HuntsmansLodge.com

WoW Hunter Guides, News, Resources and Musings

  • Home
  • Forum
  • Hunter Macros
    • How to Set Up a WoW Macro
  • Spirit Beast Guide
  • About
    • Gar UI
    • Contributors
  • Links
  • Contact
  • Facebook

I’ve Settled On Marksman For Now

April 16, 2009 By Garwulf 15 Comments

The RiflemanAfter going MM, SV and then MM again, I think I’m going to stay here for a bit. I’ve never been hugely fond of the Survival Tree, and since I mainly tend to do what I like, I elected to go Marksman for my second spec. The SV tree has evolved considerably over the years and has a lot to offer now in the DPS department, but to me “Marksman” is just more “Huntery”.

I’ve never been one to follow a cookie-cutter spec for the sake of maximum DPS. Most of my specs have had PvP as their priority, thus haven’t been the top DPS specs of the day. I instead would just try to maximize my current spec for PvE. On occasion I would respec before a raid if I felt we needed a little extra juice that night, but for the most part I would raid as is.

With that said, I went with the second highest DPS spec for a few reasons. I like the MM tree for PvE. Marksman is essentially the core tree of the Hunter. The other two specs cannot really flourish unless one delves at least into the third tier of the Marksman tree. The BM and SV trees can be largely ignored for various other specs, but almost all specs will take 13 or more points from MM.

Trueshot Aura rocks. If I’m not going to be providing Ferocious Inspiration to the group, it’s nice to be able to bring TSA. Sure SV has Hunting party, but mana regen is not always a problem, where as a 10% boost to attack power is always welcome in any group. Because SV is the flavor of the month right now as far as Hunter specs go, chances are I’ll be able to bring a decent DPS upgrade to any raid by being either BM or MM. It seems pretty typical that If I’m in a 25 man with 3 other Hunters, aside from the random BM, they’re almost always SV.

I finally wrapped my head around a 7/57/7 spec after spending a great deal of time on the Wowhead talent calculator and perusing the intarwebs for info and insight. The spec seems a little mana-hungry for solo play, but that’s what BM’s for anyway. Fot the most part, I really like the spec.

After playing with it for a few minutes I could see that I didn’t need the additional point I put in GfTT. I concur that even without Bestial Discipline, it doesn’t seem necessary for any Hunter to take more than 1 point in that talent. I’m still a BM Hunter at heart, so I elected to take the 2nd point to guard against focus starvation. ๐Ÿ˜‰ Even when just grinding random mobs in Northrend, my pet’s focus bar was spilling over with 2 points in the talent. I imagine in a raid this would be a completely worthless point.

At this point, I’m on the fence as to whether I should put that point into Rapid Recuperation for a little PvE mana regen, or into Silencing Shot for some utility. It’s a tough call. I like the idea of having Silencing Shot if I spec MM for PvP on occasion, but then again, this spec is more or less a PvE spec. I’d need to pull the 7 points from BM and dump them into SV for it to really be PvP viable. What do you think? Any suggestions or ideas for that floater point or the spec in general?

Anyway, after deciding on my talents I practiced the MM rotation, or “shot priority” as it were. Compared to BM, it’s only slightly more “complex” if you want to call it that. Chimera is really the only other additional shot, and since it sort of replaces Serpent Sting, it keeps the shot selection pretty simple and straightforward.

Like SV and even BM, MM has a “shot priority” as opposed to a rotation. Essentially, you have to pay attention to your cooldowns and use your shots in the order that they’re available based on their priority. For Marksman, it looks something like this:

  1. Kill Shot (when available)
  2. Chimera Shot
  3. Aimed Shot
  4. Arcane Shot
  5. Steady Shot

For my build, I put Aimed ahead of Arcane due to the longer cooldown and the extra points I have that increase Aimed’s damage. These talents are Barrage, Improved Barrage and Piercing Shots. Arcane Shot should take priority over Aimed if the bulk of those talents are not taken.

Now, as far as beginning an encounter, this is how it would look:

  • Hunter’s Mark
  • Serpent Sting
  • Chimera Shot
  • Aimed Shot or Multi Shot (if there are multiple mobs without CC)
  • Arcane Shot
  • Steady Shot when all other shots are on cooldown.

Chimera refreshes Serpent Sting, so Serpent really only needs to be cast once, unless for some reason it wears off of the target and needs to be reapplied. Chimera is the Marksman’s money shot, so it needs to be used each time it’s available. Apart from that, Aimed Shots and Arcanes as they’re ready, then Steady Shots to fill in the gaps.

