Standing in fires & how NOT to Huntard

[Sensisativa]

Intro Inc.wall of text.

Hello Everybody
(in my worst Dr. Nick Riviera impression)

So you made a hunter. If you are like most people you'd first made him/her for a farm/bot toon due to their ease and quickness of leveling. Then you're main got boring and you decided to gear up the farmbot
and see about what's so great about hunters in late/end game content.


This "guide" is aimed towards the type of people who really don't know the class, also towards the type of people who should wear helmets when leaving the house or mouthbreathers as they've been called. There might even be some useful information hidden amongst the humor.

Content

1. Intro
2. Content
3. Gearz
4. Talents & Trees
5. Gear, Stats & Enchants
6. Gems
7. Consumables
8. Priority List (Shot Order)
9. Pets
10. Macros
11. Addons
12. Tips & Tricks
13. Links
14. Conclusion & Updates
15. Questions

Gearz

Wait, what good is gear without talents to use, lets come back to gear later. Anyways, it's all hunter loot.

Talents & Trees

As a hunter you have 3 trees you can place points in.
All 3 specs have different bonuses:


Below I will go into the most common specs used for each class and define the bonuses you receive for speccing into it.

Beast Mastery aka BM

Oh BM, once the 1 button macro king of TBC, it was nerfed to utter crap for most of WotLK. BM is sometimes thought of as a spec for people that are lazy because the pet does a lot of the work for you. I'd disagree. At highend(world top 50) endgame raiding at this time, BM is sitting above SV on most fights.

BM's signature move: Intimidation

100 yd range
1 min cooldown
Command your pet to intimidate the target, causing a high amount of threat and stunning the target for 3 sec. Lasts 15 sec.

BM's Masteries:
At level ten when you choose the BM spec you receive Animal Handler granting you an additional 25% attack power.

At level 80 you can go to your trainer and train Mastery. Which gives you Master of Beasts which increases the damage done by your pets by 13.6%. Each point of Mastery increases pet damage by an additional 1.7%.

As for the talent tree here is a good baseline BM spec.
The points in the BM tree should not be touched, but moving points from Improved Serpent Sting to Pathing depending on your haste levels is a good idea.

For a more in-depth guide and theory-crafting behind the MM tree you can check out EJ's BM thread.

Marksmanship aka MM


Good Ol' glass cannon, a staple of the hunter class from the start of the game. This spec has seen it's ups and down but has always/almost managed to hold it's own. MM is finding itself used much more for PvP these days because people find the burst much higher than that of SV or BM.

MM's signature move: Aimed Shot

50 Focus 40 yd range
2.4 sec cast
Requires Ranged Weapon
A powerful aimed shot that deals 200% ranged weapon damage plus (RAP * 0.724)+776.

MM's Masteries:
At level ten when you choose the MM spec you receive Artisan Quiver which increases your ranged auto-attack damage by 15%.

At level 80 you can go to your trainer and train Mastery. Which gives you Wild Quiver, which Grants a 14.4% chance for your ranged attacks to also instantly fire an additional ranged shot. Each point of Mastery increases the chance by an additional 1.8%.

The most common talent tree for MM these days is this spec
MM talent tree does not have near as many mandatory points as the BM tree does, this spec can be played around with quite a bit.

Note- These following talents should be considered mandatory: Go for the Throat(2), Efficiency(3), Sic’Em(2), Improved Steady Shot(3), Careful Aim(2), Piercing Shots(3), Rapid Recuperation(2), Master Marksman(3), Readiness, Posthaste(2) & Chimera Shot

That leaves you with 7 points left in the MM tree to play with. I look at my raid and decide if i need utility over situational dps. Once again, the above spec is just a guideline and different gear levels can make this spec less dps for yourself.

For a more in-depth guide and theory-crafting behind the MM tree you can check out EJ's MM thread.


Survival aka SV


SV, the red headed bastard child of the class till close to WotLK, only brought for buffs throughout most of TBC. SV has dyed it's hair and grown up, it's a very well rounded spec that hold it's own at most skill levels. At the high end of the game (World top 50) it tends to come in last on most fights out of the 3 specs now, but not by much. And how many of us are playing at that level?

SV's signature move: Explosive Shot

50 Focus 40 yd range
Instant 6 sec cooldown
Requires Ranged Weapon
You fire an explosive charge into the enemy target, dealing RAP*0.232+386 Fire damage. The charge will blast the target every second for an additional 2 sec.

SV's Masteries:
At level ten when you choose the SV spec you receive Into the Wilderness which increases agility by 10%.

At level 80 you can go to your trainer and train Mastery. Which gives you Essence of the Viper which Increases all elemental damage you deal by 8%. Each point of Mastery increases elemental damage by an additional 1.0%.

The most common SV spec, It doesn't really leave much to play around with. Again, feel free to move a few points around if it sims out better for you at your gear level.

For a more in-depth guide and theory-crafting behind the SV tree you can check out EJ's SV thread.

Gear, Stats & Enchants

As hunters we have use of 3 types of armor. Cloth, Leather & Mail. We should never be caught in anything besides mail, as it gives us 5% more agility when all our gear is mail. Always, always mail.


As for stats we want items with agility on them. Agility gives us 2 AP per point and a tiny bit of crit.

