Hunter Skills for Lackadaisical Hunters
As a self-proclaimed bad hunter, I tend to ignore many of the hunter skills — and certainly the more complex and situational ones. The fact is, I’m lazy — or as I prefer to say, lackadaisical (which has the overtone of not being interested enough to make the effort, instead of just being a character flaw). I play to relax, not to challenge myself. And so for most of my huntering career I’ve been pretty satisfied with Auto Shot, Arcane Shot, and Serpent Sting … and not much else.
But a lot of things changed in Patch 3.0, and now that I am leveling up again I’m starting to figure out how to use some of the changes to my advantage — in a very lazy way, of course. I’ve put together some notes on the skills I am using on the off chance that this is useful to someone else. I’m still not using anything even vaguely complicated (with one minor exception, discussed below), but I am pretty pleased with some of the new functionality.
Again, keep in mind that these are probably not the optimal skills, or the optimal ways to use these skills. I do not suggest that you look to this post for advice! (… Unless your playstyle happens to be as weird as mine.) I really just wanted to share.
Steady Shot
I know a lot of hunters will be horrified to learn that I rarely used Steady Shot before Patch 3.0. But hey, at least it was on my action bar — unlike the rest of the skills in this post.
I knew Steady Shot was supposed to be good steady damage for relatively little mana, but I also knew that Steady Shot would ‘clip’ or interrupt Auto Shot — to the extent that using it badly could actually lower your DPS.
Now I could have set up a shot rotation macro to use Steady Shot properly, but … a shot rotation macro isn’t really a great fit with a playstyle built around randomly pushing buttons whenever I feel like it. Anyway, if I used Steady Shot consistently during a fight I would run myself right out of mana. So mostly I skipped it.
But after Patch 3.0, Steady Shot no longer clips Auto Shot — so I can click it whenever I feel like and the net result is positive, not negative! In fact, because Steady Shot can be used again pretty much as soon as the arrow launches, I often find myself hitting it just to have something to do while I wait for the Arcane Shot cooldown.
By the way, you can now train Steady Shot at level 50. Very nice!
Aspect of the Viper
Unfortunately, I still have problems with with running out of mana if I pound Steady Shot too much. Luckily, the new Aspect of the Viper takes care of that reasonably well. Aspect of the Viper reduces your damage rather severely (in the 50% range, depending on your talents), but when you’re just doing relaxed farming and quests that’s not a huge problem. (… Unless you forget to switch out of it after your mana refills, which I often do.)
Now like I said, I’d not at all interested in complexity when I play, so I need either a button I can press randomly and get good results, or a clear and present indicator that it’s time to use a skill. For Aspect of the Viper, that indicator is when all of my other skills go blue because I am out of mana. Then I switch Aspects and rely on Auto Shot for a fight, sometimes two, and then I switch back.
Very simple for me, and very in-my-face. (Mostly. I do forget to switch back sometimes, but eventually I notice that it’s taking more time to kill things.)
And conveniently, you can now train Aspect of the Viper at level 20 so you have plenty of time to play with it!
Aspect of the Beast
Speaking of Aspects, I’ve gone from mostly using Aspect of the Hawk to mostly using Aspect of the Beast. This is entirely and completely because of Pike’s Aspect of the Beast post — so go read it if you haven’t already!
Short story: More damage from pet and slightly less from hunter works out really well for keeping aggro on the pet during casual farming. For example, I rarely bother to send my pet in first anymore — I just right-click to attack and trust my pet to get aggro before the enemy makes it to me. (And the rest of this list is for dealing with what happens when that doesn’t quite work.)
You can learn Aspect of the Beast at level 30, incidentally.
Intimidation
Speaking of aggro … I am rather embarrassed to say this, but I only just recently realized how useful Intimidation is for aggro control. Now perhaps Intimidation doesn’t belong on this list since it didn’t change in Patch 3.0 … But I only recently started using it, so it seems new to me!
