questions from a new hunterFollow

Agility and Intelligence are arguably the most important stats for a hunter. Agility is important because it Increases our attack power with ranged weapons and melee weapons.
It also has other benefits:
* Increases armor by 2 per point of Agility.
* Increases Critical Strike Rating by 0.552 (Level 70)
* Increases chance to dodge attacks(25 Agility = +1% Dodge Chance)
But make sure not to focus on just pure agility, because as you level, you may want some Stamina and a bit of Spirit.
For us hunters, 1 Agility = 1 Attack Power. Try aiming for gear ending in 'of the Monkey' (agility/stamina) or 'of the Bandit' (agility/stamina/AP).

Intellect is important because it gives us mana. 1 Intellect = 15 Mana. As a hunter, mana is the source of our DPS. No mana = No DPS. Although, we have Aspect of the viper, it still isn't enough. Mp5 is usally also found on high end gear along with intellect, so aslong as you have an average amount, you're good to go. Also, Strength is the most useless stat for hunters because the only benefit it has for us is that it increases our Melee Attack power. Try avoiding any gear with strength on it, as it is usually for rogues, shammies or druids. Hunters should rarely ever melee, except for a few occasions.

Here is a list of stats, in order of importance (IMO)
1. Agility
2. Intellect (Could be swapped around with Stamina)
3. Stamina (Could be #2)OR Raw Attack Power (Always get Agility over Raw Attack Power)
4. Spirit or MP5
5. Strength (This only affects Melee attack power, so avoid this whenever possible.)



A cat is a fine choice for a pet. Most pets are similar, and as a low level, you shouldn't be too worried about the DPS differences. Your cat will be leveling as you do, so you won't be needing to tame another cat. Over time and when you're leveling, your pet should gain more training points, in which you can use them to invest in increasing your pets defences and stats. Another pet I would recommend would be a ravager. The ones closest to your level would be the Enraged Ravagers located on Bloodmyst Isle.

Also, your armor rating, Stamina and Raw Attack Power will be shared with your pet. ( Just a fraction of it.)



Well, the reason that most specs don't include the Imp Aspect of the hawk is because it increases your ranged attack speed. This may not apply to you before level 70, but end-game hunters use a shot rotation. This shot rotation may compile of Steady shots, Arcane shots, auto shots and a lot of others, depending on the hunter. The hunter follows this Shot rotation during all his battles and a little bit of Haste or extra attack speed may ruin the rotation or clip the autoshot which may lower your DPS. Since you're not raiding yet, you may as well keep this talent until you hit a higher level.


Edited, Apr 19th 2008 8:34am by Romordi

Please take no notice of the praise for intellect , Yes some is needed , but first is Agility , Second is Stamina , then as you do need Manna some intellect and spirit will help ,At level 70 using the standard Auto+Steady rotation with admittedly a small amount of Intellect i almost never need to drink , Others here can explain or have explained much better than i can what amount of intellect you need but my way is if i am running out of manna all the time i look for something with a little more intellect or i change the shots i use..

Your health and the Pets bonus for your armour and your stamina are all that matters , You can admittedly slower than by using all the spell shots get to 70 just by using Auto Shot with little manna usage except for Mend Pet..

Attack power is useful but not that important above the main stats at low level , Better to survive i think than to be a hard hitter and die a lot.

Strength is only good if you want to become a Melee Hunter , That is why it is not useful over agility or stamina then intellect and spirit for the manna pool and the regeneration of your manna.


Any pet will level with you , Every two levels visit both the Hunter trainer and the Pet trainer,But you will need to learn higher levels of Bite and Claw or whatever your pet of choice uses (do not use cower though it is almost never ever any use ), so you will need to tame temporary pets to learn the higher skills so you can train your original pet.

As for Talents , Well others have answered well in the top two posts but i guess it needs a reply.

First 0-5 points go Endurance Training , your health and the pets are top Priority.

Second 6-10 points i would go Thick Hide and Focused Fire , That gives more damage plus Pets get More tanking ability..

Third 11-15 points Go Into Unleashed Fury 20% extra Pet damage must be good..


That should get you up to speed as a hunter , unless others here disagree ??

All the answers are there in the top two posts which i thank the experts for ..

Also some food for thought, consider that basically your pet is a mini-tank and should be taking the bulk of the damage. The more threat or dps it can put out the better for you as you are less likely to pull aggro. DPS pets are the way to go.

If you have a cool kitty, keep it. It will level with you and become stronger, more powerful with you as you level. When you get to outland, people will trip out on the old school pet. :) Allmost everyone at lvl 70 has all outland pets... wich after awhile is pretty boring.

Stat wise; I tend to go a little less stam. and a little more agi. or ap. because I know that if I do pull aggro I can play dead, wipe aggro and start over with out getting slammed on. Feign death and later on, Misdirection are huge helpers in keeping the bad guys off yer jock. "...of the falcon" gear is pretty rockin'. Keep your eye out for it.

You aren't dreaming. Int gives you a larger mana pool, SPI gives you a faster mana regen out of combat. In combat at 20th level you're probably spending mana on something in any given 5 seconds and won't be doing any mana regeneration.

The recent change actually hurt your mana regen, as it was an overall buff for mana regen but the scaling made it a nerf for those with lower SPI totals. Such as Hunters. And Shaman. But regardless of how SPI works for you now you'll still do better to stack your AP and AGI (and Hit Rating where you can find it) and pretty much just let INT and SPI come along for the ride if they happen to be on a piece of gear you find. At 20th level you're not going to see any advantage by fiddling with your SPI totals looking to get above the point at which you'll see faster mana regen than you would have prior to the patch. I'm not even sure that would be possible, but if it is I'd wager that you'd be pretty gimped as a damage dealer.

Thanks for the info on spirit many thanks , i was thinking of enchanting spirit or adding it in some way but i guess int is as you say better for manna.. my manna is no problem in a group with buffs but single play i do get through manna faster than i would like, I am about to change some pieces of armour i have as they are not level 70 pieces but i am going to check up with the experts list on what to get next as it is easier to do that than try to find stuff on my own that is better..

katluvr why do you keep changing cats ? all you do is stable your original cat and pick up a disposable pet if needed , find the next cat or whatever beast has the skills you need to upgrade your own pets skills go kill a few mobs until you learn the new skill and train your old pet , far easier than having to gain loyalty i would think.

I have tried all the pet families there are at all levels and i go only by looks ,

i have two hunters with the unique coloured tall striders , i have one with the ghost saber another with a plaguelands boar , i have a windserpent and a warpstalker , and each hunter has a second pet except for my level 70 hunter which has three , all in all i see no reason to change my pets as i picked them for their looks ..

Edited, Apr 23rd 2008 5:51pm by sandralover