OoC Hunter Guide

[Lunariel]

Introduction

So you are thinking of playing a hunter? Well, there are many things you should know. While there is much information out there, this is a small attempt to consolidate some of this information into one spot. As a hunter you will find your roles many and varied. However, your primary role in any party or raid is simple: low maintenance DPS. Your ability to wear better armor (leather and mail), attack from range, and manage aggro (disengage and feign death) all help to ensure that you are not taking healing that should be going to the main tank.

Contents will change, but we will start with these.

Talent Trees and Builds
Hunter DPS
Hunter Roles
Hunter Macros and Mods
Hunter Gear
Hunter Pets
Hunter Links
Hunter Quests
Hunter Raiding

PM me or Wolf with suggestions and or comments. We will post the rest later as we consolidate and clean up what we have assembled.

[Lunariel]

Talent Trees and Builds

Hunter talents, like all other classes are broken into three areas of focus or “trees”. While we will go into these more in depth later, here is a brief description of each:

The Beast Master: The Beast Master has befriended wild companions. He has learned special abilities and has passed them on to his feral friends. The hunter and his pet have become one.
The Marksman: A lethal damage dealer. The Marksman has dedicated himself to the mastery of his weapon. At his disposal are special shots for both damage and utility.
The Survivalist: A master of traps and a skilled melee combatant. The Survivalist is able to perform crowd control and is specially trained to perform at the peak of his abilities.

Most hunters will concentrate in one tree and then dip into one or both of the other trees to grab a couple of the early abilities to supplement their area of focus. We will discuss each of these trees in length in the section to follow.

As mentioned earlier, the hunter has three areas of focus. Each serves their respective purpose and each facilitates a different play style. What follows is a brief highlight of what I consider to be the best of these trees.

Beast Mastery

Improved Aspect of the Hawk: While Aspect of the Hawk is active, all normal ranged attacks have a chance to increase ranged attack speed by 30% for 12 seconds. While this buff cannot proc from special shots, it will affect the cast time of them while active. This talent is a great compliment to a Marksman build.

Unleashed Fury: Increases your pet’s damage by up to 20% (4% for each point in this talent). Essential for a Beast Mastery build. As your pet will represent much of your damage, a 20% increase in that is quite nice.

Ferocity: Increase the critical strike chance of your pets by up to 15% (3% for each point in this talent). This talent is especially useful to this build given the next talent …

Frenzy: Gives your pet a chance (20% for each point in this talent) to gain a 30% attack speed increase for 8 seconds after landing a critical strike.

Bestial Wrath: Send your pet into a rage causing 50% additional damage for 15 seconds. While enraged, the beast cannot be stopped by any means. This talent lasts for 15 seconds every two minutes. Casters complain and call this the “I win button”. While lethal, this ability is not exactly a God Mode, there are few things funnier than seeing an undead mage trying to frost nova/blink from an unstoppable frenzied “red rocket”.

Marksmanship

Improved Concussive Shot/Efficiency: As is rarely the case in talent trees, both of the talents in the top tier are very worthwhile. With a 20% chance (with 5 points in this talent) to stun a target for 3 seconds, this talent is a must for PvP. Efficiency, on the other hand is invaluable for the raiding hunter. When a hunter goes out of mana his damage is essentially cut in half. Reducing the mana cost of all of your shots and stings by up to 10% (2% for each point in this talent) will ensure that your mana, and your optimal damage output, last just a bit longer.

Lethal Shots: Each point in this talent (up to 5) gives the hunter an additional 1% to crit. ‘nuff said.

Aimed Shot: This is the supreme hunter talent. An aimed shot that increases ranged damage by 600. In raids, this will account for over 1/3 of your damage. In PvP, it will give you the ability to drop a priest or mage with a single arrow.

Scatter Shot: A short ranged shot that deals 50% weapon damage and confuses the target for 4 seconds. Regarded by most as a PvP talent, this is also an essential talent for a hunter who wants to maximize his crowd control ability. Is a ghoul bearing down on your priest? Scatter Shot>>Feign Death>>Freezing Trap will give your party 20 seconds to death with the situation.

Trueshot Aura: Increase the melee and ranged attack power of nearby party members by 100. Rogues will love you, Warriors will sing your, and oh by the way, you and your pet get a nice little boost to your damage as well.

Survival

Monster and Humanoid Slaying: Each point in these talents (up to 3 in each) gives you a 1% damage increase against certain enemies.

Lighting Reflexes: Increase your agility by up to 15% (3% for each point in this talent). With this talent it is easy to reach 500+ agility. This talent is much debated by hunters, some believe that a Survival build with LR will yield more damage than a Marksman build. The rest of us know better. Until your agility reaches about 450 unbuffed, don’t consider this build. The loss on Barrage, Ranged Weapon Specialization, and Trueshot Aura are not made up for by the 15% boost in agility. On top of this, you loose the party buff and the accompanying popularity with out backstabbing buddies.

Wyvern Sting: A stinging shot that puts the target to sleep for 12 seconds. When the target wakes, the sting causes 600 nature damage over 12 seconds. Big fun! Adds to your crowd control ability and is a very nice tool for PvP. When used after a Freezing Trap, you get about 30 seconds of /dance fun with your foe. While you have to give up Scatter Shot for this talent, it is very useful. So often in Alterac Valley, I have watched a hordie ride by and get away before I can strike him down with great vengeance and furious anger. It is then that I wish I had this arrow in my quiver.

Ultimately the type of hunter you play should suit your play style. Do what you enjoy. Want to stand in there and melee mobs with the rogues? While I would not recommend this, many players enjoy it.

Here are a few of the more popular builds.

5/31/15 - The Raid DPS Build. While some of the points change around from player to player. The essential abilities are all intact. Improved Aspect of the Hawk, Aimed Shot, Lethal Shots, Mortal Shots, Barrage, Ranged Weapon Specialty, Trueshot Aura, and the "Slaying Talents".

31/20/0 - The Beast Mastery/Marksmanship Build. Again, some of the details change, but you get the gist.

