new toon :OFollow

For "time invested" you'd have to go with the DK since it starts at what might as well be called 58 because you can't really leave their starting area until around there, where you're ready to get right to BC content.

I'm certainly enjoying my DK as compared to my holy pally and holy priest - the specs I leveled as from the point you got to choose. Just rips through things compared to the others, I enjoy it, I'm sure I could be even better at it but things die so quickly anyway...

Hunter I've only got one on an alternative server that gets played only when my main server is down, which is really really rarely so sorry no hunter input here, other than the whole...ranged dps with a pet reminds me of my frost mage....

I may finally ditch my level 1 rogue bank alt to make room for a hunter on my main server just have to juggle the private guilds around to manage it properly.

DK and go 2H Frost. Has the mount speed talent boost, plays in Unholy presence so you have run speed boost as well, you wear plate, you have a self healing attack and limited reliance on diseases for DPS.

Is the best farmer in my opinion as it has all you want in a farm toon.

I feel Unholy has the pet nonsense to deal with which can be annoying, they also don't have the mount speed talent as a default freebie option.

I really just hate pets. Seriously, the little buggers are annoying as funk. It is the main reason I can't level a hunter/lock past level 10 and why I can't play Unholy. Even though Unholy is fun, having to manage the pet to maximize DPS just kills me.

C.) None of the above. If your farmer is going to be an herbalist, I'd suggest a druid instead. Druids get flight form and you don't have to exit it to pick an herb, so gathering is very fast. A druid can also serve any of the three roles in PVE, giving a new player plenty of options to try and experiment with. While leveling, you'd be in cat form a lot and that would feel somewhat similar to your rogue, which may be a plus or minus for you.

I have a hunter and DK, although neither is 85 yet (both 80). Both are miners, and for me it's really six of one half dozen of the other. What I like about the DK: she's pretty indestructible, so it's easy to deal with mobs around the node. What I like about the hunter: she's got a pet and traps, so it's easy to deal with mobs around the node. So if you're choosing between those two, I'd say consider it from the endgame content angle rather than which makes the better farmer: 1.) Do you think you might ever want to try tanking? (DK) 2.) Would you like to change it up and try ranged DPS as well? (hunter)

All that said, the answer to this type of question is always the same, whether you're a new player or an experienced one: create one of each, level for a bit, and see which you like best. What I like about my hunter (she's pretty and gets a dog) or DK (she's badass and has blue hair) may be completely different from what you like about yours.

Ah, I'm not sure most of us got what you meant by "farming." I would suggest the DK would be better for soloing pre-Cata dungeons/raids. (Although my first choice would be paladin for that. :)) A tank is always nice in those situations, a self-healing one even better.

I have, by coincidence, both a DK and a Hunter at 85. I also, by coincidence, have quite a bit of experience at what you're calling "farming," i.e. hitting pre-Cataclysm instances for fun and profit.

In my opinion, Hunter is easy mode for instance farming. My hunter, using a tank pet, can solo any dungeon up to lvl 80 with few problems. I've even soloed most of Forge of Souls, which was a top-end dungeon added towards the end of WotLK. (The last boss is a problem, and would be for anyone solo.)

As a Hunter with a tank pet, you can kick back and let your pet (who is relatively expendable) take the brunt of the mobs. All tank pets can learn a move called Thunderstomp, which is an AoE, so they can tank packs of mobs fairly well. And your ice trap, Disengage, Feign Death, Misdirection, and Deterrence all make the task of keeping aggro off of you and on your pet easy.

Also, between talents and glyphs, its fairly easy to keep your pet healed even while he's tanking a phalanx of mobs. If you use a Turtle or Beetle pet, they can reduce the damage they take.

So yeah, I'd recommend Hunter. It's got great end-game potential as a DPS and minor crowd-control, and can solo pre-Cata instances like a champ.

Yeah, I'm with teacake that if you want an herbalist, you should definitely go with a druid. Specifically a tauren druid if you're horde, because we get the cultivation racial, which allows us to pick herbs in half a second, as opposed to everyone else's 2 seconds.

Pet's avoidance is the crucial point here, it's really rather low which makes the healing requirements much higher than they are for a blood DK or protadin to tank the same thing.
And dps isn't terribly important unless you have stuff with enrage timers, in which case neither the hunter nor the DK/protadin is likely to be soloing it without bugging out the encounter (like the 6 man gruul kill at 70 with a 100% avoidance rogue tank)


Oh yeah, and with Word of Glory coming into play, I'm betting on protadins being the #1 soloer for this xpac.