new main hunter - need short and sweet pvp advice

[Deleted]

Background details
been raiding and pvping in bgs (dont care for arena) for a very long time.
My mains were always either meele or healers.
I have spent like 5 years on a ret paladin.

Now that i have grown tired of that boring ass rotation, and the holy tree is not my cup of tea i decided to try hunter.
And loved it, everything they got rid of in hunters is what kept me off from trying it (the troublesome pet food, the range, deadzones etc)

But after always playing meeles in games i now see i cant play ranged pvp to save my life.
Now granted all my recent experiences have been in the island of gank, and they brutally out gear me with season 15 pvp gear.

But the ones that dont i generally dont know what to do..

When someone charges at me + harmstring, or cheapshots me + crippling what do i do?
do i insta disengage with net talent?
do i frost trap first AND THEN disengage?
do i frost trap and use the deterrence?

what about afterwards?
nearly all meeles can shorten the distance easily, let alone if they have pvp trinkets..
what is the main objective of a hunter to survive world pvp?
do i frost trap and dance around it casting chimeras and trying for that aimed shot ?

thank you so much in advance

[Regalbeast]

When someone charges at me + harmstring, or cheapshots me + crippling what do i do? Be sure to have explosive trap knockback glyph. Use that, try to slow them and then disengage when they come at you again. If you are getting bursted fast, use deterrence.
do i insta disengage with net talent? I use the webs probably 90% of the time, the other 10% I use post-haste.
do i frost trap first AND THEN disengage? I'm assuming you mean if someone is in melee range. It's probably easier to land your frost trap at close range then if you disengage first. Plus you might find use for the glyph that lets you run much faster after you stand on your ice trap
do i frost trap and use the deterrence? Depends on the situation. I wouldn't normally do this
what about afterwards? Kite them. Use your strafe, keep concussive up at all times, glaive toss for extra slow, use pet slow, use frost arrow (lvl 100 talent), etc. There are many ways to kite and hunters are the king of this.
nearly all meeles can shorten the distance easily, let alone if they have pvp trinkets.. It can be tricky to keep melees out of range, they have lots of gap closers. However, between explosive knockback, disengage, concussive, ice trap, frost trap, glaive toss, pet slow, etc. you should be able to kite most melee 1v1. It's all about knowledge of your utility.
what is the main objective of a hunter to survive world pvp? Kite, kite, and kite. We don't have very much mitigation (spirit bond, deter, and iron hawk mainly) so it's important to keep the melee away
do i frost trap and dance around it casting chimeras and trying for that aimed shot? You slow your target and keep away from them however you can. If you are MM you will want to try and have your mastery buff activate (you can actually do this using Fox now which is awesome) as much as you can, but your main priority is kiting. But yes, cast chim on CD and Aimed Shot when you can. I generally go for kill shot>chim>aimed>steady. Be sure to use your tranq as well because it can proc TotH

Hope this helps

[Deleted]

Thank you that is very enlightening, hunter life is tough i see... you cant always kite people in open world cause of mobs or geographics or whatever, whereas a rogue or warrior can constantly stay on you...oh well

Note sure how i would fare with more pvp gear maybe lone wolf would help increasing the insta cast abilities` dmg to make the kiting easier..

[Deleted]

I'm quite experienced in hunter pvp, so here's a few tips to kite and survive. I know this isn't "short and sweet" advice, but had some extra time so felt like typing it out. You can just ignore if you don't have the attention to read it, thats fine

First you need to be comfortable with your toolkit. You have a ton of abilities you can rotate to keep melee off you, or stop incoming damage. Here's the most important ones:

Roar of Sacrifice. Cunning pet ability. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THIS! If you want to survive in pvp, you absolutely must have this. This is your #1 major defensive cooldown. With everyone having 40-60+ critchance nowadays, this cooldown works almost like a pain suppression. It's on very short 1 minute cooldown, can be used when stunned/feared. It requires your pet to be free of loss of control effects though. and is off the global cooldown. This is the ability you press instantly when you get opened on by rogues/ferals/rets etc.

Disengage with Posthaste talent: I prefer this over the net, because it removes slowing abilities from you, and also gives you a sprint. It's extremely potent to kite melee classes. Know that if you get caught in a slow, you likely will never get distance again and live to tell the tale. Rogues with burst of speed will stick on you like glue as soon as crippling is applied, same with warriors and hamstring. Well fuck basically any melee class will destroy you if you get slowed without an out, and you'll just be a dead rat. With posthaste you can make their life miserable by slipping out of their grasp, unable to catch up. Better than the net imo.

Master's call: Your second pet ability. You NEED this to kite any melee class. Its a freedom on you that will allow you to get some range after being caught. First use concussive shot to slow your opponent, then masters call to gain distance.

Concussive shot: Must be applied on COOLDOWN. THis is one of your highest priority shots against melee. Try to time it after they use their removal ability. Rets will freedom, you remove it with tranq shot and apply concussive again. Ferals will shift, but reapply concussive. Force them to keep shifting when they are closing in. Rogues will burst of speed, reapply this to make them waste energy.

Deterrance This is your last resort ability. If a melee has caught up to you and other abilities are on cooldown, you use this to buy yourself some time Don't use it at low HP, that is usually not the most effective way. Use it to PREVENT damage in the first place. If you see big cooldowns being popped and predict big incoming damage, use deterr. Things like shadow dance, wings, recklessnes, incarnation etc. Deterr and try to get distance. Remember you can use masters call while inside deterrance. Try not to overlap with sacrifice if you can avoid it, you need to stagger your cooldowns in a sequence.

