Greetings.

I am relatively new to the hunter class but I have played this game for awhile experiencing pretty much all of the PVE aspects and most of the PVP aspects. Arena, however, is somewhat of an area where I am inexperienced. Couple this with my inexperience with a couple of the lesser used hunter talents and I just have a few questions regarding how to specialize. I would prefer if you have experience with certain talents to please share them so I can help build my spec. Oh, and currently I'm speccing 41/20 BM/Marks for PVE and then speccing to 0/41/20 for Arenas over the weekend. If you have success as either mainly survival or mainly Beast (in the high end arena game) please feel free to share, but most of my questions will be towards a marks heavy build as I fulfill a CC/spell interrupt slot in my team's arena group.

--Improved Stings. The PVE'er in me scoffs in disgust that I'm even considering getting this. Initially I thought it was terrible for arena as well, but I've been wanting to try it out actually. In our arena games, I'm Viper Stinging a healer pretty much every time the cooldown is up, and our games are either over before bloodlust is up or last 3-4 minutes. 30% more mana drained + the 30% reduced chance to dispel means more mana lost and more global cooldowns used to dispel it. Of course if I did actually put points into this talent I'd have to really think about what I wanted to give up. Anyone have any opinion on this?

-- I guess the other things I'm wondering are just what other hunters are running around with. This week I tried something completely new (I don't think in my entire WoW career I've ever specced 100% for PvP) and came up with this:
Marks:
5/5 Imp Concussive
5/5 Lethal Shots
1/1 Aimed Shot
2/2 Rapid Killing
2/2 GFTT
5/5 Mortal Shots
3/3 Barrage
1/1 Scatter Shot
2/5 Concussive Barrage (Sounded like it would be decent when I decided to try and spec solely for arena, but I'm not really sure I see much benefit from it. Although to be honest, most of the time it procs I probably don't even notice)
5/5 Ranged Wep Spec
3/3 Imp Barrage
1/1 TSA
5/5 Master Marksman
1/1 Silencing Shot
41 Points

Survival:
3/3 Humanoid Slaying
2/2 Savage Strikes (pretty sure next week I am going to get Hawk Eye instead of Savage Strikes as I actually get BoFreedom/frost trap entrapment to get myself out of melee range very often)
3/3 Entrapment
3/3 Imp Wing Clip
5/5 Survivalist
1/1 Deterrence (I actually love this ability but I always forget to use it!)
3/3 Surefooted
20 Points

Like I said, I'll probably be experimenting with new builds each week, but I was just wondering if anyone had success with particular talents or builds that apply only to the arena game and wouldn't really sound useful outside of an arena.

Thanks in advance.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=VZEMboEzhxstcuh0tz is my build.
- Surefooted - only take to cap your hit % @ 5%, the snare isn't really useful IMO, since most can be reapplied.
- Imp Stings is great, try to get it. If you apply it @ good times, it will never get insta-cleansed (ie - when pally or shaman are under major healing pressure) & with the resistance, it's even better(move points in Conc Barrage here)
- 3 min Rapid Fire isn't really useful, since 90% of your games will be decided by this point, so put those points into efficiency (mana is a huge issue for hunters even in arena)

As the poster above me said, get imp stings. It's one of the best arena talents.

Efficiency is very good if you plan on running 5v5 primarily. Probably depends on your team a lot though, we were a fairly defensive team (hunter/mage/paladin/warrior/priest) so we had a lot of longer games where mana became more of an issue.
By speccing into imp stings + efficiency, you can take those points out of concussive barrage, which isn't very good, and move points from RWS into Careful Aim. Even in PvP gear, Careful Aim will do more for your topend than RWS will. I also would skip GFTT and Rapid Killing. I had these early in the season, but those points are better spent elsewhere.
Hawk Eye is very useful, I would recommend that over improved wing clip.

For pure auto shot only dps which is better:

2/3 careful aim (30% int = ap translates to ~60ap wearing full gladiator/pvp reward gear)

or an extra 2 points in ranged weapon spec (2% ranged damage)

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=mZEMboEzhRstcuh0tc is the spec I was thinking about.

GftT is a nice PvE talent, but a little bit subjective in PvP. It really depends on how you intend to use your pet. When I was using a Wind Serpent for PvP(and presumably if I were using a boar), it's a talent worth getting for damage. For a Scorpid whose main function is to apply poison, it's not as great(particularly when factoring in that claw spam can drop you under the focus required for the poison pretty easily). I found that it wasn't terribly valuable the way I use my scorpid in Arenas. But like I said, for a Boar or Wind Serpent, I'd take it.

Other commentary:
-Skip Concussive barrage. It's not good.

-Improved Stings is a superb arena talent. Get it.

-I'd make Hawk Eye a higher priority than Savage strikes or Imp. Clip. Arenas can be cramped, but you'll still utilize that extra range more often than the extra crit on raptor strikes, hopefully.

No, not really. Not at all, in fact.

Assuming 200 int, 2 points in each:

60 AP = ~4.25 DPS = 13.71 damage per auto-shot(3.1 speed weapon), 9 per arcane, ~12 per multi(pre-talents)

2 points in RWS is 2% damage. I don't know about you, but even in my PvP gear, My auto-shot's average damage is above 685 (and would be way beyond this if I had a real PvP weapon), my arcane's is well above 450, and my multi's is FAR above 600(pre-talents).

RWS > CA, unless you happen to be PvP'ing with a ton more int than your average hunter.

Screenshot your paper doll.

Respec.

Refer back to screenshot.

EDIT: This doesn't even take into account Steady Shot, which sees huge gains with Careful Aim over RWS.

I've compared before. RWS wins.

