Cataclysm [Guide] Marksmanship PvP

[kebagodx]

Hi,

First of all I want to tell you that these things are in no way the only way to do things and it is just the way I've been playing hunter and found it quite suitable for arenas. Please do note, I am extremely hungover as I am writing this guide so I apologize for the mistakes that might appear in the following few sentences. I've been playing hunter for 6-9 months on AT Cata server.



Table of Content:

1. Talents and Glyphs
2. Stat Priority - Gear, Gems and Enchants
3. Macros
4. Pets
5. Addons - UI
6. Arena Compositions


1. Talents and Glyphs

As an marksmanship hunter there are basicly two different specs that don't vary too much from eachother but I will post them both.

Spec number one:



Spec number two:



As you can see the only difference is changing two points from Survival Tactics to One With the Nature

For a less experienced hunter I would recommend spec number two as Survival Tactics provides you more survivability, having that 4 seconds cut off of your disengage CD can make a big difference. As you play more and learn to manage your CD's better I'd rather go with spec number one, having One With the Nature will give you the extra damage - and who doesn't like extra damage?

Glyphs are the same for the both specs



Prime glyphs: Glyph of Arcane Shot, Glyph of Kill Shot, Glyph of Steady Shot.

Major glyphs: Glyph of Disengage, Glyph of Silencing Shot, Glyph of Master's Call

Minor glyphs: Glyph of Feign Death, Glyph of Scare Beast, Glyph of Revive Pet

Some people might want to replace Glyph of Silencing shot with Glyph of Trap launcher maybe, it is not that gamebreaking and at the current state of Cata private servers, having Glyph of Silencing Shot bugged it will provide you much more focus.


2. Stat Priority - Gear, Gems and Enchants

Stat priority: Hit Cap, Spell Pene Cap, Agility, Crit, Haste

5% Hit cap is obvious then you can move to getting spell pene cap which you can pretty much cover with cloak enchant and two blue spell penetration gems, after that all you are shooting for is agility and crit ratio.

Meta gems: Agile Shadowspirit Diamond (+54 Agility and 3% Increased Critical Effect) and Destructive Shadowspirit Diamond ( +54 Critical Strike Rating and 1% Spell Reflect)

Red gems: Delicate Queen's Garnet (+50 Agility)

Orange gems: Deadly Lava Coral (+25 Agility and +25 Critical Strike Rating) or Lucent Lava Coral (+25 Agility and +25 Resilience rating) - Depending how much pve gear you're running you might want to get some resilience instead of crit rating.

Blue gems: Stormy Deepholm Iolite (+63 Spell Penetration)

Enchants:

Helm: Arcanum of Vicious Agility (+60 Agility and 35 Resilience)

Shoulders: Greater Inscription of Vicious Agility (+50 Agility and 25 Resilience)

Cape: Enchant Cloak - Greater Spell Piercing (+70 Spell Penetration)

Chest: Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats (+20 All stats) or Enchant Chest - Mighty Resilience (+40 Resilience) Again in here it's your own pick and depending on how much PvE are you running but I prefer to go with Peerless Stats for more damage.

Bracer: Enchant Bracer - Agility (+50 Agility)

Gloves: Enchant Gloves - Major Agility (+20 Agility)

Belt: Ebonsteel Belt Buckle (Extra socket for belt)

Legs: Dragonscale Leg Armor (+190 Attack Power and 55 Critical Strike Rating) or Charscale Leg Armor (+145 Stamina and 55 Agility), Again your own preference and depends on how much PvE you're running. I prefer to go with Dragonscale armor for more damage.

Boots: Enchant Boots - Assassin's Step (+25 Agility and Increases movement speed slightly)

Weapon: Pyrium Weapon Chain (-60% Disarm Duration and +40 Hit Rating)

Bow: Flintlocke's Woodchucker (Chance to proc +300 Agility for 10seconds)

Possible PvE Gear: Always aim for heroic parts but if they are not available the normal parts will do.

Polearm: Kiril, Fury of the Beasts

Bow: Vishanka, Jaws of the Earth

PvE Set pieces : Wyrmstalker's Legguards

Wyrmstalker's Spaulders

These are the PvE item's I would suggest you having. Depending on what comp you run you might want to have a little bit less of PvE.

