Right. I forgot they deleted warlocks from the game since the last time I played. Hunters aren’t weak but to describe them as the best PVP class is nonsense. Rogues/Spriests/Warlocks/Mages are all better in 1v1s than hunters.
I don’t think hunters are the best 1v1 class… and I don’t think you have to be. Pure 1v1, Druids and pally’s are arguably the best dueling classes. A druid either wins, or can get away. And pally’s are the best 1v1 class imo, or their opponent runs away xD.
Rogues are great, but they are vulnerable. The best weapon a rogue has in pvp is they can pick their battles. Hunters and rogues are the two best classes at getting the initiative.
Spriests are a great 1v1 class, but they have weaknesses. All the way back in vanilla my main was priest. Was a lot of fun. They definitely aren’t the best. Their fear is a one-trick pony. They are also really good when they get the initiative, but they aren’t that great at getting it in the first place.
I think warlock and hunters have an even match.
And hunters eat mages for breakfast.
Overall… in my opinion hunters are the best pvp class. They are the most consistent, and are really good in bgs.
I know it sounds logical to assume shadow and warlock builds would be competitive at the top, but what you’re forgetting is that hunters have not only the pet to cause constant damage and spell pushback, but also we can stutter step and stay entirely out of caster range because we have a greater max range than any other class.
Then too this off with the most efficient mana drain in game in addition to our already fantastic utility; we’re impossible to deal within a 1v1 assuming both players are decently skilled.
I can’t think of a class that actually has a chance vs us excluding a couple of druid builds.
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That’s great in theory. Then you fight a warlock in practice and realise absolutely none of your tricks help you.
Pet damage is irrelevant unless we’re talking BM hunter (in which case you’ve probably already lost because lul BM) and pushback is completely irrelevant because locks only need to get corruption+curse of agony and tick away 60%+ of your health.
You can’t burst a warlock that isn’t completely braindead because they can just sacrifice their voidwalker for a massive shield (2k, 2.6k if talented), on top of potentially having Soul Link, in which case they can just resummon another voidwalker right after saccing the first one. And if you somehow get through the shields, locks are tanky as hell and have healthstone+Death Coil to regen even more health.
You can’t reliably mana drain locks because they can just dot you in return and win the battle of attrition. Even if you somehow manage to only get within 40 yards to viper sting and then run back out, they can still just life tap to get on-demand mana and beat you.
You can’t even kite them reliably because they have 36 yards range on most spells they’ll use, which means you have a whopping 5 yard window to play around (37-41). In a perfect theoretical situation, you’ll manage to kite them while viper stinging them and weaving autoshots when you’re at max range. In an actual pvp situation, you’ll never manage to kite them because they can either LoS you or not be kited. Also impossible to pull off in a duel.
Heck, you can’t even get within 20 yards of a lock to trap or whatever because they can just fearspam you from 100% to 0%. Hunters have 0 ways of getting out of fears outside of dispels.
The only way you’re beating a warlock is either bursting them because they have no clue how to play/you reflected a coil+some dots or perfectly kiting them between 36-41 yards for a full minute or two.
Hunters will obviously stomp locks during the leveling process, but as warlocks get stronger and stronger every tier (and every level), it gets progressively harder to fight them.
Every single class has the potential to beat a well played hunter, although Warrior/Paladin are the least likely to do it.
I never had a problem with even the best locks on my server. On of such became an arena glad every seson until he quit at the end of wrath.
Do you know why I never had trouble with casters in vanilla? Because in vanilla it was impossible for them to actually attack me.
Hunters that can’t deal with casters are either in a connection so bad they can’t kite or they’re failing to kite due to a lack of skill.
I assure you it’s not possible for a good hunter to be defeated if they know how to play the class.
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Hunters don’t have an issue with locks dude.
Hunters eat casters alive. The only disadvantage a hunter may have as a dps in general is they pull relatively low dps… against casters, they don’t have that problem, they are squishy.
