Thick Hide. I find all the Level 4 skills very useful and so thats where I spent my gap points to get to this level.


Frenzy
Rank 1/5: Gives your pet a 20% chance to gain a 30% attack speed increase for 8 sec after dealing a critical strike.
Rank 2/5: Gives your pet a 40% chance to gain a 30% attack speed increase for 8 sec after dealing a critical strike.
Rank 3/5: Gives your pet a 60% chance to gain a 30% attack speed increase for 8 sec after dealing a critical strike.
Rank 4/5: Gives your pet a 80% chance to gain a 30% attack speed increase for 8 sec after dealing a critical strike.
Rank 5/5: Gives your pet a 100% chance to gain a 30% attack speed increase for 8 sec after dealing a critical strike.

With only this skill and one more remaining, its a good bet that you were already thining about getting this one if you have come this far. Its once again the basic thing I said earlier: more damage is good. Its something that happens on critical strikes again, which makes me kind of grimace. Again though, thats how the game works. I'd imagine that if the mod lives past 8 seconds of this though, then your pet probably would have gotten another critical strike by then and reset the timer I'm assuming that can happen since I haven't gotten to this point yet and so don't really know from experience. If that does work though, then once it goes off I would think that your pet pretty much will have the speed for the rest of the fight. At this point, this is definately a skill you want to get.


Level 7

30 points required. If you got to level 6, then you probably put 5 points into Frenzy and so pretty much have all the points you need for this level.


Spirit Bond
Rank 1/1: 180 Mana 30 yd range Instant cast
Every time your pet strikes an enemy, you gain 20 health.

Another new skill for one point thing. I'm more inclined to use this one. Maybe my problem is that I think mtoo much from a solo point of view and so like this one because it helps me, while not liking the other because it helps somebody else. Anyway, I'm actually slightly borderline on this one. Generally, you shouldn't be getting hit anyway so the 20 health will not do anything. I do wonder if you gaining 20 health from your pet when you are full health causes your pet to gain more aggro because of the over-heals though. Still, the world isn't a perfect place and there will be alot of times when you are taking blows as well. So the life could help with that. It could help counter any area of effect damage you take. Of course, a fast attacking pet would seem to be the best with this ability. I probably am not going to be going for the fastest one and so this becomes a lil less effective. I'll probably still get it though considering I have come this far and its only one point.


After getting Spirit Bond I am probably going to go back and finish maxing out Thick Hide. So if you follow what I think in this tree you are talking about spending 33 points. It would look like this (with all of them maxed):

Improved Aspect of the Hawk
Endurance Training
Improved Mend Pet
Unleashed Fury
Thick Hide
Ferocity
Frenzy
Spirit Bond

Beast Mastery Total: 33

If you get Intimidation then that would push it up to 34 points. I'd consider that the start to a Beast Mastery build. For any non-Beast Mastery centered build I don't think a person could really go past Pathfinding and even that is questionable. Really I think that only the level 1 talents are worth considering for other builds and there are probably builds that don't touch the Beast Mastery tree at all.

I would go into details on the talents in the other trees, but I really haven't spent time looking at them because I went this route. So instead I'll leave those talents up to somebody else to discuss.

Time for everyone else to chime in with their thoughts on talents. Feel free to post your thoughts on ones I have listed or on any of the others. The more info the better.

[Pesmerga]

It's 7:30 in the morning here, so I'm not quite ready to post anything extremely coherent. But I do, however, plan on posting my Hunter build for alll to see, and offer some insight into the variety of skills and talents a hunter uses.

It's an interesting build (at least in my opionion) and uses very very little in the way of ranged attacks. Check back in about 2 hours and I should have something coherent.

[Pesmerga]

It's 7:30 in the morning here, so I'm not quite ready to post anything extremely coherent.  But I do, however, plan on posting my Hunter build for alll to see, and offer some insight into the variety of skills and talents a hunter uses.

It's an interesting build (at least in my opionion) and uses very very little in the way of ranged attacks.  Check back in about 2 hours and I should have something coherent.
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Ok, I was wrong. I can't find my write-up. Anybody interested will have to wait a little bit longer :(

I'm bad at life.

[Ruvanal]

I do agree with your thoughts on the first three levels of the beastial talents. After that though I do have some different thoughts on some of the matters.

At level 4 on the comparison between Thick Hide and Improved Mend Pet; I would consider the Thick Hide far more important for many builds over the Improved Mend Pet. My pet is regularly being beat upon by one one or more mobs and the constant no-mana cost of this skill at helping to keep the pet going is very valuable. I am usually cycling through various specialty shots to increase my overall DPS output and that will leave me with little mana to spare to be mending the pet in many cases. Also with the pets downtime between fights, this can usually be tolerated since I often use bandages for the quick fix then so that I recover my own mana for the next fight. If I also have extra pet food supplies (which I all to often do) I can readily tolerate the unhappiness ding of just letting the pet use its natural fast hit point recovery.

Now for the comment on the Ferocity. I consider it probably the best of the three talents at this level. I also consider one of your conclusions on this to be rater flawed.

Ferocity

Rank 1/5: Increases the critical strike chance of your pets by 3%.
Rank 2/5: Increases the critical strike chance of your pets by 6%.
Rank 3/5: Increases the critical strike chance of your pets by 9%.
Rank 4/5: Increases the critical strike chance of your pets by 12%.
Rank 5/5: Increases the critical strike chance of your pets by 15%.

Critical strike pumping talents always seem kind of questionable to me.  It just seems to be odd to be going out of your way to pump something that only happens some of the time.  Its like you are increasing the inconsistency of your character.  Its a big part of the game though and talents that do it are everywhere and are in fact very useful.  Its the same with this one.  Basically, if you have come this far into the tree then you probably did so with the plan of getting this talent and the one that requires it.  Like I said earlier for another talent, more damage is good.  So yeah, if you have come this far then you will probably be getting this.

