[PVP] Beginner's guide to hunter.

[The Usual Suspect]

Disclaimer.
The info in this guide has been obtained through personal experience, so take it with a grain of salt.
This guide refers mostly to 1v1, wpvp and random bgs.
You will not find any important arena or rated bg tips here.

Ok, so you hit 90 and wonder where and how to begin your pvp career. You also have many questions.

1. What are your bane classes as hunter? What classes and specs hardcounter you?
Well none tbh. There is no class that would always stomp you in 1v1 situations. Ofcourse some fights against warlocks and good rogues can be difficult but these aren't hardcounters, more like a battle of cooldowns and cc-ing at the right time.
In fact a hunter's greatest weakness is a small, closed space. Try to not allow yourself to be cornered somwhere with a melee in your face as that can spell doom even if he's a noob.

2. What spec should I pvp as?
Well your obvious choices are between Beastmastery and Marksmanship. Survival may work for you to some extent but it's mostly a PVE spec.

Beastmastery
Pros:
- extra pvp trinket on a 1 min cd
- can do good damage even while on the move, while sitting in detterence or while the enemy or yourself is out of los.
- can do very good sustained dps without being dependent on positioning or gimicky openers
- extra stun on a 1.5 min cd. Provided you go with a shale spider, which you should.
Cons:
- not really that bursty
- sometimes the pet's pathfinding can be very frustrating

Marksmanship
Pros:
- a somewhat useful self heal
- higher burst potential. Especially with an Aimed Shot+Chimera Shot out of stealth
- Silencing Shot
- Extra 1 min cd defensive cooldown. Provided your pet is Cunning, which it should be.
- You won't get annoyed by the pet's artificial stupidity.
- Extra cc on a 2 min cd
Cons:
- A very focus starved spec
- Your signature move is on a 9 sec cd. Imo, far too long in pvp.
- Not very damaging when needing to move and kite a melee.
- No pet available to to Marksmanship or Survival has any stuns.
- The cd on the pet's cc is way too long considering the very short duration and the fact that it breaks on as much as s sneeze in its direction.
- Requires you to face the target in order to do any real damage, meaning LOS can be a big problem especially against pillar humpers.

In short terms, Beastmastery is very good against melee opponents but not that good against ranged ones, while Marksmanship is very good against ranged but pretty bad vs. melee.
Overall you may find Beastmastery as a better performer in general situations than Marksmanship.

3. What talents should I go with?
The talents are the same no matter what spec you play. Well you may want to switch Blink Strikes for A Murder of Crows if you play MM.

Tier 1. The only good choices are Posthaste (my favorite) or Narrow Escape. The thing I don't like about Narrow Escape is that it doesn't break movement cc, and also the webs it creates break very easily on damage.

Tier 2. Only good ones are Binding Shot and Wyvern Sting. I don't know what to recommend here as both are very good. Thing is BS shares diminishing returns with the spider's stun but it can be very good in bgs to stun multiple opponents. Wyvern Sting helps tons in 1v2 situations as well as a nice way to stop a very aggressive opponent and give yourself some breathing space.

Tier 3. Spirit Bond. The only real choice. Iron Hawk is good for situations where you have a healer with you, which isn't what this guide is about. And Exhilaration is crap. Trust me you don't want want to be wittled down by a hit&run rogue or some shitty hybrid simply because you don't have any heals.

Tier 4. Thrill of the Hunt. Some people also advocate Fervor but tbh I never actually felt the need for more focus as BM, also Fervor adds another button to your actionbar, which as a hunter you don't really have that much room for if you want to play comfortably.

Tier 5. Blink Strikes is your bread and butter. You WANT your pet to be on your target asap, also the talent buffs its autoattack, which benefits BM quit a bit considering the pet is the main source for your damage. You may take Murder of Crows if you want to be a hipster and it will help with burst windows but overall...meh.
Lynx Rush is crap. It went from a very OP attack in early MoP days to an attack that has no purpose in either PVP nor PVE because, as usual, Blizzard can't balance shit.

