As I said earlier, hunters are easily the best solo class. I feel that paladin's are second best and druids are third.
Let me provide some supporting points:
- You get a pet. This pet can be of any kind but in my case I use a bear. Bear's have thunderstomp and an AoE damage reduction ability. For tanking multiple mobs these abilities and other skills are a great help.
- You can crowd control. Scatter Shot, Freezing Trap, Wing Clip, Concussive Shot, Wyvern Sting, Intimidation, Ice Trap, Silencing Shot, Distracting shot. These are all the abilities that I can think of right now that are available to the hunter (albeit some are spec'd into and therefore you cannot have them all). Using these abilities to crowd control make you an excellent addition to any group where Crowd Control can be of use.
- You can kite. Kiting is the form of killing a mob slowly but suffering little to no damage by doing so. I touched on kiting beforehand. Using a pet that deals more damage than other pets is recommended for most kiting but certainly not necessary; I kite all the time and I solo with my bear exclusively.
- Feign Death. You screw something up? Feign Death! HELLO TO TINY REPAIR BILLS and annoyingly having to run back. Enough said.
- Focus! No more drinking! I loved mana but I love focus so, so much more. You can constantly chain pull mobs until you screw up or no more mobs are around. Mend pet and first aid are your friends here.
- Disengage? You stuck in a bad spot? Get the hell out of there with disengage! Your one stop shop for getting you out of that troublesome spot so fear not, for a hunter is what you got. As you can see hunters also learn to rhyme.
- Ranged DPS! Do you hate getting hit by bosses cleaves? I sure do! Stand and range and pew pew.
As a hunter, if you find yourself needing to group up with people to do _ANY_ quest then you are doing it wrong. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not trying to make you feel bad about yourself. There was once a time where I was a terribad hunter too! But I learnt the error of my ways, lord. So please forgive me of the huntard's terribadness and show him the way to the light. Or the boss loot. Whichever you'd prefer. I'm easy with these things. What's that? Sure I'll have some beers with you later! But no man-love this time, OK?
Back on track. There is a few things you need to do when soloing to get the best out of it. These are:
- Know thy Enemy. Can you CC it in any way? If so you have a perfectly kiteable mob, provided it is not a caster. Use frost trap, concussive shot and my all time favorite scatter shot + wing clip + disengage combo (combined with immolation trap and snake trap for good measure). If the mob is a caster use range exploitation to take less damage. Mobs generally have a smaller cast range than your shooting range so take advantage of it!
- Kill the Elite like it was no feat. Mend Pet, Misdirection, Distracting Shot and Serpent Sting. These are your primary tools when killing ANY elite solo. With Glyph of Misdirect you can constantly misdirect your pet and nuke away. Keep Mend Pet up and Serpent Sting constant. Distracting shot if your pet is going to die. Note that there are some elites that are simply too strong for shitty mend pet (CoC is an example). You'll need to group up with people in these cases, of course.
- Zero in on your target. If you have specific mobs that you want to kill the chances are that, as a hunter, you won't need to wade through 100 mobs to get to it. Simply run through, put down frost traps and maybe even put your pet on defensive stance. Let your pet die, your pet's a tool like your abilities are. Me? I'm a tool, too. Once you reach your target Feign Death and wait for your pet to die. Make sure that you are in an area where you won't aggro mobs (if you need to aggro a couple then be ready for a fight, but it's still faster than clearing your way through).
- Tag mobs, fast! As a hunter, if done right you can deal with large amount's of mobs. If you are in a competitve area tag as many mobs as you feel comfortable dealing with. Misdirect and multishot are your best friends here. Misdirect your pet, spam multi shot. Then single target the mobs down.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Lovemontes today!!!
My hunter is coming along nicely, that's for sure. With an average item level of 346 (3 333's, 3 359's and the rest 346) I feel he's coming along nicely.
Having spent A LOT of gold levelling leatherworking (~20k gold) and getting all the patterns I can (all the purchasable leg armor items, epic items, hunter/en sham resilience items and some druid/shaman gear as of current) combined with max fishing, cooking and first aid I feel like the biggest grind is coming to an end. Soon I will have all the heroic gear I need and all I'll run heroics for is rep, chaos orbs and valor points (oh and to help guildies out) and then all that's left is Archaeology (which is about 358 at the moment).
My hunter is Exalted now with Therazane and Guardians of Hyjal, both of whom provide me some nice lootz. Stay tuned for me getting Exalted with Ramkahen (approx 7k rep away).
It really helps to do your research to find out where the best gear you can get is. Using your skills to craft gear and your justice points to purchase gear is a great help. Get the epic patterns and craft the gear for yourself! 3 Chaos Orbs is hard to get, let me tell you that much! So don't be stupid and be attracted by gold once you craft yourself an epic item. If you really are serious about PVE content you will provide yourself the best gear possible before even considering filling your pocket.
