WoW The War Within: Hunter Beast Mastery Buiild

Jonas Author

Created - 26.12.2024 Updated - 27.12.2024

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Our WoW The War Within Hunter Beast Mastery build will help you get the most out of the Hunter and its arsenal of pet companions. It’s one of the best DPS builds out there and it’s worth considering to make. If you want to see more amazing DPS classes in the game, check out our guide.

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Stat Priority & Set Bonus

Beast Mastery Hunters are masters of the animal kingdom, and some fantasy creatures as well. So let’s dive into how we’re going to succeed as a Beast Mastery Hunter in The War Within.

We’ll start with the stat priority, and we want to mention that this guide is beginner-friendly while also providing enough depth to ensure that even veteran players can hit the ground running, whether you're new to WoW or this spec.

Primary Stat: Agility

Our main stat is agility. The more agility we have, the better, and as we progress and upgrade our gear with higher item levels, our agility will naturally increase. This stat boosts the damage of our attacks, making it an essential stat for us.

So, the higher your agility, the better your overall damage output will be. Agility is the cornerstone of any Beast Mastery Hunter build, and it's crucial to prioritize it when gearing up.

Secondary Stats Priority

Now let’s take a look at the secondary stats. However, it's important to remember that you should only be comparing these stats when looking at two items of the same item level.

As a general rule, always choose the item with the higher item level, as it will usually provide more value than just focusing on secondary stats.

Mastery is the first secondary stat we want to focus on. Mastery is very unique for Beast Mastery Hunters because of our passive ability, Master of Beasts. This mastery increases the damage done by your pets.

So, the more mastery you have, the more damage your pets will deal, which is crucial for maximizing your DPS. Your pets are a huge part of your overall damage, and boosting their damage with mastery will significantly enhance your output.

Next up is Critical Strike, which increases your chance to deal critical damage. Higher critical strike means that your attacks will have a greater chance to hit harder, which is always beneficial for any DPS spec, including Beast Mastery.

This stat plays a big role in increasing your damage potential over time.

Haste is another important stat. It boosts your attack speed and increases your focus regeneration. Focus is the primary resource we use to cast our abilities and attacks, so having more haste means we can attack faster and regenerate focus more quickly.

This allows you to unleash more abilities and keep up with the rhythm of combat, which is crucial in maximizing your performance in both sustained and burst damage scenarios.

Lastly, we have Versatility, which increases both the damage and healing you do and reduces the damage you take.

While versatility doesn’t directly boost your pet’s damage or your focus regeneration, it’s a solid all-around stat that makes you more resilient and contributes to your overall DPS. It's a good stat to have but generally not as high-priority as mastery, critical strike, or haste.

Set Bonus: Lightless Scavenger’s Necessities

Now let’s look at the set bonus for this season of The War Within. The tier set we’ll be using is the Lightless Scavenger’s Necessities. When you equip two pieces of this set, you’ll gain the following bonus: Barbed Shot will further increase your pet’s attack speed by 5%.

This means that when you use Barbed Shot, your pet will attack even faster, which is great for maximizing the damage output of your pets. Additionally, your pet’s attacks will have a 10% chance to increase all pet damage you deal by 10% for 10 seconds.

This is a simple but effective set bonus that will improve your overall damage, especially when combined with other boosts to your pet's damage.

If you're not familiar with Barbed Shot or any of the other abilities, don't worry. We’ll be covering them in detail shortly and explaining when to use them and how to get the most out of your abilities.

Keep in mind that understanding these synergies between your abilities, stats, and set bonuses is crucial to performing at your best as a Beast Mastery Hunter.

Utilities & Defensives

Now we’re going to dive into some of the utilities and defensives that we, as Hunters, have available to us in The War Within.

We want to make sure you’re not overwhelmed with every single spell in our arsenal, so we’ll focus on the ones we believe are really important for you to be aware of and use effectively.

Of course, there are other niche spells out there, and once you’re more comfortable with your rotation and understanding how your build works, it’s a good idea to explore your spellbook and see what else you have access to.

