Hunters

Trackers, archers and beast masters who know the wild places better than anyone. A hunter is never alone: a tamed beast walks at their side.

A tauren hunter rendered from the WoW Forever client — A tauren hunter, rendered from the Forever client's own model.

Who can be one, and where they learn

Alliance: Human (new in Forever), Dwarf, Night Elf, High Order Skyborne (new in Forever). Horde: Orc, Tauren, Troll, Windshaper Skyborne (new in Forever).

Trainers (Classic's data) in Darnassus, Ironforge, Stormwind City, Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff.

Class quests: Taming the Beast (level 10, teaches Call Pet, Classic's quest); Training the Beast (level 10, teaches Beast Training, Classic's quest).

The client's character-creation text: Hunters know the uncharted places of the world. Gifted with a deep empathy for all life, they have an uncanny knack for befriending wild animals and taming them as pets. In addition, hunters can use their finely honed senses to become master trackers. Wherever hunters go, they fight back the ravages of sickness, exploitation, and industrialization.

Who they are

Hunters live on the edges of civilisation. They befriend animals, read tracks and weather, and defend the wild from those who would ruin it. The client's description gives them a cause as well as a skill set.

Wherever hunters go, they fight back the ravages of sickness, exploitation, and industrialization.
From the game client: Hunter, the class description in the WoW Forever client

Their place in Azeroth now

Year 1 gives a hunter plenty to fight: the plague in Lordaeron's forests, the Venture Company's logging and mining, corruption in Felwood and on Hyjal. Every culture has its own hunting tradition: dwarven mountaineers, night elf and troll trackers, tauren on the Great Hunt, orc wolf-riders. Pets are family: a hunter's first tamed beast is a rite of passage, taught by the class quests below.

Warcraft background: Dwarven hunters are famous riflemen; night elves hunt with bow and nightsaber; tauren hunt the plains with spear and bow; trolls are headhunters and trackers of the jungle; orcs ride and fight beside wolves. Rexxar, a half-ogre beastmaster, is the Horde's best-known hunter from the Third War era.

In WoW Forever

In WoW Forever: Humans can now be hunters, one of the six new race and class combinations, and both Skyborne orders can too. Blizzard's Legacy post says the Spectral Bear Cub pet was inspired by the dwarven hunter and his companion in Forever's own cinematic. For pets, see our Hunter pets database.

RP hooks and character ideas

One of Forever's first human hunters: a Westfall farmer who learned to track wolves when the harvests failed, and kept one.
A dwarven rifleman and their bear, like the hunter of the cinematic.
A Skyborne hunter used to hunting birds on the wing, now on solid ground for the first time.
A tauren on the Great Hunt who has sworn not to return until they've tracked a legendary beast.
A night elf who hunts the Venture Company's loggers in Ashenvale.
A hunter whose pet is more sociable than they are, and does all their talking.