Hunter Macros & Tips in WoW Classic

Hunter Macros & Tips in WoW Classic

Welcome to the Hunter class!

Why should you play a Hunter? If playing a versatile class with lots of crowd control, burst damage, and a high skill cap appeals to you, you may want to try a Hunter.

Why Hunters are awesome!

Do you get tired of spamming Frostbolt endlessly on a Mage? Is coughing up hundreds of gold or lots of time for mana potions on a Priest annoying? Does not staying in melee to DPS on a boss like Shazzrah annoy you on a Rogue? Play a Hunter!

The simplest reason to enjoy Hunter is that they’re engaging. Despite what you may have heard about hunters we have an awful lot to think about. Deadzone, ammo, unique rotation, pet micro and other management, delicate but potent crowd control (CC), it’s simple to learn to play a Hunter, but it’s a class that’s difficult to master.

Hunters have a unique relationship with their auto attacks since, to optimize damage, they time their skill shots between Auto Shots.

Farming gold is made easier. Whether you want to farm an instance like Dire Maul Tribute or Maraudon solo, or roam the open world for herbs or ore, a Hunter’s skills and their pet, will make it easy to stake your claim.

Since Hunters have a complete threat drop on a 30 second cooldown, we can do DPS pretty much whenever we want. No sitting out of fights, no decursing everyone else. Sure, we get asked to kite here or there and a couple of fights require us to use Tranquilizing Shot, but kiting is exciting! At least during a boss fight. And there aren’t too many Tranq Shot fights, and they’re a lot easier to be aware of than watching for a fast Wing Buffet to kick or pummel. Tranq Shot can’t even be launched until a Frenzy effect is up – no possible chance for error unless you delay!

If getting invested isn’t your thing, leveling is made easier on a Hunter with our pet and strong physical attacks launched from range. Literally AFK and Auto Shot.

There is a huge variety of unique pets with special abilities to suit your needs. PvP pets with 1.0 attack speed, scorpids with a stacking poison, wind serpents with a ranged attack, wolves that can buff your attack damage, the list goes on.

We have a lot of potential in PvP with zone control abilities like Frost Trap and burst combos. Sniper and support.

Hunters are also able to provide excellent support in general. If you need to peel for a friend, scatter and trap their assailant. We can CC two targets at once with Wyvern Sting and Freezing Trap. We can pull very effectively for our tanks in a dungeon where pulling is made tricky, and we have the longest range in the game, at 41 yards with Hawk Eye.

Regardless about how you may feel about what I’ve said so far, if it seems daunting or exciting, I encourage you to give Hunters a try with an open mind anyway. It’s easier to gauge your feelings in practice over theory.

Macros

Even if you’re not a Hunter, you may benefit from this list of macros with a little bit of modification. So, browse at your leisure.

Why they’re important

Macros essentially allow you to automate parts of your game. When you keep two keybinds which you could do through a single macro, you’re wasting time by hitting a redundant keybind. They also allow you to act with precision in an intense situation, reducing the likelihood of human error. Whether you’re new to the game or a veteran player, macros can improve your performance, often with little more hassle than copy + paste, and that is why they’re important.

Macros can reduce the number of keybinds you need, which can help to keep all your abilities within reach on a class that has a lot of abilities, like a Hunter. They can make use of conditions to be situational, like only firing off in combat or when your enemy is a certain class, which saves you more time and thought. They can issue commands to pets so that you can coordinate your attacks with them. And, there’s a lot more that macros can do, but let’s just continue and get on to the specifics as soon as possible.

Basic Hunter Macros

Here we’ll go over some basic macros. The scripts below can be lumped into other macros, increasing their functionality. I’ll try to explain what each part does so you know what to copy into other macros, if you wish to do so.

Auto Shot

As strange as it might sound to have a macro for something as simple as Auto Shot, this is actually pretty important. Auto Shot is the core of your abilities, used for everything from initiating on a new target (before Aimed Shot) to doing most of your damage in dungeons and raids.

