Where do you look? Why, right here!
This is my attempt to compile any and every common, useful question you might have to ask about hunters or otherwise use this forum for. While I am not a thread ****, per se, I do get tired of answering the same questions over and over and over and over and…(get the idea?) At level 60, agi converts to crit percentage at a 53 to 1 ratio.
I don't pretend that this will answer *every* question, as the title indicates, but it should answer all the common ones. If you have a more complicated or unusual question and you don't see it, by all means start a thread for it. However, if you ask a completely blank open-ended question that is answered in this FAQ, like "what's the best pet?" or "what's the best race?" or "what's the best talent build for kicking ***?" or basically any other question that contains the word 'best' with no specific details, you will be mocked and rated-down. Consider yourself warned.
If you know a question that should be on this thread but isn't, post a reply with it. (I wouldn't mind if you also included the answer, assuming you know it. I'm not the single authority on hunter-ing.)
The pre-1.7 version of this FAQ can be found here.
IF YOUR QUESTION IS ABOUT PETS, GO TO THE FIRST POST ON PAGE TWO. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT TALENTS, GO TO THE TOP OF PAGE THREE.
Questions related to specific skills are in the second post on this page.
GENERAL QUESTIONS
What is a hunter good for?
Hunters are the ranged combat class in WoW. Since they don't (really) have magic, they have some limited combat abilities for if something does get in their face. They also have beast pets whose primary purpose is to allow them to use ranged combat while soloing.
After level 40, they wear stronger armor than any classes other that warriors or paladins, (but not use shields like the other mail class,) plus other defensive abilities such as a high dodge and parry rate. They can also use all weapons other than maces or wands. Hunters are excellent soloists and arguably the best pullers in the game. Unfortunately neither of these skills come into play much during most groups.
Are hunters fun?
Yes, hunters are fun. Any class in the game is fun or not fun, depending on who you ask. I personally despise playing warlocks and druids, but other people think they're the best classes in the game.
Hunters are not an in-your-face class like a rogue or warrior. They aren't a powerful healer or AE damage dealer that has a concrete role in a group. But they are fun for being what they are. If the concept of a hunter sounds appealing to you, you will probably have fun playing one.
Do hunters suck at PvP?
What is the dead zone?
How do I jump shot?
Yes and no. The bottom line is that every class has it's strengths and weaknesses. A hunter, on average, can beat some classes easily, like rogues, and have a lot of trouble with others, like druids.
There are plenty of ways hunters are useful in a PvP environment. On a PvP server, Track Humanoid is invaluable, as is Freezing Trap. The "jump shot" allows a hunters to deal limited damage while outrunning their opponents by doing a 360 mid-air and firing an instant shot while facing backwards. They do however suffer greatly from the "dead zone" - the region outside of melee reach, but still too close to use a ranged weapon -- between 5 and 8 yards. Mages and druids in particular are excellent hunter killers because they can root you and stand in this null space where you can't fight back, and nuke you to death.
In battlegrounds, hunters can often have very interesting roles, particularly defensive ones such as guarding the flag in Warsong Gulch or a node in Arathi Basin. Between tracking to see your opponents coming, and being able to put freezing and frost traps down to stop aggressors, hunters make good guardians.
Performing a true jump shot is a complicated mess of pushing buttons on your mouse and keyboard in well-coordinated fashion, so I’m not going to take three paragraphs to explain how to do one. The easier thing to do is simply strafe, since you run just as fast as strafing, and as long as your target is more in front of than in back of you, you can still hit it.
This is as much as I'm prepared to say specifically about PvP.
How do I beat a...?
You'll have to use every trick in the book and think for yourself. There really isn't much anyone can do to magically make you a better player in PvP besides reminding you of what abilities you have. As the posters at the official boards would say, L2P.
What's the best race?
No race is the single best. They all have advantages. First, let it be said that STARTING STATS DO NOT MATTER. Don't pick a Night Elf over a Dwarf because of the difference in starting agility. My character has around 400 agility, and if I had been a Dwarf rather than a Night Elf, I'd have around 393. Big deal.
As far as racial attributes go...
Night Elves can go unseen with Shadowmeld, which is particularly useful for Aimed Shot, and get an extra 1% dodge.
Dwarves can cleanse poisons using Stone Form, and get a +5 bonus to using guns. (Effectively they attack like a character one level higher.)
Tauren have extra HP and can War Stomp to stun targets in close range to help them get back to range.
Orcs have pets that do greater damage, and a bonus to axes and resistance to stun/knockdown.