This talent is in fact decreasing the inconsistancy of your character. Most chances for a critical strike are falling in the 5% to 10% range unless modified in some way. Say your pets crit chance is 10% and that it can expect to get 20 strikes in on a mob (or multiple set of mobs) in a short fight. At this point you might get 2 crit hits in this time spam but it could easily be anywhere from 1 to 3 crit hits. That is fairly inconsistent. But if you have the Ferocity at max, then the chance of crits on those ~20 attacks is now up to 25%. This yields an average of 5 crits in that same span of time time with the distribution still mostly in +/-1 spread for 4 to 6 critical hits. This is far more predictable in what you could expect to see for the pets damage output. This also can help at the pet holding the aggro due to the higher damage output and in getting the through the mobs faster by the DPS boost.

This higher chance of the crits happening will also help with the Frenzy at level 6 since with a more consistent rate of getting the crits, it is far more likely that once the pet gets its first crit, it is more likely that the pet will stay in Frenzy mode until the end of all the fighting due to the more frequent kick-offs of the process.

I do agree with your thoughts on Intimidation and Frenzy.

On the Spirit Bond, I would find it more useful to what I have been encountering in play than you seem to be encountering. I am fairly regularly having to off-tank an add or one of the mobs in a group while still firing at a primary target. I do not consider this bad if I can pick to make sure the mob attacking me is not a fast and/or high DPS damage dealer. If my hit points and armor damage mitigation are not getting used, then one of the aspects of the hunter/pet duo is effectively not being used for maximum effect. I too can do some hit point recovery after a fight at the same time as my pet when taking the food->hit point recovery route. This is effectively giving a double recovery rate for being able to go to the next fight along with the effectively larger hit point pool that was used to get through some multi-mob encounters. With the Spirit Bond regularly giving me 20 hit points per pet hit, this can greatly extend my capacity to off-tank an add in many fights.

So with what I am looking at, a build of :
Improved Aspect of the Hawk
Endurance Training
Unleashed Fury
Thick Hide
Ferocity
Frenzy
Spirit Bond

Beast Mastery Total: 31

This would save 2 points off of what doing for being put into another tree. With the game currently and for anytime in the forseeable future having an overall limit of 51 talent points at level 60, this allows a full 20 points for being able to max a 4th level talent that requires 5 talent points in one of the other trees.

[Thecla]

This is a well-timed question, since I'm not sure what to do at this point with my hunters talents. I have gone almost pure marksmanship, since I want to play an "archer" rather than a "beastlord". Melee talents for PvE hunters in the survival tree seem almost useless to me. I don't use traps much, useful as they may be -- I can't be bothered with them.

If there's a general problem with going all marksmanship, it's that your da becomes so high you have to watch pulling aggro carefully, and if you happen to crit a few times in a row, you may not be able to avoid it. (But that's what disengage and feign death are for...)

My guess is that a build that focuses on improving the pet will do significantly less da than a marksmanship hunter, but it will be more consistent and make it easier for the pet to hold aggro.

A few comments from my personal perspective (with a lvl 48 hunter, so I can't say what the talents are like in the end game):

Improved Concussive Shot (Lvl 1)
Rank 5 20% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds.

This is a great talent, one of the best. I use concussive shot all the time, and mobs don't like getting stunned any more than you do.


Efficiency (Lvl 1)
Rank 5 Reduces the Mana cost of your Shots and Stings by -10%.

Not such a great talent, but still useful at higher lvls when higher lvl bow attacks take more mana. I took this to get the necessary prereqs for higher lvls, but I'm glad to have it.

Improved Hunter's Mark (Lvl 2)
Rank 5 Increases the Ranged Attack Power bonus of your Hunter's Mark spell by 15%.

I still have very little clue exactly how the various factors add to da; however, currently a +attack power of 10 adds roughly 1% to my dps, so I'm not a big fan of it. 5 talents points here seem rather wasted, especially since I don't always mark my targets. Skipped this one.


Lethal Shots (Lvl 2)
Rank 5 Increases your critical strike chance with ranged weapons by 5%.

Another great talent -- crits do a lot of da, and really add to your killing rate.

Aimed Shot (Lvl 3)
Rank 1 An aimed shot that increases ranged damage by 70.

You can then train higher ranks of this talent (at Rank 4 it add 330 ranged da).

It's a fun skill to have, but I haven't found a good role for aimed shot in PvE. You don't want to open fights with a high da shot (the reverse -- I usually tap the auto shoot key twice to fire one normal arrow) since you want your pet to take the aggro, and it's slow to use as a finisher. If it misses, or is deflected, which seems to happen quite frequently, you spent a lot of time for nothing.


Improved Arcane Shot (Lvl 3)
Rank 5 Reduces the cooldown of your Arcane Shot by -1.0 sec.

I use arcane shot all the time, often alternating with multishot especially vs a single target, but you want to modulate your damage, so I'm not sure that being able to fire arcane shot more frequently is worthwhile. I didn't take this one, so I haven't tried it out.


Barrage (Lvl 3)
Rank 2 Increases the damage done by your Multi-Shot and Volley spells by 10%.

Initially I wasn't going to learn this talent -- until I tried out Multi-Shot, which is a really strong da dealer, and also useful for pulling adds off your pet and onto you. A 10% da increase in Multi-Shot from 2 talent points is a great deal IMO. Volley looks impressive, but it's rarely useful.


Improved Serpent Sting (Lvl 4)
Rank 5 Increases the damage done by your Serpent Sting by 10%.

