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Misdirection

Misdirection
100 yd range

Instant	30 sec cooldown

Requires Hunter
Requires level 42

You misdirect threat to the targeted party or raid member. All threat caused by your attacks for the next 8 sec will be transferred to the target.

Buff

Spell Details

Duration

8 seconds

School

Physical

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

n/a

Cost

None

Range

100 yards (Vision)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

30 seconds

GCD

0 seconds

Effect #1

Transfer Threat Done % (3600000)
Value: 100

Effect #2

Apply Aura: Mod Size %
Value: 15%

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Guides

Hunter DPS Guide
(Beast Mastery,
Marksmanship, Survival)

Hunter Pet Tanking

Raid and Class
cooldown list.

Ranged DPS
Overview -
Tips and Specs

Warlords of Draenor
Hunter Changes

Comments

Comment by killerchong

is this ability only useable on pets, and players in parties/raids only?

im thinking the next time someone kill steals me or jacks a vein/chest from me i shoot this on em and aggro mobs onto them to kill em lol

Comment by Kargg

Easy macro to use with this ability:

#showtooltip Misdirection
/focus target
/stopmacro
/target focus
/cast Misdirection
/targetlasttarget
/script local u=UnitName("focus");if u then SendChatMessage("Misdirecting to "..u, "PARTY") end

Basically you set your focus (select your tank and type in /focus) at the beginning of a raid and you can just use this macro from here on to target your tank.

Comment by PussTear

can you misdirect a person of the opposite faction?
like if he jumps you, you misdirect him and smack the nearest mob.elite mob where possible.

Comment by Ownrer

Little Ganking Note :

You can cast MD on a mindcontrolled opposite faction player... but the best part is... if you don't use the 3 charges during the mindcontrol, when MC wears off / is dispelled, the MD still works perfectly on your next 3 shots (within 30sec ofc)...

Now think about doing it on elemental plateau, on someone you just nuked down to 10-15%... Once you have MCed and MDed him, get a few yards away, give him some time to unzoom and start thinking of an extra smart strategy, and the second he attempts that smart move send 3 raging fire souls on him... coupled with a hit of gobelin rocket launcher and 3g repair because he died of a mob... EVIL!!! and very, very good laugh irl that is!

PS: Do it naked with your favorite ridiculous helm and an enchanted fishing pole

Comment by tlanwarrior

The best thing to do with MD...

A friend of mine last night, decided after I suicide Curator (Just finished Opera, and was bored); He decided to MD to the MT (Who we were having very big issues with), and then pulled Curator, and then immediately FD'd.

Comment by xdirtyboots

Could you use Misdirection to pull, say, a city boss like Sylvanas out of her thrown room and into the sewers?

My friend and I had a plan to MD the tank, make it to the throne room in 30 seconds, then pull. Just wondering if a mob would go that far or if you could accomplish this by having multiple misdirects.

Comment by ithinktfiam

I'm a confused noob. I had someone ask me about this on a raid this week. I don't see that I have it, though i'm lvl 67 and buy every training item i see. When do you get it, how do you get it and, if I have it, where's it hiding in the spell book?

Comment by Onijitsu

One of the hunters in our guild played a trick in ICC the other night... Redirected to the Priest. ;-)

(The Priest didn't know he could click on the "buff" to make it go away)

Once in awhile, we dink around, just to see just how badly and comically we can wipe each other. (Hey, it can't ALL be seriousness, all the time, right?)

Comment by Amrun

An especially hilarious counter for that random hunter who's MD chainpulling to get his Frosts in a random as fast as possible is to hit this macro as soon as he casts Misdirect.

/cancelaura Misdirection
/s You spank it, you tank it.

Then sit there and taunt it off him when his health is almost gone. Or don't.

Comment by Sykora

Will MD work if the first and only thing I do is lay an Explosive Decoy?

Comment by elitearthas

Hunters rejoice! We now have a wonderful and reliable (cannot be resisted):
Our new wonderful glyph of MD Charred Glyph
just hope our pets' aggro isnt too high seeing as there isnt any aggro dump for them (Cower only reduces dmg taken now)

Comment by Rkane

How god damn far does this need to be blizzard? :/

First you make it 70, now it's 76...

I mean, it would be insanely useful at say level 15 when i actually NEED it to keep aggro on the tank, instead of level 76 when the tanks can just grab all the aoe threat in the world with no problems at all...

