Best alliance race for hunter?

[Horacio 0]

The two popular options are dwarf and nelf, but what is the best race between them for PvE DPS? I don't care too much for PvP, I'm more interested in raids. I've heard that Nelf has a higher base agility which makes it better than a dwarf in terms of PvE DPS, can someone confirm this for me?

[Roxanne Flowers 15]

Are you planning to play at melee distance or at range?
What do you want to use for your ranged weapon?  A bow or a gun?

If the answer to these two questions is Range and Gun, then you're going to be better off going Dwarf, simply because of the +5 Gun Skill racial.

If the answer to these two questions is Melee and Bow, then you're going to be better off going Night Elf, because of the higher base Agility and +1% Dodge racial.

Those are pretty much the only game mechanical reasons for picking one over the other.  Beyond that it comes down to choice of starter areas and the Beasts available for taming within those areas (if you want an Owl, that's MUCH easier for Elves to do than Dwarves, since at low levels Owls exist exclusively atop Teldrassil).  If you're still undecided after that ... pick based on appearance/aesthetics and just enjoy the game.

[Myllz 8]

It makes no discernible difference.  Dwarf Stoneform is very good in PvP, but does nothing in terms of damage.  Shadowmeld is also useful for utility, but again does nothing for damage output.  If you'e playing for BiS, the gun racial means nothing and the NE agility bonus is negligible.  Play whichever one you like more.

[levran 146]

NE have more agility, weapon skill not important for hunters. Dwarf engineer is good choice for leveling and PvP.

[Raziya 11]

Nelves have more base agility.

Shadowmeld can be used in combat situations thanks to Feign Death on a hunter, and hunters don't have stealth by default, so the racial becomes especially useful on this class. Can juke people with shadowmelds and invisibility potions. Shadowmeld is also perfectly suited to a hunter's toolkit because hunters have great burst damage. I've picked off red team healers from their backline by just shadowmelding 'til they get past me. :D You can also Hunter's Mark and adjust tracking from Shadowmeld, and your first Auto Shot can be used from Shadowmeld. It has a lot of practical uses. And, it's a lot of fun!

The nature resistance racial can go to better use than the frost resistance one for raiding. I have 315 NR (cap) and 9% hit in my NR set, and I didn't have to buy a 22 NR ring, or two 21 NR rings, and get the 8 NR neck from, uhh... Silithus quests. I still wear my PToC.

There are a few reasons I wouldn't recommend dwarf for hunter. The gun racial is practically useless because there are no guns at endgame, aside from LotGW, that are BiS. LotGW is still second place to ACoS. Sure, you might be able to get +7 damage on it instead of +3% hit since it gives you hit, but that's not really a big deal.

The Stoneform racial may seem really appealing for PvP, and it's true it's a great racial, but rogues and warriors are not classes you are likely to have trouble with as a hunter, at least not in 1v1 or 1v2. Below level 30 it's fantastic, but then once you're over 30, you get Feign Death + Freezing Trap. You can just walk away from melee classes after trapping them, easy peasy. The area Stoneform really comes in handy is if you're holding a position or in the middle of an all-out, but you can function just fine in an all-out from the back line, shooting clothies, and you can hold a position as a night elf just fine, and that's made easier with Shadowmeld too. Element of surprise and all that.

While you might miss an easy way out of Blind as a night elf, there are lots more opportunities to do cool stuff with Shadowmeld, especially if you get creative. Juking people has saved my ass more times than I can count, and there's nothing quite like overwhelming some unsuspecting Hordies by making an appearance when they least expect it. I strongly recommend night elf as the superior race for huntering on the Alliance.

Edit: My apologies, there's more I can say about PvE. I was too busy to offer a full reply earlier ^^ Allow me to rectify that. See below for extended comments:

Spoiler

Shadowmeld and Feign Death, when active, will stay on cooldown until taken off. However, your Feign CD can run out while Shadowmeld is active, and vice versa. So... if you're keen on doing the Mara farm or if you Feign in a shitty spot in a dungeon or something, you can stay Shadowmelded until your Feign is up, then run and Feign again when you're out of the aggro radius of that stationary pack of mobs. Pretty nifty!

You can also AFK anywhere you want, pretty much. No ganks while you need to get up and do something IRL... provided, of course, you don't Shadowmeld in the middle of a mob's patrol path, near a stealth-detecting mob, on top of the spawn point of a mob about to respawn, or in plain sight of a Hordie, of course.

If you find yourself in my position, where you're tasked with doing the pulls in raids for your guild, Shadowmeld can come in handy for that. In BWL's suppression room, I Shadowmeld away from the rest of the party, ready to fire off a rank 1 Arcane Shot at the next Death Talon Hatcher or Blackwing Taskmaster pack to get to a good position, and then I don't end up dragging unwanted whelps or something to the raid. In AQ40, one of the Obsidian Eradicators near the beginning passes perilously close to the Anubisath Sentinel pack on its patrol, so I use Shadowmeld to be in range of pulling it before it actually gets there so I can reliably dissect the patrol.

One really critical area for raiding where Shadowmeld can be a literal life-saver is if you wind up separated from your raid group with buffs, and you need to get to your raid intact, but there are gankers or people waiting to dispel you or something. It's happened a few times to me, but a little Shadowmeld + Invisibility Potion juke could save your world buffs. You can even Shadowmeld after the Invisibility Potion has worn off and simply wait in an inconspicuous location until your enemies have moved on, or you could at least get breathing room to /camp for a few minutes. On the occasions that has occurred, Shadowmeld proved to be a worthy raiding utility racial.

