Hunters, Mages, …and QuillboarsFollow

I like soloing. I recently played a hunter until lvl 25. I started dying several times in the Scorched Vale (or something like that) in Stonetallon mountain. Basically I died several times because I lost patience and moved quickly, while in that area the mobs are all over the place. I was very frustrated that I didn’t have good methods of escape…Wingclip just doesn’t cut it when there are multiple mobs on you…I do know I will get a good Get Out of Jail Free Card (hereafter known as GOTJFC) in the form of Feign Death…although from a role-play perspective, it sort of sucks. I don’t like to play dead. Furthermore, I think I was more frustrated that my cat kept dying. But ultimately my biggest frustration was that I’m carrying a lot of crap, and I can’t find a bullet vendor in nearby Sun-Rock Retreat. That really frustrated me. How can a hunter go traveling if he can’t buy ammo except in some few places?

So I said to myself “***** it. Lets role a mage”. So I did that. And my Troll Mage leveled great until about lvl 13. I thought “Wow, once an enemy hits me in melee, they get snared with frost shield. Sheep. Frost Nova. This rocks!” And the mage was dishing out damage FAST. Except now in The Barrens, that it seems that mobs my level or one level higher easily kille me or at least beat me down so I needed to bandage after each fight. When I killed Quillboars and centaurs in the Barrens with my hunter, the archers were no big deal. Sick cat and shoot. Even if pet already dead, I was stronger than mobs of equal and greater level. It seems that my mage is paper-thin though. Against ranged opponents-centaur mage/druids and Quillboar archers- I need to greatly out-damage them, because they can still shoot me after I snare them (except if I sheep, but that is resetting the combat and hence should be saved to manage adds, not when attacking single mobs). I know the mage will get another GOTJFC in the form of Blink. But that is purely for escape purposes.

Now, I like how both classes play. I actually like managing the pet and setting up my attacks. It feels almost like a rogue at times in how I plan out the attacks. I like how mages can run around, FN, instants, AE, etc. to. (BTW, wand sucks and wand autoshoot really sucks. You have to cancel it or move to cancel it in order to use other abilities…not cool). And I hear both classes are really good in BG, although the mage is more wanted for instances (don’t see why…seems like they die really easily if anything gets through defenders)

Question 1. Does mage damage ramp up so that he can effectively combat mobs his level or +1 higher without taking too much of a beating? What that is really asking is, will Mage attacks get to the point where he can take out monsters well before they get in melee range?

Question 2. How do you solo with a mage?

Question 3. How do you manager your ammo / space usage with a hunter?

Question 4/ Which one would you focus on developing?

wow...lots of questions...


1) Yes, when you train your spells get more powerfull. You should be starting at max range. Now...fighting hunters as a mage, you should actually run towards them. Sounds strange at first...but they can't shoot you at close range. Run in...frost nova...back up out of their melee range and nuke. They'll be helpless.

2) Depends on your talents. At your level I was a fire mage, so I went fireball, fireball, fireblast, frostnova, fireball, scorch to finish.

3) Before you go out, make sure your quiver/ammo pouch is full. You can buy ammo/arrows at any city or outpost, so you won't have to travel far to restock.

4) I have a 60 hunter and a 51 mage, so my opinion is that you should level both! By playing two chars you'll be running on "rested" exp more often.

Question 1. Does mage damage ramp up so that he can effectively combat mobs his level or +1 higher without taking too much of a beating? What that is really asking is, will Mage attacks get to the point where he can take out monsters well before they get in melee range?

It seems to be fine for me. Although my mage is only 31. I have noticed that I can use her to romp things sometimes. She is quite fun to play.

Question 2. How do you solo with a mage?

Find melee mobs to fight. Mages are best against melee and next
best against other casters. Melee because you can stickk em somewhere and cast from afar. Casters because of Counter Magic. I love that spell, most caster mobs only cast one spell(at least thats how it appears). So if you use Counter it disrupts and they can't cast it again for 10 seconds. They instantly become melee. get em Close nova, maybe CoC then nuke away. Stay away from non-caster ranged, as we really have nothing to do but throw up mana shield and nuke..

Question 3. How do you manager your ammo / space usage with a hunter?

My Hunter is 59 I love him as well and have never had any ammo issues. Only one time have I run out and that was my fault because I forgot to buy ammo when I went to town. by the biggest bags and ammo pouch available for your lvl and you should be ok.

Question 4/ Which one would you focus on developing?

