who should spec improved mark for raiding?Follow

have been lurking for a while, but thought i should finally get round to posting.

I notice that neither of the cookie cutter raid build have improved hunters mark specced. However assuming that i'm right in thinking that improved mark applys to everyone in the raid rather than just the group then improved hunters mark is the most important buffing talent hunters have (399 attack power on average under ideal circumstances for all physical dps).

110 at T=0
440 at T=30 (assuming 2.9 weapon speed and a survival shot rotation)
440 at T=120 when it needs to be reapplied

I've recently switched from marks (to much shammy gear and no priest in kara group) to survival for raiding kara, but finding the 5 points for improved huntes mark hurts a lot more than when i was marks.

Seems that a BM hunter speccing improved marks has to give up efficiency and a survival hunter either has to give up efficiency or gimp dps a bit.

So which is the best option to have your survival hunter spec improved mark or get one of the BM hunters to do it (does a BM fire off the 30 shot required to max the buff out quicker than a survival shot rotation?) Or is god forbid being able to spec improved mark with less pain a reason for raiding as marks?

This would be great, but for two things.

a) The default mark applies to all hunters already

b) the imp mark only applies to melee

c) only the 110 ever applies to melee, the 440 is only RAP.

C is the most important, in the end it's better to get efficiency. It does make a difference though, so if you're really reaching for an edge put one hunter on it and then shove them in a group with a shadow priest. The spec doesn't really matter. With a shadow priest you won't run out of mana very quickly. If you add in seal of wisdom, you'll end most fights at 100% so efficiency doesn't matter as much.

BM can get the mark up fastest, but that doesn't really matter for the imp mark as it doesn't affect it. also all hunter attacks will get it up, so with 2 or 3 hunters it gets to it's max value pretty quickly.

Edited, Apr 4th 2008 11:51am by Xsarus

The mark is best for the BM hunter because that extra melee power applies to your PET.

If you're only doing 10 mans and have more casters than physical damage, don't worry about it.

If you're in a 25 man with 2-3 other hunters, flip a coin, ro-sham-bo, pick straws, /roll 100... Whatever works. There are those occasional hunters that WANT to be a martyr and give up Efficiency, but for the most part, no one wants to give it up.

I don't know why you guys are all stuck in the past, but all the new cool new hunters spec for melee and use two handed maces! At least all the cool hunters do.

















If you are slow or just plain challenged you may be unaware of the rich sarcasm in my typing!

Survival. More than 36 points in Survival for hardcore raiding is subpar, since Master Tac is pretty subpar. Better to spend those points in Imp Mark and help out the melee, especially if you've got a lot of them (we run with 1-2 rogues, fury warrior, enhance shammy, ret pally, and 3-4 tanks either tanking or dps'ing).
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cZVEbRVZIhoMxcMhVhh

Edited, Apr 5th 2008 11:59am by lsfreak

Most BM hunters are dps whores, so they start to cry when you tell them to spec out of their dps build. I say let the SV hunter grab it since he's already the raid buffing *****, and SV hunters have Thrill of the Hunt and a rediculous crit rating. I personally prefer using my fel pots, only putting 2/3 in EW, and getting Leader of the Pack for the increased crit as SV :D