1.0 - Introduction
2.0 - Beast Mastery Talents
3.0 - PvP
4.0 - Skills
5.0 - Gear guide
6.0 - 1-80 Hunter Leveling Guide

1.0 - The Beast Mastery Hunter

Beast Mastery hunters are the greatest raid damage dealers of the hunter class in addition to putting out amazing DPS numbers in comparison to all other classes, often nearing the top 3 or so if not actually reaching 1#

This guide details all the numbers you'll need to know and the gear required to begin a career as raiding beast mastery including specific numbers to shoot for as far as attack power, hit rating, and critical.

This guide is simply intended to provide a general overview of the class. For a more in-depth and highly detailed resource on this class, check out this guide here.

2.0 - Talents

This build pumps out the most possible hunter DPS, far surpassing both Marksman and Survival for quite some time, likely being an easy choice above marksman until perhaps late black temple where the marksmanship build gains some ground.

All in all a very easy template to run with, attack rotation is fairly simple as well.

2.1 - Attack Rotation

Auto Shot - Steady Shot - Kill Command(If avaliable)

In Macro Form: High DPS/Lower Mana efficiency

#showtooltip
/cast !Auto shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command
*/cast [target=pettarget] Lightning Breath*
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

In Macro Form: Lower DPS than above/Higher Mana Efficiency

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/castsequence reset=3 steady shot,!auto shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill command
*/cast [target=pettarget,exists] lightning breath*
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

*note: The above macros account for having the wind serpent pet, a pet chosen for hunters with over 30% critical rating. If you have this pet simply remove the asterisks, otherwise delete the entire line.

2.2 - Leveling Beast Mastery Build

46/12/3

Check out our Hunter Leveling Guide for more info

10 – 14 Improved Aspect of the Hawk
15 – 16 Focused Fire
17 – 19 Endurance Training
20 – Bestial Swiftness
21 – 25 Unleashed Fury
26 – 30 Ferocity
31 – Intimidation
32 – 33 Bestial Discipline
34 – 35 Improved Mend Pet
36 – 40 Frenzy
41 – Bestial Wrath
42 – 44 Catlike Reflexes
45 – 49 Serpent’s Swiftness
50 – The Beast Within
51+ - Branch out, possibly finish off a few points into the beast mastery tree, also a couple of survival and marksmanship talents are quite useful.

3.0 - PvP Beast Mastery Build

41/20/0 Beast Mastery Arena Build

As you can see the beast mastery build varies very little despite being PvP or PvE, largely due to it simply being viable in either situation. For personal desires you can always re-allocate points to talents you believe would aid you more greatly for PvP.

NOTE: The below section is nearly identical for all Raiding specializations of hunter, this is due to the usage of almost entirely the same stats for any hunter no matter the talent build/weapons choice.

4.0 - Skills and Stats

• Agility – 1 = 2 Armor, 1 Ranged Attack Power/0.025% Critical Rating/0.04 Dodge
• Attack Power - 10 = 1.0 DPS
• Hit Rating – 15.8 rating = 1% Increase
• Critical Rating – 22.1 rating = 1% Increase
• Weapon Expertise – 1 point = .25% lower chance for enemy to dodge/parry
• Haste –15.7 = 1%

The Hit cap is reached at 142 +hit rating, or 9% +hit.

Generally the priority will follow as agility first, hit rating second, and critical rating last although not by much. Using this you'll end up with quite the amount of dodge/attack power followed hopefully by a decent amount of hit.

5.0 - Gems, Gear, Consumables

Potions

Superior Healing Potion
Elixir of Mastery
Elixir of Major Fortitude
Elixir of Major Agility

Food:

Spicy Hot Talbuk - +20 Hit Rating & Spirit
Warp Burger - +20 Agility & Spirit

4.1 - Enchants

Head: Glyph of Ferocity
Shoulder: Aldor/Scryer Inscription
Cloak: Greater Agility
Chest: Exceptional Stats
Bracers: Assault
Gloves: Superior Agility
Legs: Cobrahide OR Nethercobra Leg Armor(Epic Version)
Boots: Dexterity
Melee Weapon: Major Agility
Ranged Weapon: Stabilized Eternium Scope

4.2 - Gems

Early on most hunters will find themselves severly lacking in +hit rating, especially those just starting to aim for Karazhan, thankfully this can be somewhat made up by gemming all armor with the following selections:

Glinting Flame Spessarite
Glinting Noble Topaz
Delicate Living Ruby

As you continue on and pick up more hit rating you can start popping in all +agility gems if you wish, otherwise these should do you for the forseeable future until you pick up epic gems.

