Classic Hunter DPS Guide
Welcome to our Hunter DPS guide for WoW Classic, tailored for PvE content. Here, you will learn how all you need to know to play the Hunter class as DPS. Click the links #below to navigate the guide or read this page for a short introduction.
If you were looking for TBC Classic content, please refer to our TBC Classic Hunter guides:
Introduction
Hunters are master marksmen and, with the help of a fierce animal companion, can deal damage from range without ever letting their target get close. With special tracking abilities, traps, and a wide range of utility spells, Hunters are a great choice for anyone looking for a strong solo class with lots of ranged damage and versatility.
- The easiest and fastest class to level from 1-60.
- Strong damage in the first raids and dungeons.
- The best class in the game for most solo content.
- One of the best classes for open world PvP.
- Strong utility and crowd control.
- Easy to learn, hard to master.
Hunter Viability
Hunters are a strong range DPS with unique utility that makes them a strong addition to any group. Hunters have exceptional base damage, especially with how powerful pets are during the leveling process, which makes them incredibly powerful from 1-60 and even early on at level 60. However, Hunters do not scale well. Every raid will want at least 1-2 Hunters due to the utility they provide and to soak up all of the Hunter specific gear. Hunters also have one of the highest skill caps of any class in Classic WoW, allowing exceptional players to really push their damage through a unique, high-impact rotation involving weaving both ranged and melee attacks together. Ultimately, Hunters will always be viable, but they will never be stacked in the same way that Warriors and Rogues are later on in the expansion; Hunter raid spots will be limited.
Pets and Ammo for Hunters
Hunters have one unique systems only available to them in Classic WoW: Pets. Pets are one of the biggest attractions as a Hunter, allowing you to tame, train, and fight alongside an animal companion that will help you immensely in combat. You can even name and feed your pet to keep it happy and willing to fight at your side. A full explanation of the pet system and all involved is linked below.
The second system, while note entirely unique to Hunters, is ammo. In Classic WoW, ranged weapons require ammo to work. In other words, you have to have the projectiles that your ranged weapon is going to shoot in your bags and equipped. If you are using a Bow or Crossbow, you will need Arrows, ideally placed in a quiver. For Guns, you will need bullets. As a Hunter, ranged damage is the primary way you will be doing any damage in most situations, making staying on top of your ammo count a top priority. Whenever you visit a town, always look for a General Goods vendor to stock up on the highest level ammo that you can use.
Best Races for Hunter in Classic
The following is a list of best to worst race choices for Hunter when engaging in PvE content.
The following is a list of best to worst race choices for Hunter when engaging in PvP content.
Night Elf and Dwarf are both strong races and you should not feel compelled to pick either one. Night Elf is technically stronger for pure damage, but only because of the higher base Agility, which is a very minor gain. For PvP, it comes down to whether you prefer Shadowmeld or Stoneform, which depends on what you will mainly be doing. For open world PvP and defending in battlegrounds, Shadowmeld is going to be better because it allows you to sit stealthed, scouting out enemy positions and getting the opener on anyone approaching without them knowing you are there. For duels and fighting against melee, Stoneform is strong and can potentially be the difference between winning and losing if you have a melee on you.
Night Elf
- Nature Resistance increases your Nature Resistance by 10.
- Quickness increases your Dodge Chance by 1%.
- Shadowmeld is an ability that allows you to become stealthed while standing still when used, on a 10 second cooldown. This cannot be used in combat.
- Wisp Spirit causes you to transform into a wisp upon death, increasing your movement speed by 50% while dead.
Shadowmeld is a powerful ability for PvP which allows you to stealth in a single spot, potentially giving you the opener if you can position yourself carefully. It is also very useful while leveling because you can macro Shadowmeld together with your food and water to eat and drink while stealthed, reducing the chance that something will catch you off guard. Endurance is also useful in PvP when fighting melee. Night Elf is technically superior to Dwarf for damage, but only because of their higher base Agility, meaning the difference is marginal.
