WotLK [Guide] MM Hunter Gemming and Gearing guide

[narkishadow]

noob question - how do you manage your pet?
pet should be always on 'defensive', or it's better to use macro with /petattack ?
or I should add '/petattack' to every attacking ability?

[angrylol]

You can put /petattack on "intitiating" abilities, if you are forgetful and forget to change pets target when necessary. But sometimes you have to leave pet on other target, so seperate button is best.

use whatever way you can to keep your pet where it's needed

[manqkalek]

What u need to know up to ICC is that explosive trap spec is the best spec(in all talent trees),which means agility>armor penetration up to icc. :)

[Colosso95]

For a close to BIS hunter, would the last pet talent point be better in Shark Attack or in Wild Hunt? A flat 3% increase seems better but I wouldn't really know unless I did the math

[Aurumwz]

For a close to BIS hunter, would the last pet talent point be better in Shark Attack or in Wild Hunt? A flat 3% increase seems better but I wouldn't really know unless I did the math

Until ToC Shark Attack is better for the increased damage. In middle of ToC Wild Hunt becomes better than Shark Attack for the stats that u get from items.

[Sataman]

Could you please update talent builds

[Bartalk]

I have a few questions after reading this guide. Mainly about Serpent Sting and how to manage my pet during combat as well as help with my macros.

For serpent sting I use an addon called serpent stinger. It is supposed to track what the damage of my serpent sting is over time so that I can snapshot it at the ideal time. It basically tells me what my current dmg is vs what my previous dmg was when I cast serpent sting. However sometimes it suggests that I cast serpent sting even though the dmg is lower than what I have already snapshotted it at. So I am wondering what is going on here.

Somewhere else in this guide is says that Serpent sting is affected by two types of abilities or procs. Some procs are percent based, while others are flat stat increases (like the ashen ring or trinket procs). My question is what procs am I supposed to worry about? It seems like from reading the comments that only the percent based procs (ie from T10 2P, T10 4P, and abilities like CotW from pet). Or is this incorrect for percent based procs? Because the way the tier bonuses are worded makes it seem like they would affect serpent sting differently. One of them increases my damage by 15%, whereas the other one increases my attack power by 20%. Someone said in the comments that the Damage increase you get from percent based procs is the only thing that affects your Chimera Shot damage effect.

So should I not be worried about snapshotting Serpent Sting when say my DBW and Ashen Band Ring and STS are all procced? I'm quite confused on this concept. Because would serpent sting's dmg increase also from having higher attack power, or higher agility? I'm assuming the only thing that affects Serpent Sting dmg is Attack Power and Agility increasing abilities or percent damage increasing abilities, and that haste and crit would not affect the dmg from each tick of serpent sting itself. If someone could please explain this for me then I would greatly appreciate it. At least for me I always thought the idea was to refresh serpent sting when you have the highest dmg on it since that way it ticks for more over the course of the fight, which is dmg that adds up.

If this is the case, how often should you refresh serpent sting. Should you always go for refreshing it, if it will tick for a higher amount? I find at the start of fight especially I am refreshing it 3-4 times in some cases. What's a good number to aim for (increase dmg over previous snapshot) in refreshing it over say using another cooldown like steadyshot?

Now that's out of the way, what is the best rotation on pull to increase dmg on serpent sting right away or to maximize dps? This needs to include any abilities my pet would cast also. Ideally I like to have any abilities my pet uses macrod into my other shots so that I don't have to worry about them but if this isn't the right idea then I guess we can discuss that also.

Somebody suggested this:
"Side-note regarding the guide: I recommend going for a different starting rotation --> Mark > Rapid+CotW > Chimera > Aimed > Explosive > Steady > Sting > Steady spam > Chimera > Aimed > Readiness > Chimera > Aimed > Rapid + Explosive. You can do 2x Steady shots before applying the sting as long as you don't let your ashen ring proc drop (smallest uptime out of all your procs).
Readiness is going to be used on the second cycle because of the two wasted globals on serpent+explosive. On the rotation recommended in the guide you don't have any downtime inbetween your Chimera+Aimed, Readiness and 2nd Chimera+Aimed. Here you'll have two wasted globals from applying SS + explosive trap so you're better off waiting for the 2nd cycle. All your procs are still going to be up and your second focus fire is going to be off cooldown while you still have ~2 seconds of your first one up so there's no dps loss.

