Hunter or Mage for DPS class?

Flex

Hi guys. Basically, Ive got 3 characters at the moment (well 4, but ones stuck as Alliance and I dont like playing as them ), a Feral Druid, Elemental Shaman and Fury Warrior. Problem is Ive never actually been able to DPS in instances except in rare rare rare occassions. On my Druid and Warrior I always have to tank and on my Shaman I always have to heal, even when I join groups as DPS I always end up being forced to tank or heal and Im fed up with it. So I wanna roll a pure DPS class so when I join a group my role is clear; DPS!

I dont really like Warlocks playstyle, and Id rather not do a Rogue since Id prefer an AoE capable DPS class. So, who would you guys recommend; Hunter or Mage? My brother has a Mage and they look very fun, but Hunters are very easy to level and Ive grouped with Hunters who played really well with regards to using their traps and pets and so on to really help the group, and everyone always notices so would like that challenge. Who would be considered more fun, I know its a very subjective question, but any opinions and input are welcome! Oh, and whats the DPS rotation and stuff like for Hunters? For example, my brother usually uses Fireball and lets the DoT from that tick over while using scorches and so on, would a hunter use Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot and then Steady Shots in between or something? And I know Mages are better are AoE than Hunters, but thats kind of a side issue.

Thanks

nix

yes hunters are required to trap mobs in instances and mages are required to sheep mobs.

Mages do more AOE than hunters, they are thee AOE class..

TBH mate i dont think you can go wrong with either, just go with whichever you think you will enjoy the most

Blowfish

I've both and find Mage is a lot more fun for both levelling and instances.

As all things though, it's each to their own, so your best bet is to level both to at least level 20 so you get a basic idea of what they play like.

DarthWraak

hunters rock raids.

mages will always be second place to locks for caster dps.

DRakE

be a rogue. at the VERY MOST you'll have to sap something once in a while in 5 mans.

rogues are the ultimate slacker class



actually hunters are the ultimate slacker class, roll one of them.. auto shot, cup of tea, top of dmg meters

Kiith

DRakE wrote: »

actually hunters are the ultimate slacker class, roll one of them.. auto shot, cup of tea, top of dmg meters

This would be funny if it wasnt actually true

spoon

If you want to do brilliant ranged single target DPS, roll a Hunter. You can have a lot of fun with them in 5 mans with traps etc, and the pets are going to be a whole lot more fun to have around in WotLK too.

Roll a mage if you want to be doing crowd control every time you go to an instance, and you want to do good aoe. The single target DPS wont be as high as on a hunter.

#Daniel

I use to play Hunter at 70, gave him up out of boredom, and rerolled a mage in June. I'm currently ready to start SSC/TK raids, and I can tell you that a Mage is a lot more fun and exciting than hunter, as you actually have to think about what your doing. Not right click, auto shot, afk, mob dead. But then again Mages are most deffinitely not perfect, like someone above said we are out dps'd by a good warlock, especially in the high end raids like Sunwell.. not that you will get to that level since by the time you've levelled and geared up wotlk will be right around the corner.

I recommend mage for the 'fun' factor, but go woth whatever you want.

Schism

I was in the same position as you, had a fury warrior and was sick of being asked to tank. Rolled a mage and never looked back, of all the classes I've played it's the most fun.

I can't really speak for a hunter as each time I rolled one I got bored of it by level 20 or so and deleted it.

Flex

Thanks everyone, I think Ill go witha Mage so. There were some things putting me off of hunters, particularly the fact it doesnt seem to require much attention to play (hard to elaborate! :P ) and the gernally stigma associated with hunters being bad to group with, but that was also part of my reason to wanna roll one, so I could try to play very well on em! lol

Thanks everyone

Kiith

Plus there's about 50 million hunters nowadays.

Dr Bob

Kiith wrote: »

Plus there's about 50 million hunters nowadays.

Yeah, but 49 million of them are bots..;)

Balmark

tbh .. I dont see why you ruled locks out

I've played them all to max levels at the time .. and locks are by far the best for dps imho .. and gameplay

You have the pet aspect and you can still play like a mage as a lock, you dont have to dot dot dot .. but on bosses its all just added damage anyhow, 3-4 instant casts before you start laying into them with bolts..

