In fact, I often wondered why it worked in the first place, since Blizzard has never intended macros to be something that decides which spell or shot you should cast, and that is precisely what it was doing before: if your macro included Kill Shot, and Kill Shot was available and not on cooldown, the Kill Shot would be cast instead of whichever other shot was your main one in that macro. If Kill Shot was not available (target over 20%) or was on cooldown, then the main shot would be cast instead.

Fortunately, Kill Command still works in macros, so always include it in your basic shot macros.

Let me state this clearly near the top for all to see: Shot macros are good! Shot Rotation macros are Bad! There! I said it! And before you bounce away to another page to satisfy your desire for an easy fix to your shot rotation, let me also state that I will provide some shot rotation macros at the bottom of this post. But you’re darned well going to get some learnin’ from me first!

The intent of a Shot Macro is to make sure you pop the big “shots” whenever they are available: Kill Command, Kill Shot, or anything else big and only occasionally available. Here is my Steady Shot macro:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent(”UI_ERROR_MESSAGE”);
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Kill Command
/cast Kill Shot
/cast Steady Shot

I am not totally sure the !Auto Shot is required, but it works so I leave it in there. You will note that I have no “castsequence” call to control which shots are used in which order, and there is a very good reason for it. In fact, there are a few.

First, you don’t know what your cooldown is going to be for specific shots, since they can be changed by talents and glyphs. My shot rotation might not work for you if your cooldown for Arcane Shot is not the same as mine. Second, you need to take into account the possibility of missing. A Serpent Sting that misses should be cast again as soon as possible because you don’t want to go through an entire rotation without it. Lastly, there are times when you won’t be able to just stand and shoot. Boss fights that require running around will screw with rotation macros something awful.

Think “shot priority” rather than “shot rotation”, and you will maximize your DPS. This goes for Marksman and Survival as much as for Beastmaster, but BM is easier of course. For BM you simply want to lead off with a Serpent Sting (make sure the sting gets applied, or apply it again as soon as the cooldown is up), follow with Arcane Shot, then spam Steady until Arcane is up again, and then shoot Arcane. When Serpent Sting is down to about 1/4 of its time left, get ready to apply it again. Don’t wait for it to completely dispel, because you will probably have to wait for a Steady Shot to finish casting; far better to prepare for it ahead of time.

If you are fighting a boss with no adds, feel free to throw in some Multi-Shots as well, as they will do the most damage for you — just don’t use it where there are lot so mobs, or you will attract some unwanted aggro. Also, for each of the shots mentioned in this “rotation”, you should be using a Shot Macro to make sure you don’t miss opportunities for the big shots.

For those of you who really feel you MUST have a shot rotation macro, here it is:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/castsequence reset=3 !Auto Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
/cast [exists,target=pettarget] Kill Command
/castrandom Arcane shot, Multi Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

This macro is the best compromise between making sure you can prioritize shots and still not having to play whack-a-mole with all your buttons. You will want to make two of these macros, one with Multi Shot and one without, and use the one that is appropriate for the current situation. Also, you can replace the Showtooltip option with whichever icon you want as it has no bearing on the performance of the macro itself. Lastly, you need to make sure you handle Serpent Sting manually.

**UPDATE**

As of Patch 3.10, Kill Shot is no longer working in this macro, since it is now on the Global Cooldown. I have not seen any way around this, but in truth this is more in line with the stated goal of macros. It was never Blizzard’s intention to allow a macro that would essentially choose which shot (or spell) should be cast, and that is what this macro did. So that means Kill Shot should have its own macro with Kill Command, along with all the other shots.

Sorry

Your Talent Tree Spec will be radically different when leveling as compared to when you start instances and raiding. When you get to 80, it will be all about the damage, but prior to that speed and survivability are more important. Even when Dual Spec comes out, it won’t be a simple matter of adding a new spec: both should be entirely replaced.

Broadly speaking, Beast Master is hands-down the leveling spec. It is designed to make the pet a significant source of damage, and if you pick a Tenacity pet it will have lots of threat generating talents available to it. This keeps mobs on your pet rather than on you, and that helps in two ways. The first, of course, is that you survive more fights. The second is that you can take on more mobs at a time, and thereby finish quests more quickly. There is a third benefit, which is that you can send your pet to attack mobs while you loot the mobs you just killed, which can speed things up even more if done right.

