Introduction
Welcome to the Beast Master PvP and You Guide. This guide isnt the say all in beast master guides, there are better ones out there, like Xcutioners(which isnt around anymore :(. This Guide is ment to give you a introduction to the Spec and some in-depth game play advice, mainly for bg's and wpvp. THIS IS NOT A GUIDE FOR ARENA. Let me say that again, THIS GUIDE ISNT FOR ARENA! There are far better hunters on all the servers that can go make their own guide. Also this isnt an awesome looking guide, my goal is to just get better information out there to the players that want to play Beast Master. Anyone is welcome to clean this guide up and repost it, my only request is you give credit where its due. Also for comments, lets try to keep it contructive.
Introduction of myself, Ive played BM PvP for the last seven years. I write this guide based off my experience with the BM spec. This came around when out doing wpvp and getting smoked by one, and not being able to beat it. So thus my BM PvP Hunter was born. The reason I wrote this guide, is legacy-wow has one that is wrong, just plain and simple, though it has little good info, the basic premise it brings isnt the direction for a viable hunter.
Pros and Cons of BM Hunters:
Pros: You can decently burst, while not the highest but combo'd with other classes like shaman, its awesome. You get the cool pets, even though spirit beasts are not that great for pvp. Be a great back field support in BG's. Like most classes you can global just about anyone withthe exception of healers.
Cons: You are dependent on your pet. You can be beaten if players are in your melee zone. You have to kite almost everything to win. Any of those criteria are met, youre gonna have a bad time. However there's tips n tricks later on to limit these weaknesses from being exploited.
Races:
Alliance:
Nightelf - Passive dodge, shadowmeld(extra feign death, also use it to camp players, dismiss pet, shadowmeld and wait)- IMO prefered race to play for pvp for hunters alliance side.
Dwarf - Stone Skin, gun specialization, Frost resistant
Draenei - Heroic Presents 1% extra hit, Gift of the Naaru self heals, Shadow resistant. IMO second choice for race to be a hunter alliance side.
Horde:
Orc - Axe Specialization, Bloodfury - Increases melee attack power by 6 and your spell damage by 5. Lasts 15 sec, Hardiness - 15% stun reduction, Command - +5% to pet damage - This is the best race to play a BM Hunter due to all the nice racials.
Troll - Bow Specialization, Berzerking - Increase attack speed, Regeneration - regenerate increased by 10% and 10% during combat - Trolls make great MM hunters
Tauren - Endurance - base health increased by 5%, Nature Resistant, War Stomp - Stomp on the ground stunning up to 5 enemies in a 8 yard distance for 2 seconds, great for those close enounters. Tauren make great Survival Hunters.
Blood Elf - Magic Resistant, Arcane Torrent - Silence all enemies within 8 yards for 2 sec and restores 15 of your Energy. Non-player victim spellcasting is also interrupted for 3 sec
There are preferred races for both sides, but in the end play what you like and tailor your gear and/or spec to your play style.
The Spec:
Here is basic build for pvp
https://wotlkdb.com/?talent#cVbhzxgRfu0est0eVso:k0VM0z
Here is my build for PvP
https://wotlkdb.com/?talent#cVbRztgRwu0eot0eVfo:0VkMz0
There's some slight differences, however the Glyphs both remain the same for both.
Keep in mind, these specs arent set in stone as the say all pvp spec. Tailor the spec to your play style and ability.
Major Glyphs:
Glyph of Disengage: Lowers CD on Disengage.
Why? Well because as BM your goal is to use your pet to kite your enemy. This ability puts
distance between you and your enemy.
Glyph of Beastial Wrath: Lowers CD on BW
Why? Well because this buffs the pet up tremendously for damage output. Combo it with kill command and your pet is steam rolling toward the enemy. Most of your pets burst comes with this ability.
Glyph of Aimed Shot: Lowers CD on AS
Why? Well because aimed shot cuts healing ability by 50%. This can make or break a healing class or self heals on an enemy. AS a paladin after you almost killed him just for him to LoH for only half of their HP, funny stuff >:D.
The Three Major Glyphs mentioned above are probably the best ones to use, but Ive seen other variations that work out aswell. Tailor your glphys to your playstyle :D.
