Re-activating your WoW account, or interested in "Trying Before You Buy"?Hunters Don't Need Salv
So, the other night, I was invited into a partial-PUG - one of my friends has brought up his second healer toon in the form of a Shaman, and has only recently hit 70 and is running regular 68+ instances for reputation and gear upgrades on his way to Heroics, and had teamed up with a PUG tank from the night before in order to head into Botanica.
Since it was a Regular and not a Heroic, when my friend invited me to come along to DPS, I switched from my Mage that I had been doing some PvP with, and logged into my Hunter, who is less geared and also isn't topped out on Sha'tar reputation.
I joined in the party, and flew from Shattrath and met my friend there and we started the Summoning process, then headed into the instance.
Right off the bat, everyone starts to buff, the Soulstone is discussed as to who should get it (SPriest got it as the Shaman can ahnk back to life if required), and we get ready to go.
Then, the Pally tank gives my Hunter her buff - Greater Blessing of Salvation.
*blink*
I ask if I could get Might instead, with my standard inquiry that also includes "I'll feign regularly". Pally tank tells me no, he'll keep Salv on me because then I can "go all out". I ask him if he has Omen and he doesn't respond. I say Hunters don't need Salv because they can Feign Death (which is a complete aggro wipe) every 30 seconds, and there's no response.
The first battle starts, and I see *everyone* has Omen, including the most important one on there, the tank, I took Salv off, and went without a Pally buff.
He re-applied it later on when someone else's buff wore off, and I took it off again. I think he re-buffed me a third time when he noticed the buff wasn't there a couple of minutes later, but I took it off again and I don't think it was re-applied.
Did I pull aggro? Once, with an immediate Feign (but the aggro went to the SPriest, which is why we don't like DPS pulling aggro - when dumped, it doesn't tend to go back to the tank more than another DPS or the healer). The rest of the time, I paid attention to Omen like a good little Hunter does, and practiced some of my Hunter skills by feigning death regularly, especially after dealing out my first bit of massive damage by using all of my cooldowns.
It's kind of like what I have to do on my Mage - cause a lot of hurt for a short period at the start of the fight, then use Invisibility to drop my threat to 0 and start dealing out hurt again from the lower threat position on the charts.
At any rate, In the middle of the run, I hit Revered with Sha'tar, yay!
The run itself went pretty quick and there was only one wipe, and that was mainly due to miscommunication between the tank and the rest of the party when the tank decided to handle High Botanist Freywinn differently than the standard "line of sight" technique that myself and my friend were familiar with, and instead wanted AOE when the Lashers come out and Freywinn starts his channelling of Tranquility. Unfortunately, the SPriest and Warlock in our group hadn't ever been in this instance before and therefore the Warlock didn't know "when" to AOE.
I think our tank nearly had a stroke he was freaking out so much on the Warlock... but once the fight was explained a little better to the people who had never seen it, the next attempt went much smoother, still using the AOE-down-the-Lashers technique instead of the regular Line of Sight one that many other tanks use.
The tank still, however, felt extreme frustration that he channelled towards the boss as Freywinn lay dead on the ground... said something that labelled him "young" in my book, using the "C" word in his profanities. I thought about saying "mixed company, not appreciated" but instead I just marked him in my Karma tracking addon as an A-type personality tank (ie: one who knows a lot and runs quickly but freaks out on group members and says inappropriate things that don't endear one to others).
That's not to say I wouldn't run with him again, but I would at least be able to warn my friends that while the run will be sucessful and fast, he'll probably be quite a bit of a jerk during the process.
We finished with no further mishaps after that first wipe, and since I'm an Enchanter, there were three Large Prismatic Shards to divvy out at the end, after a couple of people got some nice blues as upgrades.
The tank asked if we'd like to run it again, only "this time without bothering with marks", but I'm pretty sure all of us declined, as it was 1-2 in the morning depending on where we all were, and I know I was pretty tired.
When I headed back to Shattrath, I hit the Quartermaster for the Sha'tar to see what might be waiting for me now that I was Revered in reputation - and I got a great one that I can use on my Healing Priest's weapon - [Formula: Enchant Weapon - Major Healing] - rock on!
I like being able to enchant myself :)
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i am curious as to why you didnt just leave the buff on? it's not hurting anything. and its not like he was giving you another buff to replace it. As for the feign death technique, wouldn't you do more DPS if you didnt have to feign death so often? I've never played a hunter, so maybe you can clarify for me?
btw, great blog!
