"you're a hunter, you play the easiest class in the game"

[Sithalos]

TBH though, does any class actually take skill these days?

No. Especially not with the mindless "button bloat" removal going on in WoD.

[britishbubba]

As for Dark Soul, feel free to show me how mis-timing a dark soul can literally cost you 100K dps. I'd be very interested in seeing that - unless you didn't use any embers at all while it was up.

As destro, it won't cost you that much dps (maybe like 10-20k). I can see how using DS poorly as demo or aff would lose you a larger chunk of dps... Not really sure if it would lose you 100k outside of multidotting though.

TBH Destro darksoul is kinda shit compared to the other two specs (it's like 130k extra dmg per CB).

[BurnetRhoades]

3.3 mut rogues, never forget ( I don't know if they are still that easy haven't played one since)

Early Wrath Sub rogues have that beat, thanks to the original implementation of Honor Among Thieves. That was nothing but spamming one finisher the whole time and being #1 on meters. Crazy time too because dual blue Librarians was BiS and folks just bagged their KT daggers.

[eschatological]

I think people are also forgetting hunters have to have the highest APM to maintain their skillcap of any class. We have the GCD of spell casters (1s) but mostly instants, like melee. This pushes our actual activated abilities per minute much higher than most spellcasters, while melee have that half-second more leeway on their GCD, barring ret paladins who can lower their GCD.

[Dracodraco]

I think people are also forgetting hunters have to have the highest APM to maintain their skillcap of any class. We have the GCD of spell casters (1s) but mostly instants, like melee. This pushes our actual activated abilities per minute much higher than most spellcasters, while melee have that half-second more leeway on their GCD, barring ret paladins who can lower their GCD.

Uh. I was pretty sure it was the other way around - most (if not all) spellcasters have 1.5 second GCDs that are lowered by haste, while a majority of melee classes have 1 sec GBC (off the top of my head - rogue, DK, hunter, feral, monk that I know of).

[Misuteri]

Hunters are very easy and in many situations very unnecessary to group makeups. High level RBG's you don't "need" a hunter. High level 3's they're not very prevalent. You can easily raid without a hunter and in the next xpac without pet specific buffs they'll be even harder to get into raids.

The only reason I have one is to do random BG's with and to farm. In that regards they really, really have no equal. A moderately skilled but geared hunter is just so brutal in randoms and I suspect that will never change. Also, given their ridiculous dueling nature getting jumped as a hunter when farming 9/10 times results in a dead opponent.

It's an incredibly fun class to play and I seemingly make one a year just because a hunter with BOA gear leveling through BG's is just so LOL.

[Raugnaut]

Just this really. Yes on paper it's easy to use KC every 6s. In practice, 75% of BM hunters have an average 10s+ CD on KC.

With autos+pet+movement, one could argue that (BM) hunters are more forgiving to play than other classes though.

On average, 75% of ALL players tend to not use important spells for long periods of time- often 50% less ability useage then what they should. The majority of players are bads.

[Deleted]

how can u guys pull out so many random numbers with such confidence as if u believe them O.o

"On average 75% of all players" ....

[turboether]

As long as there are people who reroll the 'top' theoretical dps classes and are unable to hit the promised numbers with them there will always be hate for hunters.

[eschatological]

Uh. I was pretty sure it was the other way around - most (if not all) spellcasters have 1.5 second GCDs that are lowered by haste, while a majority of melee classes have 1 sec GBC (off the top of my head - rogue, DK, hunter, feral, monk that I know of).

edit: Meh, I'm totally wrong. Warriors have a 1.5s GCD and they're the only melee I'm used to playing. Enhance 1.5s for melee abilities, 1s for spells, same with ret. Rogues, monks, ferals, hunters 1s. Casters 1.5s but reduced by haste except for certain spells it seems.

[Laqweeta]

Ehhh hunters are the easiest class to level...Overall I would say it's the easiest. But I say Elemental shaman is the easiest spec in the game. Overall I would say it is the easiest though.

Nothing is hard to play or level anymore... This isn't BC/Wotlk times... Where a Priest would actually have to wand mobs to death so they wouldn't run out of mana. Everything is easy now.

[Doomchicken]

TBH though, does any class actually take skill these days?

That implies it ever took skill in the first place. I remember playing elemental shaman in BC where my entire single target rotation until I had full t6 consisted of the following: Lightning bolt, Lightning bolt, Lightning bolt. Rince and repeat until target is dead.

[Kanariya]

Hunters have always been painted as the "easiest class" since the game began, and that was originally because of how much easier it was to level as one than any other class (back when leveling was difficult and time consuming). Now, as they can perform their entire rotation on the move without any penalty whatsoever, it just continues the "easiest class" stereotype. Every other class, melee or ranged, is penalized damage wise for moving and target swapping. Hunters don't experience that, especially now with Hunter's Mark being fully automatic.

I am limited in my personal experience with Hunters (an 83 Surv Hunter I've been leveling on and off since Cata), but I find them to be very easy to play so far. It really comes down to learning how to generate focus without capping and weave in steady/cobra shots properly into your rotation.

This is more of a PvE standpoint. PvP is harder, but once again Hunters only have to deal with disarms (thanks to the removal of the melee weapon slot) and can't be interrupted or locked out of casting. It seems to be a lot easier to be a hunter than a magical ranged class in pvp, but I don't have the personal experience to back that up.

It seems we're both partially right/wrong.

I had to double check this just because it's you Draco, but my warrior can fit one MS, + 3 slams/OPs in a 6s Colossus Smash window = 1.5s. My rogue's seems to be 1s. And my shaman's healing surge takes 1.1s, and the GCD finished before the cast, but that might be because of my haste levels. Yet my warlock's immolate is 1.42s at less than 6% haste (new 90) and his GCD definitely seems to be 1s. I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying casters have a 1s GCD (like us). I'm not entirely sure about melee, at this point.

No, casters do have a 1.5s cooldown (Warlock curses trigger as little as .5s for GCD).

"The base global cooldown is generally 1.5 seconds for all classes except hunters, rogues, feral druids, monks and death knights, whose abilities mostly have one second global cooldowns."

[Darth Belichick]

The one time I will truly agree that we were the easiest class to play was Burning Crusade, end of BT/Hyjal (once you get 4 piece Gronnstalker) and in Sunwell with the 3:2 1-button spam as Beast Mastery to the top of the meters. Stack a hunter with a shadow priest, 2 other BM hunters, and a shaman for pet windfury and a drum rotation (and group only Hero) and it was GG.

[Artemol]

- One can only tell you the easiest class to play, if one plays every single class to perfection.

[Misuteri]

One can only tell you the easiest class to play, if one plays every single class to perfection.

Perfection? BS. With unbalanced set bonuses, proc rates on trinkets and lining up CD's perfectly being completely necessary for max DPS perfection isn't possible across every DPS spec. By your rationale someone would have to have one BIS of every class and BIS experience with every spec to answer this.

No such player exists on a live server.

Just face it, hunters are the overall easiest class to level and leave it at that.

[Deleted]

Perfection? BS. With unbalanced set bonuses, proc rates on trinkets and lining up CD's perfectly being completely necessary for max DPS perfection isn't possible across every DPS spec. By your rationale someone would have to have one BIS of every class and BIS experience with every spec to answer this.

No such player exists on a live server.

Just face it, hunters are the overall easiest class to level and leave it at that.

Kinda think that was artemol's point thought, you can keep discussing the fact but the truth is that you have to have played every single class at a very high level to say something about the inherit maximized difficulty of the class, and nobody in this thread has, so yeah kinda moot point. Hunter is my main and I enjoy it a lot, don't care much about the rotation difficulty. All rotations seem pretty easy to me at first but it's more about depth and optimizing it to perfection that's hard for every single class since it just involves so much knowledge of utility and of the different fights.

Plus everyone whining about the good old days..... really? You would do frostbolts as a mage for the entire fight you are all suffering from a severe case of nostalgia.....

[Deleted]

My current "Main" is a troll hunter of EU Earthen Ring, I'm with the Praetoria Imperialis Guild, we do 10 man heroic raiding, and were the 2nd best team on our server. That said, I am new to heroic raiding, as I have only been doing it since March. I am currently wiping a lot on heroic Garrosh. <- this is my level of experience of how challenging it is to play my class in what is considered to be the hardest part of the game at the moment.

Anyone who has not done heroic raiding, is John Snow - and knows nothing. It's the most unforgiving gaming experience you can imagine, it forces you to be better or die, it really is as simple as that. Since starting heroic raiding, I have change my key bindings, changed my UI, added new addons, and spent lots of hours out of game studying YOUTUBE videos, and guides from a hunter perspective.

I have learned all about very specific creatures to take with me on raids (I'm BM), so my pet can cover any missing buffs, and bring extra abilities to a fight. I changed profession to Engineering so I could get just a bit more DPS burst damage, and most importantly I have had to learn to use abilities that are just not required in anything less than heroic.

LFR gives the majority of players a look at raids, but that stuff is easier than Vanilla wow content and teaches loads of bad habits, that I had to unlearn.

And even after all these changes, I am aware that I still have much to master at this difficultly level.

So to answer the question - No hunter is not the easiest class in the game, I'd say that all are equal. No class is easy if you are playing at the hardest level of the game. Each part of the team has their job to do, all are equally as important in 10 man heroics - because there is so little margin for error. 25 mans are easy by comparison because you can loose 2-3 even 4-5 players and still complete a boss. In 10 man - loose one - and unless its really right at the end - its a wipe. The raids were created for 25 man, and some of the fights do not scale down well (Seigecraft for example, and yep I do the belt).

[Azortharion]

25 mans are faceroll compared to 10 man.

You heard it here first

[Deleted]

I honestly can't believe some people are taking this statement seriously.

Hunters ALWAYS have to deal with some of the tightest mechanics in the game (keep the DPS going while moving, kiting mobs or players that run faster than you, launching traps correctly, sometime dealing with the pet's AI's issues, a.s.o).

And if some jerks are still not convinced by these facts, then what ? Roll a hunter if they're so "easy" to pick up, but don't bash on us for enjoying this class --'