Minor Glyphs:
Glyph of Feign Death: Lowers CD on Feign Death
Why? Well because when you wanna break a hard cast or someone's high dmg output rotation, you can use this more.
Glyph of Mend Pet: Increase the Pet's Happy mood when healed.
Why? Well because a happy pet does more damage and as BM most of your damage output comes from your pet.
Glyph of Revive Pet: Reduces pushback by 100% when using Revive Pet
Why? Well because if your pet dies, you can revive him without it being interrupted, though there are pet abilities the can insta revive them(more later in pet selection).
Those three minor glyphs are probably the best in mind, but not a set in stone kind of deal. I use scare beast from time to time, when I go hunting for feral druids.
Stats, gems, and enchants:
Stats:
Hit: 5%+
Why? You wanna be able to hit your target and not miss.
Hit should come from gear, like pvp cloak and neck, some pve rings
Attack power: stack this as much as possible
Why? Your pets attack power scales off yours, the more you have, the more your pet has.
Resilience: Aim for 1100 min
Why? The more resilience you have the better, makes you harder to kill, and give you more survivalbility.
Armor Pen: Yes its great to have some, but your main goal is to buff the damage of your pet, and kite. Dont get me wrong, its great for plate guys. However the drawback is youre buffing your damage vs your pet. This balance is a tough one but can be done. If youre going for armor pen shoot for 40%-50 on stat tab min. This will have more pve pieces subbed in for pvp, then you loose resilience and you become a glass cannon.
Gems:
Im gonna start off saying DO NOT GEM SPELL PEN!!! Ive ran into a hunter on Lordereon that did that. As a BM hunter you do not need spell pen, it does not carry over to your pet, just as armor pen does not.
Meta Gem: Persistent Earthshatter Diamond
Why? +34 Attack Power and Stun Duration Reduced by 10%
Red Gems: Bright Cardinal Ruby
Why? +40 Attack Power. Plus your pets damage scales off this stat.
Yellow Gems:
Theres a few choices depending on your need for stats. The main point is we are still gemming for attack power, hit should come from your rings(pve), cloak(pvp), and neck(pvp).
Wicked Ametrine - +20 Attack Power and +10 Critical Strike Rating
Empowered Ametrine - +20 Attack Power and +10 Resilience Rating
Pristine Ametrine - +20 Attack Power and +10 Hit Rating
Blue Gems:
Nightmare Tear - +10 All Stats
Balanced Dreadstone - +20 Attack Power and +15 Stamina - weapons only
Enchants:
Head
Arcanum of Torment - 50 attack power and 20 critical strike rating
OR
Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator - 30 Stamina and 25 resilience rating
OR
Arcanum of Triumph - 50 attack power and 20 resilience
If youre BIS or comfortable with your resilience, go Torment
If you need Resilience, go Triumph
I threw in Savage Gladiator as another option if youre going for a high resilience/stamina build.
Shoulders
Inscription of Triumph - 40 attack power and 15 resilience rating
OR
Greater Inscription of the Axe - 40 attack power and 15 critical strike rating
OR
Greater Inscription of the Gladiator - 30 Stamina and 15 resilience rating
Now the same Ideas apply that are listed in Head Enchants area
Chest
Exceptional Resilience - increase resilience rating by 20
OR
Super Stats - increase all stats by 8
Back
Flexweave Underlay - Its a parachute, jump off a mount, or your rocket boots throw you into the air, allows you to land safely, though if youre really high up in the air, drop down some first before opening the parachute. It does have a timer on how long its used, though the dalaran one is infinite, this one is not.
Legs
Icescale Leg Armor - increase attack power by 75 and critical strike rating by 22
OR
Earthen Leg Armor - increase resilience rating by 40 and Stamina by 28
Wrist
Greater Assault -increase attack power by 50
Hands
Engineering - Hand-mounted Pyro Rocket, Extra damage, and if you time it right you can keep rogues in the fight as they vanish(takes practice though).
Boots
Rocket boots - gives you a speed boost to get out of the enemy's range, or to escape. Though you need to be an engineer for this.
