Boylston succumbs... for real this time. (Hunters)

[Boylston]

I took the plunge (again) and made a set of troll Hunters... Damn this game. I'd had some hunters as a side project, but had stalled them at L19 and hadn't touched them in months. The RAF deal was just too good to pass up.

4.5 hours played and they're at L28. I am considering giving up on SM powerleveling once they're 40 and just playing them "straight". The triple quest XP is pretty insane...

I am currently set up with the 4 hunters on new accounts and then the lead account which has:

a L70 mage and L70 pally combo for powerleveling,
a L38 Troll priest who matches the new hunters
a L23 troll hunter who I can gift levels to from one of the new hunters

I am pretty convinced that I want a Priest+4xHunter setup long term, but I leveled the 5th hunter with them a bit just for grins.



Anyhow, thought I'd update everyone on my latest project. Here are a few of my questions regarding this second team, which is primarily going to be a BG/Arena fun team, I don't really want to try heroics with hunters:


* Would you stick with 5xHunters, or bring in the healer for a Priest+4xHunters combo?
* Any great ideas for pet names to complicate arena/BG targeting? (Otherwise they're getting d-b.com homage names)

[Ellay]

Make the pet names the exact same name as each of your main's. It is hard to select the main sometimes in Arenas using /target or Proximo.
Stick with a Healer and 4x Hunters, leveling up I could feel the glaring weakness at 70 when a single Priest or Warlock can dot your entire team and potentially take everyone out due to no heals.

[Littleburst]

Make the pet names the exact same name as each of your main's. It is hard to select the main sometimes in Arenas using /target or Proximo.
Stick with a Healer and 4x Hunters, leveling up I could feel the glaring weakness at 70 when a single Priest or Warlock can dot your entire team and potentially take everyone out due to no heals.Isn't that against the rules? I know i read somewhere that a hunter had to chance his petnames, he did exactly this and was a boxer aswell.

[Vyndree]

Make the pet names the exact same name as each of your main's. It is hard to select the main sometimes in Arenas using /target or Proximo.
Stick with a Healer and 4x Hunters, leveling up I could feel the glaring weakness at 70 when a single Priest or Warlock can dot your entire team and potentially take everyone out due to no heals.Isn't that against the rules? I know i read somewhere that a hunter had to chance his petnames, he did exactly this and was a boxer aswell.

I read this as well. It's reportable/bannable to name a pet after your TEAMMATE.

It is not bannable to name the pet the same as YOUR character name.

I have a blue post for the second bit, but I'll have to dig around for the first...

[Tasty]

I have a blue post for the second bit, but I'll have to dig around for the first... Not in the least surprised. You have a blue post for everything ;)

[Boylston]

Gonna stick with Priest+4xHunters then.

Sadly, I can't name all the pets "Tremor Totem", which I think would be fitting for all the wand monkeys out there that have caused me problems over the last few months. My character names are Zoljozol, Zoljuzol, Zuljuzol, Zoljuzol, and Zuljuzul. I'm having enough of a hard time keeping them straight, but I probably will get some PvP pets that are named the same as each character.

[accretion]

I currently run the same setup (Priest + 4 Hunters) and it's quite fun, though somewhat limited, at least with my below-average gear. Lately, I've been leveling up alternate crews (RAF) and I don't really want to grind for gear that will soon be obsolete. However, pet changes for WotLK look very promising and I think that instances could be much more viable at that point.

[Otlecs]

I've been messing around with a druid plus four hunters, and it's brought nothing but smiles to my face so far, EXCEPT when things get up-close and personal, then it's just a bit painful but things look set to improve in WotLK.

The druid would, of course, be a weak-point in PvP due to no fear control, but I went with a tree simply because I've never had one, and already have a moderately geared 70 priest.

It's very much a background project though, done with the sole intention of making the most of my RaF bonus on as many different teams as is reasonably possible :)

But, yeah, hunters.... :thumbup:

[Lokked]

If you plan on healing your pets with Healbot, don't name them all the same hehe.

I named my pets Delicouscake, Nom, Nom and Nom.

Only 1 Nom shows up on Healbot.

I really like Ellays theory of naming your pets after each of your toons (as this method seems acceptable).

[Otlecs]

I really like Ellays theory of naming your pets after each of your toons (as this method seems acceptable).
Yeah. How messed up is THAT policy, eh? Bizarre.

