Hunter PVE Guide

Talents and Glyphs:
There are several viable Marksmanship builds out there. Most of the talents are pretty static but there are a few options to choose from based on your needs, your raid environment, gear level, etc. Virtually every viable MM spec contains the same 7 points in the BM and SV trees, it's where the points go in MM that varies.

Required Talents:

Every viable MM spec should have the following talents:

BM Tree:
- 5/5 Improved Aspect of the Hawk
- 2/2 Focused Fire

MM Tree:
- 5/5 Lethal Shots
- 5/5 Mortal Shots
- 3/3 Careful Aim
- 1/2 Go for the Throat (1 pt is worth considerable dps, a 2nd point is only really useful if you have low crit)
- 1/1 Aimed Shot (talents in the tree make this significantly stronger than multishot for single target)
- 2/2 Rapid Killing
- 3/3 Improved Stings
- 1/1 Readiness
- 3/3 Barrage
- 2/2 Combat Experience
- 3/3 Ranged Weapon Specialization
- 3/3 Piercing Shots
- 5/5 Master Marksman
- 3/3 Wild Quiver
- 1/1 Silencing Shot (since this is off the GCD you can macro it into all shots for bonus damage)
- 5/5 Marked for Death
- 1/1 Chimera Shot

SV Tree:
- 5/5 Improved Tracking (it is not required that your tracking type match the mob anymore, just that it be one of the supported mob types)
- 2/2 Survival Instincts (this is not technically required but generally will provide more dps than alternative talents as well as some bonus damage reduction)

Optional Talents:

There are several optional talents that can be taken depending on your needs.

BM Tree:
- 1/1 Aspect Mastery - this is generally not recommendeded as it costs 3 extra points in the BM tree to reach (none of which provide a damage benefit) and only provides an additional 90 AP

MM Tree:
- 1-3/3 Focused Aim - using this talent to hit cap instead of getting hit on gear/gems when possible is generally recommended, as the talents you give up to get it are usually not high dps. Keep in mind that if you only need a small amount of hit you may be better off regemming, but if you can make use of most of the hit from the talent points invested it's generally worthwhile
- 1-3/3 Improved Hunter's Mark - if no other hunters in your raid are providing it, this talent is generally worth it even if you're the only hunter present, and certainly if there are at least 2 since the other talents you give up for it aren't worth significant dps. Usually if you invest in this it's best to get all 3 points. Note that an improved mark can be overwritten by an unimproved one so make sure the other hunters know not to overwrite yours
- 1-3/3 Improved Arcane Shot - this should only be taken if your gear is too weak to drop Arcane Shot from your shot priority
- 1/5 Efficiency - generally it isn't recommended to invest in this talent as the mana reduction is not enough to make a difference in most cases. However if you're in a situation where you have a spare talent point (usually due to a non-arcane shot spec that isn't taking improved hunter's mark or focused aim) it may be a useful alternative, especially if you primarily raid in low mana situations
- 1/1 Trueshot Aura - only take this if you don't have reliable coverage for the 10% AP buff (also provided by Blood DKs and Enhancement Shamans) from another source in your raids
- 1-3/3 Improved Barrage - this is a decent dps talent but is not worth a ton of dps, so it's a suitable scavenge point for other optional talents if needed
- 1-2/2 Rapid Recuperation - whether this talent is of use to you will depend on your raid mana situation, generally in a raid environment you won't get rapid killing much but you should be using your rapid fire several times per fight
- 1-3/3 Improved Steady Shot - this is a decent dps talent but is not worth a ton of dps, so it's a suitable scavenge point for other optional talents if needed

Build that used by me: Click!

Glyphs:

Major:
The following major glyphs are required:
-Glyph of Serpent Sting (will increase the damage of Chimera Shot)
-Glyph of Steady Shot

This leaves one of the following major glyphs for the 3rd slot:
-Glyph of Kill Shot
-Glyph of the Hawk
-Glyph of Trueshot Aura - only useful if you have the talent
-Glyph of Chimera Shot - only recommended with low latency
-Glyph of Aimed Shot - only recommended with low latency and your aimed shot is doing more damage than your chimera shot
-Glyph of Hunter's Mark - not recommended unless you have 3-4 hunters present regularly in your raids and you're also talenting for Improved Hunter's Mark

Which 3rd glyph is best for your purposes may depend on the fight type, spec and gear so you should consult a spreadsheet and take into account which fights your guild is having the most trouble with. Kill shot in particular is of more use on fights where the bulk of the challenge is in the last portion of the fight, such as Putricide and Sindragosa.

