PvP Hunter Spec

I was talking to Rasberry about hunter specs and decided if I was going to write all this down, I might as well post it. Commentary is at the end

Marksmanship

Improved Concussive Shot
Rank 5/5
Gives your Concussive Shot a 20% chance to stun the target for 3 sec.

Efficiency
Rank 2/5
Reduces the Mana cost of your Shots and Stings by 4%.

Lethal Shots
Rank 5/5
Increases your critical strike chance with ranged weapons by 5%.

Aimed Shot
Rank 1/1
An aimed shot that increases ranged damage by 600.

Hawk Eye
Rank 3/3
Increases the range of your ranged weapons by 6 yards.

Mortal Shots
Rank 5/5
Increases your ranged weapon critical strike damage bonus by 30%.

Scatter Shot
Rank 1/1
8% of Base Mana 15 yd range
Instant 30 sec cooldown
Requires Ranged Weapon
A short-range shot that deals 50% weapon damage and disorients the target for 4 sec. Any damage caused will remove the effect. Turns off your attack when used.

Barrage
Rank 3/3
Increases the damage done by your Multi-Shot and Volley spells by 15%.
Ranged Weapon Specialization

Rank 5/5
Increases the damage you deal with ranged weapons by 5%.
Marksmanship Total: 30

Survival

Humanoid Slaying
Rank 3/3
Increases all damage caused against Humanoid targets by 3% and increases critical damage caused against Humanoid targets by an additional 3%.

Deflection
Rank 2/5
Increases your Parry chance by 2%.

Savage Strikes
Rank 2/2
Increases the critical strike chance of Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite by 20%.

Improved Wing Clip
Rank 5/5
Gives your Wing Clip ability a 20% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.

Clever Traps
Rank 2/2
Increases the duration of Freezing and Frost trap effects by 30% and the damage of Immolation and Explosive trap effects by 30%.

Survivalist
Rank 5/5
Increases total health by 10%.

Deterrence
Rank 1/1
Instant 5 min cooldown
When activated, increases your Dodge and Parry chance by 25% for 10 sec.

Counterattack
Rank 1/1
45 Mana 5 yd range
Instant cast 5 sec cooldown
A strike that becomes active after parrying an opponent's attack. This attack deals 40 damage and immobilizes the target for 5 sec. Counterattack cannot be blocked, dodged, or parried.

Survival Total: 21

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I returned to the game just as they were implementing the changes to the hunter talent tree. I decided to give beast spec a try. I instantly fell in love with bestial wrath, because it turned my kitty into a giant red killing machine that ate gnomes alive. After a few weeks, though, I realized that it was only good for 15 seconds out of every 3 minutes. It is a great 1vs1 spec because BW will be up almost every time you fought, but in battlegrounds, it is nearly useless. Also, any talent points you spend on your pet are wasted as soon as you go on a true raid. You don't use a pet in MC, BWL, ZG, or for any of the outdoor bosses. They just die and in some cases actually put the raid at greater risk. Taking all these factors into account, I made this new build.

This build is designed to do two things:

1) Increase survivability in pvp
2) Kill the squishies

Scattershot is probably the best talent point you can spend as a hunter. It will incapacitate the target for 4 seconds, causing them to lose target on you and instead auto-target the first thing that hits them. This will usually be your pet or another player. The time that they have to spend finding you and clicking on you amidst a crowded battlefield is time that you have to get away from them or lay a trap. It also interrupts casters. It also wipes out rogue combo points if they don't retarget you fast enough. It can even crit for a few hundred damage, and I have finished people off in those really really close fights where I just couldnt get out of melee any more. In WSG, if a druid is trying to take off with your flag, it keeps them from going anywhere for four seconds, giving the rest of your group time to converge. It will stop people on mounts, letting you run up and wing clip them. Its uses are limitless. A wonderfull skill, and by itself is better than the entire beast tree.

