advice from any marksmen?Follow

All hunters, regardless of spec, depend on their pet in a big way. If you don't have someone else to tank for you, you will still need your pet to be your right hand man (or woman).

A low level pet that doesn't have a high rank of growl will be of no use. Mobs will always end up going for you. If you want to level this pet up solo, you'll most likely have to learn how to kite.

Hellfire Peninsula is mob heavy and quite a few of the quests take time and serious work to solo, even as a hunter. I think much of it has been designed to challenge solo players and encourage group play.

I'm BM specced, so I can't speak of MM play styles but remember that spec isn't everything. BM hunters and MM ones tend to focus on different stats for their gear priorities. If you're going to MM from now on, check out the forums, talk to guildies and research MM friendly gear to help maximise your damage output. If you're going to have to kite for a while, you want the mobs to go down fast.

Good luck with it though :)

Your biggest problem, as has been said, is probably that your pet is too low to hold aggro.

Granted, a MM hunter's pet is not going to hold a vicelock on aggro like a BM's might. But they will hold aggro just fine as long as you don't overdo it too much and try to nuke your mob in 10 seconds. Either get your pet to an appropriate level any way you can (and bear with having to kite often), or go back to your 60-61 level pet.

Once your pet is no longer the problem, shot rotation for MM is pretty much the same as BM. And once you get steady shot, it gets pretty routine. Although, MM can put out a little higher burst damage, for when you need to burn something down quick.

Other than that, "play rythym" is simple (for one mob at a time). Send pet and mark (especially if you have IHM). Wait a beat or 3 for pet to get good aggro, and start shooting. Also, if you have TSA, always, always, always make sure it's up. If I notice my pet losing aggro quickly, it's almost always because TSA wasn't up. Yes, it does make a difference.

It also wouldn't be a bad idea to scout out your terrain before heading in for your quest. Often, there's a safer route with less adds if you look for it. That, and take your time. If you're not used to pulling, now is an excellent time to practice it. And the bright side of getting a lot of adds is that it forces you to get good at CC.

I went to Outland at 58. I soloed most of my quests. It can be done. I have a hunch that when your pet improves, so will your odds.

Sometimes the challenge of a ton of adds, and wide aggro areas can be fun. There's nothing like having 4, 5, even 6 mobs aggro on you at once, and when the smoke clears, you're still standing. (It can also be frustrating as hell if it's all day long. ;-)) You think Hellfire is bad? Wait til you get to Netherstorm and have to go to that Godforsaken Village of Kirin'somethingorother. Oh, how I hate that place. Never a moments rest.

As a player who's never played any spec but Marksman (I don't wanna switch until I think I've mastered the spec as best as I can), I can give you some advice on adventuring and keeping aggro on your pet.

First: swapping pets = bad idea. It took me forever to get Morris to where he'd hold full aggro for me when I moved to cat from raptor (pre normalized, I wanted the faster attack speed against casters). Get that loyalty to max and get the level and growl up to max before trying anything harsh. You can still instance and group since you'll have a dedicated tank, but if you want the pet to hold aggro, max out ASAP.

Second: Don't be all jumpy on the trigger finger. BM & SV can probably hop right into their shot rotation and such as soon as the pet growls once. This is a BIG mistake for MM when you HAVE to keep aggro on your pet. Morris needs to have 2 growls on target before I can peal off on my major crit stuff. So my normal grinding actions against mobs are: Send Pet, Heal Pet, Pet Attacks (pet usually has growl #1 on about now), Shoot Sting or Effect Shot (silencing, etc.), Aimed Shot, (pet puts Growl #2 on about now), Aimed shot goes off, Steady Shot, Autoshot, Steady,.. rinse wash and repeat.

It's actually a fairly easy rotation to get used to, and you do have to watch for adds and if on PvP other players so there are things to occupy your time with as you plink away on a mob. One thing I'm trying to get myself into the groove of is watching target health and sending the pet on to the next target (if multiple mobs are being engaged) before first target is dead then popping the first target with an Arcane shot to drop them. Pet already has a couple of growls on the new target as I unleash my Aimed shot on them. I can chew through a lot of mobs quickly this way and it burns mana like crazy, so have your mana regen techniques down pat as well.

Thanks all :)

It seems I just had not understood how MM play - particularly how much care they have to take with aggro.

It might have been a bit silly to try to alleviate frustration with two actions guaranteed to be frustrating :), but I'll give it a shot.

Thanks again for all the responses.

KLH Threatmeter is your friend. Just remember that a ranged attacker (um, that's you) needs +30% threat to pull aggro from a melee attacker (um, that's your Pet). Get used to judging when to simply auto fire and when you can use your specials, and you'll be a huge asset to your party in PUGs in addition to rarely pulling aggro off of your Pet.

Edited, Aug 14th 2007 10:11pm by Kompera