Beast Mastery Hunter Frequently Asked Questions — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. How much Haste should Beast Mastery Hunters have? / Is there a Haste cap?

For Beast Mastery, there is no particular Haste softcap. At 100% Haste, your global cooldown (GCD) will be 0.75 seconds, and it cannot go lower. This cap is unreachable with any gear currently available, although you can reach it with particular Haste buffs and Bloodlust/ Heroism combined.

As far as your gear goes, however, there is no minimum Haste or Haste cap.

2. Which Race/Racial Ability is the best for Beast Mastery Hunter?

Generally speaking, races that have powerful on-use abilities like Orcs, Trolls, Blood Elves and Lightforged Draenei are never bad choices. Orcs have a passive racial that increases the damage done of your pets slightly, and in most cases, that makes it the best racial for Horde, while Lightforged Draenei has the best racial on Alliance.

You can see a ranked list of all the Racials on our Simulations page.

3. How good is Beast Mastery Hunter in BfA Patch 8.1?

Beast Mastery is generally the best ranged Hunter spec. Its damage is not amazing, but it can do all of its damage on the move and it has better overall utility than most ranged. It is a great spec for less experienced players, and while it does not do a ton of damage, it is one of the most popular specs, even in the hardcore scene.

4. What Pets Should I Use?

We recommend Spirit Beasts as your default pet for PvE content. Their Spirit Mend heal is strong in a pinch and they provide increased maximum health and a defensive cooldown from being Tenacity.

For Leveling and Open World content, we recommend Ferocity pets. They provide a Leech bonus that heals you when you do damage, and they allow you to cast Bloodlust/ Heroism every 10 minutes to help you on big pulls and difficult enemies. They are also more handy for world PvP. There are no Ferocity pets that stand out far above the others.

Cunning Pets are useful mostly when there is no need for any defensive ability, such as when you are doing open world content that is trivial for your gear level. Silithid pets have 30% increased movement speed by default, and all Cunning pets provide a small movement speed bonus to you as well.

5. Why Is Animal Companion Not The Best Talent?

An important thing to note about Animal Companion which it does not show on the tooltip is that it reduces the damage of your pet by 40%, and then copies that reduced damage onto the additional companion. It is still a decent talent, but it is not as good as it looks on paper.

6. When Should I Use Multi-Shot/Beast Cleave?

You should start sacrificing Cobra Shots for Multi-Shot already at 2 targets, but you should still prioritize casting Kill Command on cooldown. When you are fighting 3 targets, then keeping up Beast Cleave takes priority over Kill Command.

7. What Piece is Better, X or Y?

The answer to this question in any context will always be to simulate it. This is because what is an upgrade for you may not be an upgrade for someone else. In other words, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all answer, even when talking about 2 completely identical comparisons from you to another person. Everything in your gear has an effect on everything else.

This applies to gear, trinkets, Azerite Traits, and even talents in certain situations.

The only exception to this rule is when a specific fight dictates a certain set of optimal talents, for example. If you are curious about what kind of setup to go for a specific fight, WarcraftLogs.com's rankings and statistics are a good place to see what others are doing.

We have a guide on how to sim yourself here:

8. Changelog