Beast Mastery Hunter PvP Guide in Battle for Azeroth (BfA 8.2.5)

Beast Mastery Hunters are in a very strong position in the meta right now. They not only have some of the best single-target sustained damage, but they are also one of the hardest classes to connect to for melee. Because their pets are the main damage dealers for Beast Mastery Hunters, even when they are in crowd control, they are still capable of dealing large amounts of damage. They use abilities like Disengage to kite enemy teams and Freezing Trap to lock a healer down.

• Great control
• Decent mobility
• Strong consistent damage

• Hard to get crowd control without the help of teammates
• Weak to teams with multiple stuns
• Very few defensive cooldowns

The stat priority for Beast Mastery Hunters in PvP is as follows:

1. Agility;
2. Mastery;
3. Versatility;
4. Haste;
5. Critical Strike.

Agility is the best stat in all situations. Increasing your Mastery: Master of Beasts increases the damage by your pets, which results in an increase to your burst and sustained damage. You should focus on getting gear with both Mastery and Versatility.

Essences allow players to customize their characters while adding a new ability to use. This section will cover the best overall Azerite Essences for Beast Mastery Hunters in PvP. For a general guide to all the essences, as well as how to obtain them and increase their ranks, check out our Essence Guide.

Memory of Lucid Dreams increases your Focus regeneration rate by 100%. This will allow you to use more abilities while your burst cooldowns are active and will increase your overall damage output.

If you would rather have a shorter cooldown ability, Blood of the Enemy is another good option. This deals AoE damage around you and increases your Critical Strike change against any enemy that was hit for 10 seconds. The cooldown of this Major Power lines up well with abilities like Bestial Wrath and Aspect of the Wild.

In addition to having a Major Essence, you can choose two Minor Essences to place in your neck at Heart of Azeroth Levels 55 and 65.

Vision of Perfection reduces the cooldown of Aspect of the Wild. The reason this should be taken is because most players will line up their Gladiator's Medallion with your Aspect of the Wild (both have 2 minute cooldowns). This trait gives you a small window to use your burst cooldowns on a player that will not have a trinket.

Memory of Lucid Dreams gives your spells and abilities a chance to refund 50% of the Focus spent on them and heal you. This is great for increasing your damage, as you will frequently be refunded Focus throughout a match.

Azerite traits are unlocked in you helm, shoulders and chest. With each Azerite level in your neck, you get closer to unlocking the center trait in your gear. These traits vary from increasing damage of certain abilities to helping increase your survivability. Depending on what traits you use, it can completely alter your playstyle and what talents you should be using.

Below are the best Outer Ring traits.

1. Primal Instincts
2. Haze of Rage
3. Feeding Frenzy

There is not a single trait that you will want to stack. Instead, you want one of each of the traits from above. Primal Instincts and Haze of Rage both increase your burst damage significantly. If your team's goal is for the game to be quick and kill an enemy while the healer is in crowd control, you want these traits. If your overall goal is to have strong sustained damage, Feeding Frenzy helps do this.

Below are the best Middle Ring traits.

1. Overwhelming Power
2. Heed My Call
3. Gutripper
4. Earthlink

The Middle and Inner rings are important for additional damage and stat bonuses. All of the traits above do exactly this. These traits are best for providing small damage or stat boosts and results in increasing your overall damage output.

Below are the best Inner Ring traits.

1. Shellshock
2. Duck and Cover
3. Impassive Visage
4. Gemhide

All of these traits give you additional ways of surviving. These are all passive, but are crucial to have.

In general, Beast Mastery Hunters want to get trinkets that line up well with Bestial Wrath and Aspect of the Wild. These trinkets can have a passive or on-use effect. The stats you want to be increasing are either Agility or Mastery. The Agility will provide a very large increase to your damage and Mastery will increase the damage dealt by your pets.

To be successful in 3v3 arena, you need to have at least 2 pieces of gear with the Primal Instincts trait and the third piece can have any of the traits listed above. You will also want either Overwhelming Power or Heed My Call in the second tier.

Below, we list the items that have these traits.

• Hood of the Dark Reaper;
• Coif of the Court Spider;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Coif;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Coif;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Headgear;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Headgear.

