Beast Mastery Hunter DPS Easy Mode — The War Within (11.1.7)

This build is by far the strongest single-target build that we have.

By swapping Wild Instincts to Bloody Frenzy, we lose very little single-target, but gain respectable burst AoE for the 20-second duration of Call of the Wild. This is a strong middle-ground used for several raid fights.

Beast Mastery Single-Target Builds have 2 "Cooldown Variants" of this build. Call of the Wild (my baseline recommendation) and Bloodshed (identical DPS). Use the Bloodshed Variant when you are not getting optimal use of your 2-minute cooldown, or if an encounter has burst timings that work better with a 1-minute cooldown cadence. The builds generally perform within 0.2% of each other in BiS gear and you cannot go too wrong with either.

• To swap to Bloodshed (1-minute build), swap Call of the Wild and Wild Instincts over to Bloodshed and Venomous Bite.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!

This is my recommended build for Mythic+ if you are really keen on running Call of the Wild for the extra burst. I do not generally recommend it.

We cannot have everything we could possibly want for every single dungeon in a single build, unfortunately. Here are the recommended utility talents to swap to for different, specific Mythic+ dungeons in The War Within Season 2.

• For Cinderbrew Meadery, Darkflame Cleft, Theater of Pain, and The MOTHERLODE!!, swap Kodo Tranquilizer over to Devilsaur Tranquilizer.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!

This build offers the best blend of single-target and AoE damage for single-target raid encounters with add spawns or intermittent AoE of any kind. Fortunately, we can get quite a bit of AoE with only a modest single-target loss.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!

The goal of Beast Mastery is simply to cast as many Kill Commands as possible. To do this, you need to cast it on cooldown, and you also need to keep your Focus above 30 so that you have enough Focus to cast it on cooldown. In short, if you can press Kill Command, you always should!

Your second core ability is Barbed Shot. It applies a hefty DoT that gives you some Focus over time, and it increases your pet attack speed by 30%, stacking up to 3 times, for 8-10 seconds depending on Talents. It also has a solid chance of generating Kill Commands via the War Orders talent.

You will generate Focus mostly passively, with extra Focus infusions from abilities like Dire Beast, but it is important that you never reach 100 Focus! To prevent this, use Cobra Shot to "dump" and manage your Focus. It will also reduce the remaining cooldown of Kill Command. Make sure not to press Cobra Shot if you could be casting Kill Command instead!

On top of all this, our Dark Ranger Hero Talent also introduces Black Arrow, a replacement for your otherwise seldom- used Kill Shot button. As a Dark Ranger, this button will do solid damage on its own, and apply a DoT that feeds effects like Shadow Hounds, and more. When Black Arrow procs, simply use it!

Aside from these 3-4 buttons, Beast Mastery simply presses its other buttons on cooldown. Note that most of the abilities below are opt-in via talents, so do not be put off by the length of this list!

• Call of the Wild — One of your two primary cooldowns that summons a "zoo" of pets and lets you cast far more Kill Commands and Barbed Shots.
• Bestial Wrath — A powerful mini-cooldown that improves all you and your pet's damage by 30%, and your pet's critical strike bonus damage by 35%.
• Kill Shot — A strong single-target button. Normally only usable on enemies below 20% HP. As a Dark Ranger, it becomes Black Arrow instead.

There is only one extra thing you need to worry about for Beast Mastery on AoE, and that is Beast Cleave. This is a pet buff activated by Multi-Shot that causes all of its attacks to do AoE damage. Even if there are only 2 targets up, you should try to keep this buff up 100% of the time by casting Multi-Shot regularly. You can generally fit 3 spells between Multi-Shots. Make sure most of those are Kill Command as it will also do AoE damage via Kill Cleave!

As a Dark Ranger, you also want to ensure that all of your Black Arrow casts are happening under the effects of Beast Cleave. Since we recommend this Hero Talent for Mythic+, this is important to keep in mind every time Black Arrow procs!

I recommend using this WeakAura to keep track of Beast Cleave!

Exhilaration is your primary self-heal and it has a rather short cooldown thanks to the Natural Mending Talent. Use this when you drop below 50% HP to help out your Healer!

Aspect of the Turtle is your immunity. It can be used to completely negate the damage and effects of most spells targeted on you. Use it if you are assigned to, or in a pinch if you worry that an upcoming mechanic will kill you!

Survival of the Fittest is our most powerful defensive besides Turtle, a 30% damage reduction with 2 charges on a 1.5-minute cooldown each. Use it to reduce damage taken from hard-hitting mechanics. Optimal use of this ability entails using it proactively, before heavy incoming damage.

Fortitude of the Bear is an extra defensive that comes from using a Tenacity Pet (more on that in the Pets section!). It increases max health by 20% and heals you for that amount too. This defensive can be used after heavy damage, or to survive things that might one-shot you.

Feign Death is a very unique Hunter ability. It can be used to drop aggro and combat, and it can also be used to stop casts on you — mobs will usually stop casting mid-cast if you appear to be dead! It will also dispel all Poison and Disease effects from you.

This is just some of the key utility of Beast Mastery Hunter. We highly recommend checking out the fully detailed Spell Glossary page below to see everything explained in detail.

The most important thing to say about Pets is that they all deal the same DPS. The only difference is in utility and defensive capabilities!

First of all, you need to find out if you need to be using Bloodlust/ Heroism in your group. Only Hunters, Mages, Evokers, and Shamans can use Bloodlust, so if there is no one else of those classes in your group, then it is on you!

If you do need to Bloodlust, you need to use any Ferocity Pet, since these come with the Primal Rage Bloodlust Ability. Use this website to find a cool Ferocity Pet for Lusting purposes!

If you do not need to Bloodlust, then the best Pet is a Spirit Beast, as these come with the Fortitude of the Bear Defensive Ability (from Tenacity), and Spirit Mend which is unique to Spirit Beasts.

With that said, Spirit Mend is a pretty small bonus and if you do not need to Bloodlust, you can basically use any kind of pet that you want. Tenacity is ideal for its defensive ability.

The game offers the option of an in-game "Combat Assistant", which has two modes; A Rotation Helper that will suggest spells to cast next, and a "One-Button Mode", that automatically performs this rotation for you if you simply press one button repeatedly.

These tools can be worthwhile for beginners, as they provide a reasonable "minimum" level of performance. For Beast Mastery Hunter, using just the Rotation Helper is a ~1-15% DPS loss compared to playing perfectly (which almost nobody does), the lower bound being single-target and the upper bound being AoE. Using the one-button mode adds another ~15-18% to this DPS loss, with the lower bound being for single-target and the upper bound being on AoE.

Obviously, peak performance cannot be obtained using these tools, but it is something worth considering if you are happy to take the DPS losses above for the sake of ease of play. Do not let anyone in-game or on a forum or Discord tell you that there is something inherently wrong with using these tools! Blizzard created them for a reason, and the game is about having fun, whatever that means for you.