Warlocks struggled in general with pvp in Vanilla. Not saying they suck, but they struggled. If no one is paying attention to you, warlocks are great, but they get mobbed so easily.
A hunter more often than not gets the drop on a warlock, and the spell pushback is too much to overcome.
I was being generous in saying the match-up is even… and I am still willing to say that. They are DEFINITELY not a counter to hunters, by any means…
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Stop using pre-1.12 locks as a metric. We’re getting 1.12 and talking about how classes were in 1.12. Warlocks are disgusting in 1v1 as long as they don’t get their stuff dispelled by shamans/priests. That’s the reason why they dumpster mages and why hunters can’t beat them. You can’t outlast a warlock.
There’s no spell pushback on dots nor on Death Coil. Curse of Exhaustion–>close the gap white dotting–>Death Coil–>Fear spam and there’s nothing hunters can do about it. Again, the only way hunters win is if they burst through an effective hp of over 10k or if they miraculously kite the warlock for a while with a 5 yard window to work with.
Warlocks aren’t squishy in endgame and past level 40-50ish.
Funny how hunters get countered by mages getting in their deadzone and spriests/locks facetanking their burst on top of shamans nuking them from orbit.
Good luck eating casters alive outside of getting a free aimed shot opener (which rarely happens).
Don’t waste your time arguing with them. They clearly don’t play hunters on private servers or are using anecdotal evidence from years ago versus scrubs.
Hunters lose out to every class 1v1 on average with the exceptions of
druids (assuming they have a scorpid pet to stack poisons to protect viper sting)
paladins
warriors
sure, favorable RNG and a ZG trinket allows them to get lucky and burst down a geared mage before they can react in T2+ gear, absolutely. does it happen often? not at all. You’re rocking maybe 22, 23% crit at that level of gear. how many times do you actually get a free fire aimed shot off versus a spriest, warlock, or mage? very rarely, if ever when its 1v1.
i’m laughing at the people saying “just kite” classes like warlocks lmao.
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I have seen a lot of the private server stuff and videos of supposed skilled players.
Im not the one that played with scrubs.
That’s great, bud.
Warlocks still hard counter hunters (and everything else in the game).
Agree with all points, but I do have to point out that overpower goes through deterance, and that for face to face melee warriors should train wreck a hunter even one speced for melee, unless the war is bad and not using overpower/ that parry ability
That is actually contrary to my experience though, honestly. Melee hunters can handle warriors pretty well. Overpower is nice of course, but it’s still significantly less damage than you would otherwise be doing.
That’s a complete lie. Warlocks do not hard counter other warlocks.
Oh what do you know, I was never ballsy enough to try it on a war haha
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It is melee spec, it became melee and range spec over time till mop, became op pvp spec and came back as full melee spec in legion (which is much better change, BM hunters can pvp and not be threaten to be reroll spec :D) and then bfa so far
Having played Survival throughout MC, BWL, AQ40 and Naxx….if I would have ran into melee, I would have expected to been kicked from the raid. Cleared a good bit of Naxx, and never once was in a fight where I melee the boss. Hell, most of the old school hunters laughed at the muntards because it wasn’t viable. It didn’t become truly viable until Legion, and even then it was terrible. So, if you happened to be one of those running around with Nightfall over an Arms warrior in a 40 man raid that typically had at least two hunters, if one of them had hit the 425-450 agility, they tended to out dps MM as ranged DPS, and were normally within the top 10 during Naxx (except Anub, who we had to play Aspect of the Pack bot for). Look at the old parses, they’re around…
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gee, that sounds like thats called being a melee spec
EDIT: This response is meant to deter people from using it as a melee spec, and thinking that it’s a melee spec. We don’t need a new wave of hunters who think that they can actually melee effectively in comparison to actual melee classes. 
Survival’s function is right in its name: surviving. If anything, its talents support you getting out of melee range, allowing you to do what hunters do best: kiting things.
