The Warcraft Hunter

If you read my last post, you will know that I gave you a description of how to create a macro to make your character sit down.

Big deal.

After all, what you really want to do is send your pet in to make a kill, and follow it up with some massive fire power. Well, this next macro is going to help you automate that as much as possible. Some of what I will show you may be above your character level. That’s OK, because you can always remove the lines that don’t apply to you. Or, you can leave them in, but turn off your error warnings in your interface (more on that in another post).

Once you reach Level 6, you can use the Hunter’s Mark, but for the purposes of this macro I am going to assume that you are at least Level 10 and have a pet. If not, then there is not much sense in automating your attack with a macro. So, open up your macro interface by typing “/macro”, and create a new Macro, naming it “Send In The Pet”, or anything else that makes sense to you. Make sure to use the button that has a question mark on it.

The first line to enter into the macro is:

#showtooltip Hunter’s Mark

It is very important to get all the spelling, punctuation, capitals and spaces correct. What this line does is change whatever button you assign this macro to into a Hunter’s Mark button, only with the first few letters of the name of your macro on it. Even better is to make sure the button is keybound, which means that the button will be activated by a specified key on the keyboard.

The next line to add is:

/cast Hunter’s Mark

You could add some “qualifiers” here to only cast Hunter’s Mark if your current target is an enemy and is not dead, but since nothing else in this macro ought to work if those things are not true then it hardly matters. Again, turning off the error messages will prevent distractions when you happen to accidentally run the macro when you have a friendly target or no target at all. Of course, the purpose of this line is to actually cast the Hunter’s Mark on your target, and that is exactly what this macro would do if you left it as is.

But simply creating a macro to do what the spell would do anyway if you just moved it to your action bar is hardly worthwhile. So we add another line:

/cast Rapid Fire

Rapid Fire is available when you reach Level 26, and it increases the speed at which you can fire. The faster you can fire the more damage you can do, so you should be using this as much as possible. By adding this to your macro you are at least attempting to cast it every time you run this macro. If the cooldown is not up, then there will be an error which may or may not be displayed depending on whether you have error displays turned on in your interface.

Now you want to add the spells that are specific to your Talent Tree and race. For instance, Beast Master Hunters can get Bestial Wrath once they have 31 talent points in the BM tree. Add the Beast Within talent, and this becomes a potent attack combination. Here is how it looks:

/cast Bestial Wrath

So this macro stuff isn’t looking that hard after all, is it? Again, since this spell has a cool down, it will only take effect if it is available. But it should be used at every opportunity if you have it, and stuffing it into this macro is the simplest way of making sure you do.

You can add any race-specific spells or other Talent Tree spells you might have as well; just make sure to get the spelling exactly correct!

Next we look at Trinkets. If you don’t have them yet, don’t worry about it, but you will eventually get some. They fit into two slots on your character, and normally have both an Equip and Use buff. The Equip buff is effective whenever you are “wearing” the Trinket, but to “Use” it you must actively do so. You can right click on it in your Character screen (hardly effective during combat); or you can drag the Trinket to a button and activate it from the button whenever you remember (which will be at the end of some battle, trust me); or you can activate it from within the macro, like this:

/use 13
/use 14

If you have never seen this before, then it may look a bit odd. If you have made a macro that uses Trinkets before then you will know that you can use a line like “/use Fancy Trinket”, where Fancy Trinket is the name of the Trinket. But Blizzard in their infinite wisdom have allowed us to simply refer to the slot number where the Trinkets go, which are 13 and 14. This means you don’t need to twiddle with your macro whenever you make an upgrade; plus it prevents spelling mistakes.

So far we have changed the way the button looks, cast a Hunter’s Mark on our target, cast any Talent or race specific spells plus Rapid Fire, and activated our trinkets. But nothing has been attacked! The next line will change all that:

/petattack

Now your pet will lunge, prowl, slither, fly, charge or dash to the target and start attacking in whatever manner it deems appropriate. At this point it is your job to follow up with a barrage of bullets or arrows to take down the target as fast as possible, taking advantage of all the buffs that may have been put on you from the previous lines in the macro.

