Let Hunters Pull! Part III - Finally
The act of Pulling we can define as: A technique used to maneuver a mob into a strategically preferable position in order to maximize the success of an Attack.
Pulling is a precursor to battle, not the battle itself. When a hunter sends his pet, waits for it to grab aggro, then kills the target from range, it is not a Pull; it is an Attack. Whereas a battle is begun to inflict damage upon the enemy, a pull is begun to control the enemy. But what are we trying to control?
With a Pull, we wish to direct the flow of the battle and to determine where the battle takes place. We can call this Positioning.
We also wish to minimize the number of enemies that are affected by our Pull. We can call this Damage Effect.
Finally, we wish to expose the fewest number of people to the hazards of a bad Pull and minimize the amount of time they are within this range. We can call this Exposure.
Positioning - “We want to fight the mob here,” is a good example of positioning. Getting a mob into a desired position requires grabbing its attention, or aggro’ing it, then moving its aggro target where we want the mob to go.
If a Priest runs to a mob, hits it with her staff, then runs to another position, this is a pull. It is not a particularly good Pull because the Priest may not survive the initial attack that occurs once she has aggro’d the mob. Also, because she’s being attacked, she may not be able to get to the place where she wants the mob.
Obviously, a ranged attack is the best option for a Pull as it does not put the puller at immediate risk. The further away the puller is from his target, the more time between aggro gain and potential combat, and the greatest range and chance for success of Positioning.
Which class has the greatest ranged attack?
Damage Effect - All damage causes Damage Effect (DE). When a single arrow hits a mob, it has a DE; all mobs that are within the radius of the arrow’s DE will target the source of that arrow. The more damage the arrow does, that larger its DE; an attack that causes 2000 damage will have a larger DE than one that causes 400 damage.
In order to Position a single mob when it is one among many, one must create the smallest DE possible in order not to pull all the mobs. Therefore, we want to do a very small and controlled amount of damage.
Which class has the greatest capability to deliver very small quantities of controlled damage from the greatest range?
Exposure - When performing a Pull, things can and do go wrong. Patrols, linked mobs, bugged instances, and human error can cause many more mobs to aggro on the Pull than was wanted. If too many mobs, or specific mobs you are incapable of handling, aggro the party, a wipe is the usual outcome.
One method of limiting the Exposure of the party to accidental aggro can be accomplished by removing the party from the aggro radius of the puller. If a mage runs fifty yards ahead of the party, attacks a group of mobs and dies, the rest of the party will not be attacked; you have limited the party’s Exposure. But this doesn’t really help the party either, as the mage is now dead. Surviving intentional and accidental aggro is also key to Exposure.
What would be preferred would be for the puller to have the capability to eliminate all accidental aggro in the event of a bad pull. When the party doesn’t die from accidental aggro, and the puller doesn’t die from accidental aggro, you could define it as The Perfect Zone of Ultimate Safety.
Which class has the greatest capability to deliver very small quantities of damage from the greatest range and create The Perfect Zone of Ultimate Safety?
The Hunter does. /clap
Not only does the hunter have all these basic tenets of pulling, but he has a variety of methods of implementing them:
The Solo Pull Shot - This is the basic low-damage pull shot technique. One may chose it in order to Maneuver a single mob from a group without aggro’ing the others, or one may desire simply to do the least amount of damage in order for a class more capable of holding it in Position to take over once the Pull is complete. And yes, it involves a macro:
/cast Arcane Shot(Rank 1)
/stopcasting
/cast Hunter’s Mark
Arcane Shot is an instant cast. Even if you have a maximum ranged attack of 46 yards, you must still put yourself in harm’s way by approaching the mobs. Thus, we minimize the time we are Exposed to the mobs by using an instant attack, Arcane Shot.
When we cast Arcane Shot, the mechanics of the game cause our Auto Shot to commence. In order to do as little damage, and thus minimize our DE and maximize the capability of a tanking class to take the mob’s aggro from us, we select the least-powerful Arcane Shot we have, Rank 1.
