Hunter's Instance Role...

[Darian]

...I'm about to get to the age where I can start instancing with other Lurkers. The problem is that I've solo'ed almost my entire 'life'. I see a lot of complaints about people (especially hunters) "instancing like they are solo'ing" and thus I wonder what it is during an instance I'm "supposed" to be doing.

In the one (though I've been in a few times) I've been in, I pulled with arrows, sicc'ed my cat on them, and if they got too close, went melee with them. Pretty much what I'd do out of an instance, and thus the likely label of 'instancing like I'm soloing.'

So, what should I be doing in an instance group?
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Did I set this off with that comment in "Worst Groups"? ;)

It's not so much what you should be doing, but what you shouldn't. You may innately already understand most of what I'm about to say. Some hunters actually do, and I've been happy to have them around. And most of it is not because they suck; it's just a matter of experience. So, understanding that, some advice from a tank who's also got a hunter with two finished instances:

Things I've seen hunters do in an instance group:

1) This is the big one, and it's the thing that I was mostly referring to in my comment in the "Worst Group" post. Hunters who pick one mob on a multi-pull -- NOT the one I have targeted -- and basically try to solo it while the rest of the party does things normally, and paying no attention to any mob other than the one they've pulled until it's dead. While any class can make this error, it seems more prone to happen with hunters. On that Sunken Temple run I referred to, if there were five mobs, it was me and my two guildmates taking on three of them in the way a group would normally take on three mobs (MC/shackle one if approriate, focus on another until dead with me applying AoE taunts to keep the third occupied, etc.)... and the other two hunters each soloing the other two mobs separately away from the main group (at least until the "good" hunter caught on; the other guy never did). Note that there are cases where this could well be the apprpriate tactic -- but not very often, and generally only when the encounter is a walkover for the party anyway.

2) Open on the right mob -- but with a devastating aimed shot before the pull has actually commenced or before the tank has built up any significant hate. This is bad... you want to start with steady DPS until the tank has had an opportunity to lay in his initial aggro builds (basically at least give enough time for the tank to fire off 2-3 one second cooldown abilities. Then it's okay to open up on the main target. If you start pouring on damage too quickly, the tank will never be able to get aggro back off you unless you completely stop dealing damage (feign or just stop attacking)... and he's probably not going to bother if he's busy holding the attention of the four mobs you didn't aggro so that they don't go eat the priest. It's better to just deal a lower amount of damage steadily than to deal a whole bunch at once and then none at all. (This is because everyone would rather you stay below the tank on the hate list, but still above the squishies. Stop doing any damage at all or feign in order to drop aggro, and the squishies will move ahead of you.) Rogues are also capable of this mistake, but they learn not to do it real fast since they don't have a pet to cover for them; once they get aggro, they start getting mauled.

3) Using, or not using, volley/multi-shot in inappropriate situations. Using it when the party's fighting one elite and a pack of non-elite cannon fodder: proper. Using it on a bunch of elites: bad, unless things have gotten desperate and the hunter has somehow become the last best chance to save the healbot from being mauled by a group of mobs. Obviously, there are other classes who improperly use AoE as well, but hardly any of them avoid using it when they should use it; hunters have a tendency to do just that.

4) Traps. Ahh... grr. Don't get me wrong; I like traps. I especially like traps that allow our ranged attackers to rip the entire oncoming phalanx to pieces before they even get into melee range. Often they're just what's called for. But way too often a hunter will pull out a trap and drop it right in front of the party where it does the least good. Or they'll drop a trap when the pull is one mob and the tank is just going to charge in and start beating with no reason at all to pull the mob back TO the party. Or they'll drop a trap in the right place, but get tetchy when the tank gets his ass stunned and can't pull the mobs back over it. If you're pulling, trap away. If you and the tank have an understanding about how you're going to trap, go for it. But unless you know the layout better than the tank, it's best to defer to him on this -- because it's more important that the tank be comfortable with his pulling technique than it is for him to adjust it so you can use your abilities. (Not because the tank is an egotistical primadonna, but because a tank forced into an uncomfortable style is going to get everyone killed, almost guaranteed. If you want a tank to learn how to use your abilities, go off and duo with him someplace relatively safe and let him learn how to work with you that way. An instance is not the place for it.)

5) Pets. You can't leave your pet on defensive, and you absolutely shouldn't ever even have it in aggressive in a group. You don't want to know how often I've heard someone say they had to tell a hunter that. You have to learn how to manage your pet's abilities, mainly growl -- and it's a completely different dynamic than when soloing. (After all, solo, you always want your pet to take the aggro, because you can always rez your pet. In a group, you want your pet, just like you, to sit on the hate list behind the tank, but ahead of the squishies.) And, as someone else already mentioned... you have to learn when to dismiss your pet. Granted, this can be just as true when soloing, but failing to do it in a group kills five people, not just you.

6) Hunters who aren't used to grouping think of themselves as the tank. Our guild has another level 60 hunter who has spent almost all of her career duoing with her boyfriend, a level 60 priest. Now, it's not her "fault" she plays the way she does; she learned an appropriate method of play for her circumstances (read: keep the priest alive at all costs), and we are now having to try and train her out of it. Unfortunately, as a result when I go into instances with her, she gets yelled at. A lot. ;) The first time she ran an instance with me (a pally was with us also), she actually said "Hey, we have three tanks." Umm, no. Tankish pets are great, but they are not tanks in a group. They can't be, because they are AI and cannot react on the fly to situatons. Your pet is never going to disengage from the mob to save the priest's ass. He's never going to build aggro on any mob other than the one he's fighting. And being totally honest about it, it's not a good idea for you to change targets for the purpose of instructing your pet to change targets (which AFAIK is the only way you can control things). That means that in a group, you are not the tank. You are a source of steady DPS who also has a few evil tricks to pull out of your bag.

Summing up, hunters can be and often are important parts of a party. (The group I drove to 60 with included one, and he had to learn all of the above at one point or another, and he's always welcome to come with me anywhere.) A hunter who knows his stuff in a group is awesome. But there are a lot of challenges for the previously solo-driven hunter to overcome, precisely because they are such an awesome solo class.