As a Hunter most of the time you are there for your nice safe ranged DPS.  You can sit back and lay out a beating without ever getting hit.  There are times though that you will be called upon to help out with Crowd Control (CC).  When that time comes, you need to understand what you are doing and why.  Many Hunters are used to soloing MOBS and many rarely work with a group. When they do trap it is just to gain space for one or two more hits. When it comes to participating in a group though, being able to trap is paramount to being invited back. So without further ado we present help for all you Hunters out there that struggle with CC, our guide to trapping: Chain Trapping 101.

Basics

For this example we are going to assume that you are either a Beast Master or Marksman Hunter.  Survival Hunters have a big advantage when trapping that we will discuss later.  The basics of trapping though fall into 3 basic steps: the setup, the pull, and reposition.  Setup involves understanding the trap sequence, timers, the fight and more; the pull involves grabbing aggro and moving the MOB towards you and ensuring the MOB is in your trap; repositioning is moving to the next spot to laying the next trap at which point we revert to the setup step.  A 4th step, which may or may not be needed, is a recover step that comes into play any time a MOB resists a trap and you need to kite the MOB until you can lay down another trap.

The Setup

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Laying down a trap

The setup is the starting phase of any trap sequence and really needs you to know what is going on in the fight.  You need to know or understand who in the group will be doing what, will AoE be taking place, what the kill order is, and more.  Once you understand the fight (which will be different for each fight and with each group) then you can move on to the actual trap.

When trapping there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. We will be discussing Freeze Trap as the only real trap for of CC.
2. Traps last for a minute before disappearing
3. You have a 30 second cooldown before you can place another trap
4. Once trapped a MOB remains trapped for 20 seconds

Looking at this you can probably see the most obvious problem; there is a 10 second difference in the trap time and the cool down time.  This means that roughly 1/3rd of the time a MOB will not be trapped if you just trap it and try to remain in place.

Knowing this there are things that you can do to minimize that time.  The fist thing to do is determine the location for your first trap and place it early.  The best place is far enough back from the spot where the tank will be fighting that it is unlikely to get caught in AOE and far enough to one side that you create distance to work with for repositioning.  My ideal trapping spot is 15 to 20 yards back and to the right of the initial tanking spot. 

Move to this spot and place your freeze trap and then wait.  Ideally you want to wait for a full 30 seconds so that your trap is off cooldown.  This way if your target resists the first trap you can immediately drop another.  This is not always possible as the group will be trying to push ahead in an instance.  One method I have found works well is to run forward and drop your first trap for the next fight as soon as a fight is over while everyone else stops to drink or eat.  Once the trap is down, then you sit to drink (if needed).

The Pull

Once group of MOBs has been pulled your job is to grab your targets attention and make him come to you.  To do this I strongly recommend a macro.  The macro can be something very simple, or more complex, it’s up to you.  The reason to use a macro though is so that you have your auto shot stop after you hit the MOB so that you do not break your own trap. 

Have your MOB targeted and stand directly behind your trap and hit the enemy to get his attention as soon as the pull has begun.  Once the MOB starts moving towards you, you can switch targets to the current kill target and start DPSing.  Once your trap target has been successfully trapped you should move on to the repositioning phase.

Repositioning

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A MOB in a trap while you reposition

Once your target has been trapped you can continue to DPS the current kill target, however you also need to start to move.  Knowing that you have a 10 second break between traps you need to start planning ahead.  Using the above example of placing the initial trap 15-20 yards behind the tank spot to the right, you want to move to a spot 15-20 yards behind that initial spot but this time to the left.  As soon as you are there, drop another trap and then continue DPS. 

As soon as the initial trap breaks the MOB should start moving towards you.  At this point you need to make a decision, is this the last trap you will need (will the rest of the MOBs be dealt with before another 20 seconds pass) or is more time needed.  If this is the last trap you will need then you can just let the MOB come to you and be re-trapped.  To be safe you could then reposition back to the initial trap spot and lay another trap just in case.

If you will need more time however, as soon as the MOB gets out of the initial trap you should hit it with a concussive shot to slow it down.  By doing this you will gain a few seconds before it hits the next trap. As soon as it does you move back to the initial trap position and lay another trap.

Continue to do this until your target is next on the kill list, and which point you can either misdirect to the tank then feign death to pass him aggro, or allow him to hit it a few times and then feign death.

I strongly suggest that you not just feign death as soon as the tank moves towards the MOB as the MOB will very likely take off towards a healer and start hitting them.

Recovery

Let’s face it, sometimes things go wrong.  This could be due to a MOB resisting a trap, someone hitting the trap and breaking it, or a fight lasting long enough that you have run into trap cooldown issues.  No matter the cause, you will have to deal with recovering fairly often, so learn to deal with it.

You have several ways to deal with this though, many of which depend on your talent spec.  When things go wrong start working your way through the list of options until your trap is off cooldown, then re-trap the MOB and then go back into the repositioning phase.

Concussive shot is the first choice available to all hunters and is good if you notice it fast enough and still have enough range.  This will give you a few seconds to start getting distance. 

Wing Clip is another option available to all hunters.  If the MOB is close enough that you can not shot it, run directly towards it and through it and Wing Clip it on your way past.  Move to a safe spot getting some distance for a shot.

If you are a Beast Master Hunter you have access to intimidation as an additional short term stun.  As soon as you realize you will need it, send your pet after the target and trigger intimidation.  This will cause a 2 second stun on the target, use this time to get as much distance as possible to start your next recovery method.

If you are a Marksmanship Hunter you have scatter shot that you can use as well.  This will confuse the target and give you time to get distance to start your next recovery method.

Survival Hunter Advantage

Now on to the big advantage that Survival Hunters have.  They can get Clever Traps and Resourcefulness which combines to grant a 26 second freezing trap and a 24 second cooldown.  This essentially means you can chain trap your target while never moving as your next trap can be dropped 2 seconds before the first one breaks. 

While this is great in theory, at some point or anther a trap will get broken accidentally so I still strong recommend using the same method as above.  Use the extra time that these abilities grant you as a built in recovery bonus.