World of Warcraft: Forever Beast Mastery Hunter Guide

Hunter is your classic ranger archetype, setting traps and dealing damage from afar while relying on your powerful animal companion to deal unrelenting damage and keep your enemy's focus. Beast Mastery is the specialization that heavily invests into your pet; your pet becomes not only your primary source of damage but also acts as your tank out in the world, making it one of the best solo and leveling specializations in the game. Hunters have an iconic, versatile toolkit that enables them to trap, control, and attack enemies on their own schedule while your pet stays up close and personal to deal devastating damage.

Beast Mastery Hunters are entering World of Warcraft Forever with a familiar package to what Hunters had in Classic, but with some powerful new upgrades and a couple of new tools that double down on your pet-based identity. The big addition which you get access to at level 25 is Summon Hawk which will be one of your new core rotational abilities. This allows you to summon a hawk to attack your target, with a maximum of two hawks active at any time. The other major change is that your pet now has scaling with your stats like in later version of World of Warcraft, which means Beast Mastery will continue to grow in power even deep into raids at max level.

Overall Performance Leveling Dungeon Utility Mobility

Easy to Learn, Hard to Master

Hunters have one of the strongest skill floors in the game, and Beast Mastery perfectly plays to that strength by placing more power into your pet. It enables any player to blaze through the leveling process with far more power than other classes offer early on. However, Hunters still have an exceptional amount of depth and optimization for the best players to really showcase their skill. Hunters overall lack some of the AoE and cleave damage options that separates out the true DPS powerhouses like Warriors, but still offer exceptional damage and a versatile utility package that makes them an excellent all-rounder even into the end-game.

Top-tier leveling

Beast Mastery Hunters simply offers the complete package for leveling. By investing into the strength of your pet, you have your own personal relentless tank capable of not only holding threat, but dealing immense damage. You can always heal it yourself, re-summon as needed, and support it from afar with your own exceptional damage. Even with no mana, you still deal extremely competitive damage with just a basic Auto Shot and a pet. Finally, Hunters have one of the best tools in the game for leveling with Feign Death, giving you an option to reset and escape combat if you ever end up in a bad situation. Hunters overall are the strongest leveling class in World of Warcraft, and Beast Mastery is the specialization that doubles down on that strength for leveling.

Strong, Persistent Damage

While Hunters posses the complete package for solo game play, that strength is far less important in a dungeon where you have allies to cover other roles. Beast Mastery Hunters are still a strong choice with the combination of excellent single target damage and on-demand AOE with Explosive Trap and Multi-Shot. Hunters additionally have extremely useful crowd control with Freezing Trap and Frost Trap. As a final note, you always need to take extra care with pet control in dungeons to ensure you are not accidentally pulling additional targets; an irresponsible Hunter quickly becomes a liability in some dungeons.

A Versatile Utility Package

While Hunters do not have the strongest crowd control spells possible, they have solid options available that make up a versatile package. Freezing Trap and Frost Trap in particular are extremely useful in dungeons for targeted and AoE control. Beast Mastery Hunters also gain Intimidation as an on-use stun that is extremely strong for interrupting enemies and locking them down. Finally, Feign Death is one of the best possible panic buttons for any sort of dangerous content.

Fast, but Delicate

Hunters have their iconic aspects, including Aspect of the Cheetah which is their primary mobility spell. They can move 30% faster, increasing even further with talents. This can be toggled on at any time, even in combat, which makes it extremely valuable and allows Hunters to kite effectively. However, the major downside here is that while Cheetah is active, taking any damage dazes you and removes the aspect. Hunters have exceptional kiting potential, but it's a dual-edge sword with a large downside that has to be used carefully.

Starter Information

Beginner Guides

New to the game? Get started with our Leveling guide!

Leveling

Hunter has a couple of very strong early talents, but Beast Mastery unlocks its most valuable talents from levels 20 to 30. To start, you should absolutely take Deadly Aspects in the Beast Mastery tree. This is one of the best 5 point talents you can take, especially early on, since it allows you to proc a 30% haste buff for 12 seconds.

Once you put 5 points into Deadly Aspects, you absolutely should put two points into Pathfinding. While this is not a DPS talent, the extra 6% movement speed is going to be so much more noticeable than anything else while you run around the world without a mount.

The remaining 4 points at Level 20 are far more subjective. Improved Revive Pet is a great general option early on since it makes Revive Pet both far stronger and more reliable to use even in a combat situation, allowing you to reliably bring your pet back if it ever dies. Focused Fire is the strongest DPS talent available at this point, with Lethal Attacks as a close second. Hawk Eye is another solid option just to give you extra range for kiting, especially if PvP is your goal. Finally, if you put all 10 points into Beast Mastery, Bestial Swiftness is a really strong quality of life talent point both for leveling and for PvP since your pet will be able to move far quicker between targets.

