09-18-2004, 07:02 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-18-2004, 07:07 AM by MongoJerry.)
Over the last few days, I've been leveling up my PvP server Hunter, named Pandarus. He's level 18 now, so I figured I'd join the conversation with some brief observations. (Also, the server is down due to some tornado emergency, and I figure posting about WoW will help alleviate the withdrawal symptoms). I'm going to be fully honest with you. I have intentionally read absolutely nothing about hunters on the Blizzard forums and have only skimmed Thecla's and Ruvanal's posts. When I start something new, I like to experiment on my own for a bit before reading the perspective of others. I don't want to be biased by other people's ways of thinking or get caught up in "group think." However, there are a few comments I caught in Thecla's and Ruvanal's posts that I'll respond to.
First, my overall impression is that I'm having a lot of fun playing my hunter. I consider this to be a good thing, since that is typically the purpose of playing a game. At first, I was a little frustrated with my hunter and his lack of power. Certainly, any time he had to deal with a mob who didn't start 30 yards away was always an adventure. In addition, the beasts I tamed at first died frequently. However, as Pandarus and his bear, named Dog, has leveled, both have become much more powerful and competitive. Also, I'd also like to think that I've started to get the hang of playing a hunter now.
One of the biggest decisions a hunter has to make is what pet he or she wants to tame. That's the part of Ruvanal's posts that I read most carefully to find out if there were any tricks or bugs I needed to know about. (Thanks Ruvanal!). After reading his comments, I really wanted to make sure I tamed an elite named beast of some sort. But then I realized a problem: Most of the low to medium level alliance areas don't have such a beast. The Barrens has several options to choose from, but interestingly alliance areas do not. Because of that, I used Neriad, my lvl 55 priestess, to scout out various possibilities. I tried to find this Humar Ruvanal talked about, but either he hadn't spawned or I looked in the wrong places. I thought that the Den Mother, a named bear in Darkshore, would make a good pet candidate, but it turned out that she isn't elite like I thought she was after all. After a bit more scouting, I finally picked out who is going to be Pandarus's long-time pet. Unfortunately, he'll have to level up some more before he can tame that pet, so for now, he's using Dog as a temporary solution.
Dog is a Young Forest Bear that was tamed in eastern Elywin Forest. After having some fun playing around with various pets, I settled on using a bear pet for two reasons: 1) They have better armor than most mobs of their level and 2) They eat everything. At first, Dog died a lot, but as he's leveled, his armor and health have shot up considerably. In fact, he has twice the health and armor of Pandarus, making him an excellent tank. Here are some general notes and observations I've made so far:
1. In most battles, I use pretty much the same system as a warlock with a voidwalker -- only I have more dps but can't use my best skills at close range. I send Dog after a target and as soon as he's in range, I [b]manually[b] order Dog to Growl to snag the target's aggro. I then use the professional mage's aggro trick. Good mages who play well in groups will pause at the start of a battle to let the warrior taunt targets a few times before nuking the heck out of the target. In my case, I manually order Dog to growl twice and then I start the barrage. Growl remains assigned as an automatic command, so he'll continue to mix in Growl with his regular attacks. I've found that I rarely pull aggro off Dog if he gets a two Growl head start. And this is true even though I twinked myself with some green engineered guns affixed with +5 damage Deadly Scopes and a good two-handed sword. (My other equipment is untwinked). I'm not sure why people think that Growl isn't effective. Perhaps people don't know to manually Growl a couple of times and wait before starting their barrages.
2. In cases where I have to pull a mob, I'll shoot once and then take a couple of hits while Dog growls the mob off me. No biggie, normally.
3. Now that Dog is able to take a lot more punishment than he used to, I've found him to be a great way to deal with adds. All I have to do is target the add, tell him to go attack it, Growl once, and switch back to shooting or swinging at the original target.
4. Ruvanal's note on Clipped Wing confuse me. I tried it out many times to verify any bugs, and it instead worked like a charm. It definitely lasted the full 10 seconds -- both the icon and the effect on the mob --, and the mob definitely ran slower than normal. It should probably slow a mob down more than it does, but it has definitely been a useful skill to prevent a mob from running off to alert friends.
5. Alchemy has been a facinatingly useful skill for Pandarus. Originally, I had just planned to mess around a little with Pandarus but essentially make him into a potion factory for my priestess. That's why I chose alchemy and herbalism for his professions rather than some more sensible hunter trade skills like leatherworking, skinning, mining, or engineering (to make crafted shot and +damage scopes). However, as Pandarus has been skilling up in alchemy, he's been finding the potions to be very practical for him. He always uses the +50 to armor buff from a minor defence potion (cheap at 2 silverleaf each for a 60 minute buff), the +27 life buff from a minor elixir of fortitude, and now lately the +6 to int buff from an elixir of wisdom. The latter one is a new one for me, but wow am I glad I tried it out.
You see, hunters use mana for their attacks, so they have a lot more in common with spellcasters and paladins than people might think. However, they don't get large natural bonuses to their intelligence as they level to increase their mana pools significantly. This is ok, because their attacks don't cost as much mana as a comparable mage or priest spell would. This has an odd consequence: +int and espeically +mana items have a greater effect on hunters than they do on mages and priests! In other words, a +6 int boost for a mage or a priest, even a level 18 one, is only a small, almost negligible, boost to his or her mana pools. But that +6 int boost caused Pandarus's mana pool to jump from just below 200 to something in the mid-240's. (I think it's 8 mana/int point, but I'll have to check to be sure). That's an approximately 25% increase in Pandarus's mana pool, which is huge. If I end up playing Pandarus to high levels, I will definitely have him wear a couple of +int or +mana items and maybe even use Elixers of Greater Intellect (+40 to int). Even a small +int or +mana boost would mean a great deal.
