Hunters
Contents
Role of the hunter
Solo pulling
A “pull” means deliberately gaining aggro of a mob or boss with the aim of directing it to a specific spot. The difference between a “good” and “bad” pull is distance. Every mob or boss has a given aggro range. It is up to the hunter (through experience) to learn the outer limit of that range. This is why the hunter/puller should be a distance in front of the main raid, equal to the aggro range of the targeted mob/boss. In case of a “good” pull, the hunter will feign when a warrior has taken over aggro. He then uses “feign death” to drop his aggro on that mob. In a “bad” pull the hunter has aggroed more than he intended. To avert this, he can use feign death to drop the aggro and reset the targeted mob/boss. This is where distance comes in to play. If the rest of the raid is too close to him, anyone standing in the aggro range of the mob/boss will immediately gain aggro upon feign death. To avoid this, the raid should always be at least 41 yards behind the hunter (maximum shooting range)
Buddy Pulling
A buddy pull is used when there’s a chance that a group of mobs are linked. In order to get just one of the mobs out of the pack, 2 hunters will work together to separate it. The mechanism is actually quite simple : the first hunter shoots the mob with an arcane shot (any rank), he then runs back until the mob is in range of the second hunter. On the second hunter’s command, the first one feigns death and the second makes a distracting shot. This will reset the linked adds and only aggro the intended target.
Chain Pulling
A chain pull is an extension of the buddy pull. This time 3 or more hunters will work together to lure a mob away.
Kiting
Kiting a mob is the act of making one (or more) mobs chase you around a given path. In this case, speed is the hunter’s only friend. Once the mob is aggroed, he needs to stay ahead of it, while maintaining an aggro lock. To get this lock, he’ll need to make a jumpshot every 6-8 secs to keep the mob “interested”. The usage of aspect of the Cheetah (AoC) is ill advised as any damage will result in a 3 sec daze effect. Therefore rely on speed potions and speed enchants
Hunter talents and equipment
Talents
In TBC huge improvements have been made to the hunter talent trees. Making all three of them viable for Raiding.
Beastmastery
Because of the improved mend pet, and the trainable pet ability avoidance. It is perfectly viable to raid as a beastmaster. The strong points of the beastmaster are that they split the threat with their pets, which can be useful in fight where it really matters. The beastmaster build doesn't have the harsh gear requirements of the other builds and can do relativly high damage with bad gear. With pets now scaling much better, gear will improve this build and it will be valid even with good gear.
Pet survivability however can still be a problem in raids. Dying pets will reduce DPS and should be avoided by using mend pet. Now that alliance has access to shamans and because of the smart chain heal mechanics, pets will be healed along with melee DPS by the shamans in the raid, so try to make sure your pet is close to other melee DPS if the fight allows it.
Recommended build
Animal handler is a must for raiding beastmasters as your pets have quite a high miss chance against bosses. Ferious inspiration will give a nice boost to the DPS of your party. Improved revive pet in case your pet does die. I've gone 13 into marksman to get more mana effecient shots, the extra focus generation and because aimed shot is still nice in some situations. Of course the obvious range increase in survival that is needed for kiting mobs.
Survival
Recommended build 0/25/36
Marksmanship
Recommended build 7/45/9
