HuntsmansLodge.com

Hunter Tanking ICC: Prince Keleseth

Solaryn — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:50:40 +0000

Ahh… ICC is a marvelous thing, every encounter a new mechanic, every encounter a different way for a hunter to shine!

Today I’ll be talking about one of the ideal bosses to plop a hunter on as tank, Prince Keleseth.

Prince Keleseth is one of the three Blood Princes, and the only one that doesn’t need a conventional tank. A hunter is an excellent choice for him for a variety of reasons. We have several instant ranged abilities and Kill Shot, which is a fantastic ability to generate a lot of initial threat upon him.

This guide is going to presume you have a basic understanding of the encounter. We’ll be focusing on the role of a ranged tank exclusively.

Gearing for Keleseth tanking:

You do not need any special gear to be capable of tanking Kel, but any gear you can equip to increase your stamina without murdering your dps is highly advisable. PvP gear and stamina trinkets are pretty valid choices. You want to shoot for at least 35khp+ although 40k+ is a better goal if you can manage it.

As a hunter tanking Keleseth you have 3 priorities:

#1. Obtaining the little purple glowy things called “Dark Nucleus”.

Hereafter referred to as booberries, because I don’t like saying Nuclei. These booberries are your lifeline and the key to surviving Kel’s Empowered Shadow Lance. Each one multiplicatively decreases the damage you take from his shadow lances by 35%. In otherwords 1 orb = 35% reduction, 2 = 57.8%, 3 = 72.5%, 4 = 82.2%, 5 = 88.4% and so on. So the more you have the better, in general as long as you keep 5+ you essentially trivialize his main attack on you.

However, the booberries have an interesting feature, they always hook on the last one to deal damage to them, in addition to that they tick down and damage themselves as time goes on, eventually poofing away. This means you will literally spend the entire fight gathering them in order to survive. You cam either use an auto shot or a rank 1 Serpent Sting to grab them, I find auto shot is easier, but if you can effectively pull off a low rank Serpent Sting, that will let you hold onto it just a little longer.

As a quick note, no doubt your fellow raid members will occasionally yet unintentionally work to thwart you. Booberries can be stolen by any damaging ability including AEs, cleaves, etc.\

If they steal one, target it and steal it back, UNLESS it possesses one of two characteristics.

If it has less than 20% health left, it’ll be gone a few ticks after you pull it.
If it has a dot on it, it’s stuck on that other person till the dot fades.

If either of these things occur, call it a loss and move on, wasting valuable time struggling to get one booberry will be an unnecessary distraction.

When Keleseth is empowered, everyone will be in range of him and as a result closer to you as well. No matter what the raid leader instructs, you’ll still have someone AEing or cleaving Keleseth so keep your distance. If you have to go move to get another booberry in this phase, take a wide berth around the melée before heading to it. It’s always better to take a few seconds longer to get one, than to rush and lose 4 on the melée.

#2. Gain a threat lead on Keleseth.

Having all the booberries won’t do you much good if he starts lancing other people. This is especially important in the first couple minutes, if he gets the first empowerment jump, you need to be ready for it. Kill Shot is your moneymaker for threat, with only 1 hit point unempowered, you can and should use it every cooldown. Beyond that, use your standard dps rotation in between booberries. You will want to make a targeting hotkey to /target Prince Keleseth, because after about 4 berries, targeting manually will become quite the challenge.

#3. Everything else.

If you have all the booberries and a solid threat lead on Kel, by all means shoot some kinetic bombs or dps the boss for a few seconds, your teammates will no doubt appreciate the help. Do not however do so if it will cause you to fall behind on berries or threat, you’re a tank today, let CC and dps be handled by the others.

A few last notes, coordinate with your healer, let them know you’ll be moving a lot to get berries and make sure they follow the giant purple cloud.

Be mindful of the other mechanics, you can still be the target of Empowered Conjured Flames and the like, so be certain you can avoid it until it’s damage is trivialized while staying in range of your healer.

I hope this provided some useful tips to one of the most entertaining encounters in ICC IMHO.

Happy Tankering!

- Solaryn

Hunter Basics: The Jump Shot

Lisselis — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:49:54 +0000

If you’ve played a hunter for any significant amount of time, you’ve probably at least heard of the jump shot.

While running away from an enemy target, the hunter spins around 180 degrees, fires a shot, spins back around, and continues to run in the original direction.

When I first read about this move, it was regarding PVP strategies and involved wing-clipping and frost-trapping in addition to the jump shot. I thought it sounded complicated, difficult to execute, and only useful for hard-core PVP hunters.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

This move is surprisingly easy to get the hang of. It might even come naturally if you’re in a situation where you absolutely need to use it.