I'm excited to see the guild level reach level 5, which it will be doing so tonight. The first things I will be doing will include clearing Molten Core, Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair and when I've got some time Serpentshrine, Tempest Keep, Blackwing Lair and other raid dungeons. The bosses drop good amounts of gold as well as great vendorable epics, patterns and whatnot. 5% more gold on 90 gold is a decent amount, plus more gold from vendoring means that it will be a pretty solid cash flow.
I would imagine that Wrath of the Lich King raids and heroics would be rather easy to achieve with a few people. When you think about it I have over 100k HP unbuffed, I am almost raid hit capped (reforging out of hit for heroics) and my bear has almost 100k health. Back in BC a Karazhan and Gruul's tank would have around 21k health. I think it's fair to say that damage dealers and tank stats scale about the same, this would mean that I am currently geared 5 times better than a beginning raider in BC. In reality, however my DPS would be more than 5 times better it would be more accurate to say 8 to 9 times better. My mend pet will heal for a lot so Karazhan should be soloable, in theory. The first boss in Gruul's may require more people. I will let you know how I go.
Blackwing Lair will NOT be soloable. You need at least 3 people (a rogue helps a lot).
I'll let you know how I go.
Having spent A LOT of gold levelling leatherworking (~20k gold) and getting all the patterns I can (all the purchasable leg armor items, epic items, hunter/en sham resilience items and some druid/shaman gear as of current) combined with max fishing, cooking and first aid I feel like the biggest grind is coming to an end. Soon I will have all the heroic gear I need and all I'll run heroics for is rep, chaos orbs and valor points (oh and to help guildies out) and then all that's left is Archaeology (which is about 358 at the moment).
My hunter is Exalted now with Therazane and Guardians of Hyjal, both of whom provide me some nice lootz. Stay tuned for me getting Exalted with Ramkahen (approx 7k rep away).
It really helps to do your research to find out where the best gear you can get is. Using your skills to craft gear and your justice points to purchase gear is a great help. Get the epic patterns and craft the gear for yourself! 3 Chaos Orbs is hard to get, let me tell you that much! So don't be stupid and be attracted by gold once you craft yourself an epic item. If you really are serious about PVE content you will provide yourself the best gear possible before even considering filling your pocket.
I'm excited to see the guild level reach level 5, which it will be doing so tonight. The first things I will be doing will include clearing Molten Core, Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair and when I've got some time Serpentshrine, Tempest Keep, Blackwing Lair and other raid dungeons. The bosses drop good amounts of gold as well as great vendorable epics, patterns and whatnot. 5% more gold on 90 gold is a decent amount, plus more gold from vendoring means that it will be a pretty solid cash flow.
I would imagine that Wrath of the Lich King raids and heroics would be rather easy to achieve with a few people. When you think about it I have over 100k HP unbuffed, I am almost raid hit capped (reforging out of hit for heroics) and my bear has almost 100k health. Back in BC a Karazhan and Gruul's tank would have around 21k health. I think it's fair to say that damage dealers and tank stats scale about the same, this would mean that I am currently geared 5 times better than a beginning raider in BC. In reality, however my DPS would be more than 5 times better it would be more accurate to say 8 to 9 times better. My mend pet will heal for a lot so Karazhan should be soloable, in theory. The first boss in Gruul's may require more people. I will let you know how I go.
Blackwing Lair will NOT be soloable. You need at least 3 people (a rogue helps a lot).
I'll let you know how I go.
Friday, December 17, 2010
You can take the hunter out of Molten core...
Molten Core taught me a lot as a hunter. It really was the place where I really began to figure out how to play my class at an intricate level. Oh yeah, PVP helps a great deal too (and not just with your own class knowledge). When the Ancient Petrified Lead dropped the first time we cleared past Majordomo Executus, second last boss of the instance I was stoked. I knew what the item was and sadly many hunters today miss out on what made vanilla special (this very quest).
The Ancient Petrified Leaf was an item that started a hunter quest. This quest was designed as a challenging quest where the hunter had to use all resources available minus your pet and assisting players. Your mates could buff you, but you had to do the rest. This quest consisted of killing 4 separate, strong elites with varying abilities. All of demon type they tested the skill of hunters in various ways but _mainly_ kiting. You had 15 minutes to kill the boss when you activated it and you had 15 minutes to wait if it despawned for reasons such as taking too long to kill it, someone healing you, someone using an ability or dealing damage to the demon or buffing you mid fight and attacking a mob associated with the fight.
I killed the mobs in this order: Un'Goro Crater Demon, Winterspring Demon, Burning Steppes Demon then Silithus Demon (the order that I felt was easiest to hardest). I was also lucky enough to be given the scale that provided an epic quiver, which has now been converted to a 24 slot bag thanks to blizzard (since hunters no longer need arrows).