Crit would be the second stat you would be going for with all 3 specs, unless you are below the hit cap.

Ranged attacks have a 8% chance to miss against mobs 3 levels higher than us(Raid bosses) and each point of hit rating gives us 1/120.109%, so we need 961 hit to reach this, or 841 for draenei. It is better to be a little over the hit cap then below it.

Haste/Mastery is subject to many debates at this time and is also going to be affected by what spec you choose.

At the higher end of gear available at the moment as BM you would want an almost even amount of haste & mastery.



As SV there is soft cap on haste(757) that brings your Cobra shot down to 1.67 seconds.(this is affected by latency, add more haste if you you have high ms). This allows you to fire 3 Cobras or 2 Cobras and an instant between Explosive shot. it's not really a cap per say, it's just that haste offers very little after 757 until after you can get enough to add another Cobra shot in. it is too high of a number to reach without severely gimping the rest of your stats.

MM's haste rating really depends on what shot priority you choose, some people have it to close to 1500 and others keep it around 1k-1.2k depending on latency.

Don't forget that if you have the T11 4 piece bonus, it takes the 0.2 seconds off before your haste is added on.

With reforging people tend to not hold out as much for that certain piece of gear to drop because we now have much more control over our stats.

SV - Assuming you are hit and haste(soft) capped, you should reforge every piece of gear that does not have crit on it to crit. If it does does have crit, reforge to mastery.

BM - Assuming hit capped, if the gear has no crit, reforge the higher stat to crit. If the piece has crit, don't reforge that gear.

MM - Assuming hit capped, if any of your items are hit/mastery and unreforged, you can reforge the mastery to crit or haste as long as you stay in a good haste range.(depends on your shot priority)

Enchants
Excluding profession bonuses, the best hunter enchants are:
• Head: Arcanum of Ramkahen - 60 agi/35 haste (Ramkahen revered).
• Shoulders: Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal 50 agi/25 mastery (Therazane exalted).
• Back – Greater Critical Strike – 65 crit (22 agi if SV)
• Chest – Peerless Stats - 20 stats
• Wrists – Agility – 50 agility
• Gloves – Major Agility – 20 agility is still the best
• Belt – Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
• Legs – Dragonscale Leg Armor: 190 AP/55 crit
• Boots – Assassin’s Step – 25 agi and movement speed, Major Agility – 35 agi, or Precision - 50 hit
• 2H Melee Weapon – Mighty Agility – 130 agi
• Range Weapon – Gnomish X-ray Scope – 800 AP proc or R19 Threatfinder - 88 hit

Gems

For your Meta gem you should be using Agile Shadowspirit Diamond. As agility is our strongest stat by far and the meta requires 3 red gems, it is very easy to activate with Delicate Inferno Ruby.

As for our yellow and blue gem slots, it is best to only match socket colors if the bonus is +20 agility or more. Don't gem for hit, you are losing too much agility if you do, always reforge to hit if it is needed.

Consumables

Flask - Flask of the Wind(300 agi) or Cauldron of Battle(300 agi)
Food - Skewered Eel(90 agi) or Seafood Magnifique Feast(90 agi)
Potion - Potion of Tol’Vir pop one right before you go into combat and another whenever you think is best.(Burn phase with Rapid Fire or Lust/Hero)

Priority List (Shot Order)

Gone are the days where we had shot orders, now we have priority lists for each class, with MM having the most dynamic list.

BM

As BM, Kill Command is going to be your hardest hitting ability, use it every 6 seconds.

The most basic priority for single targets will be something like this:
1. If your pet is on the target, Kill Command
2. If the mob is going to live long enough, apply Serpent Sting.
3. If mob is below 20% health, Kill Shot
4. If you have enough focus to cast Kill command on CD, Arcane Shot
5. Cobra Shot

In a given 6 second cycle you should be able to fit 1 Kill Command, 1 Arcane Shot and 2 Cobra Shots with any excess time from shortened casttime going to extra arcane shots over time as focus allows and additional Cobra Shots.

Bestial Wrath

Our shortest length "big" cooldown, it lasts for 10 seconds. The talent Longevity and the Glyph, brings the cooldown down to 70 seconds (1.17 minutes). The primary benefit of Bestial Wrath is that it reduces the focus cost of all our focus costing abilities by 50%. In addition it increases the pets damage done by 20% and with The Beast Within it also increases the hunters damage by 10% for the duration.
During Bestial Wrath you do not want to use Cobra Shot to regenerate focus, since the only benefit to Cobra Shot is 10% more damage. You want to make sure you have focus before using BW. During a BW you should be able to get off 2 Kill Commands and 6-7 Arcane shots, possibly using Fervor if you are low on focus before you use BW. BW should not be used while under Rapid Fire or external haste effects unless not using it will cause you to lose 1 ore more BW's over the course of the fight.

Fervor

Fervor has the same base cooldown as Bestial wrath, 2 minutes, however it is not affected by Longevity. Fervor instantly grants both us and our pet 50 focus and has no other strings attached. This is best used when both hunter and pet can benefit the most from it, but most often the usage will depend on the hunters focus need.

