A new build?

Ive been looking over my full BM spec and I think if I toy with it a bit I can get a bit more out heres the make up. What do you think?

Level 80 Hunter (51/5/15)

Beast Mastery (51 points)
Improved Aspect of the Hawk - Rank 1/5
While Aspect of the Hawk or Dragonhawk is active, all normal ranged attacks have a 10% chance of increasing ranged attack speed by 3% for 12 sec.

Endurance Training - Rank 5/5
Increases the health of your pet by 10% and your total health by 5%.

Focused Fire - Rank 2/2
All damage caused by you is increased by 2% while your pet is active and the critical strike chance of your pet's special abilities is increased by 20% while Kill Command is active.

Improved Aspect of the Monkey - Rank 3/3
Increases the Dodge bonus of your Aspect of the Monkey and Aspect of the Dragonhawk by 6%.

Thick Hide - Rank 3/3
Increases the armor rating of your pets by 20% and your armor contribution from items by 10%.

Aspect Mastery - Rank 1/1
Aspect of the Viper - Reduces the damage penalty by 10%.

Aspect of the Monkey - Reduces the damage done to you while active by 5%.

Aspect of the Hawk - Increases the attack power bonus by 30%.

Aspect of the Dragonhawk - Combines the bonuses from Aspect of the Monkey and Hawk.

Unleashed Fury - Rank 5/5
Increases the damage done by your pets by 15%.

Improved Mend Pet - Rank 2/2
Reduces the mana cost of your Mend Pet spell by 20% and gives the Mend Pet spell a 50% chance of cleansing 1 Curse, Disease, Magic or Poison effect from the pet each tick.

Ferocity - Rank 5/5
Increases the critical strike chance of your pet by 10%.

Intimidation - Rank 1/1
Command your pet to intimidate the target on the next successful melee attack, causing a high amount of threat and stunning the target for 3 sec. Lasts 15 sec.

Bestial Discipline - Rank 2/2
Increases the Focus regeneration of your pets by 100%.

Animal Handler - Rank 2/2
Increases your pet's attack power by 10%, and increases the duration of your Master's Call effect by 6 sec.

Frenzy - Rank 5/5
Gives your pet a 100% chance to gain a 30% attack speed increase for 8 sec after dealing a critical strike.

Bestial Wrath - Rank 1/1
Send your pet into a rage causing 50% additional damage for 10 sec. While enraged, the beast does not feel pity or remorse or fear and it cannot be stopped unless killed.

Catlike Reflexes - Rank 3/3
Increases your chance to dodge by 3% and your pet's chance to dodge by an additional 9%. In addition, reduces the cooldown of your Kill Command ability by 30 sec.

Longevity - Rank 3/3
Reduces the cooldown of your Bestial Wrath, Intimidation and Pet Special Abilities by 30%.

The Beast Within - Rank 1/1
Increases all damage you deal by 10% and while your pet is under the effects of Bestial Wrath, you also go into a rage causing 10% additional damage and reducing mana costs of all spells by 50% for 10 sec. While enraged, you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.

Kindred Spirits - Rank 5/5
Increases your pet's damage by 20% and you and your pet's movement speed by 10% while your pet is active. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.

Beast Mastery - Rank 1/1
You master the art of Beast training, teaching you the ability to tame Exotic pets and increasing your total amount of Pet Skill Points by 4.
Marksmanship (5 points)
Focused Aim - Rank 3/3
Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Steady Shot by 70%, and increases your chance to hit by 3%.

Lethal Shots - Rank 2/5
Increases your critical strike chance with ranged weapons by 2%.
Survival (15 points)
Improved Tracking - Rank 2/5
While tracking Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids and Undead, all damage done to those types by the Hunter is increased by 2%.

Hawk Eye - Rank 3/3
Increases the range of your ranged weapons by 6 yards.

Trap Mastery - Rank 3/3
Frost Trap and Freezing Trap - Increases the duration by 30%.

Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Black Arrow - Increases the periodic damage done by 30%.

Snake Trap - Increases the number of snakes summoned by 6.

Survival Instincts - Rank 2/2
Reduces all damage taken by 4% and increases the critical strike chance of your Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, and Explosive Shot by 4%.

Survivalist - Rank 5/5
Increases your Stamina by 10%.
Glyphs
None


Thanks
Ed

Man that looks familiar. I've put together almost that same spec before.

