Merry christmas to all!

In the spirit of the holidays I decided to give a little something back to Ravenholdts community, so without further ado I present....Kordwar's Christmas Carol!

It's best viewed in fullscreen, but normal works in a pinch.



Merry Christmas!

Oh, for those wondering, here's the final scoreboard at the end of the 2nd Arathi Basin (where it starts at goldmine)

So you want to PvP eh?

One thing I like about my job is that I can zone out and still get everything accomplished and no one gets hurt >.> so spent most of my day and lunch break reflecting on everything I've learned from my time participating in player vs. player combat. This isn't just a post for hunters, it's for anyone really. In the broad spectrum of PvP the same basic ideas are universal, and I'd like to share my thoughts on them with you.

First things first: NEVER stop learning. This is the most important thing I can stress, the moment you approach every situation the same as you always have is the moment you have already lost.

Situational awareness is more than key to successful PvP, there's a reason people leave the combat log open. The moment you see words like "Mikkos gains steath" and "Mikkos gains overkill" you have learned two things before the fight even starts: it's a rogue, better yet it's an assassination rogue. You won't learn if he is full 51 point assassination, 41/5/25 mut/prep or 44/2/25 master poisoner/prep until the fight begins but you'll have a slight upper hand in knowing what you can do to make the fight easier on yourself. For a good example of situational awareness, take a look at the opening scene of Rifle lovin' 12 on IQD.

Prediction and Reaction are footholds of PvP. It's the fine line between being juked (fake casting) and interrupting a cast. reacting, such as a rogue interrupting with gouge when a kick was juked or a hunter feigning death to drop target from a hostile casting opponent when your viable sources of interrupt are on cooldown. Prediction is merely knowing when something will happen and doing something about it before it even happens. Example: while running feral/rogue with Blarr on his druid we faced priest/rogue, Blarr found the rogue while i sapped the priest. As the sap wore off i began to stunlock the priest through the normal cheapshot into 6 second kidney, the rogue was dying so the moment the kidney shot ended I kicked. As I kicked I interrupted penance before a single tick went off, locking out the holy school for four seconds and giving me time to gouge as the rogue died. In this example we'll find several things, the priest had a choice to:

• penance to save his partner

• psychic scream me off and let his partner potentially die

I predicted he would penance and reacted accordingly, I took a risk in kicking before I even saw a cast bar. Judgment like that will not always fly, i could have wasted my kick only to be psychic screamed off and be forced to waste my trinket.

Predicting where someone will go is a powerful tool in all aspects of PvP, shooting freezing arrows onto warlock portals and putting up enough pressure to force them to port into it, or to an awaiting teammate to finish the job.

Synergy and Communication are cornerstones of a successful team. If you play with someone who doesn't compliment you at all you're asking for trouble. Example: Hunters and mages don't seem to jive well due to all crowd control (CC) effects share a diminishing return (DR) making full control and the ability to take down someone in the duration of CC very hard to accomplish. The reason survival / destruction worked so well was the complete lack of overlapping CC (other than freeze traps/wyvern and banish). His curse of elements debuff aided in my burst and my mortal strike aided in his.

Communication was key as well, announcing durations, what you're going to do and DRs (full/half/quarter/immune) aids in the victory. If you plan on playing with someone, duel. ALOT. You pick up subtle nuances in gameplay, how they react to things and how they make decisions. You'll get to a point after playing with someone long enough that you begin to predict what they'll do next, it's happened with Blarr and with my former (and favorite) healer Togori.

Lastly, Take time to familiarize yourself with the other classes, their mechanics and how they effect you. I learned the hard way that warrior disarm now effects ranged awhile ago, after eating a ten second disarm and having my face handed to me on the end of an axe made me start reading more patch notes than just ones that pertain to my own class.

Here's to hoping this helps someone in some small way.

50,000 down. 50,000 to go.

Big thanks to Salad of Fenris, number 50,000.

Without him none of this would be possible

That is all.

