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Talents and Glyphs
Level 15 Talents
Posthaste > Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimaera > Narrow Escape
Posthaste is useful for gaining speed bursts on bosses like Ji'kun, Lei Shen, etc., usually to get better positioning for boss mechanics. It can also remove movement impairing effects like Sandtraps on ToT Council. Crouching Tiger is useful when boss mechanics line up in a 60s window and you wish to aid your healers (e.g. H Jin'rokh ionization, Megaera rampages, Lei Shen Static Charge). Narrow Escape could theoretically be useful for kiting, e.g. bats on H Tortos, but allowing a group of enemies within 8 yards is generally discouraged. None of these talents should affect dps, are situational and come down to preference. The relationship above is an expression of which talent choice you will find the most useful the majority of the boss fights in ToT raiding.
Level 30 Talents
Binding Shot >= Intimidation == Wyvern Sting
Silencing shot has been removed from the talent choice and is now only available for Marksmanship hunters. Wyvern sting and Intimidation can be situational for mobs that can be put to sleep or stunned (highly situational). None of these talents should affect dps and are situational. Binding shot can be useful for add phases that require a stun for mobile adds. Because it has AoE implications, it is recommended over the other talent choices.
Level 45 Talents
Iron Hawk (AotH) > Spirit Bond > Exhilaration
Aspect of the Iron Hawk reduces all damage taken by 10% (5.4 nerfed this from 15%) and is very helpful in reducing healing needed from raid healers. Exhilaration is typically better when the raid rarely takes damage or you expect small bursts of damage every 2 minutes. Spirit Bond is useful for soloing and leveling, and has been buffed in 5.4. None of these talents should affect dps (other than from the increased possibility of you dying to raid damage as you go rightward on the list).
Level 60 Talents
Dire Beast (DB) > Thrill of the Hunt (TotH) > Fervor
Dire Beast provides focus return and extra damage (extra summoned pet dps). The Dire Beast counts as a pet, so you’ll want to be hit and expertise capped at 7.5% to take full advantage of the talent. Even with this cap, Dire Beast can still get stuck like any other pet and will not benefit from Blink Strikes, so the inaction can actually occur for the entire duration of the DB call until it despawns. Due to the increased cost of Arcane Shot, TotH now outperforms Fervor significantly in simulations.
The dps difference in 5.4 BiS appears to be DB > TotH (-4k dps) > Fervor (-11k dps), when reforged crit >= haste > mastery.
Ability Focus Generated Additional Damage
Dire Beast 50-55 (10-11 attacks) 10-11 attacks by the summoned beast (200-240k damage)
Fervor 50 instantly and 50 more over 10s ~3 AS and 2 extra Bite/Claw from pet
Others have looked into FD and Simcraft results and have noted that the simulators are currently overestimating the number of attacks DB is actually resulting in (specifically 12 instead of 11 or 10) and this is overvaluing DB. Consequently, we note that they are equal, but for end game hunters, Fervor may actually be better for smoothing the rotation, providing high focus, and taking advantage of better weapon damage as you gear up.
For people using AMoC, you may find using Fervor more fluid and natural in order to gain enough focus to spend on AMoC.
Level 75 Talents
Blink Strikes (BS) > A Murder of Crows (AMoC) > Lynx Rush (LR)
With 5.3, Blink Strikes is now a passive that increases pet damage on Basic Attacks (claw, bite, etc.) and this simplifies our priority list and removes the need to save up focus for a significantly high-focus cost ability like AMoC. AMoC has been buffed in 5.4 to slightly beat BS (tends to be less than 1k dps theoretical top-end dps in most profiles). Lynx Rush is currently not more powerful than either of these. It is highly recommended that BM hunters use BS or AMoC.
Level 90 Talents
Single Target: Glaive Toss > Barrage > Powershot
AoE Targets: Barrage > Powershot > Glaive Toss
Glaive Toss currently does more single target dps than either alternative. Barrage does excellent AoE burst on situations with 4+ mobs and pairs well with Beast Cleave from Multi-shot. When using Glaive Toss, you’ll use this ability whenever Kill Command and Kill Shot are on cooldown and your Glaive Toss is up. When using Barrage, you’ll generally want to save the ability for when an add phase begins, or whenever Kill Command and Kill Shot are on cooldown and your Barrage is up, depending on the situation.
