Contents
0. Introduction
1. Talents
2. Glyphs
3. Stats
4. Gems
5. Enchants
6. How to Gear
7. Your Pet
8. Single Target Abilities, Priority and Opener
9. Your Cooldowns
10. Multiple Target Abilities and Priority
11. Extra Tips
0. Introduction
The Beast Mastery specialization for hunters revolves around using and controlling your pet in order to deal damage. All hunter specs are ranged DPS specs and the hunters role in a raid is to have as high DPS as possible while providing the utility that this unique class brings through both high mobility and instant shots.
Hunters use a primary resource called focus; 120 focus is the maximum amount that you have in the Beast Mastery specialization and is both spent and gained through the use of other abilities. How well you use this resource, mixed with a few other factors, will dictate how well you perform on any given encounter.
1. Talents
Tier One
In this Tier your default choice should be Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera. This increases your mobility by reducing the cooldown of Disengage, and increases your survivability by reducing the cooldown of Deterrence. Posthaste is better for fights where you need increased movement speed in short bursts, such as the intermission phase on Immerseus, or the Down Draft on Ji-kun.
Tier Two
In this tier, Binding Shot should be your default choice. When used correctly it is an on-demand AoE stun, which is highly effective, and more useful than either of the other talents in this tier.
Tier Three
Aspect of the Iron Hawk adds 10% damage reduction to Aspect of the Hawk. This will generally outweigh the other two choices in almost all circumstances. Spirit Bond can be useful if you spend long periods out of range of healers, such as on the conveyor belt on Siegecrafter Blackfuse
Tier Four
Dire Beast should be your talent of choice here. For AoE encounters Thrill of the Hunt is very strong and should be used instead, particularly for encounters such as Galakras.
Tier Five
In this tier, Blink Strikes is the best choice. It grants your pet a teleport ability when it is more than 30 yards away from it’s target, and increases the range at which your pet can use it's basic attacks to 30 yards. It provides your pet with more mobility to switch between targets quickly, as well as increasing pet damage and range with it's basic attacks.
Tier Six
In this tier you will choose between Glaive Toss or Barrage. Glaive Toss is best for single target encounters. It also slows target it hits and can be lined up to hit multiple targets in its path. Barrage is better for any form of multi target or AoE encounters.
2. Glyphs
Glyph of Animal Bond: This increases all healing done to you and your pet. This increases survivability and should always be used.
Glyph of Deterrence: This increases the damage reduction granted by Deterrence by 20%. Again, this increases survivability and should always be used.
Glyph of Disengage: This increases the distance you travel when you Disengage. This increases mobility and should be the general go-to third glyph, unless an encounter or your raid group specifically requires something else.
Glyph of Ice Trap: Increased range on Ice Trap makes it easier to place correctly. This is useful for slowing the mines on Siegecrafter Blackfuse.
Glyph of Solace: Useful for Paragons of the Klaxxi if you need to crowd control the parasites to prevent the effects being broken.
There are many other glyphs that provide some utility for certain mechanics in the raiding environment and out, however this short-list is of the ones that are arguably of the most use within the current Siege of Orgrimmar raiding content.
3. Stats
Agility -> Hit (7.5%) = Expertise (7.5%) -> Haste -> Crit-> Mastery.
Note that if you don’t have Capacitive Primal Diamond, then Haste becomes your worst stat.
At Tier 16 Heroic gear levels, it’s a good idea to balance your Crit and Mastery.
Stat Explanation
Agility is your best stat, and will usually be the deciding factor in your upgrades. After that, go for Hit and Expertise, each up to their respective caps of 7.5%. After that, most of your secondary stats are generally quite close together DPS-wise, so gearing is often just about the Agility increase. Generally, you should prioritise Haste, then Crit and then Mastery if you do have the legendary meta gem. If you don’t have it, then prioritise Crit, then Mastery and then Haste.
Stat Info
Agility - This is your primary stat. It gives you Attack Power, which increases the damage you do, and increases your crit chance.
Hit Rating - Decreases your chance to miss the boss. You want this to be at 7.5%, which will mean that your attacks can’t miss.
