PvP hunter team

[blast3r]

I had a decent PvP team of pets on Mag before they changed the pet talents and am pondering a new team.

Does anyone know if pet abilities can stack? For Example, if I have a team of Raptor pets will they be able to each land their own stackable debuff? 5 debuffs and each stack 5 times?

And am also wondering if pets can cast things like a spider's web on a player at the same time. I am hoping the answer would be no giving a full spider team the ability to keep one player in a sticky net until he is dead. Recasting the web when another one expires.

Also, feel free to offer any advice or thoughts on pvp hunter pet things.

[Ualaa]

It's kind of weird..

My hunter, as a solo toon, was superb at PvP throughout the Burning Crusade expansion.
But my hunter team, didn't do so well.

I've been leveling them, purely for tradeskills, having given up on them as far as being competitive in PvE or PvP.
That's not saying they cannot be good in those areas.
But with my style, other teams offer more for me at least.

Cannot give you information on the pets, sorry.
TKASomething has been the best hunter resource I've found.
Not sure if pet specials would be subject to diminishing returns, but most things that root, stun or fear are.

The glyphed snake trap is fairly resistant to AoE damage, and that's a lot of poisons down at once.
Concussion Shot, on round-robin could keep an opponent at bay.
Scatter Shot is now a base skill, which could be nasty.
Silencing Shot is a marksman skill, not sure if you want that tree for PvP.
I've always liked Bestial Wrath and Intimidation (the latter on round-robin).

Messing around with Trap Launcher..
Have that keybound.
And then mouse broadcast the trap itself > Send Next Click.

I like that you can glyph Mend Pet, which means no more food for happiness.

You could likely set up SetView(x);SetView(x), so each is slightly off.
And then Flare close to 360 degrees around your team.

Entrapment is Survival, not sure if that's worthwhile going for or not.

[blast3r]

Thanks! Very useful information!

[Shodokan]

The damage output of 4-5x kill command at 85... is pretty sick. You also get mortal strike type skill... but overall i don't see this being the best team to run.

[Mercbeast]

I was thinking of a way you could get multiboxing jump kiting working with shamans. I don't know if this has been done before but I was thinking of setting it up similar to how GTAOE works. You hit space bar, it activates mouse broadcasting, and it cancels. I haven't looked into the cancel methods I am still leveling my DK's. However I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. All of your characters jump at once, mouse broadcasting on. You spin, shoot airborne, land and mouse broadcast is toggled off, and follow is reset. It, combined with 4 or 5 pets focusing something down could be pretty potent. You just run away like a little girl while your pets do their work and throw jump shots into the mix. No good for Arenas, but it could wreck havoc in some BG's.

[Boylston]

I was thinking of a way you could get multiboxing jump kiting working with shamans. I don't know if this has been done before but I was thinking of setting it up similar to how GTAOE works. You hit space bar, it activates mouse broadcasting, and it cancels. I haven't looked into the cancel methods I am still leveling my DK's. However I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. All of your characters jump at once, mouse broadcasting on. You spin, shoot airborne, land and mouse broadcast is toggled off, and follow is reset. It, combined with 4 or 5 pets focusing something down could be pretty potent. You just run away like a little girl while your pets do their work and throw jump shots into the mix. No good for Arenas, but it could wreck havoc in some BG's.

Oops, you just got charged by a warrior and hamstrung and now he's Bladestorming the rest of your team in their dead zone.

Save yourself the pain and don't try to multibox hunters!!

[Ualaa]

You'd probably be better off having Spacebar = jump on all of your toons.

Make a mapped key...
- Press = IWT, so they'll spin towards your target.
- Release = A shot you can cast while moving.

Then you spin the main toon away, continue running.
Either initiate follow quickly, before they land, or go with strobe follow.

I'm not a fan of hunters for PvP.
But if someone wants to go with them, that's their choice.
Every class has options which can work to their favor, but there are more and less optimal choices.

