Tuesday, August 5, 2014

What Extra Class Would Your Hunter Be?

Anyone of any class can feel free to leave a post of what their secondary class is but being I am a hunter and the dubious history of famous hunters along with the fact I main a hunter it seems only fitting I make the post hunter centric.  It is the hunters of lore that made me think of this idea anyway.

Why would I use the word "dubious" when referring to hunters in warcraft lore one might ask and it can be explained simply.  From Rexxar who is a hunter warrior, Tyrande who is a hunter priest, Vol'Jin who is a hunter shaman, to Shandris who does not use a pet and of course the ranger Sylvanas and Alleria Windrunner of course to complete the sisters.  All famous warcraft hunters, all something more than just hunters.

So calling someone a hunter always seems like you are only telling half the story, as if hunters were meant to be more, much more.  Not saying there are not a few famous lore characters that are just hunters and only hunters but it seems like the majority of the figureheads of the hunter representation are hunters and something else.

This gives the hunters community a much wider range of lore figures to look up to, personally one of my favorites, and a pure hunter to boot, is the great Hemet Nessingwary but that does not take anything away from my love of other hunters in the lore of warcraft even if they are not exactly hunters.  They are something more.

As such, we hunters deserve to be something more.  Not just hunters, even if that is good enough, but we should be able to take on some of the characteristics of one of the supporting classes and become more than just a hunter just like most of the hunters of lore.

I always liked the hunter priest model because I felt that a hunter with heals would be the most powerful class in the game and for some reason, can not really place it, I always felt as if the hunter and priest connection was so natural, so close.

Perhaps that is because my first interaction that I remember in game with a larger than life hunter was with Tyrande.  I loved the look and immediately thought about how great it would be to have healing spells as a hunter and from that point on I had always wished I could be a hunter priest.

Over the years I had considered other hunter combinations but a few just never seemed natural to me like a hunter death knight or a hunter druid while others just seemed to fit, but that was probably because I saw them in game.  A hunter rogue seems natural, a hunter warrior seems natural, a hunter shaman seems natural, so many representations that are in game already in one way or another.

Then one day it appeared to me that perhaps a better fit for a healing hunter would be a hunter paladin.  I don't believe that I have seen any combination of those two in game but I slowly started to switch from my desire to be a hunter priest to a hunter paladin.  Some of the abilities just seems to be so powerful when combined with a pet class.  So much so that I am sure it would be impossible to balance around that and any combination of those two would make for an unbeatable hunter.

Another idea that popped into my mind was a paladin mage.  It would be cool to have a ranged DPS plate caster and for some reason a paladin mage just makes sense in my mind even if there are no representation in games that would lead me to that connection.  If there were ever a class I want to see in game that would be it, a paladin mage.  A ranged paladin using magical abilities as their sword.  Now that is something I can really sink my teeth into.

So if you could make your hunter, or your class whatever it may be, have an extra set of class abilities, what would you choose to match up with?

For the sake of completing a dream I had when I started playing, because I wanted to grow up and become a hunter priest just like Tyrande, I will make that my choice.  All things being equal, a hunter with heals pretty much rocks.

10 comments:

  1. just think hunter-priest - one can kill a beast, get teh exp points then bring it back to life and kill it again "oh shiny!"

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    1. I am sure many people wish they could revive the enemy. It would make grinding for something so much easier. :P

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  2. I do like the idea of a hunter rogue, but there would have to be a trade off in abilities if you specilised. I can see it being workable with full stealth and huge opening move crit bonuses, more stuns etc...but only if we lose our pets and become rangers. I toyed with the idea of leather amour only and melee weapons too, but that would be too much a 'ranged rogue' for my tastes. Propper stealth as rogues currently have it, stuns and slows and big burst, no pets. Shorter cooldown on disengage and traps.

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    1. That would be extremely powerful in PvP. A ranged rogue, which is what it would be even with mail, using hunter abilities and no pet could be brutal. Just like a rogue can global someone now they need to be close to set it up and do it. Can you imagine a hunter being able to do that, from 40 yds, you would never know what hit you. You would be walking down the road humming a happy tune and them BAM you are dead laying in a puddle of blood and not a soul was around that you could see.

      Yeah, a hunter rogue would be scary.

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  3. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

    My dual class combo would be priest & mage, more specifically a shadow priest and a frost mage. And for a really unbalanced, over-powered combo, I would choose a Paladin/Warlock. Heh, notice that both my favored combos have a minion pet and are good at both ranged and up close combat. Really they are, I know at first glance a priest is not a melee class but trust me, a priest may be casting spells but they are almost always in melee range after the initial pull.

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    1. When soloing they are always right on the target, but so is a mage. A water elemental could not hold aggro on a critter.

      I find the paladin warlock combo to be an interesting one. Light and dark all at once.

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    2. just like my wife's cooking! She treats me like a God every day - brings me burnt offerings.

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    3. Burnt offerings are still better than none right?

      I think.

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    4. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

      LOL, well when my mages engage folks, it tends to be at max range and a solo pull. And the mob drops at my feet or close enough that I don't need more than a step to loot. My priests on the other hand, the power to kill is not as great as a mage, so the targets almost always engage in melee combat. In fact to my mind, the priest class is a melee spell caster when playing solo much more so than any other caster class save for Paladins and a lot of a paladin's damage comes in white numbers from the weapon attacks unlike a priest.

      I know a lot of folks won't consider a paladin a caster class like a mage or priest or warlock due to the heavy influence of the weapon on a paladin damage total but honestly, almost all the abilities to hit are basically holy spells called by different names such as seals, judgements and so on. Just is a paladin uses a weapon as his "holy" symbol for releasing those spells (with the damage based off the melee damage of the weapon).

      As an aside, I always preferred the D&D paladin to the WoW paladin. The D&D version seems to me more like a traditional holy warrior, smiting in the name of righteousness, than the WoW version of the same class.


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    5. I tend to pull like a hunter (or tank) on all my characters and have to keep reminding myself I am on a mage otherwise I end up being a blood stain on the ground, which happens quite often.

      As you and I have spoke about many times before. We both considered the priest, disc mostly, as a monk. Funny they finally added a monk but disc is the original monk class, that is for sure.

      I always figured paladins more of a caster class, or should have been. They are /were ripe for a 4th spec of a ranged DPS in my opinion.

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