Minor:
None of the minor glyphs provide any real damage benefit, but these are the potentially useful ones:
-Glyph of Feign Death (Allows more frequent threatdumps)
-Glyph of Mend Pet (Allows the pet to gain happiness in combat)
-Glyph of Revive Pet (Allows a faster pet rez during pushback spells)
-Glyph of the Pack (increases range on aspect of the pack, allows for faster raid runbacks after wipes and useful on a few fights like heroic Beasts)

Tubiskasarus wrote:

Major glyphs:
-Glyph of Aimed Shot
-Glyph of Steady Shot
-Glyph of Serpent Sting

Minor glyphs:
-Glyph of Mend pet
for other 2 your choice.

Pet:
The wolf is the recommended raid pet for MM hunters due to the solid dps and the Furious Howl buff which scales very well with gear.
If you are in a raid without a reliable source of Faerie Fire you may want to consider a wasp as an alternative as they provide the same buff.
Recommended Ferocity Pet Spec (note that the point in dash and bloodthirsty can be moved as needed, the other points are all recommended dps talents).

Priority Stats:
Hit capping is highly recommended however hit above the cap gives you no benefit. The hit cap for a hunter is 8% (263 hit rating), minus any talents you may have invested in Focused Aim, and you can subtract another 1% from heroic presence if you are regularly in a party with a Draenei.
Agility is one of the strongest stats for MM, although it doesn't get as many multipliers as it does for SV specs (only the 4% bonus from the Combat Expertise talent) so it doesn't tower over other stats in value. Until you have very high ArPen it is recommended that agility be the primary stat gemmed for MM hunters. Since agility's value isn't hugely above other stats it is often worth gemming agil/crit in yellow sockets as most yellow bonuses are worth picking up.

ArP:
Most of the damage in an MM spec is affected by ArPen. The only shots that aren't affected are Chimera Shot, Serpent sting and Arcane shot (which generally gets dropped from the priority at higher gear levels). Armor Penetration scales exponentially and becomes more valuable the more of it you have until the cap (1400).
Stacking Armor Penetration is not required for MM however once you get to about 800 ArPen on your gear prior to gemming it may be worth considering if it's worth gemming it to get as close as possible to the hard cap. Keep in mind that on movement fights or fights with non-debuffed adds, ArPen loses some value, so don't rush getting to the point that you gem it and sacrifice other important stats in the process.
If you are using a trinket which procs ArPen it is generally recommended that you don't gem for the soft cap (which is 1400 - the trinket proc amount) although if you're close a few gems to reach it may be advisable, check the spreadsheet to be sure but keep in mind on movement fights ArPen will be slightly overvalued. Also if you are significantly over the soft cap with a trinket proc it may not be worth using the trinket anymore, check the spreadsheet for that as well.
Note that % based armor reduction debuffs (Sunder Armor and Faerie Fire) are applied before your gear ArPen takes effect, and that even at the ArPen cap there will still be some armor on the target due to the cap on how much ArPen can affect your target, so those buffs provide a damage benefit even when you are at the ArPen cap and do not reduce the amount of ArPen required to cap.

Crit is generally a very solid stat for MM. It is especially valuable in increasing the proc rate of your Piercing Shots, which become extremely powerful at higher gear levels. You don't need to gem for it but as the best of the yellow stats available to MM (once hit capped) you may find it useful to gem agil/crit in yellow sockets to pick up most socket bonuses. Generally you don't need to be concerned about capping out on crit as MM (you need 104.8% crit before you max out on a boss).


