hunter pvpFollow

Just wondering which talent would be better for pvp, imp hunters mark or efficiency. Mainly for arena's. Is it more important to have that extra mana or the extra damage? Thanks in advance for any help!

I would say Efficiency. In Arena, Mana is oh-so-critical to Hunters if they want to get off any good attacks (since Auto-Shots don't use up mana). Suvivability is the name of the game here.

If your partner is physical damage, go hunter's mark. If your partner is a caster, go efficiency.

Personally, I've never run out of mana in an arena, and but I put up hunter's mark a lot because my partner is a rogue, and he likes the bonus.

I almost want to say ignore everything but the post immediately above this one... but that would be mean.

Edit: I couldnt live without both Imp Concussive AND Lethal Shots, but that's my play style.

Edited, Mar 12th 2008 3:10am by DukyFrodo

Beware, we are not that good at arena (2v2 ~1630 rating; 3v3 ~1600 rating).
It is mostly gear which allows us a few of those combos.

2v2 it is basically:
Build pressure upon your enemy. Hunter+Priest has no good CC, so you have to keep your opponents occupied.
Most of your opponents (especially the melee groups) will focus your priest. If he has not enough resilence/hp to survive some time, you won't win.
My priest has ~11.5k HP and 440resil and disc specced (pain supression, more healing and less damage taken after suffering a critical strike, ...).
On the plus side, both you and your priest can drain mana, priests can dispel fear and sheep (thus you won't be CCed very often) and normally you are ignored very often which allows for some amazing dps against those teams.

The standard tactic is to drain the opposing healer while keeping pressure high. Use a scorpid and sick it on the healer (you have no sheeps or other CC to worry about those poison dots, but you can easily drain the healer).
DPS the opponent who has the lowest armor, drain the healer. If you are ignored, use aimed shot to put really high pressure on the healer.
If you fight against warriors, don't dps them (they get rage from that, and a warrior with a lot of rage destroys your priest, while a warrior who is mainly beating into the priest's shield won't have the rage to pressure your priest).

This fight is about outlasting your opponent. Don't let the healer drink. Once he is oom just kill him or his DD (when you healer is nearly oom as well, try to kill the DD, else kill the healer first).

We have not played 2v2 very much (~7-10minutes waiting between games kills the fun).
The most difficult teams are 2DD teams with great CC. Those might kill you while fully controlling the healer for > 10 seconds. 2 mages wasted us once. Sheep & Counterspell on my priest, 3 frost novas on me. My 13k HP where gone in ~10-12 seconds without a single heal from my priest.
Another difficult setup is warrior/pally. If the pally is smart he hides from you most of the times so that it takes ages to drain him and building pressure by DPSing the warrior is very tricky. If the pally cannot run around pillars he goes down, if he can hide good your priest will go down before the pally is oom.

In 3v3 we have a very interesting, but somehow similar setup.
Holy pally -> heals, (and he can dispel fear/sheep)
Disc priest -> either heals (in 3DD setups) or heals/burns mana (drains mana whenever there is time and the other healer is not CCed).
The nice thing is, that CCing both healers is really hard as both can break most of the CC the other healer can get.
Standard strategy is:
Draining the opposing healer. Kill em all.
If hunter is ignored:
Aimed shot an your target. Drain mana on healer. DPS.
If the hunter is focused:
Pally main heals the hunter. Priest drains mana on opposing healer (which pretty much ensures a target switch, that is the opposing team then will focus the priest so that the hunter is free to drain/dps. If focus does not switch the opposing healer is oom in ~10 seconds *g*).
It is a great setup against many combos as hunter dps while oom is still decent (aspect of the viper FTW) and two healers can really outlast many teams.
Just keep the pressure high (aimed shot + dps on a cloth wearing class = very high pressure) and drain mana whenever the opposing healer shows up to heal his fellows.
There are some combos who can really build pressure on your team. Mainly melee oriented teams who focus on the hunter can be a PITA. The hunters dps goes down dramatically while there is not enough pressure on the opposing team. The opposing healer can stay out of sight most of time. With reduced healing effect (rogue's wound poison, ms warrior) your healers are oom rather fast.
Our worst games where against enhancement shaman, ms warrior, holy pally. I was stunned, slowed most of the time while the opposing pally still had some mana. As my healers where nearly oom, they switched targets to the priest and killed him by interrupting his heals for ~10 seconds. They pretty much outlasted us by forcing me into close combat for a long time.