Hunter = Ultimate Puller?

[Tal]

As for your pulling the aggro off of Taunshu's pets; that usually happened when I had turned off Growl and sometimes hit a Cower to pass the aggro onto another (myself or a tank) that still had plenty of hit points to absorb damage.  From playing certain tactical board games in the past, it was mor important in them to have all units damaged but surviving than it was to have say 5 undamaged units and one destroyed one.  The repairs were far easier than a replacement (often there was no replacement possible).  so in my opinion have anyone that serves as an expected off tank not ever getting hurt in encounters is a waste of abilities; similar to seeing say a paladin die with a full mana bar.  so it does not bother me to have one of the lesser mobs beating on me for a bit if it allows better safety overall and concentrated firepower on the main target at the moment.
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I'm not overly concerned about pulling aggro off either pet actually. If I had been I would be throwing more flash heals on the pet. I just feel bad when they die as I know you must feed them additional meat to get them happy again. :)

[Ruvanal]

Feign Death does not cause res sickness from what I have read (I'll have it in a few more levels to verify).
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No resurection sickness. You just stand up as soon as you move and are the same shape as when you hit the Feign Death. It is probably the most effective way for the hunter to pass aggro on all mobs over to others. Even its cool down timer suggests it use in that typically it will recycle fast evough to all it to be used by the time the group is ready to pull again, but probably not fast enough to be used more than once per fight.

For a warrior in a situation like this it might be best to be thinking along the lines of doing a charge on the led mob at the right point followed immediately by an area effect aggro generator to put some hate on all the mobs fast so it is easier for the hunter do the Feign Death quick and pass off all the attention to the warrior. It does require that both the hunter and the warrior be aware of what the other is capable of doing and that is something that seems to be sadly lacking on both sides as the disscussions even in this thread seem to be pointing to.

Blood rage is so overwhelmed by the passive heal (the HoT spells) that it really doesn't count because the warrior is going to get that spell cast on him anyway, and the HoT's are low aggro generators anyway.

I fully agree. The life my warrior has lost to using Blood Rage has always been minor to the amount that I will be loosing to multiple mobs beating on me. The cost is maybe the healer needing to throw that first HoT about 1 second sooner than if Blood Rage is not used.

[Tal]

No resurection sickness.  You just stand up as soon as you move and are the same shape as when you hit the Feign Death.  It is probably the most effective way for the hunter to pass aggro on all mobs over to others.  Even its cool down timer suggests it use in that typically it will recycle fast evough to all it to be used by the time the group is ready to pull again, but probably not fast enough to be used more than once per fight.
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This is also the most effective way for a Paladin to get aggro from a Hunter as well. =)

[Kevin]

For a warrior in a situation like this it might be best to be thinking along the lines of doing a charge on the led mob at the right point followed immediately by an area effect aggro generator to put some hate on all the mobs fast so it is easier for the hunter do the Feign Death quick and pass off all the attention to the warrior.  It does require that both the hunter and the warrior be aware of what the other is capable of doing and that is something that seems to be sadly lacking on both sides as the disscussions even in this thread seem to be pointing to.
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That sounds like a very workable plan as well. I was thinking from the defensive stance standpoint because my little warrior (L27) doesn't have anything to hold rage on stance switches yet so I think about things from the defensive stance side of things first because unless I time the use of my rage right, before changing stances, I can waste rage. :)

Heck you should be able to use a challenging shout even, since you should know that what is coming is all that is going to be there for the whole fight. With the way the pull would be set-up there wouldn't be a chance of another add, you would only be fighting what got pulled so you could use your AoE taunt early too if you had to.

I agree with Ruvanal again that a lot of this seems to boil down to ignorance of the other classes which is why I'm glad this disucssion is being held. :)

Edit: Heh, I don't really need to put my char levels in the post. Since I've only played open beta and retail my experience is pretty much all there in my sig. And of course fixing some typos.

[Olon97]

Saying taunt requires no rage is misleading. Taunt almost always needs to be followed up by an additional special attack (which costs rage) to be assured of control over the specific mob. Then there is the issue of taunt being resisted - if you're counting on it for a smooth aggro tradeoff at the beginning of each pull, you will have some pulls that don't go as planned (otherwise I'd always do single pulls with all casters unloading their best instant nukes and just taunt it off when it reaches the group).

