Tuesday, September 11, 2007

No clever Traps? No way?

OK, this is for everyone that thinks that a hunter without the talent Clever Traps can't chain trap effectively. For this example I'm using the trap times and cooldowns for myself. I have no points in the Survival tree, so my Freezing Trap will hold, unresisted, for 20 seconds. I do, however, have two pieces of the Beast Lord set so my trap cooldown is 26 seconds. That leaves 6 second of time between my trap breaking and me being able to set another trap.

So what happens in that 6 seconds? For starters, yes, I have a plan. That is the most important thing I can do to survive those 6 seconds and keep my assigned mob under control.
Concussive Shot-after trapping the mob, I run as far as is safe while keeping the trapped mob in range, once the mob breaks free, I hit my concussive shot macro, that by itself will usually buy me the 6 seconds plus.
OK, but what if there's no room to run?
Scatter Shot-A short range (can be used at point blank) shot that dazes the target for 4 seconds, at which point, I only have 2 seconds left.

The other part of chain trapping that is dependent on the tank, or whoever is pulling, is timing. If I have the opportunity to place my trap and then wait out the cooldown, or most of the cooldown, before the pull, I can pull my mob with a combination of distracting shot then concussive shot which will burn up the remainder of the cooldown before the mob reaches the first trap.

Here are 2 examples of timing and how they affect a hunter's trapping.

Example 1:
0:00 hunter places trap, tank pulls
0:01 hunter pulls mob to trap
0:02 mob reaches trap, trap timer starts
0:22 trap breaks
0:26 hunter's trap CD is up, drops 2nd trap

In that example, after the first trap, the hunter had 4 seconds of time between the trap breaking and the trap cooldown coming up.

Example 2:
-0:10 hunter places trap
0:00 tank pulls after signal from hunter
0:01 hunter pulls mob to trap
0:02 mob reaches trap, trap timer starts
0:16 hunter's trap CD is up, drops 2nd trap
0:22 trap breaks
0:23 mob reaches 2nd trap
0:42 hunter's trap CD is up, drops 3rd trap
0:44 trap breaks
0:45 mob reaches 3rd trap
1:05 trap breaks
1:08 hunter's trap CD is up, drops 4th trap

See what 10 seconds can do for a hunter? It bought the hunter 33 seconds of trap time, and that is assuming no room to manuver and saving our "OH $H!T" button. In your average trash pull 33 seconds is one or two mobs down. And this is why we love our tanks that give us a few seconds before a pull.

Obviously this is assuming no resists or early breaks. At that point, it's time for the "OH $H!T" buttons.

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