WoW Hunter Guide

Hunters are the masters of kiting mobs/players around as well as tracking them down. They have pets that can add a decent amount of DPS, and depending on spec can be very important to how much DPS you are doing. Hunters themselves will focus on ranged damage, their feign death ability is an excellent resource for dropping aggro. Hunters also have a large variety of weapons that they are able to use and they also have the ability to dual wield giving them a plethora of options as to what gear they select. They are also able to wear up to mail (at level 40) so they aren’t the easiest class to just down in PvP.

There are several pros to playing a hunter, one being their great ability to kite mobs and players around. They have traps, different types of shots, and other various abilties allowing them to get away from enemies. They also have their pets which are good for doing DPS on players and mobs that they can’t really do anything about because of the time that would be wasted killing the pet allows the hunter to get into a great position to do a whole lot more damage than the pet. They can also misdirect their threat to the tank making them a great class to have in a raid where the tank is having trouble gaining aggro at the beginning of the fight. Also if they are going to pull aggro they can quick misdirect to the tank and get it off them or they can simply feign death which will usually drop all aggro they currently have on the target. They are also able to tame pretty much any beast except exotic pets unless you are spec’d into beast mastery.

They are a few cons to playing a hunter as well, they are quite confusing and have a lot of abilities that you will have to learn what they do and when to use them to be an effective hunter, many hunters don’t really know what they are doing which has earned them the label “huntard”. Hunters cannot wear plate, however they can wear mail which can be a somewhat spendy repair bill but not too high. Beast Mastery hunters are EXTREMELY dependant upon their pets and without it they wont be doing much damage at all. They also will not be able to very much damage at all themselves at close range which is tough for PvP against melee classes that will be right on you which makes their kiting abilities vital to their survival, this isn’t as big of a deal in leveling as they can use their pets to get all the aggro so they can sit back and shoot.

What Racial Abilites are good for Hunters?

The hunter has 7 races to choose from, three on the Alliance side and four on the Horde side. Racial abilities can be pretty useful as a hunter but aren’t super important. However, they can be a small advantage in pvp and raiding which you may want to consider when choosing your race. You are free to just choose a race because you think it looks cool which is kind of what I did when creating my hunter which I now use more than any other character. When playing a hunter you won’t be able to be an Undead, Human, or Gnome.

Starting with the three available Alliance races we’ll discuss the Dwarf. The chance to critically hit with guns by 1% is extremely great in raiding if you’re using a gun (which if you are a dwarf you should be) the mace expertise does nothing as a mace is one of the few weapons a hunter can’t use. The stoneform is useful in pvp which removes bleed, poison, and disease effects and increases armor by 10% for 8 seconds. The Night Elf is an awesome pvp class for a hunter, the ability to vanish is great for getting away from melee attackers, also the quickness attribute is nice as it will reduce the chance of being hit by 2%. Last is the Draenei which really only has the racial heal which is alright for a hunter but the other alliance races have better hunter attributes.

As for the four horde races we’ll start with the Orc. The Blood Fury ability is good for more burst damage because it will increase attack power based on your level for 15 seconds and also the increased damage by pets by 5% as a passive ability is great for BM hunters and other specs. The Tauren isn’t a good race for a pve hunter but is a good choice for a pvp hunter, the increased health by 5% is nice as well as the war stomp to get melee attackers off of you for a little bit. The Troll’s berserking ability is nice for burst damage as it will increase attack speed for 10 seconds from 10-30% depedning on your current health percentage but I would suggest going with the Orc race over the Troll race. The last race is the Blood Elf which has the Arcane Torrent which is useful for raiding and pvp as it will regenerate mana and silence nearby enemies, other than that there isn’t much else.

Which talent spec should I choose as a Hunter?

The hunter’s three talent specializations are Beast Mastery, Survival, and Marksmanship. The first of which we will discuss is the Beast Mastery spec which is mainly used for leveling and in some Burst damage arena teams. Beast Mastery is going to focus a whole lot on the damage dealt by your pet which makes this not so good in raiding as your pet will die a lot to AoE damage in raids and the hunter damage done by ranged attacks with other specs is a lot more. Some useful talents in the BM spec are Ferocity which will increase the crit strike chance of your pet by 2/4/6/8/10%. The Bestial Wrath talent will give you the Beastial Wrath ability which sends your pet into a rage causing 50% additional damage for 18 seconds which is one good reason why BM is so good for Burst Damage. The Cobra Strikes talent will give you a 20/40/60% chance to critically hit with your pets next 2 special attacks when you critically hit with Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, or Kill Shot. The Kindred Spirits talent will increase your pets damage by 4/8/12/16/20% and it’s movement speed by 2/4/6/8/10%. The last talent you learn in BM is called Beast Mastery which will allow you to tame exotic pets and gives you an extra 4 Pet Skill points. The BM spec is great for leveling and soloing group quests but not so much for raiding.