Right now I’m using Serpent Sting, Steady Shot and Trueshot Aura for my glyphs. Eventually I will likely swap out the TSA glyph for the Chimera one, and possibly the Steady Shot for a Kill Shot one once they are available. I just went with what was cheap for now.

It’s difficult to find a current “Marksman Guide” so to speak. SV has been superior DPS-wise and is what all the cool kids are doing, so not a lot of attention has been placed on Marksman. Plus, there’s a lot of conflicting information out there concerning talent selection and shot priorities.

As I’ve said before, I’m not claiming to be an authority on all things Huntery. I expect you to draw your own conclusions based upon what other Hunters have to say, what you read here, and most importantly what works for you. That’s what I do anyway.

I’ll elaborate more on my experiences with this spec after I take it raiding a few times. As always, if anyone has any contributions, critiques or criticisms of this discussion, please share. I’m eager to hear how other Hunters have chosen to spec MM, and what kind of success they’re having with it so far after the patch.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: marksmanship, patch 3.1

Questions: Patch 3.1 Hunter Specs and Pet DPS

April 15, 2009 By Garwulf 33 Comments

Since I’ve not had much time to play since the patch went live, I’m wondering what some of you think so far about 3.1.

If you were SV before, has your DPS stayed about the same?
Anyone have good success with Marksman, and if so, what spec are you using? Anyone try 7/57/7?
How is MM comparing to SV as far as DPS is concerned?
Aside from a wolf, what other pets are you using?
Are there a baziliion BM Hunters flying around Zul’Drak looking for Gondria?
How difficult are the encounters in Ulduar, and how is pet survivability in there?

Those are just a couple of questions I have at the moment.

From what I experienced, BM was comparable to before in the DPS department. This was no surprise to me really, as I’d already planned on going either MM or SV for my raid spec anyway.

From what I’ve read so far, it looks like SV is still the unquestionable top DPS spec. I haven’t seen much positive feedback from those who decided to spec MM after the patch.

What other Hunter-related bits of wisdom or discoveries do you have to share concerning the 3.1 changes?

I’m anxious to hear what you have to say. I need some things to read and ponder until I get a chance to log on later tonight. ๐Ÿ˜€

Filed Under: General, Hunter Pets Tagged With: beast mastery, marksmanship, patch 3.1, pets, survival, ulduar

Patch 3.1

April 15, 2009 By Garwulf Leave a Comment

I spent most the day dealing with last minute tax time preparations, so I wasn’t able to explore things too much. By the time I logged on it was after 10pm, and by the time I could scare up enough gold to purchase my Dual-Spec it was after midnight. Huge thanks to Blaquespell for helping me with the last little bit I needed to become a Marksman and to train my new skills.

After that I joined LFG for an OS 25 man, hoping to get myself a Dragon Hide Bag. Once again my bad luck streak continued. The 40 I rolled for the T7.5 gloves didn’t quite cut it, nor did the 14 I rolled for the Dragon Hide bag. ๐Ÿ™

I’m guessing that I must be getting all of these bad rolls out of the way before Ulduar, where I’m eventually going to clean up. Yeah, that’s it.

By the way, did anyone else who ran Obsidian Sanctum last night notice that the Flame Waves were bugged? Either that, or they nerfed them. The Flame Waves would appear, then disappear, then reappear just after they’d passed. It was a bit odd.

I didn’t have a chance to configure Bartender for my dual spec, so I stayed BM for last night’s Sarth run. Tonight I’m planning on getting that sorted out so that I can start working on my MM rotation and begin doing some big boy DPS. I’ll probably play with Survival a little too if I can manage enough gold for the respecs.

My first order of business will be to grind out some dailies to get Blaque paid back, then I’m going to spend some time exploring 3.1. How’s the Argent Tournament? I still haven’t checked that out yet.

Filed Under: General, Raiding Tagged With: beast mastery, marksmanship, patch 3.1

Patch 3.1 Goes Live Tomorrow (or Today Rather)!

April 14, 2009 By Garwulf 5 Comments

WoW patch 3.1 tomorrow!

I’m pretty excited and I bet you are too. I mean, who wouldn’t be…

Dual-Specs, Ulduar, T8, Argent Tournament, Iron-Bound Proto Drakes, Sea Turtle Mounts, and…

we’ll no longer need flint and tinder to make campfires!!!

