Hunter Guide

This guide is primarily concerned with hunters who plan to go or respec to Beast Mastery. I won’t discuss PvP in this guide, since my experience is limited to dueling tournaments. For those who are already high level and want to know how to use Beast Mastery effectively, scroll past the beginner stuff.

Hunters are excellent soloists, and one who is specced in Beast Mastery can be the best. You’ll be able to zip through quests at an incredible speed, and many people recommend speccing Beast for that purpose. The downside is that hunters have no well-defined group role.

A hunter can be DPS, off-tank, puller, crowd-control, cloth-protector (or all of the above at the same time), but you will almost never see LF Hunter in chat. For DPS, rogues and mages are often preferred because they usually bring more damage and have other skills beneficial to a group. For tanking, warriors, shamans, and pallys come first. Most groups prefer a tank to pull, regardless of their skill. Crowd-control is usually left to the mages, rogues, priests, and druids. It’s typically the tank’s job to protect the cloth-wearers.

Even though a hunter can perform all these roles admirably, there exists one more obstacle: hunter is a popular class. If a group ever does look for a hunter, the spot is quickly filled.

Playing the hunter has a definite trade-off. It is a very fun class, and hunters are remarkable soloists, but they lack high group desirability. Solution: become friends with a priest.

Beast Mastery takes soloing to a whole new level. A hunter’s DPS is made at range, and when soloing, it’s the pet’s job to keep your mob at range. Beast-Mastery buffs your pets health, armor, damage, and crit, meaning they can tank for much longer periods.

This is great on two fronts: first, your pet is doing very good damage itself, and second, you’re doing better damage as well. Taking Beast-Mastery does limit your ranged ability a bit, but the fact that your pet should never lose aggro means that your damage remains steady. You should rarely if ever have a mob your pet is on run up to attack you.

With enough points in BM, your pet will most likely have higher armor and health than you, and you’ll have much higher DPS. In many cases, your pet will actually be able to tank an elite equal to or slightly above your pet’s level (if you heal).

Do not take Beast Mastery if you do not intend to learn how to control your pet. More on that later.

The race you choose isn’t overly important. Starting stats are all but irrelevant at higher levels. There are currently five choices for a hunter: Night Elf and Dwarf on the Alliance; Tauren, Orc, and Troll on the Horde. Some racials that are noteworthy for a hunter:

Orc:
Increased pet damage. Self-explanatory
Axe Specialization. If you melee, axes are the only one-hand weapons a rogue can’t use, and won’t fight you for.

Tauren:
Nature Resistance. This can stack with Aspect of the Wild.
War Stomp. Great in many situations, this can help get you back to range.

Night Elf:
Shadow Meld. Can be use in conjunction with the cat ability Prowl (and/or Aimed Shot) for ambushing.
Nature Resistance. This can stack with Aspect of the Wild.
Quickness. Increased 1% dodge chance if mobs get in melee range.

This is a somewhat important note, which is why it’s up at the top. Hunters are capable of using lots of equipment. This does not mean they should use anything and everything that upgrades what they have. Unless you’re specced for melee, (and this guide will assume you aren’t) you do not need to concern yourself with melee DPS, ever.

Bows/rifles are, obviously, the most important consideration. When getting melee weapons, you want weapons with stats that help your ranged attack. Agility is a prime example (+2 Ranged Attack per point of Agil), or Attack Power. +Crit or +Hit are also good. You don’t want weapons with Chance on hit: Wound target, or something along those lines, if there’s equipment to be had with ranged stats on it. The same principle holds true for enchants, with the exception of Icy. Icy enchant can help you get to range if it procs, but otherwise you want passive modifiers (+Agi).

Armor: The first 40 levels are a pain for armor, because you have to fight off the rogues for it if you’re in a group. The primary stat for both classes is agility. Much of the time you’re likely to be soloing, though. After level 40, Horde hunters have competition with shamans for mail armor, but Alliance hunters have free reign over most mail armor. The downside is that almost all mail armor in the game is shaman-based.

Some hunters roll on leather armor after 40. The reasoning is that the stats are often better for a hunter, and the loss of armor is negligible when a hunter shouldn’t be getting hit anyway. Be wary if you go that route, because you will cause bad blood with any rogues you outroll in an instance. Be sure to discuss it with the group ahead of time if you plan to roll on leather, as the last thing you want or need is to be labeled a ninja-looter (especially if you’re labeled a ninja for just rolling).

For any pet-related information, I would strongly recommend visiting Good Intentions Guild’s site. (Much of the information in the tables below is from their site).

