WotLK [Guide] Marksmanship PvP

[pompa]

The best guide for hunter i ever read. Ty.

[Laethea]

The best guide for hunter i ever read. Ty.

+1- it's pretty amazing. In reading through it again, though- I noticed Multisnipe said he took bullheaded on his ravager. He told me in another thread that bullheaded was bugged, though- may want to update that.

Also, does tranq shot really dispel recklessness off a warrior? I know it didn't in Cata- I tested it. Seems odd that such a short cd ability would dispel a five minute fury warrior cd.

This tooltip says it's a "frenzy" effect for dispel purposes:

http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=1719

Of course, there aren't many fury warriors in pvp anyway, so it's not a real big issue regardless. But you might want to confirm that statement.

On another point, what do you guys think about the strategy of, when fighting melee and hunters, using scatter shot primarily to set up scorpid-freezing trap combos and chimera shot disarms? One of the challenging things about mm is that you have to have serpent sting rolling on the target most of the time, yet much of your cc breaks on damage. This is the best way I've found to deal with that- if a melee is in your face too close to scorpid sting him, scatter seems very useful in letting you get distance. Even if the serpent sting ticks and breaks the scatter early, it will hopefully give you time to get the scorpid sting off.

[Multisnipe]

+1- it's pretty amazing. In reading through it again, though- I noticed Multisnipe said he took bullheaded on his ravager. He told me in another thread that bullheaded was bugged, though- may want to update that.

Also, does tranq shot really dispel recklessness off a warrior? I know it didn't in Cata- I tested it. Seems odd that such a short cd ability would dispel a five minute fury warrior cd.

This tooltip says it's a "frenzy" effect for dispel purposes:

http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=1719

Of course, there aren't many fury warriors in pvp anyway, so it's not a real big issue regardless. But you might want to confirm that statement.

On another point, what do you guys think about the strategy of, when fighting melee and hunters, using scatter shot primarily to set up scorpid-freezing trap combos and chimera shot disarms? One of the challenging things about mm is that you have to have serpent sting rolling on the target most of the time, yet much of your cc breaks on damage. This is the best way I've found to deal with that- if a melee is in your face too close to scorpid sting him, scatter seems very useful in letting you get distance. Even if the serpent sting ticks and breaks the scatter early, it will hopefully give you time to get the scorpid sting off.

I did update that bullheaded is broken now; its at the end of the guide under one of the updates.

Yes indeed it does dispel recklessness. Super top kek when u see a warrior im bg ready to charge bladestorm (reck then sweeping strikes gives this away) = scorpid chimera if u know there wont be dispels and watch them charge into your team and see how anticlimatic it was; gets you focused though if they get mad and realise its you who has been disarming though.
you can also just roar of sacrifice and proceed to nuke if they dont cancelaura recklessness


Yes, you may scatter even if it breaks to allow you to get just that one more yard to shoot. It is not bad at all however I give you some exceptions.
Also, if you are free to do so, remember to use aspect of the cheetah and run like usain bolt to get that little extra distance in between full scatters.

Regarding the scorpid sting scatter trap, it is viable however you wont get away with it doing it on death knights since that gargoyle, diseases and pets are still going to tunnel you; you will rip in pepperoni before you can kill them. Also on my death knight i use ghoul leap and petstay on my gargoyle to try and eat a trap however that happens about one in five duels if the hunter knows to put the trap behind the gargoyle. Sometimes i will even run stack on the gargoyle with AMZ/bone shield just to eat that trap on gargoyle IF i know the hunter has already used readiness.

Its not a bad idea to do it on rogues either but evasion RNG can totally throw it out the window; the most important thing to do is obviously flare vanishes because rogues love to reset and only come with shadow dance every minute. I always priorities locking down rogues after i get out of stuns with scatter shot, snake trap, explosive traps and frost trap, and the try to get a bleed up on the rogue. despite their low resilience, rogues have some of the best cooldowns against hunter.

