He didn't follow the tips.

Hunters have always had a reputation of being the dumbest WoW players, and that’s because a bunch of folk decided it’d be a good idea to play the class where they could shoot things and have their family pet Fuzzy in the game too.

This has bred a stereotype: hunters are casually based, easily aggravated 12 year olds with a serious ego complex; and if there’s anything they can do, surviving a 5 minute fight in a boss is not one of them.

Let’s make sure that we can by following a couple of simple tips.

5. You’re not the tank, and neither is your pet.

You, the hunter, are not a tank. You do not want aggro. You may be wearing mail, which is a step below plate, but here’s a secret.

The only thing that boss cares is if it’s in plate armor. If it isn’t, then it’s wearing cloth.

This is what you're wearing, and nothing else.

Studies have shown that 100% of hunters who let their pet or themselves gain aggro (under normal conditions) are total huntards, and have a much greater tendency to die shortly afterwards. It’s true! I conducted the studies myself.

Not to worry though! If you do manage to get aggro, there are ways to fix this small problem. Such as…

4. Misdirect can save lives.

This baroquely constructed skill is probably also the most uniquely crafted to saving your ass while returning the tank to his rightful place: as your meatshield.

So what exactly are you supposed to do? First, make a macro that looks something like this:

#showtooltip misdirection
/cast [target=focus, help] misdirection; [help] misdirection; [target=pet, exists] misdirection
/target lasttarget

Once that’s done, make your tank your focus, so that the macro doesn’t  doesn’t break rule #5. Then activate the macro, and shoot the things that you need to! Congratulations, you’ve now actively conscripted your tank to take another beating!

Alternatively, you can force the monster to murder someone you don’t like; for instance, I remember fondly the one time I forced a boss to murder the most aggravating healer of all time. I wouldn’t make a habit of it though.

However, what I would make a habit of remembering includes…

3. Play Dead.

When shit hits the fan and even Misdirect can’t save you anymore, there’s only one more answer to saving your not quite so fabulous hide.

Feign Death.

Here’s a little song so you can remember how awesome it is.
When you’re the aggro man, and the game’s name is pain?

It’s time to Feign. It’s time to Feign.

Anytime you have aggro, or the area’s aflame?

It’s time to Feign. It’s time to Feign.

Did you like it? I know I did.

2. Eat food

I’m not even kidding. Go make a sandwhich, then come back. I don’t want you on an empty stomach. Eating has been shown to actually, you know, keep you alive. If you’re dead IRL, then you can’t raid/do ANYTHING.

So go make a sandwhich, have a glass of water, take a potty break, and then get back. I’m sure the article won’t go anywhere.

You know what? Take your time. Make a big juicy burger, sizzling with grease and delicious, tasty meat. Add some onions, take some crunchy lettuce, and add some Ketchup. Enjoy your meal with some people, friends, family… and then you can come back.

Or this. Take your pick.

I’ll wait, no worries.

1. Don’t stand in fire/black/voidzone/electricity/(Insert thing here)

There is no real need to explain this. If it looks like this:

This:

Or even this:

AVOID IT. %$#@.

-Klin

So sit tight, and gaze upon the core talent any BM hunter should be following in order to PvE like… well, me!

BM Hunter CORE PvE Talent spec.

That’s a lot of info in one little square of pixels, no?

Although one would normally go through a detailed, exhaustive, and altogether boring look into what they took points wise, that would be silly. Why? Because the way talent trees are now make it very, very easy to make a good talent spec, even by accident.

It’s actually a lot quicker and easier to explain why I didn’t take certain talents. Since you need a minimum of 31 points to be able to expand into other trees. Here’s how:

Why Klin didn’t take some talents:
Pathfinding: This is a horrible idea for a talent in a PvE setting, and for a simple reason: it doesn’t help us at all!

Pathfinding simply increases the movement speed increase we get out of Aspect of the Cheetah and of the Pack (a.k.a Aspect of the Dazed. I’ve got stories folks, and they are not pretty) which is not something we care about in a PvE environment. There are enough reasons not to use Aspect of the Dazed in PvE that I could (and probably will) write a whole article on it. Suffice to say it’s been the culprit of countless deaths, guild splits, mass murdering sprees, and even a small house fire that consumed orphans.