Tuskarr's Vitality - minor movement speed increase and 15 Stamina
OR
Icewalker - increase critical strike and hit rating by 12
Belt
Eternal Belt-Buckle - Adds another socket to belt
and then enchant it with
Frag Belt - Attach a miniaturized explosive assembly to your belt, allowing you to detach and throw a Cobalt Frag Bomb every 6 minutes.
Weapons: Dual wield axe, swords, daggers
Main-hand - Greater Potency - 50 Attack power
Offhand - Titanium Weapon Chain - Lowers Disarm effects by 50% - THIS DOES NOT STACK, so dont waste time enchanting both MH and OH. I seen a hunter on Lordereon server do this XD.
Range Weapon:
Heartseeker Scope - Attaches a permanent scope to a bow or gun that increases its ranged critical strike rating by 40.
Gear:
For a BIS List See here:
https://mesorchoo.com/classes/hunter/pvp-beast-mastery/
If you choose to donate for gear, or even for one piece, get Sharpened Twilight Scale.
One piece of gear Ill touch on is STS vs DBW. Why StS? Well Sharpened Twilight Scale buffs attack power, while Deathbringer's Will, though it gives us some armor pen, when it procs its not always what we want, for a hunter it will buff Agility, Crit, or Attack Power. The gain of Attack Power is only 605 vs the 1472 we gain from STS. Also DBW morphs you into the spirit of what's being buffed. So if youre trying to mount and make a quick get away, the DBW Proc Forms two of them wont let you mount up, there's only one that allows you to mount up and thats the Taunka. All others you might as well make a macro to cancel it out if you choose this trink. I find getting into a good 25m HC Ruby Sanctum is way harder than finding a 25m HC ICC, without being in an awesome raiding guild.
If youre able to make another account or find someone to do weekly arena games, you'll find attaining relentless pvp gear isnt so hard just a long drawn out process but worth it. Doing the weekly PvP Quests in Wintergrasp is another way to gain honor points fast. Wintergrasp is by the far the fastest way to farm honor points. You get honor for killing people, destorying vehciles and destroying the base or towers. Also VOA 25m drops wrathful, relentless and furious gear so being just three pieces shy of wrathful gear, you should be able to make the stats listed earlier in this guide.
Suggested Professions:
Engineering and Jewelcrafting: Why? Engineering gives us: Rocket boots, frag belt, Pyro-hand rockets, and Flexweave Underlay which is the parachute.
Why Jewelcrafting, we get better gems and can usually find raw uncut gems WAY CHEAPER on the AH if we are buying them.
Pets:
The whole reason we play BM......right?........
This break down on pets is personal experience. Pet use can be completely situational as well. The First pet we are gonna talk about, is probably the best PvP pet due to its Utility.
Chimera - The God of slows
The chimera is a two headed pet, comes in four flavors - Red, Green, Blue, and Rare Spawn Purple. Red ones are found in stonetalon mountains, green ones are found in Shadowmoon Valley, Rare Spawn Nuramoc found in Netherstorm(I use this guy). Why this pet? Well thats because the chimera has a great ability called Frost Breath - The Chimera blasts the target with frost breath, reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec. Which can be trinketed by if you have the full burst macro, most trink Intimidation. You will use him to slow your enemy allowing you to kite them. Few players go for the pet first being they try to tunnel you. Chimera is also a Cunning pet, Here's a link to two specs. https://imgur.com/JAC4kqP
Where to find them: http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/?search=Chimaera#npcs
Devilsaur - The focus starver
The Devilsaur is a T-Rex looking pet, he also comes in four flavors - Orange, Black, White, and Rare Spawn Green. Orange, Black, and White Devilsaurs can be found in Un'Goro Crater, while the Rare Spawn King Krush is in Sholazar Basin. The devilsaur lacks in overall utility, makes them a difficult choise to use. Though they are popular, Id look at a core hound. They are a Ferocity Pet, Heart of the Phoenix ability can be spec'd into. What Heart of the Phoenix does, is allows you to instantly resurrect your pet.
