WoW Classic Beast Mastery Hunter Leveling Guide 1-60
On this page, you will find our Level by Level Beast Mastery leveling guide for WoW Classic. Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Hunter leveling guide. We also have an Marksmanship Hunter leveling guide and a Survival Hunter leveling guide.
If you were looking for TBC Classic advice, please refer to our TBC Classic Beast Mastery Hunter leveling guide.
Level by Level Rotation, Talents, and Trainer Skills
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
Leveling Talent Tree & Build
Your first talent unlocks at Level 10.
- Levels 10 to 14 — 5 points in Improved Aspect of the Hawk
- Levels 15 & 16 — 2 points in Improved Revive Pet
- Levels 17 to 19 — 3 points in Thick Hide
Improved Aspect of the Hawk is a huge damage gain when it procs, making it a solid choice for both leveling and at Level 60, regardless of spec. Improved Revive Pet is hugely important for if your pet ever dies during combat and just to make it easier to cast. Thick Hide will reduce the damage your pet takes. Endurance Training is a mediocre alternative, but max health is worse than reducing damage taken.
- Levels 20 & 21 — 2 points in Pathfinding
- Level 22 — 1 point in Bestial Swiftness
- Levels 23 to 27 — 5 points in Unleashed Fury
- Levels 28 & 29 — 2 points in Ferocity
Pathfinding will improve your travel time, which will make your life much easier until you get a mount. Bestial Swiftness will improve your pet's ability to engage enemies and run to new enemies as you need it to, reducing the amount of time you need to wait before you can attack new enemies. Unleashed Fury and Ferocity are solid damage increases for your pet, which will also increase its threat generation.
- Level 30 — 1 point in Intimidation
- Level 31 to 33 — 3 points in Ferocity
- Level 34 — 1 point in Bestial Discipline
- Levels 35 to 39 — 5 points in Frenzy
Intimidation is a great ability to have for threat generation, crowd control, and as a survival tool. You should talent it before finishing Ferocity, or as soon as you hit Level 30. Bestial Discipline is more of a personal preference for where you want to put this point, but is an average option, letting your pet do more damage through its Focus spending abilities. Frenzy is one of the most powerful talents you will pick up, and will help your pet's damage and threat immensely. It is also worth noting that once you pick up this talent, pets with faster attack speeds become much stronger, due to the higher uptime they will have from this talent.
- Level 40 — 1 point in Bestial Wrath
- Levels 41 to 45 — 5 points in Improved Concussive Shot
- Levels 46 to 49 — 4 points in Lethal Shots
Bestial Wrath is an incredible damage cooldown that you should use whenever possible. This ability is what makes this spec viable at low gear levels at Level 60. After you pick up Bestial Wrath, go into the Marksmanship tree. For the first talent, this is a personal preference choice based on what type of server you are playing on. If you plan on doing no PvP at all, take Efficiency. If there is any chance you might encounter some PvP, take Improved Concussive Shot. Improved Concussive Shot is one of the best PvP talents that Hunters have, and is essential for any PvP build. This talent is one of the reasons you will be the bane of any melee opponent. Lastly, Lethal Shots is a strong damage increase.
- Level 50 — 1 point in Lethal Shots
- Level 51 — 1 point in Aimed Shot
- Levels 52 to 54 — 3 points in Hawk Eye
- Level 55 — 1 point in Efficiency
- Level 56 to 60 — 5 points in Mortal Shots
After finishing off Lethal Shots, pick up Aimed Shot. This will be your hardest hitting ability, and should be used as an opener on any enemy you fight. It is worth nothing that Aimed Shot shares a cooldown with Arcane Shot, so once you pick up Aimed Shot, you will rarely, if ever, Arcane Shot. The extra range from Hawk Eye is a nice quality of life increase, and will also make PvP much easier. The next point is personal preference just to unlock Mortal Shots, which, again, is a solid damage increase.
Leveling Rotation
- Command your pet to attack the target;
- Hunter's Mark;
- Intimidation;
- Bestial Wrath;
- Aimed Shot;
- Auto Shot;
- Serpent Sting;
- Auto Shot;
- Aimed Shot if you are fine on Mana;
- Arcane Shot if you are fine on Mana;
- Multi-Shot if you are fine on Mana;
- Auto Shot until the enemy is dead.
The key from 1-10 is getting as many auto shots off as possible before the target reaches you. The best way to accomplish this is by kiting backwards, moving in between each shot. At level 8 Concussive Shot can help with this.
Do your class quest to get your pet. Once you have your pet, your kill speed and efficiency should become much better. Make sure you are careful with your threat, and try to let your pet tank whenever possible.
Multi-Shot is a powerful attack, but can cause you to pull aggro off your pet if you use it on multiple enemies. It is incredibly powerful, but losing auto shots from enemies running into your dead zone will be a bigger damage loss.
Feign Death is a great way to drop threat while fighting enemies. You can combine this with Aimed Shot or Multi-Shot to deal a burst of damage right before dropping threat to ensure your pet keeps aggro.
Aimed Shot is a powerful attack, but faces the same issue as Multi-Shot. Use it for bursts of damage, but be careful with your threat.
List of Trainer Skills to Buy
All Hunter specs benefit from upgrading the same skills, so our list of skills to buy from trainers is the same, regardless of the spec. For this reason, you will find that list in our general Hunter leveling page.
Hunter Quests and Weapons
While leveling, you will want to always be on the lookout for ranged upgrades. Most of your damage will dome from Auto Shot, meaning a bow upgrade will increase your kill speed by substantially more than any other upgrade. Hunters also get a huge power spike when they complete their level 10 class quest and get a pet, which will be incredibly important for leveling. Below are links to our guides on Weapons and Class Quests for Hunters.
How to advance as a Hunter at Level 60
Well done on hitting maximum level in WoW Classic! Now that leveling is over, you can learn more about level 60 gameplay by reading our DPS Hunter Guide, which covers every facet of gameplay at 60 in detail.
The best individual pages to read through are as follows.
- The DPS Hunter Talent builds guide has the best builds for Level 60 covered. We propose builds for all specializations, with a focus on Beast Mastery for solo play and Marskmanship for raiding.
- Our PvP Hunter guide is where you can find PvP builds for all 3 specializations, as well as various tricks and tips for PvP combat.
- Goldmaking Guide for Hunters is a page with details on where / how to farm gold quickly as a Hunter when you are Level 60.
- The DPS Hunter Rotation guide is where you can read on how to optimize your PvE damage and how to prioritize your abilities.
- DPS Hunter Stats guide contains detailed information on all Hunter stats, including a list of their priority for damage dealing.
- Our Gear guide for DPS Hunters lists all the optimal pieces of gear that you will want to farm at Level 60, in order to optimize your damage.
Changelog
- 23 Sep. 2019: Guide added.
Classic Dungeon Guides
Classic Profession Guides
Classic Race Guides
Classic Class Overviews
This guide has been written by Impakt, an Officer in BDGG, the #2 North American guild on retail. In addition to live WoW, he has also been a classic theorycrafter and enthusiast for many years. You can watch him stream on Twitch, or follow him on Twitter.
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