Beast Mastery Hunter DPS Spec, Builds, Talents, and Pet Talents — 12.0.5

Beast Mastery uses both Hero Talents for different kinds of content, with Pack Leader being your primary and Dark Ranger actually being somewhat optimal.

• Single Target - For anything pure single-target, Pack Leader is our choice.
• AoE - Both Hero Talents are very close on AoE, with Dark Ranger offering more overall, but getting up to full power more slowly, while Pack Leader has more bursty AoE. In theory, Dark Ranger is better for higher keys, but most people play Pack Leader in Mythic+ overall as it is more flexible and straightforward to play. Long story short, we recommend Pack Leader for most people doing most keys, but Dark Ranger is a marginally (~2%) better option, on top of being tankier, for the highest levels of Mythic+.

For Raiding, Beast Mastery's single-target suffers greatly when we dip into AoE talents, so this is not a decision to be taken lightly. As always, the best parses will always be achieved with heavy AoE builds. Since most raid AoE is short-term, Pack Leader Raid AoE is used for many raid fights, with Pack Leader's single-target build being used for the rest.

For Mythic+, Dark Ranger is stronger for very high keys, and is tankier as well, but for most people doing most levels of keys, Pack Leader is the most straightforward and competitive choice.

Quick Start Import Codes:

The builds listed above are popular recommendations, covering various different loadouts suited to each style of endgame content. Each Talent Build will have it's own rotation, and can also be manipulated further for specific types of content and to better benefit your group.

Combat Information

Rotations and Mythic+

Want to dive deeper? These guides will teach you how to utilize our Talent Builds in endgame content!

RotationMythic+

Midnight introduces new Apex Talents, unlocked between Level 80 and 90. Beast Mastery gets:

1. Nature's Ally
2. Nature's Ally
3. Nature's Ally

These make Bestial Wrath deal a significant chunk of damage, instead of just being a passive damage buff. The last point also incentivizes never using Kill Command twice in a row; you should always use a filler ability like Barbed Shot or Cobra Shot in between.

Available at level 71 Hero talents are mutually exclusive trees you can choose to slightly alter gameplay and visuals. Beast Mastery Hunter can choose between Dark Ranger and Pack Leader.

Dark Ranger gives you Black Arrow, which deals heavy damage. In addition to being freely usable (with a 10-second cooldown) on targets above 80% or below 20% HP, you will regularly get procs from it from Kill Command and Barbed Shot that allow it to be used on any target at any time. These procs are not an especially high priority, falling between Kill Command and Barbed Shot for the most part. Dark Ranger can be thought of as "Beast Mastery with an extra button" for the most part. When you activate Bestial Wrath, the button itself will turn into Wailing Arrow, which does heavy damage and gives you a Black Arrow proc.

Defensively, Dark Ranger offers Smoke Screen, which is simply amazing, as it gives us extremely easy access to Survival of the Fittest nearly all the time.

Pack Leader is our simplest Hero Talent, adding almost nothing in terms of gameplay intrigue. Occasionally, your Kill Command will trigger a Beast via Howl of the Pack Leader. These Beasts simply do damage, or increase your damage done. In addition, your first Kill Command after Bestial Wrath will summon a Stampede; a line of pets that do heavy AoE damage to all targets caught within. We detail its usage more on our rotation page.

Defensively, Pack Leader gives us Shell Cover, which buffs the effectiveness of our Survival of the Fittest. Not great.

War Mode offers several benefits for you in the open world.

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• At least 10% increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points, which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will be available for open-world PvP, and the possibility of being "ganked" while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of all PvP Talents for Beast Mastery Hunter

1. Dire Beast: Hawk causes a hawk to circle a target area, damaging all targets within. This greatly supplements your AoE damage when doing big pulls in the open world.
2. Dire Beast: Basilisk is a powerful choice for bursty single-target damage. It is useful for world PvP if you can keep your opponent slowed enough for the Basilisk, and it is potent for rare mobs and quest mobs with much health.
3. Chimaeral Sting offers a good amount of opening damage for single targets and is very useful against most enemy players.

You can consider the other options essentially down to preference.

Azortharion

Guide Author

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This guide has been written by Azortharion, a full-timer Hunter Guidewriter, Theorycrafter, Content Creator, and top player since 2014 who is widely considered one of the best PvE Hunters in the world. He is an accomplished player with hundreds of top parses across all Hunter specs. He is the Head Admin of Trueshot Lodge, the official Hunter Class Discord. You can find him on his stream on Twitch and his channel on YouTube. He also has his own, personal Discord server where you can freely ask him any Hunter questions you may have!