Oh, and the increase to mount speed? Whoop dee doo! It’s not like we can fight while mounted on our super awesome Cenarion WAR Hippogryphs, so who cares. This is, in it’s purest form, a leveling talent and nothing more.

/trashbin

Improved Mend Pet: Improved mend pet doen’t seem that bad at first glance, does it? I mean, why the fuss? It gets rid of innumerable afflictions, you know, afflicting your pet; but to the experienced hunter, this is obviously a trap.

See, PvE has become incredibly nice to hunters of the past couple of years: where once our pets got destroyed by AoE spells and curses that normally ran rampant in the PvE universe, our pets can now gleefully shred away at a boss (i.e Squeaky toy) while the strange looking people around it run screaming from the giant clouds of death and destruction.

Why is it always the Orphans?!

What does this mean? Well, it means your pet very rarely (and I mean so rare that it’s not even an issue) receives a debuff in a PvE environment. So why bother putting two points into something you don’t even need, am I right? They’re better placed into Spirit Bond, so that you don’t die from the aforementioned  clouds of death and destruction and so that your healers don’t hate you.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera: Not only does this reference a movie that I found incredibly confusing and strange (I was anywhere between 10 and 12 years old when I saw it, so go figure), but the talent itself serves no purpose in a PvE setting.

Yes, it can reduce the cooldown of your Disengage. Yes, it can reduce the cooldown of your Deterrence; but it comes at a really, really high cost.

One of the key things to being a Hunter, or any ranged DPS class for that matter, is that we don’t get shot/smacked/mauled/torn apart/wrathed/terror’d/fired/____ (<- insert death inducing predicament here)

Suffice to say that we don’t want to get hurt. In order to receive the benefit of this talent, we have to get hurt.

Imagine this: you’re the Hulk. So what’s the only way to save people? To get mad. So you ask someone to punch you in the face so you can be stronger; except instead of  getting stronger, you get dead, and instead of saving people, the people call you a noob and /spit on your corpse. The Hulk doesn’t sound so cool now does he?

So, lesson learned: in a PvE setting, where you can avoid a lot of damage, you avoid it. So if you can avoid being punched in the face by _____(<- insert face smashing bad guy here) you probably should, which renders this talent useless. Take the 2 points and put them someplace else is what I say, and it’s what I did!

So that’s the BM tree
The thing is, with the way the new talents work, just stuff the talent points everywhere else and bam, 31 points. No questions asked, you just completed the tree. It’s really that much easier to make a talent spec by looking at it and asking yourself “what talents in here are worthless” and then filling out the rest.

So, with that out of the way, I now get to explain the outside parts of the spec.

Holy fandango, it’s the MM tree!
That’s right everyone, we’re out of the BM tree and making waves in the Marksmanship and Survival trees; however, before you start pouring your points into Rapid Killing (please don’t waste points there…) I’d like to give you one more section of Core points:

The Core in the MM tree
Believe it or not, some of the talents in this tree feel like they were designed for us BM hunters, and I’m not complaining. Let’s dive right in:

Go for the Throat: Now that we get autoshots while we move, this talent has gotten infinitely better. So long as you’re facing your opponent, you should be shooting him in the face. Every time one of those shots crits, your pet gets focus. The more focus it has, the more it can abuse Wild Hunt; and like I’ve explained before, Wild Hunt is ridiculous.

My good friend Gradii/Aifel put it this way: you can gear for a lot of things, but focus isn’t one of them. So take talents in it.

I full heartedly support that message.

Efficiency: If there’s one thing I like more than gathering more resources, it’s saving them. Efficiency does exactly that: instead of spending 25 focus on an Arcane Shot, I spend 22. This little difference actually matters: with the way we prioritize attacks and shots, it’s difficult to get more than 1 arcane shot between Kill Commands (actually, I found it difficult to get more than 1 Arcane Shot every 2 Kill Commands!) which is not a good thing. With the 3 ranks in efficiency, I could shoot 1-2 Arcane Shots without any real distress.

Why is this important? Because Arcane Shot is a huge source of damage for us. If we can’t shoot it, then we can’t make use of the damage potential it has, not to mention the other endearing qualities it brings to the table. For instance…

Sic ‘em!: This talent is a direct follow up to Go for the Throat, except instead of autoshot  giving your pet hugs, it’s Arcane shot. And what kind of hugs? The kind that give it a free basic attack when you crit with Arcane shot.

