Hunter: The Guide to Being Useful in Instances

  • 主题发起人 主题发起人 Riven
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Riven

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I constantly hear people say hunters are useless in high-level instances. Considering the level of success I experience, I disagree with this statement, and my assumption is that there are a lot of unskilled hunters out there tarnishing the class's reputation. I am giving away many of my trade secrets in this post so that the class as a whole can benefit from my experience and knowledge. Please add anything you feel is useful to this list. If I see something good, I will edit the post and add your information. Perhaps we can have this post stickied later to benefit everyone.

Now, a good hunter can turn a gaggle of retards into a steamroller that runs through an instance like a buttered skateboard. Don't ever let anyone tell you that hunters are useless in Temple, BRD, BRS, Scholo, or Strath. A GOOD HUNTER is useful in any instance.


What you can do:

* You do excellent, SUSTAINED ranged dps, and with rapid fire active, no other class can rival it.

* You can manage aggro better than any class, including Warriors, via your pet, feign death, distracting shot, and disengage.

* With proper talents, you have a reliable, repeatable 26-second CC that works on ANY MOB (except bosses.) ...Freezing trap is often overlooked, but the fact that the hunter can place them during a battle via proper technique makes them amazingly useful at turning a wipe in progress into a manageable battle.

* You have the potential to be the best pulling class. Notice I said potential. Via your various tracking types, you can see where the patrols\roamers are, select a good time to pull, and use line of sight to bring mobs to a position that is agreeable to your group. This also protects against runners aggroing other groups. Also, your instant shots (distracting shot and arcane shot, to be specific) can be fired at mobs on the fringes of a group, often resulting in 1 mob in the group NOT AGGROING! (This takes timing.)

* Your Debuff, Scorpid Sting, greatly reduces a mob's damage output, critical rate, and evasion rate. Use it! Warriors will take less damage and mobs will take more damage. The priest will have more mana to save your ass.

* You can detect cloaked mobs with flare. This is excellent for the Eyes of Naraxxas in Stratholme, which can quickly cause a wipe if not IMMEDIATELY put down.

* You can save the priest's life by taking aggro from mobs that are hitting him. Distracting shot is great for this purpose. Then, you can off tank the mob with your pet by disengaging or feigning death.

* Wing Clip and Concussive shot are EXCELLENT kites for stopping runners. Always wing clip a mob if you know it's going to run at low health. It lasts 10 seconds.

* You can assist a mage with AOE by staying out of combat until it begins, and then placing an explosive trap in the center of the group of mobs. Volley, however, does not really do enough damage for its mana cost, cooldown, and channeling nature. I'd rather spam arcane shot and multi shot than volley. In cases where there are more than 3 targets and the main tank has firmly established aggro, it might be worth hitting volley to boost the group's AoE damage.

* Use Hunter's Mark to designate targets. This is extremely useful in communicating to the group which mob you are talking about when you choose CC and kill order. It's just an arrow, but it means so much to a confused group. Communication and organization are some of the nicest things you bring to a group.

* You can abort a bad pull completely. It might be good to create a macro button which yells out ABORT! ABORT! or something similar, and train your group to know that this yell means "HANDS OFF." If a pull goes bad and extra groups link due to extenuating circumstances, you can call for an abort and feign death. If feign death fails, it's better for you to die than your whole group, so make sure they know that in an aborted pull, they stay away from you and you stay away from them.

* Besides Rogue, you are the only class that can leave combat mid-battle. Your pet must either be unsummoned or have not attacked anything during the current battle, and then you can feign death. Stay down for 2 seconds, then get up and walk away. You are now out of combat and can plant a trap of your choosing or refresh your health and mana (IMMEASURABLY useful in the LBRS spider section.) Be warned that some groups will consider it selfish if they see you eating and drinking while they are still fighting. They are just jealous :) Try to be sensitive to them.






Things NOT to do:

* Do not pull with Aimed Shot. If it crits, you might have a hard time giving aggro back to the tank. You are not a tank--you may live longer than cloth classes, but you are not meant to be a damage-mititgating class except in emergencies.

* Do not use Multi-shot near CC'ed mobs (Crowd Controlled) This includes SAP, POLYMORPH, FREEZING TRAP, HIBERNATE, SHACKLE UNDEAD, and to a lesser extent, FROST NOVA. You will break CC, thus defeating its purpose. Use single-target attacks in instances unless you KNOW it's okay to do otherwise.

* Do not feign death at the drop of a hat. Remember that when you feign, the mobs that are attacking you will begin attacking someone else. If that's the priest, you may cause your group to wipe. It's better for you to die than the healers--ALWAYS.

* Don't forget to buy a full bag of arrows, repair your equipment, and buy pet food before going into an instance. If you find yourself low on anything mid-instance you become USELESS and the group leader will kick you. Next time, he'll just invite a mage.

* Do not fire Serpent Sting until you're sure the mob you're shooting is not going to be CCed. Serpent Sting will break CCs each time it ticks.

* Do not pull with multi-shot. This has two potential problems: 1) You gain more aggro than necessary on pulling, and die. A mob you have not yet attacked can be pulled off you by anything, including demoralizing shout. If you score a critical multishot on 3 mobs, they are not going to leave you alone easily. Feign death CAN FAIL. 2) You accidentally pull a neutral mob or another group along with the intended pull. Multishot does not discriminate between aggressive, neutral, and critters.