Trolls have a bonus to using bows, and can give themselves a small haste effect in the form of Berserking every few minutes.
But play what you want to play. That is more important than being the "perfect" hunter.
Should I use bows or guns?
Dwarves should favor guns. Engineers will probably favor guns. For anyone else, it doesn't really matter.
At lower levels, guns generally hit a little harder and bows fire a little faster. They have the same quivers/ammo pouches, same store-bought ammunition, and have neither really has a distinct advantage over the other, except that engineers can make bullets. A hunter should know how to use either, and be prepared to use whatever the best weapon is that they can pick up, or whatever they personally prefer. (I don't like the constant noise a gun makes, but I'm also an elf, so it makes sense I would use a bow.)
What about crossbows?
Crossbows are exceedingly rare in the game. They work just like bows - using arrows out of a quiver - but they have their own separate weapon skill. Crossbows as a general rule are very slow. Before patch 1.10 and "normalization" that took away most of the advantage of picking a weapon just because it was slow, crossbows were extremely popular. Before level 50, you might very well never see a crossbow unless you seek them out.
Which is better - a 2-hand weapon or dual wield?
Use whatever has the best stats, and don't worry too much about damage on the weapons. Since a hunter's strength is fighting at range, they do not need to focus on their melee DPS.
Generally speaking, a 2-hander will have better stats, but a pair of 1H weapons offer greater flexibility. At endgame, there are enchants that can add 25 (2H) or 15 (1H) agi to your weapons, which come out fairly evenly except perhaps for the cost.
In terms of actually meleeing, 2H is better during PvP when you are going to run by with a Raptor Strike and a Wing Clip and go back to ranged, because that one attack you make will be much stronger, but dual wield can do as much autoattack damage.
On that note, don't roll against a rogue or a warrior on a melee weapon that purely does damage and has no stats or other factors. You do *not* need a high DPS dagger with a chance on hit to do extra magic damage. This creates a lot of enmity toward hunters from other classes.
When do I get...?
Pets - level 10
Dual Wield - level 20
Aspect of the Cheetah - level 20
Feign Death - level 30
Mail armor proficiency - level 40
Shields - never.
Plate armor - never.
A well-defined group role - never.
Where do I learn to use <some weapon type>?
In every major city, somewhere, there is a weapon trainer. Ask a guard where this person is. The weapon trainer for a city only teaches certain weapons, but if he doesn't teach what you want, he can tell you who (in another city) does.
What are the most important attributes for hunters?
Agility is number one. No questions asked. That doesn't mean you should switch items because one has a single point of agility more if you are sacrificing other stats, though.
Stamina, Intellect, and Spirit are all of some benefit to hunters, although most will favor Stamina over the other two. Some hunters argue that a hunter should not get hit, and thus more HP is irrelevant, but more mana lets them fight longer, so they try to get intellect. If shots didn't trigger the 5-second rule that halts mana regen for 5 seconds after a successful "spell", spirit would be superior for hunters.
Later in level, you will start seeing other qualities on equipment. Agility is good because it increases your Attack Power and your chance to crit. There are items that specifically increase one of those two factors, and are important to your damage output. There are also +hit% modifiers that make you less likely to miss.
While usually the last thing hunters look at, defensive attributes like armor and chance to dodge are of some limited benefit. Agility also increases your chance to dodge and parry, as well as your armor.
How does attack power, chance to crit, and chance to hit work?
What is DPS?
Attack Power (AP) and crit chance increase your damage in different ways.
AP increases your basic DPS by 1 DPS per 14 points of AP. Note that DPS stands for damage-per-second, and is a rate, not an amount per hit. So your attack power will scale to give slower weapons the right amount more that they should do. This has some ramifications regarding abilities that use weapon damage after these modifiers, such as Aimed Shot and Multishot.
Crit chance gives you better odds to get a critical hit. Items that affect this increase it by 1%, usually. A crit will deal double damage, or if you have the Mortal Shots talent, x2.3 damage. A large number of crits creates "spiky" damage that can steal aggro early in the fight, and hunters that focus on "crit gear" will often have lower basic DPS since they lack attack power, but critical chance is another important way to increase your overall damage output.
Note that agility increases your ranged attack power by 2 per point of agility (and 1 for melee), and roughly every 53 points of agility increases a hunter's critical rate by 1%. This crit rate conversion is specific to hunters, and is the worst of all the classes in the game. People speculate why, but nobody has come up with a reason that really satisfies why it is nearly double (or half) that of any other class. (Rogues are 29, other classes are 20.)
