Hunter guide: Hunters for Dummies, or a Casual Hunter Guide

[CarlZon]

First of all, i want to say this: THIS IS GUIDE WAS NOT MADE BY ME!!!
I could'nt find it at MMowned so i thought i should post it here for your help, anyways, I DID NOT DO THIS GUIDE :P it's a quite long guide btw :P

Nukes 'r us, or Hunters for Dummies

Hey all This post originally came from my Guild's Class Guides forum, for which i had originally written it. I thought it would be of great help to those who need it, so i repost it here. Any and all comments are welcome

NOTE: This is NOT a raiding hunter guide. This is a guide to being a hunter, to knowing how to do hunter stuff, to know what people expect from you and how to meet their expectations. This is guide for people who reroll hunters or who are interested in casual playing. Raiding hunters will find much better information in other threads, that focus on raiding.


Contents :

1.[Hunter Basics

1.1 What is hunter?
1.2 Choosing a race
1.3 How to play?

2. Here, kitty kitty, or Pets and how to use them

2.1 What are pets?
2.2 Choosing a pet
2.3 Using a pet in combat
2.4 What to expect and not to expect from a pet

3. Aspect of the Huntard

4. Traps - rules and tricks

4.1 What are traps?
4.2 Choosing a trap
4.3 Trapping in and out of combat
4.4 Chain-Trapping

5. Stings and shots

6. Kiting for dummies

6.1 What is kiting?
6.2 How to kite

7.Tracking the trackers

7.1 What are track spells and when to use them?

8. To die or not to die, or the miracles of Feign Death

9. Zomg epixx, or Gear for Huntards

9.1 Common questions about gear
9.2 Agi or ap? crit or hit? what stats are good for hunters

10. Everything you wanted to know about talents but were afraid to ask

10.1 What is each talent tree for?
10.2 Full description of each talent
10.3 Gearing up to your build
10.4 Ready-to-use builds

11. Rotation in fight

12. Pre-kara gear

13. Potions, elixirs, etc




1. Hunter basics

1.1 What is hunter?

A hunter is an interesting combination of caster and melee dps. It doesnt depend on mana as much as casters do, and it deals mostly physical damage and not magical, but it is able to keep its distance from its target, unlike warriors, rogues, etc. Hunter also possesses an incredibly useful spell, called Feign Death, which allows him or her to escape from combat or reduce threat nearly without fail. it is because of this ability that good geared hunters can become the top of damage list in raids and parties, because after one or two feign deaths they can basically stop watching their aggro and nuke as hard as they can. Hunters are meant to be a dps class, and they excel at that, however they can also be able to offtank in normal instances as well if needed, but they will not be able to keep much aggro that way. However their health and dodge chances allow to live for long enough to allow main tank to regain armor, and offtanking with pet can be quiet successful as well. Like rogues, if hunter is an engineer, he can provide a fast wipe recovery if he uses Jumper Cables after emerging from feign death.



1.2 Choosing a race

Although it does not actually change gameplay alot like priest's racial ability, you will have a little bit different expirience depending on which race you choose.

As i am totally non-alliance player, i will not discuss the dwarf/night elf/draenei races.

Tauren :

Strength 25 Agility 18 stamina 23 intellect 15 spirit 23 health 80 mana 80
+5% max health, Warstomp (additional disable)


Orc :

strength 23 agility 20 stamina 23 intellect 17 spirit 24 health 76 mana 82
+5% pet damage, Bloodfury (+x to base ap (ranged and melee) for 15 sec)


Troll :

strength 21 agility 25 stamina 22 intellect 16 spirit 22 health 66 mana 81
+1% bow crit, berserking, +10% of normal hp regen in combat


Blood elf :

strength 17 agility 25 stamina 19 intellect 24 spirit 20 health 45 mana 145
Steal mana + gain mana and silence


As can be seen from this "table", Blood elf and troll are actually the worst races for being a hunter skillwise. While steal mana and silence + mana are useful for long-time fights, they will set your abilities on global cooldown for a few seconds, which means less dps for these 2 seconds.

