Shot of the Week: Counter Shot

sotw_725Each week we’ll look at the history and utility of some of the greatest abilities in the Hunter’s arsenal

Back in August I started this series, but let it lapse. My apologies for that. I’m picking it up again and will continue to cover various shots and abilities in the Hunter arsenal in the coming weeks. This week I’m discussing a relatively new ability – Counter Shot. Most of you are probably aware of its existence, but for some of you this will be the something new that you learn today.

interrupt_whoknew

Counter Shot was introduced in patch 5.4, and it’s a baseline interrupt for Hunters. I’m a believer that every class should have a baseline interrupt, and most do. What I don’t like about it is that it has a 24 second cooldown. In PvP you can combine this with Scatter Shot, Silencing Shot (if you’re MM), and even a Hunter pet for an additional interrupts. In PvE, which the realm I live in, 24 seconds is a little long, and in some encounters, like Garrosh, it feels like it loses some of it’s utility.

While the 24 second cooldown seems harsh, it is in line with interrupt cooldowns of other ranged classes including Warlock’s Spell Lock and Optical Blast, and Mage’s Counterspell. Shamans, Warriors, Monks, Paladins and DK’s all have interrupts in 12-15 second cooldown range which is where I think they all should be. Still something is betting than nothing, and I use this one a fair bit.

One thing to know about interrupt spells is that they’ll fire even if the target has nothing to interrupt. It’s important that the mob is actually casting something before you fire the shot, or else you’ll put it cooldown for nothing. I use the macro below for greater efficiency. It interrupts whatever I’m casting, and ensures that I’ll fire Counter Shot immediately. See what I did there?

Oh, and why the two stopcasts? One is for whatever I’m casting, i.e., Cobra Shot, and the other is to stop Auto-Shot.

/showtooltip Counter Shot
/stopcast
/stopcast
/cast Counter Shot

How do you feel about Counter Shot. Do you use it frequently, are you okay with the 24 second cooldown, or did you just learn that Hunter’s have this ability?

2 Comments on “Shot of the Week: Counter Shot”

  1. I use it all the time. Scatter Shot can help in between Counter Shot CDs sometimes, but I’d prefer if the Counter Shot CD was just a little shorter. I’m not sure why the ranged interrupts have much longer CDs than melee.

  2. It’s an ok substitution for the loss of SS. 24 sec is fine. Generally the times I need to interrupt are before melee can get to something. Like gloom (i think it’s gloom, the one that appears in the top right when you walk into the room) on heroic protectors. Melee and slow and not very bright, so it can take them a while to figure out where gloom is after he spawns. So I’m glad I at least have something to keep him interrupted until they can run over there. 🙂

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