Hunters have the deadzone, so you might want an escape mapped key.
Something which functions like a spread out command.
So the warrior who is in your midst gets one of the toons, but not all of them.
And the rest of the team gets to shoot him.
A bladestorm warrior is crappy to have in your group, as any class.

Hunters can drop traps, and possibly have the Entrapment talent on one of the Hunters.
Which might get the warrior stuck, after the Bladestorm ends.
Same idea as dropping Earthbind & Magmas, as you spread out.

[Boylston]

I just try to offer the public service announcement where I can. I was a 4xHunter fanboi once and then BC came and the comp fell to pieces. I have 4 at L80. I don't intend to ever spend any more time with them.

It's not me theorycrafting that hunters have trouble in PvP... I've lived it.

[Mercbeast]

I haven't played hunters since 2005, but the way you dealt with warriors then, when they intercepted you and hammied you, was to freezing trap them, walk 20 feet away and unload an aimed shot followed by a multi-shot etc. Popping 4 down at once will cause any intercepting warrior major problems. No individual class is perfect, they all have problems. I think of pets as a sustained dot that I have a high level of control over. In a BG, 5 heat seeking pets all totally sync'd on target issuing kill commands is going to run a train on people. You don't even need to expose your hunters. Stand off, send the pets in and profit. IF anyone approaches you, intercept with pets, snare them up and run away. Turn and blow them up. Standing off and using your pets as an assist train might seem like a waste of 4 or 5 slots if you rarely mix it up. However, 4 or 5 BM pets will tear people up in a pretty efficient manner. I think to the extent that not contributing your own DPS much is offset by the superior coordination of your team. Just keep your head on a swivel and run from anyone approaching you. Don't let them close the distance and if they do get your 4 or 5 freezing traps down, and create distance again.

[Ualaa]

Pretty sure the Warrior is immune to everything (aside from being killed), while the Bladestorm effect is up.
And he's in the middle of your team, doing massive damage to everyone.
Meanwhile you have your crappy melee attacks.

If the hunters pick the battles... and start at range, they're a powerful class.
Lots of damage options, for all three styles.
They can kite you, quite easily if you want to chase them.

My biggest problem as a hunter boxer, is that you don't have much defensively.
Compared to a lot of other compositions, anyway.
No real heals with 5x Hunters; I suppose you could be 4x Hunters + 1x Healer.
Melee range is really crappy damage.
It is hard to sync Disengage, although you could have them all pop it and IWT to face the enemy at range.

There are a lot of things I like about hunters; they were one of four teams I choose to RAF, way back when.
But they did stay at 60th, until I started alchemy for a reason too.

[Boylston]

It's too easy for melee or others to engage you. Rogues stealth to you, warriors have a BUNCH of tools to wreck you, mages can blink into your team, root you, and nuke you down. Just about anyone can infiltrate your team quickly with a mount.

It's a fantastic team for a lot of classes if they came at you one at a time, but it doesn't work like that.

Hunter survivability and defense does NOT scale well to multiboxing. Disengage, feign death, shooting on the move... all these things are hard to pull off while multiboxing. Contrast that with other good comps where you can keep (or stack!) your defensiveness and still be effective.

You can fix some of these problems with a healer, but then, guess what-- everyone focuses your healer.

I have some fond memories of my hunter team pre-BC, but too many classes have a VERY easy way to dominate your whole team, even solo players can wreak havoc.



If the hunters pick the battles... and start at range, they're a powerful class.Ualaa's quote is very true. Unfortunately, it is also true for any other ranged DPS class. Mages, warlocks, SPriests, Shaman-- all can do great damage to enemies that start at range. Problem is, Hunters fall apart more than any of these classes once someone closes with you... and you CANNOT prevent that.

