What is a Hunter?

Classes Hunter
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Alright, let me write an essay here, hope you’re having a nice day an all, this one is a long one. Ignore the golden text for this please, I’m just a player here.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a hunter in the current iteration of WoW and I simply can’t define it properly.

I’ve posted a bit about this on other threads already but I want to write my thoughts in a long form post here because I want to know other people’s thoughts on this.

I have played hunter for probably over 5000 hours by now, it’s my favorite class, always was, but I’ve been missing what made Hunter a Hunter originally and Classic as only reminded me why I chose Hunter 15 years ago.

So, what is a Hunter? If you asked me in 2008-2010 what a Hunter was, I would probably say it’s a ranged DPS that hunts together with their animal companion, tracking their foes, trapping them, and killing them with the power of friendship and a lot of bullets/arrows.
But if you ask me today, I can’t in good conscience say that this is how I would describe Hunter. They still track, trap and kill but… What made Hunter a Hunter seems to now be… missing. Maybe it’s just me, but when I chose my Hunter, I chose to have a best friend alongside me at the same time and the idea of losing that friend when I try to play Marksman hits me harder than anything else has in this game.

I just don’t like the idea of a Hunter without a pet, it just feels wrong to me because the pet is such a core part of the Hunter identity as a whole. It’s not like you gain the pet when you pick Survival or BM, you gain the pet when you pick Hunter itself, it just feels wrong to lose it, especially when it isn’t replaced by an equally in-depth system.
And I know a lot of people likes the idea of a Hunter without a pet but, to me, that should come in the form of a new hero class altogether, because I truly believe it is that divergent from what a Hunter truly is, or at least what it should be.

As for Survival, I don’t know… I think I’m fine with it trying to be a melee or pseudo-melee, but it feels… forced. Not in the sense that they force melee as a specialization, but in the sense that they forced this choice of Ranged versus Melee for hunter itself and in doing so stripped a major part of the class as a whole in either direction by locking melee combat within a specific specialization.

When once I could Wing Clip, Raptor Strike, and Mongoose Bite, where being in melee was a fight of its own based around your tools meant for melee combat to allow you to create distance, now it just feels empty when you find yourself in melee. There is no more melee tools, no more minimum range, no more game within the game, you still have to kite as a MM and BM, but it just feels so bland and flavorless to what it once was because you simply use the same tools you use at range but in melee.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a major issue balance wise and I know many didn’t like the minimum range, but I felt like it added a lot of personality to Hunter. Regardless of that, when it comes to melee combat, I just can’t help but hate that the melee abilities were stripped from hunter to be given specifically to survival. Because this only makes Survival feel like it’s no longer a Hunter and just its own thing. It doesn’t improve on hunter itself, it just change its core completely, but that in itself is the fault of the class losing its melee combat in the first place. It’s similar on the other end where so many ranged abilities cannot even be used by Survival.

So where am I getting at with all of that?
Well, I just wanted to say that when I play my Hunter on retail nowadays, I just no longer feel like a Hunter. Whenever I play my Hunter on Classic I feel a rush of joy with every explosive shot I do, for every wings I clip, and knowing that my pet is important enough to me to remember her name, while on retail I feel nothing but frustration and the only reason I remember my pet’s name there is because it’s the same as my pet on Classic… I think. Her name is Misaki by the way, and she’s a good girl who bites all the horde.
I know many won’t agree, but I liked having to feed my pet, that the pet had its own talents and abilities to choose from. It simply strengthened that bond between myself and that poorly texture 3D model rendition of a wolf with big teeth. But I can play without the feeding and pet talents… I just can’t play Hunter without a pet.

So really… What is a Hunter to you?

To be completely honest, I’m feeling jaded of retail Hunter, I’m inching ever closer to quitting it, and I know it’s not because I’m bored of the game or of Hunter, because I still very much enjoy Classic Hunter, but because when I ask myself this simple question of what is a Hunter… I can’t answer it anymore.

