User:Kathucka/Hunter's Guide to Karazhan/Raid Preparation

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Hunter's Guide to Karazhan

Your Roles Deal damage Protect squishies Utility Stay alive

Stats and Gear Hit rating Agility Attack power Crit rating MP5 and Intellect Stamina Haste Armor penetration Melee weapons Ranged weapons Scopes Head enchant Shoulder enchant Gear recommendations Gem recommendations Reputation rewards

Talent Spec Beast Mastery Other specs References

Your Pet Choice of pet Choosing pet talents A warning about pet bigots

Shot Rotations Definitions Shot timing Beast mastery rotations Testing shot rotations References

Configuration Add-ons Macros Voice communication

Getting Your Key

Raid Preparation Consumables Buffs and grouping Target assignment

Combat Review of skills Dealing damage Managing threat Freeze trapping Protecting squishies Staying alive Controlling pulls

The Bosses Servants' Quarters Attumen the Huntsman Moroes Opera Event Maiden of Virtue The Big Bad Wolf Romulo and Julianne Wizard of Oz The Curator Shade of Aran Terestian Illhoof Netherspite Chess Event Nightbane Prince Malchezaar

List of Tables Hunter gear Hunter gems Reputation rewards Raid pets Addons Consumables Bosses Raid buffs Group buffs Raid debuffs Skills Skills timing

You have your key. You have set up your pet, add-ons, macros, spec, gear, enchantments, and gems to raid. You're almost ready to go. This section discusses a few last-minute things to do.

Consumables

Consumables are the stuff you use up as you raid. In the case of a hunter, that means buff food, water, ammunition, flasks or elixirs, pet buff food, regular pet food, health potions, mana potions, and bandages. Bring all of these. You need them. They make a big difference in the raid's damage output and survivability. Really, it is huge.

It is part of your job as a raider to bring all the consumables you will need. Do it.

Bring extras for the other folks in your raid, and offer them up when the raid starts. The raid succeeds or fails as a whole. Having someone else use the consumable helps the raid just as much as using it yourself helps.

If you are raiding with a new group, you will wipe a lot. Bring enough consumables to survive through at least ten wipes. That is about the outside tolerance for wipes for most raid groups.

You can use either one flask or two elixirs at a time. Flasks cost more, but they last two hours and the buff does not disappear on death. Because of this, using flasks can be cheaper than using two new elixirs every time you wipe.

	Consumable	Comments
Battle Elixirs	[Elixir of Major Agility] [Fel Strength Elixir] [Elixir of Mastery] [Onslaught Elixir]	Most hunters take the Elixir of Major Agility.
Guardian Elixirs	[Elixir of Major Mageblood] [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom] [Elixir of Major Fortitude]	Major Mageblood is considerably better than Draenic Wisdom for boss fights.
Flasks	[Flask of Relentless Assault]
Buff Food	[Blackened Sporefish] [Grilled Mudfish] [Ravager Dog] [Spicy Hot Talbuk] [Warp Burger] [Talbuk Steak] [Mok'Nathal Shortribs] [Clam Bar] [Buzzard Bites]	Most hunters prefer agility food. Some of the stamina food is being changed with Patch 2.4 to give 720 stamina for 30 seconds.
Weapon Oil	[Superior Mana Oil] [Brilliant Mana Oil]	Dual-wielding hunters can use two weapon oils at once. Unfortunately, sharpening stones have no effect on ranged attacks.
Regular Pet Food	As appropriate.	Hunters know what their pets eat. This section is here just to remind them to bring a full stack of it. Bears, boars, crabs, wind serpents, and spore bats eat bread that mages conjure.
Buff Pet Food	[Kibler's Bits] [Sporeling Snack]
Potions	[Super Healing Potion] [Super Mana Potion] [Super Rejuvenation Potion] [Healing Potion Injector] [Mana Potion Injector] [Fel Mana Potion] [Mad Alchemist's Potion] [Haste Potion]	Fel Mana potions are the best ones for hunters to use, as the debuff from that potion does not affect them.
Ammunition	[Adamantite Shells] [Adamantite Stinger] [Felbane Slugs] [Halaani Grimshot] [Halaani Razorshaft] [Hellfire Shot] [Warden's Arrow] [Blackflight Arrow] [Ironbite Shell]	Bring a full bag. Nothing is more embarrassing than running out of ammunition in the middle of a raid. The Adamantite ammunition is best for hunters new to Karazhan, as it has the highest damage boost of any ammunition available to them, and is not soulbound. The machines to make it are made by engineers. One [Adamantite Arrow Maker] creates 1000 [Adamantite Stinger]s. One [Adamantite Shell Machine] creates 1000 [Adamantite Shells]. See the Reputation rewards section for more ammunition.

