Some comments on Hunters

[Ruvanal]

If -- as I would suppose -- attracting aggro is one of a pet's main functions, all I can say is Growl seemed to be a remarkably bad way of doing it (of course, maybe I wasn't doing it right).

Currently that is the pets main function since there are no other pet abilities that can be used. With only having Growl as an ability and with the damage output being messed up to only be a minimal amount, the hunters pets are currently the equivalent of a warlocks voidwalker. The voidwlakers primary purpose is to act as a tank that attracts the mobs and keeps them at a distance so that the warlock can do his thing at a distance. When more abilities for the pets become available it will be possible to have certain types of pets serve other functions than this, but for now that is the only practical thing the pet can be used for.

Hunters seem like they have a lot of potential, and maybe they'll be really good once they're fixed up. In part I just resented being constantly forced to melee, or try to escape from melee, with what I though was supposed to be a ranged class. (Why should mages be able to cast fireballs at point blank distance, for example, while hunters can't shoot their bow?)

Most of the time as long as I keep the pet alive, I only end up going into melee combat when I choose to go into it. I can also get the pet to pull mobs off of me by manipulating the damge I do (generally by not doing damage or using Disengage in extreme situations) and the use of teh pets Growl ability to get myself out of melee combat if needed. This lets me be a ranged class character under most circumstances. That is why it is important to know how to manipulate the aggro of mobs first before trying o use a hunter. In general the warlocks and hunters are going to for the players that are more experienced witht the overall game basics than for the first choice of many characters. When you do not understand how the aggro can shift in combat you will frequently just end up pulling too many mobs straight on top of yourself instead of those that should have the mob on them. It should also be noed that the tanks also need to know how to hold onto the aggro and where to keep the fight at also. I have frequently seen warriors that drag the fights to bad locations for hunters and other that are trying to use AoE that do not get instant casted (like traps on the ground or long casted Flamestrikes).