The implications of this are fairly large. While testing this talent, I could only look up to the hunter gods and thanks them for this talent; basically, it allows me to abuse Wild Hunt more, and I love abusing Wild Hunt. Anytime this procs, chances are your pet will either a) use Wild Hunt without expending any of the cost or b) be able to use wild hunt in a few seconds since their last attack cost nothing.

It pretty much is fabulous for everything I want my pet to do, which is damage. I can pretty much guarantee that Sic ‘Em! is a gimme.

Hokay, but I still have 3 talent points left! What do I do?
Well, this is where it gets tricky. See, we’ve already passed our core: the key stuff is taken care of.

However, as the most astute of you (and the people that can read!) have noticed, we still have three points left before our spec is finished.

As I see it, there are three reasonable sounding options, of which two I think are the best. Let’s take a look at what we’ve got:

Careful Aim: This talent is… odd. I mean, sure, our Cobra shots get an amazing chance to crit for the first 20% of a fight. I don’t mean to sound bored with this but… yeah, actually, I do. It’s boring. It’s not even that useful!

Allow me to tell exactly what cobra shot does: it keeps Serpent Sting on the target (which is important, but that’s not the focus of this article) and gives us focus. Otherwise, it does low damage.

Unlike Arcane Shot, Cobra Shot crits don’t do much for me. They do very little, to be frank. So, I think this talent sucks; but if you think it sounds awesome, then you’re entitled to that. I respect that.

Although I certainly do not agree.

Pathing: Ah, haste. A little history: BM hunters used to never need haste. We used to have a talent that automatically gave us 20% haste, and same for our pet. I miss those days.

Suffice to say that we don’t have that anymore, and that Pathing provides a small amount of haste that we can use. Which brings up the question: why do we need it?

In order for BM hunters to use Kill Command on every cooldown, while still using our focus for Arcane shots, we need the focus we get off of 2-3 cobra shots first. Once we have that focus, we’re good to go for another Kill Command and a couple Arcane shots, and the process starts again.

The thing is, Cobra shot has an inordinately long cast time. It’s not Pyroblast/Aimed shot/______(<- stupid mage ability I don’t care about goes here) but it’s still long for us, especially since we have to move around a lot in fights. Happily, haste brings that cast time down, and with some help from other abilities (Focus Fire, Rapid Fire) we can bring the cast time to about 1 second. That’s awesome, but those abilities don’t have a 100% uptime: that’s where pathing helps.

Having 3% increased haste isn’t a big shoveltusk, but it’s big enough that I would consider it if you feel your cobra shots are too clunky.

Improved Serpent Sting: Serpent sting is a powerful shot: unfortunately, not only is the name of this talent about as stale as most pop talent these days, Serpent Sting is not a shot I want to be re-applying all the time. As a result, I wouldn’t be able to take full advantage of the first half of the ability (to be fair, no hunter does: Survivalists use Cobra shot to keep it up, and Marksmen use Chimera shot to do the same).

The thing is, the increased crit chance does do a decent amount of damage, and I can guarantee that you will need to re-apply Serpent Sting on occasion:  there have been more than a few times where I’ve used Bestial Wrath, and upon exiting my murderous rampage I noticed that Serpent Sting fell off the boss. Woops!

It does help with DPS, more than I can say Careful Aim ever will. I’d take it.

So that was “precise” Klin. Thanks. Like, I feel all reassured.
Oh, don’t be so cynical. The reason why the last bunch are vague is for one very important reason: they’re to taste. I find I’ve got enough Haste on my gear that I don’t need many points in Pathing, and I don’t really like Careful Aim.  I put my points in like this:

Klin's all purpose, super fabulous PvE Spec!

It’s all purpose and super fabulous!

It’s also what I find works for me. So what does this mean for you? Well, dear reader, it means that you’re actually going to have to respec a bunch to find out what you like best.

Screw you!
Why thank you. Suffice to say, at least the build can be tailored to the player for a small amount of it. So get out there and try things out! Experiment! Learn to know what your hunter feels like.

BUT I WANT COOKIES, AND THAT MEANS A COOKIE CUTTER!!11
Too bad, go get cookies somewhere else. I’m not going to tell you how to copy me; however flattering it is, it’s also kinda creepy, and I’d appreciate it if you made your own style instead being the creepy groupie who just wants to see me naked.