Focus Fire

Focus Fire is a personal haste boost on a 15 second cooldown. How much haste we get is dependent on our pet. Frenzy stacks on our pet once per basic attack (3 second cooldown) to a maximum of 5 stacks. Focus Fire consumes these stacks, and grant us 3% haste for each stack thus consumed. The build-up time for Frenzy is 15 seconds of pet-on-the-target time, meaning that we will have a near constant 15% haste bonus. Focus Fire should be used on cooldown, except just before a BW, as the frenzy stacks on the pet increase the attack speed of the pet by up to 30% (at 5 stacks) and we don't benefit massively from the haste during BW per above. This increased attackspeed for the pet translates directly into more damage from the pets autoattacks.

Rapid Fire

A 5 minute cooldown that increases our ranged attack speed by 40% for 15 seconds. Together with Focus Fire, this should see our Cobra Shot at a 1.0-1.2 second cast time. Even at this casttime Arcane Shot wins over Cobra Shot Shot in DPCT, so during Rapid Fire you should stick yo your regular rotation casting Cobra Shots between your Kill Commands and adding any arcane shots possible. Rapid Fire should not be used whiler under Bestial Wrath or external haste effects like Bloodlust since we would then waste a lot of the haste effect.

If for some reason you are assigned to aoe as bm, Multi-Shot is our base aoe tool. It costs 40 focus and incurs a GCD of 1.5 seconds (opposed to the normal 1 second GCD, changing soon). As BM we can couple Multishot with BW and fire them off at a cost of 20 focus, giving us 6 Multi-Shots back to back. We can also use a worm's burrow ability .

MM

Aimed Shot now hits like a truck, but has it's cast time back.

The general MM shot/ability priority is as follows for single targets:
a) Shortly before combat starts apply Hunter's Mark to the target
b) Shortly before combat starts cast MD on the tank
c) Serpent Sting (only if the target will live longer than 12s)
d) Chimera Shot if new target that is not marked to apply Marked for Death or to refresh Serpent Sting
e) Aimed Shot Master Marksmen proc
f) Steady Shot pair if no Improved Steady Shot buff
g) Aimed Shot hardcast
h) KillShot
i) Rapid Fire
j) Readiness
k) Steady Shot pair (if less than 3 to 4s on the Improved Steady Shot buff)

At the start of fights on premarked targets, if you can start precasting an Aimed Shot during the pull, then do so. Otherwise, I suggest starting with Serpent Sting followed by Chimera Shot, Rapid Fire, Readiness, Chimera Shot, and a Steady Shot pair to get the Improved Steady Shot buff to reduce Aimed Shot cast times before casting your first Aimed Shot.

When switching targets, I suggest opening with Chimera Shot if it is off CD to apply the Marked for Death effect to mark the target. If Chimera Shot is on CD for a while, you can optionally use an Arcane Shot instead to mark the target.

MM Hunters have so many different priority lists depending on what phase of the fihgt you are in and your gear level. I am going to link right to the EJ thread where it is discussed in detail instead of covering all the possibilities. Shot Phases and Rotations


Standard Shots and Abilities

The following is a list of the shots or abilities (in alphabetical order) that a MM hunter should normally be using on a standard boss fight:

• Aimed Shot (AI): AI is a physical attack. The standard AI costs 50 focus and takes 2.9s to cast. It is also our hardest hitting shot, especially during the CA phase when it has 60% bonus crit. Hence, we want to use it as our primary focus dump during the CA phase. Outside the the CA phase, it is probably not the best option for our focus dump, with AS being preferred (see 6.2.2 Aimed Shot versus Arcane Shot). The exception to this rule is while under dynamic haste effects (RF or BL) that shorten its cast time and increases its DPS relative to AS. Note that the AI hardcast locks out and resets your autoshot casts during its cast. A second version of AI is the focus-free, instant cast version from MMM procs. We want to use this version everytime it procs since it is giving us our hardest hitting shot for no focus cost and with minimum cast time. These procs should normally take the place of an AS or any extra SS beyond the 2 pairs to maintain ISS. Other benefits of AI include generating pet focus on crits due to Sic’Em, 60% crit bonus over the first 20% of target health due to CA, extra crit damage due to PS, and bonus damage due to RK. If you have the Aimed Shot glyph, 5 focus is refunded on crits.

• Arcane Shot (AS): AS is a magical attack. It costs 25 focus, with the cost reduced to 22 focus with Efficiency. In most cases, AS should be your primary focus dump. The exceptions are during the CA phase and when under large dynamic haste effects (RF or BL) when AI should be used as the focus dump instead. Even during these phases, you still may want to use AS as the focus dump when moving or when experiencing a lot of interruptions/pushback where you cannot effectively cast AI. Additional benefits of AS include its crits generating pet focus due to Sic’Em and it also applying the MfD effect on targets.

• Chimera Shot (CS): CS is by far our second highest damaging shot (especially when adding in the 30% crit damage bonus from PS) just behind AI during non-CA phases, refreshes our SrS, and heals us for 5% of our health pool. CS is a magical attack. If you have MfD talented, then CS also applies the MfD HM-like effect to your targets. Since CS is almost our hardest hitting shot, you generally want to use CS off CD or shortly thereafter. CS costs 50 focus, with the cost reduced to 44 focus due to Efficiency. You need to make sure to conserve enough focus to be able to cast CS off CD and to extend your SrS. On new targets, you will prefer to open with CS if it is off CD to mark the target with MfD if in combat.

