This is another regular feature Hesston is going to give a whirl, as I’m sure the endless loot and achievement lists are growing quite tiresome. So, once a week or so, whenever Hesston gets a break from killing things and farming leather, I’ll walk through one of the heroic dungeons of Northrend from the perspective of our most noble class. I’ll try and cover what to look out for, what to do with your pet and what good hunter loot is in each place.

Now I don’t claim to be THE authority on any of these dungeons, nor on hunters even (like many others do), but these are simply my observations as a beast-mastery hunter that has been through all of the heroics several times over. I welcome all to rebut, challenge or call me out on a wrong tactic or suggestion.

The other thing is, I don’t plan on covering every trash pull. I’ll do a brief overview to point out some particulars if necessary. I figure that if you’re running dungeons and heroics, you’re probably already fairly accomplished on trash. Unless there is a unique trash encounter and something specific that a hunter should and should not do, I assume you’ve got it handled.

The basics

Just in case, we’ll cover some of the basics first. Now this stuff goes for damn near any dungeon or raid instance, but the Northrend ones are most familiar to me so my focus will be in that direction.

• The First Rule of Hunter Club: Do not talk about….just kidding, I couldn’t resist. Seriously though, the first thing, numero uno rule of hunters going into dungeons be they heroic or non…turn that growl OFF. Nothing is worse than having your pet pull aggro from the tank and die, there goes your DPS. In fact, turning cower ON is a good idea. The auto-cast on those is still borked so put them on your pet bar to make sure. This also allows you to turn them on/off in an emergency. This has saved me from a wipe more than once when the tank goes down. Just pop on growl, let your pet tank and hope the healer is paying attention to the tempo changes. If you still are having trouble controlling your pet, put it on passive and make a /pet attack macro.
• Second Rule of Hunter Club: If you have a ferocity pet (which you damn well should going into dungeons or heroics), turn that charge off unless you really need it. Why? Because as soon as your pet charges in, if it stuns the mob being pulled, that mob stops. This upsets the tanks rhythm and position, and can cause potential problems. Charge isn’t necessary for heroics, the tank will handle the mob. Unless, of course, that is part of the plan. There are times where you might want to use your pet to off-tank something so, in that case, you can pop it back on.
• Third Rule of Hunter Club: Misdirect is your best friend. Set your focus on your tank and use misdirects to help them generate threat, even if they don’t need it. Nothing sucks worse after getting that mouth-watering, juicy crit than it pulling aggro and the mob coming to chew on your face. If your group is still gearing and the tank needs help, this will not only make them happy but keep you alive longer as well.
• The Fourth Rule of … oh you get the idea: Only use CC and traps if the tank (or group leader) asks. Crowd control, especially hunter crowd control, has become a little less necessary in Wrath. Oh it’s a blast for us hunters, but wholly unnecessary in most cases. Very rarely do you even see a sheep these days, but with hexes and shackles and all the other stuff, we hunters can just focus on the ranged DPS. Plus, if you plop down a trap when you don’t need it, then suddenly need it and it’s on cooldown, you’d better make quick with the running buddy.
• Fifth Rule: This is more of a rule of etiquette than a strategy issue, but don’t ask for a DPS meter, or post one, after ever pull or boss fight. Unless it is established that you’re having a DPS competition or you’re in a group that you know is cool with it, whisper the report to yourself. No one likes a braggart and everyone knows hunters can do well in DPS with even the slightest modicum of skill. Plus, often reports are inaccurate due to proximity to the reporter, downtime, etc. The only one I truly trust is a WoW combat log uploaded to WoWWebStats.
• Sixth Rule: Know your loot. This goes for darn near every class, but hunters have an advantage of being able to roll on a wide variety of loot. We can use daggers, axes, swords and fist weapons for dual-wielding, 2-handed swords, axes and polearms for the heavy hitters, and even rogue or feral druid leather if the stats outweigh the intellect loss; basically, we’ve got a lot of options. However, this doesn’t mean you should roll on everything you could possibly use. If it is something better served by someone in the party, let them take it. You’ll not only make good loot karma for yourself, and if it’s a guild mate they will be able to pay you back in the future (or pay it forward, as I tell people to). However, if you’re in say Naxxramas, and the Spaulders of Resumed Battle drop and there’s no rogues or feral kitties in the party, gobble those things up (as I did). The hit rating and AP bump are superb.

That’s really all the basics I can think of off hand. I may edit this if something comes to mind, or please add, subtract or correct anything in the comments (all two of your readers).

Next time, we venture to…Utgarde Keep (*cue ominous music*).

Categories: dungeons, heroics, hunters, hunters scope, strategy
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