General Information
On this page, we list your Beast Mastery Hunter core
abilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of Warcraft
MoP 5.4. We also explain when
to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties
that you will need to know if you want to excel at playing a Beast Mastery
Hunter.
The other pages of our Beast Mastery Hunter guide can be accessed
from the table of contents on the right.
1. Single Target Rotation↑top
The single target rotation for a Beast Mastery Hunter is based on the
following priority system.
- Apply
Hunter's Mark on the target.
- Cast
Kill Command on cooldown.
- Cast
Kill Shot (only available below 20% health).
- Apply and maintain
Serpent Sting to the target
- it will be refreshed by
Cobra Shot so it only needs to be done
once, normally.
- Cast your Tier 6 talent (normally
Glaive Toss).
- Cast your Tier 4 talent (normally
Dire Beast).
- Cast
Focus Fire when your pet's
Frenzy reaches 5 stacks
(the icon will glow)
- Cast
Arcane Shot to dump any excess focus.
- Cast
Cobra Shot.
2. Multiple Target Rotation↑top
When facing 2 enemies, maintain your single target rotation, while using
Multi-Shot to apply the
Beast Cleave buff on your pet. Unlike in the
situation when you are facing 3-4 enemies (discussed below), you do not need
to worry about maintaining 100% uptime on Beast Cleave (for example, you
should never delay a
Kill Command for this purpose). Additionally, you
should try to keep
Serpent Sting up on both targets.
When facing 3-4 enemies, maintain your single target rotation, while
using
Multi-Shot once every 4 seconds to keep up the
Beast Cleave
buff on your pet.
Against 5 or more enemies, you should abandon your normal shot priority
and instead use the following priority instead:
- Cast
Multi-Shot as often as your focus allows.
- Cast
Kill Shot.
- Cast
Glaive Toss in such a way that it hits all enemies. If AoE damage
is of paramount importance, you should choose
Barrage instead of Glaive
Toss.
- Cast
Cobra Shot whenever you have insufficient focus for
Multi-Shot.
If you can ensure having 5 or more targets in the area affected by
Explosive Trap for its full duration (20 seconds), then using Explosive
Trap in such a way is a DPS increase.
3. Cooldown Usage↑top
In this section, we assume that you have taken
Dire Beast,
A Murder of Crows, and
Glaive Toss from your tier 4, 5, and 6
talents, respectively. This is because we deem them to be best talents for your
DPS (in fact,
Blink Strikes is actually slightly better than A Murder of
Crows, but since Blink Strikes is passive, there is no recommended usage for
it).
In short, this is how you should make use of your DPS cooldowns.
Bestial Wrath,
Rapid Fire,
Dire Beast,
A Murder of Crows, and
Stampede should be used as many times as
possible during the encounter. Stacking Rapid Fire and Bestial Wrath provides
no real benefit.
Rabid (an ability your pet gains if you choose the Ferocity
specialisation) should be used intelligently, and never on auto-cast. You
should try to stack it with
Bestial Wrath whenever possible. If you have
the
Assurance of Consequence trinket, make sure to line the two abilities
up without wasting too much time on their cooldown.
Glaive Toss should be used on cooldown.
More details about cooldown usage, as well as information about the other
talents (that we do not deem optimal at the moment) can be found in our
detailed cooldown usage section.
4. Aspects↑top
You should always have an Aspect active. As a Beast Mastery Hunter, you
should always be using
Aspect of the Hawk.
Aspect of the Cheetah and
Aspect of the Pack are generally not
advised during combat because of their negative dazing effect, but can be useful
for speeding up your raid's running after a wipe. Note that in the case of
Aspect of the Cheetah, you can remove the dazing penalty by using
Glyph of Aspect of the Cheetah.
A hunter's aspect will persist until removed by the hunter or until
the hunter's death. Aspects can be changed in combat, but they cannot be
changed while a cast is in progress. Aspects are on the global cooldown.
5. Optional Read: Mastering Your Beast Mastery Hunter↑top
While the rotations we gave in the previous sections will yield very good
results, there are many things you should be aware of, in order to play your
Beast Mastery Hunter to its full potential. You will need to understand all the
subtleties, pertaining to your abilities, rotations, and cooldown usage, that
we present below.
5.1. Focus
Hunters and their pets use a unique resource, called focus. Focus works
in much the same way as other class resources, like rage and energy, in
the sense that some abilities grant focus, while others cost focus in order
to be used.
A Beast Mastery Hunter's focus has a maximum capacity of 120, and
regenerates at an innate rate of 4 focus per second. This rate is increased
by Haste Rating. In addition to this, certain abilities such as
Steady Shot (Marksmanship-only) and
Cobra Shot (Beast Mastery
and Survival-only) also grant focus.