And even in a near-dead-heat, RWS will win, due to its effect on the *base* damage of arcane/multishot, which is another 4-5 damage on each above the normal.

You have not compared with PvP gear.

2pts in CA and 1 pt in RWS: http://img529.imageshack.us/my.php?i...7161849ae8.jpg

0pts in CA and 3 pts in RWS: http://img529.imageshack.us/my.php?i...7162101nx5.jpg

This is with Mark instead of Kings, which I would have in a 5v5 setting (as well as Int.)

This doesn't even touch on the fact that it's significantly better for Steady Shot, which I used extensively in arenas last season.

Please stop spreading misinformation.

You do have 70 more int than me, but I think I'm going to go with CA over RWS.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=VVbh0xgRwuVoZchhhtM

Thats the build I'll use next weekend.

Might put one point to have longer frost trap and take a point out of surefooted, dunno.

Casual 3v3 - 5v5
I use. Scorpid pet + sting & trap mania.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=VmZyV0oEzZchIMtoMuhz

I've never actually had Wyvern Sting. Do you find it effective in 5v5? And what type of group makeup are you running? 2 minute cooldown which can be dispelled by Paladin/Shaman and can be easily broken by Whirlwind/Cone of Cold/Multishot just doesnt seem that great for arenas to me. Oh, and I imagine Wyvern Sting can be trinketed out of after the trinket change?

Warrior, Resto Shaman, SP, Hunter + Mage/Druid (paladin stopped playing...)

Hmm got point there didn't use Sting post Trinket change. But target was always Paladin/Shaman/Druid (those tend to stay bit away..) even shot few Dwarfs with it and they seemed to forget Stoneform

Mage or Druid helps "wasting" paladins bubble with polly/cyclone at start. Followed by trap/sting if he is only healer left.
During assist train he must bubble. If he doesn't that means no one heals at that time (other healer is my trap-sting-scatter target)

Its something people are not prepared for usually, and there were times where i had trap+sting+trap combo going on. (just overwrite wyvern with scorpid).

I like having options and wyvern adds one... poison based CC. 2 classes can dispel it. 2 races can get out of it.

Wyvern Sting is solid enough, but the real benefits from Survival points that deep for Arenas are the incessant Snake traps on classes like druids and Shamans. Shamans can magma totem them down, but it is incredibly mana inefficient. Once you have finally gotten rid of the damn snakes, you notice you have zero mana because you also got Viper Stung.

Bear in mind, I arena at a significantly higher unbuffed AP(high 1800's IIRC), and an unbuffed int of only 178. This changes the numbers quite a bit. Also, as your weapon gets better, this tilts things in favor of RWS as well. You're also probably not going to have kings on all the time, even if your paladin has it. At some point in a lot of fights it gets wiped for freedom or the like, or an offensive dispeller blows your buffs off. (Ditto for AI - not every group runs a mage, and it can get purged off)

And steady shot is highly situational, at best. It's basically an ability to use when people leave you alone, which against good teams, is very seldom. It probably sees at best, a quarter of the use arcane/multishot do. And that's if I'm not saving my GCD for a scatter/silence.

In fairness, the snakes don't have to be up for the full duration to serve their purpose. Just long enough to get a few poison debuffs up there to waste someone's time dispelling/mask Viper sting.

As a warrior I love to see snake traps. AE taunt to get all the snakes, which gets me perma-enraged, then I can whirlwind and cleave to get a nice burst of victory rushes. A lot of the time I feel like snake traps hurt the hunter more than they help. Not saying they don't have their uses, but I would make absolutely certain the situation is right before dropping one.

As I said, I arena in PvP gear. I'm using the season 2 crossbow in both of those screenshots, it doesn't get much better at the moment outside of high end PvE.

Kings, to be fair, probably favors RWS slightly. If an offensive dispeller is sitting there dispelling me, we've either lost already or it's an ideal situation.

I don't think we've ever lost a game when they focus me. 'Good' teams, in our battlegroup, tend to go for targets they can shut down. I'm still going to do 70% of my damage prancing around unless their entire team is keeping in my dead zone instead of casting, and let's face it, that's a team we're going to dismantle very quickly.

Perhaps in your battlegroup at your rating level teams find you to be the best target, but I can assure you that's a rarity and building your spec around weak competition is dubious at best.

Snake traps no longer proc victory rush, that was fixed a while back.

I use PvP gear too(11.6k HP/272 resil unbuffed currently); however I don't stack stam gems, I use hybrid gems in most of my sockets as opposed to stacking pure blues, and a more AP-oriented setup in general.

No, it'd be the other way around - kings increases your int(and hence the effect of CA) by 10%, but it's certainly boosting your base damage(and hence what RWS acts on) by far less than that. It's not unusual for dispellers to snipe a few dispels at the start of a fight by any means. Or for a resto shaman that knows what he's doing to sneak a purge in between heals if he's not forced to be chain-casting.

Judging from your displayed "arena title" in your screenshot, I certainly wasn't fighting any weaker competition than you were(finished 5's last season around 2050), so please don't go there. It's not always about focus fire, as much as it's about controlling DPS. One strategy endurance teams(including my own) may use is to spread their offense around to keep opponents' DPS all controlled as best possible.

Good teams don't let ANYONE just stand there and operate for an extended period of time. Hunters are not an exception to this. I'll use steady shot when it's usable, which happens to be a lot less frequently than arcane/multi.

After speccing it for a while.

I am of the opinion that Imp Concussive is a huge waste of points, the proc is far too low and the mana cost is too high. Combine this with the lack of room to kite in arena, I would say the 5 points are better off spent other places. I am putting mine back into effeciancy.