Poly

The BiS weapons post ZG are Fang of the Faceless and the Hakkari mainhand (so both Hakkarweapons). The Arlokkset isn't worth it.

Have to confirm Raziya again - your pet is meant to deal damage and buff your melees. If your pet dies during fights it's not the servers or the pets fault (not even the healers fault most of the time) but simply your own. The only bosses where your pet will almost always die (talking MC/BWL here) are Shazz and maybe Vael... the rest of the encounters should be doable if you know what to do.

Actually for raiding a 20/31/0 hybridspec (some points are not set in stone and up to personal preferance) offers the highest damage if you know how to control your pet properly. As Raziya already mentioned, as a hordeplayer your pet usually gets some chainhealbounces too, so the uptime is even higher. Concerning leveling I can basically confirm what has been said before - BM is faster, but every spec is more or less viable, as the hunterkit itself excels in solo/leveling situations.

The only real bug (apart from the batbug you mentioned yourself) I can think of is the instantdismiss via macro. However, I'm not even sure whether this is considered bugusing or not... I don't remember anyone getting banned or suspended because of it (and quite a lot of people are using it in PvP). I'd highly recommend not doing it though, I've seen people getting banned for less. ;)

Up until patch 1.9 (AQ release), Lupos is by far the best PvE pet (and arguably the best PvP pet too). He does indeed deal shadow damage up until patch 1.9, which means he bypasses armor, benefits from any buff for that very damage (warlock curse, spriest debuff, etc.) and does not consume Shadowbolt stacks. So if you play on any server that is not Anathema, you should definitely tame and level Lupos.

ZG is not out yet on Elysium.

Can confirm, Snarler hasn't been fixed here.

It actually was patched out in 1.3.0 (atleast on retail) - here's the quote from the original patch notes: However, on Nostalrius/Elysium it didn't work anyways - even before that patch - as most petrelated stuff is scripted in accordance with patch 1.12.1. (for instance, "Son of Hakkar" should only be tamable after the AQ patch).

Most dungeons are run within the respective guilds, so you might want to join an active one.

Horde has a a few "elite" guilds (using your words here), the rest is fairly layed back and more on the casual side. So I'm sure you could find a place - especially as you are rolling a shaman which is by default a high-demand class for pretty much every guild.

Concerning PvP, there's nothing to worry about. Horde usually gets instant-queuepops for battlegrounds and I've yet to see a sucessfull capital raid by Alliance. Horde has a rather oraganised ranking scene, the only problem is the fairly small PvP-pool on non-AV-weekends. As for dungeon PvE, I can recommend you joining one of the bigger guilds, there's multiple for every desired progression aswell as some leveling guilds and they often run dungeons internally and just fill out remaining spots with randoms from /world. Also, usually it's easier to host a group yourself and look for people rather than looking for a group - but that's the case for every server I've played on so far. Horde also has a very active raiding scene with people still clearing MC and slowly progressing through BWL aswell as high-end guilds who farm the content in one raidday. There also are multiple ZG and MC PuGs throughout the week. Just notice that even the highend guilds are recruiting people for their mainraids due to summerholes and people raidlogging until emerald drakes are released.

For PvE at level 60, Lupos is considered to be the best overall pet up to patch 1.9 - after that ZG-Serpents, Deathmaw or Brokentooth are superior. For PvP, people usually recommend Brokentooth beause of his attackspeed (1.0) which offers pushback on casters. Lupos (pre 1.9) ignores armor, which makes him a tankmelter. Other popular choices in PvP are boars, bats, serpents and a scorpid here and there. I, however, would recommend using BT or Lupos (depending on which classes you expext to face).

I am using Lupos on Darrowshire - he DOES deal shadow damage, which makes him the highest dps pet in the game currently. This only changes with patch 1.9.0. - you can find the relevant notes here (WoWWiki). You can expect this patch to come somewhere in the end of 2017 (Oct/Nov). This means, it's definitely worth taming and leveling Lupos. If you are looking for alternatives, try the ZG serpents, Deathmaw or Brokentooth.

When leveling a hunter, one should spec Beastmastery - one of the mainpoints of this is that the pet is not gear dependant. This means, if you're speccing correctly, gear doesnt really matter - maybe apart from a ranged weapon. So if you change bows/guns/xbows every 10-15 levels, you will be more than fine as your pet does the majority of the work anyways. I'll just leave some common leveling weapons that I usually go for (hordefocused): Orcish Battle Bow (Quest) into Venomstrike (Lord Serpentis, WC) or Bow of Plunder (Quest) into Master Hunter's Bow (Quest) into Highland Bow (Quest) into Farmer Dalson's Shotgun into Gorewood Bow (Quest, if you can find the groups necessary) or some random AH weapon like Gryphonwing Long Bow You can also always pick up the PvP rewards - they're usually good alternatives. After the last weapons mentioned, it's time to run dungeons for your preraid BiS weapons (LBRS for Blackcrow usually). Note, that, while the attackspeed doesn't really matter while leveling, you want the slowest weapons possible for raids, which is why crossbows are generally considered superior to bows or guns in that context. Another note, I only mentioned hordesite - my knowledge of alliance quests is very limited. Also, I tried to not include dungeondrops, because those are never guaranteed and I usually just skip dungeons.

