Meat
Legend
Last updated 5.3
Hey all, in this guide I will be going through the new talent system, glyphs and spec choices for hunters in MoP. Since Cata ended, hunters have had a few major changes, which I will also discuss.
Foreword
If you have played the bracket since MoP's release, you will probably know that hybrid classes are much stronger than they used to be. However hunter is definitely still a very strong class, and since 5.3 I would in fact rate it as one of the top arena classes, bringing insane damage, CC, and defensives to the table. The hunter skillcap is significantly lower at the moment compared to 2 patches ago, and as such is appealing to many members of the 70 bracket; this is reflected by a notable increase in the number of hunters, both in BGs and Arena.
Contents
- Glossary
- Major Changes
- Talents
- Glyphs
- Gear
- Macros
Glossary
In this section I will briefly list the meanings of various abbreviations and 'slang' I may use throughout this guide.
Spec - Talent Specialization
MoP - Mists of Pandaria
Cata - Cataclysm
Surv - Survival
MM - Marksmanship
BM - Beast Mastery
SS - Serpent Sting
BA - Black Arrow
BW - Bestial Wrath
Conc - Concussive Shot
Spell Pen - Spell Penetration
RoS - Roar of Sacrifice
AotIH - Aspect of the Iron Hawk
AotF - Aspect of the Fox
TotH - Thrill of the Hunt
AP - Attack Power
Resi - Resilience
ISS - Improved Serpent Sting
Major Changes (Since Cata)
Some aspects of the Hunter class have been revamped since Cata, which have some large effects on the class at 70.
What We Lost:
- Aspect of the Wild - Not too bad, since it was rarely used (except perhaps to mitigate tazik or heavy nature damage).
- Raptor Strike - With this, we also lost the ability to use the Glyph of Raptor Strike, a very good source of damage mitigation with a high uptime.
- Wing Clip - Doesn't affect us too badly, though it was nice to chain with Conc Shot for an awesome snare (was dodged/missed an awful lot though).
- Melee Weapons - Though ranged weapons have been buffed accordingly to make up for the stat loss, we also lose the extra enchanting opportunities, which have not been made up for. It also makes it slightly more difficult to reach the hit cap (5% for PvP).
- Weapon Chain - Tied with the above, the loss of melee weapons means we can no longer use weapon chains (the old weapon chains were not updated to be useable on ranged weapons). This results in a 10 second disarm every time (bear in mind disarms are still affected by DR). I consider this a major nerf. *UPDATE* Titanium Weapon Chain has now been updated to work with ranged weapons.
- Minimum Range - Good buff. We can now shoot in melee range, meaning we can actually do something about people sitting on our faces.
- Spell Pen Cap - With the removal of spell pen, we no longer have to be spell pen capped, freeing up some gemming/enchanting options.
- Pet Health - The maximum health of our pets has been reduced by approximately a third, making it easier to kill.
What We Gained:
- Roar of Sacrifice - Though we had access to RoS in Cata, by using a tenacity pet, in MoP all pets have access to it, allowing us a much broader variety of pet choices.
- Bullheaded - Our pets now have access to bullheaded (basically a PvP trinket for pets), which helps us to manage during high pressure moments.
- Self Healing - The new talents, Exhilaration and Spirit Bond, have finally enabled us to have some self healing at 70 other than bandages and racials.
- Expertise Cap - Our shots are now able to be dodged, and expertise has been changed to affect ranged attacks, making expertise a decent stat for hunters.
- Readiness - Readiness is no longer exclusive to MM, and is now avaliable to all specs.
- Revive Pet - Revive Pet has had it's cast time reduced from 10 secs to 6 secs, which is very nice.
Since 5.3:
- The scaling of resilience has been reduced, causing everyone to take considerably more damage - as such, Stamina is now a more useful survival stat.
- Most pet ability cooldowns have been doubled - since the monkey is the pet of choice at 70, it should be noted that Bad Manner now has a 2 minute cooldown, up from 1 minute. However, Serenity Dust cooldown remains at 1 minute.
- Revive pet cast time has been significantly reduced, to a cast time of only 4 seconds (before haste).
- Hunters recieved a flat 10% Attack Power increase, with AotH being buffed from 15% to 25% AP increase.
- PvP Power is generally accepted as being inferior to Agility for hunters, due to a nerf with the scaling for PvP Power.
- Binding Shot was removed from the talent tree and given to Markmanship as baseline.
- Intimidation replaced Binding Shot in the talent tree, and is no longer baseline for Beast Mastery.
Talents
The talent system was completely revamped in MoP, and with it we gained access to some new abilities and effects, as well as some old ones.
This is the current Hunter talent tree:
As you can see, we have four of the six tiers avaliable to us.
At 70, I would definitely recommend taking Posthaste from the first tier. We do not have access to Master's Call at 70, and I consider the ability to break roots and snares the most valuable out of the three choices. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera would probably be the strongest choice if we had Deterrence, but we do not.
From the second tier, Silence Shot is the clear cut choice, for obvious reasons. However, as we can now see our opponents' class and spec in arena, you may wish to change to Wyvern Sting against teams with no casters, though Intimidation may be preferable against rogue teams with no casters due to the fact that your pet endeavors to attack from behind, and as such is less likely to be dodged than Wyvern Sting.
The third tier is a toss up between Exhilaration and AotIH. Whilst the 15% mitigation from AotIH is really nice, the healing from Exhilaration can be game changing and has often saved my life, as well as my pet's. Spirit Bond is basically garbage in PvP, since it is a very small heal, and in PvP I prefer either burst healing or mitigation.
