Focused Fire and Frost Traps - Do You Stink?

BRK » 23 March 2007 » In Guide, Spells »

What is the concept of Focused Fire? Class? Anyone? Bueler?

Focused Fire is the strategy of directing all dps on a single target, controlling all other mobs so they do not destroy the party, eliminating the one target, then moving to another.

Control of the mobs that are not the target of Focused Fire can be accomplished via polymorph, sap, freezing trap, mind control, banish, seduce, fear, shackle, entangling vine, off-tanking, or multi-mob tanking, (is that everything? Probably some Shamen thingy I don’t know about, right?)

So how can a hunter contribute to the success of Focused Fire beside bringing large quantities of easily sustainable, ranged DPS?

Well, we mentioned our Freezing Trap. Unfortunately, Freezing Trap is the shortest duration of all the crowd-control techniques, it requires the mob to be brought to it instead of a the crowd-control device being delivered to the mob, and it can be difficult to bring a specific mob to a Freezing Trap, especially if a member of the party interferes with the pull.

So how do we use the Freezing Trap in an instance to provide the most efficient Focused Fire? Let’s discuss.

For the purposes of this lesson, we’re going to put a build a party and put it in an instance. However, for simplicity, we’re only going to identify three participants. Don’t freak out, don’t panic. Yes, you’re never going to run Shadow Labs with a three-person party, but we’re studying Instance Theory; bear with me.

So let’s build a three-person party. How about we start with a hunter, then add a mage, and finally a warrior. What crowd skills do we have?

Mage Molymorph
Hunter Freezing Trap

Problem. In our fantasy instance, we come across a pack of three melee mobs. It is our desire to control two of the mobs and allow the warrior to tank the third while the hunter and mage unleash Focused Fire upon the tanked mob. We are also going to assume that our warrior is incapable of tanking more than one mob at a time, and that the hunter’s pet is incapable of off-tanking. Again, this is Theory work, people; hold yourselves together.

Mark your targets for the desired result. When BRK is running a party, Skull will be the main tanks and DPS target, Circle is Sheep, and Square is Trap. Now these three mobs are linked, so when you damage one of them, they will all come at the puller. Since we have three melee mobs, when pulled, the mob that is closest to the puller will arrive at the puller first. Therefore, this is the mob we want to trap; he gets the blue square mark.

We pull, the squared-marked mob hits the trap, is frozen, the circle-marked mob is sheeped, and the skull-marked mob is picked up by the tank. DPS commences, the skull goes down. The trapped mob is the next target. Trapped mobs are always the first of the crowd-controlled mobs to gain its freedom, so always be prepared to take it immediately after the primary target has been killed.

Trapped mob is engaged by the tank, DPS commences, and soon you have two down. Sheeped mob is killed, and you’re done. Nice.

Problem. You incorrectly gauged the distances to the mobs, or one is faster/slower than you expected, and the mob you wanted trapped isn’t, but the mob you wanted to kill first is. Hopefully, you told your party that Trapping is an art, not a science. Sometimes you get the desired result, sometimes you don’t. Hopefully you told your party to be prepared for an inaccurate trap and to pick up the other mob instead of not adapting to the situation and breaking the trap. BRK likes to tell the party over vent, “Square, tank Square,” so the party is on the same page without having to guess.

Problem. You’re pulling casters. Let’s swap our three melee mobs for three casters. In this case, the first mob to be out of range of the puller will be the first to come running at the puller; the caster mob most likely to be trapped is the one furthest away from the puller. Ain’t that a kick in the pants.

Problem. You have a mix of 1 caster and 2 melee mobs. BRK recommends always sheeping the solo caster and trapping one of the melee mobs. Whichever melee mob does not get trapped should be tanked and spanked.

Problem. You have a mix of 2 casters and 1 melee mob. Since you know the melee mob will come running right to the puller, he is more easily trapped. Sheep a caster and tank and spank the other.

With four, five, six, and sometimes seven mobs to take out in some instances, you will not be able to ignore the hunter’s ability to Freeze Trap. If you, as a hunter, cannot master this skill, the party will be just as happy to take an Imp Sap rogue in your place.

Have you practiced Freeze Trapping lately? Go take on two mobs at once using Freeze Trap as your crowd control. Kill yourself a few times solo before you kill your whole party in an instance.

Guide, Spells | March 23, 2007

Comments

6 Responses to “Focused Fire and Frost Traps - Do You Stink?”

Anonymous on March 23rd, 2007 10:25 pm

i know this is not the best way to do it but i was in a group with a mage a warrior a druid and a priest(just to clear this up it was a pug and i had no say in it) but they marked the mobs the mage would sheep pull after that i pulled one mob to trap and the warrior got one the druid got one and if needed my pet got 1 and it went well only 3 wipes and 1 was ALL me(went to set a freeze trap and hit pet attack button duh)

as for solo if there are 2 mobs i lay a freeze trap send pet to get agro on one and use multi shot to pull the other one to freeze trap witch works well if the trap works

adrus
Grimshar on March 24th, 2007 1:56 am

Especially soloing, you could also use concussive shot on the mob you DON’T want to trap…
Lass on March 24th, 2007 5:08 am

Hehe, as a MM hunter, it’s easy for me to get the right caster in the trap on a multi-caster pull. Two words: Silencing Shot.

Stops the target caster from dealing ranged damage, and causes him to run right at the trap. *Freeze* commense the sheep and tank+spank.
Excaliber1 on March 24th, 2007 11:31 pm

You know what I hate? When I freeze the monster, but some lock/mage/other hunter put on a DOT on it and it breaks the trap..that just pisses me off..
albino on March 26th, 2007 2:33 pm

One thing to note: If your trap target is running towards you, switch targets already. Nothing says “DOH!” better than the hunter breaking his own traps. Autoshot is not smart enough to not shoot back at that frozen victim. Sometimes you need to pull with something stronger than Arcane (Rank 1) and if you do, autoshot will re-enable itself. Tab till you see the skull mark and DPS away.
J on May 4th, 2007 8:34 pm

God, I love Freezing trap, to the extent that it’s the only trap I have hotkeyed (well, Frost trap too, freezing trap jr — 3/3 entrapment ftw). I use it religiously when mobs are too close to separate — sometimes just to CC one of them for 20 seconds, sometimes to split them apart completely…. You should totally do a “how to split mobs” post.