Pulling in AQ20

[melliandre]

So I'm a hunter and I just joined a raiding guild. I've been happily kiting drakk, pulling in strat ud, and over the weekend even did a couple pulls in MC with no problems.

Here's where my problem comes from, what is the most effective way to pull the bugs in AQ20? I'd never been in AQ20, and Sunday I was asked to do the pulling. So I was able to do the pulling decently, but I ended up dead almost every time. (I ended up at 38% durability after 45 min of this) So here's what I noticed. The bugs are insanely fast, and hurt. So for my first pull I tried just an arcane shot at max distance and ran back. I became bug mincemeat. I wasn't even half way back to the group when I bit it. So for the next attempt I turned on aspect of the cheetah, arcaned shot, and ran back. I made it back to the group that time, but the bugs still caught up to me and hit me, and even with a FD (which 1/4 the time seemed to be resisted) I still died from all the poisons.

So mostly I just spent the rest of the time sticking to the cheetah strategy. The bugs did make it back to our warriors, however I just spent most of the raid watching it dead :) So is there a better strategy for pulling the bugs? Should I just be wearing tons of nature resistance gear to be able to do it?

Thanks, Melli

[Oatmealsmurf]

The way our guild does it is main tank and a druid get pretty close to the hunter and the MT will pick them up with challenging shout... and then the druid will root one. The tank will walk them back to the group and an OT will pick up the third.

If it was a pull that didn't require a lot of careful timing he'd send his pet turtle out to body pull them and if he died who cares.

[Twoflower]

if you dont make it back to the raid, he is stanidng too far away, perhaps ? :)

[Dahij]

Well, I had exactly same problem yesterday. Has anyone tried pulling with pet ? Because that's what I'll try next time, I quess.

[Baboon]

I have a priest and i usually try to shield and heal like mad on the hunter to keep him alive. I'll get aggro myself then and die, but at least we split the dying up between two ;)

It's just the place where you die a lot, my dear hunter. At spider in ZG usually the mages are the ones who have a hard time, here it's you.

[Dutchgrass]

If you're having issues with pulling the first few groups (which is understandable, their patrol routes are annoying and there are quite a few of them) and are pretty sure you'll die anyway, you might as well pull the first few groups naked to avoid durability loss.

[hulla-hop]

i only pet pull the dudes at ossis room, cause the ones with meteor are kinda annoying if they hit you :)

anyways, i just pull with cheatah and arcane rank 1 at the frist bug room. get shielded by priest, get your warriors and druids to move a bit closer so druids can root and warrs pick them up. i also spend a fair god time waiting for some of them to come closer. if you know you cant make it back in time, dont pull, or get the raid to move closer. greater nature prot pots are cheap and usefull as well, i get hit for 5-6k nature damage sometimes and a pot can be what saves me from a bigger repair bill. also, it gets better with experience. i used to die alot too, but i hardly ever anymore. so practice and reep the rewards when you kill ossi for the first time (we just did last night, woop!)

gl with the pulling.

[melliandre]

Thanks to everyone for your advice. (and I also don't feel as bad now that I know its not just me having a tough time with those pulls)

I'll try to see if my guild lets me try pet pulling, they are of the no pets in instances mind frame, but I may be able to convince them that a dead kitty is better than a dead NE :)

I've picked up a couple of pieces of greens that have just NR on them and no other stats from random instance drops, so maybe I'll try the pulls naked except for those pieces (they should be cheaper to repair than my current outfit -- my repair bill for last sundays AQ20/MC run came to 11g (ouch)) I also have a DHC, so maybe I'll bring along another gun for the pulls that's cheaper to repair.

I also felt a little rushed last weekend when doing the pulls cause we needed to get to the boss quickly cause we had an MC run scheduled and we started late. But I did learn that if I just planted myself where I knew they would eventually come back it was much better to wait than to try to run around and chase after them.

And yeah those damn guards (the single pull guys that I think look like tingle from zelda and annoy me just as much) would hit me with a poison that was doing about 2.5k in one hit ouch.

I'll be trying again this sunday so thanks again!

[Dark Matter]

No Pets in instances?

Way to gimp a hunter - esp a Beastmaster.

We pet pull the mobs just before Geddon and Shazzah + those bosses to Garrs room and pet pull and a couple of the mobs at the top of the hill of death in MC.

We also pet pull the BWL trash after the Suppression room, the three drakes and Chrommie in BWL.

Not one of our hunters is told to leave his pet behind - The only time they are asked to recall them is if they are attacking the Bloodrinkers in ZG.

Hunters should be encouraged to use their pets effectively in raids.

[bhroam]

I also got some more advice I thought I'd share. Lay a frost trap down, and it should slow down the bugs. Haven't tried it yet, but hopefully it'll work :)

[kapzin]

Watch the placement on those traps tho, alot of mobs pat around in the big room, the spot you'd want to slow them down at may be the same spot another group roams.

[Baboon]

No Pets in instances?

Way to gimp a hunter - esp a Beastmaster.



bwehehehe a beastmaster :)

[Zaratustra]

our hunter also pulls in aq20 and he actually always dies..:))

[melliandre]

So I died a lot less this weekend. I think it was a combination of more experience, having the warrior closer to me, and teh frost trap. Not only did the frost trap help me run away, the 2 druids who were rooting were happy with it because it made their targets a lot easier to root. You do want to make sure the frost trap is very close to the group to not pick up any adds in it as a previous poster mentioned.

