Hunter (World of Warcraft)

This article is about the World of Warcraft class. For the Hellgate: London class, see Hunter (Hellgate).

Azeroth is home to a wide variety of beasts. From the new world of Lordaeron to the old world of Kalimdor, all manner of creatures can be found. Some are friendly, some are ferocious - yet they all have one thing in common. Each creature shares a special connection with Hunters. Hunters track, tame, and slay all manner of animals and beasts found in the wild. Whether they rely on bows or firearms, Hunters consider their weapons and pets to be their only true friends.

The hunter is one of the easier characters to solo with, especially after lv 10 when one is able to charm a pet.

A quick breakdown on attack power vs dps and agi/crit. (copied from the Hunter forum on the WoW boards)

Does attack power affect ranged attack power?
Attack power from equipment increases ranged attack power.
Attack power from buffs like battleshout do not.
This means that the black dragonscale set does increase ranged dps, but blessing of might does not.

How many attack power for 1 dps?
14 attack power = 1 dps

How many attack power from 1 agility?
1 agi = 2 attack power

How many agility for 1% crit
It’s roughly 53 agility for 1% crit at level 60

Hunter Spell List

Survival

Raptor Strike - The hunter's main close combat skill, used mainly as a finishing move or to 'joust' through an enemy while attempting to regain range.
Mongoose Bite - Damage dealing melee skill, can only be performed after you dodge an attack.
Wing Clip - Largely a PvP skill, Wing Clip slows the target, allowing the hunter to get back to range. Talents can give a 20% chance to immobilize for 5 seconds. (Useful in PvE to slow a mob that would run when its life gets low, thus preventing additional mobs being aggroed.)
Disengage - Lowers your aggro. This skill helps a hunter who has drawn aggro to transfer aggro to a pet or a tank.
Feign Death - Complete aggro wipe, on a 30 second cooldown. Feign also takes you out of combat (briefly), which allows you to set traps, drink, or change equipment, which you can't otherwise do in combat. Talents can make this (ever so slightly) less likely to be resisted.
Tracking - One of the best hunter skills. There are very few mobs in the game that can't be tracked by one of the hunters' tracking skills. Mousing over the dots on the minimap will show you the name of that mob. Track Hidden has been improved, but is still spotty for spotting stealthed rogues. If you expect to run into PvP, keep humanoid tracking up.

Traps - The hunter has 4 traps available, which can be improved through the trap mastery talent. Traps must be set while out of combat, and a hunter can only have one trap laid at a time.

- Immolation Trap - applies a 15-second Fire DoT to the mob.
- Explosive Trap - a Fire trap that explodes and does AoE damage.
- Frost Trap - an Ice trap that has an AoE slowing effect, but does no damage.
- Freezing Trap - an Ice trap that completely immobilizes an enemy for 20 seconds at its highest rank (23 seconds with Trap Mastery talent). Freezing Trap is an amazing skill, since enemies that can't otherwise be crowd controlled with polymorph or sap can still be frozen with freezing trap. Also, it is possible for a hunter to trap a single mob for 2 durations of freezing trap, if they trap the mob, then feign death to get out of combat, and drop another freezing trap so that the mob will trigger it when the first trap wears off. This tactic is dependent on feign not being resisted, but keeping a single mob out of the fight for 40-46 seconds is great when possible.

Survival Spells requiring talents:

Counterattack - a melee attack that can only be applied after you parry. Counterattack deals damage and stuns for 5 seconds, and can't be blocked, dodged, or parried, so it's a great skill for PvP.
Wyvern Sting - a sting that can only be used out of combat, Wyvern Sting is a 12 second 'sleep' effect. After the sleep wears off, there is a 12-second Nature DoT applied to the target (likely to prevent trapping the target after sleeping it).

Marksmanship

Hunter's Mark - This spell marks the target with a very noticeable arrow, which makes it a great skill for party play, to help the party know what mob to focus fire on, or which mob you'll be trying to catch in a freezing trap. It adds ranged attack power to everyone attacking the target, and also can be used in PvP to prevent rogues from vanishing.
Flare - an AoE effect that shows all hidden targets in its radius. Great to expose vanished rogues and stealthed mobs.
Distracting Shot - used to pull aggro to the hunter. If someone else is pulling, this can be used to pull a specific mob to the hunter, often used to pull a mob into a freezing trap
Concussive Shot - slows the target by 40%, talents add a 20% chance to stun. Note that concussive has higher threat than many shots, so may not be the best shot to use while soloing if your pet has trouble holding aggro.
Arcane Shot - an instant shot that's great for pulling and adds arcane damage.
Multi-Shot - a semi-instant shot that hits up to 3 targets. Be careful using this around crowd controlled mobs.
Volley - Volley is the hunter's only AoE shot (Explosive Trap is our other AoE), and does arcane damage.

