Life With a Pet:

So now you’ve got a pet. Excellent! Now you get to learn about what I have long called Hunter 101: Send your pet in, let it establish aggro, and attack from a distance.

You guys have no idea how many hunters I’ve seen who will pull aggro from their pet early on and proceed to melee the mob down. Usually they’re Marksmanship spec’d too, which is possibly the most irrational thing I’ve ever heard. “I’m going to spec to buff my Ranged Attack Power and then melee stuff!” /facepalm

Here’s the thing: can you melee stuff? Yeah, if you want. But do you do more damage and kill things quicker if you’re at range and shooting? Yep!

First thing’s first: make sure your pet knows Growl. All pets can learn Growl first thing, without any training points. Open your spellbook, and in the General tab (for some reason) is Beast Training. You can open that up to get to your pet’s training screen, where you can teach your pet Growl. Growl is sort of like a Taunt, but while it does not force something to attack your pet, it does cause a fair amount of threat. Now make sure Growl is “on” and has the little glowing box around it on your pet bar.

NOW you can practice Hunter 101! Hunter’s Mark something, send your pet in on it*, let it plant a growl or two, and then start shooting. Open with a Serpent Sting and then mostly Auto Shot. You can toss an Arcane Shot in if you want. Your mob should be down pretty quickly, though.

“Pike, that’s the easiest thing I’ve heard in the game. I could be AFK most of the time and still level a hunter.”

Theoretically, yes you can, and that’s why hunters get bashed all the time and why I still have to put up with people asking me why I’m making a help blog for hunters because clearly a help blog for hunters needs to consist of only one sentence. The thing you have to remember, and which you will hopefully see as true as I continue this series of posts, is that most of these people never played a hunter past the early levels and thus never got to the point where hunters begin to get deeper and more difficult. Heck, I personally have encountered many people who have a level 70 hunter (and are skilled at it) and a level 70 [other class], who have confided to me that they feel their hunter is deeper and takes more skill to play correctly, regardless of what their other class was.

This goes back to part one, you have to remember that you will get bashed and you will be underestimated and it will look like you are doing nothing in an instance (I’ve actually noticed that lately; hunters tend to simply look like they have it easy just by standing back and shooting; this probably adds to the reputation as well.) You have to be okay with that and find your own pride in your class.

…anyways, forgive my, erm, tangent *cough*

The point is that Hunter 101 is pretty straightforward, which is why it mystifies me that so many hunters do not know it yet! Here is the basic thing you want to remember: keep yourself at range.

Now, while we’re here, another thing you may or may not want to change is your pet’s “stance”. It’s on the pet bar, and your pet will be set to Defensive by default (it looks like a shield). Myself and many other hunters will immediately set their pet to Passive (it looks like a baby seal). Defensive means that your pet will automatically attack things that are attacking you, and Passive means that he does nothing without you telling him first.

Now, I have seen people make arguments that Defensive is better for leveling/solo’ing, and I can understand where they’re coming from, but my Always-Passive argument stems from the fact that I believe hunter and pet are One and they can only accomplish being One like this if you have complete control over your pet. On top of that, I strongly feel that an important aspect of being a hunter is being able to plan ahead and calculate things out precisely: “I’m going to chain trap this mob and Wing-Clip/Kite this other mob and my pet will focus on this other mob. I want to take out the mob I am kiting second.” But if your pet is on Defensive, he is quite likely to ignore your plans and lunge for your chain-trapped mob who is on his merry way to your next trap.

See? Out of your control. You are not One because he is not doing what you want. This is why my pets across all my hunters are Forever-Passive (I make an exception for running lowbies through instances, in which case I stick my pet on Defensive and run through shooting everything while he cleans up behind me).

Now am I going to knock you for having your pet on Defensive while leveling/soloing? Well no, I do feel strongly that the other way is better and more huntery, but there are certainly good arguments for it. I will knock you for having your pet on anything but Passive in an instance/raid, but that’s another story!

So you’ve got Growl trained, and you’ve thought about it and set your pet to the Stance that you want. Oh, and check the little icon next to your pet. Is it green? That means he’s happy and will do the most damage. Keep him fed to keep that icon green! (Petopia will tell you what pet likes what foods.)