Buffs and grouping

Your performance as a raider is greatly affected by the abilities of the other members of the raid. Make sure that you get the ideal hunter buffs before starting any boss fight.

Types of buffs

There are three types of buffs that other characters can give you. Raid buffs can be cast on you before the fight, improving your stats directly. Group buffs are passively given to you during combat by other members of your five-man group. Debuffs are cast by anyone in the raid on your target, and make your attacks on that target more effective.

Grouping for buffs

Because group buffs only help you when the players are in your group, you want to arrange the raid groups to get those players in your group and helping you. In particular, the raid should be arranged to put feral druids, shadow priests, marksmanship hunters, beast mastery hunters, warriors, and shamans (especially enhancement shamans) in your group.

Beast mastery hunters give a group buff to any player dealing damage. Marksmanship hunters give a group buff to hunters, and melee damage-dealers, including warriors, rogues, retribution paladins, enhancement shamans, and feral druids.

Paladin blessings

Paladin blessings are special raid buffs. While paladins have a wide variety of blessings available, each paladin can apply only one blessing to each target. The most useful blessings for hunters are Blessing of Might, Blessing of Kings, and Blessing of Wisdom. For Karazhan, it is usually best to take Might. Take Wisdom on fights where you will run out of mana, and take Kings on fights where your health is important.

A special note: Blessing of Salvation on a hunter is harmful to the raid, because it reduces the effect of Misdirection. It is not helpful, because hunters can just use Feign Death to manage threat much more effectively. Any paladin that gives it to you is either uninformed or is insulting you. Every time you get this buff, immediately right-click on its icon to remove it.

Buffing your pet

Buffs on your pets help the raid just as much as buffs on regular characters. Make sure that you pet is fully buffed before you start any boss fight!

Most raids re-buff everyone right before boss fights. Make sure that your pet is out at this time. Otherwise, you will have to call your pet and have everyone take the time to buff it. Avoid delaying the raid like that.

Paladin buffs are a headache for pets. Greater blessings, when cast on one character, also get cast on every other character of the same class in the raid. For this purpose, hunter pets are considered warriors. This is stupid, but there it is. As a result, your pet will get blessings when the warriors get them, but they may be the wrong blessings.

Your pet should have Blessing of Might. If you have two paladins, it should have Blessing of Kings, too. The remaining blessings are not particularly helpful, although Blessing of Sanctuary is marginally useful.

Before the fight starts, click on your pet and check its blessings. If it has something useless like Greater Blessing of Light instead of Might, ask the paladins to cast a single-target Blessing of Might on the pet. Getting blessings set up right is a pain, especially with multiple paladins, so be patient and polite with the paladins. Do not insist on perfect pet buffs until you get to a boss fight. You may find the following lines useful in getting the job done:

"Could whoever put Greater Blessing of Light on the warriors please put a single-target Blessing of Might on my pet?"

"/point" (This points at the pet so that the paladin can find it more easily.)

"The pallypower add-on should help you find the pets. Otherwise, go to the raid window and drag out the pet tab. It's near the bottom on the right side."

"Blizzard thinks that hunter pets are warriors, so you have to use the single-target blessings on them instead of the greater blessings."

Finally, if you have to revive your pet during a fight, ask for it to be re-buffed, if the buffers have the time and mana to do so.

Raid buffs

Here is a list of raid buffs. These buffs can be applied to every member of the raid. They are all useful for hunters.

Raid Buffs
Class	Raid Buff	Effect	Comments
Druid	Gift of the Wild	Increases armor by 340, all attributes by 14 and all resistances by 25
Mage	Arcane Brilliance	Increases intellect by 40
Paladin	Greater Blessing of Might	Increases attack power by 220	Pets should have Might, too.
	Greater Blessing of Kings	Increases all stats by 10%	Pets should have Kings, too.
	Greater Blessing of Wisdom	Restores 41 mana every 5 seconds	Very useful for long fights
Priest	Prayer of Fortitude	Increases stamina by 79	Increases stamina by up to 102 when fully talented
	Prayer of Spirit	Increases spirit by 50	Requires discipline talents
	Prayer of Shadow Protection	Increases shadow resistance by 70	Does not stack with Shadow Resistance Aura. Great for Netherspite.

Group buffs

Here is a list of group buffs useful to hunters. A character must be in the same group as yours to give you a group buff. The most useful group buffs come from feral druids, beast mastery hunters, marksmanship hunters, shadow priests, and shamans.

