No hunter teams?

[Yhanny]

Hello all,

New to the whole multiboxing community, but I noticed that there are not very many teams with hunters on them. I was actually thinking about making a 4xhunter 1xhealer team but seeing as there is not many teams with hunters on them is pretty worrisome.

Does anyone have any experience with hunters on a team? Or even a stacked hunter team? 4 pets doesn't sound too shabby :P

Thanks!

[Mercbeast]

There is someone doing a 5x hunter team, last I heard they were plowing through deadmines at levels my 4x warrior team was chain wiping at. They cleared to the 3rd boss at level 15, I didn't even start in deadmines till 18.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'm almost up to level 35 with a sham+4warrior team where my 5-hunter team stopped in beta. So far, they are far more resilient than the hunter team to "oops" situations, though the repair costs are 100% more expensive in spite of hunter ammo costs. In terms of DPS, they are also better (for me, I was 5x BM spec) post-30 at AoE damage.

As for general playability, after the 2.1.0 Avoidance ability and instant Mend Pet HoT, it got better, and 2.3.0 effectively removed the deadzone but IMO hunters (BM in particular) really didn't come into their own until the pre-Cataclysm ~4.0.1 patch with Glyph of Misdirect (no cooldown if targeted at your pet). That really, REALLY helped control aggro, especially with adds.

[Yhanny]

Ah, so you are saying that they have aggro problems as well as lower dps? I'm guessing multishot is not as viable as other class aoe?

[Mercbeast]

I'm almost up to level 35 with a sham+4warrior team where my 5-hunter team stopped in beta. So far, they are far more resilient than the hunter team to "oops" situations, though the repair costs are 100% more expensive in spite of hunter ammo costs. In terms of DPS, they are also better (for me, I was 5x BM spec) post-30 at AoE damage.

As for general playability, after the 2.1.0 Avoidance ability and instant Mend Pet HoT, it got better, and 2.3.0 effectively removed the deadzone but IMO hunters (BM in particular) really didn't come into their own until the pre-Cataclysm ~4.0.1 patch with Glyph of Misdirect (no cooldown if targeted at your pet). That really, REALLY helped control aggro, especially with adds.

What pets were you using? The guy 5 boxing the hunters said the team was terrible initially, and asked for pet suggestions, bunch of us suggested bats/carrion birds for the demo shout, and he's said that his threat management has been a joke ever since.

[Purpleflavor]

I've seen several posts about hunter teams, usually doing really well and clearing dungeons early because mob level doesnt effect their hit as much as other classes. Gotta be one of the best comps in phase 1.

[silverback]

Doing 5x Beastmaster Hunter. Cleared SM Cathedral at 38. There were wipes but at 41 now it's almost trivial now. It's not fast but as someone who prefers Hunters, it's the way to go for me. 5 near identical clones (a few different talent choices) makes game play easy.

[Mercbeast]

Doing 5x Beastmaster Hunter. Cleared SM Cathedral at 38. There were wipes but at 41 now it's almost trivial now. It's not fast but as someone who prefers Hunters, it's the way to go for me. 5 near identical clones (a few different talent choices) makes game play easy.

What pets are you using, and how much do you actually heal?

[Yhanny]

Doing 5x Beastmaster Hunter. Cleared SM Cathedral at 38. There were wipes but at 41 now it's almost trivial now. It's not fast but as someone who prefers Hunters, it's the way to go for me. 5 near identical clones (a few different talent choices) makes game play easy.

What pets are you using and how often are you having to mend/rez?

[silverback]

If you try to rush it then mending and rezzing becomes more frequent as does OOM. If you pace it, keep pulls to 1-2 mobs then 3 mobs later, you do a lot less of that nonsense and the gameplay is not too slow.

With my playstyle, generally one pet is in before the rest so he pulls initial aggro and takes a decent beating while the rest go untouched. You can mitigate that by pre-targeting and sending 1-2 pets to separate targets. I did this with the Houndmaster especially.

Optionally, you can just regularly rotate between each hunter so it's their pet going in first and taking the damage whiel the beaten pet regains health. Generally mobs go down relatively fast and it's not much of an issue unless the mobs frenzy.

Probably one of my biggest lessons so far, and slowly learned, was that when you have runners it becomes hard to manage with more than one or two (at least for me). So what I do is pull a group and focus down one at a time (usually) while ignoring the others.

For pets, I started with birds for screech for a little area aggro but at some point their damage didn't keep up and so I switched pets. I am currently using spiders right now and they work well. I don't currently use a mixed group of pets because what I have works.

At 40, you pick up Volley. I haven't bothered to learn how to multibox it but it might enable larger pulls. I think it would also requires more pet assignment (1 pet tanking each target). Not sure if it will be worth it. That might also increase mending or drinking requirements and I'm not sure if the trade off is worth it. It sure would be convenient for those stragglers that roll in after Herod while farming shoulders and and helm.

[Purpleflavor]

With my playstyle, generally one pet is in before the rest so he pulls initial aggro and takes a decent beating while the rest go untouched. You can mitigate that by pre-targeting and sending 1-2 pets to separate targets. I did this with the Houndmaster especially.
you should be able to round robin taunt with each pet to spread damage more easily on bosses and such.

[silverback]

you should be able to round robin taunt with each pet to spread damage more easily on bosses and such.
Yeah, I haven't learned Round Robin yet and using it for taunt and intimidate would make my life easier.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

What pets were you using? The guy 5 boxing the hunters said the team was terrible initially, and asked for pet suggestions, bunch of us suggested bats/carrion birds for the demo shout, and he's said that his threat management has been a joke ever since.
I went to Westfall and got Fleshrippers at ~18 or so but I didn't notice all that much of a difference. Eventually, I just ran with auto-taunt and manually targeted pets pre-pull. It worked, but when you get adds in the middle of a fight or a boss/hard mob that kills the pets pretty fast, it becomes a problem screech or no screech. Granted, I was doing pretty much all OJ/red stuff because I could, so there's that.