Spiders suck.

Title says it all.

Everywhere I'm reading people are saying spiders are amazing pets, from the official hunter forums to a few uninformed posts on arena junkies.

The root is poor compared to the crab, even if you take into account the 15 yard difference.

So, to nip this problem in the bud I made a new video, enjoy :D

Surival / Destro strikes back

I'm terribly sorry about the total lack of updates, I've been busy with work and such. I leveled my rogue to 80, while I was doing battlegrounds and dueling people I came to realized how much i truly missed and loved my real class. So, for now the rogue sits.

I needed arena points for the week (missed out on two weeks worth) so Blarr dropped his current 2s and "ol lo HIGHFIVE" made it's triumphant return. I queued us up at blades edge arena (queue in outlands, like a boss.) and the train started rolling. Started the night at 1251 and ended at 1647 after a little more than an hour or so, picked it up and next day and sailed to 1808. I was pleasantly surprised to look at my arena points today after work. Here's why:Relentless longbow was a significant upgrade over my current, i'm hoping to get the axe in the coming weeks. I have a small tutorial video in the works as well, should be coming out in a little under a week.

Keybinds

I'm in the process of remaking my old "Survival PvP build" post, seeing as it seems to get alot of hits on google. For now I'm going to go over my current keybinds. It's also a good reference for me if i ever forget while setting up PTR binds >.>

First, a reference photo.
we'll start with the first row.

1-mongoose bite
2-raptor strike / wingclip macro
3-autoshot
4-concussive shot
5-serpent sting
6-explosive shot
Alt+3-mouseover hunters mark
Alt+4-call pet/mend pet macro
mouse wheel down-steadyshot
Alt+mouse button 4-mouseover wyvern sting
Alt+5-deterrence
Middle mouse button-aimed shot

Top left bar:
F1-disengage
F2-aspect of the dragonhawk
F3-multi-shot
F4-viper sting
F5-immolation trap
mouse button 5-mouseover scatter shot
mouse button 4-freezing arrow
shift+x-feign death
shift+F3-rapid fire
`-bloodfury/ attack power trinket (if equipped)/rapid fire macro
mouse wheel up-frost trap
alt+mouse button 5-PvP trinket

Top right bar:
Control+mouse button 4-random mount macro
Alt+q-snake trap
z-flare
t-mouseover scare beast
alt+F2-aspect of the dazed(cheetah)
Q-aspect of the viper

Right action bar:
Shift+F1-mouseover masters call
Shift+mouse middle mouse button- low rank aimed shot to not break fears early
alt+x- hand mounted pyro rockets
Alt+1-frag belt
control+`-health stone
Control+mouse button 5-battlemaster trinket
Control+F1-mouseover roar of sacrifice

Right action bar 2:
Alt+2-flexweave underlay
alt+6-black arrow
G-volley
Shift+space-killshot
Shift+mouse wheel up-freezing trap
alt+c-nitro boosts
Shift+C-all in one pet attack macro
Alt+f-fishing(what?)
shift+z-mouseover scorpid sting
Shift+mouse button 4-mouseover tranquilizing shot

Right action bar 3:
E-disengage(for spamming in rogue fights to cut openers short)
Alt+e-explosive trap
Shift+6-arcane shot

Fun in Feralas

While scouting out a dueling location for Blarr and (in the opinion of just about anyone) the best warrior on the server in feralas, I decided to check if the world dragon had respawned yet with eagle eye. Low and behold i find a bunch of people standing at the portal to the emerald dream and think "oh cool, just some RPers" and end the cast. A few minutes later Glexarn asks me to check if they're still there and when i do i notice how they're standing and say into vent "oh. my. god. it's a wedding" The following video is what ensued. http://www.noobflicks.com/watch/7791/kordwars_wedding_crash

Bow animation, i missed you so.