Where to find them: http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/?search=devilsaur#npcs
Core hound - The caster's friend
The core hound is a two headed dog, he comes in three flavors - Green, Red, and White. Green can be found in Shadowmoon Valley, Red can be found in BRS and MC, the white one(everyone's fav, even mine) The Kurken can be found on Azuremyst Isle. Why this Pet? Well the Core Hound has a decent utility, aimed more towards casters, being Lava Breath. What Lava Breath does, is your pet breathes a double gout of molten lava at the target for 60 to 80 Fire damage and reduces the target's casting speed by 25% for 10 sec. Which in certain situations can be awesome. BG's with tons of casters, send him out and slow em all down, but try to target BG healers. The Core Hound is also a Ferocity pet and can also benefit from Heart of the Phoenix. Here's a couple of PvP Spec's: https://imgur.com/gallery/94NCSOI
Where to find them: http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/?search=core+hound#npcs
Worm - Tank Pet
Though I dont have much experience with worms myself, They are worth mentioning. They do have an armor debuff and great survivability. In addition to their survivability, they also bring some other great PvP utilities, including: Charge, Intervene, Roar of Sacrifice and Last Stand.
Here's a straightforward pvp spec, skipping all the aggro related abilities: https://imgur.com/gallery/UqZMMFG
Spirit Pets - ah show no go
Spirit pets look cool, but for pvp I wouldnt suggest them, though they all have a moonfire like ability and can help with rogues, most cloack of shadows this anyway. Honesty a waste of time, they are more of a status symbol rather than PvP Might.
My personal preference of pets: Chimera and the Core Hound. I use the chimera primarily for wpvp, and core hound for BGS. The Worm is decent if you need a tank, might benefit a pve environment, but in BG's the only viable bgs the worm would be decent is AV and WG. Small groups of enemies I.E. WSG, you honestly would be better off using a core hound or chimera, even a devilsaur does better in small group bg's.
Add-ons:
To find the Rare Spawn versions of the the pets Ive discussed:
Rare-Spawn Overlay
What this addon does, is marks your map, Outland and Northrend, showing rare spawn spawn points. Though there isnt a timer for them, this addon is helpful if your flying around looking for that one particular pet.
NPC Scan
What this add-on does is alerts you when you are in a certain range of a Rare Spawn. This also can help with the Rare Spawn Kill achievement that is both in Outland and Northrend. It alerts you with a name and small little 3d model of what the rare spawn looks like. It also puts a raid marker on them as well. You can pull numbers off wowhead to put into the scanner for custom npc's that may not be listed. To clear the list and hunt all over again, delete you cache folder. That will refresh the list to hunt again. Also if that rare pet youre after is in a major city as another hunters pet, it will cache as being found too.
Bartender: Great action bar addon if you dont like the Blizzard Action bar setup, plus gives you more bars if you need em.
Macros:
There's really only one macro I use on my hunter the rest are keybinds, is the Full Burst macro.
One click or button mash of this one and your pet is off to the races in steam roller mode. I threw in Intimidation for a double mash if I wanna open with a stun. This is a general burst macro, for all three pets listed. You can tailor this to your needs. You'll see the Blood Fury Racial, for orcs, which Ive seen some forget that racial for orc players. Copy and Paste the following as is.
#showtooltip Bestial Wrath
/startattack
/petattack
/cast Rabid
/cast Dash
/cast Bestial Wrath
/cast Intimidation
/cast Kill Command
/cast Call of the Wild
/cast Lava Breath
/cast Blood Fury(Racial)
/cast Rapid Fire
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
Tips N Tricks:
1. ALWAYS OPEN WITH SERPENT STING, develop this habit and you'll be able to dance with any stealthing class.
2. Name your pet the same as your character. Why? When you feign death, the enemy targeting you, goes to your pet. Not everyone has awesome MS while playing so you can use that to your advantage as well. You'll notice if you have crap MS, the target's portrait doesnt always load right-away, same thing applies to an enemy with bad MS. I give all credit of this to ArmyofTwo of Unit X, love ya brotha!
3. Always try to stay at max distance of your target. Youre useless if in melee range.
4. Do not deterance if you have dots on you, deterance only prevents anymore in comming damage, but not an already applied dot. Use Deterance when the enemy is in your melee range or hard casting a dot on you, like vampiric touch, or unstable affliction.
5. Only use steady shot only if you have the target slowed and at a decent distance of you. Arcane Shot and Aimed Shot can be used on the run, also pausing while running will allow an auto shot. So Arcane shot, then run stop let some auto shots go, run some more, Aimed Shot, got some comfortable distance steady shot. Rinse and Repeat.
