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Scattered Shots: So you want to be a Hunter - Part 4 Levels 21-30

eddie carrington
Updated ·10 min read


Welcome back to the Scattered Shots, So you want to be a Hunter series. This guide is intended to help new Hunters better understand how to play the best class in the game. So join me, Eddie "Brigwyn" Carrington from the Hunting Lodge as we explore the ins and out of how to be a Hunter.

Howdy gang! Glad you decided to come back and join in on another week of So you want to be a Hunter. This week we work our way up to level 30 on our quest to becoming ready to raid the endgame content.

Now that I think about it, there seems to be an ever increasing push to just quickly level and hit the end game content. But really, there's a lot of fun and interesting stuff in the game that we won't get to see any more after the next expansion. Maybe I'm a bit sentimental, but honestly considering that many of the zones all of you will decide to go off and level today either won't exist in Cataclysm or will be radically different than they are today.

Here's a bit of advice for you as you level up. Take some pictures. Get a group together of players at the same level and run through some of the instances like Razorfen Kraul, Stockades, or even the ever hated Gnomeregan. In the meantime, we'll continue onward with Part 4 of So you want to be a Hunter.

Just a quick recap of what we've covered so far:



Part 1: We reviewed racials and their impact on the Hunter class. Reviewed each of the current races and what the benefits were of each racial.

Part 2: We quickly talked about the first nine levels. We also went on to talk about each of the three Hunter talent trees and their basic play style. We reviewed the relationship between the Hunter and their pet in Beast Mastery. And we also discussed how Marksmanship and Survival Hunters were focused more on the individual player's ability to use a variety of powerful attacks.

Part 3: Last week we discussed what happened from levels 10 through 20. We also went over the quests to learn how to tame your first pet.

We are now in Part 4 of our weekly series. We will continue reviewing leveling your Hunter picking up at level 21 and going to level 30. We'll be cover all the new skills you'll learn along the way. We will also provide example of talent builds for you and your pet as well as list which rare pets you might want decide to pick up along the way.

As a reminder, here are some guidelines for using this guide.

  • So you want to be a Hunter is for the new player and/or a new Hunter.

  • This guide is not a "How-to get to 80 in less than 3 days" leveling guide. It's more of a "What to expect as you level" guide.

  • Except where highlighted, this guide does not take into account Recruit a Friend or heirloom bonuses.

  • Since most players tend to level by themselves, all talent build suggestions will focus on a solo leveling/grinding build.

  • Since this guide is about leveling, pet talent point allocations will be using a Tenacity pet.

  • This guide focuses on the leveling the PvE Hunter. We will discuss PvP and raiding in other guides

With that out of the way, let's mount up and head on out of here.

Level 21-22

Things might seem a bit anticlimactic now that you've gotten your mount at level 20. It may even seem to remain that way until you get up to level 40 and can get your epic mount. And to tell the honest truth (Is there any other kind of truth?) that really isn't the case. It's just that these next levels are more about deepening your skills as a Hunter while opening up more instances and getting you to explore the world a bit more.

However, the same cannot be said for Scorpid Sting. This attack will sting your target and apply a debuff. The debuff will reduce the chance of your target landing either a melee or ranged attacks by 3% for 20 sec. This is a great sting to reduce the chance of your pet getting hit. But remember, that this is something you may want to think twice about if you're grouped with a Warrior. There's nothing sadder than a rage starved Warrior.

New Hunter Skills

Hunter Talent Allocations

Quest Chains to Consider

Instances to Consider

Rare Hunter Pets

Level 23-24

At level 24 you learn Beast Lore. This has become one of those outdated skills/ It used to be that you used it to scope out pets with skills you could use to continue training your pet. But now that pets are normalized, its best function is really to help teach you what to feed your pet.

The biggest thing that you learn at level 24 is Track Hidden. Track Hidden increases your stealth detection and will show hidden units with the detection range on the mini-map. The key is to remember it will help you track mobs that are in stealth and not invisible. So you will still be able to step into an invisible mob waiting for you if you're not careful. Otherwise, I can attest that Track Hidden has helped save me from having to make a lot more corpse runs than I'd like to imagine.

On a side note, if you want a really cool skinned pet I still recommend getting Humar The Pridelord in The Barrens. If you decide you would rather not camp out and tame Humar now, you will have another opportunity to get a similar looking cat at level 76 in Sholazar Basin.

New Hunter Skills

Hunter Talent Allocations

Pet Talent Allocations

Quest Chain to Consider

Instances to Consider

Rare Hunter Pets

Level 25-26

As you move your way up to level 26 you learn how to Track Elementals. You may think this really isn't that useful right at this moment. But trust me, later on you'll be grateful that you have it.

The real star of the show at level 26 is Rapid Fire. It's so important that many people have it in a macro with all of their trinkets to help give them a DPS boost during critical moments in a fight.

New Hunter Skills

Hunter Talent Allocations

Quest Chains to Consider

Instances to Consider

Rare Pets

Level 27-28

Not much really happens at levels 27 and 28. You do receive Frost Trap which is pretty cool. But other than that, not much else really happens.

Frost Trap is used to slow down the enemy. Just know that it is on the same cooldown as Freeze Trap so you can't use this to slow down one mob while you freeze another. You can however use it to help you slow down the enemy mob while your pet nips at their heels and you run around shooting them from afar.

One cool thing that you can do at level 28 is get to the quest in Raene's Cleansing where you receive the Dartol's Rod of Transformation and are able to transform into a Furbolg. This is probably one of the coolest things in the game. I highly recommend not completing this quest and keeping the rod. It adds a bunch of laughs and hilarity as you run around Azeroth as a Furbolg.

New Hunter Skill

Hunter Talent Allocations

Pet Talent Allcoations

Quest Chains to Consider

Instances to Consider

Rare Pets


Level 29-30

When you reach level 30 something amazing happens. No, you don't get another mount. But you do get to learn Feign Death.

Feign Death is our aggro dump and save yourself ability. While you're out and about and accidently pull too many mobs or even some that are at a higher level, Feign Death will probably let you escape. And later on, if you are an Engineering Hunter and have the Goblin Jumper Cables or Gnomish Army Knife, everyone will love you for helping to shorten their corpse run.

That's not the only cool ability you learn. You also get Aspect of the Beast. Now many people might not like this one but I do. If you're on a PvP server you should really like this one also. See as other Hunters or Feral Druids are out scouting Humanoids to gank, you can gain a few precious seconds using Aspect of the Beast by untrackable. Then when they get within range your pet will get an added 10% Attack Power bonus as you open up and take PvP justice into your own hands.

New Hunter Skills

Hunter Talent Allocations

Quest Chains to Consider

Instances to consider

That's it for this week for So you want to be a Hunter. I hope you found this information useful and I look forward to seeing you again next week for Part 5.

You want to be a Hunter, eh? Well then you came to the right place. Scattered Shots is the one column dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a Hunter. Each week Scattered Shots will cover topics to help you Fix Your DPS, Choosing the Right Spec, Gear Selection, Macros and Pet Selection, Pet Specs and Management.