Dwarf
- Find Treasure allows you to sense nearby treasure (chests mainly), making it appear on the minimap.
- Frost Resistance increases your Frost Resistance by 10.
- Gun Specialization increases your skill with Guns by 5, which increases your chance to hit with a gun.
- Stoneform makes you immune to all bleed, poison, and disease effects, as well as increasing your armour for 8 seconds, on a 3-minute cooldown.
Gun Specialization is not as good as Troll's Bow Specialization because guns are much rarer. At Level 60, none of the best weapons from any raid or dungeon are guns, which makes it much less useful. You can use guns occasionally while leveling, but they are still rarer than bows and crossbows. Stoneform is a very powerful ability for PvP and can give you the edge when fighting Warriors and Rogues, as you can immune their bleeds and poisons.
The following is a list of best to worst race choices for Hunter when engaging in PvE content.
The following is a list of best to worst race choices for Hunter when engaging in PvE content.
Troll and Orc are very close in terms of damage gained, but Troll is slightly better due to Berserking being such a strong ability. Orc is the best race for PvP because of Hardiness and will help you against melee more than Tauren's War Stomp. For a mix of both PvE and PvP, Orc is the best choice, as you still get a competitive damage bonus from Command while being the dominant PvP race.
Troll
- Beast Slaying gives a 5% damage bonus against Beasts.
- Berserking is a 3-minute cooldown that gives you between 10-30% increased attack and casting speed depending on your health, with the effect being greater the more hurt you are.
- Bow Specialization increases your skill with Bows by 5, which increases your chance to hit with a bow.
- Regeneration gives +10% passive health regeneration and allows you to regenerate 10% of your total health regeneration during combat.
Trolls are the best choice if your goal is to maximize your damage. Berserking is the most powerful racial ability of any race and will let you get more auto shots off while it is active. Keep in mind that it is more effective when used while you are missing health. Beast Slaying is powerful while leveling, but is only useful for a handful of bosses in raids and dungeons. Bow Specialization is also useful, but not as powerful as weapon specializations for other classes. Auto Shot cannot be parried or be a glancing blow, which makes weapon skill less important, but is still a noticeable boost to your chance to hit. At Level 60, it is much easier to get hit capped and this bonus becomes less important.
Orc
- Axe Specialization increases your skill with Axes by 5, which increases your chance to hit and lowers your chance to be parried or deal a glancing blow with axes.
- Blood Fury is a 2-minute cooldown that increases your base melee Attack Power by 25% for 15 seconds and reduces healing effects on you by 50% for 25 seconds.
- Command increases your pet damage dealt by 5%.
- Hardiness increases your chance to resist stuns by 25%.
Orc is the go-to PvP race choice for hunter. Hardiness is an incredibly powerful racial and can change the outcome of any fight where you resist a stun, especially against Rogues. Command provides a nice damage bonus to your pet, making Orc competitive with Troll for damage. The Axe Specialization will help you for the first few levels, but once you get your pet at Level 10, you will rarely melee. For the same reason, Blood Fury is not a great cooldown for Hunters and does not provide much use past Level 10.
Tauren
- Cultivation increases your Herbalism skill by 15.
- Endurance increases your total health by 5%.
- Nature Resistance increases your Nature Resistance by 10.
- War Stomp is a 2-minute cooldown that stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds, with a 0.5 second cast time.
War Stomp can be a great ability for PvP and the 5% increased health from Endurance is nice, but Tauren does not give any damage increase. War Stomp is also only situationally useful, as it requires you to be close to your target, which only really happens when you have a melee target chasing you. Tauren is the weakest choice for PvE and only situationally good in PvP.
Best Professions for Hunters
The best profession to have as a Hunter is Engineering. It provides powerful items that you can use in both PvE and PvP content to either deal damage or help you get out of a tough spot.