The UGC demon had a large felhunter with her, after clearing enough space to do my thing the fight commenced. I did it flawlessly but the fight was easily the simplest. Trap the felhunter, melee the boss to death (-1500 RAP meant I had less than 0 RAP (1500 was a lot back then!)). Use of a health potion ensured my victory.
The Winterspring demon was all about kiting, get too far and he'll despawn, get to close and you can no longer kite as you get turned into a demon and killed via AoE damage aura that you simply could not escape. Most guides suggested that you clear a path of mobs to kill this demon when kiting or use a bunch of guildies to run ahead on mounts, aggroing/killing mobs as you go. I used neither of these methods with clever use of concussive shot and simply running around the mobs in my way. A few (read a number of) attempts passed when I finally killed this demon and looted the head. Oh yeah, these two demons so far were fought without any buffs at all except for my own.
The Burning Steppes demon was all about consistency and mana conservation. You needed enough mana to use wing clip and scorpid sting. This boss would enrage and when enraged would hit for about a third of your health (Health pools were like 3k HP those days), hitting the boss with scorpid sting when enraged applied a debuff that would cause him to only hit for 1 damage (troll regen ftw by the way). To fight this boss you could do it multiple ways, a simple kiting method could be employed and was easiest but clearly not intended to be used in the fight. So I did it the right way. Auto Shot till close, scorpid and wing clip before enrage and run at right angle from him. I also used scatter shot and had improved wing clip to help me deal more damage to the boss. This boss took a few goes but after I killed him I did it every time for other hunters that I did the quest for.
The Silithus boss, easily the hardest of the 4. A strong death coil meant that your potion cooldowns were used on shadow protection potions (which absorb shadow damage). He spawned lots of little scarabs that would pwn you. Wing Clip stunned the boss and rooted him in place, proc or not. His melee hit hard so you were bound to take a few hits whilst running to range. Use of bandages at the right time and using shadow protection potions were an absolute must in this fight (not to mention luck). Resisting the death coil was a lucky encounter but exactly what happened to me the fight I killed this boss. You would still be feared (which was a good thing because it got you away from the scarabs quickly) so that was a good time to bandage, but not taking any shadow damage on the one death coil saved me (as I was low HP) and I managed to kill the demon after a LOT of atttempts.
Acquiring the Bow, Staff and Quiver felt like the biggest achievement in my WoW experiences. I feel sorry for all hunter that miss out on such an epic quest.
The Ancient Petrified Leaf was an item that started a hunter quest. This quest was designed as a challenging quest where the hunter had to use all resources available minus your pet and assisting players. Your mates could buff you, but you had to do the rest. This quest consisted of killing 4 separate, strong elites with varying abilities. All of demon type they tested the skill of hunters in various ways but _mainly_ kiting. You had 15 minutes to kill the boss when you activated it and you had 15 minutes to wait if it despawned for reasons such as taking too long to kill it, someone healing you, someone using an ability or dealing damage to the demon or buffing you mid fight and attacking a mob associated with the fight.
I killed the mobs in this order: Un'Goro Crater Demon, Winterspring Demon, Burning Steppes Demon then Silithus Demon (the order that I felt was easiest to hardest). I was also lucky enough to be given the scale that provided an epic quiver, which has now been converted to a 24 slot bag thanks to blizzard (since hunters no longer need arrows).
The UGC demon had a large felhunter with her, after clearing enough space to do my thing the fight commenced. I did it flawlessly but the fight was easily the simplest. Trap the felhunter, melee the boss to death (-1500 RAP meant I had less than 0 RAP (1500 was a lot back then!)). Use of a health potion ensured my victory.
The Winterspring demon was all about kiting, get too far and he'll despawn, get to close and you can no longer kite as you get turned into a demon and killed via AoE damage aura that you simply could not escape. Most guides suggested that you clear a path of mobs to kill this demon when kiting or use a bunch of guildies to run ahead on mounts, aggroing/killing mobs as you go. I used neither of these methods with clever use of concussive shot and simply running around the mobs in my way. A few (read a number of) attempts passed when I finally killed this demon and looted the head. Oh yeah, these two demons so far were fought without any buffs at all except for my own.
The Burning Steppes demon was all about consistency and mana conservation. You needed enough mana to use wing clip and scorpid sting. This boss would enrage and when enraged would hit for about a third of your health (Health pools were like 3k HP those days), hitting the boss with scorpid sting when enraged applied a debuff that would cause him to only hit for 1 damage (troll regen ftw by the way). To fight this boss you could do it multiple ways, a simple kiting method could be employed and was easiest but clearly not intended to be used in the fight. So I did it the right way. Auto Shot till close, scorpid and wing clip before enrage and run at right angle from him. I also used scatter shot and had improved wing clip to help me deal more damage to the boss. This boss took a few goes but after I killed him I did it every time for other hunters that I did the quest for.
