5-Huntard group and level 80 instances?

[antieuclid]

Ok, this is probably a strange question, but what do you think the odds would be of a 5-Hunter setup being able to do some very basic instance runs at 80 when controlled by someone who is honestly not a very good player? I'm an admitted huntard, and a semi-casual player who doesn't really plan on getting that much better any time soon. I like to tell my pet to attack things, and then shoot them with my gun. I don't plan on getting fancy. Unfortunately, with the way some of the factions are set up in WotLK, it's hard to get to exalted without running instances. I've been dual-boxing to level some crafting alts, and it seemed like it might eventually (not for at least a few months, this is definately hypothetical) be interesting to try leveling a 5-box team, and at least get to see the inside of the WotLK instances before reaching the level cap of whatever the next expansion is.

I'd want to do a 5-hunter team because I'm trying to level a rogue/hunter combo right now and it's so much more work trying to get everyone in the right range, and I really am that lazy. I've never played a healer before, but I could see maybe trading one of them for a priest who I would also probably play quite badly. I know that this probably isn't a very good idea, but I'm just curious: is it a feasible idea? I wouldn't even necessarily be fighting the bosses, and I certainly wouldn't be running heroics, I just want to grind the trash mobs for the rep without dying constantly. I've never even run instances my own level in normal groups, so I honestly don't know how hard this might be.

As I said, this is pretty hypothetical at this point. I would probably wait for a new version of the Battlechest that included Wrath or at least for a really good sale. I just wanted to see whether it was a plausible idea.

[Grimmace]

Only big problem i've been seeing with my 5 hunter team is having to constantly revive pets because as the trash they might have no problem clearing bosses are going to shred through your pets like a hot knife through butter.

[Multibocks]

it's too bad hunters can't heal other hunter's pets. Guess 5 times hunter heal on one pet might be OP =D

[Fef]

I have been playing 5 hunters with RAF until level 55. I had a druid waiting at that level that I planned to swap one of the hunters for. I don't have experience of WotLK instances yet (my group is level 71), but I can share my impressions of WoW and BC instance.

Having a dedicated healer is key. Five pets provide quite a lot of tanking ability, but elite mobs, in particulars instance boss, will go through them really easily. They will certainly die too quickly (at level) to be kept alive by Mend Pet only.

Good tanking pets are also important. I like cats for outside world, but I go in instances only with gorillas. The AOE tanking ability is very precious and lets my druid heal freely, even when adds pop. Priceless.

[Boylston]

Go with 4xHunters plus a healer. It's just much, much, much easier.

I do think it's possible to run L80 instances (non-heroic) with a 5xHunter setup, but you're going to be using Mend Pet a LOT (so much so that it's going to cut into the hunters' DPS), you're going to have to revive pet a LOT, and you're going to have to resort to killing bosses using a lot of pet sacrifices and combat rezzes. If you were really hardcore about having 5xHunters in BGs, and you were a very skilled player, I'd say that once you overgear instances a bit, normal-mode L80 runs (for rep) would be doable.

But... I'd seriously recommend going with either a Shaman or Druid healer, grabbing some sort of click-cast healing mod, and running with Healer main and 4xHunters. It's a very nice setup and tons of fun. Plus, if your skills DO improve (or you change your mind about your goals), Heroics are likely very possible for you with a Healer+4xHunter setup. Not so much with 5xHunters...

I'd shy away from a Paladin healer (almost no AoE heals) or a Priest (very squishy) and go with a Shaman or Druid. Shaman have nice AoE healing with Chain Heal (that is still spammable) and get the benefit of mail+shields, so they can take a few hits. They also have a nice benefit of being able to Bloodlust through boss fights and make them go a bit faster. Bloodlust+4xBeastial Wrath is pretty insane damage... Druids have some nice advantages too, particularly being able to heal on the run, load up HoTs nicely, and have some really, really synergistic Glyphs that can be used to great effect on a Tenacity pet.

Good luck!

[Grimmace]

Frankly i didn't have a problem clearing all of the bc instances with 5 hunters using gorilla pets, but when I first tried UK at 70 prince 3 shotted my gorilla and things went south, although I didn't rez any of the pets during the fight and I still managed to get prince down to 30% before wiping.
I have been playing 5 hunters with RAF until level 55. I had a druid waiting at that level that I planned to swap one of the hunters for. I don't have experience of WotLK instances yet (my group is level 71), but I can share my impressions of WoW and BC instance.

Having a dedicated healer is key. Five pets provide quite a lot of tanking ability, but elite mobs, in particulars instance boss, will go through them really easily. They will certainly die too quickly (at level) to be kept alive by Mend Pet only.

