Beast Mastery Hunter guide for WoW Forever

The Beast Mastery Hunter in WoW Forever lets your pets do a large share of the work. Your pet holds the monster while you shoot, Summon Hawk adds two hawks to the fight, and Bestial Wrath makes your pet unstoppable for 18 seconds. That makes the spec excellent for solo play and easy to learn, with depth in how you handle your pet. This guide covers the level 60 build, the rotation, pets, mana, stats and races.

Role	Ranged damage with a pet and hawks
Build at level 60	31/20/0: Beast Mastery with Lethal Attacks, Careful Aim, Rapid Killing and Mortal Shots from Marksmanship
Key talents	Deadly Aspects, Focused Fire, Unleashed Fury, Ferocity, Summon Hawk, Frenzy, Bestial Discipline, Bestial Wrath
Strength	Excellent solo, easy rotation, steady damage while you move
Weakness	Depends on the pet, lower top damage than Marksmanship
Leveling	Hunter leveling guide, Hunter level build

Strengths and weaknesses

Excellent solo. A strong pet deals damage, holds threat and absorbs hits, so you can take on tough monsters and elites on your own.

Easy to learn. The rotation is short. The skill is in your pet: keeping it alive, on the target and out of bad spots.

Steady damage. Your pet keeps attacking while you move or deal with a mechanic.

Pet dependency. A large share of your damage comes from your pets. Fights with a lot of movement, target switching or area damage hurt your damage, and a dead pet hurts most.

Lower top damage. Marksmanship and Survival can reach higher numbers in some fights.

The dead zone. Between melee range and 8 yards you can use neither melee nor ranged attacks. Step back to shoot again.

The level 60 build: 31/20/0

The beta stopped at level 30, but the talent trees for level 60 are in the game files. We checked this build point for point in our talent calculator: 31 points in Beast Mastery and 20 in Marksmanship, 51 in total.

Talent	Points
Deadly Aspects	5/5
Endurance Training	1/5
Focused Fire	2/2
Pathfinding	2/2
Bestial Swiftness	1/1
Unleashed Fury	5/5
Ferocity	5/5
Summon Hawk	1/1
Intimidation	1/1
Bestial Discipline	2/2
Frenzy	5/5
Bestial Wrath	1/1
Hawk Eye (Marksmanship)	3/3
Lethal Attacks (Marksmanship)	5/5
Careful Aim (Marksmanship)	5/5
Rapid Killing (Marksmanship)	2/2
Trueshot Aura (Marksmanship)	1/1
Mortal Shots (Marksmanship)	4/5

A few points can move:

• Endurance Training to Improved Revive Pet if you revive your pet often.
• Hawk Eye to Efficiency if you do not need the extra range and want cheaper shots.
• Trueshot Aura to the last point of Mortal Shots if a Marksmanship Hunter in your raid already brings the aura.
• Summon Hawk to Endurance Training or Improved Revive Pet if your hawks keep dying before they run out.

What the key talents do

Talent	What it does in Forever
Deadly Aspects	With Aspect of the Hawk, Auto Shot has a 10% chance to raise your ranged attack speed by 30% for 12 seconds
Focused Fire	You and your pet deal 2% more damage while your pet is out
Unleashed Fury	Your pets and hawks deal 15% more damage
Ferocity	Your pets and hawks get 10% more critical strike chance
Summon Hawk	A hawk attacks your target for 18 seconds; two can be active at once; shares its cooldown with Arcane Shot
Intimidation	Your pet’s next hit stuns for 3 seconds and has 100% more critical strike chance
Bestial Discipline	50% of your mana regeneration continues while you cast, and your pet regains Focus 20% faster
Frenzy	Your pet gains 30% attack speed for 8 seconds after a critical strike
Bestial Wrath	Your pet deals 50% more damage for 18 seconds and cannot be stopped by crowd control
Lethal Attacks	5% more critical strike chance with all attacks
Careful Aim	Attack power equal to 100% of your Intellect
Rapid Killing	Rapid Fire comes back 2 minutes sooner, and a kill gives your next shot more damage
Mortal Shots	Critical strikes with ranged abilities deal more extra damage

Rotation

Single target

1. Put an Immolation Trap where the tank will stand, if you can.
2. Cast Aimed Shot as the pull starts, and again whenever it is ready.
3. Cast Serpent Sting and renew it when it runs out.
4. Cast Summon Hawk whenever it is ready.
5. Cast Arcane Shot only once two hawks are out with at least 6 seconds left, then go back to Summon Hawk to keep two hawks up.
6. Cast Rapid Fire and Bestial Wrath on cooldown.