Everything before scattershot in the marks tree is obvious. You can switch improved conc with efficiency if you want. I might do it next time I respec because I am always running out of mana, although I will miss the stun from imp conc. Mortal and lethal shots make you crit more and harder. A hunter without hawkeye might as well reroll. Aimed shot is your second biggest killing tool in battlegrounds.

I took the survival tree up to counterattack. Humanoid slaying makes you hit significantly harder (~4% harder crits). Deflection 2/5 is just there to get the next tier, but its a nice bonus to have with counterattack. Improved wing clip is a great ability, because wing clip has no cooldown and you can spam it until it goes off. Savage strikes is an awesome ability because hunters can actually crit pretty damn hard on their raptor strikes if they have a good twohander. I really love smacking rogues for 800 in melee. Clever traps is a great skill because my immo traps do 897 damage. I've started using freezing traps less (it always wears off early or gets broken) and immo traps more, because 900 damage is a lot. Survivalist is obvious - it gives me over 400 bonus hp. Deterrence is an amazing skill that will keep rogues from killing you until it wears off. You will also get lots of parries, which trigger counterattack. It's a good skill to use against warriors when you have to, although you do run the risk of dodging and thus triggering their overpower. It's also great in pve. It saved my life multiple times on my last Hakkar fight. Counterattack's use is obvious. The best thing to do is counterattack and then immediately use your pvp trinket to break hamstring/crip poison and run away.

Once you have scattershot and counterattack, you can do a couple of things. I opted for barrage and RWS, although I might do it differently next time.

I am always going to take barrage from now on. +15% to multishot is amazing, and I frequently get 1.2k+ crits on casters, which really fucks them up. I have a screenshot somewhere of all three shots critting for over 1k. I said earlier that aimed shot is my second biggest killer in BG's. Multishot is my first. Always get barrage, and use multishot constantly.

Just to reiterate: Use multishot constantly, even if you aren't going to be hitting multiple targets. It helps to have mage water while doing this because it is mana-intensive.

After barrage, I took my last five points in ranged weapon specialization, although I am now reconsidering this one. The extra 5% damage makes your crits significantly harder, but you're missing out on 3% crit chance since you don't have Killer Instinct. It's a tough call, and I am thinking about respeccing to take KI instead.

As for lightning reflexes vs RWS, it is pretty much a toss-up. If you do the math (1 agi = 2 RAP, 14 RAP = 1 DPS increase), the damage increase is almost identical. RWS adds slightly more damage, but KI also adds some addition crit chance (about .8% for me), so it evens out.

The last 9 points you spend are up to you, although I highly recommend taking barrage.

My basic strategy when using this spec:

I stay towards the back or sides of the battle, or I try to come in from an angle where people are less likely to notice me, or shoot through a solid object such as a tree, hill, shed, etc... so that people don't realize that I am there.

Once I am positioned, I pick my target. I like to go for the squishies first (mages and priests) because they are the easiest for me to kill, and probably the two most threatening classes to my raid group. If no squishies are available, I just work my way up the food chain, starting with low-health people, rogues, druids, other hunters, etc... with paladins being my last target b/c they are so stupid to kill.

I line up an aimed shot, and immediately follow it with a multi-shot. Multi-shot has a huge damage bonus, and crits very hard, thus I use it constantly even if I am not going to be hitting multiple targets. Once AS and MS have both been fired, I send in the pet and cast conc shot, because the squishy will probably be trying to back up. I wait to send in the pet because I don't want my victim to realize that he is being attacked by a hunter until it is too late. If you mark him or put your pet on him, he knows that an aimed shot will likely follow and will iceblock or PW:S or whatever. If they try to heal and you're close enough, scattershot them and line up a second aimed shot while they are disoriented. Remember that scattershot wears off as soon as you hit them, so you might as well make full use of that 4 seconds by aimed shotting them.

I've probably got more to say, but I am really tired and starting to ramble. Enjoy