Go ye forth, young hunter, and level!

You are level 10, you will now have both Track Humanoids and Track Beasts; use whichever you need for whatever you are doing. You have Aspect of the Hawk which is going to be your primary Aspect from here on out and you should be using it most of the time.

At level 12, you learn Mend Pet, which is very important! You may want to keybind it to something easy to hit, I know I have. This is where you will learn to keep an eye on your pet’s health. You know how when you’re driving you’ll glance at the rear-view mirror every so often just to take stock of your surroudings? Same with your hunter and your pet; you will learn to glance at your pet’s health every so often, gauge how much damage he is taking or is liable to take, and use Mend Pet accordingly.

You also learn Wing Clip and Distracting Shot at level 12. Distracting Shot you won’t use very much in the lower levels, but Wing Clip is your friend. It is really the only thing you should be using if something is in melee range. The point of Wing Clip isn’t to do damage; it’s to slow the enemy down so you can get back into range. You will learn to love it throughout the duration of your hunter career.

And it’s usually at this point that I figure one of my new hunters has all the tools they need to be a reasonably efficient hunter. You have Arcane Shot and Concussive Shot for kiting; you have a pet for tanking and Mend Pet to keep him alive, and you have Wing Clip if a mob gets too close. Now obviously you don’t have everything important yet, you don’t have Feign Death or Steady Shot, but I still see level 12 as being one of your first big milestones.

And so, that’s where I’m going to end today’s episode of SYWtPaH. Your homework: practice Hunter 101 and look into getting a Threat Meter so you can learn to watch your threat in relation to your pet’s– you want your pet’s threat to be higher than yours, so he can tank for you. KTM was the big one back in the day, though it seems to now be defunct– Omen is the current threat meter of choice but a lot of people I know swear by the up-and-coming Diamond which doesn’t require other peopl

e to have a threat meter installed for them to show up. Either of those latter two will work fine for you, though, as a new hunter who is solo’ing and learning about pet threat.

…wow, there really is a lot of stuff to cover about hunters. Case in point: We’re at Part 5 and level 12. Now I’m pretty sure things are going to speed up as we continue on and need to hit less of the basics, but still, this is a bigger project than I even anticipated. I hope that you are enjoying it and learning from it and as always let me know if you have questions or need something clarified.

Happy hunting!

* Awesome Macro of Epic Win:

/petattack
/cast Hunter’s Mark

It does both at once, and I don’t go anywhere without it.

Note: I’ve disabled all add-ons on this character, just for consistency!

So you have picked your race, made your new toon, and spawned as a level one hunter. (Maybe on a certain server to /wave at some fellow bloggers, but that’s beside the point!)

First thing’s first, move things around the way you like them. Me: I move Auto Shot to “2” and Raptor Strike to “3”, and racial abilities (such as Gift of the Naaru) move to the side. You can unlock and lock the action bars under Options -> Interface, which is also where you can add more action bars.

I also move my quiver over the the left-most bag slot.

There we go!

Now you accept your first quests and start shooting things. Now, there are ways to kite right from level one that will ensure you rarely get hit. Myself, I’m going to say that if you have never played a hunter before and are just starting out, you don’t have to worry about being perfect at this point. So if your character pops in an “accidental melee” or two, don’t beat yourself up over it… anyways, it’s good to have that skill when you learn Wing Clip later.

However, you should never have to use Raptor Strike. It’s true!

Get as far away as you can from what you want to shoot and still be able to use your Auto-Shot. Typically the Auto-Shot icon will be red or otherwise grayed out if you can’t use it. Once you are at maximum range, fire away!

Now, you have a couple different options here to keep your mob decently at range at this point. The easiest method is to simply back up. Now remember that you cannot fire your Auto-Shot while moving, but you will notice that as the mob gets close to you, it will typically pause for a bit to attack, and that’s when you can back up to regain some range and pop in an extra shot– often enough to finish it off, at these early levels.

If you are feeling a little more adventurous, you can try your hand at strafe-kiting. To strafe, press the Q and E buttons. By strafing and then occasionally stopping to shoot, you can typically keep the enemy at range.

Feel free to practice these two methods and remember, don’t worry if you get hit, it’s not a particularly huge deal at level one, after all!

