How to Use The Beast Mastery Build to its Best – A Hunter’s Guide

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.

Please note: this is a just a general overview of Hunters. For the little known, hard to find PvP, PvE, raiding, leveling and gold making strategies for Hunters, check out Killer Guide's Hunter guide.

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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While I always recommend that people should choose a class they believe they’ll enjoy, or a class they like the idea of, there are those who quite simply want to get to level 80 in the absolute fastest manner possible.

This will be a short commandment:

Choose a Hunter, or choose a Warlock if you want to level fast!

Hunters & Warlocks have the enviable position of having pets tank for them, which means they need less down time, die less, and can get out of sticky situations easier & more often than the rest of us.

Is it a coincidence Anguine, my “leveling guide review character” was created as a Warlock?

No!

Choose any class you like if you just want to enjoy yourself… but if you’re desperate to level quicker than ANYONE, at ANY COST… choose a Hunter or Lock..

And hey… maybe you just like Hunters & Warlocks already?

Good for you!

The most famous user of a Hunter is Joana, one of the world’s fastest power levelers. Again – its no coincidence she used the Hunter class!

Related posts:

1. The 10 Commandments of Horde Leveling – Part 1 Thou Shall Use The Funnel The Funnel System for power...
2. The 10 Commandments of Horde Leveling – Part 4 Thou Shall Pick Talents Well Talents! Those juicy extra toppings...
3. The 10 Commandments of Horde Leveling – Part 6 Thou Shall Have Friends In High Places This is not...

Talents! Those juicy extra toppings you get every level which can either make the perfect leveling sandwich or spoil your fun like off mayonnaise.

How do you choose them, and which ones are right for your class?

First off, we need to establish that we are in fact picking talents to optimize your leveling speeds for PvE. Some of my readers here do in fact like to pick talents which allow them to dominate in PvP – and rightly so – its a fun and different part of the game we can all enjoy.

But for those of you who simply want to get up those levels, and fast, its time to do a little research.

Here’s just a few quick & dirty tips on choosing the right talents (an entire NEW book could be written on the details of the below points):

1. Stick to one tree! This is the worst sin we can commit in picking talents… if nothing else, be sure that you stick to one tree until its complete, then, and only then…
2. Build up ONE of your second preference talent trees.

   World of Warcraft is a well balanced game, and if you follow just these two steps your leveling speeds will be very respectable.

3. Picking PvE talents will reduce your efficiency in PvP, and vice versa.
4. Some builds are geared towards group play, while others are tailored to solo play – shadow priests for solo, and holy priests for group play are two good examples.

   If you’re going to be examining your talent lists, keep in mind that most of your time will likely be spent solo… or…

5. If you have friends or a guild you’re regularly playing with, be sure to pick builds which are effective when friends are around.

Some basic truths about each class when it comes to talent builds:

1. Priests are a support class designed for healing, not soloing.
2. Hunters & Warlocks are the best solo classes, bar none.
3. Retribution Paladins are the best solo, keep the other specs to group play.
4. Shamans – go elemental if solo, otherwise, stick to group or PvP.
5. Rogues – get assassination/combat balanced out & you’ll do fine.
6. Mages – get into the frost tree, you’ll probably do just as well as fire, but survive more fights.
7. Warriors – Fury all the way, unless grouping in which case I always recommend protection.
8. Druids – I like balance for PvE, or restoration for group based PvE.

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3. The 10 Commandments of Horde Leveling – Part 3 Thou Shall Make Gold Ah, gold! Sweet, shiny gold! The...