But I took into account a weapon chain on the 2-hander. My summary above indicates that with a weapon chain on the 2-hander, and with a weapon chain + a 65 AP enchant on the two 1-handers, the 2-hander still comes out as superior. In both cases, you use a weapon chain and don't need to spend the 3 talent points.

So given that a weapon chain is being used either way, why not take the 2-hander since it confers better stats?

Yo don't have to use a weapon chain if you use a 2h because of the 3 talent points

This doesn't completely address the point, though. You still can use a weapon chain even with a 2-hander. And you can spend the talent points in lieu of a weapon chain, even while duel-wielding.

To make a fair comparison, you need to compare all 4 options: duel-wielding with weapon chain, 2-hander with weapon chain, duel-wielding with talents, 2-hander with talents. Your point is that 2-hander with talents is superior to 2-hander with weapon chain, which is a valid opinion, but comes down to a case-by-case basis of what you're sacrificing for those 3 talent points, and whether that's worth it for your bracket/comp.

Rej's point is that 2-hander with weapon chain is superior to duel-wield with weapon chain, and 2-hander with talents is superior to duel-wield with talents, which is much more objective: you're comparing stats to stats rather than stats to talent points, and the 2-hander comes out on top. Which brings up the valid question: why ever spend the extra points on the duel-wield option. And I can't see a valid reason to (maybe I'm missing something).

What I suspect is happening is that people decide that spending three talent points isn't worth it, and that they'd rather get a weapon chain. Then they decide that duel-wielding must be the obvious choice, so they can get an additional enchant. But this ignores the fact that the duel-wielding + 65 AP + weapon chain is still inferior to 2-hander + weapon chain.

The reason why some hunters usually choose to DW is not because of AP enchants at all. It's to get a Titanium Weapon Chain on one weapon, and 25 crit/hit enchant on the other. If you only use pvp gear, that's the only way to get hit capped without blowing talent points. And that includes Victory neck, ring and cloak. This adds up to 175 hit rating.

I'm personally using a pve ring with HIT (Planestalker Band, very powerful stuff), so I don't even think about DWing. Just wanted to clear it up.

Chimera shot does 40% of the damage that would be done by SerpSting if you let it tick out...so opening an encounter with be SerpSting followed by Chimera is the best for damage (and only 1.5 secs for a dispel). This will be followed by Aimed and arcane shots or silencing/concussive depending on situation. I suppose for a real quick burn you could drop readiness and repeat Chimeria aimed and arcane. You could probably use the same combo for a quick Mana burn using Viper (not sure how viable this strat is). I personally only do BG's because I prefer to raid, so I am not sure on the damage done to a geared PvP player; but when I pop my initial burst damage (including readiness) most classes are one to two auto shots from a Kill Shot if they don't recieve heals.

Well Bindura, if you'd check out the Marksmanship forums, its been stated that Chimaera Shot does 40% of the damage that Serpent Sting is capable of doing- so you'll get the maximum effect out of it regardless, you don't need to wait for Serpent Sting to be under 2seconds...

I was wondering if I could get an opinion on this spec for survival pvp:

0/14/57

This would be for 2v2 with a disc priest.

@Kyukia
Don't even think about MM until you get a weapon with over 200 dps.

@star wars reference :P
Get rid of Deflection. It's useless. Take Survival Tactics instead, lower cd on FD and Disengage is a lifesaver. Get rid of Noxious Stings, you need those points elsewhere. Get rid of Sniper Training. As a Hunter, you're supposed to constantly keep moving, standing still will get you killed/cc'd. Max Master Tactician and Point of No Escape with the points you get.

If you really feel like you need Noxious Stings for some reason, remove 1 point from Expose Weakness, Hunting Party and Master Tactician to max it.

How do we counter a prot warrior that continuously charges at you? I trapped him, wyvern string him, yet he still manages to have 1 - 2 charges left. I cant seem to get a good strategy for it

There is really only 1 way to fight a warrior. You have to snare and stay in the charge range...I'm not sure exactly what the number is but something like 5-6 yards away from him. Its basically just outside his melee range and just inside of his charge range. Thats why you always see warriors run away from you to range for charge. I usually just drop a trap and run circles around him. Use Master's call if he gets a Hamstring on you.

I just got back after quitting the game for quite some time (Played a little WOTLK up until my guild downed Malygos then I left before Ulduar)

I was wondering what specc works the best now for 2v2 and 5v5 Arena PvP. Is it Marksman? I would appreciate some tips but I don't require much more the rest I'll figure out.

