I've had a a 70 night elf (yes it's alliance -.-) Hunter for a while now, I'm not much of a PvP'er so I decided to get into raiding. This guide aims to help you maximise your abilities as a Hunter in the endgame of WoW. It's designed for newbies to raiding and instancing at 70.

So, what is the Hunters purpose in raids and instances?

Well, obviously the main one is to do as much damage as possible, but our fine subtleties can also determine us as a CC'er (crowd controller) and to buff physical damage.

So you've just hit 70 and can't wait to get going into Karazhan and beyond. I have to say this, because it's true: by far the best DPS spec for hunters at early 70 is Beast Mastery, there, I said it. Why you ask? well mainly for the 2 talents "serpents swiftness" and "the beast within". However it does require you to have a little control and awareness to make sure your pet doesn't bite the dust.

So what do I have to do great damage which BM hunters seem to do?

We have a fabled macro, this macro is called, the steady shot macro

Quote:
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Auto Shot
/castrandom [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command

This times your steady shot and auto shot to do the most DPS as possible, and uses Kill Command when it is up. Now that's all very well sending in the pet and spamming your macro, but that wont earn you any kudos points for good playing. To do even more damage we have to weave in special shots in between our steadies and auto's. Not to panic though, dear hunter. These only consist of Multi-shot and Arcane shot. Congratulations! you have just learnt basic BM hunter shot rotation!

For clarity, I will write it down here.

Multi-shot > Auto > Arcane shot > Auto > steady shot. Then just keep firing Steady shot > Auto shot until Multi and Arcane are off cooldown, and use those again.

Oh and a small note here stating the obvious, If you have a any CC'd mobs near your target (sheeps..shackles..traps etc), you best remove multi shot from the equation, unless you want a large scary elite running around beating up your healers

Now, this is all very mana expensive isn't it? yes, it is. That is why we come prepared for raids with various consumables! as you can't rely on viper aspect all the time because A) you will loose a considerable chunk of damage and B) it's only really effective after you're below 50% mana.

Hunter raid consumables

Battle elixirs:

Elixir of Major Strength
Elixir of Major Agility
Elixir of the Mongoose
Elixir of Brute Force
Onslaught Elixir

Gaurdian Elixirs

Elixir of Draenic Wisdom
Elixir of Major Mageblood
Elixir of Major Fortitude
Elixir of Ironskin
Elixir of Major Defense

In paticular out of these two lists, I highly reccomend Elixir of major agility, as more agility and crit is a direct boost to our damage, and Elixir of major mageblood to give more mp5, which is also great because it will stack with Aspect of the Viper and Superiior Mana Oil.

Mana potions:

Unstable Mana potion (Note: This can be gained for free in the "escape from skettis" daily quest)
Super Mana potion
Fel mana potion

I highly reccomend Fel mana pots, the debuff has little to no consequence for us hunters, they restore the most amount of mana, and it also a fixed amount, instead of a chance in a rather large range. (super mana pots are 1800-3000)

Oils:

There's only one concievable oil useful to us in my opinion, and that is Superior mana oil. Each one has 5 charges which last for an hour and persist through death, very handy

Food

Warp Burgers - Warp meat - warp stalker mobs, plenty of them at lvl 63/64 around Terrokar.
Ravager Dogs - Ravager flesh - Any ravager mobs, alot of lvl 60 ones at the road which connects Hellfire Peninsula and Terrokar (I've forgetten what it's called )
Kibler's bits - Buzzard meat - Lots of buzzards to be found flapping outside Temple of Telhamat in Hellfire.

ok, so the last one is pet food (you have to right click it, not actually feed it to your pet) but these are all useful buffs, I prefer warp bugers, as agility gives crit as well as Ranged attack power.