Do you (or anybody else reading this) know if Healbot is at least smart enough to differenciate between pets and owners with the same name? I'd hate to get a pet with the same name as its owner and find that only one of them showed up ;)

That's pretty easy to test actually. I should probably get around to doing the pet quest on my level 27 hunters some time and give it a go....

[Jaws5]

I have both

Orc hunters 4x lvl 67
BE priest lvl 66

Orc hunter lvl 70

In av 5 hunters just own all ( yes even the shammy ones)

But for longer fiights the priest and the other 4 are just great . I was tempted to go shadow and break shadow when heals are needed but went 41 in holy rest into disc. Works great for pve and pvp bgs. dont know about arena yet

[Toned]

If you name your pets the same name as yours make sure you use lowercase letters or they won't show up, if you capitalize them. (ON healbot that is).

[Boylston]

http://overload.clintandcindi.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/wowscrnshot_082508_001916.jpg



A picture is worth a thousand runs of SM:Cath, they say...

[Icetech]

F the RAF:( took me 6 hours to get my locks to 10 in the BE area.... not handing blizz another $120 or whatever it would cost.. and then have 9 seperate accounts paying for also.. wahhhh poor me!!! bah...

[Millz]

Make the pet names the exact same name as each of your main's. It is hard to select the main sometimes in Arenas using /target or Proximo.
Stick with a Healer and 4x Hunters, leveling up I could feel the glaring weakness at 70 when a single Priest or Warlock can dot your entire team and potentially take everyone out due to no heals.Isn't that against the rules? I know i read somewhere that a hunter had to chance his petnames, he did exactly this and was a boxer aswell.

I read this as well. It's reportable/bannable to name a pet after your TEAMMATE.

It is not bannable to name the pet the same as YOUR character name.

I have a blue post for the second bit, but I'll have to dig around for the first...Woop.. Didn't know this. I play a priest/hunter combo (me the priest - my alt) and the hunter's pet is named the same as my priest. Better get him to change it.

[Vyndree]

Woop.. Didn't know this. I play a priest/hunter combo (me the priest - my alt) and the hunter's pet is named the same as my priest. Better get him to change it.

From what I have seen for first offenders on the CSF, is that the GM will just force your pet's name to change to "Spot". >.< Otherwise you could tame a new one and rename it however you like.

[Ellay]

At least they change it to a cool name like Spot!

My Arena team in the past was renamed to something really crappy after the GM's didn't like it.

[zanbu4life]

Somewhat off subject but is there a particular reason why everyone runs a priest with their hunters? I made my hunter team not to long ago and I decided on shaman, sarting to think I missed something.

[Xar]

Somewhat off subject but is there a particular reason why everyone runs a priest with their hunters? I made my hunter team not to long ago and I decided on shaman, sarting to think I missed something.Not sure but when I heal on my priest in raids I log between 7-9 different spells used. Priests have Prayer of Mending, Renew, Circle of Healing which are all instant cast heals so can be used on the fly. Shaman have 1 instant 3-minute heal if specced NS. If you're not moving much then spamming chain heals are great I suppose and getting to wear mail armor and self rez and 2 elementals. However, I wouldn't trade my priest for healing in a raid because I love all the different healing tools available to priests.

[Vyndree]

Somewhat off subject but is there a particular reason why everyone runs a priest with their hunters?

When you're running a pet class (4 hunters + 4 pets + healer / 4 warlocks + 4 pets + healers) you've got a MASSIVE amount of individuals to heal. Group heals ("prayer of healing" for lowbie priests, "circle of healing" for deep holy), you have the highest HPS for that particular group combination. Furthermore, CoH can be cast on-the-run, unlike Chain Heal -- and shadowpriests have good synergy with warlock groups when specced shadow.

Personally, I went with Druid as my healer. Why? Because I already have a 70 priest that I can swap in later, and I've always wanted to play a resto druid solo-boxing. :)

[accretion]

Personally, I went with Druid as my healer. Why? Because I already have a 70 priest that I can swap in later, and I've always wanted to play a resto druid solo-boxing. :)How is that going for you? I have a lvl 70 Druid that I'm tempted to swap in for my priest, just to try things out. Ultimately, I decided "No Res = No Thanks" but I love the Druid buffs/thorns and HoTs are great for pets, IMO. Plus, bear form is a nice "oh crap, I pulled aggro" failsafe that I wish I had on the priest.