But don’t worry about that just yet—let's focus on the essentials.

Offensive Utilities

Let’s start with the spells on the left side of the list, which are generally more focused on what we can do to our enemies.

Freezing Trap: This ability is one of our main crowd control tools. You can place the trap wherever you want, and once it’s thrown, it will incapacitate the first enemy that steps into it.

This effect lasts for a full minute unless you do damage to the trapped enemy, in which case the effect will be broken. It’s great for controlling enemies, whether in dungeons or raids, and can be used strategically to stop or slow down enemy advances.

Counter Shot: This is our interrupt, or as some players call it, our “kick.” This ability has a 24-second cooldown and is crucial for stopping enemy spellcasting.

Interrupting spells is an essential skill, and whether you're a beginner or a veteran, you’ll want to get comfortable using it. Interrupting spellcasters in Mythic Plus dungeons, raids, or PvP can make or break a fight, so make sure you’re using this on cooldown when necessary.

Concussive Shot: This shot slows the target by 50% for 6 seconds. It’s useful for keeping enemies at a distance or slowing down foes that need to be controlled. You can use it to kite enemies or create more breathing room between you and your target.

Misdirection: One of the more unique abilities in our kit, Misdirection is fantastic for controlling threat. What it does is redirect any threat you cause to an ally of your choice.

This is especially useful in group content when you need to make sure your tank is the one holding aggro, not you. By using Misdirection on a group member, you can ensure they’re the ones who take the heat while you focus on dishing out damage.

Feign Death: This is one of the most fun and useful abilities in our arsenal. Feign Death allows you to “play dead” and stop enemies from attacking you. When activated, you drop out of combat, and enemies will ignore you for up to 6 minutes. This is an excellent ability to have on hand, especially if you accidentally pull aggro or get into a situation you didn’t plan for. It’s often considered one of the best utility abilities in the game.

Defensive Utilities

Now, let’s move to the right side of the list, which focuses more on abilities that help us and our allies.

Primal Rage: This ability is essentially our version of Bloodlust or Heroism. It has a 10-minute cooldown, and when used, it increases haste by 30% for all party and raid members for 40 seconds.

However, it’s important to note that the fatigue debuff will prevent anyone who is affected by it from benefiting from Primal Rage or similar effects (like Bloodlust, Time Warp, etc.). Despite this, it’s still an extremely powerful cooldown that boosts your group's damage potential by a significant margin.

Survival of the Fittest: This defensive reduces the damage taken by both you and your pet by 30% for 6 seconds. It also has two charges, which gives you extra versatility in using it when you need to reduce incoming damage.

This is a solid defensive cooldown that should be used wisely to minimize damage during high-damage phases or dangerous situations.

Camouflage: This ability lets you and your pet blend into your surroundings and gain stealth for a full minute. While camouflaged, you will heal 2% of your maximum health every second, making it a great way to recover health when you need to stay out of the fight for a moment.

This ability is a great tool for both survival and utility, especially when you need to regroup and heal in between engagements.

Hunter's Mark: This is a debuff you can apply to your target before you even enter combat, and you should always make sure to do this. Hunter’s Mark increases the damage dealt to the target by 20% when they are above 80% health.

This bonus applies to the entire party or raid, making it an excellent way to boost your group’s damage before the fight even begins.

Other Utilities

There are other utilities available to you as a Hunter, such as Eyes of the Beast, Eagle Eye, Scatter Shot, Scare Beast, and Tar Trap, just to name a few. These are all situational and niche abilities that can be extremely useful depending on the context of the encounter.

However, the ones we've covered here are the core utilities you’ll be using most often in The War Within. As you progress and become more familiar with the spec and its capabilities, feel free to explore these other abilities and learn how to incorporate them into your playstyle.

Raid Rotation

Now, for the fun part—we’re going to look at the actual rotation that you’ll be using. Starting off, we’ll be focusing on the raid rotation, but this applies to both Mythic Plus and raiding.