Most of the abilities in the hunter rotation cost focus to use, and some
talents decrease the focus costs, or offer other ways to gain additional
focus.
Hunter pet focus works similarly, and is of no concern to you as you cannot
do anything to modify it, nor will you be casting pet abilities manually.
As a general rule, you should always have enough focus to cast
your shots as soon as they come off cooldown, but also to never have
120 focus (as any extra focus you generate would then go to
waste).
5.2. Auto-shots and Special Shots
Hunters do the majority of their damage through the use of shots. The
rest of the damage is made up of pet damage and DoT damage.
Auto Shot is the default Hunter attack, which works similarly to
melee classes' auto attacks or "white swings". It is affected by your
Ranged Attack Speed, and it continues to work while moving.
The other hunter shots are of all varieties: instant cast or with a cast
time, costing focus or granting focus, and some are utility shots which
cost no focus and deal no damage.
One of the most important aspects of doing competitive Hunter DPS is to make
sure your shots are always used without delay.
5.3. Pet Contribution
The greatest contribution to your DPS is your pet's damage, both through
its simple melee attacks and through
Kill Command. For this reason, it
is imperative that your pet is always on the target, stays alive, and that
you always cast Kill Command on cooldown. Keep this in mind, otherwise
your DPS will plummet.
There are a few useful things to remember regarding pet movement.
First of all, when you are switching targets, if you simply target a new
enemy and use
Kill Command, your pet will cast Kill Command on its
current (your old) target. Therefore, you must always make sure to tell your
pet to first change target (through the Pet Attack command), and then use
Kill Command.
Secondly, if you need to have your pet move to a target that is far from it,
you can help close the gap faster by having the pet use
Master's Call on
a friendly target that is located between the two enemies.
5.4. Detailed Cooldown Usage
5.4.1. Focus Fire
Focus Fire should be used as soon as your pet's
Frenzy
reaches 5 stacks. When that happens, your pet's buff of 20% increased attack
speed will be transformed into a 30% ranged haste buff for you. The duration
of the buff is 20 seconds, and it takes between 25 and 30 seconds for
Frenzy to reach 5 stacks on your pet again. This means that while you
usually will not be able to maintain 100% uptime on Focus Fire.
You should never use Focus Fire while Bestial Wrath is active, since this is
basically a wasted global cooldown, and during Bestial Wrath you must make
every global cooldown deal damage.
5.4.2. Bestial Wrath
Bestial Wrath should, as well, be used as many times as possible
during an encounter. In addition to the aforementioned interaction with Focus
Fire, it's also advisable to delay your Bestial Wrath so that its duration
lines up with
Kill Command cooldowns in such a way that you can use
two Kill Commands during Bestial Wrath. You should ensure that you have a fair
amount of focus when casting Bestial Wrath, and you should spend its 10 second
duration casting Kill Command and
Arcane Shot, and as few
Cobra Shots as possible (ideally none).
You should make sure that
Serpent Sting has enough duration before
using Bestial Wrath so that it does not drop off while Bestial Wrath is
active.
If you have the
Dire Beast talent, then you should ideally summon the
Dire Beast a few seconds before using Bestial Wrath.
5.4.3. Rapid Fire
Rapid Fire should be used as many times as possible during the
encounter. Stacking it with
Heroism/
Bloodlust/
Time Warp is
entirely viable (do not worry if your Cobra Shot cast time is lower than your
global cooldown). It is advised to stack it with any other procs, on-use
trinkets, potions, and fight mechanics that cause you to deal increased
damage.
Note that if you have the 2-Part Tier 16 Set Bonus, you should use Rapid Fire as often as possible, and
not attempt to delay it in order to stack it with anything else.
5.4.4. Rabid
Rabid increases your pet's attack speed by 70% for 20 seconds, with
a 90-second cooldown. You should use this ability as many times as possible
during the encounter. For maximum benefit, it is ideal to stack it with
Bestial Wrath.
5.4.5. Stampede
Stampede's 5-minute cooldown means that it will most likely
only be used twice during the vast majority of encounters. Your only concern is
to make sure that it is cast as many times as possible during the fight. If
there are moments when the boss takes increased damage, or when burst damage is
important to your raid's strategy, you should save Stampede for such a
time.
Note that
Rapid Fire does not affect your Stampede, since it does
not give you Haste, but rather Ranged Haste (which does not affect the attack
speed of the beasts).
It is recommended to use your second Agility potion together with
Stampede.
