Every time I play or watch streams of people fighting as or against hunters I see endless mistakes and strategy issues that I can't help but think are related at least partially to ignorance about the class and its mechanics.

I've had situations where I've played multiple teams with the same setup and one gets destroyed and the other wins because they're more aware of hunter weaknesses and how to combat one of the most easily disrupted and the most easily LOSd classes in the game.

This blog won't really have a very well designed layout but I'm going to go through some things you may not know to help you improve your game. Most of the elite players know about these things as that's part of being elite (knowing your enemy) but from what I've seen many players fail to grasp much of what I'm about to share. This knowledge can help give you an edge as you fight your way up the arena ladder.

Things you may not know....

- A disarmed/dismantled hunter can drop traps but cannot shoot freezing arrow this means you can disarm/dismantle during the scatter global CD to break up the CC chain on ranged scatter/trap attempts.

- Silence effects prevent a hunter from switching aspects and from dropping traps. This means you can silence/silence shot/random_silence_effect_01 and break up a hunters potential CC chain.

- It takes 2 globals + trap arming time to scatter>trap a target this gives you about 4~ seconds from the time the shot is fired to get on top of the trap to eat it instead of your teammate. If you pay attention this is easily done in many situations and is something a lot of players still fail to do. If you can't reach the trap alternately it gives you essentially the same amount of time as a warning that you need to LOS. Many players wait until their healer is sitting in a trap and are taking damage before fleeing which can result in a death. Being vocal about CC attempts and reacting quickly can save your life and win you games.

- Any stun effect during a scatter/trap sequence will give your partner enough time for the scatter effect to fall allowing your healer to escape the pending CC chain.

- When hugging the new square pillars in Nagrand arena if a hunter is also hugging while chasing he can't shoot you if you're both touching the wall on the same side this allows you to navigate faster than him because he has to turn a corner wide to get into range and use a normal ranged attack. The pillars also prevent some pet abilities because of the follow distance and lag a pet chasing you around a pillar won't be able to attack you with a lot of activated abilities (like web) if you're running normal speed and hugging the wall because it will never maintain cast LOS because of how far back it trails.

- Utilize physical stuns from the rear when possible while a hunter has deterrence up to stun him and remove his magic protection for the duration of the stun. Advanced gib tactics like vanish Cheap shot into death coil (if kidney is down) allows you to negate the defenses if a gib opportunity presents itself.

- An effective rogue chain on a hunter that doesn't have a trinket is CS>Kidney>Dismantle even if the hunter has deterrence up he won't ever get to activate it for an extremely long period of time when a rogue utilizes this ability chain (starting with kidney) from the rear.

- Cunning pets gain a bugged shield wall @ 35% you want to make sure to use your high burst before the pet gets that low and as close to 35% as possible when attempting to kill one. Doing so can allow you to bypass its defenses and produce a gib.

- Hunters cannot use ROS when their pet is controlled or dead as it's a pet ability

- Hunter cannot use Master's Call when the hunter is controlled or if the pet is dead as it's a hunter casted pet ability (like intimidation).

- Shockwave goes through deterrence (this will probably be changed in 3.3 with the deterrence chance)

- Ranged physical attacks (until 3.3) go through deterrence this includes FoK, Heroic Throw, Hunter shots, Shock Wave, etc.

- Every time serpent sting is removed vs a marks hunter it forces him to use another global for maximum damage output. Dispelling this sting should be priority every time you have a global available to do so. Chimera shot is a 9/10 second CD so keep this in mind. Serp doesn't need to be dispelled instantly but you should try to remove it before the next chimera attempt when possible.

- The only defensive ability we can use while stunned is casting RoS on ourselves. Stuns are the most effective tool to attack/finish a hunter almost every time I die in the arena it's due to being stunned.

- Pay attention to gib opportunities on hunters as many times we utilize our defensive cool downs (RoS,Master's Call) protecting a team mate. Paying attention to this CDs will give you switch gib opportunities. Many times half the battle is just finding the gap in our cool downs.