I have been playing WoW since vanilla, most of the time as hunter.
I had a break on Shasowlands, and came back in Dragonflight, since then I’m trying hard to get into endgame with my hunter.
Seems like the game forces you into Mythic+ for above champion lvl gear. TBH gathering mythic lvl raids is hard, open world & delves will give you a champion lvl piece of gear (max) once a week, so Mythic+ is the only viable option.
Sadly in a 5 person group, every spot counts, so I seem to have a hard time competeing with other classes.
Logically, if you lead a group and hunters do as much damage as other dps classes, mainly hybrid classes, why would you bring them to a dungeon?
Hunters have no group buff (Hunters mark was always a joke), the survivability is meh at best, we have little to no utility. The only things we can bring is some CC (which all other dps specs have anyway).
So why bring a hunter to a group, if that hunter does as much dps as a balance druid, enh shaman, ret pala, when those bring so much more to the group than pure dps?
I’m waiting for 11.2, and like to new hunter reworks, but seems like no one addresses the issue of group viability next patch.