5.4.6. Tier 4 Talents
Dire Beast usage is very simple. It should be used on cooldown, and
ideally before using
Bestial Wrath whenever this is applicable (since it
will generate extra focus for you while Bestial Wrath is active).
Fervor should also be used on cooldown, with the mention that you
should only use it when neither you, nor your pet, are at or above 50
Focus. It is also good to use it during a Bestial Wrath to give your pet some
extra focus during this burst of damage.
Thrill of the Hunt will sometimes provide you with a focus cost
reduction for your next 3
Arcane Shots or
Multi-Shots. You
will simply benefit from this reduction passively, although you do have to
be careful not to reach maximum focus.
5.4.7. Tier 5 Talents
A Murder of Crows should be used as many times as possible during
the fight. The damage done by A Murder of Crows updates dynamically with your
attack power, so there is no need to wait for trinket procs before using it.
Lynx Rush should be used on cooldown. It is beneficial to stack
Lynx Rush with
Bestial Wrath, but do not go out of your way to delay
either of the two spells in order to accomplish this, as that would indeed be
a DPS loss. There is no benefit in stacking Lynx Rush with anything else.
Blink Strikes is a passive ability, so it requires no explanations.
5.4.8. Tier 6 Talents
Glaive Toss should be used on cooldown. In case there are
additional targets in the fight, you should position yourself in such a way
that the glaives hit the other targets too.
Barrage should be used on cooldown, ideally with
Focus Fire
active. Moreover, using Barrage while there is a
Stormlash Totem active
is extremely beneficial.
Powershot should be used on cooldown.
In the case of Powershot, you should follow the same positional
recommendation that we issued with regards to Glaive Toss.
It is interesting to note that you can change where Barrage is directed by
turning your character while channeling the spell. This allows you to hit
more targets than those you were initially facing.
5.5. AoE Pets
As a Beast Mastery Hunter, two exotic pets have AoE abilities of their own.
Using these pets for AoE will yield a DPS loss over following the multiple
target rotation we gave at the start of this page, but we mention these two
pets for completeness.
5.6. Opening Sequence
We will provide you with an example of an opening sequence that maximises
the gains from abilities and cooldowns:
- Make sure that
Hunter's Mark is applied to the target.
- Cast
Bestial Wrath,
Kill Command, and
Rapid Fire.
- Cast
Stampede.
- Cast
Dire Beast.
- Cast
Glaive Toss.
- Cast
Serpent Sting.
- Cast
Arcane Shot (until
Bestial Wrath is over).
Rapid Fire is used early not because of any synergy with Stampede, but
simply because it is best for it to be active as soon as possible, while your
potion and other buffs and procs are active.
Naturally, whenever we suggest the use of an ability that comes from a
talent, it assumes you have taken that talent. In most cases, these are also
currently the best talents.
The influence of your opening rotation on your overall DPS is generally
quite small, so do not spend too much time stressing over it.
6. Changelog↑top
- 02 Mar. 2014: Made several updates, especially regarding cooldown
usage and the opening rotation.
- 19 Nov. 2013: Updated the multiple-target rotation, as well as the
opening sequence. Added a mention that
Rapid Fire is best on cooldown
with the 2-Part Tier 16 Set Bonus.
- 10 Sep. 2013: Patch 5.4 update.
- Removed all mentions of Readiness, since this ability has been removed
from the game.
- Removed all mentions of the usefulness of stacking
Rapid Fire with
Stampede. Stampede beasts now no longer perform basic attacks, so there
is no benefit from Rapid Fire anymore.
- Updated the Opening Sequence to account for Readiness being gone.
- 24 May 2013: Fixed an incorrect mention of
Rabid's
cooldown.
- 23 May 2013: Moved the AoE pets to their own section, and mentioned
that using them is not a DPS gain.
- 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update.
- Mentioned that
Blink Strikes is now passive and does not require any
kind of management.
- Removed mention of
Rabid's cooldown being lower (since this
aspect was removed, and it is now on the same cooldown as for the other two
Hunter specs). Added mentions that Rabid should be stacked with every other
Bestial Wrath.
- 20 Apr. 2013: Corrected the innate focus regeneration rate from 6
to 4 per second.
- 13 Apr. 2013: Made several important updates.
- Refined the single target and AoE rotations.
- Improved the recommendations for cooldown usage in the case of almost every
cooldown.
- Added emphasis on focus management and using your shots without delay.
- Added more details about how to best manage your pet's movement.
- Added a mention that you can change the facing of your character while
Barrage is being channeled, which affects where you are shooting.
- Revamped the Opening Sequence section.