What’s My Main Again? Oh, Right, Lag

There’s been a rather interesting issue I’ve had to fight with since… oh, since the Blood Wing went live in ICC.

See, this is what happens. Sometime between 6pm and 8pm, my latency will climb from where it usually sits (anywhere from 110-200ms, thank you ISP upgrades) to anywhere from 700ms to 17000ms. It will come back down to regular levels sometime between 11pm and midnight.

This is somewhat inconvenient, as this just so happens to be during peak times, when BG queues are at their fastest, and also when For Whom happens to raid.

Needless to say it is difficult to raid when you are rocking 5kms on boss fights.

Now, the interesting part comes in the details.

First, it is not simply bad lag. I am also disconnected very frequently in direct proportion to what is going on. Running around leveling a character in, say, the Arathi Highlands, I never get disconnected, whereas Wintergrasp features a disconnect roughly every twenty seconds.

Second, it isn’t my end of things either. I have a huge amount of evidence to support this.

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Alas, Dear Hunter, for Thee Suckethe Mightily

There’s a lot of hate going around this weekend, so I figured I’d join in. Who doesn’t want to start off their work week by shaking their heads and saying “boy oh boy, knowing I’m better than someone else makes me feel so good!”

This is a story that actually happened quite a while ago, mostly because I wanted to see if the hunter in question ever decided to become non-stupid. Happily, the answer is no, as Mr. Trollson is still proudly sporting strength gear and a tanking cloak.

But Rip! I can hear the complaints already. What if he just doesn’t know what he’s doing?!

First off, bullshit, he’s been aware of the existence of blogs like BigRedKitty, Hunter’s Mark and Aspect of the Hare since that Naxx run four months ago.

Second off…

Well, settle in, kodo excrement is about to cease being imaginary in status.

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M&M; Us Versus Them, Hunter Edition

Ahh, hunters. Terror of the battlegrounds, it’s impossible to count the number of mages that have been torn to pieces by hunters over the years. Ranged physical damage, a pet, a mana drain; a class practically begging to go head to head with a caster.

Overview

– The vast majority of arena hunters are specced Marksman. It has superior burst to the other two builds, two specialty shots that are invaluable in PvP (Silencing Shot and Scatter Shot) as well as much improved Stings.

– Left alone, hunters can deal terrifying damage, very quickly, to a cloth wearing class.

– They are much more vulnerable to close in fighting than other ranged classes. A hunter cannot use his strongest ranged attacks in melee range.

– Very susceptible to pillars, more so than any other class.

– Relatively shallow mana pools.

– Freezing Trap, the hunter’s lengthy CC ability, is one of the worst in the game for PvP.

– Pets are relatively easy to kill.

– Viper Sting is a deadly mana drain ability, especially since most Hunters are specced to improve it.

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Special Projects

Meet my hunter, Caresse (Named after one of… fuck it, THE most awesome female I know).
That lovely tiger back there is Snuggles.
Only level 36, I think I’m doing quite well.
285 RAP with Hawk up, 173 Agility, 9.46% Crit, and 147 Stamina (just shy of 2k HP).
Shot speed of 1.73, and YES for the love of all that is hunterage I have an up-to-date scope. (+5 damage, best I could find.)
Snuggles has Cobra Reflexes, Claw, all that good stuff. Growl is under manual control.

I also have over 1000 HKs. Oops.

Oh, yeah, and 17 gold.

As alts go, I’m doing great.

And yes, this will always be an alt. To be honest, only reason I’m leveling a hunter is so I can farm stuff for my mage.
Ever tried farming Primal Fires as a fire mage? It ain’t pretty.

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"Meowmix"

That was the name of my 2v2 team on the PTR.

So. Me. A 17/0/44 frost mage (by the name of Spatula), and a 41/5/15 beastmaster hunter (by the name of Inda (pet’s name was hizzouse)).

(Just mentally remove Ice Block from the talent tree, put Cold Snap there, and put Icy Veins where Cold Snap is)

We did quite well, I think, for the rather unorthodox matchup of Hunter/Mage, for a 2v2 anyways.

To be quite honest, this type of arena was practically a 3v2 effort. A beastmaster’s pet is quite a deadly force, especially when sent after a squishy. We had some rather devastating combos as a team here, and our kiting power was unmatched.

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A Disturbing Trend

Ever since 2.3, I have noticed an incredible spike in the number of idiots playing hunters.

I’m sorry, BRK, but this has to be said.

Fact: Hunter is the easiest class to pick up and play, requiring no skill to do random stuff.

Fact: Hunter is the most difficult class to master, requiring outrageously high amounts of skill, foresight, and situational awareness to perform well in any group scenario.

