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Group Role - Hunter
by Crebis

Hunters have a reputation for being bad grouped players. This is because the class is generally easy to play solo, but takes skill to play in a group effectively. The skills a hunter uses in solo venturing do not exactly reflect those needed in grouping. A hunter's main group roles are damage, pulling, and marking.

Damage: Hunters are known for their crit strings due to high crit builds and high agility builds. This strategy works very well for soloing and PvP, but when you are trying to keep all mob agro on the main tank (warrior/druid), this can be a problem. If you end up getting a mob's attention in PvE grouping, you've just lost one key advantage, range. A hunter’s massive damage dealing drops dramatically if you cannot sustain range. With the mob aggro’d on you, you've just pulled the mob away from the main tank who needs to regain agro, as well as away from several other damage dealers, such as rogues and paladins. These classes must stay in range of the target to be effective, and you've just made them run laps around the room to get to the target. For PvE with groups, I would suggest a high attack power build and maybe even a faster gun/bow for its steady damage output.

Pulling: Hunters are excellent pullers. This is due to a couple of things:
1) Mail armor--It's not the highest in the game, but it allows for some breathing room.
2) Ice Traps--With the exception of bosses and the occasional resist, this is the only crowd control device that is not limited to mob type.
3) Feign Death--This is useful for shedding agro and giving it to the main tank if he is the only one to strike the target. (See Below for a better explanation of Feign Death.)
4) Situational Awareness--With a hunter's tracking abilities and ranged view on the world, we are very aware of what is around the group as a whole. We are not nose deep into a fight like most classes. We view our target from a distance and can see "adds" coming, as well as what Crowd Control (CC) device to open up next to keep the group moving smoothly.

Marking: With Hunter's mark as a visual cue, the group is aware of what target to focus on when the fight commences. If using voice communication, a Hunter can request that all damage be switched to another target if the situation calls for it. Such as, an enemy on a caster/healer or even one of the dogs in MC that has high health...they all need to die within 10 seconds of each other.

Feign Death ("A subject within itself")
This sheds full agro and the hunter is left out of combat.
Pulling--If done correctly on a pull, the hunter can feign death (FD) near the main tank and will shed aggro to the main tank (if the tank is the only one to hit the target other than the hunter). It can be successfully used on a botched pull as well. By using
FD, a hunter can reset the pull and try again. It is also possible to pull 1 out of a group of 3-6 if done correctly (I have practiced this in LBRS, but it relies on the fact that caster-types stay put and warrior-types run immediately towards the puller).
Crowd Control--The Feign Death and trap (FD/T) technique is an excellent mid-combat crowd control. I tend to Scattershot, then FD/T to ensure my target doesn't run back to the group and gets frozen right beside me.
Mana/Health Regen--Feign death and drink/eat. Although it is looked down upon by some because they are jealous that you can do this mid-fight, it is an effective tool for those long fights where every ounce of damage is required. It can also be used when giving aggro to the main tank to regain any health lost and save your healer some mana

Pet Management:
YOU MUST CONTROL YOUR PET!!! This is the main thing that can get a group into trouble. A pet has a UI, and a reckless one at that. It is important to understand the path the pet will take, its aggro range, how it will follow a running mob, etc.. A hunter that can control his pet will most of the time have to prove it once he does. In MC/BWL/Onyxia, it is severely frowned upon to have a pet out. Some leaders will tell you to put them away. If you are Beast Mastery Spec'd, point that out and let them know you can control your pet...again, you must prove it. Many players have seen many wipes due to pets “loose cannon” behavior. Don't expect to win the argument without first having a good Hunter/pet relationship. (I suggest getting the SmartPet add-on from www.curse-gaming.com). One other thing that is extremely helpful with a pet is to turn off its growl if it is attacking the same target as a MT or OT. You want damage, not aggro for your pet.

Other Tips:
Kiting--This is running a mob around while you deal damage to it, but it can't deal damage to you due to the range. This is useful occasionally in a fight when you want to take a mob out of the fight and you have little options left. If the mob is not hitting you or others, then it is as good as crowd controlled, however, this seriously gimps your damage output and should only be used in emergencies.

Off-Tank--It is possible for a hunter to off-tank in a pinch because you wear mail armor. One method that is helpful is to find a caster-type mob whose mana you can suck down with viper sting and then aggro them totally on you. Once the mob is attacking you, focus fire on another across the room for maximum DPS. It may also be required to pull several low HP mobs that rush a caster (like the Spiders in LBRS). With mail armor, a hunter can take more direct damage than a caster...better us than them.


Things from party members that help hunters do our job better:

Mages - Frost Nova immobilizes the mobs and guarantees range and allows us to use a multishot/volley/multishot combo and then feign immediately after. This might be the most powerful AOE combo we have.

Rogues/Paladins - Stun a target that is on us. We then have a head start to get range, set traps and properly deal with the target.

Paladins/Priest - Resurrect our pet after combat. Takes less mana/time than if we were to do it ourselves, allowing us to get back into working order faster.

Warrior - Take aggro from our pet before it dies. This frees up our pet for other duties. (This is nice, but not absolutely necessary).

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Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. - (Isaac Asimov)

orion808

also check out this post:
http://www.tacticalgamer.com/422634-post23.html

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orion808

Reserved for future posts.

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Tarenth

2 things to note:

During patch 1.08 mobs started to resist a hunter freezing trap. This was stated as a 'fix of an old problem' but we all know it was a nerf. Patch 1.09 introduced talents that would reduce this resist rate, but another ghost nerf made several mobs immune to freezing trap. Most notably are the upper level dragonkin in UBRS after you get past Rend. So yeah, more mobs are getting immune to freezing trap in order to make our crowd control 'less powerful' and even more 'less useful'.


A few months back it was discovered that by using feign death in a pull you could affectively split a group of mobs that would otherwise come linked. A month later developers announced that, while effective for pulling, this was an exploit of the aggro system and a bannable offense.

Unless you can duplicate a split pull with aggro radius reducing skills (mind soothe and soothe beast) and no FD, then any split pull using FD is deemed an exploit. If caught you can (and will) be banned for 24 hours with a warning issued via mail. I don't think anyone ever tried it a second time, but I'm willing to wager the penalty is a lot more strict.

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My sanity is not in question...
It was a confirmed casualty some time ago.

ScratchMonkey

I've got to remember that: Instead of fixing my code, just cancel the contracts of people who exploit the bugs. (I'm not one to use an exploit. I just find, as a programmer, the "it's not our fault, it's yours!" attitude irritating.)

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