That’s The Way We Like It
BRK Non-WoW Thought of the Day: Who the <bleeping> <bleep> took our eyedrops!! Oh. Here they are. /doofus
“Dear BRK…why would a mob exit a trap (wasn’t broken, trap just expired) and go for the tank, and not me? Happened several times during the run. You can’t gain aggro on a mob when it’s still in the trap, right? Can a mob be taunted while it’s still in there?
“It seems that at best you’re going to be able to do 3 traps before you’re sitting there taking a beating waiting for the fourth trap to cool down. That right? Are most hunters expected to trap a mob twice, or three times, or more?
“How do you guys work trapped mobs into the kill order? We’re doing them after saps and seduced mobs, but before sheeped mobs. Same for you? I know a sapped mob can’t be re-sapped, but with the longer length of sap, would seem to make sense to take down the trapped guys first. How do y’all do it? Paul”
BRK Emailing Etiquette Update. No double-spaces after periods, period. Don’t make us get uppity. Just knock that cr@p off right now.
So what causes aggro?
-When you damage a mob
-When the mob damages you
-When the mob “senses” healing
-When aggro-generating abilities are used against the mob
If a mob is trapped, nobody is doing damage to it and it is not doing damage. Simple.
If a mob is trapped and a healer is standing right next to it, spamming heals on his party, the trapped mob will indeed have an aggro-gain on the healer. Healing-aggro is proximity-based. If that healer stands far away from the trapped mob, the mob will not “sense” the heals and the healer will not rise on the trapped mob’s aggro list.
Hunters have the job of trapping away from AoE attacks, but healers have the job of not standing right next to trapped mobs.
But what happens when you see that priest standing on top of the trapped mob, spamming heals and getting trapped-mob aggro? Did you know that a hunter can fire a Distracting Shot at a trapped mob and not break the trap? Sure can. Distracting Shot does no damage and thus will not break the trap.
You trap your mob, nice and pretty, but your healer decides to stand right beside it and do his thing. You yell at him to move, but he isn’t paying attention. You, Captain Smart-Hunter, stop firing, retarget your trapped mob, smack it with a max-rank Distracting Pull Shot:
/cast Distracting Shot
/stopcasting
You’ll rise above the healer on the mob’s aggro list! Retarget the Main Tank’s target and resume MQoSRDPS. When the trap breaks, the mob goes for you, not the healer, you chain-trap and prevent a wipe.
How many chain-traps should you be able to perform? We would say Three is the number.
Pull and Trap (1)
Trap breaks
Re-pull and Trap (2)
Trap breaks
Re-pull and Trap (3)
Tank breaks Trap.
Being able to perform a triple-chain-trap is not required for most pulls, but for Moroes it could be mandatory, like in our BRK Hunter Guide Movie. Anything more than three and your guild owes you a great big, tall, frosty glass of Now That’s A Hunter! juice.
In what order do we take down crowd-controlled mobs?
Skull dies first. Anything else is Wrong.
Sap is second.
Trap is third.
Fear is next.
Roots/Shackle are next to last.
Sheep/Banish are last, unless the mage/warlock dies – a frequent squishy-occurrence – in which case this mob moves to the top of the list; a hunter can chain-trap if necessary, a dead mage cannot re-sheep.
Now if a sheep/sap/etc goes bad, the hunter can double-trap. Only one un-tripped trap can exist at a time, but multiple mobs can be trapped at the same time.
Your assigned mob is trapped, nice and proper. Sap breaks early, the MT is not ready to handle it. You, uber hunter extraordinaire, target the “sapped” mob, hit it with Distracting/Arcane and get its attention, drop another trap away from the healers, pull that mob into it, ka-ching, you just earned your pay for the day. Tell the MT, “Handle square first, I’ll chain-trap circle until you’re ready.”
/accept accolades
AC took Ego and Company into Tempest Keep, bought them a nice dinner and showed them a good time. Three bosses down, one silly wipe on Al’ar. We didn’t die at all! /score
Void Reaver is doable in its current incarnation, that much is certain. Harder, yes, worth the effort, we think so. Hunters, watch for the bombs and if they come at you, turn away from the boss and run toward the wall. After the bomb explodes, turn back around and re-engage the boss. Losing ten seconds of DPS-time is much better than dying.
Will Ego have a commentary on her first 25-man raid with her new guild? We can only hope!
Christopher on 06 May 2008 at 8:55 am #
What’s your beef with double-spacing after periods? Are you suggesting to me that both Mavis Beacon AND Mario, typing tutors par excellence, would lead us astray?
Alhana on 06 May 2008 at 9:04 am #
TJ is awesome!
doodler on 06 May 2008 at 9:14 am #
i c wut u did thar
WB on 06 May 2008 at 9:14 am #
So the question was “why would a mob exit trap and go for the TANK?” Which is an interesting albeit weird choice for the mob. Two thoughts. Tank is within melee range and has demoralizing shouted (which produces small aggro). And/or the healer is a priest and has cast whatever heal spell that generates healing threat at the tank. (don’t remember the name, but makes a cool golden arc and a sound that “bongs”. Tank takes damage, is healed, and the arc goes back to the healer.) It probably has to be this one - Demo shout just doesn’t generate that much aggro.
Presumably, the hunter that trapped hadn’t damaged the mob much, and the healing threat on the tank (not the priest) pull aggro to the tank. Which is a pretty cool effect, although it didn’t allow for a double trap.
Also, the trap must have broken earlier, or the tank is really uber, because the priest had less threat than the tank and must not have been healing much.
EDIT: One other thought - a tank can sunder a mob while in the trap and not break the trap. A couple of sunders is a ton of threat. It’s a great tank trick and indicates your tank knew what the heck he was doing. Again, must be in melee range. This one seems like the most likely of the three.
DesuDesu on 06 May 2008 at 9:17 am #
Dear BRK…why would a mob exit a trap (wasn’t broken, trap just expired) and go for the tank, and not me?”
Answering from the tank viewpoint:
There’s a few reasons this can happen. Several heals (Lifebloom’s final tick, Prayer of Mending, Earth Shield, etc.) count as healing done by the tank, which will generate the heal-aggro mentioned by BRK. Also, if your tank is a paladin, the mana regained from Spiritual Attunement (mana back from being healed) generates aggro as well.
Also, and for the same reasons as distracting shot, tanks can taunt the target while its in the trap. I do this before I deliberately break the trap to keep the mob in front of me rather then running past me to try to eat the hunter’s face.
Finally,If you’ve had to feign death and the tank did damage to the target before the trapping, he’ll likely get the mob back if the priest hasn’t been standing in the trap healing.
Mancer on 06 May 2008 at 9:35 am #
As far as I know heal aggro does not effect Trapped Mobs, I say this as a someone who has played a hunter and a healer. I can pull a mob with Auto/DS/Arcane (max of ~4k threat for me) and the healer does > 10k healing (not a huge amount for Heroics) and the trapped mob will still come after me once the trap fades. Try this with a druid Rooting a mob and see if it goes after the tank due to Prayer of Mending/Lifebloom/Earth shield heal aggro from the MT; HINT: it will chase the healer not the MT since Roots doesn’t incapacitate a mob enough to make it ignore threat moves.
How does a mob run after the tank once its trapped? Easy, the Hunter used Feign-Death while the mob was trapped, it resets the mobs aggro (one of the very few things that will effect trapped mob threat that I know of) and once the trap breaks it runs off to the the only other person on its threat list: the tank that pulled.
It is possible to Taunt mobs that are in Sheep/Shackle/Banish (yep, I’ve played a Tank class too!) and move the tank to the top of the threat list.
–Mancer
Doogie2K on 06 May 2008 at 9:37 am #
Also, if your tank is a paladin, the mana regained from Spiritual Attunement (mana back from being healed) generates aggro as well.
Also, they have a multi-target Taunt.
