Strangely my favorite toons are low level tanks. 20-50ish range although there is a hunter in the 40's range as well. But while I was running dungeons I've noticed a disturbing pattern. Hunters are a pain in the ass.
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| My Paladin Blood Elf Hortis. Finally wearing a pair of pants instead of a bikini |
My first dungeon on my lowbie paladin and the hunter is pulling before the healer even zones in and I haven't even managed to grab a quest yet. Yech. I figured it was just impatient dps and my usual solution to that is to chain-pull like a mad woman. It usually works well and the next dungeon I run I can go slower. Today I had Zul'Farak and at the first intersection I took a right. Skipped the pull that everyone skips and started pulling the trash before the first boss. Unfortunately when I chain-pull I can't keep as good on an eye on the group to watch for stragglers and extra pulls or other weird stuff. So while I was making a bee-line to the right the hunter was heading left and pulling stuff. And the healer went with him. My group was fine but the healer and hunter both wiped. I felt bad about that but the healer rezed and joined up with us while the hunter seemed to have trouble making his way to us. Apparently stuff kept killing him. I think part of the problem was his pull-happy trigger finger. Maybe he was a newbie and I should have given him some more care...
Well not all dungeons are a bed of roses so I ran another random dungeon. And I got a hunter again. Sure fine, whatever. This one wasn't pull happy at least but their pet had growl on and despite requests to turn it off it still kept taunting everything. I do have one question though, do hunter pet's have a smaller cooldown on their taunt? I swear the stupid things would taunt twice to my once. I'd give up after awhile and just use my threat to pull it off. It's amazing how much threat I can generate.
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| Intended to be a temporary toon to check out the server Brewmaster Draenei Monk is a blast! |
Maybe it's just an off-night for the horde? Time to dig out my little Draenei monk. And I get a hunter. Again. Eff it. And this hunter is both pull-happy and with a growling pet. Begins to bang head on wall. Why? Why? Why? Is it really that hard? Are the lower levels just abnormally full of terrible hunters today?
Strangely enough it's made me think about some of the groups I've run as a tank on Tyledres. She's been running into hunter troubles too. Namely growl-happy pets. I get that people are out questing and I'll kindly remind you that your pet has a taunt on. But I'll only be nice about it if you then do something about it. Hell, I've attempted to tank the first trash pulls without a presence and without righteous fury on a paladin. I understand that you forgot. But you've been reminded. Do something about it. I hate running a whole dungeon fighting with a stupid hunter pet for aggro.
And Stampede! I hate that ability. I think of it as the new Army of the Dead because when a hunter summons their entire stable of pets it does look cool and does some damage but all of them taunt. An unglyphed army in a dungeon is a giant no-no and if other tanks won't tolerate it why should I tolerate your stable of pets charging out and taunting off me?
I don't think all hunters are bad. Really, I don't. Some are even really awesome. It's just seems that I can't run into a good one today and they've managed to hit all of my nerves.
I hate this sooo much. It's horrid at low levels now and almost as bad at max. I have a hunter myself, so I understand if you're out questing and such... But yeah UGH.
ReplyDeleteI cringe any time I see a hunter in my groups now. No offense to the good hunters but that is the truth.
Stampede should only pull aggro if the hunter hasn't turned off growl on every single pet in their active pet bar thing.
My policy is that I don't fight with pets. I'll ask nicely a couple times and even tell them how to turn it off if they say they don't know. After that, I assume the pet is going to tank what it pulls, so I wait till it dies and then pick up the mobs. Trash will wear it down slowly but bosses will kill it.
If the hunter still refuses [and often I get fussed at for letting their pet die] I'll look to initiate a vote kick or let someone else.
Pet tanking when you have an actual tank makes the instance go a lot slower.
I find it strangely comforting that I'm not the only one who cringes when they see a hunter in a group. And I like your policy for dealing with these hunters. Thanks for sharing.
DeleteHow interesting! I hate Stampede because it wallops me in PvP. I have only tanked a few dungeons and the hunters there have been really good and even trapping stuff. I think I was just lucky though! I do often see people with growl on their pets (demons too) and I think ok well you tank it then. Then the pet dies... aww too bad so sad :P
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've actually had really good luck with hunters but just that one day I couldn't seem to find a half-way decent one.
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