Orcs are good hunters damagewise. Not only their pets will get extra damage bonus, but the bloodfury will come in handy as well, and although it decreases healing received by 50%, since hunter cannot heal himself other than by pots or bandages, during farming/soloing/grouping this wont make much trouble

Taurens are big. No. Big, with capital letter. Lots of health, +5% max hp, warstomp - all this allows them to survive longer than others. They also have quiet good hp/mana combination (80hp 80 mana, as opposed to 45hp 145mana for BE or 66hp 81mana for trolls).

But i will say this again - choosing the race will not influence the gameplay alot. It will barely even do so. The starting stats might be important for twinks and lowbies, but as soon as you get higher in lvl, they cease to matter. My hunter (soul) was made tauren just because i loved the taurens starting zone and for no other reason at all.


1.3 How to play

Hunters are RANGED dps class. Yes, hunters can do dps in melee as well, but they wont come even close to unlocking their potential until they get ranged. Therefore your target is to kill an enemy before he gets in melee range, or at least deal as much damage as you can so that you wont have to spend alot of time in melee. This is where pets come in. You can either let pet have aggro and slowly dps until mob is dead, or you can let your pet grab aggro and nuke hard, so that mob doesnt have time to attack you in melee.

If needed, you can also melee mobs to death though. In some places, like caves for example, it is hard to stay ranged because of high mob-per-square-game-meter ratio, so just send your pet in to attack and start meleeing. Aspect of monkey provides you with +8% dodge untalented, which is alot really. Also things like Disengage and Feign Death will help you get aggro back to your pet.

Dont forget, that although hunters are way less dependant on mana than priests/locks/mages/etc, having some will still be very good for dps, since shots/stings/etc provide a good increase in dps, and things like Feign Death or changing aspects need mana as well. Therefore always check that you have enough mana to last for incoming combat and to kill or escape the adds (if they come). Dont overnuke - dont spend multishot or arcane shot on an enemy which you know you will kill with next auto shot, but also dont be shy in using spells - better to spend extra mana on finishing the mob who is casting a nasty spell than having to restore hp/mana/pet hp/etc.



2. Here, kitty, kitty, or Pets and how to use them


2.1 What are pets?

Pets are your guardians and that extra damage that you might want. Pets keep the mob on a distance from you, so you may use ranged weapons. Pets deal damage to mobs (and players) so you might kill them faster. Pets can grab aggro from mobs to allow you to escape. And last but not least, good-looking pets draw attention of your fellow (and enemy) players


2.2 Choosing a pet

Pets are basically divided into three groups - Tanking, Dps and average.

Tanking - this group consists of pets who have a large amount of health and/or armor and can withstand alot of damage. They make great offtankers as well, but their damage is usually relatively small, therefore you might have hard time not overaggroing them. This group includes bears, turtles, and some others.

Dps - this group focuses on dealing damage. They attack fast and furious, but they dont usually have alot of health or armor. They can keep aggro better though, since their damage is alot higher than the tanking pets'. This group consists of raptors, cats, windserpents and others.

Average - this group is comprised of beasts which are neither tanks nor damagers. They are kind of both of the groups, but weaker than each of them (e.g. they have higher damage than tankers, but not as high as dps pets, but they have more health than dps pets). This group includes boars, gorillas, and some others.

Selecting a proper pet is crucial. If you are aiming at pvp, you will be better off either with a dps pet, or with a pet with a special power that you like, boar's charge, for example. If you find yourself trying to kill hard-hitting mobs, a tanker is preferable, but watch your dps. Dps pets are more efficient at soloing than tankers, but you might need to heal or revive your pet if the mob is too tough for it.


2.3 Using pet in combat

Although it might seem simple (send pet to attack, start shooting) its a bit more complicated. First of all, remember the aggro. Your pet is not your guild's main tank, able to tank the end-game boss without losing aggro. Make sure you either give your pet some time to gain aggro, or prepare for incoming mob. If a mob is ranged, you might start pounding on it right away, unless you want to conserve your health, for which you would try to keep aggro on pet.

