Use of hunters in mixed teams

[Iru]

As my raiding main is a hunter, I have tried to use it with my 5box team as much as possible, but I think I'm running into some fundamental challenges based on the dynamics of hunter combat.

Reading through the the threads in the team make-up forum, I also see very little use of hunters. Can someone who does make use of a hunter as part of a regular team share why and what accommodations they've made to be successful?

[Eyes in the Dark]

I am running a hunter in my latest team, and I didn't need to do anything really that would be different from other ranged DPS classes, the only problem I face is when I am questing and I can;t be bothered to set formation each time my hunter ends up as a slacking melee most of the time.

But then normal mobs die too fast for it to matter anyways.

[Mercurio]

I use one in all of my 10-box teams and really like them.

I don't have to make any specific changes on my hunter than any other ranged DPS except for trying to ensure that my ranged are at least a few yards from my tank, but that is good practice anyway. Misdirect and opening up 25-30% of the loot tables as usable items really do help.

[Jafula]

I remember someone last year ran with a hunter; he used the hunter as a main assist. He had tank, hunter + 3 others. Basically he would tank all mobs, got the hunter to target one mob and all the others used the hunter as their /assist target. This meant the tank was free to switch mobs to get aggro and the slaves still targeted the same mob rather than switching with the tank. Obviously you can do this with any class...

Also, he said that the hunter dps was really useful in that, in times when his group got out of control, the hunter would keep shooting without needing to keep pressing keys. He raved about his hunter...

[EaTCarbS]

I never had problems when I used my hunter

[Hivetyrant]

My 5-man team consists of:
*Pally
*Priest
*Warlock
*2xHunters

I originally levelled 3 hunters but got sick of occasional range issues and wanted to include a warlock for utility, but so far I wouldn't even consider swapping them for anything else.

They are one of those classes that are easy to learn, hard to master, which could be seen as both a perfect candidate and a horrible candidate for a multibox team.
This is because they can do decent DPS just by spamming your basic rotation, yet to juggle their cool down’s/pets/mana(shifting from viper to hawk can be annoying) can be a bit difficult if you are concentrating on other things.

I have gotten used to it now however, and I find their CD's are similar to my warlocks (spec's being marksman and Demonology) and their utility is pretty damn good if you take the time to use some of their skills (FD,traps,MD,etc)

For the TL;DR, the only issue I have with my hunters is always forgetting to change aspects when they run out of mana!

[tanknspanker]

i was thinking of making a hunter in my team, but they just said, it wouldn't be good..
reason?
i have no freaking clue :p

prolly bcause of the rotation.. when your survival, you can't time lock and load i guess..

[alcattle]

I have a lvl 80 hunter. I have tried to box with him and a new hunter. All 3 problems have been mentioned.
1.If your hunter gets to close, they stop shooting. Well duh! But it also breaks follow. So you have move fight fight.
2. The mana/ aspect thing can be worked.
3. I find survivial very difficult to macro by itself, so you might use BM.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

/stopmacro [noharm][dead]
/startattack
/castsequence [nocombat, @focus] reset=30 misdirect, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,,

Put that at the top of the attack macros. That plus passive pet is about it. The rest is pretty much just like everyone else. Note that I don't play my hunters much anymore due to no passive healing and some other things, though I've managed to break 3k DPS with nothing but quest blues and AH epics.