Beast Mastery Hunter PvP Talents and Builds (The War Within Pre-Patch) (2024)

Note that builds here are generic recommendations for Arena. There aretweaks that are effective in certain matchups. A description of suggested alterations or options is included with each build.

You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each ofthem has its uses, but some are better for certain strategies and matchupsthan others.

Survival Tactics is the best overall PvP Talent. It turns Feign Death into your best defensive ability by negating damage forthree seconds. This talent is very powerful into burst specializations whentimed correctly.

When facing matchups where you are guaranteed to not be attacked,there are occasionally better options, but it is safer to just always play thistalent.

Kindred Beasts is a default pick for Beast Mastery Hunters in mostcases. Usually you will use this with a Cunning pet for the additional mobilityfor you as well as your pet, but it is also very powerful with a Tenacity petwhen you expect to be the kill target, and the Ferocity effect is situationallydecent.

• Cunning pets: The reduced cooldown on Master's Call is great forcountering one of Beast Mastery's biggest weaknesses: pets being prone togetting slowed or rooted.Often, you will want to use Master's Call to break your pet out of a Frost Nova or Earthgrab Totem, and with the reduced cooldown, theopportunity cost of using Master's Call to break your pet out of slows isgreatly reduced. It is also very helpful for your own mobility (and the rest ofyour team, as the freedom effect does not affect nearby allies).
• Tenacity: Your Fortitude of the Bear (which is usable while you arein crowd control as long as your pet is not in crowd control) now has a oneminute cooldown and increases the health of nearby allies by 10% for 10seconds
• Ferocity: Your Primal Rage is now usable in Arena and grants 12%haste for 20 seconds to your team.

Chimaeral Sting is a versatile ability that can be used in many ways, for example:

• To silence an enemy healer while bursting their partner (note that it doesdamage on application and the silence only applies after 3 seconds, so youcannot chimaeral sting during or immediately after a trap)
• To silence a healer before swapping to them (particularly good againstpriests as they cannot use Pain Suppression when silenced, when theywould have been able to if you swapped with Intimidation)
• To peel a DPS on their go (for example, use Chimaeral Sting on a Mage whenthey cast Dragon's Breath; they will still be able to Polymorphyour healer, but will be silenced immediately afterward and not be able tocapitalize on the Polymorph, or cancel a Shaman's Lightning Lassowhen you know it is coming)
• To cancel a Restoration Druid's Tranquility by casting ChimaeralSting before they use it
• To deny a healer's trinket by casting Chimaeral Sting when they are stunned(when they trinket the stun, they are instantly silenced)
• To apply a powerful slow to a melee DPS when you have no other options

The Beast Within will give a slight damage bonus to all of your petsbut will also make you and your pet immune to fear and horror effects for 8seconds after using Bestial Wrath. It is important to note that you canuse Bestial Wrath during crowd control, but even with this talent, Bestial Wrathwill not break fears on yourself. You must use Bestial Wrath before the fearhits you to be immune to it.

Dire Beast: Basilisk is a powerful, damaging ability against unawareplayers. Usually, this is used when playing with a Death Knight, who is able tolock down targets into one area and heavily slow them. The spawned Basiliskdoes a surprising amount of damage when a player does not move away from it.This is easily countered, though, so it is not played often.

Diamond Ice makes your Freezing Trap undispellable butreduces the duration and makes the target immune to all spells while active.This is useful:

• Against Shadow Priests, Demon Hunters, and Affliction/Destruction Warlocksthat are otherwise able to dispel your Freezing Trap
• To crowd control DPS players without the healer being able to dispel thetrap
• To keep a target at low health (you can trap a target at low health andswap to another enemy, and their healer will not be able to recover thetarget's health during the trap).
• When you are playing with a specialization like Unholy Death Knight, whichhas area of effect built into a lot of its spells and would otherwise breaktraps if a healer was near your kill target.

Interlope is powerful into casters and hunters. You can Interlope your healer when they are stunned, to eat an enemy Hunter's Freezing Trap or use it on yourself/your team to absorb spell casts.The pet positioning requirement of this spell can make it awkward to use, butwhen used properly, it is a very powerful defensive talent. (Remember that youneed to talent into Misdirection to use this!)

Hunting Pack is a mobility talent that vastly reduces the cooldownof Aspect of the Cheetah and applies its buff to your teammates butrequires your teammates to be within 15 yards. There are better talentsavailable to you in most cases, but this is occasionally worth taking.

Wild Kingdom will help you keep your pet alive. With properpositioning of your pet and using Mend Pet and Exhilarationproperly, your pet should not die often. Remember that if your team alreadyhas a Mortal Strike effect, you can use a Mechanical family pet,which will be significantly more tanky than a regular pet anyway.

Dire Beast: Hawk does some area of effect damage in a 10-yard radius,but the damage isn't significant, and in Arena, where you want damage to befocused more on one target, Dire Beast: Basilisk is more valuable againsta target that isn't moving.

As a Beast Mastery Hunter, you have access to "Exotic" pet families throughyour Exotic Beasts passive. The benefit of Exotic pets over regularpets is that they have an extra Exotic ability. This is the only benefit, andtheir damage is not tuned higher than regular pets.