6. Practice Kiting, cuz thats your way of winnings and staying alive. If that isnt met, youre gonna have a bad time.
7. If youre going after a DK(good luck btw, they suck to kill), do not disengage UNTIL he death grips you.
8. If youre going after a Warrior, before he comes out of the stun, lay a frost trap down, and take a step back. When he charges you, he will set off the trap and be stuck allowing you to make some distance to kite again.
9. Scare Beast does work on Feral Druids, dont be afraid to use it if your deterance or feign death is on CD.
10. If the enemy is kiting your pet away from you, call them back ASAP, they wanna kill your pet before coming after you.
11. Master's call, I suggest only useing it when frost nova or roots is used. Mainly because if you use it, your pet and it's target are unstunable for a few seconds.
12. Dont be afraid to go armor pen either for plate guys, there's lots of time I use my complete armor pen set to take down plate guys, however the drawback is, you are a glass canon.
13. Do not forget about your traps! When kiting and the enemy is following you in a straight line, throw down traps, like the Snake one, frost one(creates aoe slow), Freezing trap (ice blocks an enemy), and the immolation one, adds more damage, more is good :D.
14. Always use Aspect of the Beast when hunting in wpvp for 1v1 or ganking. There is Blackened Worg Steak food that allows other classes to track humanoids. Also lets you anti-class other hunters too :D. Dont be afraid to aspect dance either between Beast and Dragonhawk. Just keep in mind Beast gives your pet 10% damage buff while Dragonhawk we all know buffs the hunter for damage and dodge, if spec'd into aspect mastery.
15. Test your limits, thats how you improve and know how to take others down. Yeah dieing sucks and runs the risk of camping, but its worth it in the end :D. Even dueling out geared guys too. Just cuz they have gear doesnt mean they know their toon.
16. Grab some raid buff gear. Like Drums of the Wild and Drums of Kings, Scrolls of fortitude, flasks(pick your poison).
17. When youre sending your pet off for the opening burst, also be sure to hit MEND PET. Not only will it give him a heal over time, if its minor glyphed, it will increase its happiness.
18. Be very well aquainted with your defensive cool downs, they can change the direction of the fight, and screw up someone's burst.
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Thats the only way you'll learn how to become a bastard to kill both WPvP and BG's.
19. Sit on your frost trap when you res and start eating, or even if youre trying to bait the Rogue, or Druid.
20. When a rogue opens on you, wait for the second stun, then haul off with the Macro posted earlier, and then trink and disengage and go through your rotation.
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Beast Master PvP and You.
Edited: January 28, 2022 Reason: Update
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Reserved for future use.
Update 6/14/2021 with input from Reze and Black2ck.
Update 6/16/2021 added Worm to pets info, and added links to pvp specs for pets.
Update 1/28/2022 corrected some grammar errors and added some more tips.Edited: January 28, 2022 Reason: Update
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So much disinformation.
Like some of it: talent tree, pros and cons, arpen ignoring resil comment, racials description, trinket choice, pets choice.
Don't mean to be rude, I know you are making a guide to help out others, but feels like it's quite the opposite.
To correct or comment it all would be like writing a new guide but let me point out a few things.
Improved revive pet is a must - you have it in your personal build, but why mislead people with so called "popular pvp build".Here is the popular build for pvp
https://wotlkdb.com/?talent#cVbhzxgRfu0est0eVso:k0VM0z
Improved Arcane shot is a waste - buffing your lowest damage ability.
Hawk Eye is must - how can you even play hunter without it?
arpen doesn't ignore resil, there isn't even any bug report about this.The more resilience you have the better, makes you harder to kill, though armor pen ignores most of it anyway......I know it sucks at times.
Has anybody even test this? Well I did, devilasur does least damage of all the pets I tested. Less than a ferocity spirit beast, less than a chimera, less than the best dps pet which is a worm. And you didn't even mention it.Well the devilsaur puts out a lot of damage and spec'd right probably the most out of the exotic pets.
