Hunter doesn’t have the best reputation. The stereotype of the keyturning, backpedaling Legolas cosplayer is one that
has persisted for almost twenty years. But no more. Under the hood of this apparently “noob”
class is one of the more mechanically deep and skill expressive kits in all of Classic WoW. And I hope these five little “tricks” will help
you get more out of this genuinely very fun class. Up first, we have a pair of macros
that are pretty minor, but very fun. These are two abilities that may feel a bit underwhelming or niche—especially
when cast normally from the hotbar. Fortunately, macros exist, and this one
character redeems both of these abilities. The exclamation mark in ANY macro stops the
action from canceling out if you press it again. You can daisy chain Eagle
Eyes across multiple zones, and while units eventually stop
spawning in, it's still pretty funny. You can use this to scout around for PvP or,
paired with a /target macro, named enemy mobs. But it’s also REALLY useful in
battlegrounds like Warsong Gulch, where you can search for the enemy
flag carrier from across the map. Eyes of the Beast works similarly: so long as
you’re in “line of sight” of your pet, which seems to boil down to just “don’t stand in a building,”
you can chain together casts and keep control. And before you laugh, you can
actually fuck people up with this. As BM, you can sit cozy in friendly
territory while your little lizard drone delivers death and terror
to people halfway across the zone, and it is the funniest PvP I’ve
done in Season of Discovery. Moving on to #2, we have one of my
favorite weakauras: a rangefinder. The rangefinder gives dynamic, accurate readings on what your ranges are and helps to avoid
getting stuck in the miserable deadzone. This is amazing for all bosses, but especially ones like Akumai in
BFD whose hitbox changes in Phase 2. The rangefinder eliminates a lot
of the guesswork about where you’re standing and makes consistent
uptime a lot easier to achieve. If you’ve never used a WeakAura,
simply download the addon, then click the wago.io link down
below, copy the import string, and paste it into your WeakAuras in-game. You
can then move it around wherever and you’re done. Combined with an addon like weapon swing timer, it’s also a great tool for learning to melee
weave, but that’s outside the scope of this video. We’ll cover that someday. Maybe. Probably. Anyways, #3. If you’re a warlock and
reach levelcap with your default auto attack still on your hotbars, you have
taken a terribly wrong turn in life. Hunter, unfortunately, kind
of needs to keep it there. But! we can do better than the default
toggle button, and that’s this. This is a combined autoshot
and targeting macro that will drop your target once it dies and
move on to the next seamlessly. It is also idiot proof for
button mashers like me and won’t cycle past your target if it’s still alive. Further, you’ll recognize this
exclamation mark from tip #1. This means that even if you beat the
everliving hell out of this macro, it won’t cancel and restart your auto. I press every key like I’ve got the schematics
for the Death Star, so this helps me. If you’re a more controlled
and well-adjusted human being, you can cut the exclamation mark. Your preference. Coming up on 4 and 5, we have
two pet tricks back to back. If you’re new to hunter, you will learn very quickly that any
sort of Z-axis jump is your enemy. Going to dangerous and unexplored lands like a platform one foot away will either
break your pet, leaving it stranded, or cause it to speedrun the
fastest path back to you, regardless of how many enemies
it pulls along the way. Eyes of the Beast is one way to fix this.
If you need to move your pet on a Z-axis, pilot them manually with Eyes, then put them on
stay IMMEDIATELY after you cancel the channel. Another method is “pet teleporting,” but it only
works when there’s a jump, NOT simply a fall. You put your pet on Stay first, do whatever
the jump is, then put it back on follow. Your pet will then show back up at your side. Finally, for #5, we move to
the DPS side of pet micro. We’re getting into pretty sweaty territory here, but a good way to control what your pet is doing
is to have toggle macros for their main attacks. For Windserpent specifically, you can
have a toggle bite and a toggle breath. For one, it’s a nerdy DPS gain to have your
wind serpent run into melee at the start of an encounter, as the lizard will have
slightly more uptime during the fight. It’s not just minor optimization
that makes toggles useful though. Focus management is a big part of it. If an enemy goes immune,
like say Gelihast or Akumai, or even a paladin in PvP, you can toggle off
your pet’s attacks to let them rebuild focus. Otherwise, your pet will keep pumping
into an invulnerable enemy and have nothing left in the tank when immunity
drops, which IS a significant DPS loss. REALLY niche here, but some elemental enemies are resistant or outright immune
to your pet's magic damage, so it can be useful to toggle a
physical attack against them instead. Microing pets is sadly half the battle as hunter,
but hey, it’s also a good part of the fun. Figuring out how to optimize
these stupid robots is a valuable, or at least interesting, part of the game. If you want to learn more about
the basics of hunter pets in Season of Discovery, gander this video I made. Godspeed, gamers.
