Beast Mastery Hunter PvP Talents and Builds — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

Note that builds here are generic recommendations for Arena. There are tweaks that are effective in certain matchups. A description of suggested alterations or options is included with each build.

If you are looking for advice on which pets to use, there is a separate page on this guide answering that question in detail. Generally, you want a Cunning pet unless you expect the enemy team to burst you in a stun, in which case you are likely better off with a Tenacity pet.

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The War Within PvP Talent Builds for Beast Mastery Hunters in Arena

Pack Leader Arena Build (recommended)

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Best Pack Leader Beast Mastery Arena Build

Pack Leader is outperforming Dark Ranger, with powerful buffs to your pets, the Howl of the Pack Leader effect, additional Barbed Shots from Pack Mentality, as well as the additional mobility from Slicked Shoes.

This build uses Bloodshed, which empowers your Bestial Wrath. Bloodshed significantly increases the potency of your burst windows and you will want to make sure you use it when the enemy healer is in crowd control.

Pack Leader is the better Hero Talent tree currently, but if you did want to play Dark Ranger, you would use the same Hunter and Beast Mastery talent trees and the only change would be swapping the Hero tree.

Tranquilizing Shot and Kodo Tranquilizer are powerful whenever the enemy team has magic buffs that can be purged which is most of the time, but when there are not important buffs to purge, you can swap these talents in the Hunter tree as well as Precision Strikes. You can also move the point in Natural Mending whenever there is another talent that you want for a matchup.

For example you could take:

• Disruptive Rounds and Tar Trap to get an extra slow effect which is helpful when kiting.
• An extra talent point in Natural Mending to increase your survivability.
• Improved Snaring to help with kiting.
• Camouflage to ensure that the enemy cannot get a clean opener on you.
• Misdirection combined with Interlope to counter enemy casters.

You can also drop Concussive Shot when facing melee DPS, as you will still have access to Wing Clip, which is a powerful slow combined with Improved Snaring that has a longer duration than Concussive Shot.

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

You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has its uses, but some are better for certain strategies and matchups than others.

Survival Tactics is the best overall PvP Talent. It turns Feign Death into your best defensive ability by negating damage for two seconds. This talent is very powerful into burst specializations when timed correctly, especially with Improved Feign Death.

When facing matchups where you are guaranteed not to be attacked, there are occasionally better options, but it is safer just always to play this talent.

Diamond Ice makes your Freezing Trap undispellable but reduces the duration and makes the target immune to all spells while active. This is useful not only because Beast Mastery has passive area of effect damage ( Stomp) that can break traps but also:

• Against Shadow Priests, Demon Hunters, and Affliction/Destruction Warlocks that are otherwise able to dispel your Freezing Trap
• To crowd control DPS players without the healer being able to dispel the trap
• To keep a target at low health (you can trap a target at low health and swap to another enemy, and their healer will not be able to recover the target's health during the trap)
• When you are playing with a specialization like Unholy Death Knight, which has area of effect built into a lot of its spells and would otherwise break traps if a healer was near your kill target

Diamond Ice also reduces the duration of Freezing Trap by two seconds, which makes it difficult to justify taking. In Patch 11.1 Freezing Trap was adjusted to have a small damage threshold before breaking, so you can avoid taking Diamond Ice unless you know that your traps will definitely break instantly otherwise.

Kindred Beasts is a default pick for Beast Mastery Hunters in most cases. Usually you will use this with a Cunning pet for the additional mobility for you as well as your pet, but it is also very powerful with a Tenacity pet when you expect to be the kill target, and the Ferocity effect is situationally decent.

• Cunning pets: The reduced cooldown on Master's Call is great for countering one of Beast Mastery's biggest weaknesses: pets being prone to getting slowed or rooted. Often, you will want to use Master's Call to break your pet out of a Frost Nova or Earthgrab Totem, and with the reduced cooldown, the opportunity cost of using Master's Call to break your Pet out of slows is greatly reduced. It is also very helpful for your mobility (and the rest of your team, as the freedom effect does not affect nearby allies)
• Tenacity: Your Fortitude of the Bear (which is usable while you are in crowd control as long as your pet is not in crowd control) now has a one minute cooldown and increases the health of nearby allies by 10% for 10 seconds
• Ferocity: Your Primal Rage is now usable in Arena and grants 12% haste for 20 seconds to your team

Chimaeral Sting is a versatile ability that can be used in many ways, for example:

• To silence an enemy healer while bursting their partner (note that it does damage on application and the silence only applies after 3 seconds, so you cannot Chimaeral Sting during or immediately after a trap)
• To silence a healer before swapping to them (particularly good against priests as they cannot use Pain Suppression when silenced, when they would have been able to if you swapped with Intimidation)
• To peel a DPS on their go (for example, use Chimaeral Sting on a Mage when they cast Dragon's Breath; they will still be able to Polymorph your healer, but will be silenced immediately afterward and not be able to capitalize on the Polymorph, or cancel a Shaman's Lightning Lasso when you know it is coming)
• To cancel a Restoration Druid's Tranquility by casting Chimaeral Sting before they use it
• To deny a healer's trinket by casting Chimaeral Sting when they are stunned (when they trinket the stun, they are instantly silenced)
• To apply a powerful slow to a melee DPS when you have no other options

The Beast Within will give a slight damage bonus to all of your pets but will also make you and your pet immune to fear and horror effects for 8 seconds after using Bestial Wrath. It is important to note that you can use Bestial Wrath during crowd control, but even with this talent, Bestial Wrath will not break fears on yourself. You must use Bestial Wrath before the fear, Mortal Coil or Psychic Horror is used on you to be immune to it.

Interlope is powerful into casters and hunters. You can Interlope your healer when they are stunned, to eat an enemy Hunter's Freezing Trap or use it on yourself/your team to absorb spell casts. The pet positioning requirement of this spell can make it awkward to use, but when used properly, it is a very powerful defensive talent.

Remember that you need to talent into Misdirection to use Interlope and you should also drop Disruptive Rounds to take No Hard Feelings which reduces the cooldown.

Hunting Pack is a mobility talent that vastly reduces the cooldown of Aspect of the Cheetah and applies its buff to your teammates but requires your teammates to be within 15 yards. There are better talents available to you in most cases, but this is occasionally worth taking.

Wild Kingdom will help you keep your pet alive. With proper positioning of your pet and using Mend Pet and Exhilaration properly, your pet should not die often. Remember that if your team already has a Mortal Strike effect, you can use a Mechanical family pet, which will be significantly more tanky than a regular pet anyway.

Dire Beast: Hawk does some area of effect damage in a 10-yard radius, but the damage isn't significant, and in Arena, where you want damage to be focused more on one target.