[Vyndree]

Personally, I went with Druid as my healer. Why? Because I already have a 70 priest that I can swap in later, and I've always wanted to play a resto druid solo-boxing. :)How is that going for you? I have a lvl 70 Druid that I'm tempted to swap in for my priest, just to try things out. Ultimately, I decided "No Res = No Thanks" but I love the Druid buffs/thorns and HoTs are great for pets, IMO. Plus, bear form is a nice "oh crap, I pulled aggro" failsafe that I wish I had on the priest.

If anything it's the healer that dies first anyway, so a rez would be useless either way. If things are going bad I just FD on the hunters.

That being said I did no instancing on any of my hunters -- the furthest I got on my draenei ones was BFD/Stocks.



Druids are getting a rez in WoTLK so I'm not too concerned. If you really want wipe protection, roll a priest w/locks (SS) or a shaman with hunters (selfrez)

[zanbu4life]

Interesting, it is my understanding hunters will be getting their limited stealth skill in the expansion as well I wonder if a stealth druid would gain any form of advantage. now that i think about it if a hunter stealth's with a normal pet wont that kinda give him away? I suppose I'll have to wait for it to implmented to see.

[Boylston]

When you're running a pet class (4 hunters + 4 pets + healer / 4 warlocks + 4 pets + healers) you've got a MASSIVE amount of individuals to heal. Group heals ("prayer of healing" for lowbie priests, "circle of healing" for deep holy), you have the highest HPS for that particular group combination. Furthermore, CoH can be cast on-the-run, unlike Chain Heal -- and shadowpriests have good synergy with warlock groups when specced shadow.

Personally, I went with Druid as my healer. Why? Because I already have a 70 priest that I can swap in later, and I've always wanted to play a resto druid solo-boxing.The good news for Boylston is that my 5th account to pair with the hunters already has a L70 Druid and Paladin. I think that in WotLK, the pally has a little bit of AoE healing, which might be fun. CoH is absolutely the bomb for keeping people topped off. I've done a little bit of Ramparts by simply putting a pet on 4 targets, sending them all in, and then using CoH spam to keep them all alive while the hunters burn targets down. Throw in some traps for protection (or on larger pulls) and you're golden.

My biggest problem in instances (so far) is that the Hunters pull aggro off the pets way too easily. I have to be a little patient and just let the boars DPS for a while before unloading. Ramparts is totally cake for my team except for the last boss, which is problemmatic... It's more fun to simply quest-zerg with the team, in my opinion, laying waste to normal mobs all over the place and quickly knocking out objectives.

[Vyndree]

My biggest problem in instances (so far) is that the Hunters pull aggro off the pets way too easily.

From what I understand this is something they're working on in the expansion.

That being said, on the beta growl is completely hosed, but once fixed they plan on retuning things such that pets actually CAN hold aggro.


Another thing to note is that there will be specific "tanking pets" that have been designed with talent trees to allow them to tank/offtank in 5-mans.

[mlwhitt]

Interesting, it is my understanding hunters will be getting their limited stealth skill in the expansion as well I wonder if a stealth druid would gain any form of advantage. now that i think about it if a hunter stealth's with a normal pet wont that kinda give him away? I suppose I'll have to wait for it to implmented to see.

Camouflage I think it WAS called. It has been out of the game for a bit now. So don't think we will see it happening.

[Aethon]

Well, it might be a complete waste, but there's the possibility for making 1 (or 2 or all 4) of the hunters an engineer. More hunters= more chances for jumper cables to proc. (also works well with rogues, for vanish)

And another point, Vyndree, I remember seeing the video of (assuming it's you, because it's on your website/post) with 5 hunters. How do you get your pets to split? Marcos to attack {star} (or something like that), or just the fact that the video is speed up so much you focus on the targets for the different hunters then hit 'go?'

[Vyndree]

And another point, Vyndree, I remember seeing the video of (assuming it's you, because it's on your website/post) with 5 hunters. How do you get your pets to split? Marcos to attack {star} (or something like that), or just the fact that the video is speed up so much you focus on the targets for the different hunters then hit 'go?'

It's actually a simple /focus with a script to set raid targets on the party leader's macros. It actually only takes a second to do -- while the video WAS sped up it's not at all difficult. I use my XKeys buttons to set focus targets and raid icons.

All of my macros in that video are here: http://dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=48513#post48513

[zanbu4life]

Post by Koraa

"- Camouflage - We'll be introducing this new spell at level 80. It will give you limited stealth capabilities. A bonus with it is that you can lay your traps while Camouflaged and it won't break the stealth, allowing you to setup your traps before a pull if desired."