Welcome to the Hunter guide of Icecrown Citadel’s pre heroic mode stage. The guide will only cover raiding related concepts, such as:
-{ I } stats
-{ II } gems, enchants
-{ III } talents, glyphs
-{ IV } shot rotations
• { IV/1 } Kill Shot
• { IV/2 } Serpent Sting
• { IV/3 } Chimera Shot
• { IV/4 } Aimed Shot
• { IV/5 } Silencing Shot
• { IV/6 } Steady Shot
-{ V } a bit of gear selection
-{ VI } buffs, debuffs, consumables
-{ VII } macros
-{ VII } addon recommendation
Everything in this guide is based on several hunter forums and experience from raiding as hunter.
{ I } Stats:
After reaching the hit cap (8% or 263 rating), go for armor penetration all the way. Sadly life is not so simple to just apply this philosophy for other stats too. You are going to have attack power, intellect, stamina, agility, crit and haste rating on your gear. When it comes to these stats, you have to keep several things in mind. Intellect transfers into Attack Power with Careful Aim. It also means a higher mana pool, which transfers into more mana from replenishment and less time spent using aspect of the viper. Haste can be useful until you get your steady shots down to 1.5 cast time. But for marksman hunters achieving this is not that hard due to Improved Aspect of the Hawk. Also for marksman armor penetration is more useful than haste, since you are going to use more steady shots than you did as survival, not to mention the talents you have now that boost the damage of your physical special abilities. Crit is still useful for marksman too.
After reaching the hit cap (8% or 263 rating), go for armor penetration all the way. Sadly life is not so simple to just apply this philosophy for other stats too. You are going to have attack power, intellect, stamina, agility, crit and haste rating on your gear. When it comes to these stats, you have to keep several things in mind. Intellect transfers into Attack Power with Careful Aim. It also means a higher mana pool, which transfers into more mana from replenishment and less time spent using aspect of the viper. Haste can be useful until you get your steady shots down to 1.5 cast time. But for marksman hunters achieving this is not that hard due to Improved Aspect of the Hawk. Also for marksman armor penetration is more useful than haste, since you are going to use more steady shots than you did as survival, not to mention the talents you have now that boost the damage of your physical special abilities. Crit is still useful for marksman too.
In the 2nd part of WotLK armor penetration started to become more and more valuable as gear got better. SV and MM are still close to each other, but as you progress through ToC25 I’d suggest you to start stacking armor penetration and go MM. With Armor Penetration the goal is to get as close as possible to the cap (100%) from gear. Anything over the 100% will just go to waste, so watch out for that. This will probably not happen unless you have a trinket that has a proc with armor penetration. In such case you have to check how much armor penetration will the proc give, and subtract that from the 100% to get the so called “soft cap”.
Don’t forget that with Focused Aim, you get 3% extra hit that doesn’t show up on your character tab, so you only need 5% to get hit capped.
{ II } Enchants and gems:
Try to get the hit cap (8% hit) with either some extra hit gems or enchants. After that, go crazy on armor penetration gems. If you still need hit use the gloves enchant for 20 hit (Precision) not the 20 hit gems, because there is no armor penetration gloves enchant, but there are armor penetration gems.The only exception could be boot enchants. Tuskar’s Vitality is really good for pve, it allows you to move a little bit faster, giving you a bigger margin for errors. As mentioned in the stats section, with Focused Aim you probably won’t need to gem nor enchant hit to get to the hit cap.
{ III } Talents and glyphs:
The talent build I currently use is this with Kill Shot, Steady Shot and Serpent Sting as major glyphs. (Steady Shot glyph got fixed in 3.3 so go ahead use it again). I also use Feign Death, Mend Pet and Revive pet as minor glyphs. In case you are needed to get TSA, because you are either in a 10 man raid, or in a 25 man where your group gets split and no one in your section is providing the 10% attack power buff, you could drop a point fromRapid Recuperation. This might not even be a dps loss for you if your target always has judgement of wisdom on, but the 10% ap buff will surely be up around you.
Let’s start with the glyphs first:
So far majority of the fights in Icecrown Citadel are a straight out dps race fights, not really involving much add management, hence the switch from Chimera Shot to Steady shot. Serpent Sting because, Chimera Shots serpent sting damage gets calculated based on how much damage the serpent sting would have done, therefore if it has a longer duration it’d do more damage. Regarding Kill Shot glyph, it just gives more DPS than Aimed Shot or the previously mentioned Chimera Shot, however the difference between glyphs of Chimera Shot and Kill Shot is so small, it really can just boil down to personal preference .
Let’s start with the glyphs first:
So far majority of the fights in Icecrown Citadel are a straight out dps race fights, not really involving much add management, hence the switch from Chimera Shot to Steady shot. Serpent Sting because, Chimera Shots serpent sting damage gets calculated based on how much damage the serpent sting would have done, therefore if it has a longer duration it’d do more damage. Regarding Kill Shot glyph, it just gives more DPS than Aimed Shot or the previously mentioned Chimera Shot, however the difference between glyphs of Chimera Shot and Kill Shot is so small, it really can just boil down to personal preference .
