Hunter Specs

When I first started this game I levelled my hunter in the Marksman Tree. To me, coming from a pen & paper RPG background, the hunter was a ranger type character. The main attraction to the class was distance combat that wasn’t spell casting. From a lore point of view I was thinking along the line of the night elf sentinels, maybe they should give night elf hunters an ability to put an owl up a tree... And from the fantasy RPG side one of my preferred classes has always been ranged fighters of some form. Back on point, the pet part of the class was an interesting gimmick and not that important.

And so I level to 60 and started to raid still as marksman. The pets had started to grow on me a bit by now but due to their vulnerability back then I did instances and raids as much without my pet as with it. At some point while at level 60 I switched from MM to survival, I think it was while I was doing a lot of PvP as well as raiding.

Burning crusade came out and I was soon back to MM, well at least I think I was and I levelled up to 70. It was at level 70 when I started to raid the new 25 man instances that I began to look at optimising dps. In the old 40 mans as long as you knew your job and didn’t slack it seemed less of an issue. But now with only 25 people not only did you have to know your job and not slack but also try to optimise dps. So I started to investigate and for a while I stayed as MM but eventually, despite pets still being vulnerable I made the leap, and to me it was a huge leap, into Beast Mastery. I lost scatter shot!, I ditched silencing shot! I even sacrificed my extended range. Because I do a lot of solo as well as group content as well as play in battlegrounds every now and then this loss to me was HUGE.

A BM spec took some getting used to, having to try and keep my pet alive as well as dealing DPS. Back in the time when it seemed no healers realised how important the pet was, especially to BM hunters, and so the only heals it got was the old channelled mend pet. Seeing my pet die on any boss fight with AoE damage was depressing but I got used to it. Then as time passed I suddenly realised my view on the class had changed, my pet had gone from a gimmick to an integral part of what it meant to play a hunter. And from that point onwards I have been a Beast Mastery hunter.

Then the awesomeness that is Wrath came out and levelling to 80 with my gorilla being able to tank 3,4 & even 5 man quest mobs for me. I was tempted to level as a PvP orientated spec so I could practice a different style of play ready for Arena’s at level 80 but Beast Mastery had become for me the defining spec for my class. I tried various MM & BM builds for raiding but BM always came out top. I didn’t try Survival because since it was nerfed way back in early TBC or it could even have been before, my memory fades, I’ve considered it more of a PvP than PvE talent tree.

So here I am completely committed to the BM spec, dreading the host of nerfs threatened on the current PTR because competent PvE BM hunters have been blowing every other class out of the water. My views on these proposed nerfs and where a hunter should be on a DPS chart shall be my subject for tomorrow. And I listen to the latest BRK pod cast, this time he has an experienced survivalist hunter talking about survival raiding talents. Its well worth listening to, but got me thinking about once again trying an alternate spec.

As I see things the rotations for a BM hunter are the simplest to use > Put Serpent Sting on the target and then SS every 1.5 seconds until SS expires and replace it. The complexities come from managing your pet, keeping it alive changing aspects to maximise the gain from Bestial Wrath etc.

For a MM or Survival hunter the pet is a lot less important, if it dies your not going to lose 40-50% of your dps. Because of this it needs less micromanagement. These two specs have their complexity in the shot rotations and knowing when to use a special shot based on the procs of others.

Where as the specs of some classes like Paladins and Druids are obviously completely different most people don’t realise that different hunter specs are subtlety completely different and I would, just for my own ego like to master the different aspects of what it means to play a hunter expertly. Changing specs at 50g a shot doesn’t really help this as the gold is needed for other goals I have in the game and now I’m exalted with pretty much everything I don’t always bother with the dailies. So I think once dual specs come out it will be time to master the multiple ways of being a hunter as they exist now.

Wisp