Expertise Rating - Decreases the chance that the boss will dodge your ranged attacks. You want this to be at 7.5%, which will mean that your attacks cannot be dodged.
Mastery - Your Mastery: Master of Beasts increases the damage your pets do.
Crit - This increases the chance that you’ll get a critical strike. It also increases your pet’s focus thanks to Go for the Throat.
Haste - This increases your attack speed and your focus regeneration, and does the same for your pets. This also increases the rate at which your legendary cloak and legendary meta gems special effect will occur.
4. Gems
Providing that the socket bonus is 60 Agility or over you will want to try and match the socket bonuses. If not it is more than likely beneficial to gem for pure agility. Similarly if there is no way you can make use of the hit rating obtained by using Glinting Imperial Amethyst, it is also beneficial to ignore the socket.
Red: Delicate Primordial Ruby
Yellow: Deadly Vermilion Onyx or Deft Vermilion Onyx
Blue: Glinting Imperial Amethyst
Meta: Capacitive Primal Diamond > Agile Primal Diamond
5. Enchants
Shoulders - Greater Tiger Claw Inscription
Back - Enchant Cloak – Accuracy or Enchant Cloak - Greater Critical Strike
Chest - Enchant Chest – Glorious Stats
Wrists - Enchant Bracer – Greater Agility
Hands - Enchant Gloves – Greater Haste or Enchant Gloves – Superior Expertise
Waist - Living Steel Belt Buckle
Legs - Shadowleather Leg Armor
Feet - Enchant Boots – Blurred Speed
Weapon - Lord Blastington’s Scope of Doom
6. How to Gear
Instead of outlining a best in slot list, I will explain how to select possible upgrades instead. This is because a best in slot list is generally reliant on all items being of the same Ilvl and as you’re continually going through the gearing process the best items possible for you at any given moment will drastically change depending on what you currently have equipped.
As a general rule you will want to prioritise Agility upgrades over almost anything else. The only time you would consider dropping agility to pick up a lesser piece is generally when obtaining tier bonuses that would otherwise outweigh that loss.
For current level trinkets the Assurance of Consequence is your default choice. Any version of this trinket will outweigh the other choices and most likely outweigh higher ilvl versions of other trinkets.
For your second trinket slot you will want to aim to get a version of Ticking Ebon Detonator. Haromm’s Talisman is also a viable option here.
7. Your Pet
Pets are an extremely important part of playing a Hunter. Each pet provides a separate raid buff, and so the raid composition should be taken into account when deciding which would be the best pet to use. Try to pick a pet that provides a buff your raid would otherwise be without. Below is the a general selection of useful pets to have available in your stable:
Cat – Provides Roar of Courage.
Hyena – Provides Cackling Howl.
Wolf – Provides Furious Howl.
Tallstrider – Provides Dust Cloud.
Wind Serpent – Provides Lightning Breath.
Sporebat – Provides Energizing Spores.
Corehound – Provides Ancient Hysteria.
Your pets should always be specced Ferocity unless an encounter requires your pet to tank a hard-hitting mob. Controlling your pet effectively is extremely important. One of your most important buffs, Beast Cleave, causes your pet to do AoE damage to targets around itself. A lot of fights will require you to keep this buff up as much as possible. One way to increase the damage you deal through this is planning Haste buffs around when Beast Cleave will be most effective. Haste will increase the speed at which your pet attacks, and as a result your pet will cleave targets more often.
Pet movement and positioning is also essential for using Beast Cleave optimally, and will help to increase the time your pet spends attacking the target. To manage your pet perfectly, you can use the pet’s Dash ability manually (turn auto-cast off) to enable him to switch targets much more quickly. You can also use Master’s Call in order to make the pet charge towards you; this can be useful if you’re stood closer to a target your pet needs to switch to. When combining these effects with the mini charge from Kill Command and Blink Strikes, you can switch your pet to a new target almost instantly, minimizing the DPS loss from switching targets. This can also be coupled with the command Move Pet to place your pet in a position closer to where the AoE will be happening, or where a priority target will be spawning, so that it’s in position ready for the situation.
