Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Arena Segment: The Hunter vs. Hunter Battle

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!

7 comments:

Pike said...

I have seen so many hunters try to use Steady Shot when trying to fight another hunter... oh well, that's good news for me I suppose... >.>

Nomakk said...

Exactly :) Not only are you not getting hit but you are pummeling them at the same time!!

asyii said...

The biggest mistake in the post I saw was that "BW only prevents CC." That's wrong. A hunter can still activate BW even if his pet is slept, feared, frozen, and sheeped all at the same time.

To prevent BW without killing anything, you need to divide and conquer. Or CC the living crap out of both of hunter and pet simultaneously--which, even as survival, is hard to do for prolonged periods of time.

Basically, to beat BM hunters, you just lure their pet out of line of sight, kill it, and come back to the hunter. There are a lot of hunters who lack the coordination to know when to call their pet back.

Nomakk said...

This warrants testing, because I have slept pets and not had to face a BW until the sleep had ended.

Nomakk said...

The Bestial Wrath prevention is confirmed. If you cc a pet before the BW then it wont be able to be activated. beastial Wrath only breaks slowing effects.

Kordwar said...

If it's world PvP: the second you see them pop big red take off the other way. Use aspect of the beast and count to 18, get kinda far off and FD so they have to retarget you. If you're survival, freeze the pet and sleep the hunter and let him enjoy a steaming bowl of aimed shot.

Duels: Becuase i was once BM and know what works, i do whats needed. LoS the hunter and kill his pet. you'll be called cheap, you'll be cussed out, but you'll have proved that the pet can be a crutch to the guy who sits outside town and refuses to fight anyone until BW is off CD.

Bandet said...

CCing the BM hunter pet doesn't work, if they pop BW and their pet is cc'd it clears it. The right way to beat them is just run behind a pillar for 18 seconds and plant your ass on the ground, and then they are worthless for awhile, and you can do whatever you want to them, whether it be mana drain or (>^.^(>0.o)>