2.1.0 Patch Notes

[Lissa]

And I am asking you...in what ways can an hunter synergize with the raid to help them out? I see three options. FI, TSA or EW (I don't include MD, because every hunter should have it, it being a trainable skill and all). Of those, probably EW is the 'best', but they are all pretty similiar in support provided to the raid. That's not a lot of raid buffing synergy there. Two of them are party based. One of them benefits any type of party the hunter is in (FI) but is a proc, while the other depends on having a party with physical dps (TSA) but is a constant. EW benefits all attackers, providing it can be kept up (not that hard, but is proc based) but comes from the lowest outputting hunter spec of the three.

Look! I understand a hunter's synergy! The question I'm putting to you is WHY BOTHER BRINGING A HUNTER aside from MD? Any of the synergy buffs we do are outdone by having a different dps class (and one with more synergy) around. For instance, while the rogue doesn't bring a lot of synergy to a raid, s/he benefits greatly from the buffs going around to do insane damage, thus they are desired. There are very few buffs a hunter benefits from, so what we have is what we bring. What we bring to the table is low dps and marginal synergy at best. Bringing a hunter tends to hurt the TEAM more then benefit them, if other options are available. A hunter is a nice fill in if someone's sick that night. A hunter is not a 'desired' class to have (and please, please, please don't give us tranq shot gimmick fights back to fix it).

Treesh covered some of this, but let me go into one sting now that ends up being very useful.

Remember for a long time everyone said serpent sting was useless? Well, it there are mutilate rogues in the raid, they may want you to put up serpent sting. Combine the effect of Scorpid sting (5% hit reduction) with Shadow Embrace debuff from a Warlock (5% less damage) along with Thunder Clap (Increasing time between attacks by 10%) and Demoralizing Shout (lowers AP by 300), it all adds up to help the tank survive. Then for those bosses that have 1k to 2k mana and still use that mana for something things you can Viper sting, given though those bosses are few and far between, but it is a niche use and either Serpent or Scorpid would be of better value in most cases.

You mentioned traps, but are you referring to mobs that are immune to Frost and Ice or are they immune even to Immolation, Explosive, and the damage from the snakes in Snake Trap? You could add a little extra damage initially if the mob can be pulled over one of these traps as it's incoming to the tank.

You are also the only class that clear 100% of your aggro with a short cooldown ability, all other classes with threat reduction have abilities that are on 5 minute timers, some of which can be resisted just like Feign Death.

As Treesh also mentioned, you're neglecting what your pet can bring to the table. Dragonhawks and Wind Serpents bring DD breaths, Wolves bring party buffs, Owls bring reduction debuffs, and you have Snakes that can bring a poison assisting those Mutilate Rogues even further. Your pet is an extension of your DPS and with the buffs they are giving to pets, this lends even more use to having them out in raids.