The Silithus boss, easily the hardest of the 4. A strong death coil meant that your potion cooldowns were used on shadow protection potions (which absorb shadow damage). He spawned lots of little scarabs that would pwn you. Wing Clip stunned the boss and rooted him in place, proc or not. His melee hit hard so you were bound to take a few hits whilst running to range. Use of bandages at the right time and using shadow protection potions were an absolute must in this fight (not to mention luck). Resisting the death coil was a lucky encounter but exactly what happened to me the fight I killed this boss. You would still be feared (which was a good thing because it got you away from the scarabs quickly) so that was a good time to bandage, but not taking any shadow damage on the one death coil saved me (as I was low HP) and I managed to kill the demon after a LOT of atttempts.
Acquiring the Bow, Staff and Quiver felt like the biggest achievement in my WoW experiences. I feel sorry for all hunter that miss out on such an epic quest.
Once a huntard, still a huntard? part 3
Zul'Gurub. Ah, what an instance it was. ZG or Zee GEE a we called it. Zul'Gurub was a raid focused on the Hakkar worshipping trolls, with Hakkar being the final encounter of the instance.
Zul'Gurub was the first place I encountered complex raid strategies. Although nothing compared to 40 man strategies of say late Molten Core or up the instance was no cake walk for those who were only just geared enough for the dungeon.
It took my guild, Nemesis, a long time to clear that dungeon; there were a lot of fights that were largely gear dependent and we didn't want to fight Hakkar until we had all the bosses down. This was for a number of reasons: Aspect bosses (bat, snake, tiger, panther, spider) provided Hakkar various buffs and they also were easier opportunities for loot.
Hakkar was an interesting fight, however. There is a mechanic that is rarely seen in boss fights and that is needing to hurt yourself to hurt him. In order to kill him you get him to 0%. See what I did there? lol. The strategy was quite simple, but timing was important to avoid enrage. So you had to do it right. Every so often Hakkar will cast a life drain which drains about 16 of your 20 raid players. Life drain will heal him for a certain amount per player being drained. To counter this a Wind Serpent that spawns on the lower tier of the pyramid needs to be pulled up and CC'd until the raid decides it needs to die. It needs to die because upon death they lay an AoE poison cloud on the ground that deals nature damage to you. Why would you want AoE poison? Because when Hakkar drains you and you're poisoned he will take significant damage. Timing the kill of this mob is important so you can get as many people into the poison as possible for as little time as possible i.e. just before he casts his life drain everyone should get poisoned. Killing the mob too early meant you HAD to stack into the poison and put more strain on healers. First Aid is a good thing guys, make sure you keep that thing maxed out.
Threat was a touchier subject back then, abilities like vengeance and misdirect simply did not exist. Tanks had to rotate due to a few reasons in the Hakkar fight so that made threat even more difficult to manage.
I never really got that much loot from ZG, my DPS was great for my gear and I tended to top the damage charts so I gave the gear to players who needed it more as they would see a larger increase in dps output than myself. A bigger gear upgrade increases overall group DPS. My generosity paid back in Molten Core where other hunters insisted that I was the priority for getting Tier 1. On our first successful night of Molten Core I acquired 5 of 8 items of Tier 1. An amazing result :) However it took me ages to get my final piece of Tier 1. Molten Core talk another time :)
Zul'Gurub was the first place I encountered complex raid strategies. Although nothing compared to 40 man strategies of say late Molten Core or up the instance was no cake walk for those who were only just geared enough for the dungeon.
It took my guild, Nemesis, a long time to clear that dungeon; there were a lot of fights that were largely gear dependent and we didn't want to fight Hakkar until we had all the bosses down. This was for a number of reasons: Aspect bosses (bat, snake, tiger, panther, spider) provided Hakkar various buffs and they also were easier opportunities for loot.
Hakkar was an interesting fight, however. There is a mechanic that is rarely seen in boss fights and that is needing to hurt yourself to hurt him. In order to kill him you get him to 0%. See what I did there? lol. The strategy was quite simple, but timing was important to avoid enrage. So you had to do it right. Every so often Hakkar will cast a life drain which drains about 16 of your 20 raid players. Life drain will heal him for a certain amount per player being drained. To counter this a Wind Serpent that spawns on the lower tier of the pyramid needs to be pulled up and CC'd until the raid decides it needs to die. It needs to die because upon death they lay an AoE poison cloud on the ground that deals nature damage to you. Why would you want AoE poison? Because when Hakkar drains you and you're poisoned he will take significant damage. Timing the kill of this mob is important so you can get as many people into the poison as possible for as little time as possible i.e. just before he casts his life drain everyone should get poisoned. Killing the mob too early meant you HAD to stack into the poison and put more strain on healers. First Aid is a good thing guys, make sure you keep that thing maxed out.