If you managed to grab aggro from pet anyway, there are three choices for you. One, you might try to use disengage. This, if successful, will reduce your threat by certain amount, however mob will NOT switch to your pet until it gains some threat on it, e.g. by using growl. Second, you might use Feign Death. This will completely remove you from mob's aggro list, making it switch to your pet. Last, you might just keep pounding at mob at melee range, or use traps to assist you. Find what suits you best for the circumstances.

If you are against a tough mob, you also have three choices. First, throw a heal on your pet, use a misdirect shot (if u have it) or give pet some aggro time and start hitting mob, while healing pet whenever the HoT buff fades. Second, if you are Bm specc you might have a really low time on revive pet, so as soon as your pet is dead you can slow the mob
[ Post edited by Soulhound ]





70

Soulhound
< Champions of Draenor > Silvermoon
1. Re: Hunters for Dummies, or complete Hunter G 07/03/2008 08:33:29 PST
... slow the mob, revive pet, and keep pounding. Last, you can try to kite the mob (this will be explained later).

There is also a very nice way to use pet to escape unnecessary fights. Lets imagine you stopped to herb a dreamfoil, and suddenly you get attacked by a mob. You can send your pet on mob to gain aggro, get herb, put pet on passive and throw a Feign Death. Since your pet is on passive, you will leave combat mode, allowing you to mount up, and as soon as you do that, your pet will dissapear, making mob return to its original spot (evade run), while you can keep going wherever you were going.

If you need to escape from a long and boring cave filled with mobs, you can use your pet to grab aggro from all mobs in your way, running past them out of the cave. As soon as you are out, FD and mount up to save your pet. This saves alot of time, and is especially helpful when you find yourself out of potions or food/water. Just make sure your pet grabs aggro of all the mobs in your way, since one hit might make you dazed and ruin everything. Also remember that your pet is not a titan, and might die if there are too many mobs or if you delay for mine/herb/etc.

Also near the end-game content pet's usefulness will fade in raids/parties unless you are BM specc. However, if you have good micro, you can still get nice extra dps from pet, from both normal attacks and abilities (e.g. claw, bite), and from Kill Command.



2.4 What to expect and not to expect from a pet

Although pet is a mighty companion, its not too mighty, so you should know your pet's strengths and weaknesses. You might want to test how your pet soloes some mobs, to check out damage it deals and receives, so that if moment arrives you might make a correct decision. One too many times i had to fight with way more enemies than i expected, and for this my pet proved invaluable - with me killing one-two mobs and my pet attacking (keeping aggro/killing) the other one-two. Although you might need to ressurect your pet or use a pot, this might save you from a repair bill and corpse run, so know what to expect from your meow-kitty or oink-boar.


3. Aspect of the Huntard


Aspect is just like paladin's aura or druid's shapeshift. You can only have one of them at a time, but you have plenty to choose from. You should have one of them everytime though, since they dont cost any mana to maintain and they provide non-problem-causing bonuses


-Aspect of the Monkey : +8% dodge chance

This gives hunter more dodge chance than even rogue! And with talents, this might increase up to +13% dodge. Invaluable for both pve and pvp

-Aspect of the Hawk : +X ranged AP

This is very useful, since not only it adds a reasonable RAP, which is valuable for hunter, but with talents this might also give you extra attack speed bonus time to time! However the closer you get to level 70, the less valuable it is, because some items might provide bonuses comparable to or greater than the aspect, e.g. pants with 30agi, 70ap and sockets, while last rank of aspect of hawk provides 175 rap (or 155, dont remember).

-Aspect of the Cheetah : +30% running speed

Something that allows hunters to get normal-mount running speed before getting mount. Some people can even survive with just this until level 60, although i would prefer having a mount, since if you get hit with this aspect on, you will get dazed, slowing you to less the running speed than without the aspect.

-Aspect of the Pack : +30% running speed to party

Basically the same as cheetah, but gives bonus to all party. And the party member will get dazed too if attacked.

-Aspect of the Beast : Untrackable

This is useless in pve, but very helpful in pvp, especially in pvp areas like arenas and wsg/ab/etc. This way hunter may hide from other hunters/track potion users and ambush them or escape.

-Aspect of the Wild : +X nature resist
Usually useless in soloing, this might be very useful for party in instances like Underbog, AQ, Maraudon, etc.

-Aspect of the Viper : +% of your intellect in mana every 5 sec
(25% - 65%, depending on your current mana)

This might seem useless before end-game, and you might not want the mana regen. At level 70 however it becomes invaluable. Instead of providing static bonus (hawk, monkey) this gives you extra mana for your shots/traps/etc even while you are casting. And you will get more mana the more intellect you have, too! And although the mana regen it provides might seem low, if fight lasts long enough you will feel the difference good enough, and it also allows you to farm/fight through trash mobs without really drinking at all... Soulhound drinks once, maybe twice in any instance, even kara, although i spend alot of mana. Note that if you get mana drained its faster to just drink than wait for regen



[ u]4. Traps - rules and tricks[/u]

4.1 What are traps?
4.2 Choosing a trap


Traps is something unique to hunter class, like polymorph is to mage and stealth is to rogues. Basically, these are things you place on ground, which activate and cast some sort of spell whenever an enemy walks on or near them.

There are 5 different traps for hunter to use -

Freezing trap (makes enemy unable to move or do anything else at all for X seconds, breaks if attacked)

This is hunter's only CC apart from Talented Wyvern sting. Its not only helpful in instances, where you will disable a mob, this will help you in questing too, where you can freeze an add, freeze the mob to bandage/rest or to freeze the mob to be able to herb/mine/escape. At maximum level it lasts 20 sec with 30 second cooldown, so if timed good it allows you to chain trap (see later). You can have as many mobs frozen at one time as you want, however you will need to spend one trap on each of the mobs, so the more you trap, the harder it becomes to retrap them when trap breaks.


Frost trap (makes all enemies near it slowed by X %)

Useful in three cases : 1) pvp, to slow incoming/running players, 2) in instances and raids - to slow mobs so your party can run/range attack/aoe them, or 3) to escape mobs you do not wish to fight. If you remember the tactic i discussed about letting your pet grab all aggro in the cave so you can escape, then you might think about using a freezing trap to slow enemies, thats a good idea.

Exploding trap (instant damage + dot to all nearby enemies)

Kind of like mage's fire aoe, it even has same icon. Useful when you are killing more than one or two mobs, e.g. weak mobs in instances like groups of non-elites, or when you have 2-3 mobs on you and you want to deal damage to all of them.

Searing trap (DoT)

Higher damage than exploding trap, but only targets one target and doesnt deal damage instanly, but dots target instead. Good for when you are killing a single mob, and it comes in melee range, and you cant be arsed to FD or slow it to run in ranged attack mode again - just pop a searing trap and melee it. Also good for preventing Rogues from stealthing.

Snake trap (summons snakes)

Summons X snakes, which attack nearby targets and deal nature dmg + stacking dot (5 times). This trap seems %@%#ty at first, and i will be honest - i never used it before lvl 70. However later i discovered its true potential - the 5-stacked DoT deals 75 damage per tick + snakes attack as well, so when there are two mobs, both mobs will have fully-stacked DoT in just a few seconds. Very useful indeed.


4.3 Trapping in and out of combat

Well thanks to blizz hunters now actually can trap in combat. However there is a small time needed for trap to become active if its put into combat. Example - you place a trap and melee-attack a yellow mob standing near. As soon as it stands on trap its trapped. Second example - you attack a mob, wait until its in melee range, and then place trap. You will manage to place one/two more hits, depending on your weap, before target gets trapped. Is it worth it then? Yes, you bet it is. Its just a way to balance it, but its still as useful as ever. So if you can, try to put traps out of combat, but its absolutely no problem if you place them during, because by the time mob actually runs to near you, the timer would have already passed, and trap will activate instantly. Just make sure you are aware of cooldown on trap, so that you can chain-trap the mob.


