“Dear BRK … I never was anything else than MM, not even for a week. Until I found your blog and until I really began to understand how BMs work, I just thought along the lines of so many other hunters: ‘BM? Yeah, nice joke. Go and respec.’

“So, all those 70 level I was playing, I always had a cat, I always had two axes, never touched any bows - because guns just rock - and I never thought about respecing … So that leaves the question: Should I respec?

“I really love Improved Stings and, since I’m the hunter who has to pull Maulgar to our tank, I love Hawk Eye, too. So I’m really undecided if BM is right for me.

“I know, you already told several people that you can’t say BM is best for everyone but I wonder if you could tell me, how I could “forget” about those two skills or something like that. I just don’t know how I should spec my little hunter so she will make as much damage as possible. And yes, in my opinion, Serpent Sting makes a lot of damage, as long as it’s skilled and you are a MM. With friendly regards, Nayamé and Styx”

Fact: The highest PvE-DPS spec is Beastmaster.

Fact: Survivalist-spec provides more utility in heroics than BM because of the longer-lasting and less-resistible traps.

Fact: Properly employed, Scatter Shot is massively useful in PvP.

Fact: Serpent Sting, in it’s current pre-patch-2.3 incarnation, does extremely-poor damage.

Feeling: You love Hawk Eye. We can tell you until we’re blue in the face that you don’t need it and it’s a waste of three talent points, but if you love it you’re probably going to ignore our opinion.

Fact: We’ve pulled everything in every 5-man regular and heroic instance, Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, and Void Reaver without Hawk Eye. For PvE in Outland, Hawk Eye is completely unnecessary.

Feeling: You love Improved Stings. We can tell you until we’re blue in the face that Stings - other than Scorpid - are a total waste of mana and Improved Stings are a colossal waste of five talent points. But if you love them, you’re probably going to ignore our advice.

Fact: Serpent Sting is one of the worst shots we have in terms of Damage vs Mana-Consumption.

Feeling: Bows sux, Guns rox. (We happen to agree with this, in a fashion. We love guns but we want ever other hunter in our raids to use a bow. Thus we can easily identify our shots by sound and adjust our shot-rotation that much more easily.)

Fact: If you’re a dwarf, a gun is usually your best choice because of the racial bonus. If you’re a troll, a bow is. All other hunters should use the highest-DPS ranged weapon they can find that most effectively enhances their talent spec.

Nayamé, if you were to say, “I’ve done some research and Hawk Eye improves my DPS by 5%,” then that would be a fact we could challenge and perhaps convince you was inaccurate. But instead you state that you love Hawk Eye. Well that is an emotional issue and we probably aren’t going to be unable to sway you otherwise, but here we go.

If you want to to inflict the most damage possible, you’ll respec to 41/20/0 and ignore Serpent Sting. Just take it off your action bar entirely. Also, dumping three points into Hawk Eye for a 41/17/3 build reduces your Mortal Shots talents to 3/5 and decreases your bonus crit damage from 30% to 18%. This is truly a terrible trade-off.

Should you respec? Depends on what you want to accomplish. If you want to do max-damage, then yes you should. If you just want to do more damage while keeping the spec and talents you love, then no you shouldn’t.

Just don’t ask us to convince you that your feelings are wrong. We’ve been married for over eleven years; we know a trap when we see one. :)