Go turn in your quest once you’re finished up. When picking your first quest reward, remember that hunters cannot wear mail armor until level 40, so you will want to stick with leather.

By now you should have ding’ed level two, so do your little quest that takes you to the hunter trainer, and see what they’ve got for you to learn!

At level 2 you learn one spell: Track Beasts. Pop it on as soon as you learn it by way of the “tracking” button by the minimap, you can right click on it to select what you are tracking.

Your general strategy will remain the same until level 4, when you learn Aspect of the Monkey and Serpent Sting. Pop on Aspect of the Monkey and keep it on– you will want an Aspect on at basically all times from here on out. Serpent Sting is going to be your opener in most solo situations for the majority of your hunter career (once you hit the 60s you will probably be using it less and less; possibly not at all.) Remember not to use it if you are going to be trapping, though– because DoTs will break your trap. But you don’t have to worry about that for a while yet.

So at level four, your strategy will be to get at max range, open with a Serpent Sting, and practice keeping the mob away from you.

See? No Raptor Strike!

Oh, and don’t forget to keep tabs on your ammo, and buy some if needed! You can buy some at a General Supplies vendor. Many first-time hunters forget about Ammo and wind up Ammo-less mid-quest. Don’t let it happen to you! *taps chalkboard with stick for emphasis*

Once you get to level five, you get to choose your professions. The typical money-makers are skinning/herbalism and skinning/mining. (You can also opt for herbalism/mining but you can’t track both things at once– then again, as a hunter, you will usually be tracking non-profession things anyway.)

If you opt to go for a crafting profession, your three best bets as a hunter are probably leatherworking, which grants you the ability to make your own gear (including mail later on), engineering, which lets you make your own ammo, guns, and Goblin Jumper Cables (as well as a variety of other toys), and alchemy, which allows you to make your own elixirs and potions. All of the other professions (with the exception of tailoring, unless you are a bag-junkie or something) can also provide some sort of benefit to a hunter but the three mentioned are your best bets.

While you’re at it, it would be a good idea to pick up First Aid, which will be very handy for healing yourself as you quest, and even for backup healing your pet. Cooking and fishing both have benefits (and their products can be used as pet food!) but I don’t see them as being particularly critical right off the bat, especially because food is so easy to attain most of the time.

Well, that does it for this installment of “So You Want to be a Hunter”. Leave me your tired, your poor, your comments and questions if you’ve got any!

Oh, and lastly, to the person who got to my blog via the search term “how can i play Ocarina of time with a steady shot on the keyboard”

…

Introduction:

So you think you want to play a hunter, do you…?

Are you willing to accept the fact that you are going to be playing the most played class in the game and as such you will have to work hard to distinguish yourself if you want to stand out and prove yourself?

Are you willing to accept the fact that there are a lot of people who have given hunters a bad name and as such you will often find yourself in the position of being the WoW-equivalent of the kid who was picked last in gym class?: “Hey, there’s a hunter in LFG.” “…” “Yeah, we’ll find someone else.”

Are you willing to accept the fact that a lot of people are going to assume you don’t know how to do your job(s)? Most people assume that mages know how to polymorph and rogues know how to sap. Yet in my experience… most people assume that I do not know how to trap, at least not properly. You have to show that you can.

Are you willing to accept the fact that a lot of people out there think that you are an overpowered and/or easy-mode class, and are you okay with being ribbed for it?

And despite the fact that you are often viewed as the easy-mode class, do you realize that you are going to have to do an incredible amount of micromanagement? Precisely timing your shot rotations. Controlling your pet. Keeping your pet alive. Chain-trapping. Kiting. Watching yours and the party’s aggro. Doing massive amounts of DPS. All at the same time. Hunters are deep. Deeper than a lot of people will ever give you credit for. Are you prepared to find your own pride in your class because many other people will not give you the luxury of telling you themselves?

Are you prepared to give up a bag slot for a quiver or ammo pouch? Prepared to spend extra time going out and taming new pets so you can keep your pet skills up? Prepared to forego rested experience in favor of leveling up with your pets if you want to level up two at a time?

And perhaps most importantly, are you prepared to have an absolute blast?

