Was DK and Shammy on alliance and I liked it and all, having just returned to WoW not having played since WOTLK. Then I was told by my buddy his guild was faction swapping. So I rolled a lock and hunter, and I have a mage from back in vanilla that I’m working up also. Well I put the lock aside as affliction feels weird compared to TBC and WOTLK, and destro was fun but mage does it better. I didn’t really want to play a mage again but I
Will keep him leveled for nostalgia purposes.
That left the hunter…holy $hite. Hunting down cool pets, chasing dope a$$ transmogs, and man PVP BM…it’s a damn troll class!!! Yeeting people off the ledge in Netherstorm and just kiting and melting people with sick pets is so fun!!! MM for PVE feels more mobile and has a good flow and class flavor! I’m loving this to death!!! Thanks hunter who convinced me to try the class!
Just need to figure out which covenant to rock now…
For me, and speaking only as a MM Hunter, it used to be more fun during the MoP-WoD eras. And, so much less fun during Legion as to be initially unplayable, for me.
Its been dumbed-down quite a bit, to the point that it is hard to achieve Huntard status anymore.
I’m glad you are enjoying it. As for me, its not what it was, but for now, it will do.
I’ve played rogue since I started when wotlk came out and I tried out about every class besides hunter before discovering how amazing they are. There’s a bad stigma about playing hunter but it’s my favorite class by far.
It has. Unfortunately the fun ends in Torghast and The Maw when you get to sit there and helplessly watch yourself die, while your pet isn’t even getting a scratch, due to practically zero self heals and Blizzard’s decision to add infinite range cleaves.
Yeah I hear mixed stuff on Torghast. It was super easy on Unholy and Elemental builds for DK/Shammy. I’ve heard BM with a Clefthoof or Corehound and things go smooth.
Hunters are just one of the slower classes to do Torghast on.
Upside: you won’t die! (At least as far as I know on BM and MM. I’m not as sure how good MSV is in Torghast. I’ve heard complaints it’s more tuned towards the ranged specs.)
Disclaimer: My experience of Torghast comes as a BM hunter. I haven’t done it with any other spec, nor class. And, I haven’t set foot in there since…january…I think. Once I had obtained enough Soul Ash for my rank 4 lego, that was it really. I also haven’t touched TC.
This is a tangent focusing more on Torghast itself I suppose, but yeah, it’s based on my experience in there as a Hunter.
In short, I dread it. Personally, I couldn’t be happier if I never have to set foot in there again. And yes, this is the case even with the planned additions/changes for 9.1. For me, I feel like the hype and all the talk about it during alpha/beta, leading up to the expansion vastly oversold what we actually got.
From the moment you step in there, as a BM hunter, any powers you pick up are lackluster and do nothing interesting whatsoever. Actually progressing through Torghast, is nothing but a giant trash clear, IMO. Floor after floor with just a stale and mindless clearing of mobs, kill everything and loot everything, just so that you can reach the last floor to kill the final boss of this week’s wing(s) to get some Soul Ash.
Not to mention how, in the beginning, you had to do each wing multiple times from level one and up to unlock the higher difficulties.
If they insist on us doing it for Soul Ash, I would want to change what’s required to obtain it on a weekly basis, per run. The weekly run for a wing should be based on a variable of 1-3 floors total(still the same amount for all players, just changing on a weekly basis).
A floor should not, for the most part, just be a sea of mobs for you to mindlessly make your way through. Reduce the overall amount of mobs and instead focus on adding in more challenges. And by challenges, I don’t just mean make the mobs have a ginormous amount of health with a stacking buff/debuff that will essentially only result in it being a waste of time as opposed to something interesting/engaging.
As for Anima Powers, for Hunters, like I said above…
I’m not even remotely impressed by what we got for this class. Are many of them to varying degrees useful effects? Sure. But are they fun? Interesting to use? IMO, barely any of them are.
I mained a Hunter ever since I started to make one way back in TBC. There was a time when I had 2 to 3 hunters on one expansion.