• Gaping Maw Shoulderguard;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Shoulderguards;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Shoulderguards;
• Amalgamated Abomination Spaulders.

• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Armor;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Armor;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Chestguard;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Chestguard;
• Tri-Heart Chestguard;
• Corrupted Hexxer's Vestments.

Notorious Gladiator's Maledict is absolutely the best trinket you can have. The on-use damage and healing absorption is capable of forcing defensives by itself. This can be used by itself or while you are using your burst rotation to force multiple cooldowns out of enemy teams.

Notorious Gladiator's Medallion is good because of the Agility and the on-use Versatility effect. This increases your overall damage and lines up well with your burst cooldowns.

Notorious Gladiator's Insignia provides a passive boost to your Versatility. This will increase your survivability versus teams that focus you. It also has a passive proc effect that will increase your Agility. This is a solid choice if you just want to increase your sustained damage and want to survive while in a stun.

Darkmoon Deck: Fathoms is not an item you get from PvP. Instead, you will have to look at the auction house or find an someone with the Inscription profession. This trinket also gives a passive effect. You cannot control the proc, but the damage this trinket can do is substantial. You will quickly notice a large increase to your overall damage.

Enchant Weapon - Quick Navigation is the best weapon enchant. The Haste proc that you get from this enchant is great for increasing you and your pets sustained damage. This enchant provides the largest boost to your overall damage output.

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

While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.

Killer Instinct is the best choice in this tier. This talent helps your team secure kills on low-health enemies much easier.

Chimaera Shot is the best choice in this tier. This is just a strong damaging ability that is great for your sustained and burst damage.

Natural Mending is the best choice in this tier. Just by dealing damage you reduce the cooldown of one of your crucial survivability spells, Exhilaration.

A Murder of Crows is the best choice in this tier. This is a significant increase to your burst damage.

Posthaste is the best choice in this tier. This will help you avoid incoming damage from both melee and ranged classes. You can use it to run away and keep dealing damage or use it to get out of line of sight of incoming damage.

Stomp is the best choice in this tier. This is a solid increase to your overall sustained damage. It is important to note that this ability does deal area of effect (AoE) damage. This means that if an enemy is in crowd control and you use Stomp, you can potentially break it with this ability.

Aspect of the Beast is the best choice in this tier. This is another talent that increases your overall sustained damage.

The first PvP talent tier will give you a choice between Gladiator's Medallion, Relentless, and Adaptation. Gladiator's Medallion is the best choice in this tier. It is great for removing crowd control on you that your healer cannot dispel.

You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has their uses, but some are better for certain strategies than others. The top three choices are the most useful, but can be replaced with other PvP talents, depending on your team's goal.

Roar of Sacrifice instructs your pet to protect a friendly target from critical strikes, making attacks against that target unable to be critical strikes, but 20% of all damage taken by that target is also taken by the pet. It lasts 12 seconds and this is a powerful defensive cooldown that is helpful for you and your teammates. With a cooldown of only 1 minute, this is an ability that your healer can call-out to use if they are stuck in crowd control.

Wild Protector causes your pet protects allies within 8 yards, reducing damage taken by 10%. If you are playing with a melee DPS that will be close to your pet often, this is a staple PvP talent to take.

Spider Sting stings the target with potent spider venom for 4 seconds, causing their next offensive spell cast to silence the target for 4 seconds. When playing against classes that cast most of their spells (Mages, Warlocks, Elemental Shamans), this talent can be helpful. You can use it to interrupt their burst damage or crowd control.

Survival Tactics causes Feign Death to remove all harmful magical effects, and reduces damage taken by 99% for 1.5 seconds. This is a mandatory talent when playing against classes with multiple DoTs (Affliction Warlock, Shadow Priest, Balance Druid). This reduces the enemies' overall damage and helps your healer with dispelling harmful effects. You can also use this to stop incoming spells that are being cast on you. You can replace Spider Sting with this talent.

Dire Beast: Basilisk summons a slow-moving basilisk near the target for 30 sec that attacks the target for heavy damage. If your team wants to play very aggressive, this is the talent that will help you. You can replace Spider Sting with this talent.

Racial bonuses can provide interesting PvP benefits. Here are the best races to choose for each faction. The races are sorted from highest impact in arena to lowest. However, all races below have their own unique ways of making an impact in a PvP match.