For both builds, we’ll be taking the Dark Ranger hero talents. These builds are very similar, except for a few tweaks in talents that help us with AOE damage. That’s really the only significant change between the two.

Pre-Rotation Setup

Before jumping into your rotation, don’t forget to apply Hunter’s Mark on your target. This is a simple but crucial step to increase the damage you deal to your target. It’s something that should always be up whenever you're in combat.

Single-Target Rotation

For single-target encounters, the first thing you’re going to want to do is use Barbed Shot. Barbed Shot is going to apply a buff, not to you directly, but to your pet.

For example, if you look at my wild serpent here, you’ll notice it has Frenzy with two stacks. When you use a third stack, it will increase your pet’s attack speed by 105%, which is a significant boost to your overall damage.

Barbed Shot works by firing a shot that causes your enemy to bleed for a set amount of damage and increases your critical strike chance by 2% for 10 seconds (which can stack up to three times).

Additionally, it sends your pet into a frenzy, increasing their attack speed by 35% for 10 seconds, and that can also stack up to three times. Barbed Shot will also generate 20 Focus over 8 seconds. Focus is the primary resource we use as a Hunter to cast our abilities, so managing your Focus is vital.

The main priority here is to keep up those three stacks of Frenzy on your pets at all times. You want to make sure your pet’s attack speed is constantly boosted.

After that, your second priority is Dire Beast—this ability summons a powerful wild beast to attack your target and increases your haste. Dire Beast should be used off cooldown to maximize your damage.

After using Dire Beast, the next thing you want to do is use Kill Command. However, you want to time this ability specifically right before Call of the Wild comes off cooldown.

Kill Command is used to direct your pet to savagely deal damage to an enemy. It has a maximum of two charges, and it’s a key ability in your rotation.

Then, we move to Black Arrow—this comes from the Dark Ranger talent. It fires a Black Arrow into your target, dealing damage. Each time Black Arrow deals damage, there’s a 10% chance that it will generate a charge of Barbed Shot.

This talent adds another layer of synergy, making Black Arrow a great addition to your single-target rotation. We’ll go deeper into the hero talents soon to better understand how they all fit together.

Kill Shot and Serpent Sting

Normally, Kill Shot can only be used on enemies under 20% health. However, with the talent Venom’s Bite, Kill Shot applies Serpent Sting for 18 seconds. Serpent Sting is a poison that causes your target to take nature damage instantly and over the next 18 seconds. You’ll want to use Kill Shot whenever Serpent Sting has a few seconds left on it. The idea is to maintain Serpent Sting on the target at all times.

When you use Black Arrow, it will trigger Kill Shot, allowing you to use Kill Shot even when the target is not at 20% health. This gives you a lot of flexibility in how you use your abilities.

Call of the Wild

Next up is Call of the Wild. This cooldown summons two of your active pets for 20 seconds. During this time, a random pet from your stable will appear every 4 seconds to attack your target.

Every time Call of the Wild summons a pet, the cooldown of Barbed Shot and Kill Command is reduced. This is an excellent ability to use when trying to maximize your overall damage output, as it boosts your pet's damage and reduces the cooldowns of key abilities.

Beastial Wrath

Once Beastial Wrath is available, use it on cooldown. This ability sends you and your pet into a rage, instantly dealing massive damage to your target and increasing all damage you both deal by 25% for 15 seconds. It also removes all crowd control effects.

The cooldown of Beastial Wrath is reduced each time you use Barbed Shot, so the more you use it, the faster it comes back up. It’s a critical cooldown for boosting your damage, so use it as soon as it’s up.

Cobra Shot vs Explosive Shot

After using Beastial Wrath, you’ll want to use Kill Command if available. Then, use Barbed Shot again. If Beastial Wrath is on cooldown, you have an option: Cobra Shot or Explosive Shot.

