What would you ask a Gladiator BM hunter?-Hunter PvP Discussion-Hunter Forums-HuntsmansLodge.com

Thought I’d drop in and give you something to work with.

I play BM as well, unknown to many, and I was more well known for my Survivalfulness and MM because I made movies with those specs. Simple fact of the matter is MM is a more competitive spec for PvP, and when you want to be competitive as a HUNTER, you have to min/max to the extreme. You already lose out so much just by being a hunter.

But, then again, you are a hunter, and as such, useless. Might as well do what you enjoy. You can’t get worse.

But, it is a competitive PvPers job to know the ins and outs of every spec, so here are some answers to your questions regarding BM.

 

Zabamat asked:

My question for him would have to be this: as BM i know that we still have scatter->trap for cc, but where do we use intimidation in a competitive setting. My personal experience (which isn’t TOO extensive for this spec) has been that while it can work as an interrupt it is slightly unpredictable seeing as the pet might not attack in time to stop the cast, especially if he isn’t in melee range. Would we want to just put intimidation on our kill target during the trap on his partner to make it easier to pressure him?

Thanks,

1. Intimidate has many uses outside of an interrupt, you mainly wouldn’t want to use it that way because as you said it is not reliable.

Instead of using scatter-> trap, you can use intimidate -> trap. Enemy is less likely to try and stack on the healer to stop the trap, as they are hard-wired to wait for scatter to stop it. Additionally, it is easier to trap, as the target stays still, and even if it doesn’t go off at the second you want it to, you can just wait a second to shoot the trap.

Then, you have scatter shot usable as an interrupt instead of intimidate, which is instant, ranged, and reliable.

Also, you could use intimidate as just part of a longer CC chain. With a monkey pet, you could do a impressive link. Intimidate (3 sec) + Trap ( + Scatter (4) + Bad Manner (4). A total of 19 seconds, which is completely free of DR.

If you want to be really tricky, you could pre-set a trap where the healer might walk into it, or on someone the enemy priest might move towards to fear. Then, after the chain, you have another trap available which will last 6 seconds, bringing the total up to 25. This however, requires the enemy to be pretty stupid and would not work at higher ratings.

You probably wouldn’t want to do this intentionally, but don’t fret! Many times your trap will miss for one reason or another. Make it work in your favor in the end. Your trap will be there for a full minute, try to get them to hit it when your CD is off. This game mechanic is where hunter CC is at the most powerful. I have won many arena games by opponents accidentally stepping on a trap from 40 seconds ago that missed.

You probably WOULDN’T want to do it on the kill target. Whatever you are playing with probably has a stun, and it would just DR.

 

Bozanimal asked:

What an excellent opportunity, Garwulf. I know I haven’t responded in awhile, but I have been reading, and this really piques my interest.

I’d want to ask – as a BM Hunter – for:

1 – His/her thoughts regarding the benefits of the increased damage gained by our pets in the MM tree to the additional utility provided by going into traps of the Survival tree (better traps, disengage, another root, etc.).

2 – How does his/her build and strategy change between Arena and BGs, if at all.

3 – What he/she does when confronted 1v1 with each class, which does happen on occasion.

Good luck and happy gaming!

Boz

1. More of a Sic’Em vs Entrapment question. GftT isn’t very useful for BM hunters, as their pets already have higher focus regen. Last I checked, Sic’Em was currently bugged as it does not properly work with the pet talent “Wild Hunt”, don’t expect Blizzard to jump on fixing that anytime toon.

So, that makes SV better by default. I would prolly go with 3 in MM and 7 in SV. You don’t need less disengage CD, you get talents for that in BM. Efficiency is better, since you literally spam arcane shots.

2. The biggest change is the pet, not the spec. In bgs, you would want a spirit beast so you can heal yourself, because you know no one else will. You wouldn’t want to use it in arenas because you need more control, other than that you can change based upon what you are fighting, as discussed next.

3. Bm is actually one of the better 1v1ers. The best thing you can do, is as before, change your pet. Ideally, your pet choice should reflect what class you are fighting.

For example:

Spider web isn’t useful versus a frost mage.

Having a CC is better than a root versus most melee, as you can break stunlocks with them, while roots won’t affect anything.

A pet with a stun or CC can be helpful versus a caster, as you can interrupt while CC’d

A disarm pet would be ideal versus another hunter.

 

Bheema asked:

Oh were do I start , as a BM hunter i find that I have a vast toolbox compared to a blood dk. For PvP intimidate, masters call , Roar of sac , tranq, widow venom, deterr, disengage, 4 traps , plus our dps abilies plus our pet CC like web/disarm/ silence.

How does he manage all of this

I have a dk that I play as blood in pvp occasionally as well, and yes you do. Blood dks can win by spamming death strike, while as a hunter you need a neural uplink helmet to mentally control your keystrokes because your keyboard does not have the room.

Bm hunters have an even smaller toolbox compared to MM hunters. This is both good and bad, as the skill floor is lowered compared to MM, so it is easier for beginners, but the skill CAP is lowered as well. You just cannot do as much.

This is just something all hunters have to deal with, and most of us have years of experience with it.

This video shows how I use some macros to consolidate keybinds somewhat, see if it helps:

 

Darrwyn asked:

There’s a couple of things I’d like to know…

Hunter’s Mark… when does he apply it?
Serpent Sting… does he bother in PvP?
What pet does he use in bgs… and why?

