ez-mode

Not a single day passes without us reading or hearing inflammatory remarks about hunters. We have heard them all. Our favorite is "huntards is ez-mode". Is there any truth to this?

Absolutely. The hunter class is by far the easiest class to play. We have pets to tank and deal damage, traps to control adds, and a nice reset button with the feign death ability. We stand at range and deal damage while wearing mail armor.

The reason people hate the hunter class is simple. Many hunters have no idea how to operate in a group. We often hear that "huntards are easy to play but hard to master". This makes us laugh because the hunter is not that difficult to master. The problem is you.

Example:
There is a remarkable difference in how to play a hunter whilst soling and grouping. It is your inability to adapt that makes us (the hunter class) seem inept.

The mobs in instances are marked "elite" for a reason. This means you should be trying to pull them one at a time. Consider this situation:
I've seen groups wipe because of this room. The huntard will send his pet into one of the packs. If your pet does not aggro the other pack, a runner or other party member will usually turn this 3 pack into a 5 or 6 pack. You are not in ez-mode anymore and the tactics used "on the outside" will not work inside.

The good hunter will use his abilities to pull one of the three packs into the cleared hallway where his party is waiting. If the hunter accidentally pulls both groups, he can feign death and try again.

This is pretty basic stuff but we see it far too often. A hunter who can pull and recover from bad pulls is an asset.

The dark period

All boars should have Gore and Charge, no exceptions. Boar toting hunters will eventually enter "the dark period". This period exists from lvl 24 to 48 because higher level ranks of Gore and Charge are nowhere to be found. This means that your boar's skills will be outdated for several levels. However, all hope is not lost.

Even without the higher level skills, you boar is still viable in almost any situation. The boar will be able to tank, defend, and do a decent amount of damage.

Fearstalker writes in to ask if using Bite during this period is acceptable. We approve the use of Bite if you are concerned about DPS and if you promise to ditch it at lvl 48. You can refer to our previous post for information about what skills to give your boar at lvl 50.

Personally, we skipped bite and went through "the dark period" with the lower level skills. It motivated us to reach those higher levels and gave us a nice solid reward at 50.

Storytime

The reason we love this game so much is the ability to interact with other players. Unfortunately, there are far too many knuckleheads in this game and you will eventually cross paths with them. We keep a detailed list of these jerks, what they did, and when they did it. This is a story of one person on our list.

Sometimes, we grow tired of the end game raiding and level an alt (usually a hunter). We were quietly questing one day and decided to run an instance. We joined LFG and started our search for a group. Soon after, we receive a whisper from another player. He offers to take us with him on a run and says a higher level guildie will accompany us.

Too make a long story short and get right to the meat of this story, these guys basically used us to help summon his friend. We should have known better, but decided the offer was too good to pass up. Normally, we wouldn't be too upset if he just used us to summon. However, this player, we shall call him "jack", decided to kick us out of the group halfway to the instance portal. The elite mobs quickly destroyed us and we had to resurrect. He went out of his way to be a jerk.

We scribbled both of their names on "the list" with an underline and a star. He wasted our time and cost us a little bit of money for the repairs.

Fast forward two weeks. We have been actively tracking their movements, waiting for our time to strike. And then Jack's name pops up in LFG. We login to our main. "Today is your lucky day", we whisper to him. "We have a team ready to go, just need one more".

We frantically type something about needing a tank, healer, and dps for a revenge run in gchat. Luckily we were able to assemble a team in few minutes. We are in a decent guild and they are all aware of our antics. We whisper each member and detail our plan. We want him to suffer, waste his time, and crank up his repair bill. The healer agrees to be stingy with the heals and we let everyone know that we intend to misdirect pull onto him whenever possible.

Then Jack speaks. "i really want [someitem] can i have it if drops". "take whatever you need" we reply.

The group enters the instance and Jack is dead on the second pull. Healer brings him back and we misdirect on him before he is at full health. Dead again. He pipes in and we apologize profusely for our mistake. We tone it down a little bit and continue through the instance.

