…Guess I’m looking for non-tier things to buy.
I’m not entirely happy with Cataclysm right now. It has less to do with the prospect of my hunter’s Tier 11 armor, which makes me look like I’m being devoured by an undead murloc, and more with some of the behavior I’m seeing. I know it doesn’t directly affect me or my gameplay, but it’s something I feel bears mentioning because it bothers me.
When you’re in a group, be it a dungeon PUG or a guild raid, there are a few things to keep in mind. Other than what pet to bring along, what specialization to operate with and what food to eat for a particular buff, there’s some basic etiquette that I feel should be observed. I know some of this will seem like common sense or has been said previously, but it bears repeating.
Listen To Instructions
Provided you’re in a Heroic dungeon or a raid, your tank or guild leader will likely tell you which creature in the pull is going to get crowd controlled by a particular member of the party, and as a Hunter, that means you might be trapping something. Set your pet on passive, be ready to misdirect to the tank as soon as you switch targets and put Distracting Shot on your bars so you pull your target into the trap.
Sounds easy, right? You’d be surprised how many hunters ignore these instructions and try to Multi-Shot the group. Now, in normal dungeons, you can get away with this a little bit. Lower dungeons in Cataclysm aren’t hard and fast when it comes to the mechanics of the pull. However, this is a good habit to get into for higher level instances, where behavior like this will wipe the party and possibly get you kicked. At least, it should. It’s bad, and you should feel bad. See “Know Your Role” below.
Don’t Hassle the Healer
The healer’s top priority is keeping the tank alive. If a pull goes bad and there are mobs in the group, you can help by using Feign Death, Misdirecting to the tank or hitting Deterrence. You do not help by calling the healer names when you don’t get healed. If you die, the tank and healer don’t and all attackers are killed, it’s a success. You can ask nicely for a resurrection or just man up and run back to your corpse afterwards.
I’d add it doesn’t help to hassle the tank, either, but that falls under listening to instructions. Because if you’re listening, you’re not talking. Pay attention.
Know Your Role
Listen, hunters, we no longer AoE. It’s a fact. We have Multi-Shot and we can launch Explosive Traps. That’s it. It’s not our stock in trade. We do consistent, single-target, non-magical DPS and provide crowd control of various flavors, from pulling a mob into a trap to Feign Death when something comes at our face. It’s how our class was meant to be, and in Cataclysm and the implementation of Focus it’s a niche we should be happy to fill. If you really want to AoE as a DPS, play a Mage or Warlock instead.
This is just stuff off the top of my head that makes me reluctant to join a pick-up group.
This is why I refuse to pug until at LEAST mid-January (by then, I’m hoping the majority of players will have figured this shit out).
But I see this not as a problem with Cataclysm, but the after-effects of problems in Wrath. Wrath spoiled DPS rotten. They rarely had to CC (Faction Champs in the TOC raid, maybe. And maybe the pulls right after Ick and Krick in POS). They were told that aggro was 100% the job of the tank (I saw so many DPS in i251+ gear berating tanks that were mostly in blues for not holding aggro when they opened up before the tank established any kind of aggro) and that all they had to do was sit back and pewpew.
Now, they’re actually being expected to *gasp* have situational awareness and work in sub-roles as CCers. It’s a rough change, especially for players who weren’t around in Pre-Wrath and never had to do this. Even in older dungeons, with the changes to all the classes, it was just an AOE fest.
I’m sure people will adjust. If not, I’ll just stick to guild runs as much as I can.