The easiest way to pull this move off is to use your right hand on the mouse and your left hand on the keyboard. Use both mouse buttons to move your character forward. Tap the space bar with your keyboard hand and use your mouse, with both mouse buttons pressed, to spin your character around 180 degrees. While your character is airborne, use your left hand to hit the hotkey for one of your instant-cast shots, and then use your mouse to spin your character back to your original direction by the time your character hits the ground. Head to one of the capital cities for your faction and give it a try on the training dummies.

If you’ve done much jousting for Argent Tournament dailies or Trial of the Champion (as any class), you’ve probably done the first half of the move before—jumping and then using the mouse to spin around 180 degrees to charge or shield-break.

I’m not a PVPer; I’m a PVE hunter through and through. Hence, it may not be obvious why this move is so important to master. However, I find myself using this move more and more as I progress through end-game content.

The first time I really found myself using (and needing) this move was on the new Vault of Archavon boss, Toravon the Ice Watcher. For anyone who’s unfamiliar with the Toravon fight, he periodically summons frost orbs that need to be burned down quickly. Following normal aggro mechanics, they target the first player that hits them and move in that direction. The catch is that these orbs do pretty serious damage to any players in melee range, meaning ranged dps must be on the ball. As a hunter, I find the jump shot indispensible in kiting and killing the frost orbs and downing Toravon.

Shortly after the Toravon encounter was released, I joined a 10-man Icecrown Citadel group with my guild. It turns out that my guild was repeatedly short on ranged dps, and hunters happen to be incredibly useful in Icecrown, particularly on Deathbringer Saurfang, the fourth boss in the Lower Spire.

Like Toravon, Saurfang periodically summons adds—a pair of Blood Beasts—throughout the fight that ranged dps must quickly pick up. The Blood Beasts must not be allowed to hit a player or Saurfang gets a boost (they also hit pretty hard). As a hunter, I have a couple of slowing abilities that are necessary here, namely Concussive Shot and Frost Trap, but even with these abilities, I usually can’t quite get a Blood Beast down by the time it gets to me. Hence, I have to move away and finish it off with a couple of jump shots. With proper use of my hunter abilities and mastery of the jump shot, I can get one blood beast down while the other ranged dps (2-3 players) are still working on theirs.

There you have it. One simple move saves my butt, and my raid’s butt, time and time again.

It’s good to be a hunter.

- Lisselis

More Updates

Garwulf — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:56:40 +0000

I updated my Spirit Beast resource page this evening and added Arcturis to the mix. There’s nothing on it that hasn’t already been covered in pasts posts, but it’s a handy quick reference for the important details. Namely, where to find them. I’ve included maps for each of the rare spirit beasties, all in one convenient location.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Linkage

Garwulf — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:53:14 +0000

Tonight I finally knocked out one of the tasks I’d been meaning to get to for months… a WoW links page. I’m sure I probably missed a couple sites, but the ones I mentioned are the few I have stored in my short term memory.

A links page is just one item on a long list of additional resources and usability enhancements I’d been planning to introduce to this site for some time. “Time” is the key word here. That my friends is in short supply for this hunter, so be patient. Hopefully I’ll have this site where I want it by Cataclysm.

If you know of a site worth checking out that I neglected to mention, please list it in the comments area of this post. Submitting a link to me won’t guarantee a place on my list, but it will be considered. One catch though… unless the site is epic, any blogs void of activity (fewer than 2-3 posts per month) will most likely not be included.

No doubt I’ll be updating this page over the coming weeks, so check it from time to time and you might get turned on to a site you didn’t know about. If I find anything of real value however, I’ll be sure to mention it in a post.

Hunter Set Bonuses

Garwulf — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 06:53:09 +0000

Frostheim’s put together a fantastic analysis of hunter set bonuses in his Scattered Shots column over at WoW.com. For those of you curious as to which set bonuses to go for, this is a must read.

I imagine most of you are familiar with his work over there, but if not, do yourself a favor and catch up on his column. There will never be another BRK, but Frost is pretty damn close. As I’ve said before, I can’t think of a better representative for the hunter community. Well… except for Pike. She’d be pretty damn good.

Urgent Update

Many of you are probably already privy to this information, but I just found out that Pike is taking a leave of absence from WoW (discovered this when I went to link to her site). I won’t say I’m sad over this recent development, as she’s not done with blogging, just with WoW for the time being.

I suppose I could have rewritten this post, considering this news of Pike’s departure from WoW is weeks old, but I chose not to. The truth is, I am not much of a WoW blog frequenter (is that a word..?). I barely have enough time to devote to my own, let alone other blogs.

However, Pike’s Aspect of the Hare is on my short list of blogs I try to catch up on err… monthly..? Of all the WoW blogs on the net, Pike’s is my favorite. So what other WoW blogs do I look at..?