[Squishalius]

Another trick to pulling the bug packs is to have a druid/shaman go travel form and social aggro them, running back to the raid then as soon as they are being chased. Takes a bit of practice but with a shield on you as you make this "pull" you can normally get back to the raid alive.

This also can work with people on mounts, rogues w/sprint, etc, however druids and shaman have the option to heal themselves, even better if they have NS, so they are better equiped to deal with a bit of damage along the way than others.

[Graydeath]

We normally have someone with an epic mount do body pulls on the first room. and then use a hunters pet to pull the groups in kurinaxx's room.

[Calli]

When I play AQ20 on my Rogue I stealth up and go to cover the corner on the right immediately after the first gate where the two warriors stand. You can clearly see what's coming and use Distract to split up multiple groups of flyers into single groups ripe for pulling by the Warrior/Hunter. The only danger is that the flyers WILL see through stealth at quite a large range, you only have a small window of opportunity to get a Distract on them and stop them in their tracks, but after a few deaths you soon get the hang of it. Once you've got it down, you'll never have another multiple group pull in AQ20 again.

[Bahumbaba]

The way our guild does it is main tank and a druid get pretty close to the hunter and the MT will pick them up with challenging shout... and then the druid will root one. The tank will walk them back to the group and an OT will pick up the third.

If it was a pull that didn't require a lot of careful timing he'd send his pet turtle out to body pull them and if he died who cares.


The druid strategy looks nice, which one do you root? the stinger (the one that charges) or on of the others?

[Baboon]

The druid strategy looks nice, which one do you root? the stinger (the one that charges) or on of the others?

We root as well, the white ones I think that spit poison.

[bhroam]

Speaking of that poison... wtf is the itch? The tooltip for the debuff says I itch all over but doesn't say what it does.

[Dutchgrass]

I believe it increases damage taken from those mobs.

[bhroam]

This could explain why I keep getting wtfpwn'd by the red bugs while chain-rooting the white guys. Generally part of the way through killing the red guy, he'll get really annoyed that druids aren't letting his white buddies have any fun. He'll come and 1 or 2 shot me and I spend the rest of the battle flat on my face.

[inviso]

Demand a shield from a priest before you pull. It means you have a healer watching you and at full mana. Not a bad thing in any respect ;) If that healer is ready for you on the way back, they can hit you with a 1K heal and then fade as the group picks up the mobs. Our hunter used to die every pull. We went through it last time I was there with 1 death (He pulled while I was drinking).

[Cerberus]

Itch turns into a dot after the duration is finished.

We usually just bodypull the first guys. From what I can see a hunter uses cheetah and runs back to the tanks at the opening. Bodypulling generates 0 threat so anything will pull them off. Just run past the tanks and let them demoshout or whatever. Even lifegiving gem or a healing pot should do ;)

[Ultimatef]

The Itch debuff after 8sec turns into Hive'Zara Catalyst which reduces movement speed by 50% and causes 146 damage every 2 seconds. Also, if someone is affected by the Hive'Zara Catalyst and is chaged by one of the Hive'Zara Stingers (The red ones) the damage done by the charge is doubled.

Like what people have said with the pulling, definitily have 1 warrior that picks up the Stinger close and have 2 druids that can root the Wasps. Then have the tank move the Stinger about 40 yds away from the Wasps. Then have everyone at either Max range or Melee range of the Stinger. That way, he will not charge anyone. This is because they charge people that are between 5 and 25 yds. Once the Stinger is dead, then move onto the wasps. Doing it this way, you should have no deaths from either pulling or killing.

[Fynious]

Really depends on which bugs you are talking about. There are many different bugs / groups of bugs to pull in AQ20. Also there are different ways to tank those bugs/groups.

From the very first room you have to be congnisant of where the bugs are in the next room before your first pull. We generally root part one and pull the other burn it down and finish the second. You have to watch for the wandering guard or you'll get an add or two. Then we use a mounted tank with a bubble to body pull groups up to the first boss. We generally stay in the first room until the room is mostly clear. Move in finish the last 2 groups then fight on the top of the stairs until all roaming groups are dead, then move down to base of stairs to kill first boss. The mounted body pull or tank bow pull is all we really need for those.

Destroyers we generally body pull as well, and mounted. We want them back to the party ASAP so the mana draining can begin quickly. Fleshies are a bit different. We usually hunter pull and range them down as quick as possible. The hunter usually gears up with his NR resist before hand. Bugs on the way to Moam usually are just AoE'd.

The bug groups before the hunter are a pain in the ass. Sometimes you can get groups of 3 stingers and 2-3 wasps. We usually have three tanks pull the stingers off the puller and tank them to the side. Then a rogue is usually main assist and we nuke down the wasps quickly and then bang out the stingers one at a time. Nothing special here.

Bug pulls aren't difficult in AQ20 at all. It's really your tanks and healers that make or break the raid. If you have a top quality Protection tank with good healers you should never have a problem with the bugs. The bosses are of course a different matter. I think all bosses with in AQ20 are pretty much easy except for Ossy, and Moam if you don't have enough mana drain (locks/priests)

Fyn