Big Red Kitty has a new post up for his WoW Insider column, and in it he mentions the way Hunters as a class are perceived by the rest of the WoW player-base.
If we start spreading the gospel that hunters are a hybrid class, if we state that our crowd control skills are on a equal importance-level as our DPS, people are going to expect us to be able to Do It All The Time.
That worries us because there are a lot of hunters who Cannot Trap At All.
“We are a hybrid class!” we announce to the world.
“Yeah, but 90% of you guys couldn’t trap a statue,” will come the flamers. And they will be right.
This ties directly into what I saw last night during Group 2′s Maiden fight. It’s something I’ve noticed before, many times, but really saw come into play last night.
To set the stage, last night we had a team that included a Priest, a Warlock, a Hunter, 3 Paladins, 2 Mages and 2 Druids (both feral).
Now, I know about 3 other players fairly well, but I’ve never even met the others. When you’re guild has 280 members, it happens.
If you’ve marched to Maiden, then you know that the trash you face is mostly comprised of undead, with the occasional demon thrown into the mix.
I was not leading, I was tanking and keeping my mouth shut except to say ‘good job’, or ‘Does anyone need Golden Fish Sticks? I brought some for the healers’.
When we encountered the first of the real trash on the way to Maiden, the first thing someone suggested was for the Priest to shackle one of the undead.
The second suggestion someone made was for the Warlock to banish the demon in a 4 pull.
This progreesed for a few pulls, with some success.
When we went for the trash pull in the room with the Journal, and talk was turned to who was going to be banished, or which to shackle, the hunter plaintively said in Teamspeak, “I can trap, too.”
There was silence there for a good 5 seconds. I honestly felt bad, because you could feel the group collectively hold their breath while deciding if they wanted to risk it.
And that is a damn shame.
Yes, I think Big Red Kitty is right, when he says that the Priest and Warlock and Druid crowd controls are one button automatics, and the Hunters’ Freezing Trap takes skill, practise and understanding.
But I also think that there is a bigger issue at stake. And I think it comes down to what ways there are in game for a player to get feedback on his skills playing his or her class.
I know that in the pre-BC days, if you wanted to join a raiding guild, even one that was only doing Molten Core, it was considered a no-brainer that before you got to join, you would have to make a few instance runs with the officers first, so they could evaluate you and make sure that your skills were up to the job.
Make no mistake. This was a job interview. Your skills at playing your class were being evaluated, and bad gear could be forgiven, but if you hadn’t made the effort to learn how to use your class advantages, the dreaded ‘lrn2play’, then you didn’t make the cut.
It gave you a wake up call. If you wanted to join a guild, you knew damn good and well to practise, gear up, and prepare to strut your stuff. You wanted to wow ‘em to earn your place. And you knew everyone else already there had proven themselves too.
It’s something that, for good or ill, I just don’t see much anymore. Guilds are fighting for players. Guilds trying to fill out Kara groups are desperate for players that have any gear, so they take folks sight unseen. Many of these are just looking for phat loot, and as soon as they get geared from Kara they’re guild hopping to one of the higher progression guilds that are now trying to find other players to fill out 25 mans.
With all of the early gear instances being 5 mans, it lets folks that have only ever played the game by themselves or with their 4 friends to advance all the way up to early Kara.
And that is great, I am glad to have a ton of content that I and my friends can play without requiring 35 strangers for a chance at 1 damn Helm.
But it certainly does NOT benefit anyone that is playing a class that, on the surface at least, seems easy to play, but under the hood requires serious skills, knowledge and practise to play well in groups.
Without being in a guild with someone like BRK that offers seminars on ‘How to chain trap for fun and profit”, without a guild tryout run with Officers giving you criticism on your skill, without the feedback of your peers, and without the long winded posts of blowhards like me, where will your average Hunter… or Druid, or any other class ever learn that there can be such a greater depth of gameplay options available to them?
As things stand now… the first time a hunter hears the words ‘chain trapping’, it could be when they are standing in a hallway in Karazhan…
And at that point, no matter how badly they want to play their class well, SOMEone will remember them as being the huntard that can’t trap. And that just ain’t right.
For those that follow other blogs that I link to, this may amuse you. We wanted to know how many more elite trash patrols were wandering around a corner in Kara, and everyone was silent… and I asked in Teamspeak, “Why not see if the Priest can use Mind Vision to find out what is down there from the mobs’ point of view?” I’d read about it at Priest Power, and thought it sounded great. The Priest answered back shortly, in a totally bemused tone of voice, “It’s clear around the corner, the pat just went up the stairs.”