Anyone who disagrees with this is a moron.

But this is a mage blog, isn’t it? So why am I posting about hunters?

Quite bluntly, the idiot huntards won’t leave me alone. And most importantly, they are posting incessantly on the forums, arguing about how powerful mages are, blah blah blah. And most of them don’t have a damn clue.

[quote]in any raid I have been in, 10 man or 25 man, I either top, or stay near the top of the damage meters. I absolutly love the total disrespect that hunters get just because of the stereotype that bad players give us. Raid with a good hunter, you might discover you were wrong in your misconceptions of the Hunter. And yes, hunters are easy to level and do general pve grinding and such on, but it takes a good hunter to be a meaningful contribution to a raid.[/quote]

– Proellum, [The Silver Hammer], Cenarion Circle

People like this are smart, intelligent, and have knowledge of their class and others.

[quote]Just shut the hell up you stupid idiot noob douche bag. Your a stupid used tampon, you smell and your ugly, plaese shut the hell up you stupid idiot crap face. You suck, your mom sucks, and your dad sucks. you are scum, the worst kinda scum, when scum eats horse crap and then craps that out – even lower scum comes along and eats that crap and then thats crapped out — THATS WHAT YOU EAT you stupid idot douche bag, SHUT THE HELL UP.[/quote]

– Night Elf Hunter, from Argent Dawn (name withheld to protect the innocent)

People like this should be taken out back, and quietly shot and disposed of.

Anyways, this whole thing is about the classic “hunters versus mages” thing, primarily in PvP.

Basically, this matchup comes down to who can pump the other with the most amount of damage in under 10 seconds. Hunter’s attacks do physical damage, and hence are practically designed to kill squishy cloth-wearing classes. Toss in a pet, and some specific anti-caster abilities, and hunters can quickly become the bane of a mages existence.
On the other hand, a mage can simply rely on instant attacks and deal out a devastating amount of damage through things like fireblast and frost nova/ice lance. Like any other class, a mage can end a hunter very quickly this way.
Get two skilled players against each other, and it is a swift and brutal fight. Could easily go either way, but hell, there is going to be bloodshed.

But then we have a noob mage posting about how OP hunters are. And guess who comes by? Idiot hunters.

[quote]i’ve played on my friend’s frost mage against my own hunter and was able to kill the pet with a few icelances and a fireblast, then all the was left was killing the hunter, with no pet he couldn’t BW so i sheeped him and eat and drank back to full health[/quote]

1) A couple Ice Lances and a fire blast will do about 2k damage, assuming all 3 crit. This wouldn’t even kill a level 40 marksman’s hunter. If the mage rooted the pet first, then you’re simply a moron because you didn’t pop Big Red.

2) Grats! You sheeped the hunter, and then somehow left combat, while the hunter was still sheeped, and ate/drank for 30 seconds while the hunter didn’t bother to break a 10 second polymorph that for some reason lasted 30 seconds.

Odd that said BM hunter didn’t bother trying to use Beast Within until after the pet died. Mayhaps you need to L2P?

[quote]LOL…you are just making stuff up. Invisibility…LOL!!! [/quote]

I highly recommend you level to 70 before arguing about mage vs hunter in any meaningful manner. At the very least, look the spell up on wowwiki.

Some other helpful facts about Mages:

1. Fireblast has a cooldown. Even specced for it, it’s 6.5 seconds.
2. Not all mages have Ice Barrier, just most of them.
3. Ice Lance does not hit for 2k damage on un-frozen targets.
4. A Beastial Wrathed pet cannot be sheeped.
5. Frostbolt has a cast time.
6. Polymorph has a cast time.
7. Fireball has a cast time.
8. Pyroblast has a cast time.
9. Presence of Mind is a 21 point talent. In the Arcane tree. Its the one on the left.
10. Mages are not immune to Scattershot.

To those hunters who know what they’re doing.

Thank you. Now, if you could get your moron friends to stay away from me, I might stop the QQ about hunters.

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!BOOM! Headshot.

Hunters and PvP. Blech. Anyone who’s played a mage in a battleground knows that, as a general rule, hunters are to be avoided.

To put it quite plainly, hunters are designed for squishies. Sometimes they save our tissue paper wearing behinds, other times they giggle and shoot pointy sticks into those same behinds.
Anybody who’s fought more than a dozen hunters in PvP knows that there are some general rules to fighting a hunter.

1 – Take the pet out of commission. (Fear, Frost Nova, Hamstring…)
2 – Take away the hunter’s mobility. (Frost Nova, Hamstring, that druid root thingy…)
3 – Unload as much damage as possible on the hunter, as fast as possible.

