Hunter Tanking Spec

Hi,
Can Hunter Tanks post their talent's tree/specs for 3.2.2 ?

I tried a PvP Specs that works well with PvP/Frost/Pve mixed Gear. But I'm looking for a real good specs and have many questions ...

- I have a Beast/MM spec but does Hunter vs Wild and Survivalist better ?

- I have 2 T5 gear, 4 T9 Gear, Frost/PvP Gear what should be the best
=> 2 T5 good for heal but low stats and need good dps so less hp
=> 4 T9 should gives +600AP to pet but not really suitable for hp
=> PvP seems good, Resilience too for 3.3 but...

- What about ratio between Agi/Sta should I get ?
- What are Cap ?. I read elsewhere resilience should be around 350 ?
- What about pet armor ? It seems Stamina's talent are good but armor not really interesting ?

My main issue is MultiTanking, I get a Bear that AoE enemies but it is really difficult to handle them with "hight dps" group. I read Growl is based on pet's AP ? But big AP mean low Stamina...

Can some tanking hunter post their Armory specs ? So i could understand a little bit more what to do.

Regards,
Veldrinvelve

Some of the others can probably help you more, but I can suggest a few things.

1) AP is far better than Agi for tanking.

2) T5 is now outdated, you are better off with newer gear.

3) The most pressing issue facing hunter tanking at the moment is threat generation, so try to find the balance that gives you enough stam to survive, but enough so you don't lose threat... ever (groups are very unforgiving in this regard).

4) Frost gear might not be the way to go due to lack of AP for the above reason.

5) Careful Aim is your friend (again for the above reason, and it helps immensely when you have kings on you).

6) The next patch might change things around, MD may just give you enough threat to go survivalist

7) Pet threat scales with your AP, both for TS and Growl, but does not scale with pet AP, in my opinion this means that the extra AoE threat for the bear (which is creates no additional threat) is not worth the hit to survivability taken by not grabbing a turtle (or stalker for that matter).

8 ) As for AoE threat.. see point 7

Thanks for your answers

> 2) T5 is now outdated, you are better off with newer gear.

What about for soloing instance ? Pet need some heal ?

> try to find the balance that gives you enough stam to survive, but enough so you don't lose threat...

Is there clue ?
- What target Stamina or AP now ?


> 7) Pet threat scales with your AP, both for TS and Growl, but does not scale with pet AP

Oh really interresting, I didn't notice that


What about armor ? is Natural Armor, Pet Barding, Thick hide, ... interesting ? Or shoud I focus only on stamina ?

Is there a "good" tanking build for hunt ?

I've just done Halls of Stone:
- Turtle 37K HP
- Me 4.3K AP

But Pala-Ret have an average 4K DPS and Warlock 3K DPS
Multitnaking is really really difficult

At the end I switch on Bear it was a little bit better but ... not enought

Personally I always take all pet Armor, Dodge, and hp talents in the BM and pet trees. They're just too good not to in my mind.

Threat, especially AoE threat, is the big Achilles heel of pet tanks, and aside from increasing your AP there's not much you can do about it. With classes like Ret Paladins, DKs, and Warriors who have a lot of melee "splash" damage, there's not much you can do to keep them from pulling threat on multi-target pulls other than having them wait longer for you to establish aggro, or at least wait to use their AoE abilities.

My pet only has trouble on multiple targets, and I think that is likely to always be a problem. Looking at the way things are stacking up, I think Blizzard wants hunters to be (a) able to tank and (b) not replace real tanks.

One good way is to keep it such that the group needs to help the pet with tanking.

If you have a good group, they will always assist the pet and always watch the threat meters.

Ground

Hunter talents:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cVbhzggRwuhest0eMb

Pet Talent options (lots of links):
http://hunter-dps.dungeoneer.com/2009/07/pet-tanking-talent-choices.html

Gear considerations (with lots of links):
http://hunter-dps.dungeoneer.com/2009/07/hunter-pet-tanking-gear.html

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cVbhzggRwuhest0eMb

I personally never take many points in Frenzy except if I have some left over, pet threat from normal attacks is very low. Also, you don't need GftT at all, and you only need one point in Bestial discipline: You will only be casting TS and Growl so 1/2 BD is enough to keep the focus up.

Invigoration is a must as far as I am concerned.

Here are my specs:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cVbhzggkduuest0eZx00b

and

http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#MczGorMzbzoM

Not sure why I never posted in this. I must be blind.

