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Hunter PvP Glyphs

August 6, 2010 By Garwulf Leave a Comment

WoW Hunter PvP Glyphs

Note: WoWHead seems to be experiencing technical difficulties at the moment, so no tootltips for you! Sorry… 🙁

Using the right glyphs is a pretty important part of the hunter pvp formula. Here is what I recommend for level 80 hunters:

Essential Hunter PvP Glyphs

The following glyphs are a key component to any hunter PvP build.

Glyph of Aimed Shot – This glyph reduces our Aimed Shot cooldown by 20%, which is huge. Apart from Kill Shot, Aimed Shot is our #1 shot in PvP. The 2 second cushion (i.e., reduced cooldown) that this glyph provides helps us to maintain the healing debuff uptime.

It also gives us 2 seconds quicker access to one of our insta-cast shots – another huge plus.

Glyph of Disengage – Disengage is a key tactical move for positioning and one of our primary escape abilities. Having access to Disengage every 20 seconds, as opposed to 25, is a tremendous advantage. Survival hunters have it even better… with this glyph and 2/2 Survival Tactics, SV hunters can pop Disengage every 16 seconds. Now that’s what I call slippery! [Read more…] about Hunter PvP Glyphs

Filed Under: Hunter PvP Tagged With: aimed shot, bestial wrath, disengage, explosive shot, pvp hunter glyphs, serpent sting

Miscellaneous Cataclysm Musings

July 9, 2010 By Garwulf 6 Comments

Now that I’ve had a chance to savor and digest all of the juicy Cataclysm hunter updates that were released last week (while I was on vacation), here are a few miscellaneous thoughts and comments of mine…

Aimed Shot

I like the older style mechanic of Aimed Shot making its return in Cataclysm. While it’s definitely nice having another instant cast shot in our arsenal, having Aimed Shot be an instant just never made sense to me. I like how it’s becoming a high damage shot once again, even with the long cast time. There was something so joyfully sinister about seeing your enemy hopelessly stuck within your Freezing Trap while you slowly drew your bow or aimed your rifle, preparing to rattle them with a mammoth Aimed Shot crit. 😈

Widow Venom

Along with Aimed Shot’s 2 second cast time and increased damage, the other thing that’s changing is its mortal Strike effect is going bye-bye. Hunters in Cataclysm will now be using a shot called Widow Venom in order to apply an MS effect. [Read more…] about Miscellaneous Cataclysm Musings

Filed Under: Cataclysm, General Tagged With: aimed shot, aspect of the fox, aspect of the monkey, cataclysm, hunter talents, marksmanship, widow venom

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

February 23, 2010 By Garwulf 31 Comments

BM PvP

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. [Read more…] about BM PvP Guide – Part 3: Shot priority and other ponderings

Filed Under: Hunter Guides, Hunter PvP Tagged With: aimed shot, arena, beast mastery, cooldowns, deterrence, disengage, dps, intimidation, pvp, shot priority

MM Talents Overview: Tier 3

May 22, 2009 By Garwulf Leave a Comment

Go for the ThroatGo for the Throat

2 Point Talent

Description: Your ranged critical hits cause your pet to generate 25/50 Focus.

Overview

Go for the Throat fuels your pet’s focus every time you have a ranged critical strike. Pets use focus for their special attacks and abilities. This talent helps prevent them from becoming focus starved, therefore enabling them to cause more damage, create more threat, etc.

Why take it?

This talent is amazing for boosting overall DPS. Since every pet now has a special damaging ability without a cooldown (bite, smack or claw), this talent helps keep them fueled with focus so that they can cast these attacks more often. Anytime you’re in a situation where you’re pet will be up the entire fight and you can stand back and fire, this talent will be incredibly beneficial.

The caveat with this talent is that one point is really all that is necessary for raiding. By the time you’re geared enough for 10 mans and beyond, your critical strike rating should be in the neighborhood of 25-30%. When fully buffed, you could be well over 40%. If you’re ranged attacks are critting more than 1 out of every three shots, that should be enough to keep your pet from getting focus starved. The addditional point is arguably a waste if you’re sitting at over 30% crit with full buffs.

It’s also an extraordinary talent to have for PvP, especially when combined with a pet who offers some sort of utility. By being able to maintain a focus reserve for your pet, you’ll not only be doing more DPS, but your pet will be able to use their snares, stuns, debuffs etc. when they are available.

Now in PvP, it can be very handy to have two points invested in this talent, since you won’t be critting as often due to players’ resilience. Not to mention, there are fewer opportunities to cast as many uninterrupted ranged attacks in battlegrounds or arena. Hunters are often on the move, therefore lessening the amount of ranged attacks that we can cast. It’s advantageous to be able to fill half of your pet’s focus bar when you do land a crit.

Why not take it?

Since even one point in this talent is such a DPS boost, I really can’t see any reason not to go for it. I suppose the only time you may skip it is if you really see your pet as expendable, and having no chance for survival whatsoever. That scenario is more encounter-specific though, so I still say go for it. Every Hunter should have a point in here. Your pet(s) will love you for it. 😛

Improved Arcane ShotImproved Arcane Shot

3 Point Talent

Description: Increases the damage done by your Arcane Shot by 5/10/15%.

