Why does the most popular player class get scraps when it comes to weapon options?

Community General Discussion
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Needless to say, Hunters are the most popular class in WoW, when checking any sort of player population, Hunters are the class that comprises the highest player base… yet regardless of this fact, when it comes to weapon appearances, Hunters seem to get very few new appearances in each new expansion, as compared to sword, axes, mace, and stave classes…

Take Shadowlands for instance, so far there’s only been 2 new unique bow models, 1 new (plain) crossbow, and not a single new gun. Meanwhile 934098324 new swords, axes, staves, maces, glaives, etc.

This seems to have been the case with every expansion since Mist of Pandaria, a handful of new hunter weapons, meanwhile a plethora of other types of weapons, not to mention a plethora of new illusions, etc for other weapon types as a bonus that hunters can’t use.

For example, I can flip through many pages of swords, axes, etc before i start seeing weapon appearances from Cataclysm or before, meanwhile you only have to flip back a single page of crossbows to start seeing appearances from cataclysm and earlier, two for guns, 3 for bows…

The imbalance too really hits hard when you consider that most classes can use the appearances of other weapon types (i.e. swords can use appearances of swords, daggers, etc) so players of these lesser populated classes have far greater access to appearance customization options.

Can hunters please get more new unique weapon appearance options, especially for the fact that they are the most populous class in the game?

p.s. i am not saying hunters should get special treatment or saying hunters should get way more weapons than anyone other class, just saying hunters should get fair or equal treatment when it comes to new weapon additions. particularly with dungeon and raid drops, as everyone else seems to get unique new models for dungeon and raid, meanwhile hunters just get recolors of bows we already have from other sources in dungeon or raid, including weapon types that are also limited by the classes that use them (i.e. glaives and fist weapons)

12 Likes
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I totally agree even though I don’t necessarily main a hunter I have him as an alt and it’s so depressing to look for older mogs to run because there’s not that many. Especially with guns.

I think maybe if they added another class (I know, I know…they should figure out a way to balance the ones already in-game) that uses the same weapon then Activisonblizz can justify spending time making more models because to them profit comes first then quality.

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It’s likely because there are more classes that use the other weapon types. Down for this idea though.

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I’m sure there have been new crossbows dropping. Then again, crossbows are generally pretty ugly. But I agree that the ranged weapon designs have not been stellar so far. Perhaps further alone from the new raids something nice will be added.

Though nothing really caps the https://www.wowhead.com/item=23557/larvae-of-the-great-worm for true awesome ugly.

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regardless of the “more classes” argument, this doesn’t excuse the fact that the hunter population overshadows many of these other classes.

Take a class such as Rogue, they are pretty much the class whose meta is tied to daggers, while the other classes who can use daggers or dagger appearances, their meta/bis is a usually different type of weapon, i.e. Warlock and Mages bis is usually staves rather than a dagger + offhand, also the fact that most daggers are agility weapons pretty much means they are made specifically for rogues and not for caster classes nor plate classes. Yet regardless of this, there are a ton more dagger appearances than both bows and guns combined, even though rogues aren’t as populous than hunters.

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I always find myself looking back through the pages of bow transmogs unsatisfied with the options and hoping there is one I missed. It’s a real struggle, especially to get nice looking bows that actually look like bows. We then get drip fed only a few new bows over a whole expansion but they may have tentacles or some other absurdity.

4 Likes
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I don’t mean to debate. Just putting forward a reason for why they may not have made as much as we might have expected.

The amount of content has never been tailored to population of a class. Imagine if they made that consideration with factions.

8

Agreed.
Give hunters more weapons.
Then give druids more forms. No new bear forms for me since legion.

1 Like
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because there are 36 specs and only 2 of them use ranged weapon, if we were to use those numbers to justify how many new stuff they should put in the game there would be way too many ranged weapons

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I’m using some bow with LED light transmog for now because I previously used Black Bow of the betrayer for the weapon transmog for 4 expansions.

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Not asking for more than what the other specs get, but throw a bone at least…

because as it stands right now, it seems for every up to ~20 new unique sword and axe models added to the game, there’s only 1 new bow added. need to narrow that margin some, because only 2 new models for Shadowlands so far where literally the raid and M+ weapon appearances are exactly the same appearances of the questing/WQ weapons.

Meanwhile, while other classes get many new models, many with unique raid and dungeon appearances… For hunters, their Raid and Dungeon weapons share the exact same appearances as questing/world quest weapons. So at the very least, raids and dungeons should give unique models like it does for pretty much everyone else. If this was the case, this post wouldn’t exist as even just the addition of unique raid and/or dungeon appearances would be all hunters need, rather than see the same 1-2 appearances recycled for every form of content from World Quests to Mission Tables to Dungeons to Mythic Raid to Rated PvP and everything in-between…

1 Like
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Technically you didn’t have a new bear form until legion.

I think you guys only got one or two cosmetic things for your “forms”
The flaming cat and ummm… didn’t you guys get some kinda cosmetic change for your balance form so that you didn’t have to look like a owl if you didn’t want to?

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yeah the glyph of stars makes us be force-ghosts in balance form and was added in MoP, but the flaming cat has been a thing since Cata with the seed pouch toy.

Got a lot during legion, but nothing since then.

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For the most part, with the exception of Mythic raid level items, the transmogability (yes I just made a new word) has been sorely lacking… at least for me.

I personally want to see armor graphics affect druid forms… even if it’s minor or major… it would be something.

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Well since you mentioned numbers. Consider this, hunters are the only ones using bows and guns.

Staffs you can have mages, warlocks, druids, priests and shamans using those.

Now which group has higher number the later or hunter?

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Give demon hunters a hunter-hunter spec using ranged weapons.
Problem solved.

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if you wanna talk other classes that could use hunter weapons when in range. giving rogues an offhand crossbow or gun would make more sense, especially since outlaw rogues already have a built in gun spell, so can just convert that requiring an equipped gun or crossbow, or any other ranged shenanigans rogues do. Plus they can give warriors back their ranged weapon too.

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Why should the most popular class get special treatment?

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no one is asking for special treatment, just equal treatment.

An example: sword, etc, classes get unique new appearances from raid and Dungeons compared to the drops they get from questing, etc. meanwhile, hunter’s raid and dungeon appearances are recycled same exact appearance from questing, world drops, covenant, etc. some raid difficulty levels even too lazy to even be bothered to recolor different (exact same appearance and color). i.e., Sire Denathrius’ weapon drop for hunters, even though I’ve never looted one, I already have that bow’s appearance from other sources.

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there was no problem to begin with