So You Want to Play a Hunter? Part 3

So you’ve hit level 6 and you’ve got Arcane Shot. Great! This will make it easier for you to kill stuff before it gets to you. Now there seems to be some confusion, I think, involving when to use Arcane Shot. In all honesty, I don’t think there is a set “best rotation” for Arcane Shot in the low-levels. But the basics that you want to know is that you don’t want to use it too much, because it will eat up your mana and pull aggro away from your pet pretty easily. It does, however, round out most of the skills you will be using pre-level-62.

Hunter’s Mark is the other thing you learn at level 6. There is some debate over whether Hunter’s Mark is worth the mana. In my mind, it is: it provides a sizable DPS boost (particularly over time), and if you are spec’d for Improved Hunter’s Mark, it boosts your pet’s attack power by a significant amount, too. Think of it this way: if you are a Beast Master or Survival hunter, Improved Hunter’s Mark is basically like your own mini-Trueshot-Aura. And if you are Marksman, it’s more of the goodness! Rank 4 Hunter’s Mark is going to give you an extra 110 AP and the more you shoot it, the higher that bonus rises (for ranged only). Pike’s verdict: learn to use and love Hunter’s Mark.

Typical Lowbie Hunter Rotation:
-Hunter’s Mark
-Serpent Sting Opener
-Auto Shot until the mob is dead, throw in an Arcane Shot every so often to speed things up.

That’s really all there is to it. Before you have a pet, you are most advised to use your Arcane Shot whenever you can, though.

If you are looking into doing more PvP than PvE, Arcane Shot is going to become basically the cornerstone of your life and everything you hold dear, but us more-PvE types typically love our Steady Shot more.

And now you’ve hit level 8. And you’ve got Concussive Shot. Your mission, if you choose to accept it: put your kiting skills to the test and learn how to jump-shot-kite.

Jump Shot Kiting is accomplished by jumping, turning, shooting, and then turning back and landing, while moving. Sound complicated? It is, and it’s difficult at first, but if you practice a little, you will soon have the hang of it. It’s a little hard to describe through writing, so I’ve made a movie:

I don’t know if it is the clearest or most helpful movie, so let me know if you need clarification! Also, I have decided that Hellfire Peninsula is perhaps not the best place to hold many of these videos in the future, because over the overwhelming… red…ness… yeah. Note to self: Nagrand next time.

Well, congratulations, you have (hopefully) mastered the art of playing sans-pet. /diploma

And that’ll do it for this week’s installment of SYWtPaH. (pronounced Suit-paw…? Perhaps!) Be sure to join us next week when we go on a crazy pet-taming adventure!

11 thoughts on “So You Want to Play a Hunter? Part 3”

  1. Nice video – but not Nagrand next time, but Mulgore (similar background), and with a petless level 8 hunter, would make your point better.

  2. Hey Pike! Thanks for all your guides, find them very interesting to read! However, I still don’t understand the benefit of jump-kiting above strafe-kiting.

    Maybe I just couldn’t learn to do the former good, but here’s what I stick to:
    • zoom out the camera so you can see more of what happens in the place you’re strafing to;
    • from time to time turn the camera (with left mouse button!) to once again be sure there’s no ambush “ahead”: once you release mouse button, camera returns back;
    • less needed, but I can turn the camera same way in the opposite direction to see how our kited victim is;
    • just know the surroundings;
    • and best of all: use all your abilities, or even pause for a few autoshots without turning character.

    So. What am I missing here by not investing time to learn jump-kiting?

    P.S. Oh, and this page isn’t listed ander “wanna play a hunter” category, so it was a little URL guessing for me to find it.

  3. Why kite? What’s it for? I learned the jumping and spinning thingie ages ago to show off, but didn’t know it could be used for… something?

  4. Also, I’m quite annoyed with your blog being so interesting and funny that I have four pages of it and a video up at the same time, skipping between articles and trying to read all at once. You’re keeping me from playing WoW, woman!

    I might actually start to play my ally at Venture Co again to come and look for you. *grumbles*

  5. FTW! *spam continued*
    Put on your trapathon video a third time because I can’t live without that song anymore, and then noticed the second song… Svensk! ^.^

  6. @ Settle – Okay, kiting. It’s actually not really a skill you’ll see needed much anymore but basically it’s a form of crowd control. If you’ve got a mob following you but unable to hit you, that mob is essentially CC’d. It’s also useful for getting the Fel Reaver to Shatt and watching chaos unfold; that kind of thing.

  7. Actually I didn’t get a thing, so I checked a lot ot kiting movies on the tube, so now I got it ^.^

    Fel Reaver in Shatt… *drool*

Comments are closed.