Feign death which may trick enemies into ignoring you. Lasts up to 6 min.
Hunters blur the line between life and death.[citation needed]
Feign Death is a skill that causes the hunter to appear dead. The hunter loses all aggro, which causes the enemy to stop attacking them and either flee back to its "territory", attack the hunter's pet, or attack whomever has the next highest aggro. This skill isn't always successful because nearby enemies do have a chance based on your relative level to resist this effect. The resist is slated to be removed in Cataclysm.
Improved Feign Death (SurvivalTalent): Decreases the chance that Feign Death will be resisted by 2% per rank. (2 ranks)
Two-piece Demon Stalker Armor set bonus: Decreases the chance that Feign Death will be resisted by 5%.
Glyph of Feign Death (minor glyph): Reduces the cooldown by 5 seconds.
Functionality[]
Uses[]
This is a very useful skill to use as a panic button; however, it may be resisted, so be careful.
It can abort a bad pull, provided no one else in the group has aggroed any of the mobs.
It can be used to exit combat in order to drink water or if one needs to go the bathroom in the middle of a fight (does not work during boss fights as of patch 2.3.0).
This can also be used in dungeons as a means of periodically wiping aggro, thereby allowing the Hunter to do more damage without drawing aggro away from the tank. The only drawback is the 30 second cooldown (starts after feign death is canceled), which means players should be careful not to use this strategy when feign death may be needed more urgently later in the fight. On bosses such as Onyxia, you'll want to use Feign Death as often as it is available. As of patch 3.0.2, Feign Death is the only way a hunter can reduce their aggro due to the changes to Disengage's mechanics.
This will cause other players to drop you as their target and will cause the loss of any combo points built up against you if the rogue does not reacquire you directly after. Hunter and Warlock pets/minions will also stop attacking and will have to be ordered to attack again.
There is a possibility that the other player will assume you are dead when you feign death (when targeted, the health bar a Hunter that's Feigning will be empty and say "Dead" even to friendly characters); however, keep in mind that you CAN be attacked while feigning and it will be obvious to any experienced PvP player that you are feigning. That being noted, it is surprisingly common for players to mistake you for being dead.
Feign Death can also be used as a non-Night Elf's Shadowmeld in that mobs that pass near your body will not aggro while you are feigning death.
Wipe Recovery may be possible when combined with Goblin Jumper Cables, Goblin Jumper Cables XL, or Gnomish Army Knife.
Before patch 2.0.1, when traps could only be set out of combat, hunters often used this ability to set traps during combat.
Feign Death can also be used to sneak through high-level instances and areas in a way similar to how druids and rogues can stealth through. It has the advantage of working against all mobs (certain mobs are skilled at stealth detection) but the disadvantage of high resist probability and mob layouts not conducive to the tactic. The basic technique is to cast Aspect of the Monkey (and Deterrence if you have it) and run through a group of mobs. When you reach an area outside of any mob's aggro radius, feign death. Cancel it and repeat the process until you can reach the area you desire. A level 60+ character can easily reach the bar by himself in the Blackrock Depths in such a way.
As an alternative tactic, it is possible to have your pet pull the mobs in question away so that you won't ever be attacked at all. Place your pet where you want them to return to, command your pet to "Stay", then target and have your pet Attack. As soon as it has aggro, click the "Passive" mode icon and it will return to where you originally had it stay. If you run far enough away your pet will de-spawn, losing no happiness whatsoever; you can then Feign Death and use Call Pet to bring it back. This works best with a creature that can both attack at range and increase its movement speed, such as a Wind serpent's (through Lightning Breath and Dive).
If you are a night elf, it is possible to stand up (therefore canceling feign death) straight into Shadowmeld, avoiding aggro even if you are in normal aggro range (so long as the mob is not high enough level to detect you and can't see through stealth). This makes it possible to feign through instances with greater ease, since you do not have to feign in a spot outside of the aggro range of mobs.
One good use of a feign death is to use it like a Counterspell, only this doesn't prevent casters from using the spell from the same School of Magic, especially if you see the casters' Castbar. You just hit Feign when he's about to pull off the spell, and the spell will be canceled. Nice way of getting rid of the annoying pesky mages that try to kill you.
You can use this to run away from fights even if you have a pet out. Use Freezing Trap on the monster and then Feign Death. The mob will stay frozen while attacking your pet, but you will drop out of combat. You can then mount up and the mob will most likely lose aggro. This works especially well with flying mounts.
In World of Warcraft: Trading Card Game.
Limitations[]
As the level (relative to the hunter) and number of enemies become higher, the likelihood of the spell being resisted becomes higher.
Moving or performing any action while feigning death will cancel the spell.
Turning the camera with the right mouse button WILL cancel Feign Death, so get in the habit of using the left mouse button while feigning.
As an additional note to the above, if you are turning with the right mouse button when you feign death, you will not drop down, the mobs will not stop attacking you, but the ability will go on cooldown anyway. Stop moving, then feign.
If the 6 minute timer runs out, the hunter will lose feign death and simply stand up.
Before patch 2.0.2, the hunter would actually die when the timer ran out. It was counted as a self-inflicted death so there was no direct durability loss.
No combat log message is generated, your pet will not disappear, and no honor points are granted so any experienced PvP opponents will notice that you are not really dead. While players will lose targeting if they have you targeted when you feign, they can still re-target you and attack you while you are feigning death.
Be aware that enemies that are a lower level than the hunter DO have a minute chance of resisting Feign Death.
If you are using Feign Death to drop accidental adds, any party member close enough to the mob to be aggroed himself will be the recipient of anything that was attacking you. If it's a cloth wearer, it may be smarter to use other methods of add control, like Freezing Trap, kiting, or pet tanking to occupy their attention until the current group is dead.
If you accidentally cancel Feign Death immediately after casting, the mobs may never stop attacking you, despite no "Resisted" message ever appearing.
Chance to resist[]
+Level
%Old resist
%New resist
0
4
4
1
5
5
2
6
6
3
37
17
4
48
28
5
59
39
6
70
50
And so on (+11% for each additional level). Basically this means that against higher level mobs, feign death was more likely to fail in the past. If there is a high level mob when you feign death, there is a better chance that the feign death will be resisted.
During controlled testing these tables were confirmed to be correct. This isn’t to say that other feign death bugs may be occurring, but as for the actual resist formulas, you now have them to compare to. If anyone finds data that is off from these tables when testing, please let us know the location, level, mobs, players, etc so that we can reproduce the issue and research it. Remember though that higher fire/frost/etc resistances can allow mobs/players to resist more.