At level 10, a hunter needs to return to their home area to get their taming quests. The quests are simple, self-explanatory. One thing: be sure to do the next quest right away. Once you learn how to tame a pet, you need to do another quest to learn how to train a pet. If you don’t do that, you cannot feed your pet, and it will run away.

You cannot tame a pet that is a higher level than you. Pets level up faster than their owners, but they do not gain exp if they are the hunter’s level. This is so that a pet will never be higher level than the hunter.

Pets vary into four basic types: high hp, high armor, high damage, all-around. Scorpids, Turtles, Crocolisks, and Crabs are high armor pets, while Bears, Gorillas, and Tallstriders have high health. Either type is good for tanking. High damage pets include Cats, Bats, Owls, Raptors, Spiders, and Wind Serpents. For pets that are decent across the board, Boars, Carrion Birds, and Wolves are the way to go.

When you first tame a pet, it will be at Loyalty level one, and Unhappy. Happiness affects your pets damage (and if they’re Unhappy long enough they will leave). You can feed your pet to raise their Happiness – wait until your pet finishes eating before giving them a second piece of food, or the first piece will be wasted. You can open your character panel, click the pet tab, and hold your cursor over the green icon to see what your particular pet eats.

At Unhappy (red), your pet only does 75% damage. At Content (yellow), they do 100%. When they’re Happy (green), they do 125% damage. As long as your pet is either content or happy, he gains Loyalty. Your Loyalty can go up to level six (Best Friend), which is necessary for getting the most training points. The number of training points you have is equal to (Loyalty Level - 1) * (Pet Level).

For many abilities you will have to stable your main pet, and tame other pets to learn new skills. For example, you could tame different spiders until you found one with Bite, tell it to attack until you get a message saying you learned it, then teach Bite to your Wolf. All Passive pet abilities and Growl are bought from Pet Trainers. Pet Trainers can untrain your pet, for a small fee, but in order to train your pet you must use the Beast Training ability under General Skills tab. A pet can not learn more than 4 active abilities, but is otherwise limited only by its beast type and training points.

Ability	Ranks	Usable By	Tooltip	Description
Charge	5	Boar	Charges an enemy, immobilizes it for 1 sec, and adds x attack power to your next attack.	Similar to a Warrior’s charge, but doesn’t stun (immobilizes).
Furious Howl	4	Wolf	Party members within range receive an extra x to y damage to their next attack. Lasts 10 seconds.	Great group buff. Usable in the background even in places where you need to hold pet back.
Lightning Breath	6	Wind Serpent	Breathes lightning, instantly dealing x to y Nature damage to a single target.	Bypasses armor, good damage but empties Focus bar quickly.
Prowl	3	Cat	Stealths pet, reducing movement speed to x% of normal. The first attack breaking stealth does y% of normal damage.	Great for ambushing or scouting with Eyes of the Beast.
Scorpid Poison	4	Scorpid	x Nature damage over 8 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.	Excellent damage when stacked.
Screech	4	Bat, Owl	Blasts single enemy for x to y damage and lowers the attack power of enemies in range by z. Effect lasts 4 seconds.	Acts something like an area-Growl.
Shell Shield	1	Turtle	Hide in your shell, reducing all damage taken by 50%, but unable to move or attack. Lasts 12 sec. (Cooldown: 5 minutes).	Might keep your pet alive, but not great for tanking. Since pet can’t act, it can’t hold aggro.
Thunderstomp	3	Gorilla	Shakes the ground with thundering force, doing x to y Nature damage to all enemies within 8 yards. (Cooldown: 1 minute).	Causes high threat, bypasses physical armor... but 1 minute cooldown.

Ability	Ranks	Usable By	Tooltip	Description
Great Stamina	10	All	Increases Stamina	Takes a lot of training points, but adds up to 400 hp.
Natural Armor	10	All	Increases Armor	Takes a lot of training points, but less than Stamina. Adds up to 1000 armor.
Resistance	4	All	Increases resistance	Can train each resist separately, up to 120.

Improved Aspect of the Hawk - 5 ranks
While Aspect of the Hawk is active, all normal ranged attacks have a 1% (per rank) chance of increasing ranged attack speed by 30% for 8 seconds.
This does stack with Rapid Fire. Good burst DPS, great talent since Hawk will probably be your most-used Aspect.

Endurance Training - 5 ranks
Increases the health of your pets by 3% (per rank).
15% extra health is almost a must for a BM hunter. If you expect your pet to tank, give him the means to pull it off.

Improved Eyes of the Beast - 2 ranks
Increases the duration of your Eyes of the Beast by 30 seconds (per rank).
Useful for scouting with Prowl. Mostly a ‘fun’ talent.