Counterintuitively, you will not use Exotic pets often in PvP. This isbecause there is only one Exotic pet type which has the Mortal Strikeeffect, which is Devilsaurs.

Unfortunately, Devilsaurs belong to the Ferocity family, which isthe least useful pet family, and their exotic ability Feast has nomeaningful benefit over regular pets.

You will always play with the talent Animal Companion, though, whichwill give you a second pet at all times. The pet you choose to summon withAnimal Companion is purely cosmetic, and it does not use special abilities orgrant bonuses based on the type of pet.

The pet category of your Animal Companion may make it vulnerable to certaincrowd control spells, but this will rarely make a difference in Arena an enemycasting crowd control on a secondary pet is unlikely to get any value from it.It may be worth avoiding using an Undead Animal Companion, though, soRetribution Paladins cannot accidentally stun it with Wake of Ashes

The explanation of pet choices in this guide goes into a lot of detail, butthe following pet Families have Mortal Strike (also known as MortalWounds) and are your default choices.

• Undead Raptor (default)
• Rodent (if facing aRetribution Paladin).
• Riverbeast (if you are worried about dying in a stun)

You can use other pets when your team already has a Mortal Wounds effect,but doing this does risk your team having slightly lower uptime on the MortalStrike debuff (e.g., when your partner isn't able to connect or when you switchtargets).

Pets do not have talent trees and instead have their own types ofspecialization (Cunning, Ferocity, or Tenacity).

Each pet specialization gives an active ability and a passive ability.

As a Beast Mastery Hunter, your active pet specialisation ability will beenhanced when you play the Kindred Beasts PvP talent.

• Cunning pets provide Pathfinding and Master's Call
• Tenacity pets provide Fortitude of the Bear and Endurance Training
• Ferocity pets provide Primal Rage (which is not usable inarena unless you have the Kindred Beasts talent!) and Predator's Thirst

Usually, your default pet should be of the Cunning specialization. Thisspecialization will keep you the most mobile and help you avoid sustaineddamage by making it easier to kite enemies.

Importantly, choosing a Cunning pet will also increase your pet's movementspeed and Master's Call will give you the ability to dispel slows orroots from your pet to keep them on target. You should be aware of when yourpet is rooted and use Master's Call whenever it is to maintain their damageand allow you to use your core rotational ability Kill Command.

When you are facing a composition that can only kill you by bursting duringstun windows, kiting becomes less important, and Tenacity pets become verypowerful. The very common examples of matchups where you would use a tenacitypet are RMP (Rogue Mage Priest) in 3v3 or Subtlety Rogue + Mage or Priest teamsin 2v2. Be aware that you cannot use Fortitude of the Bear while your petis in crowd control (which is particularly relevant when you are facing RMP andthe Mage uses Ring of Frost on your pet).

There are situations when you can also save your teammate using Fortitude of the Bear when using the Kindred Beasts talent, as it willtemporarily the health of nearby allies by 10%.

The leech effect from Ferocity pets has little value as Beast Mastery, asthe bulk of your damage is done by pets, and you will not receive much healingto yourself. Without Kindred Beasts, you also will not be able to use Primal Rage in Arena.

Occasionally, you may encounter a situation in the Arena where neither theCunning or Tenacity effects are useful to you, and in those situations, you canuse a Ferocity pet with Kindred Beasts, as it will make Primal Rageusable in Arena and reduce the cooldown to three minutes (although the hasteincrease is reduced to 12% and the duration reduced to 20 seconds).

However, combining a Ferocity pet with Kindred Beasts is an exceptionallypowerful tactic in Battlegrounds, when the effect will hit many allies at onceat the start of a fight and give your team a noticeable advantage.

• Raptor Family (choose an undead raptor)

Use an Undead Raptor against teams that have a Mage, Shaman, Druid, or Hunter(so your pet is immune to Polymorph, Hex, Hibernateand Scare Beast).

• Rodent Family

Use a Rodent against a team that has a Priest or Paladin (so your pet isimmune to Wake of Ashes, Turn Evil and Shackle Undead).

• Aqiri Family

Use an Aqiri pet because it has the Exotic passive ability Dune Strider, this will lead to your pet having higher uptime (andtherefore damage) on your targets. Aqiri Pets also provide Tendon Rip,which will not always be active as the cooldown is longer than the duration,but is a nice crowd control on your target that will sometimes save you fromusing a global cooldown on Concussive Shot.

• Mechanical Family

Use a mechanical pet when you think your pet is likely to take damage andrequire maintenance with Mend Pet. Mechanical pets are immune to allcategory-specific crowd control and have the automatic Defense Matrixto boost its survivability.

• Riverbeast Family

Use a Riverbeast because it is a Tenacity pet with Mortal Wounds.

Use a Spirit Beast, which has the Spirit Mend ability to provideadditional healing to your team. This can be used whilst you are in crowdcontrol as long as your pet is not crowd-controlled, which can help you survivestuns. I recommend that you include Spirit Mend in your Fortitude of the Bear and Roar of Sacrifice macros rather thanleaving it on auto-cast. This saves you a keybind and ensures that the heal isonly used when a teammate actually needs it (rather than potentially beingwasted when a friendly target who is not going to die reaches low health). Evenif Fortitude of the Bear or Roar of Sacrifice are on cooldown, you can use themacros to cast Spirit Mend when Spirit Mend is off cooldown.