It’s also beneficial to cast a Multi-Shot on a single target to apply Beast Cleave to your pet prior to adds spawning, so that it may AoE straight away.
8. Priority and Opener
This is your standard priority list for single target. This does not include your major cooldowns.
Hunter’s Mark should be applied to the target. You only need to apply this once.
Use Kill Command on cooldown.
Use Kill Shot when the target is below 20%.
Use Dire Beast.
Apply Serpent Sting.
Use Glaive Toss.
Use Focus Fire when your pet has 5 stacks of Frenzy.
Use Arcane Shot to dump your excess focus and prevent reaching the cap.
Use Cobra Shot to generate focus when needed, or if you’re too low on focus to cast Kill Command.
Rotation Explanation
Hunters use the resource ‘focus’, which plays a key role in many of their abilities. Some abilities cost focus to use, and others generate focus when cast. Focus also regenerates automatically over time, and you can have up to 120. Understanding your focus is important, because you always want to ensure that you have enough of it to cast your key abilities as they come off cooldown, and at the same time ensuring that you never reach the cap of 120 focus so that it is never wasted.
First of all, Hunter’s Mark needs to be applied to the target. You’ll usually apply this once on the pull, and thereafter it is applied by several of your rotation abilities, so you don’t really need to worry about it. Other than that, Kill Commandshould be used on cooldown as your highest priority. After that, use Kill Shot if the enemy is below 20% health. Next, useDire Beast on cooldown (although it has some synergy with Bestial Wrath, which we’ll talk about in the cooldown section). After that, make sure Serpent Sting is applied to the target (as long as it will live for 20 seconds or more).Serpent Sting will be automatically refreshed by Cobra Shot, so you’ll only need to apply it once. After that, use Glaive Toss on cooldown.
When your pet reaches 5 stacks of Frenzy, make sure to use Focus Fire to get a Haste buff for 20 seconds. The Focus Fire button will glow when your pet has 5 stacks of Frenzy, making it easier for you to track.
Arcane Shot and Cobra Shot
Use Arcane Shot to dump any excess focus you may have to prevent yourself from capping, and use Cobra Shot to generate focus when needed, or if you’re too low on focus to cast Kill Command. In addition to that, you can also useCobra Shot if you lack focus to execute a more important ability. This is where forward planning comes in; as a Hunter it’s extremely important to ensure you have enough focus for your important abilities (such as Kill Command) so that you can use them instantly as they become available. A safe way to do this is to always ensure that you always have 30 focus or more, but never allowing it to go over the cap (which essentially wastes damage). Arcane Shot will be your main way to balance how much focus you have to enable you to never waste focus, and never have too little so that you stall the casting of Kill Command, Kill Shot, Glaive Toss or Multi-Shot.
An example of this would be weaving in Cobra Shots and Arcane Shots between each Kill Command cast. In between each Kill Command, you’ll get 4-5 casts, which will contain a mixture of higher damaging abilities, with 1 or 2 of either Cobra Shot or Arcane Shot mixed in, according to how much focus you have at the time. Always judge how much focus you’ll need and how much you’ll have over the next few seconds.
General Opener
1 - Apply Hunter’s Mark before the fight starts.
2 - Use a Virmen’s Bite 1 second before pulling the boss.
3 - Use Stampede as the boss is pulled.
4 - Use Bestial Wrath, Rapid Fire, Rabid and Kill Command.
5 - Use Dire Beast.
6 - Use Glaive Toss.
7 - Apply Serpent Sting.
8 - Use Arcane Shot twice.
9 - Use Kill Command.
10 - Go on to use your standard priority
Opener while using Ticking Ebon Detonator
The idea of this alternate opener is to make the most use of the Ticking Ebon Detonator trinket. You do this by 'pre-casting' either a cobra shot or Glaive Toss (Depending on focus pre-pull) to aim to proc this trinket and your second trinket in time for your first Kill Command cast. Resulting in very large burst DPS on the pull.
1 - Apply Hunter’s Mark before the fight starts.
2 - Use a Virmen’s Bite and pre-cast Cobra Shot or Glaive Toss 1 or 0.5 seconds before pulling the boss.
