Beast Mastery Hunter DPS Mythic+ Guide — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.2.5

Mythic+ Dungeons, especially high ones, are arguably the highest level of competitive PvE content that WoW has to offer aside from Mythic raiding.

In Mythic Dungeons as a Hunter, you will be responsible for a large part of the group's total damage output, while in a Mythic Raiding group, you may only be responsible for maybe 7% of it. The skill and execution from the individual players in the group is much more important.

Aside from just doing damage, in Mythic+ you will be responsible for many things to make the group's run faster and easier. Interrupting, offensively dispelling enemy targets, soaking mechanics, using your traps and stuns are all much more common in Mythic+ than your usual Mythic raid.

In this guide, we will talk about getting the most out of your Hunter in Mythic+ dungeons, including the best way to set up your character, how your rotation may change, and tips and tricks for using your abilities in the most optimal way.

The new Beguiling Affix adds unique mobs to mob packs throughout dungeons. These mobs, called "Emissaries", impose special limitations on the packs you are fighting:

• Enchanted Emissary — Causes mobs nearby to reflect up to 200% of damage done to them. When you attack this Emissary, it is knocked back, making it easier to separate from the rest of the pack. It has too much health to be killed, but it has an Energy bar that will deplete over 30 seconds, after which the Emissary will despawn.
• Void-Touched Emissary — This mob detects Stealth and Invisibility effects, and casts Queen's Decree: Hide which deals damage to everyone within Line of Sight, in a 60-yard radius. It also applies a debuff that increases everyone's Shadow damage taken by 50%. These mobs have a modest amount of health, and when they reach 1 health they will teleport out of the dungeon.
• Emissary of the Tides — This causes all nearby mobs to be immune to all Crowd Control effects. This includes interrupts, snares, slows, and roots, as well as everything else. These mobs have a modest amount of health, and when they reach 1 health they will teleport out of the dungeon.

The layout of Emissaries in dungeons changes every week.

For Mythic+ Dungeons as a Beast Mastery Hunter, your focus will be on a mix of single-target and AoE damage. A big strength of Beast Mastery is that it can deal very high single-target damage while simultaneously doing high AoE.

These are our recommended talents for Beast Mastery Hunter in Mythic+

Level	Choices
15	✓ Killer Instinct	✓ Animal Companion	✗ Dire Beast
30	✗ Scent of Blood	? One with the Pack	✓ Chimaera Shot
45	? Trailblazer	? Natural Mending	? Camouflage
60	✗ Venomous Bite	? Thrill of the Hunt	✓ A Murder of Crows
75	? Born To Be Wild	? Posthaste	? Binding Shot
90	✓ Stomp	✗ Barrage	✗ Stampede
100	✓ Aspect of the Beast	✗ Killer Cobra	✗ Spitting Cobra

✔ Killer Instinct

✔ Animal Companion

✘ Dire Beast

Animal Companion is generally the highest DPS option. However, the pet moves more slowly than your standard pet as it does not benefit from the same movement speed effects, which can cause it to lag behind slightly. It is also more squishy than the main pet, which can be problematic in dungeons like the Temple of Sethraliss. Overall, though, it is the strongest DPS option.

Killer Instinct is the safe choice whenever the Animal Companion may die too often, or not path properly.

Dire Beast is never chosen.

✘ Scent of Blood

? One with the Pack

✔ Chimaera Shot

Chimaera Shot is the default, recommended choice, and if in doubt, this is the talent you should choose.

One with the Pack can beat out Chimaera Shot on very heavy AoE and with a lot of Critical Strike on your gear. It is best to sim this comparison using Raidbots.

? Trailblazer

? Natural Mending

? Camouflage

Generally speaking, we recommend using Natural Mending. It will allow you to use your Exhilaration self-heal much more often, which can save your life if you have made a mistake, or a very powerful spell has hit you.

✘ Venomous Bite

? Thrill of the Hunt

✔ A Murder of Crows

A Murder of Crows is our recommended talent on this tier. It has by far the highest single-target potential, and even with a lot of AoE damage going on, the other talents are just barely competitive.

For Mythic+, the strength of Crows is that you can cast it on enemies that are expected to die within its 15-second duration, thereby resetting its cooldown and letting you use it again on other important targets.

Thrill of the Hunt can be stronger than Crows with high Crit, but only on high amounts of AoE. It is best to sim this using Raidbots, as this talent also synergizes well with Dance of Death Traits.

? Born To Be Wild

? Posthaste

? Binding Shot

This tier is mostly a question about mobility, survivability, or utility.

Generally, we recommend using Posthaste for the helpful movement speed boost, but if you are doing a very high-level Mythic+ Dungeon, then you might find Born To Be Wild more valuable, as it is more likely to save your life than Posthaste.

Binding Shot is much more situational, and there would need to be specific requirements in the dungeon for you to use it. Remember that it is a root and not a stun, so its primary benefit is to help keep mobs stacked.

✔ Stomp

✘ Barrage

✘ Stampede

Your choice in this tier largely depends on the damage composition of the dungeon, and what your priorities are.

We recommend Stomp as the default option, although Barrage can have its place in Fortified or Trash-heavy dungeons where ninjapulling is not an issue. Barrage is very rarely used by Beast Mastery Hunters, and it should arguably be used more often than it is. Stomp remains the safer, "cannot go wrong" option.

