4x hunters + shaman

[Catamer]

Before the new release I got a shaman/hunter team up to 70. it was lots fun. the hunters were just awsome and I had left over RAF time so why not.
Well, my main pally/shaman team is pretty geared out so I thought I would brush the dust off my hunters and check them out.
I never really tried any level appropriate instances with them before the new release. I just didn't have the time.
They are only 70 and I tried UK and what a spanking they took. ( I didn't ice trap anything, I probably should have worked it hard ).

anyone else doing a team like this, are they viable in dungeons or even heroic dungeons?
should I try a particular pet?
any particular suggestions on cast sequences ( I haven't done that well on ice trapping, i keep firing on the target and breaking the ice trap ).
I'm sure I'm not using them to their full potential since I've only ever quested with them ( you just mow stuff down when questing, no special shots needed ).

[Hachoo]

From everything I've read on these forums it seems like 4x or 5x gorilla pets are the way to go for instances. I have not boxed any hunters though.

[Boylston]

I have posted several other Healer+4xHunter threads around here lately. You may want to browse some of my posts ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?form=Search&searchID=409727&highlight=') to see more complete commentary. Here's the quick and dirty version:



Best Hunter/Pet setup for a Healer + 4xHunter setup is:

4xBeastmastery + 4xGorillas

The community has tried a LOT of other hunter spec + pet combos and we all keep coming back to this setup for now. Thunderstomp DPS is *huge* for instance leveling as the AoE damage is very, very good and the threat is just plain awesome. With very well geared hunters at 80, there may be some benefit to go 3xBM and 1xMarksman for Trueshot Aura, but you need really high levels of base hunter AP (close to 4000ish AP, I'd guess) to start to make that worthwhile. The break-even point for mixing in a TSA hunter may change with the hunter pet nerfs in the next big patch, however. Either way, the DPS difference will be small and it makes for easier character management if they're all identical BM spec.

Shaman will be a fine healer for you. My personal ranking of healers to pair with a 4xHunter setup for instance runs is:

Priest (best)
Druid
Shaman
Pally (worst)

This is assuming you're going to want to attempt heroic dungeons at some point. If you're not going to try heroics, then it's pretty much Priest/Druid as the best, Shaman a very workable second, and Pallies still worst. I had theorycrafted that Pallies would actually be VERY strong in WotLK based off my L70 experiences with them, but there is just too much AoE damage in instances (which is hard for pallies to deal with)that outweighs their far superior DPS buffing capability. My team is currently a Druid+4xHunter, which was very easy to level in normal mode instances, but I put Priests at the top of the list for their Fortitude buff, which will give your pets in excess of 3,000 extra hitpoints at L80.

I can run all normal-mode instance at an "appropriate level", save Oculus (a MBing pain). The biggest challenge with heroics is overcoming the pets' comparatively small health pool. I may go back and powerlevel my L70 priest up to 80 in order to give them another 3,000 HP to make heroics easier.

I have not tried multiboxing heroics yet, but my main hunter's pet has tanked a few Heroic bosses in mixed groups so far. His gorilla is sitting at about 16,000 HP... I will try heroics when my main pet is 18,000ish HP and the others have 16k+. Trash in heroics is not a problem-- it is solely boss fights. Overall healing per second requirements of the pet are not an issue, it's just having a big enough pool to deal with being potentially 2-3 shot by a boss.

Leveling this team to 80 in instances was probably the most fun I've had to date in WoW. It's going to be a slightly harder road with heroics than a multiboxed Tank+Healer+3xDPS setup, but it will be workable for some badge farming.

[Multibocks]

/agree with above.

My friends gorilla thunderclaps fro 1000 - 2000k PER MOB. Thats huge AoE aggro generation.


holy crap 2000k per mob that should mean instant death :D

[Fef]

Catamer, I am not surprised at all by your experience in UK. I had the exact same thing happening to me, making me even wonder whether I would be able to run instances at all with this group (4 x BM hunters + 1 x Druid).

If you arrive in UK at level 70-71 with all quest green stuff (which is probably the case since you RAFed this group), you will get a beating. The mobs just hit too hard for the poor health pool of you tanks. It does not compare at all with the situation of a team of epic-stuffed players running into UK straight from BC.