Glyphs
Major
Glyph of Animal Bond
This glyph increases all healing to you and your pet by 10%. This glyph is very useful for raiding. It does not increase dps, but it does directly increase your survivability by making heals more potent.
Glyph of Deterrence
This glyph increases the damage prevented through deterrence by 20%. Because deterrence has a baseline of 20%, this glyph causes deterrence to double its potency. This is a highly useful glyph for any fight that has large raid-wide damage and raid healers are having difficulty keeping everyone alive.
Glyph of Disengage
This glyph increases the distance that disengage launches the hunter by 5 yards on flat ground.
Glyph of Liberation
This glyph heals you for 5% health every time you disengage. This is a marginal heal that can occur every 30s.
Glyph of Mend Pet
This glyph makes your Mend Pet also remove one curse, disease, poison, or magic debuff. This is rarely useful when raiding.
Glyph of Enduring Deceit (new in 5.4)
Camouflage also reduces spell damage taken by 10%. This is a free 10% reduction in spell damage every minute, when used properly. However, it also causes you and your pet to stop attacking, and only lasts for one hit (and this hit could be physical AoE, resulting in 0 gained utility). This is highly situational glyph that will require planning and willingness to take a damage reduction cooldown that stops you and your pet from attacking.
In terms of raid usefulness, Glyph of Animal Bond > Glyph of Deterrence > Glyph of Enduring Deceit == Glyph of Liberation == Glyph of Disengage > Glyph of Mend Pet > Other glyphs. Disengage distance glyph combined with Posthaste talent can result in better ability to move in response to fight mechanics. However, none of these Major Glyphs affect dps, and individual preference reigns supreme here. A general recommendation for a raiding BM hunter's Major Glyphs would be 1) Glyph of Animal Bond, 2) Glyph of Deterrence, and 3) Glyph of Disengage (distance) or 3)Glyph of Liberation (heal on disengage).
Minor
Glyph of Revive Pet
This glyph removes pushback effects during the cast of Revive Pet. This is very useful in raids if you need to revive your pet and do not have Heart of the Phoenix available. This is the only Minor Glyph that is highly recommended for raiding.
Glyph of Stampede
This glyph makes stampede copy the current pet five times. While this is highly useful when players have non-ferocity pets in their stables, it is also rumored to cause problems with older addons. The problem supposedly stems from addons like Recount that look at the combat log for damage sources and see a temporary pet called “Unknown” that is spawned when this glyph activates. This can cause the addon to spin in computation and slow down a raider’s computer (often not the hunter's computer). If raiders complain about slowdowns during your Stampede, and you are using this glyph, try unglyphing it and switching the pets in your stable to ferocity with growl turned off. The dps difference should be negligible.
The other Minor Glyphs are mostly cosmetic and have no real bearing on raid performance.
Priority and Play
Aspects
Our primary dps aspect is undefined, which can be augmented with a Tier 45 talent to become Iron Hawk. The other aspects available to hunters are Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack. The latter two should not be used during raid bosses unless your raid leader specifically asks for them.
DPS Abilities
Kill Command (KC)
High damage command that is our primary nuke ability until Kill Shot comes available (assuming a T14+ weapon--lower ilvl weapons will have Kill Command at higher priority than Kill Shot). This ability should be used as close to on cooldown as possible. This ability was buffed significantly in 5.4.
Kill Shot (KS)
High damage finisher which triggers once the target is below 20% health. As weapon damage increases, so does KS priority.
Arcane Shot (AS)
Primary focus dump and its appropriate usage often differentiates between dps levels in hunters. This ability is used whenever serpent sting is still up and Kill Command and Kill Shot are on cooldown.
Because of the increased focus cost in 5.4, hunters will be more focus starved and will spend more time in Cobra Shot, especially if focus is needed for AMoC.
