Hunters are not the easiest to lvl if you ask me.
They are beaten by two other classes.
Warlock and DKs.

Warlock is just doting and then moving on.
When you are above lvl 60 you can pull 5-20 people, put on your shiny armor (Demon form), use immolation aura and then they are dead.

DK got a nice health regen with their death strike. THey also wear plate and can pretty much solo any group quest. (Some group quests the hunter pet just doesn't cut it)


I think paladin is extremly fun to play. As well as hunters and warlocks.
I have tried to lvl as ret pala, but it was extremly boring so I switched to prot. You need a little better gear to lvl as efficent with prot as ret, but it was not that hard.
Paladin healing is easy mode. Healbot makes it even easier.
The only class that is easier to heal with has to be druid. At least for instances. (A friend of mine used some HoTs on me, went to the bathroom for 2 min without me losing any health)

Hunter is fun to play, but it is recommended that you do some instances as you go along.
The most important thing to learn before doing high lvl instances is pet managedment.
Pets can sometimes have a very large aggro radius. But other times they can walk through a mob without it noticing. (A example of this was when I did SL normal back in the TBC days :P Stood at the entrance of the chamber where the first boss is and suddenly all the mobs there targetted my pet.(That was a bug ofc))
But there is a lot of noob hunters out there.
Hunter might be one of the easiest classes to play, but that does not mean that you master it.

But of course; all the classes have their requirment. You might like to spam buttons, or just chill.
(You can manage to spam buttons no matter what class you play if you really want to)

So when you look at the play style you should also think about what you think suites you. What do you want to play. I would recomend any of the "So you wanna be" RP articles here at WoW.com.

Very nice article btw. Does a nice sum up on most of the classes.

From my experience ...

Hunter: so easy a gold farmer can do it. Very powerful, lots of crafty tricks you can learn to make it easier/faster/better. Can be a terrific DPS class at 80. You must learn to control your pet.

Warlock: almost as easy as a hunter. More powerful in the 65+ range. Leveling as SL/Fel Guard I was able to grind non-stop to 80, and could solo all group quests (excepting the arenas) all the way to 80. Can be a terrific DPS class at 80. You must learn to control your pet.

Druid: Starts slow. Can heal yourself. Becomes a lot of fun when you get cat form at 20. Really gets going around level 30 and is a breeze (as feral) after that. Can be a tank, healer, spell casting or melee DPS at 80. More options than any other class.

Paladin: dreadfully slow until 20. Seriously, until 20, you have auto-attack, and judgment. That is your entire offensive arsenal. At 20, you get some additional toys to play with, and it starts to become easy. Self healing, immunity bubbles, mana and health regen abilities make it a great class to solo with. Can be a tank, healer, or melee DPS at 80. Lots of options.

Mage: starts slow. Lots of downtime to drink, but you make your own food/water. Great crowd control/AoE abilities. Frost AoE builds can do some serious AoE grinding at times, though nowhere nearly as good as it used to be. Can be terrific DPS at 80. Plus, you bring free food/water and a portal home. Everybody loves you for that :)

Death Knight: Lots of fun to play. Blizzard did a great job with the starting area introducing you to your abilities a little at a time. All three trees are viable to leveling. Personally using Unholy for its wicked DPS. Can tank or DPS at 80, but everybody and their sister rolled one.

Warrior, Rogue, Shammy and priest I never made ti past 35ish.