Yes, the greatest…Or is it worst Huntard quotes I have personally seen. Things like this make me stop questioning why the poor hunter class is always picked on. Just when it seems like I will live it down, something like this happens. Sad part is…it’s not always low levels. Some of these were a whopping level 70+.
See if you can guess which of these comments are from a low level or not…
10. Why can’t I equip this shield? I thought Hunters could use shields.
9. I know I have a bow, How do I shoot it?
8. Turn off Growl? What’s that? I can’t growl.
7. What do you mean turn Aspect of the Viper off? I need mana…
6. Oh, the pet was on aggressive. Stupid thing.
5. Tank! Why didn’t you pull that off me?
4. Can I need that neck? I need the block for melee.
3. I’m sorry…I thought I could tame it.
2. What does this do… OMFG HOW DID I DIE?!
1. If I screw anything up, don’t blame me. I just bought this toon yesterday.
What about you? Do you have any fantastic, stupid or amusing quotes of hunters you’ve ran across?
It’s said that Hunters are the easiest class to play, and while this might be true, it’s also one of the hardest classes to really master. No matter the level, there isn’t ever a lack of some hunter with defense gear in Ulduar for example, or using shaman caster mail or even stacking strength because “Hunters can use it too”.
On the opposite side of the spectrum there are the hunters like the one I knew in a old alt guild, he was geared to the hilt, had all the right gems and stats, yet couldn’t break 2k DPS. One of the top geared people in the guild at the time but was the lowest damage wise. No one could figure it out, not until this one day in ToC10 when he made the obvious statement that clued everyone in…
“What’s Tranquilizing Shot?”
I swear, he had no idea what it was, in fact after seeing a screenshot of his UI I was stunned, he was using Scorpid Sting, Viper sting and the like. Spells we have, though that seemed to become obsolete after Classic WoW. Now while leveling I’d found a use for it, but not so much at 80 though. However, seems he had thrown it into his generic rotation.
I came to the conclusion especially after the patch, that hunters are severely misused. Players concerned more with topping the charts than paying attention to what they’re actually doing, or using what they have available to them. Everyone talks about shot rotations and shot priorities, while ignoring small things they could be doing to help themselves out. The hardest part about playing a hunter…is playing one well.
I don’t want to drone on and on about proper pet management, or running away from something that has you directly in its sights. Yet, there are a couple of things I do that do not take too much time out of my button smashing, and actually are severely noticeable on the recount window as well as my personal or raid survivability.
A few tips for effective huntering…
- Try casting Freezing arrow at a mob at the start of a fight, even if the CC isn’t needed, who cares if it ends up broken. If you’re survival, you just forced an instant Lock and Load proc and now can button mash like nothing.
- Don’t spam Explosive shot, it’s got a tick remember? Fullest maximization of this is to let it countdown. Using Power Auras set up with a timer for this is perfect, because you can keep a good eye on it.
- Not all pet spells should be on auto cast, set up macro to turn them off and click them yourself during procs to maximize DPS. Especially Call of the Wild, blowing this at the start of a fight can be a big difference in overall or burst.
- You don’t always have to be max range, try getting into the mix. Minimum range can be just as effective, with AoE traps and snakes you can make as much of a difference that way as by sitting back 40 yards on auto shoot.
- Use Feign Death if you’re in a long dragged out fight and are completely out of mana, you can drink for a couple seconds after breaking combat and get right back into it instead of using Viper which is a huge cut to DPS anyway. So is it really that big of a loss? Just watch out for AoE.
- Since the patch, threat is a serious issue. At least for me, unleashing on a mob usually ends up with me dead because I pulled aggro even after the tank had heap big threat on the baddie in front of me. Feign Death and Misdirection whenever it’s off cooldown makes a huge difference in how often you noob it up.
- Try tossing more than one Serpent Sting on a pack of mobs before you unleash a Volley of death from the sky.
- Something attacking your healer and the tank doesn’t see? Distracting shot and drop a Freezing Trap. Feign Death and go back to nuking. The healer will thank you for it.
- I like to stand near a healer, to keep an eye on them, drop a trap if needed. Pull the pet back to stun, Intervene etc. I even have Master’s Call set to a button on my mouse for hover.
More on huntards. I am a pvp fanatic, level all my toons through battlegrounds and have a habit of checking other player’s gear/talents while we are all waiting together right before the battlegrounds starts. Some things I’ve seen on hunters I wouldn’t believe it if someone told me untill I saw it myself. For example, I remember around lvl 51 I saw a decently blue/green geared hunter with NO talent points spent. When I whispered to him that he has no talent points, he replied that ‘yeah I know I am saving the talents for beast mastery’, well… and that was in WSG, where he would be a person supposed to watch my back…
Sadly, just the other day, while waiting for a Zep to Undercity from Org, I checked a lvl 80 hunter who was waiting next to me. She was well geared, epix heroic drops but had 28 unspent talent points! (and her other points were in beast mastery more or less randomly allocated it seemed). This would be fine if those hunters were aliance 🙂 but as it its now its just sad…
Noxious stings applies to serpent sting only if the wyvern sting is dispelled. And since there’s no CC anymore (at least in dungeons) as tanks just plow forward, any wyvern sting applied is just going to be broken anyway.