And it occured to me to wonder… is that the first time anyone other than a Priest ever wanted her to use Mind Vision in a raid? And was it the first time she had done so herself?
It’s stuff like that, that makes me wonder what class skills I am lacking, what deeper techniques and skillz I could be bringing to the party that I just haven’t heard of before.
And THAT, my friends, is why I keep trolling the WoW Forums, the Druid Wiki, and the blogs, looking for clues on what I may be missing.
May the day come when the conversation goes, “okay, the hunter will of course be trapping one, and we could have the priest shackle another, or the warlock could banish that demon…”
I play on EU Aerie peak and read a lot of blogs, and, consequently, happen to read a lot of stories outlining the same thing you are doing now about the hunter and her exaggerated reaction.
I’ve been playing for about 1.5 years now, and only once i have come across someone like that.
Also, on EU realms, people tend to discuss strats quite a lot. I really don’t know why other countries are so different concerning that, but i find it very strange.
As an experienced priest I’m still finding new ways to do old tricks – and reminded of things I’ve forgotten as well. (MC and MV have been long-popular skills for me. There are others…) That said (and since you wondered), did you have the opportunity to hibernate or cyclone?
As to hunters, I agree. I’ve discovered that a simple question upon joining a group will tell me the quality of hunter. Basically, how many sequences of chaintrapping can they do? “huh?” or “chaintrapping?” is a far too common response – and subsequent play bears this out. And oddly, a reasoned response even if it’s “two, then I need to wait for cooldown” (or variation thereof) has almost always been followed by excellent hunter play.
I’m beginning to wonder if there aren’t equivalent one-shot questions for other classes.
Kirk
priestlyendeavors.wordpress.com
(your comments publisher hates wordpress)
@Kirk .. I used to love Hibernate, especially against Dragonkin in UBRS, since back in the pre-BC feral druids had to roll as a DPS Cat, dontchaknow. Lol@maintank druids in pre-BC.
Nowadays, I do pull out the hibernate when I get to be kitty or back up healer, and someone else is tanking, or we don’t need a tank, but I find that PVE if I’m in a situation serious enough for Cyclone, then I’m tanking, with my Enrage ticking and Faerie Fire pulling. Or, in some cases, Moonfire pulling :).
I hate to say it, but I have NOT played around with Cyclone. It’s on my cast bar, but I just ahve not spent any time on testing it and getting a feel for it.
Now you have me wondering if I should test using Cyclone as my initial pull on multi-mob pulls.
Hmmmmm…….
hmmm. six seconds during which the mob is getting aggro at YOU, the tank, but can’t do anything while you grab the attention of the other one or two…
Wonder how much aggro cyclone generates, anyway? Will I yank it if I try to ease some of the pain from the other mobs – with a renew, or worse a greater heal? hmmm.
Kirk
priestlyendeavors
@ Anonymous from EU…. here in the stateside servers, we ahve somthing John Gabriel called the Greater Internet… oh, heck with it, here’s the link…
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
@Kirk… yep, now ya got me thinking… I normally despise math-mining and theorycrafting, cause I do that stuff waaaaay too much at work.
But I think I’ll be doing some experimenting with my Threatmeters on threatgain…
Darn you Kirk for making me learn something new! For shame! You’re as bad as Phaelia!
Hey BearButt! (Yessss, a druid that won’t get offended when I say they have a fuzzy but!)
Kitty’s Misdirect shot hit the mark, and it’s always fun to see some one linked to me (I get readers? Oo) But I’ll defenatly be putting you on my roll. I haz me a ferlol tanky type… and always willing to learn how to make her do the thing she does best: Piss off the mobs so my squishies stay alive. I mean, wouldn’t you get mad too with a big, smelly, hairy, sweaty bear butt is shoved in your face? XD
But anywho, point to my comment (other than to say hiya!) is Yay for Mind Vision, and secondly, my Boomkin Fio uses his cyclone usually whenever he sees a mob heading for a healy type. I know it doesn’t really help you, since you’d have to shift of bear to do cast it, but usually it gives the tank enough time to get aggro back on the offending mob (and also gives me a enough time to run the hell away XD)
~<3 Cay, Teh Squeaker
Great article, and great discussion. I think I’ll mention the cyclone pull to our druid–just to see how it works once.