Sepent sting is a useful lowish da dot -- one of the few hunters have -- so I use it all the time. But 5 talent points for a 10% increase in a lowish da skill seems like a lot. Nevertheless, this is one place I might put additional points, since it is a skill I use all the time.


Mortal Shots (Lvl 4)
Rank 5 Increases your ranged weapon critical strike damage bonus by 50%.

Here's where your crits really add up, and multiplicative in benefits with the increased crit rate.


Scatter Shot (Lvl 5)
Rank A short-range shot that deals 50% weapon damage and confuses the target for 4 seconds. Any damage caused will remove the effect.

I have to say I don't use this much -- disengage and feign death are easier ways to get out of trouble. But AFAIK it interrupts spell casters, so I may not be using it to its best effect.

Hawk Eye (Lvl 5)
Rank 3 Increases the range of your ranged weapons by 6 yards.

What more do you need to say? What archer doesn't want more range? A great skill, though much more useful outside that in instances.

Improved Scorpid Sting (Lvl 5)
Rank 3 Reduces the Stamina of targets affected by your Scorpid Sting by 30% of the amount of Strength reduced.

Similar issues to improved serpent sting.

Ranged Weapon Specialization (Lvl 6)
Rank 5 Increases the damage you deal with ranged weapons by 5%.

What more do you need to say? What archer doesn't want more damage? And a completely passive effect -- no stupid aspects or marks to worry about.

Trueshot Aura (Lvl 7)
Rank 1 Increases the Ranged and Melee Attack Power of party members within 30 yards by 30.

You have to take it having got this far. It's one of the few party buffs that hunters have, but it's not that great (around 3% in damage for my character, so long as I rememebr to keep it on), and it wouldn't be the reason to go down this talent tree.


And just a few comments on the beast talents (which I haven't tried, with one exception).

Improved Aspect of the Hawk
Rank 5/5: Increases the Ranged Attack Power bonus of your Aspect of the Hawk by 20%.

Better than improved hunter's mark, but again the damage bonus you get is rather uninspiring to me -- but I could see taking this talent if nothing else looks better.

Endurance Training
Rank 5/5: Increases the Health of your pets by 10%.

The one talent I have in this tree --- my approach is to let my pet tank while I do the damage (though the pet da does help out even with no additional talent boosts). Another 10% life is great

Improved Eyes of the Beast

What were they thinking?

Bestial Discipline

The only focus problems I have with my pet is when it runs out of focus. Who needs more? Not me.


Improved Revive Pet

Maybe it will make your party happy to spend less time waiting for you to revive your pet :P

Bestial Swiftness
Rank 1/1: Increases the outdoor movement speed of your pets by 30%.

I would like this one! (Though my understanding is it's currently bugged.)


Improved Mend Pet
Rank 1/2: Increases the amount healed by your Mend Pet spell by 5%.
Rank 2/2: Increases the amount healed by your Mend Pet spell by 10%.

And this one! Mend pet is a great skill. Using it, one can solo +2 elites, +4 normal mobs, or 2-3 even-+ lvl normal monsters. Pet + Mend pet + Ranged attack makes the hunter into a little mini tank/healer/dps group. Tough fights with lots of mend pet is basically the only time I run out of mana.

[swirly]

Now for the comment on the Ferocity.  I consider it probably the best of the three talents at this level.  I also consider one of your conclusions on this to be rater flawed.

This talent is in fact decreasing the inconsistancy of your character.
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You are correct. It was a late night misread on my part. I read it as increasing the damage when you get a critical instead of as increasing the rate at which you get them. Thanks for the correction.

[playingtokrush]

Improved Eyes of the Beast

What were they thinking?

Bestial Discipline

The only focus problems I have with my pet is when it runs out of focus. Who needs more? Not me.
Improved Revive Pet

Maybe it will make your party happy to spend less time waiting for you to revive your pet :P

Unfortunately, I agree. Every class has an assortment of talents that are truly terrible. Blizzard really needs to give the talent trees a once-over and consider revamping some of the ones that are terrible and never used in any but the most sketchy talent builds. I won't hold my breath though, as there is a lot of balancing and refinement WoW needs that I don't think it's going to be getting. : (

[Bob the Beholder]

My hunter is going almost pure marksmanship, with bits of survival thrown in for some PvP functionality, what with my being on a pvp server and all.

Improved Conussive Shot: No. I see no purpose for concussive shot in pve, and, I have found, there are better ways of stunning/getting away from an enemy in pvp.

In pve, once I got my pet, I never needed it. So far, I can draw with an aimed shot, serpent sting, and spam all the arcane I want--I once hit about 95 dps--and my bear rarely loses aggro. And if he does? Disengage, wing clip--by this point the pet's usually hit another growl and pulled the enemy back, so I can just back up a few feet for the finish.

PvP? All I've seen, if an enemy wants to get close to you, then he's going to. And no matter if you managed to do some extra damage by then, he's doing more to you, and you have to do something about it. And 'something' has nothing to do with concussive shot. Especially with a twelve second cool down--something you can only use once per battle, and only if you get the drop on the enemy (which, granted, you should, with all that tracking) is not something I want to waste five talent points to improve.

Efficiency: Lower mana cost! Sure! This really only matters in long battles, and when you're going to be jumping from one enemy to another in quick fashion. Long battles will happen, however, and a drop in down-time between battles is always good.

Improved Hunter's Mark: Woo, small bonus to a slightly less small bonus. It adds up if you bother maxing it, I guess, but that's a lot of talent points for 15% applied to a maximum of 110, at level 58.

Lethal Shots: More criticals is more damage, and more damage is more dead enemies. Simple, no?