4.4Chain trapping

Okay, here is where Hunter becomes a CC class comparable to rogue or mage. Yes, mage's sheep lasts longer and can be recast, BUT it can only sheep humanoids and beasts. Hunters can trap anything. Problem is, trap doesnt last too long, and thus you need to learn how to chain trap.
When you see you need to chain trap a mob, place a trap according to this timetarget: ideally, mob should become trapped when your trap cooldown is ready, so that you can place 2nd trap as soon as mob is trapped. This will start your cooldown again, so preferably place your trap somewhere where mob will have to run for it a little bit. usually, mob will become frozen 2nd time when you have about 5-6 seconds cooldown left on trap. As soon as its ready, place it again. Repeat this until mob starts attacking you and your trap is on cooldown. Then, use warstomp/deterrence/intimidate/scatter shot/engineering bomb/etc, anything that can prevent that mob from killing you, and as soon as trap cooldown is ready, place it, and FD when mob is frozen. You can also, as i said before, place the next trap a bit away from the mob, so that you can concussive-shot it to slow it down a bit. Your job is done. A good hunter can manage about 5 or 6 chain traps on mob, if his timing is perfect and mobs dont resist traps. If there are 2 hunters, then there is no limit on how many times the mob can be trapped.
(continued)
[ Post edited by Soulhound ]





70

Soulhound
< Champions of Draenor > Silvermoon
2. Re: Hunters for Dummies, or complete Hunter G 07/03/2008 08:34:20 PST
...Here is a bad part about trapping, resists. Unlike mages, our CC actually has a long (30 sec) cooldown, so if trap resists, we are defenseless really. Here is where pet and kiting comes. Try to make your mob attack your pet, and when it does, use concussive shot on it. Start running away (making sure pet is near you, and mob is targeting pet). Run somewhere where mob will take time to get to group, and place pet on "stand ground", and go away. As soon as mob reaches pet, distracting/multi/arcane shot it to grab aggro to you. Concussive shot again. Then feign death/stop/scatter shot, or make it attack pet again. By this time your trap cooldown will be ready, and you can trap it. If you feel confident, you can kite the mob around until your trap CD is ready, and then freeze it there, so you can still chain trap. This might not be as useful in normal instances as it is in heroics and Kara, because usually all the rest of the mobs are killed by trap #3, but better to overdo than to underdo, no?


5. Stings and shots

This one is really simple, but should be mentioned nevertheless. We currently have 4 stings - Serpent sting (DoT) and Viper sting (Mana over time).There is also Wyvern sting (sleep + DoT), but i never really used it tbh, since the DoT after sleep prevents all CC to be casted on it after. Serpent sting is only worth it for MM hunters due to their AP. Viper sting is for rare cases when mob needs to be mana drained, e.g. ZG Snake boss (nostalgy, lol). Also, there is a Scorpid sting, that reduces chance to hit with ranged and melee attacks by 5%. This is a bit useful in solo and quiet useful in PvP. If your MT is a paladin (read: doesnt need rage) or has enough rage generation anyway, you can use this on raid boss to reduce amount of damage the tank gets.

Note: some people say that if you overwrite wyvern sting's DoT with something else, then you can re-CC the target. Havent tested myself so i am not sure.

Arcane/aimed/multi/steady shots are damage spells, Concussive/Scatter are slow/cc spells and Misdirect shot is an imba shot (yeah, simple)
Arcane, distract, misdirect, concussive, scatter shots are instant-cast, while aimed, multi and steady are casted (3sec, 0.5 sec and 1.5 sec respectively)

Now to explain them.

-Aimed shot.

A high-damage shot with high-crit damage, but long (3sec) cast time. Should only be used in 2 cases: 1) Opening of fight, especially effective combined with Misdirect shot, and 2) When your actual shooting speed is 3 seconds or slower. The (2) is virtually impossible in high-end TBC, but while leveling hunter to 60 this can happen. In this case, spamming aimed shot will increase your dps significantly, but if your Attack Speed is faster than 3 seconds, you will actually reduce your dps. So only use Aimed Shot in (1) and (2). Also, Aimed shot applies Mortal Strike debuff, decreasing healing taken by target by 50%.

-Multi shot.

A total dps-bread-and-butter skill. Using it in your rotation will highly increase your dps, especially if you have imp.m.s. in MM talent tree. Hitting multiple mobs can be both good and bad though - its good when you can deal extra damage to the group of mobs, bad thing is when you can break CC by doing this. So only use multishot if there is no one CCed that is in multishot's range. Better to lose some dps because of not using it, than to wipe because your MS hit the sapped target.

