Class Guide Hunter

The Definitive Hunter Class Guide, from 1-70 and beyond:

Index:
1.0 - Introduction
2.0 - Hunting n' stuff
3.0 - The 1-60 Grind, Leveling
4.0 - 60-70, Outland
5.0 - 70 and Beyond
6.0 - Talent Builds(Under Construction)
7.0 - Gear Guide

1.0 - Introduction:

Hunters, an admittedly fun class, mixing a bit of melee, a lot of ranged, and adding in a free tank/support-dps with the pet. All of this adds up to alot of survivability and easy soloing ability, something that only improves with level and is also the reason that hunters maintain position as the number one levelers in the game. Of course this power doesn't only apply to soloing and leveling, it's also quite handy for teams, as in having a player who can even solo, or at the very least tank, same level instance elites.

Overall I'd say that you only really start to feel the fun and experience full usage of the hunter class at around level 30 or so, beyond that you still gain various new abilities but feign death is one of the most useful you get. Alot of hunter abilities are really made to be chained together, most requiring that you use them in a certain order to fully utilize their various abilities and/or side-affects, the most common would be feign-death + trap, however alot more combos exist.

A slight problem you may encounter though is that, like with rogues, hunters are immensely overpopulated, thus unless you manage to distinguish yourself from the crowd in some great manner you're probably not going to be very much in-demand for either groups or guilds. It often helps to build connections pre-70, otherwise you're going to be up against hundreds of other hunters for group/guild spots.

2.0 - Hunting n' stuff:

Hunting, as you may expect when rolling the hunter class you'll be exercising a form of hunting, as in you can easily use your tracking skills combined with the aspect of the cheetah buff to continue grinding or for things such as skinning. Another large benefit of being a hunter is the ability to in most cases take on monsters multiple levels higher than you or quest bosses and even elites without much of a problem, this differs based upon whether you follow survival, beast mastery, or marksmanship.

Marksmanship is generally the best for kiting mobs, well timed combinations of scatter shot, wing clip, concussive shot, and usage of traps allowing you to take down almost any monster without taking much damage. Obviously kiting can take some time to do depending on the exact monster but at least it's possible, unlike a variety of classes such as warrior... well warriors are pretty much the only ones who can't kite/solo bosses really but hunters also do better than pretty much anyone else anyway.

Beast mastery, another rather good soloer talent tree. As you might expect the beast mastery tree focuses on making your pet the killing machine, expert tank, or both depending on how you spec. This of course leaves the actual hunter him/her-self as a bit of a disadvantage on their own but otherwise can be quite nice, a level 70 hunter managed to solo azuregos using the pet heal with a nice amount of +healing gear and full beast mastery tree.

Finally, the survival tree, not exactly the most popular/widely used talent tree, but still an interesting choice if you play it right. I mainly used survival as a PvP/after 70 talent tree but it's also viable for perhaps 50+ and definitely 60+. Outlands allows alot more variation on playing style so don't be afraid to test out the various survival abilities at that point, it's just not the best pre-50/60 tree due to lacking key points.

3.0 - The 1-60 Grind, Leveling:

Most of the leveling advice was already covered in the above section, still you'll find that around levels 1-10 it's the same as everyone else, 10+ picks up quite a bit with the addition of the pet to tank for you, and finally 30+ you get feign death to avoid dieing everytime you pull a bit too many mobs. Tracking skills and aspect of the cheetah also both improve your leveling speeds a nice amount, it really adds up in the long run and pre-40 the run times between quests and zones are quite tiring.

A few useful things about having a pet is that you can easily use the pet to pull a mob or two while taking on another one-two mobs yourself, this applys even more-so if you happen to be survival or secondly beast-mastery, using a pet like the boar for charge can improve your pull/kill speeds quite a bit, yet again, it all adds up.

Overall the easiest and most used talent spec would be a straight up beast-mastery + marksmanship, picking up marksmanship at the later levels once you've gained all the key talents in the beast mastery tree, it's fast, efficient, and extremely easy. To mix things up a bit you might try re-speccing at around 30-40 or so and do a marksmanship build, but it's not neccessarily going to do very well comparatively.

4.0 - 60-70, Outlands:

As you enter outlands you'll find it much easier to experiment around with alternative talent builds now, due to the emphasis on questing things such as survival and marksmanship start to catch up to beast mastery XP wise. Given how many quests require you to kill boss mobs of various types all those kiting techniques come in handy quite a bit more, also the survival/marksmanship builds are pretty much equal with beast mastery.