I don’t use Intimidation every fight, but it’s a really handy emergency button for when I mis-target and end up walloping on the wrong enemy (i.e. not the one my pet was attacking) for awhile and then he comes to chew on my face. In many of these cases I can use a combination of Disengage and Misdirection, but Intimidation is always there for me when I’ve tried other things already and I’m still in trouble. It’s my ‘Oh hell!’ button.
Disengage
The new Disengage is just plain fun! It flings you backwards several yards — or more, if you happen to be standing on a steep slope or next to a cliff. (Dangerous, but still fun.) It also stops your Auto Shot, so you need to remember to attack again, but it’s a quick way to get back to range. And fun! (Did I mention it makes me laugh every time I use it?)
Disengage by itself is handy if your pet has dragged an enemy up into your melee range, or when the Freezing Trap you dropped at your feet to stop an add wears off and you don’t feel like slowly walking backwards. And Disengage with Misdirection is even handier.
You can learn Disengage at level 20.
Misdirection
Prior to Patch 3.0, the long cooldown timer on Misdirection meant it wasn’t terribly useful for me during normal solo questing, and since I don’t raid or group I didn’t really have much call to use it. In fact, even though Misdirection was arguably the pinnacle of usefulness for the hunter, I never even bothered to put it on my action bar.
But now Misdirection has a 30 second cooldown, which means I can use it almost every fight. Unfortunately it’s a little complicated to use …
Unlike my other favorite skills, Misdirection is cast on a friendly target — in my case, always my pet. But that meant that when I used it in combat I had to hit the button, then select my pet (usually via my pet’s portrait), then cast Arcane Shot or what have you to transfer a nice solid bit of threat. This isn’t hard, per se, but it didn’t really work with the way I normally play (aka flailing).
So when I started to test out Misdirection I went looking for macros to help me use it. I found a good many very handy — and rather complex — macros. I didn’t need something that would Misdirect onto my focus, my pet, my mouse-over target, or my best friend’s mother depending on which keys I held down — I just needed something to cast it on my pet. Every time. Because that’s all I need.
Luckily I was able to modify the Misdirection macros I found very easily into the simplest possible variant:
/cast [target=pet] Misdirection
I used the question mark icon, so it automatically shows the Misdirection icon and cooldown. If I don’t have my pet out, I get the error “You have no target.” But I only use this macro with my pet.
And it works wonderfully! I’ve found three main uses for Misdirection:
- I use it to direct adds onto my pet before they get to me, or to keep adds on my pet if I need to heal him. (I’m mostly hunting with a cat right now, so not a lot of AoE threat coming from him.)
- I use it during combat if I look like I’m going to pull aggro. (I use the in-game threat display to keep an eye on that, especially now that I am leveling again and upgrading my equipment faster than my pet is upgrading his attacks.)
- And I use it in combination with Disengage when I do pull aggro and have something nasty chewing on my face. In that case, I case Misdirect then Disengage, and suddenly I am many yards away and all the threat is coming from the pet. It’s beautiful. (And it makes me laugh.)
Unfortunately, Misdirection is not available until level 70. I’d love to see Blizzard move this one down to level 40 or 50 where it would do us more good!
A Sample Fight
So here’s how a normal fight might go for me:
- I engage a target by right-clicking in it, which starts Auto Shot.
- The target aggros on me and runs towards me.
- My pet, on Defensive, Dashes, Charges, or just plain runs for the target.
- Usually the pet gains aggro and stops the target outside my melee range.
- Sometimes the pet gains aggro inside my melee range, in which case I Disengage to get back to range.
- Sometimes the pet fails to gain aggro, in which case I hit my simple Misdirection macro and then Disengage.
- Now in any case I’m back at range. I hit Serpent Sting, Arcane Shot, and Steady Shot in random orders until the target is dead. I’ll also sometimes throw in Kill Command. (I carefully trained myself to hit it when it lit up, and now it is always lit up so I just keep hitting it.) Or I start reading the web page open on my other monitor and just Auto Shot the entire fight. That’s pretty common.
- If there are adds that I can see coming and Misdirection is off cooldown, I use Misdirection to get the add on my pet and then keep going on the original target.
