Hunter PvP Tips For Thursday: Gouge my Ass!

That's right My Ass! Today I'm going to go over a few tips for fighting rogues. I'm sure alot of them are common knowledge to the PvPers out there but hopefully one of you takes a good skill away from this post.

So rogues, they're stealthed, they stun and slow and blind and have good tools to mitigate your pet as well as your own snares. How can you beat them? Well literally a BM hunter should always beat a rogue. BW nullifies all of the tools rogues commonly use to win VS hunters. All you need to do is time your CD well and you will do OK.

But!

BM doesn't fare that well at the top levels of arena and an Imp Stings/Silence/Scatter hunter is far preferred to help healers out. So lets do this from a marksman perspective. I'm going to go over several situations in a Hunter VS Rogue Duel then some tips for 2v2 Hunter Healer vs Rogue Healer.

Step 1: The opening - Your worst nightmare the rogue with 2 merc weapons has challenged you to a duel. You the underpowered utility mana drain DPS versus the melee with all of the tricks! He's stealthed you can't see him yet what the heck are you going to do? Use your tools young hunter-san!

• Track Hidden - "Greatly increases your stealth detection" What really happens is that stealth and detection work like weapon skill and have a rating. Track Hidden, Paranoia and Perception all increase this by 30. Engineering helmets by another 5. Essentially with track hidden on you are looking for stealthers as though you are level 76. If you have an engineering helmet (great item until you get an arena one good mix of dps with nice stam) you're a 77. Now a good rogue will know this and will not be found easy but if you see him and remove his ability to get a Cheapshot on you. You've started the fight ahead!.
• Flare Up! - Plop down a nice big flair with your trap in the middle. Make it so a rogue cannot disarm your trap easily in stealth.
• Use a frost trap initially - Many rogues expect a good old ice cube when they make their opener and will use cloak of shadows to immune it. This doesn't work on frost traps since they are not a single target effect but an AOE giving you some kiting room to work with and wasting his 1minute CD.
• Pet - Put your pet on stay aggressive at one edge of your flare. If your pet detects the rogue it will make noise and pursue helping you avoid letting the rogue get an opener. Once the rogue is discovered put your pet back on passive. THIS IS A MUST HOT KEY THIS ISH! If you don't you will not be able to use scatter and freezing traps reliably.
• Run Around! Spam Scatter! - Don't stand still letting the rogue pick position. Run in a circle around the fringe of your flare, let your stealth detection work and spam scattershot. It will automatically hit the rogue if you detect him. This also makes it much harder for the rogue to get into position for a good opener.

Step 2: KITEEEEE - Through your sweet defensive strategy you took the opener away from the rogue and he is running around for 4 seconds scattered maybe even over a frost trap. Get your pet on passive send him in and turn on his poison. Keep that rogue from getting a vanish off and resetting the fight. Pet skills do not use you GCD so get a mark and a concussive shot up on him at the same time. Now don't back away. Practice as long as it takes and get yourself trained in jumpshotting and run directly away from the rogue jump rotating 180 degrees to shoot him.

Step 3: React to his abilities - If the rogue sprints immediately turn and scatter him to waste his CD and keep him off you. If scatter is on CD pop deterrence and wait to get away. Spam wingclip pull your pet off and drop a freezing trap use this macro!

/cast Freezing Trap (Rank 1) Save the 50 mana CC only lasts 10 seconds in pvp
/petpassive
/stopcasting

Now some specific Tips:
- You were deadly thrown and a rogue is going to catch you. He is not stealthed. His next move is to hit you with a gouge to stop you, Regen energy and continue to kill you. The trick? Gouge needs you to be facing the rogue. So run towards him, Jump, Rotate your ass to the rogue, Spam wingclip. Once you are through the rogue run back around and continue kiting! SEE GOUGE MY ASS ROGUE! :P

- If a rogue vanishes immediately flare near him not near you to destealth him to prevent another opener.

- If a rogue sprints immediately scatter shot him and drop a freezing trap to waste his CD.

- If you have a rogue at range and he evasions (flash and rogue becomes partialy see through) do not stop and do any dmg/concussive shot him. He will be avoiding 50% of your pets hits and 25% of yours forcing you to waste mana and CD's. Drop a frost trap run directly away and if safe pop AOTC to get more distance and outlast his CD.

- Rogues have great mobility, if the rogue is not stuck in a freezing trap do not use steady or aimed it is going to cost you your best resource distance.

- Scorpid poison and snake traps are also good tools vs rogues as they keep them from stealthing and rogues have no way to AOE down your snakes to stop their dmg. It will often get them to waste trinkets/evasion/CLOS

- If you are stun locked, DO NOT USE YOUR TRINKET UNTIL Kidney Shot is done. Use it only once you have a real chance to get free. Wingclip and a frost or freezing trap down. If you use it on a cheap shot he will immediately gouge or KS you keeping you in his range.

GL People!

2.3 What Does it Mean for Hunter?

So here's my review of our changes on the PTR. I'm also going to go over what I think should have been changed.