You cannot break scatter against ret paladins. Its a must to do it on ret paladins since you wont kill them by sheer damage (unlesss its the typical hoj wings freedom ret paladin) you use a lot of mana and these resets also give you time to be in aspect of the viper when no damage is going on. Also a great idea to do it on prot paladins; especially if they end up cleansing your serpent (doing you a favour)

Not entirely a bad idea to do it on enhancement shamans however be careful feral spirit wolves eats trap if they decide to petfollow. Frost trap generally better to kite them with but your proposition is still viable.

On the opener Against feral druids you want them to run into a freezing trap. There is no way they can get a pounce on you unless they start right on top of you have 20ms spamming pounce keybind a million times a second. If they dont trinket trap, theyre screwed. If the trinket trap, they get scattered anyway. Hunter should rarely/never lose to a feral. If u go for a scatter trap again after the trinket, make sure there arent any bleeds and that you remove serpent. What I sometimes like to do is tranq shot to dispel their remaining buffs and then cast scare beast with a few seconds left on trap. If you get them to leave form doing this you can one shot them in human form while they are still in trap.


I mightve missed a few classes but all in all, scatter shotting to get distance is viable in 1v1 vs melees, even if it is only a little amount. If given the opportunity to do a full reset with freezing trap, i encourage you take that chance.


I will also add that against warriors, i use an enemy cd tracker so that i can scatter the charge intercept. What this does is that it stops them in their tracks and returns them to the place where they got hit hy scatter. This is easiest done on the second charge/intercept as you can see exactly when they have it and predict it. Most warriors are trigger happy on their charge/intercept and will do it off cooldown. As stated in the warrior duel section, i prefer playing close-mid range against warriors and never max range them unless its world pvp. Looks sexy af when you scatter intercept and the warrior insta forfeits yelling "BUG SERVER". Once in a while you can do it on rogue shadowstep and feral charges too. Alternatively, you can also just deterrence as u see the charge/intercept cooldown come off and drop an entrapment on them which is equivalent to a wasted charge; this is the safest way for me. You may also scatter off an ending entrapment proc but watch out for bladestorm.

Scatter shot can also be used to deny people jumping from lumber mill with slow fall or parachute since theyll drop right down vertically xD

[Laethea]

Alright, it looks like it dispels recklessness on Warmane, though I've seen some additional google search info (e.g. forum posts) saying it didn't work like that on retail. That's much worse for fury warriors than having it dispel wings since rets can have a lot more magical dispel fodder to protect their wings than fury warriors will have enrage dispel cover. Seems unfair, tbh, since fury is weak in pvp to begin with in WOTLK.

On another note, I found this addon that has a great swing timer to let you track when you need to stand still to autoshot:

https://www.wowace.com/addons/ld50_a...7-release-3-3/

This is the most recent version- it works on Icecrown. Quartz has a swing timer, but this one is far superior since the quartz bar disappears when your autoshot is overdue. This addon shows a very noticable full yellow bar which lets you know you need to stand still for a second. Before this addon, I sometimes found myself unnecessarily standing still to autoshot when I didn't have to.

On another point, part of me thinks mm hunters tend to keep their pet by their side too much. Of course, if there's a large bg group fight then that's essential, but I see some hunters do it even in 1v1 situations where I'm not sure it's smart. The main utility of your pet in that situation is for roar of sac and roar of recovery, but why not use those early and then send your pet in when faced with a 1v1 situation?

I made this macro for when I see someone is trying to kill my pet:

/petstay
/cast [combat,@pet] Gift of the Naaru
/cast [combat] Cower
/cast [combat] Last Stand
/cast [combat] Mend Pet

It just tells my pet to stand still and tank damage so I can pop rapid fire and go to town on whoever is trying to kill him. If you can't kill your opponent in that situation, you probably weren't going to anyway. Worst case scenario, the pet dies anyway, but revive pet is just a 4 second cast and you already had roar of sac and roar of recovery on cd. Just seems smart to me to send in your pet in that situation.