It was a good day, broke 1850 as Survival / destro lock and had the honor of speaking to Bandet in my vent. I'm gonna be a zombie at work tomorrow but I couldn't care less. Huge thanks to my 2s partner Blarr, without you none of this would have been possible. You keep giving me cookies and I'll keep aimed shot up.

UI fix!

given all the complaints about my UI I was going to change a bunch of addons. Thanks to Glexarn (awesome mage from my server) I was informed i could just change my UI scale (one of those durrrr moments for me >.>) so i did.

BEHOLD!Looks the same but less scrunched together :D

Vent server

Seeing as I'm sick of mooching vent off people I got my own server, If you feel like joining me to chat, ask questions, tell me i suck etc. Feel free to do so.

Host: arsenic.typefrag.com
Port:24757

no password.

New video

I'm still learning sony vegas, so every time I make a new video I pick up some new tricks and figure out how to make things easier on myself. So recently I've been recording battlegrounds and arena to throw together a small video here and there. So, enjoy my first real pvp movie: http://www.noobflicks.com/watch/7427/kordpvp

Quite proud of this

Big thanks to the random PuG i was with who 5 capped despite the other team having five rogues.

PTR

Before i go to bed tonight I'm going to re download the PTR and have it patch while I'm at work. I'll be Kordwar on whatever the PvP realm is.

Update:

PTR is not up but character copies are. I made a premade character and copied Kord, look for me on the PvP realm.

Update 2.0:

PTR is up and running and i'm on the PvP realm, the trap changes are awesome thus far in PvP. Isle is conquest is nifty as well. If i can free up some harddrive space I'll try to get another video going.

If you can't find a fight, bring the fight to them.

Peench and I went on an adventure to Ironforge. Total kills: one warrior, one ret pally, one fire mage, two hunters. Why yes, i did use Rhok'delar the whole time. I basically danced in place until someone decided to flag and come after me, then I'd kite them into the trench and proceed to kick ass.

Screenshot goodness

Few recent screenshots I thought i'd share.


I'm not Rifluvr, but i can dream.


Forgive the massive bar of debuffs (turns out it was quartz, it's off now) but i wanted to capture having 8.1k attack power.there are few funnier things in pvp than the ol' double CC. In case you're wondering, the red all around the screen happens when CC breaks, courtesy of Natur enemy castbars.

Edit!

The double CC strikes again!

Rhok 'n' Roll

Well, the guild ran some lowbie alts through Molten Core last night, and of course i tagged along. I went as Marksman because more than half the stuff is immune to explosive shot. Alot of lowbie deaths later we cleared the place, i now have a bunch of fiery cores so I can make a core marksman rifle. More importantly I looted majordomos cache to find....


My leaf!

And with that i give you the video of my epic journey:


For anyone wondering about video uploads, noobflicks is awesome.

Macro updates

I've been looking over my macros and realized that many of them have changed and I felt that readers might benefit from some of them. They range from space savers to just making life easier.

I'll start with the pet macros.

Yesterday i lost a few duels due to one thing: having the wrong pet macro on my bar. I've been leveling my Ravager while I do dailys because I've realized how nice the stun is as an interrupt and for getting melee with hand of freedom off me. I've now solved this problem by modifying a feed pet macro BRK used quite some time ago. The macro goes as follows:

/cast [pet:crab]pin
/cast [pet:ravager]ravage

Now you can insert any pet type and ability into it, or you can make it as long as you'd like if you use many different pets. It's an example of an "if, then" macro. If the pet is a crab then it will cast pin, if the pet is a ravager then it will cast ravage ect.

The 2nd macro is to just save bar space: If the pet is dismissed it will be called, if it's out then it casts mend pet:

/cast [pet, nodead] mend pet; [target=pet, noexists] call pet

For some strange reason i can't seem to get revive pet into the macro and have it work, if anyone knows how to fix that lemme know

This next one is a random mount macro, i found it some time ago and without it I would have fallen to my death many times. Well, more than the 35 I already have >.> Protip: if the water looks "shallow enough" just fly a little bit lower.