- If there’s an add I don’t see coming, I Freeze Trap it until I have a chance to deal with it.
- If something goes wrong for whatever reason, I set my pet on the face-chewing add, hit Intimidate, and either Disengage or back up to get back to range. Then we work on the enemies in the new order!
I expect that’s all pretty normal, really, except for the randomly hitting buttons part. (And I do mean randomly. It’s not unusual for me to lose track and Serpent Sting three times in a row, or re-Mark after 5 seconds, or … well, you can imagine. I am a bad hunter, after all.)
But I’m pleased to have a small array of new buttons to press when I want to. And my husband keeps telling me how proud he is of me for using more than three skills. (I suspect he’s being sarcastic.)
Oh, and I forgot to mention Feign Death! I don’t use Feign Death for aggro control or anything like that. No, Feign Death is my ‘Do-Over’ button.
I use it all the time.
63 Comments
I too love the new disengage, I’ve been using it in instances to when I’m freeze trapping. Just as the mob gets within range I activate it, he hits the trap -doesn’t- hit me, and then I’m free to dps some more =D.
As always, thanks for sharing Mania, you make Hunting better for all of us.
Sounds very familiar… teeheehee
Mania! Your opener is shocking to me.
#showtooltip Hunter’s Mark
/cast Hunter’s Mark
/petattack
/cast Auto Shot
Also, I don’t use Arcane Shot outside of instances… Steady does roughly the same damage for a much reduced cost, and in farming/grinding the instant-mobility of Arcane (and ignoring armor) isn’t so important. It may be your Arcane Shotting, rather than your Steady, that is causing you to OOM quickly.
Oh, and I don’t bother with stings in grinding… too much mana, and the mob is usually dead 10secs in. Spend the mana (and global cooldown) on an extra Steady Shot instead, and you’ll still come out ahead!
Hearing you talk about Disengage makes me laugh.
In the Borean Tundra, I used it once without realizing I had my back to the cliff, and was right at the edge of that scar area. I used it, and jumped back….and back….and down….and down….and down…….
….and landed (luckily) in the water in the river below. Had to be about 300+ feet of drop. Was quite entertaining, till I realized it would take a bit to climb back up. :-)
Mania, when you talk about what a “bad” hunter you are, you seem to be forgetting one important fact:
A hunter with just a bow is nothing but a ranger.
In other words, it’s not just how you use your character’s various skills to kill creatures – whether it’s random punching, an advanced set of macros, or even your freakin cat up on your keyboard (again! -_-)
It’s also about the pet…not only how you use it, but also how you feel about it, interact with it. Those hunters who think of a pet as nothing more than an extra dot to boost their DPS – they’re not real hunters.
You’re the real hunter, for caring so much about pets that you run this site, and that makes you ‘good’ in my books =P
Nirvana said it the best. A hunter without an affection for the pet is not a hunter at all, they are just ranged rogue wannabes.
“And so for most of my huntering career I’ve been pretty satisfied with Auto Shot, Arcane Shot, and Serpent Sting … and not much else.”
_____________________
Sounds exactly like me too :D
On my baby hunters (yes I am always rolling them even now), I have changed the way I use Concussion Shot. Since I mostly skip using it at lower levels to save mana, I now find it makes a great disengage/escape for the youngest hunters now that the “dead space” is gone and you can shoot at much closer range. If you are jumped or a fight is going poorly, you can often step back out and get off a quick concussion and then either flee, or walk backwards shooting Serpent Sting/Arcane Shot to wear the mob’s HP down enough to give you a better chance.
Makes me less nervous now about ambushes on young hunters since I now have one more trick to play when I am forced into melee.
@Mania you got to be kidding me, there are more than 2 buttons to push? Still too much work.
Your playstyke = my playstyle. I totally LOL’d at the “look at the webstie on extra monitor” and also the 3 in a row Serpent or re-mark after 5 seconds stuff. Sometimes I wonder if other classes know how afk we can be and still get by in this game. The tricky part is than occaionally I do group up with ppl for stuff like Ring of Blood and all the sudden I’m supposed to know what I’m doing…?!?