Which exact talents you pick will make a difference, and which level you pick them at will also be important. The exact spec that I use to level is given at Joana’s Horde Leveling Guide, but if you are not using a leveling guide then I will give a few pointers on what to grab.

First, you want to buff your pet before yourself under most situations. Don’t completely avoid buffs on yourself, but remember that you want your pet to survive and to do a large share of the damage. Second, choose Talents that will cause your pet to crit, as the extra damage from your pet will create that much more threat. Remember that buffs to you will often also buff your pet, so try for those kinds of Talents as well. And pay attention to Talents that add Stamina, Armor and resistance to AoE effects (the last is mostly in the Pet Talent Tree).

My current raiding spec is not far off from my Leveling spec, although a few Talents have been moved from Thick Hide and other “defensive” Talents to more damage creating ones, so this exact spec would probably overpower some pets, but it is close.

The first, Mend Pet, was mentioned in my previous post. It does exactly what you would think, which is to mend your pet; in other words, heal it. Since your pet basically acts as your tank, you want to make sure he stays healthy and survives the fight. Normally, when your pet dies, so do you.

What I like to do in fights that I know are going to be close, is to start the mend before the pet even gets to the mob. That way if there is a lot of damage, the heals will hopefully prevent the pet from dying, or at least too quickly.

It is not a good idea to use Mend Pet out of combat, though, as it is a waste of Mana to do so. It is better to use bandages if you have them, or simply to wait (pets heal much faster than Hunters do.)

Mend Pet is so important that it stays on my main action bar, typically the “=” key. It really does not matter which key it is, as long as it is an easily accessible key during combat, because you really don’t want to be fumbling for it when things get tough. One thing to note about Mend Pet, though, is that because it is a healing spell, it will cause threat. If your pet is fighting more than one mob you may very well grab aggro from one of the mobs that the pet is not doing damage to. In such cases you want to have your pet attack the mob that is running to you and grab aggro back before you start shooting again.

The second spell, Wing Clip, is one of the few useful melee spells that Hunters get, and that is because it slows the target down in much the same way that Concussive Shot does. An easy way to get distance from a mob that is meleeing you is to hit it with Wing Clip, strafe away, and then use Concussive Shot. By then you should have enough distance to take a couple of other shots before they can reach you again.

Wing Clip is particularly useful in PvP, as any player who knows anything about the game will be aware that you cannot melee worth a damn. The more easily you can get distance between them and you, the better off you will be. Depending on your style of play, and what you are doing, this may be a valuable enough key to keep on your main action bar. Since you can have a few preset main action bars, you may want to set one up for situations where lots of melee is likely to occur, such as PvP or  closed areas (sunken ships are one of the worst for that).

Distracting Shot is a spell that does no damage, instead distracting it from what it is doing and causing a high amount of threat. There are very limited circumstances in which this would be useful, and I have never actually used it, or even keybound it for that matter. I can imagine situations, such as when you are grouped with players who can only wear cloth and they are being attacked. Other than that, I cannot think of a situation where you would want to grab aggro; better to let the pet do so.

Track Humanoids goes along nicely with Track Beasts, and now you will get to switch back and forth between the two depending on what sort of questing you are doing. These two will cover the majority of mobs you will encounter early on, but you will normally see a new type of mob before you get the Tracking spell for it. In these situations just track whichever mob you might otherwise see around the perimeter of where you are playing.

The other new spell is Aspect of the Hawk. This is similar to Aspect of the Monkey in that it lasts forever, costs no Mana and is instant. It is a buff that increases your Ranged Attack Power, and is far more useful than Aspect of the Monkey. In fact, I almost never switch back to Monkey after I get Hawk, since there are so many ways to stay out of combat. This is especially true after you get your pet!

Tracking spells and Aspect spells never make it onto my main action bar, nor do I even keybind them. Neither one of these is ever called upon during combat so there is no need to access them quickly. Tracking spells g on my lower right action bar, and Aspect spells go wherever I can find space as they are temporary anyway (once you get Viper everything changes).

Pet spells are different, or at least the main one is: Mend Pet. This is important enough that it goes on my main Action bar, usually as “=”. Which reminds me: you always want to save Mana for Heal Pet, even if it means that your shots will do less damage. If you pet dies, you lose about half your total damage, and when the mob reaches you it will drop a lot more if you have to melee. Far better to simply rely on Auto Shot if it comes to that, and keep the pet alive. Also, don’t be afraid to “overheal” in tough situations, which means casting Heal Pet before there is significant damage to the pet. The reason you would do this is because you might expect a large burst of damage on the pet at some point, and it is useful to have some heals already on the way to mitigate that damage.

