Aw. You should really try to convince 'em to help you for Revered Sha’tar if nothing else when you get the chance. The glyph is fantastic, Xi’ri’s Gift is a great trinket, and it unlocks the Badge Farm Extravag-- I mean, Heroic Mechanar, which becomes an even better investment of time, as 4-5 badges a shot = offhand or icon in quick order. And -everyone- loves badges. And nethers.
As for the gloves, it’s not a bad call if you’re regularly dropping Attumen + Curator, this is true. One or the other should drop in quick order, as they’re not entirely uncommon.
Like I said, my play time is limited. 90% of the time when I log in everyone in my guild is already engaged with something. And plus, revered shatar is going to take what, like 10+ instance runs? for me, that’s something like 4+ months.
Eight runs at most from your rep level. Yeah, it is a bit daunting for limited play, there’s no denying… but it’s also a really nice thing to aim for, considering it offers a very significant and essentially permanent upgrade.
It’s not daunting so much as just boring. I don’t want to do the same thing for four months. If I actually just mix it in with other things, it’s going to be well over a year or more at the rate I play. Whereas, I’ll probably be wearing a full suit of kara epics by then.
Yes. I only tend to do one instance a week, with every odd week maybe I’ll do a second. If I only do once instance, it’s most likely Kara on a day and time where I know it will start and can plan for it.
You only need 415 def you know. You can probably drop a couple of your +def items for some DPS gear, in order to tank even better by generating more threat through damage.
Edit: And I’d suggest dumping natural shapeshifter, and putting your points in Intensity and Shredding Attacks. Lacerate is an awesome rage dump, and if you have enough rage to spam that nonstop, you are seriously not going to lose aggro even with the craziest DPSers popping all their cooldowns.
Spell penetration is, unfortunately, terrible for just about everything. It’s like spell hit, but anti-resists, and unlike back in the T1/T2 days where pieces had random bits of resist thrown on, it’s pretty much worthless for PVP. Most bosses don’t have resists worth mentioning, and the ones that do typically end up having Immunities instead.
It’s worse than that for PVE - it has no effect whatsoever. None. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
The shammy has better healing gear than elemental; I only made the switch a little while ago but I’m enjoying being a hybrid. Got some more runs lined up to replace the weak spots in my gear (main hand, shoulders, maybe the tier headpiece, etc)
Yep, but I’m missing some of the pieces I want to swap in for the lower defense number :) and our dps is running fairly solid. Usually the only way I lose aggro is if I get stunned and someone gets a big crit off.
Edit: I’m an arena/pvp player in addition to tank and can’t afford to lose the mana reduction (only reason those points are spent). Already sacrificed a lot of pvp talents I would have taken to be a better tank :(.
I’d really like some suggestions on gear upgrades. That feature in the armory is somewhat useless, and digging through wowhead looking for items is tedious. Am I out of line in thinking that I should be wearing all mail gear at this point in the game? Or is it normal for a 51 Hunter to still wear leather?
I guess it would depend how often you find yourself being melee’d, but I should think if the stats merit it it can be OK to still wear some leather. I’ll defer to the hunter experts on that, though. It’s the one class I know precisely zero about.
Hardest part about pre-maxlevel is there will always been an upgrade :(; unless you are shooting for a specific BG. I don’t know Hunters but wouldn’t stress too much until you’re 70. At 58-60 when you start Outlands quest you’ll replace most of your gear anyway.
I wouldn’t lose much sleep about wearing a bit of leather here and there. The extra mitigation provided by mail on a piece-by-piece basis isn’t tremendous, so it’s not something you’ll ever really notice. As a hunter you probably aren’t getting beat on a lot anyway.
As far as finding gear upgrades, honestly I wouldn’t worry about it that much. Since you’re 51, any gear you get pre-Outland will be quickly replaced as soon as you get there. I’d just focus on leveling.
Hunters level so fast I wouldn’t worry too much about it. When levelling, I did pay attention to AP (agi) + stam + armour as it all affects the pet, who was doing most of the fun stuff.
Level 51 hunter: Get the Ice Barbed Spear ASAP. Get a screecher pet (bat or owl specifically) quickly so you can get the best DPS+threatgen mix possible for leveling. This will increase your 1v1 kill rate and hence your leveling speed.
The rest of your gear should be either quest rewards or of the Monkey / of the Bandit greens of any armor type. Don’t worry about it too much right now!
At 70 you’ll want a full suit of mail if you can help it, but it doesn’t matter much as a leveling beastmaster.
4/5 frenzy is good enough to keep you constantly frenzied for a pet with cobra reflexes and a focus dump (gore/claw/screech/LB).
Spirit Bond means hardly any downtime ever if you play it right.
Bestial Swiftness is sweeter than the second point in Imp Mend:
That second point in Imp Mend Pet isn’t doing much for you. Just spam rank 1 mend for 50 mana if your pet gets a status ailment you don’t like.
Imp Revive is cool in certain situations but it’s two points that could be passively improving your performance all the time instead of just when your pet dies. Just try not to let your pet die instead. Put those two points in Focused Fire to kill faster.
Bestial discipline is nice but it’s only 6 focus per second. That’s 2.4 Claws per 10 seconds. Nice, but not as useful as Spirit Bond which means you are personally always topped off and your pet needs heals less often. Remember that HP regen only occurs out of combat and as a grinder you will be in combat all the time. Spirit Bond heals in combat.
Pet death avoidance tip: If your pet gets in trouble, pop a max rank mend pet, turn on aspect of the cheetah, and run away from the pet as fast as you can. When you hit 100 yards or so the pet despawns and aggro is lost. You can whistle it back to you now.
There are divergent schools of thought on mail vs leather, but ultimately, it doesn’t really matter as a Hunter. If there are a leather and mail piece with identical stats, take the mail, but if the leather has obviously superior stats, go with leather. Generally, your pet will be taking the hits if you’re out solo, and in groups/raids the damage you take is typically AOE and not reduced by armor: thus, health is the only thing that matters in that situation.
Of course, if you’re doing PVP, then it matters somewhat… but I’m not a PVP person, so I’ll defer on that point too.
(Also, I tend to use Thott for searching for upgrades. Their search function is vastly superior IMO.)