• Explosive Trap (ET): ET is the trap that we will primarily use for damage since it does AoE damage and since if the target stays in the effect the entire time, it actually does more damage on a single target than Immolation Trap. It is best used with Trap Launcher (TL) with preferably being able to use TL before the pull to save the button pushing out of combat and to allow the TL focus cost to regen some prior to combat. Then in combat it is just the matter of placing where the trap should land and then starting attacks.

• Feign Death (FD): As always, FD is the main method for a hunter to manage its threat and should be used when necessary to drop all threat from a target.

• Hunter’s Mark (HM): HM applies a debuff to the target that allows you and your pet’s attacks (as well as those for other hunters) against that target to do extra damage due to additional AP. HM is instant cast and costs no focus, but it does cost a GCD. As such, HM should generally only be used out of combat to mark a target pre-pull. HM should not be used in combat to mark a target since MMs get free HMs on every target we attack with CS or AS due to MfD. MfD allows us to use the GCD that we may have used to HM the target to do damage instead while still getting the HM benefit.

• Kill Command (KC): KC is a physical attack that costs 40 focus. If you do not have RiF, then you generally do not want to be using KC since it does only a little more damage than AS at a lot higher focus cost and without the additional MM benefits that AS provides. The exception is if your pet is on the target but the target is out of your LoS where you cannot shoot it. If you have RiF, then you want to use focus-free KC when RiF procs as discussed previously.
• Kill Shot (KS): KS is a physical attack that is instant cast and costs no focus and has a 10s CD. It is currently our third hardest hitting shot well below CS and AI. Hence, KS is not much of a Kill Shot anymore. Its main benefit is that it is a focus free higher damage additional shot during the last 20% of target health.

• Misdirection (MD): MD is an ability that when applied to a friendly target (preferably a tank or your pet) transfers the first 4s of your threat production temporarily to the target. Unlike in Wrath, the threat transfer in Cataclysm goes away after a bit. MD should normally be used at the start of combat or during combat when new targets spawn to help get the targets to the tanks. Other than that, there generally is not a need to use MD during combat, with the main exception being to help get mobs off healers who have drawn healer aggro and who cannot run to the tank to have them pulled off.

• Multishot (MS): Multishot is a main AoE ability and is different in Cataclysm than it was in previous versions of WoW. Multishot no longer hits just three targets but hits all targets within a cone relative to the main target. MS damage is pretty weak at around 1/3 to 1/4 that of AS. Hence, you would think that you would only want to use MS instead of AS when there is at least 3 or 4 targets, but that is not the case. This is because of our Mastery, WQ, having a chance to proc off of each of the MSs, providing additional damage potential. Still you probably only want to use MS when there is at least 3 targets that can be affected by it. MS benefits from the talent Bombardment as discussed previously.

• Rapid Fire (RF): RF costs no focus and is instant cast. It provides a 40% haste buff (50% if glyphed) for 15s. This haste provides both increased SS and autoshot frequency and higher focus regen. In addition, with RR, you gain an additional 4 fps during RF. Thus, during RF, you generally have a lot of focus to dump and your SS to regain focus are much faster allowing more focus dumps per CS cycle. RF has a 5 min CD that is reduced to 3 min with Posthaste. As discussed previously, this makes the RF CD coincide with the Readiness CD so that you can ideally use Readiness to refresh your RF CD for back to back RFs. You generally want to use RF at the start of combat so that you will have a better chance to use more RFs during that combat later and to shorten the AI cast times during the CA phase. An exception to this rule is if the raid is using Bloodlust at the start. Since it is not ideal to stack the large dynamic haste effects, you may want to delay the use of RF until after Bloodlust as long as it doesn’t result in less RFs during the fight.

• Readiness: As discussed earlier, Readiness refreshes the CDs on all hunter specific abilities, such as CS, KS, RF, Disengage, etc. It does not refresh the CDs (or ICDs) on gear-related or other CDs, like those from trinkets or tier sets. For maximum DPS, Readiness should be used to reset the CDs of RF and CS. Readiness can also be used if necessary for survival to reset MD, FD, Disengage, and Deterrence.

• Serpent Sting (SrS): SrS is an instant cast shot that costs 25 focus and applies a DoT to the target that ticks every 3s for 15s total (hence, 5 ticks). SrS does not do any immediate damage on cast (unless you are talented into ISrS). As discussed earlier, CS, which should be cast off its CD, refreshes the full duration of SrS on the target in such a way that ticks continue to occur every 3 seconds from when the original SrS was cast. SrS should only be cast once on a target with CS refreshing its duration. It should only be recast if it falls of the target. Since SrS only does a little more damage than an AS for about the same focus cost, SrS should only be cast on targets that are going to live long enough to experience at least 4 to 5 ticks. Thus, if the target is going to die in less than 12 to 15s, it is not worth casting SrS on it.

