Which is the better overall pick for leveling up, questing, dungeon and raid content, WPvP, 1v1, and group BGs?
Can’t beat a Warlock. Not only do they get a super-cheap mount at level 40, but they provide all sorts of raid and group utility. They’re conceptually very similar to hunters, but in practice a good warlock is way better in almost every situation aside from kiting or CC.
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leveling up - hunter
questing - hunter
dungeons - either
raids - warlock
wpvp - warlock
1v1 - hunter
group bgs - either
both are good choices.
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Warlocks scale better in PvE at end game in Vanilla. And Hunter (like it or not) have a stigma. As a Hunter you are always going to have to prove that you are one of the “good ones” where almost every other class doesn’t start from such a deficit.
I also found it annoying gearing my hunter prior to raids when it came to trinkets and especially Melee weapons. You are going to face an uphill battle there. Personally I decided on Lock. Almost all the benefits, none of the drawbacks. Ill roll a Hunter alt, but because I want to raid, and eventually clear AQ40/Naxx, Id rather be a Warlock by far.
They cut it so close that you’ll probably have to use other criteria to make your choice.
That criteria might come down to class fantasy, aesthetics, lore, race, pet type, etc.
They’re extremely similar to each other in strengths, with warlock edging out hunters in later raids, but hunter edging out warlock in leveling. They’re even similar in their role in group BGs, that’s just how close it is.
1-59, hunter is unbeatable in every aspect.
at 60, warlock wins out. both are fun classes, but if you’re a meter hoe you might as well save yourself the grief and roll a warlock.
I wouldn’t worry about trinkets/melee weapons with DM launching with the game. barb blade+book/blackhands breadth is the easy decision.
Disagree.With the right gear and choosing the right places, a lock can probably sustain a similar leveling speed.Drain mana,Drain life, siphon life and drain soul when used correctly can significantly reduce or negate any downtime, You can easily handle 3 mobs at a time with rotating fear,face tanking and void tanking.
Dungeons-I’d put the hunter at an advantage due to ice trap working on everything, good pulling assist for tricky packs and a OT in a pinch in the form of a pet.
Raids-They’re more or less equal value until you fill the 2-3 hunters a guilds going to need then being a lock pulls ahead.
pvp-I can’t honestly comment about.
i agree that a warlock can level very fast, but i have yet to see warlock beat a hunter at leveling. hunters have a very key factor that works in their favor. cheetah.
Hunter for leveling, Warlock for everything else.
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Hunter wins in leveling speed, PVP, and at least 1 is wanted in raids.
and has access to the best gold farming in Vanilla - Princess, DM runs.
But as vanilla progresses in raids, hunters get weaker.
Warlock levels easy, but slower than hunters, has great utility that is desired and as vanilla progresses they get stronger. In PVP they are very good if you play well, but alliance side has to contend with a million undead players.
But they have to farm soul shards, suffer through some progression where they are average dps.
leveling: hunter
questing: hunter
dungeon: hunter (feign death never die!)
WPVP: prolly warlock dot dot dot dot everyone
1v1: warlock unless your fighting an undead
group bgs: night elf hunter would win because of shadowmeld but warlocks are good too, dot dot dot dot
warlock can do princess runs also.
will of the forsaken is overrated and becomes a trivial delay after death coil. I also wouldn’t count on shadowmeld being as useful as you recall. assuming we’re using 1.12 mechanics, it will break your aimed shot on cast start, not finish. an on command blind break/other poison break is far more useful in BGs.
Fear break and prevent reapply for duration… 2 min cooldown.
A decent rogue will kill you once every 2 min.
You can make it harder, but that’s the lay of the land.
horrify effects are not fear effects in classic wow. and WoTF doesn’t prevent horrify effects.
most rogues won’t be CB/prep, the ones that are you still have a great shot at killing, as from my experiences on private servers rogues will typically blind early (before they use CB). if they don’t get a 2nd CB, their damage output is severely hindered. plus that 10 seconds of poison immunity allows you to FD/trap the rogue and by that point you’re in a great spot to way outpace the rogues HP pool, especially when you throw deterrence into the mix. barring <1% rogues out there who use SoID, you will win 90%+ of engagements as a dwarf hunter vs rogues, and that’s with them getting the opener.