The list is short, so this will be easy.

OutDPS.com – Euripides does an excellent job of detailing the important facts in a concise manner. He’s got a great PvP columnist, his podcast is dope, and Eurpides is a pretty cool f**ker. OutDPS is a great hunter site.

StabilizedEffortScope.com – Rilgon tells it like it is. A straight shooter with a vast knowledge of the class. Marksman hunter extraordinaire.

WarcraftHuntersUnion.com – Frost’s blog. ‘Nuff said.

That’s about it folks. I’m sure there are dozens upon dozens of other blogs that I could and should be reading, but these are the few I think to check on occasion. As I’d said, I seldom take the time (bad Gar) to keep current with the WoW Blogosphere, but these are the sites that are on my route.

This is more like it

Garwulf — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:06:45 +0000

I just peeped this update to Ferocious Inspiration over at MMO-Champion. Seems the latest PTR build has a new and improved Ferocious Inspiration that includes both Arcane Shot and Steady Shot.

See… I knew there was going to be more love on the way. Everyone’s happy now too. I’m pleased that my PvP damage isn’t going to be nerfed further, plus I’ll have harder hitting Steadies for those rare occasions that I am able to fire a few.

PvE BM hunters though… you guys have to be stoked. This is a most welcome change for sure.

Beast Masters rejoice!

Hit Rating

Garwulf — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:22:23 +0000

This is a topic I’ve covered many times in the past, but I feel compelled to revisit it today. Why, you ask..?

It’s been brought to my attention that many hunters these days are grossly exceeding the hit cap, and therefore are wasting precious DPS. I figure this is due to a few reasons…

The misunderstanding of what hit rating is, and being unaware of how much is actually needed.
The allure of higher ilvl shinies.

Hit rating increases your chances of “not missing” when attacking enemy mobs or players. All players have a built in mechanic which causes them to miss 5% of the time when facing mobs or opponents of the same level. This “miss chance” is increased by one percent for each level beyond that. Therefore, level 83 raid bosses have an 8% chance to be missed when attacked by a hunter with a ranged ability.

So how do we combat this chance to miss, and ensure that we’re always hitting with our shots..? Hit rating.

To be hit capped as a hunter, you need an 8% increased chance to hit after talents and buffs.

Broken down, that means 5% hit rating to cancel out the default miss ratio, plus another 3% to account for the additional three levels when dealing with a raid or heroic boss.

Hit Rating via Gear

This 8% can be obtained through a variety of ways, including gear, gems and enchants. In order to reach an 8% increased chance to hit, you need 263 hit rating. This translates into roughly 33 hit rating per one percent increased hit chance.

Focused Aim

To reduce the amount of hit rating needed via gear, hunters have a talent called Focused Aim, which grants a 1% additional chance to hit for each point spent. In other words, each point in this talent is similar to adding 33 hit rating. A hunter with 3/3 in Focused Aim can reduce the amount of hit rating needed down to 165 hit rating. 3% through talents and the other five through itemization.

Heroic Presence

Draenei have a racial ability called Heroic Presence which provides a passive +1% increased chance to hit for the entire raid. So by default, if you’re a Draenei hunter, you only need 7% added hit to be capped.

If you are betting on the fact that your group will always have Heroic Presence, then you could theoretically run with only 7% hit regardless of your class. However, you’d better have some alternate gear pieces, hit rating food, or some Elixirs of Accuracy to chug in the event that your group finds itself sans Space Goats.

If you’re in a hard core progressive raiding guild you could probably afford to run with 7% hit and allocate points elsewhere for more DPS. For the rest of us though, 8% is the best bet and will ensure zero misses from range.

Once you reach an 8% increased chance to hit, either through gear, talents or buffs, anything beyond that number is useless.

Mark of Supremacy

Apart from hunters simply lacking an understanding of the mechanics of hit rating, I think the factor that’s most to blame in the case of overstacked hit, is a player’s desire to boost their gear score, ie: The Mark of Supremacy Epidemic.

Often times players see a higher ilvl and think, Upgrade! They don’t stop to consider stat weights. Nothing is more evident of this fact than the amount of over hit capped hunters running around with a Mark of Supremacy. Players assume that because it’s an ilvl 245 trinket, that it’s a DPS upgrade. Not always. In fact, in every single one of my hunter DPS deficient diagnoses, The Mark of Supremacy was responsible for a DPS loss.

When a hunter who’s over the hit cap then tosses on a Mark of Supremacy, all he or she gains from it is the on-use buff. The passive buff is completely wasted.

Using my current armory as a test bed (5.6K GS w/ 264 hit rating), I compared two very easily obtainable ilvl 200 trinkets (Mirror of Truth & Banner of Victory) to the ilvl 245 Mark of Supremacy. Both trinkets offered gains from 83-91DPS, with the Mirror of Truth being slightly higher.

