Hi folk and thanks for the chance to be your Hunter Class leader.

Thought it would be appropriate to layout my general philosophy on the game and hunters. At the recent Guild meeting, when asked if I was interested in being the class leader I said that I had a lot of experience as Hunter up to level 43 as I currently run 4 of them, yet I tended to be a bit out of the mainstream when it came to specing and equipment, so thought it would be appropriate to say here what those eccentricities of mine are!

I am 100% against the whole idea of Templates for classes. What works for one may not work for you. Heck it may not have even worked for the guy who made it but he will never tell you that! I am a huge proponent of the skill of the player behind the character as the deciding factor as to how good a given character is.

When I read posts about folk getting killed . . . Due to the other guy having grossly better gear, I see Someone who just got owned by someone who got the jump on him and is blaming the gear instead of his bad luck. Gear does not make a character, the person behind the character does! I have been in the Battlegrounds and have fought with the ‘mighty twinks’ and have won! When caught by themselves they go down just like anyone else, well perhaps with a tad more effort than the normal but they still go down. Two twinks on one will take the one down very fast, but then most will go down before two similarly leveled characters.

Probably the biggest single problem I have had with my Hunters is my belief that Aimed shot is a nice skill to be used at the right moment but not the class defining skill for hunters. Now I know this goes against the grain for what you have heard from other hunters but this is why I say this. I have been in many many many fights with my various Hunters and I also heard the hype about this skill so made it a priority for my Hunters to get it. What I have found, keep in mind this is just through level 43, is that I can get in two or three auto shots in the time it takes to get off an aimed shot. Currently I get around 150 damage from my auto shots and 290ish for an aimed shot (criticals are not counted here as they are far to sporadic for meaningful analysis (yes I am an Engineer by trade so speak funny like this a lot). So I get more damage total by sticking with the auto shot. This does not even count that a miss with an aimed shot is far more devastating than a miss with an auto shot.

Also a big thing to remember is that my hunter became hunters so their pets could hold off the baddies while I pasted them with hot iron or arrows as the case may be. So they all have a strong element of Beast Master with at least 20 points allotted to that area. Then half are going to spend the rest of their talents on Marksman while the other half will spend an additional 11 in Beastmaster to get to the 31 skill and the remaining 20 will go into Marksmanship. So as you can see, I am not a big believer in Survival based Hunters, yet have seen many a Survival Hunter do very interesting things in battle so will not steer folk away just because I do not believe in it.

My normal advice on what talents to take when is to play with a Talent calculator, they have a great one on the Blizzard site, and see what looks like it will work for you. I and anyone else can not tell you how best to run your character, only you can decide that. And with the upcoming expansion with its free talent reset you will have a chance right now to experiment and then go with what you like when the expansion hits. Heck I do not even know the names of the various talents that I have and use as I have a printout for each of my characters by the computer so I know where the next points will go. So when someone says they are a 20/0/31 Priest or a ‘Fury Warrior’ I do not even know what that means in real terms.

Several reasons for this: 1] I am old (55 year old Grandpa of two so far) and do not have the remaining capacity to fit all those names and stats into my brain. 2] There is no need for that as I know what skill I use in battles and which ones work best just have no idea if they are a talent skill or class spell – which is why I have those talent sheets for each of my guys. 3] I run 15 (17 after expansion) characters of all races and classes and just do not have the time or inclination to memorize the tress and my chosen paths in these various trees.

Well this has gone on quite a bit longer than I had intended – did I mention that I can get long winded when I feel strongly about something? . . . and I thank you for reading it to understand me better. I am more than willing to help with Hunter questions and can give what I feel to be my best advice to fledgling Hunters, but if you want me to say what talents to take when or what skills to use when, you may be disappointed.

Lastly, I love helping folk of any class and even if they are not in the guild, do things they are ready for by their level. But will not hold your hand through an instance or quest you have no business being in or one that is easy as pie to do solo at the proper level. Remember, you get the exact same experience for a red, orange, yellow or green quests (this has been personally proven many times) the color only denotes the relative level of the quest and some are doable at red but many need to be yellow while a very few need are even difficult at green and require assistance. The experience drops only for a quest that has gone white and I mean it really drops then!

So I look forward to meeting all the Hunters and all my new guildies in game and in groups. Guild groups are always the best times in game!