Leatherworking is also a great choice for Hunters. The Devilsaur set is a BiS crafted set that you can make for when you are max level, and is very strong throughout the first raid tier.
While Engineering and Leatherworking are great professions, the likely more important thing to think about is how you plan to make gold. Gold is incredibly important in WoW Classic for a number of reasons and will be quite hard to come by, especially at the start. Check out the Hunter Goldmaking section for more information on other potential professions for making gold.
Hunter in Season of Discovery
Find our new guides for Hunter in WoW Classic Season of Discovery below! The new game mode will have players find and utilize Runes that can then be engraved onto their gear to provide them special bonuses that augment already existing abilities or allow the class to use entirely new spells.
With the introduction of new Runes in Season of Discovery, not only will old builds be increased in power, but Survival Hunter now has the option of being played as a Melee DPS.
Changelog
- 17 Nov. 2024 (gear page): Updated for Vanilla re-release.
- 17 Nov. 2024 (enchants page): Updated for Vanilla re-release.
- 17 Nov. 2024 (stats page): Updated for Vanilla re-release.
- 17 Nov. 2024 (rotation page): Updated for Vanilla re-release.
- 17 Nov. 2024 (pets page): Updated for Vanilla re-release.
- 17 Nov. 2024 (talents page): Updated for Vanilla re-release.
- 17 Nov. 2024 (spells page): Updated for Vanilla re-release.
- 17 Nov. 2024 (this page): Updated for Vanilla re-release.
- 30 Oct. 2024 (this page): Updated page to include Season of Discovery links and modernized formatting.
- 16 Nov. 2021 (rotation page): Updated for Season of Mastery to reflect debuff limit being removed.
- 02 Dec. 2020 (gear page): Updated for Phase 6.
- 02 Dec. 2020 (enchants page): Updated with Phase 6 Naxxramas Enchants.
- 06 Aug. 2020 (gear page): Reworked for Phase 5 BiS with alternatives.
- 15 Jul. 2020 (gear page): Added link to Ahn'Qiraj BiS.
- 18 May 2020 (enchants page): Updated with current World Buffs as of Phase 4.
- 18 May 2020 (pets page): Updated with the Zul'Gurub Wind Serpents.
- 25 Apr. 2020 (gear page): Added missing weapon.
- 14 Apr. 2020 (gear page): Updated for Zul'Gurub.
- 14 Apr. 2020 (enchants page): Updated for Zul'Gurub.
- 13 Mar. 2020 (gear page): Updated with Arathi Basin gear.
- 12 Feb. 2020 (gear page): Revamped page for Phase 3.
- 10 Dec. 2019 (gear page): Added link to PvP BiS section.
- 05 Nov. 2019 (gear page): Added Raid BiS list.
- 22 Oct. 2019 (gear page): Updated Pre-Raid BiS to include Dire Maul.
- 25 Sep. 2019 (gear page): Updated list to specify what is BiS, and made some changes to reflect 1.4 drops.
- 18 Jun. 2019 (this page): Added notes on Professions.
- 12 Jun. 2019 (gear page): Page added.
- 12 Jun. 2019 (enchants page): Page added.
- 12 Jun. 2019 (stats page): Page added.
- 12 Jun. 2019 (rotation page): Page added.
- 12 Jun. 2019 (pets page): Page added.
- 12 Jun. 2019 (talents page): Page added.
- 12 Jun. 2019 (spells page): Page added.
- 12 Jun. 2019 (this page): Page added.
- 13 Mar. 2019 (enchants page): Added Phase 3 enchants.
More Classic Hunter Guides
More Classic Guides from Other Classes
Classic Dungeon Guides
Classic Profession Guides
Classic Reputation Guides
This guide has been written by Impakt, an Officer in BDGG, the #2 North American guild on retail. In addition to live WoW, he has also been a classic theorycrafter and enthusiast for many years. You can watch him stream on Twitch, or follow him on Twitter.
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