weapon choicesFollow

Well personally I stuck with daggers. Having the ability to duel wield is nice....However They are my secondary weapon. I rely on my bow for the most damage, and I'm at level 32 & im tackliing elites that are one level above me and regular critters that are 2-3 above me with little trouble

Go for 2h weapons or duel weild a combination of axe and sword. If I could find a main hand weapon with good agility stats I'd probably go duel weild all the time but as it is there are not many.

Ive been using all diferent kinds of weapons...while the dual wield has the speed and maybe the damage, all those misses are gonna hurt. So stick to two handed weapons, staves and swords. I kill monsters 5+ levels above me like this and using my pet. Finally the bow is very important, the more damage you can deal out before he gets to you the better.


Someone wrote about dual daggers, they have speed but cant deal enough damage to take down any monster.

what do you mean,i thought pet types come with different number

Here is my setup at 26 (now 27, havent updated it yet)
[link=http://wow.allakhazam.com/profile.html?71885

The two axes make for very nice damage. You'll notice that both have +Str on them. I also carry a 2-H axe with +Agi for when I use my bow. I have no trouble taking down an Elder Ashenvale Bear completely solo, no pet, no bow just pure melee. Yuo have to be careful with 1-H axes tho, in oreder to use it in your off hand it has to say "one handed". Some of them are "Main hand" only. I wasted 1.5 G on that mistake. Oh well, just make sure one is "Main hand" and one is "One hand". Good luck and happy hunting.

Edited, Mon May 2 20:01:06 2005 by Balagos

Thanks for this link. I had no idea there was a named vulture in Westfall. I went home for lunch and took my level 23 hunter out there. I made a quick run through the zone and didn’t see him up. So I went to the Dead Acre and started killing the level 17/18 vultures. And sure enough this guy spawned. He’s a level 26 rare spawn, he had the silver dragon around his name instead of the gold elite one. Patches and I took him out without any trouble. And he dropped the dagger.

He’s a huge vulture and he’s blue. I wonder if he can be tamed. He’d shrink of course, but his coloring would still be unique.

Must say at L49 I am using a pole arm,
Stoneraven
Binds when equipped
Two-Hand Polearm
118 - 178 Damage Speed 3.30
(44.8 damage per second)
+13 Strength
+13 Agility
+15 Stamina
+9 Spirit
Requires Level 47
This absolutely rocks, I get crits over 500dmg and it has all the stats i need.

Well ya dont have to have any money to get em Calabar apperently got one with a level 23 , On a lunch break!(i find that verry amusing BTW) I posted them beacause they are not items that you have to kill yourself to get them, heck kill valutrous (SP) a few times and get 2, bang, you got DPS and a nice AGI Buff. they are out their, and dont be duped in to thinking you can only get your stuff form the AH, their are plenty of good BoP and some BoE items out their just waiting for ya to get them.

Only point in using two non-epic daggers is in getting icy-chill or crusader enchantment on them. The real fast speed of the daggers make those enchants proc heavily. If you dont get this enchants due to lack o' money and/or age you should stick with a highdamage 2h-weapon of choice and rely on your ranged weapon playing the hunter as he is intended to be played.

P.S.: I tried a meleespec and was thrilled by it for about a day then specced back to ranged as I wanted to kill some mobs of my lvl as well... :-~

man...I changed my DW to using axes and what a DIFFERENCE...

and as far as the DW vs 2-hander argument...I personally think that DW is definitely the way to go.

My reasoning is simple, yes 2-handers do MAD dmg but are extremely slow..if you have a 2-hander with a speed of 3 and miss...that's a total of 6 seconds that your not dealing dmg (the 3 seconds from the previous swing and the 3 seconds to the next one)...6 seconds of whatever your fighting pounding on you without your having done even 1 pt of dmg to it (barring your pet of course)...one handers, however, are faster meaning that while you seem to miss more often it really isn't, it's just that your swinging more times so it seems like you are missing more often.

I'm personally actually doing melee more often than ranged right now (mostly because I'm practicing different pvp moves without the added danger of fighting against a real person) and have found that I take mobs down nearly as fast as if I was standing at range shooting.

I can beat the crap out of anything up to 4 or sometimes 5 levels above me with my pet going close range, and me going long range. I had heaps of these problems when I was level 28, nothing was working for me then. In melee I do dual wield daggers, and if hunters weren't mean to be trained in it, it wouldn't be an option at level 20 as far as I'm concerned.

To answer yexos question shorter:

You defo do something terribly wrong if your pet can't hold the aggroe and you have to go closecombat - as someone posted earlier you prolly gotta get growl rank 3. I NEVER had a problem with my pet holding aggroe (lvl. 60 huntress now) except for some time when I didn't realise that Cower is on auto when it is NOT in the actionbar. So maybe that is yexoe's problem. When Cower is removed from the actionbar it is auto-ON and that means it is used by the pet to reduce the overall aggroe. If you still feel your pet looses aggroe ever so often I can't think of another answer but someone else might.

As for the 2H- or dualwield discussion: It's always better to get the highest possible stats on the meleeweapons. So if the highest stats come from your 2H-weapon (like stoneraven) use the 2H. If you get better stats from dualwield (like 2* ebon shiv= 18 agi) use dualwield. Damage is rather unimportant as you are not supposed to melee anyways. But if you melee (like in instances to draw aggroe from casters, priests) be sure to have a faster weapon to be able to get aggroe off of you with disengage, cause if you don't you'll die pretty fast :-)

Im going to argue that for melee DPS isnt important for hunters... damage is... at least for me... I do melee alot... but couterattack and mongoose bite are both instant casts... which leaves very few skills that depend on weapon speed... raptor strike being one of them... the instant casts boost the DPS... you hit more and do more... and if you are kiting... damage is far more important then DPS cause you are only kiting to get in range and shoot. this is only a personal taste... but really it does make a differance.

As for being under powered... i leveled my first hunter taking MOBs 4-5 levels higher the entire way (not possible with mages due to resist)... so at 27 you are underpowered.

do you have enchants on your weapon(s)(if you duel wield I recomend beast slayer... +6 dmg to beasts... and at 27 you are taking quite a few beasts on... you are getting close to starting STV...

Armor enchants... remember... agility first... armor kits where needed...

make sure your pet is trained in the most recent growl and other skills... there is a set of skill to learn at 24.

Are you using the most recent bullets??? heavy shot I do believe for guns... is your armor up to date??? I would recomend to start picking up the Insignia set from the AH (drops in Scarlet Monestary which 27 is about 11 levels to low to go to)... runs between 1 and 2 gold a piece and the bonuses will make you a pretty tough well rounded cookie... yes the set has alot of INT... but it really does do a good job at keeping you alive.

I would mention leveling your first aid if you havent already... but my hunter did not use First aid much till post 35.... what are your trade skills.... remember if you are alchy pots are your friend... if you are a leather worker keep yourself up to date... if you are an engineer make your special bullets... and dont forget your scopes...