/run if IsMounted()then return end local t if((GetRealZoneText()=="Dalaran") and(GetSubZoneText()~="Krasus' Landing") or(GetZoneText()=="Wintergrasp")or not IsFlyableArea())then t={1,2,7,8}else t={4,6,12}end CallCompanion("MOUNT",t[random(#t)])
/dismount

confusing huh?

I'll explain it best I can. in the parts where it says "t={1,2,7,8} you place your ground mounts that you want. It counts top row then bottom row in your mount page. In the second part where it says t={4,6,12} you place your flying mounts. If you're in azeroth/dalaran/wintergrasp it summons a ground mount, if you can fly there (like krasus landing) it summons a flying mount. press it once to mount and again to dismount.

These next ones are more PvP oriented macros but they have use anywhere really. One that comes in handy is a feign death interrupt. You can't feign in the middle of a steadyshot or volley channel (at least not last time i checked)

#showtooltip Feign Death
/stopcasting
/cast Feign Death

simple, quick and gets the job done. Perfect for interrupting a cast aimed towards you while in the middle of a steadyshot cast.

The mashable flare:

Sometimes you hit a button one too many times and you lose the targeting circle, it's happened to all of us at least once and has bitten me in the ass a few times. This solves that problem.

#showtooltip Flare
/cast !Flare

the "!" makes it so the circle won't go away until you cast the spell. I use somthing similar on my rogue so i can spam stealth without it breaking by accident with

#showtooltip Stealth
/cast !stealth

If you're like me you have pyro rockets on every pair of gloves you own, without needing to swap macros you can cast the rockets no matter what gloves you're wearing with the very simple:

#showtooltip 10
/cast 10

when you mouseover the macro it'll show whatever gloves you're using and always cast whatever is on the gloves, be it rockets or the hyperspeed accelerators.


Last of all is something I use in 5 mans when something goes wrong, it lets you feel like a druid if someone dies during a fight. Sorry folks, engineers only.

#showtooltip Gnomish Army Knife
/use [target=focus] Gnomish Army Knife

set the dead person as your focus and get next to them, feign death and mash that macro. You drop combat long enough to start the army knife channel and if the planets allign and RNG is on your side then you rez them.

That's all for now, feel free to leave questions or comments.

Huge thanks to Samyon

I proclaimed my jealously to Samyon about his profile picture when i found out he drew it himself, and my badgering got me my own picture! Now, I'm not saying bugging the hell out of him will net you a picture, but if you ask nicely who knows what could happen.

an un-nerf is better than a nerf i guess

It's hard to believe that one little reversion could helped hunter PvP so much. With the change to disengage being back to 25 seconds untalented and 16 seconds with talents and glyph i feel a lot more mobile and i can better get away from melee, So I've been playing my hunter a bit more and I'll be heading back into the arena with my best buddy Togori with a little more zeal this time around. Here's to hoping we can get the arming time of traps back to 1 second.

Big day for Gargthun

Well, Othalion and Yufenia are the alts of two of my best WoW friends. We were leveling together and i refused to go through the portal without them, So i ran them through UBRS, LBRS and Strath (full Baron run) and crammed XP down their throats. Also netted them some D1, some decent gear and the Jenkins title.


Look out Burning Legion, i'm coming for ya.

Terribly sorry

Sorry for the total lack of updates, I've been busy with work and my raiding has grinded to a halt. I've also been playing on my rogue, Gargthun, alot more because level 80 hunter pvp is getting depressing. I will never turn Kord into merely an alt and turn garg into my main, but until some changes are made to hunter pvp chance are i'll be on my rogue. I have over 740 resil and i'm still getting blown up. The three classes that i need to kite (ret pallies, warriors, DKs) i have no tools to do so. With the frost trap changes and juggernaut it's impossible to pull any of them out of your ass long enough to do any damage. That's about it.

Twitter?

I'm on twitter now, Not really sure why...

running on 2 hours of sleep can't be good.