Good tanking pets are also important. I like cats for outside world, but I go in instances only with gorillas. The AOE tanking ability is very precious and lets my druid heal freely, even when adds pop. Priceless.

[puppychow]

you'll totally be able to do heroic/regular trash with a 5 hunter team and grind rep, but if you add a tank and a healer to the mix you could also do bosses. A number (a majority?) of regular bosses will be doable with a 5 hunter team, a minority (1-2?) heroic bosses would be doable.

You could also take 3 hunters and find a tank/healer and do most heroics I'd imagine.

[Boylston]

You could also take 3 hunters and find a tank/healer and do most heroics I'd imagine.

I think you're skipping from "5xHunter" to "3xHunter" too fast there, my friend.

Solo hunters are reporting that their pets can tank Heroics already now; multi-hunters have the advantage that you have multiple tanks for the pet to chew through (and can Battle Rez lost ones EASILY). While my slow leveling speed has prevented me from being 80 and proving it, all the signs seem to point to healer+4xhunters being able to do heroics without too much difficulty.

The OP's post wasn't really about heroics, though. It was about clearing normal L80 instances to grind rep for gear. 5xHunters will probably work for that, although you may need to be well-geared enough to pull that off consistently that the rep-based gear isn't so appealing anymore. 4xHunter+Healer is the next logical step to take if you want to "for sure" be able to farm those instances. It also makes Heroics a viable shot, not a pipe dream. I don't think you need to drop all the way down to 3xHunter plus separate tank/healer to make that happen, though.

[qcumber]

I was able to do most BC instances on normal with 4 Hunters and a Shaman healer. For bosses, Misdirecting onto a tanking pet with a good healer works pretty well. If the pet tank dies, you are usually in trouble, though, since it is a hunter or the healer that gets the aggro at that point (this was when Misdirect had a 2 minute cooldown -- with the new 30 second cooldown you could probably get aggro back to another tanking pet). Normal trash was always pretty easy -- send a pet to tank each mob while the hunters focus-fire the mobs down one at a time.

As for BC heroic trash, I tried it using that strategy and it went very, very badly. Maybe other people can do it, but with gear appropriate for starting heroics, it wasn't going to happen for me... I am adding my Warrior to my group for WotLK.

[Moorea]

Druids have some nice advantages too, particularly being able to heal on the run, load up HoTs nicely, and have some really, really synergistic Glyphs that can be used to great effect on a Tenacity pet.


can you elaborate a bit ? which glyphs ?

thanks

[Boylston]

Glyph of Rejuvenation = 50% more healing when target is below 50% health. This is the big one.

Glyph of Regrowth is also good... another 20% healing when you spam it.

Both scale well with all the healing multipliers that Tenacity/BM give you.

Plus, tree of life can give you another +6% heal...

[Fef]

Well, I had a first try at Utgarde Keep yesterday evening. I cleaned the first room with vikings and the second with dragons. I had to stop playing after that, so I cannot comment about the rest.

With my characters being level 71 and the gorillas level 70, it was NOT easy at all. I systematically lost at least one pet on every pull of more than one mob, and I even wiped a couple of time.

I don't have the impression my DPS was lagging, mobs were going down quite fast. It was really a question of pets not lasting long enough. I am admittedly not the best of healers, but they really died very fast. Certainly a big difference compared to BC level 70 elite mobs.

I'll wait for my gorillas to get to level 71 before I try again.

[blast3r]

I have been playing 5 hunters with RAF until level 55. I had a druid waiting at that level that I planned to swap one of the hunters for. I don't have experience of WotLK instances yet (my group is level 71), but I can share my impressions of WoW and BC instance.

Having a dedicated healer is key. Five pets provide quite a lot of tanking ability, but elite mobs, in particulars instance boss, will go through them really easily. They will certainly die too quickly (at level) to be kept alive by Mend Pet only.

Good tanking pets are also important. I like cats for outside world, but I go in instances only with gorillas. The AOE tanking ability is very precious and lets my druid heal freely, even when adds pop. Priceless.

Via trial and error I ended up with a team of gorillas for instances as well. Only at level 65 ATM. I was thinking about getting a wolf to replace one of the gorillas for increase in attack power. Not sure if it increases the other pets attack power as well, though. Gorillas rock for keeping aggro.

