Unlike Paladins (my previous post), Hunters are a pure DPS class. My very first character in WoW was a hunter simply because it was recommended due to how fast they can level. Hunters are not only a ranged class, but also a pet class. Your pet can essentially hold threat on something while you kill it from a distance. My favorite part of playing a hunter, recently, has been the PvP (player vs player) aspect. They are incredibly powerful, hard to kill and have great personal utility. These things, among others, have brought the Hunter class 2nd on my ranking for favorite classes.

Class Information

Class : Hunter
Available Races : [A] Draenei, Dwarf, Human, Night Elf, Worgen | [H] Blood Elf, Undead, Goblin, Orc, Tauren, Troll | [N] Pandaren
Role : Ranged DPS
Specializations : Marksman, Beast Mastery, Survival
Gear Type : Agility Mail
Resources : Focus
Useable Weapons : Bow, Crossbow, Gun

Rating

Levelling Speed : 10/10
Survivability : 9/10
Gameplay : 7/10
Utility : 5/10
Soloing Capability : 10/10
Transmog Options : 7/10
Overall : 8/10

Review

Since Hunters are a ranged DPS class, you are restricted a little bit into what you can do to level and at end game. Leveling as a hunter is often a lot quicker to just quest and occasionally que for a dungeon. Dungeon ques for DPS are typically anywhere between 5 and 25 minutes.

Leveling Speed

Leveling as a hunter is by far one of the fastest and easiest experiences in the game. Since hunters have a pet that basically takes all of the damage for them, the death count while leveling is usually fairly low. I also found hunters to level quicker through questing, since dungeon ques are slightly longer than those for healers or tanks. The most efficient method by far is queing for dungeons while you quest.

Survivability

Since hunters rely heavily on their pets to take most of the damage, as long as you can keep your pet alive with Mend Pet, you’ll be just fine. However if you let your pet die, you can expect to shortly follow suit without using any of your very limited defensive abilities. Hunters have a very unique way of avoiding death by literally pretending to be dead. In PvP this ability will only annoy your enemy, but it will not actually save you from death like it can in PvE content.

Here’s an example of a funny feign death comic I found. Pretty much sums up the experience.

Deterrence and Disengage are also useful defensive cool downs. Deterrence reduces incoming damage for a few seconds while Disengage sends you flying backwards from your target in an aide to run for your life.

Gameplay

As I said in my opening, I am particularly fond of hunters in PvP. In PvE they are also powerhouses that can ruin anyone’s day, but I just prefer the experience of a hunter in PvP over PvE. In PvP, depending on which spec you play, it is neigh impossible to be killed with the right pet/talent combinations. I have taken on up to five people at once and came out victorious. If you are more into PvE or raiding, hunters can also give a satisfaction of being the highest on the DPS meter. As always, true gameplay excellence follows the skill of the player, but overall hunters are a very easy class to do well at.

Utility

Hunters have a lot of utility; unfortunately it’s only for them (those selfish jerks!). As previously mentioned, hunters have Disengage, Deterrence and Feign Death. Hunters can also provide traps, which can either slow or freeze enemies. In addition to their traps, they also have an ability called Misdirect. Misdirect causes all incoming threat to the hunter to be directed towards a friendly target. This ability is often used while leveling so the hunter doesn’t pull threat off of its pet. This ability can also be used to pull raid or dungeon bosses to help the tanks establish a high amount of threat even faster. Other than those few abilities, hunters do not have much to offer to the party, but their pets do! Hunter pets can provide buffs that may otherwise be missing in the group’s composition, such as melee or spell haste, crit, mastery, attack power, etc.

Soloing Capability

Hunters have one of the highest soloing capabilities in the game (next to death knights of course). Once again, due to the hunter’s pet, he can solo a variety of different encounters without so much as a scratch on himself. I personally prefer to solo any content on my hunter in comparison to any other class because it is just that easy. Some fights have mind control mechanics, which make it a bit hairy for a hunter to solo because they would either have to dismiss their pet, or try to DPS through the enemy’s health fast enough as to not risk the mind control mechanic going off.

Transmog Options

I am personally not too fond of the hunter transmog options. Most of the sets either make you look like a bear or like a boss in the raid instance. However hunters do have a lot of options with mail items, as they share that gear type with shamans. Mail armor is also available from level 1, so obtaining unique or strange armor sets is rather easy, it just requires a lot of time, research and patience.

If you spend enough time on getting creative with your mail pieces, you can take an otherwise brutish looking set of gear and make it into your very own 3-D stripper!

However unless you plan on spending your days dancing on top of a mailbox in Orgrimmar, I would not suggest dressing your hunter this way. It also looks pretty awkward for the boys to be wearing that style of armor as well. Be sure to check out WoW Hunter’s Hall for more transmog ideas.

Overall

Overall I really do enjoy the hunter. The leveling experience is easy enough that I have two of them at max level. As for ranged DPS, they are by far my most favorite, but that may be mostly biased on the fact that it was my first. I would definitely recommend a hunter to any new player as the ease of this class is extremely high and requires minimal effort to be decent enough to blend in. However if you do put in the extra time, effort and research, hunters offer an extremely rewarding return. Since the class is easy to play decently, those who master it are nearly unstoppable.

So in conclusion, hunters are ranked 2nd in favorite class list because of their ease to play, how much fun they are, and the ability to solo things that most classes cannot. Hunters are a very good class for players who love to hunt for achievements, rare items and collect pets, as there are literally hundreds of unique pets that hunters can tame.

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