3 - Use Stampede as the boss is pulled.
4 - Use Bestial Wrath, Rapid Fire, Rabid and Kill Command.
5 - Use Dire Beast.
6 - Use Glaive Toss
7 - Apply Serpent Sting.
8 - Use Arcane Shot twice (Add an extra Arcane Shot here if Glaive Toss has been used for the pre-cast)
9 - Use Kill Command.
10 - Go on to use your standard priority
9. Your Cooldowns
Bestial Wrath and Rapid Fire are both off the global cooldown, and should generally both be used immediately as they become available. However, you do want to plan around Bestial Wrath somewhat to get the most out of it. You want to make sure that every global during Bestial Wrath is one that does direct damage; ideally as many Kill Commands,Kill Shots and Arcane Shots as possible. To prepare for this, you should do a few things:
Try to have high focus when Bestial Wrath comes off cooldown.
Ensure you won’t need to refresh Serpent Sting during it.
Try to fit two Kill Commands into it by ensuring Kill Command will be ready early during the buff.
In addition, it’s also very beneficial if you can cast Dire Beast immediately before using Bestial Wrath, since the focus provided by these effects will be very beneficial during Bestial Wrath. Whether or not you have Assurance of Consequence and what version of it you have will determine how will these line up. Don’t delay either cooldown by more than a few seconds to line up. Likewise with your pet’s ability Rabid, you should generally use it on cooldown, but try to sync it with Bestial Wrath if they’re within 10 seconds of each other.
Focus Fire can generally just be used when it reaches 5 stacks and the button starts glowing. Due to this ability dealing no direct damage it is best to avoid using it during highly buffed phases. Not only will the Frenzy stacks on your pet cause your pet to be attacking faster during the high damage phase, it will also mean you get more direct damage out. In an ideal situation, Frenzy will hit 5 stacks within a few seconds of you needing to use Bestial Wrath. You would go through the full Bestial Wrath phase casting direct damage shots and ignoring the Focus Fire proc. When Bestial Wrath ends you use Focus Fire as soon as the priority allows for it and use the increased ranged haste to regenerate the lost focus.
Stampede should also be used on cooldown. Due to its long cooldown, you can usually only use it twice in each fight anyway so it’s best used once in the opener and then again as many times as possible during the encounter. You can save it for important periods of burst damage if necessary, and it’s also good to use it during a late Heroism if possible, or during trinket procs and your second Virmen’s Bite.
10. Multiple Target Abilities and Priority
Against two or more enemies, maintain your single target rotation, but use Barrage instead of Glaive Toss, and useMulti-Shot often enough to apply the Beast Cleave buff on your pet.This means you’ll be using Multi-Shot roughly every 4 seconds. You should still prioritise using Kill Command Kill Shot on cooldown. It’s also very important to control your pet to make the most of Beast Cleave, by having your pet attack the target in the center of an AoE pack so that it hits as many targets as possible. In addition, Serpent Sting should ideally be applied to two targets, and refreshed by using Cobra Shot on each target as you would normally. You won’t add extra Cobra Shots into your rotation to do this, you’ll simply alternate targets with it as necessary to extend the Serpent Sting.
Against five or more enemies, use Multi-Shot enough to keep 100% uptime on Beast Cleave, then use Barrage every time it’s available. Other than that, use a mixture of Multi-Shot to deal AoE damage and Cobra Shot to generate focus.
11. Extra Tips
Useful Macros
Send/Recall Pet - If your pet does not have a target it will be sent to attack your current target. If it does, It will return to you.
/petattack [target=pettarget,noexists]
/petfollow [target=pettarget,exists]
Dual-Abilities - You can double up many abilities in this way. Casts Scatter shot when mousing over an enemy or Master's Call when mousing over a friendly target. Great for de-cluttering your action bars. Other useful ways to use this would be for Tanqulizing shot/Spirit Mend, Distracting Shot/Misdirection etc.
#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,harm] Scatter Shot; [target=mouseover,help] Master's Call
User Interface
The link below is to the forum thread in which Riisings UI can be downloaded and installed for you to try out for yourselves - Enjoy!
Riisings UI