Last week David covered Arenas for the hunter, while I laid low and did a little more leveling. I'm to the point now where crowd control becomes not only an option, but at times a requirement. Hunters are known for our ranged damage output. It's practically the thing hunters are made to do: stand back and shoot. We are also quite good at crowd control using our traps, though. You'll see it in the Looking for Group channel fairly regularly: "LF1M DPS/CC."

That's us. Damage per Second and Crowd Control. They might be thinking Rogue or Warlock, but you should see those five letters and think "that's me." Not only is crowd control something hunters are good at, it's something which not all hunters do reliably or well. Being able to trap, and trap competently, will go a long way towards making you friends in both instances and the open road.

In this article I'll be discussing ways to use your Freezing Trap as a method of both controlling crowds and making friends. For those of you who haven't yet learned it, Freezing Trap is learned at level twenty. Rank One provides a ten second freeze. Rank Two upgrades at level forty for a fifteen second freeze. Rank three upgrades at level sixty for a twenty second freeze. Once the trap is laid, it will remain in place for sixty seconds before fading if it is not sprung. Meanwhile, the trap's cooldown is thirty seconds. Laying one trap while another is ready to spring will cancel the first one in favor of the second one.

Several talents exist to assist with trapping, in the Survival talent tree. Points spent on Entrapment give your traps an increasing chance to snare any opponent which trips them. Points spent on Clever Traps increase the duration of Frost and Freezing traps, the damage from Explosive and Immolation traps, and the number of snakes summoned from Snake traps. Points spent on Trap Mastery decrease the chance your opponents have to resist your traps. Points spent on Resourcefulness decrease the mana cost of traps (and melee abilities) as well as their cooldown. Talent specialization is up to you, but be aware that some or all of these talents will make your job as a trapper much easier.

We start trapping things after the jump.