CC for Dummies, 3 Easy steps to successfull Crowd Control

[Baelzibub]

Since the introduction of Cataclym has brought back the need for Crowd Control (from this point on being called CC) I would like to share my thoughts/insights to proper Hunter CC'ing.

Depending on your spec you have 1 or 2 breakable (meaning damage to the mob under the influence of your CC ability will break said ability) CC's, being: Freezing Trap and Wyvern Sting.

Freezing Trap:
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=3355
Place an ice trap that freezes the first enemy that approaches, preventing all action for up to 1 min. Any damage caused will break the ice. Trap will exist for 1 min.
NOTE! For survival you can/will increase this duration to 90sec.

Wyvern Sting: (Surival Spec only)
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=19386
A stinging shot that puts the target to sleep for 30 sec. Any damage will cancel the effect. When the target wakes up, the Sting causes 2736 Nature damage over 6 sec.
NOTE! Glyphed you can take 6sec off the cooldown.

There is also 1 more base abilty which is called Scatter Shot:
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=19503
A short-range shot that deals 50% weapon damage and disorients the target for 4 sec. Any damage caused will remove the effect.
Its basicly a 4 second stun, given that nobody else does damage to the target, this includes running DoT's (Damage over Time effects).

With Cataclym we also got Trap Launcher to replace our old Freezing Arrow, which allows us to place a trap anywhere within 40 yards.

Now, to business:

There are a group of 3 mobs, which consist of 2 melee mobs, 1 healer and/or 1 caster.
Say you want to CC the caster, and let the rest through, the easiest way to do this, is using the traplauncher ability and place the freezing trap directly beneath the feet of the preferred mob.

As soon as that trap lands, you have threat on all the rest of the mobs, which are now running towards you. This is where you wait a brief period (2 secs or so) for the rest of the mobs to be out of your 8 yard multishot range, use misdirect on the tank (you can and should have, use misdirect earlier, as it lasts 30sec and be totally ready to use your damaging abilities), and use 2 multishots to get rid of the threat.

If, after 1min and/or 90sec that caster comes loose, but you are not yet ready for it, use trap launcher again and trap it like you did before.
Warning! The threat will now to be the healer, due to healing generating aggro.

Pretty easy right, but then again, this is the easiest way to CC.

Now this method has 2 drawbacks, a caster will not run towards the group as long as it has line of sight on the healer (who has threat remember), so either make sure you can later run towards the caster or have the healer remove himself out of the line of sight* (from now on called LoS). If removing LoS is not an option, and the caster is the last mob, have the healer run backwards until he's out of range of the caster (NPC's can have longer casting ranges) and it will persue the healer until its back in range.

The second drawback is, never use this method of CC near a patrolroute, if the CC breaks when the patrol is closeby, they'll aggro aswell and most likely cause a wipe.

*Line of Sight, if a ranged-mob can see you, without any obstruction wall/crate, etc.etc. it will not move, so move behind an obstruction, be it around a corner, behind a pillar/crate etc.etc. and it will come to you.

Now lets say there is a patrol nearby, but you still need to CC 1 mob:

Have the tank move back, but still in range of your Misdirect, place/shoot the freezing trap in a direct path between the mobs and the tank but safely away from the patrolpath and fighting area, activate misdirect, use multishot and watch a mob run into the trap, while the rest keep walking towards the tank, due to misdirected threat.

Now there may be situations where you specificly dont want 1 mob to wander into the trap, you can Scatter Shot that mob, so he'll be the last to reach the traplocation and thus will never be trapped. You can also use Concussive shot for this, as it slows the walking speed for 50% for 4sec, which should be long enough.

Retrapping works pretty much in the same was as before on this, so no need to explain.

Survival Trapping, as I said before, Surival have 1 more CC tool in their spellbook, which is called Wyvern Sting (which will now be called WS). If you decide to use both methods, make sure to use the following:

As soon as you shoot your WS, the rest of the mobs will aggro you, pretty much as before with trap launching under their feet, so you need to be prepared or quick enough for this, there are 2 ways to do this right:

A) Target the mob you want to WS, use trap launcher + freezing trap on another mob (not the targetted mob) and as soon as the Global Cooldown is over, fire your WS, you have now CC'd 2 mobs on their starting location. Make sure you still Misdirect the rest of the mobs towards you tank without breaking any of your 2 CC's.

B) Use trap Launcher+freezing trap, place the trap in a direct path between you and the mobs, the closer this is to you, the safer this is to do with a melee mob, target the mob you want to WS, shoot WS, watch the rest of the mobs come running towards, you, see 1 walk into the trap and misdirect the rest of the mobs towards your tank.

Remember, once WS breaks, its leaves a 6sec DoT, which may or may not, cause you to gain sufficient threat on the mob for it to target you over the healer.

Dual Trapping:

Due to the nature of Traps and cooldowns, its possible to use the same trap twice, to CC 2 mobs. A Freezing Trap lasts for 1 minute, but the cooldown is (untalented) only 30seconds. A freezing Trap is only considered a trap, as long as its not sprung/activated, so once the first freezing effect CC's a mob you are then allowed to shoot another.

NOTE! Marksman hunters have an easier time with this, as they can use Readiness to instantly gain access to another Freezing Trap.

How is this done:

Place/shoot the first Freezing trap in front (but not on) of the mob/mobs you want to CC, just as before. Wait a while for the cooldown on Freezing Trap to run/dwindle down then engage the mobs via the means mentioned before. The mobs are now running towards you and/or the tank. As soon as the cooldown is done for Freezing Trap, use it again on another mob. Be quick about this, because mobs run quite fast and you dont want to trap in melee range, due to tanks/dps their AoE abilties. To slow the second traptarget down, you can once again use Concussive and/or Scatter Shot.