Threat was a touchier subject back then, abilities like vengeance and misdirect simply did not exist. Tanks had to rotate due to a few reasons in the Hakkar fight so that made threat even more difficult to manage.
I never really got that much loot from ZG, my DPS was great for my gear and I tended to top the damage charts so I gave the gear to players who needed it more as they would see a larger increase in dps output than myself. A bigger gear upgrade increases overall group DPS. My generosity paid back in Molten Core where other hunters insisted that I was the priority for getting Tier 1. On our first successful night of Molten Core I acquired 5 of 8 items of Tier 1. An amazing result :) However it took me ages to get my final piece of Tier 1. Molten Core talk another time :)
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Once a huntard, still a huntard? part 2
OK so I'm level 60 and I'm running my first raid dungeon. UBRS. I'd never been in a dungeon before with 15 people, it felt epic. We cruised through it all (another hunter kited the final boss) and I got some loot out of it. I was happy.
Although, some things were wrong. I had no idea about aggro or kiting, I needed to find out about these mechanics.
Kiting was a lot harder back in Vanilla. There are a lot of abilites and changes now at level 85 that allow you to do it so much easier. Here is a small list to contrast:
- Disengage didn't do what it currently does. It was a melee threat reduction ability if I remember right.
- Traps were only available out of combat. This means trap before the fight and trap whenever you use Feign Death and you can't Feign Death if you're kiting (at least until the group is ready for you to send the mob back).
- No Aspect of the Fox. To kite you would get as much threat as you can on a mob, run like hell and jump shoot (a technique where you would spin in the air, arcane shot (a terrible ability at that stage) and turn around again).
- Distracting shot was not a temporary taunt used by Hunters. Some Hunters used it to gain threat to kite, but I never used it as I felt it was unnecessary (and it was).
Kiting was not terribly hard to learn, but to master is a different story. Let me provide some advice. I used kiting all through raid dungeons I was in as well as 5 man normals, raids and heroics in BC. I still use kiting today with various interesting adaptations.
RaG1n's 10 kiting tips for being a kool kid like he is:
First Tip: Aggro. You need to nuke the mob as fast and as hard as you can ('NUKE IT AS HARD AS POSSIBLE!' - that guy from ony is serious). This is probably the most important rule of kiting. Without a high amount of threat you won't stand a chance of keeping the mob off the healer in most fights.
Second Tip: Stand at max range. Clearly the more range you have on a mob the longer it's gonna take for them to reach you. This allows more shots which means more threat which means easier kiting.
Third Tip: Ice Trap (preivously called frost trap). This slows mobs down. Need I see more?
Fourth Tip: Don't DoT, scattershot! Using serpent sting on mobs is usually a good way for us to deal damage. Dealing damage is not our priority here. If you can slow a mob you can also silence a mob and scattershot a mob. Scattershot is a great tool in confined areas, you can use scattershot to it's best effect by kiting a mob to a corner then using scatter and then running to the opposite side of the room as fast as you can.
Fifth Tip: Know your route. This is another extremely important one, you need to know where you're going to move to. Why, you ask? Well it goes like this. Listen closely. The better you understand your environment the better you can use that environment to kite a mob. Is there a staircase with a ledge next to it? If so, kite the mob up the stairs and when it gets close jump down and run the other way! This can even give you some time to land some shots on another enemy you're fighting. It's extremely handy!
Sixth Tip: Circle Kiting. This is probably the most effective way to kite a mob and maintain your dps. Please note that you need to be in aspect of the fox for this. Kite your mob in a circle around your tank. By doing this in aspect of the fox you can maintain your dps on mobs while kiting others. This is a very difficult skill and takes a lot of practice. Hell I'm still not great at it. Use all your abilites at your disposal to stay away from mobs (i.e. disengage, scatter, ice trap, counter attack etc.) as well as keeping as best a circle as you can. I'll explain that last part.
Mobs move directly at you, because of this if you are running at angles (i.e. not directly away from them (which I label as 0 degrees)) they will be able to catch up to you. Circle kiting helps to prevent this and if you get good enough at it you'll be able to avoid taking damage from a lot of melee mobs. Pull your mob as you would any other, start moving away like you would kite any mob in the game. Once you do that start moving in a circle. Voila! You win! Again, the rounder your pathing is the better your results will be.
I will find a youtube video of someone soloing a 40 man naxx boss when I get home and link it.
Seventh tip: Line of Sight. Any mob can be kited, any mob at all. But casters are the trickiest of them all. Casters are harder to kite for obvious reasons: sometimes they just stand there and pew pew at your ass. Fear Not! There are ways around this! Just as tanks LoS pull casters we can LoS kite mobs! Unfortunately for casters you do need the right environment for it, so sometimes finding your best position to do it is a pain. But it is still viable in most instances and some outdoor areas. My favorite LoS use is a pillar. Why? Because a pillar can be an infinite kite for as many casters as you want. Here's how you do it. Shoot the mob(s), when they begin to cast run behind the pillar, placing traps there helps but is not essential. When they come up to you and cast again run around a corner of the pillar. Continue until you win. Another way to effectively kite casters is to constantly stay out of their casting range.