Cobra Shot (CoS)
This ability causes moderate damage (less than Kill Command or Arcane Shot) and gets more powerful as weapon damage increases. Its speed is also affected by haste and as you get better gear, and whenever Cobra Shot lands, the hunter gains 14 focus and extends the duration of Serpent Sting by 6 seconds. Use this ability to gain more focus for Kill Commands, Arcane Shots or large focus cooldowns like AMoC.
undefined (SS)
This ability creates a single target damage-over-time (DoT) ability that can be extended by Cobra Shot. Try to apply Serpent Sting to a boss early. You will very rarely have to re-apply Serpent Sting during a fight thanks to the frequency of Cobra Shot usage.
Multi-Shot (MS)
Our primary AoE ability. Multi-shot becomes more powerful as weapon damage increases and triggers Beast Cleave, a 10 yard pet cleave (5.4 increased this to 10 yards from 8) around the pet, which has recently been buffed to 75% damage from 50% damage and lasts for 4 seconds. Beast Cleave is affected by Mastery and pet attack speed, so buffs that increase the frequency of pet attacks (e.g. haste-based) can greatly affect Beast Cleave AoE dps as well when cleaves are chained together for long periods of time.
NOTE: A recent hotfix to Aspect of the (Iron)Hawk damage modifier from 25% to 35% means that Beast Cleave is super powerful, even with only 2 mobs. Consequently, Multi-shot is now a higher priority shot on 2+ targets to keep beast cleave active. This does not mean Multi-shot is more powerful than arcane shot--only that Multi-shot needs to be used at least enough to keep Beast Cleave up on 2+ targets.
To maximize Multi-Shot/Beast Cleave damage, try to make sure your pet is situated in the middle of the biggest cluster of mobs in the AoE pack. This will ensure that as many enemies as possible are hit by Beast Cleave. In general, the hunter should also focus the mob in the center of the cluster, so the Multi-shot spreads to hit as many mobs as possible in the cluster.
Explosive Trap (ET)
A trap that ticks for a small amount of fire damage every 2 seconds, ten total times, to any enemies within range. Traps cost no focus and can be used during Deterrence. In 5.4, Explosive Trap was nerfed by 30% because developers claimed they did not want hunters using it in single target rotations.
Cooldowns
Bestial Wrath (BW)
Beastial Wrath is an ability with a 10s duration that becomes available every 1 minute. Its effects include focus cost reduction for all abilities, 10% damage increase for the hunter and 20% damage increase for your pet. This ability should be used on cooldown unless boss mechanics favor holding the ability (e.g., multiplicative damage bonuses like Jin’rokh’s pools).
Stampede
Stampede is an ability with a 20s duration that becomes available every 5 minutes. Stampede is the longest cooldown in the Hunter arsenal, and it is also one of the most powerful--summoning five pets from your stable (or copying a single pet five times if using the Stampede glyph). Stampede pets benefit from Bloodlust and most other types of buffs and best usage often depends on overlapping relevant benefits. For instance, in general, pairing Stampede with agility potions and Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp will maximize its effectiveness. Stampede does not work with ranged buffs like Focus Fire and Rapid Fire (pets only inherit buffs that translate to melee haste effects). In 5.4, Stampede damage was buffed significantly to compensate for previous nerfs to ability usage.
Rapid Fire (RF)
Rapid Fire is an ability with a 15s duration that becomes available every 3 minutes. Rapid Fire increases hunter ranged attack speed by 40%, and consequently gives a large boost to focus regeneration. Pairing RF with BW is a very powerful combination that not only reduces focus cost of abilities but also greatly increases focus regeneration for the hunter. Care must be taken to maximize dps during these RF/BW pairings while also keeping Serpent Sting active as best as possible (during the duration of this pairing, CoS is not necessary for focus regeneration). Rapid Fire becomes slightly less potent as the hunter gains more haste and is generally not well-paired with Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp, Troll Berserk, or Focus Fire.
Focus Fire (FF) / Frenzy
Focus Fire is a 20s buff that, when maxed out, gives 30% haste to the hunter and increased focus generation to both hunter and pet. Its cooldown is dictated by haste (which gives pets focus regen to do basic attacks) and the accumulation of Frenzy stacks (40% chance on pet Basic Attack—claw, bite, etc.) Focus Fire should not be used until the pet has generated 5 stacks of Frenzy. Focus Fire will consume these stacks of Frenzy and give 6% haste x Frenzies consumed, and pets gain 6 focus x Frenzy stacks consumed. Focus Fire should be used every time the pet gains 5 Frenzy stacks, preferably outside of RF and Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp.