- Improves your parry chance, allowing you to tank more melee hits before getting out of melee range
- Gives the Immolation/Explosive/Frost Traps a chance to root the target, allowing you to get out of melee range
- Gives Wing Clip a chance to root the target, allowing you to get out of melee range
- Increases the duration of your traps, allowing you to get out of melee range with an even easier time
- Increases your maximum health, allowing you to tank more melee hits so you can get out of their range… you see the pattern here, right?
- Reduces the chance your traps will be resisted so you can… yeah.
- Reduces the overall chance that your movement-impairing skills will be resisted so…
- Has a cooldown which massively increases your dodge and parry chance so you can tank melee hits, which allows you to… you’ve guessed it… get out of melee range easier
- Said above cooldown grants access to a Riposte-like skill which can’t blocked, dodged, or parried (counters to melee-specific mechanics) because it immobilizes the target for 5 seconds, allowing you to get the !@#$ out of melee range
- Wyvern Sting is an incredibly powerful CCing ability… that’s not meant for melee combat at all.
Yeah… it’s not a melee spec. Lol. However: RIFT, a WoW-like MMORPG, has a melee hunter-like spec called “Beastmaster” which allows you to fight effectively with melee alongside your pet. The spec is actually designed for that purpose, so it would be right up your alley.
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hunters have to go survival, to keep up dps wise, i think cut off begin end MC, BWL some where, where stacking agility, thanks to kings and your talents will surpass the mm hunter… you will get insane AP with raw agility, and alot of crit on top of that…
To be honest, Survival hunters can and do over take MM damage wise (BM is a bit iffy due to the full T1 bonuses being geared more toward them in lower brackets of the set) - Much of MC is debatable with which will hold higher DPS due to movement etc, but if you have a survival hunter with around 380 agi & 20% crit before raid buffs; they will constantly top an MM hunter if they understand to use all their ranged tricks and not follow these half assed private server guides to gear…I’ve looked at several of them now, and seen some very distinctly inaccurate gearing methods;
As an example: Taking Dal Rend’s over dual Bone Slicing Hatchet from Strat.
And, I know some scrub is going to want numbers for it, so here it is:
53 Agility = 1% Crit, 132.5 RAP (BM/MM Spec)
50 Agility = 1% Crit, 125 RAP (Survival LR Build)
- Dal Rend’s Arms: 4 Strength - 1% Crit, 50 AP (54 AP Melee)
- Dual Bone Slicing: 26 agility ((65 AP (RAP & MAP), ~0.5% Crit))
Now, let’s add in raid buffs that primarily affect hunters: Trueshot Aura & Blessing of Kings -
- Dal Rend’s Arms: 1% Crit, 150 RAP/MAP
- Boneslicing Hatchet: 28.6 Agility, 171.5 RAP/MAP, ~0.54% crit
This is before Lightning Reflexes is calculated: With Lightning Reflexes calculated into the equation:
- Dal Rend’s Arms: 1% Crit, 150 RAP/MAP
- Bone Slicing Hatchet: 29.9 Agility, 174.75 RAP/MAP, ~0.6% Crit, 113 HP
I won’t go into once the +15 agility enchant unlocks…because, well, as I have said previously, I’ve played survival for many years, until it became a wannabe mutt of a rogue and warrior.
Survival wasn’t meant to be a melee spec post 1.7, nor was it used as a raiding melee spec until recent expansions - just ask the t1 Marks hunter that ran with my 60 in UBRS tonight, with considerably less gear, I was within 10 DPS of him through every boss fight…and he was toting Rhok with pride and his BiS from MC gear…I was still using much of my Pre raid set up - AT Range, 1 exception was I was the kiting General hunter, and still placed with 15 DPS of him. Even he was shocked.
The entire idea of the NF survival hunter during Naxx was a gimmick and was a meme utility which never actually got used by any serious Survival Hunter that was doing progression, if they had another MM hunter in raid.
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