As a level 10 hunter, you earn one of the best perks of being a hunter - your hunting pet. To earn your pet you have to complete a series of quests. We want to help you complete the quests efficiently and enjoyably. This is the place for information on: 1- Where to go to start the Beast Taming Quest Chain, 2- Tips for the Beast Taming Quests, and 3- Where to Find Each Beast.  

So, Where Do You Start?

All Hunters must perform the beast taming-training quest chain in the area designated for their race. You cannot accept and perform these quests if you are not in your own race-specific area. (The identity and location of race-specific quest givers is detailed below.) This is nominally a five-quest chain, however, the only purpose of the first quest is only to send you to the one Hunter Trainer for your race who can give you the beast taming quests. If you go to any other hunter trainer at level 10 for your usual even-numbered level training, that trainer will offer you quest 1 in the chain as well as your training. If you go directly to the Hunter Trainer listed below for your race you can skip the first quest and proceed with the rest of the chain.

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Where are the Quest Givers?

Alliance

Draenei | Dwarf | Night Elf

Horde

Blood Elf | Orc & Troll | Tauren

 

Alliance

Draenei

Huntress Kella Nightbow- Interestingly, the Draenei receive their quests from a Night Elf. You will find Night Elf Huntress Kella Nightbow on the docks west of the Exodar. near Valaar’s Berth. This is on the west coast of Azuremyst Isle south of the Exodar. Azuremyst Isle (24,54)

Dwarf

Grif Wildheart hands out the quests to dwarf hunters. You will find him in in Kharanos, Dun Morogh, directly across from the Kharanos Inn, on the west side of the road up on top of a little hill. Dun Morogh map (45,52)

Night Elf

Night Elf hunters need to see Dazalar <Hunter Trainer> in Dolanaar. You will find him standing just outside the east entrance to the Inn. Dolanaar (56,59)

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Horde

Blood Elf

Lieutenant Dawnrunner is your source for quests if you are a Blood Elf. You will find her inside the building at Farstrider Retreat standing next to the fire pit. (60,62)

Orc or Troll

Both Orc and Troll hunters receive their hunter taming quests from <Hunter Trainer> Thotar, in Razor Hill. (52,43) As you enter Razor Hill from the south Thotar is downstairs in the building on your left.

Tauren

Tauren hunters should seek Yaw Sharpmane <Hunter Trainer> for their taming quests. You will find him in Bloodhoof Village. (47,55) He is standing at the entrance to a tent, and Reban Freerunner <Pet Trainer> is standing next to him.

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Tips for the Beast Taming Quests:

Locating the Beast | Taming the Beast

Praticing with the Beast | Dismissing the Beast

Taming a More Permanent Pet After Quest #4

 

Locating the Beast

Use your beast tracking skills to find the beasties you seek. (Hover over the icons that appear at about 10 to 11 o’clock on your mini map in the upper right hand corner of your screen. One of them will say “click to choose tracking type” when you hover over it. Use that and select beast tracking.) For the location of the beasts you seek for Quests 2 through 4 and the conclusion of Quest 5 select your race below. Alliance Draenei Dwarf Night Elf Horde Blood Elf Orc or Troll Tauren  

Taming the Beast

Placing the taming rod (or taming totem) on your item or action bar is a great idea. This keeps it handy for use when you find the proper beastie to tame. In order to tame a beast you must target it (with a left click or with the tab key) and then right click the taming rod or totem. The beastie will approach you and you will see little hearts floating above his head. He will attack you. DO NOT ATTACK the beastie. Allow him to hit you and DO NOT MOVE. After several hits the beast will stop attacking and will be your pet. At this point you get credit for the quest, even if your pet runs off before you can return to the quest giver. If you attempt to tame a beast and see “Invalid Target” when selecting the beast make certain you are targeting the exact beastie you are supposed to tame. For example, make sure it is a nightsaber stalker, not just a nightsaber, or a dire mottled boar, not an elder mottled boar, etc. If you should accidentally destroy the taming rod/totem abandon the quest, and then go get it again. You will receive a new taming rod or totem. If the taming rod/totem appears gray and you cannot use it, then you are still using the rod/totem from the last quest. Remove the old rod/totem from your bar and use the new one. See Preparing for the Next Taming Quest for more information.

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Practicing with the Beast

This is a good opportunity to try attacking a few mobs using your new pet to see what this is like. After you complete all three beast taming quests you will select a pet to keep for a longer period of time, so you may want to see if one of these three is right for you. You have 15 minutes to practice with each pet you tame during this quest series. After you complete this quest chain you can also tame other critters you find wandering about. Indeed, you can tame most any beast you can find, assuming your level is high enough, but you can only have one pet at a time with you. Later on you will want to learn all about the stable masters and, essentially, boarding your pet there so that you can have multiple pets. (The stable master is sort of like a bank for pets.) This is also a good time to find out how your pet reacts when you change his status from Passive to Defensive or Aggressive. There may be times when you want your pet to stay by your side and not attack while you pull mobs, or not pull aggro from a mob, etc. Note that at this point you do not have any beast training skills such as Feed Pet, Call Pet, etc. You will not be able to feed your beast, so he will be unhappy with you and will ultimately run away if you do not dismiss him.

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Dismissing the Beast

Between each taming quest you have to dismiss the beast you just tamed. Don’t do this while you are standing next to it, because it will immediately attack you! Use your new beast controls to tell the beastie to Stay, run away to a safe distance, use the Dismiss command, and then be ready to fight in case it tracks you down. The Stay command is on the pet bar; the pet bar appears on the left just above your action bar when you get a pet. To access the Dismiss command right click the portrait of the pet; you will then see Dismiss in the drop down menu.

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Preparing for the Next Taming Quest

You will get a new taming rod or taming totem with each quest. Each rod/totem that you receive is for a specific beast. Hover over it and you will see which beast it is intended for. A new rod/totem will appear in your backpack after you accept the next taming quest in the chain. Before you begin taming a new beast for the next quest in the chain you must replace the old taming rod/totem that you received for the previous beast taming quest. Just place the new rod/totem on your action bar on top of the old one. The old (grayed out) one will come off and you can drop it on the ground. You will keep the taming rod that you get from the trainer at the beginning of the fifth and final quest in this chain and use it to tame your more permanent pet.

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Taming a Pet to Keep

After you complete Quest 4 in the five-part quest chain you still do not have any beast training skills such as Feed Pet, Revive Pet, Call Pet, etc. You will get these when you complete Quest 5. You can go ahead and tame a pet of your choice, but just be aware that you will not be able to feed your beast, and he will be unhappy with you until you can do this. You should be able to keep him with you for long enough to get to the Hunter Trainer or Pet Trainer indicated for completion of Quest 5. It would be a good idea to have some food on hand to give your beastie as soon as possible after you obtain the Feed Pet ability. Bring up your character profile and click the tab for your pet. Here you will see your pet’s stats including what he eats and the status of your relationship with him. At first he will be rebellious, but over time he will progress through the stages of unruly, submissive, dependable, faithful, and finally, man’s best friend. His loyalty rating determines how much you have to feed him and how many training points you get for him. His loyalty rating is based on how happy he is. Monitor the face next to the portrait of your pet: red and frowning is unhappy, a yellow face is content, and the green smiling face is happy. Feed your pet to keep him happy, and try to keep him alive. Your pet does more damage if he is happy and his loyalty rating increases. You can start off by feeding your pet lower level food, but as he levels up you will have to feed him higher level food for best results. To feed your pet (after you complete the fifth quest so that you have that ability,) right click on the feeding icon (looks like a dog biscuit) and then click on the food you want to give him. Let him finish it (you can see the progress on the smiley face just like a cool down,) and then see if his happiness has increased sufficiently. If you have trouble with this check the pet tab on your character profile to make certain you are feeding him the proper food.

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Specific Beasts & their Locations

Alliance

Draenei Beasts:

Huntress Kella Nightbow will send you to find the following beasts: Quest 2: Taming the Beast 1st beastie- Barbed Crawler - These big crabs are found along the western coast of the isle. Head south-west, into the water or to the Silvermist island to get these guys. Quest 3: Taming the Beast 2nd beastie- Greater Timberstrider; northern reaches of Azuremyst Isle. Head up the road to the north of the city to find these big birds. Quest 4: Taming the Beast 3d beastie- Nightstalker; Return to the same area where you found the greater timberstriders, up the road north, just past the city. Quest 5: Speak to Ganaar, at the Trader’s Tier, in the Exodar. He’ll give you the rest of your skills and a nice crossbow. Click here for a Map of Azuremyst Isle showing the location of Huntress Kella Nightbow and the Draenei beasts.