Gems:
Consult the itemization section above to determine whether Agil or ArPen should be your preferred red stat.
Meta: Relentless Earthsiege Diamond (requires 1 gem of each color to activate)
Red Sockets: Agility (delicate) or ArPen (fractured) if hit capped, Agil/Hit if not (glinting)
Yellow Sockets: If below hit cap use Agil/Hit or Hit (rigid) to cap. If capped use Agil/Crit (deadly) unless the socket bonus is not worth getting (consult the spreadsheet, it usually will be worth it unless you're stacking ArPen) in which case use your preferred red gem
Blue Sockets: Use a [Nightmare Tear] in your best blue socket bonus (if you have none you can put it in a yellow or red socket). Ignore all other blue socket bonuses and gem your preferred red gem (or hit if needed). On rare occasions it may be worth using an ArPen/Stam gem (puissant) instead of the tear if you're extremely close to capping ArPen and have a yellow gem already in your gear.


Enchants:
Head: 50 Ap + 20 crit (Knights of Ebon Blade rep)
Shoulder: 40 Ap+ 15 Crit (Sons of Hodir rep or if you're a scribe you can use the improved shoulder enchant)
Back: (22 Agil from enchanters, or flexweave underlay if you're an engineer)
Chest : (10 Stats from enchanters)
Brace: (50 AP, or leatherworkers can use their improved bracer enchant, blacksmiths can also add an extra socket)
Gloves: Enchant Gloves - Major Agility (20 Agil) or Enchant Gloves - Precision (20 Hit) if you're low on hit (from an enchanter, engineers can use the rocket or haste enchant, blacksmiths can also add an extra socket)
Waist : obviously Eternal Belt Buckle
Leg: (75 AP/22 crit created by LW, LW get a cheaper version)
Boots: 32 Ap or w/e
2 hand weapon: 110 AP.
Ranged weapon: 40 crit

Gears:
Dont be tards gs meniac. use gears with higher Arp not higher gs. and dont use lots of leather gears. what is the point with more Arp when u go OOM sooner?
I recommend u to get T10 chest first instead of using chest leather.

Useful macros:
Misdirection:
focus on tank and then:

/target focus
/cast Misdirection
/ra Casting Misdirection on %f
/y all my threads belong to you
/targetlastenemy

Hunter's Mark:

/cast Hunter's Mark
/petattack

Shot priority:
MM hunters generally use a shot priority, not a rotation. This means that you don't use your shots in a consistent order, but rather you always use the highest priority shot that is currently available.
You should macro Silencing Shot and Kill Command into all your shots, then use the following priority:

1. Serpent Sting (usually you will only need to cast this once)
2. Kill Shot (when available)
3. Chimera Shot
4. Aimed Shot
5. Arcane Shot (remove if your gear is good enough)
6. Steady Shot

Note: if you have extremely high ArPen, it may be worth moving Aimed Shot ahead of Chimera in priority. Kill Shot's ideal priority relative to Chimera and Aimed Shot may also vary depending on gear.
There is no value in delaying a Chimera Shot past the cooldown as the amount of chimera-serpent damage dealt is based on the total amount a full serpent sting would do and has no relationship to the current sting duration.
In order to maximize dps in movement fights be sure to stutter your movement periodically while relocating to allow your autoshot to go off (in addition to using whatever instant shots are available). You can use any mod with an autoshot timer to detect the best timing for this.


Useful Addons:

• Xpearl

• DBM

• Viper Notify (it will tell u when u are near OOM and when u are using aspect of viper, it will war u to change it back to dragon hawk when your mana is full)

• Omen ( whenever u see that your thread is high, feel free to Feign Death for 0.1-0.2 sec )

• Recount

• Power Auras (can be configured to give graphical effects on various events including L&L procs)

DBS helping tank:

Tubiskasarus wrote:

On DBS use MD at start , then use your normal rotation. near time for summoning minions ( DBM chk) dont use MD or aimed shot. when minions summoned, after like 0.5 sec use MD and use Multi shot . then continue your normal rotation!

And sure use MD on every boss, coz this is one of the most important hunter's abil, it helps to lose threat and also helps the tank to hold aggro. So use it 24/7 -> HOLD IT ON CD.