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Airwavez
11-03-2007, 05:18 AM
I've been doing a lot of thinking and semi-theorycrafting, and I've come down to a well-thought out conclusion. Next patch, this is probably going to be the best 2v2 combo ever.

Here's why:

The general strategy (or at least, my general strategy) of the hunter/healer setup is to intentionally make the game last really long. I play patiently and defensively and prioritize that my healer never be hit,me draining their healer, and CCing/snaring their dps'er at the same time. When my healer is out of combat, he drinks every chance he gets. In my mind, if my healer has more mana than their healer, we are winning.

If you apply said strategy to the hunter/druid combo, coordinate your CCs, and play defensively and patiently, you cannot lose. This setup has a stupid amount of CCs (Cyclone, Root, Scatter Shot, Silence, Freezing/Frost Traps, Imp. Wing Clip proc, Conc. Shot proc. Bash, Feral Charge, Entrapment proc), most of which are on separate diminishing returns. No matter what abilities a class has (except Ice Block/Divine Shield), they are unable to use them if they are Cycloned/Freeze Trapped.

Against all teams, coordinate your CC around one person. When you properly rotate Cyclone + Scatter Shot + Trap + all other CCs in solid turns and rotations, you can keep one of their two players completely locked down, giving you the advantage to do whatever you need to do to their other player.

With Moonfire, Serpent Sting and Carrion Swarm (remember, druids will have +spell damage now, and hunter stings and traps scale with AP), and a nice Auto/Multi/Steady shot combo, their health will drop pretty quickly. Against hunter/x setups, most healer opponents tend to be very conservative on mana, since the hunter drains every chance he gets. With those 3 DoTs, and the hunter's shots, this forces their healer to get into line of sight, out of bear/cat/whatever form, and start healing their teammate. This gives the hunter easy access to toss out a Viper Sting on their healer, and not chase the healer around a pillar for hours on end.

I grinded to 2300 in 2v2s with a priest, and I believe a druid is going to be alot better, specially with the druid and hunter changes next patch. With my priest, I had a situational mana burn, a 30 second-cooldown Fear, Fear Ward (getting nerfed), and a defensive dispel. The druid will offer much more than a priest. First off, the druid is immune to crowd control, that's a huge plus. The druid is much more mana efficient and his healing is a lot more effective. The druid has two spammable CCs, two more CCs in Bear Form. And the druid will compliment my "outlast" strategy a lot better than a priest will.

Hunters can also dispel next season, which is a huge buff. We also have no deadzone. That enables us to get a lot more shots off than we currently can in a PvP situation.

TL;DR; hunter/druid will be the single best 2v2 combo when played properly in season 3 due to the massive amount of CC.

Thoughts?

buena
11-03-2007, 05:42 AM
I don't see the synergy to be honest. Hunter + priest is strong because the hunter's strengths (frustrating melee and not taking much damage) perfectly cover the priest's weaknesses (healing inefficiency and lack of melee counters). But a druid doesn't need help keeping melee off of it, and already has efficient heals.

To be very specific I have problems envisioning you beating SL warlock + healer, which is all over the 2v2 bracket. How did you do it with a priest? And would it work without dispel for fear and dots, and with a slower rate of mana burning?

I'll admit that on paper it sounds like it would hand all the fotm druid + warrior teams their ass.

Airwavez
11-03-2007, 08:09 AM
When I played with a priest, each game past the 2k bracket took about 8 to 10 minutes. We played extremely defensively. All I did was I drain and CC 95% of the time, and. I barely did any damage at all. All it takes is getting their healer out of mana, and keeping them off of my priest. With a druid, this will be a hundred times easier due to his CC immunity and the retarded amount of CC we have.

But a druid doesn't need help keeping melee off of it, and already has efficient heals.

Exacly! This will make my job a lot easier and I can play a bit more offensively.

Maplestory
11-03-2007, 10:49 AM
What if they kill your pet? That would nerf your draining substantially and might prolong the fight to long when the enemy healer is able to run away and drink if your focused all on CC.

Ghalanah
11-03-2007, 11:52 AM
What if they kill your pet? That would nerf your draining substantially and might prolong the fight to long when the enemy healer is able to run away and drink if your focused all on CC.

Killing the pet has been a problem for all 2v2 teams that involve a hunter/healer. Put simply you just have to manage it and communicate between your partner if you want it to survive. Dismissing is usually the best option. This brings up another strong point in Airwavez theory, a druid with forms can keep most every other class in combat with the increased form speeds. Also, if they are on the pet, chances are your druid is free to cyclone or whatever crazy cc chain you wish to perform.

