Beast Mastery Hunter Talents Guide

Beast Mastery Hunter has different builds for single target and AoE for both Hero Talent Tree choices. Pack Leader is generally ahead of Dark Ranger in Single Target. For Mythic+ Dungeons I would recommend playing Dark Ranger.

C0PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMmxwCsAzohG2AAAAAAwYMLjHYWmZGMzYmhFmxMjxMjJzYGzMzMGzMmhxYGDMDWmZYDAAAAAAA

C0PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMmxwCsAzohG2AAAAAAwgxYmlZmBzMmZGLDzyMjxMjJzYGzMzMGzMmhxYGDMDWmZYDAAAAAAA

C0PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMmxwCsBzohG2AAAAAAwYMbz8AjZmBmZMDLmZMzYMzYyMmxMzMzwMjZYMMGYGmlZG2AAAAAAAA

C0PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMmxwCsBzohG2AAAAAAwwMm5BsMzYwMzMzYxYMzYMzMTmxMmZmZGmZMDjhxAzwsMzwGAAAAAAA

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:

• Specialized Arsenal: a flat 10% damage increase to Kill Command.
• Explosive Shot with Blackrock Munitions: AoE burst ability that is also a decent AoE 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, Rejuvenating Wind and Wilderness Medicine 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.

The Beast Mastery tree has received a lot of changes, leaving us with a couple of different build options.

Amongst some talents like Animal Companion, 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, Poisoned Barbs or Laceration.

Dire Beast procs from Dire Command no longer work with Huntmaster’s Call, which takes away a lot of value from those talent points. With Dire Cleave, our Dire Beasts could also gain access to Beast Cleave, which is sadly not very powerful and leaves us with other passive options for our builds in AoE.

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.

Dark Ranger:

Dark Ranger replaces Kill Shot with a stronger version called Black Arrow, that we can use above 80% and below 20% HP. We also receive a different variety of ways to reset Black Arrow, with Auto-Shots and Black Arrow itself. Withering Fire is our capstone node for Dark Ranger. When chosen, Call of the WIld will proc Deathblow automatically every 4 seconds, on top of enhancing Black Arrow to cleave to 2 extra targets for the duration.

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 Howl of the Pack Leader and Lead From the Front. Those allow our Kill Command to occasionally summon very strong Beasts. The rest of the nodes all play really well into this fantasy, by either increasing the effect of those beasts, or making you summon more of them.

Noteworthy mentions would include Pack Mentality, which grants you a Barbed Shot reset, whenever you summon a Beast, and No Mercy, which lets Kill Shot trigger your Pets’ special attacks.

The defensive trait in the Hero Tree is Shell Cover. It automatically triggers, up to once every 90 seconds, when dropping below 60% of your Health, granting you some damage reduction. It is really underwhelming and useless is most scenarios.