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3:56 pm
Ok this is a bit long winded but here goes…I recently got to lvl 85 BM hunter and had been running dungens for awhile but now all of a sudden I get abused by the others in the party saying my pet taunt is on and pulling mob away from tank lol…ok BM does not have taunt well I dont anyway and my pet is in the ferocious talent tree with growl turned off in dungens so I dont know what I am doing wrong 
and I end up getting kicked out or they just let me die, I even had one group tell me to put the pet away before we even started the dungen lol…I have run a cat, spirit bear, wolf, corehound all on ferocious tree but I still get told off lmao anyone got any ideas???
Ohh these dungens are only 5 man and not heroic either
Thanks
Rob
6:21 pm
Officer
May 28, 2010
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(1) Are you pulling aggro from the tank, be it yourself or your pet? Hunters generate a lot of threat and I have found that I can pull aggro from even a good tank if I go full out on something at the start of a pull and don't use misdirect. Also make sure you feign death to keep from generating to much threat.
If your sure your pet's growl is turned off and it is pulling threat, then it is most likely your tank for that group sucks at his/her job. If growl is turned off there is no way your pet is going to pull aggro unless you are targeting a mob that the tank has not established threat with yet.
(2) If your talking about a pug group you're going to hear and have people giving you crap about anything under the sun. There are lots of people out there who just enjoy running there mouths, even if it's something they have to make up. If your going to do pugs, you will just have to develop a tough skin and let your actions speak for you.
9:56 pm
Well yes I or my pet have been pulling aggro from the tank that is why I get blasted lol…now I dont know what dps I am dishing out but I dont have great gear yet as my ilvl is only 327…I have never used misdirect in a dungeon and yes I am sure growl is off 
Yes I have been using the dungeon finder to get into a group and I have now started to leave the groups in the middle of the dungeon when they start to go off lol…I did not think it was my fault and someone else did say the tank must be crap, I have tried to satisfy the people in dungeons but cant satisfy everyone I suppose. So I will just keep trying the dungeons and hope they are an ok lot if not leave haha…
Thanks for your reply
Rob
10:10 pm
Officer
May 28, 2010
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Definately start using misdirect. Use it at the start of every pull if its off cool down.
11:42 pm
Try using pet on passive.
^ always start with MD as Takaas stated.
You may even count to five before sending pet if tank is not good enough.
Also make sure you have auto cower turned on, so that pet manages his own aggro a bit.
Ideally you shouldn't even have issues with pet on defensive.
I'm sure you are missing something there but can't figure out either.
You might also double check your pet's talents, and drop the ones related to creating thread, if there are any.
9:16 am
Soldier
November 2, 2009
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Hmm, there's something strange here….
You wrote: "I have never used misdirect in a dungeon and yes I am sure growl is off", as if these two things are somehow both aimed at reducing the threat generated by your pet.
It would seem (from this) that you are missing the point that in a dungeon you should use MD on the Tank, not on your Pet.
If this is stating the obvious to you please forgive me, but it just seemed a bit strange you putting those two statements together in that way.
Hunters should use MD to the tank as a matter of course in dungeons. If in the early stages of a dungeon it appears we have a tank who can't generate threat and hold agro very well, I use it before every pull (with a multi-shot when appropriate) to help the tank build up threat, and again during the fight if he's struggling. (I use a threat meter to keep an eye on my target's threat table). Otherwise I tend to reserve MD for if/when I need to send a breakaway mob back to the tank in a hurry.
My way of using MD is simple but effective. At the start of each dungeon I just target my Tank and type /focus. My MD key runs a macro which Misdirects to my focus if there is one (i.e. my Tank), otherwise to my pet. This way, I just use the same MD key whether or not I'm in a dungeon party.
Also, just a brief mention about a) making sure your tank marks at least the first two dps focus targets (we use 1. skull, 2. red cross); and b) using a threat meter such as Omen.
11:04 am
Soldier
November 2, 2009
Offline
I just remembered something – it might not be relevant, but it's worth mentioning anyway.
