FAQ

Below, we’ve answered some of the most frequently asked questions we receive via email. If you have a question that you don’t see answered here, feel free to visit the Contact page and drop us an email. If you’re looking for a quick reference of stat caps and conversions, check our Guides page.

Site Related

Can I link to The Hunter’s Mark?

Absolutely.

Can I post one of your articles on my site?

Absolutely not. The content found on THM is exclusive to this site and may not be redistributed elsewhere. You may quote–with hyper-linked attribution–small passages from articles found on the site under Fair Use policies, but you may not reproduce articles from this site in their entirety. All content found on THM is protected under copyright law, and any sites found to contain content stolen (particularly without consent) from THM will be reported to their service providers.

Will you exchange links with me?

We know there are a lot of great Hunter sites and blogs out there, but it’s nearly impossible to link to all of them and not all of them will necessarily be of interest to our readers (which is not a reflection of quality, merely target audience). Our Links page is populated with links to sites we’ve found that we feel are particularly helpful or educational in nature that our readers might benefit from. We do not do traditional “link exchanges” meant solely to increase your traffic or ours. If you have an article that you’ve written that you think our readers would find helpful or interesting, you can let us know about it by visiting the Contact page.

Can I advertise on THM?

We are not interested in hosting any new advertisements on the site at this time.

Can I submit a guest post?

Of course! If you’ve got an idea for a post that you think our readers might enjoy, send us an email and tell us about it. If we like your idea, we’ll give you the go-ahead to publish it here on the site. If you’re more interested in writing about one (or more) of the other nine classes in the game, we’re also open to guest posts for our other Network sites.

Who did your site layout? Where can I get one like it?

Lassirra codes and designs all the layouts for THM herself. You can find free and paid WordPress themes at a number of different sites, including Smashing Magazine and the official WordPress site.

Lassirra is available for commissioned blog designs. Prices vary depending on the size and complexity of the project. For more information, send us an email.

You and your site both suck! I hate you!

That’s not really a question, but thanks for the feedback. Is there anything specific you’d like to see improved? We’re open to suggestions.

My comment on one of your articles got deleted! What gives?!

We didn’t like it.

While typically we’ll leave up any comments we get–yes, even ones disagreeing with us–we reserve the right to delete whatever comments we want to. We’re not fond of comments that contain only criticism. We spend hours on each and every post we publish and we deserve to have our time and effort respected. We don’t mind criticism in and of itself, but please remember that we’ve worked hard and would like that to be acknowledged as well. Constructive criticism is usually well received here.

Finally, we delete comments whose sole purpose appears to be pushing the agenda of the commenter. If you’re leaving a comment just to get a link up here, it will be deleted. We don’t like that kind of shady dealing. If you want to have us link to you, try building a relationship with us first. Then we’d be more than happy to link to you without your having to ask.

Class Related

What spec should I use?

Whatever spec you enjoy playing. If you’re not sure what you want, experiment until you find something you like. Also, if you enjoy multiple styles of play (for example, you like both PvP and PvE), we highly recommend investing in dual-specs. Each spec is designed to excel at one aspect of play; a good “multi-purpose” spec simply doesn’t exist, so don’t attempt to cobble one together. You’ll just end up being only so-so at everything, rather than very good at one thing.

If you’re looking for a raiding spec, we suggest this Survival build for people just starting out. If you’ve been raiding or doing Heroics for a while and have sufficient gear to support it, this Marksmanship build will provide a sizable DPS increase for you. (You should only switch to a Marksmanship build once you can achieve 400+ Armor Penetration Rating from gear–without gemming for it.) Also note, if you’re at the hard hit cap (8%), you shouldn’t have any points in Focused Aim. If you’re below the hard hit cap and can’t reach it through food buffs, place as many points in Focused Aim as needed to get you there.

How should I gem my gear?