Has anyone els noticed a change with hunter crit dmg in pvp?

Did some 2vs2 yesterday and it was like my dps /crit was on a holiday:-)
Have read the patchnotes but cant find anything about it.

The only thing I can think of would be whoever you were fighting had high resilience

Does anyone here still use PAWN? If not please tell me what else you use for quick item comparison while in-game and leveling up. Everything I found is for lvl 80: RAWR, spreasheets, etc. And all the pawn strings I find are for specific specs only. What I am exactly searching for in a pawn string is the role. I use different equipment sets depending on my purpose. A different one for battlegrounds, another for dungeons. I would also extend that to having different eq sets for each bg. Like there may be need for different equipment in WSG than in AB. So can anyone calculate a string regarding the role and not the talents? I'll tweak the string for my own talent if needed. Thanks.

There's no "best spec" for PvP. It really depends on you. How you play, how you play with others, and how well you know the class. Anyone who knows the hunter really well can do really good in any spec, even BM. I know a guy that dominates arena as BM. If you are looking for the most popular spec, its MM and SV.
You can make any spec work really well, as long as you knew what you wanted to do. Do you want to CC? Do you want raw power? Do you want survivability?

I have never PvP'd in any serious way. I am now looking at getting into a little more of a competitive PvP with my hunter and am trying to get some current advice. For PvE I have a mostly 232 gear with a few 245/251 (my 2H and Bow are 251) and do 5-6k dps in raids as MM spec. Here is my armory for those wanting more details: The World of Warcraft Armory - Chrall @ Arygos - Profile

I have some Furious pieces and will be continuing to gear up my PvP set. With all the stamina on PvP gear I feel like it synergies more with Survival. Thus I have been trying to find out what build would be worth trying out. I plan to dual spec leaving MM as the raid/PvE and then trying out something like this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft. I based this spec on the advice given to others here, but had a few points that I was not sure if I used for the best.

Right now I want to get into a 2s or 3s team, and also improve in BGs & WG. I would appreciate any advice on whether this is a sound choice or if going with a MM based spec is better at this gear level.

Other questions I am still researching but will tack on here:
1. Does a heavy PvP set favor Survival or does it really not matter too much?
2. What would a typical MM PvP spec be? (most the ones I have found are outdated)
3. How much focus should be on aquiring PvP gear over PvE gear, should I shoot for specific resilience score then stop going for PvP gear?

1. For arena-ing, the fact that Survival spec is able to draw slightly more AP from the amount of stam in PVP gear plays a very insignificant role in determining the PVP spec to choose. Personally, I prefer to play as MM over SV for season8, due to following factors :

- Just like in PVE, MM's damage and burst scales better with higher weapon DPS, while survival damage only depends on pure AP. That was why SV > MM during earlier seasons, where weapon DPS was still low. However, with the introduction of t2 relentless and now wrathful ranged weapons, and ilvl 251+ PVE ranged weapons, MM's damage just seems to scale better.

- CCs and defensive cooldowns. It's true that SV has 1 more extra CC in the form of Wyvern Sting. However, the tradeoff is losing Silencing Shot (which is basically a CC for casters and healers) and most importantly, Readiness. I found double scatter shots - deterrence - silencing shots - master's calls - freezing traps too appealing over a Wyvern Sting.

- It's true that SV has a potentially higher burst in the form of LnL. However, when playing as SV, I tend to "waste" the proc by having to spend the GCD for other stuff (defensive cooldowns, tranq-ing, flares, CCs and traps, etc) instead of doing 3 explosive shots in a row. This is more of a personal preference and playstyle though, so others might not find this is the case.

However, SV also has its own advantage, such as :

- Better mana efficiency (Replenishment). Personally, I found that MM with cunning pet (RoR), Rapid Recuperation, and Efficiency is enough to cover my mana. However, this might be different from person-to-person.

- Even lower CD on traps. Personally, as MM I only found this useful for freezing traps, because frost trap's duration last as long as its untalented CD anyway.

- Better performance against dispel-happy teams. Chimera Shot's burst went down significantly if SrS keeps getting dispelled, while SV doesn't have this problem.

- Wyvern Sting. Even though it's one of the clunkiest CC (one of the longest cooldown for a break-on-damage CC, DOT component when CC ends, cleansed with poison cleansing as opposed to magic dispelling, etc), it still has its uses, albeit very limited. Due to its long duration but also long CD, I used it as a way to force a trinket. Still useless if the opposing team has some sort of poison cleansing though.