-Arcane shot.

Commonly known as "cheap aimed", its actually a quiet useful tool. It is a bit useless for quick fights, as you can deal more damage in autoshot than with arcane, however its useful for when you need to quickly instant-damage the mob or when you are using a dps rotation (explained later). Scales with AP.

NOTE: Arcane Shot of rank 5+ will also remove a random magic buff from enemy.

-Steady shot.

Commonly known as "The-shot-that-destroyed-rotation". It might seem weak and useless at start, however its potential is enormous. See for yourself - its 1.5 sec cast spell that deals damage scaling with AP (1), it has no cooldown (2) and it deals extra damage against dazed (3) with low (4) mana cost. 4 reasons why its really great, and, imo, it didnt really destroy the rotation, it just changed it...alot... When using Steady shot, make sure to land a auto-shot in between, otherwise your DPS will actually go down. Note that SS, or any other shot for that matter, does NOT reset the shooting timer, so if your AS is 2.8, and you cast steady (1.5), 0.5 second global cooldown (0.5), then cast arcane (0), global cooldown (0.5), you will have used 2.5 seconds, and you will auto shot in 0.3 seconds, then you can repeat this "simple" rotation again and again.


-Concussive shot.

Highly useful shot for (solo) when aggro breaks and you need to slow mob down so pet can catch up with it or you can kill it or run away, (kiting) for slowing down mob so it cant reach and daze you, (raid) or for slowing mobs that are going for you/healers/casters/run away.

-Scatter shot.

Useful ONLY when your trap is on cooldown, or when you need to get far away from mob. Still very useful, but very situational as well, since it will break should any damage be dealt to scatter-shotted target.

-Misdirect shot.

A totally imba skill for hunters, which, unlike ALL other classes, allows us to start the fight with a high dps burst, instead of actually controlling it. Not only this helps the raid with getting the extra damage in asap, it also helps tanks enormously, as the starting aggro is hardest to get. And imagine what aggro tank gets when hunter misdirects him, and then aimed-shots mob for 3k crit?



6. Kiting for dummies

6.1 Whats kiting? Easy - kiting is making mob follow you, while you are keeping a safe distance. Reasons for kiting could be trying to solo a hard mob (e.g. Kiting a rare 70e in shadowmoon), removing one of mobs from combat when traps dont work (e.g. Kiting one of the two giants near the Hungerfen to entrance, so that group can focus on killing just one of them).

Now about the kiting itself. First thing that you should know about mob before attempting kiting - mob's speed, immunities and abilities. If mob moves faster than you in aspect of cheetah, has ranged stun or is immune to concussive/arcane/serpent shots, you should rethink your wish to kite it. It might still be possible, but very hard. You should always pull mob and make a test run of a few seconds to check how it will go (e.g. will you need cheetah aspect or not), before attempting a serious try. When you are ready,start with aimed -> concussive. Turn around and start running. MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHERE EXACTLY YOU ARE GOING TO BE KITING THE MOB!!! Running "just where i can" will usually end in disaster. Time to time (every 3 seconds or smth), while still running, jump, turn in midair, shoot a serpent/arcane/concussive onto mob, turn back to where you are running to, and keep running. Make sure mob is not too far away from you - or it will just evade back. Also make sure you CONSTANTLY shoot it so it keeps following you. Dont stay too close to it - it will just daze you. A dazed kiter is usually a dead kiter, although there is a way to go on when you are dazed. Just make your pet attack the mob, feign death, QUICKLY arcane/multi shot the mob (make sure you damage it) and start running again. NOTE: Faction NPCs (Dark iron / scryers / aldor/ etc) will NOT help you fight any mobs. Only horde/alliance/Shattrath guards will.