0/21/30 - The Lighting Reflexes/PvP Build. Maximizing melee viability and survivability while keeping much of the ranged punch.

[Lunariel]

Hunter DPS

Basic Math

There are a few things that every hunter should know about DPS. You don’t have to be obsessed with the math and mechanics. To start with we need to set a few numbers up front. Here they are …

1 Agility = 2 Ranged Attack Power
Roughly 53 Agility will give you 1% to crit at level 60.
14 Ranged Attack Power = 1 DPS

Lets give a quick example: Let us say you are using an Ice Barbed Spear. It has +21 Agility. This will equate to 42 Ranged Attack Power (RAP). Given that RAP/14=DPS we find that the 42 RAP granted by your Ice Barbed Spear will yield 3 DPS (42/14=3). Additionally the 21 agility will also grant about .4% to crit.

This modifier is applied to your shots based on your weapon speed (for autoshoot). Your actual damage added to each shot is your DPS Bonus * Weapon Speed.

Lets take this example a bit further. If you are using Rhok’delar. Rhok has a speed of 2.9. This means that you will get approximately nine points damage added to each shot based on your Ice Barbed Spear. (3 (Your DPS bonus) * 2.9 = 8.7)

Aimed v. Arcane

A common misconception among hunters is that it is better to spam arcane shot than aimed. Hunters believe that because it is an instant shot, you do not interrupt your autoshot cycle and will do more damage in the end. While the former is true, the latter is not. Here is why …

Arcane Shot does a flat amount of damage while Aimed Shot is a modifier to your ranged attack. As your gear improves your Aimed Shots will scale with it. Your Arcane Shot will not get the same bonus.

Your autoshot timer, while delayed, is not stopped by an Aimed Shot. Let us assume that you have a 2.9 speed bow. If you cast an Aimed Shot (3 second cast) right after an autoshot (weapon speed (2.9)) you will get a delayed autoshot immediately after your Aimed Shot. You lost no shots at all.

In order to optimize this advantage, you must understand that simply spamming your specials when they are up is not enough. You must manage your shot cycle. We will discuss this further in the next section.

Shot Cycles

As I mentioned before, it is not sufficient to simply spam your specials. This is especially true if you are using Rhok’delar. Much of the advantage of Rhok lay within its white numbers. It is important to use a well managed cycle for a couple of reasons:

• A properly managed cycle ensures that as few autoshots as possible are being delayed or skipped.
• A properly managed cycle ensures that your mana will last through nearly any boss fight.
• If you have Improved Aspect of the Hawk (IAotH), it will only proc from autoshoot, but its buff effects cast speed of your Aimed Shot.

Your optimal shot cycle is based on the speed of your bow. Bows faster or slower than 2.9 seconds may have a longer or shorter cycle. For the purpose of this discussion I will focus on Rhok’delar.

While it is important to find a cycle that suits you, a common “11-second cycle” is as follows …

Aimed Shot
Auto Shot
Multi-Shot
Auto Shot
Auto Shot
Auto Shot

While this is just one example of a shot rotation (and the one I use) there are others. The single most important thing to remember is that if you have a Auto Shot nocked you do not interrupt your wait time for this shot to begin a special. While the special does more damage you are essentially throwing away 350 (more on a crit) damage and a chance to proc your IAotH. While it does not seem like much, if you do it consistently over the course of a 3 hour raid, you are limiting your damage contribution to a significant degree.

Advanced Math

As we understand more of our hunter and how he deals damage more questions arise. We will try to answer some of these with some more advanced math. This will build on some of the numbers from above. There are seven factors we will look at for this. They are listed below with the

· Weapon DPS (with ammo modifier) = Wdps
· Weapon Speed = Wspd
· Range Attack Power = RAP
· Crit Rate = CR
· Speed Modifiers = SM
· Mortal Shots bonus (Crit Modifier) = CM (1.3 if present, 1 otherwise)
· Barrage bonus = B (1.15 if present, 1 otherwise)

Let us look at a very basic auto shoot. The formula for this is quite simple.

(Wdps + RAP/14) * Wspeed

Let me use this formula to illustrate the difference in ammo.

Rhok’delar has a DPS value of 44. Lets assume a RAP of 1400. If we are using Jagged arrows (+13 DPS) we get an average autoshoot that looks like this …

(57+100)*2.9 = 455.3

Now if we look at this same formula with Thorium Headed Arrows we see the following …

(61.5+100)*2.9 = 468.35

With this example we can see that the difference that ammo makes. This will become even more pronounced as we look at our next formula.

Let us take our autoshot from above and assume it is a multi-shot.

The formula is as follows ….

(((Wdps + RAP/14) * 2.8)+140)*B

Using the same variables as above we get two results

(439.6+140)*1.15 = 666.54
And
(452.2+140)*1.15 = 681.03

For kicks lets throw in an 8/8 Giantstalker bonus

766.521
And
783.1845

And lastly lets look at Aimed Shot

((Wdps + AP/14)*2.8 )+ 600

1039.6
Versus
1052.6


So let us summarize. Using the numbers we have found and the shot cycle from the previous section we find out the following. In a given shot cycle, with all other things being equal the average difference between jagged arrows and thorium headed arrows is about 83 points of damage. Still doesn’t seem like much until you think about the fact that this is an 11 second cycle. In a three minute boss fight you should complete at least 15 shot cycles. It is easy to see how this difference can really add up over the length of a raid.

* Note: I did not add scopes in for these computations. You can easily do so by adding your damage bonus to the weapon DPS as I did with ammo.

Well that wraps it up for now. I intend to add to this section later as there are more topis to be addressed. Understand that my grasp on the mechanics and math is not complete. If you find some errors in my numbers, have a suggestion, or want to ask a question, please PM me.

[Lunariel]

Hunter Roles

As I mentioned in the introduction, the primary role of a hunter is simple: low maintenance DPS. To say that this is the only role however is to trivialize the abilities of the best class in the game.

