[Hunter] The PvP Thread - Page 12

Loshiis · 03/24/08, 11:37 PM

Originally Posted by Whitemane

By the way, is this guaranteed to work? Tried other macros much similar to this, but they sometimes seem to fail. What's the reason to that? Nothing more annoying than fd'ing in arena and not being able to drink afterwards :/ Also it gimps your mana regen by a LOT in arenas.

It should work all of the time, unless your pet happens to be incapacitated, and therefore cannot switch from an attack mode to a passive mode.

Dreamflow · 03/25/08, 12:49 AM

I've been playing hunter/priest and we're still learning it all. We can manage Hunter/Druid very well and most healer/dps teams go down if we play correctly, but 2xDPS teams completly burn us down I always try to scatter-trap one of them but it's still very hard to dps the other one. Any sugestions and even general tips about the spec?

Kierran · 03/25/08, 2:12 AM

Originally Posted by Whitemane

By the way, is this guaranteed to work? Tried other macros much similar to this, but they sometimes seem to fail. What's the reason to that? Nothing more annoying than fd'ing in arena and not being able to drink afterwards :/ Also it gimps your mana regen by a LOT in arenas.

That's the macro I use, so it should work most of the time. I can't think of any reason in particular it would fail. Grab a dueling buddy and give it a few practice tries to make sure.

@Dreamflow-
You may find it more effective to frost trap-kite double-DPS teams around an LOS obstacle rather than try to scatter/trap one. Hunter/Priest CC is more limited than Hunter/Druid, so it's harder to keep one opponent continually locked down. Your goal should be to minimize incoming damage via LOS/distance while plinking away at their health. Melee will be harder to handle, though casters should be somewhat easier with dual mana drains at your disposal.

Are they focusing more on your or your priest?

Dreamflow · 03/25/08, 2:27 AM

I've found a rogue/Spriest who went for my priest, but most just kill me by locking down the priest.

Compound · 03/28/08, 1:44 PM

Hey guys,

i'm currently running druid / hunter in 2v2. We've been up at 1900 rating but we're currently bouncing about 1800. We're both full s1.

When we started out we had a pretty nice win loss ratio 9/1 or so, got to 1700 pretty fast but it has been hard from there on. Through our travel to our current rating i specced BM, mainly because of warlock / rogue and druid / rogue beating us with CC on druid and killing me before it expired. I've experienced that the increased dps from the pet by being BM helps with pressuring healers while draining him and focusing his partner ( or whatever is out in the open ) This combined with ping-pong cyclone works pretty well to pressure, so i'm actually quite happy with BM, also helps with the bursting down druids that are OOM. BW and Intimidation + feral charge and bash is quite nice. On top of it, it helps me survive through pretty long durations of CC on the durid on my own, which was a huge issue before as MM because i can't hold my own against anyone really. ATM i'm pondering respeccing back though and seeing how it works out, but not sure.

Anyhow, long story short. Our main problem atm is druid + melee dps. Also druid warlock pretty much annihialate us. I've read a few replies regarding keeping pet alive and most seem to agree that it is impossible, which is my personal opinion aswell.

Now when we fight druid / warrior or druid / rogue they will just pile up on me. Go straight in my face, (if i were MM it would be even worse) inbetween feral charge, roots, bash, hamstring/crippling, mace stuns and whatnot it is pretty hard getting out of melee and i need massive healing inbetween. Making it pretty hard to win a mana fight, my dps plundges to almost nothing aslong as they can pressure me like this. Frost field helps logically but still doesn't remove the problem, not by a long shot.

I have a hard time seeing how you can win as a hunter / druid against piling tactics like this - just can't get my mind around how on earth you are supposed to counter it. Druid rooting one dps helps but fact is you can get rooted aswell and a rooted hunter standing next to a rooted warrior spells lose for the hunter. Offensive use of druid cc is just far more powerful than defensive in these matchups.

On top of it, sweeping strikes works really well in this situation to help pressure the hunter/pet/druid as the hunter will butcher your pet while hitting you, as long as the druid piles on you along with the warrior. I doubt there is a counter, i honestly doubt it. If druid + melee dps performs it well enough.