• Cobra Shot: Reduces the cooldown of Kill Command by 1 second and deals some damage.
• Explosive Shot: Does fire damage in an area around your target, dealing massive burst damage. You’ll want to use Explosive Shot if Beastial Wrath is not up.

If Beastial Wrath is up, use Cobra Shot instead to reduce the cooldown of Kill Command.

Final Steps

After you’ve used Barbed Shot, Dire Beast, and Kill Command, continue refreshing Serpent Sting with Kill Shot if needed. If Serpent Sting is already up, use Kill Shot as a filler ability. If you’re not in Beastial Wrath, use Explosive Shot.

In short, your rotation revolves around using Barbed Shot to boost your pet’s attack speed, Dire Beast and Kill Command on cooldown, and Black Arrow to generate more Barbed Shot charges.

That’s the single-target rotation. Once we finish discussing the Mythic Plus AOE rotation, we’ll dive deeper into the hero talents and explore what they enable us to do. But for now, this is the core of your raid rotation—master this, and you’ll be doing great damage in any raid setting.

Mythic + Rotation

As mentioned before, the Mythic Plus rotation only requires a few specific changes, mainly focused on a few select talents that enhance your AOE (Area of Effect) damage. These changes allow us to better handle groups of enemies while maintaining our single-target damage. Let’s go through the adjustments and how they fit into the existing rotation.

Key Talents for Mythic Plus

In Mythic Plus, the biggest changes come from Multi-Shot, Beast Cleave, and the updated Kill Command.

• Multi-Shot: This ability allows you to fire several missiles, hitting multiple enemies for a set amount of damage. It also triggers Beast Cleave, which increases your overall AOE damage. However, Multi-Shot deals reduced damage on targets beyond five enemies.
• Beast Cleave: After using Multi-Shot, your pet’s melee attacks will strike all nearby enemies for 80% of the damage for 6 seconds. This is an excellent way to spread your pet's damage to multiple enemies. While the damage is reduced beyond 5 targets, it’s still a solid boost to your AOE output.
• Kill Command: In Mythic Plus, Kill Command strikes all nearby enemies for 80% of the damage it normally deals for 6 seconds after use. This is a significant source of AOE damage when combined with Beast Cleave, even though the damage reduces beyond 8 targets.

These three talents are the backbone of your Mythic Plus AOE rotation. They make it easier to deal with groups of enemies and ensure that you're maximizing your pet’s damage potential.

AOE Rotation Changes

When transitioning to the Mythic Plus rotation, the main difference is the inclusion of Multi-Shot and ensuring it’s used properly. The rotation itself remains largely the same, but you’ll need to be mindful of the timing for your Multi-Shot.

• Multi-Shot: Use if Beast Cleave has less than 3 seconds remaining. Timing is critical to maximize your Beast Cleave damage. Avoid waiting too long to reactivate it.

How the Rotation Fits Together

Despite these changes, the general flow of your rotation doesn't change much in Mythic Plus compared to single-target situations. You’re still focusing on the same core abilities, but now with the added AOE components. Here’s how the rotation looks with the Mythic Plus changes:

1. Barbed Shot: Keep up Frenzy on your pet.
2. Dire Beast: Use off cooldown.
3. Kill Command: Use just before Call of the Wild comes off cooldown.
4. Black Arrow: Generate additional Barbed Shot charges.
5. Kill Shot: Refresh Serpent Sting if necessary.
6. Call of the Wild: Use when available.
7. Beastial Wrath: Boost you and your pet’s damage.
8. Multi-Shot: Use when Beast Cleave has less than 3 seconds remaining.
9. Explosive Shot or Cobra Shot: Use depending on whether Beastial Wrath is up or not.
10. Kill Command: Use as a filler when no other abilities are available.
11. Barbed Shot: Finish with any remaining charges and refresh Serpent Sting using Kill Shot.

Harness The Call of The Wild

If DPS roles aren’t your thing, we’ve also got a list of amazing tank builds. Our Vengeance Demon Hunter build is a good change of pace if you want a more dynamic tank build to use.