If you ask one hundred players which class is the easiest to play, ninety of them would say “Hunter”. Guess what. I am one of those ninety. Playing a hunter is about as simple as it gets. It is playing a hunter well that is difficult. If you wanted to send in your pet and use auto-shoot, you could do so … some hunters do. However, if you want to be an asset to your team; if you want your group to be thankful they invited you, you must do more.

I will briefly cover a few of the things that we hunters can do to add value to our groups and not just be the “loot sponge” that many players think of us as.

Crowd Control

There are few things that a hunter can do to help his team more than effective crowd control. A good tank can easily occupy three enemies. Good hunters can likewise tie-up three, four, even five enemies!

• Freezing Trap: A properly placed freezing trap will neutralize an enemy for 20 seconds. More if you have spec’ed for clever traps. If done right, a hunter can trap two enemies for 20 seconds in separate traps. This for of crowd control relies on effective communication. Make sure your team knows what you are planning or your traps will easily be broken.
• Pet OT: Your pet can OT mobs quite well. Make sure that you communicate with the main tank of your group on this. With a simple renew from your healer or a Mend Pet occasionally, your companion can tank enemies for long periods of time when properly trained.
• Kiting: An oft ignored form of crowd control is kiting. If sufficient DPS in a group exists and you need to CC another mob –OR- if you pull aggro and are unable to FD, kiting is a good alternative. With concussive shot and distracting shot you can keep a mob away but interested in you. Use of Aspect of the Cheetah (be careful not to get dazed) allows you to kite as long as you need. Additionally “Jousting” is effective too. Kite one way with concussive shot, then run through the mob and Wing clip it as you do so. Fire a concussive shot on the other side and repeat as long as needed.
• Wyvern Sting: While you have to spec for it, this ability is an excellent way to add value to a group. While it lasts only 12 seconds, it is another tool we can choose to control our enemies.
• Scare Beast: Seldom used, this spell is not on most hunters’ bars. The fact is, however, this is another useful (if situational) form of CC.

Pulling

Hunters are the best pullers in the game. Period. We are extra lucky as a guild because we have a guy like Wolf who takes this to a new level. When you enter a group, be sure to ask if you may pull. The more you do this, the better you will get. Some groups will insist that the main tank pull. While the reasons for this are fairly weak, some just prefer it. Don't ruffle any feathers over it. As your group trusts you more, pulling will likely be something you are asked to do.

With the ability to fire an instant shot, pulls of patrols which require precision are made easy. Our tracking abilities allow us a much greater situational awareness than other classes. Moreover, if a warrior has a bad pull he has no recourse other than death. If a pull goes bad for us, we can feign death and try again.

The one thing a hunter must know, however, is to pull smart. Using aimed shot to pull does nothing more than ensure that you will require healing if your FD is resisted. The only time that I can advocate a “hard pull” is if you intend to drop a caster on the pull in a single shot cycle.

Protecting the Cloth

As ranged DPS, you are will spend much of your time standing with the mages, priests and warlocks. For this reason, you are in a unique position to protect these members of your party. There are a few options you have when an enemy rushes a caster.

Distracting Shot will sometimes be sufficient to pull the enemy to you (the mail wearing hunter) instead of them (the cloth wearing caster). Most healers prefer to heal you with mail than someone wearing cloth (especially if that someone is themselves!). This is also a fine time to pop Deterrence (if you have it). The extra 25% to dodge and parry will ensure that you are taking as little damage as possible. If space permits, kiting is now an option though your DPS will be sacrificed.

Scatter Shot>>Feign Death>>Freezing Trap is a good way to keep an enemy pacified for twenty seconds or so. You should know though that if you have done this to pull aggro off a healer, he has continued to build hate while in the block of ice. You may find yourself needing to do more to help the caster. Wing Clipping or using concussive shot will slow the mob’s advance on your team mates until you can try to pull them to you or until your feign death cool down is up and you can repeat your initial CC.

Using Your Pet to Protect Casters is also a good idea. Sometimes it is better to forgo the DPS your pet adds and hold your pet back to help protect the casters when needed. Make sure that your pet always has the highest rank of Growl trained (more on pets later). If you have Intimidation your pet’s stun and resulting high threat generation are a great asset in this role.

AoE

No you’re not a mage or a warlock, but you do have some ability to contribute with area of effect abilities such as Explosive Trap and Volley. Additionally, Multi-Shot is effective as well. It only hits 3 targets but its heavy damage makes it well worth it. Depending on your spec, the spells can be quite helpful in this area. 3/3 in Barrage gives a 15% bonus to your Volley and Multi-Shot (8/8 GS bonus also applies to this). 2/2 in Trap Efficiency will increase the damage of your explosive traps by 15% and Entrapment can be a nice side-effect if you have it. As always, be careful with your AoE, breaking CC or pulling adds can quickly destroy any good impression you have made with your group.

Coordination

Nothing says, “Attack me” like a big red bouncing arrow above the head of a target. Sometimes you will be called upon to be the MA (Main Assist) in a party or raid. Ensuring that your targets are marked not only adds valuable range attack power; it allows others to clearly see what they should be killing. Even if you are not the MA your mark can help to facilitate coordination and focus fire.

In addition to this, a mark placed before a pull can allow you to show which mobs you will be CC’ing and ensure that duplicative targeting is not taking place.

Runners

No one is better equipped to deal with a "Runner" (A mob in an instance, typically with low health, trying to flee the party) than you. These guys can cause a wipe easily by pulling another pack when your group is not ready. These nusainces must be controlled at all costs.

• Scatter Shot will disorient them long enough to allow a tank to get the mob or your party to burn it down.
• Concussive Shot can slow or stun (If you have Imp Concussive Shot) a runner. This will also make sure that your party can deal with the coward before he gets help.
• Wing Clip will do the trick as well. While it requires you to be close to the mob, it is a great choice because it won't be on cooldown when Scatter Shot or Concussive Shot may be.
• Traps a well timed and placed Freezing Trap or Frost Trap will also slow the retreat of your enemy.
• Pets depending on your pet and your spec, use of Intimidation or Charge will give you some valuable seconds to employ further crowd control.


