Season of Discovery Beast Mastery Hunter DPS Guide

Hunters are one of the most sought after DPS early on, able to dish out incredible amounts of damage with very little gear. The combination of not being severely mana reliant, not using an alternative resource, and having a pet all work together to give Hunters the strongest early game experience out of any class. Hunters will be one of the strongest damage dealers in the Season of Discovery for both PvE and PvP content.

Beast Mastery Hunters specifically rely on their pets for a much larger proportion of their damage. This is made especially strong below 60, as pets are much more important earlier on in the leveling process. Both for leveling and doing PvE content, pets will be incredibly strong compared to their power in end game raiding. However, now that we have reached level 60, Beast Mastery does not scale as well overall as the other shot-based damage specializations.

Strengths

• Decent single target DPS
• Powerful group buff from new runes
• The best soloing capabilities in the game
• The most resource efficient class in the game

Weaknesses

• Poor AoE and cleave
• Limited options against targets stuck in melee
• Poor max level scaling at 60

Hunter has received no major changes for Season of Discovery, but instead have access to incredibly powerful new abilities and buffs in the form of Runes. While there are new core rotational shots available, Beast Mastery Hunters will be choosing the new pet expanding Runes. You won't have new rotational abilities, but instead will have a much more powerful pet.

Through the addition of entirely new abilities and Runes, the rotation, gearing options, and talent decisions for Beast Mastery Hunter has changed drastically with the coming of Season of Discovery. Use the guides located in the Table of Content at the top of this page to find all the information you'll need to master this new game mode!

One of the most important choices that you can make as a Hunter is your pet. Luckily, for optimal damage, that choice is relatively simple. While the best pet has changed frequently over the last couple of weeks due to constant tuning, the best pet for Hunters in Season of Discovery is currently a Cat. To be fully prepared, you should also consider getting a Wind Serpent in case pet spell power scaling is ever buffed again.

Make sure to check out our Rune Engravings guide to best understand what each rune does for your Hunter. Likewise, if you're unsure where to locate these runes, we've listed the location for every Season of Discovery Rune in the guide below to help you find the best available runes for your class!