The last CC method we have, which leaves us without doing DPS, is kiting. Generally speaking, Kiting is done with a melee mob. Kiting is making sure you always stay ahead of the mob far enough for it not to hit you, while doing enough threat on it to make it not change target to the healer. Hunters are generally speaking the best kiters, as we have the ability to use most of our instant abilities on the mob (with aspect of the fox added, we can also use steadyshot and/or cobrashot on the move), and if need be, dump all threat back to the healer, which can stand close to the tank so it can be taunted off without danger.

Kiting is probaby the hardest thing to do correctly, luckily we have concussive shot, which slows the mob for 50% for 4sec, it has no cooldown, and costs no focus. We can also Wing Clip, but when doing so, make sure you are NOT in aspect of the Cheetah (30% faster running speed). You can basicly kite forever, if you do it right.

I hope for those of you who are not too familiar with Hunters and their CC abilities, this may include tanks who happen to read these forums, will find my post constructive and helpfull.

Please do not refrain from any comments and/or additions.

[MMOWoW]

I don't know if it's just me but it seems that YOU "the hunter" need to be pulling with your freeezing trap and not the tank becasue if the tank pulls then most likely you will the miss the target.

I wish blizzard would make it a Freezing arrow where you choose the target and shoot it and it'll freeze like the hunters in Halls of Reflection

[Deleted]

you can los pull casters, or use silencing shot if marksman

in the days of old hunters used to pull mobs to them with distracting shot and freeze them behind the group where the ranged is far away from any accidental breaking

[bamfrosty]

Concussive Shot doesn't cost focus.

[Baelzibub]

Concussive Shot doesn't cost focus.

Awesome, failed to see that, changing it now.

[taekvideo]

Nice post... I've had a lot of fun using my cc abilities on my surv hunter. In most heroics I'm the only one needed to cc and the rest just burn skull off the bat :P

[xavierjn]

Great re-introductory guide to Hunter CC. I remember back in the days of BC and was in a heroic Steam Vault run on my hunter, I dropped my trap early, trapped my target, then had another trap waiting on the ground beside me to retrap it by the time the first broke, using distracting shot every cooldown to maintain aggro without breaking the traps.

2 in the group asked me how I used 2 traps, and 1 person actually said I was hacking the game....LOVE being an intelligent hunter.

[Zorgen]

I don't know if it's just me but it seems that YOU "the hunter" need to be pulling with your freeezing trap and not the tank becasue if the tank pulls then most likely you will the miss the target.

I wish blizzard would make it a Freezing arrow where you choose the target and shoot it and it'll freeze like the hunters in Halls of Reflection

It wouldn't be much of a "trap" if you could just fire it directly into a targets chest.

On a side note: why not just go back to freezing arrow and have it function like you mentioned above. An arrow that fires directly into a target and feezes them, no need for anything "trap" related.

[xavierjn]

While I love the Freezing Arrow idea, that would be so insane for pvp it would be ridulous, unless you made it only last like 4-6 seconds.

[Thereign]

While I love the Freezing Arrow idea, that would be so insane for pvp it would be ridulous, unless you made it only last like 4-6 seconds.

Currently it lasts 10 seconds, and doesnt allow for any damage to be done, so that seems fine by me.

[xavierjn]

Currently it lasts 10 seconds, and doesnt allow for any damage to be done, so that seems fine by me.

As long as it all adds in on the CC diminishing returns, I suppose it wouldn't be too crazy. Besides...it's not like we aren't in need of some PvP buffing, from what I've been reading (haven't had a chance to PvP at 85 yet, so no personal experience, just the forums so far).

[Gahgoots]

I have a hunter, so am familiar with their CC abilities, but as I also have an alt tank, I'd like to hear about other classes CC abilities. If anyone could reply with what they know, that would be great.

[wowplayer]

nice read. still getting used to the CC for my hunter. still running regular where its nice but not required but definitively want to be ready when i start to do heroics.

[3clipse]

Awesome post ^_^ definitely gonna be helpful for Hunters who weren't around in the TBC days of chain-trapping (H Steamvaults /shudder).

The only thing I would point out is that Wyvern Sting is probably more useful as an "oh crap" CC rather than planned CC; if you kill it fast it's probably okay, but if it breaks it can't be reapplied and the mob has a dot, preventing it from being re-CC'd.

[Damax]

if tank pulls scatter shot ---> freezing trap = win

[Zeherah]

Tip- right now freezing trap seems bugged so that if you try to refresh the trap early it not only wastes the trap but also breaks the current trap target out. So don't refresh early!

Clarification: Although this was happening to me reliably in heroics last night, I can only reproduce it sporadically on target dummies so I'm not sure how widespread the issue might be.

[Deleted]

A good guide losts of good infomation, but I suggest shortening it a little and Bolding a few things, when you do that It'll be perfect for a sticky!

[Vrukor]

Tip- right now freezing trap seems bugged so that if you try to refresh the trap early it not only wastes the trap but also breaks the current trap target out. So don't refresh early!

Clarification: Although this was happening to me reliably in heroics last night, I can only reproduce it sporadically on target dummies so I'm not sure how widespread the issue might be.

I can't say I have seen that in the normals/heroics I have done so far. I have been refreshing early if the pull requires it and I have never once seen my trap fail and then break. I'll keep any eye out for it though.

The dual trapping is a good idea but in practice will slow down the run considerably. I have been finding that using a mouseover Wyvern Sting macro is much faster if you want to CC two mobs at once.

[Deleted]

sv hunter has such nice cc

[Kennpai]

Great guide, Another thread to redirect bad hunters to lol