So is that the guide you’ve spent 3 weeks writing?
More or less. I’m glad you enjoyed it, and I hope it helps you out.

This shouldn’t have taken three weeks!
Being fabulous has no time limit.

/win

/flourish

BM PvE has never been quite this loose before. There was usually just one way of doing things: for once, we now have some choices! I’m just trying to determine what works and when.

I promise the content is coming: all I ask is a little patience while I get the time to write it, the time to sort the data, and the time to really put out something worth reading.

Always Fabulous,
Klinderas

Namely, the fact that someone had a different and, to my immediate knowledge, completely viable spec.  As a result, I needed to test this.  Why not let the elitist jerks do it? Because, frankly, they had about as much idea as I did.

Sadly, this meant less time writing, more time testing.  I’ll post the results of the test A.S.A.P.

/flourish

Tracking time is a lot harder than it looks.

So the idea of posting and redoing all of my awesome guides in a prompt and quick fashion? Totally not happening.

My workload, despite my fabulous ability to do anything, is actually  far too large to leave hanging.  I will NOT be updating as frequently as I would have liked, but that’s just what happens when you’re being fabulous everywhere.

So please don’t expect daily posts, or even 3 times a week.  Maybe 1-2 posts, tops.  And that will do, because otherwise I would die.

So stay tuned, but be prepared for some wait times.

I’ve made a few alts, and while I was running lowbie dungeons and the like, I ran into several fledgling hunters.  Aren’t they adorable? Trying out the new pets, the shots… everything they did was new to them.   The thing is, they didn’t know how to spec, gear, or do anything.

I figure that, as a primarily BM hunter site, I should show people How To BM properly.  This is going to take a long time to do, due to classes and such, but with time and great fabulousness I will manage!

So, to whet everyone’s appetite, I will show you what I think is the best possible way to spec your BM hunter for PvE Damage!
Next time, I will go through the first half of the reasoning why I picked these!

Stay tuned.

I have determined, as an avid guide writer and a fabulous person, that there needs to be an Acronym Dictionary for us hunting folk.

There are so many little three letter words that it can be difficult to remember them all.  The first World of Warcraft manual attempted to keep a small dictionary for a number of the terms, but it has been some time since then.

Like all languages, WoW speak has evolved in lots of little ways.  I think it’s about time we started tracking these small evolutions in the way we communicate.

Also, defining what DPS is in every post might get a little crazy, so putting all the definitions here would be a sound, efficient move on my part.  Like so many other things I do, right? RIGHT.

If any are missing or I got it wrong, which is BOUND to happen, it is your duty to tell me, either through my e-mail, Twitter, or Facebook page (found under the Contact Me! page) or in the comments on this post.

THE FABULOUS, ALL PURPOSE, TOTALLY AUSPICIOUSLY AWESOME ACRONYM LEXICON
DPS – Damage Per Second
Aggro – If you have it, the mob is attacking you.
SS – Steady Shot
ArS – Arcane Shot
KC – Kill Command
BW -Bestial Wrath
ES – Explosive Shot
ChS – Chimera Shot
CC – Crowd Control
AS – Aimed Shot
KS – Kill Shot
CS – Cobra Shot
FF – Focus Fire
LnL -Lock and Load
RF – Rapid Fire
FD – Feign Death
MD – Misdirection
AoE – Area of Effect
MQoSRDPS – Massive Quantities of Sustained Ranged Damage Per Second

I’m spending time with a friend of mine, just being my fabulous self when I look at my twitter.  Someone from the guild, namely @CutDownTheTree, told me fantastic news:

Ghostcrawler had been spotted.

I raced my way  over to Vash’yr, and began combing the area for signs of the elusive crab.  After about 15 minutes, I finally spot him, his shimmering hide clearly visible! I drop a trap, and start taming… but the animation got cancelled because he disappeared.

I thought that he despawned or something,  but no! Apparently his elusive, crabby self just goes invis intermittently.  Right when my friend says this, poof: there’s a crab.  I drop the trap, and begin the tame!

A few seconds, and many, MANY smacks of the nerfbat later, I witnessed a miracle.