Locating the Beast | Taming the Beast

Praticing with the Beast | Dismissing the Beast

Taming a More Permanent Pet After Quest #4

 

Dwarf Beasts:

Grif Wildheart will send you to find the following beasts: Quest 2: Taming the Beast 1st beastie- Large Crag Boar in the valley to the south-east of Grif Wildheart; in the area of (47,56) to (49,54); also to the west. Quest 3: Taming the Beast 2nd beastie- Snow Leopard in the valley to the south-east of Grif Wildheart; especially towards the southern end of the valley in the area of (48,58) to (49,54) Quest 4: Taming the Beast 3d beastie- Ice Claw Bear; in the valley to the south-east of Grif Wildheart, especially in the north east of the valley; around (49,53) Quest 5: Speak to Belia Thundergranite <Pet Trainer> in the Hall of Arms, Ironforge to complete this chain. You will find her standing next to a cannon in the Hall of Arms, which is in the southeast corner of Ironforge in the Military Ward. Hall of Arms (70,85) Ironforge. Also available here are Regnus Thundergranite or Olmin Burningbeard, hunter trainers, for the next time you need training in this area. Click here for a Map of Dun Morogh showing the location of Grif Wildheart and the Dwarf beasts.

Locating the Beast | Taming the Beast

Praticing with the Beast | Dismissing the Beast

Taming a More Permanent Pet After Quest #4

 

Night Elf Beasts:

Dazalar will send you to find the following beasts: Quest 2: Taming the Beast 1st beastie- Webwood Lurker- close to Dolanaar, especially east of Dolanaar north of the road. Teldrassil (57,56) Quest 3: Taming the Beast 2nd beastie- Nightsaber Stalker- south of Dolanaar to the west and to the south of Lake Al’Ameth - Teldrassil (46,74) Quest 4: Taming the Beast 3d beastie- Strigid Screecher- found west of Dolanaar along the road to Darnassus just west of the blue paved bridge Quest 5: Speak to Jocaste, Hunter Trainer, in the Cenarion Enclave, in Darnassus (40,9) You will also find the pet trainer on a higher level in the same building. Click here for a Map of Teldrassil showing the location of Dazalar and the Night Elf beasts.

Locating the Beast | Taming the Beast

Praticing with the Beast | Dismissing the Beast

Taming a More Permanent Pet After Quest #4

 

Horde

Blood Elf Beasts:

Lieutenant Dawnrunner will send you to find the following beasts: Quest 2: Taming the Beast 1st beastie- Crazed Dragonhawk - just south of Farstrider Retreat; run out the back door at Farstrider Retreat and look around Quest 3: Taming the Beast 2nd beastie- Elder Springpaw - just south of Farstrider Retreat; run out the back door at Farstrider Retreat and look around Quest 4: Taming the Beast 3d beastie- Mistbat - the Ghostlands; follow the road south and cross the bridge into the Ghostlands. Mistbats are flying about the woods on both sides of the road. Quest 5: Speak to Halthenis the beast trainer of Silvermoon City Special Note: You can pick up the quest The Fallen Courier just before you cross into the Ghostlands to look for your Mistbat. Collect the 4 Plagued Blood Samples from beasts in the Ghostlands at the same time that you tame a Mistbat. The Mistbat will help you to hunt down the beasts and fulfill this quest. This gives you some good experience in controlling and hunting with a beast and gets you 1000 reputation with Tranquilien, too! If you do The Fallen Courier don’t worry if your Mistbat flys off and leaves you before you get back to Farstrider Retreat; you still get credit for taming it. Just return to Lieutenant Dawnrunner at Farstrider Retreat and turn in the quest. Click here for a Map of Eversong Woods and Map of the Ghostlands showing the location of Lt. Dawnrunner and the Blood Elf beasts.

Locating the Beast | Taming the Beast

Praticing with the Beast | Dismissing the Beast

Taming a More Permanent Pet After Quest #4

 

Orc & Troll Beasts:

Thotar will send you to find the following beasts: Quest 2: Taming the Beast 1st beastie- Dire Mottled Boar - You can find them quite close to Razor Hill; look to the south on both sides of the road. Quest 3: Taming the Beast 2nd beastie- Surf Crawler - Search in the waters off the coast, across from Sen’jin Village, on the western shores of the Echo Isles. Quest 4: Taming the Beast 3d beastie- Armored Scorpid - Look to the west of Razor Hill just south of the road. Quest 5: Speak to Ormak Grimshot in Orgrimmar, Valley of Honor (67,18) Click here for a Map of Durotar showing the location of Thotar and the Orc and Troll beasts.

Locating the Beast | Taming the Beast

Praticing with the Beast | Dismissing the Beast

Taming a More Permanent Pet After Quest #4

 

Tauren Beasts:

Yaw Sharpmane will send you to find the following beasts: Quest 2: Taming the Beast 1st beastie- Adult Plainstrider- You will find these to the south of Bloodhoof Village. There are other Plainstriders all over Mulgore, so be certain you are looking for the Adult Plainstrider. Quest 3: Taming the Beast 2nd beastie- Prairie Stalker- You will find these north-west of Bloodhoof Village, north of the lake and west of the road to Thunder Bluff. Quest 4: Taming the Beast 3d beastie- Swoop- Look for Swoops north of Bloodhoof Village, north of the lake and east of the road to Thunder Bluff. Quest 5: Speak to Holt Thunderhorn <Hunter Trainer> on the Hunter Rise in Thunder Bluff. (57,88) Click here for a Map of Mulgore showing the location of Yaw Sharpmane and the Tauren beasts. The Azeroth Cookbook is a WoW blog with World Of Warcraft tips, guides,PvP and general info, but very little cooking.

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 Hunters are like warriors in the World of Warcraft, they are strong, dependable, and have great skills to move up the levels swiftly. While a hunter and warrior are alike in many different ways, the hunter is also kin to the warlock in the fact that they can have a pet to use as a tank to draw the mob’s damage off of them. But, unlike a warlock, the hunter can train and use just about anything for their pet. This is great in the fact that it will allow you to train all sorts of different animals, reptiles, and monsters to use as pets in different areas of the game.   With each different type of pet you train, you will gain a new ability that you can then pass on to your main pet. Some of the different areas of training that you can use for your pet include: bite rank and claw rank. Like the warlock, you can keep a couple of pets at a time. To do this, you should find one main pet that you really like to use and when you want to train something else to learn a new skill, you can stable this pet so you have the ability to go out and train another. Most larger cities will have stables where you can “park” your main pet in order to train a new one. (These are usually located in an open space in the center of the city, near the mail box or the flight master.) But, unlike the warlock, when you are training a new pet and using one for a tank, you will need to feed it. Different pets prefer different foods, such as meat, fruit, and eggs, all of which you can find through vendors in each town. When you are training your pet, you’ll need to make sure that you have enough food for the both of you so neither of you suffer. Because the two of you will need food, cooking is a must have for the hunter so you can use the raw meat that you loot from mobs to help feed both you and your pet. As you level through the game, you’ll find that with each different level you hit, you’ll gain new spells and abilities. From tracking to marksmanship, each different ability will enhance your skills and allow you to send your pet in to tank, while you use your weapons from afar to kill the mob. By practicing this skill, you’ll be able to gain more xp without gaining too much damage that you will have to heal on yourself. You should start to practice sending in your pet as soon as you gain the ability to train a pet.   To choose the right pet, you should try all sorts of different ones. Some players stick to cats due to their swiftness and strength and their ability to heal fast. Other players prefer boars for the same reasons. And, there are those that prefer reptiles, such as the scorpids, for other reasons. No matter what your personal preference is, you should always train new pets throughout your time in the World of Warcraft to get a full range of the different abilities and skills that come with each different type of pet. While you are training different animals and reptiles for your pets, keep mental notes about which one’s you like better than others and why. (This will help you to choose your main pet later in the game.) If you find a pet that you like along the way, keep it and stable it when you need to train other types of animals for their skills. By doing this, you will ensure that you have the perfect pet for you. When you start to run instances with a group, you should find the best and most powerful pet for that instance. Cats, boars, and bears are always great choices for instances due to their strength and speed in a fight. You can choose which you prefer, as cats are great for instances where you need stealth to sneak on mobs, bears are great for brute strength for large mobs, and boars are great for their toughness and speed as well. As for which is the best pet, there is no sure fire way to tell, which is why there are so many options in the game for hunters. Try training several different pets and just see which one works best for you as you quest and grind your way through the game. No one can tell you the perfect pet for you, you must learn this on your own through trial and error to see which pet is best for your character. If you play a WoW hunter and have a guide that you have written and you would like to see it on this website please feel free to drop me an e-mail to get it listed on this site. Be sure to bookmark this page and check out the other guides to improve your hunter and other World of Warcraft characters.

