I have been toying with the idea of writing a very basic hunter guide for those who have just started playing the hunter class, and as I am in the process of levelling my second hunter, I figured it's a nice oppurtunity to pen down some tips and tricks for those who are completely new to this wonderful class!
This guide will be extremely basic, without much of the number-crunching stuff since my theorycrafting skills aren't that great - some things are much better left to the
experts. ;-)
In this part, I'll try to cover some of the basics from levels 1-15: we'll take a look at what a hunter does, a basic hunter's rotation, talent specs, pets and hunter stats. So let's get started!
What does a hunter do besides shooting at things from a distance?
Hunters are primarily ranged DPS. We are also pretty good at crowd controlling, setting traps and snaring or silencing enemies.
Next to that, hunters provide awesome buffs for parties and raids from our spec and pets which we can easily switch around, depending on the situation. Also, hunters are naturally handsome and badass. It is general knowledge that:
"Hunters have smoldering good looks by nature, that reduces the opposite gender to a quivering pile of desire. Sometimes the same gender too. We just look that good. It’s a blessing and a curse, except not actually at all curse-like"
For more basic info on hunter stats, focus, hunter races and pets,
this page covers a lot of the basics.
Shots and abilities in the first few levels
At level 1, you start out with
Arcane Shot and your trusty pet. Arcane Shot will, for most of your levelling career, be one of the more hard hitting spells, but, as it costs 25 focus just to fire one - that's a quarter of your total focus - it is not an ability you will want to use endlessly. That's where
Steady Shot, available at level 3, comes in. The shot doesn't do as much damage as Arcane Shot, and it has a cast time of 2 seconds, but each Steady Shot you cast
restores 9 focus, making it an awesome "filler-shot" you'll want to use inbetween high damaging shots.
At a later stage, from level 15 upwards or so, you will want to mix up your Arcane Shots (and specialization-signature shots, depending on what spec you choose to play) with your Steadies, to keep your damage up while regenerating enough focus to cast your more fancy shots.
This is where we can see the beginning of a basic hunter rotation!
While there isn't really a strict shot-rotation every hunter should abide to - in the end, your rotation really depends on your spec, playstyle, whether you PvE or PvP, any fight mechanics and so on - a simple, basic PvE hunter rotation goes something like this:
Hunter's Mark: you only have to apply it once (available at level 14)
Serpent Sting (available at level 10)
Signature Shot
If you have enough focus, Arcane Shot
Steady Shot
Steady Shot
Signature Shot
Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.
You will always want to have Hunter's Mark up on your target, as it lasts pretty long (5 minutes) and increases your attack power (= more dps). The second shot you'll always want to use in your rotation is Serpent Sting. Serpent Sting is a DoT, a spell that ticks damage over time while you are firing off other shots. After that, your shooting priority are the spells that deal the most damage, usually followed by an Arcane Shot - if you have focus to spare. To restore focus, throw in a couple of Steady Shots - especially if you are Markmanship and have
Improved Steady Shot talented, as it makes you shoot faster.
Talent Specializations
At level ten, you will get to choose to play either as Markmanship (MM), Survival (SV) or Beast Mastery (BM) - each with its own signature shot and special abilties.
