This is a guide to leveling as a hunter. I will discuss leveling methods, gear and talent specs.
The class
The hunter is a ranged DPS class, so don't try to play it any other way (NO, you can't be a melee hunter. Roll a rogue instead). A well played hunter is a asset to any group, since they can DPS all out and wipe all their agro with feign death and repeat. Furthermore their pets are excellent to keep on standby as bodyguards for the healers. Also pets, when solo, can get you out of most sticky situations; just leave it to die and run away and feign death.
Leveling methods
Hunters are one of the easiest, if not the easiest, class to level. Due to their pet they can distract mobs around quest items or simply get clean away and FD without fear of getting resisted. As other classes, you can either quest or grind your levels. I prefer to mix it up and grind when I am short on time or couldn't be arsed to travel to an area and find my way around.
Whichever you choose, I highly suggest doing nothing but instances from 58-60 to gear up and get all your key quests done. Not doing so, means missing out on a huge amount of XP.
The traditional ways are:
Grinding:
Not much to say about this. You kill mobs, they give XP, you lvl. If you don't have a comprehensive knowledge of where quests take you and which order is best, grinding is pretty fast for leveling.
It can be pretty boring, but listening to music or being on Vent/TS helps a lot. Get a rhytm going and stay in it. Take breaks when you mana up to not go completely blind 
The following is pretty good list of where to grind which mobs. It is however from a Horde perspective and you need to scroll down a bit to get to the guide If you read the whole bit, there are some suggestions for alternatives, which work just as well...if not better.
http://www.mpsgames.com/ms/index.cfm?page=...%26amp;forumid=63
And the following lists some nice alliance spots for grinding. Also are some suggestions on questing.
http://www.wow-pro.com/Knowledge_Base/op=show/kid=515.html
Questing:
If you know your way around the world, this is the fastest way to level up. This is also known as gresting to some. Decent horde guides are few and far between (there are some on this site), alliance have it a lot better.
Horde - if you are horde, use Joana's guide. That will take you from 1-60 in 5 days /played. It's written from a hunter perspective, so my suggestion is staggering your progress in the guide by a lvl or two. Other than that, there are some (admittedly with holes in them) guides here in the strat section. An idea is to try and modify the following Alliance guide.
http://forums.blizzhackers.com/viewtopic.php?t=309717 is the text guide (thanks Bay_Cassius
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=wow+...warcraft+levels are links to all the videos (thanks sQren)
Alliance - if you are Alliance, you got it made! The following guide will quickly and easily take you from 30-60. Reason it's 30, is because of the quests pre that are in and around the starter areas, so just level quickly to 30 and you are set.
http://www.wow-pro.com/Knowledge_Base/cat=135.html
Talent specs
For leveling I recommend Beastmastery (BM) and then Marksman(MM) up to 60. If you decide doing 58-60 in instances, consider re-speccing to Marksman/survival (link to endgame guide: hunter later).
Reason for BM, is that it really makes a difference in your pet and your pet isn't gear dependent (unlike you). With full BM, your pet has about the same DPS as you autoshooting.
This is the spec I suggest for leveling:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=mi0h0xgRttVohx
31 BM / 20 MM
Go BM until 40, then MM up to Aimed shot and then fill out the rest of MM. With BM, your pet holds agro like a champ and you won't be able to peel it off of it.
Method of pulling: pull with a serpent sting, send in pet, auto shoot it until dead. If it runs, concussive shot it and maybe fire off an Arcane shot. The most important thing when grinding/questing is to stack your mana use, so you get long periods of mana-regen (eg. hunter mark mob, sting it, wait until mob starts to run, then conc shot+arcan shot it. This way you have 20 or so secs of mana regen). This way you don't need drinks at all.
Gear
Hunters get mail at 40 and a nice set for that is the 'tough scorpid' set.http://www.thottbot.com/?s=tough+scorpid It's all AGI and SPI, so you hit hard and regen mana fast. It can be a bit tricky to get the set, so feel free to mix in any kind of AGI gear. AP-gear can often be had as well, so if you get some cheap AP gear toss that in the mix. The endgame guide: hunter has a bit more on gear, so check that out for gear at 58-60.
PETS!
A good site for pet info is this one:
http://www.goodintentionsguild.info/hunters.html
It's a bit outdated, but the lay out is really good and it has a lot of info.
Getting a pet is a question of doing a quest at lvl 10 (get it from your trainer), then go tame a pet. As you progress your career, you can put down a freezing trap, use aspect of monkey and tame it. This way you won't get hit much.
Pet choice up to 37-38 is optional, but cats are always good. Alternatively get a boar, since they have some nice specials (a root). At 37/38 go to Badlands and get Broken Tooth. He is a rare spawn with a 1.00 attack speed, which almost guarantees he will get a frenzy proc early in the fight, so he is worth the wait.
Here is some info about him:
http://www.thottbot.com/?n=657251
And here are his spawn points:
http://www.thottbot.com/?m=657251
You will have to camp the spots for him, since he is rare, but if you stand in the middle of the map up on a ledge you can 'Eagle eye' all 3 spawn points. He spawns around the ridge stalkers in the area, but he is NOT stealthed, so if you see a sand-coloured cat, it's most likely Broken Tooth.
Keep and use Broken Tooth until 60. At 60, get a boar as well (From EPL) and get a wolf from LBRS (since they have the highest rank dash and bite, and they also have furious howl, which is a pretty decent raid damage adder).
The boar is easy enough to get, but the wolf can be tricky to get without a group. You can however easily duo it with another hunter (the easiest wolf to get is in a patrol with 2 wolfs and one humanoid after the ogres and the small insects) and 2-3 pots of invis and liberal use of FD+pet distraction. PLEASE bring a pet you don't mind getting rid of when you attempt to get the wolf
Here is a walk-through to getting it. Soloing takes very good gear, so I recommend bringing a friend or being willing to use a lot of pots and elixirs.
http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/html/tameLBRSworgsolo.html
Life after 60
I wrote an Endgame guide: hunter, which you should read if you plan on PVE-raiding
http://www.mpsgames.com/ms/index.cfm?page=...%26amp;forumid=62
Other than that, enjoy your hunter. It's a rewarding class, and people will love grouping with you...if you are a good player. There are however a lot of sucky hunters, so be ready to take some prejudice But it's still by far the best farmer and in PVE it's a very good DPS'er.
Related Entries
- Midgame Guide: Hunter Leveling (Warcraft 3 tft)
- Midgame Guide Mage Leveling
- Midgame Guide Paladin Leveling
- Solo Field Duty Quest Warlock (World of Warcraft mage)
- How To Be A Better Team Player In Instances