Flux

Generally in WoW one person pulls a creature mob over to where everyone fights it. But who does the pull? The puller is usually the tank, crowd controllers, or a hunter. But which is the best?

The Tank

There are currently three tanks in the game, each with their own way of pulling. Druids will usually start a pull with damage spell or Faerie Fire. Paladin’s usually pull with Avenger’s Shield. And Warriors use their ranged weapon, either a bow or a gun. Crowd controllers control their targets after the pull starts, except with Sap. The tank builds up aggro on the loose creatures. And the party proceeds to blast the creatures in the kill order. The tank is the simplest puller to have, and it’s the most often used.

The Crowd Controller

Except Hunter’s, a crowd controller pulling is usually a bad idea. It doesn’t mean they can’t, but it doesn’t give you any benefit. However you still see it happening, generally in a pug when an impatient person is unhappy with the pace of the puller.

There are a handful of exceptions:

• The group doesn’t have any room to back up, and you want to separate the loose creatures in the mob from the controlled ones, so you can AoE or avoid creature specials. This doesn’t happen very often. Generally you have plenty of room to back up and let you puller separate them normally.
• You want your priest to mind control a creature, and let it die without the rest of the party starting combat. This reduces the number of creatures in the mob by one if you are willing to wait for it.
• Your Warlock is enslaving a demon and you want it to kill the mob without risking the party. For example, this is often done in The Mechanar with Mechanar Tinkerers. The Warlock enslaves one, and your healers and hybrids heal the enslaved demon until everything else is dead.
• Your tank is a druid and you want to Hibernate a beast.
• The fight is complex or difficult, usually a boss fight. For example, Moroes in Karazhan has four undead that are generally shackled first. This is partly so you are sure they get shackled, because if they aren’t you can wipe. And partly because you want to position your tanks in a specific place.
• Lastly some mobs are just a pain to target after the fight starts. Sometimes it’s just easier to let your controllers do the pull if you aren’t expecting your tank to have trouble picking up the loose ones.

Most of these situations except the special boss fights are pretty rare.

The Hunter

Having a Hunter pull is safer than having your tank pull. A Hunter can easily pull a mob in a couple different ways. They can use Misdirection onto the tank and Aimed Shot, or Multi-Shot if there is no Sap. They can use any shot and then Feign Death when the mob is close to the tank to give the tank aggro. Or they can rely on the tank to pick up aggro after they pull. Usually they will alternate methods from mob to mob if you are moving quickly since Misdirect has a 2 min cooldown and your Hunter will likely get tired of Feigning Death each time.

Why is a Hunter the safest way? If there is a bad pull, like adding a patrol, they can Feign Death to reset it. If using Misdirect, they put extra threat onto the tank. This helps the tank’s threat and lets the party unload more damage earlier.

But there are two drawbacks to Hunter’s pulling. If you are relying on your Hunter to crowd control a creature they will be occupied pulling and not trapping at the start, using Scatter Shot can help. The other drawback is that the tank and Hunter have to both coordinate which is not easily done in pugs.

Summary

• tank pulls, if it’s a pug and you aren’t having trouble
• crowd controllers don’t pull, except for special circumstances
• hunter pulls, if you have a good group, and the hunter doesn’t need to focus on trapping

Tags: debate, hunter, skill, tank
Author: aos

This entry was posted by aos on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Games, WoW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.