Fisher

Depends largely on your mana pool/regen, but a good place to start is Mind Blast + Shadow Word: Pain + Mind Flay x2/3, then wand. When leveling my priest, I found that I did not have the mana to continuously Mind Blast, so I would simply apply Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Flay twice, then wand the target down. In general, you only care about keeping up Shadow Word: Pain (allowing it to do all or most of its damage), and wanding.

That largely depends on when you play. I typically don't encounter many people on either Horde or Alliance. If I encounter someone on the opposite faction, they ignore me... except level 60s who simply one shot me. In the case of a level 60, it doesn't matter what spec I am; I'm dead. "Anyone with a brain" is a huge prerequisite for most people. Most people will ignore you pet. On the off-chance the don't, you can easily remove the CC. Also, no Deterrence? No Improved Wing Clip? http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#cV0GzgxRtZ0xVVoh No Scatter Shot? http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#cx0GzTxRxtVoht Use Concussive Shot/Wing Clip? Not sure what else could be done to help your pet reach the target, but I'd imagine running faster will make it easier for your pet to catch up. If it isn't, perhaps it is being slowed or some other such effect? In raiding, I might be inclined to agree, save for a few rare encounters where your pet doesn't have to move much and it doesn't get killed by AoE constantly. In PvP, I completely disagree. Intimidation is pretty good, and still allows room to pick up other talents depending on your playstyle. The pet's DPS is nothing to scoff at, especially when you consider its ability to deal damage around LoS and with you far out of range. The insanely fast attack speed of pets will make casters rage as their 2 second cast time turns into 7 seconds. Also, this notion that leveling it exclusively somehow makes it difficult to learn a "real" spec is laughable. This is vanilla. The rotations aren't exactly the most complex, and most of the rotation of a "real" spec applies to BM hunters, as well, they just rely on it less because their pet does better DPS and they don't have to waste their mana. The only difference would be the absence of Aimed Shot, and that is assuming you don't move into MM after you get Bestial Wrath, in which case you'd probably be used to using it anyway. Leveling is boring regardless of the spec you play. While leveling, you won't have the mana to continually use your abilities, or you'll end up drinking every couple of mobs. Now that is boring. In any case, "boring" is subjective. Granted, you said they are your issues with BM, so whatever.

Are you aware if that's unintended? That is to say, are you sure that's not how it was in vanilla? I know a lot of really skilled mages used to use Arcane Missiles to break things like Feign Death, Vanish, Shadowmeld, etc, because it would continue to channel and fire missiles at the target even if they disappeared.

To finally put a rest to this issue... proof: http://imgur.com/ub1fPRE I went and tamed The Rake. He was level 10 to start, and the cat with the closest level (and most convenient for me) was in the Barrens. A level 11. I went and leveled The Rake up to level 11, then compared the DPS of the two pets while fully fed. Now, it's possible The Rake just had the same base DPS as this other pet? I don't really intend to wait around for Broken Tooth just to prove its DPS will be the same as another cat of the same level, but if you want to do so to prove me wrong because you think it will be different, by all means, go ahead.

You didn't even tame pets of the same species? That doesn't prove anything. Different species have different modifiers to their damage, health, and armor. -.-

Yeah. Everything this fellow is saying is just contradicting what every other hunter on these forums seems to know about pets. Can you provide screenshots of the pets you tamed and their pet sheets to show they actually have different DPS values?

I mean, with all due respect, I don't just believe a random user on the forums because they said something that I believe to not be the case. You'll have to take your own advice, and post some screenshots to prove you're correct, or link me to some patch notes/archived forum posts discussing when the pet DPS was normalized to prove it isn't that case here. For one, I don't care how things were on some other server. That is totally irrelevant to this server, unless the server you're talking about was a legitimate Blizzard realm back in vanilla. I doubt that's what you were talking about, and even if it was, I want some proof that was the case and is the case here. Secondly, not a single other person on this server has said Broken Tooth is the best because of its base DPS. Everyone is saying it's because of its attack speed. I don't think that's a coincidence. As I said before... I'm open to the idea of being wrong about this, but I won't just take your word for it. Prove it to me (and everyone else here) so we can all be smarter for it.