Stings: Each hunter can only apply one sting. Also, the only sting that stacks is serpent sting, so if you're partying with other hunters, organize what sting you'll be using.
- Serpent Sting - a nature DoT. More useful now that the debuff limit has been increased, but be careful using this if you might need to control the mob later on, as an active DoT will prevent trapping or sheeping.
- Scorpid Sting - Reduces the strength and agility of the target, lowering its damage. Good vs. physical attackers, can help to keep your pet or party tank from taking too much damage.
- Viper Sting - drains mana from the target. Note that most caster mobs have a large mana pool, so viper may not have a significant impact, unless used in conjunction with the mana drain of another class to keep an empty mana pool from regenerating.

Marksmanship skills requiring talents:

Aimed Shot - Aimed Shot takes 3 seconds to cast, but adds a significant amount of damage (600 at max rank), and can be devastating when the shot is a critical strike, particularly against low-armor targets.
Scatter Shot - a close-range 4 second confuse effect, great for PvP to drop a trap and get back to range. Any damage done will cancel the effect.

Beast Mastery

Eagle Eye - Good for scouting crowded areas, to see which mobs one can pull. Tip: To turn it off, just sit down by typing "x".
Beast Lore - When cast, the tooltip will show you information about beasts, most importantly whether they are tameable.
Mend Pet - The hunter's only healing spell, to help you keep your pet on his/her feet. With talents, Mend Pet can also clear debuffs from your pet.
Scare Beast - a single-target fear, useable on beasts only. In PvP, it can be used on Druids in beast form and other hunters' pets.

Aspects - the hunter has 5 aspects available, only one of which may be active at a time. Most hunters spend the lion's share of their time in Aspect of the Hawk.
- Aspect of the Hawk - Main aspect, increases ranged attack power.
- Aspect of the Monkey - Increases dodge percentage, great for melee and PvP.
- Aspect of the Cheetah - Increases your run speed by 30%, great for getting around before you have a mount. Caution must be used when traveling through areas with hostile mobs, since any hit will daze you for 4 seconds.
- Aspect of the Wild - Gives your entire party added Nature Resist (60 resist at max). - Aspect of the Pack - Basically an Aspect of the Cheetah for your entire party, including the daze effect upon being hit. Good for traveling inside an instance, when mounts and travel forms can't be used.
Aspect of the Beast - Makes you show up as a beast on other hunters' tracking, can be used to 'hide' from other hunters in PvP.

Beast Mastery Spells requiring talents:

Spirit Bond - passively increases the health regeneration of you and your pet.
Intimidation - a 3 second stun
Bestial Wrath - doubles your pet's damage and makes it immune to crowd control for 15 seconds. Cooldown of 2 minutes.

Pet Control Skills: These skills are mandatory if you have a pet, and are acquired through the hunter class quests that start at level 10 from the hunter trainer. The first quest is to tame (charm) 3 particular animals, and once you complete that quest, you'll get a second quest (that gives you feed pet and the rest of the pet skills) once you visit a pet trainer in a main city.

Revive Pet - to ressurect your pet when it dies.
Feed Pet - you need to keep your pet happy by feeding it food that it likes. Keep a close watch on your combat log, to be sure that the food you're feeding your pet is giving it 35 happiness per tick. If you're getting less happiness, you need to switch to a higher level of food. Your pet will require food of higher level as it levels. Different species eat different foods, check the Pet screen to see what your pet's diet is.
Tame Beast - to tame new pets. You can only have one 'active' pet at a time, so you'll need to stable your current pet, or permanantly abandon it in order to train a new one.
Beast Training - to train your pet with new skills, see the Pet Skills section below.
Dismiss Pet - for when you want your pet to temporarily unsummon. Useful for times when your pet might not follow you, like making jumps in instances, or when you won't need your pet for a while and don't want it to lose happiness from standing around.
Call Pet - to call your pet to your side when it's currently unsummoned.

Taming Pets

As listed above, hunters can tame pets after completing their class quests, which start at level 10.

A list of tameable pets is listed on the WoW Community forums here.

A good page to check out the colour of various pets is here, for the fashionable hunter.

Pet Skills

You will get rank 2 Growl for free. Higher ranks of growl can be learned from the pet trainer, who can normally be found near the Hunter trainer. The train pet skill is located in your general skill page, where your racial spells, professions and skills like dual-wield and throw are listed.

Pet skills cost training points (except Growl, which is free to train). To see your pet's current training points, check the Pet Details. Training Points are equal to Loyalty Level * (Pet Level - 10), so even level 60 pets can gain points by gaining loyalty levels. A level 60 pet at the highest loyalty level will have 300 Training Points.

In addition to Growl, pets can also learn other skills. Passive skills are available from the Pet Trainer, and active skills (other than growl) are available from training other animals. Note that some active skills can only be learned by particular species of pet.

Passive Skills (no limit other than training point cost): Great Stamina Natural Armor Resistances - Fire, Frost, Arcane, Nature, Shadow. Each school of resist is trained separately.

