Hunter demand in raiding

[Hiraishin]

You really should look up FoTM. Along with all the good reasons why being a FoTM roller is not really a good idea.
As a hunter, since you do have so much mobility and a simplistic rotation? Any good raid leader will give you all the hardest jobs, since you don't have to think much about your rotation and keep doing it while moving. So it all balances out.

Focus on being a good raider, and you will be wanted, no matter what spec you play. There is always a demand, for every class, as long as the player playing the class is good.

This....



And for demo, I guess demo has been a really needed class during lei Shen progress in raid but that's about it, the rest of the fights u could simply play something else, so I guess you either go affliction or fire Mage to dps while moving.. Hunters are still there.. Not the top, nor the last

[Arhippa]

As so many others have said, hunters aren't perhaps your best bet at a guaranteed raid spot at the top of the meters every tier if the past few tiers are anything to go by. Ignoring our history, right now we're in a pretty good spot. Personally I've been so lucky with gear that it's ridiculous, but even without 5-10 item level advantage hunters are doing just fine compared to others. It remains to be seen what happens when people are getting close to full best-in-slot gear sets.

Ranged and extremely mobile with good dps, what more could you ask? Some utility would make us even better, but can't have them all I suppose.

Ive had this since well, my early days in Inner Sanctum...regardless how good you are, regardless of what you bring, there is still people that would say - ye , but you are a hunter - EZ MODE. Then after a while you get fed up and ask, why don't you go and pug someone from trade chat then and then its silence. There is however guilds that do value hunters and know how to utilize them. The stigma however will be forever there.

Luckily, no such thing going on in my guild - or I'm just blind to it. If anything, us hunters are the most critical about it. I have no issues admitting that hunters are relatively simple to play. Especially survival. Obviously, there are still things your average hunter probably doesn't even realize they could do, but for the most part it's pretty straight forward and just comes down to execution while dodging stuff on the ground.

[Rtslbd]

Seems like people think hunters aren't competitive, I was a bit concerned going into this tier but I've comfortably held my spot and have been top 8 or so dps (usually higher) and we have 11/14 heroics down and currently ranked 19th in the world. For most fights we have had 2 hunters in, sometimes 3. As long as you are a good player and know how to maximise your damage theres no reason you would find yourself on the bench.

[Bisso]

The rule of thumb is that in 10men, you are more likely to be sought for buffs, it's just an "extra" really, because the general rule is:

If you play well, you don't wipe the raid by standing in shit, you switch to adds, you soak mines, or whatever it is they ask you to or not to do, you will have your spot.

DPS is just 1 aspect of a player contribution to a raid, even in Heroics (top guilds having a good mix of every class is a good indication of it).

If you look at Method kills, some players do twice the DPS as others in the raid, yet, they don't stack that one class, why? because bosses that requires extreme DPS over raid awareness, skills, timing, communication, are very rare (there are some). And if it ends up to be the case, you would be bench for that one boss only.

[clevin]

Hunter DPS is fine so far (can't speak to top 50 guilds, etc). Utility is still crap, but from a DPS perspective we're OK. Not awesome, ZOMG #1 all the time, but for the vast majority of guilds a hunter will bring DPS that easily holds its own.

However, if you have a lock, like the lock class and playstyle, level the lock. Locks, too, are competitive. Is Demo? No idea, don't have a lock... but do NOT get tied to only one spec of a pure class. Learn to play at least 2 of them well so that you avoid getting stuck when they do nerf one spec and also so that you can switch specs on a per fight basis if you need or want to.

[Fitfob]

Duality gives you shit about being a hunter, too?

I think most groups do. The class has yet to outgrow it's everlasting title "Huntard" And I think we've all met the hunters that inspired the name.

[Cyrops]

Why do people say Hunters bring only MD to raid?
If you say/think that, you are wrong.
Traps, especially AOE slow trap, sure it's situational (Dark Shaman oozes, Immersus adds from the top of my head).
You can put your pet in a corner and have him tank animus golem, while you run around killing other golems (just a single fight example).
For personal favorite, you can FD on a wipe and save repair bill + mass res the raid
A ranged interupt (yey for baseline interupt).
Scatter shot works on Nazgrim adds (correct me if it doesn't).
A very GREAT on-demand AOE as SV from Multi-dot-multishot + explosive trap + barriage/glaive toss (Barriage beats glaive).
A warrior like execute in Kill Shot, awesome spell to finish off near death mobs quickly (hardest hitting Hunter ability as well).
Detterance to soak/avoid damage (I really need to test is Camo works for ranged spells targeted at you).
Feign death to clear threat if you are below tank and tank dies
Even non BM hunters have pets with raid buffs (wolf for 5% crit, 5% spell damage taken from serpent, armor reduction from raptor, not sure if more), might want to consider that for 10mans (10man flex too).
As you only want info for raiding, I will not elaborate on the awesome soloing potential as a hunter

- - - Updated - - -

Hunter DPS is fine so far (can't speak to top 50 guilds, etc). Utility is still crap, but from a DPS perspective we're OK. Not awesome, ZOMG #1 all the time, but for the vast majority of guilds a hunter will bring DPS that easily holds its own.