Challenging shout is for special cases and emergencies. The cooldown is too long to really consider it a regular "in the golfbag" option for regular pulls. Also resisted at times when you wish you could count on it.

The ability to charge without charging at the mobs' initial positions (i.e. begging for an add) does offset some of the potential rage lost from initial beating. I use bloodrage every time it's up regardless of who is pulling - with the 2 talent points the health cost is negligible with or without a healer.

The only other factor here is the addition of complexity to the pull process and another step where things can go wrong. Feign death can be resisted. Disengage, I believe only reduces aggro on a single target (correct me if I'm mistaken). There's probably better and worse timing for the Warrior to jump in in terms of best re-taking the aggro. In contrast, a warrior pull is simplicity, there's no relay handoff to coordinate and the aggro is where it should be from step one. Pop a bloodrage and take a little beating and you're assured the aggro necessary to manage the situation.

It ultimately boils down to trust. If a hunter assures me they will do their best to lose aggro each pull, either through feign death or pet pulls with cower, I'll do my best to work with them. If I'm with a non-communicative hunter in a pick-up group, I am always going to politely ask to pull just to make my life simpler.

[Sir_Die_alot]

As Olon said above, warriors NEED the initial beatdown to get rage to effectively crowd control the mobs.

What happened to charge?

This is why often warriors prefer to charge into mobs if situation permits; they get both initial aggro and extra rage. If the hunter pulls 3 mobs, how the warrior is going to get them all off him without rage?

Go after one withOUT the mark then if it makes you happy (though that's a bad idea since it will usually go after you anyway if you went for the one with the mark). Remember the guy was saying the people will be waiting in this "absolute safety" zone so there is plenty of space for the warrior to use charge. If you want to complain about lost rage I would assume that since you can now charge without turning a 2 mob into a 6 one that more than makes up for the maybe 2 hits you lose to the hunter. Disengage is very effective at making something find another target and the cooldown is low enough that even if 5 are chasing the hunter (though I would say that is a feign death moment) and you *don't* manage to pull more than one off with charge they will all change their minds in just a few seconds.

He can use bloodrage for a shout, but that costs life, which costs mana to priest, which also means more aggro generated, etc.

Then don't use it. As for aggro on priests that means the tank has failed at his job, even if the hunter was pulling, you shouldn't need an early heal. But let's say it happens. Guess what? I have a pet too! Something attacks the healer, I just send the pet to attack it while using growl (which, when in parties with a tank, isn't otherwise using growl). A backup aggro sink is very useful especially if the warrior for whatever reason did not see the healer get attacked.

(pre-reply reply)
"But wait, now I'm not getting the rage I would be from the one now hitting your pet"

1:If you didn't see it happen, you don't need the extra rage.
2:Suppose I turn off growl, turn on cower, and send my pet after the one you ARE fighting? Or I could do the whole thing myself with disengage.

The Big Red Arrow ™ is not enough to make hunter the best puller. It will take either an ability to transfer aggro to tank, or an ability to pull single mobs even when the mobs are within bring-a-friend range of each other. As it stands now, hunters really have no other role then a filler in high-end instances.

Maybe you misread. It's The Big Red Arrow ™ + disengage™ + feign death™ + scouting abilites™ that made him the good puller. As opposed to guy with bad aim, lower range (assuming marksmanship talents), and slower feet (warriors have no aspect of cheetah either) using a gun.

Interesting read, but it seems the author needs to play a tank or priest to understand their point of view.

I know one point of view I got from what I did play on my warrior is that charging into battle is much preferable to shooting something with a bow/gun. Using bow/gun is the "aww crap if I rush in I'll have to fight all of them" option.

[lemekim]

How many of you even played a warrior to be a tank in an instance? I see quite a bit of lack of knowledge from some people. How many people here have been a tank in high-end instance? I am talking BRD, BRS, Scholomance, Stratholme. Regular pulls there consist of 4-5 elite mobs, or often they are a mix of 6-10 elites and non-elites. Theorycraft is nice, but it often just doesn't work. Now lets consider a simple scenario:

The hunter has to pull 5 mobs. He pulls 5, then he has aggro on all 5. Even if he disengages, they will still stay on him, because no matter how little aggro he has, the warrior has none. So, how does a warrior get them off hunter? He can get the main target off with a simple taunt/smack. No big deal. But what about the other 4?? You could polymorph one, mez one, but you still need to get the other two off him. Simplest way is to use demoralizing shout or piercing howl, which requires rage, which warrior doesn't have. Yes, bloodrage is nice, but an earlier heal leaves less time to grab sufficient aggro on the surrounding mobs (And if you think a warrior is not doing good enough job tanking, perhaps you should try and keep the main target on yourself with several dps classes are beating on it AND keep the 3-4 other elite from running after priest. Spamming taunt no longer works, and every little bit helps.)

