New to WoW and the Hunter Class

[CyR3x 0]

Hello guys,

as the title suggests I am new to WoW. I have played 2 Weeks of the paid trial time in 2005? 2006ish. I am not particulary new to mmorpgs but I aint the jack of trades either. I've played Ragnarok and Dungeons and Dragons Online so far.

I am a level 10 Night Elf Hunter and I have been struggling to get there. I ain't sure if or what I am doing wrong. So I have several questions about the Hunter Class, the UI, addons, casting spells and whatnot. Someone giving me directions and showing me the ropes would be nice.

 

Assaid I am a lvl 10 night elf hunter. I am using ShaguUI, EQL3 and Questie so far. I tried the Fubar Addons but this pretty much overburdened me, because I dont know what the hell most of the addons are doing and I have been struggling to find explanations or descriptions for them. Which also brings me to my first few questions:

 

The ShaguUI is nice and all but if I put spells on the default bar and switch from ranged to close because an enemy gets close the default binded 1,2,3,4.. and so forth become invisible and obviously switch to a new bar. I figured out thats when you get into close combat, which btw isn't happening on a gnome warlock I am playing but whatevs. I also figured out to put close combat skills in this 'autoswitching' bar while being in close combat. Which is a minor problem because I could always fight a low lvl enemy and arrange my skills while in combat.

Is there any workaround to that? Are there any better UIs for the hunter class? What addons should I definetly get and why?

 

K next thing. I always feel like I am one or two levels behind especially doing quests in caves. I am soloing most of the time. My gear feels like it's low level altough I always equip the 'best' things I get from quests. Grinding for a level didnt really seem to do the trick because ~1% of xp per kill isnt really satisifing considering the amount of time spent killing a mob and waiting to be full on health again, questing seems the way to go. I also seem to die quite often.

Is this normal in WoW Vanilla? Any directions for a complete hunter guide? Sequence of casting spells? When to get out of combat and just run? Should I buy potions in the ah?! Since Questie suggests a level for most of the quests should I be ahead of it or is on par okay?

 

Last but not least I have been trying to tame an owl. I know it needs meat and I have fed it like 20 jerkys and its still at level 1 of loyality and rebellious. I've put it in the stables for now so it doesnt run away like the last one. What the heck am I supposed to do? Or what am I doing wrong? How much meat to I need to feed it?

 

 

I thank you guys in advance.

CyR3x

 

edit: sorry for any spelling mistakes. english is not my mother tongue. feel free to ask any questions related to the matter, but I guess you get my questions.

Edited February 10, 2017 by CyR3x

[gotmilk0112 10]

Hunter is the hardest class to level 1-10 because no pet. Once you tame your pet, Hunter becomes literally the fastest and easiest leveling class.

 

If you're new to WoW, I'd suggest playing with no addons and just adding them one at a time as you go. Stuff like Shagu UI contains tons of addons in one pack.

 

 I always feel like I am one or two levels behind especially doing quests in caves.

That's vanilla for you. A lot of the time you're going to be fighting mobs that are equal or slightly higher level than you. Vanilla questing does not have good pacing at all, so you will have to do two or even three different zones at the same time, just to have enough appropriate-level quests.

 

Last but not least I have been trying to tame an owl. I know it needs meat and I have fed it like 20 jerkys and its still at level 1 of loyality and rebellious. I've put it in the stables for now so it doesnt run away like the last one. What the heck am I supposed to do? Or what am I doing wrong? How much meat to I need to feed it?

Pets automatically gain loyalty levels just by having them active. You have to gain 5% of your EXP and then wait a certain amount of in-game time (with your pet out) and it will automatically gain loyalty levels.

 

At low loyalty, yes, you'll need to feed it like all the time. Get "PetFeeder" addon, it makes things much easier. NOTE: The happiness meter in the default pet menu is bugged, it always shows as happy. This is why you need a pet feeding addon, because it will actually show you when your pet needs to be fed.

 

As for pet, it really doesn't matter; there are no "bad" pets, especially for leveling. For a new player, I'd recommend a Boar, since they will eat almost any food, have very high defenses, and useful abilities like Charge and Bite.

[Raziya 11]

gotmilk's right about boars being awesome leveling pets. I haven't run into the happiness meter bug at all though...

Here's a guide. You can find macros and addons and near the bottom of the original post are video tutorials.
https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/29824-hunter-macros-tips-redux/

Leveling without a pet is made much easier by stutter stepping, but that can take practice. Essentially, it's that you step back while your Auto Shot is on cooldown, and stop when it's off cooldown to fire off a shot. Enemies can die before they even touch you, even prior to level 10.