I guess it's a closer call with rets since they get free heals off crits on your pet. But most mm hunters use a ravager with cornered, so the ret won't be critting on your pet below 35% health. Maybe I could use the above macro in a smart manner when my pet's health is low against rets. Something I intend to test at some point, I could be wrong.

One more thing: I do disagree with part of your readiness macro. I think any macro that includes both rapid fire and readiness should include this line:

/castsequence reset=7 Rapid Fire,nul
/cast Readiness

You can spam that macro without activating rapid fire twice and blowing your second rapid fire. Sometimes you will need to spam any readiness macro since readiness IS on the gcd, and sometimes the gcd will not be up when you press the macro.

If you spam:

/cast Rapid Fire
/cast Readiness

then it will unnecessarily use the second rapid fire, at least my game does.

I believe the same applies to Master's Call and Kill Command. This is the macro I use:

/castsequence reset=7 Rapid Fire,nul
/cast Silencing Shot
/castsequence reset=7 Kill Command,nul
/castsequence reset=7 [@player] Master's Call,nul
/cast Deterrence
/cast Readiness

You can spam that and it activates the relevant abilities and none of them will be on cooldown afterwards (except readiness, obviously).

edit: I'll throw in another macro I use:

/cast [nomounted,@player] Master's Call
/castsequence [harm] reset=6 Wing Clip, Scorpid Sting
/cast [harm] Raptor Strike

That's just my normal "master's call me" macro but if the guy attacking me is in melee range then it adds a wing clip and (possibly) raptor strike and lets me follow up with a scorpid sting once I get out of melee range so I can get serpent sting off the target. That opens up a few different options- a full scatter shot, a full freezing trap or a chimera disarm. A good macro to use when you've used deterrence and your opponent is in your face waiting for you- you can readiness if necessary to get master's call off cd and then use that macro to get out of melee range.

[Multisnipe]

The addon is superb. I was using quartz which was still OK but I have never seen anything below 300ms so I actually have to stand still way before the bar finishes but that's ok since I did that with quartz too.

That is true with the readiness macro. I myself have no problems with it since I don't spam it but I know there will be people that do. Not sure about the Master's call part of it since it lasts 4 seconds and the macro locks it out for 7; perhaps change the number to 4?

The master's call macro is valid however it might not be optimal to do it all the time; sometimes you'll want to trap and instead you'll have a global cooldown from wing clip. I have two separate macros for disengage, one with wing clip and one without; so perhaps just having two binds for the macros is fine.

[Laethea]

Yeah, I really feel like the addon was the missing link of my UI. It's main use for me is reassuring me that I was getting off more autoshots than I was afraid I was. And if I'm not, there's that big (or small if you like) yellow bar letting me know about it. The whole autoshot mechanic is kind of a bummer for pvp, but this makes it much easier to deal with.

Good point about the master's call duration, will change that. I was thinking of the much longer BM master's call.

I'm really on the fence about how useful scorpid-chimera disarms are though. Especially against melee. I mean, you have to be out of melee range to disarm them, but if a melee opponent is out of melee range, what's the point of disarming him? It's kind of conceding you won't be able to kite him. Maybe if a rogue has sprint up you can scatter shot-scorpid disarm him since he'd catch up to you otherwise. Or if a ret is trying to kill your pet you could disarm him- he'd be dispelling serpent sting anyway. Maybe you could disarm him before he dispelled scorpid. Otherwise I'm not sure how useful it is, considering it removes a lot of your damage.

I tend to think scorpid is better used for true emergency situations where you need to get a full scatter or freezing trap off. I doubt I'll be disarming much with it though.

[Multisnipe]

You can disarm just about any melee except feral druid and enhancement shaman and it will somewhat benefit you/your team.

It looks like you are mostly imagining 1v1 situations.

I mostly disarm only Warriors and Rogues in 1v1. Yes that is true you need the range to disarm them; however I always do it right before I know they'll get on top of me; especially against warriors. It's extremely useful but only if you know when they're about to get to you. Charge/Intercept/Shadowstep obviously; and with the right timing you can deny any attempts to do damage on you as conserve some of your own cooldowns. I usually get it on the intercept, which basically forces them to throw out their own disarm (if they're really good).