#showtooltip
/targetenemy [noexists][dead][help]
/cast !Auto Shot

This three-line macro will:

  • Automatically target anything in front of you if you don’t have a target.
  • Begin using Auto Shot if you’re at the appropriate distance to strike.
  • Prevent Auto Shot from being toggled off if you hit the key again.

Two important functions in particular are added: The automatic targeting, which will allow you to basically point and shoot with your right mouse and Auto Shot.

Melee Attacks

This is just a basic macro to lump all of your offensive melee skills into one bind.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Raptor Strike
/startattack
/cast Mongoose Bite

The first line stops Auto Shot.

General Shots

Consider the macro below to be a default for all of your skill shots. This example casts Serpent Sting.

#showtooltip
/targetenemy [noexists][dead][help]
/cast Serpent Sting

The first line is automatic targeting. The second line will cast your ability.

If you also wish to initiate your Auto Shot.

#showtooltip
/targetenemy [noexists][dead][help]
/cast Arcane Shot(rank 1)
/cast !Auto Shot
/startattack

Alternatively, the following shorter macro will attempt to enable your Auto Shot.

#showtooltip
/targetenemy [noexists][dead][help]
/cast Arcane Shot(rank 1)
/cast !Auto Shot

Basic Pet Macros

Controlling your pet effectively is quite important. Your pet can aggro mobs, establish CC or break it, and ought to be doing damage on just the right target, or be in the right place to do that damage. So, this section will go over a few basic pet control macros and what you can do with them.

Pet Attack

The following macro is a simple macro that’ll send your pet at your target.

#showtooltip
/targetenemy [noexists][dead][help]
/petfollow
/petpassive
/petattack
/cast Charge
/cast Dash
/cast Dive

This macro’s six lines do the following:

  • Automatic targeting.
  • Pet will follow you when disengaged from combat.
  • Pet will act passively when disengaged from combat.
  • Pet will attack the target specified.
  • If available, your boar will Charge the target specified.
  • If Charge isn’t available or possible, Dash will be enabled instead.

Since Attack is ordered after passive and follow, your pet will attack your target. The reason for setting your pet to follow and passive is that direct control over your pet’s actions will help to prevent mistakes. When you need to give orders to your pet, it’s best to have it under your complete control, so setting it to Follow and Passive every time you give an order is a safe default.

The final two lines contribute to your control. If you leave Dash on auto cast, your pet will choose when it thinks the right time to use it is. It won’t use dash if its already in range which is nice, but having this in the macro gives you a little more control over when your pet does it. You can leave those lines out optionally.

Pet Follow

When you loose your pet on something, you’re going to want some way to bring it back to you, for instance if the enemy flees and your pet will attract more enemies if it stays on that enemy. This macro does that:

#showtooltip
/petfollow
/petpassive
/cast Dash
/cast Dive

It’s a very straightforward macro. The second line causes your pet to be passive. The third line will make your pet Dash/dive back to you, which is convenient if you need to pull it out of danger quickly.

Pet Stay

Telling your pet to stay has various uses. You can use it to guard a flag, or fool people by Shadowmelding in a different bush than the one your pet is in, or maybe you need to leave it behind while you go pull the acolytes out of a Ziggurat in Stratholme Undead. Whatever the case, having a keybind for your pet to stay is useful. Here it is:

/petstay
/petpassive

The first line will tell your pet to stay. The second line will make your pet act passively.

Pet Growl

You’ll probably have your Growl turned off sometimes, like in a dungeon or for PvP. If an enemy rushes for your healer, you can send your pet at the enemy, order it to Growl, and then send it back at the mobs near the tank, effectively bringing the mob back to the tank spot without having to stop your DPS.

#showtooltip
/cast Growl
/petautocaston Growl

The first line commands your pet to Growl. The second line turns its auto cast on. If you want a script to turn Growl’s auto cast off, one contributor posted this in the comments on this thread:

/petautocastoff Growl

Alternatively, you can have it toggle as well.

/petautocasttoggle Growl

These can be used for any ability you want to change whether it is toggled on or off using a keybind/macro.

Pet Attack/Follow Swap

I’ve had a few requests lately to add this, so here it is. Some people want to be able to use the same keybind to attack or follow command the pet.

