3.3.0 Spec guide for hunters and their pet.

Hunters currently should be using a wolf as a pet to maximize dps with the following spec.

http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#0Md00sc00hooo

A wolf is a ferocity pet, and to be honest doesn't do the most dps out of all the pets. A cat or raptor does more dps on paper, but the wolf has furious howl. This gives a temporary ap buff of 320, every 40 seconds, which means that overall you and your pet does more dps combined.

Common mistake for a hunter is to put Call of the Wild buff on autocast. The autocast of this ability for your pet is automatically put back on whenever you change specs using the dual spec ability, so make it a habit of putting Call of the Wild back on your pet bar and turning off autocast on it.

Marksman(MM) spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cxbZceVoRhzGIctuAox00b:Afi0zM

This is the cookie cutter MM spec some points can be moved from Focused Aim, but only if you draw the short stick when there are 3 or more hunters in the same raid. The point of the talent is that it frees up more stats to replace the hit rating gained from the talent, and more steady shots as most boss fights has damages that pushback the cast of your steady shot.

One thing that most people have a misconception about is Trueshot Aura(TSA), saying stuff like "A 10% increase to AP for everybody is one of the best buffs EVAR~~~). Well, other classes provide the same buff, and while they have to spend 2 or 3 points to get the same buff they get other buffs from their respective talents as well(2% Strength from Death Knight's Abomination's Might and 9 Expertise from Shaman's Unleashed Rage). Hunter's TSA provides only the 10% AP buff(If glyphed for it, it will give a 10% increased chance to crit for Aimed Shot, but if you actually waste a glyph slot on TSA you should delete your hunter), and even if it is only 1 point, it can be better spent elsewhere.

Silencing shot is another talent and ability that people overlook. It is not there so we are interrupters in a fight, the whole reason a rogue is in the raid is so he or she can interrupt everything if needed. Silencing shot actually goes into our priority/rotation dps system. It does not trigger a GCD and therefore it can be used with all the other shots and it should be use every cooldown. Either macro it into every ability that you have or simply bind it to an easily accessible button to use in conjunction with your other abilities. According to sources on EJ, it provides a 50 dps boost, but then again, dps is all about min/maxing(Will test personally on a target dummy).

Last talent I would like to go over is Go for the Throat(GftT). Let me make this clear. ALL HUNTERS NEED AT LEAST 1 POINT INTO THIS TALENT. LET ME REPEAT. ALL HUNTERS NEED AT LEAST 1 POINT INTO THIS TALENT. Simple as that. The prime example to show you the importance of this talent was during the 3.0 patch before Wotlk rolled out. Beast Mastery spec was the highest dps spec for hunters(It was a 1 button I WIN YOU LOSE spec and class). When 3.0 rolled out in preparation for Wotlk, hunters were torn between either getting the Beast Mastery talent for their Dino pets or 1 point into GftT. Guess which spec came out on top(ANSWER: 1 point into GftT). Reason being, a focus starved pet, even if it is an exotic pet, does absolute shit dps. Although, BM is not viable for raiding at any level, the critical importance of the talent has gone down a little bit, but the principle still stands.

All other points in the spec are there for min/maxing and I can give you a very good reasons why it is not viable to go any other way with the spec if you want to argue that your little "special *cough* ed *cough*" spec is better.

MM Rotation:

Before the fight put up a hunters mark.

Start the fight with a Serpent Sting, Silencing Shot, and Kill Command at the same time.

Priority after that is Chimera Shot > Aimed Shot > Steady Shot, along with Silencing Shot and Kill Command whenever it is off CD.

Many people use the Chimera Shot > Aimed Shot > Arcane Shot > Steady Shot priority system. The reason behind their "wrong" rotation is because Arcane Shot does more damage, because it ignores armor. It is true that Steady Shots usually hit for a less then Arcane Shot until a MM hunter has enough Armor Penetration(Arm Pen) along with an Arm Pen trinket. But there is 1 good reason behind leaving Arcane Shot out of the priority system for MM hunters, and that is because of the Improve Steady Shot talent. After the Chimera Shot and Aimed Shot, a hunter can put in about 4 Steady Shots before Chimera Shot is off CD, depending on haste rating. Skipping all the complicated math, the probability of Improved Steady Shot proccing when you do 4 Steady Shots is 47.799375% and the probability of the proc when doing only 3 steady shots when you do an Arcane Shot is 38.5875%. By this probability, about 10% of your Chimera Shot is going to hit 20% harder, in result produces a better dps.

My head is starting to hurt from calculating the exact probabilities on the Imp Steady Shot proc rates... I'll come back later.