And yes, I know Mend Pet is not learned until Level 12, but I wanted t0 mention it here as part of the whole group of pet spells that are learned, and to make note of the fact that I do not keybind the others, or put them on my main action bar.

After you get a pet your attack strategy will change drastically. Strafing and kiting won’t completely disappear, but they will be far less frequent since your pet will hold aggro if you play correctly.

There are two main strategies for fighting, and which one you should use depends on how many mobs there are to fight. Approaching one or two mobs in the open will be a different type of fight compared to trying to clear out a camp. With the first type I like to use a macro to cast Hunter’s Mark on the mob and then send the pet in. This macro also casts any racial spells, uses trinkets, and casts other spells with long cooldowns that will be learned later. At this point the macro will likely only be Hunter’s Mark and pet attack, with the possible addition of a racial ability.

After the pet attacks, it is best to wait a bit before shooting so the pet can establish aggro. The more you do this, the better the chance the pet will hold aggro for the entire fight, because you have to do 130% of your pet’s threat in order to steal aggro; giving your pet a head start on doing damage will go a long way to preventing that from happening.

The second strategy involves “pulling”, which is the art of getting one or two mobs from a group to leave that group and fight you. By pulling the mobs away from the group you prevent the possibility of the whole group joining in on the fight. Of course, this is done with a shot, but which one is best? I usually use Serpent Sting, but the continued damage from the DoT may prevent your pet from getting aggro back. Arcane Shot might also do the same thing because of larger amount of damage, but in either case you could simply stop shooting until the pet picks up aggro. Just don’t use Concussive, as the slower movement of the mobs causes a greater chance of “chain aggro”, which could lead to a much larger pull than you intended.

Whichever strategy you use, you will follow up with the same Serpent Sting and Arcane shots, and cast them again when required. Alternatively you could leave the Arcane Shot for later as a killing shot when the mob gets low on health; this is an effective strategy for preventing aggro pull as your major damage comes at the end of the fight rather than the beginning.

The first situation in which this is useful is when you are targeting a particularly difficult mob and you want it to take as long as possible to get within melee range. By hitting the target with Concussive right after a Serpent Sting (always put your DoTs up first!), you will increase the amount of time it will take by 2 seconds. This may be enough extra time to allow you to drop the mob before it can do you any serious damage.

Note that this does NOT work against mobs that charge, so don’t waste your Concussive at the beginning of fights against such mobs. There is a 12 second cooldown, and you aren’t likely to last 12 seconds of melee.

Which brings us to the second situation where Concussive is useful, and that is in getting distance between you and the mob once it does get within melee range. In this case, if melee has already started, wait for the mob to start an attack that is not instant, then strafe away and pop a Concussive, followed by your other shots.

Lastly, Concussive comes in handy when fighting mobs that run away; one shot might not be enough to take them down, but if they go out of range you will be forced to follow them to finish them off. This is not efficient or safe, so best to hit them with Concussive shortly before they run. This is more effective when fighting with a pet, since mobs are generally running towards you when you are petless, so this situation might not come up very often before you get your pet.

Since there is only one spell for me to talk about at this level, it leaves me room to speak of another kiting strategy that is well known but little mastered, and that is the Jump Shot. No, Jump Shot is not a spell, it is a strategy, but it is important enough that I Capitalized it.

There are places where strafing and shooting are not possible, as in straight tunnels, or in any place where you cannot turn. The reason we strafe is to maintain maximum speed (you cannot run backwards, just walk) and to be at an angle that allows us to still shoot. You don’t have to be facing the mob, just less than 90 degrees away (right angle). So if you need to run away in the same direction, how to do you shoot the mob that is following you?

By doing a Jump Shot, which works like this: Use the mouse buttons to run (keep both pressed down), hit the space bar to jump, and while in the air turn toward the mob by at least 90 degrees, use an instant shot, then turn back to the direction you are running. Yes, it is tricky, but it can be done. Just use the mouse instead of the keyboard to run, so you don’t stop moving.