7. Tracking the Trackers

Tracking is something unique to hunters, although warlocks (sense demons) have something thats close to us. Tracking will allow you to sense stuff you need, although most of time you will be just using your herb/mining tracker. Tracking can help when you are hunting specific targets (e.g. farming demons for felcloth or beasts for skinning). Its also useful in pvp, but i wont go in this direction using is easy - just select the tracking spell and use it. BTW, dont put the spells onto your action bars - you will have lots of other spells which are more needed, and you can always cast any needed tracking spell via spellbook.
BTW, hunters can track ALL possible creatures, except the "unspecified" ones (AQ bugs, etc).


8. To die or not to die, or the miracles of Feign Death.

FD is hunter's main card, something totally and absolutely unique to us, although rogues have some crap which can be compared to FD... something crap with 30min cooldown and totally bugged, thanks to blizzard

FD will allow you to kill or escape from mobs which other classes will have hard time with. FD will save your ass so many times that when you play other class you will have hard time remembering you dont have any FD.

But going specific, here are things you need to know about FD:

- It can be resisted. Although chance is small, it can. And by the way, if any mob in group resists the FD spell, then all group will keep attacking you.

- It requires some time to activate. When you cast it, you must keep still for a second or two, until you get "leaving combat" message. This was added to prevent people from running-hit FD - keep running, without any animation or pause.

- It removes you from the combat and reduces all threat to 0%

- It lasts for 6 min, and if after 6 min you dont move, you will die!

- If you are in FD, mobs can walk on top of you (pats) or spawn on top of you, and they will not aggro. When you are in FD you are NOT considered a player target, thus mobs cannot resist your FD if you are already feigning it.

- If your pet is attacking when you are feigning death, you will remain in combat. Your threat will be reduced to 0, however if you stop FDing, mobs will go after you when they are done with the pet. So either wait until pet is dead,

...(continued)
[ Post edited by Soulhound ]





70

Soulhound
< Champions of Draenor > Silvermoon
3. Re: Hunters for Dummies, or complete Hunter G 07/03/2008 08:35:05 PST
...wait until pet is dead, and you will leave combat, or order your pet to stop attacking before FDing

- If you or your pet get attacked, you enter combat. However if your pet gets attacks (=gets attacked), you FD (mob still on pet), you will leave the combat, although your pet will still be in one. And you will be able to mount/accept summon/etc. This is a very nice way of getting herbs/mines near mobs when you dont want to waste time killing them - land, attack with pet, pet stop attack, FD, mine/herb, mount and run. NOTE: Using a chest in a vicinity of a mob, even if that mob is fighting another player, will automatically put you into combat with that mob.

- FD does wonders in instances and raids. Misdirect shot and feign death will give you way to actually not control your dps, since you can always reduce it. Just make sure you know when you pass the 80% threat level of tank, then FD, and if successful, keep on pounding This is what makes hunters potentially more powerful dps class than any other - we dont have to control dps. At all. Ever.

- If one mob in combat against you resists FD, you will remain in combat with all of the mobs who are against you. Your threat, however, will be reduced to zero with those mobs which didnt resist your FD.


9. Zomg Epixxx! Or gear for Huntards

9.1 Common Questions

-Leather wearing. Although some classes (mainly druids and rogues) can object to hunter rolling or wearing leather, i dont see it such a problem. Yes, leather doesnt usually have int or other not-rogue-but-hunter stats, but it does have crit, hit, agi, ap, etc. And these are very useful for hunter. Armor value is totally useless since you will survive by not aggroing or using dodge/parry, not by armor. So to say short, if there is a rogue/feral druid in party that wants leather as well, i would ask him if he minds me rolling for it. If he does, ill pass, unless this item was my aim for whole instance (like i really needed Midnight Pants, and i rolled over rogue for them. He wasnt happy, but these pants were the only thing i needed from instance, so it was fair). In raids, priority for leather goes to leather-wearers, at least as far as i think it should be.

-Ammo question. I seen some hunters (inc raiding ones) who chose low-lvl ammunition over high-lvl. They motivated that dps difference was too low to notice, and that it costed way cheaper. Well for me its not a problem at all to farm cash needed for ammo, and the extra dps is really nice. So i would highly highly recommend using the best ammunition available. The only thing in question are Adamantite shells. They cost quiet alot, sometimes i see them on ah for 15g/stack, and a 18-slot quiver would cost 270 gold... ouch... So unless you can mine the adamantite and engineer the shells yourself, i would say use the vendor or rep ones.

