Trapping in Paradise

I got this question from my friend T this morning. She has been working hard on her hunter alt and just dinged level 69 today. Gratz! Hehe, no sleep for you for a few days.

Hi there sweety. ^.^ (/blush)

I hope all is well. I have a question for you Supreme hunter knowledge. I have been doing alot of instance's on Topazz and my traps are almost useless. I can't seem to be able to trap a mob. If I do trap them they stay trapped only for a second or two. I have been thinking about respecing back to BM. If I do, im wondering if the trap talents in the survival tree are really worth it? Hunter's are mainly CC in instance's and raids, so I want to repsec to better aid my CC abilities. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Have fun and don't work to hard. ^.^

T did indeed respec to BM, and in my opinion it is the most fun spec for a hunter. Micro managing the pet forces you to be more involved in the instances and things rarely get dull.

The first thing I would advise would be to read this post I put up a few days ago. It concerns trapping in heroics, but all the advice is sound for trapping in normal instances to. I was curious about respec'ing to get Clever Traps, and I got a great response to a question I asked on the BRK Forums.

Next lets look at some numbers in T's Armory profile. The first thing I see is a hit rating of 47. This is pretty low and I have a hunch that it is the source of the problem.

From personal experience I have found that I do well in regular instances with a hit rating of around 100, and when in Kara and Heroics I keep it as close to 142 as I can. To make this switch I have various pieces of armor and trinkets that I switch out depending on what I am doing.

Basically put your hit rating is what prevents you from missing your target. There is little that is more dissapointing than lining up that perfect Aimed Shot only to see it zing harmlessly off to the left of your target.

Missed targets=big drop in DPS and resisted traps.

Your traps use "to hit" for their initial spring, after which the trapped mob has chance to resist which results in early trap breakage. The only way to prevent the Mobs from prematurely breaking our traps would be to stack spell penetration, and well, thats just not a hunter kinda thing to do. Better to have a second trap on standby.

Here is a really good post about Hit Rating if you are into the theory craft world.
Smacking the Hit Cap, by BRK

In a nutshell as we start putting together our level 70 armor, Hunters are looking for a hit rating approaching 100 for regular instances and 142 for raiding and heroics. That number will allow you to consitantly hit the highest level mob currently in the game, which happens to be 73 elite.

Now with that said it is important to note that by spec'ing into the Survival tree far enough to get Clever Traps the "hit cap" will drop to 98. Thats a big advantage for Survival hunters, especially when combined with 2 pieces of Beast Lord armor which will reduce your trap cool down by 4 sec.

Personally I like to keep my extra 20 points in the DPS tree since that is really what the hunters are there for; to burn down the tank's primary target as fast as possible.

Your DPS will most definately drop while chain trapping and guarding healers, but we are still there to provide MQoSRDPS (massive quantities of sustained ranged damage per second.)

Trapping advice for beginners:

1. Read this post on chain trapping by BRK.
2. Practice the h3ll out of his technique.
3. Watch this trapping video by Lassira which is the best demo I've seen yet.
4. Practice these trapping techniques while grinding. Start by setting a freeze trap and letting your cool down expire. Then learn to lead a mob around and make it stay exactly where you want it. (This actually helps take the boredom out of faction grinding. You will walk away feeling accomplished.)
5. While looking for gear to raid in check out these two places:
1. Kaliban's Loot List is a listing of all the armor that drops in the Outlands instance, and also covers the good quest rewards. In addition there are listings of all the loot in the 10 and 25 man raids. You might want to review those so you will be familiar with what is worth rolling on and what you need to pass to your Shamy, Druid, and Rogue buddies.
1. Gear Up for Karazhan by BRK. This is a look at the cool hunter loot that you can get off the Auction House (this was the post that changed my endgame instance runs).

Trapping advice for instances.

1. Do your best to put your trap ass far away from all the healers and the combat as possible
   
1. Big heals will break traps early.
1. AOE spells will break traps early.
2. Do your best to make sure the initial pull doesn't happen until your trap cool down has expired.
1. This will give you a second trap to pop down if the first is resisted.
1. If you will be chain trapping the sooner you can set that second trap the more time you will have to let your cool downs expire. Because of diminishing returns you can get about three traps down, more than enough to make it through the kill order.
1. If you have that second trap ready and someone else's CC fails you stand ready to trap anything that gets near the healer. Trust me, when people see you double trap in an instance you will be invited back!
3. Once the pull has been made the Blue Square is yours and yours alone until it comes up in the kill order.
   
1. Use your traps to control the Mob.
2. Be ready to use your pet and kiting abilities if the traps fail.
4. Take care of yourself
1. Don't expect to be healed before the tank
2. Do your best to die before the healer
   
3. Don't expect the pet to get heals, he/she is a tool in an instance and wont die permanently if you need to make the sacrifice for the group.
4. Show up on time with all the consumables you need for a fun evening of raiding. Both the in game and the munchie kinds.
   

With lots of practice, knowledge of trapping technique and good hit rating you will be a CC pro in no time.