Huntering 101: The Pit

Back when the Timeless Isle was fresh and new (before over a year of doing it, that is), I started some really basic guides for newer hunters, that covered how to solo things that were't to the level of "extreme soloing", but at the same time, weren't things that your average wow player could do either.  So in that vain: in guild I keep getting people asking me to group with them to do The Pit Apexis Crystals daily, and when I was first asked, I was quite surprised, for one because I hadn't noticed it was supposed to be a group quest, and also, I don't know why anyone would want to share their Primal Spirits.

So, for recently boosted hunters who are looking for a good practicing spot to work on their soloing in a safe-ish environment, or lower ilvl hunters looking to have a great place to farm Primal Spirits, here below is how to get by in The Pit.  This guide is aimed at hunters between 600 adn 630 ilvl; around 630 or higher this will become fairly trivial, and you'll be able to just zerg through most of the mobs in this zone.

Talents

You can choose any Hunter spec you want, as they'll all do fine here.  I go with marks, because it's got the best single target DPS, which helps you burn through everything a bit faster.

The important talents include Posthaste, Binding Shot, and Spirit Bond. Posthaste comes out on top, as there will be a few snares/roots that you'll want to break, and the main mob who casts it will do it a bit to often for Master's Call to do the job.  Plus it's nice to be able to run around a bit faster.  On the second tier I go with Binding Shot.  Wyvern Sting can be helpful, as you'll see below, because there are some packs of mobs that it'd be nice to CC both of them,  but I like having Binding Shot for those "oh shit" moments when you didn't notice the mobs on the ledge above you and pulled everything with barrage.  And of course, Spirit Bond adds some nice healing, which will generally keep you topped off (since you should only be taking unavoidable damage, the brunt of it going to your pet).

Less importantly, you can choose whatever you like from tier 60.  From the 75 talents I like Crows, since it will be resetting a lot, you can use it pretty much constantly.  Tier 90 is again, totally up to your preference, though using Barrage will take some planning, since it may break your CC.  And the final level 100 talents, I like Focusing Shot, but Exotic Munitions is fine too, if you don't like standing still.

For Glyphs, Glyph of MD is mandatory, as is Glyph of Mending (at least at lower ilvls).  I took Animal Bond for my third, though there are plenty of other viable options.  Glyph of Deterrence can be helpful at lower ilvls (I'll explain below).

In the minor glyphs, I like to keep the Aspect of the Cheetah glyph, so you can run fast without worrying about turning it off. The Play Dead glyph is great in other situations, but here there will be times when you want to drop aggro on  your hunter, but keep aggro on your pet, so I would avoid it here.

Irontusk Trampler

The Irontusk Trampler is the first mob I run into when I jump the fence to get into the pit.  You can find them on the southern, upper cliffs.  The only ability of note is Trample, which does AoE damage which around ilvl 610 or below will be a bit much for Spirit Bond to keep up with.  You should be able to safely just soak one of these, and if he isn't dead by the time he's casting a second, you can just step back out of range until it's safe to DPS again.  Other than that, the hunter should take no damage while fighting him, and will only have to keep Misdirect up on your pet, and/or keep growl on. 

Iron Laborer

The Iron Laborer has the lowest health of any of the mobs you'll see.  They are not elite, and have no abilities that will give hunters a problem.  They do tend to hang out in long lines, and if you pull enough, their damage can be too much for Mend Pet to take care, so at low ilvls, pulling two or three at a time is a good idea.  Around 620+ ilvl, you'll be able to pull the entire pack of them and just AoE them down (especially if you're doing this as BM).  

Iron Warden

The trouble with pulling large packs of Iron Laborers, is they usually have a supervisor, the Iron Warden.  This will provide good practice at selective pulling, though.  The Iron Warden will be riding a wolf, pacing back and forth watching the Iron Laborers,  at all of the spots where they spawn, however, the area where he turns around is far enough away from the laborers that you can pull the Warden safely.   If you do pick up a Laborer too, you should be able to just DPS him down, as they'll die pretty quickly.  Be sure to do so before focusing on the Warden, or their combined damage will quickly kill your pet.

The only ability the Iron Warden has that affects the hunter is called, Iron Shackles.  It's a Root with a DoT. However, since you're using Posthaste, just make sure to have your back toward a wall, and you can get out of this without taking any damage.  