Now you can say, what about charging into mobs after hunter pulls them? Not only this adds an extra complexity (which we know can cause mistakes), but it's not even that reliable. Often the mobs will be strung out, so you might not get all of them within demo shout/howl radius, but if the mobs resist they will not switch target to you either, even if the hunter uses disengage. Yes, he could use feint death, but then he is taken out of the fight for a short period of time, since the hunter has to "unfeint", then get certain distance away before he can use ranged attacks again. In short, you are adding layers and layers of complexity while the warrior could simply pull and have all the initial aggro on him.

And this whole " absolute safety zone" idea. There are three problems with this.
- One is as simple as the fact that often there aren't any "absolute safety zones to fallback on. Patrols/area design/respawns make it hard.
- Second (and biggest probably) issue is caster/ranged mobs. The hunter cannot reliably pull caster/ranged mobs, which are the more difficult pulls. Just how much more difficult would the above scenario be if it had 2-3 casters? Hunter has no way to bring them closer besides running back to the group. By then he has melee mobs on him and casters shooting him, and the warrior can gain aggro on one or the other, but would have really hard time getting aggro on both due to the two groups being certain distance away from each other. Compare it to a warrior pulling, where he will have the aggro right away.
- Third issue is that ranged pulls are often not needed, or even would be detrimental to killing speed/safety. A typical 4 nonelite/2 elite pull in BRD would be preferably charged by the warrior, so that he can gain and maintain aggro on the two elites while mage/warlocks kills off the nonelites. Is it faster to charge in? Yes. Is it less safe? No, not really, because the mob spawns are far apart and involve casters. Charging the group allows you to stack both melee and casters for AOE attacks, while with a bow pull you would have to deal with casters hanging back, having to fight melee first while someone else brings the casters closer, all the while prolonging the fight. Also, if we are talking about the BRD - the places that most groups wipe in aren't regular pulls, but specific areas such as Lyceum or the 7 dwarves bosses.

I will give you this - it IS safer to pull with a hunter to prevent the group wipe. But so it is with a rogue (vanish is nice, and dps is better), or any class, as long as they are far enough from the group. If they do die, well, it's just one death. I stand by my point - until hunters get some special pulling ability that other classes do not have, they will have difficulties finding a spot in a high-end group. Heck, if a Hunter had some special truly distinguishing pulling abilities, I would probably see him as one of the top choices for a group. As it stands now, there really is no need for a role of a "puller", until the hunter gets some special pulling abilities that will make pulling with him easier, as opposed to warrior pulling.

[KiloVictor]

How many of you even played a warrior to be a tank in an instance? I see quite a bit of lack of knowledge from some people. How many people here have been a tank in high-end instance? I am talking BRD, BRS, Scholomance, Stratholme. Regular pulls there consist of 4-5 elite mobs, or often they are a mix of 6-10 elites and non-elites. Theorycraft is nice, but it often just doesn't work. Now lets consider a simple scenario:

Disclaimer: Not trying to be argumentative here, but I think there are some valid points to be made for hunter pulling, and I've seen a lot of people (especially on the WoW forums) dismiss it out of hand. I think it merits some investigation & experimentation.

I won't profess to know squat about warriors, I haven't played one yet. But I'd suggest you keep an open mind about this tactic; a group I play with more and more often has just sort of evolved to tactics like this, and now that somebody's written it up, I think we'll go see if we can improve on it. Find a good hunter, brief the group on the plan, and go try it. You might be pleasantly surprised.

I don't know what talents they are using, but I know that the hunter/warrior pair that I've played with most often have developed a regular habit where the hunter pulls and the warrior intercepts the incoming mob, pulling aggro from the hunter. So it can be a regular part of group play.

