First off, big apologies for getting so off the ball with this series. I know I used to reliably post every Monday and these days it’s much more haphazard. Partially I blame real life (curse that real life, getting in the way of more important stuff! /shakes fist) and partially I blame the honest truth that it’s simply difficult to write something like this when I know I’m just gonna have to rewrite it in a couple months.

But I do this in the name of huntering everywhere!

Levels 60-70

That’s right buster, we’re gettin’ you to 70 today.

At Level 62? Steady Shot. Praise Elune, the Light, the Earthmother, the Voodoo, or whatever you praise. Now in WotLK, if the hunter trainers are correct in saying so, you’ll actually get this at level 50 which is pretty spifftastic but until then, 62 is the magic number.

Steady Shot is basically responsible for hitting you upside the head and saying “Shot rotations nub!” And this is where your playstyle goes from Auto Shot/Serpent Sting to something much more akin to what you’ll be doing at endgame: weaving your shots.

“But Pike, I don’t know what you mean by that!”

Don’t worry, it takes a little practice. You want to learn to weave your shots, including your Steady Shots, inbetween your Autos in a way that they do not clip your Auto Shots and hence cause a loss in DPS. For more details on this (especially if you are BM-spec’d) I’m going to scoot you over to a guide I wrote here and a video I made here. The macro, if you choose to use one, can come later– all hunters should understand the fundamentals first.

Moving on: Level 64 gets you Aspect of the Viper. Before the recent change to mana-regen this was a nice new Aspect, but after the recent change to mana-regen this has become an “OMG YES MY LEVELING LIFE IS SAVED” Aspect. I’m not kidding, on my latest hunter, levels 62-63 were spent with Mana Oil constantly on my weapon and an Intellect Elixir always active, and I was still going through water like nobody’s business.

Aspect of the Viper is going to become your best buddy in terms of leveling, grinding, and a lot of PvP. Some people use this 100% of the time in raids/instances/heroics. Now I dunno about the higher-level raids, but honestly I do not see Viper as a raid/instance Aspect. I use Hawk. The DPS increase you get with Hawk (and by extension Improved Aspect of the Hawk) is not to be sneezed at, and especially with an Elixir of Major Mageblood, Mana Oil, Int/Mana regen buffs or some combination thereof, I’ve done basically every heroic as well as Karazhan with Hawk up 100% of the time (with rare exceptions in cases where Illhoof or Prince will decide to drag on and on and ooooooon).

At level 66 you will learn Kill Command. Kill Command is usable anytime you crit and if you have Focused Fire, it has a very good chance to crit itself. It does a lot of damage. It also has its own little cooldown that you will learn to time and coordinate with your shots. I myself have it hotkeyed so I can easily pound the hotkey without interrupting the rhythm of my shots.

At level 68 you get your final trap, Snake Trap. Snake Trap releases a bunch of little snakes that attack something for you, using an assortment of poisons. When to use it: In PvP to annoy the living daylights out of people and slow them down, and PvE on bosses with random aggro tables, for example, our good buddy, Shade of Aran.

See, poor Shade here decided he’s tired of those motherfrackin’ snakes in his motherfrackin’ library, so he blows them up. Instead of you. Handy eh?

And at level 70… Misdirection. A wise hunter once said, “Misdirection is the best hunter skill ever. I use it all the time, in almost every dungeon I run.” This is something I heartily quote for truth. What it does, is make it so the threat of your next three attacks are applied to the target of your choice.

…that’s the tank, by the way. *pulls you away from the priest*

Use it on bosses, firstly, and if you’re like me, you may opt to use it on every pull that it’s up so you don’t have to Feign Death within five seconds because you’re a crit-monster. Also useful for pulling something straight to the tank. If that something has a huge aggro radius, be really careful when you do it. Prince likes to squish hunters. You’d think he dated one once or something. Just sayin’.

Ideally when you use your Misdirection you will use your three-biggest threat-generating abilities (I like Distracting Shot, Aimed Shot, and Arcane Shot, myself) but it’s okay to just fling the Autos and Steadys in there too, that’ll cause plenty of starting threat.

Well, congrats to you. If you’ve followed this series so far you will have followed the steps on how to get a hunter from the character selection screen all the way to level 70, and hopefully learned how to “not be a huntard” as well. The series isn’t done, because I’ve got a 12th episode planned on endgame stuff. And then of course, when Wrath of the Lich King hits, I’ll extend it to 80 (and probably rewrite much of the earlier stuff as well.)

Oh, and here’s the Table of Contents so far:

So You Want to Play a Hunter?

Part One: Introduction & The Birth of a Hunter
Part Two: Just Starting Out & Levels 1-5
Part Three: Levels 6-10 and Jump Shot Kiting
Part Four: Talent Points & Pets
Part Five: Life With a Pet
Part Six: Levels 12-20
Part Seven: Intro to Freezing Trap
Part Eight: Levels 21-30
Part Nine: Levels 31-40
Part Ten: Levels 41-60
Part Eleven: Levels 61-70 [Current]

Have a good weekend, yarr!