If you have never done this before, you may want to practice the jump-turn combo just to get comfortable with that, and then add the shot once you have the movement mastered. You will be surprised just how easy it is to kite mobs and slowly damage them while taking no damage yourself. Remember that you must use Instant shots like Serpent Sting and Arcane Shot when you are running, as well as Concussive if the mob starts catching up to you.

It should be noted that there are situations where the Jump Shot is easier or harder, and that is on slopes like hills or stairs. If you are running downhill your jumps will be longer and you will have more time to execute your Jump Shot. On uphill inclines your jump is nearly non-existent, so strafing might be a better strategy then.

Practice your Jump Shot even when you don’t need to use it, and it will really come in handy when you do — such as in a Boss fight where you are the only one left alive, and the boss is down to 1% health. Don’t laugh — I’ve seen it happen!

The first and most important is that it increases the Ranged Attack Power of everyone attacking that mob. Not just yours; not just your Party’s; everyone’s. This includes players from other factions, apparently. This should be used every time you attack a mob, at least when you have time to set up your attack ahead of time. In fact, I always make this part of a macro that sends my pet in to attack so I never miss a chance to Mark a mob, but at Level 6 you don’t have a pet, so you probably won’t set this up in a macro just yet.

The other spell you get at Level 6 is Arcane Shot, which is another Instant Cast damage shot, but this time without a DoT. Because it is an Instant Cast, it can be shot on the run, just like Serpent Sting, which means you can use the strafing strategy described in the previous post. Arcane Shot will do 15% of your Ranged Attack Power in Arcane Damage, plus an extra amount depending on which Rank you are using. At this level you can only get Rank 1, which will add an extra 15 damage to the 15%. This 15% is based on your current Ranged Attack Power, which includes all buffs, so you really want to have that Hunter’s Mark on the mob when you cast Arcane Shot — every bit of damage helps!

If you have never heard the term Arcane Damage before, let me explain it. there are various types of damage that can be dealt: Physical, Nature, Shadow, Frost, Fire, Arcane and Holy. Physical Damage is the type that is dealt by “normal” type of fighting, as with swords, axes, bullets and arrows…basically Things hitting Other Things. Armor reduces Physical Damage, so when your damage from Auto Shot seems to be reduced, it can be due to the mob having lots of Armor. This situation is the best for using Arcane Shot, because Armor does not reduce Arcane Damage. The only real downside to Arcane Shot is that it does use a fair bit of Mana.

The cooldown on Arcane Shot is 6 seconds, which means you will need to wait 6 seconds before shooting it a second time. Here is the strategy that I use once I get this spell:

1. Get to Maximum Range from target;
2. Put Hunter’s Mark on Target;
3. Fire Serpent Sting (always get DoTs up right away!);
4. Fire Arcane Shot;
5. Strafe away, firing Serpent Sting when Arcane shot is not available.

If you are not able to kill the mob quickly, you may need to change direction and strafe again. Try to do so before the mob gets into melee range, but if you can’t then try to run away when it is casting something or doing something else that takes time. Also bear in mind that some mobs will run away once their damage gets below a certain point, so don’t strafe out of range!

So it is important — nay, essential –  that you learn these spells at your first opportunity whenever you make it to the next even level. Actually, after level 60 you can learn new spells every level. Sometimes the spells you learn are merely higher “ranked” versions of spells you already know, but they are more powerful and should definitely be learned.

Level 2 comes with the new spell “Track Beasts”, and it is the only spell you will learn at this level. It is the first of many Tracking spells that Hunters get, and it is the same sort of thing as the tracking you get for Mining and Herbalism. Unfortunately you cannot use them both at the same time, but when questing it is really helpful to be able to find mobs fast. Since there are many quests that require the slaying of beasts, Track Beasts comes in very handy. And as there are no other tracking spells available, you may as well turn this one on and leave it on until you get the next one. Even if you are not hunting for beasts at any give moment, it can be useful for avoiding the ones you don’t want to run into.

When you get to Level 4, there are two new spells that are quite valuable. The first is Aspect of the Monkey. This is the first of many Aspects that Hunters get, and this one grants you the extra Dodge percent that monkeys supposedly have. Again, since this is the only Aspect you have right now, you may as well turn it on and leave it on until you get the next one.

Aspect of the Monkey really only comes in handy when you are in melee, which ought to never happen if you were to play perfectly, but then who does? When you do get jumped by some mob, it is nice to be able to avoid some of the hits. This is what the extra Dodge percent does for you.