Even if warrior / druid doesn't do this tactic to a nail it is still hard, once your pet dies it is vertually impossible to resurrect against a warrior / druid because of intercept , pummel, charge, dps lockdown, cyclone, bash, feral charge and the likes. Between druid and warrior they have enough to keep you unable to summon a pet for an extensive period of time. Even if you do get it summoned they may have chosen to rest up, or just twoshot your pet again, leaving you to do it all over again - putting a heavy drain on your healer because he has to keep you up all the time.

I'm currently working on my warrior to duo with the druid, because unless i'm able to somehow find a tactic that is aleast somewhat comforting and reliable against it i see no reason to push this duo any further. As i said, i personally find it a L2p issue form a melee dps / druid perspective if they cannot perform this tactic. So unless someone can come up decent counter i'm at loss i must admit.

Furthermore, it doesn't have to be a druid per say, shaman/warrior can do it relatively effective aswell. We have an acceptable degree of success against most setups but yet healer / warrior and druid / rogue , lock / druid are so common that it is a struggle if we cannot beat thems omewhat constitantly at 1900+ rating.

Lock / Druid runs a somwhat same tactic, cept for the piling of course which is rarely necessary. Put dots on everyone, pressure the druid to heal more than they do (easy task). If we kill felhunter ( which is pretty easy ) they summon voidwalker and that is unkilliable as druid / hunter unless they fall asleep. Lock just has to presure with dots. If i sting the lock to try and keep his dps somewhat down ( which works pretty well ) he will just mana drain me. Either way, if he choses to mana drain i will be OOM quite fast and unable to sustain an acceptable amount of DPS. Personally i think lock / druid is impossible as hunter / druid - worse than the melee setups. But luckily they are a rarer breed than healer / melee dps so a 100% loss ratio against that setup at highrating is more acceptable.

We're still crawling rating somewhat, forth and back but gaining slowly. Of course gear matters too, but if someone has any idea's as to how to counter piling tactics or in general any feedback that would help i would appriciate it and reply what i think about it.

Thanks in adcance.

Elendril · 03/28/08, 2:06 PM

Freezing trap is far more powerful than frost trap against warrior/druid since they can't dispel it.

Vasilii · 03/28/08, 2:51 PM

Originally Posted by Compound

Hey guys,

i'm currently running druid / hunter in 2v2. We've been up at 1900 rating but we're currently bouncing about 1800. We're both full s1.

When we started out we had a pretty nice win loss ratio 9/1 or so, got to 1700 pretty fast but it has been hard from there on. Through our travel to our current rating i specced BM, mainly because of warlock / rogue and druid / rogue beating us with CC on druid and killing me before it expired. I've experienced that the increased dps from the pet by being BM helps with pressuring healers while draining him and focusing his partner ( or whatever is out in the open ) This combined with ping-pong cyclone works pretty well to pressure, so i'm actually quite happy with BM, also helps with the bursting down druids that are OOM. BW and Intimidation + feral charge and bash is quite nice. On top of it, it helps me survive through pretty long durations of CC on the durid on my own, which was a huge issue before as MM because i can't hold my own against anyone really. ATM i'm pondering respeccing back though and seeing how it works out, but not sure.

Anyhow, long story short. Our main problem atm is druid + melee dps. Also druid warlock pretty much annihialate us. I've read a few replies regarding keeping pet alive and most seem to agree that it is impossible, which is my personal opinion aswell.

Now when we fight druid / warrior or druid / rogue they will just pile up on me. Go straight in my face, (if i were MM it would be even worse) inbetween feral charge, roots, bash, hamstring/crippling, mace stuns and whatnot it is pretty hard getting out of melee and i need massive healing inbetween. Making it pretty hard to win a mana fight, my dps plundges to almost nothing aslong as they can pressure me like this. Frost field helps logically but still doesn't remove the problem, not by a long shot.

I have a hard time seeing how you can win as a hunter / druid against piling tactics like this - just can't get my mind around how on earth you are supposed to counter it. Druid rooting one dps helps but fact is you can get rooted aswell and a rooted hunter standing next to a rooted warrior spells lose for the hunter. Offensive use of druid cc is just far more powerful than defensive in these matchups.

