Beast Mastery Hunter DPS Spec, Builds, Talents, and Pet Talents — Dragonflight 10.2

Note that these builds are generic recommendations for various content. Check out the dedicated pages below for more specific recommendations for the Raid and Mythic+.

2.

Best Talents for Beast Mastery Hunter

Single-Target Talents Pre-T31-4PC Single-Target Talents AoE/Mythic+ Talents Pre-T31-4PC AoE/Mythic+ Talents Talents Explained

3.

Best Single-Target Talents for Beast Mastery Hunter

This build is optimal for pure single-target situations.

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

3.

Best Pre-T31 Single-Target Talents for Beast Mastery Hunter

This build is optimal for pure single-target situations before you have obtained the new Hunter Beast Mastery 10.2 Class Set 4pc bonus.

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

3.

Best AoE and Mythic+ Talents for Beast Mastery Hunter

This is our recommended build for AoE scenarios. This works well for AoE Fights in Raids, as well as most Mythic+.

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

3.

Pre-T31 Best AoE and Mythic+ Talents for Beast Mastery Hunter

This is our recommended build for AoE scenarios. This works well for AoE Fights in Raids, as well as most Mythic+.

This build is for before you have obtained the new Hunter Beast Mastery 10.2 Class Set 4pc bonus.

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

3.

Talent Explanations for Beast Mastery Hunters

Note that we do not explain EVERY Talent in the tree on this page. We only explain Talents that are part of our optimal builds for single-target and AoE. For full details and explanations of every Talent, please visit our Spells page via the button below.

Beast Mastery Hunter Dragonflight Spell Glossary

3.1.

Class Talents

3.1.1.

Row 1-4

Kill Shot	A strong DPS button and a mandatory pick.
Posthaste	Essential as one of our strongest mobility talents.
Improved Kill Shot	A passive, powerful increase to our Kill Shot's damage.
Counter Shot	Our main interrupt.
Natural Mending	Provides incredible CDR to Exhilaration and is a must-pick for survivability. If you are not using Exhilaration very liberally, you can get away with dropping a point here for other utility.
Tar Trap	Not great, but it leads us on a path to better talents, as we need to get to the left side of the tree later on.
Survival of the Fittest	A strong defensive for both one-shots and powerful DoTs.

3.1.2.

Row 5-7

Tranquilizing Shot	Useful for many scenarios and leads us to better talents on the left side of the tree.
Nature's Endurance	A must-pick, as it doubles the damage reduction of Survival of the Fittest.
Born To Be Wild	A solid pick for lower Turtle and Cheetah cooldowns, making it strong for both survivability and mobility.
Improved Tranquilizing Shot	A bit of an incentive to Tranquilizing Shot when we can, and leads us nicely to the left side of the tree, which becomes important.
Intimidation	Hugely useful for add control in Mythic+ and some Raiding scenarios.
Binding Shot/ Scatter Shot	Both viable options in this choice node are necessary to pick up other essential Talents. For most Mythic+, we recommend Binding Shot, but Scatter Shot can be used as a single-target cast stopper, similar to Intimidation.
Rejuvenating Wind	Increases our maximum health and gives our Exhilaration some extra power, which can be useful or weak depending on how liberal you are with Exhilaration usage. This is mandatory for the maximum HP.
Camouflage	Useful for skips and out-of-combat self-healing in Mythic+, but it has no use for Raiding.
Hunter's Avoidance	A much-needed boost to our survivability on unavoidable mechanics.
Pathfinding	A solid boost to movement speed, but you can drop a point here to pick up other utilities as needed.

3.1.3.

Row 8-10

Beast Master	A substantial DPS increase and is a mandatory pick.
Keen Eyesight	A potent DPS increase and is a mandatory pick.
Master Marksman	A substantial DPS increase and is a mandatory pick.
Improved Kill Command	A considerable DPS increase and is a mandatory pick.
Serrated Shots	Affects Barbed Shot and is a potent DPS talent.
Alpha Predator	Offers flexibility in our rotation as we are not hard-locked to casting Kill Command on cooldown.
Death Chakram	Introduces a mini-cooldown to our rotation, enhancing our burst a little and focusing on amplifying other damage.

3.2.