Another basic hunter move that you can practice with this guy is quick CC and Rez Pet. Especially at lower ilvls, this guy's basic attacks can cause problems for your pet, and that's part of why I liked Binding Shot. Keep enough distance between your pet and you, and if you see your pet is about to die, throw up a binding shot at their location.  This will give you more than enough time to rez your pet, and get aggro off of you without having to reset the mob by feigning death.  Once your pet is alive and has gotten in at least one hit on the Warden, you can safely Feign Death to reset your hunter's aggro (though if you've been keeping up Misdirect the whole time, your pet should quickly regain aggro).  

Dealing with Packs

Around the southwest ridge of the pit, there are plenty of mobs to quickly finish the quest. The problem is, they generally are standing in packs of three or four; too many to safely pet tank, and with varied enough abilities that it's worth taking a look at how they work. These mobs include:

• Iron Bloodburner: A blood mage that doesn't seem to do any damage that affects the hunter.
• Iron Deadshot: a ranger/hunter with high damaging abilities, but very squishy. Needs to be burst down.
• Iron Cauterizer: a healer which doesn't deal much damage, but will heal itself. Needs some amount of burst to kill, especially in lower ilvl gear.  Most abilities are interruptable.
• Iron Bulwark: Possibly this is supposed to be the tank, they have health, but don't hurt much. Generally your least important mob, so you can focus on something else.
• Iron Enforcer: These come with varied abilities; a stacking DoT, a deathgrip-type ability, and a bladestorm type ability.  Several stacks of the DoT can hurt quite a lot, even at higher ilvls. This is where Glyph of Deterrence comes into play, since it will reduce the damage done by the ticks by 50%, and allow time for the stacks to fall off (since they can't reapply while Deterrence is up).  Remember to set traps while Deterrence is up, since you can't DPS otherwise.
• Gruesome Torturer: Often found alone, but sometimes in the packs.  He does a ground effect that you have to move out of, as well as a cone attack that will take 50-75% of your life if you don't avoid it; it does, however, have a long cast time, so this shouldn't cause any problems.

As you're camo'ing around, looking for easy pickings, you'll notice that some of them walk around between groups.  This is, of course, the easiest way to kill one, when it's all alone.  Most of the time, though, you'll have to CC one, and handle at least two.  If there is one in the pack, I always CC the Deadshot. They seem to do the most damage, and even though they die quickly, their damage can be too much to handle while other mobs are up.  The second choice for CC, if there's no Deadshot, is the Gruesome Torturer; he's not really a problem, but you have to pay attention, at least, so it's easier to just deal with him when he's alone.  If neither of those mobs are in a pack, then I CC the Cauterizer, but at that point you can probably just pull them all together.  

After CC'ing, I find it easiest to use the same CC priority list for my DPS first list.  So if I've CC'ed a Deadshot, and have a Cauterizer and a Bulwark, then I'll burst down the Cauterizer first, then finish off the Bulwark.  Especially with Rapid Fire or Bestial Wrath, you can generally burn through one of them pretty quickly, so you rarely have to worry about two mob's abilities at once for very long.  Again, this is a good opportunity to practice Binding Shot and Rez Pet, or a little bit of kiting to finish them off.  

Rares

You'll run into a lot of rares in The Pit (especially if you go during off hours).  These are designed to be taken on with five or more players; however, most of them are soloable in current gear.  

I'm not going to get into the specifics of each one here, but if you've gotten to the point where all of the regular elite mobs in the pit are no challenge at all, then it might be time to go perfect your kiting with these rares.  I haven't managed to kill (or even find) all of them yet, but the ones I have, all involved a fairly simple pattern of kiting with aggro on my hunter, and then using the glyphed Distracting Shot, so I can kite him with my pet (using the Moveto command).  

Of the rares I've tried, the hard part isn't really kiting them, but finding a path in which to kite them, where you don't pull lots of other mobs.

Bonuses

Somewhat similar to the Timeless Isle, there are several damage buffs you can pick up around the pit. An easy way to find some that seem to always be up, is follow the train tracks on the west side of the pit.  Eventually you'll see the break in them shown to the right.  You can easily just disengage across and grab a fire buff (adds fire damage to some abilities) and a really cool shoulder mounted rocket launcher.  

None of the buffs are really game changing, but they do speed up the process, so you can finish up just as quickly as those weird support classes doing the quest in groups, waiting on their healers to drink.