On top of it, sweeping strikes works really well in this situation to help pressure the hunter/pet/druid as the hunter will butcher your pet while hitting you, as long as the druid piles on you along with the warrior. I doubt there is a counter, i honestly doubt it. If druid + melee dps performs it well enough.

Even if warrior / druid doesn't do this tactic to a nail it is still hard, once your pet dies it is vertually impossible to resurrect against a warrior / druid because of intercept , pummel, charge, dps lockdown, cyclone, bash, feral charge and the likes. Between druid and warrior they have enough to keep you unable to summon a pet for an extensive period of time. Even if you do get it summoned they may have chosen to rest up, or just twoshot your pet again, leaving you to do it all over again - putting a heavy drain on your healer because he has to keep you up all the time.

I'm currently working on my warrior to duo with the druid, because unless i'm able to somehow find a tactic that is aleast somewhat comforting and reliable against it i see no reason to push this duo any further. As i said, i personally find it a L2p issue form a melee dps / druid perspective if they cannot perform this tactic. So unless someone can come up decent counter i'm at loss i must admit.

Furthermore, it doesn't have to be a druid per say, shaman/warrior can do it relatively effective aswell. We have an acceptable degree of success against most setups but yet healer / warrior and druid / rogue , lock / druid are so common that it is a struggle if we cannot beat thems somewhat constitantly at 1900+ rating.

Lock / Druid runs a somwhat same tactic, cept for the piling of course which is rarely necessary. Put dots on everyone, pressure the druid to heal more than they do (easy task). If we kill felhunter ( which is pretty easy ) they summon voidwalker and that is unkilliable as druid / hunter unless they fall asleep. Lock just has to presure with dots. If i sting the lock to try and keep his dps somewhat down ( which works pretty well ) he will just mana drain me. Either way, if he choses to mana drain i will be OOM quite fast and unable to sustain an acceptable amount of DPS. Personally i think lock / druid is impossible as hunter / druid - worse than the melee setups. But luckily they are a rarer breed than healer / melee dps so a 100% loss ratio against that setup at highrating is more acceptable.

We're still crawling rating somewhat, forth and back but gaining slowly. Of course gear matters too, but if someone has any idea's as to how to counter piling tactics or in general any feedback that would help i would appriciate it and reply what i think about it.

Thanks in adcance.

I am in the same boat as you, druid/hunter in the upper 1800's bracket (dont have much time to play with raids tho)

As BM hunter/druid you will not beat druid/melee dps. The strength of this combo against melee dps is being able to mitgate most of their dmg via alternating CC chains, but as BM you bring no CC... Without improved stings/scatter + trap combo. Your best bet will be to burst the melee dps down immediately, but anyone smart enough will just LOS until BW runs out.

as MM hunter/druid

vs war/druid - should be wins, the only way we lose is when my druid gets burst down by unluckly mace procs + he plays with 900-2000 ping usually = not fast reaction.

vs Lock/Druid - very difficult fights... you need to play offensively because you will not outlast this combo. I think the way to do it is:
CC the druid, kill the pet
CC the druid, kill the 2nd pet
CC the druid, kill the lock
sting the lock cause you actually want him to lifetap because you are not draining the druid. With a double cyclone, feral charge, bash, scatter + trap CC chain, it gives you a decent amount of time to drop something. Get in combat quickly so he cannot summon a VW right off the bat, if he summons a VW after you kill his first pet... depending on your mana you can turn this into an outlast match, if you wingclip his pet your druid should be able to get away to drink.

Against shammy/war its the same thing, you will not be able to drain a resto shammy, the option here is to CC the shammy and kill the warrior. Make sure you are smashing totems left and right, i use a pet macro to kill totems since having your pet on the shammy will just boost his mana like crazy.

But now if you're MM your back to having trouble against double dps, we have definitely not perfected our execution of strategy against them... i would read megatf's guides for more info.

Compound · 03/29/08, 11:06 AM

Appriciate the info so far. Still nothing on countering piling up tactics though. Ultimately it just owns hunter / druid i'm afraid. Scatter / trap doesn't work well if there's a +50% chance you trap the wrong person anyhow. And as i said, rooting a warrior won't help if you're rooted beside him yourself.