Ancient Hysteria (AH)
Ancient Hysteria is an equivalent of Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp that is provided to BM hunters through the Corehound pet. Ancient Hysteria is a raid-wide haste gain that should be triggered when your raid leader asks for it. Ideally, hunters should try not to pair AH with any other haste cooldown (Troll Racial, RF, FF).
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Readiness is a five minute cooldown that resets the cooldown on all abilities that have a baseline cooldown less than five minutes long. In short, this resets everything you will use on your dps priority list except for Stampede. Readiness should be used after you have used your major cooldowns like Rapid Fire, Beastial Wrath, Kill Command, etc. to give you a fresh DPS priority list with all skills but Stampede immediately available for reuse.
Readiness has been removed from the game.
Snapshotting vs. Dynamic Updates
Very few hunter abilities dynamically update with stat changes. Most of our abilities snapshot to the current hunter stats when the shot hits the target.
Dynamic updates Murder of Crows, Barrage, Dire Beast, Stampede, Pet Attacks/Abilities
On Hit/Application Snapshots Serpent Sting, Glaive Toss, Cobra Shot, Kill Command, Lynx Rush, etc.
Note that the On Hit nature of snapshotting means that range to target makes a difference in the responsiveness of the snapshotting. Consequently, if you want snapshotting to occur shortly after you click/use the ability, you will want to be closer to the boss. Travel time on abilities like Glaive Toss can mean seconds pass between usage of the ability and the actual snapshot of your hunter stats. Keep this in mind.
Single Target Priority
Rank Ability/Cooldown Affected By
1 undefined Agi
2 Bestial Wrath N/A
3 Kill Command Agi > Mastery
4 Kill Shot Weapon Dps > Agi
5 Glaive Toss Agi
6 Dire Beast Agi > Mastery =~ Haste
6 Fervor N/A
7 Stampede Agi > Mastery
8 Rapid Fire N/A
9 Focus Fire N/A
10 Arcane Shot Weapon Dps > Agi
11 Cobra Shot Weapon Dps > Agi > Haste for faster cast
This priority listing is tailored to end-game BM hunters in ToT and may not reflect your gear set in MSV, HoF, and ToES. Specifically, abilities affected by weapon damage are pushed lower in the priority list when you have a low-ilvl weapon. For instance, Kill Command is more powerful than Kill Shot in 463 and 476 ilvl gear. It is not until you get a decent weapon (around 483 ilvl) that Kill Shot equals Kill Command in damage potential. Any weapon from ToT, including LFR, will result in a priority list that looks mostly like the one above. However, several of these abilities can be interchanged with negligible dps loss and there is possibility here to personalize your own priority list and play style (assuming you know what you are doing and are modeling your list in a simulator).
AoE Target Priority
Four or more mobs
Rank Ability/Cooldown Affected By
1 A focus saving or producing cooldown N/A
2 Kill Command Agi > Mastery (if < 7 targets)
3 Kill Shot Weapon Dps > Agi (if < 7 targets)
4 Barrage Weapon Dps > Agi
5 Multi-Shot Weapon Dps > Agi > Mastery due to Beast Cleave
6 Explosive Trap Agi
7 Cobra Shot Weapon Dps > Agi > Haste for faster cast
Obviously, this assumes that Barrage is being spec’d into in the Tier 90 talents, and the Barrage skill is highly worth taking on 4+ mob packs. Beast Cleave at 75%, as is currently in the game, was theorycrafted during the 5.0 PTR to be worth using Multi-shot in as few as 2 mobs. It is unclear if this is still true in 5.3. If you don't have Barrage, then you will essentially Multi-shot spam in a 4+ mob situation.
Three mobs
Rank Ability/Cooldown Affected By
1 A focus saving or producing cooldown N/A
3 Kill Command Agi > Mastery
2 Kill Shot Weapon Dps > Agi
4 Barrage Weapon Dps > Agi
4 Glaive Toss Agi
5 Multi-Shot Weapon Dps > Agi > Mastery due to Beast Cleave
6 Cobra Shot to regen focus Weapon Dps > Agi > Haste for faster cast
7 Explosive Trap Agi
Explosive Trap is not as potent here as with 4+ mobs, but ET still sims decently on 1-3 mobs. It can be used when out of focus in place of a Cobra Shot when the Explosive Trap comes off cooldown (and will allow passive focus regen for Barrage/Multi-shot since the trap costs zero focus while also doing damage).