To quote a certain large angry feline, hunters provide “Massive quantities of sustained, ranged DPS”.
The key word here is “ranged” and “sustained”. Countering both of these is the only way to win against a hunter that has any experience in this game.
As a mage, your guiding principles are simple. Polymorph the pet if possible, root the hunter, and the whole time, unload any and every instant spell you have to get that hunter down as fast as possible. As a general rule, taking the pet out removes anywhere from 30% to 50% of the hunters damage, depending on their spec, and marksman hunters are the only ones with any real amount of burst damage.
So, as mages, our strategies are as follows:

• Polymorph the pet, if time allows. This is risky to do, BM’s will simply break it and trash your squishy behind. As well, you waste at least 1.5 seconds of the encounter to this, which is time you could be damaging the hunter. Another downside, the hunter gets a free 1.5 seconds to do whatever they want. Shoot you, drop a trap, whatever.
• Blink is a very effective spell to use againts hunters. It has two uses: 1 – getting into dead zone territory faster, 2 – breaking LoS when hunter pops SquishyKiller…err, Beast Within.
• While first running at a hunter, use every instant you have. Fireblast, Cone of Cold, Presence of Mind, Dragon’s Breath, Blastwave, hell, even an Arcane Explosion won’t hurt.
• If you’re fire, use Dragon’s Breath to get off a fireball, or at least a scorch or two. You will desperately need that damage. If you’re Frost, pop Frost Nova as soon as you can, and try very, very hard to get off a Shatter combo. Chances are very good you’ll be met with “Scattershot” or “LOL MY PET IS BIGGER THAN THRALL’S CHAIR”. If the former, trinket out of it if possible, and at least get an Ice Lance nuke out of it.
• Beast Within is very dangerous, if you let the hunter use it to it’s full potential. This is your strategy for countering it : RUN. You have to survive the next 19 seconds on your own. Break LoS, blink away, /beg, have a paladin bubble you, whatever it takes. Having Ice Block immensely alleviates the difficulty. You only need to survive 9 seconds. Again, break LoS, whatever. And congratulate yourself if you survive, you just wasted a BM’s most powerful weapon. Feel free to /giggle.
• DEADZONE! This is your best weapon against a hunter. They cannot melee you or ranged attack you, and is currently the only way to deal anything remotely approaching serious damage to a hunter. If you can manage to get a hunter rooted with none of the “IWIN” buttons, you can get a full cast off here.
• Silencing Shot. /shudder. If you get hit with this, two things you can do. Ice Block out of it, or break LoS so the hunter can’t take advantage of it. Drop behind a pillar, run into a building, whatever.

At this point in the game, unload your instants again. If the hunter’s not dead by now, chances are pretty good you’re going to lose. BM’s are easier than the others, they have nothing now. Frost Nova again, Shatter combo, you win. Marksman may have Scattershot up again; if you have a cooldown monitor addon, it is invaluable against hunters. If you don’t have one, get one. If he doesn’t have it, Shatter with impunity. If you’re not frost, props to even living this long.

Please note that having a Water Elemental is incredibly useful for fighting a hunter. Basically, free extra damage, and an extra root. Heck, you can even get another Shatter combo off of it, if you’re deadzoning.

If you can make it into a second deadzone cast and pull it off, you’ve basically won at this point. Some hunters are tougher and require another Instant Cast smackdown, but they drop easy once their cooldowns are gone.

If you find yourself unable to break LoS when you need to, unable to somehow get the pet out of the picture, or find yourself trapped/wingclipped to a standstill, be prepared to eat some very painful pointy things. Blink can be a help here, if you have the cooldown, you must make every effort to stop that hunter from gaining range on you.
If the hunter does get range and keeps his mobility, you’ve lost control of the situation. And when you lose control of the situation, you lose the fight. Plain and simple.

This also why Blizzard’s announcement of dispatching the dead zone worries me so much. A class flaw it may be, but this class flaw was the only thing we mages had to get an actual cast off against a hunter. Without the deadzone, we will be stuck with Instant Casts. With only instants, we simply will not have enough damage to drop the hunter before they drop us

IN CONCLUSION

How to beat a hunter
1 – Remove the pet from the equation
2 – Take away the hunters mobility
3 – Drop them as fast as possible with Instants
4 – Abuse the deadzone so hard, the hunter trainers /cry

APPENDIX

Ever wonder how a hunter does so much damage to us? It’s simple. Almost all of their attacks are based on physical damage. This is mitigated by armor… and guess what? You got it. We mages have no armor. This is why we eat auto-shot crits of over 1k damage each, from undergeared beast master hunters who didn’t put points in marksman.

EDIT: Fixed a few typos

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