Improved Aspect of the Monkey - 5 ranks
Increases the dodge bonus of your Aspect of the Monkey by 1% (per rank).
Only really worth it if you’re a melee hunter.

Thick Hide - 3 ranks
Increases the armor rating of your pets by 10% (per rank).
30% extra armor is great for tanking. Highly recommended.

Improved Revive Pet - 2 ranks
Revive Pet’s casting time is reduced by 3 sec, mana cost reduced by 20%, and increases the health your pet returns with by an additional 15% (all per rank).
If your pet ever dies in the middle of a tough boss battle, being able to call him back can turn the tide. Your Revive Pet will take 4 seconds, cost about a third of your total mana, and brings your pet to life with 45% of his total health. Not bad for 2 talent points.

Pathfinding - 2 ranks
Increases the speed bonus of your Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack by 3% (per rank).
Loses its usefulness when you can get a mount.

Bestial Swiftness - 1 rank
Increases the outdoor movement speed of your pets by 30%.
Useful, especially for pets that can’t get Dash/Dive (greater with them). Recommended if you have the extra point.

Unleashed Fury - 5 ranks
Increases the damage done by your pets by 4% (per rank).
20% extra damage? Definitely

Improved Mend Pet - 2 ranks
Gives the Mend Pet spell a 15% chance of cleansing one curse, disease, magic, or poison effect from the pet each tick. Rank 2 increases the chance to 50%.
Excellent talent if you have the points. Can help a ton with mid-combat debuffs or after combat curses/diseases.

Ferocity - 5 ranks
Increases the critical strike chance of your pets by 3% (per rank).
15% extra crit chance is deadly, combined with the tier 6 talent Frenzy.

Spirit Bond - 2 ranks
While your pet is active you and your pet will regenerate 1% (per rank) of total health every 10 seconds.
Very minor regen, only once per 10 seconds. Works in combat, though. Not recommended, but if you want to put your talents there, go ahead.

Intimidation - 1 rank
Command your pet to intimidate the target on the next successful melee attack, causing a high amount of threat and stunning the target for 3 seconds. Instant cast, 1 minute cooldown.
Great ability for protecting casters, catching runaways, extra aggro, and interrupting casting. The stun is not broken by damage, either. Short cooldown. If all that weren’t enough, you need it to get Bestial Wrath.

Bestial Discipline - 2 ranks
Increases the Focus regeneration of your pets by 10% (per rank).
More focus equals more damage or better aggro control (or both). Good talent to have.

Frenzy - 5 ranks (requires 5 points in Ferocity)
Gives your pet a 20% chance (per rank) to gain a 30% attack speed increase for 8 seconds after dealing a critical strike.
Simply amazing, if you got Ferocity, definitely get this. If you didn’t get Ferocity, shame on you.

Bestial Wrath - 1 rank (Requires 1 point in Intimidation)
Send your pet into a rage causing 50% additional damage for 18 seconds. While enraged the beast cannot be stopped by any means. Instant cast, 2 minute cooldown.
Incredible DPS talent, cancels out any crowd-control, makes your pet immune to all crowd-controls. Can use it very often with a 2 minute cooldown. The only reason not to take this talent if you’ve come so far is if you’d rather have Scatter Shot. In 1.9, the damage was reduced and duration increased. The buff to Unleashed Fury helps even out the damage loss, however.

The talents you put into Survival or Marksmanship I’ll leave entirely up to you. You can get Aimed Shot and Lethal Shots, etc. I personally went with the trap talents in Survival.

Aggressive
Your pet will attack anything in range. You should save this for very limited situations, when the mobs are coming to you and there’s nothing nearby that you don’t want the pet to attack. A good safety precaution is to always set your pet to Stay when you put it on Aggressive (that way you cannot forget to change stance before moving on).

Defensive
Your pet will attack anything that hits it, or anything that hits you. Good stance for lower levels and for soloing. Can be trouble with ranged attackers that you want to pull back some.

Passive
Your pet will not do anything that you don’t specifically command it to. This is the stance your pet should be in most end-game. Your pet should always be in Passive in instances and raids. This way your pet will not run off and aggro random mobs to cause a wipe.

Your pet’s role changes with the situation. When everything is smooth, your pet should be focused completely on damage. Turn Growl off auto-cast, send pet in to attack. When possible, always attack the same mob as your pet, the same mob as a tank is hitting.

If the tank is not holding aggro well, turn Growl on auto-cast (possibly turning off attack abilities), send pet to aggro the loose mobs that are threatening the rest of the party. If a mob is on a mage or priest, use Intimidate, no questions asked. Regular Growl is typically not enough to pull aggro off of them.

