Vanadizzle

What about rebalancing our "oh-so-great" PvE damage then ? I could see lowering steadyshot damage and at the sametime buffing our instants might do alot for us in PvP. It was already stated often enough that doing lots of steady rotations is not really meant to happen in an actual competitive pvp-situation like arenas.
We really should do lethal damage in PvP.

 

Xavias

Sorry, they changed that during Beta. (Priests got dispel poison).

My bad.

Brutal Gladiator

 

Mearis

Err what where

<manly> then my sister calls and proposes the one thing that has never before occured in my entire life

 

Gonkish

I don't disagree.

The weird thing is that they seem to be ignoring the fact that one of the primary reasons (aside from auto-shot) that we do so well in PvE is Steady. Steady is basically unusable in PvP, and yet they don't change it to tweak our PvE damage? I mean, obviously there are specific times where you can throw out a Steady in PvP, but they're few and far between, especially in comparison to PvE content.

Granted, I'm talking completely out of my ass here. I guess their numbers relate a different story.

Why Hunters suffer...
Benefactor's Bar learns you some goodness quicklike...

 

Saladin

You're definitely on the right track here. Steady Shot is a huge contributor to Hunter dominance of PVE DPS charts, and for BM hunters, so is the pet. Ironically, both of those are pretty much nullified the second you step foot into arenas.

Blizzard hss been really reluctant to go the damage-buffing route (perhaps for fear of Ret Backlash II: Attack of the Hunters). For now, I'm inclined to play along and try to make this game work the way they're telling us it's supposed to. Hunters right now in PVP play very defensively, which is almost an oxymoron for a class with 0 self-heals. It would appear that the entire class is being designed around an "Achilles' Heel" philosophy; that is, our number one objective in any engagement is to keep the opponent from closing in on our weak spot (melee) by precisely staggering numerous cooldown-bound abilities, until we can Drain/Outlast them into the ground.

The trick is figuring out how best to stagger these cooldowns, and that's a really sticky one. Assuming a standard PVP spec, we've got the following cooldowns for self-defense, in order of shortest to longest:

6 Seconds -'- Concussive Shot
16 Seconds -'- Disengage
30 Seconds -'- Scatter Shot
30 Seconds -'- Freezing/Frost Trap
60 Seconds -'- Master's Call
180 Seconds -'- Readiness Reset

This does not take into account whatever cooldown our pet may have (Ravager/Bat Stun, Hyena/Chimeara Snare, for example). Now here's the part I have a hard time wrapping my head around. Do we prioritize for shortest cooldowns first in the hopes that those abilities will be available as soon as we can possibly need them while we save the big ones for real trouble? Or do we open right off the bat with a Scatter Shot / Trap combo to burn the cooldown early so that it comes up earlier? Obviously it's all dependent on the situation and what you're fighting, but with hunters being such a defensive class right now, it bids some serious consideration.

Now here's something I've got no right to QQ about, but I'll admit I'm a little stumped when it comes to pet choices. It's nice that Blizzard gave us the option of an extra stun, snare, whathaveyou--I love that, it makes the class a lot more versatile. But the problem is that it makes picking a good "all-round" PVP pet a total...well, PITA. What I mean by this is that when we take a Nether Ray to 10 Arena games, it's great against casters, yet completely useless against melee teams. When we take a Hyena to 10 Arena games, it's great against melee, yet completely useless against ranged teams. I am not saying this is a gimp to our class, but it's not like we have a snare for when we need it and an interrupt for when we need it. It's an either/or situation which makes taming an arena pet a crap shoot.

So our choices are:

Put it all on black or red (melee or caster) and tame a Hyena for the Snare / Nether Ray for the Interrupt / Scorpid for the Dispell Cloaking. Against melee / caster / poison dispell teams respectively the pet does excellent, against all other teams it's a complete mismatch.

-or-

Try to balance our eggs across our baskets and tame a universally useable pet, like a Ravager. Stuns are just about always good, so with a Ravager we'll poon some chakkin' noobs right? Well. not exactly. The stun will be nice and "okay" in every match, but it just won't get the job done like a scorpid when you need to keep your viper sting from getting dispelled.

Our pets can be really good vs. some comps & really bad vs. others, or mediocre against everything. Which would you prefer?

