First, I realize my bizarre build isn't for everyone. I've sacrificed ranged DPS to round out my Hunter's skill set; to allow her to survive in melee combat if necessary and to become a serious candidate for primary CC in instances.
If you aren't comfortable with this, that's completely fine. The above build is a dedicated ranged DPS machine designed to do as much damage as a Survival build is capable of doing while also maintaining the raid-feeding Expose Weakness proc which will make physical DPS classes the world over love you to death.
Key talents:
Marksmanship
Lethal Shots - 5% crit. You know you love it.
Imp. Hunter's Mark - the effect of this stacks with Expose Weakness.
Rapid Killing - Rapid Fire. Know it. Love it.
Mortal Shots - Like I need to go in depth on this one.
Survival
X Slaying - Free damage is rarely bad.
Hawk Eye - Since you're in this tree anyway, if you skip it I'll slap you.
Blah blah traps, blah blah deterrence. Good place for filler points since it adds CC and survivability.
Surefooted - Important for the +3% to hit. This will allow you to wear slightly less +hit gear in favor of slightly more +ap gear, meaning more damage overall.
Survival Instincts - In addition to reducing damage taken, it also now increases your RAP by 4%.
Killer Instinct - I hear you say you want more crit? Well then.
Lightning Reflexes - AGILITY = LIFE
Expose Weakness - the great equalizer. Any damage a Marksman or even a Beastmaster has on you in The Meters (dramatic score) will be made up here. All that attack power multiplied by the number of physical DPSers in your raid... c'est formidable.
Wyvern Sting - a filler point, but it's a great Squishy-saver if your traps are currently occupied.
Master Tactician - A ranged-attack proc'd bonus to crit chance. What's not to love? With this up I have 34% crit chance, and that's in my quested blue gear. Plus it's a prerequisite to Readiness.
Readiness - Is it good? Oh yes. I need to do a post on this detailing why it's so great.
"What, no mana-saving talents?" I hear you whisper. Nope, not a one. Quick answer: use Aspect of the Viper. Long answer: Take 15 seconds out of your DPS time and drink some water if you need to. We can leave combat whenever we please without blowing a 5-minute cooldown to do so, and it's a tremendous boon. Not on top of The Meter? Wrong blog.
5 comments:
> Not on top of The Meter? Wrong blog.
LOL...you almost have me wanting to jump from BM to Survival...almost.
-- Siferbooze on Echo Isles
S'all about what you wanna do - competent Hunters of any spec will dish out tons of damage just by virtue of being Hunters. It was worth it to me to sacrifice an e-peen inflating position on The Meters for the sure knowledge that I have helped my pug/real group/raid as a whole excel.
Although my damage is in no way gimped! Lower base damage supplemented by a vastly higher crit rate is hugely powerful, especially with the build I posted here - the combination of Master Tactician and Mortal Shots is absolutely frightening.
SURV FTW!!1!!11!!!eleven
I just respecced a couple of days ago because our guild didn't have a surv hunter and I'm a CC fiend, so I figured it would be fun. In full DPS gear I have 25.63% crit and 603 agility. I only have about 8050 hit points and paper doll dps is ~260-270, both unbuffed. I can get up to about 8500 health if I swap in my stam gear, but I lose 50 or so agility from this. Should be running either gruul or kara tonight, so it will be fun to see exactly how this build does for raiding.
I levelled MM/surv from 10-70, then switched over to BM for bestial wrath to escape the fears in arena. BM was not for me, and the whole time I was MM I thought that was my favorite spec, but now I realize it was the points in surv that actually made me like it. BRK has officially lost his place in my favorites list at work. Whatcraft is now king, keep the posts coming.
Booooo creepy red pet,
Hooray Readiness
J, didn't mean to sound like I thought BM was the better spec. I just found your dig at BRK humorous. I read his site a lot and have actually learned much. My hunter is my first character and I need to learn as much as I can, that's one of the reasons I read your site as well. I have seriously been interested in the SV spec and may jump one day but I'm still getting my head around the class in general.
Also, sorry to hear about your loss. My grandmother passed away recently as well and I know what you mean about expecting it but not necessarily being ready.
Keep the posts coming. :)
Thank you for your sympathy.
The best spec is obviously whichever one you're happy with. Most BM hunters went BM because of the leg up it has on base damage, so I feel it's necessary to remind people that SV is not the "weak" spec - something SV hunters already know, but more converts is never a bad thing!
tehkrons: Thanks! I tried BM too and ran into the same thing, I just didn't enjoy myself with it. As soon as I went full SV I started having a blast. I have I think 23.50% crit, 616 agility and ~1520 attack power, but then I haven't started raiding anything yet and am still wearing a few greens.
Readiness forever,
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