I'm frustrated and done with trying to make Hunter work in PvP

Classes Hunter
1

Hunter is the perfect class for me personally, because it checks off EVERYTHING I want to have as a main… Except it lacks one CRUCIAL thing, which makes it unplayable in PvP… :face_with_head_bandage:

:point_right: :point_right:Survivability :point_left: :point_left:

We have:

  • Feign Death + Survival Instincts, on 30sec CD (which is “okay” :neutral_face:)
  • Roar of Sacrifice, on 1min CD (a minor dmg reduction :roll_eyes:)
  • Exhilaration, on 1.5-2min CD (literally our ONLY self-heal… :poop:)
  • Survival of the Fittest, on a WHOPPING 3min CD :exploding_head:
  • Aspect of the Turtle, ANOTHER WHOPPING 3min CD :exploding_head:

It might seem like “a lot” listing out 5 defensive CDs… But honestly… These are all designed around VERY short fights, using Hunter glass canon builds… :neutral_face:

Keep in mind that we have NO self healing… Once we press SotF or AotT, we have 3 LOOONG minutes until they are off CD again… And Exhilaration is just a normal healing spell, which heals as much as a single heal cast, from another class that has SPAMMABLE self-healing spells…

“But Hunters have traps” … I hear people say… :clown_face:

Traps are only useful in very specific situations! For example:

  • Trapping 1 enemy in a 1v2 fight.
  • Trapping enemy player pets.
  • To trap and knock people off cliffs, killing them with fall dmg.
  • Trap in order to run away because we are loosing…

Thats it! :point_up_2: We CANNOT use traps in 1v1s to benefit us in ANY way!

EVERY melee class in the game nowadays, have ways to stick to you if you attempt to kite. Whether you use traps or not. :melting_face: All traps do, is delay time for your CDs to get back up again… And guess who else is benefitting from this?? YOUR OPPONENT, who ALSO has spells coming off CD. :upside_down_face:

Traps in 1v1s are ONLY useful in combination with some sort of healing spell, like SV Hunters Mending Bandage PvP talent. :point_left: Which btw is now USELESS, after the “DoT removal” was removed from Feign Death, since it’s a channel that breaks on damage! :angry:

Because guess what… EVERY class in the game has DoT spells nowadays!! :face_with_head_bandage:

(I can feel myself get increasingly more frustrated, as I type out this topic hehe :sweat_smile:)

And no… Getting more healing through pets, like the 10% leech, or through Tenacity pets, is apparently not the way, since Cunning pets are “the PvP pets”…

So yeah… Hunter is in DIRE need of a rework, to work in PvP, outside of making glass canon builds… :confused: I’m sick and tired of trying to make Hunter work, and I’m done with the class until it hopefully one day gets a rework…

I’m DONE trying to make a broken class work.

I have spend 2 months now trying to find a new main, and I hate it, because I know for a fact that Hunter is perfect, except this ONE issue.

3 Likes
2

Hey,

I understand your frustration and I also think hunter defensives must be buffed. That being said, I can probably give you some tips and tricks. You should be able to beat all melees except for maybe sub rogue, if they are good, in 1v1 in the open world, battlegrounds or arena.

  1. Always use a Tenacity pet, cunning pet is not so useful as it was in the past. Fortitude of the bear both increases your max health by 20%, and then heals you for 20% of your max health. So if you normally have 1mln health in PVP, it gets to 1.2mln, and then 20% of it is 240K heal.
  2. Always use the Emblem PVP trinket

Use this macro to self-heal:

/use Verdant Gladiator’s Emblem (or whatever version of the emblem you have)
/cast Fortitude of the Bear
/cast Exhilaration

F.e. on my hunter, when I use Emblem + Fortitude of the bear, my health becomes 1.6 mln → then Exhilaration & Fortitude of the bear heal me for 600K and 300K respectively or something like this, and I also get the Exhilaration hot, so even if you’re 1% health when you use the emblem trinket, fortitude of the bear and exhilaration, you heal back to full.

To mitigate damage on yourself:

/cast Survival of the Fittest
/cast [@player] Roar of Sacrifice

Makes you immune to crits and you take 40% less damage.