I'm looking up information about this. I can't seem to find when the pets' DPS was normalized. I'm guessing it must have been 2.0, or some later patch in vanilla. If there were actually higher base DPS pets (I know there were, but I don't believe there are anymore), then the reason people would be picking Broken Tooth wouldn't be for its attack speed, but its base DPS. That simply isn't the case, as far as I know. If it is, I'd much appreciate you providing a list of all these values, as I'm sure would many others. Players whom, among the other thousands of players, I do not care about and will likely never see again. Most of the folks taming Broken Tooth probably quit playing before they even reach Winterspring, let alone level 60. The ones that don't quit, while mad, aren't going to lose sleep over some other hunter taking Broken Tooth from them. They'll grumble, maybe tell their guild what a jerk the guy was, then they'll either continue camping it, or level up some more and try later. For one, they could just as easily do the same thing to someone else, or do it themselves in the first place to prevent aggro from being taken. Secondly, having Broken Tooth is something most people seem to seriously overestimate. Many will agree it is the best pet (for leveling and PvP, at least), but I'm sure most do not know why. If they did, they likely wouldn't sit around as long as they do for a pet that ultimately isn't much better than many of the other pets available. Keep in mind, I agree it is better, but not so much that you'll do absurdly higher DPS with Broken Tooth than you would, say, The Rake, whom has a much shorter respawn time and fewer people camping it. If what I've said about pet DPS being normalized is true (I'm fairly certain it is, but I'm open to the possibility it isn't), then the one and only reason having Broken Tooth would be more DPS is higher uptime on Frenzy due to faster attacks meaning more chances to crit and then proc it. That's what a guild is for. If you think people actually care enough about a hunter "stealing" someone else's tame that the hunter would have trouble getting into a guild and/or finding a group, I think you grossly overestimate people's compassion for others. Try telling General that some hunter stole the pet from you. See how many people just laugh at you, and how many will actually attack you for daring to whine about it. If anything, the fact the hunter knew how to use his class to secure the tame for himself means he's probably a better player than you are, and they want him instead of you. A jerk? Maybe. A better player? Most likely. At the very least, he has the good pet, and you don't. The long-term effects being your feelings and psychological well-being, right? Because I don't care about that. I'm not saying you have to go about being a jerk, ninjaing epics you can't even use or doing other stupid things like that, but if you want a pet, and you have a way to tame it instead of someone else, I really don't think any sensible person whom isn't an entitled child will care that you did what was necessary to get it. Or do you mean the community being less toxic and overall "better?" Again, I don't care. I play the game because I enjoy the game, not because I like that some hunter ran up, saw I was there first, and let me tame the pet he was after. I'm also not going to care if someone does the opposite. That's part of the game. I would consider that to be competition, as well. They are competing for the same resource, in this case: Broken Tooth. You can argue the tactics employed were unpleasant or upsetting, but you can't deny that it was competition. Just because your opponent kicked you in the nads before making a layup doesn't mean you weren't playing basketball. Whether or not that is acceptable depends entirely on the rules. In this case, the rules of the server are what matter. Is it against the TOS to "steal" a pet from another hunter? Nope. So who cares? There might be social repercussions, at best, for taking such actions, but I seriously doubt the severity of any such repercussions would be worth even considering, let alone altering one's behavior in of concern. Also, "to the detriment of the entire hunter community?" Don't make me laugh. Your discord means nothing to most hunters.

On the contrary. There's no legal repercussions for being "dishonorable." You won't get arrested; you won't get banned from the server; you'll still get invites to groups. The one and only reason you have to be "honorable" is it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Well, sorry, but I care more about getting rare pets, quest mob tags, and leveling fast than I care about some hunter's feelings. The reason you shouldn't do the honorable thing is because it's entirely at your detriment. If I'm not mistaken, the bats can't learn Claw, which would do more DPS than Screech. Bats are also lower DPS pets in the first place. I actually forgot about Frenzy. That is another reason to have a faster attack speed on your pet. I wouldn't agree it's totally worthless in end-game content, but I would suggest getting a different pet for raiding/group content. Lupos is really good. I don't know what LBRS worg you mean. Do you know its name?