Cheers,
D

1. Hunters mark should ALWAYS be applied. Sometimes the enemy will be especially difficult and spam dispel it. But two can play at that game: Spam apply it as well. If the healer persists, he is doing zero healing and draining his mana, while hunter’s mark costs you nothing. Additionally, during this time your pet is continuing to munch faces off. They will have to stop eventually.

Eventually your team might need your help and you may have to relent and start dpsing/ccing. Try to apply it later when they are more busy, or another class has some masking and it might stick.

Make sure to spam this versus a rogue who CloS’d. It will still go up, and you can usually get it on them as they stealth, ruining their entire game.

Versus night elves and feral druids it is very good as they cannot remove it and it completely nullifies their stealthing.

2. You generally don’t use serpent sting in PvP. It isn’t worth the focus cost, and generally just breaks CC. You only use it as SV for the 10% damage bonus when it is applied and the +crit damage bonus on it, as well as the mastery, but it has zero protection and gets dispelled instantly. A paladin can dispel serpent sting AND black arrow with one global. This is why SV sucks in PvP, your damage is default cut in half with no dispel protection. The only time you might want to use it is versus a rogue when he clos's. It isn't magical so it is applied, then it will break his stealth. BUT YOU HAVE TO BE VERY CAREFUL. This also makes them immune to cc. As BM, you use cobra shot and that extends serpent sting, so you are also potentially crippling your focus, as you will have to let it wear off.

 

Substance20 asked:

Only a couple things for now, really (until I can think of more things):

1) Given the changes made to pets for Cataclysm, what are his most usual pet choices for Arena and BG, and why?

2) What does he think about the current under-representation of Hunters in high-stakes PvP? What does he think are the causes? (this one has been asked and answered by several different 2200+ Hunters before like Bandet, but I’d really like one more opinion to add to the pot).

3) If he could improve Beast Mastery, what would he do with the spec?

2 & 3. Most of this is discussed in my ginormous “The Hunter Thread” on the official foums.

The current reincarnation is here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/fo…..2721383344

People keep remaking it four months after it was posted.

TL;DR:

Focus is broken in PvP, too slow regen because too many things hinder it, while no one else’s resource is affected, clunky mechanics, too many keybinds.

BM needs to be improved by better weapon scaling with pets/kill command and kill command needs to be redesigned to be more reliable. Exotic pets need to be better.

 

Kazador asked:

I’m excited to see what this Gladiator has to say, especially about how to best improve BM in PVP, since that’s the current discussion with Blizzard.

I’d also like to hear about many of the suggestions here. When to use hunter’s mark or not bother, when to use tranq shot, when to use serpent sting, when to use aspect of the fox.

I’d like a discussion of 2v2 Arena talent builds versus RBG builds. It seems the MM talents are good in 2v2, when you’ll be using freeze trap instead of Entrapment. What about 3s? 5s?

I know this particular Gladiator has posted a lot of very interesting PVP macros, and I’d love to see a discussion of macros and keybinds. I see in his videos that he’s very good with his Freeze Traps, and would love to hear about how to do that better.

Some informational videos on BM PVP would be an especially great format, if possible.

Can’t wait!

Kazador

1. As discussed before, the change in builds between pvp environments is mostly a pet change. In a 2v2 setting, your pet would be very influenced by what your partner is as well. You could gain a heal in a comp which has no heals, or more cc. Also, hot-swapping pets mid-fight is useful if you do it right. CC someone and dismiss pet, and re-summon. Fresh new abilities of cooldowns. Just be careful they don’t one shot it.

 

Ozolin asked:

I’d be interested to know the gladiator’s strats and suggestions for fighting against specific classes.

This is an extremely in-depth and long answer, so I will shorten what I can and only discuss 1v1.  Won’t talk about healers, thats just silly, you should be able to kill em eventually as BM, but its like beating your head against a wall.

1. Mages:

You generally will fight frost 90% of the time, any other spec is very squishy and easy to burst. First, use a cunning pet (You NEED roar of sacrifice to stop shatter crits). I suggest the monkey due to the CC potential. You WILL be CC’d at some point versus a mage, and interrupting a frostbolt+icelance combo while you are cc’d can save half of your health bar. Bind Bullheaded pet talent, so if they try to cc your pet (A common tactic) you can break it. You have two cc breaks as BM, that and BW. They will try to cc your pet when they want to burst you so you can’t roar of sac. Don’t let this happen. Manually move your pet away using goto if they try to ring of frost you and your pet. Roar of Sacrifice will also break a pets cc similarly to the paladin skill.

Don’t try to freedom preemptively unless you REALLY know what you are doing. They will steal it and then root you, wasting your CD. Use roar of sacrifice when you freedom to mask it, the 30 focus is a joke anyways.

You want to use roar of sacrifice on the first deep freeze, and monkey blind on second. Stand on top of freezing traps as they will blink to you. 

Go full on offensive. It won’t take too much to make them try to run and evocate. They usually attempt to snare you with mirrors when they do this. Luckily as BM, you are not as affected by this as much. If your trap CD is up when this happens, shoot it at the water elemental, will stop him from being able to root you temporarily. Don’t ever try to run away and eat/bandage. Always go on offensive.

