Question about Misdirection

Classes Hunter
1

Whenever I approach a large pack of mobs playing solo, it often goes that my pet gets aggro on one or two and I get aggro on the rest. At that point I use Misdirection on my pet and sometimes time no aggro actually transfers to my pet and the trash keeps attacking me. The other times, it takes at least 2-4 seconds, but then I noticed it auto-taunted so am thinking that maybe it didn’t actually work. When I do this, I do notice the spell animation on the mob so I know it’s activated.

Am I wrong to think that as soon as I use Misdirection, all enemies should instantly stop attacking me and attack the target I selected?

2

Here’s the thing about Misdirection: sometime between MoP and Legion — I forgot exactly when — it received a rather substantial nerf, but the tooltip has never really updated to reflect that clearly.

Here’s how the old MD worked, from BC to Cata: it would totally and permanently transfer your aggro to whoever you cast it on.

The new/current MD, as of now, works by temporarily transferring your aggro which ends as soon as MD expires.

So in order to understand how MD works, you gotta think of aggro in terms of an “aggro table” or “aggro chart” (a la damage chart). Usually a Hunter would cast MD immediately before casting anything or cast MD right before pulling out all the heavy nukes in order to optimize the MD.

In other words, if you’ve already got high aggro, casting MD onto your pet is not a surefire way to peel mobs off you unless you do one of the following: use all of your big CDs to build up aggro in that 4 seconds’ time window (which is temporary anyways; after MD fades, the mobs are gonna come right back to you), or you use Feign Death to totally wipe your aggro table.

Ultimately, the most efficient way to use MD is to time it so that you’d have it up on your pet while they’re using taunt (since MD makes it easier for the pets to grab mobs; MD sends the mobs to the pets, which then uses Growl/other taunts on them) or time it very carefully that when your MD comes down, the pet’s taunt would be ready to be used, and use your heavy-hitters to build up aggro fast while still using MD… and then casting Feign Death immediately afterwards to drop all of your aggro.

It’s certainly tricky — I’ve hated the “new” version of MD ever since they changed it — but with a bit of practice, you’ll get it down pat! :slight_smile:

Edit: here’s a handy tip for dealing with large groups solo — before pulling, cast MD on your pet and hit them all with Multishot. If you’re MM, follow up immediately with Rapid Fire (use Double Tap if you’ve got it). If BM, just use Multishot to get Beast Cleave up, that’d help your pet grab aggro fast.

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3

Pretty sure that’s inaccurate - I can open up with MD>Barrage>Multi>Rapid Fire, and nothing comes back to me. This is as MM, so my pet should hold one target max, and even then only with Growl spam.

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4

Misdirection is off the gcd so you can macro it with your attack Abilities.

For example,

#showtooltip
/cast cobra shot
/cast [@focus,help,nodead][@pet,nodead,exists] Misdirection

Whenever you cast cobra shot, it also casts Misdirection (provided it’s not on cd) . It first attempts to cast it on a friendly, alive, person you put as your focus, like a tank, or any dbag party member who annoys you, or if you don’t have a focus, it goes to your pet if it’s alive, otherwise it’s not cast.

Maybe not optimal, but one less thing my lazy a$$ has to remember.

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5

Hmm. That’s not the behavior I typically see in the game; my pet can lose aggro rather easily (despite spamming Growl) if a fight lasts longer than 45 seconds. I’ve often found myself having to use MD a second time.

I do genuinely wonder whether it’s a case of me just hitting hard and building up aggro, or whether it’s a bug or something else.

2 Likes
6

YOU as a MM hunter hits way harder than your pet and your MM pet doesn’t have as many threat generators as a BM pet. Doing damage generates threat/aggro and when you do TONS of damage you generate tons of threat. This makes it extra hard for your pet to keep aggro, especially when the CD of Misdirection is 3-4x longer than its benefit.

Now a BM’s pet actually does its damage for him. If you beat on a target dummy and check your dps meter a BM will see Melee damage, Kill command in their top 3 and the source for those will be the Pet and not the hunter. When you do Multishot, the majority of the BM’s AOE damage comes from beast cleave which is technically done by the pet. And then stomp damage (a talent that makes the pet do some AOE + threat generation when you cast barbed shot) will be somewhere on that list and again its the BM’s pet that is doing it. All that damage from the pet creates a TON of threat in addition to pet’s growl, stomp-aggro, and misdirection aggro.

When I play my MM hunter and I’m doing solo world stuff, I let my pet attack first and get a growl off or at least a misdirection off before blasting on any mob that I can’t just 1-2 shot.

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7

This is as @Tinkerrific said, because the Hunter does far more AoE damage than the pet as MM. Your pet losing aggro due to poor AoE threat generation is very different from your pet dropping all the Misdirection aggro immediately.

One other thing worth noting is that in Shadowlands, Misdirection returns to the previous behavior - it applies a 30 second buff, and when you first strike an enemy, that changes to the 8 second threat redirect. This means you don’t lose the first 2.5 seconds of Misdirection to your Aimed Shot castbar, and it doesn’t screw you over if the tank takes a few extra seconds to pull.

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8

Just remember every hunter’s Hidden Move! Special Maneuver!

FEIGN DEATH

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9

Thanks all, I appreciate the feedback … especially the tip on using MD before pulling, already helped

10

Use misdirection before pull,if you already generated several thousand % of agro with opener you will not be able to drop it on pet with late md.

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11

Misdirection was never permanent, but in some expansions, it lasted longer than it does now.

12

Whether it works to draw mobs off you and to your pet depends on how much threat you’ve built up. If you want to see how it is operating, run a threat meter addon like Omen. If you have a lot of threat built up on some mobs, a single misdirect may not pull them off you. If you are BM, this happens less often, since Beast Cleave seems to work fairly efficiently, or maybe I have just built up habits over the years that I don’t outthreat my pets at the beginning of pulls. If stuff hasn’t dropped off you and you really need them off you … that’s what Feign Death is for. Otherwise, just keep tab targeting and sending your mob to attack specific targets – either petattack, Kill Command or Barbed Shot if you are BM and have the Stomp talent selected. They’ll growl soon enough and take them off you.

13

You are wrong about this. When MD was 1st introduced, all threat misdirected to the target stayed on the target.

14

Nope. The threat it transfers is temporary, but it lasts 30 seconds after the threat event. It does not get removed as soon as MD ends.

Also nope. The threat redirection used to be permanent. Now it only lasts 30s. I don’t know for sure whether that threat, once it hits that 30s mark, comes back to you or whether it simply vanishes into the ether (I suspect the latter), but it definitely used to be permanent.

15

Dont forget ice trap as well. I usually put it half way between me and what i pull unless i trap before attacking. I miss being able to choose what type ur pet is so didnt need as many pets. Ive only ever had my raptor.

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16

These days, ice trap is now tar trap. Just so the new Hunters know what we’re talking about! :slight_smile:

Also, huh, are you sure Xaedys? I hadn’t noticed any change in MD’s behavior from Legion to BFA. I’ll have to go take another look…

17

Quite. It definitely does not end when MD does. This is relatively easy to test with a pet set to passive, actually. You can see it on the earlier versions of Misdirection, between when that decay was added (Cataclysm) and when they removed it from the tooltip in WoD:

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18

Ok, I see what you mean, the transferred threat was permanent, but the misdirection duration itself wasn’t.

19

Yeah…any threat made sticks just its a short duration so ya gatta wullop with a burst of damage eles its a waste. Md isnt really what i have issue with its more so how squishy blizz made pets in legion. I feel they die too quick under direct threat.