The hunter has to pull 5 mobs. He pulls 5, then he has aggro on all 5. Even if he disengages, they will still stay on him, because no matter how little aggro he has, the warrior has none. So, how does a warrior get them off hunter? He can get the main target off with a simple taunt/smack. No big deal. But what about the other 4?? You could polymorph one, mez one, but you still need to get the other two off him. Simplest way is to use demoralizing shout or piercing howl, which requires rage, which warrior doesn't have. Yes, bloodrage is nice, but an earlier heal leaves less time to grab sufficient aggro on the surrounding mobs (And if you think a warrior is not doing good enough job tanking, perhaps you should try and keep the main target on yourself with several dps classes are beating on it AND keep  the 3-4 other elite from running after priest. Spamming taunt no longer works, and every little bit helps.)

I think people really don't understand how effective Feign Death is. I really only understood it after seeing it in a pick-up group in Maraudon this weekend. There were two examples that blew me away:

1) I was later than I would have liked getting a heal to the hunter, so I had to resort to PW:S first, then heal. As the shield came up, he went down, dead. I was already in mid-heal, but the spell completed (leaving me puzzled, I expected the "target is dead" error) and the hunter miraculously arose from the dead to rejoin the fight. Took me a minute to figure out that he'd feigned death, but the mobs never did - they dropped all aggro against him instantly, and when he rejoined the fight, he could uncork all his biggest shots without picking up aggro.

2) Slightly later that evening, we had a horrible pull of the gas-cloud slimes that wiped us out. The hunter was the last to go down, and just before he actually died, he again feigned death. I had a soulstone on, so I was watching the whole thing unfold, hoping that I'd died far enough back to res in safely. And when the hunter Feigned, the mobs all went happily back to their home spots. As far as they could see, they'd wiped the party, job done, time to go home. So not only could I res in the clear, I had a hunter and freshly-revived pet to cover me while I went to res the party. Very cool!

Point of all this? Feign Death seems to drop *all* mob aggro against the hunter, if it's not resisted. (My hunter buddy took the beating of his life in the early 30s, when he tried it on a group that were +4 levels above him, all he got to see was the little "resist" animation and a buch of Dwarven hammers... but that's another story :) ). So if you want to transfer aggro from the hunter to the warrior, have the warrior stand between the hunter and the mob, have the hunter pull and use FD, and the mob *should* simply lose all aggro on the hunter and then give proximity aggro to the warrior. We'll test it tonight, but the warrior shouldn't even have to do *anything* to get the aggro from the hunter, FD is so effective.

Now you can say, what about charging into mobs after hunter pulls them? Not only this adds an extra complexity (which we know can cause mistakes), but it's not even that reliable. Often the mobs will be strung out, so you might not get all of them within demo shout/howl radius, but if the mobs resist they will not switch target to you either, even if the hunter uses disengage. Yes, he could use feint death, but then he is taken out of the fight for a short period of time, since the hunter has to "unfeint", then get certain distance away before he can use ranged attacks again. In short, you are adding layers and layers of complexity while the warrior could simply pull and have all the initial aggro on him.

Again, I'd suggest you try it -- the complexity needn't be that much. The hunter gets up instantly from FD (I believe it's a channelling ability), only needs 8 or ten yards to use his ranged attacks, and can also throw his pet in to soak up anything that the warrior can't grab immediately. AFAIK, he can also direct his pet while feigning death, but I don't know that for a fact.

And this whole " absolute safety zone" idea. There are three problems with this.
- One is as simple as the fact that often there aren't any "absolute safety zones to fallback on. Patrols/area design/respawns make it hard.

The area you cleared two minutes ago is arguably the safest place in the instance. :) No, nothing is absolute, but I think standing a goodly distance back and watching for adds from behind is safer than everybody crowding into the doorway to see the next room. I've had way too many accidental aggros from that, I think it's a greater risk than a patrol or respawn.

- Second (and biggest probably) issue is caster/ranged mobs. The hunter cannot reliably pull caster/ranged mobs, which are the more difficult pulls. Just how much more difficult would the above scenario be if it had 2-3 casters? Hunter has no way to bring them closer besides running back to the group. By then he has melee mobs on him and casters shooting him, and the warrior can gain aggro on one or the other, but would have really hard time getting aggro on both due to the two groups being certain distance away from each other. Compare it to a warrior pulling, where he will have the aggro right away.