The Hunter’s Guide to Being Useful Written by Gedrah, 60 Orc Hunter of Stormscale (PvP\US) Greetings! I have written this guide to provide my fellow Hunters with a resource from which to learn how better to play their class in 5-man group and raid situations. Very few people learn the subtleties of assisting a group without painful experimentation, often involving embarassing and spectacular failures. Herein, I hope to eliminate some of this process and give out a long list of tips to help you be the skilled, low-maintenance DPS machine you were built to be.   In the past, a lot of people have mocked the Hunter class and generally viewed them as useless, having no role and offering nothing to a group that other classes don’t offer, only better. This is quite untrue, and in my 100+ days /played on this character, I and my Hunter brethren have come up with a lot of useful and interesting tricks! A skilled Hunter is a powerful asset in nearly any group or raid. In content patch 1.7, the Hunter class underwent many significant changes which allow them to specialize in various directions to offer even more utility or DPS. Since a Hunter now differs hugely from his brethren depending on his talent choices, this guide will often fork in three directions on each subject, offering a Beastmaster’s, Marksman’s, and Survivalist’s perspective on the issue. Lastly, be aware that this guide is UNDER CONSTRUCTION at all times!   I. What can I do? A simple question. If a group leader asked you what you’d bring to his group, how would you answer? These are some of the key features of your class and some of the clever tricks you can use to benefit your group. * You deal excellent, easily-sustained ranged DPS. All of your ranged attack abilities have 36 yards of range (Or 41 yards of range with at least 13 points in the Marksmanship tree) which often enables you to avoid nasty AOE attacks and gives you a great view of the battle, allowing you to see what’s going on. What’s more, your attacks are never dodged, blocked, parried, or resisted, and they infrequently miss. This gives you very consistent and reliable DPS. * You have the best de-aggro abilities in the game, which can guarantee that you will not steal aggro from a tank. Feign Death, with a 30 second cooldown, allows you to drop 100% of your aggro as if you’d died. If feign death is resisted and you take aggro, you can use Disengage, a melee range skill similar to the Rogue’s Feint, which reduces your aggro with a targeted enemy. If all else fails, you can use your pet (With Beastmastery talents like Intimidation) to take the mob’s attention off you until a tank can deal with it. * Your primary CC skill, Freezing Trap, can have a great effect on battles. It affects any type of mob that is not immune to CC, and lasts 20 seconds (Or 26 seconds with 2 points in the Clever Traps Survival talent). This trap must be placed while you are out of combat, but you can use Feign Death to get out of combat during a fight to drop another Freezing Trap, and then use a skill such as Distracting Shot to pull a mob into it. Since patch 1.6, Hunter traps can be resisted, so always have a backup plan in case your trap fails (You can reduce the failure rate of your traps by 10% with 2 points in the Trap Mastery Survival talent). * Hunters can give themselves excellent awareness of their surroundings. Using your Tracking abilities, you can monitor the pathing of patrols, determine the size of groups of enemies, or look for rare spawns and other named NPCs. Using Eagle Eyes (which only works in the outdoors) you can send your view ahead to find a good path to your objective or spy on things that can’t be seen with tracking abilities. Using Eyes of the Beast, you can send your pet ahead to scout for you. Even if your pet aggros mobs, those mobs will not attack you as long as your pet is killed or desummoned without bringing the mobs back to you. This gives you a zero-risk scouting unit that can go places you dare not. Lastly, using Flare and Track Hidden, you can detect stealthed or invisible enemies before they ambush your group. If stealthed enemies are nearby, flare ahead of you before moving on! * Your Debuff, Scorpid Sting, reduces a mob’s damage output, critical strike rate, armor, and dodge rate. Use it! Tanks will take less damage and enemies will take more damage. Since multiple Scorpid Stings on one mob will not stack, if there are multiple Hunters in a group, designate one to use Scorpid Sting and the rest are free to use other stings. * Compared to a caster, you and your pet are very durable. Often a healer in your group will take aggro from one or more mobs with heals. In these situations, they will not survive long. You can save them, however! Using your abilities cleverly, you can take aggro from the casters or otherwise stop the mobs from killing them. It’s almost always better for you to die than your group’s healers. You can use distracting shot to take a mob’s attention and then try to tank it or kite it around until a real tank is able to deal with it. You can feign death and place a freezing trap to incapacitate the mob. You can use your pet to take aggro from the mob and tank it while you use Mend Pet to heal it. Be creative! If the Healers survive, the chances that your group will survive are greatly increased. * Wing Clip and Concussive Shot provide you a great means of slowing down fleeing mobs. If you know a mob will run at low health, run up and Wing Clip it before it does. If a mob starts fleeing before you can do this, use Concussive shot. It only lasts a few seconds, but that buys others time to catch up to it. Beastmasters can use Intimidation to stun the mob for a few seconds, and Marksmen can use Scatter Shot to do the same. * When your group must fight numerous enemies, you can use Explosive Trap and Volley to damage them all at once. Normally a Mage or Warlock will do the majority of the area of effect damage in a group, but that doesn’t mean your help won’t be appreciated. Stay out of combat until the caster starts to AoE, then drop an explosive trap right in the middle of the group of mobs you’re fighting. Afterward, back off and use Volley on them. Sometimes your Mage might prefer that you drop a Frost Trap to slow the mobs down so he can AoE kite them. If you have the Survival talent Entrapment, this can be a very effective tactic. * Organization and communication turn a bad group into a good one. Hunter’s Mark can greatly assist with communication. Before a pull, use Hunter’s Mark to designate the first enemy you want your group to kill, while everyone uses crowd control abilities on the remaining enemies. As your group kills enemies, use Hunter’s Mark to designate each mob you want killed in turn. This will greatly reduce the number of CCs broken early and help keep everyone on the same mob, ensuring that the battle is won quickly. * If you are the main puller for your group, you have the ability to completely abort a bad pull with no casualties. Create a macro which yells out “BAD PULL! ABORT!” and then triggers your Feign Death ability. If you accidentally pull more mobs than your group can handle, you can use this macro to let your group know to stay away from you. That way, even if your Feign Death fails, you’ll be the only person that dies. In order for such an abort to succeed, you must make sure your group leaves space between themselves, you, and the mobs you’re about to pull. If you don’t mind sacrificing your pet often, you can ensure safety even for yourself by using your pet to pull. As of patch 1.7, Hunters and their pets do not share aggro, so if you send your pet to attack an enemy but you do not attack it yourself, those mobs will not come after you when your pet dies or is despawned. * Feign Death offers you more than a chance to lay traps and shed aggro. You can use it to leave combat during a fight and eat, drink, or resurrect people using Goblin Jumper Cables. A potential wipe can be averted through use of this tactic, and as such, Hunter Engineers are highly valuable in instance groups. On the subject of eating and drinking: Some people will consider it selfish of you to eat or drink while they are still fighting, and in some cases, it’s not worth cancelling Auto-Shot to regain mana. Use this technique wisely and try to understand other players’ jealousy * Scare Beast is a very powerful and resilient crowd control ability. It allows you to fear a Beast class mob for up to 20 seconds, and usually takes a considerable amount of damage to break. Mobs feared by this ability tend to run very far away from you, so make sure if you choose to use it that there are no other enemies nearby which might be alerted by the fleeing beast. Try hitting the mob with Wing Clip just before or just after you use Scare Beast to reduce the distance it will flee while feared. * With the ultimate Survival talent, Wyvern Sting, you can cement your role as the main puller in a group. It puts a mob to sleep for 12 seconds, and when the mob wakes up, it suffers a strong DOT. Like traps, you must be out of combat to use Wyvern Sting. A great way to use this ability is to sting the first mob that you intend your group to kill, have the group CC the remaining mobs, and kill the Wyvern Stinged mob when it wakes up. With Wyvern Sting and Clever Traps, you can crowd control two mobs in one pull, making it much easier to sort out CC in large pulls. * If you are properly Beastmastery specced with a resilient pet such as a Crab, Bear, or Turtle, your pet can very much survive tanking even powerful mobs. It will never tank raid bosses, but it makes a very capable offtank. Learn talents such as Thick Hide, Endurance Training, and Improved Mend Pet. Train your pet with abilities like Natural Armor, Great Stamina, and various resistance boosts. A Hunter Pet can easily end up with 5000 Health and 6000 Armor, and he has his own dedicated healer… You!   