The other spell you learn at Level 4 is Serpent Sting, which is your first DOT spell (Damage Over Time). This special shot not only does immediate damage, but also poisons the target and doing damage over time (hence the acronym). The other thing to notice about this spell is that it is an “Instant Cast”, which means two things: there is no wait time when you cast it, AND it can be used on the run.

Unlike Auto Shot and some other shots you will learn later, you can shoot Serpent Sting when you are moving. Since Hunters don’t melee well, it makes sense to move away from the mob that is running towards you. However, when you move backwards you cannot go fast, so the mob will catch up to you rather quickly. This is where “strafing” comes into play. Strafing is when you run sideways, and it can be enormously useful to Hunters since you can be at full speed and yet still be facing the mob you are attacking.

The Strafe keys on the normal WoW mapping are Q and E. The basic strategy is this: 1) Target the mob you want to attack; 2) get to maximum range; 3) Decide which direction you will strafe to; 4) Attack with Serpent Sting; 5) Allow one or two shots to fire from Auto Shot; 6) Begin the strafe, and use Serpent Sting when the cool down is up. This should be sufficient to drop most mobs your own level, but you can change directions and do it again if need be. Just be careful not to run into other mobs!

Strafing takes a bit to get used to, but once you are comfortable with it you will rarely have to melee again (only in closed spaces or underwater where you cannot get up to speed).

So why does strafing work so well? It is because you are running in a straight line, but the mob has to change direction and ends up running in a curve. Since the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, the mob will not actually catch up to you. Of course the angle between your path and the mob’s will eventually become parallel, and you will need to change direction to regain the benefit of strafing, but by that time hopefully the mob is dead.

Strafing is just one method of “kiting”, which is the process of moving a mob from one spot to another. Usually you do this just to keep to a shooting distance, but you can also do so in order to get the mob to a safer area, or to bring it to an NPC like a guard.

It depends on what level you are, what you are doing, what resources you have, what your stats are and what your skills are. However, it does not need to be complicated. Also, the difference between “good food” and “best food” is a lot smaller than the difference between “good food” and no food at all.

Basic food is food that heals you and does nothing else. You can buy basic food at most inn keepers as well as other vendors, so I will skip over this part. Just bear in mind that it makes sense to have the highest level basic food on you because it will regenerate health faster, thus reducing your down time.

The food I want to talk about is the kind that gives a boost to one or more of your stats. The stats that we Hunters want to see buffed are generally Attack Power, Stamina, Crit Rating, Haste, Armor Penetration, Agility, and to a lesser degree Intellect. Less important, but not useless, are Spirit and Mana per 5 seconds (or Mp5). Strength and Spell Power can be completely ignored, but in some cases they will be part of a package deal with other stats. Which stats you choose to buff will be dependent on what you are doing.

At lower levels most of the food that you will be able to use will only buff your Stamina and Spirit. There are a few Mp5 foods available, but they require both Fishing and Cooking skills or must be bought at the Auction House. Also, Mp5 is not that important at lower levels, and Spirit will help regenerate Mana during downtime anyway. In fact, the Stamina buff is quite useful when questing at low levels, and come sometimes mean the difference between dying and surviving large pulls. Since dying results in huge downtime, Stamina is a good thing.

At Level 35 you can use Grilled Squid, which increases Agility by 10 for 10 minutes. Of course, Agility is the main base stat for Hunters, so this is a nice one to have. Remember that Agility not only affects Attack Power; it also increases your Armor, Dodge %, and Crit % as well, so it has both offensive and defensive benefits.

At Level 45 Charred Bear Kabob becomes available, and its boost of 24 Attack Power is nothing to sneeze at. You lose the extra benefits that Agility gives you, but the effect lasts for 15 minutes instead of ten, and the pure power is worth the switch. This should help you power through the next 10 levels!

At Level 55 things begin to get interesting. Some of the food from the Outlands can be purchased and used, and this is where you start to make some choices as to which stats you want to boost. Ravager Dogs give you 40 Attack Power and 20 Spirit for 30 minutes; Broiled Bloodfin gives 8 resistance to all schools of Magic; Grilled Mudfish and Warp Burgers each give 20 Agility and 20 Spirit for 30 minutes. Since Hunters are built to dole out damage I am not a big fan of defensive stats like resistances, but there are times and places where it might come in handy. As to Agility vs Attack Power, because of the extra benefits that Agility brings I would want at least twice the amount of Attack Power as Agility for me to switch to the Attack Power. Since Ravager Dogs give 40 Attack Power, I would pick them over the Agility food. The difference would not be massive, though.