Anyhow, my personal tanking spec is as follows: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cVoGzggRizhestce0b

For my MT pet: http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#Mc0G0rMzbzor

As you'll notice, I actually tank without Invigoration. While I do feel a bit mana-pressed at times, it's not too terrible. After all, Aspect Of The Viper doesn't lower your RAP (other than what you lose from lack of Hawk/Dragonhawk); by the time you're running out of mana, you should hopefully be able to either grab a drink, or drop into Viper and focus on MDs, Intimidations, and slightly low DPS until you've got enough to keep going. Mana starvation while tanking was never a big issue for me.

For the pet, I choose Silverback for small amounts of heal and, more importantly, small boosts of threat. With the amount of HP the pet has, 2% of healing threat every Growl can be considerable. You may wish to sacrifice a point of Silverback for either Charge or Intervene. I find that rushing to catch a runaway is my biggest weak point with this build.

While indeed, most of your threat is going to come from TS and Growl (and Intimidation and MD from the hunter), I actually disagree with the thought that you shouldn't bother with the pet attacks. With the amount of focus my pets have, they don't run out for a Thunderstomp or Growl on time, and the extra attacks may not add a lot, but they *do* add something. And every little bit helps. Why should I ignore the pet's threat-increasing attacks?

Now, for the Hunter vs. Wild and Survival, if you need extra HP on your pet, I would swear by it. If you've got a little gold to burn in case you need a respec, experiment with it; go out to Icecrown with a high-DPS/threat friend, tank one of the level 82 elites on the ramparts, and get your friend to go full-out and try to pull aggro while you try to hold it. It's a good way to test specs, I find. Just beware if you try it with a high spike-damage class; they're the ones I have the most trouble holding aggro from. Enhance Shamans and Retpallies both give me fits.

I have tested and re-tested Silverback versus Spiked collar but I keep coming to different conclusion about it, Silverback will probably win out after 3.3 for sure.

As for the focus dump, what I did a while back was to macro it in with steady and arcane, so that it wouldn't auto cast all the time, then you might be able to get away with using 2/2 Bestial discipline and no GftT and still get some benefit, still I think the benefit of 4% extra crit on steady and arcane is worth more because it increases the odds of a CS proc by about 2.5% if I am not mistaken.

My biggest concern with using the focus dump is eating CS charges that would be better spent on TS since single target threat seems to be pretty decent. Also, I am correct in presuming that using the focus dump will not delay either growl or TS wither in terms of the GCD or focus with all the talents taken?

I wonder if it isn't a good idea to use 2/2 Rapid Killing so that you can regain mana quickly in Viper? I find the threat loss from being out of Hawk to be quite substantial.

[Edit: I have posted another thread on the SB/SC question, but it looks like Kurasu is right in that SB actual gives more threat per point than SC.]

Doug wrote:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cVbhzggRwuhest0eMb

I personally never take many points in Frenzy except if I have some left over, pet threat from normal attacks is very low. Also, you don't need GftT at all, and you only need one point in Bestial discipline: You will only be casting TS and Growl so 1/2 BD is enough to keep the focus up.

Invigoration is a must as far as I am concerned.

Here are my specs:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cVbhzggkduuest0eZx00b

and

http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#MczGorMzbzoM

Ah well. I try and get the pet to make as many attacks as possible (not just TS & Growl). Everything about the hunter in my spec is about buffing the pet. I don't have mana problems that a brief viper can't handle. The pet is making every attack it can and as many pet crits it can with enough haste as it can and enough focus as it can to not have any slowdowns.

With the crit that my tank gear has, I could probably deep six the Bestial Discipline and just use the GftT, but I'd rather be overloaded there ... and well, not everyone has the same +crit. Invigoration is appealing of course and I may personally shift some or all BD to Invigoration. It would work well with the hunter-pet crit assembly line the spec has. I just wouldn't recommend it without knowing gear.

Kurasu wrote:
For my MT pet: http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#Mc0G0rMzbzor

Interesting Kurasu. I always thought of Avoidance as the #1 reason you'd use a pet to tank, so I've always spec'd it. Last Stand was usually a given at that point.

Do you find not having Avoidance an issue?

Avoidance is definitely the #1 reason to prefer one. If I had a boss who's doing a lot of AOE, I want my pet specced with it. However, with an automatic 80 in resistance of whatever element, spell AOE is basically not too huge an issue for him, and physical AOE he usually has the HP to handle. I would indeed *love* to get Last Stand for him if I could, though.

The bigger issue for me, generally, is his threat-holding. With a good spam-healer, Panzer has no issue keeping on his feet 99% of the time. And that last 1%, like I said, I'd *love* to have Last Stand for. But I would rather put those points in more HP and/or armor than in Avoidance for the most part.

Many thanks for all this thread it is really intereseting.

My biggest issue is threat holding too. If I wait it is fine, but in real world DPS hits too fast and Threat doesn't grow fast enought. That's also why multitanking is really difficult too.