World of Warcraft Hunter Mastery Guide

World of Warcraft Hunter Mastery Guide

Well known as the wild beast masters of the game, World of Warcraft hunters are the outdoor survival and combat experts. Their abilities include range weapons specialization, deploying various pets in combat, setting up deadly traps, mimicking beasts using “aspects” and being able to engage in close melee combat when needed.

Here is a condensed WoW hunter guide detailing each of their talents and abilities

1. Ranged weapon specialization.

Probably the most specialized class in the use of bows and arrows and later guns and muskets. They can use up to 4 “stings” which they apply to projectiles which act as debuffs on targets causing high damage. As well as stings they have access to shots like Arcane Shot which deals instant magic damage, Auto shot which allows continuous firing until cancelled, and later Steady Shot which causes instant damage and uses very little mana.

2. Close Range Melee Fighting:

Not as good as Tanks this is a skill that none the less comes in very useful for hunters when push comes to shove. For instance if the pet is incapacitated or enemies come too close then the hunter can count on this to regain distance and re-start his ranged weapon onslaught or simply use it to finish off an opponent.

3. Pets:

For combat purposes pets are their most important “tool”. It exponentially increases the Damage Per Second or DPS they inflict on enemies. The pet usually fills the role of tank while the hunter peppers the opponents with arrows or bullets which very, very quickly disposes of them (at least twice as fast as a warrior and with much less damage). Pets are crucial in that they allow hunters to almost completely avoid the focus of enemy attack or in “Wow speak” their “aggro”, allowing hunters the freedom to pick off the enemy from a safe distance.

4. Traps:

This class has access to 5 traps for crowd control, and to give damage. Traps have a cool down period of 30 seconds but once one is set another kind can be immediately set up.

Hunter traps are:

Freezing Trap – freezes approaching enemies


Frost Trap – Slows enemies up to 60% in area where trap is set


Immolation Trap – Burns enemies over 15 sec period


Explosive Trap – Explodes as enemy approaches causing fire damage
5. Aspects

Aspects is an ability which only they can tap into. It allows them to assume aspects of 7 different types of animals. Only one at a time can be active. This talent is especially useful depending on what kind of combat a hunter is about to engage in. A skillful hunter will know just which aspect to use or mix up when the need arises.

The seven available hunter aspects are:

Aspect of the Monkey: This can increase the chance to dodge by 8%.


Aspect of the Hawk: Increases “ranged” attack by “x” amount depending on level.


Aspect of the Cheetah: Can speed up the hunter speed by 30% but can also daze him for 4 seconds if suffering damage.


Aspect of the Beast: Allows hunters to become undetectable.


Aspect of the Pack: The hunter and his/her group take on the characteristics of a pack of cheetahs, increasing all their movement speeds by 30%. If a pack member takes damage, they will be dazed for 4 sec.


Aspect of the Wild: The Hunter and his group take on the characteristics of the wilderness, gaining %2BX resistance to Nature damage.


Aspect of the Viper: Regenerates mana equal to 55% of his intellect every 5 seconds.

6. Tracking

This is yet another ability only available to Hunters.

These are the kind of units they can track:

Beasts, Humanoids, Undead, Hidden, Elementals, Demons, Giants, and Dragonkin at different levels.

All the above abilities in this short World of Warcraft hunter guide point to the hunter as being a powerful class if you like to play solo. In group it is also very useful thanks to the aspects abilities which can benefit the whole group. Hunters are also very popular thanks to having a pet which add to their DPS, and ranged weapon expertise that allow them to pick off enemies super fast allowing them to complete quests quickly as well as grinding just as fast resulting with fast levelling. No wonder then, that many power levelling guides like to use a hunters to demonstrate how to get to level 70 in the fastest time.