If you can deflect a deep freeze with deterrence, you pretty much won. Be warned however, when two abilities such as this happen close to eachother, both can go off due to latency. You will be stunned and deterrenced at the same time. When this happens, deterrence has no affect versus spells, and they can cast all they want. I like to use it when I am out of stuff and they are next to me and I am rooted, and they are about to pwnzor me with a shatter combo. Use it at the end of frostbolt cast, basically an additional second on the duration (As they aren’t hurting you while casting)

2. Death Knight

This one is hard. An unholy death knight can potentially kill you without even meleeing you.

The proper way to kill a death knight is NEVER let them melee so, so they cannot heal. This is bad for bm, as you can’t let your pet melee it. Use a spirit beast for the heal and keep it next to you. Max range them so they can’t grip, and wittle their health away. Put your pet on the ghoul if it is attacking you, that way you can get bonus focus/frenzy/kill it.

This is a lot easier versus a blood dk as their mobility is shit, and they have no ranged damage. Make sure to dispel vengeance regularly.

Save scatter for grips, so they can’t death strike.

CC them using scatter/intim/trap when they lichborne so they cannot heal with death coil.

Tranq shot unholy frenzy. There is no protection or masking.

Frost is pretty much the same, except they can root you after gripping and their melee damage is stronger at the sacrifice of range. You will have to use a trap after they grip to get away. If they pop AMS before gripping, you might just have to stand there and take a hit or two before you scatter then trap. (You can scatter at like ~3 seconds left, then put the trap down when there is like 1.5 seconds left, and they will get hit) You can’t deterrence howling blast’s snare which is annoying, They will usually use CoI after the grip, if they do it as you run it will DR. Deterrence if you need to wait out a AMS. Trinket hungering cold, there will be nothing else to trinket.

3. Feral

This one you prolly won’t win against. Try to break their opener by being on a trap. You should prolly see them before they see you if you stand still in camo with track hidden. Keep spinning. They are hard because of the insane bleed damage and mobility. You simply cannot kite a feral (ONE DOES NOT WALK INTO MORDOR!!). Scare beast will never work versus any good feral. You have to get max range on them so they cant charge. Spam all the snares you have to slow them from getting to you. It won’t be enough, you don’t have as many snares as BM, but you should have the glyph of conc shot which completely negates sprint/travel forms. Always keep hunters mark on them. When you know they are going to charge and you cannot stop it do one of two things:

1. Stand slightly INFRONT of a freezing trap, the feral charge will land them right in it. Feral druids hitboxes are laggy, and sometimes this fails. Very annoying.

2. Disengage as they charge.

You need to burst them down very fast as they do insane damage. They get one bleed on you and you will be 50% hp. Because of this I suggest spirit beast. Try to tranq shot off enrage if you have the chance, its 20% damage.

You can also use a sillithid, and pair it with entrapments as a strategy. They can remove several roots, but they can’t keep doing it. Eventually, you will have more roots than they can handle, and then the fight is a lot easier. If you are trying this you probably don’t want to use frost trap as you need freezing. Don’t try to kite them close either, as they have the interrupt mid-range charge.

They only go bear for one reason, to charge. Deterrencing it is generally a good idea. Disengaging it doesn’t work very well due to the root.

4. Boomkin

They like to sneak up on you and typhoon you from stealth. You should see them before they see you, but they will know where you are and have range. They are pretty squishy, but they HURT like hella and need to be bursted down, and fast. Save scatter/intim/trap for starfall to interrupt it. After that, just burst as hard as you can. They generally don’t have much opportunity to melee range you. Use a spirit beast to help counter obscene dot damage, or a shale spider/monkey to help stop starfall damage. Use deterrence early, as it won’t help later when you are full dotted. If you can keep them from instadotting you for 5 seconds at the start as your pet attacks, you are in the lead. Make them have to work to get moonfire and insect swarm off. Get a good lead and you will win, if you don’t you will lose. Either way it will be fast.

5. Hunter

First, see if they have a weapon chain. Inspect them or look at the enchant. It will either be green or white. Use a bird to disarm if they don’t, use a spirit beast if they do. Stand on traps to stop their pet. CC them and fear their pet. It helps, a lot. They don’t get the abilities and roar of sacrifice. If they are BM, deterrence during BW, and fear their pet afterwards. They only get the one, and if you get the pet cc’d you will win. They will probably try to do the same thing. This is one situation where the spirit beast makes you sad, you don’t have the pet trinket or roar of sacrifice but having a heal in a duel of people who don’t have heals is powerful.

It really comes down to how well you use your abilities, and who gets luckier with crits. Make sure they aren’t deterrenced when you use focus. Deterrence at the right time to stop a chimera/aimed is game winning. CC’s at the right time to fear pets. You need to go HARD on damage because they will do the same thing. Never try to move, its just a damage loss, they don’t have much of a reason to move either so its okay.

If it is survival, you will prolly win by default. Make sure to type /laugh as you duel them.

6. Ret Paladin

Always stay at max range. Dispel anything and everything, and keep doing it. You need everything gone when wings comes up. They will instantly dispel your snares, but keep doing it.

