It often comes to the forefront of hunter conversations that Beastmaster equates to total domination (spirit fingers and all!) in all facets. I believe now and will always believe that anyone who thinks this is quite silly. Every hunter tree can be completely effective in any area of the game (pvp, pve, etc.). Most times when I see a BM hunter I just smirk as his health drops to the floor. :) Don't get me wrong, I have tab targeted a BM hunter many times in AV only to see my health vanish during the intimidate. They ARE powerful, but so are the other two hunters! Even the hybrids!
Ok, I figured I would give some tips and suggestions for hunters as to how to fight each type of hunter! - I am sure others can use this information as well!
Beastmaster: Ok, this spec is troubling to beat for many people. The key is outliving the big red or preventing it from even occurring. If you see a BM hunter, get ready to cc that pet while you own that hunter! My strategy is usually to open with a sleep on the pet followed by a mana drain to the hunter. Then I will run up drop snakes, a scatter shot and some melee attacks. When things work out I usually feign death - fear beast here as well. Most times the other hunter is pounding the rage button so it really depends on timing. I find that inciting panic with snakes and melee usually helps me get a head start.
Remember, the beastial wrath does NOT break cc, it just prevents it. So, if you beat him to the punch, you could get a nice head start. Remember, regardless of teammate you should go ahead and mana drain other hunters. We all know how worthless we become without mana. Especially since most hunters haven't learned to do all of their arena matches in viper....yet!
Well, eventually the bestial wrath will go off and it is these moments that you must start to force the hunter to expend mana on pet heals and also line of sight him. As soon as I see the wrath I put my finger on my Medallion of the Alliance and start to line of sight while melee fighting the pet. We all know pets are annoying to fight with the getting behind you issue, but if you are using line of sight for those 18s and killing the pet, you will force the other hunter to fight a frustrating fight. Especially if you are mana draining each time he does get line of sight on you.
"If he has a healer should I mana drain the healer?" NO, you should kill his pet and and drain him, thus eliminating their source of dps. mana drain the healer if and only if you are confident the hunter doesn't have the strength to kill you and/or your teammate.
Marksman: Well, these are much different fights, but I really find it interesting to compare a full mm hunter to my hybrid build. I have more crit, they have more rap. Who wins? Well, it usually depends on the way the mm hunter fights. I tend to open with scorpid sting and they tend to open with serpent sting and the smarter ones with viper sting. I use scorpid for a few reasons: First, I may freeze trap them at some point very soon! Second, their sustained dps is going to hurt more unless I get a nice amount of extra critical hits.
I would like to give a nice hint to all you mm hunters out there. DO NOT CAST STEADY SHOT IF YOU ARE BEING ATTACKED BY A FELLOW HUNTER. I can't tell you how many times I have shot a hunter 5 times and then feign death before the steady shot got off. You are better off getting your white shots in instead, trust me.
Marksman hunters are much easier to control, but they burst a lot harder than your BM hunters AND they can sustain it. My approach is all about control. I can trap and re-trap a mm hunter all day. Then when he gets too far I can sleep him. All the while killing his teammate. If he has a pally, then things get interesting (a.k.a. he likely will hurt my feelings). I will use line of sight a lot and mana drain his pally all day, but he will porbably sustain his mana anyway and the hunter will eventually kill me. :( Honestly, your best bet is to control mm hunters and kill their teammate. They are easily controlled and usually focus on your healer anyway, thus even easier to control. Beware though! They hit extremely hard, if you aren't careful they will drop you before you get a grasp of the situation! (Oh and if you roll with a healing teammate, kill their pet, he's easy pickins and your healer can drink for days!)
Survival: "LAWL, did I just get slept?!?!?" I have never faced a Readiness survival hunter (maybe that readiness cooldown should be 2 minutes? :)). I have faced other hunters of my hybrid spec though! Mana drain, mana drain, mana drain! Do it all day, every day! Also, same as mm hunter, drop the pet, they are a sitting duck, or windserpent...whatever! This hunter really should be taken seriously I should warn. This is the trinket enforcer! Meaning, your medallion of the alliance should be very carefully used when fighting this hunter or with good timing he can ruin your day.
When I lose in arena its because of a few things: 1) I ran out of mana early due to a priest, lock or fellow hunter 2) We fight a strong paladin + anything team (mana is so hard to sustain against a pally). 3) The good ole fashioned trap resist on a melee who is crushing my soul.
To be honest, if you line of sight and tamper with their mana, hunter can be kept at bay in most cases (by a hunter with a higher clever rating of course). The hunter battle to often ends up being two guys standing eye to eye shooting til the death. Don't let the lucky crit game win the fight, outsmart that other hunter!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Friday, February 8, 2008
The pain of Arathi Basin
How do you get 14 AB marks in one night? Well, you simply go 1-11 in AB! That was my daily pvp quest experience yesterday. You know, I oddly always see it coming when AB day arrives....yet I try to hope for a lucky draw of excellent teammates! I did get such a team....on try 12 :( There is good news though, I found a good way to get decent honor while losing all day!