• Silencing Shot (SilS): SilS was discussed previously. SilS is an instant cast, focus-free shot that does no damage but also does not cost a GCD. Its benefit is too interrupt casts and silence targets. There may be specific fights where you actually need to use SilS to interrupt or silence as part of the strategy, but generally you do not and can instead use it to silence caster targets and save the raid from the impacts of whatever the target was casting. Note though that on fights where you are not on interrupt duty and others are, that you want to make sure not to use SilS since you can throw off their interrupt timing.

• Steady Shot (SS): SS is a physical attack. It is our filler shot that not only costs no focus but also generates 9 focus per cast (up to 15 focus per cast on targets with < 25% health if talented for Term). Its main use is to generate the focus that our focus costing shots require. However, it has many additional benefits for MM hunters. The largest of these if the 15% haste buff from ISS, which was discussed previously. To maintain this at 100% uptime, we generally want to fire 2 SS pairs (4 total) per CS cycle. SS casts also have a chance to proc MMM as discussed previously for focus-free, instant cast AI periodically. With at least 4 SSs per CS cycle, you can expect a MMM proc on average about every other cycle. SS also benefits from PS doing extra damage when it crits. SS also receives a 60% crit bonus during the first 20% of the targets health from CA as discussed earlier. Finally, SS benefits from RK and gets the damage bonus, although it is preferred to use it on CS or AI if available. SS is our most used special.


SV

Explosive Shot is SV's bread & butter, you want to keep it on cooldown as much as possible.

The most basic priority for single targets will be something like this:
1. Apply Serpent Sting, especially for the Noxious Stings effect.
2. Explosive Shot
3. If mob is below 20% health, Kill Shot
4. If mob will be alive long enough, Black Arrow
5. If you will have enough focus to use Explosive Shot and Black Arrow, use Arcane Shot
6. Cobra Shot

This becomes much more complicated to execute in practice for a few reasons. One, Thrill of the Hunt procs lead to a somewhat unpredictable focus regeneration rate. Two, number 5 can be difficult to compute since you would also want to take into account how much focus you will regenerate in the time before those abilities come off of cooldown. Generally, it is fine to pool focus so long as you are not capping (reaching 100 focus) or delaying abilities that use a cooldown. Pooling too much focus is probably not ideal because it can quickly lead to capping focus with a string of Thrill of the Hunt procs or a Lock and Load proc.

Lock and Load

The preferred method appears to be:
Explosive Shot -> Cobra Shot -> Explosive Shot -> Arcane Shot (if high focus) -> Explosive Shot

Pets

No more are the WotLK days where everyone runs around with wolves. There are 3 pet families now: Ferocity, Cunning, or Tenacity. They all do the same base damage, and all pets have one damage ability and one buff/debuff(Exotic pets have a second buff/debuff.

Stats that our pets get from us:
- 100% hit (rounded down to the nearest integer)
- 100% crit
- 100% melee haste (Not Rapid fire and Pathing, for example.)
- 42.5% of hunter attack power

Ferocity pets appear to scale at:
- 67% of hunter stamina
- 50% of hunter armor

Cunning pets appear to scale at:
- 72.5% of hunter stamina
- 60% of hunter armor

Tenacity pets appear to scale at:
- 78% of hunter stamina
- 70% of hunter armor

Most will raid with a Ferocity pet, well SV can improve it's dps slightly with a cunning pet depending on their stats. Here are a pet talent tree for both kinds.

Ferocity - The value between Wild Hunt and Shark Attack is likely to depend on pet focus regeneration from your own talents. Keep in mind that Wild Hunt now does more damage the more focus your pet has, making it much more powerful than it was in WotLK.

Cunning - The main debatable point here is the lack of Boar's Speed. Owl's Focus, in conjunction with Wild Hunt, is particularly powerful.

Trying to decide which pet to bring can be tough, you should know which buff each pet brings and bring the buff that will most help your raid.

The charts below will help you decide what buffs you need.

Macros

Macros can make your gameplay simpler and more enjoyable, they should increase your dps also.



Macro Basics

Here are some of the basic commands used when scripting macros:

* /target – target an enemy, friendly player or npc
* /focus – focus an enemy, friendly player or npc
* /assist – assist a friendly player
* /cast – casts a spell
* /castsequence – casts spells in a determined order
* /use – use a consumable or item
* /equip – equip an item

Inputting an item or a spell into a macro is very easily done by holding down shift while clicking on the spell or item icon in your skills tab or inventory.

Pet commands are as follows:

* /petpassive – puts pet on passive
* /petdefensive – puts pet on defensive
* /petaggressive – tells your pet to BURNiNATE anything and everything
* /petattack – sends your pet to attack
* /petfollow – tells your pet to follow you
* /petstay – tells your pet to stay put

Pet micro management is essential for any successful Hunter. The proper macros can make a huge difference between a raid wipe or arena loss.

There are a few lines you’ll see included in quite a few macros on this page that you may not understand. Here’s a quick explanation…

* [modifier:shift], [modifier:ctrl], [modifer:alt] – Modifiers allow you to add more decision making abilities to macros. By using an additional modifier key in combination with the macro key bind, you’re able to combine added conditionals to your macro. Does that make sense? If not, just read on and I’m sure you’ll start to understand once you see them in the context of the various macros.
* @ – The @ symbol is now used to mean target=, so if you see a macro with @Focus or @ mousover, this means that the action would be directed to your Focus Target or mouseover target, respectively.
* /use 13 – Use the trinket in your top trinket slot
* /use 14 – Use the trinket in your bottom trinket slot
* /script UIErrorsFrame:Clear() – Prevents an on-screen error message when an ability isn’t ready. This is handy for eliminating the on-screen combat message spam you’ll get when rapid-pressing a macro key.