The next one we’ll discuss is Survival which is choosen by most hunters who want to focus on raiding. I’m going to start with the final talent you learn in this spec as it is going to be the one you will use the most which is explosive shot, it’s a ranged shot that will do a lot of damage every second for 2 seconds on your target (depends on your attack power/level) the Sniper Training talent will increase the crit strike chance of kill shot by 5/10/15% and if you stand still for 6 seconds the damage done by Steady Shot, Aimed Shot, Black Arrow, and Explosive shot is increased by 2/4/6%. Lock and Load is an amazing talent that will boost your DPS a lot when it procs, you have a 33/66/100% chance when you trap a target with freezing trap/freezing arrow or frost trap that your next 2 Arcane Shot or Explosive Shots will have no cooldown, no mana cost, and no ammo cost and also has a 3/7/10% chance to proc for each time your Black Arrow does damage. Now I’ll actually tell you what Black Arrow is, it’s a talent learned in the survival tree that will fire a Black Arrow at the target, increasing all damage done by you to the target by 6% and dealing [RAP * 0.1 + X] Shadow damage over 15 sec. But it will share a cooldown of 30 seconds with other traps.

The last one we’ll discuss is Marksmanship which is the main spec choosen for PvP. MM has a lot of good stunning talents and talents that will allow you to distract the target for a short period of time to get in a better position to do more damage. MM has a lot of good talents early on which is why a lot of Survival Hunters will also put their talent points into this after they have learned Explosive Shot. Some of these early talents are Lethal Shots which increases Ranged Critical Strike chance by 1/2/3/4/5% and careful aim which increases attack power by an amount equal to 33/66/100% of your Intellect. Aimed Shot is also learned early on which will is a ranged shot doing damage plus 408 and reduces healing done to that target by 50% for 10 seconds, this also shares a cooldown with Multi Shot. The next talents will show why MM is also good for doing AoE damage. Concussive Barrage gives Volley (an AoE damage spell) a 50/100% damage to daze it’s targets. Barrage increases damage done by Multi-Shot, Aimed Shot, and Volley by 4/8/12%. Improved Barrage increases the critical strike chance of Multi Shot by 4/8/12% and gives Volley a 33/66/100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling Volley. Trueshot Aura can be learned which will increase ranged/melee AP by 10% to all raid members within 45 yards until cancelled. Master Marksman will increase your critical strike chance by 1/2/3/4/5% and reduce mana cost of steady shot by 5/10/15/20/25%. The last talent you learn in the MM tree is Chimera shot which when used you deal 125% weapon damage, refreshing the current Sting on your target and triggering an effect: Serpent Sting – Instantly deals 40% of the damage done by your Serpent Sting. Viper Sting – Instantly restores mana to you equal to 60% of the total amount drained by your Viper Sting. Scorpid Sting – Attempts to Disarm the target for 10 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per 1 minute.

What stats are important for a Hunter?

Hunters want a lot of Agility and some Stamina and Intellect. Also they will want a lot of Attack Power, Critical Strike Rating, Haste Rating, and will want to be hit capped as well to greatly increase DPS. PvP hunters will want a lot of Stamina and Agility with a little Intellect as well as Resillience of course. If you come accross two items, one being leather and the other being mail where the leather one has obvious better stats you should use the leather one instead especially in raiding as it’s not going to make that big of a difference.

For a hunter 1 Agility is equal to 1 AP and 14 AP is equal to 1 DPS. 1 Agility is also equal to 0.55 Crit Strike Rating and 45.91 Crit Strike Rating is equal to 1% critical hit chance. Also, 83.3 Agility is equal to 1% critical hit chance. 1 Stamina is 10 Health and 1 Intellect is 15 Mana.

What professions should I choose as a Hunter

As a hunter your professions aren’t going to be a huge deal. They are mainly personal preference, I personally have Skinning (for some money making and the increased crit chance) and Enchanting just to earn some extra money and eventually when I level it enough I will be able to enchant my own rings which I have been wanting to do for a long time to increase my DPS.