Casual Huntering

Posts Tagged ‘Dave’s Hunter Guides’

It’s been about a year since I’ve written one of these guides. You see my friend Dave took a year off of playing WoW. He’s a real good friend of my older brother and when my brother recently started playing again, Dave soon followed (at least that’s what I assume, maybe dave was just hankering to play).

So, Dave has recently joined our little 5 man team that we’ve been doing on Friday nights. I took Aoirselvar the other night with them and we did several Burning Crusade instances in Hellfire and Zangermarsh. My wife was on her level 60 deathknight, my brother on his level 68 priest, my sister-in-law on her 67 warlock and Dave on his 73 level hunter. I switched to BM mode and tanked with my turtle as a pet. That was the first time I had done any 5 man tanking with my hunter. I was a little rocky for one major reason. A reason in which I’ve decide to write a new Dave’s Hunter Guide. So, in today’s installment of Dave’s Hunter Guide we’re going to be covering 5 man instances, some basics dos and don’ts.

Dave’s Hunter Guide – 5 man instances edition

Before we get started here are some definitions.

• Pulling: Getting the attention of a Mob or Boss by saying such things like, “Hey ugly! Your mom is a fatty!”

• Tank: The guy who is saying such things as “Hey ugly! Your mom is a fatty!” and the one tough enough to get away saying it to their face (in our case the turtle, Ravlesrioa, just implied it).

• Hunter: The one who can either make it look like someone else is saying “Hey ugly! Your mom is a fatty” by a neat little thing called Misdirect. Or he shuts up and lets the tank tell the mom jokes.

• Misdirect: That neat little thing.

Now that we got those definitions out there, let’s talk about what you are expected to do as a hunter in a 5 man instance. As you would have guessed, you are expected to kill things. That what us hunter do best, right?

Oh, and sometimes we can help out like dropping frost traps and stuff. We’re not going to worry ourselves about that right now.

Okay, remember the tank? Yeah, the guy making unpleasant comments about moms. We usually like to let him get everybody’s attention (pulling), or better yet, help him get everybody’s attention (misdirect). He usually has better tools for getting everybody to attack him, and he can take it better. He has better armor, thus he gets damaged less. Remember, it takes a big man to cry, but a bigger man to laugh at that man. Your tank is that bigger man. Basically, you probably shouldn’t make fun of other people’s moms, unless you are big enough to handle it.

Even if you are several levels above, some people in the group aren’t. Tanks tend to have ways of making fun of whole groups at the same time, thus they can keep a whole gang of mobs on them. My tenacity pet has its thunder stomp, grabs everybody at once. Your cat pet has growl, only grabs only one. What do the rest of the mobs do? Well, they get pissed off and start punching anyone they can see, often times that’s the healer. You see, when you’re not sure who to go deck, it’s really easy to start with the guy in the dress. Can you hardly blame them?

Best to just let the tough guy go in there and then shoot the wimpy mobs in the back while their attention is drawn. Now, it is also a good idea to attack the same mobs the tank is attacking. You see if the tank goes to the left group, you should do likewise. Attacking a completely different group of mobs (the group to the right)? Bad idea, remember what happens, those mobs tend to go after the guy in the dress. We want the guy in the dress to stay alive because he’s making sure the rest of us are. You want to take nice care of the man in the dress. You don’t have to cuddle with him or anything, but if someone comes over and makes fun of his mom, or his choice in clothing, you’d better let them know that you won’t stand for it.

Okay, did we cover everything? Let tough guy make the wise cracks, don’t go after random mobs, and protect the man in the dress. I think that’s about it.

Oh, I forgot one thing, don’t put your pet on aggressive. Most mobs don’t like cats, letting everyone know that you have one with you is usually enough to bring the whole instance down on you. Its best to keep your pet on a tight leash, don’t let him do just anything he wants to.

Do this and it’ll be good times all around.