Like others have said though, for me it’s all about the pet, and about relaxing, even zoning out a bit when I escape from reality.
Hm. Beast for grinding. There’s a thought. *rubs chin*
I always Serpent Sting my targets as an opening move pretty much whatever happens; it’s been ingrained in me since Lv6 two years ago, and it’s damn hard to break that habit even when I know I’m fighting things that are poison proof. *sigh*
That said, though… my trick for the AoViper ‘fake potion’ is to trigger Viper, then hit Rapid Fire. I don’t use RF normally when grinding anyway, so it’s always available, and you’ll have tanked up by the time it wears off just on autoshotting. (Without the mob dying before you get your mana back, which can be an issue. *cough*)
Really, Mania… I’ve easily held my own in instances and even raid situations by what amounts to ‘casual buttonmashing’. I hit things when they’re up, I don’t use things that have limited/situational utility (much); and that’s largely all the thought I put into it. Overthinking your rotations only causes ulcers at the cost of a minimal increase in DPS that some EnhShammy or Warlock is gonna blow right past anyway. XD
I am exactly that kind of player. When i feel like it, i shoot that bullet out. Just sometimes drop a bomb or smth. And when i happen to pull many mobs, i start to do stuff complicated, usinf War Stomp and other spells to make sure i am alive. But i don’t really have tons of macros with different rotations and stuff.
Don’t kill me, but i never used Steady Shot before 3.0 except the time when i first learned it.
I admire your honesty, Mania… but I don’t think you were ever a bad hunter. To me the worst kind of hunters are those that are inconsiderate of others and you’re one of the most helpful hunters I know! :)
I had to up my game when my hunter reached 60 because my friends dragged me along to instances and raids. Before then though, auto shot, arcane shot and serpent sting were best friends only to my pet. At 60 I started to get used to on use trinkets (TrinketMenu addon is a godsend, otherwise I’d never remember about them), macros, a pet with a family skill, a different spec, and all sorts of abilities I’d never used before.
As things are now I’m still quite happy to level with just me and my pet because that will never tell me I’m too slow or doing it wrong… but I’m a lot better than I used to be. I definitely remember how new it all felt though when I switched up my playstyle a bit. Best of luck to you Mania! :D
/sigh Mania :P
If only we didn’t love you so much lol.
Glad you found out about steady shot though.
After careful reconsidering, I changed my post. Suffice to say it was a bit to biting, and move along. To sum it up nicely, Leviath, don’t judge people because they don’t play like you. Mania clearly stated numerous times that she is a ‘lackadaisical’ hunter, and not interested in min-maxing. As far as that goes, however, there is absolutely nothing wrong with stinging every fight, and arcane is pretty much always useful. I HATE the emphasis that has been put on steady shot, especially pre-3.0. *growls* *Coughs* End rant.
As a side note, last time I checked steady shot procced the mana regen from aspect of the viper. It pays for itself, and nudges out a bit more damage in your 50/40% damage state. I also plan on testing with dual wielding to see if meleeing restores your mana faster. Just for fun soloy things.
One thing I like to do is have my pet grab 3 mobs, MD to it, and multi-shot the three. Multi-shot almost always crits, so I like using it as often as possible. I then attack whatever my pet is attacking at that moment, Arcane, steady, steady, steady, arcane, and then multishot. If I grab aggro from the two he’s not attacking, I FD. I’m impatient so killing one at a time feels unproductive x.x;
Ummm, yeah… Pretty much what they said.
Most of the time, I only really pay attention to what I’m doing on my hunter when I’m in raids or instances, where I feel obligated to pull off my fancier moves for th good of the group. Things like multi-trapping(I’ve gotten up to like 6 in a row with scattershot), agro management, and shot rotations are rarely seen of my person outside those boundries. My Resto shammy on the other hand has to be carefully monitored, as she is squishy to most mobs. I’ve leveled her 1-72 so far as nothing but resto, and I intend to keep her that way.