Spec Talents

3.2.1.

Row 1-4

Cobra Shot	One of our core abilities and mandatory to progress.
Pack Tactics and Barbed Shot	Also fundamental to our spec and are necessary to continue.
Multi-Shot/ Beast Cleave/ Kill Cleave	Our AoE talents, the main ones that differentiate our single-target build from our AoE build. We choose these whenever a scenario has relevant AoE to do at a significant but worthwhile single-target DPS loss.
Aspect of the Beast	This only improves the damage to your pet's Basic Attack ( Claw/ Bite/ Smack) but still represents a sizable DPS increase and leads us further in our tree.
Training Expert	One of our most vital per-point talents and mandatory.
Animal Companion	A significant DPS increase despite reducing the overall DPS of our main pet by 35%. The doubling of Kill Command, Stomp, and pet auto-attack damage more than makes up for this. To change the visuals of your secondary pet, change the top-left pet at a Stable Master.
Killer Command	Improves the damage of our strongest button and is always a worthwhile pick.

3.2.2.

Row 5-7

3.2.3.

Row 8-10

Thrill of the Hunt	Shines in longer encounters where you can reliably maintain 3 stacks of Frenzy (and therefore also the Talent's buff) for long periods. The Crit from the Talent will give additional Wild Call procs, making it even easier to maintain once you get 4 stacks to begin with.
Bloodshed	A powerful single-target button, enhancing our burst by a little, and is great for any single-target focused encounter. This is usually exclusive to our single-target build.
Dire Beast	A strong single-target button.
Bestial Wrath	Our primary cooldown, if you can call it that. In practice, its cooldown is around 30 seconds and sometimes even shorter, as explained below.
War Orders	Gives us significantly more Kill Commands as we regularly hit our Barbed Shots, one of our most powerful talents.
Stomp	Extremely powerful, especially on AoE, and will happen automatically as you cast Barbed Shot constantly as part of your normal rotation.
Barbed Wrath	This is what allows our Bestial Wrath to have upwards of 50% uptime. Pair this with Wild Call and Thrill of the Hunt and a decent amount of Crit from our gear, and we can cast Bestial Wrath more as a rotational button than a cooldown.
Wild Call	Gives us regular resets of Barbed Shot's cooldown, which fuels increased Frenzy uptime, Thrill of the Hunt uptime, and Barbed Wrath cooldown reduction, making it one of the pillars of any Beast Mastery Hunter build.
Savagery	will make the maintenance of Frenzy/ Thrill of the Hunt trivially easy.

Dire Command	More potent than it appears on the DPS meter since having a Beast active also improves Haste by 5%, inheriting the effect from the Dire Beast Talent.
Scent of Blood	Gives us additional Barbed Shots to enhance the effects mentioned above of Wild Call and more. You should try to dump your Barbed Shot before using Bestial Wrath to harness the power of this Talent.
Master Handler	Encourages multidotting with Barbed Shot for Kill Command CDR.
Dire Frenzy	A potent enhancer of the Dire Beast/ Dire Command effects and leads us on to one of our most vital single-target talents.
Brutal Companion	This proc even when you are refreshing an existing 3-stack of Frenzy, enhancing our single-target and cleave significantly, as these empowered Basic Attacks ( Claw/ Bite/ Smack) also contribute to Beast Cleave. A powerful AoE talent, but weak for single-target.
Dire Pack	This can be thought of as a cooldown, as its effect can be predicted using this WeakAura, allowing us to almost spam Kill Commands back-to-back when it procs. This will spawn more Dire Beasts, giving more Dire Pack procs, leading to a cascading, positive feedback loop that is powerful and tons of fun to play.
Piercing Fangs	A compelling, passive DPS increase, especially with the low cooldown of Bestial Wrath that we have.

Depending on affixes and other variables, Mythic+ can require a mix of AoE and Single-Target talents. You should check out our page below if you want advice specific to Mythic+.

Some talents will require you to play in a particular way to get the most out of them. You can find more information on how your rotation will look after selecting your talents on our rotation page below.

We have made a dedicated page for Hunter Pets information that we recommend you check out!

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.

For details on how to play in Beast Mastery Hunter PvP, please visit our Beast Mastery Hunter PvP page.