Dal'Rends are also missing - they get preraid BiS with the addition of the +15 Agility enchant.

You actually made me redo the calculations because I was unsure about it - I uploaded it here, feel free to check it out. Important to point out here that a similar logic makes Ragcloak better if you calc. in ZG buff. (1 % crit ~ 35 AP used here, value depends on gear and other factors)

Alliance has the Blessing of Kings buff which scales off Agility - considering raw stats the Baroncloak is better, however, if you calc. in the stat-increase from BoK, Ragcloak should be better (at least that's how I always looked at it). The difference is minimal though.

Wops, I'm stupid, you're right, then it's 1,26 % crit, 78 AP, 1 % Hit, sorry for that. Yeah in that case those are actually better than QSR+CoAF. I guess in regards of trinketswaps lateron it might be smarter to go with the build that uses weaker non-active trinkets which would be your build - hard to tell though. Sorry for calling you out - had a brainfart it seems :D

Specifically concerning your rings I'm a bit confused. ZG Rings: 1 % crit, 20 AP + 14 Agi, 1 % Hit + 30 AP = 1,26 % crit, 50 AP, 1 % Hit ----------------------------- QSR + DJ: 1 % crit, 30 AP + 1 % crit, 1 % hit, 16 AP = 2 % crit, 46 AP, 1 % Hit That means you'd value 4 AP higher than 0,74 % crit, which I don't agree with. ----------------------------- QSR + CoAF: 1 % crit, 30 AP + 22 Agi = 1,42 % crit, 74 AP Here you would swap 28 AP for 0,48 % crit and 1 % Hit - now that's an exchange that c o u l d work, but as you said, those are two very different builds. Basically I agree with you, your build might be more "practicable" and attainable, but I was talking about the BiS setup - so if your tanks get prio over you on DFT, you obviously might want to find hit somewhere else and go with Pwnjins build. If, however, you find yourself in the lucky position to freely gear your character, I'd say my list is slightly superior.

Alright so pre-BWL (without ZG) your BiS would be full T1 with Onyneck, Black Baron Cape (Horde) / Ragcape (Alliance), Brutality Blade, Core Hound Tooth, Rhok'delar, Quick Strike Ring / Don Julio / Accuria (depending on race, scope etc - i prefer DJ + QSR), DM Trinket and Blackhands Breadth. For BWL + ZG, you want full T2, Prestors, same capes as before, Don Julio + Quick Strike Ring, Fang of the Facesless, Hakkarimainhand, Ashjre'Thul (with damagescope), DFT and Blackhands Breadth aswell as every trinket with actives you can get your hands on (Renatakis, Hakkarhearttrinket, Devilsaur Eye,..).

Daihachiro's guide from the old Nostalrius forums is a good start, more in depth analysis can be found with google. :-)

Basically the three you mentioned. If you need the hit, go for Accuria - otherwise don't use Accuria and go for QSR instead. Don Julio should be set for now. You should however try to get your hands on all of them, as you'll be switching gear a lot lateron (and as mentioned before, what ring you use depends on the rest of your gear).

I am sorry, but that's not correct. Up until patch 1.9, Lupos is the pet with the highest dps. Brokentooth and Deathmaw do come rather close - but even if there was a pet that had the name King Bangladesh, it wouldn't deal more damage than any normal cat. Concerning serpents, as far as I know, they should come rather close to Lupos' damage with the release of ZG. However, hopefully a hunter playin on Anathema could comment on this, I can only start comparing stuff at the end of the month, when we (hopefully) get ZG on Darrowshire. If you really want a "budget" pet (so no rarespawn) pre ZG, you should just get a LBRS worg or a needles cougar, depending on what you prefer. Those get outdpsd quite hard by Lupos & Co. though.

As for horde, guilds usually bring one more mage too raids in the current content, but that's not set in stone. Casters in general are definitely wanted on hordeside, so both are fine in that regard. As for mechanics, both primarily spam bolts, mages have to occasionally counterspell or sheep while warlocks have to curse and banish.

Last time i checked Snarler, his special resistances weren't there - however, that was months ago and on Darrowshire (haven't seen it appear in any patchnotes since then though).