Hey:

Good post on hunters. You are a 110% right on doing what works for you.

Aimed Shot- as you get higher and you load up on your Agility (agility is king for hunters) the Aimed Shot gets more useful.

I use the aimed shot a few seconds after i send in the pet. This forces me to let the pet attack long enough to pull aggro.

If you keep your pet alive then let the DoT do their thing and you'll be fine.

Don't forget the little trick (which will change in the expansion) of putting pet on passive, feign death and you can lay another trap in mid fight.

Any Hunter or other classes need help please feel free to shoot me a tell; my hunter is Plumbob.


Taglanthas: what is your choice of pet?

I hear you on Agility - at 40 when I had to get all shiny new Mail, I started my quest for maximum agility and plan on continuing that as I progress.

I found, this past weekend, why I my view of aimed shot may be so different from others. One of my hunters (in a large alliance guild on Kargath) had a purple gun, Precisely Calibrated Boomstick, waiting in his bank for when he turned 43. Now this is a low damage high rate of speed (1.5) gun. I normally go for the higher damage lower speed guns (but was not about to say no to a Purple when offered it by a guildmate) so get 150ish damage per hit. Well this new gun gets around 90ish damage per hit. So my being used to large damage per hit makes the aimed shot pale in comparison to what it does vs a faster low damage gun. So I am playing with that new gun and my old one (glad I did not vendor it right away) to see what I like the best. Right now I am leaning towards the slower one for two reasons - 1] less ammo use 2] Pet is able to hold agro better with the slower gun. Time will tell on that, but it is nice to be able to switch out the slow gun in a fight, activate Rapid Fire and turn myself into a quisine art for a short time saving the pet's life in most cases!

As to pets: I currently run 4 Hunters (well plus my hunter on Beta) and their pets are Gorilla, Fleshripper, Crocodile and Etcheyakee (I am sure I mangled that spelling of the Horde ghost quest lion in the Barrens) and a Boar on Beta. Now they all have at least 20 points in beast mastery and all those are concentrated in making the pet a killing machine. I also give them all of the armor and stamina (I believe it is) boosts from pet skills.

I notice very little difference in them. That is until I tried the Boar in Beta. That critter's charge skill is very cool as it allows him to get the monster very angry with him very fast as well as stop him in his tracks while the Boar attacks. Also the new Intimidation skill that my beastmasters to be (two of these folk plus the Beta guy) make assuring that the pet holds agro a much esaier process.

Last thing is - the ability to place traps while in combat is absolutely going to change the way many folk use their hunters in battles - that ability just opens up a new way to approach battles as a Hunter especially while soloing! My Beta guy is still playing with this ability.

How did you get in Beta?

I have had the same cat since level 25ish and thought a change might be nice.

When I use my friends hunter the biggest problem has been in keeping aggro on the pet because he hits pretty hard with a bow.
Thanks

I got into Beta via the most to 25 contest they ran a few months back. Got 5 guys to 25 in th alloted time and still do not know if that was good bad or indifferent as everyone who even took 1 character to 25 got a Beta invite and they never posted the most anyone got to 25.

Your friend's pet. Does it have any points in Beastmastery? And is he up to date with his Growl skill for the pet? All of my Hunters take at least 20 points in Beast mastery to beef up the pet and make him more of a killing machine.

One skill that I find very useful is the one at the bottom of the Marksmanship Tree. The Silencing Shot. This does not do very much damage but it is an excellent way to pull a spellcaster since it will go melee for the three seconds it is silent. it is also useful in fights to stop a healer in their tracks

Indeed.

My Markaman is looking forward to getting that skill for that reason and to stop certain healing type monsters from healing when near death. That can just be so annoying to have to kill them twice.

One shot that I experienced for the first time this weekend, Piercing Shot, does not seem to be available to us players . This reduces the target's armor by a signifigant amount, for my poor Priest fighting the Deadwoods it was close to 1300 armor - almost 100% for him

OUCH!!!!! That's brutal,

Tag have you gotten your snake trap yet? I LOVE IT. I also noticed the snakes do a decent job at spell interruption.

Snake trap?

Hmm have to do a bit of research now . . .

Dang Research done

That is not until level 68, but it does look very cool

Only thing you have to be careful with snakes is that it's an AoE so they'll go after the nearest thing whther you are attackign it or not.