Stand on traps if HoJ is off. They have no trap protection as they walk up to you, and they won’t get to you without a repentence or a stun. You get cc’d, they walk into trap. Their CD is wasted. You can generally do this for every hoj, but they will occasionally eat it with a rep and have hoj off cd. If they wings and hoj, TRINKET and do any cc you have and spam dispel.

I use a monkey. Monkey blind when they hoj you = winning. You COULD use shale spider, but monkey blind lasts a second longer. Potentially a second of wings while you are stunned, potentially 40k damage. Also, the benefit of it not breaking on damage is moot as you can’t damage while stunned.

The duel will generally last a long time. They have a lot of heals, and resets. Stay at max range so they don’t get holy power and can’t free heal. If you were MM or SV you wouldn’t hit them with the pet so they couldn’t get holy power as the run, but you need the damage to outdo their healing.

You will probably get multiple options to CC them and bandage. Don’t do this too often, as they will outlast you. You need to go offensive as you can while staying maxrange to outdamage their healing. They will heal up to full many times with bubbles and loh.

Feign when the guardian attacks you. It is very dumb, and it will swap to your pet.

As BM, you get the overpowered option to swap to a spirit beast, cast the heal, and swap back to the monkey. You can just use spirit beast the entire time if you are really good at maxrange, but the monkey can stop the burst dead in its tracks. Their burst is scary.

7. Spriest

You need to stay at max range with these guys. Use a spirit beast and let it eat their face off as you burst them, or a shale spider for another interrupt. You can put a freezing that they will walk into as they try to fear you, but generally the rule is to just don’t let them get close enough to fear you. Trinket the disarm/stun because you won’t need it on the fear, BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T LET THEM GET CLOSE, RIGHT? Use all your interrupts early to stop vamp touch so they can’t proceed with their rotation. Use deterrence early to stop the dot applications, as it will be useless later. Bonus points if you deterrence the stun, but its more important to stop the dot applications.

Stay at max range and keep healing yourself you will usually win. Don’t bother overmuch with dispels, their shield is not overly effective and you need the damage to win. Your fight is on a timer versus dot classes, you have X time before you inevitably die. The goal is to make their X time shorter. 

8. Rogue

Rogues are very easy to predict when you have as much practice as I do. I have beaten some of the best rogues in the world in 1v1 as a hunter, the fight is generally in our favor. MM is a lot better versus rogues because of readiness. They have a lot of cooldowns to burn through before they die, and you will need every one of yours.

Start in camo with track hidden, 70% of the time I can scatter them out before they cheapshot me.

Don’t stand on a trap, they will just disarm it. You can trap if you break their opener with scatter.

The goal is to get from the opener (Usually they WILL get on you) to maxrange. Once you are there, it is a walk in the park. If you don’t get max range, you take too long, or use too many coodowns you will die.

I use a monkey because it lets me blind them when they cheap shot, so they can’t kidney. You can also accomplish the same thing with a shale spider. You might also get to use it when they blind you (Make sure to do it so their blind wears off before yours). This stops them from restealthing and opening on you again. This also helps as you can normally only trinket one blind, while they have two. You almost always want to save trinket for blind, unless you can prevent the effect with another method, such as a pet cc.

If they get the opener, stop the stunlock. Do it late enough in CS, and you can trap after. Freedom, and bolt. They will probably trinket trap. If they do, scatter and disengage. You need range, and fast.

Save roar of sac for if you get stunned with shadow dance up, your health will drop faster than panties on prom night.

They might try to CC your pet to stop you from stopping them from getting their opener. This generally is futile as you can just trinket with bullheaded. They don’t have enough abilities for it to work well. They could also try to CC you and kill your pet. Make sure you have cower bound, but they generally don’t do this. If they try, you need to keep it alive, dismiss your pet, or CC them. This is also why it is a good idea to have a monkey. If they try to kill it, it can cc them while you are CCd. They might also use this tactic just to get you to blow a trinket so they can blind you. Don’t fall for it, they generally can’t kill your pet unless you are blinded, no cc is long enough. If they DO use blind, you are safe to trinket it.

You only got one deterrence, you should use it when they vanish right on top of you. Get it off fast because within a second cheap shot is coming. They will miss the cheapshot and you will laugh.

They can’t really use combat readiness since its tied with clos. They use that a lot to stop the traps and remove marks. If they do use it, don’t hit them. Just run away. Conc shot will -NOT- reset the timer, so spam away.

VERY IMPORTANT: They will evasion as they are on top of you, DO NOT TRY TO SCATTER SHOT. It is a 25% chance to miss, and then you will have wasted one of your most important cooldowns. Don’t risk it unless you have NOTHING else to throw at them. In this situation it is normally better to disengage or just drop a freezing trap at your feet. Maybe try to freedom and disengage then trap the ShS. Outlast the evasion.

If they smoke bomb, shoot a flare in it. You can usually toss a trap into it and they will get frozen. At 2 seconds left on the trap, shoot a snake trap under them. They will get rooted as it wears off for 4 seconds. This is when you want to bring the hammer down. Send pet in, pop BW, intimidate after the root, and their health will go down a lot, they are quite squishy. Make sure to stop dpsing at the right time, you don’t want them to gain the hard earned range you got.

Spam hunters mark on them if they clos while running away, they are generally going to try to stealth. You can break it and they rage. Additionally, the same way you can get deep froze while deterrenced versus a mage works on a rogue. You can actually hunters mark them AS they vanish due to latency, and they will get marked. Don’t waste overmuch time trying to do this, generally when they run away try to deal as much damage as you can.