As for kill order, we rarely have traps out, but when we do, they usually go down after everything else, because we seldom need more time than three traps to take out the rest of a pull. (And we may be the only guild in WoW to do X first, Skull last.)
CL_Gnatt on 06 May 2008 at 9:40 am #
TJ is awesome!
(for those who are wondering look for the bolded letters…)
Nice work TJ!
Kirk on 06 May 2008 at 9:51 am #
ooookay. Setting aside the silliness of doublespacing after a period (my rule - ALWAYS, as that’s what I learned when learning to type [mumble] years ago), I need to fix your healer aggro error. Because you’re going to get some poor healer killed.
A heal is cast. Aggro points are 1/2 the points healed. Aggro points are distributed between every mob engaged - and yes, that includes trapped, sapped, banished, etc.
Each mob has an aggro table that includes every player and pet in your party/raid. At first, the highest on the table is George (I will hug him and squeeze him…). If someone is on top of the mob, they can become George by getting more than 110% of the current George’s aggro points on that mob. If someone is at long range, it takes 130%. We know BRK knows this, he’s written of it many times. But let’s look at it with the healer.
If the healer is on top of the trapped mob, he will become that mob’s George if his healing is (2.21 * number of mobs) above the trapper’s aggro. If the healer is at range, he can do (2.61 * number of mobs).
If the healer isn’t standing on top of the mob, he’s got less chance of stealing aggro from you the hunter. But if the tank’s getting hammered - or if the healer is having to cast chained AoE heals - then it’s still going to pull from your trap.
Decado on 06 May 2008 at 9:54 am #
Hmm, not much more to say about the aggro issue I think that has been covered well.
About the chaintrapping the most I have ever had to do in a row was 5 in the Moroes fight, we lost one of our shacklers early (a shadowpriest) and I picked up his target when it went for the healers. It just happened that it was the target we were due to kill last (after Moroes)
then again I had the 2 piece beastlords set bonus as well as being 17 points into SV for clever traps and trap mastery (26 sec cooldown and a 26 sec duration FTW).
Nifen on 06 May 2008 at 9:58 am #
More confirmation that a tank can taunt a trapped mob. I do it all the time (paladin tank). Also, I personally put banishes at just below trap priority when deciding which mob to take next. Like traps, and unlike sheep/sleep/shackle/roots, there is always a brief second where a banished mob is free to wreak havoc before the CC can be reapplied.
Pike on 06 May 2008 at 10:00 am #
I double-space after periods. >.>
When I run something with my guild they pretty much always leave trap for last, no matter what. It can be some gigantic pull filled with shackles, saps, sheeps, seductions, you name it. Trap is last. “Cause Tawyn’s got it”, they say. Makes me feel good… <3 but it can be nerve-wracking at times. And it does rather gimp my overall DPS. It’s okay though, I love trapping. (Even though I hate when things randomly resist the trap. Grr.)
It is kind of funny though, if we grab a PuG they invariably run to the trap first thing assuming we’re gonna get trap and then we don’t. Heehee =P
Kirk on 06 May 2008 at 10:00 am #
I see Mancer says healing doesn’t affect trapped mobs. I disagree, and I offer a test any hunter can do.
Pick your mob - preferably one that will HURT your pet in either a burst or with a DoT. Set a freezing trap. Send your pet to the mob with all the special attacks off, and immediately recall it. It should do minimal damage, but take more. While the mob is trapped and while staying close, heal your pet. So long as you had to heal 221% the damage your pet inflicted on the mob, the mob should attack you when it comes out.
Note, of course, that if you’re going to fully test this you need to ensure the trap alone doesn’t change aggro.
Mancer, if you did 4K damage and I’m long range from the mob AND we’ve only got one mob, I can do 10.4K healing before the mob comes for me. If it’s two mobs (one tanked, one trapped), I can do 20.8K healing before I pull from your 4K damage.
Aradel on 06 May 2008 at 10:01 am #
As a bear tank, I frequently get a swipe in on a trap target before it is trapped so that I am next on the aggro list if the hunter has feigned death and the trap breaks. That’s probably what is happening.
I don’t think a healer gains aggro on a trapped mob. What happens is, if the hunter has feigned death, the tank has zero aggro on the trap target, and the trap breaks, then it’s most likely the very next aggro creating ability will be an HoT tick. Hence mobs’ annoying tendency to trot on over and smoosh the healer.
My advice if you are running with a tank that tends to pull aggro on your trap mobs is stand a ways away from the tank and take advantage of it. It should not be hard to pull it off the tank with a distracting shot and have it waste it’s time running across the ground to the tank and back to your trap.
Kind of cool idea about hitting a trapped mob with distracting shot, never considered that.
Decado on 06 May 2008 at 10:02 am #
curse me for not editing fast enough, I was far enough into SV for resourcefullness at the time, trying a survial build for expose weakness.
Ended up going back to BM but the neverending chain trap was nice while I had it.
Guy on 06 May 2008 at 10:02 am #
One: I double space after all my periods. All the time. Every time.
Two: The mob is going to go somewhere after the trap if you FD. What prbly happened is this guy FD’d, his trap broke and the tank body pulled or grabbed the mob with a shout.
Adrus/Redhunt on 06 May 2008 at 10:11 am #
I am pretty good at trapping 3 times the problem i have is timing. They pull way to soon wile i am waiting for cool down or they pull to late any my trap is gone before the mob gets to me. But most of my groups are pugs and you cant tell them anything.
Fiain on 06 May 2008 at 10:17 am #
Always. Double spacing after a period is mandatory. Always. Them’s just the rules, and less optional than not ending sentences with prepositions. Silly dorf!
Macbane on 06 May 2008 at 10:17 am #
Screw the trapping - here’s what I rant about. Double-spacing after periods is outdated, outmoded, and simply unnecessary. It harkens back to the days of manual typesetting and typewriters when it was thought that it made typed, monospaced text easer to read. But somehow it got hardened into a Law of Keyboarding, which is misguided. Yet people will defend it mightily, in my experience, as if giving it up somehow invalidates everything they learned about keyboarding. And I’ve told many, many people not to do it anymore. It’s testimony to the power of elementary school teachers…
Look at any book or web site - you never see double-spaces after periods. And yet we’ve been reading these books and pages without a problem for a long time! In fact, if one starts adding the double spaces and step back to look at what’s been typed, it looks odd - like huge holes have been poked out of the paragraphs.
Bottom line - don’t swallow everything you’ve ever been taught, be skeptical. Question authority. Break the habits.
No double spacing after periods.
Baseball on 06 May 2008 at 10:21 am #
Not double spacing after periods is grammatically incorrect — it’s as bad as spelling it “pheonix,” “rouge,” or “foilage.” Making these grammatical mistakes shouldn’t bother people who think “lf2m heroic MrT, need cc” actually makes sense, but claiming that double spacing after the period is wrong is… wrong. =)
I’m having a hard time swallowing that global healer threat is affected by the same 110% / 130% threat rules on mobs that dps is. I’m not refuting it, I’d just need to see EJ links verifying it since it is contrary to my experience.
afallach on 06 May 2008 at 10:26 am #
Tanks can taunt trapped mobs, my warrior has made it a habit to taunt a trapped mob before I slap down a devastate. Doing it any other way and a devastate will not generate enough threat to get you to the top of the mobs threat list. Of course, poor hunter does not FD right before a trapped mob is getting picked up by the tank so it charges off to said hunter.
A lesson I learned when playing my warrior and one I carried to my hunter, FD right before the trap is broken by the tank people. Too soon and you kill a healer, too late and the tank is chasing the mob.
Flaime on 06 May 2008 at 10:32 am #
Not double spacing after periods is grammatically incorrect
No. It’s stylistically incorrect. Punctuation is not a matter of grammar, but rather of “style” or “style-sheet” in the original sense of the term. It is also a vestage from the days of manual typewriters. Professional journalists and writers of papers for academic publishers are really the onlys ones who have a reason to adhere to the practice anymore (in that it is still often required of them by publishers because they want the double space after the period for their electronic typesetting, so it is usually included in their style requirements).