Aimed Shot: Big damage, long attack speed. Heavy damage per shot. Not very useful, really. Interrupts your other attacks, and doesn't really do the damage to make up for them. So it seems to lower my average DPS--and that big damage spike certainly can pull aggro if you aren't careful with where you place 'em.

Only major use I can think of for it is when you've got the drop on someone in pvp--all that attacking speed goes on before you get noticed, and, BAM, a nice big number to accompany all the smaller ones you're about to conjure above the enemy's head. Also good for the freakout value--"Ocrapthat'salotofdamageI'mgunnadieI'mgunnadie"

I don't use it much, even in pvp. Mainly because I tend not to attack enemies unless they attack me or an ally, and if he hasn't seen me, and isn't attacking me, then I'm not gonna take all that time to hurt him.

Improved Arcane Shot: More Arcane Shot is more damage. Not hard to understand, here.

Barrage: Haven't used Multi-shot much, and I don't have Volley yet. Heavy damage to one target is the most effective style of play that I've found so far, so I'd be wasting half the talent in most situations anyway.


Improved Serpent Sting: More damage is good. But this really isn't enough damage to pull points away from other talents around this level, I think.

Mortal Shots: With lethal shots, you crit more. With this, your crits are more effective. One is good, the other is good, both together are more than good.

Scatter Shot: Emergency use? Yup. If you don't want a target on you, then you can get him off of you, if only for a few seconds. Long cooldown, though, so it's not something you want to need more than once.

Hawk Eye: More range is good. That's pretty simple too, eh?

Improved Scorpid Sting: Scorpid Sting is really nice in certain situations. This makes it even more nice. But it's three talent points to improve something that works all right as it is, and which you probably won't be using all that often.

Ranged Weapon Specialization: Damage is good. More damage is better. Pretty straightforward.

Trueshot Aura: Damage? Why no, I don't want any of that. *shifty eyes*


And... I'm kind of rambling now, so I'm gonna stop, for at least a while.

[Thecla]

My hunter is going almost pure marksmanship, with bits of survival thrown in for some PvP functionality, what with my being on a pvp server and all.

I agree with most of what you say, and really like the marksmanship talents for the most part -- but just a couple of disagreements :) (for straight PvE).

Improved Conussive Shot:  No.  I see no purpose for concussive shot in pve, and, I have found, there are better ways of stunning/getting away from an enemy in pvp.

Concussive shot is great in PvE, but not as means of escape. It's one of my bread-and-butter attacks, along with auto-shoot, serpent sting, arcane shot, and multi-shot.

Especially in any longer fight, I fire concussive shot right at the start (maybe after a normal attack and a sting), and refire it whenever it bccomes available again. It doesn't seem to attract more aggro than a normal shot. Any time the stun goes off it protects your pet (particularly useful if there are adds) and lets you do basically free damage for a few seconds. Taking a monster out of the battle is a huge plus.

Its other big use is to stop runners, and one can time the concussive shots to hit monsters that flee right before their health drops to the level that they run. The stun chance from the talent isn't high enough for you to rely on it in a consistent way, but it is still really useful IMHO.

Improved Arcane Shot:  More Arcane Shot is more damage.  Not hard to understand, here. 

I haven't picked this one up -- maybe I should. But I also find that I have plenty to do as it is while waiting for arcane to recharge. Multi-shot is on a separate timer, so it often substitutes for a second arcane shot, and other times you actually want to reduce your da output. So I'm still not sure about this one...How have you found it? The place I could see using it is in instances on occasions when multi-shot risks breaking sheeped/sapped mobs.

Barrage:  Haven't used Multi-shot much, and I don't have Volley yet.  Heavy damage to one target is the most effective style of play that I've found so far, so I'd be wasting half the talent in most situations anyway.

Try multi-shot some more then and see what you think! One of it's best uses is exactly to deal heavy damage to a single target. If there's only one target, all three missiles hit that target (Edit: checking it again, I'm not so sure that this is what really happens, but MS does deal out a lot of damage against a single target, whatever the mechanism). It does more damage than arcane shot (maybe you have to its lvl up a bit, I'm not sure), and it's on a completely separate timer. IMO Multi-shot is one of the very best ranged attacks a hunter has. Volley, on the other hand, is pretty useless.

[Bob the Beholder]

Especially in any longer fight, I fire concussive shot right at the start (maybe after a normal attack and a sting), and refire it whenever it bccomes available again. It doesn't seem to attract more aggro than a normal shot. Any time the stun goes off it protects  your pet (particularly useful if there are adds) and lets you do basically free damage for a few seconds. Taking a monster out of the battle is a huge plus.
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Yeah, this is the main use I could think of... about thirty seconds after I posted. But, at this point in my hunting career, while an occasional respite for Balio (my bear) would be kind of cool, it's not really necessary. He can survive a mob my level and three adds of the same type, and he can also survive a yeti four levels higher than me. Later on, I imagine, when enemies last longer and hit harder, this will become more important, and in the inevitable re-spec, I'll probably skip Efficiency for Imp. Concussive Shot.

One of it's best uses is exactly to deal heavy damage to a single target. If there's only one target, all three missiles hit that target. It does more damage than arcane shot (maybe you have to its lvl up a bit, I'm not sure), and it's on a completely separate timer.
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Really? All three loaded on to one target? That's awesome. As you may be able to tell, 'haven't used multi-shot much' means that I tried it once, and figured it was only for group situations where you have to fight bunches of weaker enemies. I will definitely have to look into that.

Of course, all this stuff I'm talking about not wasting talent points, my current talent build is so goofily everywhere that I'm almost ashamed to show it to anyone. It's what I get for putting in all of my points before actually coming up with a plan for them. (I was kind of a newbie back then.)

