Hmm...Feign Death as strategy questionsFollow

Twice tonight (both times in Shattered Halls) I was accused of using Feign Death too much. Both were by other Hunters. Both other Hunters seemed (imo) to be either functionally clueless or exceptionally selfish in the team play department. Nevertheless, I just want to run a few scenarios by ya'll where I normally FD.

1) Mob(s) on me at melee range with traps on cooldown. Basic self defense...I can't CC or dps if I'm dead, and Deterence can only get me out of so much trouble. Drop threat, get to range and see where the mobs go...if necessary pull them back off of clothies and kite until other options are available.

2) Closing in on tank's threat level. FD to reset threat and resume firing. Pretty straightforward stuff...usually reserved for boss fights or those nasty uber-elites roaming the various level 70 dungeons in Outland. If it's got more than 20-25k HP or I get a few lucky crits off at the start, FD keeps the mobs where they should be, saves on healer mana (and threat), and keeps me in the game to continue fighting at as close to peak dps as I can manage.

3) Healer and tank down, more mobs flailing around than could possibly be downed before a wipe. Saves time. Sometimes it just becomes fantastically apparent that you're in a no win situation and FD saves a corpse run/rez timer. If it looks like a mob or two can be downed before the wipe, I'll stay up and do my best to clear them so we don't have to fight them again, but as soon as one of them turns on me and I'm out of sneaky tricks to keep them at range, I FD and stay down until it's over. I've stuck around long enough to yank a seemingly hopeless situation out of the fire in the past...I wouldn't say I give up to easily. Sometimes you just need to know when to cut your losses and try again.

WRONG!

However intuitive it is to FD whenever there is a mob on you, you should remeber that if you FD, the mob will most likely go after the healer.
And its better if you die then if the healer dies, because when the healer dies you wipe.
Not to mention that you have a larger chance of survival then a healer.

Best option you have there is to Wingclip > run and trap as soon as you can.

He was talking about a target he was trapping that escaped or any target besides the CC'd/main target coming at him.
On none of those anyone has real threat build up (or at least not more then 1-2 shots to pull it into a trap or 1 sunder), the healer however, does have threat on that target because heals put him/her on the threatlist for all mobs involved in the fight.
Thus, those mobs will most likely go for the healer.

Alot of what happens when I have a mob in my face depends on the assets I have available to me.

If I have a trap available and I don't need to keep another mob trapped, I trap the guy in my face.

If Morris is sitting next to me yawning (darned lazy cat) I'll let him take on the target in front of me, manually growl a time or two and the target is on my pet, disengage works also if Morris has been on the mob for a bit. Sometimes I'll recall him from whatever he's tanking to take on a second target if the mobs aren't elites and up to two levels above him and lower. He can tank two targets just fine.

If the main tank finishes or is about to finish, I'll direct him to that target since it's clearly an active target and not cc'd. It also implies it's the next target in the priority list or close enough if it doesn't matter.

Normally I can take some abuse for a while, depending on how hard I'm being hit and don't need to Wing Clip. I'd rather scatter shot the target to let my cooldowns finish and retrap if need be then get back on target. I can self bandage or use a pot.

Wing Clip generally is used by me in a desperate situation or when I have to intentionally kite something, and I suck at kiting. Time spent running around to get range is time my damage is not at it's maximum levels. I used wing clip far more in PvP than I have in PvE.

I only FD if the target has me down to low health and I have no options available. Healers can fade, mages have their own CC, or if the healer is a pally, they are far tougher than me. I'll drop a pot, a trap and pull the target back on me before hardly any harm is done to a clothie. Sometimes they have to take a shot or two as well because sometimes, if you lose the Hunter and don't have other CC... you wipe. It all depends on the type of target(s) you are engaging.

I suppose having a target in front of your face would be more distracting to someone who's in or near FPS perspective. Me, I like running above and zoomed out from my character and I can see around anything in my face just fine... so perhaps view perspective plays a role as well.

Edited, Oct 7th 2007 11:06am by sloshot

While I agree with this to an extent, I also acknowledge that there are a lot of healers who simply blow a gasket if they get hit at all during a fight. While I certainly don't view healers as expendable relative to me, I also don't buy into the notion that they shouldn't be able to take a hit or two from a trash mob in a non-heroic level 70 instance. That having been said, with regular heroic instance runs on the horizon it makes sense for me to adopt strategies now that will serve me (and my group) in Heroics as well.

I added a new tactic to my repertoire today, namely breaking my own traps at an appropriate time after any time I have Feigned specifically so the trapped mobs don't go after the healer when the trap breaks on its own. I was quite happy with the results and there's something quite enjoyable about trapping the same mob 4-5 times while the rest of the group works through the other mobs in the pull.

Conversely, no dps = no mobs die = empty mana pools = dead anyways. Like an above poster, I too ran Shattered Halls with a fire mage today and it's the first time in a very long time I've been trounced on the damage meter (again, hats off to the mage). Normally I account for 35-40% of my groups over damage done (including pet), and that's a substantial loss of damage when you're trying to clear a large pull.

Even though a crit or two is going to put the healer down, sometimes the fastest and easiest way to get range for a Scatter Shot is to make the mob run away from you. I've used this to my advantage on numerous occasions, and only in the most drawn out of fights is a Scatter -> Distracting -> Arcane Shot going to be inadequate to pull a mob from a healer.

My normal tank is always giving me a hard time about pulling mobs back out of the main group to kite/retrap when things get hairy. This also means more time for me to get a mobs attention if I have to feign and it makes a beeline for the healer.