Steady shot during viper, it fills you up really fast!
Here’s you a fun one, Mania:
#showtooltip Disengage/targetenemy
/cast Wing Clip
/cast Disengage
This one targets your nearest enemy (in case an add gets the jump on you while you’re shooting something else), hits it with a Wing Clip to slow it down, then Disengages. Since WC doesn’t trigger the global cooldown, it all works with one button press!
@Palladiamors I use 2 Ced’s Carvers since lvl 70, not for the wonderful benefit of dual wielding (lots of sarcasm here) but because of the extras (Crit Strike Rating +16 and AP+30 and +13 Stammina (gives me 32 CSR, 60Ap and 26 Stam, plus the fact that I really haven’t found anything better or worse), I have not notice that “dual weapons” give back mana any faster. Being out of combat and using AotV, yup, that gives it back pretty fast.
One of the reasons why I like this site is because the elitism that most other bloggs have, is left at the front door.
Too bad you are alliance on Sentinals, Palli, I would have loved to team up with ya. But if you ever run across a one horned old Tauren Bull named “Teetonka”, wave :) That’s one of my first characters (moved there when I was running 2 accounts because of the 2 banks that I have there, just jocked full of goodies) who I play when I need a good tauren laugh. Take care.
I am SO glad I am not the only one who giggles over disengage. I have actually been trying to time it so I pull aggro from my pet just in time so that disengage and Arcane Shot finishes off the mob.
I really appreciate your honesty about your skills and how you use them. We are all flawed in our own ways. But we can learn from each other by sharing knowledge. Thanks for sharing Mania.
You have probably posted this before, but what pets do you use Mania? I’m intrigued now that you have shared a little of your play stile with us.
lol I work with a 4,5,6 button push, that is, I have my three main abilities tied to my 4,5,6, buttons, and I chill out watching tv, with my three fingures hiting my 4,5,6 buttons…I think its Arcane, Steady shot, and kill cammand….lol do the same for my druid as well, both on its dps bar and heal bar lol.
When most of WoW is endless button mashing and grinding, its best to just simplify things…though it does get boring after a time which is why I have the tv on, wish I had another monitor so I could browse websites to…
I think Blizz could benifiet from upgrading the Attack style of wow…I dont know, something like chain abilities, and combo attacks….something more involving then 4,5,6…
The great thing about being a hunter is that even if you just sit there and plink away with auto shot, you can still get the job done. And if you want to floor mobs a bit faster, you’ve got plenty of options.
I’m not so much “lackadaisical” as I am afflicted with a short attention span and itchy fingers. I tend to poke buttons in random orders while soloing chiefly to see pretty colors go flying with the arrows. That said, when I’m seriously questing or instancing/raiding, I do have a clear rotation of shots and several decent macros to structure my DPS. But yeah, I also forget to turn Viper off after my mana regens >_> I feel dorky when I realize it :D I’m not hard-core enough to really care too much about it, though.
Anyway, I actually didn’t know that Steady Shot no longer clips auto, so thanks! And the important thing is just to enjoy your play-style, which it sounds like you do. :)
What Gorbal said. You would think that in viper you would gain mana faster if you avoid using mana shots, but its the other way around. You get a base amount, plus a big chunk each time you shoot steady or arcane or multi which more than makes up for shooting the mana based shot.
OMG! Been lookin for a simplified MD macro for my pet as well – thank you Mania!! (Like you everything else I’ve seen was worked into some shot macro and macro-ese might as well be Klingon to me..)
Thanks again girlie for your awesome advice to another fellow flailing hunter!
I’ve never used disengage but now I’ll have to try it. Sound like it could be fun!
@Kikaku
I like the sound of that. I love having my gorilla tank multiple mobs, and this would be a good way to get those mobs right on him. Good job!