The Orc racial bonus ( Hardiness) is great for reducing the duration of stuns on you. This is absolutely the best Horde racial to have if you are primarily focusing on PvP. In addition to Hardiness, Orcs also have the Blood Fury racial. This is off the global cooldown and should be used when you are using your burst rotation.

The Blood Elf racial bonus ( Arcane Torrent) has multiple effects. The primary use for this ability is that it removes 1 beneficial effect from all enemies in range. This is great for removing abilities such as Blessing of Protection from Paladins or Soul of the Forest from Restoration Druids. It can also be used versus players using the The Crucible of Flame Major Essence to remove the stacks it creates. The other effect is that it restores resources based on what specialization you are.

The Troll racial bonus ( Berserking) grants you a large amount of Haste. You should activate this ability right before you are using important cooldowns or to cast crowd control faster. Another racial to note is Da Voodoo Shuffle. This significantly reduces the duration of slows on you and will help when kiting enemy players that are focusing you.

The Human racial bonus ( Every Man for Himself) is a great way to get out of stuns. If you think you will be the focus target versus teams with multiple stuns, this race allows you to play Relentless. This will help increase your overall survivability. It is also important to note that Humans also have The Human Spirit. This increases your secondary stats (Haste, Critical Strike, Mastery, Versatility). This is another beneficial reason to play Human.

The Dark Iron Dwarf racial bonus ( Fireblood) removes all bleeds, poisons, magical, and curse debuffs and increases your primary stat by 750 and an additional 250 for each effect removed. This is a great racial to use defensively. However, you can use this to remove debuffs right before you use your burst rotation to increase your primary stat.

The Dwarf racial bonus ( Stoneform) removes Poison, Disease, Magic, and bleed effects. In addition to this, it reduces all Physical damage taken by 10%. This racial can make a large impact versus teams that have multiple Bleed or Magical damage over time abilities. It is also important to note that this racial lines up with the cooldown from Maledict trinkets and can be used to remove the absorption that is placed on you from Maledict. Another example is removing bleeds versus Assassination Rogues or Feral Druids that are focusing you. This will significantly slow down the damage being dealt to you.

The Gnome racial bonus ( Escape Artist) removes any movement speed reduction effects on you. With only a 1-minute cooldown, this can be used both defensively or offensively. You can use this to help kite incoming damage or use it to remove slows on you while chasing down an enemy. Another racial that Gnome provides is Expansive Mind. This will increase your maximum Focus, which helps with not running out of resources.

The main role for a Beast Mastery Hunter is simple: use your mobility to land Freezing Traps on the enemy healer and use your strong single-target cooldowns to burst your enemies down. Beast Mastery Hunters are a very mobile specialization and some melee will struggle to connect to you. Because most of your damage comes from your pet, you can stay safely away from enemy teams and still do maximum damage.

If you are playing against a team with stealth, make sure to use Flare to try to reveal them.

The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control chain and damage done as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns. If the enemy healer uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble. Beast Mastery Hunters have Intimidation, Freezing Trap and Spider Sting, which can help to this end.

This is the rotation you should use on your target at the beginning of the game.

1. Use Barbed Shot to generate a stack of Frenzy.
2. Use Barbed Shot to generate a second stack of Frenzy.
3. Use Chimaera Shot.
4. Use Kill Command.
5. Use Cobra Shot at high Focus.
6. Use your burst rotation.
7. After your burst, perform your sustained damage rotation until your burst cooldowns are available.

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage. Try to use Viper Sting on the enemy healer when your team is using offensive cooldowns.

1. Use Blood Fury (if you are an Orc) or Berserking (if you are a troll) or Fireblood (if you are a Dark Iron Dwarf).
2. Use Aspect of the Wild.
3. Use Blood of the Enemy if you are using this Major Essence.
4. Use Dire Beast: Basilisk if you are using that PvP talent.
5. Use A Murder of Crows.
6. Use Kill Command.
7. Use Memory of Lucid Dreams if you are low on Focus and using this Major Essence.
8. Use Barbed Shot.
9. Use Chimaera Shot.
10. After that, you will want to use Kill Command as often as you can and use Barbed Shot when your Frenzy buff is close to expiring.

