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The Hunter in World of Warcraft is a class designed around ranged attacks and pet damage. They can use ranged weapons such as bows, guns, and crossbows. Starting out with leather armor, they eventually learn the ability to equip mail and can dual wield one-handed weapons or opt for a hefty two-hander. With an arsenal of tricks and abilities to create distance and negate damage taken at their disposal, the Hunter class can be a formidable force in both Player versus Player and Player versus Environment game play.

The first 10 levels of the game can be quite lonely for a beginning Hunter, as you don't receive the quest to learn how to tame a pet until you've reached your first leveling milestone. After showing your prowess at subduing the beasts requested by your trainer, you will be rewarded with the Tame ability. Choosing a pet in the early levels is mostly a matter of personal taste, as the various pets won't have much of a performance difference. As you level, however, you may choose a turtle, ape, or bear for their superior tanking abilities - thus allowing you to focus on dealing ranged damage while your pet keeps your prey's attention. Or you may choose a cat, bird, or wolf for their damage abilities in PvP situations. If you're the type of player that likes to keep an arsenal of pets at your disposal, you will find the Stable system beneficial as it allows you to purchase storage spaces for a number of your extra pets.

One of the best leveling classes, the Beast Mastery spec'd Hunter relies heavily on the strength of his animal companion and learns to harness the powers of his inner beast to hone his or her skills in combat. As such, it is not uncommon to see a Hunter take on large groups of mobs and come out virtually unscathed. Of course, this can drastically reduce the time it takes to level, and it has direct PvP implications as well. It can also explain why some players choose the Hunter class for its prowess in farming without demanding much effort in return.

Hunters of yesteryear used to have to give up a bag slot to store all of their ammunition. This is no longer the case, however, and ammo now stacks in units of 1,000 instead of the 200 like in days past. This is a huge benefit over the other pet class in the game, as Warlocks are still required to devote much of their inventory to the collection of Soul Shards. The implications this has for farming should be apparent.

As the Hunter gains levels and approaches end-game content and raids, they increase their value to the group with hate control and crowd control abilities, and the increased survivability that comes with being a ranged damage dealing class. Easily topping the damage charts with the proper gear and talent specialization, the Hunter is often welcome to any Heroic instance or end-game raid. The skilled Hunter can dominate on the battlefield as well, making this class the perfect choice for many players looking to kick some butt and take some names.

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