As said before, your first bet is to switch whatever pet you are using for gorillas. Their thunderclap is amazing at holding aggro.

Thunderclap is good, but its range is rather limited. If a group of mobs is a bit more spread than usual, some might not be aggro'ed by the 4 gorillas all charging the same target. So I would advise you to set up macros to send each individual pet to an individual mob for initial aggro. I use the same as for my Mages (based on setting /target, when DPS is made on /focustarget). Since I started doing this on tricky groups, my life became much easier.

I would also advice to get the AOE resistance talent for you pets, it helps a lot for boss fights.

Finally, pets are not real tanks, they do a rather good job at it, but they are not real tanks. If you equipment is not good, wait a couple of levels, get better gear from quests, let you pets scale up, and then head back into the instance.

[Knobley]

/agree with above.

My friends gorilla thunderclaps fro 1000 - 2000k PER MOB. Thats huge AoE aggro generation.


holy crap 2000k per mob that should mean instant death :D

Yeah.. that's some pretty awesome dmg alrighty. How many mobs are there out there with 1-2 million hp? ;)

[Catamer]

they seem pretty cool. I kind of like them.
unfortunately they are still 5 levels below my team and need to be leveled up.

I've tried to read the wiki and it is depressingly void of hunter macro's ( just one for mele fighting ).

I was just wondering if anyone did crowd control like ice trap, I know my shaman used to hex stuff in heroics before they got strong enough to do without.
my ice trapping skills seem to be zero, I guess I am going to work on learning how to do that as well.

thanks for help

[Boylston]

Some more notes, very randomly presented:

For getting started in WotLK content, I found the Nexus to be easier than Utgarde Keep. Maybe it was just me, but the bosses seemed tougher for a multi-hunter team in UK. Nexus is also non-linear, so you can try some of the bosses and skip one if you can't finish it. You can also clear 90% of the trash in the dungeon for XP gain without even worrying about killing the bosses. The last boss in Nexus may give you grief at first, but again, she's totally skippable if you've cleared everything else. Do what you can, leave, and reset. It lends itself to a nice loop configuration, so you don't waste a lot of time running.

* * * *

Definitely put a pet on each target if you are struggling with the trash pulls. I use focus targeting for all my DPS spells, but I will pre-assign targets before a tough pull by using 4 keys and then a fifth "launch pets" key. It's something like this:

For each hunter (I have these bound to U,I,O,P, and only one bound for each account):

/target focustarget
/cast Hunter's Mark

I can target the mobs in the pack with my main, and each hunter will change their target to the current target and cast Hunter's Mark on it. This macro does NOTHING else, and the keys are tied to this macro one per account. Hunter's mark is both useful and a visual confirmation that you have each alt properly targeting the mobs. (If you go too quickly, you'll see a lagging hunter cast HM on top of the previous mob).

I then release the gorillas with a shared /petattack macro. All four will run out to a different target. You can get fancy and add a /cast [target=playerpet] Misdirection in there as well, or bind a pulling shot with an alt modifier so that the hunters pull the pack with a normal shot as the pets charge out. This last thing is really handy to keep your pets from aggroing more than one group, especially with fear-ing mobs.

* * * *

As you get better geared and trash isn't a challenge, I just put all pets on the first mob that I want dead and let Thunderstomp aggro the rest. You will get some natural variation in TS damage and generally spread out aggro so that no gorilla has more than 2 mobs on it.

* * * *

Traps... I have traps on round robin and occasionally lay down an emergency trap or two in front of my healer. This is rarely needed. More often, I don't lay down any traps at the start of a pull and will just throw one down if my healer (who's the main) gets an aggro warning. Again, rarely needed with TS doing so much great AoE aggro. Now that I'm 80, I will occasionally toss out some Freezing Arrow-ed traps on a character or two just for fun. I don't use a DPS trap at all, even though there's probably some argument that 4xAoE traps would help DPS. I just want the fight happening way out there (*wiggles finger*) in front of the healer+hunter pack, and not close up.

4xDisengage is helpful. I use it in a variety of instance settings.