Chance to hit affects your accuracy. Loosely speaking, you have a 95% chance to not miss an even-level target. (This is actually based on the difference between your weapon skill and the target's defense skill, so higher level creatures and warriors with lots of +defense will be missed more often.) Adding 1% chance to hit adds to this 95%. There is some cap on your hit rate; you can not get 100% chance to hit.
English translation? How should I decide which gear is better?
1 AP = 1/14 DPS (pre-crit)
1% crit = 1% of your tooltip DPS, or 1.3% with Mortal Shots
1% hit = 1% of your tooltip DPS, until you add 5 or 6%.
1 agi = 1/7 DPS + 1/53 of the crit line (roughly 6 agi to 1 DPS)
By tooltip DPS, I mean go to your character window and mouse over your damage and use the number that gives you. So if you had 150 DPS listed and no Mortal Shots, 1% crit and 1% hit would add 1.5 DPS...which would take about 21 AP or 10 agility to equal.
1 agi is also good for 2 armor and about 26 agi is 1% dodge.
1 int is 15 mana.
1 sta is 10 HP.
1 spi is 1/4 mana regen every 2 seconds.
Where do I view my critical rate?
If you mouse over your "attack" ability in your spellbook, it will give you your melee crit rate. There is nowhere to directly see your ranged crit rate, but a hunter's ranged crit rate will be the same as the melee, except if the skill of your current melee weapon is lower or if you have the Lethal Shots talent that will raise it by up to 5%. A 1 point difference in the weapon skills makes a noticeable difference in the end result, so make sure they are *equal*.
What are the best enchants for a hunter?
Why are there no ranged weapon enchants?
The best enchants are the ones that add to the things mentioned in the "best attributes" question. Increased melee damage and weapon procs like Crusader are not generally worth the expense, although if you like the orange glow of a Demonslaying enchant on your spear, go for it.
Ask your guild enchanter what he can enchant that would be useful. I wouldn’t advise heavily investing in enchanting before 60, because you will replace your gear every couple levels, but at 60, you might consider the +15 agi weapon, +7 agi glove, +7 agi boot, +9 sta bracer, and +100 HP or +4 stats chest enchants.
For head and legs, you will need special items called librams, that involve doing a small repeatable quest. There are librams that, among other things, add 100 HP, 1% haste, 1% dodge, 20 points of fire resistance, or 8 points to an attribute of your choice - to either head or legs. The best libram is a quest out of Zul'gurub called Falcon's Call that will add 1% hit, 10 sta, and 22 ranged attack power.
There are no ranged weapon enchants. I'm not entirely sure why, but this is where engineering comes in. Scopes can modify ranged weapons to add +damage effects the same way +damage enchants modify melee weapons. There is also a scope that adds 3% chance to hit.
What is the hunter's role in a group?
A hunter's primary role in a group is to safely deal damage. They have other possible roles, but 90% of the time, your group will want you to just stand in the back and shoot. Note that that means not taking aggro, running into other creatures to get a clear shot, or breaking sheep.
Other things you can do for your group include:
Crowd Control - Freezing Trap will work on nearly every creature in the game. While you must be out of combat to place it, it affects the first target to run across it, and it doesn't work extremely long when the effect isn't broken by someone hitting the frozen target, freeze trap is still a very powerful tool. Also, your pet can sometimes off-tank things in a pinch; at higher levels, this isn't usually recommended, as Fido will not weather too many hits from elites, but better your kitty than your healer!
Scout - hunters can track, meaning they can know if something is nearby without walking up to see it. Hunters can also use their pet with Eyes of the Beast to go exploring; even if the pet aggroes something, as long as he doesn’t bring it back to the party, it doesn’t matter.
Tank - it's a pretty sad day when this happens in a group, but in some cases and with the right talents, your pet can tank single targets, and if there is no healer, you will blow all your mana trying to keep it alive. (This is generally a much more acceptable thing to do before level 50 than after.)
Why do people not want hunters in their group?
Some people like to make generalizations about members of a class based on one bad experience, or what others tell them. Here are a few reasons why people have bad opinions of hunters.
1) The idiot total. There are too many of us altogether. This can be a direct issue, (rarely room in a group for one,) but also this is a byproduct of it being a perceived "cool" class and a "l33t soloist", and so hunters have an overabundance of dipsh*ts.
