WotLK Specs for battlegrounds

[Shred92]

I would like a short rundown on all hunter specs and their pros and cons for battleground use. Thank you.

[manqkalek]

Pre ICC gear > survival with full pve gear + 1 stun removal trinket.EZ KILLS ! :)

[Solarblazin]

depends how sweaty you wanna go, if u just wanna chill and blow people up go survival, if u wanna try / learn some actual pvp go mm

[Fmtansei]

https://imgur.com/a/iWCXbpW

[Shred92]

First: I had never heard of survival being used for battlegrounds. All bg heroes I've seen play mm, to the point where it's extremely rare to see yourself affected by black arrow or explosive shot. Why is that?

Second: thanks for that mm spec, I'm looking at different ones.

[Frysharry]

First: I had never heard of survival being used for battlegrounds. All bg heroes I've seen play mm, to the point where it's extremely rare to see yourself affected by black arrow or explosive shot. Why is that?

MM has more utility, CC, etc than either BM or Survival. Additionally, Survival's damage is dispellable; both Black Arrow and Explosive Arrow can be dispelled.

[mwmwmwm]

Playing solo? or in remade? with healer? or no healers?

bis? ungear? a spec preference? What's your level as hunter? glad or starting?

Considering you basically gave no info:
If you wanna have fun chose 1 spec you like.

If you want to do the difference go for MM.
BM is useless. Survival is fun but not enough burst to actually go ham and make a difference.

ill consider you are bis and a really good hunter so its easier.
My personal choice: https://rpgworld.altervista.org/335/...00000000000000

Note that i play always solo, without any mates, without any healer, but bis gear, glad lvl and full of pots.
This spec is in my opinion the best for that, you have a lot of control. Can kite quiet easily and have good defensives with trap root+scatter.

BG premade with healers:
I would go with : https://rpgworld.altervista.org/335/...00000000000000

you don't need root trap or scatter since you will never die..., you can go full ham and have a bonus 120 ap.

Concerning glyphs:
-Aimed shot = must
-Kill shot = personal preference ( helps you end at the top of the ladder)
-Chimera shot = more near, more burst, personal pref ;)

[Shred92]

...

Let's consider bis pve with no previous experience who plays bgs solo. If I had glad level I wouldn't have started this thread ;-)

Thanks for your input. Why or why not glyph of serpent sting? Seems like a favourite of many people.

Also since you seem knowledgeable I'd like your input on: https://forum.warmane.com/showthread.php?t=435664

[mwmwmwm]

you could be glad with no bg exp! :D

For bis no exp i would go with the first MM spec i linked. High dmg, big fun and much defensive if you land traps preventively to stay max range and kite.
Just follow the 40+yards rule and you'll never be in trouble unless rogue. but you have pots for that :D

why not serpent sting: well, serpent sting is used to boost chimera shot dmg. which is really great in an arena situation where you'll basically hit 1 guy for a few minutes. You can even trick the game by applying it when double trink proc then refresh with chimera to maximize your dmg.
In a BG i pref doing less dmg chimera but more chimera with 1sec glyph. But as i said its personal pref i might be wrong. I tend to like the snear too :)

And as bis 0 resi hunter, you crit so often and so high it gets a bit pointless to have a little extra dmg on chimera only "IN MY OPINION"^^
=> i pref more chimera^^

Considering the 2weps vs 1 wep: i haven't tested it for, well... over 8 years i think, and idk about this core at all but if i remember correctly its only worth vs ROGUE'S DISARM. Yep... disarms are not all the same. So the double wep tactic is mainly used in arena vs sp rogue, so you can detter while disarm.
But again.. haven't tried it for ages, and not on this core so i cont prove anything.
that's for the why 2 wep

Now for bis 0 resi i prefer using oathbringer. For arp. Arp is better overall considering you don't know what you'll face.
Now, if you have 2 havroc and you know you'll play vs only lock/mage/pri why not swapping :D
But yeah for average bg, with lets say 50% players with more than leather and 50% with less... i would go with arp => oathbringer

Considering the enchant: i use +110 attack power as the anti disarm is useless in 0 rest.

if a rogue disarms you you need to trap=root disengage etc... or pot disengage etc...
if a SP disarms you you're not 40+ yard and therefore you're dead since you have now 1-2 dote.
IF warrior disarms you you're not 40+ yard so you're dead in 0 rest gear.
If hunter disarms you his bad and you'll kill him.
IF fire mage disarms you you don't care and push to finish him.

And on top of that 110 attack power on all attacks is better than being disarmed for max 15s-30s during a 30min BG :) (my opinion again)
but hey! follow the 40+ yard rule and you'll never care about disarm.

For professions you should take engineering for obvious reasons and as the second i have blacksmithing which is the best in my opinion because you can get 40+agi.

For the pet: as a solo bg player bis 0 resi. you have 3 options:
ravager = good for caster because of the stun, but useless in 0 resi bg since if casters touch you you're dead
wolf = extra attack power so its nice you'll do more dmg but in my opinion pointless to have only 200extra ap. its not that much...
crab= overall best : root good vs all class casters and melee, intervene op as fk vs rogues/war/ret, especially if you're 0 rest and avoid a 10+k^^it survives way better and you have a charge for 1more s root every now and then.
When im not playing with crab im not comfortable to be honest, it's a huge help when playing with 0 resi

Have a good farm!

PS: if you see "rest" i probably meant resi, its just autocorrect..

PS PS: if you want to remove the talent points in the beast mastery tree you can go for more defensives in survival:
https://rpgworld.altervista.org/335/...00000000000000
=> more disengage less snear.
I dont rly like that because you shouldn't play near enemies as 0 resi so 25s disengage is ok when 40+ yard and anti snear is pointless cuz i have free action potion :D but if you don't! might be good while learning how to trap>stay 40+yard

[Shred92]

...

