The Most Popular WoW Class (EU/US) Hunter Guide

It’s no surprise to learn the most popular WoW class in the EU and US is the hunter; the class is an overall top-tier, versatile, pure DPS class that can do its work in both ranged and melee combat with abilities that allow them to lay traps, execute flanking maneuvers, fire powerful ranged skills, and call animal companions.

The Hunter class has a plethora of unique game mechanics that make it highly enjoyable for players to invest their time in, for example, the class’ taming mechanic involves tracking, naming, and training animals found within the game. There are even a few highly rare Exotic Beasts that only Beast Mastery hunters can discover.

The Focus resource powers Hunter abilities, as well as their pets’ abilities. It is a slowly regenerating resource with a maximum value of 100 (120 for Beast Mastery hunters). Hunters can regain focus by using certain abilities.

Hunters are also able to take on Animal Aspects to utilize the special abilities they grant.

Summary

Resource: Focus

Primary Attribute: Agility

Armor Type: Mail (Leather)

Weapon Skills: Bows, Guns, Crossbows, Polearms, Swords, Axes, Staves

Signature Abilities

• Call Pet
• Feign Death
• Kill Command
• Aimed Shot

Specializations

• Beast Mastery
• Marksmanship
• Survival

Notable Racial Trait Synergies

Alliance

• Dwarves — Might of the Mountain will improve both your healing and crit damage by 2%, and Stoneform will let you mitigate DoT and physical damage for a short time.
• Gnomes — Enjoy 5% more focus thanks to Expansive Mind, and 1% increased haste from Nimble fingers.
• Night Elves — Touch of Elune will improve haste or critical strike by 1%, depending on whether it’s night or day. Shadowmeld gives you on-demand stealth and can serve as a backup for when Feign Death fails.
• Worgen — Viciousness will give you 1% more chance to score critical hits, and Darkflight will give you a speed boost for when you’ve just gotta go fast.

Horde

• Blood Elves — Arcane Torrent will refill your focus while providing a useful 2 second AoE silence.
• Orcs — Command will increase pet damage by 1%, while Blood Fury will improve melee attack power for 15 seconds and acts as an extra Trinket.
• Tauren — War Stomp provides a short AoE stun that’s useful for getting out of bad situations. Brawn increases critical strike damage and healing received by 2%. Endurance gives you more Stamina and more health.
• Trolls — Berserking serves as an extra trinket, by boosting melee, ranged, and spell attack speed by 15% for 10 seconds. You’ve got an escape option in Da Voodoo Shuffle, and Hunter Trolls can level extra quickly with Beast Slaying.

Combat

Ranged Combat

Depending on your race, you’ll start with either a gun, a bow, or a crossbow; most races start with bows, but Dwarves, Worgen, Goblins, and Tauren start with guns, and Draenei start with crossbows. You’ll only be able to use ranged weapons of your starting type initially, but later on, players can train to use other ranged weapons.

Crossbows have high damage but a slow fire rate, so are good for delivering burst damage, while guns are better at grinding down targets consistently over a longer time; bows are somewhere in between.

Supplementing their attacks, hunters make use of a variety of Stings and Shots.

Melee Combat

Survival Hunters forgo ranged weapons, instead of focusing entirely on melee combat alongside their animal companions. By working together with their pets, hunters can execute flanking strikes to deal damage and disorient enemies.

While Survival hunters can’t use ranged weapons, they still have considerable utility from range thanks to their array of throwing attacks and their ability to throw traps from range.

Unique Mechanics

Traps

Traps are a mechanic unique to hunters, and serve mainly to debilitate enemies.

Hunters can set the following traps:

• Freezing Trap — The first enemy that approaches this trap is frozen and unable to perform any action for a limited time. Any damage caused will break the ice.
• Explosive Trap — The trap explodes when an enemy approaches, causing Fire damage and additional fire damage over 20 sec to all within 10 yards.
• Immolation Trap — A trap that burns the first enemy to approach it, causing 15 seconds of fire damage.
• Ice Trap — A trap that creates an ice slick that lasts for 30 seconds when an enemy approaches it. All enemies within 10 yards are slowed by 60% when in the trap’s area of effect
• Snake Trap — This trap is filled with venomous snakes that will attack the first enemy to approach it.

Aspects

Hunters have the exclusive ability to assume different animal aspects. Animal Aspects are self-buffs that are modeled after different animals, and hunters gain access to 3 or 4 different animal aspects depending on specialization.

• Aspect of the Chameleon — Make yourself untraceable
• Aspect of the Cheetah — Increase your movement speed by 90% for 3 seconds, and then by 30% for another 3 seconds.
• Aspect of the Turtle — Prevents you from making any attacks, but reduces all damage received by 30% for 8 seconds.
• Aspect of the Eagle — Survival Hunters only; the hunter and their pet gain a 10% increase to Critical strike chance on all abilities while doubling chances to gain Mongoose Bite charges,
• Aspect of the Wild — Beast Mastery hunters only; both the hunter and their pet regain 10 focus per second while increasing critical strike chance for attacks for 10 seconds.

Pets

Hunters start with a pet at level 1 and gain the ability Tame Beast at level 10. Pets can be controlled through various commands. Hunters can only have one pet active at a time, but can immediately access up to 4 additional pets using the Call Pet hunter ability. They can house a total of 20 pets.

Starting Pets

Many beast-type mobs are tameable, and each offers a set of unique skills. Certain pets are better for DPS, and others for Tanking. In addition to regular animals, Taming Challenges present hunters with the opportunity to track and tame unique beasts, some of which are only accessible to hunters.

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