Hunters v. their bad reps
If you don't frequent the forums, or if you didn't see this discussion start, there is a thread that started on the basis of the eternal hunter v. 'huntard' debate. The OP had her group drop just because she was a hunter and is concerned the stigma will always be there for her chosen class. EDIT: Since battle.net is down, I'll add that they said 'great, another huntard' (or something extremely similar, I closed that tab unfortunately :<) before they all rage quit one by one. It was before she even had a single chance to do anything play wise, they hadn't even started the run yet. They went off a poor stereotype and drew their conclusions based on the 'huntard' stigma.
Now, I started playing WoW back in 2008 after my friend got me into the game. I've rolled countless alts, never gotten far at any of them, other than my Hunter and my little Druid. How is it that a class I love to play so much can be universally hated so much? It makes me sad. It's like the way I feel about your 55-65 DK tanks is thrown back in my face.
For many people they sit there all high and mighty and make assumptions about the way that we Hunters play our game. That we choose to target the mob on the farthest end of the room, ignoring all the lovely enemies lurking just around us, and pull everything rather than our auto-tab running a muck. They assume that we tell our pets to frolic through the enemies and play a game of 'find the guy with bacon in his pockets!' when in reality, some pets are just buggy or get feared - I can't control that. Sometimes they move without our consent, the way a demon might dance a hair too close and pull a mob too. They think that we clearly chose the lazy class for playing.
I try to learn all the time as I go how to play my class not only correctly but well. But this also means that I have to learn how to read my tanks and healers, make sure that I'm aware their pulling style and the expectations - sometimes they want my help targeting and selecting what pulls to do next. Sometimes a tank can't hold it's aggro (a thing I am learning far harsher on my Druid than I ever did on my Hunter) and the mob will start to lose focus, this is where my traps will save our lives. Some tanks hate traps, think that they're keeping them from really getting their hands dirty, some tanks want them dropped before every single pull, some healers will inevitably look too tasty while trying to control everyone's health levels, and who has the ability to set a pet to save them? Me.
I get so frustrated because it seems like regardless of what you really do, there's no way that you can win. They're going to call you ridiculous names and make assumptions of what your play style is like before you're given a chance. I'm not sure why I posted this other than just to get it off my chest and see if any of you ladies can shed any other light onto the perspective of the outside world without just saying 'well, duh, you CHOSE to be a huntard.' like 85% of the WoW Forums did.
Now, I started playing WoW back in 2008 after my friend got me into the game. I've rolled countless alts, never gotten far at any of them, other than my Hunter and my little Druid. How is it that a class I love to play so much can be universally hated so much? It makes me sad. It's like the way I feel about your 55-65 DK tanks is thrown back in my face.
For many people they sit there all high and mighty and make assumptions about the way that we Hunters play our game. That we choose to target the mob on the farthest end of the room, ignoring all the lovely enemies lurking just around us, and pull everything rather than our auto-tab running a muck. They assume that we tell our pets to frolic through the enemies and play a game of 'find the guy with bacon in his pockets!' when in reality, some pets are just buggy or get feared - I can't control that. Sometimes they move without our consent, the way a demon might dance a hair too close and pull a mob too. They think that we clearly chose the lazy class for playing.
I try to learn all the time as I go how to play my class not only correctly but well. But this also means that I have to learn how to read my tanks and healers, make sure that I'm aware their pulling style and the expectations - sometimes they want my help targeting and selecting what pulls to do next. Sometimes a tank can't hold it's aggro (a thing I am learning far harsher on my Druid than I ever did on my Hunter) and the mob will start to lose focus, this is where my traps will save our lives. Some tanks hate traps, think that they're keeping them from really getting their hands dirty, some tanks want them dropped before every single pull, some healers will inevitably look too tasty while trying to control everyone's health levels, and who has the ability to set a pet to save them? Me.
I get so frustrated because it seems like regardless of what you really do, there's no way that you can win. They're going to call you ridiculous names and make assumptions of what your play style is like before you're given a chance. I'm not sure why I posted this other than just to get it off my chest and see if any of you ladies can shed any other light onto the perspective of the outside world without just saying 'well, duh, you CHOSE to be a huntard.' like 85% of the WoW Forums did.