At Level 65 we get even more choice as the extra stats come into play. The food available at this level is intended for end game play, at least as it existed pre-WotLK. Skullfish Soup adds 20 Crit Rating and Spirit for 30 minutes, and Spicy Hot Talbuk gives 20 Hit Rating and Spirit for 30 minutes. Adding Crit % will always be a benefit (albeit a diminishing one eventually), whereas Hit bonus will only be useful if you are below the Hit Cap for the mobs or bosses you are fighting. This is one time where there really is a clear choice, and you need to understand Hit Rating and Hit Caps to decide which applies under which circumstances. I won’t go into it at this time, but I plan to write a post shortly that helps explain it.

When WotLK came out, there were all sorts of new recipes, beasts and foods added to the game. Some of them are fun, like Small Feast; others are more useful. All of them are usable at Level 70 and last for 1 hour (some fun ones last 2 hours, if I recall). All add Stamina and at least one other “main” stat, whereas some add two stats. The choice of food will be dictated by which stat makes the most sense to boost, which again is dependent on what you are doing and what you are fighting.

Also, it is important to note that Northrend food comes in two “levels”, and they can be quickly differentiated by the amount of Stamina that they add: the lower level food gives 30 Stamina, the higher adds 40 Stamina. The choice between the higher and lower version of the same stat comes down to availability and price only; it may not be worth spending the extra time, money or mats to use the higher level food for simple farming, but in a raid it might well be worth it.

Choosing between the stats is more difficult, so you need some way to compare the results of the various bonuses. The best way to do that is to translate as best you can into damage increase. I know there is a lot of theory-craft out there that gives lots of details on how to calculate this, but frankly I don’t have the time to do that. I have decided to take a tip from pro Poker players and use some approximation short-cuts. We will lose out on accuracy but gain on the ability to make good (not perfect) decisions quickly. Since circumstances and stats change frequently, I think this is a better approach.

We will use the higher level Northrend foods and their stats to compare to one another. First, 80 Attack power, as given by Mega Mammoth Meal and Fish Feast. We can use the ratio of 14 AP = 1 dps, but this does not take into account the damage done by the pet. Since different Hunter specs affect pets differently it is hard to assign a ratio to adjust this, so the easy thing to do is to look at your current unbuffed Attack Power. If your Attack Power is 4000, then 80 extra AP is a 2% increase. If you only have 3000 AP, then 80 is a 2.67% increase. This should result in a reasonably similar increase in damage. I know this is not completely accurate, but we will be using the same approximation for the other stats, so we will be comparing apples to apples for the most part.

Spiced Wyrm Burger and Spicy Blue Nettlefish both add 40 Crit Rating. So how does this translate to increased damage? 40 Crit rating at Level 80 translates to about 0.87 % increase chance to crit. If your critical hits only do double damage then that means you get about a 0.87% increase to damage. In fact it is less than that because your existing Crit % increases your damage already, but remember that we are approximating. If you have 5/5 in Mortal Shots (MM tree) your critical hit damage is 130% rather than 100%, so this should also be factored in. Finally, the value of procs that occur on Crits needs to be taken into account. If you have Cobra Strikes the you will be causing your pet to have extra damage as well, not to mention Ferocious Inspiration and its effect on the entire group. The value of procs can just about double the extra damage (give or take), which makes the damage increase somewhere between 2 and 3%.

Hmmm…that looks pretty similar to the amount from 80 Attack Power. Coincidence? I doubt it. The mathematical gymnastics above were really only to demonstrate a point: the approximate value of each stat bonus is going to be pretty close to the values given by other foods of the same level. If we can simply resign ourselves to this, then we can just look at the various situations that would make Crit % buff less effective for us. First, if your Crit % is fairly high already, your extra damage benefit would be reduced; you can only have Ferocious Inspiration up once at a time, and Cobra Strikes will only dole out pet crits one at a time. Also, if there is another BM Hunter in your group your Ferocious Inspiration will not stack with theirs (it used to, but no longer, alas), further reducing the benefit of the + Crit.

