Hunter Talent Trees

Upon reaching level 10 you receive your first talent point and will continue to receive one with every level gain (maximum of 61 at level 70). Talent points can be spent in 3 different talent trees, allowing a degree of customisation over your character`s abilities. The talent trees available for the hunter class are Beast Mastery, Marksmen and Survival.

Beast Mastery: Often referred to as BM, the Beast Mastery tree focuses on improving the hunter`s pet with various talents that increase health, armor, attack speed and damage. Other talents reduce the mana cost when healing or resurrecting your pet. As a BM hunter, downtime while leveling is greatly reduced and thus is the most popular build to level with.

A beast master is quite a ferocious opponent in PVP especially when facing caster classes, as their spells are often interrupted due to the pet`s higher attack speed with the talent “frenzy”. With the additional damage and skill “bestial wrath” (+50% damage for 18 seconds), cloth wearers sustain heavy damage and are often killed by the pet while trying to flee. A pet under the effect of bestial wrath is completely unstoppable unless killed and also works great on rogues. The downside to BM hunters is that classes with higher health and armor rating, such as warriors and paladins are harder to kill as the pet is less effective against them. Single target damage is also less compared to other builds, as a large part of the hunter`s damage comes from the pet. For these later reasons, the BM spec is not suitable for raids.

Stats to focus on: stamina, agility, attack power and resilience (as you are likely to be focusing on PVP as a beast master)

Marksman: The marksman tree (MM) is the main raiding build, focusing on improving a hunter`s ranged damage while offering buffs which assist in increasing the group or raid`s overall damage. Marksmanship is the most popular build for hunters as it is also quite feasible for PVP possessing some useful abilities such as “scatter shot” which disorientates the target for 4 seconds unless interrupted and “silencing shot”. Cowering behind a group of other players on the battleground or arena, a MM hunter can unleash some serious pain…just be sure to watch your back for lingering rogues. The main disadvantage of PVPing as MM, is that it is vulnerable to opponents getting too close and does not allow for much survivability.

Regardless of which talent tree a hunter chooses to specialise in, almost all hunters spend a minimum of 20 talent points to acquire “mortal shots”, increasing the ranged critical bonus damage by 30%. Another favorite being “aimed shot” which deals devastating damage if a critical is scored and also reduces the healing done to your target by 50%. Aimed shot, although extremely useful in PVP should almost never be used in groups or raids except as an opening shot in conjunction with “misdirect” to draw more threat to the main tank. Using aimed shot often will drastically decrease your overall damage and may cause the tank to loose agro.

Stats to focus on: agility, intelligence, attack power and + hit (swap + hit with resilience for PVP)

Survival: Possessing various ways to immobilise and even sleep, the survival tree specialises in keeping enemies at range and escaping melee combat. More emphasises is placed on defense, providing more balance between ranged and melee attacks (unlike BM or MM which focus on almost purely range). The survival tree is not for leveling and relies heavily on agility, thus generally not recommended for hunters with less than 600 agility unbuffed.

Survival hunters are less common compared to BM and MM hunters, yet are particularly useful in raids and especially heroic instances due to improved traps. The talent “expose weakness” increases the attack power of all attackers against your target by 25% of your total agility each time you score a critical hit, lasting 7 seconds. (3/3 talent points). In conjunction with “lightning reflexes” and “master tactician”, a survival hunter can almost indefinitely maintain the presence of expose weakness on the target, greatly boosting your raid`s overall damage. For this reason, a well-geared survival hunter is recommended for any raid.

PVPing as a survival hunter is the most technical spec to play, but used appropriately it can be extremely annoying to enemy players.

Stats to focus on: stamina, agility, intelligence and + hit (swap + hit with resilience for PVP)

Recommended Builds

Beast Master (PVP)
Marksmen (PVE)
Survival (PVE)
Survival (PVP)

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