Group Buffs
Class	Group Buff	Effect	Comments
Druid	Leader of the Pack	Improves critical strike chance by 5%	Feral talent activated in bear and cat form. When fully talented, heal yourself by 4% of your total health when you get a critical strike.
Hunter	Ferocious Inspiration	All damage increased by 3% for 10 seconds after the hunter's pet gets a critical strike.	Beast Mastery talent. Stacks with multiple hunters.
	Trueshot Aura	Attack power increased by 125	Marksmanship talent. Does not stack.
	Aspect of the Wild	Nature resistance increased by 70 when within 45 yards of the hunter.	Does not stack with itself or with nature resistance totems. The hunter using it loses considerable damage output because Aspect of the Hawk is not available. Only one hunter per group needs to turn this on.
Paladin	Concentration Aura	Gives a 35% chance to ignore spell interruption when damaged	Useful for casting Steady Shot when taking damage. When fully talented, has a 40 yard range, 50% chance to ignore interruption, and reduces the duration of silence effects by 30%.
	Devotion Aura	Gives 861 additional armor to party members	Adds 1205.3 armor when fully talented. Great for Nightbane.
	Fire Resistance Aura	Gives 70 additional Fire resistance	Does not stack with fire resistance totems. Hunters do not take much fire damage in Karazhan, but possibly handy for Prince Malchezaar and Terestian Illhoof.
	Frost Resistance Aura	Gives 70 additional Frost resistance	Nice for the Shade of Aran's elementals.
	Shadow Resistance Aura	Gives 70 additional Shadow resistance	Does not stack with Prayer of Shadow Resistance. Great for Netherspite.
Priest	Vampiric Embrace	15% of Shadow spell damage caused by casting priest heals the priest's group.	Shadow talent Increases to 25% when fully talented.
	Vampiric Touch	Priest's party gains mana equal to 5% of Shadow spell damage caused by the priest.	Shadow talent.
Shaman	Fire Resistance Totem	Increases fire resistance by 70	Does not stack with Fire Resistance Aura.
	Frost Resistance Totem	Increases frost resistance by 70	Does not stack with Frost Resistance Aura.
	Grace of Air Totem	Increases agility by 77
	Healing Stream Totem	Heals 18 damage every two seconds.
	Mana Spring Totem	Restores 20 mana every two seconds.
	Mana Tide Totem	Restores 24% of your mana over 12 seconds.	Restoration talent.
	Nature Resistance Totem	Increases nature resistance by 70	Does not stack with Aspect of the Wild.
	Strength of Earth Totem	Increases strength by 86.	Does not improved ranged attacks, but substantially increases pet damage.
Warlock	Blood Pact	Increases stamina by 70	Imp aura. Increases stamina by 91 when fully talented.
Warrior	Battle Shout	Increases melee attack power by 305	Increases melee attack power by up to 382 with talents. Does not increased ranged damage, but does increase pet damage.
	Commanding Shout	Increases maximum health by 1080.	Increases maximum health by 1350 when fully talented.

Raid debuffs

Here is a list of raid debuffs useful to hunters. You will benefit from these any time you attack a target with the debuff. The character that applies the debuff can be in any group in the raid.

Raid Debuffs
Class	Raid Debuff	Effect	Comments
Druid	Faerie Fire	Decrease armor of target by 610	With Balance talents, also improves chance to hit the target by 3%. Does not stack.
Hunter	Expose Weakness	Increase the attack power against the target by 25% of the agility of the hunter.	Survival talent. Does not stack.
	Hunter's Mark	Increases ranged attack power against the target by 110 to 440.	With Marksmanship talents, also increases the melee attack power against the target by 110. Does not stack.
Paladin	Judgement of Wisdom	Chance to restore 74 mana when attacking the target.	Extremely valuable in boss fights. Allows hunters to use haste potions instead of mana potions.
	Judgement of the Crusader	Increases holy damage taken by the target by up to 219. Fully talented, also increases the crit chance of all attacks against the target by 3%.	Requires the Improved Seal of the Crusader talent from a retribution paladin to get the 3% crit chance.
Rogue	Expose Armor	Reduce armor of target by up to 2050.	Reduce armor by up to 3075 with assassination talents. Does not stack with Sunder Armor.
Warlock	Curse of Recklessness	Reduces target's armor by 800, but also increases its attack power by 135 and makes it immune to fear effects.	Each warlock gets only one curse per target.
Warrior	Sunder Armor	Reduces armor by 520	Stacks up to five times with itself. Does not stack with Expose Armor.

Target assignment

Raid leaders and assistants can mark targets with raid markers.

Before the raid starts, figure out what your raid marker assignment is. For many raids, the target with the skull symbol gets killed first, and the target with the red X symbol gets killed second. If you will be required to trap anything, make sure that you get a symbol assigned to you. The blue square is a common freeze trap marker.

Tank and assist frames

Ask the raid leader to assign the tanks in the raid window. Once he has done that, open your raid window, and drag out the tank tab to your main display. it will give you a list of your tank targets and what they are targeting. This makes it easy to select the tanks for Misdirection and to select their targets for killing.