Thinking about downloading the trial.Follow

Thinking about a change of pace and trying the game's trial, but I'm just wondering how the Hunter class feels? Always been a fan of archer types, so this seems like the best thing to try out. Anything in particular I should know from the start, or things I should focus on like crafts? I can see pets are an important aspect of play, but don't know if one's better than the other at certain levels, etc..

I can only say one real thing about hunters and that is they are a bit of pain in the butt until you get to level 10 , but if played well enough can get to level 10 in around 3 hours fairly easy and are probably the easiest class to level fast .

Pets are another thing that makes us special but really at low levels it does not make much difference in what pet you use , my preference at first is a boar and that is mainly because they eat just about everything that can drop that is edible and i would say try out whatever you think looks cool on your hunter and believe me there is no pet i will not use and have not tried , pets that fly can get annoying with the flapping wings and some others can get annoying with either their sounds or the idle animations like the gorillas scratching their butts but none are bad and your level 10 choice will be just as good at level 80 unless you start raiding and may need to change to a different pet but you can have 5 different pets ( 1 out 4 in stables ) so that should not be a problem.

I was saying 3 hours max as i know a few players that died so many times it took them at least that long , as it is it does not take me long for any class i try but then again i know all the quests in all the areas at least up to level 40 and in some areas to at least level 70.

I'm with Theo on this. Level 10 for any class should be had in less than an hour and a half. You level with a sneeze. "Congratulations! You've found your tush with both hands! Welcome to 5th level!" (Edit: Once you get the hang of the Exclaimation point meaning 'quest here' and Question mark meaning 'turn in quest here' it goes pretty quick.)

Now, having said that, it gets tricky after you get your pet. You then have to learn to properly USE your pet. That can take a couple dozen levels if you don't have someone help you with the concepts. I didn't start getting used to using my pet properly until I was doing Gnomergone runs, which when you fail with proper pet use, you wipe the entire party on a regular basis. I admit, I didn't have a mentor and was clueless. That's when I started looking at boards like Alla to figure out what I was doing wrong.

So you are already ahead of the game. Learn proper pet use early, levelling goes quicker and it's easier to concentrate on learning the Hunter role in groups. Failure to learn that gets you labelled a Huntard really fast. You should be learning that role from the first instances and onward. Find a good leveling guild and a mentor that knows their stuff. If what your mentor is telling you conflicts with what you read here, your mentor is likley running you down a wrong road. The stuff here is pretty well worked out and known to be effective.

Read the FAQ stickies here in the forum, ask questions you've given a couple of minutes of thought about to answer what is buggin' you and we'll be happy to help. Ask questions like "What is the best pet" at your own peril... ^_^

Edited, Mar 9th 2009 10:02am by sloshot

I've never played a hunter to a high level, but to me hunter's always been the class standing somewhere on the side in the shadow. I've always had the idea that I never got to play with or against hunters too much, and because of that they always surprise me when I meet one; they pack an unexpected punch and come with buffs I never really realized were there.

The pets that hunters have for me create a huge part of 'class specificness' for the hunter; I never really notice the difference between playing for example a troll priest or an orc warrior when leveling, but playing a hunter always causes some sort of spark; I spend most of my first 10 levels waiting for those pet quests, and the 10 levels after that are spend messing about in the barrens working out how to put my pet to effective use. That said, I'm not sure if you can actually get a pet when you're on trial seeing as you need level 10 for the quest and the trial (afaik) caps you at level 10. I'm not sure what happens.

Long and vague story short; to me hunters have always been 'the unseen' class, even moreso than the rogue. What's iconic about a hunter to me is the pet jumping into the fight and arrows/bullets coming from one side. I dislike the fact that they aren't able to deliver anything but ranged DPS, but I do think they would be fun to mainly level and play in PvP.

Admittedly, I didn't look at it initially because it had WotLK slapped on the front and I kinda figured the expansion wouldn't apply all that much to me. I've been browsing it off and on over the past few days when I've had a moment or two to spare, though.

Anyway, think I'll set the download to go overnight, then hopefully I'll be able to give things a whirl this weekend since I have a few days off. I don't really expect the first levels to be much since they rarely ever are in a game, but hopefully 10+ gets more interesting.

Or, if it's a more specific question you can ask it in the HELP ME thread. :)