* DO NOT lose control of your pet. This is the biggest cause of wipes I've ever seen. Your pet has a much larger aggro radius than a player, (Various people have had different experiences with this; Yours may vary) and walks several feet beside you. If you do not control his actions, he will pull mobs you might have been hoping to bypass. Make sure to call your pet off if the mob he is attacking runs. Runners do not ALWAYS pull extra mobs they encounter, but if your pet follows them, it's a guarantee. Call your pet off and try to kite or kill the runner. Your pet should always be on PASSIVE mode in instances. Choose his target manually and "sic" him on it. If your pet is on defensive mode when you pull a group with ranged enemies, your pet will instantly run to the ranged enemies when they aggro you, even before they have done damage! Also remember that pets walk using the same pathing system as the AI. If you jump off a cliff, your pet will take the long way around. This is invariably bad. IF YOU HAVE EVEN AN INKLING OF A DOUBT THAT YOUR PET WILL PROPERLY TRAVEL TERRAIN, DISMISS HIM. You can re-summon him instantly and for free, unlike warlocks. I do most high-level instances without my pet for this reason. However, even if you choose to unsummon your pet to make things safer, remember that he CAN make a positive difference in battles. Make sure you call him to serve as an off tank if a fight is going badly.

* Don't be afraid to hold back on damage. Warriors have a really hard time keeping aggro from hunters. If you start off slow, with just auto shot, and then accellerate your DPS with arcane shot and stings as the fight goes on, you will take aggro less often and the fights will be more smoothe.

* Don't expect the Priest to heal your pet. Your pet is an expendable off-tank, not a main tank. It's good if the healer can afford the mana to heal your pet, but this is extremely inefficient as pets have less armor than a true tank. Your pet should only tank in high-level instances if it HAS TO. Otherwise, turn off growl and use your pet to add to your DPS while the warrior holds aggro.





Things to watch out for:

* You need 8 yards of clear line of sight to fire at a mob. Stairs are your worst enemy--always pull mobs away from stairs. One of your best skills as a puller is being able to relocate the battle to wherever you want. Fight in large rooms when you can, and make sure your group knows not to cause mobs to walk toward you. Make sure you don't do so much damage the tank(s) lose aggro, because once a mob runs toward you, you have to stop firing.

* Viper sting does not drain enough mana from most high-level caster mobs to have an effect. You're better off with serpent sting for extra DOT or Scorpid Sting to up the number of crits the mob will suffer.

* Make sure your group knows to treat you like a caster. While you are effective without mana, you cannot use skills without it. Get the mage to give you water.

* If a mob aggroes you mid-battle, and you can survive tanking it for a while, shoot at another mob. You waste a lot of time and DPS trying to run from a mob so you can continue shooting it. Often it's better to just pick another target. Once the other target is down, your group will turn their attention to the mob hitting you, and you can back off to fire at it.

* Use scatter shot to interrupt caster mobs. It is hard to time due to the Autoshot\Scattershot cooldown bug, but if you get good at using scatter shot mid-combat you can prevent a mob from casting an annoying heal.

* Tab-targetting has been broken for a while. It will target whatever is in the upper left of your screen. If you are using tab targetting, twist your view so that what you are trying to target is in your upper left if your screen, and you will target properly. You're usually better off making an assist macro for the group's main tank, though, as tab targetting sometimes MISSES and goes through walls. If this happens, you may shoot a mob you REALLY don't want to, or sic your pet on an enemy that is on the floor below you. This is a sure way to wipe. Check your targets!

* It's almost always better to pull groups away from their spawn area, into a pre-cleared room where there is no danger of adds. This sometimes causes problems with spawning patrols, but mainly it's a good strategy. Other classes won't understand how you operate at first. Be patient with them, convince them to stop crowding you at the edge of the aggro radius of whatever group you're pulling. The concept of "Stay back and I will pull to you" is foreign to Warriors who are used to body pulling (walking up to the mobs to aggro them.)

* When pulling caster mobs or other ranged attackers, you must "Blind Pull" --Fire at the group and then hide behind something. Since the mob does not have LOS to fire at you, it will run toward you. This is better than counterspell pulling because 1) it does not generate additional aggro, 2) The mobs will waste time attempting to cast spells on you once you're out of LOS, and 3) Counterspell will still be avaialble to do better things during the battle. When you make a blind pull, make sure your group knows not to attack the mobs until they have taken the bait, or the blind pull will be a failure.

* A lot of Warriors insist on pulling so they can open with Charge to build initial rage for demoralizing shout or whirlwind to establish aggro. Remind them that they can still charge as long as THEY are not in combat. The entire group does not enter combat at once, and this should definitely work to your advantage. Tell him to stand where he can charge a mob as it comes around the corner in the room where you intend to fight.




You do respectable DPS, but your utility is by far the number one reason you will be desired in high-level instances. Once you realize this and make use of ALL of your skills, and you do so SKILLFULLY, the myths about hunters being useless will go away.

Say it with me: USELESS Hunters are useless. Good hunters are the centerpiece of a successful group. :)

*Edit: Update #2
 
omg did you write all these up?! *ADORING RIVEN*
 
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omg did you write all these up?! *ADORING RIVEN*
no, 忘了加转贴:)
 
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