I'll give a quick warning about this post - it is heavily skewed toward Hunter play as it's the only class I have played extensively. Now that I got that out of the way, let's dive in to some of the combat efficiency techniques I've used to my advantage.
Preparing for battle:
- Before embarking on a mob hunt, make sure you are well stocked. Get into the habit of selling off or banking all your vendor trash or unused items and stocking up on supplies. Buy food and drink so you can quickly heal and refresh mana while out. Fill quivers and pouches with plenty of ammo. Of course, always have the largest quivers, pouches, and bags you can reasonably buy (or better yet find). The last thing you want to do is run out of supplies in the middle of combat and have to run back to town. It really breaks up your groove and slows you down.
Buff discipline:
- Constantly refresh your buffs, whether they are potions, spells, item charges, or whatever. Even when fighting weaker opponents use all your buffs because you'll be able to take them down faster. Obvious stuff, but its easy to lose track and forget.
Takedown timing:
- This one is especially for Hunters - the most efficient way to takedown an opponent I've found so far. First, I send in my pet, cast hunter's mark, and wait until he is right about at the enemy. At that point I'll fire off either a serpent sting (for fast takedown) or scorpid sting (for keeping the damage to my pet low). The idea is that the arrow hits the target just after the pet arrives and 'growls' the target. That way the enemy focuses on your pet and gets slammed with a spell an instant later. When the enemy is very low on health, I do two things depending on if it will run away or fight to the death. If the target is a runner, hit them with a concussion shot when they are about 10% to avoid chasing them down for the final blow. If they won't run then make the final one or two hits hand-to-hand. This saves time as you need to run up to the monster to loot anyway (remember to shift right-click to auto loot). Additionally, it will help level up your hand-to-hand weapon skills along with your ranged skills.
Macros:
- Macros are helpful to simplify some tasks, I especially like one I made to combine the hunters mark and pet attack in to one simple action. Go to http://ui.worldofwar.net/ for a nice collection of macros and other user interface mods to make your combat more efficient. I haven't played around with macros too much, but they aren't too powerful by design as the ability to cast a series of spells with different timing falls into the 'bot' definition, something seriously frowned upon by Blizzard.
As always, I welcome any fresh ideas in the comments - especially combat efficiency techniques of other classes.
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