For a strong BM spec, consider using Aspect of the Beast. As your gear improves, its benefit gets even better. TS does so much damage that the last mob or two in a 4-pull is nearly dead from pet AoE by the time I get to it with the hunters.

4xVolley may be tedious to click to set up and it's hard to keep your healer on task, but there are some situations where it may be helpful to mow through stuff.

Fef-- Definitely spec Improved Rejuvenation and Improved Regrowth on your druid as you're leveling. Improved Rejuv on a pet is amazing...

Speccing improved revive pet (or whatever shortens your pet rez cast time) is VERY nice for instance running. 4sec battle rez on any pet that goes down. There have been a few boss fights where the pet went through 6-7 of my pets during the course of the fight.

If I think of any other tidbits, I'll pass them along.

[Vyndree]

I tried going into UK at level 70 with 4x rhinos. Bad idea. I turned the "punt" ability off so that they wouldn't punt all of the mobs into other packs of mobs, but they ceased to hold decent aggro after that.

Overall I was able to clear much of the trash with my rhinos, but often my healer (druid) would faceplant if the rhinos couldn't hold aggro and/or died.

I've respecced to 2x BM (gorillas), 1x surv (for mana regen, w/carrion bird), 1x marks (for trueshot, w/wolf). I'm leveling up the pets to try for another go at UK, but likely (since they are level 65 and definitely NOT holding aggro) I will be level 71 before the pets are 70.

I do plan on frapsing it when I go through again. I feel it's certainly doable, but the rhinos did take a significant bit of damage (which your healer has to be able to keep up the mana for -- hence the surv respec, as well as the carrion bird for screech), they didn't hold aggro well (hence replacing rhinos with tanking gorillas for a USABLE aoe ability in instances), and it was taking too long for my hunters to dps them down (hence the marks respec for trueshot and the wolf for howl).

For around-the-world trash I have noticed a huge difference in my DPS now that I've gone 1x marks and 1x surv. Single-target DPS is much better with this comp compared to 4x aoe pets and 4x bm spec, but aoe damage is better when you maximize the rhinos/gorillas. I also ran into a couple pvp battles that I would've won with rhinos, but lost (2x 80's, hunter and fire mage vs 5x 70's) thanks to the inability to chain 4x punts on someone. By the time I killed the fire mage, I died to the hunter.

[Boylston]

Vyndree-- Track your whole-group DPS while you instance run and compare your mixed and matched setups to a 4xGorilla/4xBM setup. You may be suprised. Better yet, if you are instance running, track how long it takes to clear an instance. I levelled almost exclusively through WotLK instances and kept coming back to 4xBM setups with 4xGorillas. A 3xBM,1xMarks team is pretty competitive once you start getting 3500ish AP on everyone, though.

I run Aspect of the Beast on my team, as a note. A fully pimped out BM Gorilla with Beast going puts out a lot of AoE DPS-- I generally only have 10-15% health left on the last elite during a pull due to all the Thunderstomp damage. I was 10%+ faster clearing instances with 4xBM and 4xGorilla than any permutation of mixed hunter specs and mixed pet specs. Survival is very underwhelming-- the mana regen is fine but it's easy enough to hop into viper a little more often. The gorillas' DPS isn't impacted by viper, so you can just keep on mowing stuff down while you regen.

All this may change post 3.0.8 nerfs, but probably not by a ton. Thunderstomp is just hugely important for clearing instance trash. The total group DPS output that is gained by a Wolf's AP buff is less than the damage delta between that Wolf and a BM-Gorilla... Sucks, but it's true. Trueshot is damn good as well, and it will eventually make going 1xMM,3xBM worthwhile (gotta keep the 4th gorilla, though!!) once you have a crapload of AP. I kept trying all these different configurations and just kept coming to the conclusion that 4xBM-Gorillas was the fastest way to mow through instances.

[Vyndree]

the mana regen is fine but it's easy enough to hop into viper a little more often

The mana regen was for my healer, not really the hunters. ;)

I found that even with full tanking pets with the BM extra 5 pet talents, my pets were taking a whopping amount of damage. Granted, I was only 70 at the time and trying to go straight into the instance, but still... Druid oomed at the end of each pull (w/out innervate) and we still lost a pet or two. An innervate helped, but the next pull it'd be on CD.

