Raiding builds are designed to improve you or your guilds overall damage in current end-game content. Consider having at least one hunter with you with the Improved Hunter's Mark talent for the boost to the melee damage from other classes (ideally this talent is best taken by hunters with a BM raiding build).
Note that the following builds are missing Hawk Eye. If you'd rather have this extra range (useful for avoiding some nasty AoE effects / curses especially during boss fights) then I would take the 3 points from Improved Barrage or Focused Fire / Impr. AotH and put them into Hawk Eye. Taking Hawk Eye with the BM raiding build is not recommended, as you will have to sacrifice points from GftT and / or Serpent's Swiftness, both important talents for that build.
For the best use of the Go For The Throat ability, get a Wind Serpent, since their Lightning Breath ability has no cooldown and is the best focus dump (ideally a Son of Hakkar from Zul'Gurub, which also already has the highest rank Lightning Breath).
PvE MM raiding build - 4/47/0
A decent raid build, mainly focusing on damage. Compared to some other raid builds it puts the focus on lots of crits combined with the Go For the Throat ability, which will let your pet do an additional 86-283 damage with claw / bite every time you crit.
For a pet you might want to consider a Wolf for their Furious Howl ability, which gives you and nearby party members a physical damage buff on your next attack or a Wind Serpent, which makes best use of Go For the Throat! Note that as this build is purely designed for high DPS, it does not include Hawk Eye.
PvE MM raiding build (with improved hunter's mark) - 7/44/0
It's a good idea to have a hunter with you in your raid with improved hunters mark for a nice damage boost to your melee classes. This one also combines Impr. AotH for faster Autoshots and and a 2% dmg increase from Focused Fire to compensate for losing GFTT and Barrage.
PvE BM raiding build - 39/12/0
This is a bit of an out of the ordinary build, mainly relying on your pet to do a lot of damage. You won't have The Beast Within, but you'll have Go For The Throat, and combined with Impr. AotH, Serpent's Swiftness and Lethal Shots and a fast ranged weapon, your pet will be doing damage like crazy.
Also this build is ideal to use with Impr. Hunter's Mark, since you don't need Efficiency as much as MM Hunters, giving them the opportunity to put those 5 points elsewhere, to increase their ranged damage!
PvE Surv raiding build - 5/5/41
Having one hunter (with the most agility) with you in the raid with this build can increase DPS of the other physical damage classes considerably, thanks to the Expose Weakness proc. Most useful in 40-player instances since there are a lot of players that can take advantage of this talent, in it's current state not as good for 20- and later 25-player instances.
Best PvP Hunter Builds
In Player versus Player combat, following builds can prove most effective in killing other players and / or helping your team win.
PvP MM / Surv build - 0/43/8
Mainly for Group PvP, this combines very high damage output with some useful talents from the survival tree. You could switch the points from entrapment to improved wing clip, which is better for dueling whereas entrapment can be useful in some other situations, especially in WSG.
PvP Surv / MM build - 0/21/30
Your damage will be lower than the 0/43/8 build but you get higher survivability, faster traps and more hit/crit chance. Whether to choose scatter shot or wyvern sting is a personal choice although i would suggest scatter shot, it has only a 30 second cooldown and there is no DOT afterwards which makes scatter + trap a solid option to get some range from your target.
PvP BM build - 43/5/3
In PvP, hunter pets are often underestimated. They can deal a nice amount of damage, and in the meantime interrupt caster's so it takes a lot longer for them to cast spells. Intimidation is a useful 3 second stun, giving you the chance to wingclip your target and get back into range if timed perfectly.
With Bestial Wrath and The Beast Within, you and your pet will even be unstoppable for 18 seconds every 2 minutes! Make sure you get a pet with a fast attack speed like, for example, a cat. Currently the fastest attack speed pets in the game (1.0 attacks per second).
For soloing and leveling hunter builds, check out more of the best WoW hunter builds.
» left by Eugeniu from GA (1 year 348 days ago.)
useful, kinda wrong about pvp build fo BM hunters its actually 40/21/0 thats what most of hunters do!and its really awesome! Respond to this comment
» left by Anonymous (1 year 340 days ago.)
lol, why put 40 points into BM and not the last 1 to allow you to share the CC immunity with your pet? Respond to this comment
» left by Anonymous (1 year 308 days ago.)
Yeah, 41 is better for the beast within...
Now, when looking at PvE raides, there is an aside to this. It would make sense that any talent which serves as a group buff (improved hunters mark) would be better for the raid, and arguably it is. But when the day is done, if it's a highly competitive environment on the damage meter; then something serving as a group damage boost (especially if it only helps melee classes, and not you), will make it look worse on the damage meter. Fine if everyone understands the implications. But if people are really competitive, it might look better in raid standing, if one leaves it out so when the damage meter is pulled out, one hasn't given others an advantage over them in the stats....
Isn't it funny in a way, one might even have to think about this, but when the stats are close and people are highly competitive; ignoring group bonuses.... Respond to this comment
» left by Poacher from Northern VA (1 year 303 days ago.)
I've got a slick build that works really well in both PvP and PvE and are equally as effective in either one... This is what I use and I am constantly in the top 5 in BGs and neck to neck with the other DPS in my kara raids.
» left by q from chicago (1 year 215 days ago.)
a survival hunter with EW (exposed weakness) can add a ton of dps to any raid. most people overlook it. but 25% of your agility to everyone in the raid groups attack power will do alot. im pushing 1000 agility as a 0/19/42 surv/mm hybrid thats 250 attack power 18 other dpsers a total of 4750+ attack power Respond to this comment
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