Finally, from 20 to 30 you should max out Unleashed Fury for the additional damage before taking Summon Hawk as soon as it is available. This will be your most important unlock and is a new core rotational ability, effectively giving you two more pets to keep active. With the remaining points up to Level 30, you can take 3 points in Ferocity before taking Intimidation. You can also choose to not take either middle talent, choosing instead to go for the full 5 points in Ferocity. This is a higher DPS option, but spending 2 points for the on-use stun and extra pet movement speed is absolutely worth it for general quality of life.

At this point, you also could potentially have up to 5 extra talent points if you unlocked every Legacy Point bonus available. The best option here would be to finish out the full 5 points in Ferocity, followed by 2 points in Bestial Discipline and 1 point in Frenzy. These are all highly impactful points and absolutely worth picking up as soon as possible. You could choose to put them elsewhere, but you will want to respec later on anyways to grab Bestial Wrath once you have 31 points available, so it is better to just stay fully in Beast Mastery.

Horde: Tauren – the single strongest choice out of any race across both factions for Hunter, entirely due to Plainsrunning. As a Hunter, you can run continuously to build up 30% movement speed while even at Level 1, then stutter step while attacking from range to use Auto Shot. This enables you to kill any target from range while leveling without ever taking melee hits, even at Level 1. While this buff does not stack with Aspect of the Cheetah later, it still allows you to keep 30% movement speed if managed well while keeping Aspect of the Hawk up, which is a major DPS boost. Beyond that, Taurens still get an additional 5% max health and 1% hit chance with Endurance and an on-use AoE stun with War Stomp.

Alliance: Human – for the Alliance, the choice of racials is far closer so you should feel free to pick whichever one fits your personal preference. However, Humans will offer a slight edge in both PvP and PvE. Will to Survive is an invaluable panic button to break stuns, which in PvP is when you are in the most danger against melee that connect with you. Perception also provides another tool to look for stealthed targets. Finally, the major DPS increase comes from Sword Specialization, which causes you to gain 2% crit chance as long as your melee weapons include at least 1 sword. It is important to note that this generally increases your crit chance, so it will also apply the bonus to your ranged attacks.

The Hunter rotation is incredibly simple early on, almost entirely relying on the strength of Auto Shot to kill enemies. First and foremost, always have Aspect of the Hawk active before engaging with something unless you are actively kiting it away and need the speed bonus of Aspect of the Cheetah. Before Level 10, you should also focus on moving backwards between Auto Shots since you want to maximize the number of times you attack a target from range before it reaches your dead-zone and gets into melee.

• Put Hunter's Mark up on your target before combat.
• Command your pet to attack your target first, with its abilities on auto-cast.
• Once your pet damages and attacks your target, start with Serpent Sting.
• Summon Hawk on cooldown, always keeping 2 hawks active.
• Aimed Shot on cooldown.
• Continue to Auto Shot your target.
• If you ever pull aggro away from your pet, use Disengage.
• If you find yourself capped on mana and will have 2 hawks active for more than 6 seconds, use Arcane Shot.
• Auto Shot the enemy until it dies.

Against multiple enemies, use Multi-Shot instead of Aimed Shot.

As a final reminder, the majority of a Hunter's power comes from both you and your pet's basic attacks. Even if you are out of mana, it will always be more efficient to just attack the next target and regenerate your mana slowly while using basic attacks. Prioritize using Mend Pet to heal your pet along with Serpent Sting to efficiently utilize your mana.

At Level 10, you will have the ability to tame a pet. This is the single greatest leveling tool that any class gets without exception. Hunters have always had the ability to tame a pet, but there are a couple of important distinctions from Classic that are worth noting.

• Pets have one of three classifications: Ferocity, Cunning, or Tenacity.
• Pets do not have an inherent damage buff or reduction based on type.
• Pet happiness and loyalty still exists; remember to feed your pet!
• Pets inherit some of your stats, which means they gain power along with you.
• Every pet family, such as cats or turtles, has its own unique ability.
• To level up pet abilities, you still need to go out and tame a higher level pet that already knows the skill you are looking for. Your pet will not naturally learn higher level abilities on its own.
• Once you do train higher level pet abilities, you can then teach it to any other pet in the future that is capable of learning that ability.

For leveling, Bears are a generally strong choice. They are a defensive pet capable of tanking well, but most importantly have access to a unique Swipe ability. A Bear's Swipe has a 5-second cooldown and deals cleave damage in front of them, which makes it one of the rare pet abilities capable of dealing consistent AoE damage to hold aggro on multiple targets.

Hunters are known for a variety of unique utility tools that are both incredibly useful and flavorful for the class.