However, if you have a lock, like the lock class and playstyle, level the lock. Locks, too, are competitive. Is Demo? No idea, don't have a lock... but do NOT get tied to only one spec of a pure class. Learn to play at least 2 of them well so that you avoid getting stuck when they do nerf one spec and also so that you can switch specs on a per fight basis if you need or want to.

When you take both awesomely skilled players, one hunter one something else, a hunter will most likely fall shorter on DPS.
That said, being 15ilvls lower and doing 4k DPS less just means the mage is really bad.
And doing some random stuff like the brewfest 5man boss, topping 130k when 2nd DPS is at 30k, it gives you that 'carry like a baws' feeling.

[Keltas]

Why do people say Hunters bring only MD to raid?
If you say/think that, you are wrong.
Traps, especially AOE slow trap, sure it's situational (Dark Shaman oozes, Immersus adds from the top of my head).
You can put your pet in a corner and have him tank animus golem, while you run around killing other golems (just a single fight example).
For personal favorite, you can FD on a wipe and save repair bill + mass res the raid
A ranged interupt (yey for baseline interupt).
Scatter shot works on Nazgrim adds (correct me if it doesn't).
A very GREAT on-demand AOE as SV from Multi-dot-multishot + explosive trap + barriage/glaive toss (Barriage beats glaive).
A warrior like execute in Kill Shot, awesome spell to finish off near death mobs quickly (hardest hitting Hunter ability as well).
Detterance to soak/avoid damage (I really need to test is Camo works for ranged spells targeted at you).
Feign death to clear threat if you are below tank and tank dies
Even non BM hunters have pets with raid buffs (wolf for 5% crit, 5% spell damage taken from serpent, armor reduction from raptor, not sure if more), might want to consider that for 10mans (10man flex too).
As you only want info for raiding, I will not elaborate on the awesome soloing potential as a hunter

Warlocks do all of that better.

Except MD (MD is far from necessary on any fight) and can't bring buffs, which is only relevant in a poorly setup 10man. Oh, and they can't feign to save money, but they have soulstones to get mass ress out if they didn't bress during the fight.

Honestly, I feel quite useless in raid, outside of my damage. Frost trap is kinda somewhat useful this tier if nobody else slows, but all the adds it would otherwise help on generally die faster than it would be needed for.

While hunters aren't so terrible that they should be sat by every single guild, they are far from worthy of their spots if you have 2 equal geared/skilled ranged dps to fill the spot. All the other ranged dps specs bring much better overall utility and most of them bring more dps. The ones that aren't the top of the dps pile get the ability to swap specs and generally bring decent raid-wide cooldowns.

[Cybran]

Don't play a hunter if you want a stable raid spot. We are garbage at the moment. Stick to Warlock or Mage.

[hareu]

Warlocks do all of that better.

Except MD (MD is far from necessary on any fight) and can't bring buffs, which is only relevant in a poorly setup 10man. Oh, and they can't feign to save money, but they have soulstones to get mass ress out if they didn't bress during the fight.

Honestly, I feel quite useless in raid, outside of my damage. Frost trap is kinda somewhat useful this tier if nobody else slows, but all the adds it would otherwise help on generally die faster than it would be needed for.

While hunters aren't so terrible that they should be sat by every single guild, they are far from worthy of their spots if you have 2 equal geared/skilled ranged dps to fill the spot. All the other ranged dps specs bring much better overall utility and most of them bring more dps. The ones that aren't the top of the dps pile get the ability to swap specs and generally bring decent raid-wide cooldowns.

Aside from not giving the raid cooldowns (mages don't either) I feel very useful in a 10 man, being able to be 100% mobile as a ranged dps makes it so I can do tasks that other ranged would have to do otherwise and lose dps from moving, comes in handy on fights, very much so in a 10 man, I feel having atleast 1 hunter in a 10 man makes the quality of the raid a lot better. deterrence is also strong now with the 2 charges, you can soak a lot of things with it. on average a hunters dps is good to, about 4-5th from the top on a majority of the fights, with the info gathered from WoL. I'm not complaining, and if people still cry about hunter dps being low then they're doing it wrong.