[Ruvanal]

Try multi-shot some more then and see what you think! One of it's best uses is exactly  to deal heavy damage to a single target. If there's only one target, all three missiles hit that target (Edit: checking it again, I'm not so sure that this is what really happens, but MS does deal out a lot of damage against a single target, whatever the mechanism). It does more  damage than arcane shot (maybe you have to  its lvl up a bit, I'm not sure), and it's on a completely separate timer. IMO Multi-shot is one of the very  best ranged attacks a hunter has. Volley, on the other hand, is pretty useless.
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Only one missile per target with up to three missiles with the Multi-Shot skill. The extra damage you are seeing is from the skill itself.

Multi-Shot (Rank 1)
Fires several missiles, hitting 3 targets.
No damage bonus on this one, but you do get normal damage to all 3 targets.

Multi-Shot (Rank 2)
Fires several missiles, hitting 3 targets for an additional 40 damage.
I did not look at this real close, but I think that the damage bonus is to each of the 3 shots.

Multi-Shot (Rank 3)
Fires several missiles, hitting 3 targets for an additional 80 damage.

Multi-Shot (Rank 4)
Fires several missiles, hitting 3 targets for an additional 120 damage.

The damage bonus on the higher ranks is nice. This is particularly ture when there are several close spaced mobs that havew had their aggro locked down already by tanks. I suspect that many plyers are not looking too close at the skill descriptions after the first rank to notice that they have a damage bonus on them. Also for many players, the first times of using the skill probably gave them a not too pleasant experience as they likely ended up pulling the aggro of two mobs onto themselves when their pet had only gained an aggro lock on mob in the group. That type of experince will have many players swearing of a skill and not playing around with it more later to see where and how it should be used.

Even though it does not put all three shots onto a single mob, it does give a nice damage boost (weapon damage+bonus) in fight using a instant fire weapon skill.

[Zelc]

Does anyone know if the talent Barrage applies only to the added damage on Multishot or if it applies to the total damage?

[playingtokrush]

Does anyone know if the talent Barrage applies only to the added damage on Multishot or if it applies to the total damage?
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Total damage.

[Thecla]

Does anyone know if the talent Barrage applies only to the added damage on Multishot or if it applies to the total damage?
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It's a good question. The character screen (for what little or nothing it is worth) shows my lvl 3 multi-shot as adding +88 damage, which looks like the +80 da for a lvl 3 multi-shot plus a 10% bonus from the +2 Barrage talent.

I tried out a quick practical test and recorded 40 pairs of non-critical auto-shot and multi-shot damages on immediately subsequent hits vs a single target. It wasn't well controlled -- I mostly had on hunter's mark, aspect of the hawk, and trueshot aura, but not always. However, the auras were always the same for each pair of damages I recorded. The auto-shot damages ranged from 104--168; the multi-shot damages ranged from 165--234; and the differences (multishot da - autoshot da) in each pair ranged from 46--98.

The mean auto-shot da was 134 and the mean multi-shot damage was 202, significantly less than the supposed +80 bonus (let alone the +88) that multi-shot should provide, so who knows how it really works. It's still a great skill :)

[swirly]

I've taken the time to look over the survival talents just so I could post about them.

Survival

These are talents aimed at a melee hunter. As such it is the tree most neglected. The majority of hunters want to stay at range as often as possible and so go either Markmanship to increase their ranged skills or Beast Mastery to increase their pet skills which allows them to stand back at range easier. If a person wanted to make a build around the Survival tree though, it does feel like it might be possible. It would take alot more micro managing of your pet though I think because wit ha survival build YOU are wanting to be the one the mob tries to hit. So you will have your pet probably using cower instead of growl, except for with add control. So thus there could be a lot of switching between growl and cower.


Level 1

Usually these are the talents that are easiest to get in any build. So often you will find talents at this level that are more generally usesful. This is actually not the case with the Survival tree though. Both other trees tend to cancel this tree out and so it is less used even at this level.


Precision
Rank 1/5: Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 1%.
Rank 2/5: Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 2%.
Rank 3/5: Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 3%.
Rank 4/5: Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 4%.
Rank 5/5: Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 5%.

I often consider these talents to be a kind of waste. A player just doesn't miss often enough to really make this useful. Maybe it would be useful with dual wielding because it will cancel out some of the higher miss chance that comes from that. I've heard some people recommend dual weilding for interupting mages in PvP and its not too bad in PvE either (though I would probably go with a big two handed weapon instead myself). Some PvP builds like to get to level 2 in this tree and so this is possibly the better level 1 skill for those who are just going that far.

So overall I find this talent lacking, but while looking to build a Survival based build I found that I would get to level 55 and have no abilities that I really wanted to get. I also ran into a few places where there were gaps to fill to get to the next tree. So this skill could end up getting maxed just because its the lesser of the bad skills.

Improved Raptor Strike
Rank 1/5: Reduces the cooldown of your Raptor Strike by 0.2 sec.
Rank 2/5: Reduces the cooldown of your Raptor Strike by 0.4 sec.
Rank 3/5: Reduces the cooldown of your Raptor Strike by 0.6 sec.
Rank 4/5: Reduces the cooldown of your Raptor Strike by 0.7 sec.
Rank 5/5: Reduces the cooldown of your Raptor Strike by 1.0 sec.

This seems like the better of the two skills at this level for a Survival hunter. Raptor Strike is one of the few special attacks a melee hunter gets and so the ability to use it more often should be something that will be good for the build. Basically it ups your damage output some.


Level 2

I find it interesting that this level can be a goal level for PvP builds, but that for PvE Survival Tree oriented builds it feels like not such a good level. Requires 5 points in level 1 which I'd put in Precision for a PvP build and Improved Raptor Strike for a PvE Survival build.