One thing about our guild, is that our hunters got turned on to chain-trapping very early on in our history. Not all are real good at it, but they practice it (and I have to confess, this hunter doesn’t practice it enough, so I think I’ll try to pull a talbuk to Telaar this weekend).
@Kirk: Click the “Other” button. It works for me, and I’m a wordpress user. :)
@ Kestrel, I have (and will try again with this resonse) but I’ve been having a pattern of non-acceptance. Of course, it may be just that blogger knows I have an account (inactive, for reasons mentioned on it, from which I switched). Or just me.
Ooooh lookie – you generated a BRK-a-lanche!
Mind Visioning to mark pulls is rare skill now? Wow does that ever make me feel old and out of touch. We used to mark 50%+ of BWL pulls via mind vision (also one of our favorite ways to annoy various rogues and things mid raid, hehe).
My guild has been running into this a lot lately as we hit the issue of looking off-server for new talent, or train up folks who want to get better but have never been asked/forced to do some of these things before.
Every now and again you get a golden one though, I used to bring one of our guild hunters as the only cc in Heroic SV, and between traps and kiting he could CC two mobs at once and dps one of them. It’s moments like that the make it all worthwhile.
Hunters are equal to a honey-bee nest.
So much goodness in there but usually you get stung so you decide it’s just not worth it.
Hunters are the coolest most utilitarian class but most people have no clue how to play and just mess it up for everyone.
If everyone read and practiced the stuff BRK talks about the Devs would surely nerf the hunters because they are too powerful but until that day comes….you have to play the odds…and odds are, that hunter that wants to group with you sucks.
Mindvision I guess. Would be faster for the hunter to just look on their minimap seeing as they have detect undead turned on for the trip to maiden.
And why clear the journal trash? With Moroes and Maiden down it self-clears and people with that quest can go back later with no trouble.
Chromaoran
A video showing a hunter chain trapping with a good commentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UktrX2tK6w
coming from a hunter, I can say the bee hive comment some one above me said, is a fair alanogy to dealing with us hunters.
To bear butt. My humble apollogies that you had the misfortune of grouping with an emotinally unstable hunter.
Maevet
SWC server
@Chromaoran
I am not sure about that specific wing of Karazhan, but usually when you as a hunter turn on tracking in an instance which has multiple floors. THe minimap will be so overcrowded with red dots, that tracking something is not practicable.
But when you have been at a place more than once, and have been more than just a “passenger” as I call it, you will know what will come around which corner. So there will be no big surprises anymore.
Mindvision is a great toy. Have you ever tried to chain-mindvision, and see how far you can get with that?
How to handle the skill of other players is tough.
(I am a tank too, a warrior tank though.)
For example I tend to treat ice-traps just as a kind of sap. I dont expect it to be repllied – ever. Thats sad.
But sometimes I am suprised. I played with a group of guildies I suggested on the 6 man pull (before Blackheart) in SL that the hunter could trap the warlock and pull him with a silence shot (I hoped this wasnt offensive speak and kept my fingers crossed). To my suprise he said “Nah, I corner pull him and trap him!”.
This hunter was above par for sure. We had 2 hunters in the group and no mage – but it was so cool. I am used to mages knowing how to sheep and re-sheep. But for hunters to chain trap. And 2 in one group!
Next time I had a hunter in my group (pug ofc). He didnt even have his pet out. “He is just in the way” was the quote from him. When we needed a bit of OT-ing he pulled the pet out. It wasn’t even leveled to 70…
Good blog u have here!
Xizang – the official, tooltip range for MV2 is 50,000 yards. I can’t measure that far. What I do know is that I’ve visionwalked through every instance to which I have access at least once – all I need is a glimpse of the ‘next’ to take a look.
I can’t look across servers – change of continent, change of some lands within continents, in- to out of- instances, that sort of thing. But other than that the only problem is it sometimes gets resisted.
IN which case (last bit of fun) I do not need to see the target to use MV2. As long as I can /target, or I have it already targeted, I can use MV2.
sigh. Priest practical jokes. Target a named character in an opposite alliance startup zone. MV2. Target a player who’s about level 5-10. MV2. Sit and watch the show.
