Beast Mastery Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Season 4
On this page, you will learn how to optimize the rotation of your Beast Mastery Hunter in both single-target and multiple-target situations. We also have advanced sections about cooldowns, procs, etc. in order to minmax your DPS. All our content is updated for World of Warcraft — Season 4.
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Beast Mastery Hunter rotation.
Beast Mastery Hunter Rotation for Dragonflight
Welcome to our Rotation page for Beast Mastery Hunters. On this page, you will find everything you need to know about actually playing the spec in Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.
Best Talent Builds for Beast Mastery Hunter in Dragonflight
We highly recommend you go and grab the best Talent Builds for the spec before diving into the Rotation. Check out our dedicated Talents page below:
Simplified Beast Mastery Hunter Rotation for Beginners
If the rotations below seem overwhelming to you, you might benefit from visiting our Easy Mode page, which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.
PvP
The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.
Beast Mastery Hunter Rotations
Each of the sections below explain the rotation for Beast Mastery Hunter at different target counts. Click the boxes to switch to the desired damage type.
Beast Mastery Hunter Rotation
The buttons below can be used to select between curated Single-Target and AoE/Mythic+ loadouts. You can also use the switches below to add or remove individual talents you may also be using:
Talent Selections, etc. | ||
---|---|---|
Alpha Predator | A Murder of Crows | Barrage |
Beast Cleave | Bloodshed | Bloody Frenzy |
Call of the Wild | Death Chakram | Dire Beast |
Improved Kill Shot | Poison Injection | Savagery |
Scent of Blood | Serpent Sting | Stampede |
Steel Trap | Wailing Arrow | Wild Call |
Wild Instincts | Ashes of the Embersoul | Bandolier of Twisted Blades |
Beacon to the Beyond | Darkmoon Deck Box: Dance | Erupting Spear Fragment |
Globe of Jagged Ice | Manic Grieftorch | Mirror of Fractured Tomorrows |
Irideus Fragment | Algeth'ar Puzzle Box | Storm-Eater's Boon |
Witherbark's Branch |
Single-Target Rotation Goals for Beast Mastery Hunter
- Casting Kill Command as much as possible, both on single-target and AoE.
- Managing your Focus — Never capping it but also ensuring you have enough Focus to cast Kill Command off cooldown.
- Maintaining 3 stacks of Frenzy by using Barbed Shot intelligently.
AoE Rotation Goals for Beast Mastery Hunter
- All the same goals as the single-target Rotation.
- Maintaining Beast Cleave (by using Multi-Shot) at 100% uptime, ensuring that all your pet abilities are constantly dealing AoE damage.
- Being extra careful with Focus management to ensure that you can always refresh Beast Cleave as late as possible while simultaneously casting all your Kill Commands on cooldown.
Important Note: Because the in-game "auto-cast" system for Hunter pets is very slow, it is recommended to put these 3 lines into macros for all of your offensive spells.
- /cast [@pettarget]Claw
- /cast [@pettarget]Bite
- /cast [@pettarget]Smack
We recommend adding these 3 lines to the end of your macros.
This ensures that you will always cast your pet's Basic Attack on cooldown since Blizzard's automatic cast will delay each cast by up to 0.1 seconds. It is a very small but real DPS increase. For more macros, please refer to our Beast Mastery Hunter macro page.
Rotation WeakAuras for Beast Mastery Hunter
I recommend that you grab my Barbed Shot Helper WeakAura. It will pop up when it is time to cast Barbed Shot automatically, and it lets you focus on the rest of the Rotation.
In the Single-Target and AoE sections, you will find a highly detailed priority list breakdown of the Rotation, as well as optimal openers.
Single-Target Opener for Beast Mastery Hunter in Dragonflight
- Ensure Hunter's Mark is active on the target from you or another Hunter in the group!
- Use 2x Barbed Shots
- Use Bloodshed
- Use Bestial Wrath
- Use Barbed Shot to get it off 2 charges.
- Use Death Chakram
- Use Call of the Wild alongside most on-use Trinkets here. Use Trinkets with a cast time before this.
- Activate your Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power.
- Use Kill Command
- Use Barbed Shot
- Use Kill Command
- Proceed with your normal Rotation according to the priority list below.
Single-Target Rotation for Beast Mastery Hunter
This priority list describes the optimal single-target Rotation for Beast Mastery Hunter.