• Hunters can track different types of enemies on the mini-map through various tracking skills.
• Hunters can always keep an aspect buff up, which notably includes Aspect of the Cheetah. This is one of the rare movement speed buffs available before you get a mount.
• Feign Death will cause you to play dead, causing any nearby enemies to drop threat on you and reset. However, they will still attack your pet if it is alive and nearby. This is one of the most valuable leveling spells for resetting and leaving combat if things get too dangerous.
• Freezing Trap will freeze an enemy in a block of ice when triggered, providing a reliable way to keep one target locked down.
• Frost Trap leaves a patch of frost on an area, massively slowing down targets inside.
• Concussive Shot is an instant-cast, single-target slow. This is one of the strongest tools a Hunter has in PvP, especially against melee.
• Disengage can be used to lower your threat on a target.

While leveling up to 30, generally you should go for the highest level items that follow the stat priority listed below. Look out for pieces with high amounts of Agility specifically, high level weapons, and rare quality gear wherever you can. The best items available will come from a combination of dungeon quests, dungeon boss drops, crafted pieces, and other quest chain rewards.

At Level 20, some of the best gear comes from the Wailing Caverns dungeon. This includes the Venomstrike bow along with the full Fang set, with pieces such as Leggings of the Fang.

At Level 30, the difference in most slots is relatively minor as well. However, there are a few notable outliers for what is available. Truthseeker's Bow is an incredible low level bow that you can pick up as a quest reward. Leatherworking has some strong pieces available from crafting, including the chest Dusky Leather Armor. Triprunner Dungarees are a quest reward from one of the Gnomeregan dungeon quests. Finally, Armor Piercer gives more Agility than any other weapon combination and is a common boss drop from Razorfen Kraul.

The stat priority boils down to two things: get the highest damage weapons possible and get as much Agility as possible. Beyond that, you generally will just want the highest level gear possible while leveling. Below is a more detailed explanation of the various stats for Beast Mastery Hunter and the benefits they provide.

1. Weapon Damage
   • Far and away your most important stat. Keep in mind, weapons have both a DPS value and a damage value; slower weapons will hit harder, but less often. While you usually will just prefer the higher level weapon, slower weapons are better overall since you want a weapon that deals more damage per individual hit. This is because your abilities such as Aimed Shot calculate their base damage from your weapon's damage, meaning your abilities do more damage with a higher damage weapon.
2. Hit
   • You have a baseline chance to miss attacks, which increases as you face higher level enemies. Getting hit chance makes you less likely to miss. This stat is strong, but is also generally not ever found on low level gear.
3. Agility
   • Increases both your attack power and crit chance per point. In general, Hunters gain the majority of their scaling from Agility, which makes this your most important primary stat. You should be looking to have this on every piece of gear.
4. Critical Strike
   • Critical strikes deal bonus damage and provide bonus effects through certain talents, such as your Frenzy talent, which causes your pets to gain attack speed when they deal critical strikes. More importantly, pets also inherit your critical strike chance, meaning crit is a direct damage buff to both you and your pet.
5. Intellect
   • Each point provides one Attack Power through Careful Aim, while also increasing your maximum mana. With Careful Aim talented this is your next most important stat after Agility. Having a higher mana pool is also incredibly important generally just to ensure you can cast more spells without stopping in a single fight.
6. Spirit
   • Increases your base mana regeneration and your out of combat health regeneration rates. This is a valuable leveling stat since it will cause you to recover more mana faster. However, this is only for leveling; Stamina and Intellect are far more valuable for both survivability and actual combat capacity.
7. Stamina
   • Each point increases your maximum health. Having a large health pool is important for just being more durable, but as a Hunter you generally should not be tanking or taking damage. This is your least important stat while leveling, but pets also gain more max health per point of stamina you have as well.

While leveling, the most important consumables are going to be the highest level food you can eat for health regeneration, water for mana regeneration, and health potions as an emergency defensive button. While you can look into elixirs and other buff foods, you do not need to focus on them too much while leveling unless you are trying to optimize significantly.

That being said, there are some easy elixirs you can get to help with your base power while leveling. Elixir of Agility along with other variations of the straight Agility elixirs are going to be the most noticeable damage increase, and quite cost efficient while leveling once you have some gold to spare. Since you are leveling with a pet, you do not need to worry too much about survivability; any buffs should primarily focus on damage.

Another important consumable will be bandages from First Aid. First Aid gives you something to use your cloth on while leveling, and provides an incredibly strong way of healing yourself both in and out of combat. It is highly recommended to keep your First Aid skill current while leveling.

One of the incredible new additions in World of Wacraft Forever is campsites. You can set up Campsites yourself, or look for them out in the world to sit by a campfire for the campfire buffs. Different professions can offer buffs, all of which generally correspond to the possible class buffs. These are incredibly strong while leveling, so if you ever seen players sitting around a campfire out in the world, make sure to stop by to sit and get some buffs.

Impakt

Guide Author

Follow Impakt

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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