- TOC -

P.0 Prelude
P.1 PvP in a Nutshell
P.2 Arenas in a Nutshell
P.3 BGs in a Nutshell

0.0 Introduction
0.1 Author Background
0.2 Why PvP
0.3 Why PvP as a Hunter

1.0 Character Decisions
1.1 Races
1.2 Faction
1.3 Talent Spec
1.4 Stats
1.5 Pets

2.0 Professions
2.1 Primary Skills
2.2 Secondary Skills

3.0 Equipment
3.1 Weapons
3.2 Armor
3.3 Enchants
3.4 Trinkets
3.5 BG Rewards
3.6 Buying Items
3.6 Instance Loot

4.0 Proficiency and Experience
4.1 Level Management
4.2 Pet Experience
4.3 Weapon Skill

5.0 Skills and Talents
5.1 Traps
5.2 Aspects
5.3 Stings
5.4 Shots
5.5 Melee
5.6 Miscellaneous
5.7 Beast Master Talents
5.8 Marksman Talents

6.0 PvP Basics
6.1 Kiting
6.2 Melee
6.3 Pet Management
6.4 Feign Death
6.5 Aimed Shot Setup

7.0 BG Tactics
7.1 WSG
7.2 AB
7.3 EotS
7.4 AV
7.5 General Teamplay

8.0 PvP Against Specific Classes
8.1 Druids
8.2 Hunters
8.3 Mages
8.4 Paladins
8.5 Priests
8.6 Rogues
8.7 Shamans
8.8 Warlocks
8.9 Warriors

9.0 UI Management
9.1 Mods
9.2 Macros
9.3 Keyboard Management

10.0 Arenas (5v5)
10.1 Responsibilities
10.2 General tactics
10.3 Gear

11.0 Arena specs (5v5)
11.1 Beast Master
11.2 Marksman
11.3 Survival

12.0 Conclusions


- Appendix -

A. Getting your Master Hunter's Rifle

B. AV: Bloodseeker or IBS?

C. Fun with Shadowmeld.

D. Videos

Content to be added#1.

In case you don't want to read through all of this guide, or just want a quick summary of the important points, here's some cliffs notes for arenas, battlegrounds, and general PvP:

P.1 PvP in a Nutshell

1. Focus on crit rating, ranged attack power, agility, and stamina for PvP. Those stats are far more important than any other.

2. Choose a ranged and melee weapon with the highest max damage that you can find, regardless of its DPS. PvP is all about burst damage -- doing a ton of damage in a short time so that your opponent does not have time to heal or react.

3. Steady shot + arcane + autoshot "three-shot combo" is your main burst damage, it consists of a set of 3 attacks that comes pretty much instantaneously. Hit your steady shot button, start spamming your arcane shot button, and then you'll get your arcane right after your steady shot casts, and your auto shot shortly afterward. Spam kill command as the autoshot goes off since likely one of your attacks will have critted.

4. Get out of melee range with scattershot, freezing trap, intimidation, and wing clip. Against melee classes, you need to be very deliberate about getting to range, since once you are out of options, you are typically dead.

5. Learn to kite. Kiting is shooting on the run -- jump, turn and shoot an instant such as concussive shot / stings / arcane shot, turn back around, and land facing the original direction. Kiting is essential for killing melee opponents such as rogues, it might be difficult to learn at first but once you have practiced it a bit, it will become easy and natural.

6. Hunters kill leather and cloth opponents. Warriors and paladins take forever to kill so avoid them as much as possible. Rogues, druids in caster/cat form, warlocks, priests, mages are your primary targets. Choose your targets so that you maximize your killing.

7. Trap and flare before battles. Resist the urge the run in before you've adequately protected yourself with a trap at your feet and a flare to keep away rogues. When you put down a trap, there is nearly a 100% chance that someone will hit it before it expires.



P.2 Arenas in a Nutshell

1. Get good at using viper sting and frost trap, since those are the two primary justifications for having a hunter on a 5v5 team.

[u]2. Spec BM for 2v2/3v3's, and MM for 5v5's if you're a novice to arena. BM is the easiest spec to play for 2v2/3v3's.

3. Stack resilience and sta even if it breaks socket bonuses. We are basically tanks in arenas and our survivability is gear-dependent.

4. Equip your PvP trinket and hotkey it, if you don't have your trinket then this is the first honor point purchase you should make.

5. Watch line of sight and never initiate combat against an opponent near a pillar. Hunters die to LoS because we also have a deadzone to contend with, so we want to fight in the open.

6. Keep your pet on a non-pally healer and spec cobra reflexes for faster attack and thus faster interrupts. Use a scorpid against pallies so they cannot cleanse your viper sting.

7. Create an assist macro via "/assist <NameOfMSWarrior>" in 5v5's and spam that button to always be hitting whatever target your warrior is attacking.

8. Use frost traps and spec entrapment to hold targets in place. Lay a frost trap every time one has expired.

9. Feign and drink frequently. We blow through mana like crazy. Be sure to buy plenty of arena water.

10. Use silencing shot and scatter to interrupt pally healing at crucial times. Don't get tunnel visioned by wanting to just DPS, since there are other classes that DPS far better than we can so we must be good with utility and CC.



P.2 BGs in a Nutshell

1. Stay back and snipe targets. Do not be the first to charge in. We want to make opponents work to kill us, which means they come to us not vice versa. Yes it is cheap, but it is effective.

2. Find low and concealed spots in BGs where you can hit targets without being seen.

3. Use frost traps at choke points and key mobility areas such as WSG tunnels, AV bridges, AV graveyard spawn points, WSG flag rooms, etc.

4. Use aspect of the pack to help flag runners in WSG.

5. Use your pet to locate enemy flag carriers in WSG by manually targeting them and then sending in your pet.

6. Volley does NOT stop opponents from capping your flags in AV, nor does any channeled AoE spell. You must hit an opponent with an non-channeled attack that does direct damage.

7. Viper sting targets at all opportunities, and particularly when you are about to die (you might as well leave a parting shot).

This guide serves as an introduction for how to PvP effectively as a hunter. It contains comprehensive information about tactics, gear, PvP strategies, and basically anything that might be remotely useful for PvP. This is not a PvE guide nor is it a general PvP guide, although some of the information in here may still be relevant towards those.

Do NOT ask me questions about specs or any subject outside of this guide. Start a new thread and you'll get a fast answer.


0.1 Author Background

I am a Rank13 Justicar hunter on a PvP server, and I captain a gladiator rated 5v5 ranked arena team. Perhaps my most noble accomplishment was grinding to rank13 in the old honor system without ever AFKing. As such, I have considerable experience with PvP in a variety of settings. I am not by a long shot the best or even one of the better hunters, but I am writing this as a hope that it is beneficial to you despite my limitations.

I am also the MVP poster of the Starcraft Strategy & Tactics forum (shockwave[xpow]), for which I also wrote the fundamentals guide to Starcraft.

0.2 Why PvP?

Your choice of PvP, PvE, RP, etc., is simply that -- your own personal choice. I am not going to try to convince you to PvP and will not insult you if you prefer PvE, but I will try to fairly list some of the more important tradeoffs to consider.

Some people prefer to play in an environment where they don't have to worry about being ganked or corpse camped or what not (PvE); others enjoy the additional excitement and unpredictability of having to deal with players as well as mobs (PvP), and perhaps want the opportunity to be the ones doing the ganging and corpse camping occasionally. Of course, whether you are on a PvP or PvE server does not affect your ability to participate in BG, which will often be the bulk of your PvP experience. One thing to note is that you can switch from a PvP server to a PvE server, but not the other way around, although server transfers do cost real money. If you have no strong leanings, pick a PvP server so that you have more flexibility in case you need to transfer realms in the future.

In all honesty, some of whether you enjoy PvP and BGs will depend on how good you are. If you are getting consistently killed by random enemies who are significantly lower level than you, chances are you will not enjoy PvP. I did not intend to actively PvP at all on my server; but as an experiment, I joined a 10-19 WSG, and I have loved PvP ever since my first game. Your experiences may differ; nobody will blame you if they do. I would say that if you have reservations about PvP, just get to lvl18-ish quickly, then try out some 10-19BGs to see if you are able to do well or at least think you have a reasonable chance of getting as good as you think you need to be.

