Talent Builds
Beast Mastery Hunter has a lot of different builds that they can play, including a 1 minute CD and a 2 minute CD build. For AoE, Dark Ranger is generally ahead of Pack Leader.
Single Target (1 Minute)
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Single Target (2 Minute)
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"Hybrid" (2 Minute)
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AoE/Mythic+ (Dark Ranger)
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AoE/Mythic+ (Pack Leader)
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Class Talents
The only “mandatory” talents in the Hunter tree are your defensive and offensive nodes. The entirety of your utility toolkit is interchangeable depending on the situation you are in.
Notable offensive nodes are
- Improved Kill Shot: a talent that gives you more damage on Kill Shot's critical strikes.
- Specialized Arsenal: a flat 10% damage increase to Kill Command.
- Explosive Shot with Blackrock Munitions: AoE burst ability that is also a decent single target option.
- Trigger Finger, Keen Eyesight and Serrated Tips which are passive stats.
- Unnatural Causes: Increases your damage over time effects.
Mandatory defensive nodes are
- Hunter's Avoidance for a passive 5% avoidance.
- Natural Mending and Rejuvenating Wind to buff your Exhilaration
- Survival of the Fittest with Padded Armor and Lone Survivor to get the maximum value out of your main defense.
- Born to Be Wild to reduce the cooldown of your Aspects, most notably Aspect of the Turtle.
Apart from those mandatory nodes and the nodes you have to pick along the way, you have about 5-6 free talent points to put into whatever utility you might want to pick up. Intimidation, Binding Shot, Implosive Trap or Bursting Shot are strong options for crowd control. There is also some niche utility in the form of Scout’s Instincts to get rid of slows, or Emergency Salve if you are in need of poison/disease dispels.
Spec Talents
The Beast Mastery tree has received a lot of changes, leaving us with far less options that people would have hoped for. Nonetheless it tries to capitalize more on the choice of which major cooldown fits the situation or your personal playstyle.
Amongst some talents like Alpha Predator, or War Orders that are a must pick in every situation, we have access to some new passive damage sources like A Murder of Crows or Laceration.
Those DoT effects bring a certain synergy to another new talent called Basilisk Collar which grants you more value the more DoTs you manage to keep up on each target and is a key point for every build.
Dire Beast has received some fresh wind with the addition of Huntmaster’s Call. Furthermore Dire Beast now generates 20 Focus. This also works for Dire Beasts summoned from Dire Command.
Now the big choice lies in choosing between your 1 minute cooldown Bloodshed with Venomous Bite, or the 2 minute alternative Call of the Wild. Whichever you pick will be dependent on the encounter you face. Sometimes having a 1 minute cooldown might be beneficial, other times having a bigger burst with Call of the Wild or having access to Bloody Frenzy at the same time is better.
Another worthy mention is Killer Cobra, a very good addition to Bestial Wrath and a new alternative to Scent of Blood which is no longer required to reach the very important Capstone node Piercing Fangs.
Hero Talents
Dark Ranger:
Dark Ranger grants us access to Black Arrow, a 30 second cooldown DoT effect, that has a chance to reset Barbed Shot, or proc a Shadow Hound.
On top of that it regenerates some Focus with Dark Empowerment and grants us the Hunter’s Prey effect on use, which in return can free up a talent point node in our class tree.
The defensive trait in this Hero Tree is Smoke Screen which allows Exhilaration to be used as a third charge of Survival of the Fittest and vice versa. This is incredibly strong!
Pack Leader:
The main nodes of Pack Leader are Vicious Hunt, Pack Coordination and Frenzied Tear.
Vicious Hunt increases the damage of every second Kill Command.
Pack Coordination grants you extra pet auto attacks.
Frenzied Tear grants you another way of resetting Kill Command with some bonus damage.
During Call of the Wild, Vicious Hunt and Pack Coordination are always active, making Call of the Wild a very valuable pick when running this Hero Tree.
Another notable Talent is Covering Fire which increases your Beast Cleave duration for every Kill Command.
The defensive trait in this Hero Tree is Den Recovery which applies a heal over time to you when using your defensives.