The Warcraft Hunter

When a Hunter reaches Level 6, two more spells become available. The first is Hunter’s Mark, which is a “debuff” you place on a mob. This debuff does some interesting things.

The first and most important is that it increases the Ranged Attack Power of everyone attacking that mob. Not just yours; not just your Party’s; everyone’s. This includes players from other factions, apparently. This should be used every time you attack a mob, at least when you have time to set up your attack ahead of time. In fact, I always make this part of a macro that sends my pet in to attack so I never miss a chance to Mark a mob, but at Level 6 you don’t have a pet, so you probably won’t set this up in a macro just yet.

The other spell you get at Level 6 is Arcane Shot, which is another Instant Cast damage shot, but this time without a DoT. Because it is an Instant Cast, it can be shot on the run, just like Serpent Sting, which means you can use the strafing strategy described in the previous post. Arcane Shot will do 15% of your Ranged Attack Power in Arcane Damage, plus an extra amount depending on which Rank you are using. At this level you can only get Rank 1, which will add an extra 15 damage to the 15%. This 15% is based on your current Ranged Attack Power, which includes all buffs, so you really want to have that Hunter’s Mark on the mob when you cast Arcane Shot — every bit of damage helps!

If you have never heard the term Arcane Damage before, let me explain it. there are various types of damage that can be dealt: Physical, Nature, Shadow, Frost, Fire, Arcane and Holy. Physical Damage is the type that is dealt by “normal” type of fighting, as with swords, axes, bullets and arrows…basically Things hitting Other Things. Armor reduces Physical Damage, so when your damage from Auto Shot seems to be reduced, it can be due to the mob having lots of Armor. This situation is the best for using Arcane Shot, because Armor does not reduce Arcane Damage. The only real downside to Arcane Shot is that it does use a fair bit of Mana.

The cooldown on Arcane Shot is 6 seconds, which means you will need to wait 6 seconds before shooting it a second time. Here is the strategy that I use once I get this spell:

1. Get to Maximum Range from target;
2. Put Hunter’s Mark on Target;
3. Fire Serpent Sting (always get DoTs up right away!);
4. Fire Arcane Shot;
5. Strafe away, firing Serpent Sting when Arcane shot is not available.

If you are not able to kill the mob quickly, you may need to change direction and strafe again. Try to do so before the mob gets into melee range, but if you can’t then try to run away when it is casting something or doing something else that takes time. Also bear in mind that some mobs will run away once their damage gets below a certain point, so don’t strafe out of range!

Erik Basics, Leveling Basics, Hunter, Leveling, Warcraft