While there are many more ways you can contribute to your group, I hope I have given some ideas that will help add some dimension to your play. Use these when you can, practice them on your own. Being a hunter is about more than the ZOMG Headshot … that’s just the very fun part.

[Lunariel]

Hunter Macros and Mods


Macros

Like any class, hunters have mundane tasks that they must perform periodically. Tasks which would require several keystrokes are more convenient to perform in one. Here are a few basic ones that I have found useful.

Feed Pet – This is possibly the most common hunter macro. Few find fun in forever forcing food into the face of their furry friend. Constantly having to do so can be even more annoying than my penchant for alliteration. Here is a simple macro which will reduce this to one button click.

/cast Feed Pet
/script PickupContainerItem (0,16)

You can change this macro to any bag or slot you like. I have my food in the lower right of my backpack. You bags are laid out like this …

[4][3][2][1][0]

0 is your backpack.

Slots are numbered from upper-left to lower right. Like so …

[ 1][ 2][ 3][ 4]

[ 5][ 6][ 7][ 8]

[ 9][10][11][12]

[13][14][15][16]

Obviously if you have a small silk pack, it cuts off after 10. If you have an Onyxia Hide Backpack, it goes further.

Feign and Freeze – Another popular macro among hunters it a Feign Death/Freezing Trap macro. This macro is again, fairly straight forward. In the past some hunters have told me that they have difficulty performing this move. Most times it is because their pet is attacking and they have subsequently been immediately placed in back into combat. So the first line of this macro should take care of that.

/script PetPassiveMode()
/Cast Feign Death
/Cast Freezing Trap

*Note: Because there are 2 “casts” in this macro, you will have to click it a couple of times to get the trap to set.


Pulling Macro – Here is another simple macro. This one will simply pull with Arcane Shot and then toggle off your auto shoot so you do not build additional aggro or break your own trap.

/p ** Pulling %t **
/script CastSpellByName("Arcane Shot"); SpellStopCasting();

I will add some more macros as I think of them, PM me with any you wish added.


Mods

Some people are philosophically opposed to mods. I am not. Here are some relatively innocuous mods which should offend only the staunchest of purists. They wont play the game for you ... just make it more enjoyable.

Simple TranqShot - This mod is great for fights which require hunters to remove frenzy effects from mobs. This will automatically announce when you cast a Tranquilizing Shot and will then announce if you miss. This allows the next hunter in the rotation (or your back-up) to pick up the shot.

Sorren’s Hunter Timers - What a great mod. This puts all of our timers, cooldowns and countdowns in an easy interface. I highly recommend this mod.

SimpleFeignHealth – This pisses me off. When I fake dead, I should still know how healthy I am. I just don’t want the bad guys to know. So here is the mod.

Lok’Delar Reskin – Lok’delar looks like an ogre’s popsicle stick. Fix it with this mod.

Aimed Shot Alert – Pulling aggro is a bad thing. It should never happen, but we all do it. You need to know when you get a huge crit on a boss. This will help you. Ruddygore hooked up a modified version that yells “BOOM HEADSHOT” when it goes off, but I am not sure if it still works. I lost mine when I reinstalled WoW.

BC Aspect Menu – We have enough bars to worry about. Clear some of it up with yet another mini-map button. To be honest, I have also not reinstalled this mod since 1.10, but if it still works, it is great.

BC Tracking Menu - Free up more space with this one too.

Tracker Bar – Free up more buttons.

Again, if you have any suggestions or tips on mods you are using, let me know. I am always looking for new toys.

[Lunariel]

Hunter Gear

When it comes to being the best hunter you can be, there is no substitute for skill and experience. However, if you choose your gear poorly, all the skill in the world will not help you reach your full potential. Hunters have the benefit of being able to use most any piece of gear in Azeroth. This gives us a wealth of choices on how we choose to gear and ultimately play our characters. Such choices, however, come with responsibility. Knowing what gear is good for you and knowing when to exercise discretion and pass to a better suited party member is quite important.

With that said, do not allow your choice of gear be dictated by others. There are those who believe that hunters may choose any weapon they want, as long as it is dual Bone Slicing Hatchets. These players will argue that since you do very little melee (not always a good assumption) that you only get weapons no one else wants. To an extent they are correct. However, while we may use weapons primarily for the stats, these stats are often the only way we have to increase our damage and health. Additionally a decent, well chosen melee weapon (or weapons) will ensure that we are not dead meat when forced into close combat.

I include the following list not to limit your choices but to make you aware of some equipment that I think is very good for hunters. This list is, of course, not complete … or even lengthy. It is simply a collection of suggestions for your hunter at given level ranges.

Levels 1-39

Melee Weapons: At this level your choice of melee weapon is dictated only by stats. Weapons with agility are your first priority. Intellect and Stamina are your secondary goals. The importance of each is dictated by your current health and mana pool. You should be concerned with “of the Falcon” and “of the Monkey” items. In the absence of these, “of the Eagle” is your next best choice. As you get to the upper end of this range, you have some options.

Jade Serpentblade: Craftable! Have someone make you a couple of these.
Blue Glittering Axe: Again, another craftable weapon. While you may be able to find better, these are easily obtained.
Speedsteel Rapier: You will likely not see this drop. However, if you are lucky enough or if you find it on the AH, this is a great choice!

Ranged Weapons: There are plenty of decent ranged weapons available and as you will be leveling quickly, there is no need to get too attached to one. Make sure that you balance the stats of your bow with DPS. You can review my section on Hunter DPS in order to decide between weapons. One thing you should decide right off is: Gun, Bow, or Crossbow. If you are a dwarf this decision is a bit easier. Here are a couple of notable ranged weapons:

Ranger Bow
Swiftwind
Crystalpine Stinger

Armor: You will start of wearing leather. Again, your primary concern is agility. The Falcon and Monkey pieces are the ones to keep your eyes out for. There are a couple of items and quest rewards you should make sure you get.