I found this out during the end of BC when the new WotLK abilities went live (same patch situation we're in now). I refused to believe that the comp was dead, thinking "Oh, at L80, they'll be great again, pets do so much damage, I can go all-BM and be fear immune, etc etc etc". They were my first team to L80, and I realized how stubborn and wrong I was.

The comp is so far off from optimal that I consider it "dead". If you can lose to a solo player regularly, then I don't think you can call it "viable" and must face the fact that it's a very sub-optimal comp.

If you wanted some tradeskill alts, I'd recommend them wholeheartedly, very fun team to level up with!!

I'd love to be proven wrong in Cataclysm, but I also don't want people to stubbornly make the same mistakes I did. I wish I had focused on my other teams instead...

[Mercbeast]

Pretty sure the Warrior is immune to everything (aside from being killed), while the Bladestorm effect is up.
And he's in the middle of your team, doing massive damage to everyone.
Meanwhile you have your crappy melee attacks.

If the hunters pick the battles... and start at range, they're a powerful class.
Lots of damage options, for all three styles.
They can kite you, quite easily if you want to chase them.

My biggest problem as a hunter boxer, is that you don't have much defensively.
Compared to a lot of other compositions, anyway.
No real heals with 5x Hunters; I suppose you could be 4x Hunters + 1x Healer.
Melee range is really crappy damage.
It is hard to sync Disengage, although you could have them all pop it and IWT to face the enemy at range.

There are a lot of things I like about hunters; they were one of four teams I choose to RAF, way back when.
But they did stay at 60th, until I started alchemy for a reason too.

Change race to goblin and rocket jump away from warriors then? When I played shamans back in 2008 what you suggested earlier was how I dealt with melee. I had a spread macro which spread everyone out and had them look towards the middle. Then I focus healed the guy getting targeted and blew the melee up with the rest of the group. See no reason why hunters can't do the same, only with IWT turning to target it would be more efficient than it was back then. I'm not saying hunters are going to be the best team, but I don't think they are going to be useless if played to take advantage of the unique strengths BM hunters are going to have. Namely the ability to fight people with a 5 pet assist train from well outside intercept/charge or spell range. There is essentially no reason for BM hunters in a boxing situation to even get involved in a fight themselves come cata with what I've heard about BM pet sustained DPS. Hunters have always been a class that is terrible in the hands of a bad player, and a class that has shined in the hands of a good player. I don't really see boxing them being any different. Once a player gets their head wrapped around an efficient way to jump kite with their entire team, you've got a very powerful open field team. In fact I would wager a good player who gets that down turns 5 hunters in one of the preeminent BG boxer teams. (Why is it ignoring all my punctuation? That was actually 4 or 5 paragraphs)

[Boylston]

You have no healing ability.

You cannot avoid melée conflicts.

You will be closed upon often and with horrific consequences.

None of the above statements comes from theorycrafting-- this is the learned experience of several very good boxers who have all played this comp.

[blast3r]

RE: Melee teams coming in on your caster/pet teams. I am finding this less of an issue after getting used to "Interact with Target". I hit that button and my toons will turn. At least you can bash them in the head with your melee weapon or with casters cast away at them. It isn't an ideal situation but is damned sure better than trying to move around to regain access to the target.

[Ualaa]

I wouldn't say the composition is useless.
It has some strengths, and shines brightly in those areas.

It has some drawbacks or weaknesses.
Pretty hard to avoid some of that stuff too.
But that's already been pointed out in the thread.

If you want to go with it, best of luck; I hope you make it work.
My hunter team is rather fun to play, during the level up grind.
So I do see the allure of the team.

It's also not like this is your only team, and only option.
You'll likely have several compositions and pick and choose between whatever is the most fun at any given time.

[blast3r]

Pretty sure the Warrior is immune to everything (aside from being killed), while the Bladestorm effect is up.
And he's in the middle of your team, doing massive damage to everyone.
Meanwhile you have your crappy melee attacks.

If the hunters pick the battles... and start at range, they're a powerful class.
Lots of damage options, for all three styles.
They can kite you, quite easily if you want to chase them.

