What spec should i make my hunter?

[BreakingRad 0]

This is my first time playing a hunter, im a lvl 32 orc hunter and currently specced in Marksman and its fun but i feel like my pet is weak and doesnt do much i considered going into bm but i want other peoples opinions. What spec would be better for pvp and dps?

[Raziya 11]

Hi there!

I leveled Marksman and had fun. If you want to hit 60 the fastest, Beast Mastery makes your pet an unstoppable tanking + DPS machine in world quests. If you do a ton of dungeons and prefer to dick around on the way up, 0/21/30 MM / Surv is my favorite spec. Lots of burst and CC.

[Drain 19]

There is no contest. Beast is best by a landslide. Your pet has infinite energy and if it does all the damage, then it'll have all the threat too. Your pet is much tougher than you pre 60, and you can heal it, not yourself. Assuming it dies, 2/2 revive will get it back up and running in no time. A pet being able to hold threat also makes shooting easier, but I actually recommend meleeing instead if your weapons are decent. Shooting uses ammo, swinging does not. But it comes down to the quality of your weapons. After BM is done (40), you'll pick marks or surv for the remaining levels, which is basically shooting or melee, whichever you prefer more. Again I suggest 2/2 raptor strike and meleeing when possible, to skimp on ammo bills. Note that if your pet is tanking, you can swing from behind the mob, which gives a huge boost to melee damage.

Enjoy it while it lasts though, because after 60, BM is a totally worthless tree, and pets become little more than howl buffs in raiding.

[Myllz 8]

BM is by far the easiest spec in the game to level as.  

[BreakingRad 0]

So as soon as i hit 60 i should just respec into mm and ignore bm? Im planning on respecing to bm tonight thanks guys

[Raziya 11]

55 minutes ago, Drain said:

Enjoy it while it lasts though, because after 60, BM is a totally worthless tree, and pets become little more than howl buffs in raiding.

Or zappy flappy things. :) Or clawy bitey things.

11 minutes ago, BreakingRad said:

So as soon as i hit 60 i should just respec into mm and ignore bm? Im planning on respecing to bm tonight thanks guys

Yeah, but like Drain said, BM has no contest pre-60 for solo leveling. It's not as fun as MM IMHO, but you can literally AFK to 60. lol

[Myllz 8]

14 minutes ago, BreakingRad said:

So as soon as i hit 60 i should just respec into mm and ignore bm? Im planning on respecing to bm tonight thanks guys

BM is okay for PvP, but you can't really raid as BM.  Your pet has no aggro control and it will die constantly, so BM is garbage DPS.

[Raziya 11]

1 minute ago, Myllz said:

BM is okay for PvP, but you can't really raid as BM.  Your pet has no aggro control and it will die constantly, so BM is garbage DPS.

You can keep your pet alive on quite a few fights, especially with cooperative healers. The hunter is responsible for his or her pet, and must navigate it around certain deadly things - like Rain of Fire on Gehennas or the trash after Broodlord - and although it could cut it close to death at times, it's quite possible to reliably keep it alive.

Still, BM isn't as good as MM for raids. Period.

[Myllz 8]

15 minutes ago, Raziya said:

You can keep your pet alive on quite a few fights, especially with cooperative healers. The hunter is responsible for his or her pet, and must navigate it around certain deadly things - like Rain of Fire on Gehennas or the trash after Broodlord - and although it could cut it close to death at times, it's quite possible to reliably keep it alive.

Still, BM isn't as good as MM for raids. Period.

Good luck getting healers willing to heal pets, though. :p

[BreakingRad 0]

Hmm maybe i'll stay as MM gonna do some more research thanks guys

[Raziya 11]

2 hours ago, Myllz said:

Good luck getting healers willing to heal pets, though. :p

No need! If you're Horde, shamans' Chain Heal will bounce to pets.

The healers in my guild are meter whores, so they sometimes heal my serpent. I don't put his life on it, but when it happens, it's nice.