II. What Shouldn’t I Do? It sounds like a simple question, but with the diverse things a Hunter can do, there are a great many things he can do wrong. * If you are serving as the main puller–That is, the first person to get mobs’ attention and bring them to your group–Do not use abilities like Aimed Shot or Multi Shot to pull. Your goal is simply to aggro the mobs and bring them to your tank so he can take control of them. Using high-damage abilities to do this makes the tank’s job harder. Pull with a low-rank Arcane Shot or a simple Auto-Shot. * Do not fire Multi Shot near crowd controlled mobs. Multi Shot doesn’t care what it hits–Sheep, neutral mobs, critters, distant roaming patrollers. With experience, you’ll get a feel for how Multi Shot selects additional targets. In the meantime, be very careful with it. When in doubt, stick to single target attacks. A CC broken early is a headache for your group and could even cause a wipe. Hunters are smooth criminals and shouldn’t make that type of mistake! * Do not Feign Death without first thinking “If I completely lose my aggro, who will take it?” The mobs that are attacking you when you Feign Death might immediately go after a Healer, and that is bad. You can tank much longer than they can, so always consider the consequences before you feign. It might be better to run toward a tank and ask him for help with the mob instead of feigning death. Alternatively, you can kite the mob around the room using Wing Clip until someone else is able to deal with it. Use discretion! * Don’t forget to buy a full bag of ammo, repair your equipment, and buy pet food before going leaving town. ALWAYS. You never know what you might end up doing when you step onto the Wind Rider. If you find yourself low on supplies in the middle of an instance, you could become useless and the group leader might kick you. Next time, he’ll just invite a mage. They can conjure their own “ammo”. Always strive to make your class look good by being prepared. * Do not fire your DoT, Serpent Sting, until you’re sure the mob you’re attacking is not going to be crowd controlled. Serpent Sting will break CCs each time it ticks. I have a hard time grouping with affliction-specced warlocks because they always love to spam DoTs on the first thing they see, which is usually the mob I am trying to lure into a Freezing Trap. Again, communicate. If you do accidentally use Serpent Sting on a mob that should be CCed, you can overwrite it with Scorpid Sting, which will not break CC abilities. * DO NOT lose control of your pet. Perhaps the greatest source of peoples’ trepidation about inviting Hunters to their groups is past experiences they had in which a Hunter’s pet wiped them. Regardless of your talent choices, you are a master of wild beasts! Always know where your pet is. Always know what he’s attacking and what he’s going to attack when his current target dies. Always keep a firm leash on him and make sure you don’t let him go anywhere that he’ll aggro mobs you don’t want to aggro. ALWAYS leave your pet on Passive mode in instances. If he is on Defensive mode, he will often react to things you don’t want him to. Aggressive mode is right out of the question! Manually choose your pet’s target and hit Ctrl-1 to make him attack. Pets also travel using the same system as NPCs, meaning that if you jump off a cliff, your pet may not. He could aggro a lot of mobs by taking the long way. If you have any doubt that your pet will follow you as you want him to, you can despawn him or use Eyes of the Beast to manually make him jump off a cliff ahead of you. If your pet ever does get away from you and aggro mobs, do whatever you can to make him stay away from you. You might be able to stay out of combat and let your pet die rather than train half an instance to you. * Do not steal aggro from a tank. You have the least excuse out of any class to fail at controlling your aggro. Wait for your tank to land at least 1 Sunder Armor on a mob before you start attacking, or else at least start off slowly with only Auto-Shot. As the tank establishes aggro, you can begin using Arcane Shot, Multi Shot, and Serpent Sting to do more damage. If you take aggro, you can use Disengage to reduce your aggro. Often the best course of action, especially in Raid encounters, is to use Feign Death as often as possible during the fight to ensure that your aggro level never gets high enough to take a mob’s attention. * For all of our sakes, please do not roll against Rogues, Warriors, or Paladins on melee weapons unless they have stats which benefit your ranged attacks. +x Agility, +x% Chance to Crit, +x Attack Power, +x Ranged Attack Power, +x Stamina, +x Intellect. These make good Hunter weapons. Yes, you will need to melee sometimes, but a weapon which is purely for melee without any stats benefiting your class is probably better off in the hands of a melee class. This a controversial subject and my statement here is more of a suggestion designed to help Hunters avoid generating animosity by rolling on less-than-ideal weapons that are of much greater benefit to melee classes. I’m nobody’s master, just an old Hunter that’s seen a lot of painful arguments. If the Dwarven Hand Cannon (http://www.thottbot.com/?i=17204) dropped, you sure wouldn’t want to get outrolled by a Rogue or Warrior, because they would fire it once in a blue moon and it provides no stats that benefit them in melee. Extend them the same courtesy and don’t roll on pure melee weapons.   III. Things to Watch Out For: Not necessarily Dos or Don’ts, but things you should know: * You need 8 clear yards between yourself and your target in order to use your ranged attacks. Stairways, narrow hallways, and obstacles are your worst enemies. If you’re pulling, you can relocate most battles to anywhere you want. Always pull the mobs to a place which gives you plenty of room to fight and manuever. Communicate with your group and make sure they know that your ranged attacks don’t work on mobs that are close to you, and to keep the battle a short distance away from you. As always, control your aggro or else mobs will come toward you, forcing you to stop firing and move. * Viper Sting sounds great in theory, but many instance mobs have so much mana that you can’t possibly drain it all. Experiment to find out which mobs these are. You’re often better off using Serpent Sting or Scorpid Sting to help the mob die faster instead of trying to drain its mana. * In the past, I advised Hunters not to expect Healers to pay attention to their pets. This was back when Hunter Pets had marginal DPS and survivability, and the lack of a pet display on the UI made it difficult to monitor them. Now, however, Hunter Pets can deal incredible damage and tank very effectively if their masters set them up correctly. The default UI allows you to display party members’ pets’ health. If you are Beastmastery specced, you should indeed ask that the group’s healers treat your pet as a member of the group and heal them. Repay them by using your pet to save their lives if they take aggro via healing. Don’t forget to ask for buffs for your pet, as well! * Make sure your group knows to treat you like a caster. While you are still an effective damage dealer without mana, you cannot use skills without it. Get a mage to give you water and Arcane Intellect. Make sure healers remove mana-draining debuffs from you. It’s easy for them to think of you as being in the same crowd as Warriors and Rogues, but you’re not! * If a mob engages you during a battle and you can survive tanking it for a while, shoot at another mob instead of trying to run from it. You’ll waste a lot of time and DPS trying to run from a mob so you can continue shooting it. Often it’s better to just pick another target. Once the other target is killed, your group will turn their attention to the mob hitting you, and you can back off to fire at it. * Use the Marksmanship talent, Scatter Shot, to interrupt caster mobs’ spells or to stop an enemy from hitting your healers for a moment while you send your pet to peel it off of them. Many mobs that are immune to slowing effects are still vulnerable to Scatter Shot. As such, you can use Aspect of the Cheetah and Scatter Shot to kite these mobs. A good example of this is the dragonkin in the Razorgore encounter of Blackwing Lair. * Tab targeting is an excellent UI function, but use it wisely. Make absolutely sure that the mob you’re about to shoot is the one you mean to shoot. It’s easy to accidentally target distant, non-engaged mobs using tab and wipe your group by aggroing them. It’s wise to turn off Auto-Shot before changing targets with tab until you’re