 

Auran

Saladin, from what I can tell, you answered your own question about which pet to take to arenas. Our "Achilles heel" is our weak melee. From my arena experience, I have far more problems with the other team's mobility and/or melee than I do with their ranged people. Until I see evidence otherwise, or my own experience proclaims something else, I'll be taking my Hyena to arenas with me at 80. That extra snare for 6 seconds every 20 seconds is just too nice against a lot of classes.

But as always, it'll really depend on your team makeup and which bracket you're in. For 2v2, as a drain team I'll probably take the scorpid. As a double dps team, I'd take the stun or a strong dps ability. For 5v5, I doubt the Hyena's snare will be of much use, so I'd take a Wasp for the faerie fire or something like that. 3v3 is really where the Hyena will most likely shine. Hopefully we won't be pigeonholed into just drain teams again.

EDIT: On another note, it's fun to see the Ret paladins now whining about having to constantly juggle their CDs with damn near every one of their useful abilities. Hunters have been doing this since TBC release. Our only spammable ability is practically useless in PVP (Steady Shot). Everything else has a short CD (arcane, multi/aimed, tranq, concussive, scatter, silencing, chimaera, explosive, viper, etc) and few of them are linked together or have convenient CD ratios.

 

Pentaclis

so i usually just stick to reading but i felt compelled to interject. but unless i missed something, wouldn't a Serpent be the best possible pet for nearly any arena situation? the Poison Spit ability gives u the same dispel cloaking benefit of a scorpid, while also having a 30 yard range and reducing casting speed by 50% for 8 sec with a 10 sec cd. sure you lose Roar of Sacrifice going from a tenacity to a cunning pet, but you also gain Bullheaded and Roar of Recovery. if u ask me, trying to heal a constantly MS'd target while having 50% reduced cast speed while getting mana drained sounds kind of like a healers worst nightmare

 

Octopi

The problem would be that RoS is pretty critical to a Hunter surviving being keyed.

Without it, you would be a lot more vulnerable to focus, it provides a much needed dampener to trains of damage. Often times, it is not enough, I cannot think how it would be to try and live through those focus periods without having it.

The Serpent options looks pretty good on paper, but Cunning pets don't do much when the Hunter dies immediately after being focused.

Things may change with the upcoming changes to Deterrence(GC stated they are making changes to it to help with Magic damage mitigation)

 

uRabbit

So I'm glancing thru the discussions here, and I know this thread is currently on the topic of pets (where I agree with the general public that Scorpid is best), but I'd like to switch over to spec of the Hunter for a moment.

I know this is absolutely the MOST addressed issue in the Hunter community. However, I'm still a bit befuzzled as to what to expect come the next Arena season.

It appears to me that Survival is absolutely THE PvP spec (keeping in mind that Readiness will no longer affect BW, sadly). It address almost every issue that a Hunter has in Arenas:
1) Getting hit/stunned/locked too much,
2) Going OOM too soon
However, we all know that it does not address the most important issue (for some of us); Steady Shot. FA, in the MM tree, is Blizzard's attempt at fixing this. I don't know whether or not it's a good fix, but I've been hearing that it is not.

Also, in the upcoming changes, it states that the Hunter will not be able to attack when using Deterrence (which is 100% dodge/spell resist for 5 sec). I would rather have a type of Evasion, so I could still do damage...

My questions are:
1) Do you think SV going to be the preferred spec this season?
2) Do you think Steady Shot has been fixed for Arenas?
3) Do you share the opinion on the new Deterrence?

 

Mixe

I'm considering myself to be a new Hunter PvPer and I'm looking forward to this season so I can get to some nice ratings. I have a few questions first though:

1. Would the Chimaera be a pretty useful pet? The 50% slow with a 30 yard range could be very useful. The only problem I can see is the survival of my pet.

2. What class combos for 2v2, 3v3 should I be aiming for? Would a Spriest + Hunter be suitable for draining? With the changes to Mana Drain effects, this could be very useful against healer + warrior/lock teams.



And now to answer your questions:

1. No one can be too sure of what spec will be preferred, at least for the first couple weeks. We have to keep in mind that most players have 0 resilience for this season, so the burst of BM could be useful, but not as useful as SV perhaps. However, Season 1 will be the settling in season in which we will see players gearing up on Resilience and PvP gear in general.

2. I'm not too sure on this point as I haven't specced with FA yet.

3. Yes. We really need to be able to do damage whilst deterrence is up.



I must reiterate that I'm new to hunter arena so I'm trying to learn.