I would think that you could apply those points elsewhere to greater effect — say rapid killing, go for the throat, and hunting party — given how infrequently a scenario where noxious stings applies.
Again, I would assume that if you’re raiding heavily, noxious stings still would be worthwhile, but since my guild doesn’t raid, I’m not sure that’s true.
Actually that’s incorrect. The tooltip seems to mislead some into thinking that, but Noxious Stings is actually a 3% boost to damage while Serpent Sting is on your target.
Thanks Garwulf. Maybe I shouldn’t take tooltips literally 🙂 But I presume that you still have to drop Wyvern at some point to get the noxious stings benefit, no? I don’t have a problem doing it — it would be the same as using Freezing Arrow to get a free Lock and Load — except, of course, you’re burning a GC.
But assuming for a minute that a) I’m right that you have to use Wyvern to get NS’s benefits and b) it’s worth doing, where would you put it in your shot rotation. My thinking is Freezing Arrow/Explosive/Black Arrow/Explosive/Serpent/Explosive/Aimed/Wyvern/Explosive…
Last night, I switched NS out of my talent tree (1 point going to hunting party and 2 points to rapid killing) to see whether it’ll make a difference. I’ll keep everybody posted.
Okay I’ve reread the tooltip AGAIN and now see my mistake. Question withdrawn. I’ll move the points back tonight…
Given the fact that the dungeon finder system has turned PuGs into (usually silent and often grim) exercises in speed-killing, can anyone make a compelling argument in favor of continuing to waste 3 talent points on noxious stings (which is what the most popular survival spec builds always propose)? Wyvern sting itself is still important given the post-3.3 aggro issue, but I can’t see any circumstance other than raids (which my tiny guild can’t do) where noxious stings is worth the points.
What am I missing here?
Serpent Sting gets the added bonus of being able to have the DoT damage crit if you’ve got two pieces of Tier 9 gear. Tack the metagem, Noxious Stings (which also applies to Serpent Sting) and the fact that it’s in your rotation anyway (your shots do more damage on targets affected by this sting)… what else is better?
I (Marksman spec) usually open with Misdirection to the main tank, Serpent, then follow up with big hitting instants; Silencing Shot+Aimed Shot, Chimera Shot and sometimes Arcane in there too. It gives the tank a HUGE head start on threat. I usually don’t have agro issues after that and if I do, Misdireciton is likely up again or I can just Feign Death.
For AOEing, I use Misdiration to the main tank, Multishot and get right into Volley. That’s some more good threat on the main tank. If there is a caster out of range of the tank, I target it and slip Silencing Shot in before Multishot (I switch to Multishot if the caster isn’t close to others).
If you’re having threat issues, I’d consider opening with MD to the tank, Explosive Shot and Black Arrow. You don’t want to burn any MD time with anything else that would kick it off. Three blasts from one Explosive Shot should happen in the 4 second timer so that’d be a good boost. Nice idea about using Freezing Shot – anything stopping you from using it later on instead of to open?
I also use MD for saving healers. Can you tell I love MD?
Good stuff 🙂
Indeed, always open up with MD. Part of the issue I have run across since the patch though however…It doesn’t always work. It just suddenly decides to bork up on Me, and I end up pulling lots and lots of threat. When it does work though it’s a dream, though even then occasionally after that single MD right off the bat I still manage to pull aggro, sometimes several times. Even with MD and FD whenever they are off cooldown I’ve managed to pull aggro and end up staring at the “Release” button wondering how the heck it happened.
As to the Freezing shot question, indeed. On trash it’s fantastic to use even when it’s up and running for that extra proc if you want, on bosses it tends to fail or you get the “immune” message floating past and then it’s a bit of a waste. But other then that I tend to use it quite frequently, I just said at the beginning because well…Who doesn’t like 3 free shots at the start of a pull? It’s like free candy. No one is going to complain about it.
Using it in the middle of fights can tend to screw up a rotation if you’re not that sure about it, but if someone is confident they can throw it into the mix every so often for that added proc, whats to stop you?
I don’t blame you for MD, since the change it’s fabulous…when it works. :/
Thanks for the feedback!
you missed one!
i need spell power for my arcane shot and mend pet!
and i love the misdirect problems with some hunters ones that dont do it like Kassiopeia mentioned xD
though i will admit went most first get it they think they are tanks and MD themselves or worse the healer >.> bad times
Thanks for those tips, some of them are new for me, will try them out in the future. I’m always surprised how many hunters there are who don’t use their traps or misdirect. I learnt trapping the hard way during TBC heroics (Steamvaults anyone?)