Kelektra on 06 May 2008 at 10:35 am #
We all know TJ is AWESOME. However, if we’re to believe what the bolded letters say, we see TJ is AWEME….
AWHUT?
Crofe on 06 May 2008 at 10:43 am #
The first thing I thought about was asking if the tank was a paladin. Since their taunt is multitargeted, if the hunter who was trapping pulled aggro on the kill target and the Paladin taunted it back, he’d get the trap as well. It’s all situational, but that is one explanation.
@Baseball - I don’t see why healers would be an exception to the 110% / 130% rule. It’s percent of threat, not percent of damage. Healing causes threat and therefore they are susceptible to the rule.
As for kill sequence it’s situational. If Skull gets burned quick and sap is still in effect, jump on trap and then I can trap Sap if it breaks while we’re fighting the old trap. If we have two un-CC’d mobs, sap normally runs out before both are dead and so the original trap target is kept on ice longer. Sheep should always be last if the mage is still alive as it’s the easiest to reapply and if the mage knows what they’re doing should never be not sheeped (barring early breaks and resists). I have no problem having to kite a trap and I actually hate it a lot when a tank sees trap up and taunts it even when he’s still got 1-2 mobs on him (and yet typing this I know I’ve done just this on my Pally Tank, but they’re different. . .it’s boring and less efficient if there aren’t at least 2 mobs on me :))
@Kelektra
Look again
. . .dinner and *s*howed them. . .
. . .for the b*o*mbs and if they. . .
For the Pie on 06 May 2008 at 10:49 am #
you missed the s in shots, under AC.
Esthermon on 06 May 2008 at 10:53 am #
Back in my guilds’ Kara days, our MT made it a habit to taunt a trapped mob before he broke the trap so it always came to him.
Our strat for Void Reaver is a little different. We almost always have at least 1 CoH priest and multiple resto shaman in our raid, so our entire raid group, except for the 2 or 3 hunters, balls up right under VR, and proceeds to kick his ass.
Meanwhile, the 3 hunters play nascar, constantly running around avoiding orbs, running in to toss misdirects when they are up, and taking occasional pot shots at VR.
I think we actually kill him faster this way than we when he switched targets before sending orbs. The ranged dps (minus hunters) never have to move, but we couldn’t pull it off without the AoE heals.
Frelghra on 06 May 2008 at 10:54 am #
Healing definitely gains aggro from trapped mobs. Here’s how I know.
My Karazhan run has no warlock. Thus, I end up trapping one of the little exploding elemental dudes out of each of the packs on the way to Aran. Said dudes are immune to Arcane effects. Distracting Shot is considered an Arcane effect. So, I have to pull into the trap with just a regular shot, no Distract or added Arcane Shot for a little extra threat. Since I cause so little threat prior to trapping, it’s fairly easy for a healer to gain aggro while the dude is trapped, and I’ve seen it happen multiple times. Often enough that I started dropping my second trap between the first and the healers as a matter of course.
Doom on 06 May 2008 at 10:58 am #
Even the people who said that they double-space after periods did not in fact hit the space bar twice after the .
What’s up with that?
Crofe on 06 May 2008 at 11:03 am #
The blog must be formatting it because I know I double space after periods. And if I haven’t in the past I am specifically doing so right now.
Test. Test.
Test. Test.
Edit: Yes, the blog is auto formating to only have one space after a period.
pol on 06 May 2008 at 11:04 am #
continue to chain trap after a double trap?
your cooldowns must be different than mine.
Muskogean on 06 May 2008 at 11:07 am #
Re: double-spacing argument.
Sorry guys but BRK is correct. In the days of typewriters double-spacing was absolutely the etiquette of the day. I know, my 120 page doctoral thesis was typed on an old Smith-Corona typewriter. Not so in the publishing world though. Single space only. As computers entered the world and desktop publishing (and the infinite array of fonts available) has spread universally it is now considered grammatically correct for there to be only that single space post-period. We are no longer in the days of IBM Selectric or daisy-wheel typing with our choices limited to Arial or Courier and 10 or 12 pitch.
Nifen on 06 May 2008 at 11:20 am #
Most word processors now automatically remove double spaces, and they do it quietly such that most people don’t even notice it happening. Using two spaces was never a grammatical issue, it’s no longer considered correct, it’s a relic from the past, and it’s unnecessary on a computer.
Decado on 06 May 2008 at 11:27 am #
@ Pol you can reduce the cooldown on traps by up to 6 seconds with 3 points into rescorcefulness in the survival tree, and the 2 piece set bonus from the beastlords set reduces the cooldown by 4 seconds as well.
Also, the survival talent clever traps can lengthen the duration of your traps by up to 30% with 2 points into it.
so it is possible with gear and talents to have traps that last 26 seconds on a 20 second cooldown, Not counting readiness at 41 points into survival that will reset all cooldowns.
Teldra & Oni on 06 May 2008 at 11:28 am #
Got to disagree a little on the kill order. Skull 1st, trap 2nd. Traps break before sap. And you can easily wack the trapped mob by the time sap breaks. If the sap breaks while you’re still killing the original trap, just trap the sap. The groups I run with typically have enough dps to do this without any problem.
I will say however that I always do have that second trap down and ready for either the sap or to chain trap the original trapped mob if the tank forgets and picks up another mob.
As to Void Reaver - we found an excellent (if boring for the hunters) strategy. The entire raid runs down to Void Reaver in a tight group. 1 or 2 hunters stay outside in the normal ranged area. He will preferentially target people at range for the orbs and not throw any at the raid all grouped at his feet. The main raid group must position themselves quickly to stay almost directly underneath him or they will get orbed. The hunter(s) then run in a predetermined direction (we chose clockwise) around and around VR. An almost continuous stream of orbs will be fired at the hunter(s) since he fires them every second or two and there’s only 1 or 2 targets - so run and don’t stop. Hunters can’t use bows/guns with the main raid groups since effective minimum range puts them onto VR’s orb list and will wipe the raid almost instantly.
So I spent 7 minutes running in a circle sending my pet in, healing it, and firing off arcane shot when I could as I ran. Fairly boring. But the rest of the raid commented on how easy this method is since no one has to dodge orbs and we downed him in record time.
Ahrtu on 06 May 2008 at 11:29 am #
Yep. Double space after period == Old School. Single space after period FTW! In fact, single space after any punctuation, IIRC.
Style FTW!
Oh, and never ever use multiple ! or ? for emphasis. Bold or italic fonts for emphasis. And if you’ve got a co-worker who likes to send out email with !!!! in it, try remapping his keyboard so ! is replaced with ?. Can lead to some pretty amusing emails. =)
Mellon on 06 May 2008 at 11:32 am #
Just kite with concussion shot after the third, and if you are MM it is even easier with scatter. You can even use your pet to do an intimdation and then retrap. And stay at max range from the trapped target. Ezmode
kunukia on 06 May 2008 at 11:37 am #
Double spacing after periods is proper English, BRK. Is it done differently in the military?
So, I have read the comments that double spacing is no longer done in the computer world. I am going to continue, because I am old, and I get to be set in my ways.
/glare
Baseball on 06 May 2008 at 11:40 am #
re: double spacing.
I did some research and I bow to the “it’s not neccessary” crowd. It’s definitely not “wrong,” but it’s also not neccessary, as can be evidenced by the auto formats going on.
Re: healer threat following the 110/130 rule:
It just literally doesn’t jive with my experience. Running heroic Magisters the other day with hunter/mage/warlock, the *only* time a healer got aggro from a cc breaking early was under the following condition:
1) sheep broke early.
2) a renew tick or a large heal went off before the mage realized what was going on.