2) No clear-cut group role other than damage, which other classes can out-perform. Hunters don't really do anything in a group nobody else can do, and they do NOT outdamage rogues or mages, contrary to what someone will inevitably reply and try to contradict. Damage meters don't prove anything, and neither do poorly-equipped rogues or clueless mages. Further, because it is rare for some hunters to get into a pick-up group, they often don't know what they're doing and mess up, which leads to other people wanting hunters in their group even less.
3) The melee weapon myth. Rogues and warriors always complain that "this one time in band camp, a hunter rolled on my Dal'Rend's weapon. WTF is up with that?" There are times when a hunter should *not* roll on a melee weapon, but for every time that has happened, there has been another where a hunter was rolling on a weapon that would help him and a rogue declared that because it was a melee weapon he could use, clearly he was entitled to it because he deals primarily melee damage, so he needs it more. A valid argument, until the agility and attack power of the weapon come into play, which also help the hunter's ranged damage. There is also the added myth that hunters are the most common ninja looters, which is bull, cause everyone knows rogues are the thieves in this game. (Literally!)
What is a hunter weapon?
"Hunter weapon!" is a running joke among players, mostly started by idiotic comments on a site similar to this one called Thottbot. People there like to speculate on which class an item is good for, as if they have nothing better to do. At some point, it became a nominal standard to call any weapon a hunter weapon, just because hunters *can* use anything but maces, and certain hunters have a tendency to roll on anything they can use.
A true hunter weapon is a decent ranged weapon, or a melee weapon that helps a hunter directly increase their ranged damage or their survivability.
Why do hunters cost so much / use so much room in their bags?
In reality, hunters don’t cost more than other classes, but it sure seems that way after buying ammunition and pet food, plus all their other necessities. The costs of these things add up, but other classes have expenses too. Reagents, armor repairs, food/drink, poisons, etc. Do they compare to buying a stack of Roasted Quail and 10 stacks of Thorium ammo? I dunno, ask a level 60 warrior…and remember you don’t need crafted ammo.
The real kicker is that hunters can typically pick up less stuff before they return to town because of the quiver. There's really little that can be done about this. Take tradeskills that don't involve gathering 10 different stacks of herbs or generating more leather than you can pick up if this is an issue for you. However, I can also cite examples of how other classes face this problem as well…just not from level 1.
What are good tradeskills for a hunter?
There are four choices that are considered somewhat normal.
1. Mining/Engineering. This lets you build guns and create ammo so you don't have to pay for it. The irony is that Engineering creates more headaches than it solves, because it takes up massive amounts of bag space, costs a ton of money to save you a little bit on ammo costs, and doesn't create anything you can sell. You do get Targeting Dummies, Goblin Jumper Cables, and scopes out of the deal, though. The main reason most players do engineering is for the “toys†– trinkets like the decombobulator ray and mind control cap.
2. Skinning/Leatherworking. A great choice in the beginning, but later on leatherworking starts to suck because there are very few mail recipes and the ones there are are both hard to make and also more often geared toward a shaman. This will definitely help you before level 40, though, and you can continue to sell stacks of leather later on. A huge upside to skinning is that unlike other collecting skills, it won't interfere with your tracking.
3. Herbalism/Alchemy. Hunters benefit less from alchemy than most classes, but Elixirs of Agility and of the Mongoose are very helpful, and alchemy is one of the few tradeskills you can profit from if you know how, since everyone needs a potion or two at some point. Don’t overlook this one.
4. Mining/Skinning. This is the standard "collector" tradeskill set for farming items for others. People out to make cash often take this set-up to find things to sell on the AH. Unfortunately, this doesn't work as well with hunters as other classes because they have more limited bag space, but it can still work. Mining can be replaced with herbalism.
Note that First Aid, Fishing, and Cooking are not technically tradeskills, and do not count against your limit of two. All hunters should do First Aid. Fishing and Cooking help feed your pet, but aren't necessary as they can be a huge waste of time. (If Blizzard would add some high-level cooking recipes that don't require fishing, maybe I could do something with my capped Cooking skill!)
What's the best weapon?
Best in what way? The easiest top weapon to name is Rhok’delar, the class “epic.†However, there are weapons with higher DPS than Rhok out of dungeons more difficult than Molten Core. The most damaging weapons right now are Ashjre’thul, a crossbow from Blackwing Lair, and Huhuran's Stinger, a bow from Ahn'qiraj. The problem is that the “best†weapons only come from endlessly raiding high-end dungeons with a group of 40 people, or spending 26 hours a day PvP-ing.
