World of Warcraft Classic - Hunter Leveling Guide

When played well, hunters are just about the best class at playing alone. You have a pet to keep distance from mobs, good DPS in ranged attacks, and of course a lot of skills to help you get out of sticky situations. The following will be my personal take on the leveling experience of a hunter, and how you can get the most out of it.

When creating hunters, I am convinced that Blizzard spent about three times as much time and effort on their skills and abilities. There is so much that other classes miss out on. If you are unsure of which class to pick, go hunter. They are so much fun. You are going to come across a lot of people that complain about hunters having so much versatility, but just take it in your stride and tell them that they should have rolled a hunter.

DISCLAIMER:

I know you probably clicked on this guide thinking you want to have the most time and resource efficient way to make the long and slow process of one to 60 as painless as possible. If you’re one of those people, there are better resources out there compiled by people who have done a lot more research. Instead, I want you to know that, in my opinion as an avid OG Vanilla WoW hunter main for several years, that the leveling process for hunters is absolutely one of the best of any class. Period. Sure, the process is easier and faster in a lot of ways compared to other classes (you almost can’t die, for example), but I’m talking about the experiences you’ll have, the situations you will come across, and the fun ways you’ll use your arsenal of skills to your advantage in the epic fight to level 60.

Getting started:

I’m going to start simple with this guide, but it will get more philosophical as we go along.

- Race/Faction

Your faction has probably already been decided by either your current friend(s) on the server, or a gut feeling that you “just want” to play either Alliance or Horde. I would urge you not to be dissuaded by things like people telling you that “Alliance players are spineless sheep”, or “The faction imbalance on this server is such that you CAN’T play Horde”. If you are into lore, do some research about the different races before you decide. If you’re like me and don’t care about the history of the Warcraft universe, pick the race that looks cool.

TIP: Don’t forget to consider your racial skills as a hunter, too. Choose the race that you like the most, in my opinion, but once you’ve made that choice, make use of those racials!

As a night elf, feign death plus shadowmeld is such a great combination to get out of PvP situations, for example. When you come across some bloodthirsty horde players out for blood and they are hot on your tail, cut into the trees to break line of sight, and then feign death to drop the target on your head. Then, hop into the nearest bush and hit shadowmeld - you’ll be so much harder to find.

Skills:

Buy skills that you want to have fun with, but here are a few of the most notable and interesting.

Feign death - Do I even need to explain this one? Doing so much damage that the tanks can’t keep up with threat? Feign death. Accidentally pulled too many mobs and need to reset them? Feign death. Got a priest friend in your group who you know is second on the threat meter and want to troll? Dismiss pet and feign death.

Traps - Oh my, traps are so much fun! Not only are they useful, but they are a blast to mess around with. Slowing traps, freezing traps, exploding traps, one for every occasion.

Tracking - Awesome skill, great to have out in the wild when you need to keep a lookout for certain mobs, or in town when you want to find a shopkeeper.

Pets - Pets are great. They probably deserve their own series of articles. Another mechanic unique to hunters, and is more in-depth than you might first think. Each type of pet has a range of food it can eat, a different movement and attack speed, special skills, and you will find yourself growing attached as they level up with you. Their models even slowly get bigger as they level up, everything about pets is so cool! Pick a pet that you like the look of, with interesting skills that will help you in combat, but that also might get you out of a PvP jam. Get creative and use your pet to surprise your friends when you duel. Some pets can help you solo a five dungeon, some can help you troll low level players into switching on their PvP flags (See below), and some are just downright badass to look at.

Jump on Google, look up a website with a list of hunter pets by category, and start scrolling. You are bound to come across a few that pique your interest. When you have your desired pet and the location, go out on a hunt! You are a hunter, after all.

TIP: Head over to an enemy faction’s leveling area and tame a common mob in that area. Hide somewhere nearby and use ‘Eyes of the beast’ to control your pet and move about in the same way a mob would. After a while, an enemy faction player is bound to take a swing at your pet thinking that it is a common mob. This will switch on their PvP flag and you can mess with them further! (Only works on PvP servers)

Making your experience the best it can be:

There’s no way around it, the leveling process is going to take some constant dedication and time on your part. But don’t stress, take it easy and enjoy the process! Here are a few extra points to help you on your way, the first of which is the most important:

Challenge yourself!

Giving yourself these little challenges and sidequests bring you closer to your character, and made my time with my hunter in the game so much more special in my opinion. Give yourself a little goal like soloing a dungeon at a certain level, or pulling a powerful mob to a nearby town to watch the guards take it out. Search up a rare pet and take your friends out with you to help find it. Head over to the low level areas and hand out some goodies to new players just starting out. If all you do is focus on the end goal of getting to sixty as quickly as you can, you’ve sadly missed the point of the epic, thriving, atmospheric world that the developers of this game wanted to cultivate.

Don’t give in to numbers:

Generally, when you are leveling up, your gear is going to look a bit mismatched and silly, especially at low levels. Don’t like the look of a headpiece or cape? Luckily, you can hide it, but what about when you really want to keep an item but it has slightly worse stats than something you just picked up? For example, a dwarf holding a bow looks so silly to me, and I would be prepared to take a considerable DPS hit just so I could keep the shells flying. If you really don’t come across a decent gun in your travels, look one up and go seek it out! Once again, if you commit to your role as the character, you can have a lot of fun!

Don’t be greedy with loot:

Sadly, the rumors are true. Hunters are greedy gremlins and can wield just about anything. For the love of god, don’t roll on weapons against melee classes unless the stats can benefit you, and even then, be careful about how much they might benefit someone else! Think about if a warrior rolled on a sweet bow just because it had a bit of strength or agility he could use. You would be furious!

Grinding for gold is not worth it:

I’m going to level with you guys - this is not a hunter specific point, but please read carefully.

I’ve been through it all - being poor and friendless, having to farm wow classic gold just to keep up with your guild raid progress or the taxes they put on their members - feeling guilty when someone loaned me the money for my first epic mount, and spending the subsequent weeks doing objectively un-fun gold farming. I know what it’s like to farm for gold, and I know how useful gold can be at any level. Free yourself from having to choose between upgrading your armour and feeding your pet. Don’t subscribe to the ‘scrimp and save’ method of leveling where you lose out on so much fun you could be having buying things on the auction house, just so you can afford your mount and training by level 40. Consider translating some of your real money into in-game gold. You already pay the subscription, and it’s so easy to do. I discovered SSEGold.com a long time ago, and they have never let me down. If you take one thing away from this guide, it should be this!

So there you go. By no means a comprehensive list of things you need to have the best hunter experience, but A step in the right direction for any aspiring hunters who have yet to roll the best class in WoW Classic!