4xHunter+Priest: Outlands impressions and some PvE pull strategies

[Boylston]

I thought I'd give a quick update on how my team is doing. Certainly not a unique setup, but not nearly as popular as others.

First off, the setup:

I drive with the priest as my main character and 4xHunters on /follow, and almost all interaction with the priest's abilities are done via mouseclicking.
Heals/buffs/fear/etc are all controlled by mouse clicking. Only a very few powers are tied to hotkeys to be synched with the
hunters (e.g. Fade, which I burn at the same time as Feign Death if aggro dump is needed). A healing addon is reasonably helpful
here. One where you can get 2-3 different healing spells with different clicks is very useful. I use a very unsophisticated set of focus target macros for now.

PvE questing: Easy. Probably faster than other multibox setups. Hunters have huge range, can DPS without mana, and you can
traverse ground very fast since a.) your pets can kill or finish off mobs for you and b.) aspect of the pack allows you to have a
boosted runspeed. I essentially kill two targets at the same time while on the move. I tap the first with a series of serpent
stings (DoTs) and sick the pets on that target and kill a second with just the hunters. When I see the XP from the first target
(pets are probably behind me somewhere), I sick them on a new target which I tap again. It's very important for the hunters to do
some damage to the pets' target, or no XP is awarded for it. Serpent Sting is nice since it is low aggro early and the pets
immediately gain aggro on that target, leaving us free to move Daze-free (remember: Aspect of the Pack is on full-time on one
hunter). I do not bother using Hunter's Mark or other debuffs, and the priest doesn't even really DPS. The priest simply casts
some healing from time to time and will Psychic Scream away mobs that get too close to the team.

PvE instancing: Fun. Instancing with this setup is anything but mindless, and has been more mentally challenging than running
with shamans. I run with 4 identical tanking boars, which don't have some of the advantages of pets with AoE aggro abilities, but
they are also very tough and easy to target around in the heat of battle. One of the very cool parts about running with 4 tank
pets plus a dedicated healer is that you have enormous variety in how to approach certain pulls. I'll cover a few of these
shortly. The key to all instancing with a healer (especially one in cloth) is to understand aggro mechanics.

"Every target gets a pet (pets pull)" (4-pack or less): Simply speaking, I target each mob in the pull with my priest, and use
four keys that correspond to the four hunters (U-I-O-P, in my case). These keys simple target the mob my priest has targeted
(/target [target=focustarget], substitute player name or party1 or whatever your preference is) and then cast Hunter's Mark on the
mob (/cast Hunter's Mark). Hunter's mark is nice because it flashes a cross-hairs on the target and then leaves the lasting arrow
mark. You need to wait slightly to account for latency between marking mobs, however. If you see a double-flashing crosshair on a
previous target, you know that two hunters are targeting the last mob due to latency. Once all mobs are designated, I have a
single key that launches all pets with a simple /petattack target. The good news is that all targets are being tanked, and the
priest can spam Circle of Healing on the pack of boars without fear of pulling aggro. Hunters down the mobs one by one, using
multishot when available.

"Every target gets a pet (hunters pull)" (4-pack or less): Variation on above, except the pets attack at the same time as the
hunters fire a plain ole Auto Shot, which causes the pull to come towards the group slightly. This is preferable in situations
where pets charging toward the mob group would cause a second pull. The mobs and pets collide somewhere in the middle from each
group's starting position, generally leaving plenty of distance for the hunters to do their job well.

Both of the above are made more safe by laying some emergency freezing traps down in front of the priest/hunter group. I often do
not spread the group out into a formation in the interest of time, but you can do this if you like.

"Focus fire!" (2-3 mobs): Pets are launched all on a single target, which is also focused by the hunters. Assuming the hunters
do not fire shots before the pets reach the mobs, the other mob(s) in the group will aggro the pets. The goal is to focus fire
down a mob before the pets require a heal. If a heal of any size lands, the un-tanked mob(s) will rush the healer. This can be
desired if the second mob is trappable, you can simply use that heal to pull the second mob into your freezing trap. This strategy
buys a little of extra time for the duration of your first freezing trap. A better strategy is to change the pets' target to the
other mob before the first one dies, allowing them to build aggro on the loose one. For easier 2-pulls, I simply use this
technique, moving the boar pack off the first mob when it is about to die (or I am about to initiate healing).

"Hunters/Pets Split Fire" (2-3 mobs): This is essentially very close to the above, except the pets go to work on a target and the
hunters go to work on a second, untanked target. This is good when you have a small pull with a caster that will stay at range and
doesn't require tanking, or when you know that you can kill the lead target before it reaches you (concussive shots help immensely
here). I use this strategy a lot against small groups containing one or more casters, leaving the melee mob to the boars. A
variation allows for the hunters to start the pull and allow a third mob to walk into a freezing trap laid at the base of the
group.



(continued)

[Boylston]

"The Big Line of Ice Cubes" (2-5 mobs): Freezing traps have the tendency to go off awkwardly, which can be mitigated by laying
them in a straight line between the pull and your group's starting position. I simply lay down a round-robin dotted line of traps
between our firing squad position and the pull. Start the pull with a ranged attack and let the mobs walk on that dotted line. If
the traps are positioned far enough apart, you will slowly create a line of ice cubes. For 5+ mob pulls, I can bounce the boars
between any un-trapped mobs and split tank what's left. As you kill mobs, break traps on the furthest mobs, as they are the ones
who will break the soonest. This strategy takes a while to set up and is not used that often, but it can be effective. In the
Blood Furnace, I use this method at Broggok's room (2nd Boss) to fight the waves of orcs that are released. I lay a line of 3
traps between the lever and the first room, create a line of ice cubes, and pick them off one at a time once the room opens. Once
each wave is down to one mob, I let the pets tank it and create a new dotted line of frost traps between the next door and our
killing position. Once the traps are laid, we kill the last mob and repeat the process. (Psychic scream is our backup CC for this
room, if needed).