Then depending on your spec, there are different strategies vs melees 1v1, and it will take hours to write them all down here, so I’ll give you the basics

  1. As Survival - you must abuse the fact that a lot of your abilities do not break scatter shot. These are explosive shot application, death chakram, bomb application, kill command. For example, your combo is: Explosive shot → Scatter shot → Chakram → Bomb → Intimidation → Second bomb → Flanking.

Sometimes when warriors/DHs duel me in valdrakken and I kill them in the opener they can’t understand what happened.

  1. As MM - you must learn to use Bursting shot, tar trap and steel trap for kiting. Your opener combo vs most melees should be: Sniper shot → Binding Shot → Chakram → Salvo+Volley → Rapid fire and they usually must use all defensives or die in the opener.

  2. As BM - just run around and let the pets kill them

Good luck with your hunter adventures!

3 Likes
3

I just wanna say first… Thanks for being understanding, and not condescending (as typical with the WoW community hehe). :blush: I have seen you inside the Hunter forum often, and you are always trying to help out, so I appreciate it. :slight_smile:

I have used the Badge of Ferocity up until now, for extra damage. But you are probably right, that a defensive focused trinket is probably better. :slight_smile:

Regarding the pet, I have tried the Tenacity pet, and felt it gave better results. But because EVERY… SINGLE… GUIDE… says “use cunning pets for mobility”, I ended up committing to it, since I wanted to do what it takes to get Hunter working. :sweat_smile: But you are probably right about the extra healing being better, and honestly… I used Fortitude of the Bear more often, and found it more useful than the cunning pets Master’s Call… :man_shrugging:

I have probably been so desperate in trying to get Hunter working, that I ignored “what felt better”, and just went with “guides”… :sweat_smile:

Now that I think about it… “Guides” usually focus on PvP content like arena or BGs, with a healer backing you up… Which in that case makes cunning pets make sense… :man_facepalming: But it’s completely different for “solo PvP”…

I’ll grab the macro you gave me, and try it out. :slight_smile:

Wait… So I can use 4 of my main abilities, and NOT break Scatter Shot…? :sweat_smile:

I’ll definitely save that combo, practice it, and give it a good honest attempt. :+1:

I have tried making MM work, after giving up on my SV Hunter. So I will experiment with the tips you gave me, for both of those specs. :slight_smile:

Thanks a lot! :blush: I’ll spend my day trying out the advice you gave me, and hopefully feel like Hunter is MUCH easier to play. :slight_smile:

4

Hey, happy to help!

Let me elaborate about scatter shot:

  • applying explosive shot does not break it, the explosion itself does
  • applying wildfire bomb (initial damage hit) does not break it, but the first tick of the bomb dot will break it
  • death chakram does not break it neither with the application, nor with the hits that follow

However, if you have the “Master marksman” talent or whatever it’s called nowadays (your abilities’ crits create a bleed), the small dot from this talent will break the scatter.

The best combo is like this:

  • Explosive shot out of stealth (because during scatter shot you only have 2 GCD, so you can only use 2 abilities before the scatter is over) and you can’t fit everything in the small window and something has to go first, before the scatter
  • Scatter shot: at this point the enemy has the explosive shot debuff which will explode in 2 GCDs time and are affected by scatter which will also end exactly at the same time the explosive will go off
  • Death chakram (will not break scatter unless the first hit crits, and then it will create a dot and after 1 sec or so the dot will break scatter)
  • Wildfire bomb (will not break scatter) with the initial application

By that time scatter shot is over and the explosive shot goes off

  • Follow up with intimidation
  • Wildfire bomb
  • Flanking strike
    So this is your opener combo from stealth.

Regarding tenacity vs cunning pet, there are a couple of things to factor in:

  • In the past melees had only 1 or 2 gap closers, so after they used their gap closers, they had to just run after you, and it was a big advantage to have master’s call, because you could slow them, and prevent them from slowing you. This way you can run fast and they stutter-step after you. Today however, this is no longer the case. Melees have a lot of gap closers on a very short cooldown. If you slow them and use master’s call to run away, they simply will charge/fel rush/roll again at you or use the second death grip or second divine steed, or second bladestorm etc. and will still catch up to you. They will not simply run after you as several expansions ago. So your master’s call will be much less valuable
  • In the past Posthaste did not exist, and as a hunter you had no other ways to get out of roots/slows so Master’s call was mandatory. Today you have disenage+posthaste on 20sec CD, and this will be your primary way to get out of roots/slows.
  • Master’s call has more value in arena when you have a healer, and you can use it on the healer to free them from a slow that would hinder them from coming to your aid, or from a solar beam + root combo from boomy druid, or you can use Master’s call on a team mate to free them from frost nova and thus prevent the frost mage shatter combo, as their abilities do a lot of damage vs frozen targets.
  • But for general PVP, especially solo PVP, tenacity pet has a much greater value, because of the huge synergy of Fortitude of the Bear, Emblem trinket and Exhilaration.

Also, what you must have in mind, and I did not mention earlier, is that all pet abilities are usable while you are stunned (but the pet itself is not stunned, as the abilities are carried out by the pet, not by you directly). This means that you can use Fortitude of the bear while a rogue f.e. has you stunned. Thus you get a 20% heal while you are stunned, and 20% more max health during that time. Combine this with Roar of Sacrifice, which you can also use while you are stunned, and you can live most stun bursts when you have these 2 CDs available.

This is how I would usually fight a melee as survival:

  • I would start with the scatter shot/intimidation combo, described above
  • Then after intimidation is over and they can attack me, I use Roar of Sacrifice + Survival of the Fittest immediately and go into my burst rotation (use all big CDs - coordinated assault and spam kill shots). This creates immense pressure on them and you take very little damage.
  • When they get me to about 10-20% health I use the “heal combo” and get to 1.6mln health with a full health bar basically
  • And you still can use turtle if you are still in danger after that.

Cheers

3 Likes
5

Okay so a quick “first 15min update”.

I have gotten the trinket you recommended, set up the macroes, gone through the burst a few times on dummies, and then went to the Emerald Dream PvP zone area to try it out.

First impression is VERY successful so far. :slight_smile: Survivability has gone up be quite a margin, from what I can tell. And the burst is overwhelming people, and forcing them into going defensive.

Went toe to toe with 2 different Rogue players, a SPriest, a Shaman (he was a bit undergeared though), and a Druid.

I managed to win every encounter, and could even continuously jump from one person, to the next. Which was an issue beforehand, since I felt dependent on the 3min CDs from AotT and SotF…

But because I now have 2 additional heals (trinket and FotB), and I can do a BIG portion of my damage during Scatter Shot, it feels much better. :slight_smile:

It’s a bit early to tell if this is just me “being surprised that I’m winning fights”, or if this is a “permanent improvement”, but I just wanna say that I greatly appreciate the tips. :slight_smile:

(Just noticed your new reply hehe)

I’ll keep your replies open on my second monitor, and use them as a guide throughout the day. :slight_smile: They are INCREDIBLE help

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Happy to hear this! Hope it’s a “permanent” improvement :wink:

About a month ago Snupy (a famous streamer) organized a 1million gold 1v1 tournament and Bicmex won it as survival vs all top players. Of course, players like us are nowhere near Bicmex :smiley: but it goes to show what the spec is capable of in the long run at its highest

2 Likes
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6 hours later, and I gotta hand it to you… Those tips worked GREAT. :slight_smile:

I’m defeating classes that I couldn’t do anything against previously, like DHs, Locks, Shamans, Druids… Basically anything that had self-healing, since they just had to “outlast me”. :sweat_smile:

And even chain killing groups of 2… Which is kind of crazy seeing that I couldn’t get ONE player 50% down in health last I tried. I guess I was too focused on “how to stay alive”, so that it had the opposite effect. :grimacing:

Even crazier, while most I fought were the same gear level as me, some were much higher too. :slight_smile: And out of the (around) 30+ fights I engaged, I might have died only 3 times.

I still think it feels a bit odd, that Hunter relies so much on “tricks”… Like knowing that you can deal damage during Scatter Shot, and combining pets and trinkets… Where as other classes like my Evoker, can just “play normally” and do perfectly fine. :sweat_smile:

I know that Hunter is a high skill cap class, but I figured it would be a bit more straight forward hehe. :slight_smile:

Either way, now I have a good starting point thanks to you, to give me hope that Hunter is “maining material”. :blush: Hopefully it will get a small rework to its defensives in the future, so “tricks” aren’t required, but for now it’s somewhat manageable. :slight_smile:

1 Like
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Niice :slight_smile: good to hear you’re having fun!

Now that you know the main “tricks” for fighting melees, here’s another one - this time for casters :wink:

It’s a thing you can do every 1 minute.