I’m like thoroughly convinced that steady shot was just thrown in to give hunters something boring to do and get yelled at about if they don’t. Seeing as bliz hated hunters in BC, it would be only natural for them to have done this. I like the idea of aspect of the beast for grinding, i’d never really thought about it. They should combine viper with beast like they did with hawk and monkey, “all your attacks gain you a percentage of your base mana, your attack power is decreased by 75% and your pet’s attack power is increased by 25%”. That would be interesting. I doubt i’d use anything but that.
EDIT: whoah decreased by 25% not 75%, that’d be ridiculous
Random button pressing FTW
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m9/Hanspedersen/WoWScrnShot_111708_172247.jpg
check out this bug…my core hound has a bug where beastal wrath will last 22 days or until death…sweet
here’s one of just his damage
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m9/Hanspedersen/WoWScrnShot_111708_172323.jpg
Couple of other fun skills for you to consider Mania:
Multi-Shot (because Misdirection followed by Multi-shot is a good way to send 3 mobs to your pet)
Volley (for gorilladin fun)
Haha! I totally play like this, too.. which reminds me to go get some of these skills I was putting off training. Your sample battle made me LoL, because I also open up the browser to surf websites while auto-shooting. (Interestingly enough, this is the site I’m usually looking at during fights.) I’ll have to try out your macro and also make a macro for targeting my best friend when he’s around — dumping aggro on friends is almost as fun as using disengage. (No worries, he’s our guild tank and loves it.) I’ll have to be trying out AoBeast, too. I never bothered with it before, but it sounds useful for quests and grinding.
Another short macro you can write is:
/petattack
/Cast Wing Clip
generally if you’re wing clipping a mob when soloing its because you don’t want it to be eating your face, so this combines two oh snap button clicks into one. :)
Ah ha, so you can have two monitors going on one machine while gaming. For some reason I was under the impression that as soon as you fire up a 3D game, the desktop one would go black. Definitely need to try this, would save some alt + tabing.
Mania, I have an even better Misdirection Macro that is still simple.
/target pet
/cast Misdirection
/targetlasttarget
It instantly cast Misdirection on your pet without ever visibly leaving your current target :)
lol I’ve been needing a pet targeting misdirection macro but i’m super lazy, and btw, if you have problems with pve lvling aggro, get a Gorilla. They do a thunderstomp that does AoE dmg for alot, (i’ve seen mine crit for upwards of 2k) and gives the pet additional Threat ontop of the dmg it does AoE. Since its also a tank pet, it takes damage better and has more hp to last longer and you spec to increase this and such.
But one thing, How the hell did you keep your mana up without aspect of the viper pre-3.0?!
disengage.heh.my moms the same way with her cat druids feral charge and her rogues kick.i can tell shes playing one of them by the ammount of giggleing…
i know how you feel
:)
@Deathbang: the [target=pet] in Mania’s macro achieves the same thing as the /target pat and /targetlasttarget lines in your (expect that it really does just aim the Misdirection cast at your pet without ever changing your overall target)
I agree, disengage is really fun. I use it much in PvP when I’m against melee’ers.
They never see it coming, even not when I’m stopping up, and waiting for them to get close enough, hehe.
Another skill I’ve started using much on my MM hunters is Readiness. When my main is lvl 80, I’m gonna spec BW/Readiness.
#showtooltip
/focus [help]
/stopmacro [help]
/cast [target=focus,exists] Misdirection; [target=pet,exists] Misdirection
Select a friendly target to set focus {tank} click macro button focus is set. target hostile click macro -> MD to focus
Targeting hostile, you have no focus, it will MD to your pet.
very nice one button solution to MDing to your pet when you solo, and perfect for MDing->{tank} when you are grouping/raiding
Really like this Disengage macro thank you. will use it till they qq and nerf us to the ground again
#showtooltip Disengage
/targetenemy
/petattack
/cast Wing Clip
/cast Disengage
-Added the petattack, makes sense if your trying to keep aggro off you when soloing, but may not be so nice in pvp situation when your pet is trying to finish off that caster.
actualy add the line
/petattack [target=pettarget, noexists]
that should make sure that your pet if attacking someone will not stop attacking it, and if your pet has no target it will attack your target.