Talents:
It’s pretty straight forward. The only thing you might wonder about is why silencing shot. Well, silencing shot triggers no global cooldown, and can therefore be used as an extra dps shot macroed into your other shots.
{ IV } Shot rotations:
• { IV/1 } Kill Shot: No brainer. You can dish out insane crits with it, you want it on CD day and night.
• { IV/2 } You need serpent sting on the target before you can gain full benefits of chimera shot. Make sure you always use serpent sting first on bosses, before using chimera shot. However, on some adds that die way too quickly, I find it a waste of global cooldown to use serpent sting. This is especially if the add dies really fast and somehow due to global cooldowns you end up not being able to use kill shot. I’d like to take the time and explain here how to get the full benefit of 2 part T10 bonus. Basically how dots works is that they keep the modified damage if it’s applied by a % damage modifier (like the 2part T10 bonus[Exploit Weakness], Tricks of the Trade, Ferocious Inspiration/Arcane Empowerment/Sanctified Retribution, Culling the Herd). So what you want to do is, once you get the Exploit Weakness proc, you manually renew your serpent sting so it will keep the extra 15% damage throughout the fight, given you don’t let it drop off by forgetting to use Chimera Shot.
• { IV/1 } Kill Shot: No brainer. You can dish out insane crits with it, you want it on CD day and night.
• { IV/2 } You need serpent sting on the target before you can gain full benefits of chimera shot. Make sure you always use serpent sting first on bosses, before using chimera shot. However, on some adds that die way too quickly, I find it a waste of global cooldown to use serpent sting. This is especially if the add dies really fast and somehow due to global cooldowns you end up not being able to use kill shot. I’d like to take the time and explain here how to get the full benefit of 2 part T10 bonus. Basically how dots works is that they keep the modified damage if it’s applied by a % damage modifier (like the 2part T10 bonus[Exploit Weakness], Tricks of the Trade, Ferocious Inspiration/Arcane Empowerment/Sanctified Retribution, Culling the Herd). So what you want to do is, once you get the Exploit Weakness proc, you manually renew your serpent sting so it will keep the extra 15% damage throughout the fight, given you don’t let it drop off by forgetting to use Chimera Shot.
• { IV/3 } Now that you have serpent sting up, you can use chimera shot. This ability can crit over 10k and then the serpent sting part of it can crit over 4k as well. Making it the biggest overall source of damage, right after auto shot. Also with the Chimera Shot glyph, it will come off cooldown before Aimed Shot. Even if you have to wait 1 sec for Chimera Shot cooldown, it tends to worth waiting that 1 sec, rather than triggering a 1.5 sec global cooldown by firing an Aimed Shot.
• { IV/4 } Due to the nature of aimed shot having a longer cooldown, and it being a physical damage ability affected by armor penetration it completely takes over arcane shot. Do not use arcane shot anymore since it’s not affected by armory penetration, and it generally does low damage. Only reason to use arcane shot is if you are moving, and you already have Chimera and Aimed Shot on cooldown.
• { IV/4 } Due to the nature of aimed shot having a longer cooldown, and it being a physical damage ability affected by armor penetration it completely takes over arcane shot. Do not use arcane shot anymore since it’s not affected by armory penetration, and it generally does low damage. Only reason to use arcane shot is if you are moving, and you already have Chimera and Aimed Shot on cooldown.
• { IV/5 } Despite the fact that I mention silencing shot after all the other shots, in reality you always use it as soon as it comes off cooldown. Check out the macro section for some simple macros so you won’t miss any opportunity for firing your silencing shot. If you don't feel comfortable with macroing silencing shot, lets say because you are asked not to mess up the interrupt rotation (for example on General Vezax), then you shouldn't do it.
• { IV/6 } Last but not least, steady shot: With the nerf to steady shot in the expansion, this shot sunk from the top of the priority list to the bottom. This is now our least used damage ability. Its casting time and lack of scaling really doesn’t make it an attractive ability. Use it as filler, only when everything else is on cooldown. If you see that a higher damage ability will come off cooldown before your steady shot casting would have finished, don’t start to cast a new steady shot. For the reason mentioned a couple of times before, you always want to have your higher damage abilities on cooldown.
• { IV/6 } Last but not least, steady shot: With the nerf to steady shot in the expansion, this shot sunk from the top of the priority list to the bottom. This is now our least used damage ability. Its casting time and lack of scaling really doesn’t make it an attractive ability. Use it as filler, only when everything else is on cooldown. If you see that a higher damage ability will come off cooldown before your steady shot casting would have finished, don’t start to cast a new steady shot. For the reason mentioned a couple of times before, you always want to have your higher damage abilities on cooldown.
{ V } A bit of gear selection:
It is hard to talk about gear selection, when it can vary so much from person to person. However there is one thing worth mentioning. The 2 part T9 bonus is so powerful, you probably will hold on to it for quite long. To be a bit more precise: You really don’t want to brake the 2 part T9 bonus till you have at least 4 part T10 with at least 3 out of that 4 having at least 264 item level.
http://www.femaledwarf.com is an excellent tool for determining which piece of equipment is better. On a side note: If it says that you’d do more DPS with agility gems instead of armor penetration gems, then it is most likely right about it, but it also means this guide is probably not for your gear level.
