WoW The Burning Crusade Hunter Guide

The objective of this guide is to teach you what the Hunter class is all about.
You will learn about its strengths and weaknesses, gear selection, and how you can improve yourself as a Hunter. You will also learn strategies on the different uses for each of your abilities, as well as find answers to some of the most popularly asked questions regarding this class.

Systems: PC, Mac
Author: UltimaZER0 (ultimazer0@msn.com, Jonathan Wong)
On Eredar Server: Eldrethor, Lv.60 Dwarf Hunter <The Hand of Fate>
Initial Release: 04/25/06
Current Release: 03/18/07
Current Version: 2.03.1

===================================
—————————[ TABLE OF CONTENTS]——————————-
===================================

A. Patch 2.01

I. Introduction
II. Legal Information
III. Combat Basics
a. About The Hunter
b. Choosing Your Race
c. Choosing Your Professions
IV. Hunter Abilities
a. Marksmanship
b. Survival
c. Beast Mastery
V. Hunter Talents
a. Marksmanship
b. Survival
c. Beast Mastery
d. Choosing Your Specialization
VI. Pets
a. Pet Taming & Care
b. Available Pets
c. Pet Abilities
d. Building Your Pet
VII. Equipment
a. Basic Gear
b. Armor Sets
c. Weapons
d. Ammunition
e. Storage
f. Scopes
g. Enchants, Books, & Librams
h. Gems
VIII. Playing As A Hunter
a. Solo Play
b. Group Play
c. PvP
d. Advanced Hunter Techniques
e. Fight Or Flight: Learning To Survive
f. Building Your Hunter
g. Class Arguments
IX. Future Plans
X. Credits

===================================
——————————[ A. Patch 2.01]——————————–
===================================

So for those who have been away from the game, things look really different,
don’t they?

On 12.05.06, Blizzard released a patch that would pave the way for their
Burning Crusade expansion. This patch drastically changed Hunter mechanics,
ultimately changing the way the class is played. Listed below are the major
changes.

- Agility now yields 1 ranged attack power per 1 Agility but it now only
takes
33 Agility per 1% critical strike at level 60.
- Talent trees have now been expanded to include new 41-point talents.
- Aimed Shot’s charge time has been increased to 3.5 seconds and a casting
bar
now appears. It no longer resets the timer on Auto-Shot. It now adds the
weapon’s cooldown to its six-second cooldown.
- Arcane Shot’s damage now includes 15% of your total ranged attack power.
- Concussive Shot and Silencing Shot will cause damage on mobs that are
immune
to its effects.
- Viper Sting now has a 15-second cooldown.
- Pets now gain some stats from your armor.
- You may now tame serpents. These come with an ability called Poison Spit.
- Growl causes way more threat than ever before.
- Traps can now be set in combat but have a two-second delay. Their
cooldowns
have also been lengthened to 30 sec.
- Wyvern Sting can now be used while in combat.
- When Feign Death is resisted by individual mobs in a pack, surrounding
mobs
will still be affected.
- All ranged weapons have had their base damages increased.
- The agility on all hunter armor sets has been reduced but is compensated
with
attack power.
- The game now uses a hit rating and critical strike rating system.
- Casting times on Volley and Multi Shot are now visible.
- New ammo is now available at your local General Goods store.

What do these changes mean for you? It means that your overall damage
output has skyrocketed to the point where other classes will be
disgusted at how much more overpowered you are.

Although the current hunter armor sets have had their Agility reduced,
you will find that with the attack power bonus that you receive from
each piece of armor, the ranged attack power and critical strike
percentages that you receive are pretty much the same as before.
However, the value of some items has been changed dramatically. I will
go over the changes in the Equipment section.

===================================
——————————[ I. Introduction]——————————
===================================

The objective of this guide is to teach you what the Hunter class is all
about.
You will learn about its strengths and weaknesses, gear selection, and how
you
can improve yourself as a Hunter. You will also learn strategies on the
different uses for each of your abilities, as well as find answers to some
of
the most popularly asked questions regarding this class.

Since I’ve played mostly Alliance, I know little to nothing about Horde
quests
and locations so bear with me if I generalize certain things between the two
factions.

===================================
—————————[ II. Legal Information]—————————
===================================

This document is Copyright ultimazer0@msn.com. All rights reserved. This
document may not be altered or used for profit without the permission of its
original author. As of the eighteenth of March, year two thousand and seven,
the following establishments have my permission to host their guide on their
websites or publications under said conditions:

GameFAQs
1Up.com
SuperCheats
GamersGuides
Gameabolic.com
Gamerstemple.com
DLH.net
s13.invisionfree.com/Ehgeiz/
< Random Acts> (www.randomactsguild.net)
Orderofarcane.com
www.honestgamers.com
Fatal Legacy (www.fatallegacy.org)
WoW Newsletter from “Melissa” of Topvideogameguides.com [Title Pending]
www.world-of-warcraft-tipps.de

If you bought this guide from auctioneers, such as Beinc777 of eBay, you’ve
been ripped off. This guide is primarily hosted on GameFAQs for free.

===================================
—————————-[ III. Getting Started]—————————
===================================

So what is being a Hunter all about? Here is what you need to know…

——————————————————————————-
a. About The Hunter
——————————————————————————-

The Hunter is the leather-armored Ranger/Archer of an RPG, a specialist in
guns, bows, and crossbows with a ton of extras thrown in to spice things up.
Here are the common ups and downs of being a Hunter:

————-
Ranged Damage
————-

Hunters excel in ranged physical damage and can provide a group or raid with
a
constant stream of DPS, even when their mana is low. Unlike other classes,
they can also unleash a high amount of burst damage while keeping their
aggro
extremely low, thanks to their aggro-reducing abilities. Just ask any Hunter
what it’s like to launch a Multi-Shot that critically hits three targets for
well over 1,000 damage each, or plant an Explosive Trap on a group of mobs,
followed by a Volley.

—-
Pets
—-

One of the perks of being a Hunter is the ability to tame an animal and own
it
as your personal pet, which is treated as a separate entity. You can name it
and teach it abilities, and it gains experience and levels. There are a wide
variety of creatures to choose from. There are your typical wildlife
animals,
such as bears and cats, but there is also an assortment of exotic creatures
such as wind serpents and ravagers. Many of these animals also come in a
variety of shapes and colors, depending on their locations.

———————
Reduced Damage Intake
———————

Since you’re fighting from a distance most of the time, you will not receive
much damage from most enemies. Your pet also plays a crucial role in keeping
aggro away from you, so even when you’re not fighting alongside a Warrior
you
still have a viable tank to keep mobs at bay. Once you reach level 40, you
may
also wear Mail armor, which will cause your average damage reduction to jump
from 20%-25% to 30%-35%.

————–
Radar Tracking
————–

Hunters get the most out of the game’s minimap, thanks to their wide
assortment
of trackers, which allow them to see the locations of players and mobs as
red
dots. If a mob has a subcategory such as Humanoid or Beast, there’s a
tracker
for it. Well, except for Mechanical mobs. Then you’re on your own.

————-
Limited Melee
————-

If anything gets within eight yards of you, your only option is to pull out
your trusty one- or two-hander and start swinging, and you don’t have many
abilities at your disposal. However, whatever melee abilities you get pack a
punch and can help you regain shooting distance. Also, you get an extremely
wide variety of weapons to choose from. In fact, you can equip practically
anything but maces, which is where the “Hunter weapon” joke originates from.
As an added bonus, you may even dual-wield at level 20.