Vanilla
Burning Crusade
Lich King
Cataclysm
Mists of Pandaria
Battle for Azeroth
Patch: 1.12
Author: DannyBoy99
Hunter Guide (1-60)
Classic Hunter Guide
Overview and intro.
Ok, our job as hunters within raids is ranged DPS (Burst DPS), tranqing, kiting, and using utility with our traps and pets to aid the raid.
Contrary to what everyone thinks, hunter DPS is very good provided the hunter is good, and with this guide, you will also be wrecking DPS meters and showing your not just a tranqbot!
Gear, minimums, enchants, Consumables.
So, Hitcap for hunters is 9%. THIS IS MANDATORY, no matter what happens you need a 9% hit over everything. – The reason we are based on burst DPS and we shoot once every few seconds, not like rogues or warriors who are always hitting.
If you miss one shot you are losing unbelievable amounts of DPS, also without the 9% hit, you have a chance to miss your tranq shot and this has far more serious ramifications.
Few calculations for you.
53 agi(agility) = 1 Crit.
1 agi = 2 ranged attack power
14 RAP = 1 DPS
Damage co-efficient – this is the math behind how much damage you do.
((RAP/14)+weapon DPS+Projectile DPS)*weapon speed = x
x = total pure damage per ranged auto shot. End damage is ((x+talents)+external buffs)-damage mitigation from your target.
This is why sunder armor, faerie fire, crystal yield are all really good damage boosters for all physical damage including hunters.
This caused some confusion last time so that’s the entire theory, the way I got 11 being the proper co-efficient is reverse engineering damage from hunters in vanilla movies from what their total gear was / could be and just working backwards with the math. I could be wrong here – Ender willing to hear your numbers but I think I’m close to right as the vanilla movies have hunters doing 850-900(non-crit) autos with similar gear as I have and I’m only doing 650~ on the same bosses.
If you don’t have earthstrike, stop reading and go farm it.
Get the Blue dragon sinew and get your Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina ASAP, 16 slot crafted pouch if you’re using a gun.
Pre-raid gear:
Diremaul Quest head (DM West)
Pendant of Celerity (UBRS) / Argent dawn hand in neck / EPL Quest chain neck
Truestrike shoulders (UBRS) / silithus bosses shoulders
Cape of the black baron (Strat)
Primal batskin chest / Bloodsoul / Savage gladiator chain (BRD)
Primal batskin bracers – Only. These are 3rd bis in-game after MC bracers then t3.
Devilsaur Gloves (with set preferably) / Primal batskin / Black Grasp of the destroyer
Warpwood Binding (DM West) / Marksman’s Girdle (LBRS) / T1 Belt
Devilsaur Legs (with set ideally) / Blademaster leggings (UBRS) / Plaguehound legs
Windreaver Greaves (Scholomance) / Blooddrenched footpads (Voteshop / ZG)
Don Julio’s Band
Tarnished Elven Ring / Painweaver band
Blackhands breath / Earthstrike / DM Quest trinket / argent dawn +84AP for undead for Naxx
Weapons:
Assasination blades / Barborous blade / Dawn’s edge / Warbringer / Dal rends MH
Ranged weapon:
Stoneshatterer(DM West) / Carapice spine Crossbow (Strath UD) / Core Marksman Rifle / Farhads (if you can, this is from raids tho)
Enchants:
Head: ZG idol / 8 agi
Shoulder: 30 AP
Back: 3 Agi
Chest: 4 Stats
Wrist: 1 Agi or 4 mana / 5 sec – (pros go 1 agil) – 9 Stam is PvP, this is PvE guide – pls no tears.
Hands: 15 Agi
Legs: ZG idol / 8 agi
Boots: 7 Agi on DPS boots – MINOR SPEED ON KITE BOOTS
Weapons: 15 Agi on each / 25 agi for 2 hand
Ranged: 3% hitscope if you are not at 9% hit, if you are use +7 Damage
consumables:
We don’t have that many, however for endgame high DPS we can use quite a few to buff our damage.
