Ready to Raid? Maybe, Maybe Not

I'm not particulary familiar with either Beast Mastery or Survival; I dabbled in them for a few levels at a time here and there (mostly on my Elves), but I drift back towards Marksman pretty quickly. (I like big numbers, I guess. Chimera Shot is critting in five digits now, and it's hard to back away from that.) Despite that, though, I've read enough that I think I can exposit on some general information for more than just my favorite tree.

The question, of course, is, "Am I ready for Icecrown Citadel (10/25)?"

Your raw output will probably give you the best idea, based on the guidelines of the raids you run with. Websites abound which will tell you what your gear has you ready for. The one I look at most often nowadays is WoW Heroes; it gives a good breakdown of where your gear lands you in terms of where you're likely to be successful.

How well you're doing versus how well your toon can do are different matters. If you don't have a DPS meter, both Recount and Skada are pretty accurate. Recount has pie charts that I'm partial to, but Skada is more modular and lightweight, so you may prefer one or the other. If you're not familiar with Elitist Jerks or have no idea how to use Excel, Zeherah's Hunter DPS Analyzer takes Shandara's hunter spreadsheet and puts it into a web form - import yourself, check the rotations for shots you do/don't use, and hit Update DPS without buffs to see what your baseline, unbuffed DPS maximum potential is. Then, while unbuffed, take yourself and your pet over to one of the boss level Target Dummies, reset your DPS meter, and go at it for at least 5 minutes. (Hunter's Mark having a 5-minute duration is a good way to guesstimate your timer if you don't have another convenient way to measure.) To cleanly end the test, if you have Serpent Sting up, put up Scorpid Sting, pull your pet back, and Feign as quickly as you can in succession. Otherwise Serpent Sting will keep ticking and lower your meter's reading.

Compare your target dummy meter with your theoretical number from Zeherah's analyzer, and you'll have a good idea of your stand-still numbers; you can extrapolate it upwards by figuring what percentage of your maximum you're hitting (I hover around 90% on target dummy tests), then go to Zeherah's analyzer and enable best raid buffs and debuffs, take the percentage you're pushing, and you can guesstimate your ideal 25-man stand-still output.

You don't normally get to see these numbers on bosses, though sometimes things like the Icebound Wards will approach them, or, if you get your movement down cleanly, you'll get close on Festergut. They will tell you if there's something seriously wrong with your execution, however. And if your raid leaders tell you they want to see 5k minimum, and your analysis on Zeherah's says your toon's maximum output is 4k with raid buffs, no matter how good you are, you've got some work to do.

So, what can you do to bring your numbers up?

The first, and fastest, thing is to look at your talents. Other people have done the legwork, and there's a lot of information out there. The summary is basically that, at the highest gear levels, the top tree is Marksman, then Survival, then Beast Mastery for raiding output. All the trees can meet the minimum enrage timer thresholds for fights like Festergut, but, especially if you want to raid as Beast Mastery, you need to know what you're doing. If your execution isn't as tight, you'll probably want to try each spec and see which one meshes best with your capabilities. Don't just toss points wherever; respecing is expensive. Poke around the various hunter blogs (I link a whole bunch over to the right) and Elitist Jerks and see what good options are for the tree you're using. (For example, some distribution of 7/57/7 is the most common Marksman raiding spec, but going through Aspect Mastery in BM or including Hawkeye in Survival isn't uncommon or wrong.)

If there are talents you absolutely love but which don't help you with raiding, consider dual-specing to have the talents you enjoy most on your own time in one spec and the talents that make you most productive in a raid in the other.

How are your glyphs? Some glyphs that are great for soloing aren't so hot for raiding, and if you're going to stick with one spec rather than dual spec, you might want to invest in a stock to swap back and forth.

• Marksman will probably want Serpent Sting and two of Steady Shot, the Hawk, Kill Shot, or Chimera Shot.
• Beast Mastery will want some combination of Serpent Sting, Steady Shot, the Hawk, Kill Shot, and Bestial Wrath.
• Survival will probably want Explosive Shot and two of the Hawk, Kill Shot, Steady Shot, or Serpent Sting.

What pet are you raiding with? As cute and lovable as your spore bat might be, a wolf (top choice in most cases because of the AP buff), cat, raptor, or even a wasp or worm for raid debuffs will probably be a better choice for your raiding pet.

Are you pushing the right buttons? Rotation is one of the hardest things to fix if you've been playing a long time; if you've got some bad habits ingrained, it might take a while to break yourself out of them. Unlike some people, I don't consider being a clicker to be a bad habit, but if that turns out to be the core of your problems, unfortunately I don't have a recommended way to break out of the habit (at least for a ranged toon). Kill Shot at 20% and below is important; Kill Shot has edged me over someone I was competing with on meters because when it crits, it's sweet, and it's end-of-fight burst not everyone can match.

• Marksman will, at the beginning of a fight, put up Hunter's Mark and Serpent Sting, pop Rapid Fire, hit Chimera, Aimed, possibly Arcane, and Steady Shot until Rapid Fire wears off, hit Readiness, pop Rapid Fire again, and then fall into the Chimera, Aimed, possibly Arcane, Steady x3 or x4 rotation until Rapid Fire and Readiness are off cooldown. I say possibly Arcane because after you get about 500 Armor Penetration (ArP), you want to drop Arcane from your rotation (and talents), because you'll get a better return from physical damage at that point (Steady Shot, Piercing Shots).
• Beast Mastery starts out with Hunter's Mark and Serpent Sting, then falls into an Aimed, Arcane, Steady rotation; remember to refresh Serpent Sting as needed. I don't know enough about Beast Mastery to tell you when the ideal Bestial Wrath usage is, but if you're set on raiding as BM, one of the hunter blogs over to the right should have information. At some level of ArP, Beast Mastery will also drop Arcane from the rotation.
• Survival will put up Hunter's Mark and Serpent Sting to start, then go through Explosive, Black Arrow, Aimed (or Multi depending on spec), Steady, refreshing Serpent Sting as needed and taking advantage of Lock and Load procs whenever possible. Arcane isn't even on Survival's radar.

