Pet Tricks: Stampede

I might be off to a bad start getting gear and getting into the swing of being a cooldown based whack a mole cluttered class but when it comes to playing around with the little things I think I still have my hunter grove going.  It comes with loving being a hunter and also playing other roles as well.

My experience as a tank has lead me to look at certain abilities differently than most and I thought I would share one of them with you because looking around I have not seen anyone mention anything like what I use stampede for.  It can really help you when soloing.

Stampede as a Defensive Cooldown:

It is not just a DPS cooldown, it is one of the most powerful defensive cooldowns a hunter has and it seems, at least from all I have read around, that no one has noticed that yet.  One thing to remember is that our pets are pretty tough and can take a small beating for at least a few seconds.  Now think of having a few of them out at the same time, that can buy you a lot of time to regroup if the time comes that you need to.

How to set up stampede as a defensive cooldown:
Call all pets out one at a time and...
1) turn on their growl.
2) spec them to tenacity.
3) make sure thunderstomp is on autocast.

Now you are ready to use one hell of a defensive cooldown.  When you are out in the world soloing, be it a rare, an elite or massive packs of mobs if your pet tank goes down you call stampede instantly and feign death.  You now have two options, one would be you wait for them to die or go away or you can pop back up after they pick up the rare, elite or pack of mobs and revive your normal tank pet unmolested.

The moment I got stampede on beta when I first tested it I was not overwhelmed with the theory of it being a DPS cooldown.  Sure, it can contribute some, but I knew there had to be other uses for it.  When I was leveling and running into a lot of rares it occurred to me that stampede is so much more.  While a pet can tank many of the rares no problem at all there are occasional issues with adds and one time when my pet died I came up with this as an oh shit option and have been using it ever since.

If you do not use your stampede as a DPS cooldown and keep it set up as a defensive one it can serve many purposes in random five mans and lets face it, do you really need that extra burst in a five man or do you need to cover up for when things go wrong.  So far, from my experience only, I've noticed that stampede is a serviceable defensive cooldown for five mans, and not only for me, for the whole group.

In at least 5 different situations I have used stampede to save a wipe in a five man so far.

1) Tank goes down, call them and hopefully you can finish off the boss in that short time, been there and done that thanks to stampede.
2) Tank goes down, call them until a battle resurrection can go out for the tank to save the group, been there and done that thanks to stampede.
3) Everyone goes down and so does your pet, call them to try and finish off that last 3% with whatever you have left to give, been there and done that three times thanks to stampede.
4) Everyone goes down and there is no way you can beat the boss, call them and get the hell out of there as far as you can to feign death so you can mass resurrect everyone, been there and done that thanks to stampede.
5) Adds getting out of the control and the tank is having problems picking them up and the healer is having problems keeping people up, call them to get those unruly mobs in a nice pile to AoE them down, been there and done that thanks to stampede as a defensive cooldown.

Stampede is not all about DPS.  Learn to love the power of a huge defensive cooldown for solo play, group play and even raid play.  If you have enough hunters and rotate stampedes, you might even be able to offtank a boss for the last few seconds of a fight or to let the healers catch up on the tank or let a debuff fall off.  I can't wait to try that one, three or four hunters stringing stampede defensively is more than enough to let any debuff fall off a tank.

Note: One note about thunderstomp.  On your main pet it is usually a good idea to keep it off and only turn in on in a controlled situation.  The last thing you want is added attention by things in the area.

Note: If you plan to set up using stampede as a defensive cooldown in a group setting at least make sure your main pet is ferocity.  The stable pets should be the only ones that are tenacity.

Note: If your set up for a defensive usage of stampede never call it as an offensive cooldown as it could actually cause problems with the thunderstomp and growl going off.

Stampede as an Offensive Cooldown:

Hit it.  That is is.  Just kidding of course.  There is a way to make it a better offensive cooldown and part one of that is doing the reverse of what I said in the defensive version.

How to set up stampede as an offensive cooldown.
Call all pets out one at a time and...
1) turn off growl.
2) spec them ferocity.
3) make sure rabid is on autocast.

That is really all you need when talking group content but you can take it further if you want for when you are soloing and want to use it for offense.  If you plan your pets out you can basically become a one man raid.  Each pet called out will act as its own pet and do its own abilties and that includes the buffs they offer.  So a smart choice of 5 different pets will apply 5 (or more) different buffs.

Note: You can even use the offensive version as a defensive version when soloing by hitting feign death after you call them and letting them take aggro on a single mob while you revive your pet.  It will not be as effective on packs however.

Stampede as a Battle Resurrection:

Note: Must be BM to do this and have a Quillen in your stable

/cast [target=focus,dead] Eternal Guardian; Eternal Guardian

This will cast a battle resurrection on your focus if your focus is dead, which if you are the type that has the tank as your focus makes it perfect for reviving the tank without the need to target it, and if your focus is not dead it will cast it on your current selected target.

Note: I have not used this macro myself yet but I told a guild mate how to make it two weeks ago as soon as he tamed one and he said it works like a charm.

Note: The dead person needs to be within 20 yards of the quillen for this to work.

Stampede as a Full Heal:*

Note: Must be BM to do this and have all spirit beasts in your stable.

Note: Do not use glyph of stampede because it will copy the one spirit beast, you need to have five different spirit beasts to do this, not a copy of one.

/cast [harm] Stampede
/cast [target=mouseover, help] Spirit Mend; [target=player] Spirit Mend

This will cast all 5 spirit mends on yourself or on the target you are moused over effectively acting like a lay on hands for whomever it is used on.

*Posted by Jappse on MMO-Champion.

Stampede is more than just some five minute cooldown mini version of army of the dead, our pets have style in huge amounts, so much so, we can do almost anything with them.  Oh, the joys of being a hunter.  So many pets, so few stable slots, that would be my only pet gripe.