In short, unless you need the hit rating that this trinket provides, and most hunters do not, trade down and spend your emblems on a MoT.

Good trinkets are perhaps the most difficult piece of gear to obtain in the game, so it’s no surprise that players would be compelled to purchase an easily obtainable ilvl 245 one when given the opportunity. However, it’s a perfect example of why “upgrade” is a relative term.

Gear Score

With the introduction of GearScore as a qualifier for raid invites, epeen stroking, etc… the desire to bolster that has gone near out of control. Here is an example…

Some weeks back I ran a 25 man ICC with my guild, in which two huge hunter items dropped (Wodin’s and the Snowserpent Helm), both of them very nice upgrades for me. Being that I only get to raid a handful of times per month, and because my guild uses a DKP system, I typically don’t have a lot of DKP to spend and tend to do so sparingly. Due to this fact, I surrendered on both items to another hunter in our guild who was bound and determined to outbid everyone in the raid. His reason for this, was because he wanted to reinforce his foothold as top gear score in the guild.

Being that I’m an officer, elder statesman, top dps, and beloved member of our guild , his greed was met with some contention by the other officers. There was also no doubt that I’d contribute more raid DPS with those items than he would, however he had the DKP to blow, so he blew it.

Afterwards, one of our officers asked on vent, “do you even need all that hit rating..?!”. The hunter, we’ll refer to him as “jackass” out of respect for his privacy, didn’t respond.

After the raid, I pulled him up in the armory for curiosity’s sake and was shocked to see that he was rolling with an absurd 558 hit rating. That meant he was wasting nearly 300 stat points, which could have been netting him a ton more DPS had he been more selective with his “upgrades”, and not been greedily outbidding others simply due to ilvl and gear score.

This hunter had me trumped by quite a bit as far as gear was concerned, yet we always ran neck and neck in terms of DPS, with me typically edging past him on most fights. Execution I’m sure had some part to play in that, but no doubt his poor itemization was a factor as well. I speak of him in the past tense, as he is no longer with us. Perhaps he’s learned a thing or two, because when querying his present armory, I find that he’s now running with a more efficient 428 hit.

In closing, be mindful of hit rating when looking at upgrades. If you’re in an ICC25 PuG (god help you) where a really nice ilvl 264 piece drops, by all means roll on it if you could use it. However, it may not be worth equipping just yet, if it’s main benefit is added hit. Yet in the event of a guild run, you should probably refrain from bidding or rolling against fellow guildies who actually need the hit on the drop you’re competing for.

The moral of the story… just because the item has a higher gear score, doesn’t always mean it’s an upgrade.

That’s all for today! See you next time…

If you found this post on hit rating to be helpful, then why not buy me a beer.

More Stable Slots..?

Garwulf — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 06:45:45 +0000

Perhaps.

In the Blizz Developer’s Blizzchat on Twitter today, one of the questions raised was the ever so popular topic of adding more stable slots. The response was both interesting and favorable.

Q. Are hunters likely to see more stable slots for their pets in the future? With the current variety of pets, the amount they have right now seems too small.
A. Arm-waving here, but a model I would love to see is dramatically expanded slots (so you can store all those Spirit Beasts) but have a smaller number of “active” pets, like 3. You could summon an active pet from anywhere in the world, when outside of combat. You would swap a pet from active to the stable at the Stable Masters.

I like this concept. BM Hunters will be allowed to “collect” more pets (ie: Spirit Beasts), yet there will be a practical convenience limiting factor in place for all hunters. Pet happy hunters won’t be capped to how many they can acquire, with the only trade-off being that Call Stabled Pet may be limited to 3 choices, down from the 5 we have now. I’m liking this direction.

Having 3 pets to choose from on the fly is plenty, especially if this preference can easily be changed through each stable slot visit.

On to the next topic at hand…

Q. The Hunter class has many odd and situational abilities such as Mongoose Bite and Aspect of the Beast – are there any plans for changes to these types of abilities?
A. Mongoose Bite is most likely a goner. Let us weep. We think Aspect of the Beast could have some cool uses for Beastmaster hunters.

I’m happy with this response as well. Mongoose Bite is a huge dud. Kick it to the curb and make Counterattack a baseline ability.

I have a hunch Aspect of the Beast might see some love very soon here. Buffing this talent would add a little spice to the BM spec – something that it sorely needs and deserves.

Well… what do you think? Are you excited about these changes. Being a pet happy hunter, I know I’m tickled over the possibility of more stable slots.

On a side note… anyone open up a can of whoop ass on the Blizz devs via the random BG LFG on the PTR today? They mentioned they would be queueing for a few hours.