{ VI } Buffs, debuffs
Always make sure you got all possible buffs before a pull, don’t neglect any tiny thing because it all counts. For marksman you can achieve the best dps with Elixir of Armor Piercing and Elixir of Mighty Thoughts. Hearty Rhino also knows as the armor penetration food food gives the most dps for marksman. It might be more comfortable to use the raid's fish feasts, but using your own food will make you place higher on the damage meters. Regarding pet buffs, there is an important change: in 3.1 they reverted Kibler's bits (the TBC pet food) back to 20 strength. So if you want your pet to do top dps as well, you are going to have to use the best possible pet food which is Spiced Mammoth Treats buffing your pet with 30 strength.
You are going to have most problems with short duration buffs, or totem buffs, mainly horn of winter and the strength of earth totem. You will have to always keep an eye on these two buffs. Since strength of earth totem has a 5 min duration, it will always overwrite horn of winter. The problem comes when you have to move, either accidentally or intentionally, out of totem rage. Sadly the game mechanics don't allow you to retain your previous lower valued buff so you are going to have to move back into totem range, or get a death knight to blow his/her horn. Addons such us Auracle can help you to keep track of important buffs, and debuffs.
Check out the new ammunitions from Icecrown Citadel they are not just better in DPS, but are lot cheaper to make as well.
You are going to have most problems with short duration buffs, or totem buffs, mainly horn of winter and the strength of earth totem. You will have to always keep an eye on these two buffs. Since strength of earth totem has a 5 min duration, it will always overwrite horn of winter. The problem comes when you have to move, either accidentally or intentionally, out of totem rage. Sadly the game mechanics don't allow you to retain your previous lower valued buff so you are going to have to move back into totem range, or get a death knight to blow his/her horn. Addons such us Auracle can help you to keep track of important buffs, and debuffs.
Check out the new ammunitions from Icecrown Citadel they are not just better in DPS, but are lot cheaper to make as well.
{ VII } Macros
COOLDOWN MACRO: Use all your cooldowns with 1 button. Notice how it DOES include kill command now. With a wolf you want to use kill command as soon as possible. It also includes bestial wrath in case you decide to try out BM. However it does not include call of the wild, since you want to use call of the wild only during bloodlust/heroism, where else you might use this macro at the beginning of a fight. It also includes readiness, this way it’s assured that you use readiness right after you used rapid fire, decreasing the possible wasted seconds between two rapid fires.
COOLDOWN MACRO: Use all your cooldowns with 1 button. Notice how it DOES include kill command now. With a wolf you want to use kill command as soon as possible. It also includes bestial wrath in case you decide to try out BM. However it does not include call of the wild, since you want to use call of the wild only during bloodlust/heroism, where else you might use this macro at the beginning of a fight. It also includes readiness, this way it’s assured that you use readiness right after you used rapid fire, decreasing the possible wasted seconds between two rapid fires.
#showtooltip rapid fire
#show rapid fire
/use 13
/cast Bestial Wrath
/cast blood fury
/cast rapid fire
/cast kill command
/cast readiness
CHIMERA SHOT: This is just like with all the other abilities, it has kill command, and silencing shot.
#showtooltip chimera shot
#show chimera shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill command
/cast chimera shot
/cast silencing shot
AIMED SHOT: This is just like with all the other abilities, it has kill command, and silencing shot.
#showtooltip aimed shot
#show aimed shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill command
/cast aimed shot
/cast silencing shot
ARCANE SHOT: This is just like with all the other abilities, it has kill command, and silencing shot.
#showtooltip arcane shot
#show arcane shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill command
/cast arcane shot
/cast silencing shot
MASTER’S CALL: Allows you to just mouse over someone and use Master’s Call on him. If you hold down the right mouse button, so the cursor doesn’t appear, it will be used on yourself.
#showtooltip Master's Call
#show Master's Call
/cast [target=mouseover,exists][target=player] Master's Call
KILL SHOT: With this macro you will be able to use Kill shot without targeting anything. What you want is have enemy name plates on, and have their percentage of HP displayed either on the nameplate with some addon or in the tooltip. Now when you mouseover and you see they got less than 20% you can use this macro. Important note is that if you are keeping your mouse over something that has more than 20% HP but your current target is below that and you’d like to use kill shot on your target, then you need to make your mouse disappear from the screen by either moving it to a place where it is not mouseovering anything, or by holding down either the left or the mouse buttons (basically when you turn the camera and you can’t see the mouse)
#show kill shot
#showtooltip kill shot
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Kill Shot(Rank 3)
/cast Kill Shot(Rank 3)
MELEE: Use your melee abilities from 1 button
#show Mongoose Bite
#showtooltip Mongoose Bite
/cast Raptor Strike(Rank 9)
/cast Mongoose Bite(Rank 5)
