So there is a bit of talk of these scattered around, as possible counters to common PMR teams in 3v3, and both 2345 and 4 dps teams in 5v5. I just thought it should have it's own thread for these types of setups
I was just was interested in some discussion and tips from people who have tried them out or faced them, as I set up two teams for season 3 and don't really have the arena experience that I would prefer yet.
3v3:
Warlock
Hunter
Disc Priest
5v5:
Warlock
Hunter
Disc Priest
Holy Paladin
Resto Druid
Generally in 3v3, if our warlock is sl/sl then the dps gets focused on me. Also people are figuring out that killing pets first is often best vs teams like us, so I was considering a 41/11/9 spec like this to minimize the amount of damage that I take early on and relieve some of the early dps pressure and allow our disc priest to focus more offensively on burning and dispels.
We also had the issue where if I got focused, then as sl/sl our warlock sometimes wasn't able to do enough dps to pressure the opponent's healer enough and we would get manaburned or cycloned etc, so considered using a felguard instead. Maybe we should either go felguard warlock + mm hunter, or sl/sl warlock + bm hunter, to keep the dps pressure going no matter who is focused and still have the caster control that we need.
So there is a bit of talk of these scattered around, as possible counters to common PMR teams in 3v3, and both 2345 and 4 dps teams in 5v5. I just thought it should have it's own thread for these types of setups
I was just was interested in some discussion and tips from people who have tried them out or faced them, as I set up two teams for season 3 and don't really have the arena experience that I would prefer yet.
3v3:
Warlock
Hunter
Disc Priest
5v5:
Warlock
Hunter
Disc Priest
Holy Paladin
Resto Druid
Generally in 3v3, if our warlock is sl/sl then the dps gets focused on me. Also people are figuring out that killing pets first is often best vs teams like us, so I was considering a 41/11/9 spec like this to minimize the amount of damage that I take early on and relieve some of the early dps pressure and allow our disc priest to focus more offensively on burning and dispels.
We also had the issue where if I got focused, then as sl/sl our warlock sometimes wasn't able to do enough dps to pressure the opponent's healer enough and we would get manaburned or cycloned etc, so considered using a felguard instead. Maybe we should either go felguard warlock + mm hunter, or sl/sl warlock + bm hunter, to keep the dps pressure going no matter who is focused and still have the caster control that we need.
All feedback and tips are welcome
For 5v5, Warlock should go 20/41/0, and Hunter should go 11/42/8.
I think a Hunter/Mage/Priest is actually a better mana-draining team, mainly because they have much better snares and control. With Hunter/Warlock/Priest, once a rogue or warrior gets on the lock, you're going to run into a lot of problems, and the priest is forced to heal and play defensively instead of mana-burning. With the amount of snares and roots you have between a hunter with entrapment and a mage with a water elemental, it's quite easy to control opposing team's burst while you drain their mana away. You'd probably lose to a mirror match with a Hunter/Warlock/Priest, but imo, considering you find more PMR's and warrior teams in 3v3's, I'd rather have superior control and escapes with the mage.
What? I hardly think 30% movement speed and imp rpet rez is worth the opportunity cost of surefooted, much less surefooted 5% hp and deterance plus a full blown entrapment and a bit in imp wingclip.
Hunters have issues surviving as is and frankly, giving up a huge chunk of that survivability for pet run speed is a bit silly...
As for tips:
Hunter should obviously focus the first drain target, once target is drained, sick the pet on them. I find the pet dies alot less when the person it is harassing can't exactly spare the mana to kill it. Much better then sending it in off the bat and having it splattered in three seconds.
A good MS aimedshot at the start can also help with mana burning, making them cast more heals for the same effect and what-not, if you are not going for an early kill having the hunter switch targets and apply ms then quickly bursting that person can be a great strain on the opposing teams mana pool.
I would also suggest not to spread out too much so you can easily help each other get away from that nasty melee with fearbombs or wingclips.
Originally Posted by Relwin
If you need a shot macro to hold your hand then you are probably on the wrong forums.