Hey there, thanks for your note!
Ah, as with anything it's more ego than anything, I'll admit.
But, I'd rather have no buff than a "training wheel" buff.
In my view, 5-man instances are there for training purposes (as well as gearing and leveling and making friends), and as a DPS one of my main things I need to be able to do is control my own threat without a crutch, and still do great DPS.
Feign death is so quick-acting that really, it's not going to take very much time out of my damage-dealing :)
WoWGrrl
I never give Hunters Salvation as a Paladin Buff! I've never had to either. I always give Hunters Blessing of Might (BoM) and their Pets Blessing of Kings (BoK). Sometimes I know some the Hunters I run with will ask for Blessing of Wisdom instead because they may be having mana issues and if they ask for that I kindly give them that. But I never give Hunters Salvation as the only class I do that for because they can Feign Death quite often for a aggro dump if that happen.
I would say in my best opinion that Paladin had on training wheels. Especially one that gets that frustrated as well.
When people trust you more as a experience Paladin Tank they will eventually trust you to give them the Blessing they need or if the situation dictates it and wont usually complain as they will know its for their own good as the tank sees it.
Hunters dont need Salv, but I see no need to click it off if you get it, especially if he refuses to give you a different buff. I have a 70 paly, 70 warrior, 70 warlock, and a 67 hunter. I never give salv to a hunter unless it is a raid with at least 4 pallys. Him giving you salv may also say something about his confidence as a tank. Also, it may just be a lack of understaning of the hunter class (even though you told him about feign). He probably figures he would never give a rogue or Fury Warrior something other thank salv so why would he give it to you. He also is probably not aware that at your range you need to pass 130 percent of his threat to pull.
heheh training wheel... lmao.
Look it was a weird run in its entirety and I won't say much about hunter dps, cause as a hunter, I watch omen. When my threat gets too high.. I fd and pop up for more dmg. This should be standard for all hunters, but apparently is not. Even in groups where not everyone HAS omen.. I send pet after the tank engages, and I use the pet threat as my marker.. if I get too high over it (without growl on, derrr) I just FD to be safe. Another thing.. really.. the "training" is for people who don't know what they are doing.. You do. I would let him buff me with salv and I would make it my GOAL to steal aggro. Hard to do, but its a goal and it keeps your damage up and your mind sharp. If there is a mage it is kinda hard to beat them in the shorties of non raids, so I"ve had to track my damage comparably to a mage before.. Specially if they are a fire mage.
I know this fight, and was the warlock that mucked things up one time. The thing is that as a "now" experienced lock this is a walk in the park.. I can AOE most any group I find with a little guile and a lot of +shadow dmg. Destro locks are king in AOE fights thanks to ruin (I mean seriously 3 seeds going off and all critting one getting ruin proc? Holy crap.. SOULSHATTER!!)
I'm curious what spec you are and what gear you have. I'm marksmen and my agro gain is fierce. I can pull agro within one shot rotation after an MD and in less time after a feign death. I don't think I'm particularly uber or anything, it just seems the arguments for hunters and salve has been circular for awhile and I've only seen on Elitist Jerks where they actually differentiate between marks and the other specs when it comes to salv.
I'm not really convinced that spec matters - it's about learning how to watch your threat and dropping threat or outright stopping your attacks when you're close to pulling aggro.
It's like the Frost vs Fire mage argument - Frost mages have lower-threat attacks by default (but still have to watch threat early on - often I have to wait 4-5 seconds before engaging) which makes them easier to handle in group situations, but a Fire mage who plows off their biggest attacks and trinkets too early in a fight is going to have threat problems, just like any other powerful DPS.
That having been said, I'm not talking about experienced raiders here - I'm talking about every day Hunters in parties with strangers whose threat-gaining abilities are unknown.
There's also the fact that some specs and some gearing is better for, say, PvP than PvE - a DPS who has a very high crit rate, for example, will find it difficult to control their threat and is often a bane to everyone else in the group despite their big damage (even more noticable in Heroics than Regulars).
Sure, be proud of your big hits, but realize that the start of the fight is when ALL DPS need to be most careful, and it's a primary job of DPS to do maximum DPS *without* pulling aggro off the tank.
I also read somewhere that Salv is undergoing major changes for WoTLK, turning from a regular buff as it is today into a much more temporary buff... so anyone relying on Salv, if I read this right, is going to have to learn a lot better threat management than they have to, today.