...what the hell else did i sign up for?

Honest scrap

Looks like I've been tagged by Neggles for the honest scrap award

::sniff::

I'd like to thank all the little people who made this possible. Also I'd like to give a moment of silence for improved wing clip, I'll miss you old friend.

The rules for acceptance are as follows:
1. When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.

2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.

3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

Hmm, sounds easy enough. In no real order...

(1) First and foremost, Trackhoof of Survival Hunters anonymous. I know, I know. He doesn't blog anymore but i'm giving him the award anyway. Without him I would have never went SV. Hell, the first few days my blog was active i got an email from him welcoming me and telling me how happy he was that there was another survival hunter blog.

(2) Thracyyus of No Ammo Melee Time. Honest and hardworking guy, goblin engineer, survival hunter before 3.0. All plusses in my book.

(3) Neggles of The Angry butterfly. I always enjoyed her posts and was very surprised to end up on her blogroll. I have a lot of respect for her with her raiding experiance, Tier gear has never graced my character (PvP gear was better itemized for raiding survival until T5 content (which I never saw >.>)

(4) Disgraph of The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf. A laugh riot each time he updates... hey shut up, he counts!

(5) Rilgon of Stabilized Effort Scope. The PvE ying to my PvP yang. From what i've seen that's all we butt heads on. Rilgon tells it how it is and i respect that. The thing I respect the most is his zeal for the engineering profession...DEATH TO NON ENGINEER CHOPPER OWNERS! ::sapper charge::

(6) I really don't have a 7th, so the 6th is my last. Yet another now defunct blog...
Bandet. I'll be the first to admit I'm a fanboy, I was thrilled when he commented on my blog and was shocked to end up on his blogroll. His movies changed the way i played, I'd damn near study them to figure out what he was doing and when I can try it for myself. A true brother in Survivalism.

Ten things about me:

(1) It's on hiatus until i get a new job and such but I'm training to be a blacksmith.

(2) Proudly Survival (880 unbuffed agility) since 4/8/2008 ( I've got screenshots to prove it!)

(3) I hate mushrooms. I ate a toadstool when i was like 6 and got really sick. I know mushrooms and toadstools are in no way the same but I don't care.

(4) I was an avid reader of the official hunter forums for a long time, i haven't been there in a long time. That place is a cesspool and I'm literally afraid I'll forget my damn class reading that crap.

(5) BRK took away my hunter license back in BC when i was still BM. I don't "officially" have it back...

(6) I smoke a pipe. for one thing, i blame Sherlock Holmes for being too awesome.

(7) My first real car was a 1976 Plymouth Valiant. My girlfriends neighborhood dislikes me because I used to leave by peeling out and letting that slant 6 scream.

(8) I live in the heart of Amish country. I am, in fact, NOT AMISH GODDAMNIT.

(9) I play the banjo, bass and guitar. My favorite guitar is my 60s Egmond jazzmaster copy. Looks like this, minus the pickup in the center.

(10) The guy who truly got me into PvP is Rifluvr. Rifle lovin' 11 changed my life (in game life). I started as 41/20/0 and followed BRK like he was a god. RL 11 got me to spec 41/4/16 and really get a taste for the SV tree. Then i went 0/21/40 and never looked back. I really do miss being able to count on one hand the Survival hunters on RH.

Good lord that's a long post.

I shall call him...

Kordtemp.

Trial accounts suck.

real account back in a few days.

Oh, real life ding to 22 today.

Quick update

Not dead.

Internet off, Recessions suck for job market.

Hoping to be back soon .

More mount action

Took a few days to tie up a loose end from BC
Also took part of a timed CoS run and got lucky

Quick PTR news

• Black arrow does indeed use trap CD, but is effected by resourcefulness.
• Explosive shot is hitting about the same, Harder hits but fewer crits.
• Zero range on killshot is amazing
• Everytime i get an error (alot) WoW eats my keybinds, i've given up. (i'm going to back them up on live and copy pasta them over, i can't live without em!)
  