Eigth Tip: Practice! Enough said.
Ninth Tip: Know what and where you can't kite. This saves everyone a lot of time.
Tenth Tip: Aspect of the Cheetah. It's your friend in kiting. Use it. Don't use Aspect of the Pack.
Kiting is a lot of fun and has many adaptations to it. I suggest when you get a chance to give them a go. Misdirection kiting techniques are especially effective. One that I employed recently with a heroic group was this: Tank misdirection kiting. It's easy, misdirect the tank, use multi shot if you need to and have the tank run away from the mobs. This allows your group to deal some significant damage before the tank actually sustains any. This would work extremely well in a well coordinated group as you can get to the stage where you can tennis ball the mob if required.
Tennis balling is the switching of aggro between players so the mob 'bounces' in between the players. This is used effectively between tanks and hunters with the use of taunts and distracting shots. I would recommend this method when mobs hit extremely hard and heals struggle to keep the tank alive.
As you can see there are some really creative ways to kite! To manage your aggro all you need to do is Feign Death.
In summary, hunters are an amazing class for crowd control. Even in BC when hunters had 30 second trap durations on Freezing Trap was I able to trap two mobs and kite another. The possibilities are almost endless where the only limitation is the game environment itself.
Although, some things were wrong. I had no idea about aggro or kiting, I needed to find out about these mechanics.
Kiting was a lot harder back in Vanilla. There are a lot of abilites and changes now at level 85 that allow you to do it so much easier. Here is a small list to contrast:
- Disengage didn't do what it currently does. It was a melee threat reduction ability if I remember right.
- Traps were only available out of combat. This means trap before the fight and trap whenever you use Feign Death and you can't Feign Death if you're kiting (at least until the group is ready for you to send the mob back).
- No Aspect of the Fox. To kite you would get as much threat as you can on a mob, run like hell and jump shoot (a technique where you would spin in the air, arcane shot (a terrible ability at that stage) and turn around again).
- Distracting shot was not a temporary taunt used by Hunters. Some Hunters used it to gain threat to kite, but I never used it as I felt it was unnecessary (and it was).
Kiting was not terribly hard to learn, but to master is a different story. Let me provide some advice. I used kiting all through raid dungeons I was in as well as 5 man normals, raids and heroics in BC. I still use kiting today with various interesting adaptations.
RaG1n's 10 kiting tips for being a kool kid like he is:
First Tip: Aggro. You need to nuke the mob as fast and as hard as you can ('NUKE IT AS HARD AS POSSIBLE!' - that guy from ony is serious). This is probably the most important rule of kiting. Without a high amount of threat you won't stand a chance of keeping the mob off the healer in most fights.
Second Tip: Stand at max range. Clearly the more range you have on a mob the longer it's gonna take for them to reach you. This allows more shots which means more threat which means easier kiting.
Third Tip: Ice Trap (preivously called frost trap). This slows mobs down. Need I see more?
Fourth Tip: Don't DoT, scattershot! Using serpent sting on mobs is usually a good way for us to deal damage. Dealing damage is not our priority here. If you can slow a mob you can also silence a mob and scattershot a mob. Scattershot is a great tool in confined areas, you can use scattershot to it's best effect by kiting a mob to a corner then using scatter and then running to the opposite side of the room as fast as you can.
Fifth Tip: Know your route. This is another extremely important one, you need to know where you're going to move to. Why, you ask? Well it goes like this. Listen closely. The better you understand your environment the better you can use that environment to kite a mob. Is there a staircase with a ledge next to it? If so, kite the mob up the stairs and when it gets close jump down and run the other way! This can even give you some time to land some shots on another enemy you're fighting. It's extremely handy!
Sixth Tip: Circle Kiting. This is probably the most effective way to kite a mob and maintain your dps. Please note that you need to be in aspect of the fox for this. Kite your mob in a circle around your tank. By doing this in aspect of the fox you can maintain your dps on mobs while kiting others. This is a very difficult skill and takes a lot of practice. Hell I'm still not great at it. Use all your abilites at your disposal to stay away from mobs (i.e. disengage, scatter, ice trap, counter attack etc.) as well as keeping as best a circle as you can. I'll explain that last part.
Mobs move directly at you, because of this if you are running at angles (i.e. not directly away from them (which I label as 0 degrees)) they will be able to catch up to you. Circle kiting helps to prevent this and if you get good enough at it you'll be able to avoid taking damage from a lot of melee mobs. Pull your mob as you would any other, start moving away like you would kite any mob in the game. Once you do that start moving in a circle. Voila! You win! Again, the rounder your pathing is the better your results will be.