There are ways to mitigate deadzone aggro, and I am not saying they are bad by any stretch. I just like being able to trip on three groups in a row in SM Library at level 35 and not die because my stupid DPS ran out of mana. ;)

[Petrolsk]

I have a 5 man Hunter team on Heartseeker

As of 9/30 my team was at L24, ended as of yesterday at L34.
I have cleared
SFK @L24,
BFD @L25-26,
Stock @L26-27,
SMGY @L27-30,
RFK @L30-31,
SMLib @L32-33,
Gnomer @L33-34,
and got the Big Game Hunter STV bow @L33 with some help from a guildie.

Currently using 5 Wolves.
I'm finding though that I'm only getting one initial Furious Howl for my group (and not everyone will receive the buff consistently). Once the wolves are on the target they use all their focus on Bite and Growl.

At Level 40 the plan is to switch to all Gorillas for Thunderstomp.
Once I get to Level 50 I'll incorporate one Carrion bird for Screech.

These will be my end game talents
WoW1: BM Hunter's Mark (31/20/0) https://classicdb.ch/?talent#cV0G0xgRtxE0V - Gorilla for AOE damage
WoW2: Marks - Trueshot Aura (15/36/0) https://classicdb.ch/?talent#cV0G0xZEVoVtht - Gorilla for AOE damage
WoW3: BM Hunter (31/20/0) https://classicdb.ch/?talent#cV0G0xgRtEV0V - Carrion Bird for AOE Demo Shout
WoW4: BM Hunter (31/20/0) https://classicdb.ch/?talent#cV0G0xgRtEV0V - Gorilla for AOE damage
WoW5: BM Hunter (31/20/0) https://classicdb.ch/?talent#cV0G0xgRtEV0V - Gorilla for AOE damage

[Apatheist]

At Level 40 the plan is to switch to all Gorillas for Thunderstomp.

Why? Carrion birds have better tanking stats than gorillas and screech causes more TPS than thunderstomp. Thunderstomp has a 1 minute cooldown and costs 60 focus. Screech has no cooldown and costs 20 focus. Carrion birds are much better tanks and do more damage. Screech by itself won't maintain agro but cycling screech and growl will do good damage and high TPS and the debuff from screech will pick up any adds that spawn which is what causes the most grief with pet teams.

With screech spamming constantly, smart trap placement and a clickbar to manage feign death I can't see a hunter team ever having issues with threat. I just don't like hunters because the deadzone is incredibly annoying in PvP.

[Petrolsk]

Why? Carrion birds have better tanking stats than gorillas and screech causes more TPS than thunderstomp. Thunderstomp has a 1 minute cooldown and costs 60 focus. Screech has no cooldown and costs 20 focus. Carrion birds are much better tanks and do more damage. Screech by itself won't maintain agro but cycling screech and growl will do good damage and high TPS and the debuff from screech will pick up any adds that spawn which is what causes the most grief with pet teams.

Well then I guess I'll have to re-evaluate sounds like 5x Carrion Bird is the play. Thanks.

With screech spamming constantly, smart trap placement and a clickbar to manage feign death I can't see a hunter team ever having issues with threat. I just don't like hunters because the deadzone is incredibly annoying in PvP.

I'm curious are there any TPS meters out there to confirm overall TPS per pet. I'm thinking Bats according to Petopia put out more damage according to their modifier data there compared to Carrion Birds they just have less armor.

They have Bats listed as Offensive pets
Stat modifiers:
Health: 1.00 (Medium),
Armor: 1.00 (Low),
Damage: 1.07 (High)

They have Carrion Birds listed as General pets
Stat modifiers:
Health: 1.00 (Medium),
Armor: 1.05 (Medium),
Damage: 1.00 (Medium)

Now a Carrion Bird has access to Claw (Bat's don't) but when you are using your focus for Screech, Growl, and Bite there probably isn't much room for Claw anyway.

Would you gather that with the modifier to damage a Bat has over Carrion Birds that they are actually better for TPS overall seeing as how they will also be using Screech, Growl and Bite?

[Madsage]

You do not have nearly enough focus in classic to use all the moves, learn the highest rank Screech and Growl and use them, Screech provides 20ish percent physical damage reduction and minimal aoe threat, so if one of your pet dies another can pick up aggro without running to your hunters.

Demo shout bug that affected warriors also affected Screech, so after the nerf it is really hard to hold aggro while multishoting, before that you just sent your owl into 4 man dungeon packs and held threat

[Apatheist]

I'm curious are there any TPS meters out there to confirm overall TPS per pet. I'm thinking Bats according to Petopia put out more damage according to their modifier data there compared to Carrion Birds they just have less armor.

It boils down to armor. Carrion birds have the highest armor value out of all of the beasts that can use screech. Armor is your pets primary survival stat when tanking. The damage modifier is negligible since your pet will only be doing a fraction of your overall DPS anyway. Get armor pet talents, 30% from BM and a carrion bird and your pets will have nearly as much armor as a decently geared tank (though less avoidance/HP) which is what allows them to survive some of the harder hitting dungeon mobs.

Put growl first on your pets bar then screech and autocast both. Should have enough focus regen to cast screech once or twice between each growl.

Having said all that, I just realized you're playing 5 hunters. When I tested hunters I used 4 hunters with a healer so screech for AE threat to keep adds off my healer was invaluable. If you're going 5 hunters it may not be as crucial for you. You might be able to get away with one bird for the debuff and then 4 wolves to cycle furious howl.