Overview

This talent buffs the damage of the Hunter’s insta-cast, magic damage Arcane Shot by up to 15%.

Why take it?

BM Hunters and MM Hunters rely upon Arcane Shot quite a bit for damage. Both trees also offer some synergies with Arcane Shot, which will scale nicely with this talent. Arcane Shot is an instant cast magic damage attack, which is unmitigated by armor. In other words, the bulk of Arcane Shot’s damage typically gets through vs most targets, thus the damage increase should be true.

This shot is very important in PvP, since it is able to inflict pain upon plate wearers and can get through a Paladin’s Blessing of Protection. Arcane Shot has a relatively short cooldown of six seconds and can be delivered while kiting. Buffing its damage is highly useful for PvP burst.

Why not take it?

Survival Hunters don’t even have Arcane Shot on their hotbars since it shares a cooldown with their bread and butter, Explosive Shot. SV Hunters should pass on this without hesitation.

Personally, I like this talent for BM since it scales nicely with Ferocious Inspiration. However, some BM Hunters prefer the additional crit buff from Survival Instincts over this, since the added crit helps to proc Cobra Strikes more often. When going this route, BM Hunters will not have the available points to grab both talents, so it’s one or the other.

Aimed ShotAimed Shot

1 Point Talent

Description: An aimed shot that increases ranged damage by 408 (at level 80) and reduces healing done to that target by 50%. Lasts 10 sec.

Overview

Aimed Shot is an instant cast ranged attack that leaves a healing debuff on its target for 10 seconds. Aimed Shot reduces the healing effects on the affected target by 50%.

Why take it?

Aimed Shot is thee most important shot a Hunter has in PvP. Do not even consider setting foot in an arena or battleground unless you have this ability. End of story.

* Note: For PvP it is also important to combine this talent with the Glyph of Aimed Shot, so as to not only be able to maintain the debuff, but to also lessen the cooldown on this instant-cast shot.

Aside from the healing debuff, Aimed Shot is also a useful attack for PvE. Both MM and SV have talents that can buff its damage, making it a high priority shot for raiding. BM Hunters’ reliance upon the nerfed Steady Shot has lessened, therefore making Aimed Shot an attractive addition to their limited shot arsenal as well.

Why not take it?

Multi Shot, which is a trainable baseline talent, provides the same tooltip DPS but can also strike up to three targets. Also, both shots share the same cooldown, so you can only use one or the other. Some Hunters will skip Aimed, and instead throw Multi Shot into their priority instead. For Hunter specs that don’t intend to be used for PvP, this talent is not necessarily a must-have.

In order to obtain the Aimed Shot talent, you must invest 5 points in Mortal Shots. This fact makes it an iffy investment for some Beast Mastery Hunters, since Mortal Shots is not as beneficial for them due to it not affecing Auto Shots.

Survival Hunters can live without Aimed Shot if they choose to. Multi Shot can be substituted in the priority, and Sniper Training is really the only talent they have which adds to its damage anyway. SV Hunters also have the most complicated shot priority, so one less to cooldown to worry about isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Lastly, Aimed Shot is a mana hog. If you’re blowing through your mana pool due to lack of regen, then Aimed Shot is typically the first one to be omitted from the shot priority. While its mana cost is still slightly lower than Multi Shot, Aimed Shot requires a talent point where Multi does not. If you drop Multi from your priority to conserve mana, it’s not as big of a deal because it didn’t require a precious talent point to acquire.

Rapid KillingRapid Killing

2 Point Talent

Description: Reduces the cooldown of your Rapid Fire ability by 1 or 2 min. In addition, after killing an opponent that yields experience or honor, your next Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot or Chimera Shot causes 10/20% additional damage. Lasts 20 sec.

Overview

Rapid Killing reduces the cooldown on your Rapid Fire ability by up to 2 minutes, and also gives you a one time use burst damage shot after you land a killing blow.

Why take it?

This is a nice talent for MM Hunters, because it can reduce the cooldown on Rapid Fire to match the cooldown on Longevity. This enables MM Hunters to unleash Rapid Fire four times in under 4 minutes, which also happens to be within the duration of most boss fights. It also provides a nice synergy with the MM Talent Rapid Recuperation, by helping to better facilitate mana regeneration.

The additional damage buff after a killing blow can also help with trash pulls, or in situations where the boss has adds.

It can also be a worthwhile talent outside of raids and instances. While Rapid Fire isn’t quite as useful outside of boss encounters, the Rapid Killing buff is pretty nice for PvE and PvP. The extra 20% damage can provide for a nice opener vs BG and arena opponents.

Why not take it?

I’d say it’s usefulnesss for PvP is debatable. Rapid Fire is seldom used in PvP, so the shorter cooldown on it is negligible. Secondly, the Rapid Killing buff only procs if you or your pet land the killing blow, therefore making it somewhat unreliable.

Outside of raiding, this talent is not necessarily one to seriously consider. Although the Rapid Killing buff may seem like a real benefit for PvE farming and soloing, the added burst damage might cause you to pull aggro, thus being counter-productive when it comes to speed grinding.

Filed Under: General, Talents Tagged With: aimed shot, arcane shot, go for the throat, marksmanship, rapid killing, talents

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