0.3 Why PvP as a Hunter?

This guide intends to cover basics so that you have the best chance of maximizing your PvP potential as a hunter. Hunters are a popular class because they have excellent DPS, good survivability, and many important support abilities that help our team directly in the various PvP settings.

- In world PvP, we have tracking to alert us of nearby hostile players, and the ability to start combat at long range and kite. We can feign death or use our pet to take care of mobs if an opponent engages us while we are in combat. We have good survivability in world PvP and are not an easy class to gank.

- In battlegrounds, we tend to easily top DPS charts and have a large amount of survivability. Due to our effectiveness at extreme range, we can stand in the back and snipe opponents. Our traps are tremendously helpful in BGs for slowing down flag runners or crowd controlling individual opponents.

- In arenas, we are abusively powerful in 2v2/3v3's given the proper PvP spec. In 5v5 arenas, we provide a lot of different and valuable support although our DPS is somewhat secondary to that.

1.1 Races

Horde racials are generally thought to be superior than alliance, particularly given the shadowmeld nerf in the specific case of hunters. The rule of thumb is that alliance racials are better for PvE, and horde racials are better for PvP. I will not go into depth here, but just point out some relevant advantages of each class. ote that starting stats differ between races, but this difference is not considered significant. Blizz's site has a table of starting stats ( http://worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter.html ).


1.1.1 Blood Elf
Blood elves's arcane torrent is a useful tool for shutting down casters who get into our melee or deadzone area. BE are not the premiere choice for hunter race but at least they look nice.

1.1.2 Dwarf
+5 guns is a nice skill although our choice of ranged weapon tends to depend on what's available.

Stoneform has some usefulness such as removing crippling poison from rogues. Stoneform also removes Blind, Devouring Plague, and Viper Sting.

1.1.3 Night Elf
NE are the stereotypical alliance hunter race. They were particularly popular before the shadowmeld nerf since they could aimed shot from stealth ( nowadays, we will destealth as soon as we start the aimed shot). Shadowmeld is still very useful for various tactics such as guarding flags and nodes, or eating safely near combat. Wisp form is marginally useful for corpse running such as when we need to get to a forward GY to res past defenders.

1.1.4 Orcs
15% stun resistance is huge given that stuns are integral in PvP.

+5% pet damage is very useful in PvP and is particularly useful for BM-specced hunters.

1.1.5 Tauren
War stomp is very effective as yet a tool to get out of melee range, or as a caster interrupt.

Endurance is also helpful since stamina is so important in PvP.

The large size of Taurens makes us easier to target in PvP, which may or may not be desirable.

1.1.6 Troll
Beserking can add significant DPS but is a mixed blessing since to get the most of it, you need to be somewhat close to dying.

1.2 Faction

There is a general stereotype that horde do better than alliance in PvP, and therefore if you want to have the best chance of winning in PvP then you should choose horde. The reasons behind this are not clear; there is wide speculation about map imbalance, racial imbalance, personality of typical horde or alliance players, Blizzard conspiracy, etc. Regardless, don't just accept this as a fact since it is a generalization. It is worthwhile to do a bit of research when picking a server as to the relative population of alliance vs. horde characters, and stop by the realm forum to see how each side is doing. For example, if you choose a server where alliance outnumber horde (not just the overall population, since many players or farmers have alts, but rather the actual playing time), then you may be at a disadvantage in world PvP (getting ganked repeatedly) and in BGs (being shorthanded in games or not being able to find a selection of strong players in your bracket). Better to do this research beforehand than to pick a bad server and have to pay for a transfer later.

1.3 Talent Spec

All three talent trees are viable for PvP depending on style and situation. This subject is far too in depth to cover completely here, so I will discuss each talent spec in general and then urge you to check out any of the other good talent guides on the forum for more information. The important point is that each spec is useful for PvP; a lot of what spec you decide on will depend on your own personal preference as well as other factors such as how important raiding is to you.

1.3.1 Beast Master
BM is an easy and extremely effective spec for PvP and is often referred to as the "2-minute free kill" spec. The basic idea behind BM is that the pet does the killing while the hunter keeps himself (and his pet) alive. BM is particularly useuful in 2v2 arenas since it can be used to hold still and quickly burn down one target.

*BM allows the hunter to stun a target and burn it down with an extreme amount of burst damage every 2 minutes.
*BM allows the hunter to use his pet as the main source of his damage, which negates traditional methods of killing hunters by getting into their deadzone.
*BM coupled with some survival talents gives the hunter and his pet a lot of armor and health.
*BM is a fairly easy spec to play since it relies less on kiting and deadzone management.
*BM is one of the best anti-gank specs for world PvP since if an opponent engages us and our BM is up, we can typically burn him down easily.
*BM gives us and our pets the ability (the beast within) to become immune to crowd control, which is devestating in PvP.

1.3.2 Marksman
MM is the most popular spec because it is useful for both PvP and PvE. MM focuses the hunter's primary damage on his own ranged attacks. The main disadvantage of MM is that it is vulnerable to opponents getting into the hunter's deadzone, and it does not itself allow for much survivability.

*MM gives the hunter a very short cooldown ability to get out of deadzone (scattershot).
*MM gives the hunter an effective tool for silencing casters (silencing shot).
*MM gives the hunter a significant amount of ranged burst damage.

1.3.3 Survival
"Going survival does not guarantee survival". However, survival affords a lot of flexibility and makes the hunter significantly harder to burn down and gives him further utility with better traps. Survival is one of the more complicated specs to play, but with appropriate use it can be extremely annoying to enemy players.

*Survival allows the hunter to reset his cooldowns (readiness), allowing for all manner of abuse with traps and such.
*Survival gives a hunter a high crit chance, which translates into important burst damage.
*Survival gives the hunter long range crowd control (wyvern sting).

1.4 Stats

Balancing stats is a tricky issue with hunters since almost all but a few stats (spell damage, spell crit, strength, spirit, etc.) are helpful for us in PvE.

1.4.1 DPS stats
Agility, +crit, and ranged attack power are our core DPS stats. Of those, the typical conversion is 2AP == 1agi == 1crit. For example, you may have a choice between a +35agi vs. +70AP enchant for your 2Her. How you balance between these three stats is largely a matter of personal preference, although there are two relevant factors to consider:
1. Blessing of Kings has no effect on RAP and crit, but does increase our agility by a percentage. Thus, we will see more improvement from choosing agility over crit/RAP when we have a BoK available.
2. PvP tends to rely on burst damage since it is unpredictable and thus hard to heal through or react to. Thus, crit tends to have a higher importance in PvP.

The following are formulas for each stat at level 70:
40 agility = +1% crit.
1 agility = 1 RAP.
14 RAP = +1 DPS.
22 crit rating = +1% crit.
16 hit rating = +1% hit.

1.4.2 +hit
Maximum +hit needed at lvl70 PvP is +5%, which means absent any other conditions, we will not miss if we are at +5% hit. It is generally a very good idea to make sure we are at max hit (including speccing into surefooted if we're short) since a missed silencing shot or scatter shot will usually have severely bad consequences.

1.4.3 Survivability stats

Stamina is typically given increased priority in PvP and particularly arenas for all classes because "glass cannons" do not tend to fare well. This is because once opposing players figure out that some particular hunter has a ton of agility but relatively little health, they will gun for him repeatedly since they know he is easily killed and does too much damage to ignore.

In arenas, hunters are usually the "tank" of the team since we are typically the first target to be burned down. This is because we do not have immunities (vanish, ice block, etc.) and our mail only gives us limited damage reduction. Our survivability in arenas is heavily gear dependent, and thus it is generally a good idea to stack stamina/resilience at the expense of almost all other stats. In BGs, this is less of an issue since if we play properly, we can avoid most damage by just staying behind other classes when we engage. But in arenas, we have limited space to hide and kite.

1.4.4 Mana/intellect

Intellect and mana regen are fairly important stats in PvP but are generally prioritized lower than other stats. We have very limited mana pools and thus are vulnerable to mana draining abilities, and often will be targeted with such abilities to render us useless. Our ability to feign and drink somewhat compensates for this, but this can only safely be done between battles. Thus, MP5/intellect can provide us with a cushion where we are not so easily mana drained down.

1.4.5 Spirit
Spirit is useful for mana/health regen outside of combat, making it less important to us. We can always eat/drink between engagements, and our ability to track humanoids means we can do so aggressively without worry about being sniped while we are seated.

