HuntsmansLodge.com

WoW Hunter Guides, News, Resources and Musings

Choosing a Hunter Race

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WoW Hunter Races

Thinking about starting a hunter..? Maybe you’re considering a race change for an existing hunter?

Want to know which race is the best option for your hunter..?

Well, hopefully this guide will help you decide. 🙂

First off… I’ve never really considered myself much of a role-player type, but I think that a player’s choice of race should depend largely upon which race they ‘like’ best. I’m talking about the ‘feel’ of the class… the look, the emotes, the animations, the lore, etc… These are all very important, because after all… you’ll be the one playing this character for countless hours, so you may as well pick a race you’re fond of.

Obviously, faction is just as important as the choice of look and feel, if not more so. Do you want to fight for the Alliance or for the Horde..?

That said, if you’re just trying to decide which races are ‘the best’, then here’s a handy guide that can help you choose which race is best for your hunter, based upon which racial traits are going to help your hunter the most. To keep things simple, I’m mainly focusing on PvE and PvP. I figure anyone looking for ‘the best choice’ is doing so for raiding or PvP, however, if you are looking for the best ‘gathering’ hunters, then I can tell you that Worgen and Tauren are the best. 😉
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The Eve of Battle

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Drackmire, Dwarf MarksmanGarwulf sighed. It had been a long time since he last stood within the great ridges of the Ironforge Mountains. A chill breeze haunted the evening, and Garwulf shivered a bit. “I wonder what he is up to…,” he muttered, trailing off.

Turning back to head down the slopes, he whistled into the crisp air, beckoning his trusty companion. With a deafening growl, and a piercing howl, Loque’nahak appeared right next to him, as if out of thin air. “’Atta boy,” Garwulf said as he patted Loque’nahak on the head, giving him a scratch behind the ears. “I miss him as well.”

The two managed to get down the rocky crags with relative ease, using knowledge passed on to them in the past on how to watch for loose rocks, and find the hidden trails that one would normally not be able to see. The path before them led east, toward the great city in the mountain. Garwulf hopped on his mount, and strode at a blistering pace, navigating the winding trail that led to the city’s main gates. Passing the guards, giving them a slight nod, he continued on toward the center near The Great Forge, where the Gryphon Master stood, ever ready to provide transportation for those in need. [Read more…]

Dwarf Incoming!

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Drackmire, Dwarf Marksmanship HunterA few days ago I made a vague mention of there being some additional contributor(s) to this site. Well it’s true. I’ve elected to bring a guest poster on board. Whether or not my new accomplice will be a regular feature here on the site remains to be seen, but he is brimming with enthusiasm at the notion of enlightening, sharing and connecting with all of you.

HuntsmansLodge.com visitors, meet Drackmire.

Rather than go into a long introduction about the man, I’ll leave it up to him to tell you his story.

I can tell you this though… He’s a Dwarf, he smells of ale and mutton, Marksmanship is his beloved spec, he’s a master of the DeePS, he was my GM at one time, he’s a cool guy and he knows his stuff. He’s taught me a lot about the game and the Hunter class.

When I first met Drackmire nearly three years ago I didn’t even know what Recount was. I had never raided, seldom instanced and knew nothing of maximizing DPS. I was a BG whore who’s only preoccupation was with either killing horde players or taming rare pets. As you can see, not much has changed…

I keed, I keed. Raiding’s fun too… sometimes. 😉

Anyway, when I eventually started raiding Drack helped me out quite a bit by teaching me about shot rotations, consumables, etc. I wasn’t a student of the game then like I am now. I never researched things on the internet. Hell, I didn’t know what Elitist Jerks was before I met Drack. I was in essence… a noob.

Now I’m just a semi-noob.

As I said, I’m not sure how often Drack will be sharing his Huntery wisdom, but you can still expect to see my contribution to the site remain the same. I’m not necessarily looking to shrug off some duties onto another, but rather to just enhance the site with a different point of view. He’ll probably have other topics to discuss and ideas to share that maybe I wouldn’t think to address.

Alright Dracky, let’s get that intro up! When you’re ready of course. No rush. 😉

Recent Hunter Changes On The PTR

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If you haven’t been keeping up on what’s going on over on the PTR, well don’t worry ’cause I got your back. Here’s a summary of the most recent undocumented changes to Hunters:

Marksmanship

  • Viper Sting now Stings the target, draining 4% mana over 8 sec (up to a maximum of 8% of the caster’s maximum mana), and energizing the Hunter equal to 300% of the amount drained. Only one Sting per Hunter can be active on any one target.
  • Auto Shot now gives 15% haste to all attacks fired by a Hunter.

Survival

  • Explosive Shot damage reduced, rank 4 now deals [ 14% of RAP + 386 ] – [ 14% of RAP + 464 ] fire damage. (down from [ 16% of RAP + 428 ] – [ 16% of RAP + 516 ])
  • Wyvern Sting now has a 1.5 minute cooldown. (Up from 1 minute)

Pet

  • Pummel (Gorilla) cooldown has been increased to 30 sec (Up from 10 sec.) and silence effect duration lowered to 2 sec. (Down from 4 sec)

Overall, I’m pleased with the passive haste bonus and the thought of not having a quiver anymore. What I’m not happy about is… it took nearly half a bar of experience back in the day to grind out the quest chain to obtain this for my 19 Hunter. 😕 Oh well, no biggie. Most of you probably aren’t concerned with that silly twinking business anyway.

30 second cooldown on Pummel. Did I call that or what?! I predicted (and hoped for) 30 seconds. 30 seconds is more balanced, but if they were to increase it to say 45 seconds or more, then gorillas would be scarcely seen. The silence was cut in half which makes me sad in the pants, but my guess is that it must have been way too overpowered in initial testing.

Gorillas are going to be popular arena pets among BM and MM Hunters. Beast Master’s can stick the Gorilla on the healer with Pummel on manual cast, and have their own ghetto silence. MM will now have Silences on 20 and 30 second cooldowns. Imagine a MM with 11 points in Survival for Scatter Shot, Silencing Shot, Readiness, and then throw Pummel into the mix. Holy Schnikes!

There’s also ome noise being made about marksman’s mana efficiency and how it can be improved. No changes have been reported yet, but apparently it is something they’re working on.

Wild Hunt is going to see a slight nerf (10/20 down from 20/40). Here’s an official post from Ghostcrawler regarding the change:

Wild Hunt is being changed to 10/20% extra AP from the master. There was a bug where the talent was just applying the hunter’s AP to the pet twice, which is too generous.

If you have 6000 attack power, your pet probably gains 1320 attack power from you. With 2 ranks of this talent, it should gain 1580 attack power instead. Your pet’s attack power will be higher than this by a few hundred from other sources.

Two races available to the Hunter class, Draenei and Dwarf, are also seeing changes to their racials. These changes aren’t final however.

  • Gift of the Naaru now also removes 2 harmful magic effects from the friendly target.
  • Stoneform no longer gives a 8 second immunity to disease, poison, and bleed effects. Cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.

More news available at: MMO Champion