We made sure he died 6 times before reaching the last few mobs before the final boss. It has been roughly an hour and a half. He reminds us of the item he wants. Then we start the dialog.

us: i remember you now jack. i knew i had seen your name before

jack: really, i dont remember you at all

us: i was on my alt. you used me to help summon your friend and then kicked me from the group halfway to the instance

jack: (silence)

us: you remember that?

jack: no

us: well, i wrote your name down

jack: (silence)

us: i'm just glad i could return the favor. I hope that I have wasted your time and caused you a nice big repair bill.

One last misdirect pull. Jack dies and we kick him out of the group. We decided to take on the last boss without him. Guess what? The item he wanted drops! I send him whisper with a link to it.

us: that item you wanted dropped [itemlink]

jack: youre a !@#&^%*( @^&

us: Enjoy the repair bill jerk!

The next day we noticed he was online again. We send him a whisper.

us: btw, tell your little friend we remember his name too :P

Macro

First we must look at the standard hunter's mark -> auto shot macro. It is the most basic hunter macro and you should already be using it. If you do not know how to create or edit macros, you can learn about it here.

/cast Auto Shot
/cast Hunter's Mark

Pretty simple really. It starts your auto shot, then casts hunter's mark. Unfortunately, there are two problems with this macro. First, if your target is not in range, this macro won't do anything. Second, your first shot does not have the added power of hunter's mark. This means that you must be in range and you will probably deal less damage.

What does our macro do? It can be used in pvp and pve to "mark" targets from 0 to 100 yds and if they happen to be in range, we begin to attack with hunter's mark active. In AB this weekend, we used this macro extensively to mark players leaving their spawn point at 98 yds. And when we were faced with opponents in range, we used the same macro to begin fighting.

The only "problem" with our macro is that it will show "out of range" and other big red error messages. To remedy, we simply add a few extra lines to hide those errors.

/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast Hunter's Mark
/stopcasting
/cast Auto Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

Original macro: range is 8 to 40/48 yd. Your first shot is weaker than it should be
Our marco: range is 0 to 100 yd. Cast hunter's mark and begin shooting if in range.

We have shared this macro with a few hunters. Some love it, some hate it.

Zurland's boar build

Zurland wrote a semi-coherent email asking for an analysis of his boar build. He also mentions his desire to rule PVE and PVP. Although his build is a little off, we feel that he is on the right track.

Boars are incredibly versatile. With the right skills, your boar will do well in PVE and PVP.

First, take Cobra Reflexes. The current "maths on the internets" confirms that the increased attack speed and lower attack power given by this skill will actually increase your total DPS. Remember, more attacks = more crits. The increased attack speed will also help you interrupt those pesky casters.

Second, drop those resistances. Here are the two "Resistance Rules" (to be used in conjunction).

1. Only take resistances when you have points left over
2. Only take resistances if you really need them for a particular encounter

Third, do not waste points on dash. No matter what. Boars use charge. Period.

Zurland's boar is currently lvl 48. I'm going to present my lvl 50 boar build as it gives us all the points we need to create our killing machine. We purposely omitted Avoidance in this lvl 50 build and we suggest that you take it at lvl 51 when enough points are available.

We can't say enough about this pet training calculator used to spec this build:
http://blogs.pixelprodigy.net/projects/petcalc.html

Passive skills:

• Great Stamina (Rank 7)
• Natural Armor (Rank 7)
• Cobra Reflexes (Rank 1)

Active Skills

• Growl (Rank 6)
• Charge (Rank 5)
• Gore (Rank 7)

Remember, you are saving for Avoidance at lvl 51 so resist temptation to train resistances.

Friday fun

Squirrel + Bestial Wrath + Innocent NPCs = BigRedSquirrel

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL1432171020070614

Who will petition blizz to make this a trinket?

By request

+5 BRB cool points if you can identify the location. Send you boar pics to bigredboar@gmail.com