WoW: Aspects of the Hunter - Charlie Brown Can't Kite Either

You've heard him talk about WoW on our gaming podcast. Now Rafe writes each week about his favorite Warcraft class - the hunter, offering insights, opinions, and lots of other words about the different aspects of the hunter.

The last two weeks have seen my first, honest to goodness efforts as a progression raid hunter. Instead of going through content more experienced members of my guild have seen and can guide me through, I’m now on the front line, experiencing fights and encounters for the first time alongside my guild’s advanced fighters. It’s a period of time that has been both exciting and humbling.

Thankfully, even though it’s my guild’s first time seeing the Icecrown fights, we do have the experiences of others to go on. Sites like TankSpot have excellent guidelines for how the fight work, and Frostheim is doing an excellent job as the new WoW.com Hunter writer of providing specific support for our class, but no matter how detailed those guides are, they just aren’t the same as being there, in the thick of the fight, as copious amounts of toxic/burning/frosty junk is being thrown at characters and the adrenaline starts pumping.

For most of the Lower Spire battles, I felt like I was keeping up with things. My guild had made a few runs on ICC before I joined the progression raids, so the fights moved like a well oiled machine. Sure, it was a well oiled machine that still managed some wipes, but it was easy to see where our problems were and to fix them. Then we reached the end of their experience – Saurfang, a fight that not only pushes a raid group to be perfect, but involves one of my weakest game mechanics of all hunterdom: kiting.

You see, as a solo player leveling up, I never had much use for kiting. I learned well how to have my pet tank opponents and hold aggro. As soon as I trained in Misdirect, I became even more capable at playing DPS while my pet served as a tank. If I started to get aggro, a simple Misdirect or Feign Death and things were cool, which is exactly how things work in heroic groups. Since I didn’t have to worry about getting aggro, I didn’t have the need to practice kiting any mobs.

My first kiting experience didn’t come until Naxxramas, when hunters are expected to keep Gluth from feasting on zombies. With plenty of space, and other hunters, casters, etc, to help out, kiting was challenging, but doable, even for the inexperienced. If the zombies got too close and took a bite out of me, the only one who was hurt was me, and maybe the healer who had to expend mana to make up for my mistake.

The Saurfang fight is not so fortunate. At best, you’ll get one other person to help you take down the Blood Beasts you have to kite. Any raid member who is helping you, however, is no longer aiding in fighting Saurfang, which means a loss of DPS where it’s really needed. To make matters worse, if the Blood Beasts get to take a swipe at you, Saurfang gains more blood power, which means your mistake costs the raid in their timed fight against the Death Knight. Oh – and space is confined, making the fight even more challenging. For the inexperienced kiter, it’s a nightmare, and I truly believe the first night I was part of the raid group, it was my inexperience that caused two wipes as Saurfang amassed power and cackled over our fallen bodies.

I still haven’t found a good practice routine for the high-level hunter to kite. Most mobs go down too quickly (usually not a bad thing) to get much practice. Instead I just had to sit at my keyboard, look at all my abilities (including dusting off some lesser used ones) and mentally go through the process. The time investment paid off, however, when a return to ICC and Saurfang gave me the chance to redeem myself. These are a few of the mental notes and tips I made for myself while contemplating the fight. Hopefully they might be of use to some other fledgling kiters out there.

1. You do have Concussion Shot
This is actually more of an inside joke, but it may be a reminder some hunters need. On our first night trying Saurfang, the raid leader asked me about Concussion Shot. It was late, I was tired, and I was already frustrated from previous wipes that I knew were my own fault. I mentally mixed up Concussion with something else and responded that I didn’t have that because I’m a Marksman fighter, not a Survival spec. It doesn’t matter what spec you are – you have Concussion Shot, which slows the enemy down for a couple of seconds – enough time to make an escape or get another shot in. Not used to kiting, Concussion Shot had been collecting dust in my abilities list, but quickly became hotkeyed for this fight.

2. Stop moving!
Okay, the entire premise of kiting is dragging the creature behind you (like a kite) without getting hit. In order to do that, you have to keep moving. If you keep moving, however, your auto-shot never gets any time. Considering the large portion of your DPS that is still made up by auto-attack, you need to stop moving and allow yourself the chance to fire a shot. This means making sure there’s perpetually enough room in between you and the mob for you to pause for half a second. This is easy while the mob is in your Frost Trap’s effect, but once they move out it’s a bit harder to keep (which is why Survival tends to be better at kiting than Marksmen). This is where added abilities like Concussion Shot come in handy.

3. Disengage is more than a last resort
Most of the time I’ve used Disengage it’s because a mob has moved to close to me or caught me off guard. With the Blood Beasts, I realized that if I used Disengage strategically, instead of reactively, I could use it to time out an additional Steady Shot when my other cooldowns were recycling. At the same time, the Disengage allowed me to get a couple more auto shots in before I started moving – always a benefit. Plan ahead and figure out how this ability can become a proactive tool for your benefit, instead of a reactive “save your butt” ability.

4. Manage your space
It’s probably a no brainer, but take the time to look at the space you have before the fight begins. Particularly look at areas that might take you out of range of healers or block you in without any choice but to be hit by whatever’s chasing you. For Gluth this isn’t a big deal – plenty of space to drag zombies around. For the Saurfang fight, however, it’s another matter entirely. I didn’t think much about the space during our first attempt, and somehow kept going left, blocking myself off on a ledge while the Blood Beasts had plenty of life left to pound me with. Taking a moment to assess the space before clicking “Yes” on that ready check made all the difference.

5. Let someone else take the fall
Is that Blood Beast getting too close? It’s easy to keep from getting hit. Just feign death. Assuming it works (remember, it does have a chance of failing), the beast will forget all about what it thinks is dead prey and head for the next target on its list. Just make sure there’s plenty of room for it to move away from you, and especially be certain to regain aggro before it hits anyone else. I had the benefit of having another DPS helping damage the kited mobs, so I could feign death and let it go back over my Ice Trap’s effect toward her, using a Distracting Shot to get it coming back after me before it ever lay a finger on her. Be warned: if you FD and allow the beast to become someone else’s problem entirely, you deserve whatever punishment you get, including being kicked from the raid.

Do you have some kiting tips or comments on the Saurfang fight? Sound off in the comments section below.