Let me first say, I am not in need of AB marks for anything (I actually spend them on potions to stop from capping at 100). If you are alliance in my battle group, your honor to mark ratio is not so pretty, thus I have tons of all the different marks. As is displayed in my 14 mark day while just trying for my pvp daily. Ok....I digress. More honor you say! So, the AV queue has a 10 minute wait and AB pops in seconds. Soooooo, I join both queues and...if AB is hopeless, I accept the AV queue. Is there really a moral dilemma of leaving your group behind?
Well, considering I can manage to take a base...hold it for several minutes while constantly calling for help...only to die and see zero dots near the base...but oh look, we have 8 alliance at stables and 4 fighting on the road between stables and "insert any close base here." So no, I don't feel bad doing it, though my heart gets the best of me and I passed on about every AV pop with the hope we would get it together. Amazing that after all the AB grief I still have that hope innately. In the end, I left 1 Ab for an AV, so a better idea for you, IF you have an easier time bailing on a likely loss! :)
So, I did in fact get 3k+ honor, which is remotely satisfying. Most of it came from my 4-1 AV night though. A night that saw 1 Alliance loss...a heartbreaking loss. Drek at 3% when Vandaar forget to pop shield wall (he has his noob moments I suppose). Yeah, we lost with Drek at 3%...::tear::
Hmmm...did this come off as a rant? :D
Let me first say, I am not in need of AB marks for anything (I actually spend them on potions to stop from capping at 100). If you are alliance in my battle group, your honor to mark ratio is not so pretty, thus I have tons of all the different marks. As is displayed in my 14 mark day while just trying for my pvp daily. Ok....I digress. More honor you say! So, the AV queue has a 10 minute wait and AB pops in seconds. Soooooo, I join both queues and...if AB is hopeless, I accept the AV queue. Is there really a moral dilemma of leaving your group behind?
Well, considering I can manage to take a base...hold it for several minutes while constantly calling for help...only to die and see zero dots near the base...but oh look, we have 8 alliance at stables and 4 fighting on the road between stables and "insert any close base here." So no, I don't feel bad doing it, though my heart gets the best of me and I passed on about every AV pop with the hope we would get it together. Amazing that after all the AB grief I still have that hope innately. In the end, I left 1 Ab for an AV, so a better idea for you, IF you have an easier time bailing on a likely loss! :)
So, I did in fact get 3k+ honor, which is remotely satisfying. Most of it came from my 4-1 AV night though. A night that saw 1 Alliance loss...a heartbreaking loss. Drek at 3% when Vandaar forget to pop shield wall (he has his noob moments I suppose). Yeah, we lost with Drek at 3%...::tear::
Hmmm...did this come off as a rant? :D
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Nomakk is a changin'!
Well, recently the good old in-game life has been in flux. My arena teams both dissolved due to friends quitting the game (they were casual arena teams anyway). It was a bit depressing to lose the RL friends in game, luckily they are still my friends in RL....ramble ramble ramble. I digress; the one exciting outcome of this change is joining competitive arena teams! I mean, don't get me wrong, me and my moonkin pal wanted to win, but it was about 10 games as opposed to our rating most weeks. Also, due to some donations of the aforementioned retiree's, I now have a lot of gold for the first time. Liberating and fun to just sift through BOE epics at my leisure :)
So, I found a 2v2 team pretty quick...though I think I will be quitting soon and finding myself a frost mage! I am with a BM hunter, which isn't too bad, but whenever we fight a healer+dps we lose...I doubt we ever can beat that team sadly (Bm hunter just doesn't have the strong burst of a moonkin).
Now, my new 3v3 team is much more promising! Holy Pally, cookie warlock and myself. We won our first 8 games without having previously played together! This team is exciting for a few reasons: 1) We are already 1600+ rating, which I only previously achieved once. 2) We have excellent team chemistry, so....the sky could be the limit! I will keep everyone posted on this teams progress...and their names when I finally make an "at home" post. :)
The only fun thing going on is a possible guild merger. I was sad at first, but the merger presents the opportunity to go to Gruul's, Mag's, SSC and beyond! So, in the end, we will lose our little family feel, but trade it in for a bundle of other family people that hopefully are as nice as my current guild! Cross your fingers!
So, I found a 2v2 team pretty quick...though I think I will be quitting soon and finding myself a frost mage! I am with a BM hunter, which isn't too bad, but whenever we fight a healer+dps we lose...I doubt we ever can beat that team sadly (Bm hunter just doesn't have the strong burst of a moonkin).
Now, my new 3v3 team is much more promising! Holy Pally, cookie warlock and myself. We won our first 8 games without having previously played together! This team is exciting for a few reasons: 1) We are already 1600+ rating, which I only previously achieved once. 2) We have excellent team chemistry, so....the sky could be the limit! I will keep everyone posted on this teams progress...and their names when I finally make an "at home" post. :)
The only fun thing going on is a possible guild merger. I was sad at first, but the merger presents the opportunity to go to Gruul's, Mag's, SSC and beyond! So, in the end, we will lose our little family feel, but trade it in for a bundle of other family people that hopefully are as nice as my current guild! Cross your fingers!
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