We did have a good time, but its a good idea that we have some higher levels or we’d be toast. And apparently I haven’t done a lot of BC 5 mans, seeing how I got achievements for several of these. (/facepalm)

Anyway, I don’t plan on always having my pet tank, but it was fun to mess around with. When we get closer to level 80 instances I’ll have my DK tank for our group. It was amusing having Dave pulling groups left and right, as well as my brother, the priest. The sad thing is that we wouldn’t wipe, only my brother the priest, or my wife the lower level DK would get killed. With the priest dying a lot, I would attempt to use my jumper cables to rez him back to life, and without fail… well, it would fail. I guess that would be better stated, with all fail. But it was good, and we’ll get better as we go. My brother is new to healing, I’m new to tanking, my wife is new to Melee dps, Dave is just having a grand all time, and my sister-in-law is loving the fact that she gets a challenge (pulling the entire room does that). Anyway, good times by all.

So, I’ve began the hunt for Loque’nahak recently. I know I’m slow on the hunt and everybody and their dog already has him for a pet, but I’m usually behind the times on these things. That’s just part of the package when you are a casual gamer. You have to accept the fact that you’ll not be ahead of the crowd, but rather a little behind. I’ve come to grips with this and I’m fine with it.

Anyway, I’ve been using the nifty little mod called NPCscan to try to find Loque’nahak. This is a great tool, but you need to know a few things about it before you get started.

NPC scan will scan the surrounding area and when a rare mob comes within targeting distance it will alert you. It will alert you in with lots of sounds, flashing lights, and a pop up. There is no way you could miss it, in fact it usually scares the crap out of me when it pops up.

Once a particular mob has been found by NPC scan it will not be able to find that mob again until you clear your cache. This is easily done. Go to your world of warcraft folder usually under program files (if you are using a PC, if you are using a Mac then you’ll do something else, of which I have no clue, good luck). When you find the folder c:/programfiles/worldofwarcraft/cache delete the entire folder (just the cache folder). Don’t worry, it won’t mess up the game and it will be recreated next time you log into the game. Again delete the /cache folder, not the /worldofwarcraft folder, that would bring you much grief. Of course, if you aren’t worried about finding that particular mob again then don’t worry about it.

Here’s the tricky thing about this mod, it can’t tell the difference between the rare mobs running about the world and pets that were tamed and are now tagging along with some random hunter. There is an option where you can make it not look for tamable rare mobs. You go to options and click on the addon tab. You’ll be able to see the NPCscan options from there.  Click on the plus sign to pull up the secondary options. Here you’ll see a box that you can check or uncheck to track tamable mobs. If you aren’t concerned with tracking down rare tamable mobs then uncheck this. If you are hunting rare pets then check this only when you are hunting. Go uncheck it when you are done, or you’ll freak out like I did. If you’re going to be around someone who has one of these rare pets then you can always add their ID to the mob so it’ll start ignoring them. Look up the beast that you don’t want NPCscan to look for anymore on WoWhead.com. The last number in the url is the id number that you’ll need.

For example: “http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=32500″

I had forgotten that I had left this on when I was doing Sons of Hodir dailies. Suddenly Gondria pops up and I freak out. My heart leaped in my throat. I tried to target it, I stopped doing whatever I was doing. I looked around thinking I was going to be able to tame it. Then my brain caught back up to me. Gondria is not in Storm Peaks, but rather Zul’Drak. There was just a hunter passing by who already had the spiritbeast tamed. I calmed myself down and promptly turned off the option to track tamable pets.

Now, I have not yet found any spiritbeasts with this, but I was able to take down some rare mobs because of it. Even if you aren’t a hunter, NPCscan can help you work on achievements to take down certain rare mobs. If you are a hunter looking for rare pets then this is a must. It has the same distance as the target macro and it WILL get your attention when it finds something. Believe me. I’m always startled whenever this goes off.

The other Addon I’m using to help me find the spiritbeast is Routes, with this I was able to set up a route in Sholazar Basin where I could optimize mining while hitting all of the known spawn points. Now I just need to get on there and hunt more often.

For many of you this is old news, but not to you new up and coming hunters or you slow but steady casual gamers. I hope this helps.

Here’s another installment of Dave’s Hunter Guide. How not to pick up women in WoW. I didn’t realize how serious Dave might need this until I saw some recent comments in Facebook. So, here you go Dave…

First off, there are actually many females that play world of warcraft. You might not believe it by looking at our guild lately (besides my family members and a few others). But overall you’d be surprised. That being said, most girls that I know that play WoW (actually all of them, but maybe I’m wrong) don’t play WoW to be hit on. Seriously, I don’t really think they do (at least my wife doesn’t). I’m guessing that hitting on someone randomly in the world of azeroth will get you on ignore lists very quickly.