My biggest problem as a hunter boxer, is that you don't have much defensively.
Compared to a lot of other compositions, anyway.
No real heals with 5x Hunters; I suppose you could be 4x Hunters + 1x Healer.
Melee range is really crappy damage.
It is hard to sync Disengage, although you could have them all pop it and IWT to face the enemy at range.

There are a lot of things I like about hunters; they were one of four teams I choose to RAF, way back when.
But they did stay at 60th, until I started alchemy for a reason too.

I look at them as just a fun team. I LOVE researching and taming new pets. As far as PVP goes this is just for AV and WG and world pvp. If a warrior hits my toons I can star formation out...IWT and then fire. I will most certainly lose a couple of toons but most of the time I can kill them. I don't take the team seriously as far as end game goes.

[Ualaa]

I look at hunters as a very fun composition.

They have a lot of tools to easily kill a lot of characters.
But not too many tools, to prevent others from killing them as a boxed team.

Random and chaotic pvp environments should be a good area for them.

Even if a warrior is bladestorming in the midst of your group.
They get to eat 5x traps, have 5x Pets on them.
I'm curious if IWT to face the warrior, then Disengage x5 would work well.
That would have everyone jump away from the target and be facing the target already.
So you'd unload on it, as it once more closes the distance.

If the team is fun, that is the true litmus test.

[Boylston]

I will say that if all you wanted to do was have a fun team to level up and quest with, hunters are fun in PvE questing. I also had more fun in AV than in any other AV.

I just get nervous when I see excited people getting ready to start hunter teams. I'd recommend many, many other team comps before I'd recommend hunters....

[Mercbeast]

You have no healing ability.

You cannot avoid melée conflicts.

You will be closed upon often and with horrific consequences.

None of the above statements comes from theorycrafting-- this is the learned experience of several very good boxers who have all played this comp.

in AB are warriors going to really try and run you down if you are rocking aspect of the pack and he has 5 BM pets up his arse? I think not. Stand off and let your pet do the work. Just run from anyone trying to chase you down, think of yourself as an aircraft carrier and your pets as your bombers and fighters. You are vulnerable, your pets can put out a hurting and are expendable. In AB if someone wants to fight you 100 yards off the flag, well they are welcome to it. Meanwhile your pets have either killed them before they can catch you, or you have killed several of their team mates. You don't need to be able to heal. Someone can heal for you. Getting closed down is a state of mind. If you don't want to be, you won't be unless you have nowhere to run, mounted or otherwise. If you try to play your hunters as a turret ya, you won't be successful. Being able to operate from 100 yards or more means that any melee that wants to close distance on you has LOTS of dead ground to cover. You seem to be stuck in the mindset of actually engaging yourself. Why? There is no point. Sit on the periphery of the fight, assist train people down with your 5 BM pets and if you see the opportunity to engage yourself, pop in, spike someone, and run away again. Your pets WILL kill people. You WILL be far enough away that anyone trying to engage you is going to run themselves out of the fight. You don't have to be in the fight physically to wreck people with 5 BM pets. (Anyone care to explain HOW to get my paragraphs to stay? I apologize for the wall of text but my paragraphs are just condensing into a brick...)

[blast3r]

I will say that if all you wanted to do was have a fun team to level up and quest with, hunters are fun in PvE questing. I also had more fun in AV than in any other AV.

I just get nervous when I see excited people getting ready to start hunter teams. I'd recommend many, many other team comps before I'd recommend hunters....

I already have one hunter team at 80. Have tamed about 10 spirit beasts with them. :) I heart them.

[ElectronDF]

Sorry for saying it a hunder times, but I love my hunters. I use them as grenades. I throw the pets 60-70 yards (they despawn at like 80). If the people run away since they see the pets coming and despawn my pets, .2 secs later (/whistle) I have them back again, 100% health (okay, 4.0 has a bug with pets being low health, but it will go back to normal).