• Beetle Family

Use a Beetle pet when you think your pet is likely to take damage andrequire maintenance with Mend Pet because it has the automaticdefensive Harden Carapace to boost its survivability.

• Wasp Family

Use a Wasp because it is a Ferocity pet with Mortal Wounds and the smallermodel makes it less visible than a Devilsaur.

Use a Clefthoof if you expect your pet to take consistent damage throughoutan arena game, as it has increased armor and healing received through Blood of the Rhino.

• Scalehide Family

Use a Scalehide pet if you expect your pet to take burst damage during anarena game because it has the automatic defensive Scale Shield to boostit* survivability.

Pets have their own ability based on their pet family. Some familieshave the same ability with a different name, but they all have the same effectas the categories below.

• Defence: eg. Bristle
• Dodge: eg. Agile Reflexes
• Magic Defence: eg. Shimmering Scales
• Mortal Wounds: eg. Infected Bite
• Pet Cure / Dispel: eg. Serenity Dust
• Slow: eg. Tendon Rip
• Triggered Defence: eg. Hardy

If your team does not have a Mortal Wounds effect, you should always use apet that has mortal wounds.

If your team already has a mortal wounds effect, you're free to pick fromfamilies with the other abilities. When that is the case, you almost alwayswant to use a pet with the defense family ability, which makes it much harderfor the enemy team to kill your pet. You can set the ability to auto-cast, andit will automatically use the defense ability (e.g., Bristle) when itgets to low health.

The advantage of Exotic Pets is that they each have a special Family abilitywhich is unique to that family of pets and is in addition to theirSpecialisation abilities and pet abilities.

The Exotic Ability of each Exotic Pet Family is listed below with the Specialisation of that Pet Family.

• Molten Hide (Core Hound: Ferocity)
• Froststorm Breath (Chimaera: Ferocity)
• Feast (Devilsaur: Ferocity)
• Blood of the Rhino (Clefthoof: Ferocity)
• Calcified Carapace (Carapid: Tenacity)
• Eternal Guardian (Stone Hound: Tenacity)
• Spirit Mend, Spirit Walk (Spirit Beast: Tenacity)
• Burrow Attack (Worm: Tenacity)
• Calcified Carapace (Krolusk: Tenacity)
• Shimmering Shale (Shale Beast: Tenacity)
• Dune Strider (Aqiri: Tenacity)
• Surface Trot (Water Strider: Tenacity)
• Ancient Hide (Pterrordax: Tenacity)

Unfortunately, the only Exotic Pet with Mortal Wounds is a Devilsaur, whichhas a relatively useless Exotic Ability, so does not have a power advantage overregular pets, and is of the Ferocity Specialisation, so is not used often inArena either way.

The most noteworthy Exotic pets in Arena are:

Spirit Beasts that will give you a small amount of bonus healing that canbe used whilst you are crowd-controlled (you can either have Spirit Mend set toauto-cast, and it will heal any friendly target who is low health, or you canmacro it with abilities such as Fortitude of the Bear, Exhilaration, or Roar of Sacrifice if you want it to only beused when you or a teammate are in danger).

Aqiri, who have greatly increased movement speed and will therefore be moredifficult for enemies to avoid in Arena.

All NPCs in World of Warcraft have a category (e.g., humanoid, beast,undead, demon, or mechanical). Certain crowd control abilities will only beable to affect certain categories.

For example:

• Polymorph can only be cast on humanoids and beasts
• Scare Beast and Hibernate can only be cast on beasts
• Shackle Undead can only be cast on undeads
• Turn Evil can only be cast on undead and demons

Pets can be of the categories Beast, Undead, Demon, Mechanical, or Dragonkin.

Ideally, if you are facing a team that can only use a crowd control abilityon certain categories of pets, you would use a pet with a different category.This is because the other team can potentially crowd-control your pet before asetup, and you will not be able to use important pet abilities and utility (eg. Roar of Sacrifice, Master's Call, Fortitude of the Bear or Intimidation).

For example:

• To avoid Polymorph Hibernate, or Scare Beast,you would use an Undead/Demon/Mechanical pet
• To avoid Wake of Ashes, Turn Evil, or Shackle Undead, you would use a Beast/Mechanical pet

The main moment that this is relevant is against Retribution Paladins. Whena Retribution Paladin is bursting; they will use Wake of Ashes, and ifyou are using an Undead pet, you will not be able to use Roar of Sacrifice on the burst.

The other time it may be relevant is into Mages, who may Polymorphyour pet before bursting, so you are unable to use Roar of Sacrifice.Note that if a Mage uses Polymorph on your pet, they are unable toalso Polymorph your healer, so it is not vital to avoid running Beastpets into Mages if it means that you lose a more important pet bonus (e.g., notbeing able to use a Tenacity pet into a setup comp like Rogue Mage Priest, whereyou need to survive burst while stunned).