Contents
Best Hunter PvP Spec 4.3 – By Hasuit.
Personally I find MM to be the best hunter PvP spec for most comps, because even though it does inferior damage to BM in some comps, the utility it provides far outweighs any benefits from either of the other two main trees. To be successful you need to be relying heavily on pet CC like bad manner, and MM utilizes this best, on top of having silencing shot and readiness for extra CC. The MM playstyle is all about outpressuring your opponent at the start by landing CC and using silencing shots well, and then pet saccing your partners when you can’t prevent the opposing 2 dps from connecting on one of your partners. Most of the time when you can’t stay offensive anymore, the best thing for a hunter to do is dismiss and recall your pet to get more roar of sacrifices/pet CC out, or LoSing with your healer if they’re hitting you or trying to land CC on you. I find that these abilities combined with a bit of skill makes marks the best hunter PvP spec.
BM is the only other viable hunter PvP spec. The main thing holding BM back, in my view, is its lack of utility. I always play with a monkey as MM, spam recalling it for multiple bad manners per minute, and with BM you just can’t do that and still do any damage. As BM, you completely rely on raw damage winning matches in 3s, with little CC. In 2s BM is probably the best spec because of the spirit beast’s ~20-25k heal. In 3s however, that heal is inferior to monkey’s Roar of Sacrifice in most situations. BM belongs in comps like hunter/mage/healer, hunter/feral/healer, and hunter/hunter/healer, where your partners can keep the team alive in between BMs.
I just don’t see Survival being as good as marks at anything, with the one rare exception of catching your opponents off-guard with a reflected cyclone via survival’s talent that makes deterrence reflect spells. That kind of move belongs in tournaments or wargames though, not in ladder play. Survival could have been the best hunter PvP spec in specific comps like dot cleaves with warlock/hunter and spriest/hunter, but even there I feel MM would be superior in every way as of 4.2.
Here’s a list of each talent and why it’s worth taking it over each of its alternatives to make the best hunter PvP spec.
Marksmanship Talents
Efficiency 3/3 – This is one of the best hunter pvp talents in any of our three trees, on any tier level. Its DPS gain far outweighs Rapid Killing or Go For The Throat.
Go For The Throat 2/2 – This is a mediocre talent but it’s better than Rapid Killing for arenas. Extra focus for your pet means more pet claw/smack/bite and growls for grounding totems.
Rapid Killing 0/2 - This is just not very good. It only procs from killing other players or pets. In an arena setting you aren’t killing many pets, and when you kill another player the match is usually over anyway. This also gives 50 focus from Rapid Recuperation, so it can be good for BGs.
Improved Steady Shot 3/3 - This talent gives 15% haste when you steady shot twice. It’s better than putting the points into Sic ‘Em!. If you take this talent, almost any time you use steady shot you should use it twice to gain the benefit from this talent.
Careful Aim 2/2 - This talent isn’t nearly as good as it used to be. Its main benefit comes from aimed shotting someone at 90+% HP. While it may be a very minor overall damage increase, it can win games by getting very fast bursty kills.
Concussive Barrage 2/2 - This talent is worth taking because it snares anyone you chimera shot, giving you the opportunity to use concussive shot on a focus target or just giving you a free global from not having to snare for 4 seconds. It can be good to use multi-shot to snare people in BGs too from this talent.
Silencing Shot 1/1 - Although this seems very obvious, every Hunter PvP Spec requires silencing shot.
Piercing Shots 3/3 - This talent is good DPS, and very worth taking. If you take it, however, and want to do a little bit of damage to someone and then scatter shot them, it’s best to use only arcane shot and cobra shot so the dot won’t go up and you can land a full scatter shot.
Termination 2/2 - This talent is a filler. It’s not very good but it’s better than any of its alternatives.
Bombardment 0/2 - This talent is terrible in arena. I almost never use multi-shot, so it’s worthless. The only thing I can think of where it could be good is if you’re playing AV and both sides are turtling.
Resistance is Futile 0/2 - This is a very good talent if you’re just considering raw DPS. Its downside is that it takes a lot of extra min/maxing effort to fully utilize. When you use it correctly you tend to focus on more important things less and generally just play worse.
Readiness 1/1 - This talent is extremely handy and clutch, a must have for the best hunter PvP spec.
Master Marksman 3/3 - This talent sucks, but you have to take it to get Chimera Shot, so it’s worth it. I rarely ever get any aimed shot procs from it just because I don’t use steady shot enough. This one is all about getting Chimera Shot later.
Rapid Recuperation 2/2 - This is a necessary talent. It’s very, very good when you have rapid fire up, giving a lot of extra focus (60, I think) for extra arcane shots while you’re bursting someone down. If you take Rapid Killing in tier 1 of the tree, it also gives 50 focus when you kill a player or pet, which can be good too. A great overall talent for a hunter PvP spec.