NOTE: A hotfix post 5.4 increased attack power through Aspect of the (Iron)Hawk from 25% to 35%. This resulted in a significant increase in Beast Cleave damage and a change in the recommended 2+ skill usage. To maximize dps in 2 target situations, it is a high priority to keep Beast Cleave up. Multi-shot should consequently be used every 4s, whenever possible, in place of an Arcane Shot.
Pets
Pets inherit hunter ranged attack power, haste, mastery, and portions of hit and expertise. They do not inherit ranged attack speed or haste buffs like Rapid Fire effects. For raiding, all pets should be specialized into Ferocity, and it is recommended that you put Rabid on autocast, unless using the Stampede Glyph—in which case only the current pet needs to be Ferocity specialized with Rabid on autocast. Because ferocity is now an option for all pets, hunters are no longer penalized for bringing pets with certain buffs into 10 mans.
Below is a listing of pet specialties that may be useful in raids:
Enemy AoE Debuffs
AoE Debuff Pet
Armor Tallstrider
Physical Damage Dealt Bear
The undefined ability that Tallstriders bring to a raid is very useful for AoE packs. As of 5.4, it is no longer a unique debuff to hunters. Rogues now bring this debuff through normal AoE ability usage.
Enemy Single Target Debuffs
Debuff Pets
Magic Damage Taken Dragonhawk, Wind Serpent
Physical Damage Taken Ravager, Boar, Rhino, Worm
Attack Speed Fox
Armor Raptor
Movement Speed Crocolisk, Warp Stalker
A raid leader will rarely ask for you to bring either of these pets.
Raid Buffs
Buff Pets
Bloodlust Corehound
Critical Strike Buff Devilsaur, Wolf, Waterstrider, Hydra, Quilen
Mastery Cat, Spirit Beast
Physical Haste Serpent, Hyena
Spell Haste Sporebat
Spell Power Waterstrider
Stamina Silithid
Stats Shale Spider
On 10 mans, raiding hunters can bring all major buffs that may be missing due to class composition.
Specialty Pets
Specialization Pets
AoE Chimera, Worm
Heal Spirit Beast
These AoE specialty creatures do not appear to do more damage than using the Multi-target (4+ mobs) rotation. Further, because the worm burrows, it is not available to attack or Beast Cleave during Multi-shot and will do significantly less damage. It does do Kill Command during a burrow, but the target must be within melee range of the pet.
The Heal from the Spirit Beast was recently nerfed and is nowhere near as potent as it used to be. However, it's the only pet-based heal we have available and comes along with a pet that can provide the mastery buff for the raid, so it's definitely not a wasted stable slot.
Survival and Utility
Deterrence
Deterrence is our bread-and-butter death prevention ability. It not only reflects spells, but it reduces damage taken by 30% (50% with the Glyph of Deterrence). The downside to using this ability is that you cannot cast most damage abilities while you are protected by Deterrence (the exceptions are traps). Deterrence can be used to reflect many spells in ToT raiding, including Ionization on H Jin'Rokh and Static Charge on Lei Shen.
In 5.4, this ability was put on a 2 charge system. According to reports on the PTR, this charge system is not working for hunters as it does for monks, and has resulted in fewer deterrences possible per boss fight.
Disengage
Disengage propels the hunter backward between 13 and 18 feet (glyphed). No immunities are granted by Disengage but the Talent Posthaste does appear to augment Disengage with the ability to purge movement impairing effects, such as those experienced on ToT Council in Sandtraps, ToT Iron Qon in the Cold Lines, and other such mechanics. Posthaste also increases the hunter's movement speed by 50% after landing from a Disengage to allow for moving quickly to new raid positions or to avoid enemies.
Ice Trap
Creates an ice slick that lasts for 30s after being triggered and slows down enemies within 10 yards by 50% while the enemies are standing/walking on the ice slick. Very useful for dealing with adds.
