So I’m 25 and questing in Duskwood. I ding 26 while I’m killing wolves and spiders (doing a bit of quest catching up). Instead of stopping what I’m doing and rushing off to Stormwind to train, I keep going. I wanted to clear my quest log.
After turning in the wolf quest, I check my log to see if there’s anything else I can get done while I’m out here.
Fiends
Kill 15 Fiends. No problem, they are around my level… should be easy. There were more Horrors than Fiends, so I killed them too as they were in the way. They weren’t too happy about it as they feared Bam a few times, picking up adds. It got a little chaotic at one point and when I had an opporunity to rest, there were 5 lootable bodies laying around.
Not bad. I noticed when I got aggro, Bam didn’t peel it off me as quickly as I would have liked.
Ogres
Checking the log again, I see that I need to retrieve an Ogre’s monacle from Zzarc’Vul, a level 30 ogre who resides in a cave somewhat across the way. Outside the cave are ogres at my level and I know a few are 30 or 31. Okay, I’ll give it a go.
I had no problems getting in the cave, but once inside I died pretty quickly. I aggroed too many - my fault for not being aware of my surroundings. Ressed and headed straight for Zzarc’Vul (wonder what that means). The brute type ogres were a bit more difficult to kill, what with a few resists here and there. I ended up using my Scorpid Sting on them. The casters went down much faster, but hurt us badly!
Anyhow, on the way out, I sent Bambaataa on a 28, aggroed a 30 and 31… frost trapped one, almost died… had trouble with Bam picking up aggro… bandaged once Bam did pick it up… and was very surprised to find both of us left standing over their sparkling corpses.
Very surprised.
Having obtained the monacle, and ready to head back to town for turnins, I checked the quest log once more to see what I could do on my way back.
Worgen
Ah yes, I had yet to start the Worgen in the Woods series. I found one up a hill off the main road and sent Bam to attack. It was a level 28, and once again I wasn’t entirely aware of my surroundings and aggroed more mobs - another 28 and 27. I froze one of the adds while the other wailed on me and Bam and I took down the first target. We took down the second target while the frozen one, who was no longer frozen, wailed on me and then a 26 joined in on the fun!
I froze somebody, had aggro and was running back and forth through the mob, concussive shooting them, and yelling at Bam to get them off me. My health was dangerously low and I was expecting to die. I seriously couldn’t have had more than 10 health when Bam finally picked up aggro and I was able to bandage myself and we finished the last one off.
Thoughts
I’m not sure what to make of these encounters. I was frustrated by Bam’s difficulty with pulling mobs off me when I gained aggro, but thrilled that we survived them.
I really can’t say a Beast or Marks spec would have had an easier time. They might have. I suppose I could respec to Beast or Marks and try to replay these encounters, giving me the opportunity to see how it would have happened differently. But I won’t.
There are variables other than my spec to consider:
- poor awareness of surroundings, i.e. turn mine tracking off and appropriate tracking on like a good hunter should!
- equipped with lvl 24 skills, Rapid Fire may have helped
- lacking 5 talent points (ok, that has something to do with my spec)
- low weapon skill, making wing clips hard to land
- recent changes to the Boar’s charge ability
- Bam’s Gore and Charge are not skilled up - doh!
I’m more inclined to blame Bam’s lower levels of Gore and Charge instead of a survival spec for his difficulties with pulling aggro off me.
When it’s all said and done, and despite my frustration with the aggro issue, these encounters were thrillingly exhilirating. I was on my toes every second! What a sight to see Ragga and Bam, each with a sliver of life left, standing amongst a pile of corpses. Or, in the case of the ogres, two corpses; one 4 and the other 5 levels higher than myself.
We survived, the both of us.
Tags: Hunter, Raggamuffin, Survival
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Does bam have enough focus for growl?
lunchs last blog post..Goals Before Wrath of the Lich King
I dunno, that’s a good question. I hadn’t thought of turning off charge or gore when I was wanting him to grab aggro off me. There’s another, extra large, DOH!
i would advise turning gore off whilst soloing, especially when taking on multiple mobs such as you have described.
Gore is an instant cast with no cooldown that requires 25 focus.
Growl is an instant cast with 5 second cooldown that requires 15 focus.
Charge is an instant cast with 25 second cooldown that requires 35 focus.
So, bam charges in, casts growl, that is 50 focus, instantly gores twice, no focus left, so he can not growl again. every time he generates enough focus gore will use that, leaving nothing to growl.
im not sure what the focus regeneration rate is for pets during combat but it can’t be that big. as a survival hunter i have, Go For the Throat rank 2 (from marks tree) that generates 50 focus everytime i crit (which is a lot D:) yet still i do not have claw turned on outside of a raid as I need it for growl.
i guess i’d recommend not using gore unless you are in an instance and have growl turned off D:
happy huntin’
lunchs last blog post..Goals Before Wrath of the Lich King
Thank you Lunch, excellent advice.
Rank 1 Disengage would have become available to you at 20, Mama. It’s not Feign, but it will help.
I also highly recommend Diamond Threat Meter (http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/11838/) if you’re not already using it; I find it invaluable.
You can also get Rank 2 Immolation Trap at level 26, which works well with Serpent and Auto at lowering your threat, as well. I tend to try and avoid using Arcane as much as possible, personally; since aside from being a horrible threat generator, its’ damage:mana ratio is comparitively very poor, as well.
Surviving a pack of close to half a dozen mobs at less than 5% health is a reasonably routine occurrence for me, as well. You’ll get used to that. There was one time in Scholo not too long ago where I was at around 1%; to the naked eye the bar was empty, and I had to mouse over it to see what the value was.
I don’t deliberately engage packs at all; my ideal is always single target whenever possible. The ability to survive a pack like that in my mind is for when things go wrong, not to be deliberately used for makeshift AoE farming. We can melee enough to survive; but we’re not Rogues, and we can engage packs well enough to survive, but we’re not Paladins. The point is to be able to walk away from something successfully when things go wrong, not to deliberately put ourselves at risk.
One more thing I was going to add; the main thing that you’ll find helpful about surviving groups of mobs like that is actually worrying more about minimising your threat rather than maximising your damage, since minimising threat is what will allow you to kill mobs sequentially even when you have more than one of them on your pet. As long as mobs are on the pet, not you, Mend Pet is up, and you still have mana, you’ll be surprised at what you can live through.
I’ve had scenarios where I’ve been yelling at my pet to get things off me like that, but as long as you get the mobs off you eventually, sometimes the fact that you’re not doing damage when that happens is actually a good thing. There have been times in 5 mans where I’ll have a mob on me and Feign and Disengage are on cooldown, and I will simply stand stock still, even if the mob is continuing to beat on me. The reason why I do that is because it improves the tank or the pet’s chances of getting the mob off me; even though attacking is our first impulse, it very often is actually the worst thing to do, because it means we’re still building threat. The period before we get Feign is fantastic practice for that, as well.