That might be pretty nice, actually. I'm running BM/Enhance in 2v2 currently, and readiness would be a godsend.

I would probably spec something like this:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?hunt...10000000000000

Sorry to slightly change the subject, but I find all this talk about monkey/dodge quite amusing in respect to Blizzard's statements about us being supposed to have low mitigation in melee... and then radically buffing AotH with dodge, while nerfing our baseline dodge % (which is basically what dragonhawk is).

I quote an earlier post on MMO-champ:
This does not seem to match the dragonhawk idea...

But now, they're now giving back our usual dodge % while using Dragonhawk, but are drastically reducing our dodge-scaling from agility. I wonder why, since in TBC even the best PvP gear didn't get us over ~18% dodge (I think my 4/5 S4 hunter is at sub-16% dodge with +10agi gems in red slots), and now they want to nerf our melee mitigation, yet give us a "free" aspect of the monkey.

Even more interesting is the question why to nerf our mitigation at times that we have little mana, running Viper to get some mana back. At that time we do 50/40% less damage, don't have much mana for defensive abilities (or we have to switch early) and have sub 3% melee mitigation from dodge. This just makes no sense, I'd say integrate it with Viper if they really want it to be a defensive aspect (because really, we can't kill anyone with 50% of our DPS anyway) and give us some mana ticks on dodges as well? Or, just revert the change and give us proper dodge-scaling and ditch dragonhawk, meaning our defenses are up to par (has anyone in TBC ever complained about hunter melee mitigation? Seriously?) in all situations.

GC answered that this did not break with their earlier statements. But I think that's bollocks tbh. As far as I know they cut our dodge from agi benefit with a set % (10%?) but did not change the scaling of Agi to dodge - so after we've reached that cap we'd scale like everyone else. And their argument about dodging being frustrating for melee when they finally get to us: also something they're definitely back pedaling on now.

I just simply have to assume that with the last days beta testing and especially the launch of the new patch they see that we have problems with nearly every melee class in PvP - with Rogue, Warrior, DK's and Retadins being what I see mentioned most often, but I assume also shamans and ferals are a problem.

So, they could do one of three things: make it easier for us to stay in range - give us more survivability in melee - or give us better dps in melee. We know the last option is out of the question or we'd have a whole new ball game. Easier to stay in range is hard to do I suppose with the counters that exist - so the easiest change for them is to give us more survivability in melee.

For me it looks good so far, but I'm not a pro so someone with higher arena experience than me will have to judge that.

Well, it only makes sense that they're reverting some of it, since I've never heard a melee complaining about dodges. Our dodge % currently isn't very high anyway (except with deterrence, obviously). To me it makes no sense to nerf basic survivability while in "conservation-mode", being Viper. In Viper you want to survive and get mana back, not take even more hits than we're already taking.

I'd like the first option (more ways to stay in range) a lot better. A different 51-survival talent for example, or a glyph that removes snares if you use disengage/FD, something like that. Now it seems we get a chance to take more hits, however they're really not buffing our (untalented) survivability, they first nerfed it and are now compensating for it with a non-scalable (admittedly slightly higher dodge %) aspect, which is not always active when taking hits. So yes, after a the agi-threshold we might actually see some more dodge than we used to have in TBC, but as PvP armor usually increases other stats as the seasons progress (+hit/crit/ap/armor ignore and ~3 agi per item per season that doesn't introduce new stats), I don't think we'll see more than 2% extra dodge happening in WOTLK comming from the first epic set to the last (which is then around 5%, the dodge % of the average caster).

I'm hovering around 1700-1800 so I'm not that imba either, but currently I don't have much hope the Hunter PvP situation will really improve at level 70. The ranged MS effect makes us a bit more viable these days, but I'm thinking that Readiness + TBW spec at 80 might indeed be our only shot against all the CC/snares we have to handle.

I'm pretty excited about this viper change by the way:
Which should make things a lot more bearable (CC & Hide while regenning, then re-open fire when comfortable on mana).

I have been thinking in that direction as well. I believe the logic in vanilla wow for not having auto-shot firing on the run was that we were good at kiting, and it would make us über (might be a faulty assumption, have not seen it stated anywhere, but bear with me).

Now that melee's got all kinds of ways to break our kiting, and that kiting is no longer as good a tool as it was before, I do think completely unlinking auto shot and making it possible to fire on the run would be a way to balance us again.

As it is now, as I have stated before - steady shot and auto shot is severly reduced as damage sources in pvp - making auto shot possible to fire on the run would go a long way to fix us. And I do think it would not go too far either.

Either that or something else have to change. At the very least all speccs need another hard hitting instant shot. Atm it is only MM that looks decent dps wise for pvp, though a bit lacking in survivability.

I think they should test having auto shot firing on the run now that beta is still up. Though I think they fear the outcry of other classes if they do, and the outcry of hunters if they it does not make it into live.

First of all, I don't see them as backpedaling on their statements. Dragonhawk will be good; heck, better than what we currently get from gear, BUT we're still going to be using viper for a great deal. We're still vulnerable to melee; even more so than before without the possibility to downrank (heck, I know I downranked Arcane for dispels and Multishot for totem killing). Viper now relies on us dealing damage, and it will be changed to allow melee damage to regenerate mana. Let's face it; we're either going to be meleeing, shooting while engaged in melee or close kiting for our mana back most of the time. Timing deterrance with AOTV might be a way around this, but it's still frustrating. However, it does fir in with the whole idea of being vulnerable while regenerating mana that Blizz seems to like.

Better dps in melee is an option, and removing the dodge component from Mongoose Bite is a start for that. Survivability in melee? Even with completely fucking up our dodge scaling, numbers seem to point to a slight increase. But then again, numbers can be such liars at times... A base line scatter shot and a stun removal would help. More benefit from stamina would be a thought, but I doubt they'd change the formula for a single class.
More tools for getting back in range? Well, glyph of AotM is a very elegant solution, unless they changed it. Again, scatter shot and stun removals would be viable solutions. So were Camouflage and Black arrow, but it seems those were taken off the table for various reasons. Obviously, if I'd get my pick, I'd rather have more tools to get out of range over the other two options, because quite fucking honestly, we're a ranged class; if we get melee abilities, like you said, we'd be playing a whole new ball game.

EDIT: An elegant way of implementing any solution would be as equip or set bonuses on the PVP sets.

Latest from GC: MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Upcoming hunter changes

Not very surprising, but with all the anti-kite abilities today it would be interesting if they at least had tested it. It would make us a kiting class again.

IMO, for most comps hunters should be using tenacity pets. RoS and Intervene are just really great abilities. It seems like playing the drain game isn't as strong anymore though so it might be worthwhile to switch to a crab, but I have been sticking with my scorpion for now.

A doubt: we must use a 1:1 macro even now, in 3.0? Because if I simply cast Steady Shot, my first Auto fire next the Steady, but if I use a simply /cast Auto /cast Steady macro, I gain a "free" Auto before the Steady. In arena, my only doubt is about trapped target (steady is better than auto, when we can), but versus melee a fast auto is better.
Anyone use 1:1 macro in arena still now?

Autoshot is no longer linked to steady shot. The old macros are pretty much obsolete now.

How do people feel about the scaling that viper sting received? Are people worried that hunters basically end up as one-trick ponies again in the expansion? Right now with how good viper sting is, all non-druids are on a huge clock against hunters before they end up OOM.

I don't understand why they don't fix the other things wrong with hunters instead of making them rely on an incredibly powerful ability that leads to very boring gameplay.