Active Skills (limited to 4 per pet):

Growl - a taunt that your pet can use to hold aggro on a mob, allowing you to fight from range.
Cower - decreases aggro on your pet, used in solo play to shift aggro to the hunter when the pet is in trouble.
Claw - fast casting added damage. Can use up a pet's focus if left on auto-attack.
Bite - slow casting added damage.
Dash - a sprint that you can use to have the pet quickly approach and engage a target.
Prowl - pet will go into stealth. Pet moves slower while in stealth mode, but the first attack from stealth has added damage. Useful for ambushing in PvP.
Screech - only trainable by owls, bats, and carrion birds, screech is an AoE attack power debuff, so it's great for PvP.
Furious Howl - this wolf-only skill is an AoE party buff that adds damage to the next attack, great for raiding.
Scorpid Poison - a stackable nature DoT, obviously used only by Scorpids.
Lightning Breath - Trainable to Wind Serpents, Lightning Breath is a ranged single-target nature damage spell.

A list of which pets to tame for particular skills is here.

This tool can be used to plan your pet's skills. If you want to make a change, you can visit a Pet Trainer to have your pet's training points reset. Like a talent reset, this gets progressively more expensive the more times you do it.

Role in party

Hunters can pull in parties, This is an interesting article on party placement during pulls.

Even if not pulling, a hunter makes a great group leader, with being able to use tracking to spot patrols, and having the ability to use hunter's mark to direct the group. Freezing trap is great crowd control when someone else is pulling, just pick and mark your mob (make sure it's a non-caster mob that will run to engage you), and immediately after the pull is started (by someone else), use distracting shot to pull the mob to your trap, away from the group. If you keep your pet from engaging, you may be able to double-trap the mob if your feign works.

Hunter pets work great as main tanks for groups up to about Uldaman, and even after that, a pet whose master is specced in Beast Mastery and who has spent their training points on Stamina or Armor (or both!) can do a great job at tanking with healing support. Even non-BM specced pets can do off-tanking duty in Dire Maul and the other end-game instances.

In groups, you'll generally want to keep your pet's growl off. Pets are great at grabbing aggro on an unexpected add, or on a mob that's breaking from the main group and going for the healer.

Soloing

Soloing is an area where hunters shine, since they have a built-in tank to help them out. You'll generally want your pet to get an unresisted growl in before you start shooting (you can put up a hunter's mark in the meantime). In general, you'll want to keep doing steady damage, and won't want to pull aggro off your pet, so you won't typically use shots like aimed and concussive, because of the extra damage/threat they cause. Scorpid sting can be good to keep low health/armor pets alive a little longer, and for hardier pets, you can use serpent to take the target down a little faster, or use your mana on arcane and (if you're sure you won't accidentally pull adds) multi-shot.

Gear

Some hunter gear, for various builds and at various levels, is listed here.

Top 40 Hunter Weapons Post 1.10 Normalization (Pre-Naxxramas)

Note: This does not take into account any other equipment worn, not even quiver bonuses. Only the weapon's DPS.

1. Huhuran's Stinger

2. Ashjre'thul, Crossbow of Smiting

3. Blessed Qiraji Musket

4. Grand Marshal's Repeater or Hand Cannon

5. Dragonbreath Hand Cannon

6. Rhok'Delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers

7. Heartstriker

8. Blastershot

9. Crossbow of Imminent Doom

10. Gurubashi Dwarven Destroyer

11. Polished Ironwood Crossbow

12. Mandokir's Sting

13. Silithid Husked Launcher

14. Hoodoo Hunting Bow

15. Striker's Mark

16. Crystal Slugthrower

17. Deep Strike Bow

18. Dwarven Hand Cannon

19. Core Marksman Rifle

20. Ancient Bone Bow

21. Xorothian Firestick

22. Stoneshatter

23. Bloodseeker

24. Dark Iron Rifle

25. Flawless Arcanite Rifle

26. Carapace Spine Crossbow

27. Bow of Taut Sinew

28. Grand Marshal's Bullseye

29. Blackcrow

30. Heartseeking Crossbow

31. Outrider's/Outrunner's Bow

32. Willey's Portable Howitzer

33. Satyr's Bow

34. Riphook

35. Screeching Bow

36. Shell Launcher Shotgun

37. Eaglehorn

38. Hurricane

39. Steelarrow Crossbow

40. Megashot Rifle

Talents

Keep in mind any skills you may want at the top of the talent tree. Most builds focus on heavy Marksmanship investment to get Trueshot Aura, or heavy Beast Mastery to get Bestial Wrath. Investing in Survival is wise if you plan to do a lot of PvP, since you won't be able to rely on keeping attackers at range, but Wyvern Sting is generally seen as not worth the investment, so that frees up points to use in the other trees. PvP builds often include enough Marksmanship talents to get Scatter Shot. You can use this tool to plan your talents.

PvP Talent Build (Marksmanship/Survival/Beast Mastery) - Sjur

Removed - Outdated.

Various Builds - martini (Rhyssa)

Surv/Marks - Rhyssa's current build, made mostly to play with the new Survival tree and with Wyvern, which I never use, so I'll probably spec out of it eventually.

Surv/Marks - Probably what I'll go back to when I respec Rhyssa.

BM/Marks build - purely theory, but is what I'm working towards for my hunter on Tich.

Typical 5/31/15 PvE build

PvP Surv/Marks build