I was trying at the time to get down to Hunter vs Wild.....oh for the want of 5 more talent points, being able to get 51 points in BM and 25 points in Survival would make the hunter both viable for tanking and DPS with the same spec.

Ground

Here's the build you have you have posted: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cqfhzgxRizhcot0xZf0ci

There's a few issues with that build. Firstly Improved Aspect of the Monkey doesn't add any dodge to your pet, so unless you're doing something where your pet is tanking, then you offtank an add yourself or somesuch, you're not going to get any benefit from it, so there's 3 points you can re-invest. Next is the point in Improved Hawk. There's places that point could go that would be both a DPS improvement and a pet improvement, so now we're up to 4 points we can put elsewhere. While the 5 points in Lethal Shots do improve your DPS, without Cobra Strikes or Go for the Throat, it doesn't improve your pet in any way, and there are other talents that will do more to bring your DPS up that this talent, so now we're up to 9 points. Finally depending on the kinds of content you're tanking you can move some points out of Frenzy. With 25 man raid buffs for example you can keep it at 100% uptime with only 3 points. A good rule of thumb is Soloing: 5 points, 5-mans: 4 points, Raids: 3 points.

So now we're got 9-11 extra points we can play with, so lets take a look at some of the talents we haven't taken. With two points from Aspect of the Monkey we can pick up Spirit Bond, the third point, the point from IAotH, and three points from Lethal Shots to max out Serpent's Swiftness.

That leaves a build that looks like this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cVbhzggRizheotZf0ci There's two points left over for Focused Aim, which will let you drop some hit rating and keep your pet hit capped, or Cobra Strikes for more pet crits. Depending on what you decide with Frenzy you could also have up to two extra points to invest. I hope this has been helpful.

One might consider moving the 3 points from Hawk Eye into Ferocious Inspiration for the 3% damage increase.

Ground

Bah, never mind, need that to get to Survivalist.

However, the link showed only for level 78. So the extra 2 points can go into Ferocious Inspiration for 2% damage increase.

Ground

Thanks for the help its all really helpful I was under the impression that the dodge in imp aspect of monkey spilled over to my pet too seeing that it doesnt theres a few more points I can use. Im trying to find a way to get all 3 pionts in focused aim to help lower the amount of hit i need. Alot of the new gear and pvp gear doesnt have hit so its that much harder to try to get capped.

I never had survivabilty so Im wondering of the 10% extra life is off base hp or added to your current hp?

Ed

It directly increases your stamina stat by 10%. This is awesome since this translates through to your pet's health too.

Ground

<still wishing I could make Hunter vs Wild work somehow>

Three questions about the build you have and Durante suggests.

1) Why Hawk Eye instead of putting it all in Improved Tracking? More threat through misdirects. Also more damage done equals less time tanking.

2) Does the pet have enough Focus without GftT?

3) No Ferocious Inspiration? Fine if you know a group/raid gets the buff elsewhere, but seems a shame to not have +3% raid damage if there isn't a ret pally.

I've always gone with a crit-train system instead of the extra 10% stamina. Synergies of Lethal Shots-> GftT & Cobra Strikes -> Frenzy. http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=3&tal=052030015252122431305313510053022000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Generally when I think of tanking specs, gearing and the like, I generally think in terms of being in groups that provide raid buffs, so if you're the solo/duo type then my advice could probably use a bit of adjusting. Pet tanking is such an unusual enterprise that what's idea really depends on your personal situation. That being said,

1. I use Hawk Eye mostly for convenience. I always figured in a 10 or 25 man, speced as a tank, and geared for tanking your ranged DPS was such a small percentage of the total raid damage that the extra 3% didn't really matter. With the new Misdirect coming up in 3.3, I'd probably agree that you're better off with Improved Tracking.

2. With 3/3 Longevity and 2/2 Bestial Discipline, you'll have enough focus to cast Growl and Thunderstomp on cooldown. You'll have enough focus to cast the focus dump every ~9 seconds as well, but if you leave it on autocast it'll end up draining your focus pool and pushing back your Growl or Thunderstomp on occasion. If you still want more threat, dropping the points in survival and getting GftT is the way to go, its just a judgment call of whether you need the extra threat of health more.

3. FI is another judgment call. Generally I put pet threat and durability above total DPS, especially if its from a buff that can be provided elsewhere. If you're soloing or in a small group where that buff isn't provided, and total DPS is more important that either survivability or threat then FI can be a good choice.