Scattered Shots: Don't anger the tank or she will make you cry
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the hunter podcast uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim.or ask him on Google+.
Mists of Pandaria has brought a lot of awesome stuff to hunters: minimum range finally dead and buried, the awesomeness that is Stampede, improved self-heals, better burst for all specs, and very clever new rare pet tracking challenges. It has also brought us so many flipping buttons to press when DPSing that we need a third hand to keep up with it all.
While the hunter changes in Mists have been overwhelmingly positive, they've also introduced new ways for hunters to make mistakes. And I'm not just talking about mistakes that affect the hunter -- like the tragedy of rolling an elf back when you didn't know any better -- I'm talking about mistakes that hurt your group.
There are also a lot of opportunities for the unwitting hunter to piss off the tank. That may be all good fun and games when you're running in a guild group, but when you're running Dungeon Finder you do not want to piss off the tank: she has all the power. You annoy her enough and she'll initiate a vote kick. No one else wants to be on the tank's bad side so they'll vote to boot your sorry ass. But not until the tank calls you names until you cry like a sissy little elf.
Here's what to look out for in Mists.
Turn growl off
Seriously, turn your pet's Growl off. Right not. Hop in the game, turn off growl, then come back and finish this article. I'll wait.
Okay, whatever, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Where our pet's Growl used to just generate threat, it now acts as a taunt, automatically pulling mob aggro off the tank. It doesn't work on raid bosses, but on trash it is going to piss off your tanks something fierce. And for the record, when they yell at you about it, they are right. They have the full support of Frostheim to call you names and compare you to an elf.
Growl is no longer something you can leave on just in case you get a tank that isn't doing his job. In a 5-man environment, it is instead a tool you can use to pull mobs off the healer in a pinch situation (if the mobs are on a DPSer, just leave 'em there).
Stampede: turn all the growls off
On a very closely related note, Stampede pets can and will Growl as well, which will also piss off the tank. In some ways this is even worse than having your pet Growl, because rather than just calling you names and yelling at you to turn Growl off, the tank is going to blame Stampede. She will never again want any hunter anywhere using Stampede, thinking it pulls aggro -- when in fact it was your fault, not our awesome burst DPS ability's. And all of us are going to hate you for it.
There are two solutions: the first is to make sure that every single pet in your active stable of 5 pets all have Growl turned off before it is dismissed. The easier solution is just to make sure you use the Glyph of Stampede. That way all of your pets will be clones of the pet you have out, and if your active pet has Growl turned off, so will all the Stampede pets.
And since you can never actually see your Stampede pets in the melee throng behind the boss, who cares if they all look the same?
Beware Barrage
When it comes to AoEing packs of mobs down, Barrage is an incredibly satisfying and effective level 90 talent choice. However, it also has a high chance of pulling in neighboring packs of mobs. While the ability itself has a 40 yard range, it seems that when it comes to the AoE spray Barrage is willing to go far, far beyond the 40 yards to pull distant mobs when you least want them. Then the tank yells at you until you cry.
To use Barrage in 5-mans you have to be very careful about your positioning. This often involves actually moving past the group of mobs and turning around to fire back the way you came. If you're very familiar with the dungeon you'll learn when you can safely fire and exactly how you have to position yourself.
Alternatively, you can go the safe route and use Glaive Toss for your AoE pulls.
Beware Powershot
Very bluntly, Powershot is not an ability to use in 5-mans. The knockback component is specifically designed to piss off tanks as you shove their tanking targets out of their range just as they trigger their expensive abilities ... every pull.
If you use Powershot in Dungeon Finder groups the tank will tell you to stop. If you don't stop then the tank will yell at you until you cry.
Of course in addition to all these new dangers of Mists of Pandaria ways to piss off your tank, you still don't want to do any of the normal stuff that pisses tanks off -- like only hitting Feign Death after you've pulled aggro.
If you don't want to cry like an elf, use your new abilities responsibly and don't piss off the tank.
Scattered Shots is dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. If you're stuck in one of the nine support classes, why not move up to the big league and play a hunter?