Don’t try to be over defensive. They can heal a lot more than you, and you don’t want the fight to last long enough for their cooldowns to return. If they get away, try to re-camo and eat. Then the fight is started over and you can prolly break them out of stealth again.

If you don’t have deter up, flare them as they vanish while running towards you. It takes practice, but get good at it and it makes them really mad. Ruining a rogues openers is why hunters kill them.

If ShS is off CD, stand infront of a trap like versus a feral druid. They will shs and hit the trap. It is extremely funny. If trap is off CD, disengage it. It is a lot easier to do it with a rogue than a warrior charge, as you see the buff they get a split second beforehand, and it does not stun or snare you.

Once their ShS’s are off and they have no more vanish, if you have range you will win. Sprint does not work if you have glyph of concussive shot. They will run at 50% speed.

Once you have the range, you can keep disengaging/trapping/scattering the ShS, and they will never get to you.

They might use “throw” and get crippling on you with their throwing, this is annoying. If this happens late in the duel your freedom should be up and you can re-use it, alternatively keep using the same methods to prevent ShS until one of your ccs or freedom comes up. Scatter trap works well, but it is a good idea to save that in the late duel in case you mess up. One slip and you are dead, scatter trap saves the day if it happens. If you don’t have scatter trap, you will lose.

If you get distance and have no dots and they are stealthed, you generally can’t camo due to your pet being in combat. If you have the time, dismiss pet then feign, re summon + camo. This can stop their second opener in its tracks. Don’t be too risky doing this, if you dismiss your pet and they get you before you camo without a pet, you have no way to stop the stunlock or roar of sacrifice.

You can also have more than one monkey, swapping to another gives fresh cooldowns. This works with every pet. Abuse it all you can.

Another fun trick you can do versus a rogue is the feign mistarget. Basically, at the same time as they use an ability (A good example is cheap shot, I.E. You know they are there, maybe they just vanished right on top of you) you feign. The rogue’s game autotargets the pet instead of you, and the pet eats the stun, and the rogue ragequits. This is hard to predict, but what else are you going to use feign for versus a rogue?

9. Ele Shaman

Basically, they will stand there and not move, nor will you, like a hunter duel. It will be a shoot out, and last one standing wins. They have a lot of healing, but as bm so do you. You also have good burst potential and an interrupt. Use a spirit beast, or a shale spider.

They can purge your heal though, so if you know they will, use a pet that stuns.

Interrupt every lava burst you can, and deterrence any you can’t. Do NOT stay in deterrence, once you do they start healing. Cancel it off and attack more. You don’t really want to waste interrupts on heals unless they are very low hp. If they do an elemental totem, feign and it will hit the pet. Generally try to do it at the same time as a cast, so you stop damage too. 

If they hex, trinket.

Keep pressure up, if you can keep them healing you will win.

10. Enhancement shaman

This is just dumb. Enhancement shamans keep you snared from range the entire fight, and are immune to most snares. They also have windwalk(or something, with wolves) which will negate conc shot, but conc shot negates ghost wolf. They can however, remove the snares with earthbind totem. They can purge your freedom. Only use it to remove a root. They can also pop ancestral whatever and heal themselves as they run towards you.

If they know what they are doing, you will usually lose.

Trinket hex.

Try to deterrence when they wolves, maybe you’ll get a stun but at any rate you will stop the damage.

Spirit beast will be useful as you need heals.

Glyph of conc shot makes them go 50% when in ghost wolf, spam it as much as you can.

Try to stay alive until wolves are gone. Use all your cc to keep them away from you as best you can, feigning can make them go on pet temporarily but they will put them back.

Once wolves are gone, then you burst. If they wait overlong to pop wolves go ahead and try bursting.

My favorite cheap trick (Hey, enh vs hunter is very imbalanced, don’t give me that look!) is to not have a pet right at the start and once they pop wolves feign + invisibility belt. Then run away and camo, and just wait for them to go away. You have to stay far away though, so the totem doesn’t dot you. Additionally, sometimes this fails, yay engineering. Watch out for it. Once it is over, or fails, don’t forget to summon pet. Play to win, not to be nice.

11. Affliction Warlock

You won’t ever see destro, if you do it is a free kill.

Affliction is harder as BM, as you have less interrupts.

Basically, you have to use every interrupt to stop fear. Never let them get close enough to aoe just like a spriest, and they usually won’t try because they know it is futile. If it is a duel, they might try to start next to you like a lamer and get a free aoe fear. If they do that, have a freezing trap for them and give em a taste of their own medicine. If they can’t fear, they generally cant get full dots, and they generally won’t teleport away without full dots. Their dot damage is a lot slower than other dotters in cata, so you have more time until you die.

I would suggest a pet with a stun, or CC. The shale spider works, or a monkey. If you do it right, they shouldn’t be able to fear you outside of a death coil. With one of these pets, if they death coil you, you will be able to interrupt the fear. If you time it right, you could deterrence a death coil and that is GG. The best way to try to get this to happen is by CCing them, and then using it right as you break them from the CC. A lot of times they will be spamming it as they are CCd. This works better as MM, because you get to use the big aimed shot + chimera shot combo and they are all like OSHIT. Some of my level 70 moves show me doing this, but using a SHADOW REFLECTOR. It is hilarious, even did it to the highest rated warlock on my server.

