Role of a hunter

[johnmacd]

I've seen many a thread that people complain about hunter's not know how to play their class.
I have a BM hunter that just hit 40. I have yet to do an instance (well, I did once, but that was with a lvl 70 Pally :)
I am thinking about trying out a dungeon, and would be in a PUG. Exactly what is expected of a hunter?

So far I have read/learned that in dungeons and groups:

pet would be set to passive
I need to have the right gear- monkey spec
do not expect the healer to heal my pet
use my traps for cc

I'm sure the first few times, I am going to mess up, I dont think that can be helped. But I would like to get an idea of what is expected.

what do you expect a hunter to know/do in a dungeon?
what is my pet's role? (have cat and scorpion)
which traps should I mostly be using, and where should they be placed?

I'm sure there's other questions, but that's all I can think of atm.

[moopy]

I'd avoid using the scorpion in a dungeon if possible. Pets with AoE or DoT attacks can be dicey around CC. You'll be mostly using freezing traps, but when they aren't needed, and it's CC safe, feel free to go nuts with snake, immolation, or whatever else is needed.

I'd say you're expected to know how to not wipe the group- pet on passive, don't break CC and so forth. You should know how to recover dicey situations (hunters get some nice tools for saving the healer). As to what you do.. You are there for safe, sustained and powerful dps. You're there for crowd control. You're there as a fixit guy to recover the situation when things are looking bad; misdirecting stray mobs onto the tank is a nice trick, scatter shot/trap etc for thew win. You're also there for those rare sitations where a difficult pull is needed, and the tank isn't confident that she can make it herself.

"Hunter- so much more than just pew pew"

[Astross]

traps, traps, and traps...

oh ya did i mention using lots of traps? ya traps are good!

even when you dont need to CC a target, it always helps to lay a freezing trap at the foot of the healer or yourself.

traps make good hunters, use them often.

[Fursphere]

nub hunter role - Stand back and dps,

average hunter - freeze trap pull, use pet to save softies, range dps

GOOD hunter - chain trap mobs, offtank with pet, kite mobs as needed, save the squishies and pull those mobs back to the tank, not the other way around. use your entire bag-of-tricks to help the group.

[Fursphere]

About what moopy said - snake traps and missdirection aren't somethign your going to get until high 60s. :)

[Dark Matter]

Traps last 1 minute and there is a 30 sec cooldown before you can place another.

Place your trap early - if it gets resisted you should be able to place another immediately.

As soon as your mob is trapped you need to make a decision on your next trap - assuming you are train trapping until your mob is next on kill list.

If you trapped a caster, place the new trap onto the mob so it fires as soon as the old trap wears out. If you trapped a melee mob, move away from the healer(s) and be ready to distract the mob to your new trap when the old one breaks.

At lvl 40 your traps will only last 15 secs - so you MUST lay your trap early or you won't be able to train trap at all.

DM

[johnmacd]

You should know how to recover dicey situations (hunters get some nice tools for saving the healer).

"Hunter- so much more than just pew pew"

Right now, would that be traps and distracting shot? What other tools would save the healer?

[Fursphere]

Use your pet to offtank the enemy attacking the healer. It should be able to "taunt" the mob off.

You can distracting shot - concussion shot - wing clip (if your in melee range) - kite the mobe to the tank, so the tank can grab it, unless you've got a trap ready for it.

When doing crowd control as a hunter, its a good idea to pop Aspect of the Monkey for the increased damage mitigation. A simple wing clip kite works very well this way. (run directly at mob, wing clip, then keep running to the tank as long as you've got the mob's focus)

[Rysteranch]

Sic your pet on the mob headed for the squishies and have it use growl.

EDIT: Fur, you beat me to it! :laugh: