WoW Hunter Against Rogues

Rogues

Rogue vs. hunter is an unpredictable matchup that can really go either way depending any number of random factors. Our main principle is to stay far away from the rogue and kite him down. We have several basic tools for doing this, so we need to kill the rogue before our tools are exhausted.

Typically if we know a rogue is nearby, we will want to flare and stand within it, put on detect stealth, and put our pet on aggressive. Aggressive pet means that the pet will attack the rogue as soon as he sees the rogue, even if that is before we react. A further option is to use a macro that selects nearest target, marks it, and sends your pet after him. If flare is down, rank1 volley is also useful as poor man's stealth detection. We can also throw volley at random locations to catch rogues. Rogues will typically try to sneak up behind us or from our side since stealth detection is frontal facing. Spin slowly in circles occasionally to catch rogues sneaking up and to avoid back-facing attacks such as backstab.

Freezing traps are great CC but they can be spotted and avoided, and typically a rogue will see when a trap has been placed due to the hunter squatting animation during trap placement. I will often put a trap at some random location more as a safe spot to run to after the rogue is on top of me.

If a rogue cheapshots, trinket out of his stunlock after the kidney shot. Resist the impulse to trinket out of the cheapshot, because the rogue will just kidney shot us immediately afterward. After trinketing out, the typical followup is to scattershot the rogue and place a trap down to freeze him while gaining distance. Run to max range, flare the rogue to debuff him, then open up with your favorite shot combo. At the end of this, use a serpent sting to prevent restealth and a concussive shot to counteract sprint if the rogue blows that.

At this point, a rogue must get back into melee range. If we can stay out of range until that, or at least until our scattershot and trap have refreshed, then we are fine. This is easier said than done, since often lag will play an issue in terms of whether we can effectively kite at max range, and a rogue willing to blow enough cooldowns such as blind or sprint will often catch back up. Also, be careful of using aspect of the cheetah to help with kiting since a rogue can stop and shoot to daze us.

There is no magic to surviving in melee range once a rogue is on top of us. Jousting can keep us alive or if the rogue is bad enough, jousting can put us back into ranged where we can concussive shot and start kiting again. A key defensive tactic in jousting is to turn 180 right before we jump through the rogue. This is counterintuitive because we are turning our back on the rogue, but it reduces the chance that the rogue can get off a back-facing attack after we've jumped through. Another option is to feign death right as the rogue jumps through you, so that you break targeting against his gouge. Apart from that, never turn your back to a rogue such as to try to run away, since you'll likely eat a backstab.

Of course, put down a freezing trap. The rogue has little chance of getting the jump on you if you stand within your flare and have a trap on. Once he hits your trap, put your pet on passive and run to your max distance. Mark him, lay down another trap (use FD if you can't get out of combat), and do your aimed/multi/auto/concussive combo. The rogue has little choice but to run towards you. He'll hit your next trap, you can then repeat the same aimed shot combo. After the second trap, there is serious diminishing returns to trap duration, so be aware of that if the fight goes on much longer.

Normally fights aren't this clean, and you'll have to use other tactics to kill the rogue. Kiting is of course integral, since the rogue has no real way of catching up other than sprint. If he blows his sprint, scattershot him (you can follow up immediately with your aimed shot combo as he's scattered) or FD+FT to make him completely waste it. You can even put on aspect of cheetah, just watch your spell alert mod so that you can switch out of the aspect if he tries to shoot you.

Stings: If you're expecting him to run into your freezing trap, keep scorpid sting on him so there is no DoT to break the trap, otherwise keep serpent sting on so that he can't easily restealth (you will still be able to see him through hunter's mark, at least until 1.12; but serpent sting will take him out of stealth so your pet and teammates will too).