Hunter PvP

When I took my first Hunter into PvP in the World of Warcraft I had grand visions. After playing PvP mostly as a Druid Hunters always seemed to just pop a Mark on me, Sting me, mow me down from afar, top the lists and generally run up huge kill stats. It was time to try my own hand at playing the Hunter class in PvP. I thought it would be easy. I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Here’s the mental image I had of what my Hunters first PvP session would be. There I’d be, a totally decked out Dwarf with a ridiculously large rifle standing stoically on a ridge machine gunning dozens of enemy players and watching them fall in heaps to withering gun fire. Bodies would litter the ground around me as my Hunter Pet ran amok shredding Mages by the handful. But that’s not what happened.

What actually happened is this. We zoned into Warsong Gulch, heading down the tunnel I caught the boots and sprinted out down the right side of the field. As the Horde team came pouring out of their base I marked the nearest Mage and started laying into him. Within about 10 seconds a Druid and a Shaman were in action and started to just whip the snot out me. The last thing I saw before I dropped dead was my pet sleeping peacefully next to me. The rest of the match did not go much better.

The strength in the Hunter class is also its greatest weakness in PvP…range. In the normal environment it’s a relatively simple matter to keep mobs at range. Things are far more predictable and orderly. In PvP, when other players, who know what they’re doing, see a Hunter their first order of business is to shut that Hunter down as soon as possible. Leaving a Hunter alone in the Battle grounds is about the same thing as suicide. Even decent players know this and will make it their business to shut you down ASAP.

There is a pretty brutal learning curve when it comes to getting good at playing a Hunter in the PvP and Arena. There is far less standing and shooting that I had imagined and far more scrambling, trapping and crowd controlling. Timing is critical and to get good you really need to use your brain. You simply cannot stand and shoot and hope that nobody comes after you.

A few general tips that I’ve learned: Assume that someone is going to come right at you and have your escape route planned. Get really good at dropping traps. Make it a habit to drop flares randomly as those damn Rogues and Druids are rarely going to stealth in on you from where you think they will. When an opportunity presents itself take full advantage of it. When you find yourself with a few seconds breather find an enemy that is tangled up fighting another player on your team.  Get in range and simply unload on that guy! Hunter PvP is a huge amount of fun once you get the basics and it’s downright addicting when you really do your research, practice and learn the craft.