- Use Barbed Shot to refresh Frenzy when it is about to fall off. If Bestial Wrath or Call of the Wild are off cooldown, spend all of your Barbed Shot charges before pressing them, if Frenzy has fewer than 3 stacks.
- Cast Kill Command if it about to reach 2 charges.
- Use Call of the Wild on cooldown.
- Use Bloodshed on cooldown.
- Use Bestial Wrath on cooldown.
- Use Death Chakram on cooldown.
- Use Kill Command on cooldown.
- Use Barbed Shot to prevent it from reaching 2 charges. With Savagery specced, you can just mindlessly cast Barbed Shot off cooldown.
- Use Kill Shot on cooldown.
- Use Cobra Shot when you have nothing else to do.
AoE Opener for Beast Mastery Hunter
- Ensure Hunter's Mark is active on the highest-health target from you or another Hunter in the group!
- Use 2x Barbed Shot, on different targets.
- Use Call of the Wild
- Use Bestial Wrath
- Activate your Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power.
- Use Kill Command
- Use Barbed Shot, ideally on a third target.
- Use Kill Command
- Use Death Chakram
- Use Kill Command
- Use Dire Beast
- Proceed with your normal Rotation according to the priority list below.
AoE Rotation for Beast Mastery Hunter
This priority list describes the optimal AoE rotation for Beast Mastery Hunter.
- Use Barbed Shot to refresh Frenzy when it is about to fall off. If Bestial Wrath's cooldown is less than 12 seconds, you should also use a Barbed Shot to bring it off cooldown as a high priority. If Bestial Wrath or Call of the Wild are off cooldown, spend all of your Barbed Shot charges before pressing them, if Frenzy has fewer than 3 stacks.
- Use Multi-Shot to apply and maintain the Beast Cleave buff on your pet. You should try to refresh it as late as possible, generally, but without wasting other globals.
- Use Bestial Wrath on cooldown.
- Use Call of the Wild on cooldown.
- Cast Kill Command on cooldown.
- Use Bloodshed on cooldown.
- Use Death Chakram on cooldown.
- Use Barbed Shot to prevent it from reaching 2 charges. With Savagery specced, you can just mindlessly cast Barbed Shot off cooldown.
- Use Multi-Shot if Beast Cleave has less than 2 GCD's remaining on its duration.
- Use Cobra Shot when you have more than 80 Focus.
Addons for Beast Mastery Hunter Rotation
Check out our Addons page below for some recommended Addons to get the most out of your Beast Mastery Hunter!
Macros for Beast Mastery Hunter Rotation
Check out our Macros page below for some recommended Macros to get the most out of your Beast Mastery Hunter!
Mythic+ Tips and Tricks for Beast Mastery Hunter
For information about Mythic+ as a Beast Mastery Hunter, please refer to our Mythic+ page.
WeakAuras for Beast Mastery Hunters in Dragonflight
WeakAuras can have a tremendously positive effect on your performance. Since this is a broad topic, we made a page dedicated to it.
Questions for the Author
Thanks for reading my Rotation Guide for Beast Mastery Hunter. If you have any questions about it that you would like to ask me directly, feel free to drop into my Discord Server and drop me (Azortharion) a ping at any time.
Changelog
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 20 Jan. 2024: Updated Barbed Shot usage in the AoE rotation slightly, and updated Witherbark's Branch usage.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.5
- 10 Jan. 2024: Small opener update.
- 06 Dec. 2023: Updated the opener.
- 12 Nov. 2023: Updated the AoE Opener with Bloody Frenzy slightly.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.7
- 14 Aug. 2023: Restructured the page.
- 17 Jul. 2023: Added on-use trinkets to the rotation.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 29 Jun. 2023: Updated Kill Command's place in the AoE rotation slightly.
- 01 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Clarified that you should Barbed Shot Multidot with the mouseover macro offered on the guide.
- 08 Jan. 2023: Added a checkbox for the Neltharax Bow and appropriate rotational changes.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Fixed an issue where Dire Beast was missing from the opener.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
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This guide has been written by Azortharion, a Hunter Theorycrafter and Guidewriter since 2014, and considered one of the best Hunters in the world. He is an accomplished player with dozen of top parses for all specs throughout the game's history. He is also the Founder/Owner/Head Admin of Trueshot Lodge, the Hunter Class Discord. You can find him on his stream on Twitch and his channel on YouTube. He also has his own personal Discord server where you can freely ask him any Hunter questions you may have!
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