Drops:
Forest Tracker Epaulets
Swamp Walker Boots

Crafted:
Dark Leather Tunic
Dark Leather Pants
Dark Leather Belt
Dark Leather Belt

Quest Rewards:
The Tunic of Westfall: A very nice chest. This will last you for quite a few levels.
Triprunner Dungarees: Personally, I wore these until 40 when I got mail.

Enchants: When your gear is still changing quickly, expensive enchants are not worth it. However, if you are a twink or have a benefactor, put agility on everything and stamina where no agility is available.

Level 40-50

Melee Weapons: The same holds true here for the stats that you want. It is important to note that at this point, instances become more difficult. Make sure that you try to get some stamina. Your DPS really drops off when you die. There are some weapons in this range you should pay attention to.

Dazzling Mithril Rapier
Ebon Shiv

Ranged Weapons:
Siege Bow of Marksmanship: Any Siege Bow is a good one, but this one is the best IMO.
Ricochet Blunderbuss of Marksmanship: Again, any flavor will be good, but Marksmanship is my choice.
Harpy Needler of Marksmanship: You know the deal.
Gryphon Wing Longbow
Dark Iron Rifle: Crafted item. Mats are not cheap.
Precisely Calibrated Boomstick: Not bad. A bit too fast for my liking, but was actually buffed with normalization.
Hurricane: Like the Boomstick, this one is fast, but is now better post 1.10.
Massive Longbow

*Note: At this point you should always have a scope on your bow/x-bow/gun.

Armor: Welcome to mail. It is time to start moving from your leather of the past to new, stronger armor. Now, keep in mind that stats are still your primary focus. Agility, Stamina, and Intellect are still the most important. If you have or find leather armor which offers far better stats, do not be afraid to use it. Dont go all out trying to get mail as soon as you hit 40. However, you will find that there is a nice set available at this level range: Tough Scorpid Armor. It has Agility and Spirit, not the ideal stat set, but it is craftable. Until you get better gear, this will serve you well.

Crafted:
Touch Scorpid Helm
Tough Scorpid Shoulders
Tough Scorpid Breastplate
Tough Scorpid Bracers
Tough Scorpid Gloves
Tough Scorpid Leggings
Tough Scorpid Boots

Drops:
Elven Chain Boots
Infernal Trickster Leggings
Blackforge Girdle
Blackforge Leggings
Chief Brigadier Coif
Skullsplitter Helm
Protector Waistband
Khan’s Legguards
Fleetfoot Greaves
Searingscale Leggings

Quest Rewards:
Seared Mail Vest
Seared Mail Girdle
Helm of Exile

Enchants: All of your gear should have at least some enchantment at this point. If you cannot afford one, at least slap an armor kit on.

Level 50-60

Melee Weapons:
Huntsman's Harpoon: With 35 Agility this is a great choice for a 2h weapon. If you put a +25 Agility enchant on it you are looking at A weapon which will give you 120 Ranged Attack Power, 60 Melee Attack Power, 1% to Crit, 120 armor, and 2% to dodge.
Bone Slicing Hatchet: The ubiquitous BSH. This is the primary dual wield set for hunters.
Barbarous Blade: Another fine 2h choice.
Peacemaker: Once again, a 2h weapon made more viable by the +25 agility enchant.
Dawn's Edge: At this level range, the agility from the BSH will equate to more resultant DPS. However, as your RAP increases the value of crit will increase faster than the value of what was once a comparable agility/rap gain. If you DW and have high AP -or- if you just like seeing the big pretty numbers more often, have someone make you a set of these.
Dal'Rend's Arms: Rogues will hate you. Fury Warriors will complain. The fact is, this set better for hunters than dual BSH.

Ranged Weapons:
Stoneshatter: Nice DPS. Nice speed (many consider 2.9 an ideal speed for hunters)
Shell Launcher Shotgun
Flawless Arcanite Rifle: Crafted. And it had better be flawless for what it costs in mats.
Carapace Spine Crossbow: The once highly desired CSX was hit badly with normalization. Still an acceptable weapon, pre MC hunters long for the pre 1.10 days.
Ancient Bone Bow: Nice DPS. Near optimal speed. Great stats.

Armor:
Blodsoul Embrace: Crafted gear. Until you get your class set, this is a fantastic choice.
Blackwood Helm: Nice Helm. Quest reward in DM.
Leggings of Destruction: Pre set, these are the most perfect legs this side of Charlize Theron.
Ogre Forged Hauberk
Bone Golem Shoulders
Warpwood Binding
Timmy's Galoshes
Windrunner Legguards
Atal'ai Breastplate

Enchants:
Now you have some gear that will last you a while. Do not scrimp on enchants.

Endgame/Raiding Gear

Melee Weapons:
Zulian Stone Axe: You will look like Fred Flintsone. However, 44 Attack Power and 1% to crit put this on par with Barbarous Blade. Now throw on 22 Intellect and you have a weapon that is great for a raiding hunter.
Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds: I mention this one only because I see many hunters who covet this weapon. While its 72 attack power is certainly nice, you get more DPs from the Huntsman's Harpoon. Pass this to any warrior who wants it. Roll with the Pally's for this if you MUST have it.
Warblade of the Hakkari (Mainhand): I list only the mainhand because, honesty, you can do better for the offhand. However, the set is quite nice and I would not blame a hunter for wanting it.
Scythe of the Unseen Path: A quest reward for AQ20 and CC Rep. A nice axe.
Lok'Delar, Stave of the Ancient Keepers: It looks like crap. However, now that a +25 Agility enchant is available for 2h weapons, this is a great weapon for the raiding hunter. More on this in the "Hunter Quests" section.
Fang of the Faceless: This is a touchy one. Rogues want this weapon. However, this dagger (along with the Hakkari mainhand) comprise one of the best dual wield combo for hunters in the game. Think it over before you roll. If you decide to do so, roll high. You will not be rolling alone. :)
Doom's Edge: I am unimpressed with this weapon. Save your DKP and keep your a BSH.
Core Hound Tooth: Consider passing to a rogue. However, if you decide this is the weapon for you, it is a good one. 20 RAP and 1% to crit. Typically a nice upgrade for most hunters.
Brutality Blade: Like the Core Hound Tooth, rogues first. However, it is also nice for a hunter. Roll with warriors.
Barb of the Sand Reaver: Drool. Hunter weapon.