Binding Shot. Near instant aoe stun. Put in front of your enemy while they sprint towards you, and you get 3 seconds of breathing room / dps time. This is also a good tool to get distance in the first place.

Explosive trap knockback (glyph) Use this in your kiting rotation. Can be placed after a BInding shot to buy you even more distance. Generally use it on cooldown to increase kiting distance.

Freezing Trap. Yes freezing. Not frost trap. This new trap mechanic becomes instantly triggered on enemies in melee range, and stops them dead in their tracks. It 100% forces a trinket or they will have to sit it for the entire duration. In random bg fights, often times people have their trinkets on cooldown, so this will give you the first kiting space if you got a melee breathing down your neck. If they do have their trinket ready, you can full binding shot them right after and lay massive burst into them.

Camouflage: Most people only think of this as an opening or pre-combat ability. But it can be very effective used in combat as well. Its instant, so first of all it instantly drops you as target and cancels incoming casts on you. Dropping target can be extremely powerful, even for just one or two seconds. It confuses enemies or makes them miss their charge/leap/HoJ while you dance out of their range with concussive kiting. If you get caught by a melee and cant get out, I like to deterrance, then disengage out and instantly camo. If you have a dot on you, thats fine, youve still bought yourself valuable seconds while your enemy try to locate you and retarget. It also gets those pesky BG bots off your trail if theyve locked on to you.

Feign death. Same purpose as camo. Drops your target for a few seconds confusion+retarget. More effective than youd think. Also short cooldown so can be used liberally. I like to use it when a melee is just about to catch up to me, to possibly prevent the first connect that usually will apply a slow on you.

PvP trinket. Never sit a full stun like HoJ, Kidney, Bash etc. You will come out of the stun either dead 100-0 or in execute range. If your trinket is down and you get caught in one of those, your chances are slim im not gonna lie. Best bet is to use roar of sacrifice and hope for the best.


Once you learn to rotate and stagger these abilities in a chain together, you will find melees a lot easier. A typical sequence will look like this:

1) Rogue cheapshots you and pops shadowdance to try burst you down in the opener.
2) You instantly trinket and freezing trap him while you strafe out of melee range. You will not have a slow applied to you (trinket)
3) Rogue will either sit or trinket the trap. If he trinkets the trap (0.5s-1s reaction time usually) you lay down binding shot and or explosive trap.
4) rogue gets binding shot 3 second full stun. You will have distance at this point. Put full damage into him, Aimed, Chimera, Crows.
5) He will be about half health now, with a dot on him, and youre far away. This is where he will want to cloak+ vanish and either escape or try to reopen.
6) Try predict his vanish and lay a flare right when binding shot is about to end. Concussive kite from here.
7) If he Vanish and reopen, the stun will be DR'd. Use Roar of sacrifice this time and disengage away. Youll be free from slows and can kite again.
8) Some rogues will try randomly blind you at this point just to desperately try catch up. But youll still have tricks in your bag. If he does catch you, you can either masters call, explosive trap and keep concussive kiting, or if you are also taking some damage use deterrance and masters call to stall and explosive trap to get distance again. Around now your disengage and possibly freezing trap will be up again and you can repeat.

Of course a million other things can happen in a fight, but this is just general guidelines. You must strafe kite at all times while doing full damage rotation (cast aimed/steady shots in their face), and you depend on killing them before you run out of tools. If you simply cant kill them fast enough (due to gear, because in full gear you can destroy people 100-0 in a few seconds as a markshman hunter right now), youll probably be a dead rat. Often times you cant kite forever, so you must destroy them before they can get a permanent hold on you.¨

Bonus tip: If all hope is lost, and you are sitting in a deterrance in an impossible situation where you know you just won't live for long afterwards and you cant finish off anyone, I like to use my last few globals before I die to SPAM tranquilizing shot on whoever is killing me. This strips their buffs so they'll be easier the next time you meet them (if battlegrounds). Removing mastery buff, stat buff, crit buff etc is a huge deal and will make future encounter with that enemy easier to deal with.

Good luck

[Deleted]

that was very detailed and valuable! thank you so much!
i was never to sure about the FD/camo/freezing trap tactics to mess them or make them lose their target cause it "wastes" global cds but the rest was really insightful, thank you!

which two cunning pets would you suggest?

[Futon]

Short and sweet. Reroll.

[Deleted]

Hunter for pvp in wod? Ouch, bad move, bro. I was a hunter in MoP and I'm rerolling dk.

[Deleted]

Short and sweet. Reroll.

yes i came to realise this.. i like it a lot for raids and dungeons, i cant stand the ret paladin rotation anymore..its so boring.. that is why i was dweeling into the hunter class, i only asked about pvp cause i wanna be able to hold my own in the world while questing or whatever and not be a fucking puppet lol ..had no idea how to properly kite and deal with intercepts and shadowsteps etc, getting there though...

[Deleted]

that was very detailed and valuable! thank you so much!
i was never to sure about the FD/camo/freezing trap tactics to mess them or make them lose their target cause it "wastes" global cds but the rest was really insightful, thank you!

which two cunning pets would you suggest?

I run with a wolf in BGs for the crit buff. If I start a game with a crit buff already applied from say a mage, I switch to a bloodlust pet to mess people up real good in the first mass brawl.