Hunter CC: Dead and Buried, or just comatose?

Anariell, Blood Elf HunterI myself have several 80’s, my favorite though severely neglected Hunter being my salvation and joy when I need time off the toon I was harassed into playing when joining my new guild. Over the course of my time on WoW since shortly before the BC days, I’ve leveled and played a total of 6 hunters. Yeah, I really need a new hobby one of these days.

Most of them barely made it past their leather clad diaper days though I managed quite a few into their 60’s and beyond. In that time I’ve noticed there are the generic things that plague all hunters, or maybe just the ones who have to sit back and watch others fumble through their class to the frustration of everyone else.

My question to you today is, as a hunter and one of the heaviest CC classes out there, do you actually ever really use it other than when told? Or are you one of those string command, cast sequencing button mashers?

With a new patch there’s a lot of new content, a lot of changes and a lot of old things that still could afford to be brought up. Even if it’s only for the sake of listening to myself ramble on. I tried the new Halls of Reflection last week. And WOW, was I in for a huge surprise. I know my little hunter is under-geared at the moment, but I was completely unprepared for the horrors of that instance. Maybe it was just me and my group, but I swear that place has it out for me.

First on my priest with several different groups and enough wipes to make anyone cry, to the hunter that was continuously getting smashed by a ghost with 13k melee strikes. We could get to the 4th wave, without a issue. Then we’d start getting overwhelmed. We ended up needing me, the ret pally and the healing priest to CC mobs constantly to get anywhere.

It made me think, has Blizzard finally made CC viable again? I mean honestly, since BC when do you really NEED to CC other than what? Faction Champs? And even then as long as you have a couple interrupts and purges…Not really. It’s gone entirely way of the dodo…Extinct. Hell the paladin didn’t even know he could stun undead. Is it just me or is that a little off? Considering the hunter class as a whole has more CC then a Mage on crack, Survival especially.

Sitting on the priest dropping frost traps? Oh you bet’cha. I was doing it all. Even went BM so the spirit beast could stun on occasion. We couldn’t do it without the CC. Granted, I was thrilled to see the change but after nearly a whole expansion of seeing. “CC? We dun need no stinkin’ CC” it’s almost like I had forgotten what I was supposed to be doing as a hunter.

With the new gear systems and the like, most don’t even bother with CC, they just roll their faces across a keyboard in a semi strategic manner and hope it dies. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me and the days of doing 3 million things at once as a hunter I miss. I love the fact we are DPS beasts, but I always thought there was more to the class then standing there shooting and waiting for it to die.

That Heroic HoR last week being an ideal example. Not only was it scary, irritating and downright heart attack level trying to figure out a strategy that worked….it was fun. Some of the most fun I’ve had on my hunter in ages. It was almost PvP-like in its intensity and the need to drop everything I had constantly, traps, pet stun, disengage and feign death, trap again, Misdirect to the tank and put an Intimidation on the melee thug whacking away at the priest. Right down to concussive shot and wing clip. Yeah, I used it. When is the last time you can say you Wing Clipped a mob in an instance for that extra half a second of breath.

My question to you today is, as a hunter, one of the heaviest CC classes out there do you actually ever really use it other than when ask? Or are you one of those string command, cast sequencing button mashers?

6 thoughts on “Hunter CC: Dead and Buried, or just comatose?”

  1. In my guild i am one of the core 5 man group, so on patch night we went for it, full blast and balls to the wall. We aquired the quest and started the new content on heroic even. We ran through the first 2 instances with little to no problems, and like most we were floored in HOR. Not once or twice but 4 whipes back to back, granted it was 4am at this point, but stil we just got creamed. The next day i threw out my BM spec and brought back the trusted SV, even though i can never pull the same DPS from it as i get from MM, i know the CC is there. The next couple of days went by and i tried to wait for the fab 5 to get back together and own that hell hole, but alas another invite came and off i went. This time the tank knew the LOS trick with the 2 side areas, so behind the wall we hid and cake it was……Sad i was not to be able to shine in use with my old CC tricks being appreciated again, but a winn is a win. We often look back to the days of “vanilla wow” and among the lost skills is CC unfortunatly, but this new patch has shown us that wow has thought of this as well and i believe that our skills will once again be required..And if looking at the new t10 set bonusus doesn’t let u know that our role in the end game content is going to be one of the utmost importance, then i don’t know what kind of slap you need. Our new set bonuses are so OP, that when the new expansion comes out you’d be fail not to include a hunter in your group :)…..That being said,”brush the dust from your CC skills, bring them back to your action bars, because this hunter believes that the days of AOE burns are about to pass..And the days of CC skill ahall be reborn,,,,,,and if not it’ll still be fun to show off while you warm up.

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  2. I try to use CC when I can, and yes, HoR is that *one instance* where you really need to learn to use it, but I haven’t found any pugs that can do it well. Blizzard has spent an entire expansion breaking the habit of CC that people just don’t know how to do it anymore. I know how to use it only because in The Burning Crusade, priests used Shackle macros in Karazhan or they didn’t go raiding.

    As a hunter nowadays, I feel like the old lady on the porch waving her rocker at the kids on the lawn. “In my day, you CC’d or you died, there was no AOE tanking! Well, except maybe paladins but they were OP! OP I say!” I pew pew like a hunter should, but I know how to use most of my buttons (even the least used ones are off to the side of my hotbars, waiting to be clicked some day!) and Freezing Trap will always be next to Disengage.

    I will always remember my good hunter buddy, Stoutbear the dorf Survival hunter of Burning Crusade, and his amazing ability to trap not one, not two, but THREE mobs at once, with careful use of cooldowns, timing, and pure skill of his class. Stoutbear, if you’re out there, I just want to let you know that I never would have become the hunter that I am now if not for you. Thanks.

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  3. I have most definitely, had to get my CCing skills back up to scratch.
    It all started on day one of the new patch, everything went smooth as milkshake till with the horror that was the halls of reflection. The first time we did it we died. Horribly. Then I opened up my mouth and said “hey I could freezing arrow that hunter.. hes kill shots and ice blocks you if you don’t get a handle on him” and then the beginning of every CC know to azerothians coming flying out of the wood work… you really had to be on your game or its wipe fest.

    Then we went into the ICC for the first time…. and my gods there wasn’t just one or 2 trash mobs laying around, there was ARMIES of them. So again I’m there beside the RL coming up with all the tacs we can use to tie up as many of the mobs as possible while nuking down the rest. We even started using the count down macro, used normally for final bids with DKP, to time multiple freezing arrows to hit their targets at the same time.

    do you know what…. I LOVE it. It felt like coming out of a long sleep to begin with, you know that feeling your up but the lights aren’t on, followed by the joy of actually doing something useful other then just shoot the red dot. I for one am glad its back in play.. no more easy ride for them epics.. learn to face the trash or die.

    Good hunting fellow followers of the greater class we are back to full strength!

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  4. I also use CC a fair bit, often as precautionary measures, such as shooting a Freezing Arrow at a caster mob the tank hasn’t yet pulled in, or dropped one on top of the healer. Intimidation is also nice now that it’s instant-cast to interrupt spellcasts.

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  5. I try to use traps all the time, because I like it and trapping is what makes hunter “shine” in hard situations. Problem is… after WOTLK 90% of trash/encounters need AoE, breaking any trap trick. The new heroics added some trapping but yet again… using the LfG tool I always find overgeared people, with tanks that just go in the middle and aoe-aggro everything.

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