At one time there was a bug with the auto-activate feature on some Pet abilities, notably Growl and Prowl.
You could switch off auto-activate for these abilities in the Pet spellbook, but the next time you looked you found they had switched themselves back on again.
I don't know if this bug has been fixed, because I found a work-around a long time ago: just put those two abilities onto the Pet toolbar, and the auto setting will not change by itself.
You may have to replace two abilities that are already on the toolbar, but I manage okay – I use macros for Bestial Wrath, Call of the Wild and Spirit Mend, for example, so I don't need them on the Pet toolbar any more.
12:41 pm
Veteran
February 24, 2011
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1:20 pm
Thank you all for your replies 
I tried another instance lastnight and used md on the tank but I ended up in a great group and we were flat out keeping up with the tank, it was great not to have to worry about: is growl off did I do md on the tank lol…I waited till the tank had pulled the mob before I fired any shot at all. I think it is just the groups you strike using the random dungeon finder, as the others maybe new to the 85 lvl as I am and just learning
I was also thinking that kill command and bestial wrath might have been causing the problem too as I use those alot when off cool down.
I am only doing the instances to get honor etc because all the drops so far are less than I have until I can get my ilvl up to start doing heroic, currently 327ilvl
Thanks ppl
4:27 pm
Officer
May 28, 2010
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You SHOULD be using Kill Command and Bestial Wrath whenever they are off cool down. I'm thinking that the most likely explanation is you've just been paired with poor tanks or ones that are still learning.
5:45 am
Veteran
February 24, 2011
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I've not seen a lot of instances where I'm pulling aggro from the tank whether from my pet or my shots. Keep using MD, remember to Feign Death *before* you pull aggro not after, and I'm sure you'll be fine.
On a side note- I was in a pug last night in Deadmines- joined after the first boss, almost to Foe Reaper, the tank quits on us mid-trash pull so I Dismiss my raptor, call up my turtle, tank the rest of the trash and then switch to BM & tank Foe Reaper. Granted, the healer was good and the DPS at the bottom kept the adds off us, but it was pretty fun
Healer left after the fight though cause we never did get another tank. Group disbanded and I never did finish my random last night. But that was exciting.
7:32 am
Veteran
October 29, 2010
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hammer, these guys did good job with suggestions, so I'll give my thoughts from a tank perspective which I've been doing mostly since Cata came out, at least in instances. Don't get me wrong I love all ranged dps, and have 85 lock and 85 S priest, ranged is what I prefer, but I do enjoy tanking at times.
I don't consider myself to be the best tank, and only do it with my guild, or with 3 members and pug the rest. I only ask the dps to do three things, know their CC and how to use it, try their absolute best to hit what I'm hitting, and give me to the count of 3 to get the mobs on me. The first one is actually pretty easy, just takes some practice. The second is a little more difficult, on bosses its not a problem, unless there are adds, usually its just everyone trying to kill the same big ugly thing so they can move on to the next. Where the problem is when you have groups especially with tanks that switch targets, but sometimes it's necessary to switch. The third just takes discipline.
I try not to switch unless it's necessary, and that's usually when a mob goes after the healer, or a dps peals one off. A dps won't normally peal one off me unless they aren't hitting what I'm hitting, and that's usually where the problems comes in. I watch Omen to see who's creeping up on the meter, but you can have 120% on a mob outside my group, and I won't see it. It does happen, and it can be for any number of reasons, from a tank switching targets, to not paying attention. It's not the end of world as some tanks want to act, it's the point where ranged has to help the tank out though. Misdirect to the tank, or simply Feign Death to dump your threat.
In an instance I always set the tank as my focus, solo I always set my pet as my focus, just out of habit now, and use the two macros below. If I see the tank is hitting something different, I'll hit my assist macro again, it automatically puts my pet on his/her target as well as me. If I see my threat getting too high, I use my misdirect macro. Another thing that will gain you favor with the healer and tank, is trying to protect the healer. If I don't have mob trapped, I put a trap in front of the healer, if they pull a mob I misdirect it back to the tank.