1.4.6 Strength
Strength only affects melee attack power, and as such is fairly useless to us.

1.5 Pets

There are numerous pet choices out there, and much of which pet you choose is stylistic or situationally dependant. Certain pets are better against certain classes. Here is a breakdown of some more common pets:

1.5.1 Boars
Boars have a stun charge, which adds yet another form of crowd control. Their charge makes them good for chasing down runners such as flag carriers.

1.5.2 Wind Serpent
Wind serpents put out a lot of DPS and have good "focus dump" ability since their lightning breath has no cooldown. Their pathing is somewhat buggy so they sometimes back up instead of attacking even though they have no minimum range. Lightning breath is also a useful ability since it is natured based.

1.5.3 Cats
Cats have stealth, which is useful for concealing the hunter's position in battlegrounds and works well partly in conjunction with night elf hunters. NE hunters can stealth with their pets in arenas (particularly at arena start) in order to hide themselves completely.

1.5.4 Scorpids
Scorpids apply a DOT, which can be both helpful and detrimental. DOTs prevent the target from being crowd controlled such as by freezing traps. However, DOTs also make stings difficult to dispel; for example, keeping scorpid poison on a paladin in conjunction with viper sting can make the viper sting difficult to remove. Scorpids are typically seen as a requirement in high rated 5v5's because of their use in conjunction with viper sting.

2.1 Primary Skills

2.1.1 Engineering
For early brackets, engineering is excellent for PvP because it gives us access to unique items that no other class can use. For other professions, we can buy all/most of their items on the market.

For example, in the 10-19 bracket, with engineering you can craft a good quality head piece ( http://thottbot.com/?i=1369 ) for both armor and stats whereas most other players would only be able to get a headpiece through a lot of pain. Later on, you get access to a wide assortment of very useful trinkets and explosives that -- again -- no other profession can use. Dynamite and bombs for example are very useful, since bombs can stun many players allowing a flag carrier to escape, and dynamite will add significantly to your DPS.

Furthermore, engineering lends the ability to make engineered bullets, which are superior to vendor-bought ammo at the same level bracket. You could buy engineered bullets at the AH since they don't require engineering, but that tends to get rather expensive.

2.1.2 Mining
If you take my advice to go engineering, you may want to choose mining as a natural pairing with it. Really, any gathering professions is a good tools for making money, particularly skinning and herbalism. That said, I don't even believe this is necessary, because material prices tend to fluctuate greatly so if you buy low and sell high, you can make a profit out of those without having to gather them yourself. And there are always people who materials on the AH at a total bargain because they don't realize the actual worth. As a note of comparison, my hunter had over 1000g at level29 and close to 3000g at lvl49 just from this type of strategy. You do not need to be a skinner to buyout underpriced light leather and resell it at a high profit.

On that note, you really do not need to have a complementary gathering profession to your crafting profession. It's all opportunity cost -- if you mined copper and you use it to make an item, then you're paying the cost of having that copper because you could have sold it. This is known as opportunity cost. So you're no better off than if you had just bought it at a cheap price on the AH. What's more important is that you have at least one gathering profession so that when you're out in the world, you can be gathering materials for free whether they be metals, skins, or herbs.

2.1.3 Others
At level 70, each profession affords different advantages that need to be carefully weighed since most professions give us access to BoP items that are unique to that profession. Blacksmithing gives us a 2H weapon, engineering gives us goggles, leatherworking gives us armor. Which profession you settle on may just depend on what exactly you have access to normally given your auction house and guild progression. For example, you will probably not need the epic gun from engineering if your guild has progressed into later Kara content.

2.2 Secondary Skills

2.2.1 Fishing
Fishing is a cheap way to keep your pet happy. Fishing also can net you rare fish to sell on the AH. The issue with fishing is that skilling up can be quite painful particularly in the beginning. However, fishing also gives you something to do while you're waiting for boats or the next BG to pop. It is an easy source of income once you have skilled up, since you can catch rare fish or even items. You may initially find fishing pointless, but you'll be surprised at how much downtime you can fill up through fishing whereas normally you'd have nothing better to do.

2.2.2 Cooking
Cooking is of course useful for us since it provides us with food to keep our pets happy. For BGs in particular, cooked foods are important because they give various bonuses that last for a significant amount of time (typically +sta and +spi), or until death. These can give quite an advantage, or a needed buff during critical times such as when you're carrying the flag and need extra survability. Definitely spend the time to learn cooking, and start on it early. If you start on cooking late, the mobs you're grinding won't be giving you the type of meats that you need to level up your cooking, so you'll have to resort to buying them on the AH where they are rare and overpriced.

Once you have food that increases your stats, use it situationally. You don't want to be wasting time eating food after you res unless there is truly nothing going on. I will usually just eat at the beginning of BGs, particularly when I'm in a game where I don't think I'll be dying frequently (i.e. where I'm unlikely to get killed within the first minute such that my food buff goes to waste).

Of course, your pet will not benefit from +stats food, so don't waste it on them thinking that it will.

Finally, bear in mind that whenever you are resurrected in a BG, your pet gains a ton of happiness. Playing a pet in BGs is an easy way of keeping him happy. Some players have even used BGs to maintain pets that have been discontinued (i.e. you can no longer tame them, nor feed them if they are tamed). You can also use restoration power-ups in BGs to improve pet happiness.

2.2.3 First Aid
First aid is critical and should always be leveled up to the max. In arenas, bandages are used constantly since we rarely have time to sit down and eat/drink, and food is unavailable in arenas unless it is conjured by a mage on our team.

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 ( http://thottbot.com/?i=13869 ) 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 ( http://thottbot.com/?i=38532 ), which is a lvl43 item that is available for completing a lvl29 quest. At level 29, you could buy a sniper scope ( http://thottbot.com/?i=5253 ) 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 (http://www.thottbot.com) 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 ( http://69.41.171.43/hunter.htm ) 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 ( http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/psearch.html ) and thottbot ( http://www.thottbot.com ) 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 ( http://thottbot.com/?i=38532 ), 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.

4.1 Level Management

If you're planning to stay in a BG bracket for a while, experience management becomes non-trivial. Pre 70's, at some point you'll have to start throwing away many marks of honor in order to avoid levelling up. Players who stay in a bracket for a long time will tend to have just a sliver of experience less than that needed to level (and generally they'll stay in the bracket until they accidentally level up such as through discovering a new land).

It is also very important that you plan ahead as to what instances you need to run in order to get your loot. You do not want to be lvl49 with 100 experience to levelling, and then find out that you forgot to run Mauraudon and now no longer have the option. In this case, you will have to settle for being less equipped than even a poor hunter who just ran Mara a few times and got the exceptionally good hunter gear from there.

4.2 Pet Experience

One additional headache for hunters is managing pet level and loyalty. PvPing with your pet will not increase its loyalty. The exact mechanics of how pets gain loyalty is not known, although it is some combination of keeping your pet well fed and grinding mobs that give experience. Fortunately, keeping your pet happy is easy through BGs because everytime you resurrect or hit a restoration powerup, your pet gains happiness. However, beyond a certain point, your pet will not gain loyalty unless it is grinding or gaining levels -- you can keep it by your side through months of BGs and it will not gain loyalty. This creates a particular headache to twink hunters who get a pet late and cannot level it up beyond some loyalty point because they cannot grind mobs for experience.

Note also that your pet does not gain experience from your rest bonus nor from your quest turnins. Thus, to keep your pet as close to the same level as you, you will want to grind off of rest bonus. This really only becomes an issue when you have reached the level you want to stay at (e.g. 19, 29...), have gotten a new pet recently, and want to level it up as much as possible. Once you start approaching the level at which you want to play BGs, you may want to consider minimizing your rest bonus such as by quitting outside of inns and cities. This way, you have the best chance of leveling up your pet without gaining too much experience yourself. Bear in mind that your pet does not gain experience from quest turnins (such as turning in marks of honor).

4.3 Weapon Skill

Read more about weapons skill at Wowwiki ( http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Weapon_Skill ). Weapon and defense skill affect a number of combat stats. The actual contribution of skill seems to have a lesser effect in PvP than in PvE. This much is obvious because otherwise in PvP you wouldn't be able to hit anything more than 5 levels higher than you, and your spells would always be resisted. Regardless, you will want to get these to their maximum values if possible, and weapons skill is still very significant. This can be done simply by grinding through grey mobs or letting them hit you until your skill is high enough. You can use cheap intellect scrolls during this grinding, or pay a mage to buff your intellect.