Outside of raiding, some of the most popular weapons include the Carapace Spine Crossbow, Bloodseeker, Dwarven Hand Cannon, and Ancient Bone Bow. There are other decent choices, like Stoneshatter, Xorothian Firestick, and Deep Strike Bow.
Is Hurricane any good?
This particular item gets enough attention to merit its own question. The Hurricane is an exceptionally fast weapon with very good DPS for its level. This makes it useful in PvE, where steady damage from autoshot rules. However, the ammo consumption is very high, and by the time you hit 60, there are some much better weapons out there. Doing some math, out of the "top" weapons in the game, Hurricane ranked 38th out of 39. The Hurricane is a decent weapon, but it's highly overrated.
Why does weapon speed matter?
What is normalization?
Your attack power gives a direct bonus to your damage per second. So for autoshot, weapon speed doesn't matter one bit. If you have 700 attack power, which is a bonus of 50 DPS, and go from a weapon that has a delay of 2.0 to a weapon with a delay of 3.0, your attack power will change from adding 100 to each shot to 150 to each shot. After 6 seconds, it will be 300 damage either way.
However, it used to be that Aimed Shot and Multishot didn't use the weapon's delay for how often they could fire, but used the per-shot damage. Because of this, slow crossbows were extremely overpowering next to faster bows. In patch 1.10, Blizzard introduced a change to these abilities by normalizing their weapon delay to 2.8 -- in other words, when the game decides how much damage they do, it pretends like your weapon has a delay of 2.8. This way, an Aimed Shot will not do fully twice as much damage coming from a crossbow like Bloodseeker than from a bow like Hurricane.
So as it stands now, the biggest differences in weapon speed have been removed from the game. However, there are a few other, less significant differences. Fast weapons use ammunition faster, but they receive a slightly better bonus from the addition of a scope and will trigger Quick Shots from Improved Aspect of the Hawk more frequently. Slow weapons still technically do more damage per shot, and are probably still preferable in PvP. But weapon speed ultimately doesn't matter anywhere near as much as it once did.
Instead, people who raid will often focus on the delays in terms of the "10 second cycle." Generally speaking, against a target you won't take aggro from and won't die any time soon, the best way to maximize damage is to fire an Aimed Shot followed by a Multi Shot every 10 seconds, and autoshot between Aimeds. 10 seconds - 3 seconds for "aiming" leaves a 7 second window, and some weapon speeds fit this space better than others, meaning you are wasting autoshot time with some weapons and not with others. See the Az Math thread for more details.
How do I get the epic?
The "epic" quest for Rhok'delar begins in the Molten Core, off the second-to-last boss. Majordomo Executus will always leave behind the start for the hunter or for the priest "epic" quests. Take the item you find to Felwood, in the Irontree Woods, and you will need to kill four demons all by yourself. And that means completely alone - not even your pet can help, or it messes up the quest.
The battles are not easy, although they can be made much easier with certain potions, and can basically only be won in certain ways, mostly involving kiting.
See this link for a walkthrough for the quest.
What about other slots besides ranged weapon?
For the mostpart, the best items are the ones from our class sets. There isn’t a whole lot else that competes. Rings, cloaks and neckpieces are in fairly short supply.
Bear in mind, that's with regard to the "endgame". While you're leveling, just take whatever piece of green junk "of the monkey" or that otherwise helps your stats that you can find.
What are the class sets?
Beaststalker Armor is the basic set from the high end instanced dungeons like Stratholme and Blackrock Spire.
Beastmaster armor is the upgraded version of Beaststalker, sometimes refered to as tier 0.5, or dungeon 2.
Giantstalker Armor is the "tier 1" set from the bosses in Molten Core. While awesome items, you will NEED a raid to see any of these items, and chances are, that means you will need to be in a raiding guild.
Dragonstalker Armor is the "tier 2" armor. This comes from even higher level raid bosses like Onyxia, Ragnaros, and the major fights in Blackwing Lair.
Striker's Garb comes from Ahn'qiraj and is generally NOT considered to be tier 3 because it is not a complete set, only having 5 pieces. Also, Ahn'qiraj, while more difficult than Blackwing Lair, generally does not result in significantly better equipment.
Here are the PvP sets:
Horde officer armor
Alliance officer armor
Alliance Field Marshall armor
Horde Warlord Marshall's Armor
I'm level X and I have Y agility. Is my gear any good?
If X isn't 60, or 29 for a battleground twink, who cares? You're just going to replace it all in the next five levels.
Are hunters the best soloists?
