Misdirect and Distracting shot confusion

[Mashugana]

I am not sure how to use these two abilities effectively when soloing or in a Raid. What is the difference and how are they used?

Thanks for dumbing it down for me

[Deleted]

Distraction Shot - You taunt and get aggro

Misdirect - You misdirect the aggro to another target (player/pet)

[Solidsteel]

MD is used to transfer all of your threat on your target for the next few seconds. Useful in raids to MD on the tank who is pulling to help him with threat or in combination with a multi when a tank needs to pick up adds. For soloing you can MD your pet to give it threat and hopefully have it tank what you are soloing. Distracting shot is your taunt and is very rarely used. I haven't raided in MoP but you'll only need to use it if you are on a fight where your group expects you to kite or have aggro on something which is rare. It's not used much while soloing either..

[Illana]

you can also glyph distracting shot to make mobs attack your pet. Distracting glyph rarely works on bosses (though I remember good times kiting lich king across his platform with it on our first kill XD)

[Arhippa]

Distracting shot is not a taunt. Taunt makes the target attack you and matches your threat with whoever had aggro before you taunted. Distracting shot only forces the target to attack you for a few seconds, it does absolutely nothing to your threat.

[Mashugana]

Thanks all. I think I understand where I went wrong.

I use glyphed Distracting Shot when my pet cannot hold aggro - mostly when I pull aggro on Timeless Isle. Distracting Shot has felt useless - now I see why - it fails on Elites. I might as well be throwing slices of cheese at them.

So when I pull aggro off my pet while soloing I think I need to switch to Misdirect.

Question:

Does misdirect default to my pet? Or do I need a macro that says 'if I have a focus (tank) Misdirect to my focus; otherwise Misdirect to my pet". Then that becomes my single 'get aggro off me' both solo and in Raids.

That seem right?

Thanks again.

[Illana]

/cast [target=focus,noharm,exists][target=pet] Misdirection

this macro will misdirect to your focus if you have one or your pet if you don't

I usually put this in my arcane shot when I'm soloing since it's off GCD

[Deleted]

Distracting shot is not a taunt. Taunt makes the target attack you and matches your threat with whoever had aggro before you taunted. Distracting shot only forces the target to attack you for a few seconds, it does absolutely nothing to your threat.

Well, you do get the increased 200% threat generation of your attacks during the duration of the effect, but yeah, not a "true" taunt.

[Jaydenkor]

Just to add a few quips here.

You seem to be a new ish hunter, mainly concerned with LFR, maybe flex, and timeless isle elites; so that is what Im basing my below statements on.

For timeless isle; Major Glyph; Misdirection
^ your best friend.
This allows you to spam MD onto your pet constantly.. and assuming you are careful about how many you pull//the types, you can easily take on good sized groups of mobs as long as they dont melee kill your pet.
This glyph, +Spirit Bond talent, +The glyph that increases healing done to you and your pet by 10%.. are a soloists best friend
Run survival with a tank pet with this setup.. and there is very little you can't solo other then current level raid bosses//raid trash.
(Note on above, do not play BM with a tank pet with this setup, the dps loss is not worth it.)

For raiding; MD the tank on pulling (especially if the tanks use a timer) basically lets you go nuts with the dps cooldowns right away without having to worry about threat. MDing when new add waves come out (Say, LFR/Flex/Normal Garrosh, the warbringers), and aoeing with MD up.. can save the tank alot of headaches, and save you an add in your face.

Specifically for Distracting shot;
The intention behind the design for this skill back when it first came into existence was a way for you to pingpong mobs between your pet and you; eg pull a mob off your pet, run away, and wait out the 6 second fixate and then the mob goes back on your pet//the pet taunts back.
What it actually gets used for is.. maybe 2 places in SOO.
- Empowered Whirl on Garrosh, pulling 1 of those little adds away from others so you can kill it without empowering the other adds when it dies
- The trash to Nazgrim; the War Shaman pack - Pulling a single shaman out from the group of healing tide totems so you can actually kill it, usually only if the other tank is bad and failing to taunt them out himself.

Theoretically you could use distracting shot to save someone who was about to die from a single mob.. but generally no one dies to non-elites.. and elites (at least on timeless isle) are immune to distracting shot and pet taunt..
So.. on the list of skills to prioritize having a keybinding for.. Distracting shot is not up there that high
For me, its Shift-D.. and rarely if ever used.

[Anastacy]

Does Kill Command work with Misdirection, for purposes of threat transfer?

[Daetur]

Does Kill Command work with Misdirection, for purposes of threat transfer?

If memory serves, no, it does not- only threat generated by the hunter counts, and KC is pet damage.

[Azortharion]

If memory serves, no, it does not- only threat generated by the hunter counts, and KC is pet damage.

Yup - also why Misdirection kinda sucks for BM (unless your goal is to get pet threat at least).

[Spl4sh3r]

Distracting shot is not a taunt. Taunt makes the target attack you and matches your threat with whoever had aggro before you taunted. Distracting shot only forces the target to attack you for a few seconds, it does absolutely nothing to your threat.

If you exclude the threat, then Distraction Shot is identical to Taunt. Both the abilities places an effect on the target causing it to only target you for a few seconds. If you consider travel time of the arrow and the movement speed of the target you can essentially ping pong the target while slowly killing it.

[Mashugana]

snip

Holy cow - thank you! And you nailed it - I'm new to max level Hunter and I am struggling in LFR and on TU specifically. Great advice.

[Illana]

KC already gives your pet threat, all of the damage is counted to your pet.

[yasiru]

Just a minor question related to what Jaydenkor stated: I always thougt the intention of the shot when it was introduced was to be able to pull mobs off your healers in 5 mans/raids, not to ping pong mobs between you and your pet. Am I mistaken?

[Illana]

When I started playing in the ICC patch, distracting shot actually worked on some bosses.

[Saffa]

MD is also useful in a lfr if you have a real pain in the bottom there, just MD onto the know it all and watch him die fast.

[zoomgpally]

When I started playing in the ICC patch, distracting shot actually worked on some bosses.

I'm quite sure it also worked on halfus.
Either that or I was lucky and got aggro just when i hit it(tanks were dead, i was trying to deterrencetank to give other dps a few extra seconds)

[Daetur]

When I started playing in the ICC patch, distracting shot actually worked on some bosses.

While true, it no longer reliably works on bosses, so that's kind of irrelevant. Also, KC causing your pet to generate threat because your pet is doing the damage is only relevant if you want to be MDing to your pet- it's very important in raids and group content to be aware that KC will not transfer threat to your tank through MD.