Beast Mastery Hunter

Overview

Talents and builds

Level 60 and raid build

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Key talents

• Bestial Wrath1/1Send your pet into a rage causing 50% additional damage for 18 sec. While enraged, the beast does not feel pity or remorse or fear and it cannot be stopped unless killed
• Frenzy5/5Gives your pet a 100% chance to gain a 30% attack speed increase for 8 sec after dealing a critical strike
• Bestial Discipline2/2Increases the Focus regeneration of your pets by 20% and allows 50% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting
• Intimidation1/1Command your pet to Stun the target for 3 sec on its next successful attack, which also gains 100% increased critical strike chance. Generates high threat
• Ferocity5/5Increases the critical strike chance of your pets and hawks by 10%
• Unleashed Fury5/5Increases the damage done by your pets and hawks by 15%

Reading the Beast Mastery tree in priority order for a pet-damage build: Unleashed Fury (a flat damage increase for pets and hawks) and Ferocity (pet critical strike chance) come first, since both scale every hit the pet lands afterward. Focused Fire follows — its damage bonus applies to the Hunter as well as the pet, unlike the two talents above it. Frenzy gives the pet a chance at bonus attack speed off its own critical strikes, compounding with Ferocity. Bestial Discipline helps mana sustain by letting some regeneration continue through casting. The tree’s capstone, Bestial Wrath, is the spec’s defining cooldown: an 18-second window of 50% additional pet damage.

To pay for that, the build drops Hawk Eye (ranged weapon range) and Improved Concussive Shot (a stun chance on Concussive Shot) entirely, and Deflection (parry chance) entirely — all three measured no damage benefit at all in the sim, so the points are better spent elsewhere for a pure DPS build even though they’re real defensive or utility effects in a fight where parrying or kiting matters. In Marksmanship the build takes Careful Aim (5/5), which turns Intellect into melee and ranged attack power, and Mortal Shots (2/5), more critical strike damage on ranged abilities, in place of Improved Tracking, Improved Stings, Efficiency and Rapid Killing: about +1.9% in our level-60 raid run. In Forever the pet takes a tenth of your attack power and all of your critical strike chance, and it gets no raid buffs of its own, so the Hunter’s own gear and talents now raise the pet’s damage too. Open the planner at /planner?class=hunter to build this out.

Rotation and priority

This site’s own simulator plays Beast Mastery on the same shot shell as Marksmanship, with Bestial Wrath layered in as this spec’s own cooldown. In Forever, Multi-Shot and Aimed Shot share one 6-second cooldown. Instant Multi-Shot does more over a fight than Aimed Shot, whose cast pauses the auto shot, so Aimed Shot is only the opener: before the pull, Aspect of the Hawk goes up and the first Aimed Shot begins casting so it lands right as the fight opens. Once engaged, Bestial Wrath is used on cooldown first and timed to land together with Rapid Fire, since a fight of Classic length only gives room for one real burst window — stacking both cooldowns into it beats spreading them apart. Multi-Shot is then cast every time the shared cooldown comes up. Serpent Sting is refreshed whenever it’s close to falling off and Multi-Shot is not about to come back, and Arcane Shot, which has its own cooldown, is the last filler whenever Multi-Shot is more than 1.5 seconds from ready and mana is above a 25% reserve. Arcane Shot is instant, so it never clips an auto shot, but it’s the least mana-efficient shot the spec has, hence the reserve floor. The priority list doesn’t call for active pet repositioning beyond keeping the pet alive and attacking through the Bestial Wrath window.

Stat priority

1. 1Agility
2. 2Hit
3. 3Critical strike
4. 4Ranged attack power
5. 5Attack speed

Best in slot

Enchants and consumables

Races

• Human
• Orc
• Dwarf (Recommended)
• Night Elf
• Tauren
• Troll (Recommended)
• High Order Skyborne
• Windshaper Skyborne

Dwarf is the Alliance pick: Mace Specialization. Troll is the Horde pick: Berserking.

Professions

Community convention for Hunter favors Skinning for the cheap, plentiful leather this class already collects while killing beasts to level, often paired with Leatherworking for self-crafted agility gear, or Engineering for ranged-weapon scopes and trap-adjacent gadgets.

Leveling

Outlined: points added in this level range.

Beast Mastery is generally regarded as the strongest leveling spec for Hunter: a durable, hard-hitting pet absorbs damage that would otherwise land on the Hunter and clears trash faster than Marksmanship’s single-target focus or Survival’s melee weaving.