Hunter -|- Metalbunny.net

The hunter is primarily a ranged attacker, with the ability to tame most beasts and train them to fight for him. By using traps and his pet, the hunter can perform some limited crowd control, and with his wide array of ranged attacks he can pull enemies very effectively and accurately, and hit the enemy for a lot of damage before they even come close to melee range. By using traps, they can perform some limited crowd controlling, and with their vast array of tracking abilities, they can easily find and monitor most every group of enemies you'll ever encounter in the game.

Despite recent changes to the game, which have severely reduced the amount of damage a hunter can do with ranged weapons, the hunter remains a powerful attacking class. Though they have some limited melee abilities, a melee fight is something every hunter will try to avoid. Typically melee fighting should only be used as a very last resort.

Normally hunters spend their talent points on either marksmanship or beast mastery. Marksmanship is better for fighting in groups, as it gives several additional ranged attack abilities, while beast mastery is better for the soloing hunter, as it greatly increases the pet's armour and fighting skills. A beast mastery hunter is almost like having your own personal tank, making fighting several mobs at once relatively easy, although it will still take a bit of work from the hunter.

The most notable thing about the hunter class is that it's completely void of class quests. At level 10, the hunter goes through a few simple quests to teach the principles of taming, training, and maintaining a pet. But other than that the hunter class has no class quests whatsoever until they reach level 60. On the other hand, and the reason for the lack of class quests, is the fact that the hunter is a very strong class that can get through the game with relative ease - as class quests mostly exist to help aid the weaker classes in obtaining better armour and weapons, to make up for their shortcomings.

Available races:
Dwarf, Night Elf, Orc, Tauren, Troll, Blood Elf, Draenei

Armour: Cloth, Leather, Mail (at level 40+)
Weaponry: One- and Two-handed axes, Daggers, Guns, Bows, Crossbows, Fist Weapons, Polearms, Staves, One- and Two-handed swords, Thrown
Magic types: Nature, Arcane

Main strengths:

Ability to tame, train, and control beasts.
Long range attack capability.
Best puller in the game.
Good crowd control abilities thanks to traps and pet.

Main weaknesses:

Very limited melee capability.
"Dead Zone" where enemy is too close for ranged attack, and too far away for melee attack.
Very dependent on the quality of ranged weapon and ammo.

Typical role: Damage (dps)

Starting stats (level 1):


Race	Strength	Agility	Stamina	Intellect	Spirit	Armor	Health	Mana

Dwarf	22	19	24	19	20	40	86	84
Night Elf	17	28	20	20	21	58	46	85
Orc	23	20	23	17	24	42	76	82
Tauren	25	18	23	15	23	38	80	80
Troll	21	25	22	16	22	52	66	81
Blood Elf	17	25	19	24	20	54	45	145
Draenei	21	20	20	21	23	42	46	100

Hunter milestones:
Level 10: Ability to tame/train pets
Level 40: Can upgrade to mail armour