Freezing Trap
When triggered, this trap incapacitates an enemy for up to 1 minute. This trap can be broken by any type of damage.
Mend Pet
When triggered, heals the pet for 25% of its health over 10 seconds. This healing amount can be increased with the Glyph of Animal Bond.
Master List of Buffs, Debuffs, and Dispels
The following list includes a list of all classes that can perform buffs, which ones can remove spells (e.g. our Tranquilizing Shots), and which ones provide debuffs to an enemy. Hunters can provide most of the utilities expressed in the chart except for group damage reduction, dispels, decurses, and poison cleansing.
Mists of Pandaria Buffs, Debuffs, and Abilities
Consumables
Type Rank Item Effect
Flask 1 Flask of Spring Blossoms 1000 agi for 1 hour (1320 agi for 2 hours with Alchemy)
Potion 1 Virmen's Bite 4000 agi for 25s
Food (self) 1 Sea Mist Rice Noodles 300 agi for 1 hour
Food (raid) 2 Banquet of the Wok 275 agi for 1 hour
Food (raid) 2 Great Banquet of the Wok 275 agi for 1 hour
Food (self) 2 Valley Stir Fry 275 agi for 1 hour
Food (raid) 2 Pandaren Banquet 275 agi for 1 hour
Food (raid) 2 Great Pandaren Banquet 275 agi for 1 hour
Character Optimization
Race
Though your choice of race is mostly cosmetic, there are several races that do outperform others slightly in DPS for a BM hunter.
Alliance
Pandaren > Worgen > Dwarf > Other
In general, the dps differences are small here. For Alliance, play the class you enjoy most. Pandaren racial of Epicurean gives double bonus on agility food, resulting in +300 agi.
Horde
Troll > Orc > Pandaren > Goblin > Other > Tauren
Troll tends to be 300+ dps ahead of Orc in a BiS BM profile in simulators like Female Dwarf and Simulationcraft. Both of these races can be several hundred dps ahead of the other races for BM. Consequently, Troll and Orc are typically considered the top dps races in the game. Unlike with Alliance, the Horde racial differentials for dps classes can be significant enough to change races.
Professions
Rank Profession Effect Additional info
1 Engineering +320 agi (avg) via undefined Synapse String usage is perfectly aligned for macroing with BW, making it ideal for BW raiding.
2 Alchemy +320 agi via Alchemist's Flask buff Flasks last 2 hours, which is nice for raiding
2 Blacksmithing +320 agi via socket to wrists and gloves N/A. Tends to be expensive for no gain.
2 Enchanting +320 agi via 2x [Item not found!] Money maker but expensive to level
2 Inscription +320 agi via Secret Tiger Claw Inscription to shoulders Can make Darkmoon cards for money
2 Jewelcrafting +320 agi via Delicate Serpent's Eye Relatively expensive to level.
2 Leatherworking +320 agi via undefined (320 over the common agi enchant) Inexpensive to level. Moderate money maker.
3 Tailoring +4000 ap periodically via undefined Not really meant for agi mail wearers.
4 Herbalism +480 haste = 2880 haste for 20 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown Useful gathering when paired with Alchemy but generally not considered a raiding profession
4 Skinning +480 crit Useful gathering when paired with Leatherworking but generally not considered a raiding profession.
5 Mining +480 stamina Please do not specialize in this as a raiding hunter
Engineering is ranked first, despite having the same average agility as many other professions, because the Synapse String ability has a one minute cooldown which aligns perfectly with Beastial Wrath, augmenting that buff significantly.
Gear Optimization
Stat Priority
In 5.4, if you have the legendary meta gem and especially if you have the legendary cloak with proc, reforge priority has flipped around to haste > mastery > crit. In general, get as much haste as you can and reforge crit into mastery. Before the meta gem, you will likely get best results with crit > haste > mastery
Concerning ranged weapons: ilvl almost always trumps everything else because it directly affects Weapon DPS and even with Sha-touched gems of 500 agility, you are unlikely to equal the benefits of increasing your weapon ilvl significantly.
Finding your appropriate stat priority can be done for you by using simulators like FemaleDwarf.com and Simulation Craft. However, in later posts, we’ll iterate over BM hunter DPS profiles for LFR, Normal, and Heroic content and discuss stat priorities.