I am BM all the way at heart. I got Go for the Throat, the stam talent in Surv and the serpent sting does instant damage also talent. With concussive shot, and 5 different types of shots flying through the air, I don't have much problems at range. Yeah, a person can close on me, but 5 freezing traps gives me a little bit of time to get away. I love when they trinket a trap and walk right into another.

You can do multi-tracking now, so I turn on hidden, human and beast. People don't really sneak up on me. They do fight me in the middle of a battle while I am killing someone else, 100% mount with crusader on and bam, in my face before I have time to notice them. But their friend is dead before they can do anything.

I keep thinking I would use a healer with my hunters and do REALLY well, but for PVP, the healer is useless. Can't cheetah, can't heal on the move easily, no real buffs that the pets can't give instead, is going to be focused down 90% of the time, no help in DPS. Just general crappiness in PVP. For PVE it is wonderful, but PVP would suck having a healer for my playstyle.

I would play what seems fun and 5 pets getting thrown at you 60 yards away and chewing on you all the way to me, with webs (I use silithid for fort and web), intimidates, mend pet ticking (also taking off DOTs) and a spec that ups pet damage sounds really mean.

Older pets (pre-4.0.1), hyena (hamstring----gone), core hound (slowing casting, but nerfed to like 10-15%), wasp (no stealth sting, gone), tallstrider (miss an attack every 40 secs, talented down to like 28 and AOE, gone), and carrion (AOE AP debuff).

They changed pets so much, I got new ones. Skull (exotic, HOT, STR/AGI buff), devilsaur (5% crit chance and reduced healing), silithid (web and stam buff), raptor (sunder armor---since lots of physical damage done), and carrion (AOE AP debuff). I really like them all have sprint, all have self heal (ferocity--Lick Wounds) except silithid and I just ignore it since web and fort are too great to give up. Instant res (Heart of the Phoenix) is nice. They nerfed a talent at the bottom that gave more stam/AP, but it should work out since they let every buff and stat transfer to the pet.

For PVE, I used gorillas back in the day for thunderstomp AOE. But then moved to bears (swipe, tenacity healing and still thunderstomp). Now that bears are only doing demo shout, I might move to worms, they have an AOE that last 8 sec out of 30 (untalented). Not so bad, still tenacity, still thunderstomp and still does damage, not just debuff. I still use a carrion in my PVE group, since AOE AP debuff is nice.

For me in PVP the trick is to use range, huge range to your advantage. I regularly send my pets at vehicles in WG and the players have nothing they can do about it. Pets are quick enough to keep up with them, they stay in back and if the people try to stop to kill the pets, I just unload on them from 40 yards.

Oh, and I will say it because others will "you can't do heroics with hunters".

[blast3r]

Sorry for saying it a hunder times, but I love my hunters. I use them as grenades. I throw the pets 60-70 yards (they despawn at like 80). If the people run away since they see the pets coming and despawn my pets, .2 secs later (/whistle) I have them back again, 100% health (okay, 4.0 has a bug with pets being low health, but it will go back to normal).

I am BM all the way at heart. I got Go for the Throat, the stam talent in Surv and the serpent sting does instant damage also talent. With concussive shot, and 5 different types of shots flying through the air, I don't have much problems at range. Yeah, a person can close on me, but 5 freezing traps gives me a little bit of time to get away. I love when they trinket a trap and walk right into another.

You can do multi-tracking now, so I turn on hidden, human and beast. People don't really sneak up on me. They do fight me in the middle of a battle while I am killing someone else, 100% mount with crusader on and bam, in my face before I have time to notice them. But their friend is dead before they can do anything.

I keep thinking I would use a healer with my hunters and do REALLY well, but for PVP, the healer is useless. Can't cheetah, can't heal on the move easily, no real buffs that the pets can't give instead, is going to be focused down 90% of the time, no help in DPS. Just general crappiness in PVP. For PVE it is wonderful, but PVP would suck having a healer for my playstyle.