#showtooltip Disengage
/targetenemy
/petattack [target=pettarget, noexists]
/cast Wing Clip
/cast Disengage
/cast Hunter’s Mark
/cower {hunter nearby}
*laughs* I’ll keep an eye out, Sig. Most of my mains are on Scarlet Crusade, including my hunter. That was one of the few RP realms available back in the day….. ahhhh….. *coughs* Okay, reminescence off.
Disengage is about the funniest move EVER. Period. A repost of my favorite tip for it, but use it, and then jump. The timing is a little finicky, but it can increase your flight distance. Just uh…. don’t do this on top of towers or near cliffs…. just some friendly advice….
One of my favourite uses for disengage is to confuse people who have pvp toggled on. Wait near a chasm of some kind (like the one between ashenvale and azshara(?); then shoot em, wait till they get in melee and disengage across the canyon 8D. Confuses the hell out of people.
Similar to the macro Leviath posted above, I use
#showtooltip Hunter’s Mark
/cast [button:2] Hunter’s Mark; Hunter’s Mark
/stopmacro [button:2]
/petattack
I leave off the autoshot because I like to choose when to start attacking. If the pet gets there quickly because of charge or dash, then I can start firing sooner. If those abilities are on cooldown, then I wait for the pet to hit the mob first, then I shoot it.
Also, the above macro allows the use of button 2, the right mouse button to just put up hunter’s mark without the pet attacking.
Warning to folks writing macros to set their focus: including [nocombat] in the condition to set your focus is a really good idea. Otherwise an accidental click in combat may start sending your redirected threat to a healer… (I changed my MD focus macro to do this after nearly causing a wipe because of it – fortunately I noticed what had happened and clicked off the MD buff before sending any threat the priest’s way)
Now certain types of hunters would do well to focus on certain types of playing it is true, but in the end huntering is about having fun and so if you are having fun, you are doing it right =P
I actually have a castsequence macro that alternates casting between Aspect of the Hawk (Dragonhawk since yesterday) and Aspect of the Viper, simply because I’m swapping back and forth between them so often that I like having them on the same key.
/castsequence Aspect of the Dragonhawk, Aspect of the Viper
This would be less useful if I made more use of other aspects, and others might want to adjust it. It does need to be “primed” on each login because if Dragonhawk is already active, the first press will cancel it, and the second will recast it and begin the castsequence.
*Gasp* no Feign Death?!?
I always hit heroism on my shaman when in trouble and need to get rid of aggro and get annoyed at me for doing it….
Yes Heroism is on the same button as my hunter has Feign Death.
I.m.h.o. the best ability as hunter :)
@ Vayalosswen –
I use a similar macro to swap between Dragonhawk and Viper, but mine is simply
/cast Aspect of the Dragonhawk (or just Hawk, for those w/o it)
/cast Aspect of the Viper
This doesn’t need priming – if you’re in Dhawk it switches to Viper, and if you’re in Viper it switches to Dhawk. Great, simple macro – I was so happy that it worked, I usually fail at writing macros >.<
OMG @ Nirvana:
I swear every time I play that darn cat is rubbing my mouse hand at the same time he’s typing “333333333=5k“flds kb;meot\\ }\” into guild chat. Which ultimately ends in my death. Then I put him down, and he jumps back up and does it again!
@ Iwill: I use Feign Death almost faster than it cools down! :P Especially in BGs, it’s fun to trick people.
@ Mania: So… you write up this blog and made Petopia… You have a love and appreciation for Hunter pets… And you relax and enjoy your playtime with your pets and friends? I don’t see how “bad hunter” fits ANYWHERE in that description! You’re a good hunter, alright? ;D
Thanks for sharing Mania. I just learned from your post so all is good. Are you a bad hunter? I don’t think so. It’s all about fun period! Besides, if I’m learning from you and your a bad hunter. Cringe, I must be worse then bad!!! Lol. That was of course a joke. You rock, period!