3) previously sheeped target changed from mage to healer.
That’s the *only* time a healer got aggro. Never once from the hunter (who pulled with distracting shot plus 1-2 auto shots) or the warlock. And this is only one example of tons.
here’s my theory: a cc’d mob has his threat table completely “frozen.” He has the initial threat of the cc, but nothing else. He’ll ONLY peel toward your healer if a large heal goes off just after cc breaking.
Evidence:
Shadow priests are by far the highest non aoe threat generators in the game with vampiric touch. If the 110/130 rule were true, every shadow priest in every 5 man would be so high on the global threat list that you would require a taunt to pull them off. This is not the case.
Secondary evidence: of all the cc, it’s my belief that mind control and enslave cause the most threat (and sap/sheep cause the least). Under the 110/130 rule, a healer would be able to top the mind control aggro if the fight went bad and a lot of ehals were required. This has never, ever happened in my experience.
Crofe on 06 May 2008 at 11:54 am #
@Baseball
But SPs do have an issue with aggro for just that reason, they do damage to a single target AND get ‘healing’ aggro on top of that. You have to remember though that you only get healing aggro for things that actually heal. In a regular five man the amount of damage being taken by people other than the tanks should be minimal.
My thoughts on the MC / Enslave thing. They become a friendly mob and no longer gain threat on them. That’s why the MC/Enslave aggro is so high (or higher than others). I know (almost for a fact) that placing a trap under a MC/Enslaved mob will not trap it right as it breaks. Something with timing it seems, the mob is hostile enough to trigger the trap, but friendly enough for it not to be trappable. I take this from running MgT and never having a trap effect a MC/Enslaved mob when the trap was placed at the feet of the MC/Enslaved mob before it broke.
Chorius and Spot on 06 May 2008 at 12:07 pm #
With Concussion Shot, Wing Clip, and Intimidation any hunter (of any spec) worth his salt should be able to trap a mob indefinitely, even with a trap resist or two.
Also, fun hunter trick on quick pulls. When your trap is about to expire and your mob is next, pull your pet back and Intimidate your trap, Feign Death if you need to in order to dump the mob onto your pet. Then send your pet back after the main mob, dragging the ex-trap back to the tank with it.
Perfectly trapping a heroic: Props.
Intimidating your recently trap-resisted mob: Grats.
Accidentally pulling said mob back to your tank with your pet because your trap is on cooldown, and the ensuing whispers about how awesome it was that you delivered your trap to the tank: Priceless.
Baseball on 06 May 2008 at 12:09 pm #
@Crofe:
concrete example: i took a shadow priest through heroic terrace (because the stupid commendation won’t drop for me) — he would blare right through the mage guard casting his silly glaive throw, healing everyone up to full. his threat was so high my target at one point pulled off me and I had to taunt to take him off the s priest.
Move to next target, who was sheeped — one easy mangle and the previously sheeped mob stuck to me like glue. 100% unaffected by the shadowpriest’s aoe healing threat.
I’m not going so far as to say the 110/130 rule is wrong; maybe my mangle is the king monster of threat generation. It just goes against my experience and I’d need some EJ theory before I change my mind.
pol on 06 May 2008 at 12:18 pm #
So sap breaks, and you trap a second. Timer is still counting on the initial trap though. You have used your second trap on a different mob. Either 1) the sap broke fast, and your 2 cubes are on similar timers, in which case you’ll have 2 mobs and 1 trap when they break; or 2) sap broke late, and your cooldown is still up when trap 1 breaks. In either case you come up with a loose mob. I wont argue with the possibility that in a best case scenario you may be able to keep 1 mob chained whilst working in a trap for the second, though I would assume some kiting would be involved. But I just don’t see how you can manage to keep 2 cubed for more than 1 cycle.
In short, offering to “chain trap until the tank is ready,” seems to infer that you aren’t forgetting that the next mob in the rotation is your responsibility as well.
[url=http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bloodhoof&n=Ghorin]Ghorin[/url]
Indi on 06 May 2008 at 12:38 pm #
A quick note(s):
@Doom & Crofe:
Multiple spaces in HTML and other coding doesn’t work because it’s coding. You can have 100 spaces and it will only show up as one. So, it’s not an autoformat “feature.”
@any tank:
Yes, we good hunters can chain trap. Three, four, five times, whatever - as long as we have enough room to kite (e.g. the Moroes fight). But, we have cooldown timers ticking. However, when there is a sapped target and a trapped target, please do not hesitate when choosing which mob to take. Either take the trap, and we’ll trap the sap, or take the sap and we’ll trap the trap. I really hate it when they stand between both, and look at one, then the other, then run toward the first, then back toward the other. Anyone else with me on this?
pol on 06 May 2008 at 12:54 pm #
@Decado
I have all that except the tier bonus, and I love me some trappin
But when the second cube goes up, you can be sure some one is going to have to deal with a loose mob soon. It’s a neat trick, but really just a short stall for the tank to regain control. I can’t keep it up for more than a cycle, and scatter/concussive are coming out to bridge the gap until I can get square back under control.
Quite possibly its just me, but I cant make the numbers work out any better than that.
Adinah on 06 May 2008 at 1:36 pm #
Speaking of Void Reaver, my hunter (BM) in Spirestone Alliance, got 1st in damage on this fight this past weekend. I also got least damage taken. It was very exciting! I encourage all of you hunters to strut your stuff because we can most certainly out damage the rogues/warriors in this encounter!
I’ve learned to strafe from side to side instead of running backwards, that way you can arcane shot while running (not losing as much dps as when you run to the back wall). Also, keep your camera view close in and up so you can see the beams coming toward you!
Shifttusk on 06 May 2008 at 1:43 pm #
Mobs do not gain threat asside from direct threat gen skills while trapped (like distracting) when a trapped mob B lines for a healer it means the healer landed a heal after the trap ended. Trapped mobs can be taunted prior to the trap breaking. Given that the mob is tauntable. This is why you wait to FD post chain trap for the warrior/pally/bur to taunt so they get free threat. If heals generated threat while your mobs were trapped chain trapping would be impossible on fights like moroes where a healer will generated upwards of 15k threat while your mob is in the cube.
Ghostraider on 06 May 2008 at 1:50 pm #
I’d have to agree with Baseball, that cc’ed targets are not affected by global threat.
For example, take the Murlocs before Tidewalker in SSC; out of every pack, there are two warriors that need to be feared by warlocks. When fear expires they kind always go back to the warlocks, rarely go for the healers. I’m not sure how much threat fear generates, but that’s just my observation.
Also, I believe the threat generated by MC is close to infinity, takes nothing less than a taunt for the tank to get the target back.
Baseball on 06 May 2008 at 1:51 pm #
@shifttusk and Ghostraider:
I KNEW there were clear examples I was forgetting! Thanks!
Thelastdeadmouse on 06 May 2008 at 2:07 pm #
At my suggestion, out guild has a new strategy for Void Reaver thats also centered around our hunters.
Every ranged group gets a hunter with leader of the pack turned on; the 30% run speed increase give you about 3 seconds after the orb leaves Void before you need to move to avoid it as opposed to the .5 - 1 second you normally get. Unfortunately if you do get hit you’ll get stunned, but with so much time to move there really isn’t an excuse. Everyone stays in range and strafes to avoid and its a breeze.
Crofe on 06 May 2008 at 2:30 pm #
@Baseball
Ok, I think I misunderstood you. I thought you meant that the 110/130 rule didn’t apply to healers on *any* mob. It seems you were talking specifically about mobs that were CC’d. Technically the rule applies even to CC’d mobs, but the fact is that while CC’d they aren’t gaining global threat. Just a misunderstanding on my part since the 110/130 rule is for gaining aggro, not gaining threat.
