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Feb 12

classes can learn from hunters

All classes have their secrets — their little tricks of the trade that are passed from player to player in the hidden hangouts of the class. I can imagine the warlocks in their lush boudoirs explaining to eager-faced new ‘locks about the real benefits to the succubus. Or mages in their mirrored enclaves admiring dresses and explaining to stricken young mages the real benefits to sheep.

Hunters are no different. When we gather in the wild, high places of Azeroth, we pass our own tricks around the campfire, the secrets that let us survive to see another boss.

Many of these tips are not specific to hunters, and every class could benefit from what we have learned the hard way. These are deeper truths and mechanical tips we’ve learned through the specific roles hunters often fill or through the hardships of our class design. In the interest of inter-class cooperation, we now share five of these secrets with you.

1. Kiting
Pro Tip: Just run away.

Since the vanilla days of General Drakkisath, hunters have been the go-to class for kiting situations, and we have perfected this delicate art. To be sure, we have some tools to enhance our ability. We have a slow trap and a slow shot that works on most non-boss mobs. We have a speed boost that dazes us if we take a single point of damage and thus is usually impractical.

But here’s a secret to hunter kiting: Most of the time, all we do is run away from the bad buy. Really. We’re flattered that you always ask us to do it, but really, in most cases anyone could manage it. We don’t really understand why you don’t feel like you can do it yourself. Just keep some DoTs up on the target or fire off an instant or two while you’re running (jump-shot is also just as simple as it sounds), and run away from the bad guy.

2. Damage reduction
Pro Tip: Use the secret damage reduction ability with no cooldown.

When it comes to damage reduction in raids and dungeons, common wisdom holds that hunters have the worst damage reduction abilities. This is not true. In point of fact, we have access to the very best one.

On the surface, it looks like the only damage reduction ability we have is Deterrence, and half the raid damage mechanics these days just ignore Deterrence. But we actually have become incredibly skilled at using a much better ability that has no cooldown at all: the movement button.

Whether it’s your mouse or the keyboard of a voice-activated “GTFO of the fire!” command, the most powerful damage reduction ability in the game is to suck it up and just move out of the way, even if that means interrupting a cast (which, admittedly, we don’t have to do — ever).

Certainly there is unavoidable damage, and we’re jealous as all heck about all of your awesome damage reduction talents and abilities that actually work — but we think that too often you lean on those abilities when you really should be using the move-out-of-the-way ability instead. When the basics are all you got, you learn to appreciate them a lot more.

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