6. Those throw-away scrolls that give temporary boosts to one's stats are suddenly quite useful to a hunter. You see, you can't have your pet drink a potion (I tried), but you can cast a scroll buff on your pet. So any scrolls with +armor or +stamina have been very helpful to get.
First, my overall impression is that I'm having a lot of fun playing my hunter. I consider this to be a good thing, since that is typically the purpose of playing a game. At first, I was a little frustrated with my hunter and his lack of power. Certainly, any time he had to deal with a mob who didn't start 30 yards away was always an adventure. In addition, the beasts I tamed at first died frequently. However, as Pandarus and his bear, named Dog, has leveled, both have become much more powerful and competitive. Also, I'd also like to think that I've started to get the hang of playing a hunter now.
One of the biggest decisions a hunter has to make is what pet he or she wants to tame. That's the part of Ruvanal's posts that I read most carefully to find out if there were any tricks or bugs I needed to know about. (Thanks Ruvanal!). After reading his comments, I really wanted to make sure I tamed an elite named beast of some sort. But then I realized a problem: Most of the low to medium level alliance areas don't have such a beast. The Barrens has several options to choose from, but interestingly alliance areas do not. Because of that, I used Neriad, my lvl 55 priestess, to scout out various possibilities. I tried to find this Humar Ruvanal talked about, but either he hadn't spawned or I looked in the wrong places. I thought that the Den Mother, a named bear in Darkshore, would make a good pet candidate, but it turned out that she isn't elite like I thought she was after all. After a bit more scouting, I finally picked out who is going to be Pandarus's long-time pet. Unfortunately, he'll have to level up some more before he can tame that pet, so for now, he's using Dog as a temporary solution.
Dog is a Young Forest Bear that was tamed in eastern Elywin Forest. After having some fun playing around with various pets, I settled on using a bear pet for two reasons: 1) They have better armor than most mobs of their level and 2) They eat everything. At first, Dog died a lot, but as he's leveled, his armor and health have shot up considerably. In fact, he has twice the health and armor of Pandarus, making him an excellent tank. Here are some general notes and observations I've made so far:
1. In most battles, I use pretty much the same system as a warlock with a voidwalker -- only I have more dps but can't use my best skills at close range. I send Dog after a target and as soon as he's in range, I [b]manually[b] order Dog to Growl to snag the target's aggro. I then use the professional mage's aggro trick. Good mages who play well in groups will pause at the start of a battle to let the warrior taunt targets a few times before nuking the heck out of the target. In my case, I manually order Dog to growl twice and then I start the barrage. Growl remains assigned as an automatic command, so he'll continue to mix in Growl with his regular attacks. I've found that I rarely pull aggro off Dog if he gets a two Growl head start. And this is true even though I twinked myself with some green engineered guns affixed with +5 damage Deadly Scopes and a good two-handed sword. (My other equipment is untwinked). I'm not sure why people think that Growl isn't effective. Perhaps people don't know to manually Growl a couple of times and wait before starting their barrages.
2. In cases where I have to pull a mob, I'll shoot once and then take a couple of hits while Dog growls the mob off me. No biggie, normally.
3. Now that Dog is able to take a lot more punishment than he used to, I've found him to be a great way to deal with adds. All I have to do is target the add, tell him to go attack it, Growl once, and switch back to shooting or swinging at the original target.
4. Ruvanal's note on Clipped Wing confuse me. I tried it out many times to verify any bugs, and it instead worked like a charm. It definitely lasted the full 10 seconds -- both the icon and the effect on the mob --, and the mob definitely ran slower than normal. It should probably slow a mob down more than it does, but it has definitely been a useful skill to prevent a mob from running off to alert friends.
5. Alchemy has been a facinatingly useful skill for Pandarus. Originally, I had just planned to mess around a little with Pandarus but essentially make him into a potion factory for my priestess. That's why I chose alchemy and herbalism for his professions rather than some more sensible hunter trade skills like leatherworking, skinning, mining, or engineering (to make crafted shot and +damage scopes). However, as Pandarus has been skilling up in alchemy, he's been finding the potions to be very practical for him. He always uses the +50 to armor buff from a minor defence potion (cheap at 2 silverleaf each for a 60 minute buff), the +27 life buff from a minor elixir of fortitude, and now lately the +6 to int buff from an elixir of wisdom. The latter one is a new one for me, but wow am I glad I tried it out.
You see, hunters use mana for their attacks, so they have a lot more in common with spellcasters and paladins than people might think. However, they don't get large natural bonuses to their intelligence as they level to increase their mana pools significantly. This is ok, because their attacks don't cost as much mana as a comparable mage or priest spell would. This has an odd consequence: +int and espeically +mana items have a greater effect on hunters than they do on mages and priests! In other words, a +6 int boost for a mage or a priest, even a level 18 one, is only a small, almost negligible, boost to his or her mana pools. But that +6 int boost caused Pandarus's mana pool to jump from just below 200 to something in the mid-240's. (I think it's 8 mana/int point, but I'll have to check to be sure). That's an approximately 25% increase in Pandarus's mana pool, which is huge. If I end up playing Pandarus to high levels, I will definitely have him wear a couple of +int or +mana items and maybe even use Elixers of Greater Intellect (+40 to int). Even a small +int or +mana boost would mean a great deal.
6. Those throw-away scrolls that give temporary boosts to one's stats are suddenly quite useful to a hunter. You see, you can't have your pet drink a potion (I tried), but you can cast a scroll buff on your pet. So any scrolls with +armor or +stamina have been very helpful to get.