Note that the higher the level of mob you interact with, the more chance you will gain skill; that said, you can certainly grind grey mobs until your skill is maxed out, it just takes a lot of time. When grinding mobs in this way, I put on some grey weapons and spam rank 1 wing clip and scorpid sting since those inflict minimal damage. If you're getting tired of hitting low level mobs trying to skill up, get another character to allow you to follow him around and hit mobs that he's already tagged. In Stormwind Keep, while I'm waiting for BGs to pop, I will skill up on Onyxia's elite guards there, once someone else has tagged them. Sure I'll die occasionally if I accidentally aggro one, but it's also much easier to skill up on that way than to grind grey mobs forever.

5.1 Traps

One initial note about traps is that if you go beyond a certain range of your trap, it will disappear. So you cannot just put down a trap and ride away. Another note is that if you want to disguise dropping a trap, jump while you lay it down. It's easy to see a hunter kneeling down to lay a trap, it's not as easy to see if he's jumping at the same time.

5.1.1 Freezing Trap
Freezing Trap (FT) is one of your main crowd control tools. A typical use is to wait until something hits your trap, run to max distance, and aimed shot. Note that after around 6 seconds, you will exit combat mode as long as nothing else hits you, at which time you can FD to eat/drink, shadowmeld if you're a night elf, etc.

Get in the habit of always putting down a FT (or other trap) before you engage in combat. This costs you a second, but will help tremendously because once you're in combat, chances are you're not going to get out of it for a while, and then the only way to place a trap after the fact would be to waste FD to get out of combat.

Note that FT suffers from diminishing returns for repeated use, and all PvP crowd control including FT lasts a maximum of 12 seconds.

Since FT has an arming time, it is sometimes tricky to actually freeze your stated target. Scattershot in conjunction with freezing trap can be used to stun a player long enough for the trap to take effect. Or, stand on the trap to force melee opponents to either dance around it or get frozen.

Freezing traps can also be used defensively to keep teammates safe. A useful tactic in arenas is to have squishy healers stand on freezing traps particularly when facing a team with stealthed opponents.

5.1.2 Frost Trap
Frost trap has great use for slowing down packs of enemies chasing after you. Many hunters will put at least one point into entrapment for use with frost trap. With entrapment, frost trap can effectively immobilize many opponents (who might be running after your flag carrier or trying to escape with your flag). The proc chance is checked every ~2 seconds so with 5/5 entrapment you are almost guaranteed of a proc eventually.

You can also cooldowns and clever traps to effectively have two frost traps active at once. If you have entrapment, the proc rate is calculated individually for each trap such that if they overlap, the proc rate is doubled. This is particularly effective for keeping melee classes off your back or setting them up for a nice aimed shot.

Frost trap with entrapment is incredibly useful in arenas. Targetted players tend to flee, jump, or hide around obstacles to abuse line of sight. Entrapment keeps them in place.

5.2 Aspects

5.2.1 Aspect of the Cheetah
There are mods that cancel AotC upon getting hit ( http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-1500-1-antidaze.html ). These are extremely useful to prevent you from getting repeatedly dazed if you don't notice your aspect is on during combat. Aspect of the Cheetah is also helpful for kiting melee classes. Just be careful that you don't get hit by a ranged attack while kiting, since for example a good rogue will be alerted that you switched to AotC and will immediately shoot you.

5.2.2 Aspect of the Wild
AotW is one of our few party buffs, and helps considerably when dealing with druids and shamans. Typically, even if duels, it is more useful to put on AotW than Aspect of the Hawk when fighting either class. If you are in a party that is able to stay together, AotW can be tremendously beneficial.

5.2.2 Aspect of the Pack
This is a very helpful buff because it can allow your party to collectively move much faster than normal. For example, if a paladin or warrior is carrying your flag, use AotP to allow him to travel faster. Note that just because a druid is carrying the flag on your team, he should generally not run ahead of his escort, so aspect of the pack will help you all move fast as a unit.

5.2.3 Aspect of the Beast
AotB hides you from enemies tracking you on the minimap (your blip does not appear). Track Beasts will not reveal AotB hunters, contrary to the naming similarity. AotB is useful for flag carrying and flag hiding in WSG, since if we are also visually concealed, it can be exceedingly difficult for others to find us. Contrary to popular belief, AotB does not hide your red nameplate. Consider turning AotB on when mounting, since it can mislead enemy defenders who are using tracking.

5.3 Stings

5.3.1 Serpent Sting
This is our default sting. It does decent damage, stops rogues from vanishing for long, and can finish off opponents who are running away. One caution is that if you serpent sting someone, this will break CC, most notably freezing trap. Put on scorpid sting instead before your opponent hits your trap. Note that stings have a short cooldown, so you can tab through enemies at the start of battle and apply a sting to each of them fairly quickly if you so desire.

5.3.2 Viper Sting
Draining mana is a great ability in both BGs and arenas since classes who depend on mana become fairly useless after it's drained. Viper sting is also costly for our own mana, and it can be cleansed by some classes, so sometimes tricks are required such as applying lower rank stings hoping that our opponents will waste mana cleansing them. Viper sting does break crowd control.

5.3.3 Scorpid Sting
This is a safe sting to use in conjunction with CC because it does not cause damage -- you can safely shoot a frozen target with this. Scorpid sting is useful when kiting opponents where we also want to keep the option open for crowd control.

5.4 Shots

5.4.1 Auto Shot / Melee
By default, we will switch automatically between auto shot and melee depending on range. This can cause us to inadvertently break crowd control. Turn that switch off.

5.4.2 Arcane Shot
Arcane shot to is pure magical damage, and thus bypasses armor. It is a significant part of our DPS and our primary DPS while we are kiting.

5.4.3 Multi Shot
Multishot is one of our best DPS moves, since it hits multiple targets and awards straight bonus damage. Do not use multi shot only when there are multiple targets in range, instead think of it as free additional DPS every 10 seconds. Note that multishot does not interrupt your autoshot timer. In other words, your autoshot will fire at the same rate regardless of where/whether you also fire multishots.

5.4.5 Silencing Shot
Silencing shot interrupts and silences casters. It is an amazing anti-caster tool on a short cooldown. Note that there is some delay for silencing shot even though it is an instant, so when you see another class casting, you may want to pop silencing shot as early as possible in order to guarantee a spell interrupt. Silencing shot can also be used as a mediocre DPS shot during kiting.


5.5 Melee

5.5.1 Raptor Strike
Raptor Strike is a surprisingly effective melee ability, given that hunters are primarily ranged attackers. We generally want to use a 2Her with high max damage to get the most out of raptor strike. I often use Raptor Strike to finish off opponents who are low health and near melee range, and this is particularly effective if you put 2 points into Savage Strikes for the additional crit%.

Raptor strike is technically an "on next swing" ability, it is not an instant like the rogues' sinister strike. However, it is effectively an instant for the first use since it hits immediately when you get into range.

5.5.2 Wing Clip
This can help get us out of melee range and slow down enemy flag carriers. Put at least one point into improved wing clip since proccing in PvP has great benefits against melee classes. You can spam wing clip repeatedly since it has no cooldown (other than global cooldown), so you'll proc with improved wing clip more than you might expect. Just don't expect wing clip to get you out of range of rogues using crippling poison or warriors using hamstring, since basically both of you are slowed.

5.6 Miscellaneous

5.6.1 Scare Beast
Scare beast affects druids and shamans in animal form. We can use scare beast to bait druids into switching out of animal form.

5.6.2 Eagle Eye
Eagle eye can be very useful for locating flag runners and doing scouting during BGs. In AB, you can from certai spots such as the LM see all the other nodes. Also, the animation for eagle eye looks just like the AB flag capping animation, so you can really freak out the other side by eagle eye-ing directly on their flag. They might think someone is capping their flag.

5.6.3 Flare
As common sense would dictate, keep flare up whenever possible if you know rogues, druids, NEs, etc. are around. Flare's detection radius is about double its graphical radius, you can tell by the radius of its casting circle. In particular, when supporting your FC, flare his path as much as possible.