About the lock thing, we usually try and focus don't the pet aswell but once we get the felhunter down and they summon a voidwalker it's impossible to take it down unless they fall asleep. Feral charge won't really help to disable a druid healer and the rest aint enough to fisnish of the pet, plus trapping a druid is hard if he uses LOS, not to mention you lose time running to a from the druid and the pet - on top of it the lock can just ultimately life funnel or LOS you while his healer is cycloned. Or even worse the druid can trinket out of your scatter trap if you land it.

Either way it's pretty much impossible to get a voidwalker down. I'm ok with not winning against a good lock / druid though - they aren't that comon anymore anyhow.

Loshiis · 03/29/08, 4:54 PM

Originally Posted by Compound

Appriciate the info so far. Still nothing on countering piling up tactics though. Ultimately it just owns hunter / druid i'm afraid. Scatter / trap doesn't work well if there's a +50% chance you trap the wrong person anyhow. And as i said, rooting a warrior won't help if you're rooted beside him yourself.

If the druid is rooting you, then he's not in form, and you should be able to viper sting him; besides, your druid should be cycloning the warrior as well as rooting. If the druid is staying in form the entire time on you, then feel free to spam scare beast on him--If he shifts out, then he can be viper stung and wastes mana, if he doesn't, then he gets feared and the warrior gets trapped. Also, if the warrior and druid are both on you the whole time, then your druid is free to drink whenever he likes...which means the match will go on for quite some time.

It's definitely a pain when both the druid and warrior are on you, don't get me wrong, but it just takes some presence of mind to wait to try and throw down freezing trap until the druid is either CCed or otherwise unable to get to you. Your druid should be able to toss roots on their druid all he likes, and their druid will either have to sit in roots and let you trap the warrior, or waste mana shifting out. There are plenty of ways around it, just takes a little creative thought.

MaveN · 03/31/08, 9:38 PM

Ok, we all know the focus macros for viper, scatter and such, now im trying to fix that macro. Im trying to make it so if there is NO focus i can scatter/viper/silence my target,unless i have a focused target. I cant seem to fix it so if there is no focus i hit my target, instead i keep having to make my current target the focus to get the macro to work. Anyone know how to make this macro?

Vec · 04/01/08, 1:54 AM

Originally Posted by MaveN

Ok, we all know the focus macros for viper, scatter and such, now im trying to fix that macro. Im trying to make it so if there is NO focus i can scatter/viper/silence my target,unless i have a focused target. I cant seem to fix it so if there is no focus i hit my target, instead i keep having to make my current target the focus to get the macro to work. Anyone know how to make this macro?

"/cast [target=focus,exists][] viper sting" should work.

Maynard · 04/01/08, 11:43 AM

Depending on what bracket you're playing in, I find that mouseover macros are much more versatile. Perhaps not for Viper (where you will consistently drain one target) but for Scatter/Silence certainly.

Kierran · 04/01/08, 12:59 PM

I tried mouseover macros in 2s for a while with marginal results. After a string of silenced rogues and scattered pets, I went back to focus macros. I understand the potential utility of being able to mouseover and silence/scatter/viper at will, but there are a lot of situations where you're likely to hit the wrong target. In most of the common 2v2 matchups, I'm only going to be silencing and vipering one target, so focus macros work fine. Dual caster is really the only time mouseover comes out on top.

I expect the situation is different in 3s/5s/BGs or if you have 'uber micro'.

MaveN · 04/01/08, 7:45 PM

Originally Posted by Vec

"/cast [target=focus,exists][] viper sting" should work.

It worked thank you

, i even made 1 for silence and sactter. Befor i was using megatf's macro which used a modifer that instead of shift (that he used) i switched to using ctrl but this seems to work better since if i got no focus i hit current target unless i have a focus.

While were on the topic what do you guys think is the best focus macros for arena? Personally mouseover macros -can- propose a problem especially in 5v5 when you got 10 people running around everywere. But what other focus macros do you think are the best? Right now i only have 3.

Arzen · 04/02/08, 7:05 PM

Quick question: I'm about to buy two S2 one-handers for the +30 int enchants, and I'm wondering which ones to get. I have a lot of arena points saved up, and this is the only thing I'm spending them on.