Ranged Weapons:

Armor:
Beaststalker Armor
Beaststalker Belt: BOE. Drops in UBRS.
Beaststalker Boots: BOP. Drops from Nerub'enkan in undead Stratholme.
Beaststalker Bindings: BOE. Drops in UBRS and Stratholme.
Beaststalker Cap: BOP. Drops off Darkmaster Gandling in Scholomance.
Beaststalker Tunic: BOP. Drops off General Drakkisath in UBRS.
Beaststalker Pants: BOP. Drops off Baron Rivendare in Undead Stratholme.
Beaststalker Mantle: BOP. Drops off Overlord Wyrmthalak in UBRS.
Beaststalker Gloves: BOE. Drops off War Master Voone in LBRS.

Beastmaster Armor More on this in the "Hunter Quests" section.
Beastmaster Bindings
Beastmaster Belt
Beastmaster Boots
Beastmaster Cap
Beastmaster Gloves
Beastmaster Mantle
Beastmaster Pants
Beastmaster Tunic

Giantstalker Armor
Giantstalker Belt: BOE. Drops in MC.
Giantstalker Boots: BOP. Drops from Gehennas in MC.
Giantstalker Bracers: BOE. Drops in MC.
Giantstalker Breastplate: BOP. Drops from Golemagg the Incinerator in MC.
Giantstalker Epaulets: BOP. Drops from Sulfuron Harbinger in MC.
Giantstalker Gloves: BOP. Drops from Shazzrah in MC.
Giantstalker Helmet: BOP. Drops from Garr in MC.
Giantstalker Leggings: BOP. Drops from Magmadarr in MC.

Dragonstalker Armor
Dragonstalker Belt: BOP. Drops from Vaelestraz the Corrupt in BWL.
Dragonstalker Bracers: BOP. Drops from Razorgore the Untamed in BWL.
Dragonstalker Breastplate: Drops from Nefarian in BWL.
Dragonstalker Gauntlets: Drops from the drakes in BWL.
Dragonstalker Greaves: Drops from Broodlord Lashlayer in BWL.
Dragonstalker Helm: Drops from Onyxia in Onyxia’s Lair
Dragonstalker Leggaurds: Drfops from Ragnaros in MC.
Dragonstalker Spaulders: Drops from Chromaggus in BWL.

Striker's Garb
Striker's Diadem
Striker's Footguards
Striker's Hauberk
Striker's Leggings
Striker's Spaulders

Crypt Stalker Armor - More later

Enchants: At this point you should be putting the best enchants on your gear. Agility on everything you can in the largest quantities possible. Mana regen is a good choice for raiding hunters. Stam is nice, but if you are taking enough damage that you need this in your enchants, you are doing something wrong.

Again, this is not a complete list, just a few highlights. Remember, show respect when rolling. Show consideration to other classes. Do this consistently and when you do choose to roll on multi-classed loot that respect and consideration will come back to you.

[Lunariel]

Reserved for Hunter Pets Section.

[Lunariel]

Hunter Links

From time to time all of us need some good information or a fresh perspective Occasionally we even learn something we didn't know that we didn't know. Here are some sites that have proven to be excellent resources for me and many other hunters. My list is not all inclusive, you may have a few favorites. If so, feel free to share them.

In no particular order here are some that I think you will enjoy.

Petopia - As far as I am concerned this is the definitive pet guide for hunters. Well maintained and frequently updated, every hunter should have this page book marked.

Good Intentions Guild - This is another site you can use as a resource for your pets and their abilities.

TKA Something - It has long been my goal to build a website dedicated to the WoW hunter. But when you see a site like this you wonder "Why bother"? This has the info people need. If you have not been here, go. It is great.

Ten Ton Hammer (Hunter Guide) - Not the most comprehensive guide out there, but it has some good basic info and also a brief section on questing as a hunter at certain levels.

Hunter Talent Calculator

World of Warcraft Hunter Forum

[Lunariel]

Reserved for Hunter Quests Section

[Lunariel]

Hunter Raiding

Introduction

Hello hunters and welcome to my humble attempt at a strategy guide for the Molten Core and Black Wing Lair. This guide is by no means definitive and should not be considered law, it is simply an attempt to explain the instances from a hunter’s perspective and hopefully help the newer members as they move into 40 man raid instances.

What do I need to do to enter MC?
To enter the Molten Core you need to attune yourself to the core, this is done by completing the quest – Attunement to the core. I will not go into an explanation of the quest, if you feel that you are ready for the core and what to get attuned then send a pm to Luna or myself and we will organize a run. Alternatively you can try to solo your way through, much more of a challenge and loads more fun. A guide to soloing the quest can be found here.

What do I need to do to enter BWL?
To enter BWL you need to loot a note/letter type thing from the Scarshield Quartermaster. This starts a quest that requires you to enter UBRS and kill Drak. Once you have killed Drak you need to use the orb behind him to attune yourself to the lair.

What gear should I have?
There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the equipment you should have when attempting MC and BWL.

For MC you should be in mostly blue items obtained from the 5 and 10 man instances. Here is an excellent site that lists hunter gear by instance. You should also have a decent collection of Fire Resist gear that will be used for the Ragnaros encounter, it’s hot in there after all!
Here is a link to some easily obtainable resist gear.
You can also speak to an officer to check on the possibility of crafted fire resistance items, please be aware however that there is a long waiting list for many items.

To attempt BWL you need a minimum of seven Epics or purple items equipped simultaneously. You may be asked to fill a slot without filling the prerequisite but don’t count on it. As a hunter you need to have trained Tranquilizing Shot.
The following post by Neonangel lists the requirements for raiding.