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Every class in retail has been simplified in regards to maintenance. They took out all the upkeep and challenge so that you can just play the game. Classic has a lot of flavor in it, while retail tries to flow well. The two games are very different, and I dont see a good way to bring classic hunter to retail without destroying the class and probably making it undesirable. Retail has too much going on while Classic has so little that you notice the little things like your pet.

Little does one might know. If you dont take the concussive shot talent you get melee range wing clip in retail. So you can have that melee range ability in retail as marksman or BM.

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I don’t have an issue in that regard. My comparison to classic was merely an observation from the point of view of the past.
What I’m saying is that if I was asked the question: What is a Warrior? My response to that wouldn’t have change much from 15 years ago to now. It’s a heavily armored melee specialist fueled by rage and the glory of battle. I can do the same with every class except for Hunter. There are some exceptions of course, but none that strikes me as much as how I can’t really describe Hunter anymore because of how it tries to be so many different things through its specializations compared to what it was in the past… Like it’s trying to be 3 completely separate classes altogether. A Warrior is a Warrior, whether you play Arms, Fury or Protection, they all follow the same core Warrior concept of charging/leaping into battle and empowering themselves through being angry. There isn’t a leather wearing warrior with a bow or a Warrior casting arcane spells.

Like, I have my gripes about Warrior being too simplified compared to the past, but playing one still feel like playing a Warrior at its core, no matter the spec.

I’m aware of that, but that’s just an illusion of choice really. Concussive shot is basically mandatory, the question is more so as to why we can’t have both in the first place.

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Because it is. Legion made it that way. Since then they’ve made various changes to try to patch over it but the fact is they’ve diluted and divided the class identity and Legion is to blame.

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With the Legion rework SV lost it’s identity and is pretty much a melee BM now.

BM and MM share the ranged aspect.
BM and SV share the beast aspect.
I think the problem comes from SV and MM having no ties at all as both drop the entire kit/aspect of the other.

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Honestly, I agree. When I think back to the golden age of hunter class design I think of MoP or early WoD - when all three specs were ranged with pets but had different directions on that theme, like all three warlock specs were ‘ranged casters with pet’ but took it in different directions.

There are some post-legion things I like - I like the barbed shot/frenzy stack management for BM, for example - but I do feel sad that if I want to play a ranger with a pet - literally the reason I picked ‘hunter’ on my first character way way way back when - BM is now literally the only spec available to me, and vulnerable to whatever dumbass whims the designers feel like throwing in this expansion. Just want to shoot things from range with the same pet you’ve had for literal years? Tough luck, this expansion BM is a zookeeper, enjoy firing random animals at your enemies!

MM might as well be a reskinned mage, SV is now melee… I just miss having options, man!

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and see, I could see melee survival being a thing, but only if it shared some of those melee abilities with the rest of the class and made it so that those same abilities had a reason to be used by a MM or BM, even if in very specific context. I’m not talking specifically about Raptor Strike or Mongoose Bite, but making Concussive Shot not replace Wing Clip and maybe having Harpoon as a core class talent rather than Survival talent would help bridge the gap between Survival and the rest of the class. Same with moving Steady shot to Marksman only and making Arcane shot usable by Survival and actually useful through a proc or something.
Or make raptor strike baseline and make it so that when using a bow it knock back and goes on a 30s CD, then delete bursting shot from the game.

Just ways to make it so the the base tree doesn’t try to divide it’s attention across all 3 specs and can actually serve all 3 at the same time.

That’s a good way to put it yeah.

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I feel the exact same way to be honest. There isn’t a single spec of Hunter that can make me feel like original Hunter. It’s either too many pets, no pet or melee. I can’t be the one pet ranged DPS anymore.
The only exception, and honestly the only thing keeping it alive for me, is playing MM in PvP where you still use a pet because it is way too much utility to not use.

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With your regards to warrior. What is a Deathknight but a warrior with unholy magic.
A feral druid is a rogue that can use magic.
Monks and demonhunters are pretty similar. leather wearing mobile dps. Affliction warlock and shadow priests have some overlap. Mages and elemental shamans have some overlap. Ret paladin and enhance shaman are very similar in their designs of one shot dunk or do nothing at all.

Hunter is the only ranged dps that can’t be interrupted. The only class that uses bow/gun. The only class that leaves traps on the ground. Combat, sub, and Assassin rogue are all pretty much just rogue with different abilities while Survival, Marksman, and Beast Master have completely unique playstyles. They could make a new hero class to take away Survival from hunter and give hunters something else, but that wont happen for a long time.

I wouldnt say the hunter class no longer feels like a hunter or is missing focus. Really, the only thing wrong with hunter is our class tree is really bad. Most talent trees have multiple specs within a spec tree while hunter it is grab these for ranged PVE and grab these for PVP. There is not a lot of uniqueness in our trees and we spend most of our points to get baseline damage increases and things we had last expansion.

BM should have a way to lean into spawn a hundred pets or an elemental user that enhances their pet.
MM should have a way to lean into a rapid fire machine gun or lean into more elemental arrows that impact your pet.
Survival should have a way to lean into a mid ranged bomb throwing maniac or a melee dps. Which is kind of is and kind of not at the same time.

But hunter is still the most unique class in the game with playstyles that are not replicated in other classes. The issue with a pet based class is making the pet noticeable, but not replace the player. What I have gathered from your responses is that you want to play MM with a pet, but what is annoying is that the class spec tree leans away from that instead of trying to make it a viable option.

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This is a you problem. There are many things that could be changed to make hunter flow better. No one will agree on how, but most will agree that there are parts that are lacking.

This is how I know. As a warrior main, I could easily say the reverse about my hunter. None of the warrior specs play the same. Stances and rage management are gone. Heroic strike is gone. Arms and Fury don’t share any of the same rotation abilities outside of execute. Even execute plays completely differently, it really only shares the name.

And its a good thing. Classic warrior gameplay would never compete with dh monk or rogue now. Neither would hunter.

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I don’t think it’s as bad as all this…

Regarding Lone Wolf, feel like they just need to make the difference as negligible as possible (kind of like what they should do for Titan’s Grip and SMF)… and then make em glyphs instead of talents. I dunno. There is a time and a place for INTENDED DESIGN and PLAYER PREFERANCE. It’s a nuance worth talking about.

Regarding SV. I like it. I am glad they tried it. I think it still needs some work. I personally think they should make it a TRUE hybrid (equips both weapons, can auto both, can generate and spend focus from range and melee), but I know that’s a contentious point.

I just started playing BM and I kinda wish there was more pet management and pet interaction. It’s kind of pet-flavored but I don’t really FEEL like a master of beasts. I do think Crows should be a ground targeted aoe that maybe affects players’ ability to hit with attacks … just a swarm of crows in an area. The spec’s aoe is zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I also think each spec should have a unique trap (snake for BM, for example).

Now I am just rambling lol

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Warrior is still fundamentally the same, though. You’re a plate-wearing juggernaut that either goes chonky big hits, flurry style, or sword and board. The way you move, and the way you control your opponent is the same or similar across the three specs (don’t split hairs on this - of course they’re not exactly the same, but the flavor remains.)

Hunter was fundamentally a ranged pet class. That just isn’t the case anymore. The only unifying theme across all three specs is traps. Kind of a weird thing to use as a through-line when traps were rarely used outside of PvP. I thought it was weird when we had that ignite flare deal for AoE instead of just adding something like old Explosive Trap to create a zone of fire. One of our bottom-of-the-tree talents is a trap that, frankly, doesn’t do much for the cost. Why not Immolation with Entrapment? Snakes with some SS synergy? I dunno.

I’ve been complaining about spec identity since I can’t recall how long. What IS SV for example? Or really, any of the three specs now? There has been too much homogenization of previously spec-specific abilities that now dilute the identity of what SV, MM, or BM are supposed to be. Ultimately, it would be easier for Blizz to firm up identity if SV was again ranged - I’m not looking for an argument here; I enjoy MSV, but there are too many concessions on ability design where they are CLEARLY trying to cram a square peg in a round hole. From a pure class balance standpoint, many things could be corrected if there wasn’t the spectre of “… but how would that work for melee?..” in the conversation.

