Hunter Instance Guide

The Hunter in Instances

Pet Management

* Make sure your pet is on passive, fights will descend into furballs and you will lose track of your pet. Also, this is a great way to get yourself booted from a raid or party. Keep your pet on passive.
* Note, the one and only exception to this rule is dealing with Area of Effect mobs.
o You only have two Area of Effect attacks and your pet can retarget faster than you can (keep your pet on passive). In this single case is it acceptable to put your pet on defensive, and only when you are positive you can survive the pounding you are going to receive.

* Don't send your pet in until the mob is fully pulled away from any adds and make sure you do not have your pet set to automatically taunt. It is bad to pull the aggro off of your main tank, it makes it tougher for the healer of the group to heal multiple targets. Your pet does not have the damage mitigation of the main tank and will require more of your healer's mana and attention to keep him alive. When/if the pet dies, any mobs that he was aggroing will propagate to the next highest source of threat and if the healer has been doing a lot of healing, it could migrate right to them.

* In most cases, you and your pet will make for a great offtank role (moreso when you have achieved the ability to use mail armor at level 40). Your pet's taunt will easily help to pull mobs off of the softer cloth wearing members of your party, just remember not to activate it for automatic usage.

Tracking

* Use your tracking skills to alert the party of any incoming patrols.

* Use your tracking skills to safely check if the area is clear of mobs when needed.
Pulling

* Hunters make great pullers, however don't assume you'll always be pulling, as in most groups the warrior will be pulling. However in the cases where your group agrees to let you pull, do not stand where you shoot. After your initial shot, you should back up to pull mobs back through your group. If you do not move back, you have negated any point to you being the group puller.

* Pulling with Misdirection on the main tank is also quite effective. You should also notify the main tank before doing so. Redirecting threat caused by your next 3 attacks on the target to the tank easily secures the tank on the mob, but remember that you can't use misdirection for every pull due to the 2 minute cooldown. It can be ideal for certain bosses in higher level instances too.

Traps

* If you're using a Freeze Trap, make sure you specify in some way which mob will be drawn into the trap so your party members will know not to attack it. You may choose to say not to attack the one with Hunter's Mark on it, or to assign a symbol to indicate the mob will be trapped. Also note that, especially as Hunter's Mark increases ranged attack power against that target, it's typically easiest to mark a mob and tell your party to attack it. Then, pull with Concussive Shot to slow it down to make sure one of the other mobs reaches the trap first. Alternatively, get your party leader to put a Lucky Charm on the mob designated for being trapped.

* Traps can now be placed in combat and take 2 seconds to arm. They also have a cooldown before you can place another one. Now hunters need to find the best strategies to integrate traps into normal combat operations. (left next sentance for tips) (A hunter with experience in in combat trap usage can probably tune this paragraph up)
With the changes in burning crusade you can crowd control 2 mobs easily, first mark mobs accordingly: one to be trapped, one to be off-tanked, one to be killed first, another to be sheeped, etc. Before doing the pull, lay down the Freeze Trap and wait till the cooldown on the trap is about half way finished. Whichever mob you soot first will start running to you before the rest of the group gains social aggro, with practice you will see how much distance the mob you want to trap can have from the mob closest to you. If you shoot a mob that is all the way to the back, you can quickly change targets to the mob closest to you and concussive shot it. You can even do distracting shot, wait a few seconds and pop silencing shot on a caster mob to have it run straight into your trap. With some practice it is easy to change targets before the first one reaches the trap (so as not to break it) and send the pet to off-tank a second mob. Be sure to grab some aggro on the mob you trapped, move away from the group and lay down the second trap as soon as you can, once the first trap breaks the mob will go straight for you and get trapped again, at this point, the first mob should be dead and you can kill the mob the pet was off-tanking. Just be ready to do silencing shot as soon as the trap breaks if you are CC'ing a caster. If a healer gets aggro after the first trap breaks, distracting shot is your friend.

To split groups, have your group stay out of range from a group and out of range from a path you will run back. Get close to group and put a frost trap on the ground. Shoot a mob in the group and start running away from your party, they should not do anything but stay out of aggro range from the mobs. The first mob to reach the trap will be frozen in place. Run for about 15-20 seconds and then feign death. The frozen mob will reset and reach it's starting location at which point the tank can pull it whil the rest of the group 'evades' its way back to their starting position. Just make sure to get it away from aggro radius before the rest of the group resets.

* (deprecated as of 2.0.1) Maybe you've heard about the Feign Death + Trap combo. This works because if you and your pet are not fighting anyone (attacking or being attacked) and you Feign Death, you leave combat. As you stand back up, you are still out of combat, and can lay a trap. Use this to your advantage to re-freeze an enemy in crowded situations or drop an Explosive Trap for some good AoE damage.

* On the same note, when you use Feign Death, your health and mana bars drop to nothing as if you were really dead. This can give your healers a heart attack, so you may wish to make a macro that alerts them in party chat that you are, in fact, not dead and will be getting back up as soon as the action around you cools down.

* Learn how to set up and properly execute a Perfect Zone of Ultimate Safety. Know what to do when a pull goes bad and be prepared to educate others.

Working with a Hunter

* Don't think you can pull better than he can. Nothing draws less aggro than rank 1 Arcane Shot, you can't outrange him, you don't have a pet to sacrifice, you don't have Disengage and you can't Feign Death when the pull goes horribly wrong. However many hunters do not know how to use these skills, so do not be afraid to teach them this, or tell them to let the main tank do the pulling.

* Those cute little blue things the hunter is always placing on the ground are Freezing Traps. They affect the first mob to come within range. Do not attack the first mob to come around the corner if you see the hunter laying one of those down. Attack the second. Do not put a DoT on something that may become trapped. Wait to choose your target.

* A good hunter can use their Detect skills, traps, Eyes of the Beast, Eagle Eye, and Hunter's Mark to plan and setup a pull before it begins. If they ask you to not attack until the mobs reach a certain point or to go after a certain mob first (usually indicated by Hunter's Mark), it's usually a good idea to listen to them (unless of course they're bad at this).

* Learn how to set up and properly execute a Perfect Zone of Ultimate Safety. If a pull goes bad, leave the pulled mobs alone. The hunter should be able to abort the pull and the mobs will go back where they came from. If the hunter dies, the mobs will also go back where they came from (if left alone), and the hunter can be resurrected to try again.

* It's important to remember that a Hunter has a minimum range in which to perform his attacks. Many players who suddenly find themselves the target of a mob may instinctively begin to back up. This does not help your situation at all, but you may be pulling a targeted mob out of range of the Hunter's abilities. A Hunter can not attack while he his moving backwards to put more distance between himself and the mob you are pulling backwards. If you still feel you need to continue to move around in panic, make sure to avoid bringing mobs out of a Hunter's range.

* Do not assume a Hunter's pet is meant to be a tank or hold aggro. There are some Hunters who do not teach their pet any rank of Growl. If you intend to work a Hunter's pet into your plans, inquire as to what it's abilites are.

* If the hunter is not pulling, and you are, please be considerate of hunters when you pull; always try to give them at least 10 yards from them to the mob at the position of tanking. Remember to Line of Sight into consideration too. Hunters are severly gimped in their damage dealing if you force them into a space of less than 8 yards; they must melee or be stuck in their deadzone.