What should I bring with me on the raid?
Necessity
• Enough ammo, be it bullets or arrows to last the entire raid. A completely full quiver and 4 or 5 stacks in your pack should be enough.
• Minimum of 20 Heavy Runecloth bandages
• Some other alternative form of healing, Greater heal pots, whipper root tubers etc…
• Pet food unless you have an eat anything bear or boar.
• If you are doing Rag it is a good idea to invest in a couple of Greater Fire Resistance potions. They will save the healers mana and increase our overall effectiveness.

Luxury Items
A list of luxury items that will improve your overall DPS and survivability can be found here.
Take a look at the items listed for Agility, Stamina and Intellect. Gather what you can when you have spare time.

What are my main responsibilities?

Your role in an MC/BWL raid is primarily constant steady DPS. Please see Luna’s guide for a more definitive explanation of what you need to do, found here.

Let’s kill stuff!

Molten Core

Ok, MC trash is fairly straightforward from a hunter standpoint. The two most important rules you need to follow are

1. Follow the Main Assist
2. Wait for the Main Assist’s target to have 2 (two) sunders on it before you start attacking.

Pets – Pets are more than welcome in MC, there are a couple of things you should be aware of however. Never use growl on your pet while in MC, if your pet ever pulls agro from a tank (won’t happen), it will die in a hit or two anyway. Never use cower on your pet while in MC, it is a waste of your pets energy and has no real effect. Follow the pet guidelines below for each mob and boss.

MC Trash Mobs
• Molten Giant, these guys come in pairs (linked), we will have a MT on one and an OT on the other. Follow assist, wait for sunders.
Pet: Yes, no special needs
• Molten Destroyer, these guys also come in pairs, or they can be paired with a Molten Giant. They are a little tougher than giants and have a close range AOE.
Pet: Yes, but watch it’s health due to the AE
• Firelord, these guys spawn little baby firelords, can’t remember what they are called but anyway, we need to DPS the Firelord and when he spawns a little guy we need to burn that down, then switch back to the lord.
Pet: Yes, watch for random debuff. Pets will not usually receive a dispel…
• Lava Annihilator, basically a big rock elemental that likes to hit really hard, stay at range and burn him down.
Pet: Yes
• Ancient Core Hound, nasty big dog that roams the core. They have several different abilities and you won’t know which it will use until you engage it. Basic strategy is for tank to engage and turn him away from the raid (he has a nasty 180 degree AOE) and for the raid to DPS it down. It is a good idea to turn on track beasts and warn the raid if you see a dog approaching. Having one of these add can wipe the raid very quickly.
Pet: Yes, but wait for the tank to turn it or your pet will take a lot of damage.
• Lava Surger, I hate these guys. They have a basic attack but will also choose a secondary target (in my experience it will be someone at the outer edge of the raid group, aka hunters) and surge towards them, damaging anything in their path and their target as well. This means they constantly enter our dead zone, very frustrating. Try to stay at range and shoot when you can. Until you get the timing down, use your Arcane Shot instead of your Aimed Shot.
Pet: Yes, they follow these guys well so use them.
• Flame Imps, these guys have a small AE fire attack, don’t stand in the middle of them. Use multi and volley and even an explosive trap but only after the AE damage dealers engage. The healers will be focused on them and if you pull agro you will die.
Pet: No, your pet will die to the AE effect from these guys.
• Core Hound Pack, a group of 5 dogs that respawn at full health if they are not all killed together within 10 seconds of each other, fun! We assign a tank to each dog and then follow the MA until we get them to a manageably low health, then they get AE’d to death. Your primary responsibility here is to follow assist, which moves constantly as the MA tries to determine which dog has greater health than its buddies. Use Multi and Aimed, spam your assist macro to make sure you DPS the right target.
Pet: No
• Lava Pack, nasty grouped mobs that can wipe the unwary very quickly. We usually banish the reaver and elemental, then DPS the Firewalker first, followed by the Flameguard and then the two banished. Watch your DPS on the Firewalker or he will throw a couple of 3k fire blossoms at you that will have you eating floor quicker than you can blink.

- Lava Reaver
- Lava Elemental
- Flameguard
- Firewalker

Pet: Yes on the rocks, no on the walker and Flameguard. Watch for pyro

The bosses, up close and personal
(or in our case, as far away as possible)

• Lucifron, affectionately known as Luci, not to be confused with Lucii the super priest, who will keep you alive if you are nice to her. We have an important role in this fight, Luci roams the area with 2 Flamewalkers in tow, a pally will run in and grab agro on Luci and friends, our job is to pull the Flamewalkers using distracting shot, away from Luci and to the tanks who will then drag them to the back of the cave where they can be dispatched. Luci has a nasty curse called impending doom which hits for 2k, if we stay at max range we won’t get hit. He also mind controls a member of the raid and will use your Rapid shot so use it early on him instead. Luci drops a Tome of Tranquilizing Shot which we use extensively for end game raid instances but rarely if ever in normal PVE.
Pet: No, due to the 2k curse Luci throws around. Our decursers don’t have the mana needed to decurse your pet available.

• Magmadar, another boss with a special role for hunters. Mag has an enrage/frenzy ability that sends him nuts, we use our tranquilizing shot (obtained from the previous boss Luci) to calm the sucker down a bit. We set up a shot rotation and add a yell to our Traq shot stating our number in the rotation and then take turns pacifying the beast. Apart from that we stay at max range to avoid Mag’s AE fear ability and we dodge or run out of the flaming gobs of fire that he so kindly spits at us. Here is an example of the macro I have set up for Tranquil shot on mag…

/y Shooting Tranquilizing shot number 1 (insert your number here)
/cast Tranquilizing Shot

It would also be a very good idea to look into a mod called Simple Tranq Shot which will do most of the macro work for you and announce a missed shot.
Pet: Yes, keep him away from the fire spit, try to position him to the sides if you can. AE fear will have him running into flames so be prepared for it to die.