All Around Pet Macro - If pet is dead, revives, if pet is gone, calls pet, if pet is out and in combat Mend Pet.

#showtooltip [nocombat,pet,target=pet,nodead,nomod] Feed Pet
/use [nopet,mod] Revive Pet; [@pet,dead] Revive Pet; [nopet] Call Pet 1; [combat,pet] Mend Pet
/stopmacro [combat]

Feign Death - Stop casting and Feign Death

#showtooltip Feign Death
/stopcasting
/use Feign Death

Simple Aspect Switching

#showtooltip
/castsequence Aspect of the Hawk, Aspect of the Fox

Pet Move

/click PetActionButton3 LeftButton

Rapid Fire & Readiness - It will simply use your Rapid fire before using Readiness (if you forgot to use it) and will prevent you to use your second Rapid fire for a few seconds in order to not mash the first (for spammers)

#showtooltip Readiness
/castsequence reset=15 rapid fire, null
/cast readiness

Non clipping macro for always having aspect of the fox with cobra shot for fights with lots of movement.

#showtooltip Cobra Shot
#showtooltip Cobra Shot
/startattack
/castsequence reset=2 !Aspect of the Fox, Cobra Shot, Cobra Shot, Cobra Shot, Cobra Shot

Use with above macro on movement fights for harder explosive shots.(can easily be changed for MM or BM)

#showtooltip Explosive Shot
/cast !Aspect of the Hawk
/cast Explosive Shot

Trap Launcher w/ Explosive Trap - Spammable

#showtooltip Explosive Trap
/castsequence [reset=3] Trap Launcher, !Explosive Trap

Misdirection - Casts on your Focus without switching targets, if no focus will apply to pet.

#showtooltip
/cast [@focus,help][help][@pet,exists] Misdirection

Kill Command -Puts a Bestial Wrath into your next Kill Command, governed by a cooldown reset. Allows you to use Kill Command at your discretion, but makes sure that when you can use Bestial Wrath, it automatically utilizes this by changing the bind to it, and autocasting Kill Command right after. Adjust to your cooldowns.

/castsequence reset=84 Bestial Wrath, Kill Command, Kill Command, Kill Command, Kill Command, Kill Command, Kill Command, Kill Command, Kill Command, Kill Command, Kill Command, Kill Command

Intimidation - Similar to the above, but generates more aggro; adjust according to your cooldowns. Note that Intimidation also stuns the opponent.

/castsequence reset=84 Bestial Wrath, Intimidation, Intimidation

Tranquilizing Shot - This macro will dispel a buff or enrage effect from your hover-over target, or your current target if no other targets are highlighted. This is useful for getting off a quick dispel on a secondary target, while maintaining pressure on your current target.

#showtooltip Tranquilizing Shot
/cast [@mouseover, harm][harm] Tranquilizing Shot

Failsafe Bandage Macro - This ensures that you are the person getting bandaged even if you have another friendly target selected, such as your pet.

/use [@player] Dense Embersilk Bandage

Engineer glove enchant + trinkets - Can be changed to work with any shot.

#showtooltip Cobra Shot
/use 10
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Cobra Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Deterrence - First click activates, second cancels it.

#showtooltip deterrence
/cancelaura deterrence
/use deterrence

Addons

Not going to say that any addons are needed to play this game, but many do make this game simpler to play or at least more convenient. I'm only going to list a few here.

JS' Hunter Bar

This is an amazing addon, very lightweight and has tons of features.

• Focus bar and number to indicate current focus.
• Autoshot swing bar to time when you need to stop moving to allow an autoshot to fire (with time in the lower right corner of bar).
• Incoming focus prediction for when you are casting Cobra/Steady Shot.
• Color changing, red for low focus, Green for enough to cast your main shot and less than 80% total current focus, Orange to make you aware you are getting near over-cap.
• Timers for necessary abilities, ie: Serpent Sting, Black Arrow, Improved Steady Shot, etc. - with the ability to add more very easily.
• - Timers can be in the form of moving timers: starting on the right side and moving left when done
• - .. or they can be in the form of static Icons (Icon Timers): they do not disappear, but stay on screen and fade when needed.
• Full in-game options. Extremely configurable.
• Low over-head - small memory footprint when running (Under 200k for the main addon).
• Movable and resizeable in game using the slash command (type "/jsb" in the chat window and read).
• Crowd Control timers (Freezing Trap / Wyvern Sting).
• Hunter's Mark reminder with low duration warning.
• Tranquilizing Shot dispel notification to configurable channel.
• Target health percentage on the bar for easily seeing phases (Careful Aim, Termination, etc.)
• Tranquilizing Shot alert for certain mobs you need to dispel / de-enrage.
• Debuff Alerts for certain debuffs you may get in Cataclysm raids.
• LibSharedMedia-3.0 fully supported for fonts, textures and sound sharing.
• Movable frames to allow you to customize your User Interface to your liking.
• Adds right click Misdirection to clicked target frame to your UI.

