Let the Hunter Do It.

I never raided in the burning crusade and that was not the fault of the guild I was in because it was just a leveling guild that did not have a raid team.  It was my own fault because I never hit max level back then.  I really took my time leveling.  I think I spent twice, maybe even three times, as much time exploring the world as I did trying to level.  As such it was not until wrath that I had my first experience raiding.

I had left my leveling guild and joined a raiding guild to sit on the bench hoping that I would get my shot one day, and of course that day did come.  When we approached gluth the raid leader said for me to kite the zombie chow.

I was scared because it was an important job to have and not only had I never done it before, I had never raided before.  The one good thing was that I had looked all the fights up.  I looked them up all the time, watched videos, read guides, all because I wanted to be ready when the day came that I would get my chance and move from bench warmer to raid member.  At least for one day.

So while I had never raided before and you could easily conclude that I had never kited before in that sort of situation I was not exactly what you would call completely unprepared.  You see, that leveling experience that took me leveling 2 hunters in the burning crusade over the course of over a year, one into the 40s when I quit and then another, because I got a new account, all the way to max after, I had a lot of time to get comfortable with the hunter class.

It is part of the reason I often say I support a longer leveling experience.  Because of that, and the harder mobs and quests in the world, I often found myself in situations where I needed to use abilties I did not often use.  I often found myself using my brain as much as my bow.  I often found myself kiting something.  So kiting was not a completely foreign idea to me, not even in the slightest.

I am not saying I did great at it, but I did do well enough that we were able to down the boss that night with me kiting even if I had never done it before.  While my heart was pumping with excitement because it was my first time doing it and a fair deal of nervousness because I knew everyone was counting on me, it wasn't long into the fight when I realized this is what I was meant to do and hot damn I am good at this.  Not good from the get go, but when the boss died some time later I was secure in the fact I could handle this duty, the duty of a hunter.  To do all the little things that no one else wants to do.

During my raiding career I was often called upon by the raid leader to do some sort of special task or another.  It was not long before I was not nervous about it any longer, I was now ready for it, waiting for it, expecting it. 

From early on I started to watch videos not only to learn the fight but to learn what I needed to do, what my special task would be.  If the fight seemed like it would need someone to do some special task I figured that task would be mine to do.  I prepared for it, I got ready for it, and if I was capable of doing so I practiced for it so when we got there and the raid leader said, let the hunter do it this hunter was ready to do it.  Be it head tanking in mimron, getting a stamina set ready and a down ranked arcane shot handy for price tanking in ICC, kiting, you name it, I was always ready for it before we even reached the boss because I noticed very early on if there were some special task that needed to be done it would always come down to let the hunter do it and that hunter is me.

When I became the raid leader I did not pass the buck to someone else, even when we had another hunter in the group that I could have just as easily told to do the job.  In part is falls upon the old saying, the only person you can trust is yourself.  But it was more because I started to become quite fond of doing those little tasks that needed to be done, the ones no one else wanted to do.  I often felt as if I had the toolkit to do those tasks because, by design, that is what hunters were intended to do.

I've run a great deal of raids on my hunter and countless more on other damage dealers, tanks and healers and it seems to be, more often than not, no matter what group I am in when there is some sort of special task to do someone almost always says, let the hunter do it.

I wonder how this makes other hunters feel.  Do you feel as if you are undervalued because you are always put on the tasks that no one else wants to do or do you feel as if you are extremely valuable because you get to do something that is important and it is because you do it well that the fight gets won?

This tier it could be working belts or killing engineers or other little things that need to be done like helping on towers or being counted on to use an ability such as widow venom on thok.  No matter the fight there is usually something that falls on the hunter to do that is more than just pew pew.

There are other classes that could do all those things we do, it is not like we are the only class that can, so why it is that whenever there is something that needs to be done a hunter does it.  And it seems more often than not in a pug it is a hunter that will step up to do it.

Like running flex 4 pugs when the raid leader asks who wants to do belts there are always a few people that offer and you can be sure a hunter will be among them.  The pug leader asks, who wants engineers, and a hunter will raise their hand.  It is not something unique to my own experience, it is something hunters have been doing since the beginning of time in the game.  Taking the point and doing the jobs that need to get done to down the boss, the jobs no one else wants to do or is capable of doing.  It is like self sacrifice, offering yourself up for the greater good.

Bosses die because hunters do the jobs no one else is willing to do and more importantly, we do it well.

Over the course of the years I have sent others on the special duty, some times they are not even hunters.  Like I sent a priest and a druid up on alys, I had a mage kick on tortos, but usually special tasks fall in the capable hands of hunters.  There have been a few hunters however that just hate it.  They make excuses why they can not do it, or complain that they are not enjoying the game doing this and they just want to be the damage dealer and not the utility worker.  Sometimes it makes me want to say if you want to whine roll a mage, if you want to be awesome, stay a hunter and do your job.

I often wonder, being a hunter myself, if these people realize that they are not being a utility worker, they are the reason the boss dies, more so than the people just standing there going pew pew because if they did not do their job, the boss does not die.

The question I would like to ask, and this goes for anyone that has been tasked with special duty, not just hunters even if we do special duty better than anyone else is this.

How do you feel about the "let the hunter do it" mentality in the game?
How do you feel about being on special duty?