[Poly 1]

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.

[Myllz 8]

8 hours ago, Raziya said:

No need! If you're Horde, shamans' Chain Heal will bounce to pets.

And if you're not? :p

[Raziya 11]

32 minutes ago, Myllz said:

And if you're not? :p

Get in a guild with meter whore healers :O

[Oakenlix 79]

9 hours ago, Drain said:

 Note that if your pet is tanking, you can swing from behind the mob, which gives a huge boost to melee damage.

Excuse me? Why?

[Drain 19]

I'm not going to explain basic melee combat mechanics. You can do that research yourself.

But a pet in raids only serves 2 purposes, neither of which use the majority of their talents.
1) To pull and die. (You only need 7 BM to get revive, and 5 are to shoot)
2) To buff yourself with howl, ideally on passive right next to you so it stays away from the bosses.

Nothing is stopping you from sending one in to die, which I do all the time. You just logically should not waste talent points on them. Our main pulling Hunter actually uses 2/2 revive, which is purely because reviving it after every pull is a pain in the ass.

[Raziya 11]

9 hours ago, Drain said:

2) To buff yourself with howl, ideally on passive right next to you so it stays away from the bosses.

I'm a CL. If a hunter does this in my raids, I tell them to GTFO with that. The wolf goes in melee and buffs the melee DPS or it stays away. Wolves are not BiS if they're not smacking things AND buffing the melee DPS.

Arrows are better than smacking things. They're also very inexpensive. BM is AFK + Auto Shot, not AFK + Auto Attack.

20/31/0 is the standard raiding spec for a reason. Pets are not so squishy that they die on every single pull, if you use them correctly. If my pet dies during a pull, I res it long before the next pull.

[Poly 1]

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.

[Raziya 11]

14 minutes ago, Poly said:

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.

Yep! :D Screw Shazz and Vael. lol

[Pixelslyna 0]

On my preraid bis hunter i run 30bm/21mm when im not raiding(as i feel you lack way too much crit at this gear level to be good just grinding/killing elites ect). Spirit Bond is just too good if ur just farming shit in the world, but the main reason this gives me BOTH pet stun and scatter shot for world pvp. Lovely spec when you are not raiding.

[Eldoon 0]

On 04/10/2017 at 7:42 AM, Oakenlix said:

Excuse me? Why?

You can't be parried or blocked from behind is the short answer.

[Raziya 11]

59 minutes ago, Pixelslyna said:

On my preraid bis hunter i run 30bm/21mm when im not raiding(as i feel you lack way too much crit at this gear level to be good just grinding/killing elites ect). Spirit Bond is just too good if ur just farming shit in the world, but the main reason this gives me BOTH pet stun and scatter shot for world pvp. Lovely spec when you are not raiding.

I like Intimidation + Scatter Shot spec too. Fun spec.

33 minutes ago, Eldoon said:

You can't be parried or blocked from behind is the short answer.

Why melee at all though?

[Eldoon 0]

1 minute ago, Raziya said:

Why melee at all though?

No idea, I was just answering the question.

[Raziya 11]

3 minutes ago, Eldoon said:

No idea, I was just answering the question.

Oh, yeah.

[Myllz 8]

On 10/4/2017 at 4:00 AM, Drain said:

I'm not going to explain basic melee combat mechanics. You can do that research yourself.

But a pet in raids only serves 2 purposes, neither of which use the majority of their talents.
1) To pull and die. (You only need 7 BM to get revive, and 5 are to shoot)
2) To buff yourself with howl, ideally on passive right next to you so it stays away from the bosses.

Nothing is stopping you from sending one in to die, which I do all the time. You just logically should not waste talent points on them. Our main pulling Hunter actually uses 2/2 revive, which is purely because reviving it after every pull is a pain in the ass.

Neither of those two things are main purposes for your pet, the second one especially.  If you're buffing yourself with howl and not the four melee in your group you're doing it terribly wrong.