2. I found that Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is a good base talent build for MM arena. Some possible variations for the remaining points :

- Putting points in Survivalist
- Putting more points in Improved Tracking. Be aware that the talent doesn't apply to Track Hidden though.
- Putting points in Imp. Arcane Shot. For more burst.
- Taking full Piercing Shot. Personally, I put only 1 point in it due to only using the bleed to mess up with rogues, and the fact that Piercing Shot's damage contribution is generally smaller against PVP-geared opponent due to resilience.
- Reducing points taken in Efficiency

3. For new arena players, it is generally advised to have a higher resilience amount than what top players run with. It allows for more lenience in managing survivability and offensive crowd-control (or when being focused), while honing up their skills. About 900-1000 resilience is generally advised for new players

High-level non-healer players however, tend to run with less resilience, basically running with just enough resilience to survive initial burst or a CC train. Hunters especially, are designed to survive using positioning, offensive CCs, avoidance, and especially defensive cooldowns (deterrence, disengage, master's call, etc) moreso than using stamina or high amount of resilience (which tends to work better with classes like priests and warlocks). These high-level players tend to run with as low as 700 resilience, depending largely on composition.

After getting more and more comfortable with arena-ing, it is generally a good idea to sub some PVP gears with PVE gears, while always keeping in mind to be hit-capped (164 rating for PVP). Among the PVP gears, cloak/ring/neck are the weakest pieces, due to lack of Agility, and as such they are usually the first to get replaced with similar-ilvl PVE items. For both MM/SV, unlike PVE where the most desirable "green stat" combo on an item is AP/crit/ArP, the most desirable "green stat" combo for an item to be used for PVP is AP/crit/hit, because :

- Hit is good because the PVP pieces that come wth AGi on it don't have hit.
- Crit is king in PVP, a lot moreso than PVE. Just like any other DPS class in PVP, burst damage > sustainable damage. A crit can determine whether an enemy is killed or not in PVP, while in PVE, crit is just another means to add to your sustainable over-time damage to a boss.
- ArP is quite lower on the scale, even as MM, because you don't do steady shots and autoshots, which scales with ArP, as often compared to PVE.
- Haste is a bad stat for hunters in PVE, but it is an even worse stat for PVP. Most of the time, there won't be many chances of standing still doing steady shots and autoshots in PVP, of which are the only hunter shots that are affected by haste.

Is it AGI or AP gems that people are using for PvP. I've been using AP but also seen agi too.

For MM or SV I would use Agi over strait AP. Crit is one of the best PVP stats, and you get it from Agi.

BM benefits more from strait AP, as AP scales to their pet and crit does not.

Hey guys!

I recently made the decision to PvP exclusively with my hunter. Right now, I'm grinding BG's for honor and working toward my 2nd piece of Furious. I would evently like to get into 3's or 5's.

My question is about enchanting the gear I will be getting in the future and some gem/talent questions.

1. Should I gem pieces like chests, pants and weapons in the same manner as PvE?

2. If I were to respec MM for burst DMG, would it be more of an advantage to gem crit over agi while maintaining hit where I need it?


I'm currently spec'd Surv and gem'd agility, and I'm PvP'ing in all my PvE gear until I can get a respectable number of new pieces. The World of Warcraft Armory - Miraleigh @ Elune - Profile

3. Are any of my pieces worth keeping over PvP replacements.

I'm total noobsauce to this part of the game, so thanks in advance for any advise.

I'll take a stab at your questions, but I've only done a little bit of arena so take my advice with discretion

1) after you get your resilience up around 800-900 you can gem and chant normally, but you might consider using some of the +stam gems instead of going straight agility or Arpen like in PvE. PvP has a high survival demand, it's not just about doing the most dps It might be worth it to gem/chant some for Spell Penetration (not power)

2) Not sure about this, not least of all because I haven't rolled MM since I leveled.

3) your weapon will probably be good fora long time, and raid gear can be just fine in bg's, but once you start doing arena you'll want to be in a full set of PvP gear. You just won't live long enough to kill anything otherwise. I have tried using a dps trinket with my PvP set and that seems to work well.

I'm sure you know that doing Wintersgrasp a couple times a week is a quick way to get a lot of honor, and if you have other toons that have stone keepers shards you don't need for anything else, the honor commendations you can get in WG are BoA,

Have fun! Arena is a blast.

Thanks for the info!

I'll let you know how it works out!