(Damage and crit consumables)
Elixir of the mongoose. 25 agi 2% crit
Agility scrolls – try get all from 2-4 up to 16 agi (for pet the lower ones)
Strength scrolls – 4 ideally but lower ones are ok too (for pet)
Juju Power 30 Strength (for pet)
Juju Might 40 Attack Power (for pet)
Gordok Scorpok Assay 50 Agi (Blasted lands)
Thorium Headed Arrow / Shell – 17.5 DPS bonus. Don’t slack with the AV rep ones, you do more damage with these.
Crystal yield
(Mana consumables)
Flask of distilled wisdom – Not always useful as ill explain later.
Major mana potions
Demonic / dark rune
Elixir of greater intellect
Mageblood potion
(Stamina / survival consumables)
Flask of the titans
Dirge’s 25 stam (does not stack with boar buff)
12 Stam food – 12 stam
Rumsey rum 15
Godork rum 10
Stamina scroll up to 16 (depending on the scroll)
Boar buff (Blasted lands) 50 stamina
Limited invulnerability potions (IMPORTANT)
and of course pet food.
When you get a DMF buff, make sure you get damage which is 1-1 answer to the questions.
Disclaimer: this does not include boss specific consumables such as protection potions, major trolls blood (loatheb), and others specific to bosses.
Addons
Mandatory:
Sorren’s Hunter Timers.
Outfitter (or another means of auto swapping trinkets – this is what i use)
Bigwigs
CTRA
Enemy cast bar
KTM
SW Stats
XPerl (or another addon for HP bars and whatnot)
Rest is up to you. I use a lot more but that’s just me.
Pets for PvE
where to find them, and how to train them.
Before getting Lupos, you need to get the Wolf from LBRS for furious howl(rank4). You can solo this, here is a walkthrough:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcA8O_dRLy0
The primary focus is on Lupos as he does the most damage out of all pets and alongside has a furious howl. – No, he does not eat warlock buff.
He is found here on feenix (contrary to other websites):
– The spawn point is where I am standing in that SS on feenix.
Other useful PvE pets include Snarler:
This is the pet with the most resistances in the game (100 of each naturally) and is a great soaking pet (if your guild requires you to do this).
Level up damage skills like furious howl, claw, rake, dash 1 (no need for 2) stamina then nature/shadow/fire resistance. Don’t skill cower, you don’t need and waste of skills. – you can retrain them at pet trainer if you make mistake don’t panic.
Other pets include Broken Tooth and Duskstalker (however this is more PvP, not PvE).
And the bear from WSP if you want a tank pet for soloing, but that’s not what this guide is about.
Spec’s
Pre-raid BIS talents, this is your ideal raid spec for top end raid DPS:
20/31/0 OR 17/31/3 (and change depending on instance or bosses)
Walkthrough why these specific talents:
17/31/3
Beastmastery:
Imp aspect of the hawk 5/5. – 1 out of 20 shots will trigger a 10% IAS increase, this increases your DPS a huge amount as the more shots you fire the more damage you do.
Imp Revive pet 2/2 – This is really useful and is a lot more useful during raids than you think in theorycraft. I find it really useful and can rez pet a lot faster and easier as this is a big portion of damage when your gear isn’t great.
Endurance training – 2/5 Pet survivability
Unleashed fury 5/5- Increased pet damage
Ferocity 5/5 – Increased pet damage. This can be swapped to 2/5 and put into survival either humanoid or dragon-slaying (as this works now on feenix, don’t believe what others say they are lying).
Marksman:
Efficiency 5/5 – Lower mana cost of shots, reason over stun is in PvE most things you want to stun are immune to concussive shot, 20% chance to stun is not reliable where 10% mana reduction on spells is really useful always.
Lethal Shots 5/5 – Damage increase
Aimed Shot 1/1 – Your main single target damage spell
Hawk Eye 3/3 – Longer distance (some argue you don’t need however you can out range a lot of spells with this – Bug 3 fear just an example)
Imp hunters mark 2/5 – you have no other talents worth putting it into. Increased damage on marked targets by 6% always useful (to get 31 for TA)
Mortal shots 5/5 – Damage increase
Scattershot 1/1 – This isn’t essential however it can come in handy on specific fights, you can swap this out for hunters mark if you want.
