I’m currently a 70 pally tank farming Kara. I can tell you that, unless I’m significantly undergeared or the pull has lots of casters - traps, sheeps, and other forms of CC actually make my life more difficult. It’s much easier to control a group of mobs if you got them all on you in a conscecration circle and not running off to play with the squishies.

‘CC’ stands for CONSTANT CONSECRATION!

Yeah, I’d like to see you try to CC the “Waves O’ Orcs” in Heroic BF as a Mage, when you don’t have a Pally tank. I’m talking Frost Nova as initial CC here, followed by a Howl of Terror from the lock. The one time I did it, the timing was *very* tricky — Frost Nova too early, and not enough orcs get rooted in place for the AoE fear (things tend to degenerate rapidly after that); wait too late, however, and you won’t even get a chance to cast the spell, since you’ll be slaughtered by the orcs proximity-aggro’ing on you.

Repeat this perfect timing 4 times in fairly quick succession, chain-sheep one orc per set quickly and reliably (making sure not to sheep one that’s DoT’ed by the lock), DPS down the orcs, while keeping enough mana in reserve to take down the boss. Yeah, easy.

The bottom line is, if a Hunter screws up a trap, or someone breaks the trap, in a Heroic or Raid, they still have kiting or pet options, and can usually deal with a few melee attacks while recovering from the mistake. A Mage, on the other hand, typically gets one-shotted or two-shotted. The margin of error is much smaller.

True, Polymorph has no cooldown, but a) Polymorph is not the only CC that Mages are called to perform (see Frost Nova example above), b) sheep tend to break more than traps, because they have a tendency to wander into AoEs, Cleaves etc, and also, since they’re harder to see, they’re easier to lose track of, so more prone to accidental breakage, and c) unlike traps, Polymorph has a cast time (unless you have and use PoM), which can be affected by global cooldowns, casting-speed debuffs, spell pushback, silences/interrupts, etc. so it’s often 3 seconds or more before the spell can complete, during which time the Mage can be one- or two-shotted by the uncontrolled mob.

That said, I’m biased toward BM, but I haven’t been in a situation where I’ve *needed* to trap more than 3 times, which is easily done with proper CD timing. There are lots of ‘neat’ stories out there, but speccing based on a cool story isn’t always the best choice. Best spec with limited gear choices for mid 60 to 70 be BM, IMO.

Learn to trap while questing, try to keep a mob tied up while you and you pet of choice kill others, practice the cooldown and when to pull the mob you want to tie up.

As for the heroics, maybe the issue is that I waited until I was “pre-Kara” geared before I started them, but I haven’t really run into situations where super traps were needed. Yeah, traps break early, crap happens, etc. I get that. But if your party can’t burn down 2-3 (I’m assuming there is a 2nd CC available, even short term CC, since basically all classes have something) mobs in the 1.5 minutes you can trap something, there are larger issues at work.

My opinion, slightly biased by my spec choice and one too many heroics with guys wearing greens messing things all kinds of up. And my desire not to trap… the tanks apologize when they mark things for traps. I’ll do it, I’m pretty darn good at it… but I’d rather not. =)

And it’s definitly easier to CC with a mage ^^

The biggest trick to proper CCing as a hunter is to be prepared. Drop your trap before the tank even THINKS about pulling, that way if the first one is resisted/broken/whatever you can instantly drop another to cover for it. This is independent of spec, and gives even BM hunters a good headstart on trapping for long periods of time if needed.

Personally, in 5mans you do not need uber dps on trash where you need to trap so sacrificing dps for CC isn’t really a factor. and there are no 5man bosses that require chain trapping that I’m aware of, so for those you are 100% commited to dps anyways.

Great post BRK, I’m just happy that my spec of choice is slowly gaining in recognition. But a properly geared SV hunter (we’re in early t5) can still pump out tons of dps. On a standard fight, it’s not often you see any of our hunters (1 BM, 1MM, 1SV) not in the top 5. Add my ability to uber trap and make rogues almost go through withdrawl when I can’t make a raid, and I’m golden.

Of course, the mages/locks learn to love you BM hunters too. So it’s win win, since I get the same love from other hunters as I do from rogues.

On the note of going survival though: if you are looking to do it for serious raiding or even long-term heroics, I suggest holding off until you can get a set together that has at least 500 agility on it. Agility is our crack stat, and you will stack it like no tomorrow opting even for lvl 65 dungeon blues (from Durnholde) over any of the mail leggings until the badge ones or the ones from VR in t5.

Surv hunter get alot of power CC wise and are very difficult to play, i never played surv seriously, just waiting that my gear level up and maybe i’ll play it for a while

The thing is i rarely have to CC in an hero instance since i often go with a pally tank 2 elem shaman 1 priest and myself. So we fly through them pretty easily

Anyway the best advice will always be, just try all the things you can, and pick what you are the most confortable with :).

Kleshta out

It does take skill to cc as a mage, too…knowing when and where to sheep, and when to resheep. Hunters and mages face some of the same cc issues — my sheep will break just as easily as your trap if a Druid tank swipes and our targets are too near.

And hunters and mages need to be aware of how each other is cc’ing if you’re in the same party. My husband’s BM-specced; every once in a while we wind up with the infamous “Sheepsicle, wiper of parties,” where he pulls my sheep or my sheep goes the wrong way and bam! — frost-trapped sheep. (Hey, that wasn’t on your “wiped” list…) Fortunately (or maybe not!) we play in the same room so we can clean it up fast…on the other hand, I’m sure the neighbors find such moments interesting…

Don’t feel bad Zach - the mobs in Hellfire Citadel resist CC far more than any other heroic instance. Without Improved Traps, I would shy away from that instance. Even with IT, it can be a pain.