comfortable enough with your class to effectively target without mistargeting. * It’s almost always better to pull groups of mobs away from their spawn area, into a cleared room where there is no danger of aggroing additional mobs. This sometimes causes extra danger due to respawning patrols, but usually it’s a good strategy. Other classes may not understand how you’re operating at first. Be patient with them, convince them to stop crowding you at the edge of the aggro radius of whatever group you’re pulling. The concept of “Stay back and I will pull to you” is foreign to many Warriors who are used to body pulling (Walking up to the mobs to aggro them). Make a macro which says “Move Up” and train your group not to advance in the dungeon until you use it. That way, you can control when your group will move to a new room much more easily. * In order to pull ranged attacking mobs out of their spawn area, you must use a “Blind Pull”. Fire at the group, and then immediately move behind some obstruction. When ranged attackers cannot see you to attack you, they will stop and run toward you until they can. Lure them to where you want them! The same functionality can be obtained when fighting certain caster mobs by using a spell interrupt ability on their ranged spell, but this is unnecessary with a Blind Pull. Make sure that during a Blind Pull, your group knows not to attack the enemies until they are where you want them, or the Blind Pull will fail. * Many Warriors insist on being the group’s main puller so they can open with Charge to build initial rage for tanking abilities. Remind them that if you are the main puller, he can still use Charge when the mobs reach the spot to which you are trying to pull them. Alternatively, he can use Bloodrage to build intital rage instead. * Groups will expect you to be low-maintenance DPS. If you use your abilities correctly, you will not get hit very much at all compared to other classes. If you are taking a lot of damage, there is a large chance that you are playing your class incorrectly. Don’t be a mana sponge to your healers! Figure out how to stay in the distance, killing enemies while they are powerless to damage you!   IV. Choosing Gear Hunters, like Druids, Paladins, and Shamans, are a hybrid class. As such, it can be difficult for them to choose gear at times. Unlike Rogues and Mages, who can focus exclusively on 2 of the 5 primary stats, Hunters have at least some need of almost all of them. Here I’ll briefly discuss how each stat affects you and what you should look for in items. Strength: Your least useful stat. You can be sure that an item which provides little other than strength is a bad Hunter item. For each point of strength, you gain 1 melee attack power and nothing else! Agility: Your most useful stat. Items with high agility are the staple of your equipment. Each point of agility gives you 1 melee attack power, 2 ranged attack power, 2 armor, and a marginal amount of crit and dodge. If you have the Survival talent, Lightning Reflexes, each point of agility counts as 1.15 points. Stamina: A basic stat useful to every class. More stamina equals more HP. Don’t sacrifice *too* much agility for stamina, but make sure you have enough to survive the inevitable melee encounters you’ll face. Each point of stamina gives you 10 HP. Intellect: Yeap, you’re a caster! Like it or not, almost all your abilities use mana. Each point of intellect gives you 15 mana and nothing else. In the past, we thought that Intellect affected the critical strike chance of certain Hunter abilities, but this has been disproven. Spirit: Spirit, simply put, raises your mana and health regeneration rate. Unless you’re a troll, spirit won’t help you regenerate health when you’re in combat. I’m not a math genius, so I’m not sure exactly how much mana regeneration 1 point of spirit provides! Take it if you can get it, but don’t go out of your way to gain spirit. Crits: Increasing your chance to crit by 1% requires about 53 agility. As such, items which flatly increase your chance to crit are very valuable to you. Strike a good balance between attack power and % chance to crit. More attack power means bigger crits, which help you kill things quickly. Now that you know how the most common stats benefit you, you can start selecting gear for various purposes. PvP: In PvP, you’re going to take a beating no matter what you do. Your gear should provide a lot of Stamina, followed by Agility and then focus effects like +Crit, +Parry, and +Dodge. Extra mana helps you sustain battles longer, so go for +22 Intellect enchants on your weapons if you can afford them. A ‘glass cannon’ (Something which causes a lot of damage but is easily destroyed) does not fare well in most PvP. Solo PvE: Focus on a balance of agility and stamina as normal. Marksmen, and especially Survivalists with Lightning Reflexes, should focus heavily on agility to boost their damage output. Beastmasters rely on their pets very heavily. As such, they will need more mana than other Hunters to sustain their pets with Mend Pet. A little spirit to help you regenerate mana between fights is also helpful. As a general rule, the more damage you can deal without expending mana, the faster you can grind. Raid PvE: Have enough mana to use your damage abilities and utility skills and enough health to survive errant damage effects, but focus on raising your attack power and then your critical hit rate. Your goal is to deal as much damage as humanly possible while not taking aggro or getting damaged. If you’re doing this correctly, you won’t need as much health as you do when PvPing against people who see Hunters as an easy mark. If you’re a Beastmaster, chances are you’ll need to spend a lot of time and mana keeping your pet healed against deadly AoE effects. As such, Beastmastery is not the most efficient raiding build. Melee Weapons: Arguments over which melee weapons a Hunter should and should not roll on rage non-stop. Hunters do need to melee sometimes, but they should avoid it when possible. As such, you should choose weapons which have stats that benefit your ranged attack power and crit chance, or else they are useless when you’re doing what you do best: Shooting things! Examples of good Hunter melee weapons: Barbarous Blade: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=35869 — +Crit and +AP affect ranged attacks. DPS is also decent for use as an actual melee weapon. Dal’rend Swords: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=18260 , http://www.thottbot.com/?i=23785 — Many people will tell you these are not Hunter weapons, but in truth, they are great for Hunters. 1% crit and a set bonus of +50 AP on a dual-wield set, which enables you to use two +15 Agility enchants (Adding another 60 AP and .56% crit) The armor and defense skill are also not without merit. Typhoon: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=35900 — Agility, Stamina, excellent damage. Also note that this is not an ideal Warrior weapon because of its high speed relative to weapons like the Arcanite Reaper, which squeeze more damage out of Warrior abilities like Mortal Strike. Examples of bad Hunter melee weapons: Blackhand Doomsaw: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=20827 — Provides absolutely no benefit to your ranged attacks. Unless you melee disproportionately often, this weapon is wasted on you, and if you take it from a melee class, it may damage your reputation. Gatorbite Axe: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=39657 — Same as above. This weapon is useless except to people who melee as their primary means of damage output. Barman Shanker: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=14900 — If you roll against a Rogue on this weapon, he may have a heart attack and die. Its slow speed makes it excellent for use with Rogue abilities, but in your hands, it is just another trash weapon that won’t do you much good. Ranged Weapons: Generally speaking, you want the highest-DPS ranged weapon you can find. If you are comparing two ranged weapons with similar DPS, choose one that has a slower attack speed. Not only does this reduce the amount of ammo you’ll use, it also raises the damage you’ll cause with Multi Shot and Aimed Shot. This is less of a concern for Hunters than it is for Rogues and Warriors, but slow ranged weapons are still better. You may prefer a fast weapon for PvP, as it will interrupt casters more often, but this is a matter of preference.   V. In Closing… The Hunter class is extremely versatile. You can see the whole battle whereas melee classes only tend to see what’s immediately nearby them. Your abilities can do a lot of clever things to help prevent tragedy and you can control yourself better than anyone else. Use these facts to your advantage at all times. Don’t be clumsy. Our class suffers a long history of bad reputation, and it’s all of our jobs to fix it by amazing other players with our usefulness. Just as I share herein what I have learned, so should you share with others what you have learned! Post your new techniques here, or roll a character on Stormscale and send me an ingame mail–It won’t take you long to earn 30 copper. Once again, this guide is always UNDER CONSTRUCTION, so check back from time to time for new additions.