If so, read on…

The Birth of a Hunter:

So there you are, at the character selection screen. Maybe you’ve already got faction picked out, maybe you don’t. What race is best for your newfound hunterness? Well before I go any further, I want to say that honestly I think you should pick the race you think you’ll most enjoy playing. Racials can be handy but in the long run the difference they make is usually not particularly huge. But here are the racials…

Alliance:

Draenei: Draenei hunters get Heroic Presence, which increases their chance to hit and also their pet’s chance to hit by 1%. That might not seem like much, but it is actually going to be quite handy later on when you’re trying to reach the hit cap, and of course, this is basically the only way except through the Animal Handler talent that you can increase your pet’s chance to hit. Draenei also get Gift of the Naaru, meaning they can heal themselves or their pet in a tricky situation (I imagine a Mend Pet + Gift of the Naaru combo is very useful in emergencies). An overall solid race choice in my opinion.

Dwarves: Gun Specialization gives Dwarves an extra 1% crit when using a gun. This is quite handy, but on the other hand, if you wind up running into a really nice bow or crossbow that you’d rather use, then this racial becomes a moot point. Stoneform is going to come in super handy in PvP because it will remove a rogue’s poisons, a warrior’s bleed effects, and a hunter’s stings. It also works in some PvE situations (for example, Moroes’ garrote, or annoyingly long-lasting diseases). Again, a solid choice.

Night Elves: The “Night Elf Huntard” stereotype alone is enough to drive many long-time WoWers away from this option, and to be honest they’re not missing much: while the Shadowmeld/Stealthed-cat combo is fun and can be quite effective, I myself have never found much of a need to teach a cat Prowl and I imagine most hunters would be in a similar situation. You also get a slight dodge increase (reasonably helpful in PvP), oh, and you can brag about getting back to your corpse faster when you die. *cough* Myself, I do have to say that I like night elves, because they have silly ears, and because I like proving people wrong when they assume that I am “just another night elf huntard”. (In PvP too; nothin’ makes the hordies mad like losing to a night elf hunter.) But they are probably the weakest choice for an Alliance hunter in terms of racials.

Horde:

Blood Elves: These guys have Arcane Torrent and Mana Tap which can be pretty decent against casters or when you’re low on mana. Really that’s all you’ve got to help you out though, in terms of racials, and these spells depend on you being close to your target which you probably won’t be most of the time. Blood elves do also get slight magic resistance which they can share with their pet, though.

Orcs: Orcs have a reputation of being the best choice for a hunter, period, which is why you see so many orc hunters running around (I do, anyway), and that reputation is well-deserved. Blood Fury is going to provide a very nice Attack Power buff (282 AP at level 70) which your pet will also glean some benefit from, Command is going to increase your pet’s damage by 5%, and Hardiness gives you an extra 15% resistance to stun effects (super nice in PvP). You really can’t go wrong with orcs.

Tauren: Tauren get a health boost (which in turn gives your pet a slight health boost) (thanks for the correction Sonvar!), Nature Resistance like Night Elves, and War Stomp, which can be quite useful when trying to get back into range. Overall the tauren racials really aren’t as hunter-helpful as some of the other races but they’re also not too bad.

Trolls: A solid choice for a horde hunter (though probably still second to orcs); trolls get Bow Specialization so they get an extra 1% crit with bows, as well as the ability to slightly increase attack speed (Berserk) and a beastslaying bonus which is useful for soloing or certain instances like Underbog. Again though, remember that if you wind up using a really nice gun or crossbow then your Bow Specialization becomes useless.

Once again, overall, I think that if one feels drawn to a certain race because of their backstory or the way they look, then by all means, play that race, even if the racials aren’t the best. My own current three highest level hunters are a night elf, a tauren, and a blood elf, and if you asked me, I’d say those are the three “weakest” races in terms of hunter racials. And yet I adore playing those characters because I have stories for them. Don’t be afraid to play whatever race you want.

Well, that sums up our first segment of “So You Want to Play a Hunter?”. I imagine this will be a very long-running series because I have a lot to cover, and a lot of

you guys left TONS of comments in my “Request for Comments” post, which shows me there is more of a demand for this type of thing than I initially thought. Got questions/comments? *points at Comment Box* fire away!