Monday, March 10, 2008

My very own General forum thread.

Someone made a General forum thread called @Mirshalak, and then didn't come back after I answered, so I'll repost my answer here.

So, i gotta ask - what the hell is up with your spec?

I mean, i'm not one to judge by peoples gear or rating. Some people dont like to PvP or raid, some people just dinged 70, some people are casuale. Its cool. Also some people like to exprimant with thier specs, and i get that too.

But, your spec is all over the place. You're 41 points in survival, but you skipped master tactician. You also skipped both detarrence and counterattack for 5/5 survivaliest, which means you dont want to gain range, but you wear leather so it doesn't seem to me like you are a melee hunter. You are also 20 points into marksmanship, but you couldn't spare one point in survival [where you didn't hit the 41 points talent] to grab scattershot? Its a life saver on a 30 sec CD, and again, you aren't a melee hunter

It just doesn't make sense. Please expline where are you going with this spec and what the hell is it good for?


It's a farming spec. I use it for soloing the Scholomance. And yes, I define the word casual at the moment. I'm farming gold for crafted lewts because I'm a scrub, don't want to deal with guild politics, and prolly don't have the skillz necessary to enter a raiding guild anywayz. ;-)

However, more seriously...I've got Resourcefulness for the trap bonus. For instance/primal farming, I actually like to try and minimise my threat, and rely on talented traps/stings to do the work. I've still got 5/5 MS because when respeccing last time I didn't go the whole hog due to people in groups tending to cry profusely if you don't have MS, and I still want to be able to do instances occasionally.

I do fight at range also...but my health is at 6.8 to barely 7k even with Survivalist...so I need it. I'm geared pretty much for pure ag.

Buffed I've been a bit over 900 ag...I recently broke 1k dps in the mana tombs not long ago, and 850 dps on Murmur. It's not all that special by raiding standards perhaps, but I was quite happy with it, and I did it with this crazy mixed up spec as well, no less.

Most of the leet Black Temple type Hunters I read on the Hunter forum (hi, Alu! ;-)) are generally of the opinion that MT ain't all that great; the proc is too unsteady.

More specifically though, as I've said, when I'm farming I actually want to minimise my crit talent wise to a degree, not maximise it...since with my ag the way it is I'm critting often enough anywayz. If I go too crit crazy, mobs go from the pet to me, and I don't like that at all.

There are better talents than Counterattack too, truth be told. I used to get a fair amount of mileage out of it in Warsong Gulch back in the day, but those days are long behind me, more's the pity. I've been more or less straight PvE since I hit the cap; Resilience does horrible, horrible things to Survival. :(

I wear leather because as it's written by the Elitist Jerks, leather's where the stats are at for Survival, at least to a large degree. I don't like that much, because it makes me a lot more squishy...but I do love ag...more than anything else. So what can ya do? ;-)

I know Bandet talks about how Scatter's the shizzle, and I believe her, but I've always been a Wyvern man myself...and what with both ToTH and Resourcefulness for what I'm currently doing...sadly I only have so many points.

It's a hybrid five man/farming spec. Truthfully if I'd gone fully the farming route, I'd have 5/5 Imp Stings (extra dam from Serpent) and Readiness as well. It's what I've been using for low threat goodness in the Scholomance.

I was getting my rear end booted in all different directions by Rattlegore and his adds in particular, so I had to remember some lessons from my levelling days with Surv.

By lowering my crit a tad and relying on Serpent, maybe 1-2 steadies and my traps for the damage, threat is generated per tick, rather than per crit spike, so my boar can keep up...especially if I juggle threat with Snake Trap, as to some extent with Rattlegore's adds I still needed to do. The mana efficiency is also good to the point of probably being nerfed when Blizz find out, too. ;-)

It's low damage, yes...but high damage has IMHO never been the point of Survival for soloing. The point is keeping my threat low. I pull carefully, do single targets when I can, and keep my ambient threat as close to rock bottom as possible. If I do that, there's a good chance Feign and Disengage will still work for me, since I was finding if I went all out with a 1:1.5, they didn't, irrespective of what KTH or Omen said.

It lets me solo things though that would get off the boar and kill me otherwise...cos I was being killed by them. If I go with a particular spec, it will generally only be because I've tested it myself and found out that it works for me...irrespective of conventional opinion. ;-)

BTW, I appreciate not having received a virtual barrage of rotten vegetables from my brother Hunters over my gear in this thread, either. ;-)

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