@Indi
I know that spaces can be ‘lost’ after a parse, but it’s still done “deliberately.” Most of the time when parsing the spaces are dropped out anyway and when it’s being reconstructed it’s easier to say there’s a space between every token then having to look for a punctuation and making an exception to that rule. Since some coding elements can be used in these comments, that is probably what’s happening. I just don’t use them often enough and was thinking that it was a direct copy of what you type.
Asara on 06 May 2008 at 2:39 pm #
I learned how to type on a typewriter. I think I was in 8th grade, and I’m 30 now. I will probably double-space after periods for the rest of my life, it’s a hard habit to break, even if it is faster. But for you, BRK, I will try. I rocked the Kasbah on Solarian last night, mostly due to you. /salute!
Kirk on 06 May 2008 at 3:01 pm #
sigh, I’ll retract, and admit confusion.
Shifttusk, Ghostraider and Baseball are right about the cases they’ve given. And yet I’ve frequently been George off a broken trap. I’m going to guess ???(can’t find it above) is right - it’s a tick of my HoT at just the right moment.
As to doublespacing after a period, however, no, I’ll stand by that one. The “book” argument is specious, as there’s a LOT of kern manipulation going on for the block justification to work. That said, I can’t say doublespace after period is always right, either. Let me give a separate typographical issue to show why the correct answer is probably, “It depends.” Paragraph breaks.
Double return or single? Indent or not?
It depends.
Baseball on 06 May 2008 at 3:32 pm #
One of the best parts of WoW, in my opinion, is the shady mathematics involved in generation of specific stats — which by nature lends to some great discussions. In the end, there’s definitely a “yes” or “no” answer — because this game is technically just a bunch of 0s and 1s. Heck even the EJ stuff showing that a DW shaman with a slow green OH does more dps than a fast epic OH seems “loony” to me at first glance.
But Blizzard’s ability to generate this type of discussion is really freaking cool. Remember when we all thought that if you overloaded onyxia with dots she would magically reduce the amount of fireballs? and then that turned out to be completely false?
That stuff’s awesome to me.
Coz on 06 May 2008 at 3:36 pm #
I’m the dude who asked the original question.
Warrior tank, so reading these comments, it would seem that either I feigned (which I don’t recall, but could be), or the tank purposely taunted the trapped mob, perhaps getting the kill order mixed up.
Regarding three traps being about the max you could expect - I should have clarified that I don’t have any points in trap-related talents.
Interesting that this led to the whole discussion about healing aggro and cc’ed mob. For what it’s worth, I was under the impression that trapped mobs were “immune” to global threat.
Some of you folks are pretty intense when it comes to the Great Double Spacing Debate.
And yes, TJ is pretty awesome.
pelides on 06 May 2008 at 3:43 pm #
Back when I was running Kara a lot, chain trapping on Moroes required a lot of education of the healers in the raid as they like to stand on my traps. They would then boggle at the notion that their healing aggro affected the mob while it was trapped and would bit their faces off when the trap broke rather than run to my next trap.
There’s a lot of “just do this and you can chain trap forever” talk in this thread, but what it comes down to is really educating your party members as to how effective chain trapping really works.
Lots of healers like to stand on traps in 5 mans because it has saved their asses before and therefore, doing it in 10-25 mans might also be a good idea when it really isn’t. Those heals generate a lot of threat during the iceblock and distracting shot generates some threat but it’s not the equivalent of a taunt. We have to work to get aggro back if they don’t come to our next trap.
So, when people do not get this very simple idea of staying away from the traps while healing, I take it upon myself to position my trap elsewhere to avoid this predicament altogether.
We get lots of suggestions from the tanks and healers about how to do our job and sometimes they ask for the impossible. I remember a raid leader asking if I could MD to myself! My response was that yes, indeed I could do that, only I called it casting an arcane shot. He thought MD’ing to myself would double my threat from a shot or something.
People wonder why I put my traps so far away from everyone. It’s because most people just don’t have the self-restraint necessary to not AoE the trap or hit it in some way if it’s too near the main action. Then the MT wonders why I can’t pull my own mob, MD his target to him AND get my target into a trap.
I have to pull the mob so far away from everyone for the trap to safely stick that I just don’t have the luxury of being able to sit there and smack the MT’s target with a MD AND trap something at the very same time. By the time my GCD is up to cast the MD, my trap target is on me and if I’m not moving already, it’s going to kill me.
If you can’t educate your raid in the intricacies of chain trapping, showing some self-restraint when it comes to aoe damage and how healing aggro affects a trapped target, you, the hunter, need to adapt to this and make your traps work.
Most people who don’t play hunters don’t read this blog. It’s good that we hunters do (and bravo to the non-hunters who do! We truly appreciate you!), because very frequently there are some very good nuts and bolts articles on how to do Hunter 101 things, but we also need to realize that most tanks, healers, casters and dps don’t care about HOW trapping works… they just want to see it work and it’s our job to make that happen; either by textbook means or some hack adaptation of that textbook.
Whistel on 06 May 2008 at 3:59 pm #
“No double-spaces after periods, period.”
Dems are fightin’ words, BRK.
I always double space after periods, and it drives me absolutely bat shit that your blog edits it out somehow. I notice it immediately. As such, I hereby declare BRK a Double-Space Nazi.
I continue to mourn the passing of the diary as a literal form and the eloquent writing of the 18th century only to see it being replaced with internet blogs and LOLs. Don’t even get me started on
^_^ 
:~. I mean, really. If this is the new “style” of expressing our emotions, Goerthe is rolling over in his grave right now.
Yes, double-spacing is old school, but it may be all we have left. In fact, you have inspired me. Keep an eye out for my new blog: Double-Space, FTW: One Woman’s Story.
By the way, crAp, is crAp. Not cr@p. Buck up, and just say it like it is. Insert one of those winky faces.
Mangaras on 06 May 2008 at 4:02 pm #
As far as I know healing is healing and not based on proximity at all. If you are in combat you are in combat and heals done by you will generate aggro for you.
What IS proximity based is the difference in threat needed to pull aggro 110% if in melee range 130% at a distance. Easily confused based on observation, but in 3 years I have seen nothing indicate the amount of threat generated has ANYTHING to do with range from target.
Chromaoran on 06 May 2008 at 4:06 pm #
Double spacing was for manual typewriters, not modern computer word processors. Double spacing is 15 years out of date.
However, in a complicated pull with mobs going everywhere, if you stop to type “Handle square first, I’ll chain-trap circle until you’re ready.” instead of doing something more worthwhile that would surely classify someone as “a very silly person.”
Baseball on 06 May 2008 at 4:19 pm #
so theory:
“heals done by an in-combat person has no effect on the aggro table of a cc’d mob.”
There is a very, very easy way to test this.
Take a healer class of any kind and a cc class of any kind (preferably hunter or mage). Have the (I’ll pick druid and mage) duel so that they both have very little health.
sheep a mob.
Have the druid heal both people back up to full.
type /sit and wait for sheep to break. If the mob attacks the druid, then the theory is bunk.
if the mob starts chasing the mage, the theory is true.
If no one else does this before I get home, I’ll post results. =)
GHOSTKID on 06 May 2008 at 4:21 pm #
@Baseball
I like it! Simple, yet effective.
pelides on 06 May 2008 at 4:48 pm #
On Moroes, I have seen priests and druids grab aggro on my trapped mobs firsthand. I grab my mark, hit it with arcane, hit it with concussive, hit it with distracting then auto and get it into the trap. I move a little bit away, drop my second trap and wait for him to come to me.
When the trap breaks, he immediately runs to the nearest priest or druid. I had easily 2-3k threat on him when he went into the trap and he’s far away from the tank. He also happened to be closer to a healer than he was to me, so those big heals thrown out do indeed generate threat on the mob and can overtake your own threat on him.
The key to this is to let your healers know where you will be trapping and inform them to go stand elsewhere or they will get their faces chewed off.
