User:Kathucka/Hunter's Guide to Karazhan/Roles

Karazhan, while only a ten-man raid, is still a real raid. As a hunter, your duties are somewhat different in a raid than they are in solo play, five-man instances, battlegrounds, and arenas. As a result, your choice of gear, enchantments, gems, talents, and skills should also be somewhat different. To perform well, you may find that you need to swap gear and re-spec before you enter Karazhan.

As a hunter, your main role in a raid is to deal damage to the enemy. Your other duties are to protect the other members of the raid, perform some utility functions, and keep yourself alive.

The techniques on how to fulfill your roles are discussed throughout this guide. Keep them in mind as you read it.

Deal damage
In a raid, any raid, a hunter's first and most important duty is to deal damage to the enemies as quickly and effectively as possible.

This sounds obvious, but it is worth repeating for Karazhan. Dealing damage effectively is much more important in Karazhan than it is anywhere you have seen before. In previous fights, so long as the tank survives and the healer has enough mana, the group is going to win. Damage dealing classes only exist to make sure that the enemy dies before the healer runs out of mana. Bad damage dealers simply make the fight last a little longer. That is simply not the case in Karazhan. As a damage dealer, you must perform well, or the raid will wipe.

There are several reasons for this.


 * Many raid bosses, including, , , and , have "enrage timers." If the fight goes on too long, they gain an ability that does enough damage to quickly wipe the raid.
 * Several raid bosses, including The Curator and Terestian Illhoof continuously summon allies that hurt the raid. These summoned enemies must be killed quickly, before they overwhelm the raid.
 * Some raid bosses, including, , The Curator, , and , simply deal a large amount of damage, and must be killed before the healers run out of mana or too many characters die.

Note that The Curator shows up in all three categories. That is a difficult fight for new raiders because it tests damage dealers (like you, Hunter) more than they have ever been tested before.

Because dealing damage effectively is so important, it must be your first consideration whenever you make a decision about your gear, spec, or actions. You are there to hurt the bad guys. Keep that in mind at all times.

Protect squishies
Your second role in a raid is to protect other characters from death. In particular, healers tend to die quickly when they get attacked. Mages, druids, and warlocks also do poorly. Hunters can use their traps, snares, stuns, pets, and threat management tools to keep squishies from getting killed.

Keeping other characters alive is the main job of the tank and the healers. In a raid, it is usually best to stay out of their way while you kill things. Sometimes, though, a hunter has to step up to save someone else's life.

Utility
Hunters have an assortment of buffs, debuffs, tracking skills, threat management skills, traps, and other utility skills that make the raid more effective. Hunters can and should use these abilities as much as they should.

Stay alive
Finally, your damage output is severely decreased while you are dead. While it is the primary job of the tanks and healers to keep everyone alive, hunters have mail armor, decent health, ranged attacks, and several skills that help them avoid damage. They should use those skills and heal themselves with consumables to make sure that they are low-maintenance for the healers.