• Pets will try to get behind their targets when engaging in melee combat - This change is great for PvE more dps and less parrying for pet dmg. It is also going to remove that threat of resetting the bosses swing timer from a parry. PvP no real worry. It will down warrior and rogue mitigation a bit from the pet but the travel time is going to negate that anyway. In arena your pet is only useful to help you protect your viper sting and often gets gibbed by smart teams. This really isn't going to help me much unless I go into kara/gruuls pugs since I don't raid anymore. HAHA SCREW YOU BLIZ NERF MAI DST I NO GO TO YOUR SSC NEMORE! (lul)
• Aimed Shot (Marksmanship) now reduces healing done to that target by 50% for 10 seconds - Ok first off I l0ve the idea of having more to contribute to a team and this is an awesome tool. Rapid fire and off a fast aimed shot when clear, silence a healer for 3 seconds and drop someone this is great. BUT. Its a copy cat skill. Melee is the healing debuffer right now (warrior and rogue). Shouldn't it stay that way? I'll be happy to use this shot again (I haven't since the ages old nerf to it in 2.0 or so). I think its going to help hunters out tons in getting 5's representation but it isn't a good tool for 2's and doesn't address hunters main issues of having their dps shut down easily and vulnerability to taking a ton of dps with very little mitigation (lol chain mail).
• Arcane Shot (Ranks 6 and above) now dispel 1 Magic effect in addition to their normal damage - Ok this change is AWESOME. For arena. It is going to give hunters in 2v2 a way to beat warrior pally reliably. When the warrior gets BoF... gone! BoP? Ef You BoP!. The problem I see with this? People are going to flip the hell out in BG's. Now BG's aren't arena you don't really need to be intelligent about the use of your abilities. I throw arcane shots out every time its up. I'm marksman, I have a nice stack of AP self buffed and it hits. So lets say I throw out 20 of these per death in a BG. You know that fel armor you just used? Yeah, well don't bother buffing it cause its gonna get reamed. I guarantee it. PWF, or better yet party buff using a reagent? Thanks for spending money so I can pwn your buff for 202 mana. I have a feeling people in BGs are going to freak when this happens. I agree that its going to be a pain. Hunters are going to purge the ever living crap out of you because its our main source of instant dmg especially if you're BM and do not have the multishot improvements.
• Explosive Trap: The initial damage dealt by this trap is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power - Cool for being annoying in AV. Cool that now hunters really don't have any reason for saying QQ my abilities don't scale unless I get some random spell DMG buff. This is cool. But I don't use explosive trap in PvP. Often :P
• Immolation Trap: The total damage dealt by this trap is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power - Now this is cool. Is there a dispeller alive on the opposing team? No melee so your frost trap isn't that effective. They have AOE to ruin your snake trap push back festival? Drop this 980 DMG will now be roughly 1200-1300 making it semi beneficial to use as extra DPS when your other traps are not benefiting you vs the opposing team.
• Misdirection: This spell will now always be removed correctly if multiple Hunters overwrite each other's Misdirection - Good PvE buff but not really needed 100%. If you're in a raid group and you and your other hunters cant figure out a system to avoid MD overlapping you need to stop raiding. A Tip! /join yourguildhunter (6), /6 misdirecting %T onto %F Do not misdirect for 5 seconds please. /target focus /cast misdirection /targetlasttarget
• Readiness: This talent now finishes the cooldown on Kill Command - Lawl Oh kay so I use my 5 minute 41 point talent to reset the 5s CD on KC. Good fix but utterly useless. I don't know who figured this out I never noticed it.
• Serpent Sting, Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap all gain additional damage based on ranged attack power - Way to double post nubs!
• Trueshot Aura (Marksmanship) no longer costs mana to cast and will last until cancelled - Awesome I may have mana after I die in a BG!
• Wyvern Sting (Survival) is now instant cast and has a maximum duration of 10 seconds in PvP - I still don't think survival will do well in arena but now maybe 0/24/37 or similar can work?
• Last One: Hunter Mele range now 1-4 yards and ranged attacks 5-35(41) IE bye bye dead zone - This removes the 1 way we are shut down. But! Doesn't fix the issue of pillar kiting. I still play like I have a DZ on the PTR so I'll have to adjust to this change.

So whats missing? These are awesome buffs to hunters and hunters will be seen more in 5v5s but! They aren't a good solution for the real issue of hunters. First off hunters can get shut down easily. Our only answer is to patiently wait for a good target to unload into or for mele to force a target into a bad position. The range of 1 yard would be too much but would fix this allowing us to chase around a pillar.

Our other issue is mitigation. Warlocks have their own HOT/Drains as well as SL, mages get ice block, shammys druids pallies and priests can heal, Rogues have CLOS and vanish, warriors have defensive stance shields(when needed) and spell reflect. Hunters have marginal dodge/parry (lul overpower and rogue talents), deterrence (lol overpower) OK armor but not enough to make us a hard target for a warrior to take down and a maximum of 4% reduction to magic dmg taken available only deep into a tree that is ineffective in arena (survival / survival instincts). What would help hunters? A way to avoid magic dmg. Heck leave us as we are for mele we're not that poorly off. My suggestion?

The old rumored Imp Feign Death - (0/2) Survival Requires 15 points in survivalist talents. reduces the chance your FD will be resisted by 2/4% and gives feign death a 50/100% chance to remove all magic debufs and movement impairing effects from the hunter.

Increase the cooldown on Feign Death to 1 Minute. This won't break pve. A smart hunter should be waiting on threat anyway in a raid. This won't break PVP either. Does CLOS break rogues? No its what they need to survive against caster classes that they are supposed to beat.

Other things bliz could do as opposed to mortal strike shot? Give us something unique! Make Tranq shot reduce rogue energy/warrior rage for 10 seconds. Make disengage disarm an opponent. Hunters primary function in pvp is to shut down opponents abilities (drain mana, silence, frost trap kiting) focus on this strength don't make me into a ranged warrior with a purge!

Now don't get me wrong I'm happy we're getting a buff. But I'd rather something unique and something that fits with a hunters bag of tricks. A dispell and a MS are really not it but hey. I feel sorry for you buff classes :P