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Maybe it is because I’ve played so many classes that have 3 distinct skill trees, but I really don’t get the criticism for hunter. From the lens of priest, paladin, and druid who can be very different things (complete role changes) with builds, the monotony of a range damage dealer, a range damage dealer + strong pet, and melee damage dealer + strong pet seems much more thematic, than a priest that can be a bastion of healing and protective magic vs a plague spreading shadow monster.

In my personal opinion I think hunters are fortunate to have diverging specs. In prior additions the different trees were so similar (really minor flavor changes) that once DPS parses came out 99% of the population switch to the 1 that did better. At least now, you see a healthy mix of MM and BM and 5-10% SV.

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MM and BM are still mail wearing ranged pet classes. MM has the option to go lone wolf, which is a good thing. You could argue that the balance between pet/ no pet is poor.

You are claiming that the specs share too much. The op believes they don’t share enough. They are not going to please everyone.

I 100% agree. But many people want the old way back. RSV did not feel any different. Now it does.

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Why is this a good thing? Is our class theme then just “wears mail, sometimes uses traps in niche situations?” In my opinion, a class should be defined by a common underlying theme, and the specs should refine it into something specific. Like, for example, the other pure DPS classes. What does MM have in common with SV if you take the pet away? For example, if you said RSham is the only one that has totems, and Enh no longer has access to Lightning Bolt, eyebrows would be raised.

I’m saying too many spec-specific things from the past have been made available across all three specs, whereas Mispeled is saying things that used to fundamentally define a Hunter aren’t available across all specs (for better or worse.) At least, I think that’s what they’re saying. But you’re right, they aren’t going to please everyone.

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This is false. We really didn’t see all Hunters converging onto one spec all the time before Legion outside a few specific instances like HFC or DS. In fact, the one time we had a healthy mix of all 3 was before Legion (BRF in WoD).

Cementing SV being a disliked and avoided spec sure doesn’t look like a good trade-off here.

It isn’t. This is a very widespread criticism of the class.

It’s less Classic and more the WotLK-WoD era, particularly MoP. I would argue that MoP Hunter was absolutely a better class even if it was a lot more simplistic. It felt like it had an overarching vision and clear identity.

It feels different in a way that makes most Hunters unconditionally avoid it. How is that better?

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How do you say this…

Followed by this.

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Yes I mostly agree with Jaggles but this is a contradiction. I think things being shared between specs is the least of our issues right now. In fact in the last few years it’s mainly been the opposite: too many things that were once baseline had become split up.

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Classic Hunter had always been its best form. It was once used as the example class the others were to be aligned too, it has since been stripped to be just a small fraction of what it was.

IMO, BM should be a stong pet based, off tank class. In classic I could tank 5 mans with my pet, i used traps to CC and had help with as other classes CC as needed.

Marksman should be more like a Ranger/Archer. This should be a devastating damage class. This should be the goto raiding spec. Pets should be availabile, but not a significant portion of the spec. Like today, used to keep targets at ranged along with traps.

Survival should be the pvp spec. Heavy hitter, mele and ranged spec. Tool kits to trap, or to get out of cc, to survive. They should get both ranged and melee weapons.

The talent trees shouldn’t have anything to do with DPS, that should be tied to level, gear, stats, and skill. The trees should simply add flavor, allowing a class to mix and max talents the other specs have, that they may want to use for their playstyle.

If a MM want a better pet tank, let them invest more in BM, if they want to PVP, let them put more points in Survival for CC and survivability talents.

This is what the Hunter class was when we started, it was glorious.

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I didn’t really flesh that thought out. There are abilities that make sense as spec-exclusive, e.g., Explosive Shot, Kill Command, and Aimed shot. I realize AiS IS spec exclusive, I’m just including it here as an example and subsequently typing this out for the people with burgers who fail to grasp nuance. Anyway, Explosive Shot, again, for example, isn’t a theme. Nor is Kill Command. Both do contribute to one, though. Being ranged is a theme. Having a pet is a theme.

See how two things can be true at the same time? Certain flavors shouldn’t be available to the whole class, but the class as a whole can still lack cohesion even if they are. Like traps!