Freezing traps are generally useless on the pet, soul link will break it. You could try to trap launcher one on top of them to interrupt a cast, but don’t try to keep them ccd in any length of time. While they are CC’d they aren’t taking damage, and you still are from dots. 

They will probably fear you eventually, trinket it and keep dpsing. Pay attention to them, they might try to anticipate the instatrinket and begin to cast a secondary fear right after they fear, to fear you for 6 seconds once you trinket. If they do, just hold off and trinket the second. Don’t ever trinket death coil. They will probably get a chance to fear you again without you being able to stop it, but if you did it right you will have a large enough lead that you will win. As BM you have the added benefit of your pet attacking while you are feared. Keep pressure up and you will win.

12. Demo Warlock

Zomg, it is like your evil twin!

Try to use snake traps to stop their pet as it chases you, this will root the pet, and the snakes shoot poison at the warlock, slowing his cast. This slows their damage a bunch. Demonic empowerment makes them immune to this stuff like BW, but it is an enrage. You can tranq it if you want. Lasts 15 seconds.

Do the same thing as versus an affliction warlock, don’t let them fear you. Use freedom on Hand of Gul’dan, deterrence doesn’t stop the root so don’t try. Spirit Beast or Shale spider for pet. Demo warlocks are much more tanky than an Aff lock, but interrupting casts is not as crucial as their dots don’t hurt nearly as bad. If you have a cunning pet, use roar of sac when the pet is felstorming you.

Their damage is very good, so you need to kill them fast. Put a freezing trap on their teleport if you know where it is, and when they use it they will get stuck. 

13. Prot Warrior

These little buggers can be very annoying. They just won’t die. They keep getting back up! To top it off, they didn’t get their other charge removed like warriors did, and they have so many stuns.

You really have to get max range and keep it. Your attack range is longer than their charge range,but this is hard due to how many stuns and charges they have. Their damage isn’t nearly as bursty as some others, but they don’t die. Maxranging is easier as a BM hunter, as your pet gets to keep attacking while you dance around. As a BM hunter it is much easier to beat them as your healing works well versus their damage, as it is more continuous over a long period of time.

Don’t try to max range too much. Doing that is playing defensive, and you NEED a good amount of damage to beat their self healing. It is okay if they hit you sometimes, it is inevitable and the world won’t end.

Make sure to regularly tranq the vengeance stacks. Their damage stays manageable by doing that. You might have to do it several times because they have some other enrages to cover it. It is pointless to try to keep those off, as they are applied like every time he takes damage.

The #1 all time way to stop a warrior is to stop the charge. There is A TON of ways to stop it, but the easiest and best way is using freezing trap. They can counter this by using spell reflect before they charge. Pet growl no longer eats it, but be warned all your pet abilities are considered magical and it WILL reflect those. MOST warriors are either too stupid to do this or they don’t know it works versus a trap. Hunters are qwerky, you can’t really blame them, but you shouldn’t have trouble killing a bad warrior anyways. When they spell reflect a trap it doesn’t actually put the effect on you, it just nullifies it. You can juke them by dropping an immolation trap. All they see is the kneel at that range, not the trap, so they spell reflect before charge… and it doesn’t eat your cooldown. Then you are free to trap them, it has a 20 second CD. This can backfire. If they don’t reflect it, you potentially have a dot on them that does damage a level 70 wouldn’t be concerned with, and are immune to CC.

Another way to get around it is to simply move off the trap, so when they charge they won’t hit it. After a few seconds, walk over to it, or if you are far enough disengage to the trap and they will charge you and get frozen.

Additionally, you can use a scatter shot once he pops spell reflect, then it will wear off before he can charge.

You can also pre-trap. This is mostly done before a fight starts. The trap exists for 1 minute, and the cooldown is shorter.. so there is a period of time in which the trap will be there and be off CD. They don’t expect a trap so they don’t spell reflect, then you walk away and put another trap. They just got trapped so they don’t think to spell reflect, and they hit it again. Now you have a huge lead, and they will probably be forced to heroic leap, which is a longer CD. You use an ability to get away, and you have several seconds to attack and decide what to do before the next round of charges.

You can also put a snake trap down if you have nothing else, and then jump the charge (jump as they charge, so you fall and land a few feet from where they ended up). This gets them rooted just outside melee range of you while you are stunned, and you get a chance to escape. I generally use snake trap following up a charge, as it gives them a 4 second root that I can beat on them during. You have to be careful, as the dots can break your cc. Use it wisely.

You could also use a pet ability as they charge, or a scatter shot. Not only does it stop them, as an added bonus they will be stuck at the position in which they STARTED the charge. Scatter shot is not that easy to do, as you can’t actually use it after they charge, so you could “miss”. You can also use a pet CC while you are stunned and that works well.

You can also disengage the charge. Basically a glorified charge jump that gets you some more distance. This is harder to do as you have to do it at JUST the right time or else its wasted. You can’t actually do it as they charge like you could do versus a rogue or feral, as they don’t stun you. You have to actually predict it correctly. This is a good thing to do as the cooldown on disengage is short enough that you can do it almost every charge. However, it is harder to do as it has to be done before hand. I use an interrupt-bar type addon which tells me their cooldown timers, so I can see the time left on charge. Once it is off, I let myself go into charge range, then disengage (Because I know they are spamming charge… they have nothing else to do). Here is a video of my addons, one of them is this interrupt bar, so you can see what I mean:

This is a lot easier to do versus heroic leap.

