[Hunter] - leveling hunter tips requested

[uke]

So on a whim, I respecced my 62 hunter from BM to Marksmanship over the weekend. Playstyle is a total night and day difference.

Where as BM, I'd basically spam steady shot with arcane shots weaved in while my pet whittled the mob down, MM has about 4 instant shots that hit HARD. I like the 1200 dmg crits.

The main drawback is that my pet can't hold aggro worth jack. Though it doesn't really matter as in the span of a serpent sting, chimera shot, aimed shot, arcane shot, the mob is usually always dead. And if not, improved concussion shot+ the talent that dazes on chimera shot makes for an easy kite for the last shot or two to finish them off. Rapid Recuperation+AotViper tops me off on mana after every kill quickly. I was able to basically 4 shot an equal level rogue yesterday using this technique (and I was lol'ing when he was trying to stealth with hunter's mark on him ).

Another drawback is that my pet is a much smaller portion of my damage, but this could be a plus as I'm not gimped if it dies.

Definately a fun playstyle, figure i'll give it a shot until at least northrend.

[Doogiehowser]

Between a Misdirect macro to your pet and FD, I found that it was easier to just go all out from the get go while leveling MM. By the time a mob gets close to you, it's pretty much dead. Once you get Kill Shot, it becomes even easier to pew-pew.

Enjoy the big flashy numbers! I know I sure do.

[fafhrd]

pally numbers are bigger for the most part

or at least flashier, omgdivinestorm

[uke]

Bumping thread because someone else requested info on this.

Quick update, hunter just dinged 78 last night. I tried all three specs off and on at various levels and have come to the conclusion that while MM or Survival are 'doable' to level with, BM is still hands down THE leveling spec for max efficiency and ease.

For anything more than 2 mobs, you want to go with a tenacity pet. Thunderstomp is critical for "whoops, I got 3 mobs aggro'd to my pet and I need to heal him without pulling aggro". Also, tenacity pets are able to tank group quest elite mobs pretty well, whereas the other pet types will have a much tougher time. You won't kill quite as quickly as a ferocity pet, but you won't be in trouble if you aggro multiple mobs, which will happen...a lot. That, and it's fun on "kill 10 wolves" quest to just round up and burn down all 10 wolves at once...quest complete.

I really tried giving both MM and Surv a shot, and while it was fun watching big crits go across my screen, it got old always having to backtrack and kite when I pulled aggro from my pet (which was literally every single time). It was fun at first, but not something that was enjoyable (or even that efficient) to try to do for 20 levels. With BM, you can have your pet plow through everything as you pew pew.

I don't get the people who go "BM is easy. Just lolautoshoot until you're 80!". I 'could' just lol-autoshoot my way to 80, but I'd like to get there before the end of the year. Simple rotation, open with arcane shot, 3x steady, and repeat. It's fairly simple, but still quick and efficient. If your pet has 2-3 mobs at a time, mix in multishots when off CD (assuming you have a tenacity pet doing thunderstomp to hold aggro).

Set up a macro to misdirect onto your pet. When aoe grinding, send your pet after mobs, and misdirect up to 3 more that your pet isn't near to get a nice group. Also, misdirect+multi shot gets a good aggro hold on up to 3 mobs as well.

For a tenacity pet, I liked bears and gators most. Bears have a nice swipe for aoe aggro coupled with thunderstomp. Gators have bad attitude, which comes in handy for large aoe pulls. Between the Longevity talent and the time it takes for me to skin everything I killed, it will be up by the next pull.

My hunter will likely become my main once he dings 80, though I'm not sure what spec. I really like BM, which is stronger in 3.2 than in 3.1, and probably going to be even stronger when full pet scaling takes effect in 3.3, so we'll see how it goes.

Hope this helps.

[uke]

Forgot to add, if you play on a PVP server, Bestial Wrath+The Beast Within+disengage makes you almost gank-proof vs. anything that cc's. Many a lolstunlock'ing rogue has found out the hard way

[hoho]

people who said they are leveling faster as non-BM, how much XP/h did you get? I pulled around 300k/H without rest bonus at L76 when grinding on gorillas in Basin. They were 2-3 levels higher than me and I looted+skinned them all. Lots of time was spent running around finding something new to kill. Doing quests I was around same level or a bit lower. Had I not skin+loot I'd probably pulled >400k/h easily but then much bigger part of time would have been spent finding things to kill. Also, I desperately needed a ton of leather for leatherworking

Also, I soloed that 5-man quest where you need to kill that dragon in Dragonblight, not to mention every single other 3-man quest there and I did them all before L74.