In 3v3 so far we've seen a few not so great hunter/lock/priest teams and a very annoying priest/restosham/hunter team. We are running priest/pal/war. Our warrior is on the priest vs both setups. Playing hunter/lock/priest it seems the priest dies pretty quick with a warrior on him. All his teammates can do are scatter and deathcoil to get our warrior off. Even if they dispel freedom, their priest isn't going anywhere with no way to remove hamstring. Priest dies long before we're oom. Priest/restosham/hunter is more annoying because we have to run their shaman out of mana before we can kill the priest. I say annoying, and not difficult, because we were never in any danger of losing, it just takes forever to win. Basically as the fight goes longer, the hunter has to conserve mana and his dps goes down, but our warrior can go full burn the whole fight. So I'm not really sure 2 healer / hunter is all that great, but it was pretty annoying.
What? I hardly think 30% movement speed and imp rpet rez is worth the opportunity cost of surefooted, much less surefooted 5% hp and deterance plus a full blown entrapment and a bit in imp wingclip.
Hunters have issues surviving as is and frankly, giving up a huge chunk of that survivability for pet run speed is a bit silly...
As for tips:
Hunter should obviously focus the first drain target, once target is drained, sick the pet on them. I find the pet dies alot less when the person it is harassing can't exactly spare the mana to kill it. Much better then sending it in off the bat and having it splattered in three seconds.
A good MS aimedshot at the start can also help with mana burning, making them cast more heals for the same effect and what-not, if you are not going for an early kill having the hunter switch targets and apply ms then quickly bursting that person can be a great strain on the opposing teams mana pool.
I would also suggest not to spread out too much so you can easily help each other get away from that nasty melee with fearbombs or wingclips.
Hm going to 11-41-9 means that you give up surefooted, deterrence, 5% personal hp, and improved wing clip. You gain imp rez pet, 20% pet hp, 10% personal armor, 20% pet armor, and faster pet movement. You can keep entrapment with both. I think those two specs are probably fairly even depending on the match.
As far as the tip about the warlock dotting before draining goes...I'm not really sure that works if the hunter is under a lot of pressure from the rogue+mage does it? Their priest would have plenty of time to dispel the dots, while the hunter would be doing extremely low damage while under fire. I would expect a fear on the rogue and a couple of drainmana's on the mage since viper sting should already be ticking. Hopefully the priest could painsuppression the hunter and get some room for a manburn or two, and then the mage is out of the game for a while.
Our team is trying to execute the 5's drain team properly, however the scorpid pet seems to get destroyed quickly. Which pet would be optimal for this setup?
Scopid is pretty essential, especially in 5s where you'll almost certainly see one of the three poison dispellers (pal/sham/dru).
What you're seeing is really just the inherent vulnerability of hunters' pets. It will need heals, and the hunter will have to micro it very aggressively. In the end, the pet dying is a fact of life. It's just a matter of how much effort the other team has to put into killing it.
What? I hardly think 30% movement speed and imp rpet rez is worth the opportunity cost of surefooted, much less surefooted 5% hp and deterance plus a full blown entrapment and a bit in imp wingclip.
Hunters have issues surviving as is and frankly, giving up a huge chunk of that survivability for pet run speed is a bit silly...
As for tips:
Hunter should obviously focus the first drain target, once target is drained, sick the pet on them. I find the pet dies alot less when the person it is harassing can't exactly spare the mana to kill it. Much better then sending it in off the bat and having it splattered in three seconds.
A good MS aimedshot at the start can also help with mana burning, making them cast more heals for the same effect and what-not, if you are not going for an early kill having the hunter switch targets and apply ms then quickly bursting that person can be a great strain on the opposing teams mana pool.
I would also suggest not to spread out too much so you can easily help each other get away from that nasty melee with fearbombs or wingclips.
Uhh . . . I've run this setup since the end of season one. My hunter has tried myriads of different specs, and we finally decided that pet survivability is the most important factor in this lineup, because pet survivability is our weakness. Also, the 30% movement speed is key to keeping enemy healers in combat.