Warlocks were mages that delved too deeply into the roots of demonic power. Consumed by a lust for dark knowledge, they’ve tapped into chaotic magics from beyond the world. The Burning Legion now feeds them their powers, allowing them to channel destructive energies and call upon the powerful emissaries of their demon masters.” -Blizzard Entertainment I. Overview The Warlock is a more involved class to play. Warlocks have minions, many different spell combos, and a reagent component (Soul Shard) requirement for some of their spells. This means that it will take a bit more learning than some of the more straightforward classes. The Warlock has a lot of very cool and fun abilities including Eye of Kilrogg, Fear, minions and more. The Warlock is a very fun and versatile class to play once you figure things out. Strengths • Can use minions for fun and to attract enemy aggression. • Can create Soulstone which allow self or resser resurrection. • Can create healing potions in the form of Healthstones. • Can summon other players using Ritual of Summoning. • Can breathe underwater using Unending Breath. • Can summon a Felsteed or Dreadsteed demon horse as a mount. • Can use Eye of Killrogg to scout. • Can take control of a Demon for a short amount of time. • Can heal themselves using Life Drain, Siphon Life, and Death Coil. • Can solo very well, by using a minion to act as a group of two characters complementing each others’ skills. Weaknesses • Can only wear cloth armor. • Very fragile and easily killed in certain situations. • Soul Shards take up inventory space. Challenges • Mastering Soul Shard collection and usage. • Managing Monster Hate between you and your minion. • Controlling both your minion’s and your own skills to ensure high efficiency. II. Soul Shards The Warlock requires Soul Shards for certain spells and minions. You receive a Soul Shard by using “Drain Soul” on a monster as it is dying. A catch is that you cannot get Soul Shards from monsters that don’t give experience. So you can’t go into a newbie region and kill easy monsters for Soul Shards. Each and every Soul Shard takes up one slot in your bags, which means you don’t want to carry a whole lot of them. However, you do always want to have some in your bags so you can summon your minions. When using Drain Soul you cannot do anything else such as move, attack, or cast another spell, or be interrupted. If you do not stand still, the Drain Soul will not work. You will need to learn how to do this properly, which can be challenging. Soul Shards do not stack. This is for balance reasons and so you won’t hoard huge numbers of them. If you find yourself without Soul Shards you will have to get them without the use of most minions, which can sometimes be a challenge. Imps can be summoned without the use of a Soul Shard so you can use them to get your Soul Shard along with DoTs, and then switch to a more powerful minion.   III. Warlock Minions Minions require knowledge and skill to control. Learn which minion to use based on the situation. Read up on hate management. The channeling spell Health Funnel is useful with minions as it gives health to it every second as long as the caster channels. Use this ability by having your minion attack and then channeling health into the minion. Then, if you need health, cast Drain Life, use a potion, or have someone who can heal you. This is a leash spell so it cancels if the target runs out of range or if the spell is interrupted. Imp - The Imp you get from start and it is actually a good minion to use if you’re in a party because of his reasonable damage output and the very nice Stamina buff his blood pact gives or solo for the same reasons. He blasts the enemy with a ranged attack called Firebolt. This is the only minion you don’t need a Soul Shard to summon and don’t have to worry about aggroing mobs with because of Phase Shift an ability the Imp receives. Voidwalker - At level 10, the quest to get the Voidwalker becomes available from the Warlock trainers. The VW is an ideal soloing minion as he is the tank a caster needs so badly. The VW has massive hit points and can use the Torment skill to attract monsters’ anger, but its damage output is very low. Requires Soul Shard to summon. Succubus - At level 20, your Succubus quest is available. This minion inflicts a high amount of damage on your foes, but is rather fragile. The Succubus has an amazing damage output, especially when attacking monsters with Lash of Pain. It is also good at crowd control with Soothing Kiss and Seduce to mesmerize a humanoid for a short while. In groups and for dueling this sometimes is a good choice. Personally, I don’t use it solo as the Imp has turned out to be the most effective unless I am dueling certain classes. Requires Soul Shard to summon. Felhunter - At level 30, you can begin the quest series which will reward you with the ability to summon a Felhunter. This minion is the best against enemy casters. Requires Soul Shard to summon. Inferno - Summons a meteor from the twisting nether, causing 200 Shadow damage and stunning all enemy targets in area for 2 sec. An infernal rises from the crater, under the command of the caster. Once control is lost, the Infernal must be Enslaved to maintain control. Requires a reagent. Usable outdoors only. The quest for the Infernal can be found in Felwood. The summoned Infernal will now be enslaved for 5 minutes before turning on its summoner. Ritual of Doom - Begins a ritual that sacrifices a random participant to summon a doomguard. The doomguard must be immediately enslaved or it will attack the ritual participants. Requires the caster and 4 additional people to complete the ritual. In order to participate, all players must right-click the portal and not move until the ritual is complete. Requires a Demonic Figurine as a reagent. The Ritual of Doom quest can be found in the Tainted Scar. Felsteed - Summons a Felsteed, which serves as a mount for the caster. Speed is increased by 60%. This mount is the result of a level 40 quest which is very short and simple. This mount is commonly known as a Nitemare by players. No shard required.   Dreadsteed – Summons a Dreadsteed, which serves as a mount for the caster. Speed is increased by 100%. This is also given was a quest reward at level 60. It is somewhat expensive and a pretty difficult quest but is by far the best looking mount in the game! No shard required.   IV. Stones The Warlocks can create special stones that they can use themselves or give to other players. Notable is that these Stones vanish when you log out, which means you can only use them in the same game session that they were made (comparable to conjured Water from Mages). Healthstone (requires Soul Shard) - Creates a Healthstone, which is essentially a health potion. There are different ranks of these, from Minor Healthstone that gives 100 Health, up to Major, which gives a whopping 1200 Health. I don’t find myself going through the effort of getting a Soul Shard and crafting a Healthstone with it worth the price at lower to medium levels - perhaps high levels. Soulstone (requires Soul Shard) - Creates a Soulstone. The Soulstone can be used to store one target’s soul. If the target dies while his soul is stored, he will be able to resurrect with X health and mana. Conjured items disappear if logged out for more than 15 minutes. This is best to be placed on yourself if soloing or on a Paladin or Priest if you are with a group or raid so you are able to recover from disaster. Firestone (requires Soul Shard) - Creates a Firestone which can be equipped in the off hand. When equipped, enchants the main hand weapon with fire, granting each attack a chance to deal additional fire damage (Damage depending on rank of spell). Spellstone (requires Soul Shard) - Creates a Spellstone. The Spellstone removes all magic effects from the caster and will also absorb up to X magic damage for the next minute.   V. Curses The Warlock has several types of curses and it is up to the player to decide what is best for the particular enemy. Curses can only be cast on the enemy, and you can only have one curse active at a time. The last curse you cast will override the previous curse on the monster. All curses are instant cast so you typically always cast one before or after your initial slow cast DOT like Corruption or Immolate. Curse of Weakness - Damage caused by the target is reduced. This can be useful from time to time when the situation requires it, but I consider this the least used Curse. When soloing at low levels this is probably the Curse of choice, but as your level gets higher it gets less useful and your other Curse options become better. Curse of Recklessness - Increases the damage of the target but greatly reduces their armor. This is a good group-based spell that is especially good to cast on monsters that are trying to run away. If the group got a good tank that won’t mind the extra damage output of the monster, then this can be the best Curse. Curse of the Elements - Increase Fire and Frost damage. This ability is good to use when playing with other casters who use those types of spells. Personally, I use a lot combined with Immolate and a Wand that does Fire damage plus the Imp minion who also does Fire damage. Curse of Agony - Curses the target with agony. Causes large damage over time and has been powered up a bit since last push which now should be a valid option. Curse of Tongues - Suitable against enemy casters as it is slowing down their casting time by X% by forcing them to speak in demonic. X=50% @ Rank 1, 60% @ Rank 2