You actually don’t need theorycrafting to prove this. Many hunters have empirical evidence from experience… and so do some healers in my guild unfortunately. The 10/30 rule does indeed apply.
Walkere on 06 May 2008 at 4:49 pm #
We’ll sidestep the double space argument (I still do it) and the kill order argument (I usually do trap after sap).
The threat-causing list is missing “Mana Gains.” One comment hinted at this with a Paladin and Spiritual Attunement, but it affects all mana gains. If a healer pots, he’ll grab some aggro (~1k threat if he’s using a Super Mana Pot). Paladin’s would be especially susceptible to this, I think, due to their mana refunding talent.
I never really thought about this until I evocated once after the Huntsman mounted up. The tank hadn’t engaged yet, so all aggro was dropped… and he smacked me right in the face. Interrupted my Evocation, that punk.
Baseball on 06 May 2008 at 5:06 pm #
@pelides: [quote] You actually don’t need theorycrafting to prove this. Many hunters have empirical evidence from experience… and so do some healers in my guild unfortunately. The 10/30 rule does indeed apply.[/quote]
It’s just that my empirical evidence is the opposite of yours. So when you people have opposing evidenciary outcomes, testing IS required to determine the correct outcome.
Again — I could be quite wrong. testing will find out!
Fyr on 06 May 2008 at 5:21 pm #
Healing does NOT cause threat against CCed mobs.
Think of the potential for abuse…
Healing agro is divided equally between all eligible mobs.
If that included CCed mobs you could reduce healing agro on the target mobs by kiting more mobs to a fight and CCing them.
Thats why it isn’t implemented like that.
Also saying agro is proximity based is misleading.
Technically it is correct in that the determination of who to target is affected by range.
But many people will read this and instead infer that threat gained is dependent on range and that is not true.
WB on 06 May 2008 at 5:35 pm #
@ Walkere:
I imagine he interrupted more than just your evocation.
You think that’s bad, we spent our first 3 or 4 wipes on Hydross trying to determine why he kept running to the casters right after a phase change (/w threat wipe.) Over from Nature to Frost with four adds, then “oh look, aggro” and back across the line to Nature and 4 more adds. Finally realized that it’s not just stopping dots or HoTs, it’s stopping everything. mages and healers were potting and evocating and it twernt gud.
Ghostraider on 06 May 2008 at 5:45 pm #
Some mobs have special attacks that make it appear like they’re agroed onto another person, like a charge + one melee swing; but they’ll eventually come back to you provided during that time no one passes you on threat. Something dangerous is while the mob charges a healer, a big heal was cast which puts him/her at 110% of your threat, then the mob will stick.
The above is just one case where this might be possible. Another example is some mob with agro wipe skill that temporarily takes you out of their attack list. I’d say Moroes’ blind/gouge are such skills. i.e., if your trap breaks while you’re under the influence of either, the mob might not come to you unless u generate some threat against it.
Also, as a hunter, try not to get salvation from a pally.
Kemonojin on 06 May 2008 at 6:03 pm #
Baseball; as a druid tank, I sometimes use tranquility (AOE entire party heal) as a last chance combination taunt and “save the healer”. Best aggro generation in the game, 1500 heal per tick times five people in the party… (When you have five or six mobs in a pull and rogues like to gouge before they get to you so you can hit them to build aggro, they sometimes eat the rogues and then run after the healers when it breaks… I ask nicely once for them to not do that, then I let them die a couple of times and ask again.) If taunt is down and challenging roar (AOE taunt) is down, you use what you have. The healer can’t heal while he’s being beaten on, I can’t pull it off normally as my taunts are pooched, the healer can’t heal anyone because he’s engaged and he needs healing because it’s beating on him; a one-spell-fix-all.
pelides on 06 May 2008 at 6:18 pm #
Ok, if CC’d mobs don’t generate aggro from healing and the mob gets aggro on someone other than the hunter AFTER the trap has broken… the answer is simple. Get your healers away from the traps or get your traps further away from the healers.
The Moroes fight is a great example. My first few times in there I saw healers go down because they managed to steal aggro off of my mob. They were simply too close to the trap.
It doesn’t matter WHEN the aggro happened. Just that it did and I have to adapt for that situation either by educating my raid party or by altering my trap placement.
When I do that fight now, I place my initial trap at a far end of the room in a corner and then move to about where the table is and swap positions for chaining the mob. Works like a charm. The key is to get the mob away from the healers who can throw a 6k heal at a tank without thinking about it and steal aggro.
I position my target out of the 10/30 equation for all intents and purposes and make myself it’s sole target by calculated positioning and being just about the only thing it ever sees aggro-wise. Well, me and my pet anyway.
Corwyn on 06 May 2008 at 7:30 pm #
Double spacing after a sentence terminator is useful as it differentiates between a sentence which ends in an abbreviation, and one that does not. It also adds reading. in making the major stop a little more evident.
Computers usually get rid if it, not because it is right, or the new way, but rather because collapsing white space is an easy way to save memory. Putting them back is actually a hard problem, so, in general, it isn’t done. Back at the origins of HTML, there was a major battle over this issue. Easy won (as it is wont to do). This does not make it wrong to use it however.
What I don’t understand is why BRK cares. And cares to the point of not only swearing, but making sure that swear gets through even to people who express a desire not to see swears.
Thank You Kindly.
Decado on 06 May 2008 at 7:31 pm #
One of the good things about having your traps outlast your cool down is not having to relocate after each trap, on the moroes fight for instance I pull my mob off to the side out of the way of aoe effects. As soon as it gets trapped I drop my next trap right under it. wash, rinse, repeat every time my cool down is up. doing it this way I am usually pretty far ahead on the cool down for the next trap by the time the new one get reapplied. if it happens to resist I can usually concussive shot it long enough to get my next trap down.
as far as multi mob chain trapping, I agree with Pol. It is a short duration “oh $hit” tactic, usually used to control adds for a few sec till the tank can pick them up. At least that my experience.
A Nonny Mouse on 06 May 2008 at 7:48 pm #
“How many spaces should I leave after a period or other concluding mark of punctuation?
Publications in the United States today usually have the same spacing after a punctuation mark as between words on the same line. Since word processors make available the same fonts used by typesetters for printed works, many writers, influenced by the look of typeset publications, now leave only one space after a concluding punctuation mark. In addition, most publishers’ guidelines for preparing a manuscript on disk ask authors to type only the spaces that are to appear in print.
Because it is increasingly common for papers and manuscripts to be prepared with a single space after all punctuation marks, this spacing is shown in the examples in the MLA Handbook and the MLA Style Manual. As a practical matter, however, there is nothing wrong with using two spaces after concluding punctuation marks unless an instructor or editor requests that you do otherwise.”
Taken from
http://www.mla.org/style/style_faq/style_faq3
As you wish, BRK.
lindax on 07 May 2008 at 1:50 am #
great thread. smart community.
and btw, Nifen is correct:
Most word processors now automatically remove double spaces, and they do it quietly such that most people don’t even notice it happening. Using two spaces was never a grammatical issue, it’s no longer considered correct, it’s a relic from the past, and it’s unnecessary on a computer.
uh huh uh huh
ahab on 07 May 2008 at 7:35 am #
Double spacing after a period is an outdated practice. It started before tracking and kerning of electronic type. That means that, in the “old days,” a captital W took up the exact same space as a lower-case i. Now, electronic type shifts letters over and scrunches them together if need be. The only reason double spacing after end punctuation was necessary was that there were odd spaces throughout your body of text since some letters are much narrower than others, so you needed extra separation to show that it’s a new sentence. It used to be that WWW took up the exact same space on the paper as iii, but it’s obvious that it’s no longer the case. Single-spacing is the standard practice now in the publishing world. Novels and textbooks are mostly all single-spaced after end marks. Check it out. It’s frustrating to me now that there’s still a holdout crowd out there. At the school where I teach, we use Alpha Smart™ keyboards. Your typing gets marked wrong if you don’t double-space after the end mark! Aargh. Every text editing program is set up for single spacing after end marks, but most still “allow” for double-spacing.