Hunter survivability is a very minor issue when running a drain team, because if focus shifts to the hunter, the priest is free to mana burn everything in sight.
11/42/8 is the best hunter spec for this lineup, without question.
Our team is trying to execute the 5's drain team properly, however the scorpid pet seems to get destroyed quickly. Which pet would be optimal for this setup?
Don't listen to the poster above me. Use a cat, ravager, or another pet with dash. Protecting your viper sting is important, yes, but can be done via CC or healing pressure. Keeping the healer in combat is much more important and slightly more difficult, and is made easier with a pet that can dash.
Also, you hunter needs to spend points in BM to up his pet survivability (the pet health, armor, and improved pet revive talents are all key; the weakness of the setup is pet survivability. You need to buff it as much as possible).
The warlock needs to get Felguard for the same reason (intercept).
I am the creator of this setup, and have been running it since s1. I achieved Merc Glad with it last season, and am 39-0 with it so far this season. I know what I'm talking about.
Which resists do hunters typically go for with their pets these days, and how much?
I've noticed quite a few resists when trying to apply faerie fire or hybernate to hunter pets, is nature resist still the most common?
I max out frost/nature/shadow each at 120 (which is the highest you can get). Nature resist is common to keep them alive against shamans lightning bolting them, mainly, with the convenient side effect of protecting them from hibernate as well.
Whew lots of drain teams tonight. Running 2345 we were 1-4 vs a resto sham, druid, priest, warlock, hunter 3 healer drain team. The 1 win we managed to get, our priest was unpressured and destroyed their priest/sham with lusted manaburns. Couldn't figure out any solid way to get these guys down.
Also in 3s we lost nearly 100 points to lock/hunter/druid. With cyclones our sole warrior didn't have enough dps time on anyone to put much pressure on healing, and with 2 pets neither myself or my priest could get a drink, it was pretty ugly.
From the looks of it, drain teams will be flavor-of-the-month this season. Just out of curiosity, how are 4dps 5s and 3dps 3s doing against drain teams?
I think a Hunter/Mage/Priest is actually a better mana-draining team, mainly because they have much better snares and control. With Hunter/Warlock/Priest, once a rogue or warrior gets on the lock, you're going to run into a lot of problems, and the priest is forced to heal and play defensively instead of mana-burning. With the amount of snares and roots you have between a hunter with entrapment and a mage with a water elemental, it's quite easy to control opposing team's burst while you drain their mana away. You'd probably lose to a mirror match with a Hunter/Warlock/Priest, but imo, considering you find more PMR's and warrior teams in 3v3's, I'd rather have superior control and escapes with the mage.
I had a rather interesting experience with Rogue/Hunter/Priest. Our priest was so horribly geared we had to have the rogue start camping out near him, waiting for anyone that chose to focus fire the priest. In our first 4 out of 5 games we lost due to the priest dieing early, but once we had the rogue start playing Body Guard we won 4 out of 5. Doing this actually freed us up to a double threat: we could burst someone down quickly due to the rogue changes coupled with having two healing debuffs, and the other was the outlast game if that failed. We found the rogue had enough survivability with CloS, vanish, and evasion (x2) to pressure any single opposing player while avoiding a focus fire himself which generally left either the priest or I free to mana burn.
I like how hunter/mage/priest looks on paper and it should provide more control over melees, the only problem is that the mage is highly susceptible to drain himself and this team would probably fall to a good hunter/lock/priest setup. Just get the lock fearing/draining the hunter keeping CoT up as much as possible on the casters, while the hunter silences and drains the mage, and couple that with constant pressure from DoTs to keep their priest focused on healing instead of mana burning. Alternatively, rogues tend to be very good against warlocks, so Hunter/Rogue/Priest would probably have a very solid chance of taking out Hunter/Lock/Priest or Hunter/Mage/Priest.
What? I hardly think 30% movement speed and imp rpet rez is worth the opportunity cost of surefooted, much less surefooted 5% hp and deterance plus a full blown entrapment and a bit in imp wingclip.