-Dual wield or 2h? To be honest, it doesnt matter. Some could say that using raptor strike with dual wield is better, since it adds fixed damage, so you deal more, but note that you lose lots of mana like this, and dual wield with raptor cannot compare with you in ranged. So i would say, go for stats over anything else. In the end it doesnt matter what dps is your weapon, but what dps is your output.


9.2 The stats.

Leveling to around 50-60

Stats needed alot: Int, Agi, Ap, hit
Stats needed: crit
Stats needed less: sta


Leveling 60-70 and raiding

Stats needed alot: Agi, Ap, Crit
Stats needed: int, hit
Stats needed less: sta


This is an approximate table of stats, but remember, numbers are all. If you have to choose between 10 crit rating and 40 sta, go for sta. If you need to choose between 10 intellect and 1 agi, go for intellect. Its all numbers.
Also note that for different talent speccs, playstyle, gear and so on you might want to change this table to suit yourself more. For example, i myself value agi and crit over everything else, so i might choose smaller amount of agi and crit than larger amount of, say, hit and ap. But someone else might do it vice versa.

A few notes about +hit rating:

-before lvl 60 dont bother with +hit and prefer dps over +hit (e.g. agi, ap, crit)
-at 60-70 pay minimal attention to +hit, still mainly preferring agi/ap/crit over it
-at level 70 you have to consider following:
* Hit Cap for Special attack or ranged auto-attack, base 142 hit rating (9%)
* Hit Cap for Special attack or ranged auto-attack, with 3/3 Surefooted: 95 hit rating

What does hit-cap mean? It means that you have 0% chance to miss with your attack.
For 25-man raiding, you should be capped or close to being capped. For kara and heroics you should be on about +7% - +8% hit chance (around 125 hit rating). Pay attention to survival Surefooted talent - if you are already capped, there is no point taking extra + hit, unless you want the talents to compensate (so you can change some +hit gear to some other gear, for example).

Also note this: One agi is one ap. Also agi provides +crit chance, although i am not sure how much. I think its about 40agi/1 crit, or something like that. Note, however, that MM-specc favors AP overa agi, and Survival spec does vice-versa, because MM gain +% AP, while survivals get +% agility. Depending on your specc you should choose different stats.

Dont forget intellect and stamina as well. Remember, FD can resist, and dead hunter = 0dps. Make sure you have at LEAST 8k hp for kara, although some encounters (e.g. Doomwalker) require you to have at least 10.5k+ health. Intellect can be ignored, but to certain limits. With lowish mana even aspect of viper wont help you, so make sure you always maintain enough intellect for your playstyle and rotation to have mana to use.



THIS guide was written by "Soulhound", a 70 tauren hunter at the EU server Silvermoon, all credit goes to him! ( i will post the rest of guide soon.)

[Smeems]

1 Google search found the source:
Hunters for Dummies, or a Casual Hunter Guide

Tbh, I don't see anyone giving +Rep to you for searching Google and copy+pasta a result from it.

[frutmestoofvlees]

Googled owned ur face, lol.

[Implodingjigsaw]

Even if it is a copy+paste, Still helps everybody that is too lazy to open up google and search for it, None the less, Good attempt to contribute, Although i do know alot about hunters, This guide helps me know more! Thanks.

[zili]

Very good guide IMO although you were out-googled... :P

[gamer6321]

nice guide the huinter is my favorite class i ve known most of the things and i learned new ones

[kris94]

nice but it's still a copy+paste text

[mpollywolly]

LMFAO who needs help playing a hunter...

[Slippers]

LMFAO who needs help playing a hunter...

After seeing alot of "Melee hunters" and hunters who never use FD, I think ... a lot of them need help.

[geometro916]

nice +rep!

[kris94]

cool, man!

[CRipsunited]

+reply,, i was to lazy to search it on google and i found it here thnx manXD

[knario]

If you want rep, you might at least copy and paste the complete guide.

[Shadshadow]

What is a warlock?

A cheater!

[suysuymilk]

What is a warlock?

A cheater!

haha lol there