Hunter in a party

steviec

Ok I'm in work and not much to do other than read up on strategies and stuff. I'm currently a level 23 Hunter(my first character), I tend to solo a lot and I've only instanced with a party in Deadmines a couple of times which was alright.

But reading strategies has left me wondering, what position does a Hunter have in a party? Every other class seems to get a mention. Warriors/Pallys are tanks, Rogues/Mages are DPS, you have your healer too. But I've yet to read any hints and tips that mention hunters at all. In my experience of grouping too, I've always been in a party with people more experienced than me(not necessarily higher level chars) and I've basically just attacked whatever everyone else is attacking, and got my pet to do the same. I've had no real difficulty but just wondering is there anything I should be specialising in, and how best to spend my talent points.

Drakar

Hunters are good in PvP groups with their ability to slow people down, poison (prevents rogue vanish?), and high damage. I haven't been in too many parties with hunters, but I'd imagine they must do the biz in raids.

quozl

Hunters are DPS as well. You do lower DPS than a rogue or Mage but you don't spend time getting to the target like a rogue and have multi-shot which boosts your multi-target damage. You are also less likely to run out of mana than a mage and even if you do can still do some damage, or feign and drink to regain mana.

You also have the best aggro management of any class with feign death and disengage. Combined with this and the ability to stay out of range of AOEs/Swipes you should be the lowest maintenance DPS class. You should not be taking noticable amounts of your healers mana meaning he generates less aggro and can save more mana for the tank.

Your pet can also be used to try and pull mobs off the healers if they draw aggro, though good luck with that . It's only going to work if the tank didn't have proper aggro on the mob in the first place - if he did then the healer must have genrated huge healing aggro and that mob will not go for your pet.

You can also be used as second rate (after sheep/sap) crowd control. Drop a ice trap off to the side, stand behind it and arcane shot one mob during the pull to make it go for you. It should run into the trap and be cc'd. Not great at your lvl though, 10 whole seconds. You can feign after it's cc'd and place a 2nd ice trap. Then pull it into that after it escapes the first.

You can aid AOEing by dropping an explosive trap in the middle of the group of mobs, or with the rather **** volley spell.

Mostly though you're the lowest maintenance DPS class there is. Rogues and Mages bring sap/slightly higher DPS and sheep/great aoe/water respectively though. So I don't think there's a compelling case for bringing a hunter instead of one of them unfortunately

Dubhthamlacht

The hunter's role in a dungoen/instance is that of a damage dealer. Whilst a hunter is not as good as a rogue for damage, a hunter is almost as good as a mage in terms of damage. When a mage runs out of mana in a fight their damage is seriously reduced. A hunter however just keeps on shooting, and pet keeps tearing away at the target. A hunter does sustained damage over time even with no mana.

Sadly a lot of people are unaware of a hunter's capability's which is a shame as their are many capabilities which makes them versatile.

Hunter's Freeze Trap is excellent at crowd control. You'll often be asked to hunter's mark a target and pull a mob into a freeze trap to temporarily remove one mob from the fight for a while. Explosive trap causes nice AoE damage. As you lvl up you'll get Volley and Multishot. These are great for taking down groups of tightly packed mobs.

Also you have distracting shot. While soloing this is a useless spell but it's in a party that it's imortance is visible. If something is attacking the groups priest/healer, use distracting shot and whilst it causes no damage to the target it transfers all the aggro from the priest to you. Vital for keeping priest alive and keep them healing. Your pet is also great for taking aggro of healers/casters. The pets Growl is like warriors Taunt ability and causes the target to attack the pet.

One of the reasons hunter's again get a bad rep is not being able to control their pets in instances. Always have the pet on Passive unless you are say at a boss fight where you don't have to worry about adds being pulled, then put pet on aggressive in those circumstances. Concussive shot stops enemies from running away.

As for talents, you're a damage dealer so you'll have to mostly go with marksmanship. Aimed Shot is the one crucial ability you need to have. Spend at least 25 talent points in Marksmanship. Other talents to get here are Improved Concussive shot which gives a chance to stun target, Scatter shot which dazes a target, Mortal and Lethal shots for extra damage, and Barrage for extra damage with Volley/multishot.

In survival talent tree Improved wing clip is very good as in Entrapment. Also get Improved Aspect of the Hawk in Beast Mastery for more ranged damage power.