"Bossman Bacon Bonznza" (bosses): This is more of a mindset change than anything else. I struggled with a couple of boss
encounters by trying desperately to keep my tanking pet alive. Rokmar in the slave pens was causing me fits because I could not
avoid getting healer aggro with all the water spits that he does to a total of 9 targets. So I stopped worrying about keeping all
the pets up for every boss encounter. The solution to my Rokmar problem was to heal the actively tanking boar for the first part
of the fight, heal everyone through the first water spit, then fade and just let the current tanking pet die from the next round of
his DoT debuff. Durn the Hungerer was soloed by my team at L66 using the same disposable piggy crew. It took me a while to get
over the grief of losing a pet, but sometimes it's necessary for the greater good.

Suffice it to say that PvE instance runs have been a pleasant suprise for me. I initially avoided doing many instance runs, having
quested exclusively with RAF bonus from 40-60, but I've found instance runs a nice way to fill in gaps between Outlands quests, XP
-wise. With the team at L66 now, I plan on running enough instances to get to Honored with all the blue PvP gear factions. The
pets tank better than I expected and I feel like the pulling strategies listed above can be used or combined in enough ways to make
most trash pulls cake.

PvP (mostly world, not much BGs done to date): 4 big red ravagers/boars is pretty dominating for most opponents, and I have quite
a few L70 kills under my belt. Freezing trap is great, as it buys me time to get some distance and let the pets/arrows fly. The
priest is a serious liability as he is very, very, very squishy. Any rogue/warrior who targets him first will kill him quite
handily. I have won almost every encounter where a rogue has jumped the team (from L62 on, no less), but the priest is almost
always dead at the end. A stack of 4 feigned dead hunters makes it really hard for a rogue to re-acquire the same target,
generally speaking. I don't really want to arena using the priest, so I'm considering making him a follower and just macroing
heals/fear/buffs for the BGs. I also have the option of running a L70 druid or L70 paladin instead of the priest on that account,
which might be tempting come WotLK when pallies get some form of AoE healing. (Same with druid and Flourish).

My biggest PvP concern is that people infiltrating the pile of hunters is very problematic, and I need some real world BG
experience to hone the trap strategies that I'll need to use against people. I can see the playstyle as much more run and gun than
the shamans-- there's no standing in there, popping fire elementals, and chain healing everyone for a few seconds in between big
DPS bursts. On the other hand, I can see defending a node going superbly with 2-4 frost traps spread out in all directions and a
nice long range to blow people up. Pets that are fire-and-forget seems potentially dominating, as well.

Things I've soloed at very level appropriate times:
Ramparts at 61
Blood Furnace at 63
Slave Pens at 64
Ring of Blood Chain (except last boss, where I got a little unintentional help from a wandering pally) at 65
Durn the Hungerer at 66

[accretion]

Great report. I will definitely add a few of your tips to my proverbial "quiver" (especially the Hunter's mark x4 to help latency issues - I also mark with raid icons to help keep them straight). My priest is Disc, so I heal a little differently, but it sounds like we use many similar strategies. I've switched to Ravens (screech aggro, ftw) and I really like that for my healing style, but I can see how boars would work great with CoH. Ring of Blood at 65 is impressive.

Ditto on PvP. My priest dies...a lot. Got any plans for gear at 70? I'm trying to get excited about farming Ogre faction or some such, but I may just wait until WotLK and get greens =).

"Bossman Bacon Bonanza" - lol

[Boylston]

Priest has been dying a lot to world PvP, mostly. I have the aggro management figured out in instances. Chatting in guild chat and having him lead is also a major source of deaths... Just not paying attention.

I'm just planning to get Honored rep blue PvP gear on everyone. I have some Valanos' Longbows in the bank (they're trolls, so bows are nice). No other gear plans other than grinding for honor stuff and playing some arena. I think best odds for early success in arena may be with hunters in 3v3 (perhaps 2v2). I may try to group them in my main 5v5 team and go 7+3 games with my 4xShamans playing most of them. We'll see.

[Boylston]

For Reference, a long ice block chain in Blood Furnace: 3 trapped, group standing near lever when doors opened.

[Stealthy]

Nice writeup. My hunters dinged 70 yesterday, and I've been working on my PvP blue set - just the head piece left... So far I've cleared every instance up to and including Old Hillsbrad, will be attempting Sethekk tonight...

With no healer, my strategy is a bit different to yours... Firstly, I run 5 owls, becuase the screech debuff generates agro on all mobs within range. My usual tactic on large pulls (4+) is to lay down traps before the pull, front load a Mend Pet and send my owls in. The traps are for any mob that doesnt get picked up by screech, (becuase of the agro from mend pet).

For Bosses I just take it as a given that pets will die - they are just a big meat shield after all. :P Anyway, the cost is just some mana and food, and much cheaper than paying for repairs on your toon. With Aspect of the Viper up, you'll have that mana back in no time...

I hear what you're saying about priests being very squishy - I found on my priest / lock team, the priest was constantly getting focus fired in any pvp. Maybe swap in a Pally for more survivability, even if it means giving up the group heals...

Cheers,
S.