Hai, I heard you spec 41/20/0???
Basically, there are two primary raiding specs in Hunter circles today that if you aren’t using, you are seen as somewhat of a dimwit.
And to be fair, these specs are GOOD at what they are designed to do – cause as much damage as possible.
First, and far less common, we have the Survival Spec – sometimes as high as 0/20/41, but often placing more in Marks for Scattershot and other niceties, this spec is designed on two principles – first, the full 30% increase to crits in the Marks tree, and most pivotal, the Survival skill “Expose Weakness”, which is a raid wide physical damage booster. Do you want an extra 25% of a hunter’s Agility added to your Attack Power? On a well geared hunter, that can be as much as adding 200 or more AP, almost as much as Blessing of Might, and sometimes even higher. You bet you want it.
Secondly, the staple raider, the 41/20/0 Beast Mastery hunter – but here we find differences of opinion.
Y’see, why the numbers are pretty solid, the places to put the talents aren’t – some insist that 5/5 Imp Aspect of the Hawk, for a 15% Speed boost to shooting every 10% of your shots is a must have – others say it gimps your shot rotation, and in some fights you’ll be running Aspect of the Viper so much that Hawk won’t get a look in. Others insist that Efficiency in the Marks tree, to reduce your mana cost on shots is vital, whereas others say it is more useful to have Imp Hunter’s Mark, for more melee boosting. Extra 110 AP to all? You bet. Also, the amount of talents poured into the pet damage trees depend greatly on the individual. Improved Mend Pet, to decurse and make pet healing easier, or Imp Revive Pet, to pick your faithful friend up faster and cheaper after he drops?
No two hunters seem to be able to agree, completely.
Recent theories that have been put forward, even on Elitist jerks, involve a small variation, 41/17/3, where 3 points are poured into Humanoid Slayer, taking them from the last 3 points of Mortal Shots – given how many humanoids you face, this actually means more damage versus those targets.
At end game, and by this, I refer to mid Black Temple and Sunwell, these decisions can be that critical, as if you aren’t healing or tanking, you are damage dealing. Before that, however, I feel the lines are slightly blurrier…
Okay, to show an example, some of you may have heard of a Night Elf Rogue who has gained notoriety of late for tanking the ROS in BT, and the first phase of Illidan in BT. Long story short, he maxed his Agility and dodge to such levels that a hit was a near impossibility in melee. Simply put, if your dodge, parry, block and “miss” ratings add up to more than 100%, you ain’t going to get hit unless you are very unlucky – there is a chance to get hit, but it is VERY small.
I have used the same theory with my hunter for certain situations since TBC came out – thanks to the dodge talents in BM and Survival, I can raise my basic dodge to 42% unbuffed, with a 9% parry chance. Add on the skill Deterance (25% boost to Parry and Dodge for 10 seconds) and a high HP, and Aryina becomes a handy emergency tank with a 109% unbuffed avoidance chance – and the buffing usually raises that 3-4%. Which is how I’ve managed to tank nasty Raid Elite mobs, such as the Ushers from KZ, and even bosses like Moroes, Romulo, Netherspite, Jan’Alai and the big fellow, Gruul, for anywhere from 10 to 20 seconds before either having to hit FD, killing the boss, or falling. Given how easy a hunter (should) find it to ride the threatmeters, this has proven a most useful safety measure on ten man runs, in particular. But it does not suit everyone.
This is just one example of how a hunter can be more than just a damage dealer – “survival” in the purest, rather than talent sense, is often far more useful as long as you have a hand on the basics – 9 times out of ten, if the hunter is doing poor damage, it’s due to poor play rather than poor talenting. Kiting mobs in Hyjal, for instance, is all about speed, movement and survival rather than firepower.
Back in HV, the Raid-Ready Status awards were given according to stats and spec – one thing I feel they got right was saying that the BM hunters must have “Bestial Wrath” and The Beast Within” specced – and THAT WAS ALL. I’d add on Serpent Swiftness, as it is the primary damage booster, but as for the rest?
Spec what works for you – try stuff out. I, for example, have never seen Mjolnir benefit in his hit percentage from “Animal Handler” – thus I don’t use it, despite it’s popularity. I always take “Hawkeye” from Survival, as I find the extra range really useful – since the Epic Bow quests pre-tbc, I won’t spec without it.
Try stuff – go spec Min/max when you hit BT and Sunwell. You really should not need it till then. And so it is known, I run 45/5/11 - so I must be a dimwit.
Tell that to Jan'Alai.