You talk a lot about relying on your pet and buffing it to get more damage. Your pet still does only about 10-20% of your total damage. BM isn't about just sending your pet and pressing bestial wrath. You are better off using it as a pvp trinket on a 1 min cd for 10s cc immunity and going double dps trinket instead.
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Then By all mean man, write a whole new guide, this guide is based off experience. You nerd rage like i wrote the wrong guide to an arena build. When its only a guide for wpvp and bgs. All my information on racials came from http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/. So then please critque their information too. Please link me youre armory and we can have more costructive conversations vs you nerd raging in a forum. As far as resilience goes, then why do warrior and rogue gem armor pen for some pvp? Why do feral druids gem armor pen for pvp? The fact Ive seen bis rogues take down plate like a hot knife through butter. Most of the information Ive laid out is from personal experience. BM is about pressure and burst, why do you think beast cleave works well? You come into this forum like youre a MM hunter.
I also buff arcane shot cuz its one of a few abilities We can use on the run, why not buff it? Yeah it doesnt do that great of damage however when you have a decent amount of crit, it does hit hard, and yes I HAVE TESTED THIS!
Also going double dps trinkets is alright as far as going into BG's, which I would use WFS but wpvp you can be stun locked, let alone you loose a decent amount of resilience, so why even go double? As far as not specing into Hawk Eye, I use a chimera alot, and have awesome success with it, the http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/spell=55491, I can keep a decent amount of distance between my target, this is personal experience blowing up tons of people in pvp and bgs.
The Worm is garbage, its a tanky pet, granted it has armor debuff, but honestly my devilsaur did more dmg and delivered damage faster. YES I TESTED THIS TOO GUY. The worm would be great in a pve environment if you need a tanky pet to solo something. The armor debuff utility may be great if you gem straight armor pen, but the damage was lack luster and in smaller group bg's its horrible. I would take a devilsaur over a worm any day.Edited: June 18, 2021 Reason: Update
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Arp doesn't ignore resilience.
The mentioned classes stack arp because they deal mostly physical dmg.
In fact arp is more beneficial against clothies than against plate opponents.
Beast cleave works in s5 but with each season beyond that the comb becomes weaker and weaker.
That has mostly to do with the fact that BM has a very poor gear scaling and basically doesn't deal enough dmg in later seasons. The pet scales only with AP but not with secondary stats. So all the highend PvE offparts in s8 are less beneficial for a BM hunter than for other specs.
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Now thats some constructive criticism Black2ck. I will update the guide soon, give both you and Reze credit to make this better.
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Get this spec and these glyphs and always play with a core hound pet. Chimera is a bad pet because it dies fast. If you play with a healer friend in bgs or world pvp, then yeah, you can pick chimera, but if you play mostly solo, always pick core hound. Vs rogues you can get a cat for the short cd bleed but if you are good enough to insta slap him with a flare when the rogue vanishes or to insta mark or serpent when he's using cloak, then you can skip the bleed pet and stick with the core hound even vs rogues.
Get as much attack power as you can, around 1100 resil and play with pvp trinket and shield trinket for max defensive cds. You don't need dps trinkets unless you play with a healer friend that can take care of you and your pet.
https://wotlk.evowow.com/?talent#cVb...0eVooZc:iAVz0M
* if you want you can put the 2 points from improved mend pet into spirit bond
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I think everyone's goal is to play anti-rogue, I like your spec, however Ive had great success with a Chimera, I do agree they die fast though. Most people try to tunnel the hunter vs the pet. So thus I bank on their inexperience. Ive smoked countless smourne pallies with my setup. Kill Shot glyph is leaning more towards BG farming, while I would do glyph of deterrance or disengage for solo wpvp. Dealing with rogues, depends on the experience of the rogue honestly. Good ones stun lock the hell out of you anyway, though Ive had luck with this macro...
#showtooltip
/use Trinket of Horde/Alliance
/cast Freezing Trap
I honestly setup up most of my characters pvp trinks with a use/cc effect.
I run around with just over 1200 resil none of it gemed or enchanted w/ a Chimera pet. The only class I truely have issues killing is an UH DK. I do like a core hound in BG's, just they seem focus starved though. I still remember the bug where you could summon your exotic pet, swap to your MM spec and still have your exotic pet........fun times that was in the bg's.
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