Things every hunter should know.
So, you’ve decided to roll a hunter. You’ve got a few levels under your belt, you have a good faithful pet, and you’ve started getting a decent feel for how the class is played. If this is your first toon, or you have an army of alts, then by now you’re probably wondering what you can do to improve yourself. Well, I plan on listing a few things that every hunter, whether levelling or raiding and everything in between, should know to help you along your way.
1. Keep Feign Death handy
Now, this is a ridiculously simple thing to do, but it’s so often overlooked. Every now and then, you’re gonna pull aggro. It will happen. Whether it’s from your pet, or from your tank… Feign death is the easiest way to make someone forget about you, and go back to the meat-shield they should be pounding on. 30 second cooldown makes it almost ridiculous. Ideally, this should be used BEFORE the big baddie starts heading your way. Make sure you stay down for a good 2-3 seconds to ensure your threat is wiped completely.
2. Traps are your friend
Again, this is something that seems so simple, but it just gets overlooked so much. Snake traps (learned at level 68) apply a movement imparing poison, and offer a decent DPS boost. Freezing traps (learned at 20) are your basic 1-person CC. Remember that the DoT from Serpent sting will break a freezing trap. Frost traps (learned at 28) are a wonderful AOE snare, slowing an infinite number of mobs down to a crawl in a modest sized radius. Freezing arrow (learned at 80) is just a way of throwing a freezing trap a distance away. You’ve got tons of CC (crowd control), learn to use it!
3. Wing clip/Concussive Shot and Disengage often
Hunters are really quite terrible in melee range. That’s not news to anybody. If your traps and feign death are on cooldown, this is your best combination of abilities to get a bit more range to kill that baddy who’s looking at you like a fine piece of meat.
4. Distracting shot can save a healer’s life
It happens to every tank on occasion. That one mob will get away. That one stupid patrol he didn’t see comes rampaging around the bend, and the first person they go after is that nice, squishy healer who just threw out a big AOE heal. Well, a distracting shot will send that nasty one right at you. It’s much better for you to die than the healer, and chances are the tank will get him off of you before that happens. It’s important to note, that you should not feign death right after a distracting shot. That’ll just send him right back for your squishy healer, defeating the purpose of you taunting off of him in the first place.
5. Misdirect misdirect misdirect mother-bleeping misdirect
You don’t get MD until level 70, but the usefulness of this ability just cannot be overstated.
Every hunter in existance should have this macro:
#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [@focus] Misdirection
That’s all it takes. When you’re out soloing, you can make your pet your focus target. When you get into an instance, make your tank the focus target. When you get into a raid, find out who the main tank is, and make him your focus target. Do this EVERY TIME. It’s a great habit to get into, and it’s amazing just how much seeing that little bullseye over your head will improve someone’s opinion of you as a hunter. It’s also worth noting that you can cast misdirect before casting volley, and it works on every mob that’s hit in the time frame.
6. Watch dem auto-shots
The simplest things sometimes cause the most trouble. Accidently pulling targets with your autoshot is something i’ve seen happen more times than I can recall. It’s not always a big deal, but it definitely can be if someone’s afk, or the healer is getting mana back. There’s a simple way to prevent this from happening. Go to your interface options, under the “Combat” section, there is a checked box next to the words “Stop Auto Attack”… Remove the checkmark… Simple as that.
Now, you’ll notice one recurring thing through most of this post… A lot of this stuff is really simple things to keep in mind. Sometimes, REALLY knowing your class can make the difference between “just another pug” and a great group you’ll want to see again.
[...] of running series on the ins and outs of being a hunter. A week or soAago IAwrote an entryAentitled "Things every hunter should know" .. If you haven’t checked it out, I highly suggest doing so. Today’s entry is sort of [...]
i would like to add, the choice of the pet is HUGE. if you could roll out with a "pet choice" area, so we can compare. other then that this is a great place to pick up the needed tips.
Killer Post Achloryn this is definitely what we are looking for…. Thumbs up!
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