#showtooltip
/petattack [@pettarget, noexists]
/petfollow [@pettarget, exists]

This two line macro will turn on pet attack if the pet does not have a target, then if you press it again while it has a target the pet will return to your side.

Feign Death

This macro will ensure that the only time you ever use Feign Death is while you’re in combat.

#showtooltip
/cast [combat] Feign Death

On its own, it’s nothing special, but this script will be used in combination with other abilities later.

Shadowmeld

Shadowmeld is a great skill that can help you stay alive or set up kills, especially as a Hunter.

#showtooltip
/cast !Shadowmeld

This will prevent you from toggling your Shadowmeld off. You can combine this with Feign death to drop combat and then stealth, or combine it with eat/drink. Alternatively, if you want to also have your cat Prowl, add this into it.

#showtooltip
/cast !Shadowmeld
/cast !Prowl

This enables you and your pet to vanish from sight if you have a cat. Useful for Night Elf Hunters guarding bases.

Deterrence / Monkey

#showtooltip
/cast Deterrence
/cast !Aspect of the Monkey

This Deterrence macro will cast Aspect of the Monkey and Deterrence. Aspect of the Monkey will not be toggled off.

Friend or Foe

This script will cast one spell if your target is friendly. It’ll cast a different spell if your target is hostile.

#showtooltip
/cancelaura Aspect of the Pack
/cancelaura Aspect of the Cheetah
/cast [@target, help] Aspect of the Pack
/cast Aspect of the Cheetah

This example will cast Pack if your target is friendly, but Cheetah under any other circumstances. That way, if you’re in a group and you want to give Pack to people, just click an ally and you don’t have to reserve another keybind for Pack!

You can modify this to use items. For instance, here’s my Scare Beast macro:

#showtooltip
/targetenemy [noexists][dead]
/cast Scare Beast [@target, harm]
/use 0 16 [help]

If targeting an ally, this will use the item in the lower-right corner of my backpack. That’s where I keep my bandages. the first number on the /use command is bag number (0-4) and bag slot (1-16). Alternatively you can use the name of the item in place of the 0 16.

Flare/Volley

One thing Classic brings that vanilla didn’t really have with the old API, is @cursor. You can utilize it for spells that require an area indicator to determine where to hit. You can create a macro though that automatically casts the spell/item where your cursor is.

#showtooltip
/cast [@cursor] Flare

We can have Flare cast where we want without having to click it after pressing the key! Same with volley.

#showtooltip
/cast [@cursor] Volley

CC Macros

Hunters have incredible crowd control, but several of our abilities can be tricky to use, such as traps, which require we be out of combat. I put together these macros to help make CC more easily maintained.

Scatter Shot Macro

This macro is awesome for abilities like Scatter Shot or Wyvern Sting.

#showtooltip
/targetenemy [noexists][dead][help]
/petstay [@pettarget, harm]
/petpassive [@pettarget, harm]
/cast Scatter Shot

After auto targeting, this macro will check if your pet has a target. If so, your pet will be set to passive and stay at its current position. If not, your pet will remain in it’s previous state. The only drawback is that if your pet is attacking a different target it will still be put on passive/stay.

Just remember to give the attack order again after your enemy has recovered.

Feign Death / Trap

Since Hunters can’t use traps in combat, we need to rely on Feign Death to drop a trap in a pinch. This macro has proven to be very useful:

#showtooltip
/cast Immolation Trap
/cast [combat] Feign Death

You need to hit this macro at least twice regardless of script order.

Freezing Trap

The Freezing Trap can be broken by your pet too, so I went ahead and did this to mine:

#showtooltip
/stopattack
/cast Freezing Trap
/cast [combat] Feign Death
/petstay [@pettarget, harm]
/petpassive [@pettarget, harm]

Feign Death will be used if you’re in combat. If your pet is targeting something it will be put on passive/stay. The only drawback is that if your pet is attacking a different target it will still be put on passive/stay, but in a 1v1 this works nicely. So, world PvP.