Keep stopping the charge and whittle away their hp. Get max range and the only thing in your way is time. 

14. Arms Warrior

You basically do everything I described above to avoid charges. It is pretty easy as they only have the one charge and heroic leap.

You just have to be VERY careful. They can potentially kill you in a single stun.

Save roar of sacrifice for recklessness. It completely negates the effect, and basically turns it into a +20% damage boost for you. Most warriors know this, so they will not reck, but still don’t use it because if they see it used, they will reck.

I would suggest a shale spider. You want a stun instead of a root because it can save your pets life if the warrior tries to kill it. Due to swiftys supposed “howto” on killing a hunters, warriors will try to kill your pet because he said it works. It doesn’t. The hunters he fought let him win in exchange for him promoting a friend of their’s movies. Everyone he fights lets him win in exchange for something. Sometimes he will even give them hardware, like a razer naga. This is common knowledge on Darkspear.

The theory is: warrior charges you, fears, swaps to the pet and attacks it. The hunter cant trinket the fear, because if he does the warrior just throwdowns him and eats his face. After the fear wears off, the hunter runs away but the pet is slower as its rooted, and he bladestorms both the hunter and the pet, killing it.

This DOES NOT WORK VERSUS ANY COMPETENT HUNTER. But they will try it because if you let it happen it is a death sentence, ESPECIALLY as BM. It is VERY easy to prevent, it won’t die unless you let it.

Basically, if you let your pet die you are basically dead as well. If you have a root pet, it can’t save itself while you are CCd. You want a pet that CC’s. Just stun him with it until you get out of the CC, then you can save it. Keep mend pet up at all times, so if you do get CC’d it is ticking. If you are using a cunning pet, you can use bullheaded which is a 20% shield wall, if you have a shale spider it is already a tank. Use cower. The hunters in his videos didn’t, they let it happen. Also, they were MM so the pets were weaker.

More intelligent warriors know this doesn’t work, but they also know it is nearly impossible for an arms warrior to kill a hunter in a 1v1 anyways. So I figured I would give a heads up. Besides, keeping your pet alive is extremely important as bm for any fight.

Save trinket for throwdown, so you don’t get your face cleaved.

Toss them a snake trap after any freezing for a free 4 second root. They CANNOT get victory rush off of snakes currently.

They are much more squishy than prot warriors and should die pretty easily.

You can see nearly everything I described in my videos, even if they are MM. Most of it is just basic hunter strategy. All the hunter strategy is the same, the buttons are just designed differently per spec.

 

Mokongo asked:

Well I would ask him how EXACTLY he has his keys bound and for which spell. Also I agree with Ozolin about the vs each class suggestions. If at all possible I’d like to see his build/spec, though I completely understand if he wouldn’t want to. And lastly Garwulf I have a question for you specifically. I’m very interested in specific strategies because I, of course, do not like getting spat on and laughed at by Alliance. (Yes I’m Horde, singin it loud n proud, but I feel that this real life tension between Horde and Alliance is ridiculous.) Thank you SO much.

What is a good rotation I should be using? Thanks again

Mokongo, Troll Beast Master Extraordinaire…almost

1. This isn’t everything, just what I could remember. Also, this is for my MM spec, but the only difference is substituting the bm abilities (kill command, intim, bw, focused fire) in for the MM abilities (Chimera, Silence, readiness, aimed)

Numpad keys are used because those are the razer naga keys, the computer uses it as numpad.

Any macros are described in my macro movie mentioned earlier.

Chimera shot / hawk macro=1
Readiness=2
Raptor strike=3
Wing clip=4
Silencing shot / mouseover silencing shot macro=5
Snake trap=7
Freezing trap=t
Frost trap=9
Explosive trap=8
Deterrence=0
Tranquilizing shot / Mouseover tranq macro=numpad 5
Scatter shot / Mouseover scatter macro=numpad 4
Disengage=numpad 6
Kill shot / hawk macro=z
Steady shot / fox macro=c
Steady shot / hawk macro=shift+c
Concussive shot / mouseover concussive shot macro=f2
Serpent sting=f3
Widow venom=f4
Arcane shot / hawk macro / Cancelaura macro=f5
Aimed shot / hawk macro=f6
Rapid fire / Trinket Macro=f7
Hunter’s Mark=f8
Distracting shot=f9
Camoflauge=f10
Multi-shot=f11
Trap Launcher=numpad 2
Feign Death=g
Bandage=shift+n
Flare=f
Aspect of the Cheetah=b
Mount=`
Flying mount=shift~`
Cobra shot / fox macro (For when I need to shoot, but do not want to proc bleed)=numpad 10
Cobra shot / Hawk macro (It would be wasteful to use cobra shot while stationary and not be in hawk for more damage)=numpad 12
Scare beast=numpad 8
Pet Special Ability(web, stun, blind)=x
Roar of Sacrifice / Mouseover roar of sacrifice=numpad 1
Master’s Call / Mouseover master’s call=n
Intervene / Roar of Recovery=numpad=3
Racial / Trinket=shift+x
Pet callback macro= v
Focus Silence macro=shift+w
Cower=numpad 7
Bullheaded= ctrl+x
Dismiss pet=shift N
Call pet 1=shift 1
Call pet 2=shift 2
Engineering glove tinker
Mend Pet= numpad 9
Revive pet=ctirl+q
Healthstone / Miscelleaneous other item=r
Aspect of the Hawk=h
Aspect of the Fox=y

2. A BM's PvP rotation is pretty simple. You just hit a kill command, then do as many arcane shots as your current focus pool allows. You want all the burst at once, because it is harder to heal. Cobra shot when the cooldown is off, and you should have enough focus for kill command when cd is up. 