5.6.4 Volley
Volley used in conjunction with entrapment and frost trap is deadly since enemies are held in place and have to eat the volley. As with other channeled spells, volley does NOT break node capping and thus cannot be used to prevent multiple enemies from capping. Rank1 volley can also be used as stealth detection.

5.7 Beast Master Talents
BM spec makes your pet into a killing machine on a two-minute timer. You also have access to intimidation, which is somewhat like scatter shot but is a true stun. TBW is an excellent talent as well because it renders both the hunter and his pet immune to CC.

BM spec is that I am no longer as concerned about opponents CC-ing me or getting in my dead zone, since my pet is doing significant DPS. I only need to keep myself alive and add some supporting damage. This is far different from MM spec where my primary concern is to keep opponents out of my dead zone and melee range.

5.7.1 Intimidation
There is considerable debate over which between intimidation and scatter shot is more powerful. Intimidation is a shorter CC but is a true stun in that it cannot be broken with damage. It has a longer cooldown. It has a short delay to proc after casting because the pet must actually hit the target. It cannot be used when your pet is CC'd or dead.

A typical mistake that hunter use with BM is to use BW/TBW on every target possible. Intimidation along with massive pet DPS is often good enough to burn down a target without use of BW/TBW.

5.7.2 Beastial Wrath/The Beast Within
BW is seen as a "free kill" every 2 minutes if managed correctly. Once you BW your pet, he not only will do more damage but also will be immune to the various CC that players use to keep high damage opponents off of them. The Beast Within will further make us immune to CC, which allows us to destroy opponents who rely on CC (e.g. warlocks).

5.8 Marksman Talents

5.8.1 Scatter Shot
Scatter shot (SS) is our primary tool for getting out of range when something closes into melee, is our primary spell interrupt, is good for short term crowd control, and is good for finishing off near-dead opponents. The key to SS is that it has no dead zone range and thus can be used as a semi-ranged attack even if your opponent is close.

Be sure your opponent is not DOTted when you scatter him, or it will break the effect. If your opponent has a sting on him, replace it with scorpid sting before you scatter him.

Scatter shot is often useful for preventing offensive spells as well, or stopping opponents from getting into range to cast those. A typical example is scatter shotting a priest who is running towards you to psychic scream. However, proper use of this form requires knowing a bit about the range of spells being used against you, since scatter shot itself has fairly short range and thus you may not for example be able to count on it as a defense against psychic scream particularly if you have bad lag.

5.8.2 Aimed Shot
Aimed shot has little place in PvP. Its windup time is too long, and it resets the auto shot timer. Steady shot is the new opener (see below) against CC'd targets. Aimed shot is useful versus steady shot when we really need to one-shot a target (e.g. a target is CC'd but can activate immunity or what not after the first shot hits).

If you insist on using aimed shot, note that PvP CC such as freezing traps last a very limited amount of time, and diminishing returns makes freezing trap very difficult to pull off against opponents that have been trapped multiple times.

5.8.3 Steady Shot
Steady shot does not interrupt the auto shot timer and thus can be weaved inbetween auto shots. It is a good source of additional DPS since it roughly does the same damage as auto shot. If you are standing still and shooting, then weaving steady shots can considerably help your overall DPS.

Do not use steady shot if an opponent is hitting you, since each hit will delay the timer. However, it is generally safe to use steady shot when coming out of FD.

Steady shot has largely replaced aimed shot as an opener when our opponents are crowd controlled. Aimed shot does more damage, but steady shot is faster and also adds in an auto shot, making it a 3-shot combo (steady/arcane/auto) versus a 2-shot (aimed/arcane). Given that Go For the Throat and Kill Command both proc from crits, 3 shots gives us more damage potential.

6.1 Kiting

Kiting is one of the most essential hunter skills in PvP. Kiting is where you maintain distance from a melee target while shooting at it. This is akin to "running and shooting over your shoulder". It works very well against classes that have poor or no ranged ability, since you can effectively kill them without them getting close.

The motivation behind kiting is that hunters do their best work at range, and are relatively poor at melee. A hunter does not want to go toe-to-toe melee against a rogue or warrior because in most cases he will get slaughtered. Kiting allows us to keep our opponents at range.

Kiting can be accomplished in a number of ways. The most standard method is to jump in the air, spin at least 90 degrees towards the target (most people spin a full 180), shoot off an instant, and then spin back, all before hitting the ground. Thus, you are basically running in one direction while occasionally jump-spinning to face your target so that you can hit him.

Another method of kiting involves using the strafe key to essentially run sideways away from the target. Done properly, you will still be slightly facing the target (imperceptably in most cases), so you can shoot your instants without having to jump and turn around.

Learning how to kite may at first may seem rather daunting. To jump and then spin, shoot, spin back, all before landing takes some work. Fortunately, this can be practiced against any landmark or inanimate target. You can for example choose a hallway in your town, then practice running up and down while jump spinning. Or, choose any stationary NPC in town and jump-spin with him as a dummy target.

I recommend learning how to jump-spin using the first method I mentioned (i.e. jump, spin at least 90 degrees, shoot, spin back). When you first practice this, you may want to spin a complete 180 degrees. If you're having trouble spinning back to your original position, you may want to adjust your mouse. Another key thing to note is that as long as your mouse returns to its original position, you will also be back to facing in your original direction. Practice flicking the mouse and then flicking it back to the same horizontal position it started. You can even do this outside of WoW just by playing with your mouse on the screen. Once you can consistently flick it back to where it started, you're set for kiting.

Another helpful hint for learning how to kite is to watch your minimap. Since your minimap gives you an indication of what direction you are facing via a pointer, you can practice spinning back to the same direction by just watching your pointer.

In terms of what to actually shoot while kiting, typically you'll want to concussive shot, arcane shot, and sting in whatever order. Watch your cooldowns and hit your shot whenever it's available. The exception is stings -- they have a much shorter cooldown their duration, so you don't want to waste mana repeatedly stinging a target once it's already affected. You will probably want to map your instant shots to keys that you can still reach while holding down the "w" to move forward. For example, mapping concussive shot to 4 and arcane shot to 5 allows you to hit those buttons while holding down the "W" to keep moving forward. Note that you do not need to actually hold down "W" while jumping, since the whole idea is that while you're in the air, you'll be continuing forward in the direction that you were facing when you first started jumping. However, for convenience, some prefer to keep "W" held down. Personally, I have concussive shot mapped to 2 so that I just release the "W" key briefly to hit "2". What you choose to do is totally up to you -- any number of methods are equally effective. Other options are to hold down both mouse buttons, or put yourself on auto-run using the numlock key.

In steps, the mechanics for kiting are:

1) Run forward holding down either 'w' or both mouse buttons.
2) Jump with space bar, release 'w' or your mouse buttons.
3) Spin 90-180 degrees in either direction using your mouse.
4) Hit your concussive shot, arcane shot, or sting button to shoot.
5) Spin back in the other direction using your mouse.
6) Hold down 'w' or both mouse buttons to resume running.

Also be aware that you can start your kite from when you are facing your target. Suppose you are happily shooting away at a distant target and he starts coming towards you. Jump backward, shoot an instant, and turn 180 degrees so that you are now facing away from him and running in that direction.

Kiting is also an important skill in PvE. You can kill much higher level melee mobs if you kite effectively.

During kiting, also watch for improved concussive shot. If that procs, your opponent is stunned -- you'll want to get to maximum range, perhaps hit rapid fire, and start unloading multishot and auto shot in addition to your instants.

6.1.1 Jousting

Jousting is a method of going in and out of melee range to confuse opponents and get off intermittent melee strikes to damage and slow them. A typical example is to run through an opponent, hit him with raptor strike and wing clip, continue running through until you are behind him, and then kite once you're in range. This can be confusing for melee classes to deal with because after you run through them, they have to turn around to chase after you. Or if a player has any sort of lag, his character may continue running through you before he has a chance to turn around.

6.2 Melee

Melee is inevitable in PvP. Theoretically you can kite all day or opponents will be distracted by your pet, but in truth people will generally make a beeline for hunters to get into their dead zone or melee range. Fortunately, our melee abilities are not bad, and we have many ways of getting out of melee range.