Advanced Macros

Here we get into some longer, cooler macros than the basic ones mentioned before this point. All of them will be focused on reducing keybinds based on situational parameters.

Combat Aspect Swap/Aspect Situational

Aspect of the Hawk and Aspect of the Monkey are both important abilities to have bound, especially for a PvPer, but you’d need two keybinds. The following macros put them in one keybind.

The first solution I came up with was a swap macro:

#showtooltip
/cancelaura Aspect of the Cheetah
/cast Aspect of the Hawk
/cast Aspect of the Monkey

This macro makes sure to cancel cheetah incase you press this while on a GCD, and then swaps between hawk and monkey. If you’re in another Aspect it will apply Aspect of the Hawk to you.

Unfortunately there is no way to make a distance check restrict which one is used, so your best bet is to just be able to swap between the two.

All-In-One Pet Maintenance

We have a lot of abilities that affect our pet. The following macro combines feed pet, call pet, dismiss pet, and revive pet.

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Revive Pet; [pet] Dismiss Pet; Call Pet
/cast [nocombat][pet] Feed Pet
/cast [nocombat][pet] 0 1

If your pet is dismissed, this macro will call it. If you have a pet and stand still this macro will dismiss it. If you press this while moving it will attempt to feed your pet from the given bag/slot or alternatively a food name. If your pet is dead you can use shift and press this to revive.

You cannot condition pet feeding by happiness, and you can’t have call pet and revive pet in the same macro without giving one or the other a modifier key.

Multi-Shot

#showtooltip
/targetenemy [noexists][dead][help]
/cast Multi-Shot(rank 1)
/cast Volley
/cast !Auto Shot

This is a simple fall-through macro. If you hit it once, you target anything up to 40 yards in front of you, cast Multi-Shot, and toggle your Auto Shot.

Unless your Flare is on cooldown and you have the mana to spare to take a Rogue out of invisibility, I don’t really think you’ll have any urgency to use Volley until you’re AoEing something, and Multi-Shot is often the priority, hence the use of this macro.

Aimed Shot Delay

The below macro can be used to removed the unwanted delay on your Auto Shots.

#showtooltip Aimed Shot
/Cast !Auto Shot
/Cast Aimed Shot
/cleartarget
/targetlasttarget

Addons

Attack Timers

This first type of addon is absolutely mandatory, if you ask me. Find yourself an attack timer addon! If there’s ever a point where you need to move and DPS, whether you’re kiting or just running out of Rain of Fire, if you want to do the most damage, you need to know exactly when to stop and shoot again. YaHT/WST is an addon that’ll allow you to do just that.

Not only that, but your DPS as a hunter depends on how well you can time your skill shots between Auto Shots. You may be able to do just fine firing off shots right after autos go out, but it’s not always obvious, and you may want to time your Multi Shot at the end of Auto Shot’s cooldown, not at the beginning.

The main difference between the two is WeaponSwingTimer can track the melee swings as well as your auto shot timer, though YaHT has multishot and aimed shot casts integrated into the default cast bar UI.

DOWNLOAD – https://github.com/LeftHandedGlove/WeaponSwingTimerAddon

DOWNLOAD – https://github.com/Aviana/YaHT

Target Scanners

Very useful scanning addon for finding those rare pets.

DOWNLOAD – https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/unitscan

Useful References

Important webpages/links you might want to have a look at.

Specializations

Below you’ll find PvP Specs:

These specs aren’t the only ways to play, and you can mix some of the middle points around in most cases. Just ones that I have enjoyed using.

I think that’s everything I wanted to say. Thanks to the Classic team for allowing me to finally return home, thanks to the community for reading through what I’ve had to say here, and thanks to everyone for helping make this a possibility. Thanks to everyone who helped me learn to play a hunter, and thanks to everyone looking to learn now, as I was long ago. I sincerely hope that this guide has helped you to enjoy playing hunter more, learn more about hunters, and/or play hunter more effectively.

Please feel free to leave a comment and I would also love to know what y’all think. Any suggestions/feedback is greatly appreciated!

 

About the Author

WatchYourSixx

Hunter main in WoW Classic TBC. Melee weaving my way to the top!
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