You guys see how I switched back to my hunter wihout even trying? Most tank's priorities are going to be their threat/survival, protecting the healer, and at least some of us protecting the dps. You're still going to get bad groups, you're still going to get tanks that feel dps is a dime a dozen. In my opinion when you do, you have a bad tank, a good tank will work with his group to make it a successful run.
Ranged can be harder than you thought. A good article on WoWInsider.
#showtooltip Hunter's Mark
/assist focus
/cast Hunter's Mark
/petattack
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
I hold out my startattack for other shots, it gives my pet time to get there if solo, and gives me another second for the tank to build threat in an instance.
#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [@focus, exists, nodead] [@pet, exists, nodead] Misdirection
Hopefully the tank isn't dead, but if they are, this will misdirect to your pet.
I apologize for the long winded post.
1:53 pm
Well I ran another instance last night and we went through 3 tanks lol one got sick and another just could not hold the pull and left in the middle of a pull lmao so the warrior and myself combined took over as tank till another one was found was damn kewl…I used MD onto the tank before every pull and as for setting a trap in front of the healer hmmm well they never stand still long enough to put one in front of them lol…but I am never far away from the healer and go after the breakaways heading toward us….it is hard to do MD to the tank in the middle of the pull as most time you cant see them, I suppose that is where a macro would work but I have never used one lol about time I did .
I think all up I just struck a few bad groups, ohh and another thing is that they expect you to know their little codes and what each target icon means but when you are just getting going in dungeons they hate it when you ask, such as freeze trap blue raid icon, ok did that but then the tank runs to the side to pull and pulls it away from the trap hahaha…ohh well it can only get better maybe lol.
5:38 pm
Ok just off subject a bit but at lvl 85 without epic gear etc (ilvl 32
what sort of DPS should I be pulling??? I installed one of those dps addons and at the moment I average between 5.5k to 7.5k what are your thoughts???
5:54 am
Officer
September 8, 2010
Offline
A good place to check that is at femaledwarf.com, they have a spreadsheet set up to input all of your gear, they can even upload it from the armory and it will give you what dps you should be doing, and what pieces you can upgrade or what have you to increase your dps. Without seeing your gear or anything, and at 85 bm spec'd and i'm assuming your running regular cata dungeons, I would assume that you are very close to what your output would be although I think you should be more on the 7.5-8.5 range at this point.
A lot depends on your rotation and pet choice as well, someone mentioned that you need to be using kill command as often as you can, always make sure you have enough energy to do so, and something that helped me out was to use your bestial wrath as often as you can, I tended to "save it up" for boss fights and junk, but there is no need if you have it glyphed and specced out, you can get the cooldown to around a minute, so use that like its going out of style too.
7:01 am
A bit late, but I'll chime in anyway. It's actually not that uncommon for Beast Mastery hunters to generate a lot of threat. Part of it has something to do with the fact that BM pets attack at a very high speed and has very big bursts of damage. (Think MM hunters, but melee.) I've seen this happen several times in a guild group when we have several hunters and are not running with the best tank.
Misdirection to the tank will normally solve this problem. Another way you can monitor your threat is to check your threat per second (TPS), not overall threat, using Omen or another threat monitoring add-on.
5:31 am
Soldier
November 2, 2009
Offline
Please forgive the following ramble… hopefully it's of some interest to someone.
I've not thought about this before, but at the start of a fight I have always tended to send my pet in at the focus target and hit KC as soon as he's in melee range. For level 85 PvE I do not use the Charge talent, but I do use Dash, so he is usually in amongst the melee fairly soon after the tank.
Before I had to reforge some Mastery into Hit (my iLvL was then around 345), with my +1260 Mastery trinket (Skardyn's Grace) active, my KC crits could peak at around 50k.
