Prepping your hunter for level 80 Player vs Player (PvP) combat can be a bit different than preparing for a raid. The random element of human ingenuity can make PvP combat unpredictable, making a lot of your success very dependent on knowing your class, cooperating with your allies, and fighting strategically. If you outnumber your enemy 2 to 1, there is always zerging or the danger of being zerged, but it's always best not to be to reckless as the tide of battle can turn at any moment as more people join the fight.

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PvP vendors are availaible in Stormwind and Ogrimmar.

To obtain victory the first thing you must know is your role in combat. Your role as a hunter doesn't differ much in PvP combat as it does from fighting in groups and raids. Stay with your group and keep your distance in combat. Use your ranged attacks to take out enemies from a safe distance. Often times you will have huge clusters of enemies that you can fire your Volley attack at. With all the chaos, this sometimes goes overlooked and you can gain several honorable kills by the distracted enemies. Some areas such as those in the Alterac Mountains battleground, offer many places such as towers that you can climb to the top of and fire ranged attacks at the enemies below.

Depending on which talent tree you have chosen, you will have varying tactics for one on one combat. Beast Mastery hunters will find their pets, Bestial Wrath and The Beast Within talents invaluable. Marksmen will find the talent enhancement to their shots useful and the Volley enhancements can help rain death on many huge cluster battles that tend to occur in the battlegrounds. Survival hunters will get a lot of use out of their traps and their Explosive Shot attack. However, all three trees will have a need for their pets and the Volley attack. You should target cloth wearing and lighter armored enemies and stay clear of heavy armored foes like warriors, paladins, and death knights if possible. Your damage can be of more use eliminating healers and DPS than trying to break through the heavy armor classes who have healers backing them up. After all, beating up a heavily armored meat shield with a ton of hit points that are constantly being refreshed is rather counterproductive. Fight smart and take out the healers first.

Just keep one thing in mind; even if you are fighting a one on one battle, never assume there are no other enemies around. It's moments like these that a sure fire win can turn into a severe ganking. It's best to stick with your allies unless you enjoy getting blindsided by a small army.

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Strand of the Ancients

The Strand of the Ancients is regularly run by level 80s and works in two phases. One team defends and the other attacks. After the 10 minute battle duration is up, or the attacking team captures the defending team's relic, the two factions switch positions. Hunters can play a very important role in many parts of this battle. If you're on the attacking side, you may want to get in and ride shotgun on one of the siege weapons. While this doesn't always provide you with the best opportunities for kills, you can play a key role in keeping enemy melee off the siege engine so it can reach its target and hopefully bring down an enemies wall. Concussive Shot is useful when those pesky melee try to come up behind the engine. This and your other attacks can buy the engine just enough time to bring down an enemy gate. If you are quick and crafty enough you can also aid in bringing down the enemy walls by planting Seaforium Charges which can be picked up at friendly locations. So make sure you grab one before boarding the engine or trying to bum rush a wall.

If you're on the offense, use the walls to your advantage. There are small ledges that have cannon placements on them you can man or stand on to fire ranged attacks at enemies below. The cannons deal splash damage to enemy units and can help bring down enemy siege weapons before they reach the walls. If you find these are already controlled by someone, use the ledge to fire down on enemies that get too close. In all other cases, stick with your group and try to take out healers and casters first.

There are many other battlegrounds you can choose from for some fun PvP action such as Alterac Valley, Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Eye of Storm, and of course, the Arena. Each battleground allows a certain number from each faction. However, you sometimes find yourself incredibly outnumbered, or outnumbering the enemy greatly yourself. While the battlegrounds are fun and provide great PvP, the numbers game can get tilted in one direction pretty quickly.

With Honor Points and Marks of Honor earned from the various battlegrounds, you can purchase a number of items from PvP vendors for your faction. There are a number of useful items for the hunter, but getting them will take plenty of Marks and Honor Points. I have listed a few in the tables below, but there are many more that you can acquire once you have the currency needed.

Wintergrasp

Wintergrasp is a huge area in Northrend located just south of Icecrown. This area is dedicated to full open world PvP and the controlling team gains an assortment of benefits for their faction such as access to the raid instance the Vault of Archavon. A further advantage to having control of Wintergrasp Keep is that bosses in Northrend dungeon will drop Stone Keeper Shards and the controlling faction gains a 5% bonus to experience gains. Combat in Wintergrasp happens every 2hrs and 30 min and often brings in a huge number of players. Either the horde or alliance always controls the keep and as such act as the defending team. The attackers need to breach the gate and take the keep. The defenders need to hold off the attacking army until the 30 minute battle window ends.

Attacking

The goal for the attacking force is to bring down the walls and take the keep before the 30 minute battle window ends. In order to do this, you will need to take siege weapons from the Goblin Workshops outside the walls and try to breach through to the inner keep.

Siege engines will prove to be of the most use here, but if you choose to attack on foot you should try to support your factions siege engines and buy them some time to bring down the enemy gates and walls. Help take out enemy attackers, catapults, and wall cannons. You can also grab Saronite Bomb and Global Thermal Sapper Charges to aid in the siege.

Defending

As a hunter, you have the advantage of ranged attacks and Wintergrasp Keep provides you with plenty of places to fire at enemies from above. Hunters who have invested in the Hawk Eye talent of the Survival tree can use their additional range to fire from the higher walls of the keep at the unfortunate enemies below. There are also cannons on the walls and towers that you can man to deal splash damage on the enemies below. These are useful for taking out players and siege engines alike and a skilled person can help push back an advancing attack.

When you reach the battle rank of Corporal, you can summon catapults at the Goblin Workshops within the keep. These deal splash damage to enemy units unfortunate enough to get caught in its splash damage attacks. There are also lootable weapons called RP-GGs. These weapons can be used against enemy vehicles and are only for Wintergrasp.

When your faction controls the Wintergrasp Fortress, you can spend your hard earned Stone Keeper Tokens or Wintergrasp Mark of Honor (Earned by fighting in a Wintergrasp battle) currency at the Quartermaster. There are an assortment of useful items there that a hunter will find useful on this vendor. I have listed a few of those below, but there are many more.

PvP can be a lot of fun and you can gain a lot of good gear by smiting your enemies. However, some of the better stuff takes a while to get, so be sure you smite those alliance dogs down every chance you get to gain a little honor. Alliance members, you feel free to try and smite any horde you come across too. Just swing at your own peril.