You're not always PvPing. Most of your time leveling, even on a PvP server, will be spent fighting mobs. You want to be BM for that. If you're beast mastery, your pet will be good for killing enemy players... as long as the pet you tamed has Dash or Dive. Until then, it will have trouble reaching its target. Get past level 29 and you'll see an improvement. I personally enjoy being able to just send my pet in and auto attack to victory. Sometimes I just go AFK/semi-AFK in an area with mobs my level and let my pet grind XP for me. Can't do that if you're MM/Surv.

In PvE, I doubt anyone cares what pet you use as long as it's a DPS pet. Cats, wolves, or raptors, wolves preferred (for their group DPS buff). In PvP, I doubt anyone cares, at all. You'll want whatever helps you the most. Your pet is useless if it can't reach anything, so you'll definitely want a pet that has Dash or Dive. This means Boars, Cats, Hyenas, Raptors, Tallstriders (the birds), or Wolves, and Bats, Carrion Birds, Owls, or Windserpents, respectively.

I don't care. It's no different than sitting around near a quest mob and racing to get the tag so you get credit. If a couple of folks get butthurt and say "that's not cool, man! What a jerk!", so be it. There are so many people on these realms, I don't really care if two or three are mad I "stole" "their" pet from them. Honestly, I'm just trying to give you some life advice. People will not be honorable about things like rare pets, quest mobs, etc. If you are the nice guy, you will spend much of your time being upset that people didn't do the same. Save yourself the trouble and the time. Employ whatever tactics are necessary to get what you want. The DPS is normalized, if I'm not mistaken. Faster attack speeds don't necessarily mean higher DPS, but just more frequent attacks. This means misses, dodges, and parries are less devastating, as your pet has more chances to make up for them. In addition, faster attacks means more frequent knock-back interruption on casters, which is good for PvP and reducing damage from some mobs while leveling/soloing. If you're worried about what pet to have while leveling, you probably don't need to get the "best" pet, i.e. Broken Tooth. Any cat, raptor, or wolf will suffice. In the end, your pet choice (while leveling) is mostly up to personal preference. If you think Broken Tooth looks lame, go get something else. The other hunters (especially the ones in this thread, lol) will appreciate it.

And, in my opinion, nor should he. These realms are a little too populated to be worrying about what some fellow hunter thinks about how you manage to steal the pet that was "his." If you want to wait around for hours for a pet that every hunter in the game wants, be prepared to do some scummy things to get it, or you'll be making a QQ thread every few hours when someone better than you gets it instead.

And the way it was listed, they share the same priority. Deep Wounds will knock off other debuffs, depending on which has the lowest duration remaining, as long as they share the same priority. I'm trying to find more information on the matter. Some people say Deep Wounds shares the same priority, some people say it's a "trash priority" debuff. In any case, Deep Wounds + Impale isn't worth it, in my opinion. Yes, it's nice for the warriors, but it's bad for the raid (not as good for the raid, that is), especially if you consider it can knock off debuffs like Nightfall which would be a massive raid-wide DPS increase, or other procs and debuffs. That's 20% increased critical strike damage for abilities only. The 450 RAP is for auto attacks and abilities, doesn't require them to crit to benefit, and every hunter benefits as opposed to just one warrior. Deep Wounds is a vastly superior debuff.