• Most of our escape mechanics have been nerfed (aspect of the monkey glyph has 20 second CD, Frost trap trigged by people immune to snares makes the trap not work (lolHandOfFreedom) imp. wing clip gone)
• EDIT: Flexweave underlay now adds 10 agility to cloak (woot?)

Most important!

Mounts swim! (not important but i'm trying to look on the bright side here)
When I get things sorted out I'll post more. If you're on the PTR and want chat/get autographs I'm on the PvP realm.

Two things.

First of all, Currently rocking some new Shoulders
Seen in picture is my favorite healer and arena partner, Togori.

Second of all (very big news)
Say it with me folks!

IT'S ABOUT GODDAMN TIME.

And what was waiting for me?

ROFLCOPTER.

If you'll excuse me, I have some zooming to do.

Looks like i'm it

I've been tagged by Neggles for the six game, where you post your sixth screenshot in your folder.


WSG from a night ago, i forgot what it was like to do a battleground with more than one healer on our side.

Ok, I'm tagging Thracyyus and Lienna

KT down!

2 shotted after a bad DC with main tank, sadly no gun for Kordy :(

(SV) hunter test.

This my friends is the survival test, chain trapping a mob from beginning to end of a heroic instance. A nice test for a group due to the fact that you never leave combat, so that means: you can't drink, you can't rez. Try it, it's no Rhok quest but it's a start.

Sapphiron down!

Two tries and onto KT we went. First try on Kel'Thuzad we got him to 24% and had some bad ice tomb luck, 2nd try 20%. People had to go so we're trying it again tomorrow night. i have a good feeling about it.

EDIT!

Haven vs. Sapphiron from Ryan Kane on Vimeo.

Turns out the main tank frapsed the fight. if you look at sapph there are alot of explosions, that's me :D. Also, at 4:15 you can watch me get battle rezzed and pop rocketboots to get to safety.

/Waggle

Go go PvE? sure, why not.

Been running heroics pretty much all day gearing up the guilds secondary offtank and i got some decent drops. King Ymiron was kind enough to give up his belt, so i slapped on a belt buckle and a 14 agility gem in there. Snagged a new trinket to replace my pocketwatch from heroic nexus and to use along with my Anvil. Bought the T7 gloves with badges to swap with my current if peench ever needs a bit more "oomph". With my PvP sword and dagger (with a titanium weapon chain on one) on along with the belt and trinket i'm at 330 hit rating or 10% chance to hit, so i can finally start wearing my Staff again and still be at 8%. Naxx tonight so let's see how i do.

Current PvE build can be seen here. sure i "misused" two points, i don't care. I feel naked without scattershot and extra long frost traps, sue me.

More Naxx action

Well, another week another naxx run. Got myself some T7 from the four horsemen. We were only able to clear the military wing due to people having to leave but since we're missing one of our feral druids we were down a sub-tank for the horsemen. It was Feral main tank, Warrior off tank, Blood DK keeping himself alive through blood presence and improved rune tap. Who was left? You might or might not have guessed it....PeenchPeench. That's right ladies and gents, greatest tank ever stepped up to the plate. After a wipe or two after figuring out how many debuffs the crab and DK could take before running into problems (2 tops, 3 max). Sadly no screenshots of damage meters telling how much he took because recount is biased against pets.

First shot at naxx.

Well, My new guild Haven and I hit up naxx tonight. They already took down spider and military wing, i was absent for that because i had to work in the morning -_-. Dropped gluth, grob and patchwerk in our first try as a guild and then some folks had to go. After a quick respec to a mix between Lienna and Draculeas builds was pulling about 2k DPS with almost zero PvE gear. Not really post worthy but it was a good night.

What do i love about 3.0.8?

The amount of terribad survival hunters who hit like a bag of wet noodles. Just because explosive shot got buffed doesn't make you good kids, go back to BM and GTFO of my tree.