NERF ME NOW GC, I DARE YA! HAHAHAHAHA!
Love,

Klin

Although the ferocity pets from lat time’s discussion are very adept at dealing damage and “ripping” problems apart, they oftentimes do little else to help the group or themselves! This is where the brawn of ferocity meets the brains of our next family.

Keep in mind that despite all the amazing talent choices, the perfect builds, and the perfect mean nothing if you don’t use it properly.  Skill still determines the majority of your success, but talents can help make that success easier to attain!

Without further delay, let’s get started on the furry little geniuses of the pet world!

CUNNING

Cunning pets are exactly what they sounds like: smart, brainy, and uncannily resourceful.  They are NOT the type to smash and shred their way through  problem: rather, they will probe defences until they find the single, its bitty weak point in something and tear it a new hole.  If you were being chased by a hunter pet, the ferocity pet would be the kind you could close a door on, and run away from while they beat the door down (which wouldn’t take too long, to be honest).  Cunning pets would find a way to not only unlock the door, but infiltrate the air vents and head off the nearest exit!

So although their damage potential may not be as obvious as a ferocity pet’s damage, their damage can begin to far surpass that of a ferocity pet under the right conditions.  Not only that, but they have other, sneaky ways of increasing not only their DPS, but their survivability at the same time! Let’s take a look at this fascinating talent tree in a PvE setting.

BM PvE Cunning

Non-BM PvE Cunning

Believe it or not, the Non-BM tree is pretty much the same as the Ferocity Non-BM from last time, but with a few key changes.  Why is this awesome? Because it means that, curiously enough, the cunning pet is a very viable choice for Non-Bm hunters! Also curiously enough, Beastmaster hunters don’t really gain a huge advantage over Non-BM Hunters in this tree DPS wise.  There are only so many DPS talents! As such, our fabulous selves have to start branching out into unfamiliar, utility territory.

Please keep that in mind while I explain my reasoning for this fascinating tree!

DAMAGE!!
Serpent Swiftness
Remember my explanation of Serpent’s Swiftness in the Ferocity post? For those who don’t, it went something like this: It’s free.  It’s attack speed.  Attack speed means DPS.  DPS good.  Get 2/2 for DPS.

You know what, you come up with a good excuse not to get Serpent Swiftness for PvE, or for the next 5 talents, and I will eat my goggles.

Spiked Collar
Straight up, easy to understand, and a 9% increase to your pet’s DPS.  No brainer 3/3 talent, here we come!

I just got to thinking, I say that a lot.  NB3/3T is much shorter, isn’t it?

Culling the Herd
Another NB3/3T! Increases your pet’s and your damage output!  It’s a wonderful, fabulous talent complete with every breakfast, and neglecting this important part of your breakfast will give you scurvy.

So don’t neglect to take it!

Feeding Frenzy
This is a straight increase to DPS, but it’s the first talent point that is unique to Cunning pets.  So what’s the catch to a 16% increase to damage dealt? It only works when the target is below 35% health.  That’s a simple condition with a HUGE bonus! For a full third of the fight, we get a 16% increase to damage, and at probably the most important part of the fight too.  That’s roughly a bit more than a 4% increase in total DPS from your pet for 2 talent points! Not bad at all, and thats me talking.

Wolverine Bite
If there’s a protip for talenting anything at all, it’s that new abilities tend to get priority because they’re always awesome.  Bestial Wrath, Black Arrow, Chimera shot… these are talented abilities.  These are ridiculous and super powerful.  The same goes for your pet.

Wolverine bite is a powerful attack, and is therefor a straight DPS increase every time your pet critically hits; but I really want to show you just how powerful this attack is.

Taking the formula from WoWhead, let’s plug in the numbers…
Wolverine Bite = (1+((8 602*0.4)*0.1))
Wolverine Bite = (1+(3 440.8*0.1)
Wolverine Bite = 1+344.08
Wolverine Bite = 345.08

Okay, it’s not mind blowing, but it’s 345 guaranteed (pre talent and stat increase) damage every ten seconds.  I guess that’s okay, and it’s certainly better than no damage at all; but Wolverine should stick to his claws, I think.

Wild Hunt
Okay, this is a NB2/2T for everyone involved.  I did the math for how much it increases Bite over here in the last post, so I won’t do it again for post elongating purposes.  Suffice to say, take 2/2 and love them, cuddle them, and give them expensive wines once a year to show exactly how much you care for them.  These 2 points increase your pet’s DPS by enough to make you believe in a pet God.