As far as I'm concerned, the lack of "N/E/W" would imply it means Deadmines. DM = Deadmines. DM E = Dire Maul East, and so on. If there's no cardinal direction, it's Deadmines. If there is, it's fairly obvious which wing of Dire Maul they mean. If you were specifically targeting VC, saying "LFG VC" makes sense, but you can't skip any bosses in Deadmines as far as I know, so it's a bit pointless to say you're targeting a specific boss when you have to run the whole thing to get to it. No, damage dealer is not improper. I imagine it's just a cultural thing. It doesn't really make sense, as "healer" and "tank" are both roles, while "DPS" is not, yet "DPS" is what is preferred. Perhaps it has something do with the implication of "DPS." Everyone deals damage, but "DPS" is the focus of dealing the most damage per second by maximizing your rotation, stats, and so on. In addition, it's pronunciation makes a difference, I bet. "The deedee needs to pick it up," versus "The DPS needs to pick it up." The latter just flows more naturally off the tongue. For the record, many different realms existed in vanilla. Just because it was that way in your realm/region doesn't mean that's how it was everywhere. It even varies amongst the individual communities within a single realm. Just like how it is here now. Some people say DD, some say DPS. Some say DM, some say VC. Neither is "wrong," because, as long as people know what you mean, it's always "right."

If there's a chance Deep Wounds would be knocking off important debuffs like Winter's Chill/Improved Scorch, Shadow Weaving, Improved Shadowbolt, and Nightfall, I'd pretty much never allow any warrior to take Deep Wounds. Their 20% increased critical strike damage on abilities and the tiny personal DPS gain they get from those talents takes a back seat to the phenomenal raid DPS gain the other debuffs provide. A look at some of the logs out there will show that warriors who pick Deep Wounds + Impale do gain some DPS, but it's not nearly as significant as many believe. That said, I think even with all of those debuffs present, you'll still have room for Deep Wounds as long as no one has any other effects/DoTs. I think the DPS gain from effects like Nightfall and Expose Weakness heavily outweigh Deep Wounds, and the amount of damage lost by having those debuffs consumed for some pathetic bleed damage would be substantial, and I'd much rather the warriors' DPS suffer a little bit to leave room for important debuffs like the 8/8 T2 bonus for hunters.

I'm aware it's a prerequisite, but the fact it takes up a debuff slot usually means they don't take it, no? Maybe I'm wrong; I don't play a DPS warrior. The difference between Mortal Shots and Impale is that Mortal Shots applies to critical strike damage from ALL attacks, including abilities and auto attacks. Impale only affects abilities. Mortal Shots also gives 10% more critical strike damage AND doesn't have a terrible prerequisite that wastes a debuff slot.

I think if you could rely on a couple of 8/8 T2 hunters keeping the debuff up for a decent amount of time, it's worth reserving a debuff slot for it. In regards to raids, you probably won't see warriors with Deep Wounds. The fact it takes up an important debuff slot for a minuscule personal DPS gain means any decent warrior will know not to pick it up, except for PvP and dungeons. I suppose in vanilla you can expect that not every warrior is going to be "decent," so I understand saying it's unreliable.

If I'm not mistaken... Tier 1 has: 189 Agility 4% Crit 3% Hit 15% Multi-shot and Volley damage Tier 2 has: 208 Agility 5% Crit 2% Hit 20% Ranged Attack Power increase to Aspect of the Hawk Chance to apply Expose Weakness debuff to the target, increasing Ranged Attack Power against that target by 450 I'm fairly certain the 8 set bonus in tier 2 takes up a debuff slot. I'm not sure if that means you can reliably consider it in a raiding environment. I've never heard of raid groups reserving a debuff slot for Expose Weakness. Let's just assume for simplicity's sake that you can rely on it having a debuff slot. Seems to me that Tier 2 is just flat out better. I've not done the exact math, but even if you were doing a perfect rotation with Multi-shot, the damage your auto attacks gain is quite a bit, and you're a better benefit to the raid. Not sure who told you tier 1 is better, but it seems strange to me. Maybe in multi-target fights.