Finally, as a bonus, we cast Hunter’s mark so that we identify the target we have pulled. Also, if the hunter is spec’d for Improved Hunter’s Mark, we increase the Attack Power of people who will melee and range-attack the mob. Notice that we did not Hunter’s Mark the target before casting Arcane Shot. If we had Hunter’s Marked before firing Arcane Shot, we would have increased our own Ranged Attack Power and caused more damage, increasing our DE and the likelihood of a bad pull.
Line of Sight Pull - There are mobs who do not melee, but instead attack with spells. We call them “casters”. As they have a ranged attack, they will not run toward you if you hit them with your Pull Shot, but will instead begin casting their spells. In order to Position a caster mob, you can use a Line of Sight Pull.
Just like every other ranged class, you must be within the range and the line of sight of the caster mob for him to attack you. If you can remove yourself from his line of sight, he will stop casting and run toward you to get you back in his line of sight.
The Line of Sight Pull requires you to attack with your pull shot, then maneuver yourself so that you are out of the caster’s line of sight. He will run toward you and, when he is in the proper Position, you can pop out and send your pet or allow another class to grab aggro, and attack from range.
Pet Pull - Sometimes the mob will be located such that you can see and target him, but cannot fire at him. Terrain like rocks, hills, and slopes, buildings, walls, and stairs can prevent you from firing at a mob you can plainly see.
If you are in a party with a tank class, turn off your pet’s attacks and send your pet to attack the mob. Immediately after the mob aggro’s your pet - and this could happen even before the pet lands a hit - recall your pet. The mob will follow your pet, and since your pet is returning to you, you should maneuver yourself so that your tank can easily grab aggro from your pet.
If you are soloing, or if your pet is the main tank, leave the attacks and growl on as additional aggro is preferred.
One major sticking point to the Pet Pull is that the pet will use the path-of-least-pet-resistance to get to the mob he is attacking. He will not jump up or down, but will take stairs, ramps, and other indirect paths to his target. This could spell disaster if his path intersects with other mobs. You must take great care to ensure that your pet does not aggro additional mobs when he is away from your side.
Feign Death Pull - This is an aggro-management pull. There are certain mobs that are linked; you cannot pull one without all the others. However, this only applies to the initial aggro gain, not any subsequent aggro gain before the mobs reset. If you’ve been in the Alterac Valley battleground, you probably know that the Horde’s Warmasters operate on this principal; you cannot pull one without pulling them all using the previously discussed techniques.
If you are presented with a group of linked mobs and wish to separate one from that pack, bring your tank buddy with you to maximum range from the closest mob. Target that mob and use your Pull Shot. All the mobs will aggro and run toward you. As soon as the closest mob is within your tanks attack radius, Feign Death. At that instant, the tank must attempt to gain the aggro of the closest mob, either by attacking or using a Shout. The other mobs, if they are not aggro’d by the tank, will return to their starting positions and reset while the tank continues the Pull and Positions the mob where the rest of the party can attack it. At this point, you can pop back up and assist in the attack.
The Feign Death Pull can also be accomplished without a tank by using your pet. And yes, it certainly helps to have a macro:
/targetlasttarget
/petattack
When you Feign Death, your target is cleared. It’s necessary to reacquire it before your pet can attempt to grab aggro, thus the /targetlasttarget command. Once we reacquire the target, we tell our pet to attack the mob using the /petattack command. Pop back up, move to where you want to Position the mob, recall your pet, the mob will follow, resend your pet to attack and you can commence attacking from range.
The Trap Pull - Used primarily against patrols and wandering mobs, it has a much larger DE than an Arcane Shot (Rank 1). However, it works wonderfully as a variation of the Line of Sight Pull against both caster and melee mobs.
Place an Immolation Trap in the path of a wandering mob and maneuver yourself to where you wish to fight it, around a corner or up a flight of stairs for example. When the mob hits the trap, it will aggro the person who laid the trap; you. It will have a larger amount of aggro than if you had hit it with an Arcane Shot (Rank 1), but nothing your pet cannot pull off of you.
