"Derogatory Name for Hunters"

[Avada Kedavra]

This made me laugh!

In essence, a huntard is a Hunter who does not know how to play his class well. While slang to describe badly-played classes is common, hunters have this stigma above all others.
Various reasons seem to exist to explain this. The class has an intuitive battle strategy, easily dumps aggro (more than likely onto the healer when in a group) and allows flexibility with weapons while also fighting long range. Huntards are especially disliked in low-level PUGs, where mismanaged growl-enabled pets can cause annoying and expensive wipe (versus the pet-using, squishier, and presumably more careful warlock). Hunters also excel at solo PvE, compared to more group-oriented players like healers or tanks, and don't necessarily have grouping experience even at higher levels.

Huntards are also infamous for rolling Need on items and equipment not considered true upgrades, if not outright ill-suited to their class, usually under the excuse of being used as "statsticks". One example of this is a hunter rolling need a 1-handed melee dps weapon and claiming, "It will help me get out of tight places." In addition, huntards are prone to frequent melee combat, something normally only done in emergencies. This not only puts their safety at risk and diminishes their damage output, but can lead to unnecessary competition in group loot rolls with other classes like rogues and shamans. They are notorious for being self-centered and egomaniacal, never taking the blame for a wipe. They have tricked themselves into believing that they are the core of the group, but unfortunately often control its failure. They also like to pull aggro for some reason. They think that with a pet they can tank better than the actual tank but yet they just cause more problems!

Some people consider ALL hunters to be huntards, and avoid letting them into a group, guild, or raid. Many times it is innocent newbies and experienced hunters ridiculed and effected by this treatment, rather than actual huntards. Remember, Just because some people do not know how to play the class properly, does not mean that all people playing that class are that bad.

Notes
Interestingly, many huntard traits have also become associated with death knights, leading to such terms as Death Knoob and dunce knights.
While the above used to be true in vanilla and Burning Crusade, Now-a-days, the term "huntard" is used to refer to almost all hunters. Example (to a guildy) "dude, go get your huntard, we need a ranged for this fight" or "LF 1M for TOC, need huntard for tranq shot"
As you can tell by the "silly" title, thinking that calling a hunter "huntard" is derogatory now is kind of humorous. The best hunters on a server usually call themselves "huntard".

Came across this article on wowwiki, I saw that it was created in early 2007. Amazing how accurate it is. (joking) Will hunters ever live this stigma down? maybe this is why blizz made them OP as of recent.

[Verdugo]

There is no name more derogatory than "Hunters".

[Aquamonkey]

A lot of hunters don't know how to play.

They don't know how to trap,
they don't know how to MD,
they don't know how to manage their pets,
they don't know that stampede pets taunt unless turned off individually (I think Blizzard is fixing this),
they don't know how to tranq shot,
they don't know to dismiss their pets before jumping off ledges,
they forget to turn off Aspect of the Pack,
etc...

[Issalice]

A lot of hunters don't know how to play.

They don't know how to trap,
they don't know how to MD,
they don't know how to manage their pets, they don't know that stampede pets taunt unless turned off individually (I think Blizzard is fixing this),
they don't know how to tranq shot,
they don't know to dismiss their pets before jumping off ledges,
etc...

Yep, pretty much all of these. I stopped leveling my hunter ages ago, and finally got her to 90 last week. So many changes. I had to quest from 85-90 just to relearn everything so I wouldn't torment an innocent dungeon group lol.

[Ronduwil]

I see that term thrown around all the time but it seldom applies. Like you said, it's become a joke. The fact is that hunters are generally one of the best raiding classes in the game at any given time, especially now that they autoshot on the run.

[Deleted]

A lot of hunters don't know how to play.

They don't know how to trap,
they don't know how to MD,
they don't know how to manage their pets,
they don't know that stampede pets taunt unless turned off individually (I think Blizzard is fixing this),
they don't know how to tranq shot,
they don't know to dismiss their pets before jumping off ledges,
they forget to turn off Aspect of the Pack,
etc...

As a hunter (a very good one I assure you) this makes me so sad because it's true.

[Cheesy Jawa]

As a hunter, I can testify to the stupidity often showed by my fellow hunters xD
It took me a while to properly learn how to do all these things, but I'm happy to say that I am mistake free when playing.
Unfortunately, I usually run into other hunters, that derpishly forget to turn off growl, taunt enemies off the tank and die, jump off ledges with their pets still out, and who don't even know what a trap is!
Still, I find it supremely funny all the same, especially when people talk about it here on the forums

[crakerjack]

The main reason why hunters who are bad are called huntards is because it's a funny name and hunters for the longest time didn't require skill... maybe if you were playing them in high end arena if not pushing for glad, but even then it wasn't all that hard. It wasn't until they got changed to focus that they required a bit more managing... with mana, you literally sat there and just spammed your abilities in a certain priority. There wasn't much else to it and if that was too hard for you, then you were called a huntard.

[Darmalus]

A lot of hunters don't know how to play.

Unfortunately a lot of hunter skills aren't used or useful outside high end play. I'd be surprised if the average player of any class ever used more than a third of their abilities.

