[Hunter] The PvP Thread
 

This is my first season in the arena. I don't see any other dedicated hunter thread for general PvP stuff, so it's probably a good time to start one.
So, as of 2.3:

1) Are scorpids still useful for masking our poisons? I've heard from many people that Viper is getting prioritized over Scorpid Poisons. I don't have a Scorpid Pet at the moment, and I'm wondering if I should go get one.

2) How do people usually train their pets for arena? As of right now I try and get the highest ranks of Shadow, Frost and Nature resistances after getting the basic pet abilities.

3) After doing just a little bit of basic testing, it seems for my current gear setup Snake Traps do more damage than Immolation traps. I was a little surprised by that. Also, I've never seen Entrapment Proc off of snake traps, but maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

Scorpids are pretty standard still, and I'm pretty sure that it's still random what poison will get dispelled. That being said make sure you have the improved stings talent, and are targeting priests, mages and shaman for viper sting over paladins.

I make sure to get avoidance, cobra reflexes, scorpid poison (rank 4 is a must), then max NR, FrR and SR.

I've seen entrapment proc off snake trap, but it only does it when the trap is first sprung.

This season I've had the most luck playing Warrior Warlock (felguard) hunter Priest (Disp) Paladin. It's a very stong setup from previous seasons, but now with the aimed shot and arcane shot buffs it's even better. We mana burn any elemental shaman, or mages we come across and keep a pet on them to keep them from drinking then split DPS on two targets that will both have healing debuffs on them. It not only slows their DPS, but really puts their healers in a tight spot manawise.

Yes, the scorpid pet + imp. stings is still the best option.

If you are doing (Druid/priest) + Hunter 2v2, MM to silencing shot, but then get Improved Revive pet and Beastial swiftness in BM, and then either Imp. Wingclip or Entrapment in survival. Beastial swiftness makes an enormous difference vs druid teams, and imp. revive pet is extremely useful. Despite your best efforts your pet will die vs good teams, and having the imp. talent makes it so you can trap one, fear/cyclone the other and resummon it in their face.

Games in 2's are extremely long so make sure you have a good supply of snacks handy. Raid marker yourself, your pet and your healer, and always be aware of where they are. Do not LOS your healer, it is better to take damage and receive heals then try and avoid damage and end up LOSing an efficient greater heal and forcing your priest to use less efficient instants.

I play priest but I would say if you have the choice between entrapment and imp. wingclip, imp. wingclip is better for 2v2 and entrapment for 5v5. A wingclip proc is just extremely helpful no matter what you get it on, whether it is a warlock pet, kiting healer, or your dps focus, or a rogue pounding your face with trinket down.

Yeah, I'm surprised this thread wasn't around. I've taken my Druid seriously last two seasions, but with his 3s team falling apart and a promising 5s for my hunter on the horizon, I'm playing my hunter instead.

Currently I'm looking at playing in Warr/Pal/Priest/Warlock/Hunter lineup, was wondering how this team plays out, what it's weak points are, and so on. Intuitively it seems like it'd be mostly a drain team, but with 3 dps would also have the potential to end a match more authoritatively than a tri-healer drain team.

I'm also debating (considering?) how worthwhile some other pets might be. I have heard some players find that a pet with dash is better to stick on druids in 2s than scorpid poison, and I was wondering if boar charge is useful at all (I was thinking it'd be great to target a healer and pull away from melee DPS).

It was discussed in the drain teams thread - Charge triggers the cooldown on Dash. That combined with there being no boars above level 60 makes them an uncommon pet.

Why do you say rank4? Using Petopia's pet calculator you can't get avoidance, cobra reflexes, poison rank4 and max of those three resistances.

Is avoidance really necessary in arena? How much damage are pets taking from AE other than Frost Nova?

If we're just using scorpid for the poison masking, is rank1 enough or does have a higher chance to be resisted or something? Otherwise, rank5 is the highest.

A single stack of rank 4 last longer than a single stack of rank 5, giving you a little more time to stack an extra charge on a moving target.

That was fixed a while ago. All ranks now last 10 seconds.

Some AoE's that are encountered regularly that pets take 50% damage from include blade flurry/whirlwind/sweeping strikes/consecrate/cone of cold/multishot(even if the primary target is the pet). So yes, I'd say avoidance is really necessary in arena, especially given that some healers like to pull pets towards a blade flurrying rogue or a sweeping striking warrior, for keeping our pet alive for drinking/covering viper.

E: On my scorpid I run rank 4 scorpid poison because as far as I'm aware downranking doesn't increase the resist rate(basing this on mages who downrank poly and frost nova) and you can get rank 5 Shadow resist(140) with rank 4 nature resist/frost resist, as opposed to rank 4 shadow resist (120)

Hello,
I have recently respecced from 0/43/18 to 11/41/9 due to pet survivability issues in 2v2 and 3v3. I also changed my scorpid points to give him more stamina. I had the feeling the resistances were not that efficient (scorpid not resisting fears, frost nova or entangling roots at all). Do some players share this impression?

I use to play in 2v2 with a resto druid, but we are not doing that great. Against priest/druid with either warlock, warrior or rogue we lose very often. In the end, the opposite healer is generally oom, but i am too, or nearly, and i find it difficult to outdamage the healpower of an oom priest or druid while a warlock, a warrior or a rogue can still deal very serious damage and it's often (after a while) a loss that seemed certain from the beginning. Does anyone have some good advice ?

Did they change the cost of rank 4 up to 30 focus when they changed the duration? The reason I used to run rank 4 was the lower focus cost let you keep your stack growing even if one poison gets dodged or parried.

It was always 30 focus.

In reply to Bestial Swiftness for a MM/Survival Hunter....
...could another option be to go for a Serpent with it's ranged Poison to mask Viper Sting?

Seems that slowing your pet is the greatest counter and I'm starting to see a lot more people concious of what a Scorpids job is. I know you lose the DOT Stack but it seem with a Ranged Poison it maybe just as effective.

Thoughts on this? Has anyone tried this?

(Sorry, not trying to Hijack your Thread Torz :), just wanted to add a something else in the mix since the Scorpid questions are being answered already.)

The problem is the DoT stack is the only thing that really protects Viper Sting consistently. With only one thing protecting it, it's going to take an average of 1.5 cures to remove it. So you'll get ~one tick of Viper Sting. Not worth it in my opinion.

I have a question about BM pets and abilities. I have a cat and in my pet training book I have the max ranked claw and bite. I have heard conflicting issues of not having bite as to get that extra claw. Bite is a waste of focus. Should I only have claw as his only dps ability? I never consider prowl in of pvp.