Thanks,

 

Azarias

I'm not plaing a hunter in WotLK but I have played one for about 1.5 years so I think I know a little to awnser some of the questions above:

1) Survival will NOT be a hunter pvp spec. As a matter of fact, I expect anything but survival in arena. That is to say, noone will go as far as Explosive Shot or Hunting Party. I expect 80% of the hunter to go MM, either 41 or 51 points. The rest will try BM (and porbably fail) and some will go for a hybrid spec. The reason I dont see Survival working is because it doesnt offer enough beyond Wyvern Sting and Resourcefullness. Explosive Shot is crap unfortunatly since it shares a cooldown with Arcane Shot.
Most hunters will want to go MM for Silencing Shot, 10% more AP for their entire team and maybe Chimera. Chimera Shot is a lot better then Explosive Shot because its another instant shot. Arcane Shot, Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot make for 3 instant speed dmg shots, along with maybe Serpent Sting and Auto Shot if you count that.
Now some hunters will try out BM for a burst setup but I doubt it will work. If you go more then 41 points into BM you either have to give up Scattr Shot or some damage and drain oriented MM and BM talents. If you do only put 41 points into BM it might work, but you would give it some of the better Bm talents.

2) Steady Shot isnt fixed for arena's is the sense that it will be do an equall amount of damage in pvp as it would in pve. You simply dont have the time to cast a 2 second shot all the time. It is however still a fine shot to use if your able to stand still. It allows you to save your instant speed shots for when you have to kite. Plus with slows, Disengage, Scatter and Masters Call it shouldnt be impossible to get some distant to get a few steady and auto shots off.

3) I think the new Deterrence has great potential if, and only if, they remove the facing aspect. If they do that, then Deterrence is a great way next to Roar of the Sacrifice to migate some damage when caught in a bad spot. Not being able to use abilities sucks but it will allow your healer to hopefully get you above 50% or even topped off. That said, the facing aspect would make it clunky / inpractical too be any good so that aspect really has to go.


4) The problem with a Chimera is that its a Cunning Pet. This means that you'll lose Charge, Roar of the Sacrifice (aka Soul Link), Intervine (though that 1 is somewhat minor imo) and +40% pet healing. Imo it would just be better to get a Crab for pvp. It doesnt have a slow but it does have a 4 second root which can be better.

5) I doubt Spriest Hunter would be a drain comp. Sounds like a burst setup to me. Personally I would run with a healer in 2v2. Assuming you can survive vs 2 dps, you will probably win vs other dps + healer setups. Not only do you have a drain, you also have a mortal strike effect, a pet, cc and a silence and endless mana. Should be good enough to allow you to win the mana war.
As for 3v3, hunter/resto shaman and either a dk or ret paladin seems like it would be great. A rogue might work as well, as could a lock, balance druid, warrior or mage... :p Really, the posibillities seem endless in 3v3. Again, I would run with atleast 1 healer.

 

negozin

xyz

 

Azarias

Right, so about my last reply..

Aparently right after I posted that, Explosive Shot got a big buff. Now I personally still dont like it, again because it shares a cooldown with Arcane Shot, but a lot of hunters have all of a sudden taken a big interest in a possible Survival spec.

I still think MM will turn out to be better and I think most hunters will end up going for that tree. That said, maybe with the recent buff Explosive Shot might actually be worth it.

As for best enchants and gems. Enchants you can just look up on wowhead. Just type "enchant [armor piece" and pick the enchant with the highest befinitial damage stats. There's usually a clear choice so it shouldnt be that hard. You can look up leg, head and shoulders enchants under 'permanent enchants'.
As for gems, its up to personall preferance. If your getting focused a lot you might want to gem for resilience. IF not, either agility, attack power or perhaps armor penetration will be the clear choice. Most likely AP for MM builds, agility for survival. But thats all up for debate.

 

Bolverk

For Negozin, Archavon is a perfect place for you to start your heroic runs. If you haven't already researched it for yourself, there is a good chance that the Valorous Cryptstalker gloves, legs and chest could drop on the same boss kill. More power to you!

As to Azarius' post, I agree that a pure Survival tree won't be the most appropriate for Arena but, the benefits of Improved tracking, Survival Instincts, Survivalist/Hunter vs. Wild and Lightening Reflexes in combination with MM are going keep us gunning just a bit longer. Especially with our use of Freezing Arrow, Scatter shot, Wyvern Sting and wing-clip. I may even suggest dumping 2 points into survival instincts just for the 4 second additional cool down reduction of Disengage and possibly add the glyph for DE reduction.