[Ishar]

eh, Apes are nice, but what about mixing in at least one buzzard (carrion bird) for Demoralizing_Screech ('http://www.wowwiki.com/Demoralizing_Screech') ; it reduces melee AP for allt he mobs at melee; sos seem like it theoretically would help tanking a little bit, but I dunno. spore bats and spore cloud ('http://www.wowwiki.com/Spore_Cloud') is also interesting; but thats probably just me wanting to have a mix of AE abilities in the group (Its an AE dot/armor debuff). I'm not really in a situation to test either of those.

[Ualaa]

I've been running..

- Wind Serpent from ZG (have had it since level 60 raiding, so first hunter won't replace it anytime soon).
- Carrion Bird: AoE shriek melee debuff.
- Wolf: Howl... AP boost.
- Bear: Tanking pet, but Gorilla's aoe threat stomp is very tempting.
- Scorpid: Poison, but this was nerfed twice recently, not sure if I'll keep this pet for dps when I restart hunters.

The Wolf gives twice its level as attack power to all your hunters and their pets, I'd include one of these in your party for sure. Same deal with the Carrion Bird; not sure the exact debuff, but it makes everything hit for less. The other pets are up to you, one will be your tenacity tank and the other two whatever floats your boat.

[HPAVC]

I have been resto shaman with 4 bm/readiness hunters in wotlk, all gorilla.

The only issue I have is that the gorillas are horrid for various bosses where movement or kicks are involved. So if your lazy your fighting onyxia in the whelp cave for example.

Gotta remember with the tanking pets and the bm spec, your looking at insane +heal% on those pets. Its a very very easy time healing them, as well as the pets having the ability to round robin soul link.

I find the mixed pets a waste of time, any benefit a wolf might give to the group or a trueshot aura is wiped out by the lack of a monkey's 4k thunderstomp and occasional soul link. It just adds more twitch than its worth.

[Fef]

Sorry about the old post necro, but my question is pretty much on subject.

My PVP team, healer Druid + 4 x Hunters, got his first PVP set (the one you get rather easily, with a mix of arena and honour points). I feel that the weak spot in my gear is now the hunter's main weapon. They are using a blue bow with 101 base DPS. Since I don't want a gun (The noise ! Also, Elves with guns ?) and don't want to run pick-up groups into a raid instance, I thought the crossbow dropped by Heroic Ingvar would be a good choice.

Now I have two solutions :
- Swap one shaman from my PVE team (Paladin+4xShaman, the have Heroic UK on farm for some time) with a hunter. Rince and repeat until I get the drop for all of them.
- Try to run Heroic UK without a tank.

I would prefer the second solution, since the first one will imply messing with my group, the need to re-spec at least one shaman (when the swapped one is the healer), and other inconviniences.

So, in the 6 months since this thread died, did anyone make progresses running Heroics with only hunter's pets, or without a real tank in general ?

I plan to try anyway, I'll keep you informed of my results.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Solo hunters are reporting that their pets can tank Heroics already now; Let's be clear about something: the guys saying this are the hunters in full 25-man epic gear. I have a hunter at 80. I'm in the best crafted epics I can get him and a few good drops from normal 5-mans and my pet gets annihilated by heroic trash unless I absolutely SPAM heals on him.

[edit] OH GOD. Thread necromancy FTW! :P

[Multibocks]

Im assuming you are talking about a BM tenacity pet?

Yeah I just dont see hunters as viable for heroics unless you are sporting Ulduar gear. If there is any movement necessary for a boss you can just forget it. I would love to see someone take down Keristraza in H Nexus as the pets have to move to get rid of debuff AND you have to move your slaves as well. Movement of group and pets will require you hitting two keys, no way around it (that i know of: you can't bind strafe and /petattack to the same button). So moving pets around and your team, oh and make sure your hunters are dpsing.... and of course healing pets. Yuck, it sounds like DDR on extreme difficulty.


edit: although after doing nexus on normal difficulty with 4 hunters and a priest with very little difficulty it makes you wonder.....

[Fef]

Well, I gave it a try. I went to Heroic UK.

The first corridor is hard and frustrating but managable, it all comes down to pulling carefully. I still lose a few pets quite often. When it comes to three or more mobs packs, my druid just cannot follow. The hunters spend their time rezing their pets, hence not doing dammage. So every pack either takes forever, or ends up in a wipe. Just *one* regular Heroic UK mob takes one of my apes down in just a couple of blows without heals. I guess it comes from the lack of defense stats. I can only imagine how fast a phase-two Ingvar would tear them down.

Conclusion : Heroics without a real tank is a no go.

I respecced my hunters to Mark, and will take them individually for Heroic UK trips with my PVE group until I get them all the nice crossbow.