I actually share time between a 59 Hunter a 41 Rogue and 31 Mage. I love the rest bonus I have almost all the time. It's fun to play them all I think so I do. I concentrated on one Hunter til around 50 then started the Rogue got Mount then started Mage. Now I have a character in all the normal lvl ranges. they all help each other with supplies and such. I like idea that they are all friends there to help each other out.

I play both but my hunter is higher level.

Mages burn through a lot of mana and spend time drinking. You'll have downtime anyway, use that downtime effectively. You can drink and eat at the same time. You can summon both bread and water. Keep a stack or two on you and drink/eat after every battle (for minimal downtime between battle) or after every few battles if you don't mind spending longer at one time.

Another tactic is to try not to get hit. You have frost bolt to slow them down. Even if you are fire specialized that doesn't mean you can't cast frostbolt. You can frost bolt, fireball, strafe to get distance, frostbolt, strafe to get distance, fireball, etc... It's a lot of work that way but its doable and pretty efficient. If you can master that technique you can probably learn to AOE npcs a few levels below you for better experience in bulk. I haven't mastered this technique yet, but I normally have a partner so using this technique would be tricker!

Ammo management...

To minimize ammo use - Get a slower weapon that's the same dps as your current weapon. You'll kill just as fast but you'll lose less ammo. This also makes your special shots that do damage based on your weapon damage, do more damage per hit. (of course, faster weapons give more chances to interrupt spell casters so its a tradeoff).

As others have said you can get better quivers/ammo pouches. My hunter is using a level 40 required player made ammo pouch with 14 slots for ammo. I don't really need that many ammo slots anymore because I find that I'm usually going back to ogrimmar before I come even close to running out. I use the ammo pouch mostly for the +13% speed increase which is better than the store bought one.

If you use guns and haven't picked a profession yet, you can make your own bullets if you take engineering. You can have a full ammo pouch and then take up two slots to carry around the supplies needed to make more bullets anywhere you are. The bullet recipes don't require a forge. Of course, this has its own drawbacks. I tend to carry around a bag full of engineering supplies despite the fact that I rarely do engineering (other than bullets) outside of ogrimmar. I'm currently using storebought bullets because they are better than the best I can make at my current engineering skill. I recently bought a mount for my hunter (right before the announced the removal of daze from cheetah...sigh....at least its still faster than cheetah!), so I'm pretty broke right now and will start on engineering again once I recover :-)

Another bonus to engineering... You can make another pet that you can pull out when things go bad. You can make things that make it easier to kill creatures. You can make a net gun that will root a monster in place (or root you if it misfires....). It's a great skill for a hunter! :-)

Oh and Stonetalon is awful for getting multiples on you at once. Especially if you are fighting the harpies! You might consider revisiting the hunter but hunting somewhere else :-) I looked on it as a challenge personally. It does help teach you how to tell when to run away and when to stick it out and can make for some very exciting fights! :-)

1) I think how well you play a class depends on your preferred play style. For example, I’ve soloed my mage to level 20 and I think he’s died twice. He’s a fire mage and the only time I ever have trouble is in confined spaces such as mines. But my level 20 warrior dies every other fight, or at least that’s how it seems.

Higher level mages are very powerful, especially when grouped with a healer. I’ve watched our guild mage jump into a large group of mobs and use an area effect spell to wipe them all out. And as long as the healer can keep him alive while he does so the killing is very fast indeed. Mages are popular in raids because you often get attacked my swarms of small creatures that mages can easily kill off with their area effect spells. So yes, you can still die fairly easily, being so soft and squishy, but you can also do massive amounts of damage very quickly.

2) Its been a long while since I’ve played my mage, so I can’t remember exactly what I did. But I always started off at max range and blasted the mob with fireballs until he got up close. Then I’d use my instant cast damage spell. Then I’d freeze him in place, back up and finish him off. I had to drink fairly often, but since I could summon my own food and water it wasn’t a big deal.

Just before I moved to a different character I’d gotten a silence spell from spending my talent points. It was great. Cast silence on a caster and instead of having to fight him by his fellows who might easily add, the caster comes running right to you. It was a great spell.

3) I have a 16 slot ammo pouch. That will keep me in ammo for a few hours. I also carry the mithril bars and blasting powder I need to make more ammo using engineering. So all I need is an anvil and I can fill up my ammo pouch again.

4) I’d focus on the one I was having the most fun with. Mages seem to have an easier time getting into raids, but if you’re not having fun playing a mage then what’s the point?