In a perfect scenario, FD would never be necessary. No mob marked for CC would be uncontrolled for longer than a split second, no mobs would ever peel off from the tank, and healers would never have repair bills. Mistakes and resists complicate things, and if the mob is going to go after the healer as soon as I Feign, it's also going to go after the healer as soon as I die. The only difference is, when I'm dead there's nothing I can do to remedy the situation.

Another important thing. If some mobs hit your healer he gets interrupted, which complicates healing quite a bit. It can make a big difference if this greater heal takes 3 seconds or 4-5 seconds.

Healing doesn't kill mobs. Healing doesn't control mobs.

Before I go any further, let me clarify that I'm not trying to downplay the benefits of a healer. Also keep in mind (as I've said) that we're talking about a situation where if I don't FD, I'll be dead in a couple of seconds and the mob is running for the healer anyways. If I do FD, I'm back up and able to contribute, whether it's to getting the mob back on me before it puts the healer down or watching the healer go down and contributing that much more dps to clearing the pull before the wipe so we don't have to do it again.

I'm not one to FD at full health because I've got one mob on me. I'd much rather Wing Clip and kite until the situation is obviously hopeless.

Dead Hunter + Dead Healer is worse than Dead Healer.



Few things are black and white. Pre-raid gear options and stat recommendations are black and white. Strategic options in a situation gone wrong are very much a grey area.

I've survived situations to clear the pull where the healer has gone down mid-fight on challenging pulls. In the overwhelming majority of situations, it's because someone else had a resist/mistake on their CC and they basically just gave up and watched the healer get pummeled (boooo PUGs). One of the great benefits to being a Hunter is that we can have great survivability with or without a healer (better with, but we can manage quite well without).

Each person in a group has a role, and no one role is more important than others. Each role is critical. I've seen too many scenarios unfold where I've taken the hit to try and keep the healer alive only to watch the healer go down a few seconds later anyways and have what's left of the "dps" scatter. Strategic use of FD in those situations is almost as good as a combat rez. I'd have been dead and out of the fight without it, but it allows me to pop back up and give it another go.

Edited, Oct 8th 2007 12:03pm by AureliusSir

Aurelius,

I understand your perspective on the question (the debate around circumstance #1), but I'd suggest that your bias is affecting your conclusion. Your bias being that you are dps.



I disagree here. The tank and the healer are the two most important people in the fight. Yes, dps is important in a fight. But, basically dps ranks lower down on the expendable list. Doing something that jeopardizes the tank or the healer to save yourself really isn't the best option. If you use FD and the mob kills the healer, then the tank is probably going to die, followed by a wipe. If you die, the group still has a chance to finish the pull, certainly a much better chance than if the healer dies. Ultimately, I think you have to think about what's best for the group and its chances of surviving the pull.

It takes a little faith in the group, to be sure. Letting that mob beat on you, instead of feigning, while hoping the healer is going to heal you can be nerve-racking. Running with people you trust certainly helps in that circumstance.

In my opinion, sometimes it just means taking one for the team rather than feigning to save your own skin.


The other options you listed, I think are perfectly good FD times. I FD frequently in longer fights so I can maximize dps. I find some hunters are saving their feign for an emergency, save-their-own-butt situation. I use mine to manage aggro.

The third option...I tend to feel a little guilty, but ***** it, that doesn't mean I'm not going to FD when a wipe is imminent. Why die when you can avoid it. If it's totally obvious the party is going to wipe, it really serves no purpose to die just to take one for the team. I think other classes just get jealous/bitter sometimes. Oh well.

Edited, Oct 8th 2007 1:30pm by azwing

Lol

I agree that the idea that everyone is equal in a group is usually incorrect but it is possible that tank and healer aren't in a few situations.

If there are few targets left, you can do without a tank so long as the targets aren't impossibly difficult. Hunter can CC, kite or offtank with pet in case of a main tank going down. Having successfully done this a few times in my medocre career, I can only imagine someone more talented can keep a group alive after the loss of a tank.

Healer is tougher to lose. Still possible if everyone has pots/bandages and again, the remaining targets don't pose an impossible task to deal with. Heck, I've stood next to the tank and whacked a bandage on them. Not saying this is ideal, but possible to survive. We've lost the healer near the end of fights before and survived just fine. Only done it once and lived near the start of a fight, and it was just a regular mob fight at that. Boss = forgettaboutit.

And on the backside, just experienced a wipe due to loss of hunter (me). We were doing CoT Durnholde and at the very end where Thrall <sp?> has to face down the dragonkind. We did just fine up until the very last wave. One broke through to me (I was actually doing really good damage the whole instance!) and he ONE-SHOTTED me. I didn't even have a chance to react. I'm used to having at least one hit notice but this critter took me from 100% health to dead in a single hit. I didn't think this was possible, but it happened. So I warned my group I was down. After that, it was torture to watch them go down one by one. With only our mage and a lock as dps, they couldn't kill them fast enough as we focused on single target.

I would've feigned and had Morris pick up the guy, he tanked them pretty well as they were physical damage dealers, it just happened so fast that feign was an afterthought while I watched my body laying there.

So, while the tank and healer are the folks I'd place on the top of the importance list, I'd just like to point out that losing CC and dps in the form of a hunter can cause a wipe just as predictably. It all depends on situation and targets. Some targets, the hunter is totally expendable. Others, they are the ones you need to keep alive.

It's situational. The best skill I can think of any hunter player having is situational awareness and analysis. If you have this by instinct, you can be one of the greats. If, like me, you have to work on it, I'm thinking I'll be happy with being one of the 'good enough's. LOL!