3. Macros

Now we arrive to pain of hunter's existence, the crazy amount of macros you need.

It would be way too many macros to copy paste in here so I will just leave a pastebin of my macros. It includes some tooltip macros aswell so dont get confused, I will be posting a screenshot of my UI into later part of this guide, so you can see how they all come down together.

http://pastebin.com/rwzky2W8

Even though this amount macros might look like sheer pain to deal with, I hope you bare to use them.

4. Pets

Marksmanship hunter and pets. Basicly without your lovely monkey you are useless. Pets, and mainly your Monkeys, provide you most important abilities in terms of surviving and CC'ing.

Hunters have 5 pet slots and the way I'd recommend you use them is having 4 Monkeys and a Cat/Lion or a Wolf for buffing.

Monkey spec :



The most important abilities are: Dash, Roar of Recovery, Bullheaded and Roar of Sacrifice.
Roar of Sacrifice - this is what your pet is mainly for. Having 4 pets allows you to rotate them to have Roar of Sacrifice on at all times someone is being attacked, especially if enemy is using cooldowns. Having 4monkeys will provide you a steady uptime of RoS with cooldown being 1 minute and RoS lasting 12 seconds. 4x 12 seconds means you have 48 Second / 60 Second uptime on RoS.

Roar of Recovery - Between swapping pets its good to use this ability for some extra focus providing u more damage, I also have it on my burst macro.

Dash - Pet sprint, I would recommend having this on focus Bad Manner macro and on your P1 & 2 RoS macros to RoS them faster. (Atm its useless in molten because pet won't run to your target if it is out of range. But now with new Warsong server coming with AT fixes it will become useful.

5. Addons - UI

First of I want to say that my UI is made for arena play as the main focus. Keeping in mind not having too many addons to make stuff laggy and buggy while still being able to keep up with the game.

(Keybindings are hidden in the first image, I will post a link under it to a screenshot with binds visible.)




http://i.imgur.com/b9ugirE.png

List of addons: Addons are just a personal preference but sharing what I do use. I'd recommend atleast using SafeQueue, even though it has been "preprogrammed" on some servers.



6. Arena Compositions

Hunter is pretty flexible class considering all the compositions you can run, and works best often when paired with a melee DPS.

2v2

Thug Cleave (Rogue + Hunter)

Death Knight + Hunter

Retribution Paladin + Hunter

"Jungle" (Feral + Hunter)

I'd say these are the most valid comps for 2s currently as a hunter with thug cleave being the absolute strongest of all if you know how to run it properly.

3v3

PHDK (Paladin + Hunter + DK)

Jungle Cleave (Hunter + Feral Druid + Healer [most preferably a shaman or a disc priest])

KFC (Warrior + Hunter + Healer)

Triple DPS comps, I'd say strongest would be Ret Pala + Rogue + Hunter

Thug Cleave (Rogue + Hunter + Healer)

PHP (Ret Paladin + Hunter + Priest)

My favourite ones to play would be thug cleave in 2s considering how strong it is in terms of damage and PHDK or Jungle Cleave in 3s. In the current state of Warmane (28.3.2015) Jungle is being unplayable due to feral bleeds doing zero damage.


This has just been a basic guide for 4.3.4 MM PvP hunters as I couldn't really find one here and I hope you find it useful. I will be adding more to the thread once I don't feel this godawful hangover. Please do post questions, tips and tell me if I have missed something. Later on I will be adding a section of Crowd Control and maybe some useful videos.

EDIT 24.3.2015 -> Will start adding duel tactics out of request. Maybe with videos against some of the better people i know in each class.

EDIT 28.3.2015 -> Added information about arena compositions, basicly including the most common compositions and what they consist of.


Http://twitch.tv/kebazzz
http://youtube.com/khebazzz

Kebagodx / Damghunt – Gods @ WoWCircle Fun 4.3.4

Kebagodx / Partaposki - clap it for me girl @ Warsong - soon to be seen :)

[Ayame]

Question: Why u use double /stopcasting in many macro? One is not enough? O.o

[Xypher]

I'd suggest adding the gear possibilities and good PvE pieces that work for PvP (Vishanka, Kiril, T13 2p).

