Welcome to the Ultimate Melee Hunter Guide for World of Warcraft's thrilling Season of Discovery! If you're looking to slice and dice your way through Azeroth with finesse and ferocity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive into the nitty-gritty of what makes the Melee Hunter a force to be reckoned with this season.

• The Rise of the Melee Hunter
• Choosing Specialization
• Talents & Runes
• Pet Mastery
• Melee Hunter Rotation
• Gearing Up
• Macros and Addons

↖ The Rise of the Melee Hunter

Due to two groundbreaking runes that were introduced during phase 2, The Melee Hunter has now established itself as a powerhouse in Season Of Discovery.

The Melee Specialist reduces Raptor Strike cooldowns by 3 seconds and has a 30% chance of removing any cooldowns associated with it after being hit. This means that you may be using sequential Raptor Strikes with zero interruptions! Furthermore, this turns such fearsome action into an instant spell

This is further enhanced by Dual Wield Specialization which gives an extra 50% offhand damage while enabling Raptor Strike to hit with both weapons at once- recipe for disaster. Remember that using same weapon type maximizes your damage due to additional 30% damage boost from Raptor Strike.

↖ Choosing Specialization

As a Melee Hunter there are three viable paths:

1. Deep Beast Mastery: Embrace your inner animal companion while engaging in melee combat. Five points will ensure crit at faster rates for pets without frenzy maxing out.
2. Hybrid Build: This spec edges out Deep Beast Mastery by venturing into the Survival tree for Savage Strikes, which grants a 20% crit chance boost to Raptor Strike.
3. Survival Specialization: The current DPS king. This build focuses on key talents like Savage Strikes for crit chance and Surefooted for hit chance. Skip Deflection and invest in Survivalist or Counterattack based on preference. Lightning Reflexes for agility and possibly Wyvern Sting for PvP are also considerations.

↖ Talents & Runes

The Melee Hunter has 3 viable specs, but the peak of this class is undoubtedly a Survival build with massive critical hits, thanks to Savage Strikes, and a huge dose of agility via Lightning Reflexes. And never forget the sweet hit chance improvement earned through Surefooted – missing is left behind.

↖ Pet Mastery

To synergize best with Flanking Strike, your loyal feline partner should have an attack speed of 2.0. For maximal potential of your pet, get Prowl and Dash from any Ridge Stalker Patriarch at Badlands. From Silt Crawlers in the Swamp Of Sorrows you can get Claw level six while Deathstrike Tarantulas will do it for you with Bite rank six.

For instance, against high-armored boss fights Wind Serpents might be theoretically better due to their Lightning Breath ability that they possess; unfortunately it is capped at rank three currently though. Alternatively Scorpid Poison enjoys group buffs but suffers from a damage reduction against mechanical bosses

↖ Melee Hunter Rotation

It is highly interesting with fast ability resets hence no particular order:

• Flanking Strike: Hit this first one to boost Raptor Strike as well as Bite damage.
• Raptor Strike: Please use this every time you can since it’s your ultimate dual wielding monster move.
• Bore or Plume Clip: Sub in Bore only if no pet, otherwise Wing Clip can trigger Windfury.
• Aspect of the Hawk: Keep it on always when your pet is around for more damage.

↖ Gearing Up

When it comes to Pre-Raid gear, it's advised that you get stuff like Embrace of the Lycan and PvP trinkets to have a good base. The Vanquisher's Sword and the PvP sword are ideal weapons until better raid drops are available.

In raids, try getting gear that complements your build—Survival Hunters preferably fist weapons while others should look for mail gear that boosts agility.

↖ Macros and Addons

Make macros with opening strike commands in order to keep the flow going throughout gameplay. Some of these include Carve for AoE situations or Explosive Shot weave so as to yield additional damage.

Use trap macros to lay traps during Feign Death without leaving combat or anything else managing your pet during this time.

Conclusion:

The Melee Hunter spec is an exciting WoW Classic addition resulting into a high level of potential for output damage alongside dynamic gameplay. Just like any other class in WoW, balance changes can occur at any time so keep checking back for updates.