Barrage 3/3 – Damage increase for your other main damage spell
Ranged weapon specialization 5/5 – Damage increase
Trueshot Aura 1/1 – Damage increase for you and your party. Especially useful at lower gear levels as this is a flat increase to your damage and your party.
This allows you and your pet to do maximum damage at lower gear range. Your pet does significant damage – more on this later.
20/31/0
This is an endgame spec for geared hunters, this is not an optimal raid DPS spec this is a fun spec to get high on meters.
Survival:
Monster Slaying 3/3 – Damage (THIS WORKS DO NOT BELIEVE ANYONE ELSE)
Humanoid Slaying 3/3 – Damage (SAME AS BEFORE)
(you can customize these to what you prefer, I like 4/5 entrapment but I’ll put both)
Entrapment 2/5 – CC
Raptor Strike 2/2 – Damage increase
OR
Entrapment 4/5 – imp cc
raptor strike 0/2 – you don’t melee damage that much.
Why no parry: you shouldn’t be getting hit in PvE.
Survivalist 5/5 – HP increase always useful
Imp Feign Death 2/2 – REALLY IMPORTANT LATE GAME – (I’ll explain later in trinkets)
Sure Footed 3/3 – 3% hit Really useful as you can drop hit for crit if you wish to reach 9%
Trap Mastery 2/2 – (I find this really important as not resisting CC or damage traps is really important you can drop this if you don’t feel the same, however)
Killer instinct 3/3 – crit
Lightning Reflexes 5/5 – 15% agi (major damage increase)
Marksman:
Efficiency 5/5 – Lower mana cost of shots, reason over crit is in PvE most things you want to stun are immune to concussive shot, 20% chance to stun is not reliable where 10% mana reduction on spells is really useful always.
Lethal Shots 5/5 – Damage increase
Aimed Shot 1/1 – Your main single target damage spell
Hawk Eye 3/3 – Longer distance (some argue you don’t need however you can out range a lot of spells with this – Bug 3 fear just an example)
Imp hunters mark 1/5 – you have no other talents worth putting it into. Increased damage on marked targets by 6% always useful (to get 31 for TA)
Mortal shots 5/5 – Damage increase
Last point in beastmastery 1/5 imp aspect of the hawk. You can get SS if you want but I prefer imp hawk or 1/3 multishot.
how to kite:
One of the most important aspects of hunters.
Firstly make sure you have minor speed enchant on some pair of shoes as this is useful for that extra speed boost.
Make sure you have swiftness potions.
Aspect of the Cheetah – Ideally if your pulling multi / aimed shot if you can first as you get high threat, then use distracting/concussive and serpent sting if they are not immune.
Make sure your pet is out and once you have aggro get your pet to attack ONCE ONLY to tag the mob then return it with “Follow”. – This is to tag the pet in case you mess up later you can feign / limited invulnerability potion, the mob will go onto your pet you can get distance again. You can get threat on it until your pet dies and continue kiting. This is your insurance policy.
Depending on the mob make sure you avoid it’s abilities if it has any. (BWL Spellbinders for example). You want to “Strafe”, run so it’s chasing you. – No backpedaling :). Go in Circles if you can, if you cannot and have to run away just keep going making sure you keep threat on the mob.
When your spells are up, jump (if you’re on flat ground) turn around cast your spells (arcane shot, distracting, concussive and serpent sting if it’s not immune) midair, and then keep running. You should not lose any time doing this and maintain threat on the mob, this will take a lot of practice.
If the mob is getting close – Swiftness pot.
If it catches you – FD let your pet die to it tag it asap and keep running.
Micro’ing your pet effectively (esp at 4pc t3)
Be aware of where you and your pet are at all times, it can do great damage however it can also asspull (I have done this) if you are not being totally aware of where and what it’s attacking. eg – Mobs that can fear, pets can get feared into other mobs the same as players, can chain abilities to other members (like zul’gurub snake boss).