Although one might expect this to cause a high amount of threat just when the tank doesn't need it, I have never had a tank complain about it, and I have not noticed my pet being targeted as you would expect if he stole agro. Probably the MD on my own opening ranged attacks is enough to keep the tank's threat on top. This is where you and your pet hitting the correct target first is of paramount importance – if my cat were to do that on a non-focus target, no doubt Mr or Mrs Tank would have something to say about it – such as "Anyone *else* want to have a go at tanking this instance?".
On a younger BM hunter (just reached 
) who has some Cata greens, the LvL78/iLvL308 Berto's Staff from BRC with +130 agi on it (very sweet!), and a pet with Charge, I have often seen my pet taking agro off the tank in WotLK normals, immediately after the pull and my KC, even when I'm using MD to the tank. No complaints from tanks, but it does not seem to matter much at that level if my melee dps takes agro momentarily, as long as I keep his health up, don't call him back to me, and use Cower if necessary.
1:55 pm
Ok I have not been having too much of a problem lately as I have been using MD to the tank where possible as you people have said, it is difficult to do that some times as the tank is already in the middle of a mob lol, and also waiting till the tank had good contact with the mob before first shot was fired…I got told to turn growl off on my spirit bear on a ferocious talent spec cause it was taking agro I told him that the spirit bear does not have growl and the only thing going is the roar of courage so was told to turn all my pet abilities off…may as well have had a kids stuffed bear running around lol…needless to say he got killed a few times in that instance lol no claw, no spirit bind, no nothing and damn sure I was not going to bring out a tiger lmao, what I should have done is get out my shale spider set up as a tank and go for it hehehehe that would have given him something to complain about then 
…
What gets me though is the ones that do alot of complaining are just too damn busy with stats and not the overall end win, who got the highest crit in that fight etc. But its all ok I know where the leave party switch is lol…
Rob
2:54 am
Veteran
October 29, 2010
Offline
We had this same problem with Skoll, but if you open your spellbook and look at the pet tab, spirit beasts have growl. Its just not on your pet bar. I usually drag it to the pet bar and replace Spirit Walk with it.
As far as misdirecting to the tank in a mob, set him as your focus, and use one of the macros on this site, its almost impossible to pick the tank out when he/she has a group aggro'd.
6:09 am
Soldier
November 2, 2009
Offline
A little humility goes a long way in helping all of us to learn what we may think we already know, but often don't. This is true of life in general, of course, not just in WoW. The tank knew better than you did that Growl is one of your pet's standard abilities. But more to the point is that he recognised and let you know that your pet was making life difficult for him by creating excessive threat on its target.
The idea (I'm sure you know it) is to work with your party. The competition is that huge, ugly two-headed ettin (or whatever it may be) up ahead, not your tank. 
However, no hunter should be expected to intentionally stifle their pet's real effectiveness. I've even had some tanks telling me right at the start of a dungeon to dismiss my pet or they would leave the party. They mostly backed down when I told them not to be so silly.
As you have found, you really can't rely on click targeting characters, whether friend or foe, in a melee encounter. You can click on the character portraits instead, or use the party select keys (F1, F2, F3 etc) to target party members, and your /assist key to target their target.
But it's best to set your tank as focus right at the start of the instance, by targeting him and typing /focus. Then use the macro Crimson gave above for your Misdirection button or key, or this similar one:
#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [@focus,nodead] [@pet,nodead] [@mouseover,help] Misdirection
Note that there is no need to include the word 'exists' in the condition strings – this is implicit, i.e. if you have no focus set, the first condition will be skipped.
The last condition I put in for emergencies, like when our main tank and my pet have both gone down near the end of a fight but there is still a chance that the remaining dps can finish it by kiting between them. It doesn't happen often, but it's a great feeling when you pull it off!
You could also put that condition first, which gives you a free choice of who to MD to during a fight, by just hovering over their portrait. Apart from fights involving tank switches, this is also a great way for me to conspire with the Dark side of our (RP) guild to kill off our guild second-in-command warlock. She's a pink fluffy gnome, and therefore a perfectly valid target for 'collateral damage'. 
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