I will find a youtube video of someone soloing a 40 man naxx boss when I get home and link it.
Seventh tip: Line of Sight. Any mob can be kited, any mob at all. But casters are the trickiest of them all. Casters are harder to kite for obvious reasons: sometimes they just stand there and pew pew at your ass. Fear Not! There are ways around this! Just as tanks LoS pull casters we can LoS kite mobs! Unfortunately for casters you do need the right environment for it, so sometimes finding your best position to do it is a pain. But it is still viable in most instances and some outdoor areas. My favorite LoS use is a pillar. Why? Because a pillar can be an infinite kite for as many casters as you want. Here's how you do it. Shoot the mob(s), when they begin to cast run behind the pillar, placing traps there helps but is not essential. When they come up to you and cast again run around a corner of the pillar. Continue until you win. Another way to effectively kite casters is to constantly stay out of their casting range.
Eigth Tip: Practice! Enough said.
Ninth Tip: Know what and where you can't kite. This saves everyone a lot of time.
Tenth Tip: Aspect of the Cheetah. It's your friend in kiting. Use it. Don't use Aspect of the Pack.
Kiting is a lot of fun and has many adaptations to it. I suggest when you get a chance to give them a go. Misdirection kiting techniques are especially effective. One that I employed recently with a heroic group was this: Tank misdirection kiting. It's easy, misdirect the tank, use multi shot if you need to and have the tank run away from the mobs. This allows your group to deal some significant damage before the tank actually sustains any. This would work extremely well in a well coordinated group as you can get to the stage where you can tennis ball the mob if required.
Tennis balling is the switching of aggro between players so the mob 'bounces' in between the players. This is used effectively between tanks and hunters with the use of taunts and distracting shots. I would recommend this method when mobs hit extremely hard and heals struggle to keep the tank alive.
As you can see there are some really creative ways to kite! To manage your aggro all you need to do is Feign Death.
In summary, hunters are an amazing class for crowd control. Even in BC when hunters had 30 second trap durations on Freezing Trap was I able to trap two mobs and kite another. The possibilities are almost endless where the only limitation is the game environment itself.
Level 60 and me
There are so many tales to tell about my experiences at level 60, I would suggest that if you have any questions I would be happy to answer them.
I'll go through a quick list:
- 40 on 40 world pvp: we once ganked a whole guild raid when on our way to finish a molten core/start a BWL
- Guild sex scandals (lol): a guildie found his girlfriend (also a guildie) having phone sex with another guildie lol.
- Solo hunter quests (minus pet): awesome fun
- 40 man raids: Onyxia!
- Epic and legendary fever - guild quits over not getting items Lol.
I'll go through a quick list:
- 40 on 40 world pvp: we once ganked a whole guild raid when on our way to finish a molten core/start a BWL
- Guild sex scandals (lol): a guildie found his girlfriend (also a guildie) having phone sex with another guildie lol.
- Solo hunter quests (minus pet): awesome fun
- 40 man raids: Onyxia!
- Epic and legendary fever - guild quits over not getting items Lol.
Once a huntard, still a huntard? part 1
I still remember the days that I first played this game. Logging in and creating a character called Therage. Ah, what a day it was! It took me ages to figure out how to play (spamming autoattack button for example) and I proudly hit level 7 on my first night of playing.
Dying to raptors lots and lots will always be etched in my memory.
I had no idea wtf to do, no idea at all. Then I hit level 10 and got my first talent point! Which skill do I put it in? I don't friggin know!
But then I looked up from between my hands and saw a lone priest running his way towards me and asked me if I was on a particular quest. I was! Yay! I'm saved! Starting a conversation with this guy I found out that his main character was actually a hunter. What luck! My questions started flooding in and thankfully he was more than glad to help throughout my entire levelling to 60.
Let me tell you, levelling to 60 was no easy task. Mobs pwned me, groups hated me for being a retard and I knew very few people on the server who had the patience to help me out. So I died a lot and a lot more. But I persisted. I had my ol' faithful bear that I tamed in Ashenvale by my side and I was (un)stoppable! I ganked, got ganked more than that and got camped multiple times. I knew that my time would come one day where I would be doing the same thing.
Blackrock is not a forgiving server, let me tell you that much. On Blackrock the rule was if you saw an enemy and you thought you could kill them you do it. The level difference does not matter. So as a lowbie levelling without any main to come in and smash campers I was bullied quite a bit. That was frustrating, but with patience I persevered.
I eventually hit level 60 and the tiny guild of four or five people I was in decided to merge with another, larger guild. This guild became my first raiding guild and exposed me to the wonders of level 60 content. Level 60 brought me challenging PvE, PvP and everything in between (i.e. guild drama). I still had a lot to learn and I still had a lot of fun things to do up my sleeve.
Dying to raptors lots and lots will always be etched in my memory.