:/ sometimes I'm confused by blizzard...

Comment by maticoco

Today I noticed something interesting while raiding.
Misdirect now lasts for only 20 seconds, not 30, so look out cause I know I used to misdirect so that combat would start like 5 seconds before it ran out.

Comment by adamjmac

What is the max range aggro will be transferred AFTER misdirect has been cast?

For example, I cast MD on the tank, then the tank runs far away, then I shoot something. Is there a risk the targets will immediately come after me?

Comment by Nate076

Funnest thing to do with this ability. While everyone is waiting around to take out that final BG boss, Misdirect on a teammate and then Feign Death. LMAO.

Comment by Brunpal

The mechanics behind misdirection changed in Cataclysm. Before Misdirection threat was a permanent transfer of threat. Now it's temporary and the transferred threat fades away over time. Same thing with Tricks of the Trade.

Why is this change a big deal?

Most of the time it's not a big deal. But in the specific case where there is a Misdirection plus a tank swap PLUS another tank swap -back- to the first tank (aka a double tank swap) it ends up being a misdirection of doom. This is due to the Tank2 grabbing the threat of Tank1 plus the temporary threat of the hunter and making that threat permanent to Tank2. However Tank1 continues to have their threat decay because it was temporary hunter threat.

If Tank1 taunts back during this decay period then Tank1 gets Tank2's threat permanently BUT with a big catch! The catch is that as Tank1 is trying to generate aggro to stay above Tank2 while they are slowly losing 4 sec of a hunter's burst threat. Another way of thinking about it is if you use a Misdirect during a double tank swap it's just like misdirecting the wrong tank during a normal tank swap.

So if you know there's a double tank swap* within 30 seconds it's a bad idea to use misdirection on the tanks. You might be able to put it onto a non-tank target but the tanks don't want it. Same thing applies to Tricks of the Trade.

*Definition of a double tank swap: Situation where a tank purposely loses aggro and then that same tank regains aggro shortly after.

Comment by foopok

ok i need to ask, does MD works on human player ?

Comment by Brunpal

If there is a tank swap, then by that time the two tanks have plenty of threat over anyone else, rendering the misdirect essentially useless
Yes, the two tanks have plenty of threat over anyone else EXCEPT EACH OTHER.

The tanks will skyrocket their threat past the rest of the raid as they use burst threat abilities when it's their turn. However they will still have very similar threat to each other. Any disparities in threat tend to get evened out as they taunt. So one tank ends up having about 90% or more of the other's threat at any given time.

Fast forward 30 seconds after that hunter cast misdirect. "Transferred threat is not permanent, and will fade after 30 sec." Now you have the burst threat of a hunter fading off the tank. If you are at 100% threat, and the next highest threat is at 90% (another tank) and you suddenly lose a huge chunk of threat then the other tank is going pull when he's not supposed to which is exceedingly bad on these types of fights. (Yes, Chimaeron but it's a very common mechanic used in every tier of content.) Two tanks swapping a single target back and forth generally have a good reason for doing so. Typically it's a very bad thing if the wrong tank pulls aggro... that's the reason for 2 tanks on 1 target. Even 1 second of the wrong tank with aggro often means a complete raid wipe.

While it's bad to misdirect/ tricks of the trade the tanks in these cases, the tanks should have a big threat lead over everyone who's not a tank. So it will be safe to ToT up a dps without fear of pulling aggro.

BTW it amuses me greatly that I was downranked on the Misdirect page and ranked up on the Tricks of the Trade page. Guess it says that rogues are smarter than huntards.

Comment by Hotice2104

Personally, I am a little upset at the current situation regarding ToT vs Misdirection. Not only does Tricks last twice as long, but it has a damage increase modifier. Poor hunters got dumped by the side of the road. IMO they should at least make Hunter misdirection permanent, or give it some sort of buff; the idea of hunters transferring threat makes much more sense lore-wise to me than rogues doing it anyway.

Just a reference note to the past. The concepts that are today misdirection and Tricks of the Trade were originally theory crafted by Rogues on the Rogue forums during classic era WoW with a great deal of time invested. There were a Very Great Many Rogues that were extremely upset to see Misdirection finally take shape in the form of a Hunter ability. (I'd love to link to the old forum posts but by this date they no longer exist as far as I can find).

