Hunter Class Overview

Alliance Hunters in Forever are able to choose from Human, Night Elf, Dwarf, and the new race Skyborne. For the Horde, Hunters can choose between Orc, Troll, Tauren, and Skyborne. The races of World of Warcraft Forever offer new benefits from Classic, including:

• Night Elf — Night Elves have Elune's Light, which is a new on-use ability that gives you 10% crit chance for 15 seconds. They have the passives Quickness which gives increased Dodge chance and movement speed, along with Wisp Spirit for more movement speed while dead in ghost form. Finally, Night Elves have their iconic ability to stealth in place with Shadowmeld, which can be used in combat now.
• Dwarf — Dwarfs offer the ability to Find Treasure, Mace Specialization for 1% crit chance with maces, Big Game Hunter for 5% more damage against beasts, and Stoneform. Stoneform is a solid defensive button that can make you immune to bleeds, poisons, and diseases, which makes it incredibly useful on specific bosses and in PvP.
• Orc — Orcs have access to Blood Fury which gives you attack power on a 2-minute cooldown. They also have Shatter Curse which grants immunity to curses and reduces magic damage taken when used. Finally, they have Axe Specialization for 1% more crit chance with axes and Hardiness for 20% reduced duration of stuns.
• Troll — Trolls offer more damage against beasts through Beast Slaying, more passive health regeneration through Regeneration, and the ability Berserking which gives you a boost of attack speed on a 3-minute cooldown. Finally, Trolls also get Rapid Regeneration which can regenerate 50% of your maximum health over time.
• Tauren — Taurens have War Stomp as an AoE stun ability along with Cultivation which can grow bonus herbs that do not require the profession to gather. They also have Endurance for 5% more maximum health and 1% more hit chance, along with Plainsrunning which causes them to gain movement speed the longer they stay moving.

However, the following Races were announced as new Hunter races in World of Warcraft Forever:

• Human — Humans are a new option for Hunters in Forever, and certainly a strong choice for PvP. Humans have Will to Survive, which is an on-use ability that breaks stuns and does not share a cooldown with the standard PvP trinket. They also have Perception which they can use for increased stealth detection, along with the passives Sword Specialization for 2% crit chance with swords and The Human Spirit for 5% more spirit.
• Skyborne (Alliance) — Skyborne is the new race added in World of Warcraft Forever and can choose to be either Alliance or Horde. As Alliance, you have access to two on-use abilities: Walk on Air which allows you to glide down slowly through the air and Read Ley Line which gives you a massive boost to health and mana regeneration briefly. Additionally, they have Wind Blessed for 1% increased haste and Elemental Insight for 5% more damage done to elementals.
• Skyborne (Horde) — Skyborne can choose to be either Alliance or Horde. As Horde, you have access to two on-use abilities, Walk on Air which allows you to glide down slowly through the air and Skysight which gives you a 10% boost to movement speed temporarily. Additionally, they have Wind Blessed for 1% increased haste and Elemental Insight for 5% more damage done to elementals.

Hunter overall should feel very similar in World of Warcraft Forever, but with several fundamental quality of life improvements that were originally added in later expansions.

• Traps are now usable in combat.
• Pets now scale and benefit from your stats. They benefit from you gaining stats like Agility, which means they will be overall far stronger later on with end-game gear.
• Aimed Shot is a baseline ability for all Hunters, but shares a cooldown with Multi-Shot.
• You still need to stand still for Auto Shot, but your abilities will not clip your auto shots; you do not need to time your rotation around your auto shots.
• Hunters now have access to Aspect of the Beast which grants melee attack power while active. This will primarily be used by Survival Hunters.
• Hunters also have access to Lone Wolf. This is an early Marksmanship talent that gives you a passive 20% damage boost as long as you do not have an active pet. This gives Hunters an option to not have to worry about micromanaging a pet if you wish to avoid it while still gaining a significant damage boost.

Beast Mastery functions mostly the same, heavily relying on your pet to become the main source of your damage while also tanking enemies out in the world. The main new addition is the talent Summon Hawk. Summon Hawk shares a cooldown with Arcane Shot and will summon a hawk that attacks your enemy for up to 18 seconds. You can only have 2 hawks active at any time in addition to your pet. The Beast Mastery rotation will focus on always keeping 2 hawks active while weaving shots in-between uses.

Marksmanship is relatively unchanged from the traditional Classic Hunter apart from the quality of life additions mentioned above. The primary new ability for Marksmanship is their capstone talent Sniper Shot, which is a massive shot with a 4-second cast time. Because of its excessive cast time, it's possible this ability will actually be a damage loss in PvE, but it will be an extremely strong ability for any time you need burst damage.

Marksmanship also has the Lone Wolf talent early in its tree. This gives you a 20% damage boost if you do not have an active pet, which is both a large damage buff and can give players an option for if you do not want to worry about micromanaging your pet in dungeons and raids.

Survival is by far the most changed specialization for Hunters. Survival is now designed to be a primarily melee based spec, with talents like Savage Strikes and Predator's Edge massively boosting your melee damage, specifically while dual-wielding. They also get access to the new ability Strider Kick as another rotational melee ability, along with Expose Prey and Lacerating Strikes which make Mongoose Bite a much stronger ability that you can actually use more frequently. Overall Survival looks extremely promising, especially with talents like Resourcefulness which should enable you to spam out traps and melee attacks non-stop throughout any fight.