No, but they are very good. They can move from target to target with little downtime, and can track to the next target to find it faster. The misconception of a hunter being able to fight while not taking damage making them be the best soloists is an often-repeated myth. Rogues are the best soloists, and many other classes can solo as well as a hunter.
However, a beast master hunter can level on their own extremely well. While generally not as useful in a group, beast masters are incredible soloists. I was skeptical of this until I finally specced an alt for BM.
What is pulling and how do I do it?
Pulling is the act of taking a creature from where it is to some other place to fight it. Usually that means one person goes off and fetches it to a spot where the rest of the group lies in wait to ambush it. If you want to know about how to pull, NuklearPower's Brian Klevinger has a decent explanation of it here.
I will add my own caveats to his writing, though. Hunter pulling is only more effective with a slow methodical process. While technically it's a more improved method of pulling, it isn't always better because it's sometimes like using a sledge hammer to squish an ant -- your shoe would do just fine. Not only does the group need to listen to you, and stay out of harm's way, but you need to carefully lay a trap, scope the scene, bring the group back, blah blah blah. The point is it is often easier for a random warrior with a gun to pull. Hunter pulling does become important in raid zones like Molten Core, where hunters have tools and tricks that allow them to survive pulls other classes would not. (Try pulling a lava pack without Eyes of the Beast.)
If you are asked to pull for a group, it pays to be thinking about your next pull, or even starting it while the group is still fighting. While I seldom get to pull for an instance group, in Molten Core I know the pulls and do my best to “chain pull†– bring another target to the group just as the last one dies. That isn’t something any other class can do very well, mostly because of feign death.
Can I play a melee hunter?
Where does melee fit in with playing the class?
In theory, yes. In reality, no.
Hunters are a ranged-dominant class. If you completely ignore this, that would be like a paladin that wants to deal massive damage in a raid, or a rogue that wants to tank, because hey - they have skills that let them do it, right?
Melee is not something you should be accustomed to doing as a first choice. It's rare that running in and whacking things with an axe is the ideal strategy for you at any given time. You will always do more damage with your ranged. Past level 40 or so, melee can't even compare.
Hunters should be prepared to melee when the circumstances arise, for example, when they can't get to ranged during PvP or in close quarters of an instance. Don't neglect your weapon skills completely. But realize that more often than not, you want to do what you can to get back to range, by Wing Clipping, Counterattacking, Feign-Trapping, Scatter Shotting, Intimidating, or whatever else you can come up with. Notice how many tools we have to get to range, though? And how many do we have for real melee damage? None.
Raptor Strike adds damage to a swing, Mongoose Bite does pathetic damage after a dodge, Counterattack is a defensive move that isn't focused on damage, and Wing Clip is laughable as an offensive move...with one exception: if you have a weapon with a "chance on hit" effect, spam Wing Clip all you want because you might trigger that effect. HOWEVER, any weapon with one of those effects is better off in the hands of an actual melee character, so the odds of this happening aren't too high.
What is feign-trapping?
Feign-trapping is a way to use your crowd control effects by taking a target out of the fight for a bit. Feign death, and lay a freeze trap at your opponent's feet. It's almost impossible to do successfully with your pet attacking something because your pet will put you back in combat as soon as you feign, so put your pet on passive if you try to do this. The odds of being able to do this in solo are still somewhat stacked against you. Try doing it in PvP or in an instance group, though, and it works wonders.
Other classes REALLY hate it when you do this to them in PvP, and have called for the nerf of this move countless times. The latest official word from Blue is that it's a perfectly legitimate tactic.
Why do people say hunters suck?
There are a lot of little things wrong with every class. For hunters, some are there because the class was the last to get put in the game and many facets of the game weren't designed with hunters in mind. Some are because Blizzard keeps tweaking the formulas and code used on hunter abilities. Some are bugs that have crept into the code and Blizzard hasn't or won't deal with. Some are just whines for other stupid reasons, like getting owned in a duel.
There are some real hunter issues. You can read the official boards if you dare to sift through the muck for them. However, the most important thing is, every class is playable, and every class is fun. Don't let all the forum whiners get to you.
The truth is, hunters are one of the most versatile classes in the game, with very good survivability, high damage capability, and a decent amount of utility. It's up to you to figure out how to bring all these things to your character, though.
Where are some other useful sources of info for hunters?
Good Intentions
Petopia (top 100 pets)
TKAsomething
The official Blizzard hunter boards
Official Bliz talent calculator
Edited, Sep 20th 2006 at 10:03pm EDT by Azuarc
Edited, Nov 3rd 2007 2:30am by Azuarc