As for 1 vs the other in functionality I think it is still much more practical and possible for a Hunter to MD pull from afar than a Rogue to TotT pull. Also with the Glyph of Misdirection your pet you can split your own threat on a given boss encounter to keep your own personal threat levels much lower than your typical DPS class (read: Chimaeron). Yes this costs your GCD's but you can maintain the uptime on this to the point you wish. Equally of note this costs you no Focus at all where as a Rogue without the Glyph do lose 15 energy.

As an aside to your lore comment: Ever had someone tap you on the wrong shoulder to make you look the wrong way before?

Comment by QQbangbang

does this ability usefull at pvp?

Comment by borbes

After some testing, it seems that the threat does NOT fade when cast on your pet.

Comment by Dinzaklek

I was being such a tool today. I was inviting random people in org to my group for no reason, MD'ing them and then aimed shotting gamon. I was rofling so hard...

Comment by SpareSimian

Macro taken from forums:

#showtooltip Misdirection
/focus
/stopmacro
/use Misdirection

How it works: When you get in a group, target the tank and then right click the macro, this sets the tank as your MD target. When you want to MD the tank, left click the macro. If you don't have a focus target it will MD your pet, if you have a friendly player targeted it will MD to them instead of your pet.

Comment by Azavari

I know there are already a lot of macros on this page, but here's the one I use:

/target Pet
/cast Misdirection
/targetlasttarget

It automatically casts Misdirection on your pet. It changes target so fast you don't even notice.
Works well for soloing, and I find it easier to use seeing as there's no modifiers because I have all of my bars set to shift/ctrl/alt+a number so those macros probably wouldn't work very well.
You could also add /petattack at the end if you want to send your pet in to attack the target.

Comment by Gyrwym

A useful macro i found on wowwiki:
#showtooltip
/cast Misdirection

This will misdirect to your focus target, if that is friendly. If not, it will cast on a friendly selected target instead. If that doesn't exist either, it will misdirect on your pet. That way, the macro works as intended in any situation, without the need of pressing qualifier keys or choosing between different buttons.

Comment by iameponine

Seems to be off the GCD with 5.04.

Comment by Whoisthiscook

How this practically works: You shoot someone in the back, point at the target you MD to and yell "IT WAS HIM!"

EDIT: Takes a darn long time to learn to do so..

Comment by Pzypro

Noob time: is there a way to cancel misdirection after you cast it...?

In one of the dungeons, I accidentally misdirected the healer instead of the tank while he was pulling. Upon realizing it, I just stood there for like 20 seconds not sure what to do because I didn't want to get the healer killed lol.

Comment by Qoko

As main rogue, learning Misdirection last night on my alt hunter was a godsend. If I have to give my say into comparing Misdirect & Tricks, I fairly think Misdirection is the more logical ability and the best in practice. In my opinion, they should give similar abilities to all non-hybrid dps (in what way they can implement it logically, is beyond that), and milder versions for hybrid classes whilst in dps spec.

Dps should not be punished for maximizing and therefore overthreating at the pull. Rogues should not be punished for upping other's dps, due sometimes screwing up our own rotation (if Tricks is on cooldown, it can grave us of more energy). Misdirection does all this exactly right, but well, for Hunters only.

I really hope they'll convert Tricks into a similar ability again, free and definitely not into tier bonuses anymore. And give mages and locks one too, at least.

Comment by jamongus

Here's an incredibly broken macro (or rather, a collection of macros) for any hunter with Glyph of Misdirection (which I personally recommend for any hunter either leveling up, soloing content, or has a pet that is tanking anything).

Since misdirection is off of the GCD, you can spam it whenever it is available and it wont interrupt your shots. Use these types of macros and watch as your threat for fights is damn near zero:
#showtooltip Arcane Shot
/cast Misdirection
/cast Arcane Shot
Simply change "Arcane Shot" to any other shot of your choice - explosive shot, chimera shot, serpent sting, black arrow, multi shot, etc. This does work for steady/cobra shot as well. The only ability this doesn't mesh well with is Barrage. Sometimes casting misdirection will cancel the channel as soon as it starts, although it doesn't happen unless you mash your keybind and the cooldown for Misdirection doesn't line up properly.

Comment by KidPunkStar101

Save yourself the Major Glyph slot! Use this instead!

#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast Misdirection

You're welcome!

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