Hunters have issues surviving as is and frankly, giving up a huge chunk of that survivability for pet run speed is a bit silly...
As for tips:
Hunter should obviously focus the first drain target, once target is drained, sick the pet on them. I find the pet dies alot less when the person it is harassing can't exactly spare the mana to kill it. Much better then sending it in off the bat and having it splattered in three seconds.
A good MS aimedshot at the start can also help with mana burning, making them cast more heals for the same effect and what-not, if you are not going for an early kill having the hunter switch targets and apply ms then quickly bursting that person can be a great strain on the opposing teams mana pool.
I would also suggest not to spread out too much so you can easily help each other get away from that nasty melee with fearbombs or wingclips.
Surefooted is over rated in my opinion. The new Arena gear has lots of +hit and you only need 5% total, which is ~78. You get 12 hit on the helm/legs/chest, another 15 on the weapon, and 16 from the helm enchant for a total of 67 hit rating. Basically all you need is either a single +hit gem after you collect everything or a surefooted enchant on your boots, most people only take the Surefooted talent to cap their hit. The snare resist is really not good enough to bother with, especially since most snares are 100% spammable. In my arena spec I took imp. revive pet and it is absolutely clutch for getting my pet back up when people focus fire it down, and I am seriously looking at the 11/42/8 spec at the moment after having respecced BM again just for old-time's sake.
Alternatively, rogues tend to be very good against warlocks, so Hunter/Rogue/Priest would probably have a very solid chance of taking out Hunter/Lock/Priest or Hunter/Mage/Priest.
True, a rogue can somewhat protect the priest but imo, the main benefit of having a mage is you can shut down a warrior. And really, that's the one class you need to protect your priest from. The toughest makeup to face for a drain team is the cookie-cutter warrior/warlock/druid, since they can abolish poison, and their DPS doesn't run OOM. If you put your rogue on the warrior, he's just going to be feared/cycloned. Even with a kidney shot, you still don't have an effective way to tear that warrior off your priest.
There's a top hunter/mage/priest team in our battlegroup, and I'm pretty sure they get there because they can beat the other two cookie-cutter teams -- RMP and WWD. Sure a hunter/warlock/priest has superior mana drain and could probably beat them, but that makeup would get continually knocked down by WWD's. And a mage/hunter can put out some impressive coordinated bursts (since their targets are continually rooted in place) so they're not strictly a drain team.
True, a rogue can somewhat protect the priest but imo, the main benefit of having a mage is you can shut down a warrior. And really, that's the one class you need to protect your priest from. The toughest makeup to face for a drain team is the cookie-cutter warrior/warlock/druid, since they can abolish poison, and their DPS doesn't run OOM. If you put your rogue on the warrior, he's just going to be feared/cycloned. Even with a kidney shot, you still don't have an effective way to tear that warrior off your priest.
There's a top hunter/mage/priest team in our battlegroup, and I'm pretty sure they get there because they can beat the other two cookie-cutter teams -- RMP and WWD. Sure a hunter/warlock/priest has superior mana drain and could probably beat them, but that makeup would get continually knocked down by WWD's. And a mage/hunter can put out some impressive coordinated bursts (since their targets are continually rooted in place) so they're not strictly a drain team.
A good rogue can tear through a Druid or Warlock, and will force the opposing team's Warrior to play defensively which should leave your Priest/Hunter alone long enough to get some good mana draining going on the Druid. And even though Warlocks can tap their mana, my WWD team was shut down by a drain team once simply because they went after the Lock with mana drains and with constant pressure on him he couldn't tap himself for mana very efficiently and left him having to burn his GCD at key times rather than being able to use fear/death coil.
Uhh . . . I've run this setup since the end of season one. My hunter has tried myriads of different specs, and we finally decided that pet survivability is the most important factor in this lineup, because pet survivability is our weakness. Also, the 30% movement speed is key to keeping enemy healers in combat.
Hunter survivability is a very minor issue when running a drain team, because if focus shifts to the hunter, the priest is free to mana burn everything in sight.
11/42/8 is the best hunter spec for this lineup, without question.
