Fluffy’s got competition! Yes, WoW Patch 5.3 and Mists of Pandaria has seen the other hunter specs buffed to equal our claws-and-teeth fury! So, let’s not waste any time – we’ll get your talents, glyphs, stats, reforging and gems, and ability rotation set up in no time in MoP, so you can let Fluffy out to play before he chews through the bars of his cage…
Updated 22nd May 2013 to World of Warcraft Patch 5.3
Beast Mastery changes in Patch 5.3
One change – Blink Strike is now a passive ability, and may well do better damage than Murder of Crows. Given its utility and easy of use, we’re now recommending it over Murder of Crows.
Beast Mastery “Rotation” and Priorities
The major change to Beast Mastery in MoP is that Kill Command is now made of 100% more awesome – it includes a charge component, so Fluffy will go zipping off to chew on whatever you tell him to.
Always Misdirect onto the tank at the start of any pull. Fluffy is awesome, but you still don’t want him tanking a raid boss.
Single-target DPS
When starting to attack any target, put Hunter’s Mark and Serpent Sting up on them. You shouldn’t subsequently have to refresh either.
- Top Priority: If Kill Command is available, use it. If Kill Shot is available, use it.
- Second Priority: If the Focus Fire icon is glowing (your pet is at 5 stacks of Frenzy), use it.
- Third Priority: If you’ve got 70 Focus or more, cast Arcane Shot. Otherwise, cast Cobra Shot.
Don’t stress your timing of Focus Fire – testing shows it’s, erm, less than critical. Indeed, you can ignore it and still do 95% of the DPS you’d do otherwise.
AOE DPS
For less than 4 opponents, perform your single-target rotation.
Against 4 or more opponents:
- Top Priority: Place an Explosive Trap under your opponents with Trap Launcher, if one’s not already running.
- Second Priority: Fire Kill Shot if it’s available. If not, fire Multi-Shot.
- Third Priority: Fire Cobra Shot.
Cooldowns
- Rapid Fire and Bestial Wrath – Use whenever they’re available.
- Readiness – Use after you’ve used most of your other cooldowns to reset them.
- Stampede – Use whenever it’s available.
- Feign Death – See that thing chewing on your leg? Use this to stop that happening. Voted #2 ability Most Often Forgotten By Hunters (after Misdirect).
- Disengage – Leap backward – useful in a wide variety of situations.
- Deterrance – Powerful defensive CD – most often useful if Feign Death is on cooldown or didn’t work!
Buffs
Keep Aspect of the Hawk up.
Remember, you can bring a variety of buffs to your party or raid by bringing different pets. If you’re raiding, ask your raid leader what she/he would prefer.
Beast Mastery Hunter Talent Choices
Tiers 4 and 5 are just The Best Choice for all Hunters right now. For the other tiers, this is a good starting build, but do experiment to find your personal preferred choices:
- Tier 1: Posthaste – gives you a speed boost after Disengaging.
- Tier 2: Silencing Shot – gives you a spell interrupt ability.
- Tier 3: Aspect of the Iron Hawk
- Tier 4: Dire Beast – DPS cooldown. Use whenever available.
- Tier 5: Blink Strikes
- Tier 6: Glaive Toss – use whenever it’s available.
Stats, reforging and gemming for Beast Mastery Hunters
Bad news – we need Hit AND Expertise now.
Stats order: Agility > Hit (until capped at 2550 / 7.5%) and Expertise (until capped at 2550 / 7.5%) > Critical Strike > Haste > Mastery
Reforging: Reforge for Hit and Expertise cap, then reforge for Crit. Reforge from excess Hit and Expertise first, then Mastery, then Haste.
Gems: Delicate (Agility) gems in Red sockets, Adept (Mastery/Agi) in Yellow sockets, Glinting (Hit/Agi) in blue sockets.
Meta Gem: Agile meta gems.
Beast Mastery Glyphs
There’s a lot of choice in Glyphs now, and none of them are really mandatory. However, here’s a good starting build:
Major: Glyph of Animal Bond, Glyph of Liberate, Glyph of Deterrence.
Minor: Glyph of Aspect of the Cheetah is great, as is Glyph of Fetch – with the latter, your pet can loot for you!
Beast Mastery Hunter enchants and item enhancements
You should almost always use a profession enhancement item if it provides appropriate stats instead of a general enchant.
- Shoulder – Greater Tiger Claw Inscription
- Cloak – Accuracy or Superior Critical Strike, depending on if you’re at hit cap.
- Chest – Glorious Stats
- Wrist – Greater Agility
- Hands – Superior Expertise
- Belt – Living Steel Belt Buckle
- Legs – Shadowleather Leg Armor
- Feet – Blurred Speed
- Ranged – Lord Blastington’s Scope of Doom
Links
If you want to get into more detail with your Beast Mastery play:
- Icy Veins have a good Beast Mastery Hunter guide – more detail on ability usage and talents in particular
- Warcraft Hunter’s Union is a great source for all Hunters – here’s their MoP guide
- You should really check out the latest and greatest from the blogosphere on World of Warcraft, here at the Melting Pot.
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank ye!
Best Guide for 5.0! Thank you.
Great, tanks a lot!
Yes was just wondering about the current secondary Stat Priority…..I am currently going with Critical Strike>=Mastery>Haste…but have seen a lot of other sites saying it should be Mastery>Critical Strike>Haste…just wondering your thoughts on this?
Go with Mastery > Crit > Haste. That’s the endgame priority right now – it took a week or so for the theorycraft to shake down, but it’s correct, particularly because of the synergy between Crit and Mastery.
I’m updating the guide right now so hopefully no-one else will be confused – thanks!
Is this stat priority recommendation still accurate in 5.2?
No, in 5.2 you want Crit>Haste>Mastery, it seems. I’ve updated the guide to that effect.
Great read very informative
Something to note for all hunters. Aspect of the Hawk / Ironhawk has been buffed to 15% AP. Up from 10%. The tooltip still says 10% but it has been increased. Hotfix to patch 5.1.
Awesome – thanks for the heads-up!
So why have the stats switched and why haven’t the other sites reported it?
Dire Beast over Thrill of the hunt? Never………………
agree with that… if arcane shot is priority, then thrill of the hunt would be much better.
Under section titled, “Beast Mastery Hunter enchants and item enhancements,” add:
Rings: Greater Agility
*This enchant adds +160 agility to each ring.
What about Spirit Bond? I thought it was great for BM