Hit and expertise caps are 7.5%, which corresponds to 2550 hit or expertise rating. This number can be affected by Racials like the Troll's undefined, which offer an equivalent of 1% expertise to reduce the cap to 6.5% through gear. Pets have a 7.5% chance to miss and gain half of their hit percentage from hunter hit rating and the other half from hunter expertise rating. Consequently, if you are exactly capped in both hit and expertise, the pet will gain 1275 hit rating and 1275 expertise rating from the hunter to reach the 7.5% hit needed to not miss from behind a boss or enemy.
For AoE situations in SoO ilvl gear, especially with a legendary cloak with the proc, you'll want to aim for haste and then stack mastery as much as you can (after haste). Without a cloak proc haste and mastery are very close, but there is no fight in SoO that you will want to prioritize mastery over haste. The haste levels available in SoO gearing are such that you can gain up two to three extra pet attacks to trigger beast cleaves, which will overwhelm any gains you could have done with equivalent mastery upgrades.
Reforging
Reforging takes 40% of a secondary stat already on an item and converts it into another secondary stat not already on an item. In general, once a BM hunter hits their expertise/hit caps, effort should be made to reforge all secondary stats to haste wherever applicable (assuming you have RPPM gear). Example target ratios of end game hunter stat allocations would be 3:2:2 for haste:mastery:crit (e.g., 15k haste, 10k mastery, 10k crit), with the caveat that hit and expertise are both at 7.5%.
Gems
Priority on gemming is done per gem socket color and is heavily dependent on the bonus. If the bonus is +60 agi for the socket, then try to match the color. If it is not, you are almost certainly better off using a pure agility gem.
Socket Type Gem
Meta (head) Capacitive Primal Diamond >>> Agile Primal Diamond
Red socket Delicate Primordial Ruby
Yellow socket Deadly Vermilion Onyx (if +60 agi) > Delicate Primordial Ruby
Blue socket Glinting Imperial Amethyst (if +60 agi) > Delicate Primordial Ruby
The legendary meta gem is SIGNIFICANTLY better than the Agile Primal Diamond. We're talking about several thousand DPS here.
Some hunters swear by sticking to haste =~ crit. If that is your preference, you can also do Deft Vermilion Onyx (if +60 agi) in a yellow socket. However, for 5.4, crit is generally better for BM hunters in all simulators (T16 set bonuses, legendary meta, most ToT trinkets).
Enchants
Because hit and expertise are prevalent on our BiS trinkets, bows, and tier, the value of hit and expertise enchants has gone down somewhat. In general, once you have abundant ToT-level gear, you'll want to move toward haste and crit enchants instead of hit/expertise. That valuation is taken into consideration in the following list.
Slot Enchants
Shoulder Greater Tiger Claw Inscription
Cloak Enchant Cloak - Superior Critical Strike > Enchant Cloak - Accuracy
Chest Enchant Chest - Glorious Stats
Wrists undefined (LW only) > Enchant Bracer - Greater Agility
Gloves Enchant Gloves - Greater Haste > Enchant Gloves - Superior Haste
Waist Living Steel Belt Buckle (add belt socket)
Legs Shadowleather Leg Armor
Feet Enchant Boots - Blurred Speed
Rings undefined (Enchanting only)
Ranged Weapon Lord Blastington's Scope of Doom
Common macros
Misdirecting to your tank
/cast [@] Misdirection
Pairing Synapse Strings and Beastial Wrath (Engineering only)
#showtooltip Bestial Wrath
/cast Bestial Wrath
/use 10
Camouflage to avoid targeting (e.g., ToT Council Frostbite or ToT Dark Animus Matter Swap)
/stopcasting
/stopcasting
/cast Camouflage
Automagically use the appropriate level 90 talent (i.e. Glaive Toss, Barrage, Powershot, depending on what you spec'd into)
#showtooltip
/cast Glaive Toss
/cast Barrage
/cast Powershot
/script f=GetSpellInfo(117050); g=GetSpellInfo(120360); h=GetSpellInfo(109259)
/run SetMacroSpell("90 Talents", GetSpellInfo(f) or GetSpellInfo(g) or GetSpellInfo(h))
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