But if you happen to be in Ironforge or Stormwind and you see a Night Elf or a Human female with next to nothing on dancing on top of the mailbox, if you see that then you must definately refrain. You see, those are not females playing, but rather 13 year old boys or 40 year old pervs. They might respond to you in a positive manner, but I don’t think that’s what you are looking for.

You might want to go hit on the female guards in StormWind though. They can’t respond because their on duty, but maybe after they get off work…

Okay Dave, now that you’ve chosen a pet of sorts (remember you can have up to 5 now), its time to learn how to use him (or her – if your pet is a girl).

With the new expansion several things have changed. All pets now have a growl (which they could have before unless you were being really silly and didn’t train it). All pets have a fear, they all have a focus dump (what else would you do with all of that focus coming out your ears), and last but certainly not least, they have their nifty talent based on their pet family.

You’ll also get several pet abilities when use up your pets talents in his (or her) given pet tree. Your tenacity pets will have lots of cool stuff that will help them hold aggro better, like taunt. They also have some intervening abilities that can save your tank, or a clothie’s butt if needs be. Ferocity pets have some neat things that will help them stay alive longer, like Lick Your Wounds, and a spell that will Rez them with full health (Heart of the Phoenix) which currently seems to be bugged.

Speaking of bugs, sometimes your pet will automatically turn on the abilities. You know when their spell glows, that means its suppose to go off whenever the cool down is up and your pet has enough focus. Well, some abilities were not meant to go together. For example: the pet’s fear spell was not meant to be put up the same time as growl. You have an ability that increases your pet’s aggro and one that decreases your pet’s aggro. What generally happens is that the mob gets so confused as to weather or not he wants to attack your pet that he gets extra angry and he takes it out on you. If you have this problem generally you be thinking your pet is stupid and can’t seem to hold the aggro to save your life. Your pet is not stupid, he just doesn’t know what to do, he needs you to tell him.

Some people have set up macros to turn off the pet’s fear ability, but I find if I just drag the pet spell down to the his ability bar that I can keep an eye on it and make sure that its off when I want it to be off, and on when I want it to be on.

Basic rule of thumb, if you are soloing and you want your pet to take the beating, then turn your pet’s fear off, leave your growl on. If you are in an instance/raid, do the opposite. I know most people are thinking, duh. Well, I’m trying to state the obvious… just in case.

Now when do you want to use use passive/defensive/aggressive. Well, when you are in an instance you will almost always want your pet on passive. You get yourself into all sorts of trouble with your pet on defensive and especially on aggressive. If your goal is to wipe your instance/raid then by all means put your pet on aggressive. You’re pet will get all excited an pull every mob in a two mile radius. When you realize your mishap your pet will come running all excited lolling his/her tongue all over the place (with about 20 mobs following). If you have your pet on defensive anything that attacks you with range will get your pets attention, usually also a bad idea. Best to be on passive for those situations. Now when I’m leveling I like to keep my pet on defensive so I don’t have to tell him everything to do. And my pet reacts quicker than I do. Now there are only a few times that I would actually put my pet on aggressive. The best is if you are fighting rogues. Your pet can find rogues quicker than you can and he can help you sniff them out. Sometimes I leave them on aggressive if I want to clean out an area in a low zone while I’m farming. Oh, and also when I’m mad and want to cause a wipe for my raid (okay, I’ve never actually done that, but if I were mad I know how I could get everybody killed quickly, then you just feign death – this doesn’t win friends or influence people, but if you are pissed at a pug it might be entertaining).

Well, that’s all for now. Let me know if I missed anything.

Sorry, I’ve had to re-post this a couple of times to fix a couple of things, So, if you have this on RSS then you are probably thinking I’m a little crazy, and you wouldn’t be far from the truth…

This is my first installment of Dave’s Hunter guide. The first thing I’m going to talk about is pets. What is a hunter without a pet? Well, really pathetic, that’s what we are. So, you get to make a big decision. What pet do you want to have? This really depends on your play style and what you want to do in the game. There is a great article on how to choose a pet on Petopia. This is a wonderful resource, everything you need or want to know in regards to hunter pets is over there. Technically, you could just go over there are stop reading this post if you would like.