R.I.P. Arcane Shot

Garwulf — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:05:51 +0000

Among many of the interesting and exciting changes coming in patch 3.3.3 is one of particular note to hunters, namely raiding Beast Mastery hunters. In the latest patch notes is a mention of an update to Ferocious Inspiration.

Beast Mastery

Ferocious Inspiration: This ability is now an aura and provides 1/2/3% damage to all party or raid members within 100 yards and boosts the damage of Steady Shot by 3/6/9%.

Speaking from a BM PvP hunter point of view, I think this change kinda blows. It’s not nearly as brutal as the BW/TBW nerf, but it’s still a nerf to BM PvPers no matter how you look at it. Apparently Blizzard cannot figure out a way to buff BM’s damage in raids without further nerfing it for PvP. Blizz is clearly moving towards buffing BM’s sustained damage at the expense of its burst. Oh well.

However, I think this is an exciting and promising change for raiding BM Hunters. This will certainly help to bring Beast Mastery more in line with the other specs. How close it will be, I do not know. I doubt that it will be enough of a boost to push it ahead of SV let alone MM, but it may certainly be competitive.

This reworked FI definitely has me conflicted. On one hand, it’s going to lessen some of my burst capability in arena. On the other hand, it’s causing me to take a serious look at possibly going BM again for raiding. I haven’t raided with Krush since the 10 man Naxx days and I sure miss him. If anything, I look forward to testing BM’s viability come 3.3.3.

The one thing I do not understand however, is why Blizz has Beast Mastery going back to the mindless Steady Shot mashing build that it was in TBC. It’s ironic considering they have stated that they wanted to make the spec more interesting. This change to Ferocious Inspiration will no doubt have end game Beast Masters stacking armor pen and spamming Steady Shot like it’s going out of style. There will be no reason to use Arcane Shot anymore, apart from high movement fights and leveling.

This does bother me though, because I am not so keen on the idea of returning to a one button mashing spec. Since BM was always my PvP spec, I used to raid with a BM PvP build which included Aimed Shot in my rotation. Having three shots to worry about in addition to Serpent Sting, at least kept it somewhat interesting. If this change goes live, BM raiders will literally be down to simply keeping Serpent up and spamming Steadies. /yawn

Ah well… it’ll be nice at least to try it out for awhile and let Krush stretch his legs a bit. Who knows, maybe I’ll settle into it once again. I certainly miss having my big red dino in raids. Not sure how our tanks and melee will feel about it though.

From a PvP standpoint, I’m not too down about it actually. Since my arena partner is a Ret Pally, I’m already getting the 3% damage buff from him, so by dropping FI all I will lose is the 9% boost to a shot I seldom use in arena. Those points can buy me some pet insurance in the form of Improved Revive Pet and 1 point in Improved Mend Pet. Seems as if teams are focusing in on my pet more often this season anyway.

What’d be really nice is… if they were to buff a non-dps ability which would help BM in PvP situations. For example, taking Intimidation off of the GCD and/or reducing its base cooldown to 45 seconds. That would certainly help to undo some of the damage that’s been done to BM’s viability in PvP, without affecting PvE DPS in any way. Just an idea.

What do the rest of you hunters think about the new Ferocious Inspiration?

BM PvP Guide – Part 3: Shot priority and other ponderings

Garwulf — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:58:20 +0000

Welcome to the long overdue latest installment of my series on BM PvP. This post was actually scratched out in December, but never quite finished. Anyway, I revisited it, added a couple things, groomed it a little bit, and voila! A new post!

So, without further ado… let’s get to it.

While not as cut and dry as PvE shot priorities for hunters, there are some basic fundamentals to the best PvP shot selection. This of course varies, depending upon the encounter, but there are some basic rules of thumb that I want to go over in this post.

My intention here is just to examine the shots available to us BM hunters, and to demonstrate how important and useful they are in PvP situations. There is no “magic kill rotation”, so decisions on which shots to use need to be made on the fly. Hopefully my post will help shed some light on those choices.

BM PvP Shot Priority & Shot Mechanics

The BM PvP shot priority is pretty simple.

BM PVP Shot Priority Quick Reference Chart

Kill Shot
Aimed Shot
All other shots

Unlike PvE, the PvP shot priority is not an exact science. There are some fundamental guidelines that one can follow, but the Beast Master’s shot priority in PvP is greatly influenced by each type of encounter. That said, let’s examine our arsenal of ranged abilities…

Kill Shot

Just as in PvE, Kill Shot should be used immediately once your target is at or below 20% health. Once I get the notification that Kill Shot is ready, it usually means good night for my enemy, especially if they’re clad in PvE gear trying to glass-cannon me. Those are the best. BOOM!