Irrelevant to 1v1's (you probably already know this but I'll say it anyway)

As for disarming for others;
I've lost count of how many bladestorms and shadow dances I've denied with disarm. In crowded situations it completely locks down warriors, as I said before when a warrior pops Reck, Sweeping strikes and charge > jk disarm, you're doing your team a favour; and in most cases the warrior will die right there or instantly go def stance and attempt to intervene back, and your team won't have to scatter or die to bladestorm. Same goes for rogue when you see them dancing on an ally, disarm really helps out if you know you can save your ally. Alternatively you can scatter the rogue for extra peels before you disarm.
Disarm is also a nuisance to Death Knights.

Rets can still judgement so I don't usually disarm them unless under the condition of judgement cooldown; which you also have to cover with silence if they try to cleanse. If they are going for someone else, however, I am much more obliged to disarm them ESPECIALLY when they pop wings; similar concept to when warrior pops reck, ret pops wings and tries to hoj 123 jk kappa disarmed and focused = dead ret that did no dmg.

[Laethea]

Keep going through the guide- continue to be amazed how good it is.

Here's a pet attack macro I made:

/petautocaston Claw
/petautocaston Bite
/cast [@pet,dead] Revive Pet
/cast [nopet] Call Pet
/petattack [harm]
/cast [harm] Kill Command
/cast Mend Pet

Mostly standard stuff, but the /petautocaston Claw command is really nice- avoids that facepalm moment where you realize you've somehow been losing damage by having the pet's basic attack off autocast. Sometimes the tooltip seems to magically unclick itself (or you forget to click it on a newly tamed pet); this takes care of that.

One question: back to the subject of trinketing blind, what would be the harm of ordering your pet to attack while blinded and then wait and see if: 1) the rogue gouges the pet 2) the rogue takes the improved gouge talent which makes gouge last long enough to get a restealth (not all rogues do) and 3) if so, he gouges your pet quickly enough after blinding you that the blind on you won't fade before he can drop combat and get a restealth.

If all of those aren't true, then it seems to me that you won't need to trinket blind in order to prevent a restealth. So I'd wait and make sure they are true before trinketing blind. And, of course, if they ever fix bullheaded, you won't ever need to trinket blind if you have a ravager like I do. Just order your pet to attack while blinded and the rogue will stay in combat.

In Cata, rogues could build up combo points on the pet for a redirect kidney on you in that situation (only good rogues thought to do that), but they don't have redirect in WOTLK.

Another question: what do you think about adding corroded skeleton key's on-use shield to a "master's call on me" macro? Seems like they would provide dispel protection for each other, plus if you're needing to get away from melee then you're likely to be taking damage anyway. Yeah, I know macroing things together isn't optimal, and it's better to have separate keybinds for everything. But I've got like a zillion keybinds as it is and only two hands to push all the keys I need to press. :)

[Multisnipe]

I don't usually trinket blind either. When I do trinket blind I make sure that a) The Rogue has no Shadow Dance, b) The rogue has used both Vanishes > try to flare them out, c) You must have at least one defensive cooldown to deal with the Rogue's panic shadowstep kidney. Ideally if kidney is on cooldown and you flare their second vanish, its usually over for the rogue unless you get RNG'd by evasion then you should win that fight. A rogue usually wants to blind you out of your trinket for a safe restealth. Even without improved gouge the rogue just has to keep running away from your pet and they eventually will get a restealth. The ones that choose to vanish instead do so only if your pet dodges/parries gouge or if they're just clueless on how to cycle through their cooldowns. Intervene as of now is broken and intervening blind is usually out of the question. Bullheaded broken too so Hunter vs Rogue is not as it should be.