I think this is actually the biggest argument for hunter pulling. Given the huge range of hunter attacks, they're the only class (possibly excepting mages) that can stand at the absolute fringe of a ranged mob's attack radius and still hit the mob. That means they can hightail it out of range faster than anybody else (neglecting Aspect of the Cheetah, which further enchances that), and therefore *force* the ranged attackers to come to the party. In theory, he can do that without even getting hit, saving priest mana and healing aggro over a warrior who takes a few arrows in the back as he retreats. But yes, that's only theory -- again, it needs to be tested.

The other consideration is a wipe. If the group wipes back in an area that's already been cleared, rezzing & reloading is pretty straightforward. If the warrior (or heaven forbid, a rogue) charges into the mobs while pulling and dies at their feet, we're probably done for the night.

- Third issue is that ranged pulls are often not needed, or even would be detrimental to killing speed/safety. A typical 4 nonelite/2 elite pull in BRD would be preferably charged by the warrior, so that he can gain and maintain aggro on the two elites while mage/warlocks kills off the nonelites. Is it faster to charge in? Yes. Is it less safe? No, not really, because the mob spawns are far apart and involve casters. Charging the group allows you to stack both melee and casters for AOE attacks, while with a bow pull you would have to deal with casters hanging back, having to fight melee first while someone else brings the casters closer, all the while prolonging the fight. Also, if we are talking about the BRD - the places that most groups wipe in aren't regular pulls, but specific areas such as Lyceum or the 7 dwarves bosses.

I don't know about BRD, haven't been there yet. I do know that greater focus of firepower makes the mobs go down faster, and here's the biggest plus in having hunters pull: class specialization. Bear with me, this might be a longish explanation.

One of the problems that I've seen in groups is that to effectively kill mobs, you need to be directing maximum group firepower onto a single target at a time -- the "defeat in detail" tactic. So what we've always tried to do is follow the lead of the warrior, but quite often that breaks down once the warrior has to start switching targets and running around to soak up aggro. Once fire discipline is lost, you lose the edge over the mobs, and pretty quickly all hell breaks loose. Warriors are designed to soak up and hold aggro, and have great tools to do so, but the chaotic nature of that task means that they can't effectively direct the group's firepower.

Now, enter the hunter. Useless at less than 8-10 yards, but capable of devastating ranged offense -- I'm playing with a level 44 who crits above 800 with aimed shot. Maybe the best way to use a hunter once melee starts is as a fire director - calling the targets in order of attack. Using the f-keys and the /assist function, the group can follow the hunter's targeting and make short work of the mob currently in the crosshairs. Plus the hunter has an aura (Trueshot, which I think is available after level 40) that boosts the ranged attack power of the entire group, including my wand-equipped priest.

Maybe I've only just discovered that which has long been known to all around me, but this feels "right" to me -- like it's the way the class was designed. So tonight our group's going to go test this out. I think our basic strategy will be something like this:

1) hunter scouts (using tracking, calling for warlock/priest or other scouting as required)
2) hunter calls for crowd control (i.e. there will be one shackle + one poly on this pull), so the CC classes know what to expect,
3) hunter pulls, and then simultaneously
4) i) warrior goes in to grab and lock down aggro, and
4) ii) CC classes kick in the CC, followed by
5) Combat! Warrior manages aggro, hunter calls targets from range, and fun-filled chaos ensues. :D

The one problem that I can forsee is that if the hunter is going all-out on one target, he might peel that target off the warrior. But he's got a pet to assist, and the rest of us to snare the mob on the way in, so hopefully we can manage that.

Maybe our group is just late figuring it all out, and everybody else has been doing this for ages, but I think using our hunter this way should greatly increase the effectiveness of our little group.