If you want to experience the best Hunter version of all expansions, try TBC.
We have a very OP Aspect of the Cheetah… it’s infinite fast movement until struck. Melee mobs has no way to hit us back allowing us to kite them to the nearest City. Those Fel Reavers in the Outlands, people were forming group to kill them but with hunters, we solo them. Either we kite them with Aspect of the Cheetah towards the City and have the NPC kill them or go BM and infinitely heal the pet and let the pet kill it.
We can also Freeze Trap 2x targets on 5-man dungeons. I was having a blast in TBC. I was doing Freeze Trap 2x Targets, kite another target and nuke the main target while dominating the damage meters. And we can use Leather too… LOL. And it makes the game more challenging and fun becoz one hit and we could die in heroic.
Present Hunter is okay to me. But I can never forget the Hunters in TBC and WoTLK.
I have a level 49 lock on Classic I was gonna finish for TBC. Hunter though seems a strong contender too. I do remember hunters being monsters in PVP during TBC as well. I was 3min mage during TBC and loved that, but I have no desire to experience that again since I’ve been there and done that already.
The MSV powers feel the least powerful of the three specs’, by a lot, imo. But, for an especially unlucky 6-floor, MSV feels a bit less annoying than MM, at least.
TBC’s iteration also means you have next to no mobility ever, minimal AoE capability, and extremely static PvE gameplay so this post does seem like you’re glossing over the downsides of that expansion.
Even if you enjoyed BC’s specific Hunter quirks, WotLK has it beat in just about all aspects.
You’re remembering incorrectly. Hunters were one of the worst PvP classes in TBC. It was like how Marksmanship was in BFA; you could get a kick out of it in non-competitive PvP e.g. world PvP/BGs against less-geared and less-skilled people but if there’s any skill/gear parity at all you’ll get rolled over by many other classes because there are just too many shortcomings. Hunters had the lowest arena representation in BC for good reason.
On Arena on any expansion, Hunters were not in favor becoz of PILLARS. But on any BG’s on those open space of AV, AB and WSG, we always top on Killblows/Honor Kills. Wrecking Ball Achievement was so easily doable than any class. We had lots of toolkit to counter any class. A fleeing Cheetah that transforms to Bear wont escape. That’s my main use of Aspect of the Cheetah although it’s OP especially at lower levels like on level 19 BG when everyone was crawling on foot. We can also do 2x Freeze Traps… not one. Whenever a melee reach us, we just do wing clip and 2 one-hand weapon defense ability Deterrence and run away to range. Scatter-Shot - Aimed Shot combo alone kills half of HP of most opponents. The other half of hp was easy to finish. We were very annoying to other players. We were very OP… on a hand of a skilled player.
BC Hunter also had significant movement penalty, no immunity, no movement ability (i.e. Disengage), no Binding Shot, no knockback, no execute, etc. It was a weaker class compared to the modern Hunter. Almost everything you mentioned can be handled better by a modern Hunter (e.g. what point is “you have Wing Clip :D” when in modern WoW you can use ranged abilities in melee range and Concussive Shot has a shorter CD than duration?).
The underlying point here is that BC Hunter may have held up better compared to other classes; for example, you might have been able to kite melee better because melee didn’t have as many catch-up mechanics. So it’s not a matter of what we’ve lost (because, in all practicality, we haven’t lost anything important and have gained a lot of things) but what other classes have gained. Even then, though, I’m sceptical that it will hold up in BC Classic. I think a lot of the Hunter PvP approach in all iterations depends on being more skilled/engaged than the opponents and if there’s no skill gap Hunters fall behind every time.
Becoz melee wants to reach melee on you. Once they reach you, you wing clip them, scatter shot them, what ever, escape and repeat-annoy them and you could kill them on those window of opportunity. I can outdistance many of them. The melee could die trying to reach me. Unlike on modern WoW, all melee can easily go close to us.