I don't know what you mean by dispel protection with CSK and Master's Call, they cannot be dispelled. Yeah, macroing things together sometimes isn't always the best idea xD I would just recommend using them separately. Yeah, I know the amount of keybinds is high, I use shift, alt, ctrl modifiers and bind the mouse scroll wheel etc for my binds. My Hunter macros basically fill up one most of the account macro slots; which does not go well with a warrior/dk/rogue/priest on the same account xD; I copy and paste macro caches I have previously saved for each class for when I swap classes.

[Laethea]

I don't know what you mean by dispel protection with CSK and Master's Call, they cannot be dispelled.

That's the problem with going from one expansion to another- it definitely could be dispelled in Cata. I distinctly recall fighting mages 1v1 in Tol Barad and my gladiatorlossa addon would say "master's call" when they stole it right after I used it. Good news if it can't be dispelled in WOTLK though.

As far as CSK, I did some research on it before getting it, and a number of people said in WOTLK-era threads that it could be dispelled then:

http://www.wowhead.com/forums&topic=...ey-pvp-trinket

If it can't be dispelled on Warmane, I imagine that's a bug, but one that speaks in favor of using the trinket until the bug is fixed.

I can sympathize about the macro space. Literally the only change I liked in WoD was giving us way more macro space.

I end up having to use the same macro for multiple classes, e.g.

"Focus CC"

/cast [@focus,harm,exists] Scatter Shot
/cast [@focus,harm,exists] Repentance

Works well enough for both classes, but I do miss the WoD macro space.

I'll see if I can find extra keybind space, but now that I've learned engineering (rocket boots and parachute cloak) and had to account for the extra WOTLK mm abilities I didn't use in Cata BM, it's pretty scarce.

I can only go so far in following your advice- I get the idea you're playing high level chess and I (and most hunters) are playing checkers. At least I don't click- I don't see how clickers like this guy can do it (by not using things like hunter's mark apparently):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kww983Kh5rE

[Multisnipe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kww983Kh5rE

This video is so inspirational xD.

Yeah, the struggle is real with the amount of binds/macros. Some unusual but very effective binds that I love using are:

shift/alt/ctrl S (because we don't backpedal lel)

shift-spacebar
alt-spacebar
ctrl-spacebar

shift > middle mouse/Mousewheel up/Mousewheel down
alt > middle mouse/Mousewheel up/Mousewheel down
atrl > middle mouse/Mousewheel up/Mousewheel down

shift/alt/ctrl ` (the button left of 1 it should be)

This way I have like 9 more binds from my mouse
shift/ctrl Tab

Hell, I'll even bind modifiers with caps lock if I find something new but for now I pretty much have everything I can think of.

I don't really have big hands (or maybe my keyboard is just small), but I use word of the alphabet except I O P K L bound to something.

My mouse just has two extra buttons; I could imagine what it would be like having those mice with 12 buttons or something xD like swifty hehe

[Laethea]

Some sunday Morning mm theorycrafting thoughts and questions:

1. I've about decided it's essential to work in Aspect of the Cheetah a good bit if you want to max range kite rets and ferals with their passive speed increase. It seems like a good rotation for that it to use to chimera-aimed-and arcane shot, go to cheetah then concussive shot til you're in comfortable range. Seems way too hard to kite them without using cheetah. Even a few seconds of cheetah combined with concussive shot (even if they remove it fast) buys you some distance then you can go back to dragonhawk and dps some more.

Unless I'm missing something, there's zero way a ret can damage or cc you from more than 20 yards away so if you look at your scatter shot tooltip and it's out of range you're safe to cheetah. Hand of reckoning has a 30 yard range, but it doesn't damage you. Incidentally, hand of reckoning didn't even cause my pet to attack my ret in the testing I did with my ret on another account (though it did damage him- it said I was "immune" to any effect of it) so that's good for hunters. I guess 25 yard feral charge range is the safe range for ferals, outside of an unlikely moonfire which will take them out of cat form and slow them as well.

Incidentally, it's very helpful for hunters that scatter shot has a 21 yard range and repentence has a 20 yard range, so if you spam scatter as the ret is getting close, you should win that race. 21 yards is kind of an odd range, I wonder if they designed it specifically to give hunters a chance against rets. Regardless, it's best to use that range advantage.