I know the pure-dps style of instancing is pretty much to maximize DPS and plow through everything, but I'm liking the utility of the marks hunter keeping up scorpid/chimaera disarms and the carrion bird keeping up the aoe demo screech. The wolf's aoe howl is OK -- I wish there were more buffing/debuffing aoe pet abilities, and while I'm not quite as hot about Survival (particularly now that the aoe part of explosive shot is going away in the patch... right?) the mana regen for my healer (at least at my gear) is important.

I'll do some DPS tests, but in my mind I'd rather play at trying to do a tank(pet)/dps/healer style instance rather than full out max dps aoe pewpew.

[Catamer]

thanks for all of the info.
I now have a druid at 71 the same as my hunters. My gorillas have almost caught up in level so I'm going to give this all a try.
I'm going to respec the druid resto and try all of these ideas out.

[Boylston]

I'll do some DPS tests, but in my mind I'd rather play at trying to do a tank(pet)/dps/healer style instance rather than full out max dps aoe pewpew.


The beauty of having all BM spec hunters and tenacity pets is that you are really more Tank/DPS/Healer setup than a mixed spec/pet combo. There are a lot of times that I will still put a pet on each elite or use CC of some sort-- only when a given encounter is trivial do I just send all the gorillas in and let them AoE stuff down randomly. I like worms too, for what it's worth. They can each tank a target and the last 2-3 in a pull will have a full stack of armor debuffs on them when you kill them.

While I have tried to optimize DPS with the team, the key thing is having a full set of 4 tenacity pets and the BM/pet talents to support them. With harder bosses, I may lose a couple pets (improved pet rez FTW!) and need for all of them to be equally tank-a-licious. Gorillas just happen to make a great tenacity pet choice for this setup due to their nice AoE threat (and DPS).

[Boylston]

The mana regen was for my healer, not really the hunters.


I had a little bit of mana trouble with my druid right at L70, but that quickly passed. From L72-80, I never really had much issue with healer mana. What kind of spells are you using to heal the pets? Also, if you don't have all the defensive talents in Tenacity and BM, the pets drop much faster...

[Boylston]

The mana regen was for my healer, not really the hunters.


I had a little bit of mana trouble with my druid right at L70, but that quickly passed. From L72-80, I never really had much issue with healer mana. What kind of spells are you using to heal the pets? Also, if you don't have all the defensive talents in Tenacity and BM, the pets drop much faster...

[Multibocks]

I assume she is rolling lifeblooms on as many pets as she can (that are taking damage) and using big heals as necessary. At some point she is going to be spending more mana than she can regen back.

[Boylston]

If you Glyph for Rejuvenation and Regrowth, you can almost completely avoid lifebloom-ing.

On normal, level-appropriate instances, all I've needed to do in most situations is:

1.) Wild growth the pet group every 6 seconds when CD is up.

2.) Apply rejuvenation to any pet that is actively taking damage.

3.) Regrowth as needed to heal any pet that gets near 50%.



I tried rolling lifeblooms on everyone, but with 4 tenacity pets, it can get a little difficult (or that's all you'll be doing). The +heal %age bonuses of regrowth and rejuv when glyphed are awesome, so I built my healing strategy around them.

The only situation where I roll lifeblooms is on a boss, where I will pre-HoT up the Gorilla who I'd like to be tanking and use some Misdirect macros to make sure that pet has a good lead. I'll keep WG, Rejuv, Regrowth, and a stack of blooms going in that situation only.

Heroics are a little different.

[Catamer]

my chimps are still two levels below my hunters and need a little more time to grow up.

thanks for the healing tips.
I've been having the hunters misdirect to their own pets but I see that having them round robin misdirect to the same pet should help limit the number of pets needing healing.

[Vyndree]

I assume she is rolling lifeblooms on as many pets as she can (that are taking damage) and using big heals as necessary. At some point she is going to be spending more mana than she can regen back.


My druid isn't glyphed at all, and I have her spam lifeblooms and an occasional regrowth on [target=targettarget] and I use click casting to do more specific healing (swiftmends, rejuvs, etc).

WG is bound to mend pet (this is all pre-cd)