This 1 addon replaced 6 others that took up over 10 times as much memory usage, it's really the only addon I use for Hunter specific needs.

Deadly Boss Mods or BigWigs Bossmods for your boss ability timers and whatnot. Not really needed, but does not hurt to have 1 or the other.

Recount or Skada to feed your epeen or weed out the bads.

Tidy Plates with Tidy Plates: Threat Plates are a great replacement to default nameplates.

SilverDragon (my preference) or _NPCScan with _NPCScan.Overlay are great for helping you find those rare pets.

Links

Links in the spoiler.



General Hunter info:
EJ's - The best hunter theory-crafting around.
mmo-champion hunter section
Hunter's Union
Huntsman Lodge

For addons:
Curse
WoWInterface

Pet info:
Petopia
WoW Hunter Pets

WoW General sites:
mmo-champion
WoW Insider
WoWHead
Allakhazam
WoWPedia - The main force behind WoWwiki moved to this site.

Tips & Tricks

The first rule of DPS is not to talk about DPS. Actually, the first rule is to always be attacking (or waiting out a GCD after an instant). Anytime an attack ends, you should already have queued your next one (see below). Don't delay a cast to make a decision or react to a proc, train yourself to start another attack regardless of what's going on, and change the subsequent attack if necessary after you've had another second to think.

Level First-Aid. Fights like Nefarian where you are pushing the 70% crackle as Ony dies, you should be using a bandage after you have disengaged to your platform.

Cataclysm introduces a new ability queuing system, similar to the single-spell queue in Wrath but more consistent and more customizable.

When you send an attack command to the server, if your character is unable to attack immediately (typically because it's still casting or GCD-locked from your last attack), the server will see if you become ready to cast within a certain short window. If you do, it will begin the cast immediately. You can set the length of this window with an interface option called "Custom Latency Tolerance." You want to set this value to a high enough amount that you can always press the next spell key comfortably before the current spell finishes, and never have a gap between casts. But you don't want to set it too high, because you can't change your mind after you queue a spell, so your reaction time is effectively slower if you "lock in" each spell a long time before it begins casting. Experiment and find something you're comfortable with.

Make sure your pet is happy, at least until the next patch comes out and happiness is removed. You don't want to be losing damage for no reason. With the minor glyph of Mend Pet, your pet will restore happiness when you use Mend Pet. If out of combat, I have found the fastest way to raise pet happiness is to cast Mend Pet, dismiss pet & call it out again. 95% of the time it is at full happiness this way, also a faster way to heal it.

Keybinds. Use them. Most people that click try and add too many keybinds at one time and overwhelm themselves. Add a couple at a time and then add more as you feel ready for them.

Don't right click. It leads to way to many wipes, left click then attack. Tab targetting is also bad.

Stop worrying about your dps, focus on staying alive. Use deterrence as much as possible with the macro above so you can get right back to attacking. Disengage is much faster when you need to mave quick.

Think about what would be better for your raid, not yourself. If your raid is missing the 10% haste buff, go SV, who cares if you do less damage then MM. The damage you lose will more than be made up for by the increase in the raids damage.

FD, a lot. If a tank gets insta-gibbed for some reason or another we tend to pull aggro quickly, sometimes before the off tank can pick up the mob. Using FD liberally can keep you low on the threat count and let you dps for much longer. Chimaeron is a fight were this can come in very handy.

Raid Boss Help - Straight from EJ's

Blackwing Descent

Omnitron Defense System
Golem Abilities
Acquiring Target can be dropped with Feign, or blocked with Deterrence. In fact, Deterrence blocks a ton of things here, including Poison Bomb explosions, Lightning Conductor (from someone else) and Incineration Security Measure (the fire aoe). Be cautious, as eg. Acquiring Target (and possibly other boss abilities) will immediately be cast on another raid member if you FD it!

Magmaw

Rapid Fire
Conserving your rapid fire for an "exposed head" phase.

Maloriak

Focus dispel Remedy - Spell - World of Warcraft
While this is always specific to your guild, and raid, this buff is either spellstolen or dispelled. As a hunter, if you're assigned to dispelling this, you may encounter problems when not targeting the boss - especially during the "green phase".
The following simple macro will allow you to dispel the boss, regardless of your target:

/cast [target=focus]Tranquilizing Shot

or; for non-focus:

/cast [@Maloriak] Tranquilizing Shot

The only pre-requisity for this is that you have Maloriak as your focus target.

Explosive Trap
Conserving your Black Arrow/Fire trap cooldown for use during the green phase can pose a reasonable increase in damage done to the adds.

Absolute Zero (Frost orbs in P2)
These can be deflected by deterrence.

Green phase AoE
Before entering a green phase, ensure you are (nearly) at full focus, this will allow you to deal more AOE damage to the adds.

Atramedes

Disengage Sonic Breath
You are able - if not being tracked - to disengage through the Sonic Breath. You will receive damage as long as the breath does not hit your first position before you land.
(The server registers you as being on the spot you came from while flying in the air, and registers your "new" location when you land. Therefore - to the server - you never were in the breath.)

Do not do this when you are being tracked, it will be extremely counter-efficient.