I noticed something peculiar about Disengage, while you are running away (god forbid) from your antagonist, you can hit Disengage and actually catapault yourself backwards, about 13 yards or so behind them. The beauty of this for me, is finding that I was able to wing-clip them while flying behind them and firing a scatter shot at minimum distance, once I landed.

Perhaps the "back jump" aspect of DE is an apology for giving rogues shadow step and taking away, our one other escape from being rooted; who knows, never look a gift horse in the mouth.

I did try to macro all 3 at one point, attempting to time my taps, between Disengage, pass overhead, wing-clip and on landing, scatter shot but with 230+latency my timing is less than perfect. So I may recommend that you setup your taps or your macro preference so that you can DE/SS, practically at the same instant (it appears you don't need to be facing your opponent when using the DE/SS hotkey but, I'm a button masher and do it out of force of habit.

Has anyone else noticed this trait?

 

strict9

I finally got a chance to try some PVP with my hunter after a couple weeks of gearing up.

First, PVP in general still seems as broken as it was in 3.0 at 70. Certain classes (ret paladins, rogues, feral druids) put out such ridiculously amounts of damage that if they get the jump on you, you stand absolutely no chance. Especially feral druids, where even if I do have my trinket up and get away, they just leap on me and can't be slowed. Hopefully, those classes will become more in line with everyone else once we start gearing up for resilience.

This is my first hunter I've PVP'd with, and I have to admit I'm often overwhelemed with the number of skills we need to have at the ready in PVP. I simply don't seem to have enough keybindings. In a way I almost need an entirely different key set when I PVP. Besides all the ranged talents, and melee talents, the pet talents alone take up several keys (intervene, roar of sacrifice, pin, etc).

Speaking of pets, I'm leveling up a crab as at least for now I can't ever see playing without roar of sacrifice. Crab seems the best option due to pin, though I wish it wasn't on such a long cooldown.

Disengage is absolutely hilarious. First, I absolutely always jump when disengaging, since that gives you an extra several feet. You do have to be careful with this though as it can send you flying. I disengaged down towards the mine in AB and went from halfway up the ramp down to the flag. The trickiest part of disengage is being aware of your terrain, both in terms of not killing yourself but also not disengaging back into an incline of any sort, which completely kills it. I agree with the post above that you can really disorient people using it.

 

Mearis

Vipersting got nerfed to scale in line with how it was at 70.

<manly> then my sister calls and proposes the one thing that has never before occured in my entire life

 

uRabbit

Why Exp Shot shares CD with Arc Shot, whereas Chimera does not, is completely beyond me. I have found when kiting mobs in practice for PvP, that I run out of instant shots to cycle thru. Even after Concus -> Serpent -> Exp -> Aimed. Pretty lame, if you ask me.

If Exp Shot were to be taken off the CD with Arc Shot, I think it would most definitely be a very viable PvP spec. I love BM. I now love SV. I completely despise MM. However, I think SV would still be the least preferred spec for PvP, as it relies on crit so much, that when stacked against resil, it pales in comparison to MM. Sad, but true.

 

strict9

At least for a month though, I think crit reliant builds and classes will still dominate until the majority of players can start building up resilience.

Thanks for that amazingly useful and informative post.

 

Mixe

I've been doing some Arena with an Unholy DK friend of mine. We've been doing alright, but we are both finding that my survivability as a hunter is very poor. We use Scatter shot/silencing shot/death grip to our maximum potential, but still against rogue/warriors/feral druids we're getting steamrolled.

I think it's going to be a big problem without resilience or a healer for hunters. We just have little survivability compared to other classes.

I would like Deterrance to change to more of a "bubble" type ability, or an inclusion of a new ability which can help us survive against melee especially.

We're going to try a Hunter/DK/Resto Shaman combo next and see how it turns out. When open, hunters can hurt quite a bit which I've seen in 2v2 when we've been against noobs. But if up against a rogue/warrior, we are shut down completely and useless. I'm hoping that with some healing, I can perform alot better. We'll see.

Has anyone else been doing some skirmishes ready for Season 5? If so, what are your findings?

EDIT: Another quick issue. I chose the Crab pet, but he's still getting owned extremely quick.

 

Levidian

That has nothing to do with why it got nerfed. Viper sting got changed so it scales with mana pools so it isn't exponentially more powerful against classes with smaller mana pools.

Draining 4k of a ret paladins 5k vs 4k of a holy paladins 20k.