I'm confused whether I should be getting cleaver/shiv, cleaver/cleaver, shanker/shanker, slicer/quickblade, shanker/shiv, etc. etc.

Any advice? Do I want the slowest I can get in my main hand and the fastest in my offhand? I've seen other high-rated hunters with this setup but I confess I don't know why.

Thanks!

• Nisu · 04/02/08, 9:34 PM

Originally Posted by Arzen

Quick question: I'm about to buy two S2 one-handers for the +30 int enchants, and I'm wondering which ones to get. I have a lot of arena points saved up, and this is the only thing I'm spending them on.

I'm confused whether I should be getting cleaver/shiv, cleaver/cleaver, shanker/shanker, slicer/quickblade, shanker/shiv, etc. etc.

Any advice? Do I want the slowest I can get in my main hand and the fastest in my offhand? I've seen other high-rated hunters with this setup but I confess I don't know why.

Thanks!

I'm relatively sure it's because the dedicated off-hands are significantly cheaper than the main-hands, and hunters don't have any mechanics that would favor a slow offhand anyways (and generally you'd swap to a 2h if you had to be in melee for prolonged periods for some reason).

Vasilii · 04/03/08, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by Arzen

Quick question: I'm about to buy two S2 one-handers for the +30 int enchants, and I'm wondering which ones to get. I have a lot of arena points saved up, and this is the only thing I'm spending them on.

I'm confused whether I should be getting cleaver/shiv, cleaver/cleaver, shanker/shanker, slicer/quickblade, shanker/shiv, etc. etc.

Any advice? Do I want the slowest I can get in my main hand and the fastest in my offhand? I've seen other high-rated hunters with this setup but I confess I don't know why.

Thanks!

Go with whatever you think looks best, for S1 I used Swords but I'm swapping those for S3 Axes because the S3 Swords look stupid

Amok2007 · 04/04/08, 10:37 AM

This is all a great read. I've stayed away from arenas originally due to the LOS issues but decided to give it a try. I joined a 2, 3, and 5 team. No matter what, the fight begins with the entire opposing team seeking out the hunter and killing him first. Having read through all the thread here, I've not seen a good way to counter this. My arena experience usually involves dying fast and watching the rest of the team fight. I would have focused on a different MM or BM/SV build but 98% of the time I'm dead first. The few times I'm left alone or generally alone by the opponents I can do most of the killing.

What I'm looking for is a "beginners" guide to arena of sorts. Vasili, your posts are extremely helpful, ty.

Second thing is the ravager pets. With dash, gore, cobra reflexes, et al, are these a viable arena pet? I know they have a reduction in HP, but +10% DPS and +5% Armor seems like a good deal mixed in with Gore's 50% double damage.

Currently I'm BM spec but thought about hitting the 11/41/9 build. Suggestions? Comments? Sorry for not being up to speed on this.

• Nisu · 04/04/08, 12:42 PM

Originally Posted by Amok2007

This is all a great read. I've stayed away from arenas originally due to the LOS issues but decided to give it a try. I joined a 2, 3, and 5 team. No matter what, the fight begins with the entire opposing team seeking out the hunter and killing him first. Having read through all the thread here, I've not seen a good way to counter this. My arena experience usually involves dying fast and watching the rest of the team fight. I would have focused on a different MM or BM/SV build but 98% of the time I'm dead first. The few times I'm left alone or generally alone by the opponents I can do most of the killing.

Depending on your team composition, you can expect to be relatively high up the focus list - Hunters are relatively squishy, have no emergency buttons like Ice Block, and no reliable outs. On the flip side, leaving a Hunter alone is incredibly dangerous - I know that when I played 5's on my Druid, we focused the Hunter first because focusing one shuts down their damage, and a Hunter left alone can wreck anything not wearing plate in short order. Your job, then, it to make yourself as inconvenient to reach as possible - hang back behind the rest of your team, Shadowmeld to avoid being targeted from a distance, drop a Frost Trap, and try to abuse the hell out of LoS to make coordinated burst on you as hard as possible.

zenos · 04/04/08, 2:24 PM

This may just be assumed because everyone is actively arenaing on their hunter, but a great tool for masking your viper sting that hasn't been discussed in this thread is using snake traps. The application is a tad ackward but essentially you run the target through your trap and then get range and viper.