[Rtslbd]

Damage meters from each of our first heroic kills. Its in reverse order, so like bottom right is immersus then protectors etc.

I played average on protectors (we killed it quicker then anticipated) and on heroic spoils i started on mantid side which imo is not the best for a bm hunter so my damage was average.

I guess the point I'm trying to convey is that hunters are perfectly viable and very good for all encounters this tier.

[Cyrops]

Warlocks do all of that better.

I have a level 90 alt warlock, sure I don't play him, like, at all. But still, can you tell me:
What is the equivalent of hunter traps for warlock?
What is warlocks ranged interupt?
And what the hell happened to warlock AOE? I was doing Sunwell on my 480something lock alt, and my aoe was hitting for 3k each tick, I tried destruction and demonology, the demon form chaos wave used to hit like a truck, it was hitting swp trash for 10k -_-

[Libertarian]

And what the hell happened to warlock AOE? I was doing Sunwell on my 480something lock alt, and my aoe was hitting for 3k each tick, I tried destruction and demonology, the demon form chaos wave used to hit like a truck, it was hitting swp trash for 10k -_-

Just because you're doing it wrong, doesn't validate the statement.

[Rocksteadee]

I have a level 90 alt warlock, sure I don't play him, like, at all. But still, can you tell me:
What is the equivalent of hunter traps for warlock?
What is warlocks ranged interupt?
And what the hell happened to warlock AOE? I was doing Sunwell on my 480something lock alt, and my aoe was hitting for 3k each tick, I tried destruction and demonology, the demon form chaos wave used to hit like a truck, it was hitting swp trash for 10k -_-

If you want to see what good warlocks can do go watch Method's heroic SoO kills.

[shanattah]

I have a level 90 alt warlock, sure I don't play him, like, at all. But still, can you tell me:
What is the equivalent of hunter traps for warlock?
What is warlocks ranged interupt?
And what the hell happened to warlock AOE? I was doing Sunwell on my 480something lock alt, and my aoe was hitting for 3k each tick, I tried destruction and demonology, the demon form chaos wave used to hit like a truck, it was hitting swp trash for 10k -_-

soulburn CoE
Observer pet, felhound pet sac
AoE for warlocks is currently through the roof

[Saoron]

I had to sit myself for our Iron Juggernaught kill for an enhance shaman that is about 6 ilvl's or so lower than me.. He still outbursts me but eventually I out dmg him, but I bring nothing to the table besides that. We needed his healing cd's for siege phase.

[Deleted]

I dont know what you guys are talking about, at the moment, hunters are very good dps. I have been topping the meters in SoO in my 10m for the past two weeks. We start heroics next week so we'll see how that goes, but for now, they are very very well-off

Have to say I have also been topping every fight consistently in SoO too. Our raid comp usually is a Hunter, A fire mage, A balance druid, a Demo lock, A ret pally and en enhancement shaman. Although saying that, in most top guilds, you usually see the top 7-8 dominated by locks and rogues (in some fights). Hunters are certainly in a good place though and in other guilds such as ScrubBusters I have seen one of their two hunters being in the top 5 on most fights.

[Amsden]

Well you're a ranged DPS so you have an advantage over all melee DPS, your DPS won't be bad, and you can provide just about any missing buff. So there are reasons to take a hunter. Just play the class you're best at and enjoy the most, at the end of the day raid leaders want good players more than the best class, unless you're looking to join some cutting edge world first guild.

[Valkors]

Hunters are top tier this patch (top tier, not top dps).
Things are going nicely. With 4 piece, there are 2 nearly identical dps specs. Something many other classes do not get.

[ReklessJonez]

Ranged and extremely mobile with good dps, what more could you ask? Some utility would make us even better, but can't have them all I suppose.
Luckily, no such thing going on in my guild - or I'm just blind to it. If anything, us hunters are the most critical about it. I have no issues admitting that hunters are relatively simple to play. Especially survival. Obviously, there are still things your average hunter probably doesn't even realize they could do, but for the most part it's pretty straight forward and just comes down to execution while dodging stuff on the ground.

Honestly....I feel like our "Utility" is the ability to move so freely about the raid. IDK about other hunters but when I'm in raid I always end up doing the odd jobs. I feel Like I'm needed. You can Soak almost anything if you save Det. for what ever soak is needed.. HM Immerseus for example, Fracture on protectors. IDK man I feel like we have alot "Utility". If you choose not to do All the stuff you should be doing any way.. then of course you will feel useless.

IDK how ppl can say hunters are easy to play when most of them nowadays are meter jockeys, who don't do any of the things I fore mentioned. But if this from strictly a rotation stand point then I can see your point... They have dumbed down the game a bit.