In the last (fourth) tier, you have a choice between TotH and Fervor. Dire Beast is piss poor as it does very little damage, has less focus return, and the pet is CCable. I prefer TotH due to it's high proc rate, providing many free arcane shots, though if it procs at the wrong time the charges can be wasted. Fervor is also a strong choice since it enables you to have on-demand focus for when you're bursting, and as such I prefer Fervor when playing Marksmanship.
- I should quickly mention here that your pet should be specced in the Cunning tree, in case you were not sure.
Specialization
In 3v3, and BGs, Survival, whilst having the lowest skillcap (since the majority of your damage is from Serpent Sting ticks), is in my opinion the strongest spec, since multidotting with Serpent Sting (either manually or via Serpent Spread) creates ridiculous amounts of widespread pressure, as well as having entrapment which if used correctly, can make trapping a lot easier, or be used as a peel. However, in 2v2 I personally prefer Marksmanship as it allows you to hardswitch onto squishy targets such as Priests, and force a trinket easily, or kill. However, since Survival is so braindead easy to play, it is the most common Hunter spec in the 70 bracket.
Beast Mastery is also viable, though I personally dislike the 'spammy' playstyle.
Glyphs
We now have access to a much more interesting and fun choice of glyphs, with few 'mandatory' glyphs remaining. However, I will explain my choices and discuss other possibilities.
These are the glyphs that I currently use:
As you can see, I have selected glyphs of Disengage, Explosive Trap, Aspect of the Cheetah and Revive Pet. However, depending on the comp I play, I often switch out Glyph of Explosive Trap for Glyph of Scattering (particularly useful in 3s or for fast switches).
The increased jump distance provided by the Disengage glyph is absolutely huge, in fact, you can jump from the bottom level of the Dalaran Sewers map to the raised platform. I always use this glyph and would highly recommend it.
For minor glyphs I use Aspect of the Cheetah and Revive Pet; they are the most useful of the few PvP-oriented minor glyphs. Glyph of Aspect of the Cheetah is also very useful as it prevents you from becoming dazed, which is great if you're being a flag carrier, escaping, or stalking your prey.
Gear
The amount of viable gear choices avaliable at 70 are vast and varied. You may wish to be very Agility heavy, which for BGs or a glass cannon twink is fine, however, for high rated arena play, some stamina is desirable, so I would recommend gemming stamina to around 18-20k health, then agility in the remaining sockets. Since the Brutal 4-piece and glove bonuses are useless in PvP, I would recommend equipping full PvE gear from Sunwell, rather than using Brutal pieces.
The main gems you should be using are:
Blue: Solid Majestic Zircon
Red: Delicate Cardinal Ruby
However, do not feel forced to gem for socket bonuses, as they are are of negligible effect; you should instead gem to achieve the AP and health pool values you desire.
Macros
The number of macros you use is up to you, however, I would strongly recommend using at least a few of these.
Video macro guide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B3oq8y0Jj8
Targetting
These macros are the basic targetting and focus macros, for use in arena.
Code:
/focus arena1
Code:
/focus arena2
Code:
/focus arena3
Code:
/tar arena1
Code:
/tar arena2
Code:
/tar arena3
These are pretty self explanatory, and really useful in helping you multi-CC as well as making fast switches easier.
CC
These macros are for use when CCing an opponent. Personally, I keybind my modifiers manually, on my action bars, though it is possible to write your modifiers into the macro itself to save on action bar space; these are the macros I will write here.
Code:
#showtooltip
/cast [nomod] Scatter Shot
/cast [mod:shift,target=focus] Scatter Shot
Code:
#showtooltip
/cast [nomod] Silencing Shot
/cast [mod:shift,target=focus] Silencing Shot
Code:
#showtooltip
/cast [nomod,@focus] Bad Manner
/cast [mod:shift] Bad Manner
Code:
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/stopcasting
/stopcasting
/cast [nomod] Scare Beast
/cast [mod:shift,@focus] Scare Beast
/cast [mod:alt,@mouseover] Scare Beast
Code:
#showtooltip
/cast [@focus] Concussive Shot
Pet
Used for controlling your pet and it's abilities.
Code:
#showtooltip
/dismount
/cast [nomod,target=Meat] Roar of Sacrifice
/cast [mod:alt,target=party1] Roar of Sacrifice
/cast [mod:shift,target=party2] Roar of Sacrifice
/cast [mod:ctrl,target=focus] Roar of Sacrifice
Code:
#showtooltip
/dismount
/petassist
/petattack
Code:
#showtooltip Bullheaded
/cast Bullheaded
/cast Dash
/petpassive
/petfollow
Code:
/petmoveto
Code:
/targetenemy
/petattack
Code:
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [@focus,pet] Growl
Code:
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [pet] Growl
Miscellaneous
Code:
#showtooltip
/castsequence !Aspect of the Hawk, !Aspect of the Cheetah
Code:
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover] Hunter's Mark
Code:
#showtooltip readiness
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE")
/cast Rapid Fire
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE")
/cast Readiness
Code:
#showtooltip
/cast [@focus] Hunter's Mark
Code:
#showtooltip
/cast [@focus] Tranquilizing Shot
Code:
/targetenemy
I hope this guide is useful to somebody, if you have anything to add or feel that I've missed something, please post below.
Afterword
Whilst I doubt it is of much concern to many reading this guide, I should mention that I now consider hunters to be overpowered and stupidly easy to play - which has caused the class to no longer be fun for me. Hence, I am now playing a Warlock in the 70 bracket.
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