I also suggest changing your macro's and add some exclamation marks in there for example flare and traps. What this does is make it so that if you double tap your keybind (I spam my keys when I need to use an ability) it doesn't untoggle. It doesn't matter if you press the keybind 1, 2, 3 or 4 times, you will always have it 'toggled' and will be able to use it. Oh, I just noticed you did use the exclamation marks for your aspects, but adding them to flare and traps is amazing :3

Pyrium weapon chain is -50% disarm duration by the way, it's just a typo you made.

Your #showtooltip is really confusing imo, I guess it works, but it's just pretty confusing. Your bind shows the tooltip for Deterrence and uses Widow Venom when you press it. I guess it works because you will be able to see the cooldown on Deterrence, and since Widow Venom has no cooldown, that saves some space on your bars, but still, confusing for new people.

Spoiler: Show

#showtooltip Deterrence
/stopcsating
/stopcasting
/use Widow Venom

You made a typo in this macro aswell.

Other than that, you covered all basic things, which is what people are looking for in a guide, well done.

Xypher

Edit:

Question: Why u use double /stopcasting in many macro? One is not enough? O.o

It's a known bug where you need to use double /stopcasting or it will keep on casting. Don't ask me why or how, but that's how it works.

[kebagodx]

I'd suggest adding the gear possibilities and good PvE pieces that work for PvP (Vishanka, Kiril, T13 2p).

I also suggest changing your macro's and add some exclamation marks in there for example flare and traps. What this does is make it so that if you double tap your keybind (I spam my keys when I need to use an ability) it doesn't untoggle. It doesn't matter if you press the keybind 1, 2, 3 or 4 times, you will always have it 'toggled' and will be able to use it. Oh, I just noticed you did use the exclamation marks for your aspects, but adding them to flare and traps is amazing :3

Pyrium weapon chain is -50% disarm duration by the way, it's just a typo you made.

Your #showtooltip is really confusing imo, I guess it works, but it's just pretty confusing. Your bind shows the tooltip for Deterrence and uses Widow Venom when you press it. I guess it works because you will be able to see the cooldown on Deterrence, and since Widow Venom has no cooldown, that saves some space on your bars, but still, confusing for new people.

Spoiler: Show

#showtooltip Deterrence
/stopcsating
/stopcasting
/use Widow Venom

You made a typo in this macro aswell.

Other than that, you covered all basic things, which is what people are looking for in a guide, well done.

Xypher

Edit:



It's a known bug where you need to use double /stopcasting or it will keep on casting. Don't ask me why or how, but that's how it works.

Thank you for your reply. I will add some more information about PvE's after this reply. About the macros, the tooltip stuff can be confusing but the main thing is for people to just get the macros, everyone can change the tooltip. I was too lazy to change all my macros just for this guide. :)

I will be fixing the pyrium weapon chain thing aswell.

Kebagodx

EDIT: Back in Cata pyrium chain was actually -60% disarm duration. As far as I am aware.

[kebagodx]

Question: Why u use double /stopcasting in many macro? One is not enough? O.o

Like Xypher mentioned, it was known bug back in CATA for just one /stopcasting or /stopattack not to work, so people reassured it working by writing it two times. :)

[HeadShottz]

add how ppl can use multiple pets, new players may not know yet.

Plus i think 3 monkeys enough, if you cicle trought them i dont think you gonna get some monkey on CD anytime. SO you can have 3 monkeys, one wolf one cat to buff before arena.

Also i think is missing some macros to dismiss/call pets easily, very important if someone is goin to use multiple pets.

[kebagodx]

I will see to that, maybe with a video of pet rotating. Feels kind of hard to explain it without having a 30cm wall of text. :D

[kebagodx]

Good Good
[spoiler]

Plus i think 3 monkeys enough, if you cicle trought them i dont think you gonna get some monkey on CD anytime. SO you can have 3 monkeys, one wolf one cat to buff before arena.

Also i think is missing some macros to dismiss/call pets easily, very important if someone is goin to use multiple pets.

But hey, your guide is good, just trying to help.