Owl’s Focus
This talent deserves extra special attention.  It’s an NB2/2T, and there’s a very good reason why.

Your pet is above 50 focus, and can now activate Wild Hunt.  Your pet uses an attack, and it does all the extra damage, but the focus? Thanks to Owl’s Focus, that double damage attack cost no focus at all.  This little talent means that you can generally abuse Wild Hunt to a point where it wishes it had never left Kansas.  The poor talent will feel all used and cheated from not getting his focus points.  Because your pet focused like an Owl.

Now that’s a “hoot”! And this is a perfect example of what I mean by “sneaky” DPS.

BEASTMASTERS ONLY
Cornered
If those crazy non-bm hunters think that Owl’s focus is the sneakiest DPS talent ever, they’re probably right; but we still have the most insane damage increasing talent in the game.  Under the right conditions, Cornered grants your pet a 50% increase to damage. That is the single largest increase in DPS for any pet in the game!

There is a reason why it isn’t picked up by the Non-BM hunters though.  It requires your pet to be under 35% health.  That’s a rare time indeed, and usually your pet is going to want a heal at that point, nullifying the damage bonus.

We pick this up for the rare time when your pet does go under 35% hp, and when it does happen? Massive damage bonuses are welcome for the next few seconds.

UTILITY
Dash/Dive
Make pet move fast, nothing better to pick, longer explanation here.  Suffice to say, take a point in this and don’t look at it too funny.

Roar of Recovery
If there’s one thing people need, it’s more resources (MOAR GASSSSSSSSSS).  What’s a hunter’s resource? If you guessed Focus, you’re right! So what a better way to increase DPS than to give us more resources to do it with? Roar of Recovery gives us more focus so we can dish out more damage.  Smart use of this focus is what will make this talent good, or terrible.

BEASTMASTERS ONLY
Carrion Feeder
This is about as silly as it gets, but you know what I hate to do? Pay for food for my pet.  It’s like what ammo was before pet talents were invented.  And then pet talents were invented.  Carrion Feeder means a quick recovery of happiness, but that’s about all this will do for you.  It’s better than putting it in Boar’s speed though, since we already have Dash/Dive.

Bullheaded
This is a PvP talent.  It is kinda lame for PvE.  It is also situationally useful for PvE.

CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING: Your tank just lost a mob, and it’s beelining for the healer.  What’s one easy way to save him? Pet tanking! Simply send your pet to attack the mob, Intimidate it, and use growl to keep it off the healer until the tank taunts the mob off.

Thing is, sometimes your pet takes damage from doing this.  Sometimes, your pet takes a lot of damage in general.  Bullheaded does at least one useful thing: it reduces that damage by 20%.  So, whee, your pet has a tanking talent.

CONCLUSION
Having too many point in a tree is possible for Cunning PvE.  Bullheaded and Carrion feeder are so utility that they’re barely useful in a PvE context.  For BM hunters, it’s rare to see Cunning pets for that very reason.  It’s also very saddening, because I love how Ravagers look like and wish I could use mine more often.  In fact, the last two points in Carrion Feeder and Bullheaded can be put pretty much anywhere, and that’s no good because anywhere else is PvP talent territory.

For Non-BM hunters however, the Cunning tree gives a lot of really applicable talents for your pet.  In fact, I’ve heard from Rilgon from Stabilized Effort Scope that Cunning pets are actually Higher DPS for Non-BM hunters than Ferocity pets! I’m not entirely sure myself, but I can believe that considering the synergy with Owl’s Focus and Wild Hunt, not to mention Feeding Frenzy and the unique pet abilities in the Cunning pet families!

For BM hunters though, every point in the ferocity tree, including the extra 4, are all useful for increasing DPS or directly influence keeping your pet alive.  Cunning pets, although really cool, don’t give as much bang for you talent point.  This blogger heartily recommends that BM hunters use Ferocity pets in a generic PvE environment rather than a Cunning pet.  Depending on your grouping, however, cunning pets might be more helpful.  Keep this in mind.

Otherwise, these builds are solid.  Any comments or question are appreciated, and I would love to see them in the comments section!

