Lethal Shots

So you dinged 80 finally. Grats on that by the way. But now you have your sights set higher. You want in on end-game content. Heroic 5 mans. 10 and 25 man raids. You don’t care, you just want in. Well, I can’t blame you, end-game is some of the most fun I have had in WoW.

But you don’t want to be labeled a “Huntard”, so there is a small amount of prep work you need to do. Namely your spec. Your spec has the single most important impact on your performance in end-game (other than skill and experience of course). You can have the best gear in the game, but if you slop a spec together your performance is going to be dismal.

I have always been one to advocate playing how you want. You don’t have to follow cookie-cutter specs or spec into a specific tree just because it provides the best DPS. You can spec however you want to. But there are a few conventions that you will need to follow to be successful. Some talents are obviously PvP oriented, some are for soloing. But each tree has core talents that you will need to pick up to be a successful raider.

Below are some example specs that you can study, try out, even modify to suit you. Don’t feel like these are set in stone and that no variance is allowed:

• Beast Mastery: This tree is all about your pet. Most of the talents here buff the pet rather than the Hunter. Expect your pet to provide 45-50% of your overall DPS if you spec into this tree.
  • Build 1 – This build focuses on buffing up your pet for max DPS.
  • Build 2 – This build focuses on buffing up your pet, but emphasizes pet survivability instead of DPS. I consider this more of a leveling build, but if you are having issues with keeping your pet alive, you might look into it.
• Marksmanship: Mail wearing Mages. This tree is all about cranking up your RaP.
  • Build 1 – This is the build I used when I tried Marks out for a brief time. I know it is far from perfect, but I make no claim to be an expert in the Marks tree.
  • Build 2 – This is another sample spec that I pulled off the armory from a respectable Marks hunter.
• Survival: Hunters specced here are crit junkies who are all about explosions, whether it be a trap or a shot.
  • Build 1 – This is the build I am running with currently. I stay at max range and unload the pain.
  • Build 2 – This is one of the more popular Survival builds currently.

Like I said above, these are simply example builds. Feel free to move a few points around if you wnat to. If you hit rating is a little low, grab a point or two in Focused Aim. You can adjust how many points to take in some talents based on your crit rating. A player’s spec really needs to be tailored to them, not what some jerk on a forum claims is the best.

If you have any questions or would like some help with a spec, drop me a line, I’ll be glad to help. As always, thoughs and comments are appreciated.

*All builds linked here are current as of patch 3.0.9