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.

1. Use Barbed Shot to generate stacks of Frenzy.
2. Use Chimaera Shot as soon as it is available.
3. Use Kill Command as soon at it is available.
4. Use Cobra Shot at high Focus.
5. Use Memory of Lucid Dreams if you are low on Focus and using this Major Essence.

Pets do not have talent trees, and instead have their own types of specialization (Cunning, Ferocity, or Tenacity).

Each specialization gives your pet a few abilities. Cunning provides the ability Master's Call and the Mortal Wounds debuff, so we consider it to be the best specialization.

Aspect of the Turtle is our main defensive cooldown. Use this when the enemy team is focusing you down and your healer can not heal you through the damage or is stuck in crowd control. Although you can not attack with this cooldown active, you still have the ability to trap. Using this to ignore incoming attacks and use Freezing Trap on an enemy healer could be crucial.

Exhilaration is a very strong instant heal. Try to stagger Aspect of the Turtle and Exhilaration and you will be very hard to kill.

Aspect of the Cheetah is a great way to kite away from enemy teams. If you are being focused or out of position on a map, use this to create distance between you and the enemy team.

Feign Death is also a good defensive when used correctly. This can stop any incoming crowd control on you and most importantly, it can buy you 1-2 seconds if an ability is almost off cooldown. After using Feign Death, you can quickly Disengage away and get away from the enemy team.

Now that you have the correct talents and understand your damage rotation, it is time to step into the Arena with your team. Beast Mastery Hunters have very strong burst cooldowns in the form of Bestial Wrath and A Murder of Crows. These cooldowns, paired with multiple crowd control abilities and strong sustained damage, make this spec a threat to most teams.

In 2v2 Arena, you have a few options. You should have your pet on your primary target while you crowd control the other enemy. If you are playing with a Holy Paladin or Restoration Druid, they should use their stun to start the crowd control. Follow that up with a Freezing Trap. At the same time you should be doing your sustained damage rotation. With this strategy, you are trying to do so much spread damage to your targets that the enemy healer will not be able to heal through it. If you do not have a reliable stun, you can use Intimidation to stun the enemy healer.

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 2v2:

• Beast Mastery Hunter + Discipline Priest
• Beast Mastery Hunter + Restoration Druid
• Beast Mastery Hunter + Holy Paladin
• Beast Mastery Hunter + Holy Priest

Your role in 3v3 is similar to 2v2 Arena. You will be focusing on maximizing your single target damage while still crowd controlling the enemy healer with Intimidation and Freezing Trap. When you start the crowd control chain, your teammate should stun the kill target and you should use burst rotation. You do not always have to stun the kill target. If your team only has one reliable stun like Hammer of Justice or Mighty Bash, it is best to use it on the enemy healer.

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 3v3:

• Jungle (Beast Mastery Hunter + Feral Druid + Holy Paladin/Discipline Priest)
• Cupid (Beast Mastery Hunter + Retribution Paladin + Restoration Druid/ Discipline Priest)
• Beast Mastery Hunter + Frost/Unholy Death Knight + Holy Paladin/ Restoration Druid
• Beast Mastery Hunter + Arms Warrior + Restoration Shaman/Holy Paladin

Macros are crucial to be successful in PvP. They allow players to use abilities on enemies without having to target them. This helps increase overall damage/healing and general awareness in the arena. Here are a few macros that all Beast Mastery Hunters can benefit from.

• #showtooltip Intimidation
• /cast [target=focus] Intimidation

If you find that you do not have much room on your action bars, you can use a focus macro. This is much simpler to use than the arena123 macro. Put an enemy on focus and this macro will cast Intimidation on that player while you are still focused on your target.

• #showtooltip Counter Shot
• /cast [target=focus] Counter Shot

This macro will use Counter Shot on whichever enemy you have on focus. Because you will be primarily using Counter Shot on the enemy healer, you should only need this focus macro.

• #showtooltip Roar of Sacrifice
• /cast [target=party1] Roar of Sacrifice

Using this macro will use Roar of Sacrifice on party player 1. This makes it easier to use this defensive on a teammate while damaging the rest of your team. If you want a macro to use Roar of Sacrifice the second party member, change the party1 to party2.