If the tank is holding aggro well, but taking too much damage, turn Growl on auto-cast and pull one mob’s aggro onto your pet (possibly with Intimidate). This spares the tank some beating, and the healer some mana (and aggro). If you choose not to step in, chances are the extra healing will pull aggro onto the priest and you’ll have to send pet to protect him or her anyway.

When there’s a ranged mob attacking the group, but other mobs that haven’t aggro’d near it, keep your pet back, everyone pelt the mob with ranged attacks. This is the place where Passive is necessary. If the tank charges in and aggros everything, then send pet. The group will let a tank slide on that, but not the pet if it charged in first.

When you’re pulling, put your pet on Stay and leave it with the group. If you’re pulling one or a few mobs, keep it on Passive, but if you’re pulling a ton of weaker mobs, set it to Aggressive (be sensible about where you use Aggressive, and never do it without your pet on Stay).

A big problem to look out for is jumping off ledges in a group. Not always, but too often, your pet will run around rather than jumping with you. To be 100% sure, dismiss your pet before a jump or use Eyes of the Beast to drop your pet down and click Stay. Other possibilities include telling your pet to Stay a ways back – he will auto-disappear when you get far enough away and you can call him back with no loss of happiness – or if it’s a cat, Prowl before jumping and let it walk around. Only the first two methods are a surety, and you take a risk with the other two.

Area-effect spells are often the most troublesome things for pets in endgame instances. Be sure to put some applicable resists on your pet when possible (ie, Fire and Shadow resist for MC). Also, when your pet is at a quarter of its health, click the follow button and pull him away from the fight. Higher health is more important for AoEs than higher armor. Your pet doesn’t have to be AoE fodder if you’re prepared.

If your pet is going to tank, it’s probably a good idea to give them extra armor or health. Depending on how much damage is heading at the mob, you may need to turn off other abilities so that the pet is only using Growl (for example, if a mage decides to back you up). Scorpid Sting helps against hard-hitting melee mobs, but still watch your pet’s health. Wait until your pet has less than half health before casting Mend Pet – and be sure to be within range for Mend Pet – so that you don’t inadvertently waste mana. Never expect a priest to heal your pet (some of them will, just don’t enter any group expecting them to). Just keep the pet healed and tanking is a cinch.

Here’s what you’re probably interested in: how to get the most damage out of your pet. As soon as you start combat, send your pet at the target, followed by an arrow (a Sting of some kind). Activate Bestial Wrath if you have it (it’s on a two-minute cooldown, no need to be thrifty with it), deal ranged DPS as usual. When the mob is just about to die, select a new target if there is one, start shooting, then as soon as your pet finishes the first one send him after the second one. Unless they’re immune it’s probably a good idea to use Serpent Sting on the first mob before you switch targets.

You’re probably thinking, well that was simple. It is. The hard part is commanding your pet effectively, not squeezing the most damage out of it. You need to be relentless, yet controlled. Can’t send your pet after the wrong mob, don’t want to pull aggro to yourself before your pet attacks. Activate Bestial Wrath whenever possible (two-minute cooldown, it’ll be back in one or two more pulls). As long as there’s enough mobs or a strong enough one for your pet to fight 18 seconds then you haven’t wasted Bestial Wrath.

Not all of these are strictly Beast Mastery tips and tricks. Some little things that are either fun or useful.

Scouting: If you have a cat with the Prowl ability, you can use Eyes of the Beast to explore an area. This can be useful if you’re looking for a particular room or boss, or just if you want to see what’s around the corner (beyond tracking range).

Sniping: A popular (and controversial) trick is to Shadow Meld – and put your pet in Prowl if possible – and wait for an enemy to appear. You can charge up Aimed Shot, getting a powerful surprise attack. This is considered cheap by many, and it won’t work if the person moves too close or just runs out of range. Use at your own discretion.

Stealthing: Another night-elf only trick, this one to get through mob-infested areas solo (prime example would be the blue dragonkin cave in Winterspring). When you can’t avoid mobs any further, run until you’re in a semi-clear spot, then FD. After the mobs reset, click Shadow Meld, and wait in Shadow Meld until your FD is cooled down, as well as for health if necessary. If your FD isn’t resisted, and if pats don’t move too close while you’re in SM, then you can use this trick to get through otherwise dangerous areas. Other hunters can do this as well, just without the benefit of allowing FD to cool down. Would need to find truly clear spots to FD in, which may or may not always be possible. It’s not fast, but it can get you places you otherwise can’t solo.