Levels 41-60

That’s right, we’re gettin’ you to level 60 today. Mostly because you simply do not learn a whole lot of abilities in your 40s and 50s. Here’s what your trainer is going to give you:

Aspect of the Wild at level 46. This will give you, your pet, and your group a whole lotta nature resistance. If you group a lot, you will sometimes be asked to use it in various PvE situations; for example, the end boss of Slave Pens, or Hydross the Unstable in Serpentshrine Cavern (yeah that’s a long ways off, but see, some of your most random abilities go a long way!) I also use it when solo’ing sometimes if there’s a big poison on me or my pet, or are otherwise fighting something that does lots of nature damage. Other than that, you won’t be using it all that much. I have heard it said that it lessens the effects of hunter stings and rogue poisons in PvP but I haven’t tried this and honesty I think there are probably better aspects you could be using. (Hawk/Monkey/Viper, depending on your situation.)

Track Dragonkin at level 50. This is your last tracking spell, grats on getting it! If you are Alliance, go into Stormwind Keep and pop Track Dragonkin. No wonder Lady Prestor is so grumpy all the time eh?

And finally, Tranquilizing Shot at level 60. This shot is going to get some love in Wrath of the Lich King but until then it is mostly going to be one of your Things You Never Use. In its present incarnation, it removes frenzy effects from certain mobs and those mobs are in a limited number. I believe I’ve used it twice total, once on a boss in Molten Core and once, just for kicks, on one of those undead horses in Karazhan:

Ventrilo Reinactment:
Me: “Hey [tank].”
Tank: “What?”
Me: “I just used Tranquilizing Shot.”
Tank: “…you did what?”

Now right around in here is also when you will probably be learning your top-tier talent in your chosen talent tree. Let’s talk about ’em a little. The Beast Within is my personal favorite because it’s exciting and also sort of an “I win” button in a lot of situations. It gets you out of CC and makes you un-CCable for 18 seconds, it lessens the mana cost of all your abilities, and increases your damage output.

In PvE use it when you need to kill something fast, if you want your pet to nab more threat but your Intimidation is on cooldown– and in instances/raids I use it basically anytime it’s up so long as the following conditions are met: the tank has a bunch of aggro, and it’s not going to be wasted (using The Beast Within when the mob is going to die in three seconds, for example, is not ideal.)

In PvP use it when you’re heavily CC’d, fighting a warlock, need to kill something fast, or when you want to annoy the living heck outta rogues/warriors. Typical Line Running Through Pike’s Head In That Last Situation: “Oh you think you can slow me huh? Oh I THINK NOT! I’ma kite you I’ma kite you I’ma kiiiiite you~”

Marksman hunters get Silencing Shot. Now this is going to turn into a “real interrupt” in Wrath of the Lich King, until then it’s still a lot of fun in my humble opinion. Some of my earliest Alterac Valley jaunts were spent as Marksman and those were the days, Silencing Shotting priests to my little huntery heart’s content. Also super useful for pulling casters when trapping them in PvE. Overall Silencing Shot is probably one of my favorite things from the Marksman tree.

Survival gets Readiness. The “usefulness” of this ability often seems to be debated, but while I haven’t ever used it myself it seems to me to me to be something that could really save your rear sometimes. Trap resist and your new trap is still on cooldown? Bam, readiness, new trap. Or double-Deterrence “tanking” in an emergency. Stuff like that. Still, a lot of people opt to skip this one in favor of other talents.

Well, that’ll do ya ’til 60. Your basic Shot Rotation and playstyle is still going to be basically the same– your world hasn’t changed quite yet for another couple of levels.

Things to do between levels 40 and 60:

“The Hunter’s Charm”: a questline that starts at any hunter trainer while you are in your 50s, this will take you to Azshara and eventually into Sunken Temple and culminates in a handy hunter trinket of your choice.

Alterac Valley: All my hunters get Ice Barbed Spear, that’s just how it goes. Some people opt to get the bow instead; it’s hard-hitting but in all honesty the stats are not as good and it is slooooow as all heck, which means if you are Beast Master you will eventually run into some issues down the road. That’s far down the road though, by which time you will probably have a new bow. So pick what you want, especially because sometimes you will get lucky and find something with similar stats to my beloved Spear on the Auction House. Oh, and you get one of these rewards by winning an Alterac Valley. Pick up the quest at your faction’s AV entrance at level 51.

My Ice Barbed Spear is still in the bank. I loved it dearly. I’m tellin’ ya though: come Wrath of the Lich King, our love will be reignited.

Well, that’ll do it for this time. Grats on getting your hunter to level 60! And thanks for sticking with me on this project! For those who want to catch up, here’s where we’re at currently:

So You Want to Play a Hunter?

Part One: Introduction & The Birth of a Hunter
Part Two: Just Starting Out & Levels 1-5
Part Three: Levels 6-10 and Jump Shot Kiting
Part Four: Talent Points & Pets
Part Five: Life With a Pet
Part Six: Levels 12-20
Part Seven: Intro to Freezing Trap
Part Eight: Levels 21-30
Part Nine: Levels 31-40
Part Ten: Levels 41-60 [Current]

See you next time! /salute