AND all the engineering changes!

-32 slot toolbox.

-Box. Of. Bombs.

-Gnomish lightning generator usable on the move.

-MOLL-E cooldown dropped to 8 hours

- Scrap bots repairing up a storm.

I've got Molten core in a day or so with some friends and my 60 set for the quest is almost done, missing belt, rings, neck and trinkets.

Building your Survival PvP build

Or: "The first really informative post Kord has ever done"

I'm going step by step over my current build. The beauty of the survival tree is it's flexibility, If your crit is lower than mine (29%) you can sub points for higher proc rates until you get your numbers up. It's a PvP build that can be taken into 5 mans for badges and have everyone be happy because of your utility. I'm still an advocate of "if you don't have the gear, stay out of the survival tree" Unless you have at least 750 agility without lightning reflexes the tree will not benefit you much. Without further adeu let's begin.


Improved tracking: Two points spent in this is better than Going two into savage strikes. While a mongoose bite crit might help two times out of ten it's not worth the points.

Hawk eye: 6 yards is alot, It's the distance that you're out of casting range for most spells. When kiting casters it's a must. 3/3 or gtfo.



You're going to be slowed ALOT. Be it hamsting, wingclip, thunderclap, pircing howl, crippeling poison ect. 3/3 will reduce that, you can skip one or two points if you happen to be a troll because your shiney new racial is 15% duration reduction. As far as i know Da Voodo Shuffle stacks with surefooted if you want 45% total reduction.


Entrapment: I can thank Rifluvr for turning me onto this talent waaay back when i was 41/4/16 hybrid. 3/3 or else the points aren't worth it for such a low proc rate, in survival PvP frost trap will be your bread and butter so learn to love it.


This is a talent not everyone likes, It's personal preference first and foremost. I've had my ass be saved by a lucky imp. wing clip proc too many times to count, i find it hard to live without it.
A macro you'll find useful and 100% spammable is:

/cast Wing Clip
/cast Raptor Strike

Spam while pinned down or when you turn 180 for a joust to melee for a better chance to get out and back into kiting range.


Survival Instincts: 4% less damage in the long run means 4% less work for your healer. The added crit to explosive shot and steady are just dandy as well.


Survivalist: 5/5 for 10% stamina really adds up and it scales wonderfully with kings. It's a gateway for an amazing talent so 5/5 is a must.

Scatter Shot: My second favorite shot and bound lovingly to mouse button 5 for quick scatters while jumpshot or strafe kiting, perfect for setting up freeze traps or stopping a runner so a healer can get out of line of sight. Also a good way to size up opponents on wether or not they decide to trinket scatter, congratulations: you now own them for two minutes.


Survival Tactics: This is yet another personal preference, i've been getting a staggering number of resists for freeze traps at crucial moments and quite frankly i'm sick of it. 1/2 is fine just like it was pre 3.0 for the old trap master talent.


TNT: 3/3 TNT will net you 9% explosive shot crit chance which stacks with survival instincts for a total of 13% more crit for all ticks. By tanking TNT you're in the wonderful land of TNT stuns, they can make or break fights in some cases. Personally i've gotten lucky with TNT procs in the case that once i scattershotted then frost trapped another hunter who was mounted and all three explosive shots had TNT proc. I literally stunlocked her to a point that she didn't get off her mount until she was a corpse. Will you ever see this? maybe not. Can it happen? You bet, but pray it's not often or the nerf bat starts swinging.

Lock & Load: I took a point out of L&L in favor of a point in survival tactics. I'm weaning myself off 100% procs due to the 30 second internal cooldown in the upcoming patch, it still procs plenty with 2/3 but you can't always count on it for burst.


Hunter vs. Wild: PvP gear has alot of stam, This beaut of a talent makes the 10% stam i told you to get (go ahead and kick yourself if you went 4/5 survivalist) Scales with kings for even more attack power if you happen to have a paladin on your team or Power word:Fortitude if you happen to play with a priest.

