WotLK Are hunters viable in raiding/pve in general?

[therealdanko]

Hi! Im new to wotlk and i rolled a hunter. Problem is i have no idea how to play one, or if its even viable in raiding/dungeons/pve in general.



A little help would be appreciated :P. Thanks in advance.

[xRumbelx]

As Hunt you have some abilities:

* You have a good movement/dps ratio, what means you are the one for special duties. E.g. kiting mobs
* You can misdirect tank -> aggro+ for tank, always useful
* decent dps if played correct
* petpull can be useful sometimes
* besides fighting you can make your party run faster (less time needed to go to next encounter)
* Depends on class, you can give the party refreshing (mana regaining) -> survival specc
* +10% ap buff, same as dk does (MM)/ 3% dmg buf (BM) -> same as arcane mage or ret paladin does

@all Please correct me if i am wrong especially in the last bullet, my time as wotlk hunt was 3 years ago

[xRumbelx]

You probably didnt see any good sv hunt I assume, manqkalek (: . But this is offtopic.

As manqkalek pointet out, movement = dps loss, thats correct. But it less dps loss as e.g. casters because of the amount of instants shots you have.
(you only have steady shot as "cast" in your every day rota as far as I remember)

[xRumbelx]

damn I forgot that autoshot is not castet while moving! manqkalek is right! As said, its been a while I played hunter...

[mEOnGG]

Depends on which spec are u playing.As Survival i dont care if i need to move,because i know that my ES will be my higher dps shot.About MM spec,any movement it's a BIG dps loss,because your damage is based on your weapon damage and u need to stand still(auto shots,steady shots are the two most spammed spells).With good gear from let say Ulduar/Toc u can start playing MM.

You can generally sync any necessary movement with your instant casts, and stop for a fraction of a second to cast an auto shot. An addon like Quartz that tracks auto shot timers can be really helpful there and so is disengage.

As to the original question, yah, hunters are really nice in both PvE and PvP. Similar to every other class, individual specs may be in lesser demand and less likely to get a raid invitation due to being inferior in DPS or providing no special raid buffs. A well played MM hunter is something you'll see in almost every raid group, on the other hand you'll rarely see BM or Survival hunters near end game, as they are simply outclassed by MM and any buffs they provide are already provided by other classes, which are again, superior in DPS to them or provide some other vital buffs too. As mentioned by manqkalek though, Survival is indeed a better spec at lower levels of gear, but you can just go MM from the start so as to attempt to perfect the spec.

Hunters also have a lot of other utilities like Misdirection, Tranquilizing Shots and a number of traps such as Explosive traps and Frost traps which can be valuable sources of additional DPS or utility through slows and CCs.