The Burning Crusade Warsong Gulch

7.1 Warsong Gulch

7.1.1 Track Humanoids
It goes without saying that track humanoids makes hunters extremely valuable for locating the opposing flag carriers. Sometimes however it's not altogether clear where the flag carrier is because track humanoids does not indicate elevation. Fortunately, you can at least differentiate between whether the FC is indoors or outdoors since indoors their blip will be faded. For example, if their FC is in their base but his blip is solid, then he's on the roof, otherwise he's either on 2nd floor or the FR itself. If he's running out of the FR and his blip is faded, then he's going through the tunnel, otherwise he's going out the second floor.

Another note is that sometimes flag carriers will hide in the most interesting places -- you know he's somewhere near the GY since the blip shows it, but you have no idea where he is exactly. Or, you're playing low level BGs where there is no tracking available. A simple solution is to just /target him manually and then send your pet after him. Follow your pet, and tell the rest of your team to do so. In accordance with this, it is helpful to get the bgflag mod ( http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-1425-1-bgflag.html ) which displays at all times who has each of the flags. This can save you the headache of having to scroll through your log to find out who picked it up, or have to spam chat to ask if anyone else remembers. Note that sometimes your pet will not attack the target if it is out of range, so there are limitations to this.

7.1.2 Hiding with the flag
Aspect of the Beast allows you to hide from track humanoids. Sometimes I am designated as flag carrier because with Aspect of the Beast, I can find a good hiding spot and stay there indefinitely while horde futiley tries to search me out. Note that hunters generally are not the best flag carriers because of their lighter armor; however, good use of Aspect of the Beast along with a good stamina build can make us fairly effective in this. Make sure to dismiss your pet when you are hiding in this way or put it on stealth (prowl) so that it does not give away your position.

7.1.3 Playing defense
Pre-mount in particular, defense is an important part of WSG. Played correctly, hunters can be a terror on defense because we have many abilities to keep a flag runner CC'd. Make sure your flares and traps are always up, and there are mods ( http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-2286-1-traptimer.html ) that can help you keep track of when these need to be renewed so you don't forget and let them expire. Otherwise, often rogues will wait outside of flare radius until it expires, then run in. Trap choice is somewhat situational, but in general use frost traps (particularly if you have entrapment). If offense is coming in solo, freezing trap sets up very nicely for a 3-shot opener and gives you ample time to ask for help if necessary. If offense comes as a zerg (which is more typical), then a frost trap can keep a number of enemies stuck in your flag room while your reinforcements arrive. Another reason to use frost trap is that if you're defending with a group, often people in the group are not smart enough to lay off when a target is frozen by a freezing trap.

If you're a night elf, stealthing near the flag can allow you to get the jump on an enemy coming in. However, if your pet doesn't have prowl, keep him away from you, otherwise it will give away your position. Typically I'll just put my pet on stay and park him in the corner of the flag alcove where he's not easily visible.

Track humanoids is of course a great asset to have for defense. Typically when there's incoming, I'll ping each enemy's location once on the minimap so that my team can know how many are coming and where they are without me having to type it out in raid chat (of course if you should type it out anyway if you have time). There are hunter mods that will augment your minimap so that if you mouseover a target, the mod will display the class, level, and faction of your target ( http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-339-1-icu-hunter.html ). This mod is indispensably useful in BGs.

7.1.4 Trapping the graveyard
I do not condone GY camping (i.e. where in a lopsided game, players stand where opponents spawn as to farm honor when those opponents res), so whether you GY camp is up to your discretion or your server's particular rules of etiquette. Regardless, if you happen to be passing by your opponent's GY, it is sometimes a useful tactic to set a trap in the middle of it. An explosive trap will put players into combat as they res so that they can't immediately mount. A frost trap will of course directly slow them down from leaving. A flare will cause them to be debuffed such that they cannot stealth or shadowmeld soon after. Sometimes when our flag carrier runs through the opposing graveyard, I'll drop a frost trap so that ressers can't catch up (BTW: I generally advise running down the ramp, not the graveyard. The reason is that you want to stay away from their GY as much as possible since that's where they res, whereas if you run down the ramp then you are going along the side where your team is ressing in their GY, making it easier for them to come support you after they res).

7.1.5 Assisting your FC
Hunters are useful for assisting the flag carrier, since we have a decent amount of CC. Use of frost trap is critical here, since you effectively slow the entire group chasing after your FC. This is particularly vital when your FC is going through either tunnel because the trap is impossible to avoid. Don't be hesitant to blow your FD so you can put down a frost trap to help your FC. Remember also that you go out of combat if you or your pet do not attack anything within several seconds, so if you've blown your FD then you can just wait a bit until you are naturally put out of combat so that you can place a trap.

Use Aspect of the Pack situationally. I am always in the same group as the primary FC so that I can speed them. Even druids benefit from this since they do not get speed bonuses when indoors. Of course, cancel AotP once you see incoming, and if you overuse it then your teammates are likely to get very very irritated.

During flag assist combat, it is often a good idea to put on Aspect of the Wild versus hawk/monkey, since enemies will try to root or bind your flag runner. This is particularly important on alliance side since you have not only druids but shamans to deal with.

Also make sure you are constantly throwing flares in the path that your FC is running.

7.1.6 Engaging selectively
I've mentioned various uses of shadowmeld in case you are NE. One other use is simply for survival or choosing situationally how to get into combat. Obviously, the less frequently you are targetted, the less you are going to die. However, hunters are often picked on first because they have such good range that they get the first hit off of approaching enemies. Thus, we tend to die prematurely before we can unload a lot of DPS. A way to avoid this is to shadowmeld, wait until opponents have engaged other classes (hopefully your tanks), and then start blasting away. Often then your opponents are dead before they even realize that you've joined in. I have specific macros that target various well known hunters in my bracket to compensate for this, since they tend to hide in interesting places or wait until I've engaged someone before picking me off. Of course, the goal of BGs is not to farm HKs or avoid dying, so don't just use this to rack up kills at the expense of effectiveness or your team will not be particularly happy with you. Some hunters are known to be chickens that only engage when they're absolutely safe, even while their buddies are getting slaughtered.

7.1.7 Flag Carrying
Some classes are obvious candidates for running the flag, such as druids and wariors. We are not one of them, but we can still carry the flag decently because we have fair damage mitigation with mail, and survivalists in particular will have more health plus deterrance and resistance to CC. We have track humanoids to see where enemies are coming from, and an aspect to increase the speed of the entire party so we can travel together fast.

BM specced hunters are also good for breaking through heavy flag defense because we can use TBW to negate crowd control.

7.1.8 Using pets on defense
Keep your pet in front of the flag, put him on stay so he doesn't follow you and aggressive so he automatically attacks anyone who comes near (note: "stay" does not mean your pet won't move, just that it won't follow you). You can then move around freely knowing that your pet is guarding the flag, just don't go too far away or your pet will despawn.