Gear is of course very important in PvP. Teamwork, strategy, and skills are all vital, but those will never completely overcome discrepancies in gear. If you think that by skill alone you can dominate other players, consider that eventually you'll meet someone who has just as much skill as you but far better gear, or even someone who's significantly worse than you but can kill you because of superior gear.   3.1 Weapons   3.1.1 Melee Weapons Dual-wielding versus using two-handed weapons is one of those questions that pops up constantly. In general, dual wield in PvE and use a two-hander in PvP. The rationale for choosing 2H weapons is that 1) the overall stats from a 2H-er are typically better than two 1H-ers, 2) raptor strike is based on weapons damage and thus the higher the max damage of the weapon, the harder hitting the raptor strike, 3) you will not be spending much time in melee so melee DPS is not as important. If you take my advice, you will choose the highest damage 2H you can find with the best stats. A typical "poor" hunter will have a slow green "of the monkey/bandit" 2Her. Disregard this advice if you are in a bracket where you can get 2 1Hers that give better overall stats than 1 2Her, or if you constantly find yourself in prolonged melee situations (where the DPS of dual wielding will be superior to 1H). In that case, choose the 1Hers as long as you don't mind weaker raptor strikes.   A final issue to note is that dual wielding allows for an enchant on each weapon. This difference is particularly important to twink hunters in lower brackets such as when considering between +25agi to 2H or two +15agi to 1H.   3.1.2 Ranged Weapons Similar to with melee weapons, generally you will want to pick whatever ranged weapon has the highest max damage, particularly since aimed shot, scattershot, and multishot are based on max damage. This will mean the weapon has a relatively slow speed, since comparable weapons in a level bracket will have the same overall DPS (the higher the max damage, the slower the weapon must be).   Note that weapons damage is normalized such that faster bows will still hit hard, but the normalization does not completely negate the difference since it only affects RAP, not the base damage of the weapon. I won't go into all the math; but suffice to say, a slower bow with high max damage will hit significantly harder with aimed and multishot. This becomes even more important with critical hits, once you factor in the various talents that increase critical damage.   An additional minor consideration is that slower bows use less ammo, and incur less repair cost since there is a chance of the weapon suffering damage each time it is *used*, meaning that everytime you actually shoot the weapon, that is when there is a chance of damage. If you're using something the Hurricane with Improved Aspect of the Hawk and Rapid Fire on frequently, your repair costs are going to be fairly high, not to mention the cost of ammo. There are at least mods out there that will automatically use junk ammo for those shots and stings that don't rely on weapon damage, but it's a pain to have to manage this.   One advantage must be mentioned about faster bows, which is that they are better for caster interrupts. A fast bow with Improved Aspect of the Hawk and Rapid Fire along with a pet can lock casters down. Also, +dmg scopes on bows affect each shot, they do not add DPS (i.e. unlike ammunition), and thus a faster weapon will benefit more from scopes.   Another dilemma is whether it is worth paying much more money for a blue ranged weapon that has slightly higher DPS than a green one. The answer is that a small amount of additional DPS is not *that* important for PvP. DPS really becomes noticeable over very long PvE boss fights where you can shoot uninterrupted for quite a while. Apart from that, doing one more DPS at lvl19 isn't going to make or break your game. It is far more important to look at weapon stats and max damage, and much of your DPS will come from your attack power versus the bow's damage itself.   Finally, sometimes the question is asked of whether to use a gun or bow. Aesthetic differences aside and racial bonuses aside, a reason to use a gun is if engineered bullets are available at that level. At lvl70, blue arrows are much cheaper than blue bullets. Some people prefer bows because they are less noisy, and thus less likely to attract attention.   3.2 Armor   3.2.1 Stats As explained in the stats section, focus on armor that gives +crit, +agi, +sta, and +ATK.   3.2.2 Mail At lvl40, hunters begin wearing mail. Mail armor mitigate physical damage by a significant amount over leather armor, and thus can be thought of somewhat as giving extra health against physical attacks. Hunters after 40 should transition primarily to mail, since there is no drawback to using it. If you're on alliance side, you will find plenty of mail in the AH since we are the only class that primarily uses it (versus on horde side, where you'll be competing against shamans, although fortunately shamans tend to prefer different stats).   Don't discount leather completely, however. Some pieces of leather armor such as from easy quests give noticeably superior stats than green mail, so it may be worth sacrificing some armor in order to get better stats. Also, due to poor hunter itemization at the time of the writing of this guide, it is sometimes difficult to find good hunter items that focus on our primary stats. A lot of mail is hybrid shaman gear which contains properties that are not as useful in PvP such as mana regen. Sometimes, regretably, hunters resort to wearing leather to improve their DPS.   3.3 Enchants Most enchants have no level requirement so they are particularly useful in lower brackets. +7sta means a lot more at lvl10 than at lvl60. Some feel that using such enchants particularly in lower brackets is unethical for various reasons. I am not going to comment on that here; it is up to you to decide whether that is an issue. Suffice to say, there are many enchants available to us and they can significant improve our performance.   Even if you do not "twink" your character with all the best enchants, it is worthwhile to research which enchants are relatively cheap and thus worth getting anyway. Also, learn about enchant component prices, since those tend to fluctuate in the AH. If you're patient, you can get enchant components at very cheap prices. Adding to this, often farmers sell enchants on trade chat for very cheap, because they are not able to use the AH (this is particularly an issue amongst farmers who illegally share an account). Finally, once in a blue moon, an enchanter will sell enchants for free. All in all, if you're patient and somewhat researched, you can keep up to date on enchants without blowing a huge amount of money on them.   Similar to enchants, you can also buy armor kits and scopes to be applied to your items, although unlike enchants these have level requirements. Note that the level requirement for these is based on your item level, not your own level or the item's minimum level requirement. You can often through questing get items that you can still use at your level even though they are high level items. One noted example is the Master Hunter's Rifle, which is a lvl43 item that is available for completing a lvl29 quest. At level 29, you could buy a sniper scope but you can't apply it yourself because you are not level 40. However, you can get someone to apply it for you through trading as with any other enchant.   3.5 PvP rewards   The primary reason for playing battlegrounds is of course for the rewards. Battlegrounds offer a variety of good rewards, some of which are better than comparable loot from of the same level bracket. In general, PvP rewards are suited for PvP and not as useful for PvE, and vice versa. This is perhaps an obvious point, but it was not always true prior to the PvP rewards undergoing a revamp. In general, PvP rewards emphasize survivability (resilience, sta) whereas PvE rewards focus on DPS and sustainability, such as with mana regen.   3.6 Buying Armor   Be patient checking the AH for items. Item prices fluctuate tremendously, particularly on epics, and you can sometimes get epics for really cheap through trade chat via farmers (who need to sell their items immediately because they can't use the AH). I've seen purples in my 40-49 bracket fluctuate between 20g and 200g.   You can check thottbot for the items usable in your bracket. Note however that this is not always so obvious because unlike in the case of weapons, you can currently only search by armor level, not level requirement, so you may miss high level armor that are still usable at your level. I usually search for a few levels above (e.g. lvl 45-55) and then manually see what's available at lvl49 for me. Also, you may miss BoE or quest items entirely since those items themselves may have no level requirement.   3.7 Instance Loot   Even if you're rich, you won't necessarily be able to get the best loot for your bracket unless you plan accordingly. The best loot tends to be bind-on-pickup, and often you can get loot that is overpowered for your bracket by running higher-level instances. Kaliban's Class Loot Lists is one of the best resources out there for figuring out what instances for each class.   Other than looking at Kaliban's master hunter loot list, you can also compare your equipment against players who advertise their profiles in your bracket. Allazkhazam and thottbot both allow you to search on profiles. You can search by some relevant term such as ordering by HK for all level49 hunters. Looking at these profiles won't necessarily give you the very best equipped hunters, however, since there are comparatively few players who actually advertise themselves on those sites. Still, it is better than nothing.   Speaking of which, one important note worth mentioning is that if you plan carefully ahead for 20-29 bracket, you can get the coveted Master Hunter's Rifle/Bow, which is a lvl43 item! I will later post the gory details of how to acquire this weapon, but if you get it, you will have a sizeable advantage over all but the best twinked characters in your bracket. The MHR/B not only is significantly better than anything else you can buy or get in 20-29, but it also can be equipped with a +7 scope since it is a high level item. Other weapons in this bracket are stuck with an inferior scope.   OK, this is about World of Warcraft Hunter's PvP Guides: Equipment. More information and guides come soon....

