[Hunter PvE] DETAILED MM hunter Raid Guide

[neokaramani]

The Marksman Hunter Raid Guide for 3.3
by Bowflexing - Illidan US


Table of Contents
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1. The Basics
2. Correctly Gearing
3. Managing that Pet
4. Shot Rotation and Macros
5. Playing like a Pro
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1. The Basics

First and foremost welcome to the Hunter PvE Raid guide. This will teach you how to go from just another sub par hunter to record breaking hunter in a high end guild. We will start with the bare minimum, the spec. Now as you know this is for MM hunters so we will be using the basic template of the MM hunter.

The Spec Template: The World of Warcraft Armory

This spec is everything you need but there are 3 talents that you need to configure yourself,
1. Focused Aim
2. Imp Hunters Mark
3. Imp Arcane Shot
If you are under the 8% hit cap (263 hit) you should be putting 1,2 or 3 points into Focused aim in order to reach your hit cap. If not that leaves either Imp Hunter's Mark of Imp Arcane Shot. This is one of the fundamental changes that hunters need to choice, to use or to not use Arcane Shot. Now there are many indicators on when to NOT use it such as having all iLevel 245 or higher gear but the most accurate way is to use the spreadsheet available on Elitist jerks at WotLK DPS spreadsheet - Elitist Jerks. Just plug in your name and server in the overview tab, load your gear and spec in the appropriate tabs and check your DPS with and without arcane shot in the Shot Rotation tab. If this is a bit too much for you just check if you weapon is iLevel 245 or not, if it is you can safely remove Arcane shot from your rotation and not spec Imp Arcane Shot. That obviously leaves your remaining points to go into Imp Hunter's Mark which is a straight DPS increase.

2. Correctly Gearing

Now as a hunter there is a good amount of flexibility and gear synergy that is required to get the most DPS out of your gear. This is due to how hunters gain DPS from the stats they are given and how some, namely Armor Penetration, scales higher as you gain more of it. Now the best way to determine which piece is better, just as choosing a spec, is by using the DPS Spreadsheet posted at WotLK DPS spreadsheet - Elitist Jerks. But again, if that is inaccessible to you there are other ways to manually figure it out.
Every stat can be represented as a DPS per Point ration except for Armor Pen due to its multiplicative properties. The General breakdown is as followed (pulled from my own DPS Spreadsheet overview)

Attribute DPS
Agility + 1 1.890
AP + 1 0.722
Crit + 1 1.621
Hunter Hit + 1 2.314
Pet Hit + 1 0.576
Int + 1 0.836
ArP Rating+1 Varies
Haste + 1 0.792
Stamina+1 0.000
Mp5 0.000


NOTE: This is not exactly the same for everyone, please calculate this list for your own spreadsheet parse for the best results.

Now as you can see the biggest stat that gives you DPS is hit but keep in mind that only applies if you are under hit cap (263 - 8%). Now the second biggest stat which you will generally be gemming for is Agility. Agility gives you a static stream of high DPS and is a core stat for any raiding hunter. The last stat which is generally for higher level hunters is ArP or Armor Penetration. This stat gives more DPS per Point as you gain more and more of it. To be safe, you should not gem for armor pen until you are safely over 700 points from just gear alone. Again, the best way to make sure is by running the numbers in the DPS Spreadsheet using all agility then gems then comparing it with all Armor Pen Gems.
Now with every piece of gear you get you can determine if its better by either checking in your spreadsheet or converting every point to a DPS value (except for ArP which you should consider about ~1.7) and comparing the DPS.
Gemming is another big portion of being a strong hunter. Now for EVERY red or blue slot no matter what you should be putting a +20 Agility or a +34 Agility Gem (For JC's Only). For Yellow slots you have to look and see if there is any slot bonuses that you will obtain and if there is put a +10 Agility,+10 Crit gem into it. So for example assume you have a Red,Blue, and Yellow Socket. Since all blues should be agility you should just gem all +20 Agility in every slot. But assume there is another piece with a red and yellow socket and a decent socket bonus, you should put a +20 Agility gem in the red and +10 Agi/crit in the yellow slot. Easy.
Now the enchants are pretty self explanatory and universal across the board so I will just list them here. If you do not recognize an enchant name here, just WoWhead.com it.
----------------------------------
Head: Arcanum of Torment
2Hander: Massacre
Shoulder: Greater Inscription of the Axe
Back: Major Agility
Chest: Powerful Stats
Wrist: Greater Assault
Hands: Major Agility
Waist: Belt Buckle + 20Agility Gem
Legs: Icescale Leg Armor
Feet: Superior Agility
Ranged Weapon: Heartseaker Scope
----------------------------------
Now the only different enchants that could be used would be the Icewalker feet enchant if you are desperate for hit rating or any profession based enchant which would yield better dps.

3. Managing That Pet

Now as a raiding hunter there is only one right choice for a pet and that is a wolf. It is hands down the best DPS pet and there is no other decently viable option at the moment. The spec that should be used with the wolf is The World of Warcraft Armory. Keep everything on Auto Cast except for Call of the Wild and Growl. Also I like to personally macro my pet attack in with a Hunter's Mark just to reduce any down time in DPS. Also make sure to macro your pet going passive in order to call him out during any dangerous attacks that could kill him, a dead pet is a big DPS loss.
But again, pets are not that hard to control. Keep them on your main target, keep them safe and you will easily get the nice dps increase for your pets abilities and damage.