Aspect of the Cheetah were the best. Both PvP and PvE. Scatter Shot / Wing Clip, why only available for Warmode? Why cant I use that on PvE in Retail? Scatter Shot - Aimed Shot combo alone can kill anybody especially the ones on mount.
Hunter has high skill ceiling. Maybe most of people during those days I encountered were noobs and I was already up there coming from a stance-dancing Naxx40 Warrior who were nerfed in TBC. I knew how to play a Warrior so I knew how to kill them as a Hunter. If Warriors cant kill me, which Class could? That was me back then. I did had a blast as a Hunter back then.
Once again, this isn’t a shortcoming of the modern Hunter capabilities. You actually have more kiting capability in isolation in modern WoW and you have much less of a penalty for being in melee range. The reason you’re less able to kite people isn’t a result of Hunter class design; it’s a result of what other classes have gained. If you had TBC’s iteration of Hunter in modern WoW it would get steamrolled by everything. This is why I objected to the wording that TBC was the best Hunter iteration.
Becoz of close-gap abilities gained by all classes, hunter kiting game on modern WoW is a joke.
Take note of Hunter outdistancing everyone back then. Before they could target us, they got hit first. And when they get near, concussive shot, frost trap, freeze trap still pin them away at range. And when they finally reach melee, you hit them with Wing Clip/Scatter Shot as you run away from the distance outdistancing them again and rinse repeat. The only way to beat us then is Pillars/walls. On the open field, Hunter is supreme at the distance.
The old Aspect of the Cheetah is one of the best ever happened to a Hunter. It opens a new style of gameplay to ABUSE the melee… whether you use it against a Player or an elite. I know Blizz find them so OP; that’s why it got nerfed.
Scatter Shot that you could use on PvE not just on Retail’s Warmode is the main ingredient on 5-man dungeon. This ability allowed us to become unscratched on 5-man. I ever wear leather back then and still performed. TBC started the use of CC. It became popular. And Hunter’s kit for it has everything you need. The other 2 DPS’ers just need to hit the main target while the Hunter could take care of the CC, kiting of the rest of the mobs while nuking the main target.
Of course, the 5-man of old content became a joke when the Tank overgears the dungeon from his Raid gear, no need to CC anymore… just have the Tank gather all of them while everyone AoE nukes. But at the early stage of 5-man, the Hunter was there.
Modern WoW’s Hunter could have something. That’s why I am quite enjoying Torghast for its ridiculous anima powers. I am just missing some buttons I used before… Scatter Shot, Aspect of the Cheetah, Aspect of the Pack, Wing Clip… And it so happened TBC has it so I would feel more complete on TBC. But WoTLK has everything of TBC and it has Killshot. I didnt know Killshot was in WoTLK. I thought it started on TBC.
But regardless, I remember my dominance on WSG, AB and AV and 5-man dungeon as a Hunter. I didnt get to highend raid back then becoz of my transitioning from Warrior to Hunter. And transferring to other faction to see Silvermoon City just to realize that Horde population back then on that server was low forcing me to go back again to Alliance and started a new hunter. By the time I reached max level, I am far from reaching the End game.
But I killed Arthas on ICC-25 with the Hunter I created from TBC although half of my WoW life then was with a DK.
If u want meta covenant go NF. Kyrian is close too.
If you want fun and good single target damage go Necrolord that give some little survivability with flashcraft. Death Chakram is not so good in aoe situation.
If you want a pure single target focused covenant go Venthir that could be even fun in pvp.
It all depends by which type of end game you will focus on…if you will be mythic raider or high M+ go NF.
If you will be a player like me that do M+ (i was able to do KSM achievement pugging around) and doing bgs and some rated bgs you can choose whatever you want ( i will suggest Necrolord).
Those are mine two cents but first of all play what you enjoy more.
Good hunt
Yea I made all 11 other classes to 60 before trying hunter and then it is going to end up being my main lol. I’m having so much fun on it. I strictly PvP now so I chose Venthyr which also happens to be the one I like the armor / lore the most bc im a huge horror fan