Conclusion - Not so long ago, a very good warrior - someone who has more WoW experience and knowledge than anybody I know - was pulling mobs in a 5-man instance and exclaimed, “Hey, I really should be letting the hunter pull. I do read Big Red Kitty, you know.” Of course, it was said mockingly.
And, off course, you know what happened next… he made a bad pull. With his Blastershot Launcher, he caused enough damage to his target that he aggro’d the Boss and his two lieutenants in addition to all the mobs that he had wanted to pull. His solution to the mess? Exclaim, “Oh Sh*t”.
We didn’t die, in no small part due to the fact that he is an amazing tank and aggro gatherer, plus the party was way overpowered for the instance, and we had a simply amazing Healadin taking great care of us…
But Let Hunters Pull FTW!
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17 Responses to “Let Hunters Pull! Part III - Finally”
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Bravo!
Hunters as a group seem to have a greater skill disparity than any other class in WoW. A poor hunter is probably the single worst teammate you could have, whereas an excellent hunter is one of the best.
I’m going to make it a point to give out a link to your blog (and the wealth of excellent information that goes along with it) to every hunter I team with, but something tells me it will be lost on a crowd that largely rolled the way they did so they could be Legolas.
I love you =P
Jw, instead of usin arcane shot rank 1, it would still be ok to use auto shot the stop because no matter what if you have a good tank he/she should be able to take it off of you quite easily no?
Good post Ill probably reccomend any hunter viewers on my blog to check yours if they like to know how to pull the “proper” way.
You are assuming you have a “good tank”
There are two problems with using:
/cast Auto Shot
1) The delay inherent in the 1st shot, while not significant, does exist
2) My auto shot typcially hits for 350 while my Arcane Shot(Rank 1) hits for 200. While 150 damage isn’t that huge a difference, should the pull shot crit, the Arcane Shot damage will be much less than the Auto Shot damage.
IMHO, maximize your Pull Shot and go with Arcane Shot(Rank 1).
Great post!
Since I started reading your blog, I’ve leveled my own hunter to lvl 31. Your stories and insights into playing a hunter make the game more interesting for me, so I’d just like to thank you for writing.
As I’m still very new to the hunter class, I was wondering if you’d be kind enough to go over the basics again, as in what stat or stats are important to hunters? So far all other hunters keep telling me all agility, is that really it?
A basic hunter building post… sure, we can do that. Thank you for the suggestion.
While we are on the topic of suggestions, what about an explanation on how to Jump-shoot?
I read a lot of posts on this but no clear explanation on how to execute it, and where is relatively safe to practice it (i.e. in which places I can practice without having to worry about aggroing errant mobs).
Also it would be nice to know what was/is the content of the hunter lessons you take other hunters on, my guild does not have this kind of training available (for any class) and I’m purely self taught (reached level 45 as hunter, my first and only character in WoW).
Hunter Lessons do include the Jump Shot. Another excellent idea for a post series, thank you.
A couple of comments from a shadow priest who has run with a beastmaster hunter from about level 20 to level 43/44…
We have a coordinated pull we use against caster mobs in situations where the pet “going in” might aggro other nearby mobs. The hunter pops the caster with a high-threat shot, and then I hit the caster with a silence. Works quite nicely.
We also ran into a problematic situation dealing with pirates in Tanaris. When we went down the ramp off of the ship, or across the planks connecting the ships, the pet would get ‘confused’ and run into the hold of the ship, with obvious problems resulting. We quickly learned to dismiss the pet in those cases, but I ran into an unsolvable problem (far as I could tell, anyway). For one of the tough fights I summoned a Mechanical Harvester (an engineer ‘temporary pet’). It had the same navigational problems, but it can’t be dismissed and re-summoned - it is just on a fixed 10 minute timer. Pretty bad bug; I just had to abandon it and run out of aggro range.
