Besides Warlock, Hunter is the second pet class in Classic WoW. The love for rare beasts and other wildlife animals forms the foundation for the Hunter class fantasy, and that shows in Hearthstone’s class design as well!

First off, there is Animal Companion which summons all three of Rexxar’s closest companions. We are aware that only Misha can be found in Classic WoW together with one of the most famous champions of the Horde; however, we couldn’t get ourselves to exclude the most iconic Hunter spell in the game.

Another iconic spell is Hunter's Mark. We still don’t understand how the spell effect translate in to WoW’s original use of Hunter’s Mark, because there it marked a target with a big red arrow while increasing attack power of all range attackers; it also hindered classes like Rogue to get back into stealth. Well, at least the red arrow made it into Hearthstone!

Despite the questionable design of Hunter’s Mark, both Arcane Shot and Rapid Fire of Hearthstone do the exact same thing compared to World of Warcraft. Raw damage as well as attack speed increase. The case of Rapid Fire is particularly interesting, because it has just been printed with Rise of Shadows and the Twinspell keyword although it is one of the most iconic Vanilla Hunter mechanics.

Besides self-casted spells, traps are another core mechanic of WoW Hunters. To establish something like the Secret mechanic may have been the most accurate design decision in terms of class gameplay and fantasy across all nine WoW classes. In Vanilla WoW, it’s quite hard to distinguish Hunter’s traps on the ground; they are also able to lay them right under your feet, making them almost invisible. 

To include Eaglehorn Bow really encapsulated the Hunter spirit in Hearthstone as well. Eaglehorn Long Bow – as it is called in WoW – was one of the few powerful world drops in Vanilla, and one of the best bows for Hunters to have. Its attack speed was quite high, making it a perfect fit for both PvP and PvE.

To have a bit more minion pressure at hand we also added a couple of the most beloved Hunter pet archetypes to the list: Webspinner, Ironbeak Owl, Oasis Snapjaw and Savannah Highmane all were tameable beasts back in Vanilla WoW and offered different special pet abilities.

A very special card in Hunter’s toolkit is Tracking. To search through your deck is a very common theme in trading card games, and Hunter’s ability to track several things like humanoids, beasts, or even undead and elementals in World of Warcraft perfectly fits that design translation. We had to add Secretkeeper to the Secret package, and while a random female blood elf may not look like a Classic WoW character, its flavor text

Where is Mankrik’s wife? She’ll never tell.

points towards one of original Warcraft’s biggest memes.

Warlock