But this does not mean you should add any shooting commands to this macro. In fact, I believe you should not. This macro does plenty of things which ought to be done at the beginning of your attack anyway. But shooting may not necessarily be your next step. Sometimes you may want to wait until your pet gets enough threat that you can fire away without worry of pulling aggro. Or you may want to cast Misdirection (available at Level 70), lay a trap or do something else.

Anyway, there will be macros to handle each of those things, but you will need a moment to decide what to do next, and then you can do it.

So here is the macro as I wrote it in complete, and it is very close to what I actually use:

#showtooltip Hunter’s Mark /cast Hunter’s Mark
/cast Rapid Fire
/cast Bestial Wrath
/use 13
/use 14
/petattack

Again, you can add lines that are specific to your Talent Trees and race, and remove those that you don’t have, or don’t have yet. But the important thing to remember is that you have some spells and items that can be used from time to time, and it is important to use them whenever possible. They will help you when grinding, questing, raiding or running Battlegrounds. Using a macro like this one will help you make sure you don’t miss any opportunities.

Be sure to put this macro on one of your action bars, and keybind it. When you activate it, make sure to “spam” it by hitting it several times. That way you can be certain that everything that can be done will be done, as cooldowns can sometimes interfere with certain spells and trinkets. Also, you want to use this method of attacking almost all the time; the only time you should attack differently is if there is a reason for your pet not to attack, or if you don’t want to waste your cooldowns just before an upcoming Boss.

In the next post we will talk about shooting macros, which will help you with your shot rotation.

Basics, Macros Add new tag, Basics, Hunter, Macros, Warcraft

Before I start writing about tips about how to improve your play as a Hunter, I thought I would write about why I play a Hunter.

First, when I started playing WoW, I knew that I could play alone or as part of a group. Since I deal with people all day long at work, I really don’t want to have to commit to playing with other people. Sometimes I feel like having company, other times I don’t. So playing a Hunter allowed me to play a decent character without having other people around –  having a pet is like a 2 for 1 deal, but the other player doesn’t yack your ear off!

Also, Hunters can track various mobs, as well as nodes for gathering, so this makes questing so much easier. Also, you can navigate through areas without getting slowed down by mobs that you don’t need to fight…or at least be prepared for them.

Feign Death is another Hunter trait that I like. If things are going bad, and you think you are going to die, it is often a simple matter to back away, let the Pet take the brunt of the attack, and Feign Death at the right moment and let the mobs go away. I don’t know how many times this has saved me, but it has likely saved me a few hours of running back to my corpse!

Another aspect of having a pet is the ability to sacrifice it in order to clear mobs that would otherwise be too difficult or take too long. This makes some quests faster to complete, especially those that require picking up an item in a campsite inhabited by a dozen mobs. Would your guild mates do that for you? I think not!

Hunters are not the only class that gets pets: Warlocks also get their Demon pets. However, they don’t have a lot to choose from, nor can they customize them the same way that Hunters can. By changing their own Talent tree, as well as their pet’s, a Hunter can change the way they play more drastically than just about any class. For the record, my current playing style uses Beast Master along with a Ferocity Pet, which works for my PvE activities. Once dual spec comes out, I may create another Talent Tree and Pet for Raiding.

Because of the ranged attack, Hunters can also pull mobs efficiently, and thereby reduce the chances of unwanted adds. Again, this helps with survival, which makes the playing time more efficient.

The last thing I can think of is that the pet makes a great decoy when gathering ores or herbs. If you get attacked when you are gathering you can simply let the pet occupy the mob while you continue to gather. I often do this just to make sure I get the skill-up, as well as “claim” the node if someone  else is competing for it. Normally I will leave other players alone to gather if they got there first, but if it is the opposing faction then all bets are off. I have “ninjaed” a few nodes in my time from players that spit on me later…which is fine, as I got the goodies, and they didn’t!

Most of what I will be writing about is how to make the most of your time playing. If you want to simply hang around, socialize or play casually, then all the more power to you. But when you decide to get something done, you are going to want to get results fast. Knowing a Hunter’s advantages over other classes (at least in PvE) will help in understanding the best choices to make in all sorts of decisions.

Uncategorized Add new tag, Hunter, Warcraft