Simple rule: if you’re tying on a typewriter, then double-space, because there’s no tracking and kerning on it. If you’re word processing electronically, then single-space. True story.
Martin on 07 May 2008 at 7:39 am #
One of the best/most interesting reasons that double spacing is not the professional way to typeset a block of copy was told to me by the managing director of the print company we use. He started life as a typesetter (pre phototypesetting and DTP). The typesetters were paid by the number of letters they set. So the owners of the print companies at the time decided to save some money and tell everyone that they were to set the type without double spaces, thus saving them (the company owners) money as a space was consider a glyph even though there was nothing on it.
As for it being correct, well that depends on your point of view. The one thing you learn if you are involved in DTP is that there really are no hard and fast rules just conventions that tend to change with the current fashions. So called style guides can’t even agree, especially when you take into account English VS American English.
HTML and CSS are by no means an advancement in typography as it is absolutely horrendous trying to set professional copy for the internet, unless you embed it in to a pdf or use and image file, but that really defeats the point… anyway I’m rambling.
If you ever want to start an argument with any copywriters/designers just ask them about the Oxford comma then stand well back, its even worse than the MAC/PC debate.
Martin
p.s We set it single space as it looks better but then we are paid to make pretty pictures.
ahab on 07 May 2008 at 7:43 am #
oh, and one more thing: when I used to work in advertising, which was for about ten years, starting roughly 20 years ago, I saw the beginning of the electronic age in graphic design. By the end of my 10-year stint, nearly any client that would “catch” us double-spacing after end marks would let us know by circling proof copies with big red circles, and many of our typesetters/designers would be remind of tracking and kerning rules.
Seriously, folks, stop double-spacing after end marks. When you double space, you use up an extra space that could be donated to a space-deprived child in Rwanda, or some such.
Hrrathul on 07 May 2008 at 9:27 am #
re: Double Spacing
Double space after periods if you use an IBM Selectric, single space if you use a computer, period. I learned this back in the early ’90s from this very special book. I worked in a publishing shop and it was our bible.
http://www.amazon.com/Mac-Not-Typewriter-Professional-Level-Macintosh/dp/0938151312
Soonkia on 07 May 2008 at 9:29 am #
What causes aggro ? Telling people who double space to stop double spacing
Thanks BRK and everyone who commented on this article. It does explain a few things as to why, if I don’t keep refreshing my aggro on the trapped targets, they eventually go after the healers.
Something we need to remember as Hunters, is often our targets are not CC’d, but running towards a trap. During that period, all the healing that is going on, is building aggro on that trap.
I see the Moroes fight is probably one of the most mentioned fights here. It’s also the one fight where there’s a lot of space for hunters to play with. What I like to do here is trap my target close to one corner of the table, then run to the other furtherst corner and place a trap there. The theory being, that with the mob having to run such a long distance, it gives my cool down timers much longer to cool down.
But, I’ve seen it happen time and again, that the mob will start running to my next trap, and half way towards me, it’ll make a dash towards a healer. Usually a distracting and arcane shot get’s it back on the right route, but it does make the heart skip a beat or two.
This to a degree is telling me that while the mob is on Ice, no aggro is being built on it - but the moment it’s free from the trap, aggro starts building from the healers.
Time to rethink my method of trapping on Moroes.
Rampel on 07 May 2008 at 10:29 am #
I like my old school.
Stop changing the world.
I can’t cope!
karyss on 07 May 2008 at 10:32 am #
What WB said a billion posts up:
As a warrior tank who has a squishy or inexperienced group with me, I use a mouse over sunder macro that applies the sunder debuff while never taking my swing damage off of main target. This does two things: first, if there is a lack of experience it buys the CCr a chance switch targets and reshackle/sheep as their CC is not passive like a hunters trap. Two, if I am in a situation where I outgear a group or instance, your mob smacking me a couple of times will give me a slight rage bump and therefore future aggro advantage. I mean know offense, it just asks of the hunter to pay attention and if there is a need for continual retrap they can focus target their mob, get another Distracting shot off and it will find them again.
(Oh and you don’t like my double spaces because it makes you insecure about your own “wide load”)
kunukia on 07 May 2008 at 11:01 am #
I am old. It is hard to change. Just now, after those first two sentences, I double spaced. My hands just do it, and…WHO CARES? It is not going to wipe a raid. I have spent hours working on my raiding techniques, because 24 other people are depending on my overcoming bad habits learned in easy-mode farming. I move shots so I don’t mistakenly multi-shot at a bad time; with hands shaking I carefully misdirect so that I don’t mistakenly send Mulgaur chasing after my pet instead of the main tank (just an example, I NEVER did that, cough) But, do I plan to spend a lot of effort NOT double-spacing? No.
I admire and respect you BRK, but if I ever have cause to email a question, you will get double spaces. And if you then do not use my letter, I don’t give a cr@p.
tego on 07 May 2008 at 1:25 pm #
alright I admit that i didnt read every post…. dude im on lunch… but one interesting thing. Ghostraider mentioned having to have warlocks fear some of the mobs heading to tiedwalker… specifically murlocks… why would you fear a mob like that? it is meant to be AOE tanked by an AOE tank… aka teh prot paladin. My guild has Never feared one of the murlock mobs in ssc… Is this common practice(to fear them)? if so why ?
Elwynnia on 07 May 2008 at 1:44 pm #
I have no problem with chaining 3 or more traps (though usually it isn’t necessary), even in a group that is moving fast and gives me little time to drop them- I don’t have improved traps or Beat Lord set bonus.
I try very hard to get a trap down as quickly as possible, whether there is a blue square or not. I don’t pull a mob to my trap if there isn’t a blues square, but I’m always ready. I always drop it away from the rest of the group and have a 2nd spot picked out to run to for my 2nd trap.
Once the pull begins, I have a macro set to cast distracting shot and concussion shot in a cast sequences, with a “stop casting” line after. So I’ll smack the mob with distracting shot, then concussion shot, which slows down the mob and gives my cool down some extra time. Once the trap is sprung (and my assist macro has made certain that I am already dpsing), I dash to the new spot, firing arcane on the way (cause I can run n gun that one), drop the trap, and continue to dps.
At this point I’ll take stock and see just how concerned I need to be about getting a 3rd or 4th trap down. If Mr. blue square is coming up in the kill order soon, I just happily dps away and don’t concern myself much with the timing of my trap (though I still pay attention so I can feign at the right time and deliver my mob to the tank). However, if it looks like the fight is going to be a long one, I pay a lot more attention to my mob so that I can concussion shot him again as soon as the trap breaks. This allows me more time on my CD for a 3rd trap.
I can repeat as necessary, and with sufficient running room and concussive shot, I’ve always been able to keep my mob controlled until the group was ready to deal with it.
The only time I ever have issues is when the traps breaks early (or is resisted)- and then I pull my pet off, turn on growl, wait till it has aggro, feign death, and then let my pet off tank (while I focus fire on the main target) until I can drop another trap. This isn’t great as my dps on the main target isn’t what it should be, but at least my mob is controlled and I’m still doing damage, which is really all that’s necessary in a 5 man.
Annub on 07 May 2008 at 1:51 pm #
you complain about double spacing after full stops.
I work for a parcel company two of the team leaders have shocking email ettiquette (spelling?). One doesn’t use full stops period! The other put in an email get it soughted, his way of spelling sorted.
We wonder why the grammer and general language is toilet. I saw a guy in game today use the word “cuz” randomly in a sentence. Is this a relative? Because? Something I haven’t yet thought of?
yunk on 07 May 2008 at 2:03 pm #
Regarding healing, I thought both you AND the healing target need to be in melee range to get the lower % to pull aggro?