Killer Instinct: More crit = good. self explanitory.


Lightning reflexes: Even more kings scaling goodies. More agility = more crit, more armor, more dodge, more attack power. THIS is the reason survival hunters sell their souls for agility.

Resourcefulness: I've always taken 2/3 both pre and post 3.0 because while 3/3 is nice you can get the same effect with the 4 set PvP bonus. Great for 5 mans as well because you can chain trap until you're blue in the face. Resourcefulness is the reason Baron Rafe Dreuger in the moroes fight was always the last to die because i had too much fun chain trapping him endlessly.


Expose weakness: Welcome to the wonderful world of being your own attack power trinket. with a crit chance above 20% you should be seeing alot of uptime for expose weakness. 2/3 is all that's really needed now adays. Pre 3.0 when it affected the raid Alumatine would have strung me up by my toenails for saying such things.


Wyvern Sting:If scatter shot is my #2 shot, Wyvern is by far my #1. Simply put i adore it. Stopping runners and saving healers in PvE and PvP has proven the wonders of this talent. In PvP it's one of few sleep effects so it's not well known. Not to be relied upon in higher end PvP against the forsaken (will of the forsaken breaks sleep effects) or dwarves (stoneform removes stings). It can be used as an interrupt in a pinch to stop a heal, be sure to overwrite the DoT with scorpid sting if you intend to trap again.

Thrill of the hunt: A great talent and an even better movie. 3/3 is a must because arena is a mana war. The longer it takes you to have to go into aspect of the viper the better.

Trap Mastery: Filler 41 point talent but still loved like we asked for it. Great for PvE because it adds flex time to your chain trapping. Great for PvP because it increases the duration of... you guessed it, frost trap. Would be even better if snake trap didn't get neutered somewhere along the line.

Point of No Escape: Remember when i said you'll be using frost traps a lot? Here's another reason why. In 2s it's more crit for you, and in 3s it's more crit for you and your secondardy DPS partner. I play with a resto shaman and a feral druids, so between the druid and i that's 11% extra crit to whatever poor soul is stuck in the frost for anyone attacking.

Hunting party: Personally i only use 2/5, it helps keep your healer topped off if and can help you stay out of aspect of the viper. 3/5 might be better if your crit chance is only 20% or so.

Explosive shot: 100% worth it, It crits often thanks to talents and is getting a lovely buff come patch 3.0.8. Currently the bane of CC, but that will be over soon. You can get lucky and some rogues will forget about the three ticks and will waste vanish thinking it's over.

That concudes the Survival portion of this post. Go get a drink or something. It's cool, i'll wait.
Ok, you back? Alright, onto the MM section.



Lethal Shots: Once again, more crit = good.


Mortal Shots: Crits hit harder, It stacks with Relentless Earthsiege Diamond so 5/5 is a must and will move you into the next tier of talents.


Careful Aim: Even more attack power from more sources. With this talent combined with lightnight reflexes and hunter vs. wild you're now getting attack power from all your main stats. It scales with kings and scales with arcane intellect.

Go for the Throat: Considering the high crit chance you should have as survival you'll be cramming your pet with more than enough focus with only 1/2.

Aimed Shot: In a world where healers can tank 3 or 4 people and heal through it an mortal strike is needed to even the score. Aimed shot can make or break dps/healer vs dps/healer fights. He who doesn't have a mortal strike will find themself facedown in the dirt quickly.

Improved Stings: I've said it before and i'll say it again, arena is a mana war. Keeping a healer drained is made much easier with improved stings. Not to mention it's funny to drain them to a point that they're using their wand on my healer. A wonderful drain macro you can use by setting their healer as your focus is:
#showtooltip Viper Sting
/cast [target=mouseover, harm][harm] Viper Sting
/cast [target=target] Viper Sting

just mousing over your focus will throw a viper sting on them, if nothing is under your mous it will drain your current target.

That's the end. Long post huh?