Now its X% of the ret paladins 5k and X% of a holy paladins 20k (with a few stipulations)

 

sr20eric

I'm currently running a 3v3 with Resto Shaman, Shadow Priest, and BM Hunter. We do very well. The only team that gives us any problems is a team with double pally. Whether they both be Ret or Holy and a Ret.

Currently I'm still using a Cat for arenas. This is mostly due to lack of time to level another pet between clearing all content, farming honor, and now arena. When I have the time I'm considering either a Hyena, Ravager, or possible a Tenacity pet.

The reason we have been so successful thus far I believe is because I'm rarely the burn target. It's either my Spriest or my Resto Shammy getting focused straight out of the gate. Soon as we go for our guns Shammy blows hero and I blow full cooldowns excluding readiness. Burn the first target and usually have Tranq Shot and Kill shot on cooldown....burn Readiness and I'm able to do it all over again to include any disengage or deterrence that I might have used to tank a rogue or warrior.

I contemplated moving to a heavier BM build once readiness no longer resets BW but the double everything else is purely amazing.

Finally until our Resto Shaman gets more pvp gear I've tossed around the idea of a tenacity pet for an Intervene/Last Stand/Roar of Sacrifice macro for times when he gets focused straight out of the gate...but right now we are still learning...and the only tenacity pet I have at 80 is a gorilla from leveling.

Anyway just thought I'd share what I'm running now and see if anyone had any questions, comments, or would like to post their setup and tips.

*edit*

I'm tossing around this BM spec as a high survivability spec against melee since it gives me the most trouble. Any thoughts? Is there enough "uhmph" in it?

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

 

Vexia

My main focus isn't PvP, so I can't comment from a pro perspective as far as the viability of the spec goes. But what I can comment on is that the spec won't be nearly as viable come 3.0.8, thanks to the nerf they're making to Readiness. It's not affecting Bestial Wrath anymore, so a lot of the shine of that spec goes out the window without the 36 seconds of The Skill Within.

 

Kase

BM is not a viable build. Rogues, warriors and mm hunters can disarm you when bm is active :P

I think survival is ok (explosive shot will be buffed)---> Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

MM --> Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

 

Grasshopper

You are definately on to something here, but like at level 70, I feel that the added 6 yards from Hawk Eye is too good to give up for another 3% damage vs humanoids.

I've recently been experimenting with this build (WoW-europe talent calculator), and for several reasons this works well right now (playing 2v2 with a holy paladin guildie).

Granted, talents like Rapid Recup might seem a bit useless, but it's me compromising between battleground and wintergrasp grinding and arenas. I'm using a crab pet specced for Roar of Sacrifice and Intervene.

During an arena game, I will more or less always have serpent sting up on a target, allowing me to gain some added instants with Lock and Load - I consider this a bonus, and not something I rely on, but so far it's definately been helpfull in certain situations.
Staying out of melee doesn't seem like much of an issue anymore with the changes to disengage and the addition of Master's Call, so I chose not to pick up Surefooted.
In most situations where I need to avoid melee, I will always have one cooldown up that allows me to get away. Rotating between Blessing of Freedom from the paladin, Master's Call (an ability I more often use Readiness to renew than Scatter/Silencing), Scatter Shot, Disengage and Chimera+Scorpid I am close to never locked up in melee for longer than a few global cooldowns.

Since Season 5 was introduced this morning in EU, I haven't had time to gather up very much PvP gear. I am running with 2 pieces of Deadly/Hateful (badges and Archavon luck), honour ring and belt, as well as PvE gear enchanted/gemmed for resilience, granting me a grand total of 330 resilience - a number I expect to rise rapidly.

Has anyone else been toying around with Lock and Load in MM as well since the introduction of season 5, and what's your experience with the specc? I'm also thankfull for any advice and/or pointers.

 

Mixe

I did a few skirmishes with a DK friend and I found that staying out of melee is insanely hard in 2v2 compared to 3v3. Please note these are by no means absolutes, I am just stating what I found out last night. Rogues and Warriors still manage to completely steamroll me, deterrence and masters call both useless against them.

My best advice to any hunter who intends on doing well in this bracket is to get resilience - and quick.

I toyed around with this MM spec and I found that it worked really nicely in arena. Although I wasn't used to having so many shots (I'm usually BM) I was surprised at how good the spec was. I am by no means an expert on specs, but I do feel that is a good spec to PvP with. Any comments?