The trick is that no one lets you just cobra shot at will in PvP. Anytime you are cc’d, minranged, LoSd, or attack speed snared, your focus is neutered. In PvE, ideally you have focus for the kill command every cooldown, but it just doesn’t happen that way in PvP.

Every last millisecond of hunter play you have to be doing something. NEVER miss a global, you lose resource when you do, no one else does. This is why hunters do poorly. It is really tiresome.

 

Itukaaj asked:

What is the best way for a Marksman Hunter to survive BM burst. How can Mm lock a BM hunter down? How effective is trapping pet? When should I expect you to use Intimidation? Does that mean a burst to follow should it be trinketed ASAP?

1&2. Easy. BM burst is very frontloaded, and a hunter fight ends very fast. You blow all your cooldowns as soon as you can. When they pop BW, just deterrence. Readiness, then deterrence again. That will last 10 seconds, the entirety of BW’s duration. The fight should be over before it comes back. After that, you have the advantage. Drop traps to CC his pet after BW, he will do the same but it affects him more than it does you. Use roar of sacrifice, will break any CC on your pet, and/or bullheaded. If the BM has a spirit beast, you can purge the heal. They have nothing to mask.

Don’t really try to aimed shot unless you got them in a freezing trap, and then only after fearing the pet. Bm hunters don’t really have burst like MM. They don’t press a chimera shot every 10 seconds and you go boom. Most of it is during BW. (Their abilities cost less focus then, so they spam arcane shots like crazy). It is usually steady arcane shots. If you CC the pet, they cannot use kill command. Don’t go out of your way to CC the pet though, just a fear while the guy is scattered or deterrenced.

Trinketing intimidation is usually useful. It doesn’t really matter if they trap you, because they aren’t going to do a big aimed shot that you need to interrupt, so you won’t be taking damage while trapped. While you are stunned, you will.

Really, a MM hunter will usually win versus a BM in 1v1 simply because they can deterrence the entire BW.

 

Arc asked:

In 2v2 how do you counter DK/Holy Pally?
How would you make BM more viable in the arena?

1. Depends mostly on your partner, and if the dk is UH or Frost. A lot of comps you simply won’t win with versus dk/hpally. I played against this comp on my hunter, and it is no walk in the park. I also have a dk and I have played it. It is a joke how easy it is. The fight will last a while if you have a hunter healer, but you would be used to that by now. As BM you would probably be doing double dps You have to get through the paladins cc blocks, sacrifice, bubbles, etc. You are wasting your time trying to purge sac of the dk, as there is a lot of trash buffs. Watch for unholy frenzy, make sure to purge it off the paladin, it can be a 30 second cc immunity. This is a good thing to purge because it is an enrage, there will only be one so you only have to tranq once. 

Basically, your team has to go complete burst right at the start. You are probably double DPS, so your time is limited as it is. You have to coordinate your CC well (As I said, I don’t know your partner, so I can’t say how to do it…) so that it forces the paladin to trinket, and then bubble. You have to also force the dk to pop a cd, he has IBF, AMS, (Sometimes anti-magic zone, if uh… most dks are.) Ghoul sac, and Lichborne healing. Bm hunters burst is not as hurt versus a dks AMS or zone because your main attack, kill command, is physical. Lucky you. A MM hunters chimera and arcane both do magic. IBF doesn’t stop that much, but 20% is 20%. Ghoul sac would be a good thing if they used, since it is long. Lichborne healing can be stopped if your partner has a silence, or a stun from you. It is important to stop as they can heal like 30k every global. A good DK wouldn’t use them all at once, but string them out. It is more useful.

If you got them both to use enough cds, you have two minutes to finish it before you will die. You probably already have less than that as 2 dps. Once BW is up, you have to coordinate your CC again, and burst the DK as hard as you can. You and your partner must attention and make sure to use the right attacks when he pops AMS, as it will be up.

If you get enough crits, you will win, if you don’t, you will lose.

 

2. The most important thing is buffing BW. It is FAR too easy to shut down, and that is the BM hunters bread and butter. Any CC during that time will neuter the damage as they cannot use kill command. It should make you immune to all CC, but not snares/roots, so they can at least kill command. That way, the enemy could still hinder it by leg humping, but BM isn’t so useless in arena.

Kill command needs to be changed. The whole sitting there spamming the button “YOURPETISOUTOFRANGE” is bad design. It should perform like feral druids interrupt, a mini-charge.

The rest is mostly smaller things, like weapon scaling, talent redesigns, coefficient changes, glyph buffs. I discussed it all in The Hunter Thread. (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/fo…..2721383344)