They don't know how to trap,

No one CCs anymore, easier to gather them up and aoe down. Trap aoe is nice, but not necessary and often unnoticed even when used.

they don't know how to MD,

With current 500% threat generation, is MD even useful anymore?

they don't know how to manage their pets,

Might be just me, but my pets only seem to attack what send them to attack or what walks up and gives me a whack. Not a lot to manage.

they don't know that stampede pets taunt unless turned off individually (I think Blizzard is fixing this),

Yup. It's becoming a graphically interesting DoT, nothing more. No more special abilities.

they don't know how to tranq shot,

True, I only use tranq shot to break the monotony a little, but I've yet to see an enrage or magic effect the tank couldn't just sit and eat without noticing.

they don't know to dismiss their pets before jumping off ledges,
they forget to turn off Aspect of the Pack,

Both true. Then again, how many cliffs do we see in current instances? Only ones I can think of are in Mogushan Palace and Scholomance when people jump the railing. I wish they would ditch aspects and make AotP more like druids Stampeding Roar.

[MrWolly]

A lot of hunters don't know how to play.

They don't know how to trap,
they don't know how to MD,
they don't know how to manage their pets,
they don't know that stampede pets taunt unless turned off individually (I think Blizzard is fixing this),
they don't know how to tranq shot,
they don't know to dismiss their pets before jumping off ledges,
they forget to turn off Aspect of the Pack,
etc...

I must be doing it right, since I'm capable of performing all said feats.

[Deleted]

Hunter, the class that has to run away and kite its enemy, ironic class name, isn't it?

[Xalzel]

Huntard has been around forever, I remember reading that all the way back in BC.

[bals]

A lot of hunters don't know how to play.

They don't know how to trap,
they don't know how to MD,
they don't know how to manage their pets,
they don't know that stampede pets taunt unless turned off individually (I think Blizzard is fixing this),
they don't know how to tranq shot,
they don't know to dismiss their pets before jumping off ledges,
they forget to turn off Aspect of the Pack,
etc...

trapping is no longer a useful skill for 95% of the population. Don't even mention double trapping.

[Deleted]

Better to be a huntard then loladin =]

[mistahwilshire]

When I do heroic 5mans these days to cap valor I HAVE to MD to the tank or I burst all the threat off of him and then get blamed for having growl on.

Frankly it's annoying that the stigma exists because very very experienced Hunters like myself have to deal with the idiots that are bad enough at their own roles that they blame the "huntard" stigma without actually realizing it's themselves at fault.

[ReleaseDay]

Haters gonna hate. Hunters are probably the n1 weakest class atm in pve, as of your lists of "dont know how to play" most of the stuff is pretty simple. MD isnt used much now since the cooldown was nerfed to the ground, trapping is easy and most ppl with a brain can figure that out, stampede taunt is easy to turn off but and is an issue when turned on how? With said threat generation, not really. Tranq shot, not really used, aspect of the pack obv turned off, dismissing pet before jumping is not really done if its in combat as it takes too long.


MOre to the point, whining on hunters is the current thing" to do, just as it was "the thing" to whine on DKs a few years ago. The difference being, dks were still good once their op times had run out, hunters are nerfed to the ground and are currently sucking d!ck in pve, anyone thinking the difference doesnt know the game or is either pvp only.

[Arhippa]

I haven't really heard the term 'huntard' in a long time myself.

The main reason why hunters who are bad are called huntards is because it's a funny name and hunters for the longest time didn't require skill... maybe if you were playing them in high end arena if not pushing for glad, but even then it wasn't all that hard. It wasn't until they got changed to focus that they required a bit more managing... with mana, you literally sat there and just spammed your abilities in a certain priority. There wasn't much else to it and if that was too hard for you, then you were called a huntard.

From TBC point of view, for a BM hunter there was no priority or rotation, just 1:1 or 3:2 kc-macro. ;)

I was a noob in TBC myself, but even I knew that while the 1-button class joke was kind of accurate, it wasn't exactly true. Hunters definitely didn't have a lot to do overall, but there were those moments when you could shine. As an example, did you ever try chaintrapping a mob for ~2 minutes ? I did, successfully. Pulling the gauntlet before the last boss in Mechanar with eyes of the beast to avoid the stealth was also kind of fun, even if it wasn't hard on any level. Personally I can't really say much about PvP as my experience was limited to doing 10 games a week with a friend for the welfare vengeful/brutal gear (~1550 2v2 highest rating ever, woo), but I do remember hunters paired with druids mostly being about endurance. 45 minutes of viper stinging the enemy healer just waiting for them to go oom so you can kill them.

Also, growl causing issues in TBC was a bullshit excuse. If you were a decent tank, you could out-threat a growling pet every time assuming appropriate gear for what you were doing (be it a guild sunwell raid or the daily heroic 5man for those delicious badges) from both the hunter and the tank. Usually I let my pet cast it on purpose because if the tank died, my pet would often be 2nd in threat giving the group time to react to the tank's death - combat ress, finish the mob or something.

[Paulosio]

A lot of hunters don't know how to play.

They don't know how to trap,
they don't know how to MD,
they don't know how to manage their pets,
they don't know that stampede pets taunt unless turned off individually (I think Blizzard is fixing this),
they don't know how to tranq shot,
they don't know to dismiss their pets before jumping off ledges,
they forget to turn off Aspect of the Pack,
etc...

I know my stampede pets taunt if it isn't turned off individually, however I don't always turn it off before I switch pets.... It hardly seems worth the effort to go through 5 pets checking them all every time I want do a heroic dungeon just because some tank will get his panties in a twist when he loses aggro on 1 mob . Not like it actually causes any problems to the group anyway.

You could say a lot of the things you listed about most classes. I've certainly seen mages and locks pull aggro with their pets in places like Blackwing descent by not dismissing pets. I've seen lots of mages who don't spell steal. Most players don't interrupt. Rogues don't use tricks... I could go on.

[Deleted]

that text is old.

lots of changes are made a certain things were hunters were known for no longer excist.
but its funny how some things amongst it are still true to this day.

[Deleted]

"Easiest class in game players".