A Fistfull of Arrows: Hunter course 101 (Shot Rotation, Know the encounter, Know your spec, Hunter's mark)

(This guide was created by Cutrean, level 70 Tauren hunter, of the Baelgun server.
Date: 9/25/07)


Sophomore Level

6. Shot Rotation
7. Know the encounter
8. Know your spec
9. Hunter's Mark


6. Learn your shot rotation. This is how we DPS, without it, we might as well just jump in and start swinging away. The shot rotation has completely changed now. Due to Aimed Shot resetting the shot timers, it fits in only somewhat during a prolonged fight, that’s if you want to give a nice misdirect to someone or to see how high you’ll hit for during Curator’s evocation. Other than that, it’s pretty useless other than having fun in PvP and as a stepping stone in your talent tree.

Shot rotations will vary depending on class, play style and gear. Beast Master Hunters depend less on shot rotations as their talents give large boosts in speed which can make weaving shots problematic at best. In the spec section I have linked to a button-mashing macro for BM types that includes auto-shot, steady-shot, kill-command, and little else.

Marksman Hunters and Survival Hunters depend on weaving in their special shots between their auto-shots. An example of this would be…fight starts; tank has aggro, arcane shot – multi-shot – auto-shot – steady shot – auto-shot – steady shot – arcane shot – auto-shot – steady shot – multi-shot – auto-shot. Now for the next level, add in KC (Kill Command) because you have your pet out right? And he’s doing damage right? Good thing KC is separate from the Global Cool down huh? I use something similar and I never “clip” my shots.

Wait, I can hear you now, “what’s this “clipping” he’s talking about?” Well, that’s when you fire off one of your specials (arcane, steady, multi) towards the end of your auto-shot cycle. What this does is put your next auto-shot in queue as it were and delaying causing an interrupt of constant DPS, which by the way, is what we do. If you have a shot-timer (you do right?) you can get used to seeing when your auto-shot goes off.



7. Know the fight. Whatever the fight is, you gotta know what to do. With the advent of smaller raids and more complex boss fights, gone are the days where we just simply stand there and pewpew for the entire fight. Before going into a new zone, do a bit of research so when you attempt the big kill for the first time, you don't look like a complete noob.

8. Know your specs. We got lucky; all three trees can add something positive to a raid / group. BM for CC resist, and uber pet and greatly increased DPS for 15sec and 3% damage increase for party members for 10 sec., MM for TSA, Imp. Hunters Mark, Silence Shot and Scatter Shot (not too good against bosses, but trash mobs...perfect), and Survival for uber traps, Wyvern Sting, and Expose Weakness.

9. Keep Hunter's Mark up. On bosses, every hunter in the raid is going to be focusing fire on a single target. Rank 4 Improved Hunter's Mark is a bonus 110 RAP / AP for all melee and ranged. We get the extra bonus of it increasing our RAP up to 440. Not too shabby. In a raiding environment, really only one hunter needs to have this skill or one hunter only needs to make sure that it is constantly up and running. If you run 5-mans a lot, chances are you have this anyways, or at least you should..