Marked for Death 2/2 - This talent saves a lot of GCDs, making you not ever have to use Hunter’s Mark, which would otherwise be worth it to cast. It just makes it so you permanently have an undispellable hunter’s mark on whoever you’re hitting.
Posthaste 2/2 - This talent is good mostly because of the 30% movement speed increase after you disengage. This movement speed stacks with other movement speed increasing effects like your boot enchant, aspect of the cheetah, worgen racial, and swiftness potions, making you go very fast after getting away via disengage.
Chimera Shot 1/1 - This should be very obvious like Silencing Shot. This ability is one of your main damage sources as a MM hunter, and a MUST for the best hunter PvP spec.
Survival Talents
Hunter Vs. Wild 3/3 - This gives a LOT of extra hit points, making it better than either of its alternatives in the tier 1 of the Survival tree. This talent is a must for your hunter PvP spec, especially if you get focused a lot in your comp.
Improved Serpent Sting 2/2 - This talent is mediocre, but better than Pathing. I only take this because I use Serpent Sting a lot. A downside to taking this talent is that the damage is instant, before the Serpent Sting even hits the target, so if you want to Serpent Sting someone out of a scatter shot or freezing trap, it breaks it half a second before it would if you didn’t have this talent.
Pathing 0/3 - This is up for debate. I personally don’t take this in favor of Improved Serpent Sting, but a lot of other high rated hunters do.
Entrapment 2/2 - This talent is absolutely necessary to make the best hunter PvP spec. If you want to land freezing traps on your target, most of the time you’re going to need to have their partners be rooted via snake trap roots to prevent your trap from being eaten. This talent wins games over and over again.
Survival Tactics 2/2 - I wouldn’t take this talent just for the disengage CD reduction, but apparently you need it so you don’t RNG miss freezing traps, making this talent better than putting points into One with Nature.
Beast Mastery Talents
One with Nature 1/3 - This talent is actually pretty good, but we don’t have enough leftover talent points to fill it up. It’s an increase of 200 AP with one point whenever you have Aspect of the Hawk up.
None of the other talents are worth mentioning, because they’re just not worth putting points into in any situation that I can think of. If you take the above talents, you’ll be using one of the best hunter PvP specs as of this writing.
These are the only four areas where you can alternate points between in the marksmanship PvP spec in my opinion.
1) Improved Serpent Sting —> Pathing (Based on my Recount testing Improved Serpent Sting does more overall damage than Pathing, but most other top hunters use Pathing instead for some reason)
2) Entrapment/Survival Tactics —> One with Nature (I would never recommend this, 400 AP isn’t anywhere near as good as the extra utility either of the other two talents give, but some other high rated hunters make this trade in their spec)
3) Sic’ Em! —> Rapid Killing (for BGs, so if you kill someone you get +50 focus)
4) Termination —> Resistance is Futile (This is underused but by far better overall DPS. The main downside is that it takes so much extra effort to use it well, and that extra effort should be going into more important things than min/maxing damage)
Best Hunter PvP Spec – Glyphs
Prime Glyphs
I choose Glyph of Arcane Shot, Glyph of Chimera Shot, and Glyph of Kill Shot. Some high rated hunters use Steady Shot instead of Chimera Shot. This one really is just preference. I use dismiss pet as an alternative to Steady Shot most of the time, so I don’t get many steady shots off in an arena setting, making Glyph of Chimera Shot better for me. I don’t think any other prime glyphs are worth taking for a hunter PvP spec.
Major Glyphs
I choose Glyph of Master’s Call, Glyph of Concussive Shot, and Glyph of Disengage most of the time. These aren’t all required for the best hunter PvP spec, as they are heavily comp reliant, and some can even be changed based on what comp you’re playing against. The main alternatives here are:
1) Concussive Shot —> Raptor Strike (This is something I do vs caster cleaves that tunnel me a lot)
2) Concussive Shot —> Trap Launcher (This is something a lot of other high rated hunters use instead. I rarely ever use the spell Trap launcher though, so I find the glyph to be near worthless)
3) Master’s Call —> Freezing Trap (This is something I do against RMP or similar comps sometimes, when I know I can rarely get the full 4 extra seconds out of the Master’s Call glyph anyway, and a lot of the time the priest will get left behind out of a trap because the mage and rogue are tunneling something around a pillar, forcing the priest to use an extra global on a self dispel a lot of the time)
4) Disengage —> Ice Trap (This is something I do in 5′s a lot)
5) Any other glyph —> Silencing Shot (This is very situational and I would rarely recommend this, but it can be good)
I rarely or never use any other major glyphs. It’s very situational. Don’t treat those 5 things like they’re rules or anything either, do what makes the most sense to you in your situation. That’s all for this post on the best Hunter PvP spec. See you in the arena!