If some caster is about 30% health, here is how you can shut them down and potentially finish them off:

Chimaeral sting → into Intimidation (immediately after the Chimaeral, next global)

Chimaeral sting applies 90% slow for 3 sec, then silence for 3sec, then 20% reduction for 3 sec.

But, if you trinket/remove one of the effects, the next effect applies immediately.

So what happens when you cast Chimaeral sting into Intimidation? They will be stunned for 3 seconds, and by the time these 3 seconds are over, the silence part of Chimaeral sting will silence them. But the important thing - if they trinket the Intimidation stun, the trinket will also remove the 90% slow (first part of Chimaeral sting), and this will make the next effect in the chain apply immediately, which is the silence :wink:

So if they don’t trinket, they will be stunned for 3 sec and then silenced for 3 sec.
If they trinket the stun, they will be silenced immediately.

So either way they are helpless. So you have about 5-6 seconds to just damage them freely and kill them :smiley: super strong vs any caster

2 Likes
9

the explosion itself doesn’t break scatter shot :eyes:

4 Likes
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This is the man who taught me, and probably most of the community, all of this stuff :wink:

All credit to Bicmex! Always answering questions in his discord and sharing the knowledge!

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Defensives being on 2-3mins cooldown is ok. What bugged me while testing the class were the burst cd being long. I just don’t like that.

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You have a burst window every 45 sec as all 3 hunter specs.

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Oh cool! :grin: I’m gonna give that a go too then. I spend the last few days practicing the tips you gave previously, and am still having much success with it. :blush:

I decided to give Hunter the mantle of “main”, and will be playing it alongside my Evoker, seeing that I actually feel like survivability isn’t a big argument against it anymore. :slightly_smiling_face:

Of course more healing, like maybe Mending Bandage for every spec, and it only breaking on direct damage (not DoTs) would fix a lot imo. But the point is that Hunter doesn’t feel “unplayable” anymore. :joy: Now it’s just “hard”. :sweat_smile:

14

I followed the tips provided by Mewithoutyou (pets, macros, Emblem) and it has already made a HUGE difference to my survivability as BM. I don’t just fall over to Warlocks and SP anymore and I’m staying alive much longer in fights where I have more than one enemy on me so :pray:

2 Likes
15

Great to hear!

Tomorrow, with the 10% stamina increase to all DPS roles in PVP as part of the PVP trinket buff, you will have an even bigger value from Fortitude of the Bear and Exhilaration, as these scale with max HP, so you could expect even better survivability :wink:

3 Likes
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I love this effect in Shuffle and arena too, they wait for intimidation and after they free realizes cant do anything. If you pop it to healer you can turn them off for 12 sec at least with trap and this combo Usually I wait for this cc chain until they use trinket, after it I burst them with CD’s.
Most of the time if the healer have to trinket at ~50% hp, this 6 sec need to be enough to delete any class. (except rog maybe :smiley: )

2 Likes
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Combine this with Soothing Emerald Tea and you will have trouble dying to anyone in world PvP.

19

Just wanted to pop in again, and say thanks once more. :slightly_smiling_face: (OP here on my Hunter)

Since you helped, I have still not had any self-healing issues. In fact, I feel that Hunter is MUCH easier to play defensively with, than let’s say a Druid. And utility wise it is EXTREMELY fun to see the frustration on people in PvP, who play classes that has very little utility. :joy:

Funny how a mindset shift, and a few tricks, can change everything. :slightly_smiling_face: Thanks again, I’ll main this going into TWW.

1 Like
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Hey, I’m really glad you’re having fun on your hunter!!!

Needless to say, I’ll be maining mine as well in TWW! :smiley: :wink:

Every time I play an alt and try to “Feign dead” or “Disengage”… I realize how much I miss my hunter :smiley: haha

1 Like
21

Same :rofl: I’ll jump off a cliff with my DK, and have a second of panic before I realise I can’t disengage.