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Let me start by thanking the frequent posters here. I read this forum for tips and my play has significantly improved - particularly with regards to CC. Having dinged 70 a month ago, the pre-raid post is something I refer to often.

I was using a 38/20/3 build for the longest time, but after reading the various posts here and researching the top hunters and their specs in the Armory I started to wonder if I was using my pet as a crutch and letting my aggro management and CC skills go limp. Given I'm now running a lot of 5-man trying to gear up for my guild's Kara runs, I took the plunge and respecced to a 0/21/40 build.

Wow. I have to be a lot more careful about aggro management (my pet does less DPS and there's no Intimidate to pull a mob off me anymore), but while doing the Breaking The Path group quest in Shadowmoon Valley I found I was able to CC 2-3 mobs at a time fairly effectively - not as good as perhaps someone better geared (hello Beast Lord) but well enough that during a bad pull nobody wiped. I think my value to an instance PUG increased significantly.

Anyway, at the risk of being flamed (I've seen enough here to feel the burn) I'm presenting my gear/spec to the experts for constructive criticism.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Aggramar&n=Panteleone

Before you start:

1. I'm broke after getting my flying mount. That means I go for the +6 AGI gems and not the +8 AGI gems a lot of times. It also means that I used a lot of gems given to me by the guild bank or friends. It's not ideal, I know, but that's where I'm coming from with that. It also means that I'm going to be slow on getting my enchants done (but I've done a few). Farming has never been a priority, but it will be now.

2. I know my shoulder item needs replacing. You'd be amazed at how sucky the AH is for buying mail shoulders. I haven't seen a decent replacement since turning 70. I just got keyed with CE so I'm hoping a Steam Vault run or two nets me Beast Lord Mantle or something useful. I've plenty of arcane dust to get the tier-1 shoulder inscription from the Aldors when I eventually find a replacement.

3. My rep increasing priorities are: CE (for glyph of ferocity), then LC (for Auchidoun key).

Fire away, and thanks in advance.

Steamvaults is one of the easiest level 70 instances once you get the hang of it, and the last boss can drop 2 pieces of the Beast Lord set (shoulders and legs). 26 second trap duration with 20 second cooldowns...even long after I have epic pieces to replace my Beast Lord stuff, I'm still going to keep them for CC duty >:D

Oh, just the Surv Hunters of course. The rest I just set AP, Crit and Hit requirements for, and tell them to make sure they don't run out of mana.

Because Agility provides a mix of AP and Crit, and scales better on gear than sheer +Crit. Well, if you are Hitcapped. If not, that is something you really need to focus on.

If the shot animation goes high and wide... you missed... ^_^

Just when I'm starting to feel good about myself as a SV hunter, Bliz nerfs the trap utility. Bleh.

Thanks, anyway, for the constructive input up till now.

Edited, Nov 15th 2007 10:59am by Panteleone

Yes only AP buffs your pet, thus AP and AGI buff the pet whilst crit does nothing for it (except kill command and focus regen if you have specced go for the throat in MM tree).