4. Shot Rotations and Macros

A hunter's shot rotation is very easy to learn but difficult to master. It is based on the idea of a Priority queue, In other words every spell has priority and you hit the highest priority spell every time its up. The basic queue is as followed
1. Hunter's Mark + Pet attack (Macro if possible)
2. Serpent Sting
3. Silencing Shot (off GCD, macro it into any shot)
4. Chimera Shot
5. Aimed Shot
6. Arcane Shot (Optional, Depends on spec)
7. Steady Shot (Spammable)

Now note this does not take into account any use of cool downs which I will explain later. There are very specific ways in which you can maximize your overall dps in a 6 minute fight by using your cool downs correctly.
Macros are a very important part of playing an MM hunter and correct macros can significantly improve your DPS. Simply use the following macros in place of the shot posted in the Priority queue and it will handle everything for you.
Chimera Shot:
#showtooltip chimera shot
#show chimera shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill command
/cast chimera shot
/cast silencing shot
Aimed Shot:
#showtooltip aimed shot
#show aimed shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill command
/cast aimed shot
/cast silencing shot
Steady Shot:
#showtooltip steady shot
#show steady shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill command
/cast steady shot
/cast silencing shot
Arcane Shot:
#showtooltip arcane shot
#show arcane shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill command
/cast arcane shot
/cast silencing shot
Pet Attack + hunter's Mark:
/petattack
/stopcasting
/cast hunter's mark
/stopcasting

There also are very effective ways to use Misdirect in order to make it easier to control in certain fights. In some fights you simply want to misdirect whoever is tanking the current mob you are attacking. This can be handled by the following macro.

#showtooltip Misdirection
/assist
/cast Misdirection
/targetlastenemy

There are also other situations which require you to have to misdirect some other play and aggro adds on to him or some other similar situation. This can be handled by a misdirect focus macro as followed.

#showtooltip Misdirection
#show
/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus] Misdirection

5. Playing like a Pro.

Now I understand this is a lot of information to take in but if you min/max yourself using the spreadsheet, following the shot rotation and use the macros I provided you should already be noticing a DPS increase assuming you weren't doing this also. This last chapter is all about personal secrets and play styles which turn you from an ordinary hunter to an extraordinary hunter.
The first thing you need to know is how movement affects a hunter. Movement is a straight DPS loss if you interrupt or increase your auto shot cool down by any means so it's important to move in between your Auto shots. Now doing so means you need to have some type of auto shot monitor or swing timer. i personally use the Quartz Addon swing timer but anything will do. When moving simply wait for auto shot to go off, move immediately after it goes off, stop before its about to be reshot (2.4 seconds for me), let it be shot, continue moving. If you can master this you will not lose any DPS moving as opposed to losing precious auto shots and pure DPS.
Another important skill that requires some learning is how to properly time and stack your cool downs. In a general fight (assume 6 minutes) we can safely use all of our cool downs at the beginning of a fight and then later when Kill shot is under ( <20% HP). The maximum DPS rotation for this is as followed.
1. Hunter's Mark + Pet Attack
2. Serpent Sting
3. Chimera Shot
4. Aimed Shot
5. -ALL DPS COOLDOWNS (rapid fire, racials, potions, everything BUT readiness)
6. Steady Shot x4
7. Chimera Shot
8. Aimed Shot
9. -READINESS
10. Chimera Shot
11. Aimed Shot
12. -Rapid fire + other cooldowns
13. Steady Shot x4
Now due to the fact it is 1:05 AM christmas eve I am going to cut this short and post what I have for now. I will update this later with more tips from the field and as I think of what else needs to be said. I hope this helps you hunters out there that need somewhere to start.

Best Wishes,
Bowflexing - Illidan US

Feel free to ask any questions through PM or ingame.

[Gluben]

hard to copy from ensidia more or less? Well copied

[neokaramani]

hard to copy from ensidia more or less? Well copied

I literally sat there and wrote this by hand the entire thing.

But the macros are from ensidia even tho they are universal

[Beepzz]

Gluben's got a point there. Although, it's a nice guide for new hunters. And some of the stuff here come from Elitist Jerks, did a quick search. Thanks, good guide tho.

[da_bizkit]

Question: Why pick imp hunter's mark instead of imp arcane shot O.o

[neokaramani]

Question: Why pick imp hunter's mark instead of imp arcane shot O.o

Easy,

Once you hit a certain level of gear your physical damage from your steady shot becomes more than the magical damage from arcane shot thus eliminating arcane shot entirely from the rotation. Since arcane shot would be removed from the rotation, obviously Imp arcane shot is useless and thus Focused aim or Imp Hunter's mark is a better option.

[infinity92]

Oh, thank you.

[kano2013]

thank you, this has incressed my dps greatly.

is there anymore hunter pve or pvp tips you can share please, addons,macros.

thanks

[Darkassassin]

However, if you aren't sitting in Ulduar gear or better, then you should be using Survival, as until you get Ulduar or better, it will pull higher numbers.

[reaper194]

Any Major Mana Issues with this spec?

[da_bizkit]

there is absolutely MAJOR mana issue when there are no additional mana gaining sources in iCC 10 for example. You have to switch to aspect of the viper a lot or have a lot of mana potions in stock in the longer fights. If there are Blessing of wisdom, mana tide, etc there are no big problems. It depends on the setup.

[neokaramani]

In 10m you will have to be use to running Viper alot just due to how MM is balanced.

In a 25m you should be fine the MAJORITY of the fight but expect to viper around the end at least alittle.

If you have any other questions im here and still check this now and then

[raggemurre]

I play MM hunter similar spec with 89% armor penetration. And I never use arcane shot due to steady shot does more dmg for then arcane shot does. Any screen shot you can uppload of your Dps on a dummy or something?

[Eogcloud]

Should the gems not be armor pen?

[neokaramani]

To be honest i've since sold my hunter but I still check the forums and know all this shit

cant upload any DPS parses lol