Survival Talents (Part 1) Overview Not about necessarily improving your hand-to-hand combat ability, but about getting out of combat and staying out of it, which covers traps and a lot of agility-based abilities. Also adds more burst damage because of the talents based around extra crit bonuses and damage dealing. NOTE: With traps being visible in patch 1.10, that has changed some people's gameplay using them in PvP. Tier 1 - No Prerequisites Monster Slaying - rank 3/3 (Increases all damage caused against Beast, Giants, and Dragonkin targets by 1/2/3% and increases critical damage caused against Beasts, Giants, and Dragonkin targets by an additional 1/2/3%.) Decent ability; adds about 300 to a 2,000 point crit and even less for a non-crit. At a 250 point Auto Shot hit, it adds about 8 points of extra damage. It does NOT increase crit chance, only damage for any attacks you do against them - normal shot, special shots, traps, and so on. Humanoid Slaying - rank 3/3 (Increases all damage caused against Humanoid targets by 1/2/3% and increases critical damage caused against Humanoid targets by an additional 1/2/3%.) Decent ability; adds about 300 damage to a 2,000 point crit and even less for a non-crit. At a 250 point Auto Shot hit, it adds about 8 points of extra damage. Some say it is a decent place to put points in if you need to go further down the tree and don't like the other talents in the tree and want to get involved in PvP. It does NOT increase crit chance, only damage for any attacks you do against them - normal shot, special shots, traps, and so on. It does work in PvP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q u o t e: Note from Seluhir of the Shattered Hand server on Monster and Humanoid Slaying: On a 1000 damage attack, you'll gain 30 base damage, making it deal 1030 damage. Doesn't seem like much. When it crits, however, you'll ACTUALLY do 2120 damage, not 2060; effectively adding 12% crit damage. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hawk Eye - rank 3/3 (Increases the range of your ranged weapons by 2/4/6 yards.) A must-have for the Survival tree. This gives us an extra 6 yards of safety where only other Hunters can reach us in PvP, plus it also gives us more distance in PvE from the target, keeping us out of most AoEs. In fact, it is a major staple in most builds for the distance it allows you to have from your target. Savage Strikes - rank 2/2 (Increases the critical strike chance of Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite by 10/20%.) Hunters aren't built to be involved in too much hand-to-hand, but could be useful if you like both Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite, plus you use them a lot. Exceedingly helpful if mobs or the other faction get into melee-combat range. That jump in crit chance, on top of any other crit bonuses you might have can make players want to avoid getting into close-combat range with you. Tier 2 - Requires 5 points in Survival talents Entrapment - rank 5/5 (Gives your Immolation Trap, Frost Trap, and Explosive Trap a 5/10/15/20/25% chance to entrap the target, preventing them from moving for 5 sec.) If you love using traps or being involved in PvP, this is pretty helpful. With the 2.0 patch, we now have the ability to lay down a trap in the middle of combat. Putting down a trap is still instant, but it takes two seconds to arm itself. If something runs over it within those two seconds, it won't go off. After that, it will. Some say it's definitely worth putting at least 1 point into it just for the chance it might proc in a Frost Trap. This talent is very helpful for kiting mobs - Frost for one or two and Explosive for a big group to whittle them down. A warning though - in PvE, if a Frost Trap captures a monster, they will initiate a melee attack on the nearest player. If it is a cloth wearer, it could be messy. Deflection - rank 5/5 (Increases your Parry chance by 1/2/3/4/5%.) An excellent talent in the Survivalist tree. Add this in with Counterattack, and you'll be able to keep the target in a near stun-lock. Great for PvP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q u o t e: From Jeddite of Deathwing: The base Parry rate for a Hunter is 5% and that Parry can be increased only (currently) by talents or specific equipment bonuses. 5/5 Deflection increases a Hunter's Parry rate from a statistical 1-in-20 attacks to 1-in-10 attacks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Improved Wing Clip - rank 3/3 (Gives your Wing Clip ability a 7/14/20% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.) An excellent ability if you want to be involved in PvP or expect to get into hand-to-hand combat a lot. Tier 3 - Requires 10 points in Survival talents Clever Traps - rank 2/2 (Increases the duration of Freezing and Frost trap effects by 15/30% and the damage of Immolation and Explosive trap effects by 15/30%.) It can be great for PvP, except that Freezing Trap will only last a max of 15 seconds (20 seconds at level 60), with or without this talent. For PvE, the extra 6 seconds is great. Plus, the extra damage on Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap is always good for both PvE and PvP. People have said many underestimate the power of this talent as the Freezing and Frost trap can be a big help in PvP. Survivalist - rank 5/5 (Increases total health by 2/4/6/8/10%.) Can help some if you rarely get buffed. Gives 200 extra hit points to someone with 2,000 hit points. Deterrence - rank 1/1 (When activated, increases your Dodge and Parry chance by 25% for 10 seconds. A requirement for Counterattack 1/1 points. (5 minute cooldown. Instant.)) This, plus the Deflection + Imp. Aspect of the Monkey + and Counterattack can almost make you Neo. Not quite, but pretty damned close. Especially helpful for when you need to get away from someone beating your head in with a stick. Or a stone. Tier 4 - Requires 15 points in Survival talents Trap Mastery - rank 2/2 (Decreases the chance enemies will resist trap effects by 5/10%.) Helpful if you like traps, but not so much if you don't. Good combo w/ Entrapment and Trap Efficiency in PvP. Some don't like it even with the other two because their traps are rarely resisted. Surefooted - rank 3/3 (Increases hit chance by 1/2/3% and increases the chance movement imparing effects will be resisted by 5/10/15%.) Very helpful for PvP and adds to your overall DPS. A very solid ability. Improved Feign Death - rank 2/2 (Reduces the chance your Feign Death ability will be resisted by 2/4%.) Not much use until end-game, and almost none in PvP. If you are raiding end-game content, this could be helpful to ensure safer pulls if you are the one going in, pulling the targets, and then feigning death if you overpull so you can start again. Tier 5 - Requires 20 points in Survival (Counterattack also requires 1 point in Deterrence) Survival Instincts rank 2/2 (Reduces all damage taken by 2/4%.) A nice addition to helping you stay up and going. Nothing dramatic and can be skipped, but also can be helpful. Killer Instinct - rank 3/3 (Increases your critical strike chance with all attacks by 1/2/3%. A requirement for Wyvern Sting.) Anything that adds to your critical strike chance is very helpful in the long run. Killer Instinct is the same as Mortal Shots when it comes to DPS in the long run. Counterattack - rank 1/1 (A strike that becomes active after parrying an opponent's attack. This attack deals 40 damage and immobilizes the target for 5 sec. Counterattack cannot be blocked, dodged, or parried. (45 Mana. 5 yd. range. Instant cast. 5 sec. cooldown.)) This is viewed as the reason to put 21 points into the Survival tree and not 31 points in another tree. Deflection + Counterattack adds a LOT of survivability. This is a debated ability - some say it is quintessential while others think it isn't as good as it seems. Your mileage may vary. At rank 3, it does 110 point of base damage without any bonuses from talents. (NOTE: Imp. Aspect of the Monkey only helps with Dodging attacks, not parrying attacks.) Survival Talents (Part 2) Tier 6 Requires 25 points in Survival talents Resourcefulness – rank 3/3 (Reduces the mana cost of all traps and melee abilities by 20/40/60% and reduces the cooldown of all traps by 6 sec.) If you are going for a Survival/PvP build, this talent is probably rather important for your build. Note that it is only truly useful in melee combat or the cost of your traps, not any of your ranged abilities. Lightning Reflexes - rank 5/5 (Increases your Agility by 3/6/9/12/15%.) Great talent, but not as helpful if you don't have very solid +AGI gear. Still a very well-respected and liked talent overall. Helps a lot in the higher end-game. Tier 7 - Requires 30 points in Survival talents Thrill of the Hunt – rank 3/3 (Gives you a 33/66/100% chance to regain 40% of the mana cost of any shot when it critically hits.) A somewhat useful talent. Useful when using your Stings, Aimed Shot, Multi-Shot, Volley, and Arcane Shot. If you are in hand-to-hand combat, this won’t make any difference. Wyvern Sting - rank 1/1 (A stinging shot that puts the target to sleep for 12 sec. Any damage will cancel the effect. When the target wakes up, the Sting causes 300 Nature damage over 12 sec. Only usable out of combat. Only one Sting per Hunter can be active on the target at a time. Requires 3/3 points in Killer Instinct. (115 Mana. 8-35 yd. range. Attack speed. 2 min. cooldown.)) Considered the 31 point talent of the Survival talent tree. At rank 3, it does 600 damage. Situational and countered by Will of the Forsaken & Abolish Poison. Due to its needing distance (like most shots), it isn't good for close range emergency escapes. It is very good for initial crowd control and against healers. Also helpful against casters and Warriors to take them out of the fight early. Long cooldown makes it not as useful as it could be. Does give time to line up an Aimed Shot and send your pet into attack though. Expose Weakness – rank 3/3 (Your ranged criticals have a 10/20/30% chance to apply an Expose Weakness effect to the target. Expose Weakness increases the Attack Power of all attackers against that target by 25% of your Agility for 7 sec.) This ability will be a big help in raiding or long battles. It is still helpful in shorter battles, but not as crucial in raid encounters. Tier 8 – Requires 35 points in Survival talents Master Tactician – rank 5/5 (Your successful ranged attack have a 6% chance to increase your critical strike chance with all attacks by 2/4/6/8/10% for 8 sec.) This ability helps make your damage output somewhat comparable to a Marksmanship build. A requirement to take Readiness. Tier 9 – Requires 40 points in Survival talents and 5 points in Master Tactician Readiness – rank 1/1 (When activated, this ability immediately finishes the cooldown of your other Hunter abilities. Instant cast with a 5 minute cooldown.) A great emergency ability - if you are in PvP and you need to use another Wvyern Sting or lay down another trap. In PvE, you could use it for the same reasons or if you do a really bad pull and your Feign Death was seen through. The choice here would be whether you want to pass up Scatter Shot from the Marksmanship talents or Intimidation from the Beast Mastery talents. This talent choice comes down to a playstyle decision. A very good talent, but possibly would have been better as a 35 point talent.