To paraphrase The Great Frostheim, regardless of how crappy your tank is, a good hunter should NEVER pull aggro. We should be a blessing to the mediocre and appreciated by the great. I'd like to take that thinking and now apply it to healers. We have the tools to make any healer thankful there is a hunter in the group , but they're hardly ever used. Let us discuss them now and how they can be applied to make our healers life a little easier. I like to call them the 3 D's.
First is a little used shot called Distraction Shot. It used to be great to team this up with misdirection, but Blizzard put a stop to that quite a while back, and a lot of us have left it in our spell book, collecting dust, only to be pulled out on those rare occurrences when we are called on to kite. Dust it off, and put it on your action bar again, especially if you dungeon a lot or have a failmage in your raid! Eventually someone is going to pull aggro from a mob, and once said mob has killed the offender (mages, looking at you) they usually go for the healer. Freezing it works, but there are so many chances for that to go wrong (damn mages, you make a hunters life difficult) it's almost a waste of a GCD to launch. I go for the distracting shot. First, it'll save your healer quick, because a hurt hunter is a lot better than a dead healer. Secondly, it gives you more options to deal with the "rogue mob", such as now placing a trap, or running to the tank, Feign Death, and letting them pick aggro back up. Anyway you look at it, the healer should be ok and still breathing, thankful of having a hunter who is on the ball.
Our second D is Deterrence. I personally love this one due to my less than stellar abilities to move away from things that hurt. A good example is during the V&T fight in BOT. After Blackout has been cast, she uses her Devouring Flame, a nasty ability that will toast you a nice shade of black. If you find yourself in a compromising position ie right in front of her with your back to a wall (guilty!), run at her and hit Deterrence for 5 seconds of snugly protection! Your healer will love the fact that you sacrifice a few points of DPS to save them valuable mana they can use on the failmage who was standing next to you.
Finally we have Disengage, another favorite of mine. I lack the ability to turn and run quickly (actually, that has been solved, but that is a later post) so Disengage is my go to. Something about to eat your face and FD is still on cooldown? Disengage! Fire under your feet? Disengage! Tank lost aggro and there's a mage beside you? Definitely Disengage! The best way to reduce damage taken is to avoid it all together, and Disengage does that nicely. Word of warning though. Make sure you have something to land on behind you, or the taunting will not end for months (I know this all too well. My guild note for a year was "Likes to jump off cliffs!")
These are my 3 D's, and healers will come to love them if they get hunters who use them. Please use them because we all know that healers need that extra mana to help those damn mages!
Oh yea, the Bonus! Make your healers extra happy on the Neferian fight by swapping out a major glyph with Glyph of Raptor Strike, which reduces damage done by 20% for 5 seconds after using Raptor Strike, perfect for phase 2 on the pillars and the final burn on Nef himself. In both cases, you can use your melee abilities at the same time as you use your ranged abilities, so when the warning comes for his crackle, Raptor Strike! The effect is noticeable and helpful.
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