Tier 6. Glaive Toss. Powershot is an extremely situational attack that can't even be used as an opener from stealth because it cancels stealth the moment you start casting it so, unless the opponent is an idiot/afk/really not on his toes, you won't pull it off without trouble. Not like Aimed Shot for a Marksman. Barrage is a PVE attack.
I have seen someone using Powershot for a very interesting playstyle based upon using this attack to "headshot" opponents in Freezing Trap (Glyph of No Escape is mandatory for this)

4. What glyphs should I use ?
Hunters have A LOT of useful glyphs, however only 3 slots.
Glyph Animal Bond is mandatory as it boosts your Spirit Bond passive heal. You should always have this.
Glyph of Camouflage. This is dependent on your playstyle. Camouflage offers stealth anyway but only if you stand still whereas with this glyph you can still move. It is most useful when fighting a rogue who failed to killed you and restealthed to get another opener but also allowed your dots to wear off and you can stealth too. If you stand still he will know where you are and will open on you again, but with this glyph you can move around and he can't find you. Also useful in lots of other situations.
Glyph of Explosive Trap. Yet another personal preferance but goes with a lot of situations such as waiting in stealth at Lumber Mill in AB for some idiot to asume there is no one around and trying to cap flag only to be knocked off the hill. Or knocking off other people from strategic locations like the horde towers in AV.
Solace. A good glyph if your playstyle revolves around getting people into traps a lot in order to freecast Powershot or Aimed Shot+Chim Shot combos
Glyph of No Escape. Makes your ranged attacks have a 100% crit chance when used on someone trapped in Freezing Trap. Makes for some interesting playstyle, however one that is situational and not really feasible in bgs.

5.How should I gem and reforge ?
All hunter specs use the same things.
Hit (till your special attacks can't miss level 90s) > Crit > Haste > Mastery.
Gem delicate primordial rubies in all red slots.
Agility+crit gems in yellow slots.
Agility+pvp power in blue slots.
DO NOT gem shit like Stamina or Resilience nor even pure pvp power. That's really not gonna help you.

6.What is my rotation?
There is no real rotation in pvp, just a list of priorities.

Beastmastery
Widow Venom should be your 1st shot as pretty much all classes have some sort of self heal.
Concussive Shot should be your next attack.
Kill Command is your main nuke and you should spam it whenever possible.
Kill Shot when your target is low hp.
Arcane Shot when you are above 50% focus. Do not spam Arcane Shot if you won't have focus for Kill Command.
Cobra Shot when everything else is on cd or not necesarry or you simply need to regain focus.
Serpent Sting. This is your lowest priority attack, I wouldn't even say you need to use it as it breaks traps anyway. However it's good against rogues as it forces them to blow Cloak of Shadows in order to restealth, and if Clos is on cd they're boned.

6.a. When should I use Bestial Wrath ?
In my personal opinion you should hang on to this cd until you get the opportunity to use it to break a hard cc. Using it willy nilly just for the damage buff may actually work against you, especially if the opponent cc-es you right after you popped it. Just wait until you get long stunned/feared and then use it. If you manage to beat the opponent without this cd, all the better. If you play with support and the enemy is unlikely to focus on you, then you can blow it right off the bat.

Marksmanship
Whenever possible you should be opening from stealth.
Aimed Shot+Chimera shot on an unsuspecting target and you should be able to take at the very least 25% off their hp if they wear plate, if wearing less armor can be up to 33%.
That's the only time you hardcast Aimed Shot. You should never cast Aimed Shot outside of stealth unless a) you get an instant cast Aimed Shot proc, b) the target is sitting helpless in a cc.
Same as Beastmastery

Conclusion.
If you want to do mainly 1v1, wpvp and random bgs I recommend Beastmastery. I have often situations where I can do 1v2 against melee classes as BM whereas I cannot do the same as MM. This is because MM's damage is bursty but happens less often than BM's damage. Also if you get cc-ed or los-ed you do 0 damage whereas BM can still hit hard even while you're not personally attacking.

In before haters
In before l2p
In before random Internet stuff.

[Deleted]

Good post, but as author stated it's based on personal preferences. BM isn't better in any aspect in pvp apart maybe in guarding flag in rbg (due BW). In general MM is more favourable because of extra control (silencig shot). Also most of talant choices and glyphs genaraly depends what kind of pvp you going for and who are you facing, thay all can be viable in some stiuation.