Just out of curiosity - why 11/42/8 instead of 11/41/9? Does your hunter run with 1/3 Entrapment and 1/3 Imp Wing Clip?
Just out of curiosity - why 11/42/8 instead of 11/41/9? Does your hunter run with 1/3 Entrapment and 1/3 Imp Wing Clip?
8 = 3 points Hawk Eye, 2 points Humanoid Slaying, 3 points Entrapment. I don't quite understand how you got 1/3 in Entrapment and Wing clip. On a personal level, I (and I'm sure many will agree) do not find a 20% chance to proc a 3-4 second root worthwhile enough to spec for. If I need to get to the next tier, sure I'd take it, but otherwise you really cannot count on abilities that have low proc rates with lackluster effects (it would be a very different story if Wing clip procced a stun). It may be spammable, but as a Hunter you really do not want to be in melee range long enough to spam that. Even if you do end up in melee range that long, a wingclip proc will usually not be what saves you since intercept will generally be back up soon, you will still have hamstring on you, and crippling poison is a more effective a snare than wing clip. A 20% chance to proc a low duration root is not enough to get back to range when you are snared yourself.
8 = 3 points Hawk Eye, 2 points Humanoid Slaying, 3 points Entrapment. I don't quite understand how you got 1/3 in Entrapment and Wing clip. On a personal level, I (and I'm sure many will agree) do not find a 20% chance to proc a 3-4 second root worthwhile enough to spec for. If I need to get to the next tier, sure I'd take it, but otherwise you really cannot count on abilities that have low proc rates with lackluster effects (it would be a very different story if Wing clip procced a stun). It may be spammable, but as a Hunter you really do not want to be in melee range long enough to spam that. Even if you do end up in melee range that long, a wingclip proc will usually not be what saves you since intercept will generally be back up soon, you will still have hamstring on you, and crippling poison is a more effective a snare than wing clip. A 20% chance to proc a low duration root is not enough to get back to range when you are snared yourself.
2 in Humanoid Slaying doesn't make much sense, either - no matter how you build your MM tree, there's probably a removable point in Ranged Weapon Spec that is almost strictly worse than a point in Humanoid Slaying. In any case, I'm not asking for general opinion; I'm just curious how Unstoppable's hunter specs.
I'm curious as to how hunter/warlock/druid/priest/paladin manages to interrupt and prevent mana burn spam from priests? It seems like a priest could burn through such a team quickly due to its extreme lack of interrupts. We play a similar lineup but with warrior instead of hunter, and I can't see a hunter locking down a well-played priest like a warrior can.
I'm curious as to how hunter/warlock/druid/priest/paladin manages to interrupt and prevent mana burn spam from priests? It seems like a priest could burn through such a team quickly due to its extreme lack of interrupts. We play a similar lineup but with warrior instead of hunter, and I can't see a hunter locking down a well-played priest like a warrior can.
Its not very easy to mana burn when you have curse of tongues on. With the way the frost trap is used its very easy to dodge mana burns via line of site. Any kind of basic positioning will prevent priest mana burns. Obviously you're not going to stop them all, but you don't need to. You just need to make the priest stop casting and reposition; all of the sudden you've dodged two or three burns. Throw in a fear or two if other targets are on DR, etc.
Perhaps you may be assuming that the warlock spends his time dpsing or spamming drain mana?
Its not very easy to mana burn when you have curse of tongues on. With the way the frost trap is used its very easy to dodge mana burns via line of site. Any kind of basic positioning will prevent priest mana burns. Obviously you're not going to stop them all, but you don't need to. You just need to make the priest stop casting and reposition; all of the sudden you've dodged two or three burns. Throw in a fear or two if other targets are on DR, etc.
Perhaps you may be assuming that the warlock spends his time dpsing or spamming drain mana?
Well, the hunter can't DPS if he's not in line of sight, and he's the member of the team most succeptible to mana burn. Viper sting will get abolished/cleansed quickly. I just think this team is stronger with a warrior.
12/06/07, 6:54 AM
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