There won’t be another PvE hunter pet talent post, largely because the entire Tenacity tree is covered in great detail by another blogger, Big Red Rhino.  He can more easily answer Pet tanking questions, because pet tanking is the only role tenacity pets have in PvE environments.  They simply cannot do the damage that the other two trees can!

However, I do plan on putting up Hunter pet talent guides for PvP sometime in the near future! Keep your ears peeled for when that happens.

Now go out, deal damage, and may your pets be the best pets they can be! Maybe even as fabulous as myself!

/flourish

If there’s one thing we know about PvE for hunters, it’s that we dish out the pain.  We deal in massive quantities of sustained ranged DPS (Damage Per Second) and we deal with it every time we walk into a dungeon.  Although skill enters into it in a big way, and there’s nothing better for skill than practice, another huge factor in determining your PvE damage is your talent spec… and that of your pet.

Along with fellow blogger Deadpool (link to his twitter!) of THE WARCRAFT ZONE (his blog!), I want to help people with learning about not only which talents they should pick, but why, so that when changes occur you can all figure it out for yourself.  Make sure you check out his posts on the subject  as much as mine!

So, without further delay, why don’t we start with the pet family that is born and bred to deal huge amounts of damage.

Ferocity

Ferocity pets are made to deal loads of damage, more damage, and then some more damage! The thing is, that’s only if you talent them properly.  If you wanted, you could talent these furry friends to do no extra damage at all! That means they can do less damage than a tenacity pet! That’s no good folks, that’s just an embarrassment.  So let’s talent your pets right, so our furry friends can rip apart faces!

PvE Ferocity Build: BM Hunter

PvE Ferocity Build: Non-BM Hunter

Now we’re going somewhere! As you can see, there are a lot of talents that are similar between the two specs, if not most of them: being a beastmaster, however, has it’s obvious advantages.  Here’s a talent calculator so you can follow along with me as we work our logic through the tree.

There are a few things to keep in mind while we work our way through this, and it’s the recipe for DPS: Damage, survivability, and more damage! This is our recipe for DPS, for any DPS class ever.  Damage because we’re a DPS class, we get Survivability talents because dying means you can’t shoot things, and damage again because… well, more damage never hurt you.

Remember this as I explain my talent choices! Let’s dig right in.

DAMAGE!!
Serpent Swiftness
Not 1, but 2 glorious points for 10% increased attack speed at absolutely no cost? Sign me up.  While I’m at it, sign up the entire hunter community, pronto.

Spiked Collar
One of the simplest to understand talents of all time (OF ALL TIME), Spiked collar is a no brainer.  9% increased damage for everything the pet does is about as obvious as it gets.  3 points please!

Culling the Herd
It might not be 9% increased damage from your pet, but 3% increased damage from your pet (12% straight, so far) and an additional 3% for you? It doesn’t get much more awesome than teamwork.  Another three point no brainer talent.  Oh, and if you thought that was the last no brainer…

Spider’s Bite
3 points later, our pet has another 9% increased chance to crit, which also helps to keep Culling the Herd up! Synergy is a beautiful thing, and this is about as blatantly obvious as it gets.  3/3.

Rabid
This is a DPS increase.  This is only 1 point.  This talent may not say it in plain english, but that increase to attack power is SIGNIFICANT.  Easy 1 pointer.

Call of the Wild
Here’s a big cooldown button.  When you need to do damage, and some significant damage at that, this easy to understand 1 point talent delivers like a fresh Delicio pizza.  Use when you’re using all your other big buttons to deal lots of other damage.  Also, you need the point in this so you can get…

Wild Hunt
This is the only controversial talent in the build, and that’s if you’re stretching it beyond reason.  There’s a choice for non-bm hunters between Wild Hunt and Shark Attack.  Let’s do a little math to show you exactly how much more awesome Wild Hunt is for those non-bm hunters!

Pet damage is heavily based on hunter gear and stats.  My pet wolf, Link, has a move called Bite.  As you can see, a hefty chunk of its damage is based on my attack power (AP).

I have 8 602 (AP) on my person.  Let’s plug it into the equation:
BITE = 186 + ((8 602 * 0.4) * 0.2)
BITE = 186 + (3 440.8 * 0.2)
BITE = 186 + 688.16
BITE = 874.16

Now, Wild Hunt multiplies that by 2.2 (An additional 120%!).  What does that do for us?
BITE + Wild Hunt = 874.16 * 2.2
BITE + Wild Hunt = 1 923.152

Great big Mammoth cutters, that’s a big difference! Even if it only happens once every few seconds (if YOU are talented properly), Wild Hunt helps a lot.  Now, let’s see what Shark attack can do.