I tend to think that the best followup to the scatter you get is to just turn and run in cheetah. That way, you save freezing trap for an emergency where you need to drop the trap in front of you. Yes, the ret can see and run around the dropped trap, but, as Danaik showed in his video, he has to run far around it to not get frozen, and, even if he does, that buys you time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLjTRifi6dE&t=33s

2. The "dispelling sacred shield during scatter trap" strategy against rets is frustrating because the scatter shot damages the ret and procs the sacred shield proc, leaving two things for you to dispel. And if the ret takes the stoicism talent, there's a 30% chance the tranq shot will fail to dispel either of them. Not sure it's worth the 403 mana cost for each tranq shot, tbh- especially since the ret can just reapply sacred shield instantly. As you mentioned, fights against rets with shields are often mana battles- I wonder if viper sting might be worthwhile especially if the ret fails to cleanse it timely.

3. You say to trinket intercept, not warrior fear. Don't you worry the warrior will fear both you and your pet, kill your pet, and victory rush on you? Swifty used to promote that strat in his videos, and pets were a lot tankier on retail than they are here.

4. Is it a worthwhile strategy to stand on a flare and spam a /targetenemyplayer /cast Scatter Shot macro against a rogue? Will that get a sub rogue who has popped shadow dance or do they shadowstep in before you can do it? That was a common strat in some hunter duel guides I've seen.

5. I'm really liking the spider pet right now. The ranged web is sooo nice, and it's magical so it can't be dodged. No worries about having to get behind the target like with the crab pin, plus you don't have to expose your pet to attacks to root the target. Plus, the spider with dash is way faster than the crab, so while the crab has the nice +healing received, he needs it because he's going to take more damage since once he starts getting attacked, it's really hard to pull him back to safety. Plus, the spider has cornered, which is very nice.

The downside is that the spider root isn't as useful as a ravager stun against hunters and casters, but you can still find use for it. For example, you can root a caster and then get in the 41-36 yard range where you can attack them but they can't attack you. I keep a close eye on the tooltips of my abilities, and if you choose the exact moment when your shots come into 41 range then you know you're in a really good spot against casters (or bm hunters). Seems like the root would be a good thing to keep them there. It is also good for helping you get more autoshots off, especially during rapid fire.

And the spider root is incredibly good against warriors or rogues after cloak. It's way easier to web and intervene than ravage or pin one, plus you can just root the warrior at the start to get into good range or use it as a followup to the snake trap root you mentioned at the start. It can also keep a ret pinned for a while, especially if you silencing shot him or apply hunter's mark as dispel fodder first.

6. It seems to me that, against hunters and casters, there's little advantage to be gained by having your pet by your side. I mean, if they want to kill him, they can dps him from range just as easily (much more so in the case of the hunter), so you might as well get the benefit of the damage.

[Multisnipe]

1. Cheetah works to an extent. If they have rocket gloves from engineering you can still get you through deterrence. Also all good Rets use judgement of the just to negate your minor speed from boots, putting you back to 100% from 108%, while theirs is 115%. Due to intervene bug it's extremely hard to dodge the judgement. Ret vs Hunter as of now is not as it should be, you are better of AS OF NOW with a ravager against Rets for the Stun. Also once in a while you run into rets who spec eye for an eye so that counters cheetah.

2. Yes but its the only way to win, a ret will catch you otherwise. Unless they do HoJ wings 123, you won't be able to burst them down in between kiting intervals especially with the rather small duel area. The mana is not a problem. Always go into Viper when you tranq shot them and it refunds all the mana cost of tranq shot. Given the opportunity you can viper sting before scorpid; if they're on relatively low mana however be careful you don't break it with an auto. I think I might've forgotten to mention it since it costs less mana than scorpid whilst doing the same function as removing serpent. It doesn't drain a whole lot of mana but still better to use before scorpid because of the mana cost, even if the ret dispels it; you will save a bit of mana.

