Bad Hunter, Good Hunter | Aspect of the Hare

Some of my adventures around Azeroth…

Bad Hunter:

-I jumped off a high ledge in Dire Maul. Guess who I forgot to dismiss? Mmyep. About three minutes later, in the middle of discussing strategy, my pet comes running up followed by basically every single mob in the instance. Admittedly those last two seconds before we died were pretty funny (I’ve never seen that many mobs), and the group I was with was very forgiving and reminded me that it was sort of a hunter rite-of-passage… but I still was pretty embarrassed.

-I helped out a group in Scholo so one of the group members could get his pally mount, and another could progress in her warlock mount chain. Not too long into the instance I made a terrible mistake, clicked on the wrong mob, and without noticing, hit my “Hunter’s Mark/Pet Attack” macro key. This proceeded to pull basically the entire room. We managed to survive somehow, but I was beating myself up for it and making it worse was the fact that the PuG-members of the group assumed I was a huntard and started telling me to dismiss my pet. I apologized, told them it was my fault and not the pet’s, and that it wouldn’t happen again and that my pet was staying out whether they liked it or not. I’m hoping they noticed that my pet was very well-controlled for the rest of the instance and that I topped the damage meters pretty squarely. Normally I don’t like to flaunt the DPS meters but I really wanted to prove to them that I actually was competent and had just made a bad mistake. (And no I didn’t actually post the damage meters, but I’m hoping they noticed =P)

Good Hunter:

-This story takes place during another Scholo run (I help lower-level guildies in lower-level instances a lot). We were doing one of the boss rooms, the pull hadn’t turned out as we’d liked, and to make a long story short the entire room was on top of us.

It was pretty obvious that a wipe was imminent as I watched the group members fall one by one, so I took out as many mobs as I could before I was alone and overwhelmed. I ran out of the room, put my pet on defensive instead of passive (so he at least wouldn’t go down without a fight) and feigned death.

Poor Locke, I thought, I’m going to be sitting here playing dead while he dies…

But wait, what’s this?

Hey, Locke is doing pretty good against those three mobs (one of which was an elite) that are on him. He wouldn’t live without heals and help, but still…

I got up, bandaged up, popped Mend Pet, took out one of the mobs, trapped another, and then proceeded to solo the 60 elite.

So there we were, my pet and I standing triumphant in the face of what was otherwise a wipe. It was here that I noticed party chat was filled with people saying things like “Okay, wait for the mobs to be reset… whoa, what the heck, Tawyn’s not dead yet?” “Tawyn’s still not dead?”

And then I said “Hey guys, I killed an elite for ya”, not really thinking much of it, but then party chat proceeded to say “…um, Tawyn killed the boss.”

…I did?

Apparently I did!

He was a few levels lower than me yes. But he was an elite, and he had buddies with him, and I took him down.

And that made me feel really awesome.

-I defeated an equal-level marks-spec’d hunter in a duel. I still had about half of my hit points left by the end of it, too. Looking back on it I can think of some things he did wrong, for example, not sending his pet in to attack me (granted I would have trapped it anyway, but it’s the principle of the thing, ya know?) But it’s funny because I always had this notion in my head that marks-hunters did a lot better in duels. So this was another one of those “feel-good” moments.

The Morals of the Stories:

– Dismiss your pet before you jump off a ledge.

– Be absolutely sure you know who you are targeting before you send your pet in.

– Don’t assume you’ve lost when you’re staring in the face of an instance wipe or a duel against a differently-spec’d hunter. You never know when things will conspire to give you the edge you need.

Oh, and lastly…

– Don’t tell a good hunter what to do with their pet. Suggestions, okay. But “I hate your pet, please dismiss him”… no. Not a good idea. We have a thing called Huntery Pride and it comes out in full-force sometimes, and you probably don’t want to mess with it. *nods*

8 thoughts on “Bad Hunter, Good Hunter”

I know I am a few levels lower than you but have done all of these things. Granted post 58+ with Outland gear would name things much easier on the second one I wasn’t in a hard of instance as you were. It was a instance that I was a bit high for but not terriably so. I was asked to come due to the fact they couldn’t find any other DPS to pull or cc.

An instance boss, even if a few levels lower than you, is not just *any* elite. It usually has quite a few more HP than a “normal” elite for the level.

I love to solo instances when stuff is still green/yellow. It gets you to play on your toes and is really a nice preparation for when “normal” groups go wrong. I’ve done a few mini-bosses in ZF when those bosses were still yellow to me and my cat!

It also depends a lot on inspiration: if you go there because you KNOW you can do stuff there, you win; if you go there because you HAVE to go there, you may not win…

A few levels higher in that example, I went back to ZF when most of the stuff was already green and even had some gray mobs, and the result was TOTALLY different! But this 2nd time I went there because I was almost getting to a level where I’d get no XP from the mobs and still had a couple quests to finish… I didn’t go there because I WANTED to, but because I HAD to!

On another hunter, a 20ish Draenei , I soloed DM (Deadmines, ofc!), up to the goblin foundry(?), where a missed Concussive shot and some mistake in my part for not having pulled the mob further away, ended up aggroing the boss and a few more mobs all at once. That’s pre-Intimidation and pre-Feign Death, and since I didn’t feel like re-clearing the spawns and didn’t have much time available, I left it at that.

Of course, for this to work, double-trapping needs to work too, so I’m waiting for 2.3.2 to do it a bit more! 🙂

It’s a fun experience which I recommend all hunters!

Start by doing it in an instance where mobs are gray to you to build confidence but play as if they weren’t. I mean, if you go to DM at 40, you can have your pet tank a few mobs, but don’t do that! Experiment with double-trapping to learn the skill for later use: if you make mistakes double-trapping there, they won’t cost you much. If you do mistakes when double-trapping when mobs are around your level…

Also, do it a few times so that when one trap is resisted you know how to handle that.

Then move on to another instance where mobs are green to you: soon you’ll be dealing with mobs your level with no big problems…

It may need a pet death or two and an occasional FD, but the feeling of achievement is just too good to pass on!

I think every level 70 hunter has a story similar to yours, Pike. My first big OOOOOPS! was in UBRS when we jumped down to a boss (Rend) and I didn’t dismiss my pet and well, we pulled the boss according to plan… just didn’t expect the 15 dragons to show up at the same time… right on the tail of my cat.

“Ok, who’s the moron?”

/me sheepishly raises his hand

Trust me, you NEVER make that mistake again.

Bad targeting. Eh. Minor offense. It will happen again, but it highlights the importance of assist macros.

As for soloing the boss… Which one was it? I’m dying to know!

People who want a hunter to dismiss her pet for any reason, are simply ignorant (I may be stretching the point). My response is, “Who’s going to make up the 15-18% of total damage we’re going to lose–and not pull aggro?”

I can so identify with all of this 🙂 Some of my favourite memories are from normal Shattered Halls, for instance when my prot warrior partner in crime and I cleaned up four or so elites by ourselves after the other party members were killed (in the rooms between the Gauntlet and the second boss). It is exhilarating 🙂 I love being a hunter!

I hate when people tell me what to do with my pet. I’m often very tempted to say, “Okay Mister Warrior Tank. I’ll put away my pet, you put away your weapon. You’re not really doing anything with it anyway.”

I’ve never done it, but lord have I wanted to 🙂