Much of a hunter's survival relies on getting out of melee range effectively. Against pretty much any class, if we are stuck in melee range and have exhausted all our tools to get out, and we are not beast master specced, we will die. Tpyically we will want to use a macro to both raptor strike and wing clip/counterstrike/mongoose. Such a macro may look like this:
/cast Raptor Strike
/castrandom Wing Clip, Counterattack, Mongoose Bite
/petattack

An important consideration with melee is to turn off the auto range switch. By default, once you enter melee, you will switch out of auto shot mode and start swinging your weapon. This has a number of downsides. First, if your opponent is trapped, you may accidentally swing and break his trap. Second, since your first melee attack is more or less instant, you will miss your chance to raptor strike and will have to wait for the full weapon cooldown cycle before you get your raptor strike off.

6.3 Pet Management

Pets can be situationally kept in passive or aggressive. Aggressive is useful when we are trying to react to stealthed opponents because our pet will see them and immediately start attacking them often even before we notice the opponent is there. The downside of aggressive of course is that the pet will break crowd control or put us into combat prematurely.

Passive is the safest mode. Hook in PetAttack macros into your various attacks so that your pet automatically attacks whenever you use these abilities (e.g. you can set a macro such that whenever you raptor strike something, your pet attacks that same target).

Note that even with our pet on passive, warriors can use taunt to draw the pet to attack them, such as if the warrior knows he's about to hit a trap and wants to trick the pet into breaking the CC.

As a general rule, most opponents will not target your pet. This is because when you die, your pet dies; and equally as important, when you res, your pet will also res with full happiness even if it was dead. For this reason, I would also not using a tank pet such as a bear, since you are trading off DPS for survivability but your pet does not need survivability in PvP.

Thus, it is not as vital for your pet to have as much health and defense as possible. I generally find that putting training points into resistances is a good idea because whereas people won't try to kill your pet, they will usually try to CC it whether through fear, frost nova, entangling roots, etc. In arenas, the most important resistance for my pet is shadow, since he is feared more than any other CC. Beyond that, I also get frost resistance since frost nova is another common form of CC. Most opponents will not bother rooting my pet (nature) or polymorphing it (arcane).


6.4 Feign Death

FD is an important tool for any variety of situations.

FD can also be used to break opponents' lock on you. If a spellcaster is casting something with a long casting time, you can FD near the end to interrupt his spell. For example, if a mage has frost nova'd you and is preparing to frostbolt, you can feign death to break this. This is particularly useful if your scattershot is down. Even if your opponent knows you are still alive, he may not be able to readily retarget you. Using snake trap in conjunction with FD can in particular create a headache since your opponent may have trouble targetting you while you are lying amongst your snakes.

FD can be used to exit combat in order to change trinkets or eat/drink. Note that you will not regain health once you are back in combat, so you may want to put your pet on passive while you are eating.

Note that DOTs do NOT put you back into combat after you have FD. If someone casts a new DOT on you, then you will be put back into combat; but if a DOT ticks, it does not put you into combat.

FD+shadowmeld can be used by night elf hunters for any number of purposes, such as stopping a warrior from charging.

6.5 3-shot Setup

One of the most abusive hunter tools is the 3-shot combo against helpless targets. If a target is frozen, scattershotted, entangled, etc., this is an excellent time to 3-shot them. I will go through the freezing trap setup and you can adapt to your particular situation. The nice part about this combo is that you can practice it against mobs since the sequence is exactly the same.

Suppose a warrior charges you in melee...

A. Place down a trap and stand on your trap. The warrior will eventually get frozen.
B. Trinket to break his hamstring, run through the warrior and hunter's mark him while running.
C. Jump-shot scorpid sting the warrior (this does not break the trap). Make sure your autoshot is off; you may want to use a macro that turns your autoshot off whenever you use scorpid sting.
D. Run to maximum range (optionally, use AotC to get there faster) and turn around.
E. Make sure you are on AotH.
F. Hit rapid fire and activate any damage trinkets such as +AP.
G. Start steady-shot and send in your pet.
H. Start pressing your arcane shot button madly.
I. You will get a steady shot, arcane shot, and auto shot off near-instanteously.
J. Press kill command because probably one of those shots critted.
K. Concussive shot and start kiting. Once your trap cooldown is up, repeat.

7.1 Warsong Gulch

7.1.1 Track Humanoids
It goes without saying that track humanoids makes hunters extremely valuable for locating the opposing flag carriers. Sometimes however it's not altogether clear where the flag carrier is because track humanoids does not indicate elevation. Fortunately, you can at least differentiate between whether the FC is indoors or outdoors since indoors their blip will be faded. For example, if their FC is in their base but his blip is solid, then he's on the roof, otherwise he's either on 2nd floor or the FR itself. If he's running out of the FR and his blip is faded, then he's going through the tunnel, otherwise he's going out the second floor.

Another note is that sometimes flag carriers will hide in the most interesting places -- you know he's somewhere near the GY since the blip shows it, but you have no idea where he is exactly. Or, you're playing low level BGs where there is no tracking available. A simple solution is to just /target him manually and then send your pet after him. Follow your pet, and tell the rest of your team to do so. In accordance with this, it is helpful to get the bgflag mod ( http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-1425-1-bgflag.html ) which displays at all times who has each of the flags. This can save you the headache of having to scroll through your log to find out who picked it up, or have to spam chat to ask if anyone else remembers. Note that sometimes your pet will not attack the target if it is out of range, so there are limitations to this.

7.1.2 Hiding with the flag
Aspect of the Beast allows you to hide from track humanoids. Sometimes I am designated as flag carrier because with Aspect of the Beast, I can find a good hiding spot and stay there indefinitely while horde futiley tries to search me out. Note that hunters generally are not the best flag carriers because of their lighter armor; however, good use of Aspect of the Beast along with a good stamina build can make us fairly effective in this. Make sure to dismiss your pet when you are hiding in this way or put it on stealth (prowl) so that it does not give away your position.

7.1.3 Playing defense
Pre-mount in particular, defense is an important part of WSG. Played correctly, hunters can be a terror on defense because we have many abilities to keep a flag runner CC'd. Make sure your flares and traps are always up, and there are mods ( http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-2286-1-traptimer.html ) that can help you keep track of when these need to be renewed so you don't forget and let them expire. Otherwise, often rogues will wait outside of flare radius until it expires, then run in. Trap choice is somewhat situational, but in general use frost traps (particularly if you have entrapment). If offense is coming in solo, freezing trap sets up very nicely for a 3-shot opener and gives you ample time to ask for help if necessary. If offense comes as a zerg (which is more typical), then a frost trap can keep a number of enemies stuck in your flag room while your reinforcements arrive. Another reason to use frost trap is that if you're defending with a group, often people in the group are not smart enough to lay off when a target is frozen by a freezing trap.

If you're a night elf, stealthing near the flag can allow you to get the jump on an enemy coming in. However, if your pet doesn't have prowl, keep him away from you, otherwise it will give away your position. Typically I'll just put my pet on stay and park him in the corner of the flag alcove where he's not easily visible.

Track humanoids is of course a great asset to have for defense. Typically when there's incoming, I'll ping each enemy's location once on the minimap so that my team can know how many are coming and where they are without me having to type it out in raid chat (of course if you should type it out anyway if you have time). There are hunter mods that will augment your minimap so that if you mouseover a target, the mod will display the class, level, and faction of your target ( http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-339-1-icu-hunter.html ). This mod is indispensably useful in BGs.

7.1.4 Trapping the graveyard
I do not condone GY camping (i.e. where in a lopsided game, players stand where opponents spawn as to farm honor when those opponents res), so whether you GY camp is up to your discretion or your server's particular rules of etiquette. Regardless, if you happen to be passing by your opponent's GY, it is sometimes a useful tactic to set a trap in the middle of it. An explosive trap will put players into combat as they res so that they can't immediately mount. A frost trap will of course directly slow them down from leaving. A flare will cause them to be debuffed such that they cannot stealth or shadowmeld soon after. Sometimes when our flag carrier runs through the opposing graveyard, I'll drop a frost trap so that ressers can't catch up (BTW: I generally advise running down the ramp, not the graveyard. The reason is that you want to stay away from their GY as much as possible since that's where they res, whereas if you run down the ramp then you are going along the side where your team is ressing in their GY, making it easier for them to come support you after they res).

