PvP hunter team

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.

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If the hunters pick the battles... and start at range, they're a powerful class.

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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...

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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)

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.

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

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....

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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...)

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Originally Posted by 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....

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