Honestly, when’s the last time you made a campfire? For me, it was probably back when I was like level 12 on my main.

Here’s my partial list of important stuff to do tomorrow:

  • File a 6 month income tax extension with the IRS. I was going to tackle it myslef, but it gets tricky when self-employed. I think I may need a little help.
  • Steal some gold from my wife’s account so that I can afford my Dual-Spec and new glyphs. If that doesn’t work, I’ll be blazing through Northrend completing dailies at a feverish pace ’til I have enough G. Raiding and PvP does not make for a wealthy Hunter.
  • Hit up the WoW, ArenaJunkies and Elitist Jerks forums to see what others are recommending spec-wise. I have ideas about where I want to go with my talents, but I’m so poor right now I don’t want to blow it even a little. Hell, maybe I’ll just check out specs right now before I hit the sack.
  • Swing by the Argent Tournament to see what that’s all about.
  • Sell my ammo pouch and get a Frostweave Bag. Having more inventory slots is definitely not going to suck.

BTW, I had my first bit of in-game fan adoration tonight since starting this blog. It was pretty cool to have someone message me while I was playing, telling me they enjoy the site. However, talking with them caused me to miss the roll on the Dragon Hide Bag from 25 man OS. ๐Ÿ˜ It was my own damn fault though. I should have been paying closer attention to raid chat.

My rolls have been poop lately anyway, so I doubt I would have won it. I haven’t won a thing since Black Ice dropped a few months ago. I can’t catch a break I tell ya.

Good chatting with you tonight Wolfskin, and remember what I told ya… get yerself a Chimera. You won’t be sorry. ๐Ÿ™‚

Alright, time to wrap up the post. I’m a bit sleepy after my long night of Huntering.

Time to go to bed and dream about all of the 3.1 goodness. Hopefully I won’t have nightmares about the rampant arson that will be occuring throughout Azeroth as a result of the reagentless campfire frenzy. ๐Ÿ˜ฎ

Filed Under: General, Ramblings Tagged With: dual spec, patch 3.1

Ghost Wolf Running Animation Has Been Fixed!!!

April 7, 2009 By Garwulf 2 Comments

That’s wonderful news for the fortunate Hunters who managed to tame this incredibly rare pet before the hotfix. I was skimming over Mania’s post from today which contains a summary of hunter changes and highlights from patch 3.1, when I saw this…

I also know that thereโ€™s been a host of animation changes (ghost wolves can run now!).

I had my wolf out about ten days ago on the PTR and it was still bugged at that time. I don’t know if this is something in the official notes or not, but I can verify that it has been fixed. I logged on to the PTR and filmed a quick video of me frolicking about the Argent Stand in Zul’Drak.

This is pleasantly surprising news for me, because I had asked a GM about it at one point, and he said there were no plans whatsoever to fix it since it was never intended to be tamable.

Grimtotem Spirit Guide Owners Rejoice!!!

Filed Under: General, Hunter Pets Tagged With: grimtotem spirit guide, patch 3.1, ptr

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to Next Page »
Spirit Beasts Hunter Macros Hunter Forums

Popular

  • GarsNotes: Best DPS Pets
  • Hunter Macros
  • Spirit Beasts: Where to Find Them and Tips on Taming
  • Hunter PvP Pets
  • The Raiding Hunter: Marksmanship

Recent Comments

  • Karly Kernodle on Top Ten Hunter PvP Macros
  • Paula on Hunter Macros
  • Martim on Major FOMO

Recent Posts

  • Major FOMO
  • Still Around
  • Legion is Really Quite Good

From the Forum

  • Forum: Builds, Talents and Class MechanicsTopic: Premium Hemp Flower EUBy: Guestย - 5 months ago
  • Forum: Hunter Pet DiscussionTopic: Buy Residence Permit Online EUBy: Guestย - 5 months ago
  • Forum: General Hunter DiscussionTopic: Buy Driver License Online,By: Guestย - 5 months ago

Categories

Archives

Sponsored Links

WoW TCG Loot Cards

ยฉ 2008 - 2020 HuntsmansLodge.com
World of Warcraft and Blizzard Entertainment are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.
This site is in no way affiliated with Blizzard Entertainment. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
HuntsmansLodge is powered by WordPress, Genesis and Garwulf :: Hosting provided by Kinsta
Home | Forums | Hunter Macros | Gar UI | Hunter Power Auras | Buy Ads | Contact | Privacy Policy