Speaking from a hunters point of view, i admit we're gimped. though it's not as bad as people think. If the hunters were in my guild, i expect atleast 550+ dps on fights like patchwerk, assuming they have the gear people normally have as they progress through naxx (dragonstalker, a few pieces of cs, ashjrethul etc). atleast on fights we can use pet, we ususually score abit below rogues/mages/warriors, but not too far away. fights i expect hunters top 5, or atleast top 10 is loatheb, patchwerk, twin emps(gotta love this fight as hunter), and sartura.

If your hunters arent performing as they should i advice them to read the posts from lactose, the search button is this way ->

to be fair, if you are barely starting to farm BWL, your guild's gear level's probably not quite up to speed, and of those, the hunters are probably hurting more than the others.

are you guys doing ZG? there are some great upgrades for hunters in there if they aren't in BWL gear already.

for your situation though, i would expect the top damage spots to go to combat dagger rogues, fire mages, and maybe a few fury warriors using at least a deathbringer+BB. this "inbetwee" gear level tends to favor the 3 classes above due to game mechanics and itemization availability, until everyone else catches up to the curve.

where is the *average* hunter in relation to the *average* warlock? is there a knowlegable hunter class lead that can help them out with gear selection and appropriate spec for their gear? at some level, they'll have to switch between marksman and survival.

Replied on your guilds forums Emie, in the thread you had stickied as important.

We're getting a extended maintenance in europe this night, and I'm assuming that is going to mean an upgrade. I wonder if it is the rumouder 1.13 patch with new hunter talents and changes. If it is, there is no reason to waste time thinking about hunters untill we actually now how they fare compared to mages, locks and meleedps.

I have a feeling that the by the time our server comes up from it's surgical coma, the time of 2-3 hunters in a raidgroup is long gone...

i've never used an autoshot timer. heh.

also, feigning to drink is NEVER right. never ever ever ever, unless there's not a boss you can shoot, like on ouro burrow stages or c'thun carapace stages with no tentacle up. mana oils on your weapons (two if you're dual wielding), mageblood pots, and combat/superior mana pots should sustain your mana through pretty much any fight, and on the really long ones you can use dark/demonic runes. before i had 6 piece CS i spent a lot of time farming felwood for runes. mana is a hunter's best friend.

some people say look at their ammo - i say look at their bracer enchants. ;)

Me neither. I just stand apart from the other hunters and wait til I hear/see my autoshot go off. No extraneous mod needed.

One problem that I see in using Patchwerk as a benchmark fight for hunter dps is that it doesn't play to some of the strengths of hunter dps. Not having to move between mobs (and thus being able to easily transition between mobs) and almost never having to back out and pause DPS are two I can think of off the top of my head.

Well that, and the OP is just starting AQ40.

I've played a hunter to 7pc T2, and I found that buying mana pots is one of the best investments I've made as far as hunter dps. In addition, remember that hunters can generally afford to use more consumables as they don't get wiped when FD is an option. Unlike say, rogues. Twin Emps is a really good example of when hunters can stretch Mongoose/Mageblood/etc across fights to reduce their cost (and thus use more on a limited budget)

Why not use Ice Threaded Arrows? I stock up on them all the time on my hunter, simply because they're so cheap compared to Thorium and it's one more consumable I can use.

Since we don't have any information it's hard to say why, but if your best hunters are consitently in the low 15's, they are underperforming badly if they have equal gear with the rest of the raid. I have not consistently been below top 10 since i started raiding. There are a few bosses where I'm not in the top10, but not many.

Ice threaded are more expensive than thorium headed. If you craft thorium headed by buying the mats and giving them to an engi they are much cheaper than if you are buying the arrows straight off the AH.

2 stacks of thorium and 2 stacks of dense stone = 20 stacks of thorium headed. On my server that's about 7-10 gold for the mats. 20 stacks of ice threaded is 11,2 gold and they have 1 less dps.

i'm not sure why people are trying to say thorium headed arrows aren't worth it. they're 4.5 DPS above jaggeds, and that's just on autoshot. if you do 200 autoshot dps with jagged, you're doing 204.5 with thorium - that's over a 2% increase, and it benefits your specials as well. i use thoriums throughout every naxx clear.

My quiver tends to be:
Thoriums (4-5 stacks)
Doomshot (3 stacks)
Jaggeds (Everything else)

I just don't really bother using thorium on trash (except gargoyles, I hate those gargoyles) And I also use the smart ammo feature on zhunter mod, uses jaggeds to stings and other non-damage based shots.

I'm not a miner, randomly people will give me thorium/dense stone and i'll use thorium arrows on boss fights, but for trash clears i will use jagged arrows.