“Dear BRK … I am … having difficulty pulling and chain trapping simultaneously.

“I find it to be much easier in situations where I am required to trap to have the tank pull, and then just peel my soon to be frozen mob off from the pack to some secluded location safe from healer aggro and all other possible distractions, and let the freezing fun begin.

“Is there a way to BOTH pull and chain trap on the same group of mobs? … I guess what I want to know is whether or not my having to CC is a legitimate excuse to let the tank pull in most circumstances, or if I should try to do both. Ursantile and Ammit”

Ramparts. Where does everybody wipe? At the end of the very first bridge when you have to make that around-the-corner pull and avoid the orc-and-two-dogs patrol, that’s where. The tank runs across the bridge, marks the pull, then proceeds to make his pull exactly when the patrol is standing right beside him. He body pulls the patrol and fires his ranged weapon at the marked mobs… wipeage ensues.

If only the tank had Feign Death.

Well he doesn’t. He shouldn’t be there. Let the hunter make that pull. Everybody stands at the other end of the bridge while the hunter marks and pulls the mobs as the patrol goes away. The hunter places a trap at right under his own feet, he pulls, he runs back to the rest of the party. The mobs run, one of them gets trapped, the tank grabs aggro from the rest of the mobs, the party burns them down safely away from the patrol. The trap breaks, the hunter has his next trap ready, chain-traps FTW, and the tank eventually picks it up.

Simple.

More complex, you want it? OK, how about…

The Misdirect-Cancel and Trap Pull

You have four mobs, like a standard pack in Steamvaults, and the hunter is going to Misdirect pull. Drop the Freezing Trap, throw MD on the tank, target the Blue Square - or whatever raid icon you use for indicating a trapped mob - and the hunter gets into position to fire his Pullshot Macro with his left hand on the macro button. With his right hand, he places the mouse cursor where the MD “buff” will appear in the upper-right corner of his UI. When the party is ready, the hunter fires his macro:

/cast Arcane Shot(Rank 1)
/stopcasting

Now all four linked mobs head for the tank. The four mobs were linked; once one mob was aggro’d the other three were too, automatically. However, this link breaks after an initial aggro. Once the link is broken, you can peel one of the mobs off by exceeding the threat it has on the tank.

So the hunter then right-clicks his MD “buff”, which turns MD off, and then fires his optional Pullshot Macro:

/cast Distracting Shot
/stopcasting

Arcane and Distracting shots are immediate and do not share a cooldown; they can be fired right after the other. Since the hunter canceled the effects of Misdirection, any threat he causes will be his own. The to-be-trapped mob is aggro’d by the hunter as the Distracting Shot causes more aggro than the tiny Arcane Shot-threat that was MD’d onto the tank.

The to-be-trapped mob runs at the hunter and gets trapped while the other three mobs keep on truckin’ to the tank, to be dealt with however the party previously devised.

Sweet? It’s like swatting a fly with a Maytag; not always the best approach but f-ing-A it’s impressive.

Is it necessary for a hunter to both pull and chain-trap? Nah. If you have a competent tank who can avoid drinking noobjuice and just pull the pack of mobs you need after patrols go away, you’ll be fine. The “Let the tank pull and the hunter will peel one off” method of pulling is much easier and, like the Moroes and Maulgar fights, sometimes a much smarter strategy.

Can a hunter pull and chain-trap? You bet your bippy. When Blizz fixes the double-trap bug, you will even be able to pull and chain-trap two mobs.

We once spec’d SV for Blood Furnace and were able to pull and triple-trap. Get out there and practice; it’s the only way you’ll learn.

Edit: Instead of right-clicking the MD off, just add a line to your optional Pullshot macro:

/cancelaura Misdirection
/cast Distracting Shot
/stopcasting

+5 BRK Cool Points to Erwinor for that bit of awesome-sauce.