It's a ghetto scorpid stack and keeps your target in combat for the duration. You obviously don't want to use this tactic on a resto shaman but even paladins that can consecrate them off tend to use an average of 3 global cooldowns to get to your sting.(Cons, cleanse, cleanse)

Depending on the vipers that spawn you may get crippling and mind numbing on the same target, which is debilitating to priests pally's and locks.

Faerlun · 04/04/08, 8:59 PM

Hey guys, i am running hunter/druid 2v2 and having a lot of trouble with war/druid. The problem is that if i go for the druid, he sits in bear form almost the entire time and just comes out to get a couple heals off when he's managed to get out of LoS or stun me for a sec, then shifts right back to bear form. My druid runs out of mana first trying to heal me.

The next thing we tried was just putting my pet on the druid and dueling with the warrior. This seemed to get us a lot closer to victory (using frost traps to help kite the war). I'd viper and silence the druid whenever the war got low enough to force him out, kept aimed shots up as much as possible, but with a druid using feral charge and a warrior spamming intercept/intimidating/hamstring it's very difficult to get DPS off on him.

Any tips?

Xavias · 04/07/08, 12:31 AM

Originally Posted by Faerlun

Hey guys, i am running hunter/druid 2v2 and having a lot of trouble with war/druid. The problem is that if i go for the druid, he sits in bear form almost the entire time and just comes out to get a couple heals off when he's managed to get out of LoS or stun me for a sec, then shifts right back to bear form. My druid runs out of mana first trying to heal me.

The next thing we tried was just putting my pet on the druid and dueling with the warrior. This seemed to get us a lot closer to victory (using frost traps to help kite the war). I'd viper and silence the druid whenever the war got low enough to force him out, kept aimed shots up as much as possible, but with a druid using feral charge and a warrior spamming intercept/intimidating/hamstring it's very difficult to get DPS off on him.

Any tips?

By going for the Warrior first your basically hoping that the Druid and Warrior screw up majorly. These kinds of strategies may work for sub-2k Arena, where people screw up much more often, but basing your strategy on such tactics won't work in the longrun.

Druid + Hunter is widely considered a very viable counter to Druid Warrior. If the enemy druid is sitting in bear form, frost trap and burn him down, its really not difficult at all. Hes going to be sticking to you so you can't shoot him, so simple place your frost trap, make distance and burn him down. Time a viper for when he shifts into caster to heal and silence shoot him immediately after the viper lands. If he goes straight back into bear form thats fine, he has lost at the very least 1000 mana (not including healing) from that ordeal.

I dislike theorycrafting-advice to people because one size never fits all in Arena. You should just apply logic. Hes in Bear form and you want him out, how do you achieve that?

doogless · 04/07/08, 3:26 AM

Originally Posted by Xavias

I dislike theorycrafting-advice to people because one size never fits all in Arena. You should just apply logic. Hes in Bear form and you want him out, how do you achieve that?

While this seems very simple, it's probably the best advice in the whole thread if you're dealing with a troublesome comp. Not every Warrior/Druid or Mage/Rogue or X/X will play the same way, and knowing overall what your goal in the fight is will help you adapt to teams that play differently.

Melkortopia · 04/25/08, 12:48 PM

"2.4.2 PTR Patch Notes Update:

Scare Beast: The range on this spell has been increased to 30 yards and it is now instant cast. "

(Source)

This could make teams with hunters much more viable, given the ridiculous amount of druids out there. Instant cast, 30 yard range fear... Mmmm...

Sadly, I suppose this change won't get on the Arena Tournament Servers =(

It might make low-druid-CC teams more viable. Maybe hunter/priest/warrior, perhaps, or hunter/Rdruid/warrior. Or, maybe, hunter/rogue/Rdruid

Elendril · 04/25/08, 2:05 PM

Instant scare beast is something I've been hoping to see to improve hunters in small brackets for a long time. Very good change, and one that will make my alt-e scare beast bind from warsong days get that much more action. :-P