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How to Use The Beast Mastery Build to its Best – A Hunter’s Guide
Hunter Beast Mastery Build
Hunter Beast Mastery Build
The Hunter is one of the most popular classes in WoW, and not just because they’re easy to solo and level fast, but because of the huge array of pets that come with them.
My other half plays a Hunter, and she loves all the different options she has as she levels up, from cats and wolves to raptors and owls.
So what are the advantages to having a strong pet build?
To me, higher survivability and less deaths are big points, and rank up there if you’re trying to level quickly.
Great flexibility in pets is another big plus, and with the correct selection of pets (cats are great), a very high DPS.
Combine high DPS and excellent survivability and you have an awesome class.
And so with all this talk of cool pets, here’s a quick run down on how to maximize your Hunter’s killing power through making the most of their pets.
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Beast Mastery Hunter Build:
Row 1: (Improved Aspect of the Hawk, Endurance Training)
IAotH is passed over, but consider putting a few points in it AFTER you’ve maxed this tree out. I put 1 point here after I max the line.
Endurance training gets 5/5 points – this is important to take especially if you’re after a DPS pet (which I feel is a must if you go beast mastery), because DPS pets are pretty flimsy and easily killed if you’re not careful.
Row 2: (Focused Fire, Improved Aspect of the Monkey, Thick Hide, Improved Revive Pet)
2/2 if Focused fire for an extra 2% damage for you, and more importantly, your pet gets an extra TWENTY percent chance to score crits while Kill command is active.
Imp Aspect of the Monkey and Improved Revive Pet are passed over, too many points needed here for too little DPS. When choosing build, choose a theme, and ensure all your points overlap, leverage and back each other up until you have a big stack of bonuses all working together.
Take 3/3 Thick Hide, again giving your DPS pet more armor is pretty much mandatory to keep them in one piece in hairy situations, and if your pet dies, your pet heavy build is useless.
Row 3: (Pathfinding, Aspect Mastery, Unleashed Fury)
Max out every skill on this line, Pathfinding is “only” a utility skill, but given the beast mastery spec is a good choice for leveling, running speed is prioritized in this build. Aspect Mastery for only 1 point gives a raft of handy bonuses, so take that, and Unleashed Fury is a no brainer with 5/5 points giving your pet a monster 15% damage bonus.
Row 4: (Improved Mend Pet, Ferocity)
Leave Improved Mend Pet, with the DPS you’re doing and armor built in you should just be focusing on causing damage, and basic mend pet will serve you just fine. On the other hand, if you’re doing a lot of raiding mend pet CAN come in extremely useful for ridding your pet of some nasty debuffs which sharply decrease your dps… so keep this one in mind for later if you’re not already raiding.
Ferocity on the other hand is another core choice in this build, an amazing 10% improved critical strike chance for your pet equals win! Take this with cobra reflexes for another 30% increase to attack speed, and all those extra (but slightly lower damage hits) will mean a LOT more crits.
Row 5: (Spirit Bond, Intimidation, Bestial Discipline)
Another skill that helps the pair of you stay alive longer is Spirit Bond – for only 2 points you regenerate 2% of total health every 10 seconds and gives you a small bonus when someone else heals you.
Intimidation for 1 point gives your pet the ability to taunt your enemy and stun it for a lengthy 3 seconds, which is great to use as a panic button, or just as an every other fight bonus.
Bestial Discipline also gets 2/2 points to give your pet 100% faster focus regeneration to ensure you keep ticking along quickly with your mob killing. If you’ve ever sat around waiting for your pet’s focus bar to rise you’re wasting precious leveling time.
Row 6: (Animal Handler, Frenzy)
Animal Handler is a take it or leave it skill for me, put 2 points into it if you like, but it just doesn’t have enough benefit there for me. PvP’ers might find the ability to get out of snares handy though so if you’re in battlegrounds a lot, go for it.
Frenzy – dump 5 points into this, no question – who wouldn’t want a 100% chance to gain 30% attack speed increase for 8 seconds after dealing a critical strike? Combine this with the aforementioned cobra reflexes and you’ve got a mighty fast attacking DPS pet.
Row 7: (Ferocious Inspiration, Bestial Wrath, Catlike Reflexes)
This is a great row, max out all skills in it — Ferocious Inspiration is great for players in groups, or if not, the 9% Arcane shot bonus aint bad, Bestial Wrath is awesome for tough mobs giving a 50% additional damage bonus for 18 seconds, and only has a 2 minute cooldown. Catlike reflexes is another goody for keeping kitty alive with an extra pet dodge bonus of 9%.
Row 8: (Invigoration, Serpent’s Swiftness)
Give Invigoration a miss – 2% mana per crit doesn’t get me excited, as it just doesn’t regenerate our mana fast enough.
Serpent’s Swiftness however is another solid gold must have – 5 points here to get 20% increase in ranged attack speed for you, and 20% for melee on your pet.
Row 9: (Longevity, The Beast Within, Cobra Strikes)
Another maxed out line in row 9 – some great cooldown reductions here, mana saving when your pet is under the effects of Bestial Wrath, and a kick ass bonus of 2 critical strikes for your pet when you crit using Arcane shot, Steady shot, or Kill shot.
Row 10: (Kindred Spirits)
More DPS magic in row 10 comes from Kindred Spirits, put all 5 points here for 20% extra damage from your pet and 10% faster movement for you.
Row 11: (Beast Mastery)
Given Beast Skill points only come around every 4 levels, this is one talent every Beast Master specced Hunter looks forward to — gain 4 pet talent skill points immediately.
So what is this BM Hunter build best at?
While it will serve you well where ever you are, definitely solo leveling — your pet is in the line of fire most of the time (use that to your advantage and die less often), and your stock ranged fire and spells are awesome.
After making this build up to Row 11, I drop 5 points into the Marksmanship tree to get 5% bonus to critical strikes with ranged fire, and then another 7 points into Survival to get Hawk Eye (6 yards extra shooting range), Savage Strikes (massive crit chance in hand to hand), and Survival instincts to increase crit chance even further with ranged fire, and reduce all damage taken by 4%.
This build will also serve you well in pick up games for PvP, but if PvP is where you live, then you can definitely tweak this build to make your killing more efficient.
Beast Mastery is also a good raid spec – you put out a good consistent level of damage with average criticals that rival every class in the game.
So to sum up, if you’re an up and coming Beast Master, this spec will do well for you in any area of the game. If you ever decide to specialize your talent build in raiding, PvP or leveling, some minor tweaks of this build is all you’ll need! Good luck!
Look out for my accompanying cat talent build for an accompanying high DPS pet, any day now.
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