For instance, if I’m standing right next to the tank I’m healing I’ll have the lower 110% ceiling. But if I’m, say, healing the MT, while standing next to a mob tanked by the OT, I’m not building any more threat on the OT’s tanked mob than normal, because I’m healing someone far away. Is that not true?
I have never tested it, since I have always stayed at max range, and if I do “stand in a trap” as soon as something gets trapped I run away to get out of melee range. I mean, even if you don’t build more aggro, there are plenty of smart reasons to just stay away.
I never read you could sunder trapped mobs (never having a warrior over 19), that is great. Does it only work on traps? (not sheeps and saps?) Besides Sunder and Distracting Shot and Demo Shout, are there any other threat-generating abilities for other classes that don’t break CC?
yunk on 07 May 2008 at 2:11 pm #
It took me years to stop double spacing, mainly because I noticed word processors all put em spaces after periods. However, for displays that don’t and just use regular en spaces, then double spacing is appropriate.
Ghostraider on 07 May 2008 at 2:47 pm #
To Tego,
My guild runs it that way, since we don’t have a pally tank geared well enough to handle the whole group together. I kind doubt any pally tank can hold 5-6 murlocs at once, in T5 level gear.
And also just to clarify, these are the trash mobs before the boss, not the murlocs during the boss fight.
Plenis of Moonrunner on 07 May 2008 at 4:10 pm #
Wow with 79 comments there’s not a single Survival hunter among them. I can chaintrap without moving and I’m proud of it. I rock the house in Moroes, 5-mans, and certain 25-mans as sheep backup.
I’m also over 35, and there’s nothing I can do to get that thumb to not double space after the period. Nothing. I just tried again. Didn’t work. Good thing HTML’ll get rid of it for me.
Coz on 07 May 2008 at 5:13 pm #
Elwynnia - adding concussive shot sounds like a great idea. Gonna give that a whirl. Thanks.
Theaah on 07 May 2008 at 5:39 pm #
With two-piece Beast Lord and a bit of room to kite, I could chain trap all day if need be. (BM hunter here) Even with starting to get T6 gear, I’ll always have my two pieces of Beast Lord with me in case I need to trap, especially for running 5-mans.
I’ve actually had runs where the tank broke my trap before the sap when I had my next trap laid to keep chain trapping and thus we had two loose mobs running around when the sap broke almost immediately after. I’ve even had runs where I told the tank to break the other hunter’s trap first since he wasn’t very good at chain-trapping. ^^;
I can’t speak to the Moroes fight since I’ve only ever done it with an overgeared pally tank who just tanked all the adds at once. But otherwise, in 5-mans I pride myself on my trapping ability.
Edit: Also, I have to thank you, BRK. It was watching your videos that taught me all about chain-trapping.
Vaelin on 07 May 2008 at 9:51 pm #
Double spacing after periods really enhances the readability of text. It’s a matter of stylistic preference I suppose (nearly all punctuation really is when you get down to it - it’s convention that changes) but I really like to emphasize the breaks in my sentences. It also makes it easier to find a particular passage in a paragraph.
Also, there was a bug a number of patches ago that prevented taunt type effects from working on trapped (maybe all CC, but I KNOW it was with freeze trap) mobs. This has since been corrected; much to the happiness of me while tanking trash… it was always annoying to blow a taunt right before the trap broke and the mob run straight for the healer or hunter (sometimes I was the hunter). I actually got in the habit of stacking TONS of distracting shots on my trapped targets and then kiting if the tank’s taunt was down (and when they eventually taunted, they had the mob solid). Before we figured it out it caused some friction between the hunters and the tanks as it just appeared that the tank was slacking (and I played my hunter alot more than my tank back then).
john on 08 May 2008 at 9:42 am #
> BRK Emailing Etiquette Update. No double-spaces after periods,
> period. Don’t make us get uppity. Just knock that cr@p off right
> now.
Dood. Chill.
Those of us who learned typing in the old days on physical typewriters — well, we’re sorta old. And we’re sorta set in our ways. And we learned two spaces. Period. It’s muscle memory. Hit the period, then the thumb pops the spacebar twice. That’s just the way it is. Not worth trying to retrain the body at this point.
WB on 08 May 2008 at 11:10 am #
Nice poll. Unfortunately after 700+ votes, 16% over 35y.o. double space, 18% over 35 y.o. single space, 35% under 35y.o. single space, and 35% over 35 y.o. double space.
Conclusion? Approximately 70% of your readership is 35 years old or younger. And double v. single spacing is a tossup with no dependency on the age of the spacer. Kinda amusing.
Kestrel on 08 May 2008 at 4:20 pm #
I’m old. I learned to type in 1967 on an IBM Selectric. I was taught to double space after end marks.
I started using a personal computer in 1983. I started single-spacing after end marks at the same time, except when using an IBM Selectric.
If I double-space now, it’s a typo.
The Lords Breed on 08 May 2008 at 5:26 pm #
Not going to bother reading 95 replies to see if this was covered.
Sap can be BROKEN early, but it cannot BREAK early. At level 70 it will always last 45 seconds on the mob, no more, no less.
Tess on 09 May 2008 at 3:22 am #
I hope that someone pointed out that in the last few years the MLA changed the standard from double spacing to single spacing after periods. Although both are still technically correct.
Cynra on 09 May 2008 at 11:15 am #
Healing aggro is distance-based? Only in the sense that damage aggro is distance-based: you need 30% greater to snag aggro from a ranged distance as opposed to the 10% you get within melee range. As Kirk noted, the main difference between healing threat and damage-based threat is that the threat is equally split up among all active mobs (in other words, those in combat). Furthermore, unless you’re a paladin (who have an added inherent threat reduction of 50%) every point you heal generates half the threat that a normal damage attack would do (minus those abilities that have higher or less threat and buffs/inherent threat-minimizing talents).
In other words, let’s look at the following scenario: a hunter and a priest are out farming or doing a quest. They start a fight in which three mobs are engaged. The hunter’s pet begins tanking them all. Whee! Hunter does an attack for 600 damage on the creature the pet is tanking, which does 600 threat on that mob. Priest takes an opportunity to cast a Greater Heal on the pet, doing 4,800 health (overheal generates no threat, as an aside). Lets assume that for some odd reason the priest doesn’t have Silent Resolve and no threat-reducing buffs, enchants, or gems. Therefore her 4,800 heal generates 2,400 threat. However, that threat is split among every active mob, which in this case are the three mobs the hunter’s pet is holding — meaning that the priest generated 800 threat for each of them.
At this point, we hope that either:
1) the pet has been doing some sort of AoE attack (Screech, for example) that has been generating threat on all of the mobs, or else the two untanked mobs will go for the healer
2) the hunter has the foresight to sic the pet on one and trap the other
Again, distance only helps you determine how much aggro you need to pull a mob from another character. It’s just like having a DPSer: if you’re in melee range, you need 10%. If you’re in the ranged distance, you need 30%. I can go to 30 yards (which is my greatest range for most of my heals) and spam heals all day and still generate the same threat that I do when I’m twenty yards away, ten yards away, and standing right on top of the mob.
And, yes, a trapped target is still having threat built against it.
Just for clarification, I’ve played and raided as every healing class combination other than a Restoration druid and also have a hunter.
I’d also like to point out that I double-spaced extensively on this reply. Furthermore, it didn’t matter that I did; HTML treats multiple spaces as a single space unless:
1) You use the code for a space ( )
2) You use the pre tags to have the text appear exactly as you typed (<pre> and </pre>).
It should be noted, however, that many browsers (particularly olders ones) disregard multiple spaces anyways. So, really, online it doesn’t make a lick of difference if I type two spaces instead of one — unless you’re worried about file sizes and bandwidth issues. Hundreds of thousands of extra spaces can add up if you’re not careful.