I am going to be leveling a Hunter soon. Any tips or advice for a noob Hunter? Are there certain addons I should have for the class?
pick up a spear
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One of the first tips that is always good to know how not great pet auto cast is. This mainly applies to BM and Survival but you should have this macro in to almost all your offensive abilities:
#showtooltip
/cast Kill Command
/cast Claw(Basic Attack)
/cast Bite(Basic Attack)
/cast Smack(Basic Attack)
That example is will Kill Command an ability both BM and Survival use.
Misdirection is also an important Hunter ability that makes a tanks job much easier. Having a macro to use it easier is never a bad idea:
#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [@focus,help,nodead] Misdirection
Just remember to focus the tank at the start of a dungeon and you just hit the assigned key to misdirect.
Each of the 3 specs plays fairly differently.
MM (Marksmanship for short) has exceptional burst damage and can play entirely without a pet. You can still summon pets to make use of there special abilities or to use them as a tank in open world content. They also have strong AOE and are fairly mobile compared to most other ranged DPS.
BM (Beast Mastery for short) focuses around pets. They have strong sustained single target damage. They can make use of some more powerful pets called Exotic Pets which are not required but give you some extra benefits. BM is also the only ranged DPS that is 100% mobile giving you freedom to better react to what is going on around you while still doing full damage. They lack burst and don’t have as good of aoe as MM but are still very good.
Survival is the melee spec that combines forces with its pet. They use poison DoTs and other explosives and a mixture of other strikes and pet attacks. They have very good mobility for a melee DPS and even have a spell that lets them do full damage from range for a short period. They have possibly the best aoe of all 3 specs but require things to be fairly stacked
As for addons I personally use Weakauras to track important buffs and cooldowns. For BM I track Frenzy’s duration and Bestial Wraths cooldown. For MM I track Trueshot duration and Aimed Shot’s recharge. For Survival I track Serpent stings DoT duration and I also track which Wildfire Bomb I am getting from Wildfire infusion.
Best of luck out there!
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I just wanted to add to this bit.
Blizzard has tuned it that so MM’s single target dps is only about 1% different with and without a pet. This means you won’t be hurting yourself if you run with a pet!
You really only see a difference in AoE encounters — like M+ and raids — as petless MM pulls ahead. That’s because MM pets are not capable of AoE at all. 
Now you know the difference between MM with pets and no pets!
(Also, pets brings useful utility for PvP, so MM runs with pets in PvP — they just don’t hurt as bad as BM/MSV do if their pets die. They can still do DPS, they just lose some utility.)
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Check out Petopia or similar sights for either practical or cosmetic Pet(families) you’d like + potential guides connected to them.
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(BM hunter since TBC)
In casual BGs, hold back from the main action and try to focus on picking off low health healers/casters.
Hunters can do an excellent job of harassing the squishier classes as the big scary melee run around in the middle.
Why? BM has insane damage right now so it’s good to get in team fights.
Mostly because OP says they’re a noob hunter. Getting into teamfights is all well and good, but from what I’ve seen newer hunters can get a better grasp for PVP huntering by doing this sort of thing.
Plus, BM damage output ebbs and flows with each expansion. This is a simple thing someone can learn that will work weather your topping the charts or fumbling around at the bottom.
Plus a little battleground awareness from a ranged perspective is always a good thing to learn.
No reason BM CAN’T join the big brawl in the middle.
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By starting bad habits ? He’s going to be leveling and hunters are stupid strong in low level BGs.
Not really.
Picking off people doesn’t teach that.
Agree to disagree
/shrug
Sure but the difference is one of us pvps and the other doesnt.
uh huh.
So regardless of the objective fact that you have more PVP experience than me (nice flex, no one is disputing it) why should a day 1 hunter who may or may not have PVP experience run into the fray and just start shooting at whatever red name is closest to him?
I’m not trying to give him a class guide on how to climb ranked arenas. That’s not my field.
I’m trying to give the same advice given to me that helped me top casual BGs from raiders and PVPers who are much smarter than I am in this field.
If he wants to push harder PVP content, YOU should give him advice.
Don’t flex at me
Flex and help them
So far on this post about helping him be a hunter, you have not given him anything useful.
I wasn’t even flexing. I just stated that I actually pvp.
Also because at low level that’s all you really need to do. There isn’t any rotation or anything that you can do because you don’t have the majority of your abilities. The best bet is to just read your abilities as you unlock them.
Shouts out to this dude a real one.
Hi. Learn to play your pet.
Well for me I hope you go horde then orc. Because we’ll, we all know that’s the best combo 
. But seriously hunter is a great class and don’t listen to all the BS about BM being brain dead and the constant SV arguments. They never end on the forums.
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