Extra damage: The level 50 Hunter quests end with a choice of 3 rewards. The first is a spear, the second is the Devilsaur Eye, the final is the Devilsaur Tooth. I’d recommend getting one of the trinkets; both of them are on two-minute cooldowns. That sounds familiar, too, doesn’t it? A great boost to damage is to use those as much as their cooldowns allow. The Devilsaur Tooth guarantees a crit on your pet’s next attack. If you activate Bestial Wrath and Devilsaur Tooth at the same time, then your pet enters battle dealing 200% damage at 30% increased attack speed.

Multi-tap: If you’re in a relatively safe area, and there’s three or more mobs, you can send your pet to attack each one, then follow up with a multi-shot and/or Volley. If you had just started out with multi-shot, then two of the mobs would come for you, yet they stay on your pet if he taps them first. More than once or twice and they will come after you, though.

AoE Blast Zone: A frost trap can be used to bunch mobs together for mages/locks to AoE. It is even more effective if you have the Entrapment talent and it procs. Downside is, everyone hates the Frost Trap.

Combat Trap: Common knowledge, but a little extra step with a pet out. If you want to lay a new trap in combat, click Passive for your pet, FD, wait a couple seconds, then click trap.

Rear guard: If you and a group are riding somewhere, watch everyone’s back. If a mob starts chasing one of your party and dismounts them, you can ride just a few steps in front of the mob, dismount, Freeze Trap, Aspect of the Pack. Frost trap if there’s multiple attackers.

Risky Screenshots: An underused ability, you can use Eagle Eye to get close up screenshots of dangerous things. Like angry dragons.

Scorpid Mana Drain: If you duel a paladin or druid, who can both cure poison, then wearing them down with viper sting is not all that effective. However, if you have a scorpid and poison the target before using Viper Sting, then the player will have to cure the Scorpid Poison first (once for each time it is stacked). They may still clear Viper Sting, but it’ll cost them more mana to do it.

Damage Meters: If you use Damage Meters and want to include pets, unselect the option Show Only Group Members. The charts will now show all pets (hunter and lock) as well as trinkets (ie: Sayis’s Ramstein, Jaryn’s Mithril Mechanical Dragonling).

Cancel DoT: If you put a DoT sting on a target, such as Serpent Sting, Viper Sting, or Wyvern Sting, you can cancel the DoT with a Scorpid Sting. This is necessary if your group needs to use crowd-control on the mob.

To start with, the pet bar Ctrl 1-0:
/script CastPetAction(1) or /script PetAttack()
/script CastPetAction(2) or /script PetFollow()
/script CastPetAction(3) or /script PetStay()
/script CastPetAction(4)
/script CastPetAction(5)
/script CastPetAction(6)
/script CastPetAction(7)
/script CastPetAction(8) or /script PetAggressiveMode()
/script CastPetAction(9) or /script PetDefensiveMode()
/script CastPetAction(0) or /script PetPassiveMode()

To target your pet:
/script TargetUnit("pet")
Be sure to use "pet" not your pet's name.

To feed your pet quickly (even while moving):
/cast Feed Pet
/script PickupContainerItem(X,Y)
X is your bag -- these are numbered right to left, with backpack as 0. Y is the bag slot -- these are numbered left to right, like a calendar. (4,1) would be the upper left corner of your left-most bag.

52.5 Agility = 1% crit
52.5 Agility = 1% dodge
1 Agility = 2 Ranged Attack Power
1 Agility = 1 Melee Attack Power
1 Agility = 2 Armor

1 point = +0.04% Crit
1 point = +0.04% Hit
1 point = -0.04% to be dodged, blocked, or parried by your opponent
Note: 1 point in Defense directly counters 1 point in weapon skill.

(Ammo DPS + RAP DPS) * {Weapon Speed}
Ex. 3.0 speed Gun with Accurate slugs (13 DPS) and 700 Ranged Attack Power

700 / 14 = 50
13 Ammo DPS + 50 RAP DPS = 63 DPS
63 DPS * 3.0 Speed = 189 Added Damage

Weapon Damage + Rank Bonus + Added Damage
Ex. 3.0 speed Gun, 50-100 Damage, with Accurate slugs and 700 Ranged Attack Power

Added Damage = 189
75 Wep Damage + 450 Rank Bonus + 189 = 714 (1428 Crit : 1642 Crit w/ Mortal Shots)

Your Armor / (Your Armor + ((Attacker Level * 85) + 400))
Ex. 2500 armor vs level 60 char

2500 / (2500 + ((60 * 85) + 400))
2500 / (2500 + (5100 + 400))
2500 / 8000 = 31.25% Damage Mitigation

Hunter's Guide, From a Beast Master's Perspective