7.1.5 Assisting your FC
Hunters are useful for assisting the flag carrier, since we have a decent amount of CC. Use of frost trap is critical here, since you effectively slow the entire group chasing after your FC. This is particularly vital when your FC is going through either tunnel because the trap is impossible to avoid. Don't be hesitant to blow your FD so you can put down a frost trap to help your FC. Remember also that you go out of combat if you or your pet do not attack anything within several seconds, so if you've blown your FD then you can just wait a bit until you are naturally put out of combat so that you can place a trap.

Use Aspect of the Pack situationally. I am always in the same group as the primary FC so that I can speed them. Even druids benefit from this since they do not get speed bonuses when indoors. Of course, cancel AotP once you see incoming, and if you overuse it then your teammates are likely to get very very irritated.

During flag assist combat, it is often a good idea to put on Aspect of the Wild versus hawk/monkey, since enemies will try to root or bind your flag runner. This is particularly important on alliance side since you have not only druids but shamans to deal with.

Also make sure you are constantly throwing flares in the path that your FC is running.

7.1.6 Engaging selectively
I've mentioned various uses of shadowmeld in case you are NE. One other use is simply for survival or choosing situationally how to get into combat. Obviously, the less frequently you are targetted, the less you are going to die. However, hunters are often picked on first because they have such good range that they get the first hit off of approaching enemies. Thus, we tend to die prematurely before we can unload a lot of DPS. A way to avoid this is to shadowmeld, wait until opponents have engaged other classes (hopefully your tanks), and then start blasting away. Often then your opponents are dead before they even realize that you've joined in. I have specific macros that target various well known hunters in my bracket to compensate for this, since they tend to hide in interesting places or wait until I've engaged someone before picking me off. Of course, the goal of BGs is not to farm HKs or avoid dying, so don't just use this to rack up kills at the expense of effectiveness or your team will not be particularly happy with you. Some hunters are known to be chickens that only engage when they're absolutely safe, even while their buddies are getting slaughtered.

7.1.7 Flag Carrying
Some classes are obvious candidates for running the flag, such as druids and wariors. We are not one of them, but we can still carry the flag decently because we have fair damage mitigation with mail, and survivalists in particular will have more health plus deterrance and resistance to CC. We have track humanoids to see where enemies are coming from, and an aspect to increase the speed of the entire party so we can travel together fast.

BM specced hunters are also good for breaking through heavy flag defense because we can use TBW to negate crowd control.

7.1.8 Using pets on defense
Keep your pet in front of the flag, put him on stay so he doesn't follow you and aggressive so he automatically attacks anyone who comes near (note: "stay" does not mean your pet won't move, just that it won't follow you). You can then move around freely knowing that your pet is guarding the flag, just don't go too far away or your pet will despawn.

7.2 Arathi Basin

7.2.1 Using eagle eye
From the lumber mill, you can see every node using eagle eye. This makes hunters an excellent choice for coordinating AB attacks. You can also annoy people by making them think someone is capping their node, since the hawk eye animation is identical to the flag capping animation. During games when I am directing AB, I will sometimes stand at the LM for the entire game and just direct traffic and scout from there. I find in this regard that the LM is superior to the GM, since visibility is poor from the GM (also, from the LM, priests can mind control players and throw them off of cliffs...).

7.2.2 Playing defense
There is no remarkable trick to playing D in AB. However, one thing to bear in mind is that with proper use of feign death and traps, you have amazing crowd control ability. First, of course make sure your traps and flares are up. Suppose you are unfortunate enough to be solo D when 3 enemy come to take your node. The first enemy hits your trap and is frozen. The other two enemies go up to cap your node. Simply FD+FT to put one of them out commission. That leaves one left for you to deal with. Hopefully you can solo them, or at least keep them occupied until reinforcements arrive. Effectively you can (at least temporarily, and disregarding instances where a pet sets off the trap) delay three eopponents from taking your node.

If you have to leave a node or are passing by one, leave a trap and throw a flare to help whoever's defending it.

7.2.3 Taking advantage of terrain
AB has a lot of natural terrain that can advantageous to ranged classes. The Blacksmith for example is on a hill, so there are a depressions along the edge of the hill where you can stand and shoot where the game thinks you are within line of sight of the target even though the target cannot see you directly. This is great for picking off attackers -- hide halfway down the hill, wait for incoming to get engaged with something, and start firing away. It can take them a while to figure out where you are.

You can also take advantage of raised terrain such as building rooftops or tree stumps to keep yourself safer from melee range. This includes the top of the gold mine at the GM site, and the tree stump at the LM site coming from stables. This may be considered cheap so use at your own discretion.

7.2.4 Taking advantage of buildings
Another hiding spot for ranged classes is inside the actual buidings themselves in AB. You can for example hide in the gold mine and still have decent range. Better yet, lure some people to chase you into the GM, feign death and lay down a frost trap, and you'll tie them up for quite a while. On a similar note, be wary when approaching seemingly undefended nodes in case there are enemies hiding in the buildings. Keep an eye on your track humanoids, and also throw flares or turn on track hidden since often rogues are choice units for node defense


7.3 Eye of the Storm

7.3.1 Strategy
EotS strategy as it relates to hunters is not terribly complex. As with any other class, it mostly involves guarding towers and occasionally going center to cap or hunt down the flag. Track humanoids is as always very important, since there are many areas behind or within the towers for an opponent to hide such that he's capping the tower secretly.

7.3.2 Terrain
Eye of the Storm is a hunter's dream as far as BGs go. The terrain is in general very open with few line of sight issues, but on the other hand there are clever places for hunters to hide where they cannot be easily targetted. A few useful areas in particular are:

A. The lowered portions on either side of the flag in the central area.
B. The tops of the bridges.
C. Halfway down the hills in each tower.

7.4 AV

7.4.1 Overview
Hunters are instrumental in AVs, as a good hunter can singlehandedly determine an AV. You will definitely want to learn how to single pull marshalls/wm's, and how to break a turtle at a GY by trapping the spawn point.

AV is very different from other BGs in that AV battles tend to occur on an epic scale. There can be a shock for hunters when they finally start playing AV -- forget about dueling tactics such as kiting rogues until dead, you will generally not find yourself in those types of situations (although they do occur). Abilities that we don't use a lot in WSG/AB such as volley become very important.

7.4.2 Exploiting terrain
There are many spots in AV where we can hide and strategically pick off enemy players. These include the elevated areas near SH, and on top of towers and bunkers. If you choose an area carefully, you can essentially render yourself safe from melee. For alliance, camping above the SP GY is highly effective because it takes a long time to navigate up the hill yet you can reach most targets below, so melee classes cannot quickly get up to you. Place a frost trap in the area you are overlooking so you can easily volley or aimed shot enemies as they get stuck in the trap.

7.4.3 Assaulting and defending towers
Hunters are great for taking out tower archers because we have fairly good range and our multishot will always hit 3 targets. Another side effect is that engaging at a distance will often draw out the commander in the tower, and from there he can be kited to the rest of your team versus the normal situation where a few people engage the commander in melee.

Hunters are not as suited with defending towers because of the enclosed space. Ask another class to defend. If you do need to defend, consider standing outside or at the entrance so you have some ranged capability.

7.4.4 Pet usage
Expect your pet to die a lot in AV. Our pets are inevitably targetted in AV since they are melee. As a non-BM spec, I am content to just assume my pet will die after any major battle. This may affect whether you choose to spec BM since your pet will need to be active in order to use abilities such as intimidation. Definitely use your pet, just bring plenty of food or be resigned to wait until you die in order to res your pet.

7.4.10 Pulling Marshalls and War Masters
Before killing the general, teams will have to pull the alliance marshalls or horde warmasters and kill them individually. Hunters should learn how to pull a single one out at a time -- these are tough NPCs and a bad pull can cause a wipe. If you accidentally pull more than one, hunter's mark one of them and tell your party to focus on it while someone else tanks the other(s).

Here is the method to single pull a marshall/wm. The idea is that depending on the number of wms in the hut, there are situations where you cannot avoid pulling more than one initially, so you have to use FD to cause the others to reset.

A. Use track humanoids to see which wm is closest to the entrance.
B. Pre-target that wm (e.g. "/target icewing" to get the icewing warmaster).
C. Keep your pet at the entrance of the hut so he doesn't accidentally draw aggro, make sure AoE effects such as howl are off.
D. Go inside the hut, staying near the entrance, until you can see the wm. Mark it and pull it with scorpid sting.
E. Start running out with drek, the wms, and hounds all probably chasing you.
F. As soon as the wm has cleared the room, have your pet attack him while you continue running.
G. Once your pet hits the wm and he's cleared the hut, feign death so that the other wms reset. They will only reset if nobody else has hit them, so make sure your team knows not to attack anything until you have FD.
8. Have a warrior attack the wm to draw him off your pet.