Entrapment
Rank 1/5: Gives your Immolation Trap, Frost Trap, and Explosive Trap a 5% chance to entrap the target, preventing them from moving for 5 sec.
Rank 2/5: Gives your Immolation Trap, Frost Trap, and Explosive Trap a 10% chance to entrap the target, preventing them from moving for 5 sec.
Rank 3/5: Gives your Immolation Trap, Frost Trap, and Explosive Trap a 15% chance to entrap the target, preventing them from moving for 5 sec.
Rank 4/5: Gives your Immolation Trap, Frost Trap, and Explosive Trap a 20% chance to entrap the target, preventing them from moving for 5 sec.
Rank 5/5: Gives your Immolation Trap, Frost Trap, and Explosive Trap a 25% chance to entrap the target, preventing them from moving for 5 sec.

This seems like an interesting skill. The chance to entrap a mob 25% of the time should be good right? To be honest though, I don't think it is any good. For a Survival build. you are going to be meleeing the mob. So its not going to be moving anyway. For a PvP build, you could do it at the beginning of a fight and maybe the entrapment would be useful,. but there are just so many better places for your talent points really. Its just too awkward to use really. For a Beast Mastery build its also not muc huse because the mob isn't going to be moving while fighting your pet. So it ends up seeming pointless to me. Now, if you could lay traps while in combat, then it might be more useful. Maybe then you could lay one, let it entrap, then back away. Even in this case though, I think you might use Freezing Trap instead since you want the guaranteed stop instead of the chance for one and don't care as much about damage.


Lightning Reflexes
Rank 1/3: Increases your Dodge chance by 1%.
Rank 2/3: Increases your Dodge chance by 2%.
Rank 3/3: Increases your Dodge chance by 3%.

At 3% this seems like a small amount. A Survival build wants to dodge as often as possible because they can use a special whenever they dodge and so this is definately a skill you want to take. It also might be useful for PvP, though I'm unsure if it is worth the points or not. Overall this is a good skill though.


Improved Wing Clip
Rank 1/5: Gives your Wing Clip ability a 4% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.
Rank 2/5: Gives your Wing Clip ability a 8% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.
Rank 3/5: Gives your Wing Clip ability a 12% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.
Rank 4/5: Gives your Wing Clip ability a 16% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.
Rank 5/5: Gives your Wing Clip ability a 20% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.

This talent has some of the same downfalls as Entrapment. For a Beast Mastery or Survival build mobs won't be moving anyway and so the talent is waste. Wing Clip is often useful in PvP though and so giving it a chance to immobilize and thus letting you get away even easier can be very nice. So its a skill to consider for that.


Level 3

At this level you start to get to where the only Build is a Survival Build. The PvP consideraton drops off quite a bit. Requiring 10 points, I tend to find that there is a bit of a gap here. The only level 2 talent I find good for a Survival Build is Lightning Reflexes. That talent only takes 3 points though and so you have 2 more to spend. I'd probably go back and put them in Precision in order to get to this level.


Improved Immolation Trap
Rank 1/5: Increases the damage done by your Immolation Trap by 3%.
Rank 2/5: Increases the damage done by your Immolation Trap by 6%.
Rank 3/5: Increases the damage done by your Immolation Trap by 9%.
Rank 4/5: Increases the damage done by your Immolation Trap by 12%.
Rank 5/5: Increases the damage done by your Immolation Trap by 15%.

In a Survival build you basically have two choices. Either to pump your traps or try and pump your pet a little bit. My feeling is that you just don't have enough extra skill points to pump your pet enough to matter. So my that would lean me towards pumping my damage traps some. This talent adds 15% to your Immolation Trap, which does 690 at Rank 5. So it adds, roughly, an extra 100 fire damage. Seems worth it to me.


Improved Mongoose Bite
Rank 1/5: Increases the damage done by your Mongoose Bite ability by 4%.
Rank 2/5: Increases the damage done by your Mongoose Bite ability by 8%.
Rank 3/5: Increases the damage done by your Mongoose Bite ability by 12%.
Rank 4/5: Increases the damage done by your Mongoose Bite ability by 16%.
Rank 5/5: Increases the damage done by your Mongoose Bite ability by 20%.

Mongoose Bite is one of your few melee attacks other than Raptor Strike. Its also the reason that you want alot of dodge. (other than just taking less damage of course) Increasing the damage for one of your main abilities is always a good thing.


Deterrence
Rank 1/1: Instant 5 min cooldown
When activated, increases your Dodge and Parry chance by 25% for 10 sec.

Both dodge and parry not only help you survive longer, but have attacks keyed off of when they happen. So while you can't do it often because of the cooldown, it could be very useful in a tough fight. Definately worth the 1 point I think.


Level 4

Requires 15 points in the tree. 5 in Mongoose bite will get you here, but I like Deterrence too so if you want both, you will have to decide when you want to put the extra poitn in the last tree.


Improved Freezing Trap
Rank 1/3: Increases the duration of your Freezing Trap by 2 sec.
Rank 2/3: Increases the duration of your Freezing Trap by 4 sec.
Rank 3/3: Increases the duration of your Freezing Trap by 6 sec.

Since Freezing Trap breaks with any attack and can't be laid during combat, it seems to not be all that useful for a Survival Hunter. The increased time could maybe me used to help handle an add that you knew was coming, but in general I think its just a waste.


Improved Disengage
Rank 1/2: Increases the amount of Threat reduced by your Disengage ability by 10%.
Rank 2/2: Increases the amount of Threat reduced by your Disengage ability by 20%.