I will give you this - it IS safer to pull with a hunter to prevent the group wipe. But so it is with a rogue (vanish is nice, and dps is better), or any class, as long as they are far enough from the group. If they do die, well, it's just one death. I stand by my point - until hunters get some special pulling ability that other classes do not have, they will have difficulties finding a spot in a high-end group. Heck, if a Hunter had some special truly distinguishing pulling abilities, I would probably see him as one of the top choices for a group. As it stands now, there really is no need for a role of a "puller", until the hunter gets some special pulling abilities that will make pulling with him easier, as opposed to warrior pulling.
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OK, if I was going to take a strongly argumentative position, this would be the point. :)

Maybe I haven't had the chance to play with a good rogue, but the rogues I have played with seem to thing that "pulling" == "ambushing and kicking the snot out of". Maybe if they were smart enough to go in and Sap one target then run back to the group, it'd be different. But rogues always seem to force the melee to be up where the mobs are, greatly increasing the odds of adds and patrols -- not to mention that they tend to die in places that make for hard resurrection. Rogues in my instance groups make me shudder, but that's a different topic -- I'm sure there's a set of team tactics out there that will take full advantage of the rogue's abilities, but I haven't yet played with one that has demonstrated them to me.

Anyhow, the main point is that I think there's a role for hunters in scouting, pulling, and (arguably most importantly) directing group firepower during melee. I think it bears invesitgating, rather than dismissing it out of hand. I've heard a lot of warrior types on the WoW boards stating that this is categorically false, and I think that's because 1) they see pulling as some sort of glory role that should be fulfilled by warriors, and 2) they're not capable of adapting tactics to make use of the assets in the group. They seem to want one consistent, repetitive way to play, which is based around the warrior being the one true puller. Yes, warrior pulling is easier for the warrior, but this might be better for the group overall.

Maybe there's another way, and maybe this is the crowd that should be figuring that out. :)

Kv

[bschultz]

I played a hunter to 60 in beta and this guy (while meaning well) is flat out wrong.

when you get to High lvl instances. it doesnt matter how you pull. the groups are linked, and no amount of waiting for the perfect time to shoot will help because if you shoot one mob in a group in say BRD they all come, no matter what (I'm talking about a group of 5-6 mobs all at once). they will all go for the hunter. and the warrior will have to peel them off the hunter 1 at a time. unless the warrior happens to use the aoe taunt, but that is on a 10 min timer. so its not a viable strat.

also the hunter feint is broken right now in that it doesnt give the hunter res sickness after they use it.

IMO this guy has not gotten to the higher lvl instances to see that this strat (while it may work for lower lvl instances) will not work end game.

[Treesh]

I played a hunter to 60 in beta and this guy (while meaning well) is flat out wrong. 
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Some things have changed from beta, as many of the CB testers are finding out. Have things changed drastically? Not really, but there have been enough changes and I've seen enough beta testers being forced to change what they thought they knew to having to use new tactics in game because things have changed enough. And this is just at the lower levels still. Yes, those higher instances are still going to be hard and no, I haven't seen them firsthand yet, but I refuse to accept the "it was this way in beta so it's going to be this way in release" argument. That kind of thinking doesn't help the exploration of the game mechanics and finding new strategies and tactics.

Edit: Wanted to clear some things up a bit. My position is that there is more to the game than just the high-end instances. Just because something may not work as well in the end game doesn't mean it's utter crap for the rest of the time. You need to be able to get to the higher levels first before you can just sit there and play in the higher level instances. The more tips and tricks and tactics you have at your disposal, the more likely you are to get to the end game without getting frustrated by bad playing groups or avoidable deaths. Sometimes it's not just about the destination; sometimes it's about the journey itself.

And the low end and middle game have changed from beta. It's even changed a bit since first day of release. Things will continue to change and the best players will change their tactics and strategy in order to adapt and not just say, "This didn't work before so therefore it won't work now".

Nothing personal against you, but it just aggravates me in general to hear people say this.

[bschultz]

Nothing personal against you, but it just aggravates me in general to hear people say this.
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Its all good, though if you look at the last line of my post you will see that i did concede that the strategy would work for lower lvl instances. And yeah the "I was a lvl 60 in beta" bit was cliched, but i just wanted to establish that I wasnt somone just talking out my rearend, and that I did have experience regarding the topic.

[Treesh]

Its all good,  though if you look at the last line of my post you will see that i did concede that the strategy would work for lower lvl instances. 
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You did, but your opening line of "this guy . . . is flat out wrong" was what I had issue with so that's what I spoke about. :)

Edit: I had issues with it because just because something won't work well in the end game, doesn't mean that it is "flat out wrong" and I thought that was an important enough idea that I wanted to point it out again (even though you did say it may work earlier in the game) so I did.

Edit2: Had to correct the first edit. :rolleyes:

[lemekim]

Early instances are easy enough so that they can be done with a semi-decent healer and without a real tank. There really isn't a need to devise any special strategies that early on.