• Gehennas is another snake type boss with two elite guardians. Our role again is to wait for the pally to engage and then distract shot the adds away from the boss. Two hunters will be chosen for this role as in the Luci fight. Once the rest of the group has the adds down we move on to the boss and burn him down. Stay out of the rain of fire and be aware that Gehennas uses a curse that cripples healing. Don’t bandage or eat a health stone or pot while you have this curse, you will just be wasting it.
Pet: Yes, watch the rain of fire and don’t expect pet to be decursed.

• Garr is a big ass rock elemental with 8 little Firesworn spinning around him. The Firesworn are assigned to locks to banish and tanks to, well tank. We use a pally pull here and assign a hunter to drag Garr away from the little guys and to the Main tank. We then burn down all of the Firesworn held by tanks, be careful here because they blow up on death and will send you flying, doing about 2k of damage in the process. The Firesworn held by the locks stay banished while we move to Garr and burn him down. Go all out on Garr and remember to FD if you get a good string of crits in. When Garr goes down we pick the remaining Firesworn still banished off one by one. Garr uses a debuff called Magma Shackle which will slow your movement speed and a pulse that will remove your buffs.
Pet: Yes, put your pet on one of the banished Firesworn and use growl. Your pet will die but hopefully that will by the lock some time to rebanish the Firesworn if it breaks the banish.

• Baron Geddon is hunter heaven. Since he has a pulse AE that increases in damage each pulse melee cannot close on him until the pulse is over. Ranged damage is the key to this fight so in that respect we are vital. We fight Geddon in the ‘Garr cave’, he is pet pulled from his path to the cave and the tank will try to take him asap. Just wait for sunders and assist call then open up on him, FD when you can. Geddon also has a nasty little ability which will random people in the raid one at a time and turn them into a living bomb. If you get a bomb call you should run to the closest wall, away from your fellow players and blow up as quietly as possible, there to lie until Geddon dies and you can get a res.
Pet: No, your pet can become the bomb and blow you up, also the pulse will chew it up if you leave it in too long.

• Shazzrah, arguably the worst fight in the place, Shazz is still great for us hunters. He has a nasty AE arcane explosion which keeps all but the main tank away from him for the entire fight. This means it is a ranged battle, very similar to Geddon. We split into 4 groups and move each group an equal distance apart in the ‘Garr cave’. One of us pet pulls him from his static location into the cave. The tank will then try and hold him in the centre of the four groups. This is rarely possible however because he blinks to a group seemingly at random, when this happens a tank from the group will attempt to drag him back to the centre and the main tank.
Pet: No, the arcane explosion will kill your pet and anything else that gets close in seconds.

• Golemagg The Incinerator, I love this fight. Golemagg and his two puppy buddies sit at the bottom of a dead end alcove. He is tanked pretty much where he stands while the two dogs are dragged up behind the rest of the raid. We pally pull Golemagg and hunter pull his two buddies to the warriors designated to tank them. From there we concentrate on Golemagg and just burn him down, feigning when possible. When he dies the two dogs die with him, until then they are invincible.
Pet: Yes, put you Golemagg until he hits 15%, pull him out after that or he will die to his Earthquake attack which starts at around 10%

• Sulfuron Harbinger is a tricky fight for the uninitiated and the veteran alike. He has 4 priests guarding his back which need to be hunter pulled away from him and to the warriors assigned to them. We select 4 hunters to distract shot the priests to the tanks. They mark their targets and on the pally pull run in and take their shot. The priests must be kept apart or they heal each other, so we drag one well away from the others and burn it down. We continue this procedure with the remaining priests until they are all down, then move on to Sulf.
Pet: Yes but be aware the priests shadow word pain and AE immolate so hold him back until we hit Sulf.

• Majordomo Executus is surrounded by 4 elite guardians and 4 healers. The healers are sheeped while tanks draw off the guardians. We have a designated hunter mark the first elite guardian, usually the one on the outside left. The raid then burns down that target while the hunter selected to mark finds one of the sheeped healers and marks it for destruction. This pattern continues until all four healers are down, we then move on to the remaining three elites. When all of the guardians are down Domo chickens out and ports to the Ragnaros chamber to bring news to Rag of his impending death.
WARNING: No Multi-Shot during this fight until all healers are dead. You will break sheep.
Pet: Yes, all hunter pets are placed on Domo, while he doesn’t die he does roam around smacking people down and must be tanked. He has an ability which teleports his attackers to the lava pit in the centre of his platform. Because of this we put the pets on him in the hopes he will port them and not the warrior tanking.

• Ragnaros, the final boss. This is a 2 stage fight, our primary role here is DPS. Before we start the encounter we usually choose a location, approximately 20 yards away from all other players (rule of thumb – cannot inspect or trade with anyone) and buddy up with another hunter or ranged player. We then stand on that spot on top of each other and do not move until stage two. We group in twos to maximize the space between ourselves and the next group of two. This is vital because Rag uses an ability called the Hammer of Ragnaros which targets a ranged attacker and knocks back all players in the 20 yard range including the target. At the 3 minute mark of the encounter Ragnaros will call forth his sons (8 of them) to help defend him, while the sons are out he will become invulnerable and so the sons must be dispatched as quickly as possible. You will receive a CTRA call at the 20 second mark before the sons arrive, when you see this call everyone in the raid group must fold to a predetermined location and prepare to dispatch them. On your way to this central position, feign death and drop a freezing trap which will hopefully immobilize one of the sons until the others can be bought under control. When all sons are dead we move back to Rag and burn down his remaining health.
You need to work on your Fire resistance for this fight as Rag will splash lava on the entire raid during the fight, the higher your resist the more damage you will mitigate. Also bring Greater Fire Resistance potions to cut down on any healing you may need.
Also be aware that it is impossible for you to pull agro from Rag so go sick from start to finish, do not feign, just unload.
Pet: No, he will only increase the likelihood of you receiving the Hammer.

Additional information on hunter raiding in BWL to follow.

[Lunariel]

Wolf and I appreciate the response to this thread. I have moved the Comments and Feedback to a new thread just to help keep this one organized.

If you have content to add or corrections to information, please PM me or Wolf.