Some fun juggling aggro with hunters

[Rowdysattva]

My current system can only run a 3 box and not that well so the x3 hunters are leveling together and the pally and priest are leveling together.

I am new to multi-boxing and with all the stuff to keep track of i haven't really generated any professions for my peeps yet. Money is pretty low unless i send some over from my other toons, but most of my guys are horde so not much money to go around. Hunters are level 12 with the gear from questing in the dwarf starting area (not buying any gear from vendors)... so pretty bad (really bad) gear.

To avoid having to buy gear i know the space goat starting areas have great quest items. So i ran my little team over there. On the way you pass by some level 21 orcs blocking the path. I haven't found a way to not aggro them on the way. Often i will just run by, they follow beating on me for a bit, then they get bored and leave. I wanted to see what was possible with the group i had.

Ok and to be honest (i also really did want to see what my dwarfs could handle) one of the hunters pets is bugged and will attack mobs just for the hell of it. It acts like it is on aggressive but i have it on passive.

So this cat (pet in question) feels brave and charges in on the orc. So i jump into the thick of it. Pets don't hold aggro for very long and the orc comes charging in. I took my two alts off attack so my main would be the one with aggro and began to kite the orc (i don't have wingclip but i do have concussive shot). Kiting like this i was able to pull the orc away from my other two hunters while they were still facing him. Then i set my main on melee and let the other two hunters loose with the ranged. So they build up aggro on him pretty fast and he charges them. I have boars out too so i time it right and they stun the orc before he gets to the other two hunters. Then the hunters can turn and run and my main can concussive shot and run after building aggro. I was able to juggle him back and forth between the two poles of hunters till the orc died.

I was looking for a good way to "spread out" the damage on my hunters when fighting higher level mobs where pet growl won't cut it. I will be playing with this for a while.

Originally i thought that will three hunters you wouldn't need a healer with them. I never needed a healer level a single hunter so i thought three would really not need a healer. Now i realize that the content i want to put the hunters up against is such that the healer would really have helped them out.

Anyone have any fun tricks they have discovered using their multi-boxing they would like to share?

[Eteocles]

No boxing tricks for hunters but as a lone hunter to get aggro back on your pet, Disengage is your godsend until FD. Usually drops back to pet most of the time; get BITE or something similar to help your pet add aggro as well beyond Growl, it helps. Once you have FD just open with a huge burst of DPS, FD it away, and it should stay on yer pet the rest of the fight.

Also not boxing but awhile back I rolled a rogue with a friend who also rolled a rogue...we took turns ping-ponging aggro via backstabbing, it was both funny and imba, most mobs went down quickly neither of us taking much dmg :p

[Kfunk]

Try this, designate one hunter as the primary kiter, have him do an aimed shot (or similarly high agro move) to open, and arcane every time it's up. Cycle concussive shots between your three hunters and kite with your primary, keep pets growl on (or off if the pets are dying), and you can build aggro when the mobs turn to your pet. Don't build agro on your non-primary hunters, kite in a circle in front of those two.

This probably won't work, as the only reason you'd need healing is you're taking on red con mobs, and then your concussives will likely not land. But hey, it's an idea.

Does Mend Pet -> Feign Death -> let pets own not work?

[Eteocles]

You don't get FD till 30 or 32, it's hell till then, Disengage's yer only option and that's a melee range attack that turns off autoattack

[Zug]

Being 9 levels lower than the target mob I do not think you can realistically juggle mobs. Your miss and resists rates won't allow for consistency. Both Disengage and FD can be resisted. Lets say you want to juggle some melee elite just a few levels above you. When you get higher level you could use a combination of distracting shot and FD. As far as your gear goes, I would really suggest picking up lw + skinning if you don't have much cash. The dark leather + agi gear is pretty good for that level until you can do VC.

Also, if you want to make some good cash, and like to grind, go to westfall. On the north coast a little west of the center of the map is a windmill and little house. Its Northwest of the jangerlode mine or whatever. There are about 10 defias human mobs there that have instant respawn once their numbers get a bit low (when there are like 3 left, and you kill 1, another 1 or 2 will pop up). Just make sure one of your hunters tags the mob with rank 1 serpent and have one of your alts just looting. If your pets are on aggresive, you should be able to get a serious amount of linen, greens, copper, and xp/hr there.

After you hit level 16 or so, you can go to the west coast, north of the light house. On the beach are a group of about 12 crabs with the same instant respawn. Keep an eye out for old murkeye =).

[Los]

If you're solo - just kite EVERYTHING.

A hunter was my first character in WoW. I didn't even know you could get a pet until level 20 something (ya, totaly n00b). After being a semi-hardcore raider Pre-BC, and learning just how worthless a pet was back then, I just kited EVERTYHING.

+ Epic hunter quest? NO PETS ALLOWED. (worst.idea.ever on blizz's part). If you can't kite it, go kill something else. lol

That questline is among the best in the whole game, shush!

[Eteocles]

Aye that hunter epic bow quest was awesome...the winterspring one pissed me off a bit cuz of how tough he could be to kite right but it was fun overall, every class really should've gotten something similar; a real challenge that wasn't a pain in the ass. You aren't a real Hunter if you haven't done this quest and you're 60+, you're a Huntard :p

but yeah I think we derailed the thread a bit...more juggling!

[Gallo]

I thought that the Priest Benediction/Anathema quest was the best that I have ever done in the game. Quests like those that are so dynamic and actually REQUIRE that you know how to play the class, are priceless.

[Eteocles]

I do agree to some extent Fur...I've told hunters from early on, "You are not a whole class. Your Pet is half of you. If your pet dies, you are half dead/useless. Do not neglect your pet."; I focused on my pet in Early lvls(Read: spec'd BM loooooooooooooooooooong before that tree was worth shit), then found a balance to keep him alive(thus keeping me alive) while also making him a tool in my arsenal to kite. Boar charge = extra snare for kiting, tell him to stop/passive mode then charge when he's far enough away to let you get your lead back. Stuff like that, pets are insanely useful :p

That said, the quests worked pretty well without the pets, and was most likely a coding limitation at the time; they wanted to ensure you HAD to SOLO it, and being lazy coders they most likely made it so anyone but the hunter doing anything to it would despawn it, and pets are still seperate entities even if under your control. Or I'd like to think, anyways :p

[Los]

Tbh that questline was about you being able to use a lot of abilities except the pet, so? The approach they made was to 1. make it a solo quest 2. make it difficult (hell we all tried and failed the first time) 3. make it fun (which it was). Also i remember not using my pet that much anyways, back when we where raiding bwl and mc, doing surv spec mostly without the pet, as where loads of hunters on my server. The big bm burst came since 2.0 or 2.1 ish?