[Ruvanal]

also the hunter feint is broken right now in that it doesnt give the hunter res sickness after they use it.
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Why should Feign Death give resurrection sickness? The hunter is faking being dead, not actually dying. Besides, unless I mistaken the only place the ressurection sickness is now applied is when one uses the spirit healer at a graveyard. This sounds like it was bug in the beta of how the skill worked, not an intended effect of the skill.

[Treesh]

Early instances are easy enough so that they can be done with a semi-decent healer and without a real tank. There really isn't a need to devise any special strategies that early on.
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How about for fun? Or as a mental exercise? Or trying to figure out what possible strength and weaknesses may be down the road? And you didn't mention the middle instances where you do need strategies and you can use different ones than for the high end instances. Is this an end-all, be-all guide of guides for How To Pull? No, not even close, but it does have some merit. Why so negative from so many people?

[Bolty]

Interesting read, but it seems the author needs to play a tank or priest to understand their point of view.
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That applies to almost all early guides written for this game. It's just too hard to play only one class and then think you know the game.

I know little about Hunters, but I know how Warriors and Priests think, having played them both. A Warrior who pulls well and maintains aggro in a fight is the most valuable thing in the world to a Priest. Warriors need rage to pull it off, and they need to get beat on.

In groups with Hunters, I've thoroughly enjoyed their pets' growl abilities to get and keep aggro, and it's easy enough for me to toss them a heal from time to time. They make great pullers. But I still think it's not the same as a dedicated Protection-based Warrior.

Hunters are better all-around characters - Warriors are ultra-specialized. This is what makes Hunters so much easier to solo with. But when it comes to the high-end instances, it's exactly that specialization that makes Warriors so useful.

-Bolty

[lemekim]

How about for fun?  Or as a mental exercise?  Or trying to figure out what possible strength and weaknesses may be down the road?  And you didn't mention the middle instances where you do need strategies and you can use different ones than for the high end instances.   Is this an end-all, be-all guide of guides for How To Pull?  No, not even close, but it does have some merit.  Why so negative from so many people?
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As instances progress, you can think of them as adding a trick or two to your arsenal. For example, you can learn how to pull in Van Cleef instance or Wailing Caverns. Scarlet Monastery teaches you about importance of crowd control. In Zul'Farrak you might learn that it might be best to actually let warrior tank. Maraudon and Sunken Temple teach you about using AoE. As the instances get higher, people add more and more tools to their abilities, but the successful completion of these higher level instances will require the use of all the tools that you learned in previous instances. In Stratholme you will need crowd control just like you did in Scarlet Monastery, and you will also need AoE just like you did in Sunken Temple.

The early instances (and I would include here pretty much all up to and including Sunken Temple) do not require "different" strategies then the higher end ones. They are simpler versions of strategies you will use in higher instances; they prepare you for these new challenges.

[Caline]

Since some people were confused about what exactly Feign is useful for, let me add that it's absolutely lovely for insta-detaunting after using Volley (AE). Let's see a mage do that, eh?

I'm not thrilled about playing with hunters (especially the white-haired night elf variety, which inexplicably accounts for 95% of the hunters I've seen. Ew.) but they do have some unique uses.

1) Between the pet, the mail, and the high, ranged burst DPS, they're extremely useful as offtanks. If mobs are on the clothies, a hunter can get them off, fast.

2) About that pet. It's pretty beefy, but doesn't really pack in the damage. If you're going up against something that spams fear (devilsaurs, pterrodaxes, Princess Theradras, off the top of my mind) or other detaunts, try keeping the pet in reserve. Next to the hunter. Who's usually plinking away out of AE range. Get my drift?

3) Remind them they have other Aspects besides cheetah and hawk. In the later game, elemental attacks are common, and resistance actually becomes useful if it's stacked heavily enough. Hunter is the game's Nature buffbot, and Aspect of the Wild is that buff. It's extremely handy in the Noxxion branch of Maraudon, Temple, and anywhere else you get swarmed with nature damage. ...was that all? Shucks.

That's a pretty short list, but... hunters. <_< If you have to use one, use it for all its worth, right?

(I'm well aware of the irony of a druid remarking on the inefficiency of a hunter in instances. Shush.)