If your FD is resisted, it is imperative that you run back into the hut and let yourself die! Otherwise it's likely that you will cause a wipe because the rest of your team will inevitably hit each of the other wm's and thus prevent them from resetting. Finally, be sure that the rest of your team stays FAR away from the entrance, such as below the ramp in Drek's. Otherwise when you FD, the wm's will aggro the other nearby players.

Alternatively, we can use any other class to help us single pull. Just mark a wm to single pull, pull it out, then feign death once the other class has hit the wm. The others will hopefully reset.

7.4.11 Defending flags
Bear in mind that volley will NOT break node capping. Channeled spells such as rain of fire, blizzard, and volley will not stop enemies from capping your node. You must hit them directly!

7.4.12 Assaulting graveyards
Inevitably, there will be situations where we are trying to assault a graveyard but defenders are respawning faster than we can kill them, meaning that they are able to interrupt us from tapping their flag. In this situation, ride past the flag to the actual spawn point of the graveyard and put down a frost trap. Once defenders res, immediately put down another frost trap. This will effectively slow down defenders from reaching the flag for a fairly long amount of time, particularly if you present yourself as a target so they spend time killing you at their spawn point.

7.5 General Teamplay

7.5.1 Buffs
As with all classes, we are heavily dependent on buffs. Ask for buffs, water, etc. Enough said.

7.5.2 Focus Fire
Often in PvP it is most effective to have the party focus on one or a few targets at a time. Hunter's Mark of course makes this easy for a hunter to point out targets in both PvE and PvP. In arenas, focus fire is critical, so it is often advisable to create an assist macro, which is as easy as one line /assist Syrana (or whatever the name of your main assist is).

7.5.3 Playing effectively at low levels
Be aware that as a DPS class, you will generally do noticeably worse in BGs if you join when you are not near the level cap. This is particularly true in low level BGs because the % difference between the top and bottom level restrictions is much greater than in higher level BGs. For example, if you join a 10-19 WSG as a lvl10, then the lvl19 players will be almost double your level. However, if you join a 50-59BG as a lvl50, then the level difference is only 18%. Another factor to consider about joining as a low level character is that your higher level counterparts will have both talents and skills that you don't, so it's not just a matter of you having inferior stats.

On the few occasions when I join BGs when I'm near the bottom of the level range, I typically have to change my mindset. Since I'll die to just about anyone 1on1, I generally try to avoid combat and think more strategically in terms of supporting the FC in WSG, serving as a distraction, defending nodes in AB, setting tras, etc.

For example, wait for other players to engage before you do, avoid getting into any 1on1's since they will usually be instant death, and focus on helping guarding flags or nodes. For example, it's often assumed that the lowest level player in AB will guard the stables/farm after initially taking it. Specific things that hunters can do in BGs that are level independent include:
1) Guarding nodes or flag and being vocal about warning your team when you see incoming on your radar.
2) Setting traps and using concussive or scatter shot to slow opposing FCs or slow enemies who are chasing your CC.
3) Using auras such as trushot, AotW, and AotP to passively support your team.

In particular, traps and CC are reasonably effective regardless of level; unlike against PvE mobs, these actually will work on players who are higher level than you versus being resisted.

7.5.4 Score Screen
Since hunters are a DPS class, we tend to do very well in BGs in terms of killing blows, overall kills, and DPS. In addition, we have not only our own attacks but our pets' to count towards killing blows. All in all, it's not difficult for a hunter to stay on the top of the rankings in a BG. However, don't get distracted by this. BGs are not strictly about killing, and often the players who are at the top of the ranks are counterproductive because they are deliberately farming HKs or just stealing killing blows from other players who have already weakened their targets. I would argue that the kill rankings should just be removed period from BGs so that players can focus more on objectives.

In general, do not look at the kill rankings, and don't get fixated on killing blows. If you do so, you'll likely end up playing suboptimally such as wasting an arcane shot on an enemy that is already near dead because you want the KB. Instead, conserve mana and pick your targets carefully -- if an enemy is already getting beaten on and is handled, move to another target. Since you are ranged, you'll have an easier time switching targets than many other classes. Use your abilities to the glory of your own team, not your own glory. And remember that you do not get any additional honor from KBs, and you only need to be in the vicinity of a dying enemy player to receive honor.

7.5.5 Honor
Also, a key basic point about BGs is that you do not uniquely earn more honor or rep from capping flags or taking nodes. The whole team earns the same amount. Some players who don't realize this concept will ninja the flag from better players because they think they'll get more honor for it.

This section describes 1on1 tactics and tips against all classes. The tactics fall broadly into two categories: kiting and outlasting. Kiting involves avoiding melee range while shooting the opponent, this is typically done against DPS classes. Outlasting involves draining mana while keeping our own mana up, this is typically done against healing classes.

For simplicity, most of these matchups assume that we are MM spec.

8.1 Druids

Battles against druids tend to be fairly dynamic because druids have a variety of forms and abilities. One of the keys to beating druids is to hit them when they're soft. This means either baiting or forcing them to switch into caster/cat form, control controlling them, and then unloading DPS before they can switch back.

Scare beast can be an irritating ability for druids. Either they stay in beast form and are subject to the fear, or they waste mana switching out to caster (and also leave themselves vulnerable to being crowd controlled and shot down). Generally if I see a good opening, I'll start scare beast and put my finger over my scattershot button. If the druid shifts to caster, I'll immediately scatter and place down a freezing trap. From there, I do one of my opening shot combinations and kite. A basic principle along with this is to save your scatter shot and freezing trap. I also sometimes use my scare beast on druids that are frozen while in bear form. For some reason, druids often respond to this by shifting into caster. Again, this sets them up to be bursted down with my opening shot combination.

Apart from clever use of scare beast, tactics against druids are fairly similar to other opponents depending on what form they're in. Bears should be treated similarly to warriors, cats similar to rogues, and casters/Moonkins similar to mages.

Miscellaneous notes:
Druids' charge will teleport them right through traps that are between themselves and you. You will have to stand on your trap to make the druid hit it when he feral charges you.
Make sure your pet is attacking the druid at all times, since this may cause nature's grasp to proc on the pet instead of you or your teammates.

8.2 Hunters

If you're BM spec, sic your pet on the other hunter, concussive shot or intimidate him while charging into melee, then wing clip + frost trap once you're in melee range. You will basically want to behave like a warrior in this matchup, with the bonus that you are able to concussive shot the other hunter to prevent him from kiting. Even without TBW, BM hunters will cream MM hunters if they can get into melee range. If you have improved mend pet, use it to remove freezing trap if your TBW is down.

For MM hunters versus non-BM hunters, the basic idea is to bring the other hunter's health below yours and then jump into melee range.

First lay down a freezing trap to take the pet out of the equation. Try to scatter shot the other hunter soon after, before your trap has worn off. This allows you to do a shot opener without the pet beating on you to interrupt your aimed or steady shot. Once your opener is done, concussive shot and run into melee range so that the opposing hunter can't do the same back to you.

If you're expecting a longer fight, use viper sting to drain the other hunter's mana. For example, if you see a hunter at max range, viper sting him and then run the other way while kiting with aspect of the viper turned on. If you are out of mana yourself, try to stay in deadzone or melee range to prevent the other hunter from tearing you apart with his shots.

Jousting is also effective in hunter vs. hunter. Pop in and out of deadzone and melee range to get shots off. This works particularly well if your latency is higher than the other hunter's: you can wing clip him, run to minimum range, shoot, and then run to deadzone.

Use feign death strategically. Feign will get the opposing pet off of us and will break any non-instant casts. If you are frozen and the other hunter is winding up an aimed shot, start spamming your feign death, because there is a possibility that the trap will break before his cast time has finished.

Silencing shot stops some abilities such as trapping so we should use it when possible.

When all else fails, kill the other hunter's pet and viper sting him. Pets have zero resilience and most hunters use a low health DPS pet. Taking out the hunter's pet and mana renders him somewhat useless.