Comments on: Skill vs. Gear

By: fyebear

fyebear — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:39:34 +0000

Great read, thank you, you don’t pull punches .
As with all healthy hunter teams within raiding groups ours has competition (like your how to top the meters comic ), with one hunter always leading. He left wow for a 6 month break and came back recently with vastly behind gear. He still came in the top 3rd in 25man and rose to the top 4 within 2 weeks. I will try for as long as I play to beat him, but when I don’t I will always say as you put it “Yeah, he must be a better player than me.” , but that doesn’t stop me from trying .

By: Ganuke

Ganuke — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:39:26 +0000

Great article.
Didn’t want to write a comment, cause others make a better comment.
But I give it a try.

By: Arthemystia

Arthemystia — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:06:43 +0000

As a footnote to Fradin’s advice, I sometimes have trouble targeting, say, Saurfang after kiting Blood Beasts. But for that fight I write /tar Deathbringer Saurfang into my Chimera macro. Not only is this a helpful way to keep SS on the boss at all times, but even if it’s on cooldown you can click it to target him then immediately click another shot.

This works for several boss fights. I find myself writing in targeting macros more and more these days to make targeting mechanics easier. Because tab-clicking can be an imprecise art…if you’re not directly facing even a single target, sometimes hitting tab won’t target him.

By: Fradin

Fradin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:41:23 +0000

Tundra if you want to switch targets say and put up multi serpent stings then i usually just use the Tab key to quickly tab through each while serpent stinging each of my targets but always try to stop of the tanks target before ripping out your dps rotation or use a MD if you know you can kill him before you get the agro. As Frost has clearly stated if your MM multi serpent Stings is the go also there is a macro for targeting on the macro page in guides however if there are numerous targets sometimes its hard to get the one your chasing if hidden behind another where tab will go through and target each in range in front of you.

By: Autumn

Autumn — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:55:25 +0000

This has been one of the single most insightful articles on huntering I’ve read.

I feel there is another dimension to the gear-skill ratio, which is that some gear affects us a lot more than others. I’m speaking about our ranged weapon. The quality of your ranged weapon, if it is not in the same level range as most of your gear, will probably skew your DPS range a lot more than most of the gear you’re wearing, one way or the other.

On a side note, I hope to master the jump shot some day. I still strafe-shoot when I need to kite..

By: Gravity

Gravity — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:07:00 +0000

Really great article, Frosty, it’s great to have a good author on wow.com

By: SlayrAbraxas

SlayrAbraxas — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:00:02 +0000

I wouldn’t say I’m incompetent. I’m just too broke from funding an alt to buy all my enchants and gems. Of course, I’m not raiding either. I’m still working on getting into all purples. I do damn well in heroics though, and that good enough for me right now.

Jump Shot unfortunately is something that’s out of my hands. I’m playing on a laptop without a mouse, so I’m not quite able to pull this off. Strafing/Disengage works well enough in heroics though.

Great article again!

By: Tundra

Tundra — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:53:01 +0000

That was a really well written article. Many of things I do in there already but don’t do nearly enough. I definitely need to learn to shoot and scoot better as well as use my disengage effectively. Personally, I think the thing I struggle with the most, and I wonder if this is true for most hunters, is the physical act of clicking on targets. I have the hardest time keeping track of my cursor and making each click count towards selecting a target… anyone else have that problem? If you solved that issue, any suggestions on helping me improve my targeting?

By: Chimy

Chimy — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:51:40 +0000

Seriously. I need to check out my rotation against patchwork.. I mostly just do heroics.
My gear is mostly ilvl 226 and I’m SV but I typically only do about 3200 on heroic bosses that are mostly stationary. 6k in blues? Not even close. More like 1500-1900.

By: Omogon

Omogon — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:40:19 +0000

I am living proof that skill means more than gear. I know a fair number of hunters on Lethon. There are guys out there with very similar gear who quite often beat my dps in PUGs simply because I tend to get target fixated or lose situational awareness or simply don’t move well…….in other words….they have better skill than me.

There are on the other hand ..guys out there with SUPER gear that I often keep up with easily because they are clueless. I had a guy with fricking AMAZING gear whisper me in a 25 Marrowgar asking if he should be using his shots in any particular order….at first I thought he was kidding…….but recount showed me WAAAY ahead of him.