Cons: -you miss the first ChimeraSS damage
-you miss one or two serpent ticks
Pros: -better MD
-you don't have to refresh SS after all your procs
-delaying the serpent as much as you can before the 2nd Chimera (while still having all procs up) = more auto shots = more chances of procing t10. If you're lucky enough to proc your t10 early and get a sting on with STS+Taunka+Ashen+t10 (+tailoring back enchant if you're into that) you're gonna be giving mages a run for their money"

I don't know if this is correct or not. Right now I basically open with hunters mark, serpent sting, rapid fire+CotW (macrod), aimed shot, chimera shot, steady shot x2, chimera, aimed, readiness, chimera, aimed, steady x4 and then refresh on rapid fire+CotW (macrod), and I also refresh serpent sting somewhere in there when the dmg is higher than what my first one is. Sometimes multiple refreshes on serpent sting depending on the dmg bonus. I will also throw an explosive trap in there at the start between instant abilities if I can depending on the fight. Still getting used to this way of playing.

As for managing my pet I am all ears. I basically have a bunch of macros taken from these forums and use those. My Call of the Wild is macrod into Rapid Fire but nowhere else. Other than that I put my pet on passive and have Bite, Furious Howl, and Rabid on my bars right clicked to auto cast those abilities. I also have Dash macroes to serpent sting since I open with it.
Aside from that most of my shot macros look like this:
#showtooltip Chimera Shot
/cast Chimera Shot
/cast Silencing Shot
/cast Kill Command
/cast Furious Howl(Rank 6)
/cast Rabid
/use 10
/petattack

If this can be improved upon please let me know.

I'd greatly appreciate any help with improving my abilities as a hunter so thank you in advance for reading this and any help you can provide me.

[Bartalk]

In regards to my post above after doing some testing at the dummies it seems like the procs with their respective ID's I should be keeping an eye on for Snapshotting Serpent Sting are:

Exploit Weakness T10 2P 70728
Stinger T10 4P 71007

Ashen Ring 72412

Icy Rage (WFS) 71401

DBW
Taunka 71558
Vyrkul 71556
Iron Dwarves 71559 Probably not this since it only affects crit.

Culling the heard 70893
Furious Howl 64495


Probably not these since they are Haste only.
Quick Shots 6150
Hyperspeed Accelerators 54758

Is this correct?

[Bastardbottle]

AP buffs are dynamic on serpent, while dmg multipliers are permanent. Refresh/use at beginning only if 2t10 is procced, else its waste.

[BamBam]

Why in guide he said that Herkuml(EOF trinket) is better than Banner? Is it true?

[Killbone]

Hi i want to ask i have 1395 and one slot free for gem what gem sut i better to use Agl or Arp to cap it ?

[manqkalek]

Hi i want to ask i have 1395 and one slot free for gem what gem sut i better to use Agl or Arp to cap it ?

Everything over the cap is useless,use agility gem.

[Sxcr3219]

It's subjective, and doesn't always work that way, hence is why I also posted a section saying why ArP is dynamic, don't just skim if you want to be serious in the game, please refer to the section "Stat prioritization"; both A and B and you will understand my you'll get my point. Thank you.

[Sxcr3219]

True, I did post a stat weightage section, I have not played for a while and might be really bad, especially with my health and not playing for a long as well, but mathematical values do not change. That stat weightage should give an idea or so I hoped. And thank you manqalek; I believe we conversed before so long ago, glad to see you're still around. Thank you.

[ar08]

hi, great guide! helped me a lot. I also wanted to suggest, it would not be bad to add some basic macros. For people who don't get into macros like me.)