Hey all! was curious if you think a Melee Hunter is viable for pvp/leveling in Classic. I love bows but I was wondering if focusing on a Melee build would be viable at all?

Caperfin’s Melee Hunter Guide here on BC. Might be of interest not sure if relevant for levelling though.

Sort of. I melee when levelling a pet or when my pet is low hp and I am full hp and I don't want to bandage up.
Be in Aspect of the Monkey. Growl off autocast. Send in pet when you know it won't pull aggro off you (you want the mob to run to you to eat a trap).
1) Place Immolation trap
2) Pull with auto shot - serpent sting
3) Squeeze in an additional auto shot and arcane shot if possible
4) Melee it to death

This is surprisingly effective because Immolation trap actually does a lot of damage. In fact, for a more "pro" way of levelling Hunter, you would place Immolation trap and pull a mob to melee as I described and simultaneously have your pet tank a mob at range. You can kill the mob at range with autoshot while killing the mob that's on you with melee swings. Autoshot and melee swing timers don't interfere, this is AFAIK the fastest way you can grind mobs as a hunter, though it does eat through HP and mana more quickly and results in more downtime and gank vulnerability.

It isnt a thing. Wont be accessible for most players and is god awful for leveling or PvP. Requires a Nightfall Axe and A LOT of high tier gear to be considered an asset, gear you will likely earn by playing as a normal hunter.

Of course I'm sure you could find videos of a Naxx geared hunter pulling it off, but again - these are outliers.

Keep in mind that Nightfall is the ace in the hole to justify any bad spec that can equip it and raids will only bring one. In most circumstances you wont get to wield a nightfall if you need to ask, this will be someone from the inner circle of the guild who gets a free pass on raiding as an awful spec.

Knoxtane wrote: ↑

7 years ago

Hey all! was curious if you think a Melee Hunter is viable for pvp/leveling in Classic. I love bows but I was wondering if focusing on a Melee build would be viable at all?

I am not familiar with melee hunter pvp, but there's some niche stuff you can do with https://classic.wowhead.com/item=10847/dragons-call and other key items. For leveling, sure it's doable, it wont compare with the safeties of being ranged and a pet tanking though. But I like your thinking! :)

morbidmike wrote: ↑

7 years ago

pull a mob to melee as I described and simultaneously have your pet tank a mob at range. You can kill the mob at range with autoshot while killing the mob that's on you with melee swings. Autoshot and melee swing timers don't interfere, this is AFAIK the fastest way you can grind mobs as a hunter

I did this a bit as a level 8-9 hunter in Durataur against the quilboar scouts and other quilboars. I accidentally got aggro of two while I was low health and furiously tried to attack both and... it worked, and I lived, and they didn't

Great tips overall in this thread but I think it's far from optimal to focus on being a melee hunter. I have heard that one of the cases where it works well is in PvP against other hunters. If you are better in melee range than they are then you can usually down them because they won't be expecting another hunter (you) to be engaging them in melee range. I think if you dual wield two fast weapons and also have a fast attack speed pet then you may be able to work some casters down since you'll be pushing back their casting so much.

It's something I plan to test out a bit for PvP but don't plan to use it as a raiding spec.