Also, be aware that you can put your pet on a completely separate target to an AOE damage part of a fight. For example, bug 3 you can put your pet on a separate bug while you fight the AOE poison bug so it’s doing damage all fight on a separate bug.
Move your pet in and out of melee mechanics if they exist. For example, on BWL the trash before chromaggus and ebronoc have AOE stuns with 13 second CD, move your pet in and out of 1 and just count the stuns out so your pet doesn’t take damage. Set “Dash” as 4th skill not on auto-cast so you can manually move it in and out with sprint on. This can be done on things like satura ads as well.
Be aware of the damage it may take, healers normally do not heal your pet until after combat so if there is something that might kill it instantly, it’s normally better to leave it next to you than let it die in a second.
Keeping it next to you, knowing when to attack with it and when to retreat and stay it takes a lot of practice and this will be something you will just have to get used to.
Moving your pet to correct targets, make sure you do this after or during an aimed or multishot so you don’t lose damage on your main target. Tab or select to the add you want your pet to attack (sometimes they can be different) and attack with your pet on the add or separate mob and keep your damage rotation (explained next) on the original mob.
Moving your pet to different places without you being there is a tough skill to learn, but you can move your pet around if there are mobs in that area. Just attack and when they get to where you want them to be, just recall and then stay your pet and it will stand where it is currently. You can do this then change it to aggressive and it takes aggro on any mob moving in that area, useful in some situations and in others like trash in AQ40 after huhuran if it gets diseased you can move it outside of the raid without you having to move physically and hurt raid DPS.
At 4 piece t3, you get a buff that gives you 40 Attack power so try to keep it alive as it gives you more damage.
If it’s an AOE damage fight where it dies in like 5 seconds, leave it OUTSIDE THE ROOM so you maintain the 40 AP buff.
Tricks of the trade and how to wreck meters.
Tranqing: Now you can either put tranq cast in your macro, or you can do it purely as a yell macro and have your tranq separate. – This is what I do, the reason for this is it allows me to spam tranq when it is my turn in the rotation until the boss enrages so I’m able to instantly tranq without spamming the raid.
(Number in rotation you are)< (Your name) tranq used on (insert name) is next>
/y >1< Arrow tranq used on is next – this is what I use.
Tip for Chromaggus – Make sure you have over 6k HP on Chromaggus or at least try to with your stamina consumables if you can’t don’t panic it just helps as you are able to take the breath (6kDMG) if he enrages just before breath you can still tranq him so the tank doesn’t get anal raped.
Mana issues: If your gear is pre-raid flask of distilled wisdom may be useful however I found I never needed it and titans are so much more useful on bosses like loatheb, gothik, 4 hm, saph, cthun, etc, in saying that I have used upwards of 15 mana pots a raid alongside a similar amount of demonic runes depending on how the fight/raid is going.
Be conscious of the boss you’re against and the mechanics it has, how long roughly you have left in the fight, and how much mana you will need. If the fight will be another few minutes and you’re going near 20-30% mana, use a mana pot and or demonic rune BEFORE you go oom. This way you allow yourself another 3-4k mana before you go oom in which case you can re-use your pot.
Don’t make the mistake of waiting and going oh shit I’m oom, potting, and running out of mana a minute or less later. Mageblood, Elixir of intellect, mana potions, and demonic runes should be enough for most fights.
Firstly some tricks people don’t know about hunters in preparation for wrecking meters.
Pets can be buffed (shock horror) – THIS MEANS YOU TOO PALADINS
– Strength 2-3-4, agi 2-3 scrolls on them, juju strength and juju might, with kings/might and lupos can crit for 600 if your 20 BM spec. (with the curse of shadow)
– try to have it out at all times especially during buffing so you get stamina/druid buff etc on it.
Keeping furious howl up, Also make sure furious howl is prioritized on your pet rotation (this means it’s first on the spells auto casting).- If you can stand at the minimum range to the boss (depending on the boss of course) and you will get furious howl each rotation and increase 1 shot of yours every rotation from your pet.
