Level 1-58 Hunters Guide

This guide will get you to outlands level 58 with the basic understanding of a Hunter and how to play your class. Hopefully :D

Hunters are the only ranged physical DPS (damaging) class in World of Warcraft. They wield bows, crossbows, or guns to unleash a stream of arrows or bullets at their enemies. Attuned with nature, hunters can track nearly any type of life form and tame beasts to fight alongside them. Pets draw attention away from their masters, allowing a hunter to deal damage from afar (this is called Tanking). A hunter can also place traps for enemies that can harm, slow down, or even incapacitate enemies who trigger them. With many useful abilities, a hunter played well can be a huge asset to a party or a worthy foe.
Racial Abilities
Racials (a race’s abilities) are the first thing to consider before you make your hunter. Some racials are more suited to a hunter than others. But in the end go with what you like but consider these as you roll your hunter.
– Alliance
Draenei – 1% to Hit: this means your hit cap is 1% less than that of other classes, which becomes very important at level 80. Jewel Crafting bonus comes in handy at Level 80, too.
Dwarf – 1% Increase Critical damage from guns, and Stoneform that is handy for PvP (While active, grants immunity to Bleed, Poison, and Disease effects. In addition, Armour increases by 10%. Lasts 8 sec).
Night Elf – Shadowmeld very handy for PvP (Stealth like ability), Reduced chance that melee and ranged attackers will hit you by 2%.
– Horde
Blood Elf - Silence all enemies within 8 yards for 2 sec and restores your Mana. Good for PvP
Orc – Blood Fury – a self buff that increases attack power by per character level. Lasts 15 sec. Duration of Stun effects reduced by an additional 15%. Damage dealt by pets increased by 5%.
Tauren – Warstomp - Stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yards for 2 sec. Base Health increased by 5%
Troll – Beserking self buff that increases your attack speed by 10% to 30%. At full health the speed increase is 10% with a greater effect up to 30% if you are badly hurt when you activate Berserking. Lasts 10 sec. Increased chance to critically hit with Bows is increased by 1%. Health regeneration increased by 10%. 10% of total Health regeneration may continue during combat.
Choose the race you prefer. I chose Draenei for the heal ability, but other racials are better (horde side mostly: for the pet damage and weapon damage bonuses), but don’t let that put you off choosing an Alliance Hunter.

Gear
To begin with, gear is varied. In the beginning, it doesn’t really matter what gear you come across as you will be swapping and changing it on a day by day basis from quest rewards and drops, but it’s advisable to go for gear with Agility, Stamina, Intellect and, later on, Attack Power. Strength and Spirit don’t do anything for hunters and neither does Mana/5 secs. Some players like to ‘twink’ their characters and this is fine for them, but it’s not really necessary. I got the crossbow “Crystalpine Stinger” at level 27 from the AH (Auction House) and used it all the way up to level 59 Outlands (only because I knew the crossbow you get from Outlands quite early on from Hellsfire is great and it wasn’t worth spending money on other ranged weapons as I know how good this crossbow was going to be). As far as memory serves, the crossbow is the Expedition Repeater from a level 58 quest “Colossal Menace”.
For level 1-58 gear in Azeroth, go for “of the Falcon”, “of the monkey” or, if all else fails, “of the wolf”, though “wolf” isn’t great but the Agility is okay. “Of the monkey” is usually best for Agility and Stamina. Use this website to look for gear.
Weapons
The race you pick determines the ranged weapon you’ll have at the beginning; as Draenei it’s crossbows, as dwarf it’s guns, etc. The melee weapon remains the same: it’s always a dagger/sword. It is worth going to each of the weapons trainers in each city and learning every type of weapon early on; ranged and melee is available to Hunter class. When you come across new and better weapons, it’s an easy swap to level your new weapon straight away on easy mobs. This is easy as a hunter: pet tanks the mobs and you shoot your weapon skill levels go up. Melee weapons aren’t that important for hunters and you really shouldn’t have to use them all that often. As a hunter you are only interested in the stats that are on the melee weapon, that’s why as this present time a Staff is the best weapon in game for hunters at level 80. (Journey’s End) it is best in slot for the stats that are on it. So learn each of the different ones you can, be that Staff, 2 Handed Axe, Polearms, etc., and you are ready for later gear.

Pets
The class you choose will determine your starting point and what pets are available to you. Here are some examples of what you can find in the different starting areas.
Draenei – Cats, Tallstriders, Ravagers, Bears
Dwarfs – Cats, Boars, Bears
N-Elf – Spiders, Cats, Boars, Wolves

Blood Elf – Cats (in 3.1, I’m told, Turtles have set up home along with Bears in the Ghostlands)
Orcs/ Trolls - Scorpions, Boars,
Taurens – Boars, Cats, Wolves

Pets Come in 3 different types: Cunning, Tenacity, and Ferocity. At level 10, any pet will do. Once you get to level 12 -13, start to look at pets more seriously. There are plenty of websites out there; Petopia is the best resource. It is generally accepted knowledge that hunters should level with a Tenacity pet as these pets are designed specially to tank for you. These pets have Improved Growl, more armour and health, and can take the damage from mobs, which is what you want. Now, I’m not saying that a cat (as a Ferocity pet) won’t do this for you; cats will do the job just fine, but for ease and speed, Tenacity pets rule. They are bears, boars, worms, cockalisks, rhinos, and more. It is advisable to find these pets in your starting area and get one of these from the beginning.
If you press N, you can see your talent trees: Beast Mastery, Marksmanship, and Survival. We will talk about these a little later; for now, see the tab on the right hand side under yours? That’s your pet’s talent tree. Your pet will start to gain new talent point as it hits level 20 and 1 talent point every 4 levels after that. I will do a post on Tenacity builds and Ferocity builds at a later date.