I am not agreeing with you about 3monkeys being enough, especially on high level of arena. Having 36seconds of sac out of 1minute just wont cover it especially against many comps. Also having 1 wolf and 1 cat to buff is useless, there hardly is one comp you can actually run both of the pets so that they provide a buff. Especially wolf crit wont stack with feral druid leader of the pack or rogues honor among thieves. Cat agi/str wont stack with warriors battleshout or shamans totem per say.

There also is dismiss pet macro that also uses all the pet buff abilities in the same key. As for calling pet I just have bound the call pet ingame which I find good enough. :)

[HeadShottz]

I am not agreeing with you about 3monkeys being enough, especially on high level of arena. Having 36seconds of sac out of 1minute just wont cover it especially against many comps. Also having 1 wolf and 1 cat to buff is useless, there hardly is one comp you can actually run both of the pets so that they provide a buff. Especially wolf crit wont stack with feral druid leader of the pack or rogues honor among thieves. Cat agi/str wont stack with warriors battleshout or shamans totem per say.

There also is dismiss pet macro that also uses all the pet buff abilities in the same key. As for calling pet I just have bound the call pet ingame which I find good enough. :)

True a cat and a wolf would be good only to play with Ret's, also to play with healers, Disc/Mm is a decent comp doin cc chains, not talking about goin high rate here, most of the people just do casual arenas so i think you can add both options on the guide.

If you do the pet switches right when RoS ends, you will have 14 seconds interval using RoS (2 from the dismiss time), so for 3 monkeys 42 secs, changing pets on the two deterrences you have and expending Readiness.

One more switch out of deterrence to use the first monkey again would bring a monkey in Cooldown for RoS of 18 secs, but only with right in time switches and using your two deterrences (with readines) and one more dismiss unprotected. Can happen but is very unlikely i guess. But yes depends on your comp use 3 or 4 monkseys.

As for pet call/dismiss macro your mean bind the call pet skill and then clickin with the mouse on the pet you want? If yes try this macro:

/cast [@player] Roar of Sacrifice
/cast roar of courage
/cast call of the wild
/cast terrifying roar
/cast [pet] Dismiss Pet
/cast [nopet] Call Pet 1
/petfollow
/cast dash

One press dismiss ANY pet, second press will call the pet in the corresponding number. So you need only one key for each pet you need to a fast call/dismiss.

[kebagodx]

True a cat and a wolf would be good only to play with Ret's, also to play with healers, Disc/Mm is a decent comp doin cc chains, not talking about goin high rate here, most of the people just do casual arenas so i think you can add both options on the guide.

If you do the pet switches right when RoS ends, you will have 14 seconds interval using RoS (2 from the dismiss time), so for 3 monkeys 42 secs, changing pets on the two deterrences you have and expending Readiness.

One more switch out of deterrence to use the first monkey again would bring a monkey in Cooldown for RoS of 18 secs, but only with right in time switches and using your two deterrences (with readines) and one more dismiss unprotected. Can happen but is very unlikely i guess. But yes depends on your comp use 3 or 4 monkseys.

As for pet call/dismiss macro your mean bind the call pet skill and then clickin with the mouse on the pet you want? If yes try this macro:

/cast [@player] Roar of Sacrifice
/cast roar of courage
/cast call of the wild
/cast terrifying roar
/cast [pet] Dismiss Pet
/cast [nopet] Call Pet 1
/petfollow
/cast dash

One press dismiss ANY pet, second press will call the pet in the corresponding number. So you need only one key for each pet you need to a fast call/dismiss.

I dont know whats your experience in arenas but you always have to change pet before RoS ends. Which means 4monkeys are needed, especially when 2buff pets are useless in 90% of cases anyways. Even though people are casual gamers in here, its not like they can't use the proper ways to play anyways.

Also it is waste of precious macro space to have dismiss and call pet in one key.

[lelelaw]

I dont know whats your experience in arenas but you always have to change pet before RoS ends. Which means 4monkeys are needed, especially when 2buff pets are useless in 90% of cases anyways. Even though people are casual gamers in here, its not like they can't use the proper ways to play anyways.

Also it is waste of precious macro space to have dismiss and call pet in one key.

Dismissing before RoS over is not so smart, are you using Deterrence under RoS effect or are you dismissing pet all the time unprotected? Either way not so smart.