Man up and roll a tank or healer.
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I did that last time. This time I’m playing for me.
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Others have already covered power level and group demand in various contexts, so I’ll talk about gameplay.
My two mains in vanilla were the pet classes; with the other classes, by comparison, I always felt I was playing with one hand tied behind my back. But the hunter and warlock had very different styles.
The hunter is a pretty straightforward high-powered ranged DPS class with a little bit of utility (such as traps, eyes of the beast, faster run speed, and the tranq shot). The warlock is a high-powered ranged DPS class with many possible playstyles (dots vs direct damage, with fear and such) and a ton of utility (healthstones, summoning, soulstones, CC, buffs and debuffs, self-healing and drain tanking, voidwalker bubble, underwater breathing, and even more depending on your choice of talents). About the only thing warlocks don’t have in their toolkit is the faster run speed of the hunter.
As a hunter, you essentially have one pet, and its job is DPS (with a bit of off-tanking). As somebody once said, it’s a dot with hit points. You can have a second pet, in a stable, so to change out you have to go someplace with a stable, usually a town. The Beastmastery talent tree basically just makes your pet better at DPS and tanking.
Warlocks, on the other hand, eventually have 4 regular pets, each with different specializations and utilities. So you get DPS and off-tanking, but also buffs, CC, and more if you spec into Demonology talents (Master Summoner to swap demons fast, Demonic Sacrifice for additional self buffs, Soul Link for big survivability). The special warlock pets, Infernal and Doomguard, only add to the possibilities, although Summon Doomguard is a dicy proposition. So you get tons of extra buttons in your skill bar compared to hunter pets, and to be a good warlock, you need to know how to use them.
Warlocks, however, all have the same pets, so you won’t stand out in the crowd. Also you don’t get to name your pets as a warlock, the game generates them for you. As a hunter, on the other hand, you can go out into the world and charm the pet of your choice, which is a lot of fun. I don’t remember how badly they nerfed the special abilities of hunter pets in vanilla, but that was a big part of the fun too, locating and charming pets with particular abilities.
Warlocks generally have a lot more utility and variety in gameplay than hunters. Baseline they have more different things to do; on top of that, all three talent trees are highly viable, many give you new spells or alter the way spells work, and each results in a unique feel. Hunter talent trees are more about passive buffs to various things, although each does have a unique skill or two. I never felt that speccing one way or another as a hunter made a huge difference to my game play. That said, I never got bored playing my hunter. I had a couple strategies that worked and worked very well indeed.
Both classes have resource/inventory management problems, with soul shards for warlocks and ammo and pet food for hunters. Oh yes, hunters have to keep their pets happy or they will run away forever! You have to know what foods your pet likes (meat, veggies, etc.), and have them on hand at all times. You also need ammo for your guns or bows, and if you run out, sorry, no ranged DPS for you. Warlocks, especially at high levels, have to farm soul shards from mobs of an appropriate level. Particular spells require soul shards, so if you have none, you can’t summon anything other than your imp, or create healthstones or soulstones, plus a few other spells. Soul shards are easy enough to get though; you have to buy ammo in towns.
To sum up, both are fun pet classes. Hunters are simpler in some senses, more streamlined and straightfoward to play. Warlocks have much more going on, in terms of talent builds and swappable pets with different abilities, and all the extra utility. If you just want to be a combat machine, both are a great choices. If you like also doing lots of party support and having many options in playstyle, warlock is better.
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Depends on what you prefer honestly. You might find it hard to go warlock after you get spoiled by being a ranged mobile spec like bm hunter.
When Joana made his world record 4 day 20 hour run, I believe the next guy behind him was a level 58 warlock who immediately messaged him to congrat him on the win.
Just to put things in perspective as far as world class speed runners are concerned.
Also worth noting that the other class besides hunter that Joana plays is warlock.