Alot of nice weapons, ranged and melee, come as quest rewards throughout outlands, and thus you'll generally not have any slow periods of leveling, at the very least you're faster than all the other classes not that it matters much once you hit outlands anyway though. Other than that not much else changes for hunters, we remain the dominant grinders and speed killers and just pretty much get better at everything we already did at 60.

5.0 - 70 and Beyond:

Once you've reached level 70 you'll be wanting to start working on a large variety of reputations and quest chains, as you may already know heroic dungeons require a key to enter, this key requires a revered reputation with the dungeons corresponding faction, this can all be nicely wrapped up however while hunting for the gear from the gear guide below.

For hunters you'll immediately want to upgrade practically ever piece of armor possible by filling whatever open sockets you have, alot of pre-70 gear doesn't have sockets sadly, but you'll start finding alot more in dungeons/quest chains 70+ and thus depending on your cash reserve a large variety of enhancers are now open for usage.

As you may note I don't list alot of heroic gear on the gear guide below, that's because it's most of all a reference for pre-karazhan DPS and such, don't worry though, you'll find plenty of quite enticing rewards awaiting you once you've hit revered reputation with a faction or two. Additionally what with the not so recent addition of the Ogri'la faction you'll have another path of upgrades opened for you along with the already present choices such as aldor and scryers.

One a whole you'll find your hunter doesn't change much between 60 and 70, or even after 70, but that's alright given how well hunters performed pre-outlands anyway, everything you find simply improves damage, kiting, and overall survivability that much more.

6.0 - Talent Builds

Coming Soon

7.0 - Gear Guide

This is a beastmastery oriented gear build, going for a somewhat balanced stat and crit/hit given that alot of our DPS comes from the pet.

Helm:

Mok'Nathal Mask of Battle - Drop(Heroic Hillsbrad)
Beast Lord Helm - Drop(Mechanar)
Stalker's Helmet of Second Sight - Quest Reward

Neck:

Traitor's Noose - Drop(Heroic Slavepens)
Adamantine Chain of the Unbroken - Drop(Heroic Slavepens)
Insignia of the Mag'hari Hero - Quest Reward

Back:

Cloak of the Inciter - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)
Cloak of Malice - Drop(Shattered Halls)
Cloak of Impulsiveness - Drop(Old Hillsbrad)

Shoulders:

Wyrmfury Pauldrons - Drop(Heroic Old Hillsbrad)
Beast Lord Mantle - Drop(Steamvault)
Scorpid-Sting Mantle - Drop(Slave Pens)

Chest:

Beast Lord Cuirass - Drop(Botanica)
Laughing Skull Battle-Harness - Drop(Black Morass)
Stormforged Hauberk - Crafted

Wrist:

Bracers of the Hunt - Drop(Heroic Sethekk Halls)
Oronok's Old Bracers - Quest Reward
Lykul Bloodbands - Underbog

Hands:

Beast Lord Handguards - Drop(Shattered Halls)
Gauntlets of the Redeemed Vindicator - Quest Reward
Surger's Hand Wraps - Quest Reward

Belt:

Girdle of Ferocity - Drop(Heroic Shadow Laybrinth)
Shattrath's Champion Belt - Quest Reward

Legs:

Leggings of Beast Mastery - BoE World Drop
Beast Lord Leggings - Drop(Steamvault)
Scaled Greaves of Patience - Drop(Old Hillsbrad)

Boots:

Boots of the Endless Hunt - Drop(Heroic Botanica)
Sky-Hunter Swift Boots - Drop(Sethekk Halls)
Boots of the Outlander - Drop(Mana Tombs)

Rings:

Ring of Umbral Doom - Drop(Botanica)
Band of the Exorcist - Vendor(50 Spirit Shards)
Naliko's Revenge/Conquerer's Band - Quest Reward
Lightwarden's Band - Vendor(Aldor Revered)

Trinkets:

Bloodlust Brooch - Vendor(41 Badges of Justice)
Abacus of Violent Odds - Drop(Mechanar)
Hourglass of the Unraveller - Drop(Black Morass)

Weapons:

Sonic Spear - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)
Terokk's Quill - Quest Reward
Skyforged Great Axe - Crafted

One-Hand:

Reflex Blades - Drop(Arcatraz)
Hungering Spineripper - Drop(Arcatraz)
Stellaris - Drop(Mechanar)
Stormreaver Warblades - Drop(Botanica)
Ced's Carver - BoE World Drop
Ashtongue Blade - Quest Reward

Ranged Weapon:

Wrathtide Longbow - Drop(Heroic Steamvault)
Ornate Khorium Rifle - Crafted
Valanos' Longbow - BoE World Drop
Emberhawk Crossbow - Drop(Arcatraz)