hunter pvp

A Charmingly Disarming Pet: Olm the Wise

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Olm the Wise - Bird of Prey

Last I checked in, I was singing the praises of the wasp for lowbie hunter PvP. Well, I’m happy to say I’ve found an even better companion to take along on my battleground adventures — at least for now. These days I’m accompanied by a badass battle birdie, who was formerly known as Olm the Wise.

Olm the Wise is a spectral owl who can be found meandering about in NE Feralas. This one-of-a-kind bird of prey model is really cool looking, as it’s somewhat like Ban’thalos – only toned down a bit. Olm doesn’t have the cool misty aura surrounding him, but he’s still really awesome – especially considering he’s available to lower level hunters (48 and up).

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Survival Tactics, Spell Penetration & Trap Resists

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I noticed a lot of back and forth going on in the comments following Garxz’s interview the other week, concerning the value of 2/2 Survival Tactics in a Hunter PvP build. I was in fact curious myself, considering I felt the talent had become less of a value after 4.2. Given that Garxz is a god in arena, I figured he must know something we don’t.

I used to spec the talent for both the reduced trap resists, as well as the shorter cooldown for Disengage, but when Blizz finally made it so that Spell Penetration started affecting our traps in 4.2, I figured the talent wasn’t really worth it as long as you were itemizing for Spell Penetration. I was of the belief that if you negated the enemy’s resists with your level of Spell Pen, then your traps would never be resisted…I was wrong on this, but why..?

I’ll explain in a minute.

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Interview with a Beast Master

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Garxz, Gladiator BM Hunter

…and not just any Beast Master, but Garxz, one of the top ranked Hunter PvP’ers in all of WoW. His 3v3 team is currently ranked just shy of 3k, and at the time of this post, Garxz is holding down the #3 slot on the ArenaJunkies hunter class leaderboard. Did I mention #3, as in #3 in the world…

Yeah, I know… pretty impressive.

For starters, I have to thank Kazador of Emberstorm for suggesting I contact Garxz. Kaz has been a regular here at The Lodge for the past few years, as well as a hunter PvP enthusiast and all-around devotee of the class. Kaz discovered Garxz when doing some online searches for the top hunters in the world.

Anyway… Kaz sent me an email a few weeks back…

Hey Gar,
I was looking up top hunters today, and stumbled across the top BM PVP hunter in the world, currently at just under 3K rating. This player must be your long lost twin. Hugely successful in BM PVP, and clearly has a thing for taming rares, especially spirit beasts. And named Gar. Weird.
Anyway, seems to be a very cool person, active on forums, etc. I’d strongly suggest you get a hold of this person, and interview them. BM macros, strategy, etc. I’d love to see you lead the community in a good discussion of BM PVP, with the best there is.
I hope you can tackle this project!
Kaz

Well, tackle it I did!

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Hunter PvP Basics: PvP Targeting

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To target enemies in PvP, you basically have three options…

  • The Mouse – This is the most efficient way to target enemy players, but it can be cumbersome at times – especially if you’re constantly using your mouse for movement, as I do. Obviously, if you use your keyboard to move, then mouse-targeting won’t be as much of an issue. However, using anything but the mouse to steer your character is very ill-advised, especially for a hunter. Hunters need to be able to turn and move quickly, and execute jump-shots — you just can’t operate your hunter properly if you’re using your keyboard to turn and move.
  • The Tab Key – Tab can be OK for targeting enemies, but if you have to spend too much time cycling through player pets, totems, etc… then this can be a real problem.
  • Macros – Next to mouse targeting, macros are the most effective for targeting enemy players. The only problem… macros are only so smart. You can write them to target specific players, but they can only do so much. For example, you can’t program a macro to target only healers, or those that are the lowest on health. Macros are pretty limited in terms of target selection, but they can allow for the fastest targeting and target switch commands.

The following article is designed to help hunters improve their targeting efficiency in PvP, by offering a few examples on how you can make your targeting a little smoother and easier.

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