[The Usual Suspect]

Good post, but as author stated it's based on personal preferences. BM isn't better in any aspect in pvp apart maybe in guarding flag in rbg (due BW). In general MM is more favourable because of extra control (silencig shot). Also most of talant choices and glyphs genaraly depends what kind of pvp you going for and who are you facing, thay all can be viable in some stiuation.

Thanks but I'm not sure how. As I said, I can often do 1v2 as BM while I tried doing that with MM and it simply didn't cut it. I started playing a hunter this patch after BM got nerfed since MM always sounded better in theory and I also heard people saying it's great now so I drudged it out, but one day I specced BM inspite of people saying it's nerfed, and everything was a like a whole different ballpark. I suddenly didn't need to avoid warriors and getting sapped no longer told me that I'm seconds away from a date with the spirit healer. I mean sure, it was easier to beat ranged classes as MM but vs. melee I was pretty much boned if I couldn't open on them from range. Also silencing shot is nice and all but it's useless against the very 2 classes that always kicked my butt.

If you mean MM is better in arena, I can't argue with that as I'm sure that once survivability becomes a non issue either because you have heals or peals, the MM's burst potential comes into the light but MM is just too easy to shut down when you're being chased by an aggressive opponent that is capable of breaking many of your cc.

Watched this Pypo guy doing bgs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6biofstU9g and everytime he came under the attention of a certain fire mage, he bit the dirt for only one reason: No BW to break deep freeze.

[Cobaltius]

Great info!

One thing I have found is that flare and traps are almost useless now especially against Rogues whom by far and away are responsible for more Hunter deaths that any other class, at least for me anyway.

Flare is supposed to detect stealthies before they get to you, it does no such thing, spamming it around flags or standing in it is futile, rogues can even disarm traps in the flare with out being detected. Traps seem to be seen by most everyone now, I have dropped Ice traps so many time to try and gain a little space only to see my opponents move/ dance around them, or move so fast frost, snake, and explosive traps they have little to no affect.

In short don't rely on traps or flare just keep moving it is the only chance you have to keep a stealthie from getting some easy Honor points.

[eschatological]

You can do 1v2 BM in beginner PvP, sure. But as you get more advanced and people know how ot deal with pets/Stampede, MM will offer more control, and better results.

[The Usual Suspect]

Great info!

One thing I have found is that flare and traps are almost useless now especially against Rogues whom by far and away are responsible for more Hunter deaths that any other class, at least for me anyway.

Flare is supposed to detect stealthies before they get to you, it does no such thing, spamming it around flags or standing in it is futile, rogues can even disarm traps in the flare with out being detected. Traps seem to be seen by most everyone now, I have dropped Ice traps so many time to try and gain a little space only to see my opponents move/ dance around them, or move so fast frost, snake, and explosive traps they have little to no affect.

In short don't rely on traps or flare just keep moving it is the only chance you have to keep a stealthie from getting some easy Honor points.

Thanks.

You should never use freezing trap on its own. You must always use it in combination with Scatter Shot. Scatter Shot the target 1st and then drop a trap at his feet. It will land. If Scatter is on cd, it's better to not try to trap if you don't have any other way to make him stand still.

Flare is kinda crappy sure, and its effects apply too slow. However it can be good when used at choke points, especially if you drop traps at the other side of the flare and the rogue can't reach the trap without having to go through the flare. Like the middle in Eye of the storm (drop traps on the middle path and flare right in front of the traps towards the spot where the enemy is likely to come from, this way there is no room to walk around the flare nor should the trap be in range of any rogue).

Also, if you got a rogue in a freezing trap, before shooting at him drop a flare at his feet first because he will be mashing his Vanish button so he can disappear as soon as the trap broke, and he can't if he's flared.
Flare isn't likely to give any advantages in 1v1.

- - - Updated - - -

Updated guide with point 6.a Bestial Wrath

[Deleted]

Flare isn't likely to give any advantages in 1v1.

Against rogue it will give you massive advantage if you manage unstealth him before he opens on you and yes you trap only after scatter, wyvern sting, stun, warp etc, otherwise it's a waste. In 1v1 if both have all cds up it's generaly 50/50 with tiny favor to hunter.