#0 - March 7, 2008, 4:32 p.m.
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