Deterrence
Sonic breath can be deflected by Deterrence.

Tracking
Using Feign Death while being tracked in either air phase or ground phase cancels the spell entirely.

Chimaeron


Conserving focus
Conserving your focus and Explosive Shot on Chimaeron for use while not affected by Caustic Slime will allow for significantly more DPS.
Also, during Feud there is a small time window where the player is not affected by Caustic Slime. It is - although requires some practice - possible to have one or two Cobra Shots, and an Explosive Shot to go off during that time.

Intervene (H*)
When using a Turtle (or any Tenacity pet), one can spec into Intervene to intercept the Double Strike during Feud. This can save your tank from getting gibbed.
When using a Turtle, using Shell Shield in the same macro can sometimes (possibly) save your pets live, thus removing the need to ress it, thus more DPS!

Nefarian and Onyxia


Pet
Keeping your pet on passive, and specifically assigning its targets will keep it alive during phase two, where the lava would normally kill it.
You may also need to position it on your assigned platform manually, since it tends to stand in the lava even when assigned to attack the add on the platform.

Shadowflame Barrage
This small-range AoE spell can be deflected by deterrence.


Throne of the Four Winds

Conclave of Winds

Master's Call
While active, provides immunity to frost patches on Nezir.

Al'Akir

Disengage
This ability provides a lot of benefits for a hunter on this fight, especially in the first phase:

* The tornadoes can be disengaged through, similar to the Atramedes breath, as long as they do not cross your "from" spot before you land, you will not be caught in them.
* On Wind Burst, one can simply disengage back onto the platform. This removes the need of moving into melee range.
* One can disengage "around" the tornadoes, by jumping off the platform when they meet the player, and then disengaging back onto it.

Master's Call
While active, provides immunity to frost patches.


Bastion of Twilight


Halfus Wyrmbreaker

None currently known.


Valiona and Theralion

Deterrence
Valiona's breath can be avoided by using deterrence. (This won't last for an entire breath, though!)
It is also possible to re- or deflect the targeted component of Valiona's Twilight Meteorite on at least normal difficulty. The small AOE-effect however, can't.

Twilight Ascendant Council / Elementium Monstrosity

Ignacious' Charge
Using Disengage right after Ignacious charges you reverts the effect, allowing you to return to combat in a much faster manner.

Cho'gall


Mind Control
Any "loose" mind controls can be broken using either Scatter Shot or Wyvern Sting, the former favored over the latter.

Congealed Blood, traps, and you
When Cho'gall spawns congealed blood, using your "offensive" trap cooldown rather than Black Arrow is the way to go. Dropping a Frost Trap on top of that, and using Multi Shot with Serpent Spread will take care of the adds effectively.

Sinestra

None currently known.

General

Lock and Load

Frost Trap can trigger LnL. Bosses are immune to it, but mobs aren't. Using your frost trap does not only often provide your tanks with an extra "tool" at their disposal on fights that involve adds, but can also increase your DPS significantly.

Glyph of Raptor Strike

Reduces damage taken by 20% after performing a Raptor Strike. This glyph is specifically useful on the following fights/situations:

* Chimaeron, feud*
* Nefarian, during electricity and phase 2
* Valiona and Theralion, on Blackout


* Trading off 20% less damage taken for no damage in a feud phase is far from ideal. It is often more worthwhile to blow your ES in this small time window.

Conclusion & Updates

This guide is much less than complete and will be added to:
a) When I find time.
b) When new information come out.
c) Someone points out something obvious that I forgot.

I hope someone out there got some use out of this, took a damn long time compiling this together.

Questions

Feel free to ask me any questions.

[KuRIoS]

nice enjoy your 15 rep from me

[Sensisativa]

Thank you sir, was bored at work over the last 2 days. Must have spent at least 8 hours on it.

[TehVoyager]

Thanks, i raid BM (people give me strange looks) but i enjoy BM. and this post. repped.

[abhorsenjay]

Wow, great guide, great effort. +Rep

[fandehgo521]

I dont even play a huntard and read the whole thing..
Made me chuckle.. and very informative <3
Enjoy the rep cookies =]

[Sensisativa]

I dont even play a huntard and read the whole thing..
Made me chuckle.. and very informative <3
Enjoy the rep cookies =]

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it.

[mihaitza]

Too bad people don't make guides like these anymore.

Your usual poster would post something like:
"Make hunter
????
Proffit"

That saddens me. However, this is absolutely amazing. Good job! +rep

[ghostdini]

Can't wait to get a Sporebat.

[Sensisativa]

Can't wait to get a Sporebat.

Them rogue anuses will never bleed more. (watch the video)

[Notahax]

I've given up WoW a couple of months ago.. Very good read and informative.

[Ikkarus]

SPOREBATS FTW!


The best hunter guide I can remember of.
I'm an Old School hunter and still didnt know a couple of thing you've put on "Raid Boss Help".
Thanks for the infos. Rep cookies for you mate!

[Reflection]

Well done, very well laid out with great information within. Keep it up! +rep

[CuT]

Good guide, but most of the MM rotation stuff is still being tested.

[Sensisativa]

Good guide, but most of the MM rotation stuff is still being tested.

True, that's why I directed people to the EJ's thread where there is constant discussion on the topic.