Professions
It’s probably best to start with Leatherworking (LW) and Skinning. You can make gear for yourself, it’s a nice money-spinner, and it can get you the money you require for upgrades in gear, talents, and mounts quickly. When you get to a high level at a later date, it’s advisable to get Mining and Jewel Crafting (JC) as LW high level has no real use except AH playing. JC has some very nice JC-only gems that far outweigh the LW recipes that you will have. JC gems will give you a good head start for raids. Levelling in Mining isn’t hard, but it can be laborious: it can be levelled to 300 (Outlands) in a few hours.
Secondary Professions
Take all of the Secondary Professions (First Aid, Fishing and Cooking) since they are good money-makers. You’ll be able to feed your pet cheaply; the pet treats at level’s end are expensive and much easier to make yourself. It’s a good idea to get Fishing because it will make levelling in Cooking easier, and there are daily quests that will give you money and a chance for pet/mount rewards.
Levelling
Blizzard, in their infinite wisdom, decided to not give pets to level 1 hunters, so you’ll have to wait until level 10 before you get a quest to tame a pet. Unfortunately, this leads to confusion in the class: for the first 10 levels of your hunter’s life, you’ll have a bow and a dagger only. Most hunters will attack mobs and beasts with melee weapons for the first 10 levels, forgetting they actually own a bow. Again, unfortunately, when they do eventually get a pet that will tank for them, they still melee. So very, very wrong. A pet should tank the mobs while you shoot from range this is the essence of a hunter and makes levelling as a hunter that much easier and stand you in good stead when you get into groups and raids.

http://www.bigredkitty.net/2009/03/09/brk-baby-hunter-movie-part-one/
http://www.bigredkitty.net/2009/03/16/brk-baby-hunter-movie-part-two/
http://www.bigredkitty.net/2009/03/16/brk-baby-hunter-movie-part-two/ http://www.bigredkitty.net/2009/03/16/brk-baby-hunter-movie-part-three/
http://odeo.com/episodes/24427933-Project-Lore-BigRedKitty-Baby-Hunter-Part-4

These 4 videos are an excellent guide through the first few levels, and you should take his “kite and kill” ability on through all your levels.
I am sorry to say that the celebrated BigRedKitty won’t be continuing these videos, but at least they’ll give you an idea of what to consider when killing mobs as a hunter.
You can do dungeons that you find along your way; they will have some of the better gear for your level and give nice experience. For speed, though, just do quests. I will talk about instances and a hunter’s role in quests in a later article.

Melee hunter /sigh
There are so many of these: hunters that run in and fight mobs with their dual wield daggers, pets doing nothing, looking bored and bewildered. This is where the term “huntard” comes from: rolling an easy class and not understanding what you are doing or how the class works. Hunters are a “ranged” damaging class, with a pet for a tank or companion DPS (“damage per second” that will increase your DPS by buffing you and its own raw damage). The higher your DPS the faster your target will die. You don’t need to worry about high dps at this point in your hunter life, just keep in mind that DPS is your function later on in groups and raids and managing this again your threat is important. We will talk more about this in another post. You’ll just make things harder for yourself if you run up and use melee weapons.
You can see in the video how easy it is to kite mobs, even at low level, and once you get a pet to tank for you this makes killing mobs so much easier. Don’t run in and melee while your pet is hitting the mob, use your, bow, gun, or crossbow, your main damaging weapon. Mobs will die that much faster if you DON’T melee. You can just use auto shot but, again, that’s not making things easy for you. Use the skills you are given in turn, something that is called “shot rotation”.

Shot Rotation

“Shot rotation” is term for the sequence of abilities you have and when to use them. “Auto shot” will fire with out any help from you and is usually left out of rotations because you have no control over it.
For a low level hunter the “Rotation” will be Serpent sting then (Arcane shot -> Auto Shot). Serpent Sting has a 15 second duration, so when 15 seconds is up, reapply it. Continually do Arcane Shot every 6 seconds as the shot has a 6 second cooldown (CD), so you can only fire it once every 6 seconds;with auto shots in there that will fire without you pressing anything. If you check the Beast Mastery tree, you’ll find that that’s all the shots you have for now. If you look at the Marksmanship tree you will see there are other shots: Aimed shot and Chimera Shot; in the Survival tree there is Explosive Shot and Scatter Shot. These are added into shot rotations depending on your build: Beast Mastery, Marksmanship, or Survival. Beast Mastery is by far the easiest tree to use while levelling as a hunter. This is also a good way to learn shot rotations without overwhelming yourself with too many different shots at a time.

Have fun with your hunter and if you need more advise and help, feel free to email in at thehunterssanctuary@gmail.com

Happy Hunting