[fafhrd]

Not contesting how good BM is for it, but I don't think soloing quests is all that hard anymore. I soloed every single quest while levelling my warrior recently too, and soloed almost every single quest while levelling my hunter as MM (with a gorrilladin) when wrath came out. I suspect just about every class except maybe some of the squishies can solo group quests if they put their minds to it nowadays.

[Kelaan]

Things dying Way Too Fast (and a handy raptor strike ) make me less worried about pet threat..

I did notice that my hunter logged out in TBC in his "farming" gear: mana return trinkets (mushroom and Mark). As Survival, is mana enough of a concern to warrant that (~400 mana back per kill, I expect), or will I be fine using normal DPS trinkets?

[bub64882]

Just take your hunter to Alterac Valley. Levelling via AV in the 70-80 bracket is insane.

[Viycktor]

I started leveling my hunter again recently. After being MM at 60, and leveling to 70 as MM (I duoed most the way and did lots of instances with guild) I finally decided to try leveling as survival. (I have played as BM, especially for the time I raided at 70 with him, it was just boring)

I kinda like leveling survival. Scatter shot + wyvern sting + low CD traps all allow you to do quite a bit.

And explosive shot... well... I usually just send my pet at one mob, pull another into a trap (I now have LnL), dot the mob with the pet (black arrow + SS) and blow up the trapped mob. 2 full explosive shots will usually kill it (with the extra auto shot in there), 3 and I'm just showing off.

Replenishment is nice and with high agility/crit gear selection 40% mana back from crit shots means I can go for quite a while without having to switch our of AotH (as of recently it's AotDragonhawk )

Also, with Surv I have soo many kiting tools. To put it in perspective, this hunter has rok and lok (old school yo), so I'm no stranger to kiting in a pinch. While it hasn't been a major issue (particularly with him being able to fly) the CC tools are helpful in the event of a PvP encounter (most players these days seem willing to live and let live).

[hoho]

Just take your hunter to Alterac Valley. Levelling via AV in the 70-80 bracket is insane.

Any hints on xp/h there? My druid is around 73 atm and would love to get it to cap asap without spending much time

[Punkss2]

granted I have rested xp and heirloom shoulders and chest, my hunter got about 5 bubbles of xp this morning in about 1 and a half AVs.

[bub64882]

Yeah, I don't have numbers, but you make minimum 2 bubbles every AV. Had 2 guildies at 77 on Friday, and they hit 80 by Saturday night. Really helps when your faction is on a winning streak though. If you find yourself on a losing streak go quest, come back and try later.

[uke]

Well I finally dinged 80 on the hunter a couple days ago, wasted no time in working on getting geared up. Been running normal ToC till I get sick of it and got a decent set of boots and belt so far. No heroic mode drops yet, though (WTB Marrowstrike and that gun that drops).

One thing that's terribly annoying that I didn't have to care about when levelling is getting my pet(s) up to 80. Trying to PVP/do heroics as BM with a level 78 raptor doesn't give the greatest numbers. IIRC, pets don't get skillup points from quests, so I have to go out and mindlessly kill stuff until the pet dings 80. Afterwards, I get to do the same thing again with my 75 chimera (sigh).

I think I'm going to give BM PVE a shot, since it's what I know. I'd like to try marks but don't know if the Nesingwary gun is sufficient for marks to be decent. I frankly don't like the style of Survival so I don't care if it's the 'typical' entry raiding spec...I ain't doing it .

BM is a blast for PVP, at least for world PVP/BG's. I was kiting poor warriors to death all night long last night, and it's especially hilarious when you're firing into a mass melee and no one notices the hunter wailing on them.

[fafhrd]

and it's especially hilarious when you're firing into a mass melee and no one notices the hunter wailing on them.

This has been pretty much the key to scoreboard-whoring as a hunter for years. Find group of people to stand behind and kill groups of your enemies. Run away when someone targets you and won't kill him in time.

Your pet will get 1 to 1.5 levels from a single heroic 5 man, just go do some of those to level, or farm something useful like relics of ulduar with your pet out. ToC sucks though, because it has no trash, hence very little XP, so go do real instances - you'll get badges and some gear too, as well as rep (you want ebon hold rep for helm enchants).