Okay, since Wrath has started the way hunter pets work has dramatically changed. We use to have the lamest system where you would have to tame pets you didn’t want just to learn their talent so you could teach it to your own pet. Some of us hated this and never got the latest rank of Bite, or Swipe, or whatever. But now, we have talent trees for pets. Yes Dave, if you haven’t already noticed, there is a tab on the right of the talent trees that’s marked “Pet”. If you click that you’ll see one of 3 talent trees for pets.

Now there are 3 talent trees and each pet family is assigned to one of them.

Tenacity: This talent tree is for tanking pets. These pets will be your best pets to level with. They will hold aggro the best and they have the best armor. When you are out and about soloing in the world of Azeroth, you best have one of these. These include Gorillas, Bears, Boars, Turtles, Crocolisks, Crabs, Worms (yes Dave, you can have a worm for a pet), Rhinos, Scorpids, and Warp Stalkers.

Ferocity: These are pets meant to do lots of damage. This is the main dps tree for hunter pets. They are especially good for instances and raids, when you don’t need to keep the aggro. You see, hopefully you already have a tank to do that for you. These pets include cats, devilsaurs, core hounds, hyenas, moths, raptors, spirit beasts, tallstriders, wasps, and wolves.

Cunning: At first glance you’ll be thinking, what are these pets for? Well, I like to think of this as the utility tree. These pets are still really good at dps in their own way, but they have a few other tricks up their sleeves. Some argue that these are good for PvP. I have one, but haven’t used him at all. These pets include bats, birds of prey, chimaeras, dragonhawks, nether rays, ravagers, serpents, silithids, spiders, spore bats, and wind serpents.

Now, you may have noticed that you have 4 spots available at the pet stable. That means that you can have 5 pets!!! You can have a pet for leveling, and another for instances/raids, and if you really like PvP you can have one for that. You can keep an old favorite pet for sentimental value and one that looks really cool.

Bear in mind when you are picking a pet that each pet family has a different talent/ability. For instance, Gorillas have a cool Thunderstomp and is an AoE aggro pull. Wolves do this howl thing (Furious Howl) that is a raid wide Attack Power buff.

So, now you are thinking, what talent points do I use for my pets. That is another discussion, one that I don’t want to go over because Pike did such a good job at that at Aspect of the Hare. She gives us several different pet talent builds that work for different circumstances. My suggestion is to get your self a good tenacity pet while you are leveling. I personally like the gorilla, but everybody does that so, do what you would like. When you hit level 80 then you probably would go more for a ferocity pet and focus on kicking butt.

Dave if you have any questions, email me or post something on my facebook page or something. If anybody else has questions, comments, suggestions, corrections, or anything else. Let me know, either by commenting on below or by emailing me at aoirselvar@gmail.com.

I was talking to my friend Dave yesterday. This is my friend who likes to play WoW, but who’s a lot more casual than I am. (I admit, I only fit in the casual player category because I lack time to do otherwise). Dave is a truly casual player to the point where he doesn’t keep up with the changes of the hunter class. He doesn’t follow blogs, doesn’t really look at the patch notes, no podcasts, etc. Dave only gets his info through people in the guild like me. Which is fine, but then I think people like me assume that he knows some obvious stuff when he doesn’t.

I have let Dave down.

For instance, I would have just assumed that Dave would have known that Aspect of the Viper is only really good when your mana is down. You don’t want to keep Aspect of the Viper on all the time. He told me yesterday that 2 weeks ago he realized that Aspect of the Viper was cutting his dps in half. So, for a couple of months Dave thought Viper was great to have on 24/7, he never ran out of mana.

Upon hearing Dave’s viper story I thought, I had better do something about this. I had better start writing some posts about how to play a hunter. I had just assumed that if someone came to my blog that they would already have gone to BRK’s blog or other’s like Aspect of the Hare that have great notes and guides on Huntering. But I know my friend Dave would probably never go to one of these websites.

So…

I’m going to have a new feature entitled, Dave’s Huntering Guide. I'm going to touch base on the more obvious hunter issues that are well known or things that all hunters should know about their class. And since I know that Dave doesn’t go looking around for hunter blogs, I’ll send him an email every time I post about it. Hopefully, someone else will also get something out of it as well.