Kirk
Priestlyendeavors
A lot of great comments… a few thoughts while reading them…
We cleared the trash in the Journal room because we had not downed Moroes yet, and there were people in the group that needed the journal for the quest. Group 2 is not ‘fixed’, we get a lot of different people, so we did the trash for the people who may not be cak after the two were down.
@Daddy… sad to say, we had two hunters last night in our kara grop… and 1 didn’t have his pet out either. I asked him what pet he had (not where or if he was gonna use him… just what kind, see how sneaky I am?) and he replied he was MM build so he didn’t use his pet in instances.
But both hunters trapped very, very well.
Even MM Hunters should always have their pets out. WTF’s with that. At least they take up some mob attention and can save a squishy in time of need.
When I tank I rely heavily on a hunter to save the squishy from the stray mob who breaks from my growl. A hunter who can’t trap is worthless. And a hunter who feigns death – thus allowing the loose mob to squish the squishy, should be kicked from the game. I don’t know how many times I’ve yelled at hunters for feigning death and allowing a healer to die. What good is a hunter who lives when he cant rez the dead.
All right, Ill stop. But I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with idiotic hunters. That class should be disbanded.
@pesce – I appreciate your taking the time to comment, and I can understand your frustration, but I implore you… please don’t take your feelings of anger or frustration out on Hunters as an entire class.
While I will be the first to say that my recent experiences with some hunters ahve been poor, I know for a fact there are many damn good hunters out there… and when they play their class well, they are a force multiplier that can save a raid and are welcome to run with me anytime.
My own concern about the calss stems from the fact taht it seems like, to go froma good solo hunter to a good raiding hunter, is a steep learning curve as bad as the walls of the Grand Canyon.
And that’s just not a hunters’ fault. It’s the way their class is designed, as opposed to most other classes. Everyone else, does have things they have to perfect in addition to soloing skills… but the hunter I think stands alone as being the easiest to pick up, but having the most hidden, or subtle (better choice, subtle) skills that can make asuch a massive positive impact on a raid.
Everyone, please remember… we love our hunter friends…we just want to slap the ones that know the skills are there adn avaialble to use… and willfully don’t bother trying to improve themselves. THOSE are the ones to slap.
Entertaining post! Although I’m sure many people would have a hard time considering me a casual player since I have both a level 70 Feral Druid and a level 70 BM Hunter, the fact of the matter is that the skills I gained while leveling from 1-70 are only the beginning of what you need to know to be effective in end-game instances. You (and BRK) are right that a Hunter (or Druid) can go from 1-70 just fine and never really have to learn to play their class effectively. Which is something I’m only just beginning to remedy (shoot, I just got attuned to Kara w/ my Hunter last night and my Druid still isn’t).
@ Pesce – I would cry if that happened. =( /sniff
As for me, when I’m in Kara, priests who have never run with me before tend to shackle my traps. Even if I’ve got the second trap right there and it’s all under control. It sorta bugs me, but eh, I guess it helps in case there’s an accidental break…
I have actually noticed a disturbing tendency for a lot of people to CC my traps– Balance druids have sleeped my stuff in Underbog, stuff like that. It’s like “C’mon guys, I’ve got it.” But I don’t think you can blame people for not knowing that some hunters can trap, when so many can’t.
It does always make me feel good when the tank runs to my trap to take it out as the second or third target, sees that I’ve got it completely under control, and opts to take out Sap or something instead. =P
Love the blog, just started my feral tank and lots of great stuff in here.
As far as trapping goes, (qq’ing to follow) I am a chain trapping hunter. It is no problem to trap 3 or even 4 times, given enough room/nearly perfect conditions and adequate lead time. This being said, tanks need to know the cooldown of other class abilities. Trap is 20 sec long, cooldown is 30 sec, and the trap can be up for a maximum of one minute. So if you want it trapped 3 times, the hunter needs a considerable lead. Also, traps can be resisted at every tick (thank you blizz for giving nagas the most obscene resist rate in the entire game), and unless you sre spec’d survival the chances are fairly good it will not last the entire length. No one who wants to actually do dps will spec this way before 25 man content, so expect them to break. Furthermore, there is no retrapping an early break. (be careful where you trap, and try not to do any fighting right next to the trapped taget) We will be on cooldown, count on it. So we are left with kiting the mob until someone gets it off of us, chances are the healer is second on agro for the mob so FD is not an option.
