One of the things that I like about WoW versus FFXI is that strategically, there are many more viable options for you in combat. In FFXI you basically fired off your macros in the accepted set pattern, and things died. In WoW, combat tends to be more fluid, and you use abilities depending on the situation, to some degree.
However, I think that since you can get away with more in WoW and still survive, a lot of the groups that form tend to be less organized. I'd like to find that happy medium where we have a sort of "playbook" of hunter combat strategies, so that we're not pigeonholed into one series of actions but yet we can use all our abilites in ways that maximize their usefulness.
So, that said, I'd like to hear how people do combat. A few examples:
In solo combat vs. one enemy, with no link chances, I --
- lay a fire trap (if the mob is my level or higher)
- use Hunter's mark
- send out my pet
- start an aimed shot
...Then by the time my pet has a couple hits in, my aimed shot has fired and I let loose with
- Concussive shot (with 5 ranks in the talent giving me chance to stun)
- Serpent's sting
- auto fire, reapplying the sting and concussive shot 'till it dies.
If my pet is getting creamed, I'll approach and start using the pet heal ability. I really find this useful, especially in parties where my pet is the main tank. It does mean you're not doing damage during the healing, but the rest of your party is, and moreover it's like an insanely good regen spell on your pet. Then, if I can manage to get my pet up to 1/2 life or better, I continue auto-fire and applying debuffs. One thing to remember is that pet heal works from 20 yards away, which is safely still in bow/gun range.
In solo combat vs. multiple enemies, the process usually is similar with the addition of multishot as the mobs approach, and then I transition to melee combat once all the enemies are inside minimum bow/gun range.
Party combat is fairly similar, though when fighting multiple enemies, I try to back off from the group and use more multishots, as well as cycling through mobs to plant debuffs before concentrating on one with autofire.
That's what I've got. Anyone do anything differently? I'm especially interested to see what talents people like and how they enhance their strategies, since I can't find any hunters on Alla talking much about the talent tree yet.