I may be a bit out of place here, but I’m one of those hunters that uses all of my abilities as soon as they’re cooled down. This was mainly made possible with the new AotViper. Thus grinding/leveling mostly consists of lots of moving and never stopping the shots, interupted by quest turn-ins and arrow runs.
But I do agree with the simple playstyle though. I just have all my abilites on hotkeys that are close to eachother according to their effect and how often I use them.
Oh Mania you’re so adorable! :P At least you’re learning it all now! Besides, you know hunter companions inside out while we are all mostly clueless of it, so it all fits in nicely.
You sound very much like me. Lackadaisical, excellent word. My (RL) son drags one of my hunters around, making her do the group quests, and even occasionally instance. Blue actually has 3 pieces of T4 and some other equivalent gear. I was practically dragged to those raids. I much prefer grinding mobs, doing the easy ‘kill 15 of such-and-so, and gathering. I even like fishing!
All, of course, with a cuddly pet by my side. Speaking of pets, I started a Death Knight a couple days ago, and I asked into guild which spec was least complicated to play. I was told unholy, and someone (who knows me well) said, and your ghoul pet becomes permanent. I nearly swooned.
well best thing to do is to just round up 5-7 of em , have a gorilla tank all of them and just slow trap->volleyspam->FD->volleyspam, they all end up dying at that point. ofc, it might not be possible if you don’t have T5 set bonus otherwise you gorilla will drop
Mania, thank you for the totally simple Misdirect macro, I had been doing it the same way as you and therefore not using it nearly as much as I could. All that changed last night once I read this. I was totally happy! THANK YOU!
I think I have a playstyle similar to yours Mania. I tend to do my “serious” (how serious should one take a game anyway…) wow stuff on my rogue. I can get really technical on him. On my Hunter I enjoy the story of the game rather than the goals of the game. So, yeah I’m pretty “lackadaisical” I’m going to use that one from now on.
Another thing you gave me that I’m going to use from now on is your Misdirection macro. I’ve used it a couple times in instances mainly because a guildy told me I “had to” but like you said, way too complicated and I never bothered with it. Your macro on the other hand? Ok NOW I can use it all the time. THANKS!
It is wonderful to read this post right now. Blizzard made such fundamental changes to hunters in general and Survival in particular regarding the way I played that I feel almost like I’m starting over. Additionally, I stopped using Bongos action bar mod and am relying on the default action bars; it’s fine, just different. So it is very helpful to read a post about puzzling through how to combine the skills we have in a way that doesn’t resort to a lot of math and such. So thank you for the post.
Oh, and this reminds me that I don’t think I have Kill Command on my bar yet.
I too am a lackadaisical hunter, most of the time I dont bother with disengage I just reassign my pets target volley on top of myself and maybe cast intimidation.
I have to say when I go all out DPS, like in an instance, I go through a rotation like this:
Mark
Pet attack
Serpent sting
Aimed shot*
Chimera shot*
Arcane shot*
Kill command
Rapid Fire
Steady shot until * abilities CDs are up, rinse repeat
Readiness
—Kill command, rapid fire, rinse repeat the shot pattern. Pop trinkets as desired. :p
Killshot at 20% pr less and finish off.
If I’m grinding/questing with my raptor, I follow a similar pattern sans kill/rapid/readiness. However, when I of course gain agro, if I don’t feel like MD I use Concusssive shot/Frost drap/Disengage if it reaches me without dying.
In the case of multiple mobs, Multishot and Volly as MM have become my best friend. By the time the mobs catch up with me, even the most evil WotLK quest-related mobs go down in 2, maybe 3 vollys with the proper talent points take them all down, I rarely get low health… If I do, it’s feign, run away, rinse repeat shoot order, and DPS down.
Mana is somewhat of a problem, although since speccing MM I seek out a lot of MP5 and Int gear, which helps (MM gets Trueshot Aura, which rocks for AP). I’ve also gotten good at timing Viper inbetween pulls to keep from taking the 50% damage reduction (… do NOT forget and leave it on. Done that. It sucks.)
Needless to say, I go play on my rogue or DK tank when I want a more simple playstyle. o.O;
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