Are Hunters really THAT difficult?

[Lissa]

I've always considered Warlocks to be the most "complex" class in World of Warcraft. They have an obscene number of spells, along with multiple pets that all perform different functions. As a result, the difference between a good Warlock and a great Warlock is very substantial, moreso than say the difference between a good Priest and a great Priest. The more difficult a class is to "master," the greater the gap between the average player and the truly awesome one.

A recent thread over on the Elitist Jerks forum has me thinking, though. I quote one post in it:
I played a Hunter to level 20, that was it. Never had much interest in the class. Now, I've played every class to at least level 20, just to get a taste of them. I remember being amused that of all the classes, my Hunter got to level 20 the fastest by quite a stretch (8 1/2 hours!). I can see why the class is so attractive. It's so easy to solo with them. But apparently they're reaching Warlock-level in terms of "mastering" them.

I can speak of PvP experience - there may not be many Hunters around at the level of Arenas I'm playing in, but the ones that are there are GOOD. It made me rethink my class' power against Hunters, who I traditionally dominated, because perhaps I just never played against truly great Hunter players.

Thoughts?

-Bolty

The biggest problem I have seen is that you have to thread Steady Shot between two Autoshots which typically requires some kind of Autoshot timer. If you have Rapid Fire up, this becomes more difficult to manage due to the amount of haste Rapid Fire brings in. Weaving the instant shots into it are much more easy though since they're, well, instant... (instant shots being Arcane, Multi, and the Stings).

Multi also presents its own problem in knowing when you can fire it and when you can't. At distance it can be difficult to judge if a CC'd mob is too close to the target your group is after or not, so it becomes quite easy to end up breaking the CC if you're not paying attention. And if the mob is too close to the CC'd mob, that blows some of the Hunter's DPS as well.

As for controlling the pet, it's different for a hunter than it is for a Warlock. Where as a Warlock is using their pet for CC typically, a Hunter has to know when to put the pet in and pull the pet out to allow the pet to survive more easily and add in valuable DPS and potentially buffs. Warlock pets usually don't go in harms way while Hunter pets do. So for a Warlock it's matter of knowing how to control the pets special powers while for a Hunter it's knowing when to attack and when to return.