Adventures in Beta: Fun with Misdirection
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Jan 8th 2007 at 11:00AM
Most classes have at least one spell or talent that, while not the most effective damage dealer, is extremely fun to mess around with. How many priests have mind controlled people into lava? How many mages have set up portals to Darnassus and announced that it was going to Ironforge? How many rogues have accidentally pulled half of UBRS through uncautious pickpocketing? Well, there are three very interesting spells in the Burning Crusade with great potential for abuse: Misdirection, Spellsteal and Seed Of Corruption.
According to the official Burning Crusade site, Misdirection is an insant-cast level 70 hunter spell that has this effect: "Threat caused by your next 3 attacks is redirected to the target raid member. Caster and target can only be affected by one Misdirection spell at a time. Effect lasts 30 sec." The spell has a two-minute cooldown.
For progression-minded raiding hunters, this present a great opportunity for hunters to help out tanks on aggro-sensitive fights. Four hunters in a carefully-timed Misdirection cycle can give the tank extra threat, which lets mages, rogues and other DPSers do more damage without pulling the boss. For more ... evil-minded hunters, Misdirection presents a great opportunity to get revenge on other raid members.
A "1001 Uses for Misdirection" thread on the beta forums, started by Expletive, points out some of the many wonderful uses of this spell:
- Hunters can now pull mobs directly to the main tank by casting Misdirection on the MT and using Distracting Shot or Aimed Shot to pull. No Feign Death necessary!
- On bosses with aggro-wipe manuevers such as Broodlord and Noth, a hunter can use Misdirection to get the boss back to the main tank.
- An annoying cloth-wearer has been refusing to heal your pet/wait for your pull/make you some food throughout the entire instance. Next trash pull, cast Misdirection, use your three nastiest shots, and claim it was a macro error.
- In a room with a large number of low-HP mobs (the AQ40 bug tunnel or the suppression room in BWL), Misdirect the main tank and then pull everything in the room with an exploding trap. No one is sure whether or not this would work.
- Get revenge on that priest that killed you during the priest call on Nefarian.
A nice side note to Misdirection: A good trick for hunters to play on rogues in their guild is to name one of their pets after a rogue (preferably one who is either the class leader, a notorious loot junkie, or always pulls aggro.) When the hunter pet-pulls, the rogue will get an aggro warning from CT Raid or other raid mods and freak out. Hilarity ensues.
Hunters, how are you going to use Misdirection?
(Edited to add: Spellsteal and Seed of Corruption will be discussed later this week. Sorry for any confusion!)
Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, Add-Ons, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Joe Jan 8th 2007 4:37PM
That is awesome! Maybe I might pull my hunter out just for that lol. The funner thing to do if no one is looking is casting all 3 portals on top of each other and dubbing it the "random portal" =)
Gist Jan 8th 2007 3:48PM
This skill goes a long way into making hunters a must in raid groups again. And whatever doubt there was to a hunters use even with this skill, silencing shot fills in the rest.
The only problem hunters now face are A: There are at least 345k of them on each realm and B: 344.9k of those have no idea how in hell to play, giving the other few a bad name.
DÖT Jan 8th 2007 11:34AM
Why didn't you go over the other 2 spells?
Seper Jan 8th 2007 3:30PM
I cant comment on the above because i'm not any of those classes and haven't been in a situation like that.
But I do like my druids ability to entangle people. Ive saved many people by entangling them and have stopped ALOT of flag carriers. I always laugh when my friend or another alliance is getting there but kicked and near death by a high lvl horde. Then I entangle the horde and most of them act like they weren't fighting anyone else. My friend backs up i heal then the horde 95% of the time chases me around until my friend finishes him off.
It always makes me laugh and it works like a charm everytime.
Gunn Jan 8th 2007 11:58AM
yea why?!
Dave Jan 8th 2007 4:37PM
yeah, why didn't you say anything about the other 2 spells?
jreffy Jan 8th 2007 7:05PM
As a Mage, I'm really hoping that Spell Steal and a few other new spells (one of which all mages are not allowed to talk about), really renew my enthusiasm for the class.
I can see it now, Mages trying to top the Damage Meters in their newest gear, running low on mana in a big boss fight. One of the Priests ask for an innervate and the Mages spellsteals it.
Not sure if Spellsteal works on friendly targets, but I'm already thinking up mischevious uses for it.
Clementure Jan 8th 2007 12:52PM
Yeah, really, why?
chillis Jan 8th 2007 2:53PM
what do druids get to mess with people???
Wartoad Jan 8th 2007 1:13PM
Hey, yea, really, why?
Sylythn Jan 8th 2007 1:16PM
Seriously, why?
Heh - I did actually want to hear how Seed of Corruption could cause chaos. I've heard it can chain explode, but that seems like a good thing - and very difficult to set up correctly.
Donton Jan 8th 2007 8:13PM
Rank 1 Seed of Corruption is a level 70, trainable, warlock spell that when cast on a target acts as....another DoT inflicting 1044 dmg over 18 seconds. However, when the target takes a TOTAL of 1044 damage, it explodes for 1110-1290 shadow damage to all enemies within 15yrd. of the target.
Obviously, in the "wrong hands" this spell could cause very unpleasent results within instances or areas with large amounts of mobs per sqr. foot.
However, with enough time, or a good MT and healer, casting this spell could make for quicker kills of large pulls. A chain reaction situation can be set up if the MT holds aggro and the lock in question casts SoC on multiple enemies leaving the MT's target for last. Casting it on the MT's target and having the target take the required 1044 dmg would set off the chain dealing no less than 1110 damage to all surrouding enemies. Because the AoE causes more than the required catalystic amount of damage the other targets affecte would explode as well.
Besides the so called "Progressive minded" warlock one can come up with many other potentially hilarious siuations.
*NOTE* I do not play in the Beta therefore am not 100% sure that the 1044 catalystic damage can come from anyother source. So this is either a valid strategy or a complete waste of time. If its the latter, feel free to call me a noob :p
apocolipto Jan 8th 2007 2:41PM
Well the post is called "Fun With Misdirection" not Fun with new spells
Prauche Jan 8th 2007 6:05PM
The responses to this thread is why ALL LOOT IS HUNTER LOOT!!!!! =)
Elizabeth Wachowski Jan 8th 2007 4:09PM
"Fun With Spellsteal" will be published tomorrow, and "Fun With Seed Of Corruption" is coming out Wednesday. I probably should have made that clearer.
Jenet Jan 8th 2007 4:09PM
I'm wondering about multishot.
Is it considered one shot or three?
It might be nice for doing some major AOE, hunters go and multishot 3 mobs, then arcane another, and distract a fifth. It all goes back to the designated warriors, where the AOErs are. drink, and keep going.
Dave Jan 9th 2007 10:50AM
additionaly why did my previous post take 5 hours to post?
Deusirae Jan 8th 2007 5:09PM
Do the words "Hunter" and "Skill" actually belong in the same paragraph together? It makes me feel uneasy to even think it...
paul Jan 8th 2007 10:46PM
"14. Do the words "Hunter" and "Skill" actually belong in the same paragraph together? It makes me feel uneasy to even think it..."
I smiled, its funny because its so true.
Rayze Jan 9th 2007 11:17AM
@ #8: The Horde on your server must be morons. I'm a priest (& a 60 druid) and consistently get out of those stupid entangling thorns (dispel ftw). The moonfires aren't even so bad once said moonkin is silenced then tore up by a good FC's entourage. It's true they can slow down any FC, but if the FC knows how to pull resources, thorns are a speedbump at best.