✔ Aspect of the Beast

✘ Killer Cobra

✘ Spitting Cobra

Aspect of the Beast is the only truly viable choice in this row, providing superior damage to the alternatives in every way, as well as increased utility, survivability, and mobility, depending on your pet's spec.

For the most part, your rotation will remain the same as normal in Mythic+ dungeons. Because of the nature of dungeons, however, with mobs dying constantly and there sometimes being downtime in between packs, we recommend taking the following extra considerations.

1. Precast Bestial Wrath and send your pet in.
2. Multi-Shot
3. Barbed Shot
4. Barbed Shot
5. Aspect of the Wild
6. Multi-Shot
7. Barbed Shot
8. Proceed as normal.

1. Precast Bestial Wrath and send your pet in.
2. Multi-Shot
3. Barbed Shot
4. Chimaera Shot
5. Multi-Shot
6. Kill Command
7. Barbed Shot
8. Proceed as normal.

You should always end a Mythic+ mob pack with 0 charges of Barbed Shot remaining. This is partly to get the most out of its Bestial Wrath cooldown reduction so that you can have Bestial Wrath for the next pack. If you are using Stomp, you will also get more value out of the talent by maximizing the Barbed Shot casts that you do.

Keeping up 3 stacks of Frenzy is still a very high priority. However, it is worth keeping in mind that mob packs in Mythic+ usually last for only a short time. Additionally, the most important damage tends to be front-loaded, since most packs have mobs of varying health levels. This means that later on in a pack, there is less damage to be done. Because of this, and the reasons above, we recommend focusing on refreshing Frenzy as soon as there is less than 8 seconds remaining on Barbed Shot's cooldown. This allows you to have 2-3 stacks much earlier in the pull than if you were to wait till the last moment to refresh. It still allows you to refresh to a higher stack count as long as you cast it as soon as the cooldown is gone. The basic point is to maximize the average amount of Frenzy stacks per pack.

This ability needs time to do its full damage potential. This generally makes it a higher priority as a "filler" than Kill Command, and we recommend casting it on the target with the highest health, especially if you are expecting it to die within the 15-second duration.

Intimidation is a 5-second stun. It can be used to interrupt otherwise uninterruptible effects on dangerous mobs, and in high Mythic+ situations, it should be used almost on cooldown to try and negate such casts.

Freezing Trap plays the same role as Intimidation for the most part, allowing you to interrupt dangerous casts that cannot be interrupted normally. It can also allow you to remove dangerous caster mobs from the equation. If there are caster mobs out of position hitting your group, those are ideal targets to be trapped until they can be pulled into the remaining group.

Counter Shot is your main interrupt and will be used often in any Mythic+. As you get to know the dungeons, you should know which spells are worth spending your valuable, long-cooldown interrupt on, and which ones you can safely leave to those with shorter cooldowns. Chances are that you will have one of the only ranged interrupts in your group. Using this on caster mobs that are out of position in order to force them to run for the tank is extremely valuable.

Feign Death is an extremely powerful spell in Mythic+. It can be used to effectively nullify a lot of targeted effects that mobs and bosses channel on you. It can also be used to nullify targeted spells where you can see that it will land on you before the cast finishes. Using Feign Death can cause the boss to pick another target, or completely stop casting the ability.

The best Beast Mastery Hunter traits for Mythic+ are usually ones that proc stats with a long duration, and ideally ones that are not reliant on mobs being alive for a long time.

• Dance of Death is the "bread and butter" trait for BM Hunters in almost all situations. Combining these with Primal Instincts and Rapid Reload will essentially always be the optimal setup.
• Primal Instincts is mandatory to have at least one of, but having more than one is also fine. It amplifies your main cooldown for significant burst damage and combines well with Rapid Reload.
• Rapid Reload is mandatory to have at least one of, allowing you to have extremely short cooldowns on Aspect of the Wild. This pairs very well with Primal Instincts.
• Haze of Rage also amplifies your main cooldowns, and since you are most likely to use cooldowns when they are important, it allows you to capitalize and double down on your most powerful damage windows. Combining this with Primal Instincts is a deadly combination for burst DPS.
• For Tier 2 traits, we recommend Overwhelming Power, Unstable Flames and Heed My Call.

• Dagger in the Back is a powerful pure single-target trait, but it loses value on multi-target scenarios. It also does less damage if you are attacking from the front. Finally, because its damage comes in the form of a stacking DoT, it is very undesirable when fighting big packs where mobs can often die before the DoT gets to do any damage, thereby wasting it.
• Azerite Globules is a Tier 2 trait with the same problem as Dagger in the Back. It applies a stacking debuff to a target, and it only does damage when that debuff hits 3 stacks. Because mobs die constantly in Mythic+ packs, you will waste a lot of Azerite Globules procs as mobs die with only a few stacks of the debuff.

To summarize Beast Mastery Azerite Traits for Mythic+, try and stick to the following guidelines:

• Avoid traits and effects that stack debuffs on targets.
• Avoid purely single-target traits. Thunderous Blast is an exception because it is very overpowered, but generally speaking you want traits that give you more stats, as those will help both single-target and AoE damage.

Finally, and perhaps above all, sim yourself using the HecticAddCleave and DungeonSlice Fight Styles.

When choosing your trinkets, we recommend simulating yourself on Raidbots using the HecticAddCleave (Heavy AoE) and DungeonSlice (lesser AoE/Tyrannical) Fight Styles. Usually, we recommend using trinkets that proc stats, rather than single-target damage dealers.