4.3 - Gear Guide

This is a primarily pre-karazhan gear guide, allowing you to pick up the optimal gear required to begin the starting raid dungeons with at the very least adequate if not quite good gear. Although not exhaustive, this does include most easily avaliable and high quality pieces.

Here are some figures to aim for once you've geared yourself out fully and gemmed every piece of armor possible, however this is without any outside buffs.

• Attack Power: 1600+
• Critical: 20%+
• Hit Rating: 90+

Helm:

[Mok'Nathal Mask of Battle] - Drop(Heroic Hillsbrad)
[Beast Lord Helm] - Drop(Mechanar)
[Stalker's Helmet of Second Sight] - Quest Reward

Neck:

[Traitor's Noose] - Drop(Heroic Slavepens)
[Adamantine Chain of the Unbroken] - Drop(Heroic Slavepens)
[Insignia of the Mag'hari Hero] - Quest Reward

Back:

[Cloak of the Inciter] - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)
[Cloak of Malice] - Drop(Shattered Halls)
[Cloak of Impulsiveness] - Drop(Old Hillsbrad)

Shoulders:

[Wyrmfury Pauldrons] - Drop(Heroic Old Hillsbrad)
[Beast Lord Mantle] - Drop(Steamvault)
[Scorpid-Sting Mantle] - Drop(Slave Pens)

Chest:

[Beast Lord Cuirass] - Drop(Botanica)
[Laughing Skull Battle-Harness] - Drop(Black Morass)
[Stormforged Hauberk] - Crafted

Wrist:

[Bracers of the Hunt] - Drop(Heroic Sethekk Halls)
[Oronok's Old Bracers] - Quest Reward
[Lykul Bloodbands] - Underbog

Hands:

[Beast Lord Handguards] - Drop(Shattered Halls)
[Gauntlets of the Redeemed Vindicator] - Quest Reward
[Surger's Hand Wraps] - Quest Reward

Belt:

[Girdle of Ferocity] - Drop(Heroic Shadow Laybrinth)
[Shattrath's Champion Belt] - Quest Reward

Legs:

[Leggings of Beast Mastery] - BoE World Drop
[Beast Lord Leggings] - Drop(Steamvault)
[Scaled Greaves of Patience] - Drop(Old Hillsbrad)

Boots:

[Boots of the Endless Hunt] - Drop(Heroic Botanica)
[Sky-Hunter Swift Boots] - Drop(Sethekk Halls)
[Boots of the Outlander] - Drop(Mana Tombs)

Rings:

[Ring of Umbral Doom] - Drop(Botanica)
[Band of the Exorcist] - Vendor(50 Spirit Shards)
[Naliko's Revenge/Conquerer's Band] - Quest Reward
[Lightwarden's Band] - Vendor(Aldor Revered)

Trinkets:

[Bloodlust Brooch] - Vendor(41 Badges of Justice)
[Abacus of Violent Odds] - Drop(Mechanar)
[Hourglass of the Unraveller] - Drop(Black Morass)

Two-handed Weapons:

[Sonic Spear] - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)
[Terokk's Quill] - Quest Reward
[Skyforged Great Axe] - Crafted

One-Hand:

[Reflex Blades] - Drop(Arcatraz)
[Hungering Spineripper] - Drop(Arcatraz)
[Stellaris] - Drop(Mechanar)
[Stormreaver Warblades] - Drop(Botanica)
[Ced's Carver] - BoE World Drop
[Ashtongue Blade] - Quest Reward

Ranged Weapon:

[Wrathtide Longbow] - Drop(Heroic Steamvault)
[Ornate Khorium Rifle] - Crafted
[Valanos' Longbow] - BoE World Drop
[Emberhawk Crossbow] - Drop(Arcatraz)

6.0 - 1-80 Hunter Leveling Guide

For years Joana's Horde Guide and Brian's Alliance guide were the standards for Hunter leveling, simply because Hunters were the class of choice for both those guides. Other classes had to make due as best they could.

I argue that Zygor's in-game Guide is better than either because all the "looking up of stuff" is done away with and Zygor's is designed to work well with any class, even if you had the good taste to roll a Hunter.

No more switching from game to guide, no more manually setting waypoints, no more browsing Thottbot for tips. It's all contained within Zygor's guide and it's all automated.

Check it out and grab a copy, on Zygor's home page, or read our review, here.