Hunter Tip - Learning Heavy Movement

Sometimes it is hard to get practice at doing some things.  Working your rotation is easy, that is what training dummies are for.  The little things otherwise can sometimes be hard.

How you handle yourself while moving can make a huge difference in your over all DPS.  I've seen my DPS go all over the place when it comes to movement fights.  Sometimes as much as a 60% difference.

That is all fine and dandy, we will always do less when we are first learning a fight, it is the way things are.  I am good for usually anywhere between one and three tries before my DPS starts to look better when first encountering a fight.  It is the rare fight that you do top DPS on right out of the box.  Not to many tank and spank fights out there any more.

Some are easier then others.  The ones that break you from your training dummy attacking are the ones that you will see the largest difference with.  You will always see a difference when you are forced to move more often so why not skew the numbers in your favor.

Just like you get better with your rotation when you spend more time on the training dummy you will get better at movement fights if you are forever running around like a chicken with your head cut off.

I guess that means it is a good thing that there is a repeatable quest out there that allows you to run around like a chicken with your head cut off.  One problem for some however, there are requirements you must meet to get it and I am not completely sure the phased area will be there if you have not opened it up.

The quest Battle Before The Citadel is a quest available at the Argent Tournament once you have opened it up far enough, which is actually all the way.  If you have access to this quest it can prove to be in invaluable training tool for movement fights.

The quest involves you having to joust but you won't be doing any jousting, leave the lance behind.  You will be taking on these mobs the way a hunter should, with a pet and a ranged weapon, not on the back of a horse.  We are not cavalry.

Things you need to remember before you do this.  It is not going to be about DPS, it is going to be about learning your rotation when moving and making it smooth as it can be.  Quite frankly your DPS is going to be horrible.  The shield that you need to use the shield breaker for while mounted will be there and that is going to absorb most of the damage you do.  Don't worry, that is a good thing. 

Remember, we want to practice movement while doing our rotation and for that we look for a few things.
1) A relatively empty area where we have time to practice without people coming by all the time.
2) Something that will last more than 30 seconds because 30 seconds is not really training.
3) Something that will move often causing you to move often.
4) Something that will always stay focused on your pet.
5) Something that will never put you or your pet in any danger of death.

This quest satisfies all those requirements.

Now that you picked the perfect quest to practice, you have met all the requirements you needed for a good training exercise and you have called out a tanking pet, a turtle if you are a good hunter, it is time to go get your training on.

Send in Mr Turtle and throw out some of your biggest shots with a MD.  From that point on.  It is all about learning your rotation.  The pet will have a more then ample threat lead now that you will never need to worry about taking threat again.

As the fight goes on the mob will knock your turtle back and go after him.  This will mean you will be running all over the place while he knocks Mr. Turtle all over the place.  No worries, contrary to popular belief, turtles do indeed like to fly.  Well, mine has never complained at least.

As a small word or warning.  The knock backs will never be in any set order (which is a good thing for training) so keep an eye on when you think the turtle will be knocked back into other mobs or out of the phased area.  More mobs will just make it annoying and being knocked from the phased area means you need to start over because the mob will despawn.  Putting your pet on passive will bring it back to you and then you can send it back to the mob afterward.

During your training you should be working on mastering your rotation.  You should be working on trying to predict when the tank will be moving, where the tank will be moving, and how far the tank will be moving.  Start creeping in the direction you know you will need to go before you need to go there.  During any instants you hit you could move at the same time and not lose even one second of DPS. 

The main idea here is to make sure you are never losing any DPS time.  Any time the tank gets far enough away that you need to go running to get back in range it is a DPS loss.  Part of what you are practicing here is anticipation of where the movement will be and as odd as it sounds being the mob can knock Mr Turtle back anywhere really, this is the perfect training lesson to keep you on your toes.

Switching to fox, moving before you need to move to position yourself, keeping an eye on the surroundings, dealing with other possible obsticles, it all adds up for an excellent chance to get more comfortable with your game play while moving without ever putting any pressure on you or your pet, it is an easy battle otherwise.

Again, I will reiterate what I said before, your DPS will be super low do to the shield, but do not worry about that, worry about the rotation, staying in range, not skipping a beat, basically, try doing the best you can do despite what numbers you might see going around.

Another added bonus of this little exercise in practicing movement rotations is that you also get a little bit of add management target switching as well.  Those flying guys respawn fast sometimes and they can be a general annoyance but taking them out is no big deal.  They are level 80 mobs and at level 85 you will most likely smoke them in a shot or two.  Do not ignore them, kill them, they might be level 80 but if you keep going and let a bunch of them start following you around you will die.  Small damage or not, it adds up.

It might seem as if you are getting nothing done because not seeing the numbers fly you can not see if you are doing the rotation right.  I understand that but if you watch what you are doing and know you are doing it right and keep making sure you are doing it right you will notice the difference when a movement fight comes along.

You will need to kill three for the quest, not a lot but enough to get a little practice in.  You can do this quest every day of the week so that way you can practice whenever you have time and only for a little bit so you do not get practice burn out. 

Mind you, you do not need to be on the quest to practice, but you might as well grab the quest while you are there and pick up some gold and a few champion seals that you can later use to buy yourself a mount or a pet or a tabard or whatever floats your boat.

I did this for a bit while building up seals for pets and mounts and started doing it without the horse for fun because I wanted to see how long it would take to get one of those down with their three shields up.  It was then that I noticed that this is actually a pretty cool way to practice for a movement fight.  I figured I would share my experience with you and maybe if you are as obsessive at being as good as you can be as I am, you might get some use out of this.

Happy Hunting.