In instances, as a lock, I just keep my imp out in passive and play with 1-2 dots (use curse of elements if theres another caster there .. the up in dps is v gratifying )

Also, seeds of corruption is one of the nicest AOEs out there .. you throw a few on before mobs even consider you a threat, then they all explode :P

Locks can regen life = mana .. very useful for long fights.. bandage = mana, renew/heals = mana and you can take a break with siphon life + life drain to regen

There's SFA downtime in instances with a lock, the majority of healers are happy to heal you up to regen if it means you're always hitting.. more loot/xp quicker for everyone

fear/seduce/VW offtank for crowd control (you can controlt he fears with curse of wrecklessness, makes your target immune to fear.. toggle their fear on and off if they run the wrong direction :P )
imho :P

Locks tie with Priests for first spot for me
Mages/Hunters can get boring.. fast
Warriors, nice if you get to play as you want (think I respec once every week or two when I played it most) but generally you're just the tank
Druids .. ok at everything, not fantastic at anything, good newbie class :P
Rogues .. boring boring boring .. button mashers blah
Shaman .. frustrating if you dont want to heal and are outhealed by mediocre priests of same level, noone wants a dps shaman :P

Again, you dont have to play locks with dot dot dot dot

/Bal

</rant>

Anti

Now, as you know i would usually say roll a huntard. But to be honest, i've gotten really bored of it now. When i first started raiding kara i would always be used to trape and then kite a mob which was fun and challenging. But now in the bigger raids ssc/tk/mh i do absolutly nothing but watch my aggro. The priest's MC, mages sheep, locks enslave or banish and rogues sap.

So on that basis roll a vending machine !

Blazher

I have both endgame both with 7/8 Tir6 and Sunwell gear.

I got to say Hunter dose alot more dmg! are more fun to play but you really need to know what your doing,

Mage are also fun and are so easy to raid with. gets old fast tho.


I quit thats why i dont use my accounts anymore!

Hunter 7/8 Tir6 Sunwell items 1500 armour ignore 3k AP 40% Crit Bear mount epic flyer alot of work gone in to it.

Mage 6/8 Tir6 epic flyer great little account


I would say Hunter!

Magill

I've got a 70 rogue/hunter/mage/warlock/shaman

Most fun classes for me actually the rogue and hunter in PVE, least in endgame.

The damage rotations for Hunters are actually the hardest to master tbh, its more timing than simply bashing a couple of buttons as you've got to keep your autoshots up with steadyshots inbetween. Mage is abit of a 1 button class, its still fun i guess, but atm its not as powerful as either hunter/warlocks or rogues, however i wouldnt put that down to anything as lich king is likely to change the order of the dps kings.

Kiith

Hunters and hard to master are not things that you see together in a sentance very often

Dustaz

DarthWraak wrote: »

mages will always be second place to locks for caster dps.

You clearly didnt raid anything before TBC. Mages were miles ahead of locks before tbc, locks were ahead of mages in tbc, who knows what WotLK will bring.

Magill wrote: »

The damage rotations for Hunters are actually the hardest to master tbh

lol ?

spoon

In my experience, the shot rotation for a huntard is pretty complex compaired to other classes. Mostly because we have to make sure we do not clip any auto shots. It's all a matter of using the right shot rotation for the speed of your bow. Once you have the right macro, its pretty easy to be honest, the hard part is actually tweaking your macro etc. A hunter that doesnt know what he is at can actually do less damage by mashing buttons than by standing there and using auto shot and doing nothing.

Anti

spoon wrote: »

In my experience, the shot rotation for a huntard is pretty complex compaired to other classes. Mostly because we have to make sure we do not clip any auto shots. It's all a matter of using the right shot rotation for the speed of your bow. Once you have the right macro, its pretty easy to be honest, the hard part is actually tweaking your macro etc. A hunter that doesnt know what he is at can actually do less damage by mashing buttons than by standing there and using auto shot and doing nothing.

I find it quite simple.

1:1 if you dont have good mana regen or a SP in yoru group
3:2 if you have mana regen or a SP in the group.

Blazher

Manties wrote: »

I find it quite simple.

1:1 if you dont have good mana regen or a SP in yoru group
3:2 if you have mana regen or a SP in the group.

I think you find he ment, To be a great Hunter whitch is true!

Anyone can do good DPS with a hunter but to do great DPS! its all about timing.

You would be shocked to know that over 95% of people who play hunters dont got a CLUE!

A great hunter always stands out.

There is so much more to doing great DPS as a Hunter then just spamming a macro!

Hunters should be Number 1 99% of the time. Some fights are just not ranged friendly

But being a great Hunter is not only about doing DPS!

Anyways if you really want to be a great Hunter start reading the million pages of text!

Everything from Pets/Food/Pots/Flashs/Pet food/Scrolls/Armour/Weps/Timing/Oils and so much more.


Answer me this.

Do you like reading?
Do you like hard work?
Do you like mico managing
Do you have the head for numbers

being a great hunter = math!



I have been a hunter for over 3 year. Have lvled 5 in all. And always been in the best guild on whatever server im on.

I quit playing about 2 weeks ago as it just takes up so much time and i have so much to do IRL.

I have spent hours/days/weeks/months reading and reading just so i can keep one step ahead!

Anyways Hunters FTW!

ZygOte

how about Druid DPS, how do they compare ?

