Other skills besides DPS, a Raid Hunter should master Ex: traps, misdirect

[gafney]

When I read all the advanced Hunter guides all they ever talk about is maxing DPS, a little about not getting killed.

I remember that at on time my Hunter would be called on to do a misdirect pull or asked too lay down a Frost trap
but since I been raiding in MoP it seems like my job is 100% DPS.

I was never particularly skilled at crowd control via traps or mis-direction pulling,
does it make any sense to practice those skills or don't they really need hunters to do anything but DPS in raids.

am I right that small group dungeons scenarios etc might still benefit from those hunter skills?

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one other quick question, none of the raids I have been in recently does anyone seem to care what pet buff I bring
so I typically just bring my cat, is it just sloppiness/laziness on our part that we do not make sure all buffs are covered and I need to use a specific pet family to supply the missing one?
Thanks in Advance

[Dhryke]

1.) I can think of multiple current encounters where MDs and traps are being used/were used for progression. Explosive trap for AoE, Frost Trap to slow adds such as the spirits on Council.(Side note: Most other slows are superior to traps)

2.) Any fight with adds that need to be tanked MD will come in handy. Tortos, Megeara.

And your last question, if you aren't checking which buffs are needed or missing that's just YOU being lazy. However if you're just farming normals or whatever then not having one buff or debuff won't make much of a difference.

[Deleted]

Maxing DPS while staying alive is going to be all you're wanted for in the vast majority of encounters. Slows/interrupts/stuns are also often wanted but there's usually someone else more suited for the task in your group already.

You should always bring the buff that is missing.

[Sebid]

Not standing in the fire and using Deterrence and Disengage to your advantage is common sense

MD and Frost traps are still useful, more for soloing than raiding nowadays, but they are good skills to master.

For example, last raid tier, on Heroic Will of the Emperor, good trapping was essential for the encounter.
Binding traps onto your mouse buttons ( or even a fast keybind ) and with fast placement, ahead of the incoming add, will ensure in proper trapping
For proper misdirecting, use a focus target macro onto your tank, for example on Tortos' bats.
Something like

#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [target=focus,help][help][target=pet,exists,nodead]
Misdirection

should do the trick. It MD's the focus target, and if not present, your pet.

For your last question, it depends on raid composition. In my guild, it seems I'm always needed with Spell Haste, but I have a Crit, Melee Haste, Mastery and Revive pets if needed. You can always ask them, or just bring something that could cover any missing buff like the ones I mentioned.

[Deleted]

If you are in a 25man 99% of the time your buff is irrelevant (only time I was needed was on a period that all my guild's SPs and Moonkins were unavailable for spellhaste, but the other buffs are usually covered), I personally have some pets who can cover the basic buffs but I use my Spirit Beast.

As for your other questions, as the rest said Frost Trapping and misdirecting loose adds (like bats on Tortos for example) are very useful skills to have even if you won't be asked to do it all the time. Other skills are situational like for example your raid doesn't have a better ranged interrupter and you need to SS a target, or Disengage to draw Suen after Nuclear Blast etc. Most important skills for all the fights you should master is when to Detterence correctly (that's a matter of fight knowledge) and learn to control Disengage to move fast/avoid shit and stuff like that.

[Tehterokkar]

1.) I can think of multiple current encounters where MDs and traps are being used/were used for progression. Explosive trap for AoE, Frost Trap to slow adds such as the spirits on Council.(Side note: Most other slows are superior to traps)

2.) Any fight with adds that need to be tanked MD will come in handy. Tortos, Megeara.

And your last question, if you aren't checking which buffs are needed or missing that's just YOU being lazy. However if you're just farming normals or whatever then not having one buff or debuff won't make much of a difference.

Pro tip for Council: 2 Priests with Void Tendrils = Adds won't move anywhere.

[Kiea]

Pro tip for Council: 2 Priests with Void Tendrils = Adds won't move anywhere.

Or the tanks can just stun, tank on Marli goes first, and tank on sul/malak goes 2nd, if you cant kill it within that time you have some problems.

[Saoron]

successful troll is successful

[Azortharion]

Master's Call works on a great deal of nasty boss abilities in ToT, just sayin', it's super underrated. (And it even works on others, woot).

[Dhryke]

Pro tip for Council: 2 Priests with Void Tendrils = Adds won't move anywhere.

Thank you.

However, like Kiea said, in our runs the adds usually get stunned by someone else or knocked back if they happen to get too close.

[Deleted]

The knowhow to md , trap, kite, etc... are all very valuable skills for a hunter to have...

We have fights like Tortos HC.. where my duties as the huntard include kicking, mding, traps, etc.... helluva lot more than just merely "to dps".. we leave that for the shammies

[bewsh]

There is little skill involved in placing a frost trap. Maybe hand/eye coordination. But skill? No. Council is a perfect example: place a trap under the bitch's feet a few seconds before the add spawns if necessary - but there are probably at least 5+ people with better roots/stuns/whatever

9/10 times your raid is just going to use it as an excuse to bitch when they die to ground effects because frost trap was covering up the shit they weren't supposed to be standing in.

[Rehija]

The first thing that every Hunter has to master is that a dead Hunter does zero dps. Everything else comes after that