Shark Attack gives a constant 6% increase to all damage, but let’s see how it behaves with Bite.
BITE + Shark Attack = 874.16 * 1.06
BITE + Shark Attack = 926.6096

That, folks, it pitiful.  Shark Attack barely boosted the damage by 52 damage.  Barely.  I can guarantee that it won’t increase the rest of your damage enough to catch up to the 1 000 plus difference in damage Wild Hunt made with 1 attack.

Proof in the pudding? I think so.  Take 2 points in Wild Hunt, and be happy with your no brainer talent.

Beastmasters only!
Shark Attack
We don’t have to choose: we can have both.  2 points for 6% increased damage? It’s like the expansion pack for Spiked Collar: not only does your now rabid, punk rock _____(insert ferocity pet here) move like a snake and bite like a spider, he/she is now part shark.  Sweet.

SURVIVABILITY
Now, we can’t make it up that high in the tree without taking some survivability talents.  Here’s what I took, and why.

Dash/Dive
We need three points to get past every tier in the talent tree, but the only points we’ve taken in the first tier are in Serpent Swiftness.  Putting a points into Great Stamina does very little for surviving, and Natural Armor does even less.  With Dash/Dive, you can not only get your pet into the action quicker (Hey hey! It DOES do DPS!), but it also allows your pet to move out of Area of Effect (AoE) attacks quickly! That WILL make a difference.  Stuff your point in here.

Bloodthirsty
Like Dash/Dive, this talent point is needed to get past the tier with Rabid and Call of the Wild.  Your other options include the rest of the tree, but let me let you in on a piece of advice: to no longer need food is nice.  To have a self healing pet is fantastic.  To have both of these effects passively just, you know, happen while it’s doing DPS, is priceless.  Take your point in Bloodthirsty and be proud!

Beastmasters only!
MOAR Bloodthirsty!
Once we have all our DPS talents, we still have 2 free to use.  Why don’t we use one of them to improve our already super helpful Bloodthirsty talent, and unlock probably the most unique and super awesome talent in the tree!

Heart of the Phoenix
Heart of the Phoenix is an unbelievably cool ability, with a strange past.  It used to not work at all, but now it works like a dream! Simply put the spell on your pet’s action bar, and if your pet dies? PRESTO, your pet is a shaman, and gets back on his feet, ready to tear more face! For a beastmaster, this kind of ability cannot be underestimated.  Taking a point in this is taking a point in your pet.

For pets, please, take Heart of the Phoenix.  It’s saving a life.

*cue emotional guilt trip music*

CONCLUSION
Now that’s a lot of wordage, but that’s more or less it; the very best way to talent your pets for DPS.  Now, we could put a point into Charge instead of Bloodthirsty, or instead of Heart of the Phoenix, but it’s really a PvP talent.  The stun does nothing against most mobs, let alone bosses, and the extra 25% AP only last for one attack every 25 seconds (and that’s by moving in and out of melee every 25 seconds!), and that’s definitely not that good.  In addition, the function of moving into combat quicker is covered by Dash/Dive, so I would say that this talent it pretty bad for PvE.

The same goes for the rest of the talents.  They’re all based on taking direct damage or being directly targeted, which is pointless in PvE.  Unless you have growl on permanently, your pet will never take direct damage.   Except Boar’s Speed, but that talent does one thing: move fast.  And we got that covered, don’t we? Dash/Dive?  Yeah, we do.  /flourish

With proper pet management, which you don’t need as much anymore to be honest, your pet won’t be taking much damage.  In addition, they can usually heal themselves through Bloodthirsty for any residual AoE damage they do take, and if they die in a freak hunting accident? Beastmasters are lucky and can use Heart of the Phoenix in a pinch.

So the builds are rock solid, there’s no controversy, and everyone is happy cause they do the most damage possible.  If you don’t use one of the two specs, then you should start.  Right meow.  I mean it! Go talent your PvE pet immediately, exactly like this.  Do the damage!

Next time I write a big guide, which should be soon, I’ll be covering a much more controversial topic: Cunning pets in a PvE environment.  Stay tuned!