What? You want to reduce your threat? No! As a Survival hunter you want to be getting hit so you can dodge and parry. You want as much threat as possible. So this seems like a bad deal. Might be useful in groups where there is a main tank, but I think normal Disengage would be fine for that. Could maybe help get out of a fight that you are losing, but I think that overall its not that worthwhile. It did just occur to me though that maybe you could disengage, let your pet keep the mob where it is, lay a trap, then re-engage. If that works (and your pet keeps attacking after a disengage and doesn't bring you back in combat mode) then it could maybe me interesting to use. So maybe instead of going back and maxing Precision, you could put some 2 points in this. Thats only if it allows you to effectively lay a trap in combat.


Deflection
Rank 1/5: Increases your Parry chance by 1%.
Rank 2/5: Increases your Parry chance by 2%.
Rank 3/5: Increases your Parry chance by 3%.
Rank 4/5: Increases your Parry chance by 4%.
Rank 5/5: Increases your Parry chance by 5%.

Pretty similiar to Lightning Reflexes, this skill both helps you survive and increases how often you can use a special. Seems like a good thing to me.


Level 5

Deflection seems to be the way to go to get the 20 required points that you need to access this level. After writing about Disengage though, I'm starting to wonder if it could be useful as well. Something to consider.


Improved Frost Trap
Rank 1/2: Increases the duration of your Frost Trap's movement slowing effect by 1.5 sec.
Rank 2/2: Increases the duration of your Frost Trap's movement slowing effect by 3.0 sec.

Once again, you are going to be meleeing the mob. I don't see any use to slowing its speed if you are going to be running up to it.


Savage Strikes
Rank 1/5: Increases your critical strike chance with melee weapons by 1%.
Rank 2/5: Increases your critical strike chance with melee weapons by 2%.
Rank 3/5: Increases your critical strike chance with melee weapons by 3%.
Rank 4/5: Increases your critical strike chance with melee weapons by 4%.
Rank 5/5: Increases your critical strike chance with melee weapons by 5%.

More critical strikes means more damage and more hate. Both things you want for this build. So this is an easy skill to choose.


Counterattack
Rank 1/1: 45 Mana 5 yd range Instant cast 5 sec cooldown
A strike that becomes active after parrying an opponent's attack. This attack deals 40 damage and immobilizes the target for 5 sec. Counterattack cannot be blocked, dodged, or parried.

I look at this as the Mongoose Bite for parrying. It could actually be slightly better in that it can't be blocked, dodged, or parried and so is almost a guaranteed connect. (you could still miss) I'm not sure how the immobilize helps any though.


Level 6

Requires 25 points. With 6 points being worthwhile in the last level, this should be easy to get to.


Improved Explosive Trap
Rank 1/2: Increases the initial damage done by your Explosive Trap by 30%.
Rank 2/2: Increases the initial damage done by your Explosive Trap by 60%.

This adds, roughly, 120-150 initial damage to your Exploding Trap. This feels like a good investment to me. You can only have 1 trap out at a time and so can't use both Exploding and Immolation, but they kind of serve different purposes. Immolation is for single targets and Exploding is for groups. So I think it is fine to pump them both.


Melee Specialization
Rank 1/5: Increases the damage you deal with melee weapons by 1%.
Rank 2/5: Increases the damage you deal with melee weapons by 2%.
Rank 3/5: Increases the damage you deal with melee weapons by 3%.
Rank 4/5: Increases the damage you deal with melee weapons by 4%.
Rank 5/5: Increases the damage you deal with melee weapons by 5%.

Well, 5% doesn't feel like alot, but more damage is always good. So definately a taker.


Level 7

Both level 6 abilities are worth the points in my mind and so the 30 point requirement here is no problem.


Lacerate
Rank 1/1: 65 Mana 5 yd range Instant cast Requires Melee Weapon
Wounds the target causing them to bleed for 77 damage over 21 sec.

At one point and with you having already spent the requirements to get here, I can't see why you wouldn't take this. Its only 77 damage and is over a long time, but it is more damage.


So, where does that leave this build? Lets see:

Improved Raptor Strike
Precision
Lightning Reflexes
Improved Mongoose Bite
Deterrence
Improved Immolation Trap
Deflection
Melee Specialization
Counterattack
Improved Explosive Trap
Savage Strikes
Lacerate

Survival Total: 40

Thats only counting 2 points in Precision. This leaves you 11 points to spend. I think that Aspect of the Monkey is perfect here and so I would put 5 in Endurance training and then 3 in Improved Aspect of the Monkey. (both in the Beast Mastery tree of course) So thats 8 points down, leaving 3 points. These can go anywhere you want. I'd say either Improved Disengage (if it works so that you can lay another trap mid-fight) or finish maxing Precision.


Overall, I would say that the Survival tree is the weakest of the three. It does feel like there is a build to be had in it though. I just don't know how well such a build would actually do.

edit: capitalization of a skill reference

[Xanthix]

Lacerate
Rank 1/1: 65 Mana 5 yd range Instant cast Requires Melee Weapon
Wounds the target causing them to bleed for 77 damage over 21 sec.

At one point and with you having already spent the requirements to get here, I can't see why you wouldn't take this.  Its only 77 damage and is over a long time, but it is more damage.
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Many of the Talent-gained skills have further levels beyond what just the talent gives you. For example you can get Lacerate rank 2 at 50 and rank 3 at 60. However the later ranks of many of the lackluster talent-gained skills are also lackluster. For example Lacerate rank 3 does 133 bleed damage over 21 seconds. At level 60, this is not too impressive. But I think Blizzard knows a lot of talents could use some buffing, and it's on their to-do list. :)

[playingtokrush]

But I think Blizzard knows a lot of talents could use some buffing, and it's on their to-do list. :)

I hope so, because Lacerate is easily in the top 5 worst "ultimate" talents.