Is there anything similar to rogues' Agility Equivalence Points? I've only been able to find a formula for TBC, which clearly wouldn't work for vanilla. The most I've found is this: Forgive me if anything I say here sounds dumb. I'm trying my best to make sense of all this to help me better understand why certain gear is better, down to the numbers. That information leads me to this: 53 Agility = 106 Ranged Attack Power = 1% Crit = 7.51 DPS, however, I don't believe that is correct. 53 Agility is 106 Ranged Attack Power and 1% Crit, so 1% Crit can't be worth the same as 53 Agility. However, 1% Crit could be equal to 106 Ranged Attack Power and consequently equal to 7.51 DPS, correct? If Agility gives both Ranged Attack Power and Crit, then Agility's DPS value is basically double that of the two stats alone, so 53 Agility = 15.02 DPS, yes? Which means 1 point of Agility is roughly 0.28 DPS. So if I take the formula and simply double everything except Agility, the formula looks like this: 53 Agility = 212 Ranged Attack Power = 2% Crit = 15.02 DPS 1 Agility = 4 Attack Power = 0.038% Crit Chance = 0.28 DPS Also, the Agility Equivalence Points for rogues also includes some other things like Hit chance, Stamina, Resistances, etc. I don't believe Hit chance really works the same for Hunters, since 8.6% is the Hit cap and we don't benefit beyond that, so it really comes down to "do you need Hit or not?" Because Agility is far more valuable to Hunters than it is to Rogues, I also don't think the 1:1 ratio for Agility to Stamina is accurate, either. I don't think it's worth calculating resistances' value since you really only need to worry about that except for progression fights where an excess of resistance is needed. Finally, I have absolutely no idea how much Agility 1 Intellect is worth. I wouldn't say it's worthless, but I wouldn't say it's great, either. 1:3? 1 Agility = 1.5 Stamina = 3 Intellect = 4 Attack Power = 0.038% Crit Chance = 0.28 DPS Does that look correct? Obviously it's not exact in nature -- your current gear will change the value of certain stats, and such -- but is the formula for general guidance usage correct?

I'm not trying to find the equivalency formula for maximizing DPS's sake. I want to "calculate" the item's effective "value" for leveling. Worrying about shot rotations is something that a leveling hunter most likely won't be doing, and the gear available at lower levels (without enchants) will make it near impossible to reach any of the Attack Power or Crit values you've used as examples. I already acknowledged that your stat weights will change depending on your existing stats. What I asked is if the formula I gave is a good starting point, for general purposes. The AEP formula for rogues changes depending on your stats, but it still exists, and still works in general for finding out what piece of gear is best, and it works relatively well for leveling where you don't really have high enough stats such that the values would really change all that much anyway.

If I'm not mistaken, this is only true from 300 to 305. After 305, 5 weapon skill does not equal that much hit. This also only applies to bosses and mobs at level 63.

Your pet is running out of Focus. Generally it will prioritize Growl > Bite > Claw. Claw has no cooldown and has a lower Focus cost, however, so your pet will use Claw repeatedly, have no Focus to use Bite, and will either do nothing, or Claw again. Growl is likely unaffected because it has a lower Focus cost than both, and because it has priority, your pet will always choose to cast that ability instead of the others. If you want your pet to autocast both, it will need the focus to use both, because the AI simply does not know to pool its Focus for when Bite is about to come off cooldown. Putting points in Bestial Discipline will help, and some set bonuses will help your pet's Focus regeneration. At lower levels, though, you just have to deal with it.

If there's an issue, I simply haven't encountered it. I suppose there's no point in arguing anecdotes, because "I played vanilla and I remember it wasn't like this" versus "I played vanilla and I remember it was like this" doesn't really prove much of anything, and I doubt there's any information out there about the exact range mobs will detect you and/or aggro you. What I will say is that the levels of both yourself and mob need to be taken into account. While roaming in Stealth on my rogue, I've noticed plenty of mobs that will turn and look at me without aggroing. When mobs run at me, I'm able to Cheap Shot before they actually attack me, so Stealth definitely isn't dropping instantly like some are reporting. This is exactly how I remember it, but that was 12 years ago, so it's entirely possible it's off by a couple yards.

If you're dead set on Alliance, definitely pick Dwarf. The added weapon skill with guns will help. There are a lot more guns than you would think, and several of the best available weapons while leveling from 1-60 are guns. At rank 14, you can use the Grand Marshal's Hand Cannon and benefit from your racial. In addition, the racials for Dwarf are simply better for PvP. Frost Resistance will help (albeit very little), and Stoneform is invaluable for PvP. Shadowmeld is only good for when you're not fighting, which in PvP is not very often.