Anti

Most i have seen at my level have never stood out, but the guild in in has 2 that do really insane dps.

And blazher, i know what your saying. I was just implying for 90% of the hunters out there them 2 shot rotations will do.

Woden

ZygOte wrote: »

how about Druid DPS, how do they compare ?

It doesn't really for high end raiding. Fine for heroics 10 mans and around t5 content. But from a feral perspective at least the scaling never came. From a moonkin perspective I believe they are not much better off.

Nothing fancy about hunter dps though from my experience.

Cheeky's spreadsheet and/or Rawr
Couple of macros
???
Profit etc

Blazher

You clearly have been playing with nub Hunters!


But as i said mate there is only a handfull of Hunters in the WORLD that know how to play the class right.

Anti

Same goes with pala tanks too. Some are just dire even in good gear. But i managed to come across a dude the other night, some t4, some boj usual wep and shield and was pusing 480dps... While tanking... I suppose it does show some people really know how to play their classes more then others.

Woden

Blazher wrote: »

You clearly have been playing with nub Hunters!


But as i said mate there is only a handfull of Hunters in the WORLD that know how to play the class right.

...previous post...

Everything from Pets/Food/Pots/Flashs/Pet food/Scrolls/Armour/Weps/Timing/Oils and so much more.

I was refering to my own hunter alt above. But I'm not prepared to accept knowing how to play a hunter is all that. Most of the things you mention above are applicable to all dps classes. You can read all you want and its great at the end of the day I used to enjoy it on my druid when I had more access to ej but from a practical pov most of the pain is taken away from gear choices due to the tools available

You don't need to be a genius to plug it into the spreadsheets and figure out what gem/scrolls/food etc is ideal for your typicall buff/debuff situation.

In my experience the only thing that seperates hunter dps from other classes is the shot timer which if you don't know will ofc screw your dps and then is now handled by the macro's.

If you can elaborate and what is missing from what I would consider to be the the typical knowledge of a high end hunter. I would perhaps be more open to considering your pov.

spoon

Manties wrote: »

I find it quite simple.

1:1 if you dont have good mana regen or a SP in yoru group
3:2 if you have mana regen or a SP in the group.

The option between 1:1 and 3:2 isn't that simple.
It's more to do with your weapon speed, if you're using anything slower that 2.8 you should be using 3:2, otherwise it's 1:1.

However, there's a lot of gearing involved to get your macro's working proerly for you too. The 3:2 rotation could be awful for you if you don't get your bow speed as close to 2.00 as you can.

There's a lot more to huntering that just macro spam too, we do most of the difficult pulls in an instance. There's a lot of pet management on difficut fights for melee. We are often given the kiting roles on fights like Vashj etc. It is easy to play a hunter and be average, but to stand out.. you need to do that extra bit of research and put it into practice.

Magill

Dustaz wrote: »

lol ?

Kiith wrote: »

Hunters and hard to master are not things that you see together in a sentance very often

LOL LOL, retard, im not saying they're hard, i said they're the hardest between all the other dps classes, the shot rotation of a hunter is harder to get perfect than say the spell rotation of a mage or warlock, as its all about timing, keeping your autoshot running freely while slotting your steady's inbetween while keeping your kill commands on the go, all a mage has to do is keep the scorches up (theres usually more than 1 mage anyway, so you mightn't even have to do this ) and spam fireballs, depending on mana you might want to throw in a fireblast every 2 fireballs, locks... its not even funny how easy it is to play a lock, rogues are the same, keep slice+dice/rupture up and spam ss, warriors are apparently abit more difficult to do good dps on than other classes, never pld one.

But yeah, i suppose every class is easy.

Ivan

Watch the personal abuse, Magill.

Woden

spoon wrote: »

There's a lot more to huntering that just macro spam too, we do most of the difficult pulls in an instance. There's a lot of pet management on difficut fights for melee. We are often given the kiting roles on fights like Vashj etc. It is easy to play a hunter and be average, but to stand out.. you need to do that extra bit of research and put it into practice.

Some fair comments though I probably would not put as much weight on them. The pulls in the instance for example is nice but typically not a huge deal or that difficult in reality. Pet management though is fair enough particuarly with the large percentage of dmg the pet does the potential issues with keeping them alive and the rather **** amount of healing on mend pet.

Role wish though I dont think they stand out particuarly here. Yes you can do the kite on vashj but so can elemental shamans and warlock. The shaman on gruul we used to use hunters for. Mage had individual roles like this on gruul and council. Locks used in a few places. Illidan, Leo, Twins /shrug

Its them pesky rogues which have it easy it seems!

Overall I think there is nothing really more too it then any other class. For anyone to stand out they will need to do a bit of research and put into practice. I feel I have made my point on this though and an leaning towards off topicness.

@ the op I would have went for the hunter! I do enjoy the alt and the dps is > mage