5x Hunters OR 4x Hunters + 1x (Heal-)Shaman

[Plaq]

Hi,

I´m just looking for input to help me with the decision, any comments are appreciated.

My 5 BM Hunters are 25% away from lvl 69 and so far I cleared all the instances up to auchenai crypta, then got tired of instance grinding and started questing. All the instances were doable but stressful..if you make one little mistake and a hunter dies it is like a wipe because you have to do the corpse run.

So today I attempted the Headless Horseman. My pets have 12k armor, almost 8k hp and all the avoidance talents skilled(HoT ticks for 665 every 3 seconds). Nonetheless he SMASHED them hard. I would say he is impossible to kill for me at the moment. It´s situations like this where I would like to kick one hunter out and add my lvl 70 s2/s3 heal shaman.

What keeps me from doing so is the complexity the shaman would add. I really don´t know where to place all those skills the shaman brings in. There are 9 possible targets to heal..that´s a lot of macros/keybindings..without macros I would have to select the targets to heal with my main but with the delay in /assist this would be very ineffective. My mobility would also suffer because the shaman has to stand there and heal(bad in pvp). And of course I would lose some damage..nothing better than 5 BM hunters on a clothie. With lvl 56 I camped a lvl 70 warlock who attacked me in wpl. Now with 68 I just have to hit the BIG&RED button and everything expect for plate dies in less than 5 seconds(and 5 seconds is mail with resilience ;) ).

The biggest benefit of the new setup would be its strength in pve..I should be able to clear most of the instances, probably even in heroic mode. But there are also the cons and I just can´t decide which setup I should play and level up in wotlk. I would be happy to hear your opinions/thoughts :) .

Regards

Plaq

[Plextor]

Well don't forget about resto shaman's famous chain heal, which would easily heal your target pet, and fill up the others if there is any AOE damage. The shaman would also supply a large amount of buffs that your hunters would benefit greatly from (Strength of Earth and Windfury will greatly buff your both your hunters and your pets) and also heroism, to add your insane beastial wrath. You'd probably be able to do any heroics, if you have spec one hunter's pet into tenacity. I saw a video of a pet tanking gruul =P

[puppychow]

you may want to consider leveling a tank and going with a tank + healer + 3 hunter combo. Having one healer alone may not be enough to save you many times - for example, if the healer is CC'd, feared, whatever then you are going to die anyways.

[Clone]

As someone already mentioned, chainheal is insane for these situations. I would seriously consider playing the shaman as the main though for maximum healing effectiveness. It should be fairly obvious but if you are struggling with ur tank pet dying you might want to look into having another hunter or maybe 2 hunters with tenacity pets out to pick up the mob if one dies. Also when considering the shaman you can take into account the bloodlust/heroism for boss fight and the earth/fire elementals. I only ever really look at things in a pve perspective though as I cant stand wow pvp :)

[Souca]

You also don't have to settle on just one setup. Keep the 5 hunters for the PVP and just swap in the Shammy for PVE. As for how to control the shammy, it depends on what you want to be able to do. If you lead from the shammy you could use a healing mod like HealBot to easily heal anything. The totems can be reduced to a cast sequence if they eat up too many keys/macros. I'm considering using a tenacity pet to tank on my new team ( a lock, 3 hunters and a CoH priest ), but this makes me wonder how viable that will be. Currently I run the infamous pally and 4 shaman setup and having the tank makes a huge difference. Even at a pathetic 440 defense with quest blues and greens my paly is more than enough for the horseman. With a good healer the pets might be able to tank the horseman, but I wonder how they will hold up in a heroic.

- Souca -

[ElectronDF]

I have 5 hunters and love it. I wish I had 5 locks, but everyone told me not to do it. I have 2 sets of pets, ferocity and tenacity. I take tenacity to do instances (gorillidan is too amazing) and ferocity for PVP (dash/dive). I do a mixture of quests and instances. I like both of them. The quests are for the rewards (pretty nice gear if you pick which ones you do) and instances to see content and challenge myself. I try to feign my hunters if poop hits the fan. If that doesn't work, I lay a slowing trap and run until the feign cooldown is done. I have only lost a hunter 3 times, all from ego. "Oh, sure, in my mail and huge hitpoints I can tank an elite my level for 15-20 secs until I get done with the other mobs, no need for a trap." /death /corpserun

I want to keep all hunters just for the challenge and fun (movement, overpowered DPS, AOE tanking, free deaths--3 pets can die and it costs me nothing, not even food). I just don't do content that is too hard for me. I don't feel bad, I will not need it when new quests/content in WotLK in a few weeks. Good luck to you.

[Jaws5]

I run 5 hunters , when doing HH I run 4 with holy priest. down him every time now hunters have s2 xbox and s2 axe , rest if all blues.

circle of healing is oped for this grp. heals pets hunters at same time.

works for me

[Multibocks]

lol s2 xbox, I want one!

fyi: windfury no longer affects hunters, just had to add a little salt to wound 8)

[accretion]

I run Priest + 4 Hunters and it feels very powerful with the latest 3.0 changes. I blew through SLabs and SV without a hitch and am going to try the harder 70s soon as well. I'd guess I could pull of a heroic or two when I get the hang of it, and that's wearing mostly blue gear.

Really, any healer with Hunters could be viable, but I'd recommend either Priest or Shaman for the synergies and group heals.

[Plaq]

First of all thanks for your comments.

I decided to set my main focus on pve and so will add the shaman to the group while still playing a hunter as my main. For healing I will use the num block(top 4 rows, 3 columns..so I can define 3 actions per hunter. For example "1" heals the hunter, "2" starts chainheal on his pet and "3" is rezz..or something like that).

The totem support, heroism and the fact that I replace 3 tenacity pets with ferocity ones should not drop my dps in pve. One gorilla with earth shield, hunter hot support, and a shaman behind him spamming 4k NON crit LESSER healing waves(lesser healing wave glyph + Blood of the Rhino) should be a good tank, i just hope the shaman doesn´t pull to much healing aggro. And for big groups I just let the other pets offtank and spam chain heal.

Well for pvp the mobility sucks, but the group should still be viable and if not I just quad box with 4 hunters.

[Speedbump]

I have also paired up one of my shaman to heal my 4x hunter team. It has been a challenge to adjust to having a healer as my lead character vs a damage dealer with 3 or 4 clones. I tried to bind player and pet specific heals to my xkeys, but it just wasn't suiting me well. Kinda had me frustrated until i went through a big addon overhaul with this last patch and finally tried out the Healbot mod. So much easier!!

Healbot gives you an additional HP window that interprets your mouse clicks to perform different actions on that target. No need to rebind keys/buttons or even target the injured person. It also has the ability to smart cast while out of combat, making debuf and rez quick. So far all i have needed to use is Left: Chain Heal, Right: Riptide, Left Side: Earth Shield, and a rare Middle: Lesser Healing Wave. With S3/S4 PvP gear her CHs are full healing every time, 10k crits heh.

I prefer having 2 tank pets (Gorillas) and the other 2 spots for dps. However, Gorillas have been noticeably out damaging my Devilsaurs due to Thunderstomp (40% of the pet's damage, each pet doing 300dps at lvl 67) and fighting 2 groups at a time ... frequently.... and unintentionally... pet pathing :( Sethekk at 65 to get the Terokk's Quill was a nightmare.

I enjoy how this team plays right now, but i fully expect the harder 70s instances to be different.