Gemming for Agility is always a safe bet. When in doubt, go for a gem with Agility on it. These are the rare quality gems available with Agility on them:

There is at least one gem with Agility on it for every socket color, so there’s no reason you can’t meet socket bonus requirements. However, it’s worth noting that in cases where the socket bonus is less beneficial than 16 Agility would be, (assuming the requirements for your Meta gem have already been met and you don’t have any other requirements, like Hit Rating to reach the cap) there’s no reason not to just use a Delicate Scarlet Ruby regardless of socket color. For more detailed information, check out our Refresher on Hunter Gems article.

For Marksmanship Hunters that have approximately 700-800 Armor Penetration from gear, start switching over to Armor Penetration gems: Fractured Cardinal Rubies.

What pet should I tame?

That depends on what you’re doing. Typically, it’s a good idea to tame at least one pet of each type: Cunning, Ferocity and Tenacity. We have enough stable slots now that you can easily have one of each and still leave room for extras. If you want a pet with high damage output, Wolves, Cats and Raptors are popular choices. If you’re looking for a solid tanking pet, Gorillas are great for that. If you want a pet that can do a little bit of everything, Spiders have a lot of utility.

Where’s my next upgrade?

Usually the Armory‘s “Find an Upgrade” feature does a great job, no matter what your level is, of finding items that will improve your performance. Kaliban’s Class Loot Lists is another great source for finding better items. If you’re not sure if what you’re looking at is an upgrade or not, you can use WoWHead‘s item comparison tool to get a better idea of what you might be improving or sacrificing by swapping gear.

My DPS sucks! What am I doing wrong?!

A lot of factors contribute to your DPS, such as your talent spec, gear, shot rotation and even your system’s latency or frame rate. You can have the perfect talent spec and all the “best in slot” items, but if your rotation isn’t right or you’re laggy, your DPS will suffer.

Make sure you’re using the optimal talent spec, make sure you have the best items you can get, make sure you’re using the proper shot rotation for your spec, make sure you’ve got the right glyphs, and make sure your system doesn’t have high latency or low frame rates and your DPS should be fine. If it’s not, work down that list until you pinpoint where the problem lies.

What is the Hit cap and why is it important?

The “hard” Hit cap for Hunters is 8%, or 263 Hit Rating at level 80. The Focused Aim talent brings the Hit cap down to a “soft” cap of 5% to give you more leeway if your gear can’t get you there, but getting to the hard cap will free up those points to put them elsewhere, so it’s recommended that players reach the hard cap if possible.

The short answer for why reaching the Hit cap is important is that missed shots mean a loss of overall damage, rendering all of the other stats you’ve worked to acquire (Attack Power, Agility, Crit, etc) useless. You can have oodles of Attack Power but if your shots aren’t hitting, it doesn’t do any good.

What profession is the best?

A number of professions work well for Hunters. Some choose to utilize a Hunter’s superior farming capabilities to make money with dual gathering progressions. Others choose to go with a gather/craft combo to efficiently craft their own gear.

Skinning and Leatherworking, for example, are great choices. Mining and Jewelcrafting is another good choice for cheaper gems and some handy rings/necks. Mining and Engineering is also a popular choice for crafting guns and ammunition. If you’d like more general utility, Herbalism and Alchemy is another good combination. Some intrepid young Hunters also choose to level two crafting professions. It’s worth mentioning for the min-maxers out there: currently a combination of Jewelcrafting (for the JC-only gems) and Blacksmithing (for the extra sockets) provides the best DPS-boost.

I would aslo suggest leveling your secondary professions: Cooking and Fishing. They come in handy!

Will you check my Armory page and tell me what I’m doing wrong?

Unfortunately, due to the volume of requests that we’ve gotten, this is no longer a service we can adequately support for all our visitors. The volume and complexity of these requests is such that we can’t devote a sufficient amount of time to properly address each character as we’d like. You can still send a request, but a response is not necessarily guaranteed.

If you have any questions or comments that haven’t been addressed here, feel free to send us an email.

In addition to this list of FAQ, you may also find answers to some of your questions within the articles listed on the Guides page. This page lists all of our best and most informative articles on a variety of different topics that you may find helpful. Many of these articles are also listed in the sidebar of the site.