Now for DPS rotation:
-Sorren’s hunter timers will give you an idea of how to time your shots as a beginner.
Hunters mark the start – fak da police. Some guilds won’t like you using this as it’s a use of debuff slot, but if not it’s a big DPS upgrade for hunters.
Now pure damage rotation goes like this:
Autoshot, Multishot, auto shot, Aimedshot, auto shot, auto shot – Repeat. This takes a lot of practice to do this right and it will change person to person depending on latency.
If its trash you can put serpent sting between auto shots, however, do not use serpent sting on boss’s unless it has nature vulnerability. It’s a waste of a debuff slot and hurts raid DPS.
Multi-shot first priority, Aimed 2nd if you can. Multishot cannot always be used as can pull/break CC on certain mobs. – Ask tanks to pull them away from CC’d targets if they don’t do this so you can do more damage (if tanks are reading) This is only if it’s a stand-alone boss (patchwork style).
If you know add’s will spawn or adds are coming imminently, save your multi-shot for that (eg maxxena or something like firelord trash in MC).
I cannot express how important this is: DO NOT OVERLAY AUTO SHOT WITH MULTI OR AIMED SHOT. MEANING WAIT IF YOUR AUTO SHOT IS ABOUT TO FIRE BEFORE USING SPELLS. Now this will take some practice but try to cast Aimed shot as your auto shot is being fired, you will shoot during your aimed shot casting – it takes a while to master don’t be discouraged if you can’t get it the first time. This will boost your DPS significantly however once you get it.
Using Feign Death to dodge abilities and boss mechanics. – You can dodge things like maxxena webspray with feign death. Feign trap. – this works for CC traps AND damage traps. – For example on Anub, you can feign fire trap for big AOE damage. Gauntlet in aq40 as well for example where DPS trap is useful, something like gluth frost traps can be really raid savingly good by slowing zombies going to gluth).minimizing the amount of time in feign death, feign and as you cast feign you can move forward and basically do a flip-type of thing however you will be able to get out of combat and cast your spell without feigning and lying on the floor for 10 seconds.
TRINKETS
This is so important I’ve dedicated an entire topic to it. This is the main way we as hunters keep up with other DPS classes, if you do this incorrectly you will be 27th on damage and be ridiculed for being below tanks in damage. As you should be.
It’s really important you are always swapping your activation trinkets as soon as they are up. If you don’t they are very subpar DPS in comparison to the static trinkets (2%crit 48RAP). Badge of the swarmguard, Earthstrike, Jom Gabbar, Blackhands breath, and Diremaul Class Trinket(argent dawn for undead) are the main ones you want to aim for. (NINJA JOM GABBAR IF U HAVE TO love u tirzah)
KOTS / DFT are optional – I don’t think hunters should be taking these over melee in a guild as for me they are much better used on melee +6 AP for DFT and KOTS however useful is much better on melee.
Slayers crest – Lol if u get that and still need to read this delete char.
IF you get all 3, Earth + Badge with rapid-fire, FD to crit + jom wait for 30-sec pop jom, feign crit + static for 2mins until badge/earth is back up.
Can’t use earthstrike and jom gabbar together, this is impossible and abuse apparently as well. However you can PM me in-game and you never know, god may reveal secrets from above.
FD resists happen and you just gonna have to get used to it in terms of trinket rotation, this is also why survival is much better endgame DPS as we have 4% FD resist which makes it almost never. If you pull threat on bosses like Broodlord where they are not tauntable and FD resists or is on CD you need to Limited invulnerability Potion, or if you are pulling razovious and FD resists there.
Setup outfitter for your bis raiding gear with separate trinket outfits. Then you can bind these outfits (I use the buttons on my mouse) to swap between outfits for feign death.
The reason outfitter is nice is because it pre-loads the swap when you’re in combat and so the second you are out of combat it swaps you into your new item set (read trinkets). This makes it really easy to swap trinkets as you can just click the next outfit and just feign when they are complete.
Enjoy wrecking meters and playing a really fun class properly.