Which brings to mind the most memorable “hunter bug” we’ve encountered. There is a Horde quest in Thousand Needles to use a mechanical robotron to steal water from the Alliance moonwell in Thalanaar. I did the quest (it was a blast), then the hunter tried it. The robotron appeared, but she couldn’t control it. So she tried again, another robotron appeared, same bug. We repeated this about a dozen times, and had a little army of robotrons around us when finally I suggested dismissing the pet. Bingo! Completed the quest with no further problems.
I’m MM spec and just one lvl away from getting my covetted Silencing Shot. I intend to use this to pull casters. As they can’t use their ranged magic attacks, I presume they’ll charge in to attack in melee (their only option for 4 seconds). This should be long enough to reposition the mob and shouldn’t require worrying about line of site issues. Of course, you have to be heavy MM (41, I think), so not an option for a BM hunter.
Hey. I’ve got a question about pulls.
In the article you wrote “all mobs that are within the radius of the arrow’s DE will target the source of that arrow. The more damage the arrow does, that larger its DE; an attack that causes 2000 damage will have a larger DE than one that causes 400 damage”.
So - you pull with a lvl 1 arcane shot or concussive shot to reduce the damage effect (and hopefully pull less mobs) and to make it easier for the tank to pull aggro off you (or you FD).
HOWEVER, with the goal of lvl 70 reached and Misdirection gained, the goal now seems to be hit the mob as hard as possible. Aimed shot, max Arcane shot, AP trinkets etc.
Isn’t this contrary to what I quoted above?
also - is the issue of larger amounts of damage causing a larger aggro radius/pull documented anywhere else? I can’t find any reference to it.
Cheers.
In reference to the Damage Area theory you asked about i know no other sources for this description of it. It allways been more of a thing everyone knows. A Hunters Unwriten Rule. If you pop off a 200 arcane shot (rank 1) it will aggro less that if u pull off a 1200 aimed shot. I only know this from pure experince and specifically in Scholo and Strat when your aggroing groups that are close together and many mobs in each group. As for when u get misdirection i think BRK was talking about pulling up until you hit 70 since you do alot more instancing before then as well.
My 2 cents:
I think that you should still use Arcane Shot (rank1) as a pull shot.
Only difference is that with Misdirection you can then follow up with 2 massive damage dealers to help tank build aggro.
The _initial_ goal when pulling is however to have a small damage effect to minimize the number of mobs that you pull.
Of course, if you can go all out on the mob without risking additional pulls, use Misdirection and whatever combo you like…
I tried exactly your macro as above and the hunter’s mark always fails with the error messge that it can’t be cast yet. It looks like it the global cooldown hasn’t finished yet. I’m only lvl 46 - does the global cooldown decrease as I level up or do I need some +int gear? Currently all my gear is +Agility and +Stamina
I think - I may be wrong on this, please correct me vehemently if I am - that the /stopcasting command works like /castsequence does. You hit the macro once- arcshot1. Hit the macro again- HM. Lather, rinse, repeat if that’s what you need from the specific macro (obviously not this one, since it’s a pull macro). You have to manually wait for the GCD to cycle before hitting the macro again.
Or I’m just very confused because I’m new to the game and haven’t implemented any macros yet. I just read a lot.
P.S.- Thanks, BRK. You make the world a better place by teaching us huntards how to be hunters.
Your ideas about the “Damage Effect” sound interesting, but I’m having a hard time finding any other source to back this information up. Where can I find info or docs (official or unnofficial) about the damage effect you are talking about? I’ve tried testing it here and there with groups of mobs, but I can’t seem to find a mob close enough where the difference between my rank 1 and rank 6 arcane shot would mean the different between pulling one mob or many.
Thanks for the nice post!
I´ve also tried the macro. Can´t get it to work.
I´ve just copied the text and put in into macros.
When used: Arcane Shot rank 1 hits target, then no more.
If I press macro key again the arcane shot spammed.
// Lars.
/cast Arcane Shot(Rank 1)
/stopcasting
/cast Hunter’s Mark
What am I doing wrong?