Also that macro is the best way of handing mutiple pets period, if you like clicking pets good luck with that.

Are you goin to make a guide showing only one way to play? Because if you are goin to make something try to do something complete at least, if you have time to do a guide you are not so busy to improve it.

[kebagodx]

Dismissing before RoS over is not so smart, are you using Deterrence under RoS effect or are you dismissing pet all the time unprotected? Either way not so smart.

Also that macro is the best way of handing mutiple pets period, if you like clicking pets good luck with that.

Are you goin to make a guide showing only one way to play? Because if you are goin to make something try to do something complete at least, if you have time to do a guide you are not so busy to improve it.

What, are you actually implicating that the only time you could swap pets is when you have deter on? What I mean is it is better to get a new pet before the old RoS runs out for example vs KFC for the next swap. Think of it as an this instance: you play thug and you face KFC. You sac your healer and keep damaging the enemy team (not changing pets for new RoS) and they swap on you on your rogue without having trinket up. If they go on you, you cant even change pet anymore or if they swap to rogue its too late to sac him after 3 globals, he will be dead or you are forced to use big defensives to remain alive. Against the assumption that when you RoS'd your healer before swap you would have swapped to new monkey before the RoS ran out the first time.

Also I am not forcing people to play my playstyle or whatever. I am simply sharing my tips since there wasn't an MM hunter PvP guide.

Why would you assume that I am clicking my pets? You can just drag the pets to your actionbars from your call pet thingy, there is no need for macros then. I have bound dismiss pet macro on Shift + R and my call pets are Control + Tab, Control + W, Control + Q, Control + E. Which counts for 4monkeys. As you can see in the screenshot where keybindings are enabled.

Hope this clarified your misassumptions. :)

[lelelaw]

What, are you actually implicating that the only time you could swap pets is when you have deter on?

Also I am not forcing people to play my playstyle or whatever. I am simply sharing my tips since there wasn't an MM hunter PvP guide.

I have bound dismiss pet macro on Shift + R and my call pets are Control + Tab, Control + W, Control + Q, Control + E. Which counts for 4monkeys. As you can see in the screenshot where keybindings are enabled.

Deterrence is a dead time, if you switch so many pets without deterrence means you are spending a lot of the time that you should be Dpsing or CCing to spam RoS effectively using 4 monkeys.

Maybe thats good for 3's, but im just saying that is not the only option, 2 buff pets and 3 monkeys can be very useful in many situations. No one is saying that you are forcing nothing, we just tried to help you improve, but seems like thats not what you want.

About keybinds to dismiss. So you have 5 keys to use 4 pets. With that macro you just need 4 keys and you do the same job, one less keybind is always good dont you think?

I have a dismiss pet alone for when i want to dismiss the pet without using the buffs, but thats the only case when the macro is not good, and is so hard to happen that i dont even keybind it.

Anyway good luck with your guide, cya.

[kebagodx]

Deterrence is a dead time, if you switch so many pets without deterrence means you are spending a lot of the time that you should be Dpsing or CCing to spam RoS effectively using 4 monkeys.

Maybe thats good for 3's, but im just saying that is not the only option, 2 buff pets and 3 monkeys can be very useful in many situations. No one is saying that you are forcing nothing, we just tried to help you improve, but seems like thats not what you want.

About keybinds to dismiss. So you have 5 keys to use 4 pets. With that macro you just need 4 keys and you do the same job, one less keybind is always good dont you think?

I have a dismiss pet alone for when i want to dismiss the pet without using the buffs, but thats the only case when the macro is not good, and is so hard to happen that i dont even keybind it.

Anyway good luck with your guide, cya.

Yeah but like what you said about keybindings and macros, for me keybindings are not the problem. Macro space is, everyone has different problems.

Also it is not essential being able to push up high amounts of damage / cc - especially as an hunter when most of the games your role is not being #1 damager like an affli warlock. Also changing your monkeys opens you up for more of that CC you were talking about since for example scatter trapping is extremely unreliable way of CC'ing compared to Bad Manner -> Trap.

I am open for all the suggestions like I said, also being able to discuss the flaws in what you post is how we get a good thread/guide going.

[HeadShottz]

I am open for all the suggestions

Spoiler: Show