Huntard Discussion!

[Noobta]

Do you have error speech turned on?

[Royal]

Yeah I still get it but it doesnt bother me.

[Krandor]

Remove /cast !Auto shot

It resets your Auto Shot timer now

The macro I'm using in Steady Shot now is

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Rabid
/cast Steady shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Also, if you don't have GftT, respec to get it, the 51 point BM Talent is trash anyways. At 70 it means you lose out on GftT (which makes your shiny exotic pet all but worthless), and 80 you're losing out on Readiness. In it's current state it's just a downright awful talent.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ctbMzgxRVu0ekx0eMo is what I'm using right now at 70.

[Royal]

Actually the not ready message doesn't come up at all. My mistake.

[fantasticdan]

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ctbMzgxRVu0ekx0eMo is what I'm using right now at 70.

Why did you cap out kindred spirits instead of mortal shots or improved tracking? And what pet are you using? Longevity is a semi-nerf to cats on live, because it fucks up rake. And why cap out frenzy? Might as well throw 2 of the points in spirit bond or something, 3/5 is enough to keep the buff up full time.

This is what I would be using if my hunter was hit capped and not horribly geared:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ctbMzggRcu0xoZ0eVooZx

EDIT: This is the steady shot macro I'm using which gives me the "It's not ready yet." messages:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast Kill Command
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Rabid
/cast Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Turning off error speech does get rid of the voice acting, but I still get the big red letters on screen, and I don't really like having to turn the error voices off entirely.

[Ramor]

I thought it was 4/5 to keep that buff up full time? If it's 3/5 I'm about to blow another 45g to respec (i really want gftt anyway, but i have a trex pet D

Since I'm bad with macros, and you people apparently seem to have some sort of command of them, how could I make a /MD [targetname] macro?

would it just be...

#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [target="name",exists] Misdirection

?

[Krandor]

Frenzy nevers stays up fulltime for me at 4/5 (I was doing testing on a IF dummy last week, just autoshoting to keep my pets focus up and letting him go to town), idk why people always say that 3/5 or 4/5 is enough. I can't bring myself to spec into Spirit Bond because the talent was always such absolute trash and really with how easy raid content is right now if I need the extra 10% healing (pet definitely doesn't need it) there's something wrong with the raid healers.

Capped out Kindred Spirits is much more dps then filling out the rest of Mortal Shots (since it no longer affects auto shot) or Improved Tracking. Raid buffed my pet can push out upwards to 800-900 dps atm.

I'm using a cat atm because even with Longevity slightly reducing the DPS of Rake they're still the strongest pet. When they nerf Rake in the next patch I'll see, but right now cats are so much stronger then everything else it's a no brainer to use one.

I've never used a Misdirection macro, but the easiest way to go about is probably just setting it to your focus target. http://www.wowwiki.com/Making_a_macro covers pretty much every kind of macro command you'd need.

[fantasticdan]

Frenzy nevers stays up fulltime for me at 4/5 (I was doing testing on a IF dummy last week, just autoshoting to keep my pets focus up and letting him go to town), idk why people always say that 3/5 or 4/5 is enough. I can't bring myself to spec into Spirit Bond because the talent was always such absolute trash and really with how easy raid content is right now if I need the extra 10% healing (pet definitely doesn't need it) there's something wrong with the raid healers.

Capped out Kindred Spirits is much more dps then filling out the rest of Mortal Shots (since it no longer affects auto shot) or Improved Tracking. Raid buffed my pet can push out upwards to 800-900 dps atm.

I'm using a cat atm because even with Longevity slightly reducing the DPS of Rake they're still the strongest pet. When they nerf Rake in the next patch I'll see, but right now cats are so much stronger then everything else it's a no brainer to use one.

I've never used a Misdirection macro, but the easiest way to go about is probably just setting it to your focus target. http://www.wowwiki.com/Making_a_macro covers pretty much every kind of macro command you'd need.

When testing on a dummy, your pet is missing a lot of crit/haste buffs/debuffs it would have in a raid. 3/5 was enough for me to keep frenzy up full-time on bosses in kara, with a ret paladin, feral druid, and shaman doing windfury. You could say spirit bond is worthless because the fights are so easy, but you could say the same thing about most dps talents as well, hunter dps is through the roof right now anyway.

And you can't compare kindred spirits directly to mortal shots or improved tracking point for point, since you have to stick an extra 4 points in BM to even get to it. You have to compare 3/3 longevity, 5/5 kindred spirits, 2/5 mortal shots, with 5/5 mortal shots, 5/5 improved tracking. If the fight doesn't last long enough to get off two BWs(which is more often than not post nerf), longevity is a waste of talents, the only thing you're getting out of 3/3 is like 63% up-time on rabid as opposed to 45%, and with it messing up rake, it's probably a wash. My pet is doing around 25% of my dps, so kindred spirits would provide roughly the same benefit as improved tracking (I don't have either atm), however longevity likely wouldn't provide any benefit, compared to 3 points in mortal shots.

[Noobta]

The MD macro on Useful macros for hunters is what I use, works pretty well.
When I use hunter's mark(Middle mouse for me) on a friendly target it sets focus. Then my MD macro does either:
1)Casts on pet if no focus/target
2)Casts on friendly target if no focus
3)Casts on focus

Never had any problems with it.

[Krandor]

If the fight doesn't last long enough to get off two BWs(which is more often than not post nerf), longevity is a waste of talents

Karazhan =/= The rest of TBC

[Dezzimal]

Karazhan =/= The rest of TBC

Actually after that 30% health nerf its pretty close!

[Daydreamer]

If the fight doesn't last long enough to get off two BWs(which is more often than not post nerf), longevity is a waste of talents

Although it will be nice to have as a farming spec when they release duel speccing because of the AoE gorilladin tanking. Hell, it's wonderful for me to have now for basic lvling.

[fantasticdan]

Actually after that 30% health nerf its pretty close!

Not even just the health nerf, dps for so many classes (especially at lower gear levels) is way up as well. My mostly blue/green unenchanted hunter, including blue crossbow/ammo, was managing to do 1300 dps on ZA bosses just now, and that's missing a lot of buffs like kings and windfury. I doubt a fresh 70 hunter in similar gear could have came anywhere near that pre-patch.

For longeivity, you also have to consider that even in longer fights, it's only providing benefit if the fight ends during specific intervals, IE: 1:30-2:00, 3:00-4:00, and 4:30 or longer.

[Gulkeeva]

Don't forget longevity reduces cooldown on the PETS abilities also

[fantasticdan]

Don't forget longevity reduces cooldown on the PETS abilities also

Yes, meaning it lowers cat dps by making it reapply rake every 7 seconds rather than letting it tick for full duration.

[Krandor]

It's not lowering a cats dps, it's simply reducing the efficiency of Rake, stop stating it that way

[Ramor]

if you want to nitpick it is lowering it's dps, instead of tossing out another claw faster it's having to 'waste' focus on another rake that could have waited, so it is being decreased by a small amount, but not much.

[fantasticdan]

It's not lowering a cats dps, it's simply reducing the efficiency of Rake, stop stating it that way

Except that your pets abilities are limited by its GCD. Lowering the damage of rake per GCD, and at the same time replacing claws with extra rakes is a dps loss. It's the same thing as if a warlock was refreshing his immolate too early, and casting less shadow bolts/incinerates over time because of it. If you're not convinced, go test it yourself, or search for discussions on it on EJ.

[Gulkeeva]

I use a devilsaur >.>

[Ramor]

I use a devilsaur >.>

that's the way to do it, FancyRex <3