If you're pushing the right buttons but not getting the numbers you think you should be, find a hunter who plays a similar spec and does put out the numbers you want and see if they can help you figure out where things are going wrong. (Browse logs for your server if you don't know of someone to go to, or try the WoW hunter forums.)

How's your hit rating? You want 8%, which is ~263 hit rating without talents; if you put points in Focused Aim it can be as low as ~164 hit rating. This is the only stat that has a hard and fast cap number that you really have to worry about hitting - everything else is either capless or isn't worth going to the trouble of capping unless you're in a top end raiding guild (in which case I really hope you don't need to be reading my guide).

Are you gemming and enchanting right for your spec and gear level? Different specs use different gems, and at different gear levels, some gems are better than others. Meta gem requirements need to be met, as well. Nightmare Tears are always good options for turning on a meta if you're gemming straight through with your best gem stat. Your meta gem is probably going to be a Relentless Earthsiege Diamond, but if for some reason it's not, it's probably a Chaotic Skyflare Dimaond. If your hit rating is low or you don't want to invest talent points in Focused Aim, a few pure hit rating gems may be required. If you need to for socket bonus or your meta gem, pair it with Agility (Marksman or Survival), Attack Power (Beast Mastery), Stamina (Beast Mastery or Survival), or mp5 (Marksman).

• Marksman hunters want to gem for Agility until they hit about 800 passive ArP on gear. After about 800 ArP, gemming for ArP will give better returns than Agility. If you want to flesh out your socket bonuses (I'm a little compulsive like that, too), pair Agility with Crit or Hit (depending on your needs) for yellow sockets or mp5 (yes, mp5) for blue sockets.
• Beast Mastery hunters generally gem for Attack Power, but they can start gemming for ArP at a much lower threshold than Marksman. Crit, Hit, and probably Stamina (more pet health) are good secondary parts for orange and purple gems for socket bonuses.
• Survival is similar to pre-ArP Marksman, except that Stamina being a DPS gain for Survival means they will want that instead of mp5 on any purple gems they need. Agility stays good for Survival since they will never switch to ArP.

For the most part, you're going to want to enchant along the same priority as your gems: Agility for Marksman or Survival, Attack Power for Beast Mastery. If a slot only has one or the other, either is fine. Your head enchant will come from the Ebon Blade quarter master, and unless you're a scribe, you'll want to grind reputation with the Sons of Hodir for your shoulder enchant. (It's not as bad as it used to be - after getting to Honored, you can buy about 400-500 Relics of Ulduar and pop up to Exalted.) Beast Mastery and Marksman hunters will probably want Icescale Leg Armor, while Survival may opt for Frosthide. Take advantage of your profession's special buffs - cloak and glove enchants for engineers, extra sockets for blacksmiths, better gems for jewelcrafters, etc.

What's your ammunition? If you're still using vendor-sold ammunition, see if you can't find an engineer willing to become your supplier of higher-end ammunition.

Do you die too often? No matter how theoretically awesome your toon is, dead DPS is 0 DPS. Are you pulling aggro? Get a threat meter or turn on the in-game threat warnings. Omen is the tried-and-true in threat meters, and Skada can act as one, as well. Get the Feign Death minor glyph. (And, you know, use Feign. A lot.) Other than persistant damage (damage that hits the whole raid no matter what, or things like Saurfang's Boiling Blood), DPS shouldn't be taking damage. Yes, when you get a slime on Rotface, you'll take some damage, and your healers should keep you up long enough to merge the slime and get back to DPSing. But taking damage from standing in the slime pools would be your fault. Damage from standing in fires (fiery, poisony, or otherwise) is your own fault, and don't blame your healers if you die from it. If you're not seeing damaging effects, check your graphics settings. Turn down what you can live without if you need to for system performance issues, and make sure projected textures is turned on. Make sure you have Deadly Boss Mods or a similar addon to tell you about damaging effects as they get close. (For example, DBM will tell you when Putricide is throwing Maleable Goo at or near you.)

If you're doing everything else right but just have low ilevel gear, you'll need to invest some time running Heroics and older raids, and then spending badges. Trial of the Crusader runs aren't uncommon still - the raid is trashless and a good run can take less than an hour. If your guild or raid group isn't hitting it still, a PUG on your server probably is. Weekly raids, either in-guild or PUGs, will land you bonus badges and sometimes shots at gear you may need. Onyxia can be a fast, fun run with good gear (particularly a helm and guns). Even if you don't PVP, the Vault of Archavon in Wintergrasp drops tier gear.

If you're not sure what gear to go for, hit up some of the hunter blogs linked to the right, or WoW.com, and look for the various hunter gear lists. Or, do what I do, and go to WoWhead, pull up the Item->Armor->Mail->Slot I'm looking to upgrade and filter by stuff with Attack Power. Then I sort by ilevel, find what I've got, and see what's available that's better that is reasonably attainable.

And when you get to a raid, remember:

• Bring your flasks, food, and any other self-buffage reagents.
• Be stocked up on ammunition.
• Be on time, and try not to need a summon.
• Remember to swap into your raid spec and pull out your raid pet if you have more than one of either.
• Pee before you go! (To quote my husband.)