Why Hunters are finally getting a raid buff in WoW Dragonflight

Hunters are set to be the next World of Warcraft class that’s going to be a mandatory addition to your raid composition. 

In WoW Dragonflight Patch 10.2, the Hunter class will have its trademark spell Hunter’s Mark reworked to apply a damage-boosting effect to targets who are above a certain percent-health threshold, giving them a long-awaited raid-wide effect and essentially making them a must-have for raid groups. 

In the upcoming patch, applying Hunter’s Mark to a target will increase the damage that target takes by five percent, so long as they’re at 80 percent HP. This buff will be extremely valuable at the start of fights as classes that have strong openers will be able to do even more damage at the top of an encounter. 

Moreover, this addition will make Hunters a mandatory class in high-end raid compositions as min-maxing groups will want to squeeze every ounce of damage they can out of their raid group, and an extra five-percent buff across the board can’t be passed up. 

The main reason Hunters received this change is because they were the last class in the game to not have a raid-wide buff. The lack of a raid buff in Hunters’ profile meant they were an optional class in many compositions, while other DPS options were guaranteed to have at least one representative (especially in Mythic-level and world first guilds) present thanks to the buffs they brought to the raid. When Liquid earned the world first title on Scalecommander Sarkareth earlier this year, Hunter was the only class to not be present for the historic kill. 

Liquid guild leader Maximum put together a spreadsheet detailing the evolution of raid buffs and how more and more slots are being filled by mandatory classes each patch. Moving into Patch 10.2, 14 of the 20 possible slots in a Mythic raid team will be occupied by classes that have unique buffs they bring to a raid. Of course, this filling-up of a raid group with mandatory bring-along specs is only a problem that the players at the highest level will encounter, but if you’re part of a group that wants to maximize their chance at downing a boss and progressing through a Mythic tier, you’re likely going to have to play by these rules. 

None of the great raiding teams out there would be caught dead without bringing a Monk for their Mystic Touch application, or without a Demon Hunter for their Chaos Brand. Now, they’re practically guaranteed to bring a Hunter along for each ride. 

Still, if you’re an average everyday WoW raider, you’re probably well aware of the fact that Hunters are still getting raid slots, regardless of the fact they didn’t have any raid buffs prior to the upcoming patch. 

Beast Mastery Hunter is the second-most popular spec in both Normal and Heroic Aberrus raids in Patch 10.1.7, and that popularity is maintained in Mythic-difficulty raids, where the spec is the third-most popular, according to WoW stats site Warcraftlogs. Chances are you’ve been in a raid group at some point in the last six months with one or more Hunters present, and I’m willing to bet your weekly raid group has at least one of them in there. 

While there’s a much higher chance that Hunters will be present in your raid groups moving forward (especially if you’re a high-level Mythic raider), you shouldn’t be too worried about them stealing a raid slot as there’s a strong chance they were already in your group to begin with.

The five-percent raid-wide damage buff that’s coming to Hunter’s Mark will go live with the launch of Patch 10.2 later this year.