Thank you very much for taking the time to write this.

[HomerjayAT]

https://wotlkdb.com/?talent#cZMeVoRh...oe0h0ob:0fhMVz

High mobility and max pressure/burst.

Is what I would go for. I play bgs regularely on my full bis hunter and this is the most efficient one for my playstyle. It is laid out to generate maximum pressure, including maxed out crit chance on your aimed shot. SV and BM ain't an option really. SV has too sustained damage, compared to the burst of mm every 10 seconds. It is also worse defensively and simply does less damage than MM in full pve gear due to the nature of arp.

Professions at best would be Engineering and Jewelcrafting (42 agi better than the 40 agi from Blacksmithing) but it doens't matter too much. Just make sure you have a wep chain, are hitcapped and have enough Spell Penetration. By using the 35 Spell Pen enchant on your back and having one 43 Spell Pen JC gem you get to 78 Spell Pen which is enough to negate all nature resistance from MOTW (75 resistance in all schools).

As you are highly vulnerable you will certainly want a pet with ROS. Hence, crab, ravager or bat would be an option. I play with ravager mostly due to it's Bullheaded ability to free it out of cc and the universaly great stun. Wolf only provides extra damage but you have of that enough already. What you lack is survivability. Especially crits are hurting extremely. So ROS is a must have. The bat has a ranged stun on a 60 sec cd, which is 20 sec longer than the stun from the ravager.

To comment on some statements of my predecessors:
1. Explosive Shot is not dispellable.
2. Going into BM-tree as MM is mostly useless in bgs. The aspect of the hawk talent just doesn't cut it compared to the other talents, especially Improved Barrage.
3. Chimera Shot glyph doesn't grant you extra burst compared to Serpent Sting. The reason Chimera Shot glyph is never used lays within the nature of the gcd of the hunter. It's always 1.5 seconds. Even without casting Steady Shot and mashing your buttons (which you rarely do in PvP) you will still have some input delay + latency. Thus, unless u leave out a gcd where you could have used an ability you will never shoot Chimera Shot nine seconds after the previous one. On average you might get a real reduction of 0.5 seconds. Serpent Sting glyph increases the Chimera Shot - Serpent damage of yours by a whopping 40%!
4. There is no crit cap. You can never ever say "I have already so much crit, I don't need more, let's gem some AP isntead of AGI".
5. The 2 1 handers is only usefull in niche situations. It allows you to use Deterrence during the following disarms: MM Hunter, Hunter bird pet that has the ability Snatch, Shadow Priest, Fire Mage, Warrior. The former two will barely ever be used on you as they don't also disarm your range weapon. It is barely usefull against Shadow Priests as you are stunned anyway for 3/5 of the duration of the disarm. Fire Mage could actually really be a good situation to have 2 1 handers. Warriors always use their disarm defensively. So when they do that you won't have to use Deterrence anyway. The only exception are prot warriors as they use their disarm offensively as the target they disarm takes 10% increased damage. You can see me wear 2 1 handers in the last WIT ll while playing against the ATC. Warrior disarmed me and i deterrenced to avoid damage during it. But this barely ever happens in a bg as there are barely ever any prot warriors. As the careful reader might have noticed I have not listed Rogues. Their disarm takes all your weapons away. Whether you have 2 1 handers or just a 2 hander doesn't matter. Yet what does matter is that this is the most dangerous disarm for hunters. Conclusion: I go with a 2h on a regular basis as Oathbinder provides the best stats and the 2 1 handers don't help me in most situations.
6. The weapon chain also provides 28 hit, not just the disarm reduction. If you don't have that you gotta spec into one more per cent Focused Aim or gem some Hit which ain't advisable.

I listed my chosen glyphs in the linked spec above. Hope that helps :3

[Shred92]

Thank you very much for this post and the one you made on the other thread.

Regarding steady shot: is it worth it casting it at all in any situation?

[lordrevon99]

Ive played a hunter forever now. Dont waste your time on spell pen, its pointless. Youre a physical range damage not a caster. Id go more for armor pen or agility. Lately Ive noticed armor pen ignores resilience. Agility is probably the best to gem for pvp, damage and dodge. Serpent sting isnt going to be your primary source of damage, it sets up chimera shot. As far as using steady shot, use it when you have enough distance between you and your target. BG's, just play the support in the back field, and keep an eye ppl around you. HomerjayAT's spec is great for bg's, but I would sub out glyph of trueshot aura for deterance. Cuz when the canon fodder in front of you dies, gives you more survivability. I do agree the ravager is the best pet for mm. Every Spec for the hunter is great for pvp, just depends on your play style. Survival probably pisses more ppl off than any other spec to face. Every hunter's weakness is the dead zone melee range and being cc'd or slowed to get more distance. Just learn to kite the enemy and you'll be alright. I myself play BM with a chimera and have tons of fun globaling most 1v1 situations. I am bis both pvp and pve and i do switch to pve for plate guys, and I have a setup thats about 50/50 pve/pvp gear. Every class in WoTLK is OP in their own way, you just gotta find the groove that works for you.

[Shred92]

Thanks lordrevon99.

I have another question, and it's about arpen.

I read you should only gem it if you can cap it. Is that true? What's the cap, 100%? Is it really worth it to try to maximise arpen instead of agility?

[Black2ck]

Thanks lordrevon99.

I have another question, and it's about arpen.

I read you should only gem it if you can cap it. Is that true? What's the cap, 100%? Is it really worth it to try to maximise arpen instead of agility?

Arp is a useful secondary stat but it's not worth to gem it.
Lots of movement is involved in PvP so the portion of your spell dmg is bigger than in PvE.
Even in full PvE gear it's better to gem agi for pvp purpose.