While not as noticed in PvE, Kill Shot has another incredible advantage for PvP in addition to it’s high damage. This is of course the added 10 yard range of the shot, which makes it a tremendous ability for finishing off flag carriers and fleeing opponents.

Use Kill Shot as often as possible. This obviously isn’t a revelation, but it needs mentioning nonetheless.

Aimed Shot

Any time you engage an enemy this should be the first of your hostile attacks. The reason being, you need to get the healing debuff applied as soon as possible. Aimed Shot makes it more difficult for healers to keep themselves or an affected teammate up.

In addition to the reduced healing effect, Aimed Shot is also on the Beast Master’s short list of ranged instant cast damaging abilities. It is very important that you use this shot every cooldown in order to maintain any kind of offensive pressure. As I’d mentioned in a previous post, make sure your glyphed for it as well.

Arcane Shot

Arcane Shot won’t bring the business like Chimera or Explosive will, but it’s pretty much what we’ve got to work with as Beast Masters. That’s not to say it’s an underpowered shot. It can actually hit pretty hard if you’re properly talented, plus it’s pure non armor mitigated magic damage. The best kind to dish out when it comes to PvP.

Arcane Shot also has a chance to proc Cobra Strikes, which obviously is something you want to get going ASAP. An Arcane Shot crit with an ensuing Cobra Strike proc will get your rumble started on a good note.

Serpent Sting

Since burst damage is the name of the game in PvP, Serpent Sting doesn’t shine quite as brightly as it does in PvE. However, it’s still a useful shot in PvP. It provides a little added DPS, it can be cast on the run, and it keeps Rogues in check. It’s also a good idea to apply it because enemies will try to dispel it, and if they don’t, well that’s good too. The more debuffs and DoTs the better, as they not only boost your damage, but also cause enemies to blow mana trying to cleanse them.

The caveat with Serpent Sting is that it can break crowd control, which is obviously a huge concern in PvP. The solution to this is to remove it from your target by applying Scorpid Sting or Viper Sting, in the event that you or another player are about to set up the target for CC. Both of those shots cause zero damage and will overwrite the Serpent Sting.

Steady Shot

Steady Shot falls down the priority list in PvP, mainly due to the simple fact that you need to be standing still for a set period of time in order to cast it. However, it’s a fantastic shot for Beast Masters to utilize when we do get the opportunity. It’s fairly easy to settle in and get some steadies off in a a battleground, but in arena, not so much. It’s better to rely upon instant cast shots and auto shot, rather than trying to force a steady only to have your cast interrupted.

A good time to unload some steadies is following an Intimidation, or while your target is creeping through your Frost Trap or slowed by your two headed monster’s frosty breath. In fact, anytime you’re unmolested is a good time to go into steady mode. Steadies have a chance to proc Cobra Strikes as well, so it’s a good shot to use if the situation is right. As I’d said though, don’t stand there trying to force them while an enemy player is kicking your face in and causing your casts to hiccup.

Multi-Shot

Unless you’re going for most damage done in your BG (which you shouldn’t be really), I don’t advise the use of Multi-Shot in PvP. The main reason for this is simply for the fact that it shares a cooldown with Aimed Shot.

Sometimes it may seem like a good way to clear cut a totem forest, or maybe you just want to fire it into a pack of enemies and watch big numbers fly. The problem with that is, you then prevent the use of your Aimed Shot for another 8 seconds. The healing debuff is critical for PvP, so be very cautious about using Multi-Shot if at all.

Note: Volley can be an effective substitution for Multi-Shot when dealing with enemy totems.

Concussive Shot

“Helping hunters kite since level 8″.

For obvious reasons, Concussive Shot is one of the staples in the PvP shot selection. I don’t really think you need me to tell you when to you use it, but just to make sure… fire it when you want to slow someone down. If you don’t need to slow anyone, then use a DPS ability instead. ‘Nuff said.

Tranquilizing Shot

If you’re not using this shot in PvP, then you should be. It’s an important shot to use in order to knock off damage mitigating buffs such as Hand of Sacrifice, Power Word: Shield, Ice Barrier, etc. Since it only “attempts” to remove one magic effect at a time, there’s no guarantee that you’ll knock off an enemy buff, let alone the one you want. That said, I do use the shot quite a bit actually. In order to dispel the key buff, it’s helpful if you can keep the enemy’s buff stacks to a minimum.

Tranq Shot is also nice for clipping a Paladin’s wings and removing Hand of Freedom. It’s not a gimme though, so don’t count on the shot when trying to escape an advancing Ret. It is great when it works though.

The shot does no damage, costs a ton of mana and has only about a 50/50 chance of a random dispel, so use it, but try to use it wisely.