See "The Hunter's Toolkit," Serpent Sting segment (in the description) for a low-level example.

I'm also inclined to agree with gotmilk that going overboard on addons right away can make it more difficult to learn your way around, especially without an explanation. The addons I've linked in my thread at this juncture are mostly quite minimal, such as a simple Auto Shot timer or a pet ability finder, and I've included configuration instructions, if that helps.

Have fun. :D

 

[gotmilk0112 10]

1 hour ago, Raziya said:

I haven't run into the happiness meter bug at all though...

In both vanilla and TBC private servers, the default pet status screen has a happiness icon, but it's bugged and always shows as happy, no matter what. Even if the pet is Unhappy and about to disappear, the icon on the pet status screen doesn't change. 

 

Thus, you need to get PetFeeder, or a unitframe like Luna Unit Frames, to show you the actual happiness status of your pet.

[Raziya 11]

Or you could check the little happiness icon next to your pet frame in the default vanilla UI :p

[Proto 1]

Rais Autoshot is the addon you need that shows your shoot timer. With it you can fire a shot, run from your mob or player and know exactly when to stop to fire your next shot... important for kiting some mobs along with wing clip/concussive shot/ice trap... also super important for weaving abilities like aimed shot and multi shot in between your autoshots later on.

 

levels 1-10 are brutal. Once you get your pet, leveling becomes super easy. Any new pet will take several hours to get to a good loyalty level and until then constantly need an annoying amount of food. even though your pet will be your Tank, don't be afraid to have a second monster attacking you if you have to pull multiple monsters, the pet can pull it off you after you finish killing your first monster.

 

One trick you should master pretty early on is the jump shot. Basically while running away from something you jump, mouse spin your character around real fast, use whatever instant shot ability, and mouse spin back before you land. Why? Maybe to use concussive shot if something is chasing you to slow it down, or to use distracting shot if you want to hold aggro on something while your pet or Group kills the thing chasing you. Your group will love you when suddenly that hard hitting impossible to kill Elite becomes trivial

[ghilledhu 0]

Pretty much everything in Vanilla is more time-consuming and dangerous than in retail (and probably other more recent MMOs) so don't feel bad about that.  Caves on these servers are particularly dangerous because of the respawns, so it pays to be somewhat conservative.  Open space is your friend as a hunter.  Find some wide-open places and practice kiting and the jump-shot.  With kiting you can kill mobs higher level than you otherwise could, and it mainly becomes a matter of space and time, keeping it from resetting, and staying out of its range.

Getting a new pet happy and loyal takes a lot of food, so expect to be feeding it constantly.  Once you get him happier, it will take much less food to keep them happy.  It feels crazy, but just keep feeding it and try not to let it die or take a lot of damage.  The higher level the food, the more happiness your pet will gain (ranging from 8-17-35 per tic).  Anecdotally, for a lot of pet stuff (learning skills, leveling, happiness) it seems to help to stand near the pet and melee the target together when you can.  It's really rough at first, but once he starts gaining loyalty it gets exponentially easier to keep him happy.  You can buy player-edible food or farm for raw food items (cooking ingredients).  For example, the boars in Westfall are a really good food source because they're neutral, abundant, and almost always drop something meaty.

A good pet resource that I've been using is http://web.archive.org/web/20070408161247/http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/index.shtml. This is the old version of the Petopia website, which has been in use forever.

For rotation, at level 10 I don't remember if you get Hunters Mark yet, but put that up before the pull if you have it, then send in your pet first with growl and whatever offensive ability (bite, claw, etc) flashing on auto-cast.  An early concussive shot will help make sure your pet locks on, and buys you some time if it doesn't.  Get serpent sting up asap, and use arcane and multi on cd when you have them.  Make use the 'pet attack' keybind (think its shift-T by default), and you'll be able to send your pet after adds quickly if they attack you.  Once you get Disengage you'll be able to attempt to drop aggro, but it seems to work like a melee ability based on your weapon skill and the target's defenseive stats.

I wouldn't recommend buying pots from the AH, but I suppose its good to have some on hand.  Personally I tend to waste them if I have them, though, and buying new talents will take up a large portion of your cashflow on your first character.  But if you've got a main and lots of gold, that's an option.

Only use addons that you really like.  The more automation you have, the less control.

[Software 9]

I highly suggest key binding both pet attack, and pet passive,  and learn to control your pet well, like sending at another mob while you go to loot/skin.

[Clav 1]

Loads of useful info here for noob hunters! Especially thanks for the info about the bugged happiness icon. I have lost 2 pets now and couldn't figure out why as it said they were always happy.