I had no idea wtf to do, no idea at all. Then I hit level 10 and got my first talent point! Which skill do I put it in? I don't friggin know!
But then I looked up from between my hands and saw a lone priest running his way towards me and asked me if I was on a particular quest. I was! Yay! I'm saved! Starting a conversation with this guy I found out that his main character was actually a hunter. What luck! My questions started flooding in and thankfully he was more than glad to help throughout my entire levelling to 60.
Let me tell you, levelling to 60 was no easy task. Mobs pwned me, groups hated me for being a retard and I knew very few people on the server who had the patience to help me out. So I died a lot and a lot more. But I persisted. I had my ol' faithful bear that I tamed in Ashenvale by my side and I was (un)stoppable! I ganked, got ganked more than that and got camped multiple times. I knew that my time would come one day where I would be doing the same thing.
Blackrock is not a forgiving server, let me tell you that much. On Blackrock the rule was if you saw an enemy and you thought you could kill them you do it. The level difference does not matter. So as a lowbie levelling without any main to come in and smash campers I was bullied quite a bit. That was frustrating, but with patience I persevered.
I eventually hit level 60 and the tiny guild of four or five people I was in decided to merge with another, larger guild. This guild became my first raiding guild and exposed me to the wonders of level 60 content. Level 60 brought me challenging PvE, PvP and everything in between (i.e. guild drama). I still had a lot to learn and I still had a lot of fun things to do up my sleeve.
About me and this blog
Hey guys,
RaG1n here, but if you play/played WoW with me you may know me by a few names which all refer to my hunter, Lovemontes! People generally call me ragin, but I was more widley known as rage previously.
Lovemontes has been my main for a very long time (155 days play time last time I checked), he is a Dranei hunter on Aman'Thul and previous to that he was called Therage (troll hunter) on Blackrock.
Despite not having cleared 100% of the content I can almost say that I have experienced everything there is to experience when it comes to playing a hunter. I have PvP'd hard and PvE'd hard in various expansions.
These days on Aman'Thul I am Deputy GM of a guild called "Big Wipe Theory", a guild that started with the collapse of the previous one I was in (Shaken Not Stirred). Big Wipe Theory was built upon the idea of games being fun, but also through the enjoyment of a challenge. We are a PvE focused guild who has a lot of fun doing what we do progressing through PvE content.
Smashing through to level 85 was my goal and I achieved it faster than I expected, which I was pleased with. I am now geared enough for heroic dungeons and have my two main professions (LW, Skinning) at max skill. I am also in the process of getting all the cataclysm patterns for my leatherworking as well as working on my secondary professions, reputation with factions.
I also have two alts, Tehrage (druid) and Theragin (paladin). I love playing both of these classes greatly; they have a vast array of abilities at their disposal and when used in the right ways they lead to interesting and powerful combinations. Both classes are exceptional and I feel that my dedication to playing and mastering the hunter class allows me to adapt to other classes quickly.
In this blog I will tell stories, post opinion and bitch about things in WoW.
But as of present, I love the current expansion and how it works. Hated Wrath, loved BC (until PvE content got repetitive) and absolutely loved vanilla, which was the best time to play imo).
RaG1n here, but if you play/played WoW with me you may know me by a few names which all refer to my hunter, Lovemontes! People generally call me ragin, but I was more widley known as rage previously.
Lovemontes has been my main for a very long time (155 days play time last time I checked), he is a Dranei hunter on Aman'Thul and previous to that he was called Therage (troll hunter) on Blackrock.
Despite not having cleared 100% of the content I can almost say that I have experienced everything there is to experience when it comes to playing a hunter. I have PvP'd hard and PvE'd hard in various expansions.
These days on Aman'Thul I am Deputy GM of a guild called "Big Wipe Theory", a guild that started with the collapse of the previous one I was in (Shaken Not Stirred). Big Wipe Theory was built upon the idea of games being fun, but also through the enjoyment of a challenge. We are a PvE focused guild who has a lot of fun doing what we do progressing through PvE content.
Smashing through to level 85 was my goal and I achieved it faster than I expected, which I was pleased with. I am now geared enough for heroic dungeons and have my two main professions (LW, Skinning) at max skill. I am also in the process of getting all the cataclysm patterns for my leatherworking as well as working on my secondary professions, reputation with factions.
I also have two alts, Tehrage (druid) and Theragin (paladin). I love playing both of these classes greatly; they have a vast array of abilities at their disposal and when used in the right ways they lead to interesting and powerful combinations. Both classes are exceptional and I feel that my dedication to playing and mastering the hunter class allows me to adapt to other classes quickly.
In this blog I will tell stories, post opinion and bitch about things in WoW.
But as of present, I love the current expansion and how it works. Hated Wrath, loved BC (until PvE content got repetitive) and absolutely loved vanilla, which was the best time to play imo).
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