Several targets

1. Put an Explosive Trap where the tank will stand, if you can.
2. Cast Multi-Shot whenever it is ready.
3. Put Serpent Sting on every target that lives long enough.
4. Keep two hawks up with Summon Hawk, and cast Arcane Shot only when both have at least 6 seconds left.
5. Drop Explosive Trap under the group on cooldown.
6. Cast Rapid Fire and Bestial Wrath on cooldown.

Cooldowns and utility

• Rapid Fire and Bestial Wrath are your damage cooldowns. Bestial Wrath also keeps your pet attacking through crowd control.
• Frost Trap, Freezing Trap, Wing Clip and Concussive Shot slow, root or remove monsters from the fight. Explosive Trap and Immolation Trap deal damage and share a 30 second cooldown.
• Intimidation stuns and gives your pet a guaranteed critical strike.
• Feign Death drops you out of combat, saves your life and helps you pull monsters to your group.
• Scorpid Sting now lowers the target’s chance to hit by 2% for 20 seconds. It does not stack with the hit reduction of Insect Swarm, so it matters less with a Balance Druid in the group.
• Tranquilizing Shot removes Enrage and Frenzy effects, which can stop big damage spikes in raids.
• Aspects: Hawk for ranged attack power, Monkey for 8% dodge, Cheetah and Pack for 30% speed with the risk of being dazed when hit, Wild for Nature resistance. Only one is active at a time. In a fight, stay in Aspect of the Hawk and walk.

Pets and mana

Your pet is a large share of your damage, so keep it alive and on the target. Use Stay and Move To to pull it out of area damage. Different pet families bring different abilities, such as Demoralizing Screech or Dust Cloud, so keep a few pets in the stable and pick one per fight.

Mana. Bestial Discipline keeps half of your mana regeneration going while you cast. Running dry does not stop you from finishing a fight, because your pet keeps fighting, but it does cost you damage.

Stats and gear

Stat priorities for level 60 follow after the launch. Until then:

• Agility: 2 ranged attack power per point and critical strike chance, about 1% per 53 Agility at level 60. Your pet gets 100% of your critical strike chance and 10% of your attack power.
• Hit: against a level 63 boss you need 9% with 300 weapon skill, or 6% with 305.
• Critical strike chance, which also counts for your pet.
• Attack power, which Agility usually beats point for point.
• Haste, so your abilities come back sooner.
• Intellect, for mana and through Careful Aim also for attack power.
• Spirit, for mana regeneration together with Bestial Discipline.

Armor. Leather and mail both work, as in Classic. Leatherworking has good patterns while you level, and dungeons have upgrades.

Quiver or ammo pouch. Arrows go in a quiver, bullets in an ammo pouch, and both raise your ranged attack speed. Keep it up to date.

Weapons. Your ranged weapon is your main source of personal damage. Your melee weapon is mostly there for its stats. Hunters can use almost every weapon type except maces.

Races and professions

Faction	Race	Why
Alliance	Skyborne	A haste bonus, rare on gear, the strongest choice
Alliance	Human	2% more critical strike chance, which your pet also gets
Alliance	Dwarf	2% more critical strike damage
Alliance	Night Elf	A critical strike cooldown
Horde	Skyborne	A haste bonus and a movement speed cooldown
Horde	Orc	An attack power cooldown and 1% more critical strike chance
Horde	Troll	More damage against Beasts and an attack speed cooldown
Horde	Tauren	An area stun, more critical strike damage, and Plainsrunning for speed without being dazed

The differences are small, so play the race you like.

Leatherworking makes good leather gear, some of it only for leatherworkers. Engineering brings gadgets and scopes for your ranged weapon. Alchemy with Herbalism keeps you in potions and elixirs, and Enchanting keeps your gear enchanted.