Go 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 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 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 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.