You all know I have a very strong affinity for Hunters. (If you didn’t know, welcome to Kestrel’s Aerie! 
) So it is with mixed feelings that I write this short article. But if I can save one group from wiping, I figure I’ve done a valuable service.
We were a well-seasoned group of five in Heroic Mechanar Saturday night. A quick three badges, and maybe a shot at Sepethrea if things went really quickly (we were starting late, and we all agreed the flame mistress would be if time permitted). Our pally tank was Wildkat, on her first tanking job in Mech. (She performed admirably!) Three DPS from The Oroborus rounded out the group: A fire mage, a Survival Hunter, and a Beast Master.
While we had a few deaths, and a couple wipes, things generally went well. The hunters trapped admirably, although they tended to steal aggro from the tank. To be fair, she’s still gearing up, which is one reason we were in Mech to begin with, hoping for The Sun Eater to drop from the Calculator. But the plus to all that was I got a chance to do some serious healing. Overall I think I did well, but there was one ignominious pull where I hesitated a beat and caused the tank to die. (We managed to run for the lift, so it wasn’t a total wipe, but that one was all me.)
So we get to the Calculator, and almost immediately, I was mind-controlled. Now this isn’t necessarily a horrible thing. Not optimum, but it can be overcome. However, not the way one of our hunters handled it: He tossed a Freezing Trap at my feet. I promptly triggered the trap, and stopped casting Smite and Mind Blast at my group mates. And of course, the trap lasted the entire, interminable 20 seconds. In the meantime, the tank’s health was dropping precipitously; as soon as the trap released me, I mashed my max rank Greater Heal. Two point nine seconds later, the Tank was dead. Four seconds after that, so were the rest of us.
In retrospect, there are other things I could have done: PoM, Renew, Flash Heal in almost any combination (and I may have gotten off a PoM; not sure); however, I seriously doubt any combination would have restored the tank enough that I could have successfully healed her and kept her in the fight.
The point here is, I’m not going to do so much damage in the 8-10 seconds of the Mind Control, even if I crit you, that I need to be CC’d. The CC, whether I’m sheeped or trapped, is going to severely limit my healing for a lot more than those 8-10 seconds of MC. Don’t do it! Please?
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Now of course the survival hunter could have used wyvern sting sting, which only lasts 12 seconds, okay so you get dotted, but 1k damage to you is probably more tolerable than however much damage you would have done in the mind control and the mana loss you would have suffered.
Still generally unless theres someone spare to dispel it, don’t go CCing anyone who is mind controlled.
One reason that the hunter may have dropped a trap at your feet would be that, a year or so ago, when groups were first figuring out how to deal with the second boss in Shadow Labyrinth, that exact same strategy was used.
When the second boss in SL would mind-control the entire party, it was common for healers to request that any hunter present drop a Freezing Trap at their feet, to help conserve mana (mana that would otherwise be used during the MC to deal damage to party members) for the rest of the fight. While in that particular case, the strategy often worked fairly well, in the case of the last boss in the Mechanar (heroic or otherwise), it’s probably not the best idea.
So, while the hunter(s) had the right idea, it was the wrong instance/circumstance, which is why it’s so important for hunters (indeed, all players) to have good situational awareness, an ability to adapt to happenstance and at least a base understanding of the other classes they work with.
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@Lienna: True, we probably could have survived if Wyvern Sting had been used. I think, but I’m not certain, the BM dropped the trap; not a big deal.
@Lass: Excellent point! As I just did SL a week ago, and we employed exactly that tactic, I should have considered that possibility. And the MC in SL lasts longer, if I recall correctly.
I wasn’t sure which hunter dropped the trap, but I did mention (very nicely) that is created a pretty significant problem for me. I’m sure they understood, as they saw me trying to get the cast off before the tank went down.
Thank you both for stopping by!
Here’s a tip from another hunter/priest. Having played Arena and Battlegrounds as both a hunter and a priest, I know that the Freezing Trap is a magical effect. Magical effects like that can be Dispelled and Cleansed. If your tank had taken a moment, she could have removed the effect from you after you were no longer dominated (since Cleanse only works on friendly targets!) and then gone back to tanking, which would have given you ample time to cast a number of heals or something that would have kept the group from wiping.
As someone else noted, one of the problems with a Mind Controlled healer is that she ends up burning all of her mana (not as much of a problem for me any more post-2.4 with the change to a Spirit-based mana regeneration system). The other problem is that they can heal the enemies and, in my case, you’re looking at a healer who can do around 8,000 a heal if the group is unlucky — not to mention Psychic Scream, Mana Burn, and Power Infusion or Pain Suppression if you’re a Discipline priest. All of those things you probably want to avoid if possible.
A little bit of foresight and the group could have recovered!
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I was about to point out Shadow Labs also, but Lass already made her point. Thanks for the reminder, Kestrel!
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@ Cynra: Oh, that’s a super tip; thanks! I think I mentioned our tank is still learning how to tank, but I discussed your tip with her last night and she loved it. Here’s hoping we don’t have to use it, though.
Also, mana is not generally a problem for me either: I’m a gnat’s whisker under 10K, buffed, and in 10 seconds, I can’t dump a lot off in offensive spells. I think during the time I was MC’d, I got off maybe 3 spells. (I also hadn’t called on my Fiend yet, so had that to fall back on as well.)
@ Loronar: You’re welcome! I figured a lot of more progressed healers (and hunters) know better, but I would like to make sure folks at my level avoid such things too.
This is first time I have visited your blog … the name of this post caught my attention as I play a raiding hunter and rotate my priest in when needed. I am enjoying the reading, but have a question.
I find it interesting that of all the ways for a hunter to not wipe a group, you pick that one. It has been my experience that Benedykt has been killed by more hunter’s FD resulting in the group wiping than ever by a trap.
They could have easily reacted the other way and and killed you instead. It is instinctual to drop a trap and do the least amount of damage possible to someone when they end up MC’d.
Agreed, there is only so much damage you can do while MC’d, but you are doing even less in that freezing trap.
Either way, fun blog … but may I suggest rolling a hunter and finding that it’s not as easy as we make it look before passing judgement on how badly they play?
You even state in retrospect that this is not a hunter wipe, but a group wipe as the first thing you did was cast the longest heal you have rather than renew and spam flash heal. It’s always easy to look backwards and decide what someone should have done, not always so easy in the moment.
(Although I agree that most hunters need to L2P lol)
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I feel rather dumb regarding my previous post … as you do have a hunter … the rest of my comment I stand behind, but the roll hunter part, lol, you have a hunter. Although I would not have gathered that from the one post i had read.
Knurds last blog post..Lucky Weekend.
@Knurd: While it may not always be real obvious (since this template, unfortunately, doesn’t provide bylines), I try to write from the point of view of the character telling the story. In this case, Osprey, the priest. That’s why I didn’t project a lot of my hunter into the telling. And yes, I’m quite aware of what FD can do to a priest; unfortunately I’ve been on both sides of THAT coin!
Oh…and…in the first sidebar, right near the top, are 4 Armory profiles. Third one down is a Hunter.
Yeah, I noticed that after the fact. You have some really nice toons, and I really honestly felt/feel like a jacka** about the comments. I have run up against so many people who act like everything is a hunters fault ect.
I am lucky enough to have toons on both side of the ball .. healing and huntering and as you know it gives you some interesting prospective on what goes on. Now really I just need a tank, and would have one if I would get off my butt and get him out of the painful 50′s.