Hunter Leveling Guide: Beast Master the Grind

Class Guide: Hunter Leveling Guide

High Level Hunter

How to Level Your Hunter Faster With The Right Talent Tree

How many times have you heard people say that the Hunter is the best class for leveling with?

And how many times have you heard that they’re the best solo class in the game?

I’d guess you’ve heard it a lot, and maybe you’re wondering how you can make your Hunter the fastest leveler you can.

Or perhaps you’ve been having trouble with really slow leveling times, and you’re wondering what you’re doing wrong?

Either way – whether you’re level 50 or level 10, noob or pro, my Hunter level guide will help you out.

The Hunter Leveling Build:

With all things in World of Warcraft related to leveling, its important you first check your talent selection for problems.

Have you spent every point you have to ensure you’re the most efficient killer you possibly can be? I’m not just talking generalities here, efficiency is the name of the game when you put together a good leveling build.

This is because while you’re leveling, one of the first things that will slow you down is lack of mana, and lack of (of course) health. Your pet’s focus as a Hunter is also a key contributor to fast leveling. Let your pets focus stay low, and you’re going to have a hard time leveling fast.

In order to respec your character, find your nearest Hunter trainer and pay them to reset your talents – I know this will cost you some hard earned gold, but you’ll find it worth it when you’re saving so much of your valuable time.

What Hunter build is the fastest leveler?

While any Hunter will level super fast regardless of the talent spec you give them, my personal findings (and the experience of many of my peers) shows that Beast Mastery will give you the edge in sustained leveling times.

Beast Mastery is also an excellent spec for occassional pick up games of PvP, and performs exceptionally in dungeons and raids. If you’re more than an occasional PvP player, you might find the Marksmanship Hunter build has similar leveling ability, but better burst DPS that PvP players love.

Key Early Game Leveling Talents:

• Improved Aspect of the Hawk
• Pathfinding
• Aspect Mastery, and
• Unleashed Fury

I start by maxing out the first line – Imp Aspect of the Hawk is an awesome talent and gets maxed, and while Endurance Training isn’t essential we need it for now to open up row 3’s awesome early game abilities.

So leave out row 2’s talents (we’re not interested in any for leveling speed), and then max out row three which contains rest of the key early game talents – Pathfinding, Aspect Mastery and Unleashed Fury.

Pathfinding is awesome because 1 to 60 leveling in the “old world” means lots and lots of running around. Speed up your running time and you’ll shave off many hours from your travel times over the levels.

Once you hit 20 or can afford a mount, consider dropping pathfinding, but you are still getting a buff to mounted travel with this active…

Aspect Mastery has a range of solid damage boosting effects, best of which helps out Aspect of the Hawk for another 30% bonus to ranged attack power.

Unleashed Fury is also essential to get your pet causing lots of damage, so don’t be shy and max it out.

That brings us up to level 27, and gives you a solid staple of high damage causing abilities and faster traveling. To keep yourself ticking along efficiently, I highly recommend using Aspect of the Viper whenever mana starts dropping.

You might kill slower, but as I said earlier, efficiency is the name of the game when leveling!

Key Mid Game Leveling Talents:

• Bestial Discipline
• Spirit Bond
• Serpent’s Swiftness

In the mid game your leveling with Beast Mastery gets a big efficiency lift.

Both Bestial Discipline and Spirit bond are essential choices for levelers, as they provide long term sustained bonuses that keep you ticking along in your killing speed.

Bestial Discipline is great for your pet’s sustained DPS, increasing focus regeneration by 100%.

Spirit Bond is great for keeping down time to a minimum by healing you 2% of total every 10 seconds, and increasing your mend pet healing by 10%. Not mind blowing – but long term you’ll save big.

Serpent’s Swiftness, amongst the other talents I’ve chosen for the mid game is a great efficiency and damage booster which gives you and your pet a 20% increased attack speed for no mana cost.

We’re now getting efficient in our killing after following the tree to the right, and while you’ll obviously still have down time, it should be significantly reduced if you employ Aspect of the Viper occassionally.

Late Game Leveling Talents:

• Beast Within
• Kindred Spirits
• Beast Mastery

More leveling love is found at the end of the BM talent tree – Beast Within is awesome for conserving mana, reducing your mana usage by 20% whenever Bestial Wrath is cast for 15 seconds.

Given BW costs 10% of base mana in the first place, the 20% conservation pretty much “pays for” the extra damage your pet does while BM is active. Cast, cast, cast away!

Kindred Spirits is another good efficient damage dealer, for no extra mana your pet gets another 20% increase to damage – a good way to keep your sustained DPS going at all times.

Beast Mastery is the last key talent in the BeastMaster leveling spec, and gives your pet 4 free talent points.

Given you usually only get one every 4 levels this skill is gold for upping your pets DPS and abilities even further.

Follow this leveling spec and you’ll find that even if you weren’t interested in a Beast Master build to begin with, it really is the fastest way to get to 60 and beyond – and by that stage you’ll start raiding, and you’ll find a “place” for yourself in the game that may just require a new build.

But until that time… you need to level, fast!

How Long Did Your Last Level Take? Could You Half That?

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Related posts:

1. Hunter Talent Builds: The Beast Master Spec
2. Beast Master Midlevel Shot Rotation
3. Hunter Talent Builds: The Marksmanship Spec