Scattered Shot: Jump-Disengage
by Brian Wood 
May 13th 2010 at 9:00AM
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim.
We talk a lot about optimizing our hunters here in Scattered Shots, and then spend almost as much time stressing that skill is more important than gear -- and in fact, more important than those last several degrees of optimization. I've found in the hundreds of emails I get every month that the number one cause of low DPS is lost or delayed shots -- people just failing to execute their rotations correctly. But close on its heels in number two is poor movement management.
One of the greatest movement tools in the hunter arsenal is Disengage, and it is also one of the least used in raids. Just like jump-shot, you can use jump-Disengage to Disengage in the direction you're running without slowing your forward momentum. It takes some practice, but once it's habit, jump-Disengage becomes a fantastic tool to let you get where you need to go faster. I believe this is a key hunter movement skill.
Rather than trying to explain it in writing, I put together this little tutorial video so you can see how it's done. I even dug a couple bits of old raid footage so you can see it in action. Engineers can have even more fun and more distance by macroing in their Flexweave Underlay with Disengage. One final word on jump-Disengage: the game doesn't seem to track you while you're in the air. This means that it thinks you're still in your starting place until you land. In other words: Disengage is not a way to get out of void zones!
You want to be a hunter, eh? You start with science, then you add some Dwarven Stout, and round it off some elf-bashing. The end result is massive DPS. Scattered Shots is the WoW.com column dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. See the Scattered Shots Resource Guide for a full listing of vital and entertaining hunter guides, including how to improve your heroic DPS, understand the impact of skill vs. gear, get started with Beast Mastery 101 and Marksman 101 and even solo bosses with some extreme soloing.
Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Scattered Shots
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
andy May 13th 2010 9:03AM
NICE :D i never knew you could do that
Rakah May 13th 2010 10:09AM
i loved doing this on festergut trying to land exaclty on top of the spore
Jesse Felt May 13th 2010 12:20PM
Yeah, you should see me flying all over the place on rotface. I almost never have disengage off cooldown on that fight. slime pipes? yeah, time to jump-disengage across the room. Explosion while kiting a small ooze? yep, jump-disengage.
Putricide is awesome for it, particularly when you get an orange ooze on you.
Twinny May 13th 2010 9:05AM
That is a fantastic tip! never played a hunter and I didnt know this existed.
DarkFinch May 13th 2010 9:06AM
This never ever crossed my mind. You have just opened up a world of possibility to me. Thanks!
Boydboyd May 13th 2010 9:07AM
Great tutorial, Frostheim.
I've been jump-Disengaging for a very long time, and it's very difficult to teach other hunters that are unfamiliar with the skill.
Most of my difficulties in teaching other hunters in my guild is the fact that we must be in combat to jump-Disengage. Other than that, it's always very awesome to hear them on Vent or to read their reaction in chat when they realize what jump-Disengage will really do for their gameplay.
Final Note: I have a macro with Disengage in it, but there is one additional spell included. . . Wing Clip. Obviously this will only be useful for extreme soloing or PvP'ing, but having
/cast Wing Clip
/cast Disengage
can slow an opponent/aggro'd enemy in melee range down for valuable seconds while your hunter flies out of the fray.
Rakah May 13th 2010 10:09AM
i have a much bigger macro that does alot more
#showtooltip Disengage
/console targetNearestDistance 5.000000
/targetenemy [nodead]
/cast harm,nodead]Raptor strike
/cast [harm,nodead] Wing Clip
/cast Disengage
/targetlasttarget
This hits your nearest enemy with wing clip and raptor strike while you disengage without losing your main target.
NecDW4 May 13th 2010 10:21AM
I rarely play my hunter (only level 30 after about 2 years) and even i figured this out about an hour after i got that ability. How do people not figure this stuff out?
Yeah doing stuff mid-air is an acquired skill, but the /Wingclip>>>/Disengage macro is probably the very first macro i ever made.
Galestrom May 13th 2010 10:34AM
I've been using this a while as well. Honestly, I don't know how I ever ran without it. This technique quickly becomes a staple for any fight. The benefits are pretty clear.
Awesome video tutorial. I'll definitely be reposting this one. =)
dyre42 May 13th 2010 12:37PM
That macro is great for when you're Death Gripped by a DK. For added fun you can pop retaliation as soon as you are DGed drop 3 traps at the DKs feet and then use the disengage/Wing Clip/Raptor Strike macro. It makes DKs cry.
Dragoniel May 13th 2010 9:12AM
Nice, even if I'm not a hunter myself. Might just happen to be useful to remember sometime in cataclysm though.
Anyway, I have an unrelated question - what's the music track playing in background?
Dashifen May 13th 2010 9:41AM
That's the official unofficial Hunter theme song :)
Meadow May 14th 2010 3:26PM
I think you mean the official hunter theme song :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0l4T9kRlBE
Dragoniel May 15th 2010 11:42AM
Whoa, awesomeness through the roof!
Cerrena May 13th 2010 9:11AM
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! I've heard you speak of this technique on the hunting party podcast but could never figure it out. And the video tutorial is a brilliant way to demonstrate it. Now to figure out if I can do this without a mouse as I use a trackball.
Vandersveldt May 13th 2010 11:45AM
I still feel that it's much better to be holding W instead of the left mouse button. My right mouse button is almost always in action, but if you're walking with both mouse buttons, you have to keep the camera behind you, and that's no good. You should always be looking left/right, or at least from time to time, and you can't do that if you're using the left mouse button to walk forward.
Clairdeloop May 13th 2010 9:12AM
Ironic that as a Mage, I have always wished I could blink backwards in combat, but apparently hunters would like to disengage forwards.
Tyr May 13th 2010 11:18AM
Blinking backwards or sideways is very possible, you just have to be fast with your mouse movement.
tnelson1315 May 14th 2010 8:38PM
You blink backwards the same way we DE forward. You jump, turn around, and blink!
Duf
Borean Tundra
Clairdeloop May 14th 2010 9:10PM
Yeah, but then I have to turn back around. That's four whole movements! Don't forget, I'm a mage, so if I have to press more than two buttons, I'm exhausted. ;)