I should also mention that the 1% dodge racial comes in handy too for that job. I favor 7/31/13 (http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#cx0MZVVRhthtIbbbo) because on occasion, my allies don't pull dangerous stuff back quickly enough, or I need to hold a dangerous mob for a little bit anyway. A pack of three Blackwing Taskmasters, one Debilitating Charge + auto attack from a Vekniss Soldier, Kri from Bug Trio (which I pull back to the doorway, he has Windfury and hits like a truck), a single auto attack from a Giant Claw Tentacle on C'thun, all deadly stuff I've facetanked before. The last one I didn't NEED to, it's not my job, but my setup sure helped! And I lived. The other three, I could've been one-shot or nearly one-shot without some protection. Every little bit counts...

If you have any questions about that spec, by the way, I'd be happy to explain if you just ask.

For PvE, the dwarf gun racial can come in handy if you have a Larvae of the Great Worm. You'll benefit from hit, according to the latest source code analyses, with the gun racial and the Great Worm... so you can use +7 damage instead of +3% hit very easily, but there are a few funky things about that compared to using Ashjre'thul.

Ashjre'thul, Crossbow of Smiting: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?item=19361
Larvae of the Great Worm: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?item=23557

Not to get on another tangent here, but barring the fact that I'm not sure exactly how much benefit a +7 damage scope gives (I've done a few calculations, but I need to confirm with my colleagues that they're correct), Larvae of the Great Worm is a CLIPPED auto weapon, versus Ashjre'thul which is a FULL auto. Clipped auto means you use Aimed Shot as soon as it's off cooldown, which therefore clips a bit of your Auto Shot since some of Auto Shot's cooldown will be spent when Aimed Shot comes off cooldown. With Ashjre'thul and no funky haste things, my Aimed Shot and Auto Shot come off cooldown at about the same time, so your Aimed Shot will be on cycle for more than 9 seconds, since that Auto Shot's .5 sec charge-up time needs to be spent first. It may come off CD in the middle of the .5 sec charge-up with expert timing.

...So, I'm not exactly sure how the +7 damage scope interacts with Ashjre'thul versus Larvae of the Great Worm. +7 damage indubitably improves the damage of a faster weapon over a slower weapon, but by how much is the question. If it's marginal, as I suppose it is, is it worth it? Probably not. On the plus side, if you can use a +7 damage scope, like I'd like to do when I pick up a second Ashjre'thul (I've got the gear for it, but I CANNOT overwrite an Accurascope. 300g down the drain? No thank you! Just wish the damn thing would drop more often), it'll have a more significant impact for sure during Rapid Fire or Quick Shots procs. I argue that a hunter's burst is his strongest point; our sustain isn't nearly as capable as other classes' and it pales in comparison to our own burst, so it may be the most important area to improve your damage. Of course, getting +7 damage on your LotGW versus being able to afford that much hit without a scope on ACoS is merely a matter of time... so is that worth it?

For PvE, Stoneform really comes in handy as a defensive cooldown. You can shake off Visc poisons, Vekniss Catalyst, Vekniss Guardians' Impale bleeds, and probably some physical or nature magic debuffs in Naxx too. I'm not experienced with Naxx in the slightest, so I have no grounds to speak on it but speculation. Anyway, in AQ40 it sure seems like a great racial to have! Since, like I said, I do pulls, I bring Jungle Remedies along for Vekniss Catalyst so I can get back in position sooner. Some generous guildies even provide me with Anti-Venom for when the Remedies are on CD! It's a bit of an inconvenience, but hey, the Jungle Remedies are cheap as dirt and I can always call on the healz if I need a dispel. Got some Hearts of Noxxion too, when I'm wearing 'em at least.

All that said, I still think night elves are superior to dwarves for raiding alone, but you can't go wrong as a dwarf either. Both races have excellent racials. I hope what I've said helps you make an informed decision, and I hope you're happy with your new hunter ^^

As always, if you need anything else, just hit me up. I love helping out :D

Edited August 9, 2017 by Raziya
More stuff to say!

[Oakenlix 79]

I also want to note that if you use a shadowmeld macro from @Raziya's macros guide, it makes you practically immune to corpse-campers. 

When you ressurect behind a tree and spam the macro, you go to shadowmeld the moment you res, and campers are just extremely unlikely to find you and have to move somewhere else.

[Raziya 11]

2 hours ago, Oakenlix said:

I also want to note that if you use a shadowmeld macro from @Raziya's macros guide, it makes you practically immune to corpse-campers. 

When you ressurect behind a tree and spam the macro, you go to shadowmeld the moment you res, and campers are just extremely unlikely to find you and have to move somewhere else.

That was always fun. :D

[lorthiras 7]

dwarf - master race. Stoneform> all NE skills. Blind? Nope. Cripling? No.

[Myllz 8]

4 minutes ago, lorthiras said:

dwarf - master race. Stoneform> all NE skills. Blind? Nope. Cripling? No.

OP said he doesn't care about PvP, so it's pretty irrelevant.

[Raziya 11]

And rogues shouldn't be much of a problem for hunters anyway, so... I always considered Stoneform just to deal with rogues a poor reason on its own. Stoneform is nice, but it's not nice because rogues are less effective.

Could counter it pretty easily too as a rogue if you know anything about your class. Force Stoneform, if they don't pop it go back to stealth normally, if they do vanish and come back in a few. Stealth, however, is a wild card... it's much harder to account for, for any class.