Oh btw, abolish poison vs rogue teams is hot. I really chose the wrong race.

Nightcide
11-03-2007, 12:24 PM
Personaly I am looking into warlock/ hunter next season, but hey I will tell you how it goes :)

Ghalanah
11-03-2007, 12:25 PM
lol locks just released a new guide for hunter/druid.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2766077170&sid=1

Airwavez
11-03-2007, 10:30 PM
What if they kill your pet? That would nerf your draining substantially and might prolong the fight to long when the enemy healer is able to run away and drink if your focused all on CC.

Rejuvenation/Regrowth, Mend Pet and Lifebloom = pet won't die.

Airwavez
11-03-2007, 10:40 PM
lol locks just released a new guide for hunter/druid.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2766077170&sid=1

Damnit, he's always a step ahead of me :(

Midnightfang
11-04-2007, 12:15 AM
running a hunter+druid combo, hardest thing for us is sl/sl lock+druid.. havent found a way yet =/

Murth
11-04-2007, 12:58 AM
I have a 2200k team with a hunter and rouge partner on my druid
http://www.wowarmory.com/team-info.xml?r=Illidan&ts=2&t=The+Udders&select=The+Udders
but I only got up to 2100 with the hunter and broke 2200 with the rouge.
with the removal of the dead zone should be able alot better next patch

Xulu
11-08-2007, 01:10 AM
I faced this team a few times in season 2(me being a balance/NS druid with a mace rogue partner, so my perspective should be pretty unique) but our strategy was actually to outlast the hunters mana pool. once the pet dies it's in the hands of the druid to keep me in combat, but by the time the hunter is oom the hunter isn't really able to out dps my lifebloom. I don't think the 2.3 changes really give this combo any profound new strength except the dispell which will definitely help for an out last style of play. any warlock-druid team with a straight mana-drain strategy on the hunter should beat this combo, and all though the amount of CC this set up has vs warrior/druid is pretty intense, I'm not sure if the hunter alone could kill either class once the pet dies and he/she runs out of mana. It's an interesting team though, and in theory it could be a good counter to a lot of teams. just my opinion: )

Nightcide
11-08-2007, 08:05 AM
Just tried this combo out last night. My testing was not all the way correct due to my druid being in full season 2 Feral gear:rolleyes:, but we did very well. This set up is complete CC's. Like locks said you have to tell your druid when you are CCing and your druid do that same or you will fail at this.

Letters
11-08-2007, 10:42 AM
I'll be interested to try this combo out next season. Problem is there's absolutely no free resto druids on my server (good ones at least)

Airwavez
11-10-2007, 03:49 AM
SL/SL will be shit next patch.

Megatf
11-10-2007, 05:44 AM
SL/SL will be shit next patch.

Yup, this is what happens to warlock pets in 2.3

http://files.filefront.com/DeadWarlockPetwmv/;9008365;/fileinfo.html

Demnok
11-10-2007, 01:06 PM
How do you handle Priest+Rogue or any other combo capable of manaburning you while possessing infinitely strong dps?

Megatf
11-10-2007, 01:52 PM
How do you handle Priest+Rogue or any other combo capable of manaburning you while possessing infinitely strong dps?

I avoid it until the priest is nearly OOM and decides to play LOL Pole "if" he wants to play the mana burn game, you can't dodge every mana burn if your stunned, but I'd assume at a point where the priest is nearly OOM your druid would CC the rogue for you so you could FD+Drink enough mana to kill the priest.

Airwavez
11-10-2007, 07:22 PM
Priest/rogue is cake. Shadowpriest/rogue on the other hand, is a different game.

Taffie
11-10-2007, 10:30 PM
Letters, are you by any chance the Letters that transfered off Greymane?

I want to give this combo a shot. But you'd really need to time your traps/cc so you could get rotations of drinks.

Coltprod
11-20-2007, 12:04 PM
I tested this combo about 2 days ago with a friend. It was his alt so he didnt have the best of gear. He had mostly pve epics and a few pvp pieces(about 200 resilience I believe). We hit 2100 in about 40-50 games. Then we got farmed by a good lock/druid team. I can honestly say we dominated every other combo though. We beat a few druid/locks but it's way too hard to beat them consistantly.

Airwavez
11-20-2007, 06:28 PM
Because Fear's random ability and inability to break on damage + Drain Mana spam is a balanced mechanic.