None of a hunters high end talents are great but if you do want to get one, it's a matter of choosing between Spirit Bond or Trueshot Aura. Spirit Bond is more PvP oriented while Trueshot is more group/party oriented so depends what you want in the game. hope this helps
After that

steviec

Fair enough. I felt I was pretty good at dealing damage but hadn't controlled a mage or rogue to compare and was worried by the way I never see hunters mentioned. I'm happy enough anyway with the character. Its going well.

koneko

Hunters are needed in MC, you can't really do it without them. Particularly on Magmadar, you need the tranq shots there. Needed for pulling/peeling adds, and they do good dmg. In 5 man though I rarely bring a hunter because i'm a mage, and I have to fill the other spots with healers and a tank and a rogue in some (for lockpicking).

DRakE

Are you on Bladefist Koneko?

Dustaz

As a priest i love hunters because when theyre played well they never need ANY healing whatsoever and i can just worry about keeping the tank up. Theyre like the anti-rogues who with all the dps they provide are more trouble than theyre worth in 5 mans

The main mistakes i see hunters making are not controlling their damn pets (if you must have it out in an instance keep it on the lowest aggro setting and just use it to offtank _if asked_ and to remove aggro from yourself and healers). Even when they are on passive, hunters tend to send them out to the mob and since pets are usually lower level than the hunter it aggros extra mobs.

I also came across a couple of hunters who insisted on melee'ing. When i asked one why he was hitting mobs with his axe and not with his bow (which provided at least 3 times the damage) he said "im duel wield spec, its the same if not better to hit them with melee" 0o

RotalicaV

What place do hunters have in groups? Release and reroll

steviec

Dustaz wrote:

The main mistakes i see hunters making are not controlling their damn pets (if you must have it out in an instance keep it on the lowest aggro setting and just use it to offtank _if asked_ and to remove aggro from yourself and healers). Even when they are on passive, hunters tend to send them out to the mob and since pets are usually lower level than the hunter it aggros extra mobs.

Are you saying it's best not to have the pet attack? I've always sent my pet in with whoever the party's focussed on(ie. same mob as I'm shooting), or to take any additional enemies that might be attacking myself or the priest. Even if the pet takes the aggro away from the tank(see I'm learning the terminology!) is that really any harm? I can heal/revive the pet easily in between battles and it might take some heat off the tank.

koneko

DRakE wrote:

Are you on Bladefist Koneko?

Nope

Dustaz

steviec wrote:

Are you saying it's best not to have the pet attack?

It depends on the situation. Sometimes its handy to have a pet off-tank an additional mob when there are limited crowd control options. Sometimes it can be dangerous however, Pets are notorious for pathing incorrectly and they can very easily aggro an additional group of mobs on top of the ones you are fighting, and its good night irene.

DRakE

Dustaz wrote:

As a priest i love hunters because when theyre played well they never need ANY healing whatsoever and i can just worry about keeping the tank up.

Unless you're grouped with adnans and he's constantly like "omg heal my pet loike omgg"

adnans

DRakE wrote:

Unless you're grouped with adnans and he's constantly like "omg heal my pet loike omgg"

total lies !

pets are next to useless, unless they are needed for off tanks. keep them dismissed in high level dungeons where there is enough confusion as it is (at least until the pet patch comes out).

hunters are very important in MC. usually at boss fights, the damage meters always show the hunters at the top due to their sustained DPS even if they run out of mana and of course the tranq shot, a spell which is only used on ONE mob in the whole damn game which has more than 5,000+ unique mobs. how useless.

about the talent build, beast mastery is good for leveling up and thats it i think. we can get into arguments about talent trees but i'll just say what i have which i think is the best possible build for PvP and PvE.

marksmanship. (30 pts) - imp conc shot (5). lethal shots (5) aimed shot (1) improved arcane (5) mortal shots (5) scatter shot (1) hawk eye (3) ranged wpn spec. (5)

survival (21 pts) - Precision (5), Imp Wing Clip (5), entrapment (4), deterrence (1), deflection (5), counterattack (1)

high DPS with good crowd control. wear a lot of agility and stam gear. remember, unlike rogues, 53 agi = 1% crit chance for hunters. so the crit gear is also important.

Dont ever pull in instances unless if you're asked to. usually stand on the side if there is a large pull and put down a freeze trap, peel away one mob with distracting shot into the freeze trap, feign and drop another trap, the mob should be out for 30secs.

-adnans