[smithy]

It's a good question. The character screen (for what little or nothing it is worth) shows my lvl 3 multi-shot as adding +88 damage, which looks like the +80 da for a lvl 3 multi-shot plus a 10% bonus from the +2 Barrage talent.

I tried out a quick practical test and recorded 40 pairs of non-critical auto-shot and multi-shot damages on immediately subsequent hits vs a single target. It wasn't well controlled -- I mostly had on hunter's mark, aspect of the hawk,  and trueshot aura, but not always. However, the auras were always the same for each pair of damages I recorded. The auto-shot damages ranged from 104--168; the multi-shot damages ranged from 165--234; and the differences (multishot da - autoshot da) in each pair ranged from 46--98.

The mean auto-shot da was 134 and the mean multi-shot damage was 202, significantly less than the supposed +80 bonus (let alone the +88) that multi-shot should provide, so who knows how it really works. It's still a great skill :)
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"The mean auto-shot da was 134 and the mean multi-shot damage was 202, significantly less than the supposed +80 bonus (let alone the +88) that multi-shot should provide, so who knows how it really works. It's still a great skill :)"

I assuming multi-shot is doing pure physical damage, right?

If so, the extra damage from multi-shot (rank 3) would be reduced by armor. That might explain for the difference in your expected vs. observed damage.

Just an idea.

Smithy

[malphigian]

Improved Conussive Shot:  No.  I see no purpose for concussive shot in pve, and, I have found, there are better ways of stunning/getting away from an enemy in pvp.

PvP?  All I've seen, if an enemy wants to get close to you, then he's going to.  And no matter if you managed to do some extra damage by then, he's doing more to you, and you have to do something about it.  And 'something' has nothing to do with concussive shot.  Especially with a twelve second cool down--something you can only use once per battle, and only if you get the drop on the enemy (which, granted, you should, with all that tracking) is not something I want to waste five talent points to improve. 

Even if I agreed with you in 1v1 PvP (which I don't :P -- concussive shot is one of the first things I do in every fight with a melee opponent, and a chance to stun is a very good thing, every extra second you keep them at range, the better off you are), it's VERY useful in group PvP -- which comes up plenty. After the priest or warlock fears, getting them slow coming back is good.

Concussive shot is also critical for runners (players AND mobs).

Anyway, a good PvP hunter is kiting all the time -- running from the enemy, through them, whatever, and doing the jump-180 spin-shoot-180 spin-land-keep running trick. An extra snare every 12 seconds makes this infinitely easier.

As a side note -- there's a good reason, I think, the Marksman/Counterattack hunter build has become the PvP build of choice. Yes, you lose trueshot aura, but you gain an almost sure escape from melee. You get a 30% chance to whack them nice and hard and root them for 5 seconds, and this chance comes up every swing they make at you. There's a good guide to this build here: http://forums.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?t=284728

Getting a little cookie cutter at this point, but it's hard to argue with the logic if you are going for a PvP build.

[Raziel]

Personally, I went up the Marks tree. PvE. Here are my opinions:

Tier 1:

Efficiency: Never tried. If I respecced, I probably would get this, as I eat mana at an incredible rate.

Improved Concussive Shot: IMO, you have to be a lunatic not to get this. 20% chance to completely neuter your enemy. Yes please. I pop this off at casters on general principle, just in case it works.

Tier 2:

Lethal Shots: not even a question.

Improved Hunter's Mark: there are better things to spend your talent points on.

Tier 3:

Aimed Shot: Yes, though I don't use it much later on. Mostly to plink cloth casters if I want them gone fast.

Improved Arcane Shot: I use Arcane much more than Aimed Shot; in fact it's probably my primary mana sink in heavy fights. Not very much is immune to arcane damage either. I needed a point-sink, so this is where they went for me to get the next tier. I don't regret it, but if I respecced I would probably skip this in favour of Efficiency.

Barrage: Never bothered. I use Multi-shot a fair amount, and get some sweet (900ish) crits out of it, but still don't see the point of this.

Tier 4:

Improved Serpent Sting: never tried, doesn't look worth it. My serpent currently does a bit over 70 a tic. I'm happy with that.

Mortal Shots: Get it.

Tier 5:

Scatter Shot: My absolutely cannot-live-without-this skill. Love it to death. It's a free ranged gouge; if timed right you can interrupt spellcasters, get the angry melee'er to walk away for a sec, stop a charger dead in it's tracks. Wonderful ability, worth a point.

Hawk Eye: I thought I could live without this until I started seriously pulling. My god the added range is MUCH more than you think. It's incredible how far I can plink things with this at 3/3.

Improved Scorpid Sting: I thought this was worthless, then I started using Scorpid on nearly every high-end instance mob. Still, I haven't put talent points here, because I value scorpid more for the fact that it saves my tanks a little pain. The hitpoint reduction would be nice but isn't essential IMHO.

Tier 6:

Ranged Weapon Specialization: No choice here. It's a point-sink to get Trueshot. I don't think it's worth the points, but whatever.

Tier 7:

Trueshot Aura: Kinda nice. Often forget to turn it on - wish it had some snazzy sound and image, rather than using the exact same sound as the human racial. Bah. Still, the damage adder is nice, if not fantastic, and it helps both my pet and other party members. Two hunters with it is fairly redundant outside of raids.

I did however get some Beast Mastery tree, though different from the standard spec.

I got Endurance Training (no brainer) and Improved Hawk (talent point sink). This allowed me to skip Tier 2 in the entirety. Then I got Unleashed Fury 5/5 and Thick Hide 5/5. I have a tank pet, so this last choice made more sense than Ferocity.

I crit for over 2000 with Gorewood Bow, and have one-shotted some stupid horde who decided to turn on their PvP flag.