My point is this, yes we are a hybrid class capable of bringing many things to the table. But, half the problems I have playing my class is just other palyers treating us like we are all incompetant, and then not realizing what has to be done to play the class successfully. We really do have one of the most difficult to master CC abilities in the game, and if it resists make sure you have already waited the entire cooldown before the pull… unless you like hunter tanking :)
I guess I was lucky to start out with a guild run by a couple of really good hunters who made people L2P if they were going to move forward in progression/sign up for raids. I t is a shame that such a versitile class has been diminished by lack of experience and pedegogy.
[...] wrote a post a long time back about how I think this affects Hunters so much. The poor Hunter class has the huge [...]
hi guys,
a couple of things i wanted to say. 1st cyclone pulling is okish…. good for pulls where u have not CC that works on that mob but 2 or 3 very hard hitting mobs that might kill you. but….. cyclone has little aggro. when it breaks they will go to the healer.. picking them up esp if they have a charge skill needs good awareness. (btw if they are bashable they can be cycloned). hibernate i use a lot as bear or kitty it has few drawbacks.
second re hunters. trapping requires practise. this practise is not acquired in instances. chain trapping requires the right spec and i assume lots of +hit (i could be wrong maybe + hit doesn’t influence traps breaking). i once pugged a hunter to do heroic sethekk for my epic flyer. the hunter had greens and blues and we were not impressed. then it turned out that his english skills lacked a certain something…. then but then…. we asked him to trap stuff as the tank i had to break his trap every time and then hit the mob again to break the 2nd trap that was sitting waiting for the 1st trap to break. his trapped mobs had also been attracted by much lower aggro moves then other hunters use as normally trapped mobs require a taunt and his didn’t. mobs that got lose from my tanking got misdirected back to me too. this hunter was in a social guild and after the run i spent a long time persuading him to join our raid guild. after long discusssion with his social guild he joined us. we took him everywhere we could to get gear for him and he quickly became a core raider much loved by all.
when asked about his trapping he said that after a run once someone took him to a low level area and taught him to chain trap and made him promise to practise regularly.
bottom line be nice to poor trappers they just need practise.
if u are a hunter who becomes good at this skill (which is not an easy one) people will go out of there way to help and invite u.
As a note to a old post, I remember the time in a 5man that I used the hunter’s “Scare Beast” on something and the tank was simply amazed. He had never seen a hunter do that before and had learned something new :) Very handy for getting beasties off the healer!
Hi
I’m a survival hunter, playing for about 3 years now (EU Server). I know that silence you describe just a little too well. When we are going to build a group for an instance, eventually, we will come to the point of “Heck, we have to cancel that, no one is able to crowd control”. “Ehm… I could lay a frost trap?” Is usually followed by the comment “Yeah, and wipe the group. No thanks.” Or “Trapping? Are you crazy? We need a sheep!” *sigh* If I offer to put a wyvern sting on a mob, mostly, they tell me that it is rediculous, how would I help by putting a mob to sleep ._. I think, I should put a link to this post in our discussion board…. Nice to know I’m not the only hunter with that “problem” (and I may add a little proud: I think of myself as a fairly good hunter. Sure, there are way better ones, but normally, wipes in instances aren’t my fault.)
The best place to send your hunters to learn how to chain trap and cc properly is to send them to N BF by themselves. Maybe as a little motivation have them start a bet as to who can get the farthest in the instance. I can get up to the 2nd boss, can’t get any further cuz of the type of fight the 2nd boss is.
[...] BBB’s take on hunters. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Hunterz can’t trap to save their *****”, url: [...]
never tried using mind vision for scanning around corners, but my hunter alt does enjoy his engineering toys. the steam tonk does have a much more limited range, but it 100% will not agro anything even if you run over their toes and lay a mine. great gift to the tanks if they want to scout ahead themselves.
Thunderstop leveling gives great AOE ability. It works from when you get thunderstop right up to and including level 80. Leveling from 70 to 80 following Jame’s guides, 2 peices of tier 5 (gives a bonus that 10% of my damage heals my pet) and aoe was extremely quickly. It took around 1-2 volleys on average to kill whatever mobs I had, with much of the tier 5 healing being overhealing. The slowest bit of this method is rounding up the mobs but using a combination of your own shots, and puttling your pet on different targets can greatly speed it up. In comparison to a mage, although I haven’t played one I would assume it would be much faster due to a complete lack of downtime because of aspect of the viper. I would not advise AOE grinding for hunters, merely use aoe to acomplish the quests specified in Jame’s guides.