3. Victory Rush doesn't heal here. Fear breaks on any damage, so the warrior has to not even touch you in order to land this full fear. Yes it is true they can try go for your pet but eating an intercept is really painful against the good warriors. With the deterrences, scatters, traps and mobility warriors almost never get a full fear on me. A Crab typically won't die in a full fear. Snakes also force warriors to thunder clap or risk missing a fear because the snakes got it instead of you. As you can see there has to be a perfect condition for the warrior to full fear you and even so, it is highly unlikely they will kill your pet if it has cower available. If the warrior fears you at the start and starts hammering your pet by all means trinket it and deterrence the next charge/intercept. Since bullheaded is broken right now warriors can destroy hunters because there's no master's call if pet is feared. As of now I am more concerned about a full fear on my pet than me.

4. With really good latency you might. Typically sub rogues sprint from behind you though so I don't see how you can catch them before they cheap shot you.

5. Yes the spider is a viable pet; without working intervene its definitely useful as of now.

6. Yes you should in general send your pet after casters and hunters. However with the bullheaded bug I take extra care sending my pets after Hunters since freezing trap = rip.

Coming back to the topic with Rets, you can also get unlucky if they resist your freezing arrow (you'll need 130 spell pen against these extra tryhard rets). I don't think you can get away with it even if the ret walks around it; by all means it's better to land a full one since you can tranq shot twice + get even more distance. Damn rets hehe

[Laethea]

Good tip about Viper Aspect and Tranq- I just made a Tranq/Viper macro, which eases my concerns on mana.

Speaking on mm hunter in general, I overall prefer Cata hunter (camouflage, autoshots while moving, flare moves much faster, 5 sec cd concussive shot, tranq has no cd) to WOTLK, but it's pretty clear that Cata is dying out so I need to learn a WOTLK toon and MM hunter seems most fun for that.

But if I'm going to enjoy the game with all the rets and other faceroll classes, I think I'll have to avoid hunter duels. At my gaming skill level, I don't think I can give up the option to max range kite someone like hunters do with dueling and still enjoy it. I've found that I have success in bgs with kiting rets (especially using cheetah) without the dueling area restriction. Even if I have a hard time killing them, I'm sure I have more fun kiting them than they do being kited.

And that's the thing about WOTLK mm hunter- the spec is a whole lot of fun as far as its class mechanics- far more so than ret is. But the skill required for a hunter to beat a ret is vastly greater than the other way around. So I think I'll stick to bgs and world pvp against rets. It's pretty clear the one weakness WOTLK rets have are their 20 yard range limitation (barring engineering, like you said), so I think I need to take advantage of that to beat them.

[Laethea]

Back to the subject of warriors, I was watching this Swifty video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQaScgXR4lI

I noticed he gets a LOT of healing from the second wind talent, which heals the warrior for 10% of his health every time he is hit by a stun or an "immobilize effect." With hunters I suppose that means entrapment and ravage/web all heal the warrior, though aimed shot would reduce it.

You mentioned that one strat against warriors was to start with scorpid disarm, and I think this second wind talent speaks in favor of that, since, when a lot of our cc heals the warrior, that makes the ones that don't (scorpid disarm, scatter shot and freezing trap) that much more useful. In fact, I might think of following the scorpid disarm with a scatter trap to get in max range. I know you don't like to max range kite warriors, but I have no problem with it since they will blow you up on this server if you let them have their intercepts and charges. :)

I could be wrong, but I think ideal strat against warriors involves them not having serpent sting on them a good bit of the time so you can get full scatter shots and freezing traps against them.

Incidentally, being able to use strats like that is the main reason I don't take piercing shots even though I know it does great damage. I hate rng in pvp- I like knowing, to the extent possible, that if I do x then y happens. Not a fan of "I'm gonna follow this scorpid disarm with a scatter ... j/k piercing shots." In Cata, mm has no option not to take piercing shots (well, not without taking garbage talents instead), which is a big reason I don't play it then.