Hey guys! Coming back after a long break and trying to decide on a main for shadowlands. I made a post before I quit a while back, and when I came back in general asking this question, but now that alot has changed and no one really responded in general I figured I’d ask again. I tested out all the dps classes and decided between mage or hunter to play. Both feel really solid to me, I’m just not sure which to commit too. Can you guys give me some tips and opinions on this? Pref people who have played beta and messed around with the end game systems?
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New arcane is amazing, it’s just like the wrath of the King one so you can’t go wrong with mage. Hunters are extremely overpowered as marksman both on prepatch and on the Beta, so they are nerf prone. But if being overpowered is what you want can’t go wrong with hunter either.
I’m not worried about it being op or not I just wanna be a good ranged dps spec to try and get into a good raid group with. As far as specs go I really enjoy frost mage, but im willing to play arcane. Fire I dont feel like is in the best spot and prob needs some work done. For hunter I really enjoy MM, but im willing to play the off specs as well, though survival is in the same spot as fire for me where i feel like it prob needs work.
I’m pretty torn because they both have almost the exact same utility. lust, a spell steal/purge, slows, immunity, mobility, and limited stealth. only major diff is one has teleports, and the other can collect pets. hunter might have a slight edge on casting while moving but its not that huge especially if playing MM.
Go hunter. In case you have an itch to go melee just go survival spec. 
I like hunter and mage, hunter you get a melee option if that does anything for you. If you’re not concerned about hard-core conter or being a min/max freak, either class will be more that good in current state.
MM is looking decent, BM will be good as well. The mage specs seem to be good good or above so far. Ive been back and forth myself what class I want to play SLs as, aside from hunter mage is honestly one of the few I enjoy besides hunters which have always been my favorite. Shaman feels pretty fun, still like DH also.
Still not sure what class I’ll main yet. Maybe hunter because its been my favorite class since vanilla. However I find fire mage fun, actually like arcane and frost quite a bit too. Hard to pick between the two classes currently.
Ik what you mean its why im here asking for peoples advice lol
My position with Hunters right now at this moment is great, I’m likely remaining a main for mine as Marksmanship Hunter is more in line in a realistic sense with Beast Mastery because of the AOE cap. Not saying Beast Mastery is bad but they are still pretty gnarly themselves.
At this moment, during prepatch, Marksmanship Hunter is a real hard hitter class, if you ever seen posts about people talking about them in BGs, this is kind of why! While not the best AOE but being so hard hitting, given many utilities to survive, and whenever you need a tank, pull a pet out!
Sadly I won’t be able to give much more info than that because I didn’t play the beta so I can’t point anything else out. Though I have seen the legendaries and goodness do I like the few of them even if they are just recycled.
I think you should really base it on who’s rotation you like the most. Personally I love arcane, but arcane is dumb in things like mythic plus, because it turns you into a melee dps. I’m very excited about MM hunters, as I’ve been playing BM for eons, and it seems like MM will be a lot easier to be viable.
But, learn all 6 specs. See what rotations flow and make sense to you. If the rotation is bland to you, it’s not gonna be worth playing and that is personal preference. Like, I hate when I don’t always have something to cast after each GCD, and some specs have downtime where you literally auto attack. I despise that. Don’t think hunter or mage have that issue, but that’s just an example.
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Unless you prefer the Hunter class fantasy (which I do), honesty… I’d say go Mage. Mage always seems to be better sorted out.
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Yeah I’ve been thinking about that along with a few other things to try and decide. I’ve been having a rough time still with it haha I might end up just leveling both sadly.