Viper Sting

Double DPS 2v2 isn’t about the drain game, so I seldom use Viper Sting. In fact, most BM hunters are probably not going to rely upon this shot too much. For one, it’s not improved in a proper BM PvP talent build. Second, our success hinges upon killing things quickly. Waiting for the opposition to go oom isn’t usually a tactic that bodes well for us.

I do use it on occasion however. I find that in cases where my partner and I have been ineffective at taking down our focus-fire target, yet have hung in long enough to get the healer near oom, Viper Sting is a good finisher. Same goes with BGs. I very seldom use this shot until I see a caster (mainly healers) between 5-10%. At that point, this shot helps them along and makes it easier for me to dispatch them or their teammate. Before that however, I prefer to use DPS abilitiess instead, as Viper Sting for BM hunters is just not that effective.

Scorpid Sting

This shot is really only good for overwriting a Serpent Sting when you’re preparing a physical damage dealing class for CC. I hardly ever utilize this shot in PvP.

Volley

About the only time I use Volley in PvP is when I’m trying to pop out a stealthed target. It is useful for checking out certain areas, or as cover for a teammate when they’re venturing out away from your flare.

It can also be somewhat effective for stomping totems, but again, it’s seldom we get an opportunity to free cast. Generally speaking, Volley is pretty gimmicky for us hunters in PvP since it’s a channeled AoE ability. Apart from using it to pop stealthed targets, I wouldn’t strongly recommend it for anything else.

Burst Capability

One of the downfalls of being a Beast Master is that it’s more difficult to maintain serious pressure on your target for any real length of time. Marksmanship and Survival Hunters are both better suited for delivering high damage with regularity. However, the upside is we have the biggest advantage when it comes to delivering high uninterrupted burst, albeit within a small window. The key is to time things properly.

In my opinion, we have three major offensive cooldowns. Bestial Wrath is obviously the first one that comes to mind, as well as being the premier ability for burst damage. Yet, unless I’m in a situation where, “I absolutely need to pop TBW right now or this Rogue is going to own my face” I try to play without it. This allows me to always have the cooldown when I need it most.

Sometimes this can be at the very beginning of an arena match or BG encounter. It’s not necessarily something to always refrain from using right away. Basically if the situation is right, pop it. However, don’t just mash it because the cooldown is up, use it because you need to.

As opposed to PvE, where you want to use every cooldown as soon as it’s ready, in PvP I try to rely upon more of my baseline abilities, leaving TBW as my “Ace in the Hole” so to speak. In other words, I use it very sparingly. I feel this technique not only makes me a more effective BM hunter, but it also gives me the peace of mind knowing that I can cash in on my TBW insurance policy when I need it most.

This style of play will no doubt help anyone get the most out of this spec, while also honing their huntering abilities. It’s so satisfying to dispose of two BG attackers, while still having TBW at the ready for when the 3rd comes at you moments later.

Note: For PvP, whatever you do, do not macro Intimidation with Bestial Wrath. These two abilities are far too powerful independently to just use together without even thinking. Often times they can compliment one another quite well, but make sure you have complete control over that decision. Which brings me to my next bit.

Although Intimidation is a form of CC, I consider it to be one of BM’s offensive cooldowns. Even without Bestial Wrath, a BM Hunter can easily take down a target that’s at say 30-40% while under the effect of an Intimidation. While I do use the ability for hard target switches and peels, I like it best for a kill setup. Having control of this ability independently of Bestial Wrath is a definite advisement.

Lastly, there’s the old hunter standby… Rapid Fire. In BGs I use it whenever I think I’ll be able to stand back and pew pew for at least 8-10 seconds, provided I really need the added burst. In arena however, I usually save this as a backup in case Bestial Wrath wasn’t enough to finish off my target.

I do pop it on occasion while enraged, provided I’m unmolested and not being LoS’d, but usually I try to save it for two reasons:

One, it blows another GCD, which cuts into my burst window of 10 seconds. Two, and more importantly, I don’t like blowing my entire wad all at once. A Beast Master without any cooldowns is one of, if not the weakest DPS spec in the game. If my target’s still standing after Bestial Wrath, at least I know I still have Rapid Fire waiting if I get the opportunity.

Tip: In the event that your target tries to LoS you during TBW, switch to Aspect of the Beast until you can get a clear shot. That way your pet will be dishing out as much DPS as possible while they play ring round the rosies with you.

Defensive Abilities

Managing defensive cooldowns properly is of great importance with any hunter spec, but especially with Beast Mastery. If you can learn to refrain from crutching on the Get out of Jail Free Card (TBW), and instead get by with the lesser tools, you’ll be better able to handle any and all encounters.

So here’s what we got…

Disengage

An awesome ability for obvious reasons. It gets you out of sticky situations, and fast. However, it can also be used as a preemptive strike or a smoke and mirrors type of play. Once you learn to position yourself properly, and provided you have good situational awareness, you can do some cool things with Disengage. You can swing around and launch yourself right behind an enemy target to lay a clutch Wing Clip, zoom yourself right into LoS and range of your healer, etc.