On the other hand, if your Crit % is low, you might stand to gain a lot from it.

Worg Tartare and Snapper Extreme give + 40 Hit, which can be a huge benefit as well but only under certain circumstances. Again, if we assume that on average it will be the equal of +80 AP food, then we simply need to look at whether you will get better than average benefit from it. The factors that make + Hit beneficial are: High-end Boss, low Hit Rating, and High Attack Power. In other words, you are missing lots of shots, but your shots do a lot of damage. In this situation, the extra Hit Rating would “recover” a lot of large, missed hits, including some that would crit.

On the other hand, if you have a high Hit Rating (or are fighting a lower level boss or mobs), and your Attack Power is lower than average, you won’t gain very much from + Hit Rating. Also, + Hit will have much less effect on trash mobs, so you need to take that into account when deciding.

Blackened Dragonfin buffs Agility by 40, but I have already stated that 2 AP > 1 Agi, so I would only take this if the 80 Attack Power food was not available. Also, the 16 Mp5 foods (Mighty Rhino Dogs and Spicy Fried Herring) are nearly pointless in light of all the Mana regeneration options. We are damage dealers, not Mana batteries.

Haste is another stat that I don’t think is worth boosting, especially for BM Hunters. If your Speed is at or under 2, then only your Auto Shot will be improved by Haste. I am hoping to get some input from other players on how Haste affects other Talent trees, as I have little experience in adjusting my Haste outside of BM.

Armor Penetration is a conditional benefit, obviously. There are many mobs who have no armor at all, so any + ArP would be completely useless. So leave the Hearty Rhino at home unless you expect to run into lots of mobs with armor. ArP becomes more valuable as the amount of armor on the enemy increases, and becomes less valuable with the number of Sunders that can be placed on the target (Warriors and Rogues).

Here is my way of approaching the question of which food to bring: I start with a default of + 80 Attack Power. Everything else is the considered based on what it is that I am going to do. If I am going into a raid with a high-level boss and my Hit Rating indicates that I might miss a lot, I would consider + Hit food instead. If I nerfed my Crit rating with some new gear, I might switch to + Crit food until I got things back in balance. Mobs with lots of armor? Maybe it’s time to switch to + ArP food (honestly, I have never checked this, but perhaps I ought to). If I am going to a raid where there is little down time, I might even consider some Mp5 food (Culling of Stratholme comes to mind).

And if you simply are not sure…remember that Attack Power is never a bad choice, even if it is not the perfect choice. The difference between “good” and “best” is far less than the difference between “good” and “none”. Also, the variability in DPS due to randomness can even outweigh the expected differences due to buffs — sometimes you get procs, sometimes you don’t.

Food for pets is important too: Kibler’s Bits and Spiced Mammoth Treats will increase your pet’s Strength and Stamina by 30, so make sure to bring enough. Feel free to share with your Warlock friends too, as their pets will also benefit from these.

And one last word about food: never show up to a raid with nothing, unless you are told to do so. You should not expect to be fed, so be prepared with the “best” food you can rustle up, even if it is only +60 AP.

With my current spec, I get Attack Power from two of my base stats: Agility and Intellect. My Agility is currently at 899, and my Intellect at 379, so this translates to about 126 extra Attack Power. This is nothing to sneeze at, but it is less than 350. So why would any Hunter ever choose Kings over Might?

Under normal circumstances they would not, but there are some situations where it makes sense. First, there are the side-benefits to Kings that you need to look at: extra Mana pool, better Stamina and Health, increases to Armor and Crit Chance from Agility…there may be certain fights where these stats are more important than Attack Power.

Second, and more likely, is when you are also grouped with a Warrior who is using Battle Shout. This spell increases the Attack Power of all party members nearby (20 yards) by a whopping 548! The catch is that this does not stack with Blessing of Might, so it would be wasted on you except when Battle Shout is down or you are out of range. In this situation, you would be better off with Blessing of Kings, as it affects the base stats instead of the secondary stat.

The third situation is when you are grouped with two Paladins. If you ever have this happy experience, then you will note that the Blessings do not stack, so it is best to get one Kings and one Might, and the two Paladins will most likely decide between them which one is doing which blessing.

And if you happen to get a third…ask for Blessing of Wisdom, as it will increase your Mana regeneration — which never hurts during a long boss fight!