I would play what seems fun and 5 pets getting thrown at you 60 yards away and chewing on you all the way to me, with webs (I use silithid for fort and web), intimidates, mend pet ticking (also taking off DOTs) and a spec that ups pet damage sounds really mean.

Older pets (pre-4.0.1), hyena (hamstring----gone), core hound (slowing casting, but nerfed to like 10-15%), wasp (no stealth sting, gone), tallstrider (miss an attack every 40 secs, talented down to like 28 and AOE, gone), and carrion (AOE AP debuff).

They changed pets so much, I got new ones. Skull (exotic, HOT, STR/AGI buff), devilsaur (5% crit chance and reduced healing), silithid (web and stam buff), raptor (sunder armor---since lots of physical damage done), and carrion (AOE AP debuff). I really like them all have sprint, all have self heal (ferocity--Lick Wounds) except silithid and I just ignore it since web and fort are too great to give up. Instant res (Heart of the Phoenix) is nice. They nerfed a talent at the bottom that gave more stam/AP, but it should work out since they let every buff and stat transfer to the pet.

For PVE, I used gorillas back in the day for thunderstomp AOE. But then moved to bears (swipe, tenacity healing and still thunderstomp). Now that bears are only doing demo shout, I might move to worms, they have an AOE that last 8 sec out of 30 (untalented). Not so bad, still tenacity, still thunderstomp and still does damage, not just debuff. I still use a carrion in my PVE group, since AOE AP debuff is nice.

For me in PVP the trick is to use range, huge range to your advantage. I regularly send my pets at vehicles in WG and the players have nothing they can do about it. Pets are quick enough to keep up with them, they stay in back and if the people try to stop to kill the pets, I just unload on them from 40 yards.

Oh, and I will say it because others will "you can't do heroics with hunters".

Wow, thanks! I doubt I will ever fall out of love with hunters. They are able to keep me entertained endlessly. Oh, I was just thinking! I tamed Snort (Ally NPC) X 5. Wonder if when I move my hunters to alliance they will keep them. Think about how awesome that would be!

Laughed at the Freeze Trap X 5. Dreaming of the Freeze Trap X 10 I will have!

Okay, dropping my bears and going with worms for PVE. Didn't realize they could AOE now.

I am so happy we get a lot more pets now. Can try a lot of different combinations.

[Ualaa]

Well, leveling my three teams which aren't quite 75th... well two to go, after today.

One of the teams is the hunter.
Not that hunters are likely any different, but man they were raped pretty bad.

An 80th rogue is pvp gear.
Five level 74's.. opening hit killed one of my toons.
Did not see him at all.
The other four were dead within 10 seconds, even with Bestial Wrath.
Intimidation did not land.

I don't think it would really matter what I was playing.
But can attest to not being able to control someone getting in close, etc.

[Mercbeast]

Well, leveling my three teams which aren't quite 75th... well two to go, after today.

One of the teams is the hunter.
Not that hunters are likely any different, but man they were raped pretty bad.

An 80th rogue is pvp gear.
Five level 74's.. opening hit killed one of my toons.
Did not see him at all.
The other four were dead within 10 seconds, even with Bestial Wrath.
Intimidation did not land.

I don't think it would really matter what I was playing.
But can attest to not being able to control someone getting in close, etc.

Hunters will be a long term project for me. I wouldn't consider any race but goblins due to rocket jump.

[Sophie Hart]

I found this thread really informative.

[Supasnake]

I agree with Electron, hunters are amazing but you have to use them in the right scenario. For me warriors are the worst, but usually I dont get targeted until the other team realizes whats going on. One tank is easy enough with formations and IWT, but I've never been able to survive a muli-tank attack. (then again I'm not the most experienced boxer).

But nothing beats sending your pack of pets out and seeing casters panic.