Just like so many other tools, it’s a great ability but one that needs practice. I’ve read many horror stories about hunters disengaging off of the cliff at the Lumber Mill, or the bridge(s) in EotS. In fact, I may have even done something like that at one time or another.

Anyway, practice and learn to rely upon Disengage. It’s cheap and has only a 20 second cooldown when glyphed. Explore what you can do with it and get familiar with its cooldown. It is one of our extremely useful baseline abilities.

Deterrence

I sometimes pop Deterrence early on in a match in order to escape enemy burst and to better prepare for my assault. Being that it blocks all incoming spells and attacks, it’s very useful when you think you’re about to be Death Gripped, Dismantled, HoJ’ed, etc. It’s a great tool for when you’re in real danger of course, but it’s definitely something to utilize early in a fight if needed.

Enemies will often burn cooldowns right off the start in hopes of a quick kill, or to at least get you on your heels. Utilizing Deterrence right away can help you escape a huge amount of burst damage, not to mention CC.

One practical usage is to run through an opponent or pack of enemies while laying a trap amongst them. Deterrence should be up long enough for you to attain a safe distance, leaving your assailant(s) snared in a fog of frostiness. Resume pew-pew on said slowed target(s) and profit.

Master’s Call

This is a tremendous ability for BM Hunters, as it gives us 10 whole seconds of root and snare immunity. That is huge, especially when used following The Beast Within. If you’re in melee range when TBW is about to wear off, just pop Master’s Call and carry on about your business.

If I pop a Rogue or Feral out of stealth before they have a chance to open on me, I’ll sometimes punch this right off the bat, so as to avoid getting locked down. Just as with Deterrence, Master’s Call is great to use before you get into trouble.

Feign Death

The classic cheap ass hunter pvp move, and a highly valued one at that. I use this all the time, and with the Glyph of Feign Death, we have it available every 25 seconds. This move can save your hide. Usually it’s not going to fool anyone into thinking you’re finished, but once in a blue moon it will. I’ve had opponents switch to my teammate while I’ve snuck around the corner for a few bandage ticks, only to reappear and deliver a fatal assault.

Most important though, is that it causes your enemy to drop you as a target. If you follow this up with a Snake Trap you can set in motion a flurry of cussing for any tab targeters that are after you. By the time they put a bead on you, you’ll probably be 30 yards out with a daze on them. Feign Death is highly useful as a defensive PvP ability.

Intimidation

I referred to this earlier as what I would consider an offensive ability, but it’s also equally as powerful for survival, especially if you’re trying to get distance on a sprinting Rogue. Try to use it for a burst setup, but if need be, don’t hesitate to pop it if you need to create distance quickly.

Intimidation is also a great way to set up for a Freezing Arrow. Unless they’re mouth breathers, most opponents know to avoid Freezing Arrows. The long trap arming time gives players ample time to sidestep them. However, if you preemptively strike with an intimidation, it buys you a few seconds of stun in order to effectively put them on ice.

Another defensive ability I use just about every single cooldown is…

Shadowmeld (Night Elves)

I love this ability for PvP. I also find it amusing that it still catches people off guard. It serves a similar purpose as that of Feign Death. It causes your enemy to drop you as a target, thus avoiding the next melee attack, or cancelling a hostile spell cast against you. It’s gimmicky, but it works.

Another time I use it is at the start of every match in Orgrimmar Arena. Those of you who arena are probably aware of the bugged platform, which causes pets to often become stuck at the start of a match. To combat this BS, I dismiss my pet after he’s been buffed, then Shadowmeld. Once the match begins, I immediately haul ass off the platform, call my pet, then send him in to battle.

This system not only combats the disadvantage we hunters have to deal with in that arena, but it also prevents me from getting CC’d right off the bat. When those walls come down around that elevator, us hunters are sitting ducks for CC in that arena. Shadowmeld buys me a few precious seconds to get positioned, as well as avoid the initial CC and possible follow-up burst. Plus, it also causes our opponents to think my partner has a Rogue with him. Then out comes Hunter Fury!

Stoneform and Thunderstomp are also outstanding PvP racials, but being that I don’t have any level 80 experience as a Dwarf and have never rolled a Tauren, I’ll leave those comments to someone else. I will say however, that Stoneform seems like it would be invaluable versus Rogues and Thunderstomp is just, well… awesome.

Well that’s it for today. I still have more to discuss, including macros and addons. Not exactly sure when I’ll get to it, but hopefully soon.

Cheers!

If you found this post on Beast Mastery PvP to be helpful, then why not buy me a beer.