Season of Discovery Beast Mastery Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

The Hunter rotation is based around maximizing your Auto Shot usage. Whenever you use an ability, it has the potential to delay your Auto Shot if your Auto Shot is off cooldown and ready to go, meaning most of the time, you will want to use abilities in the down time between Auto Shot uses.

Before you begin a pull, you should always make sure Hunter's Mark is on the boss. If a Hunter in your group has Improved Hunter's Mark fully talented, then they should be the one using it.

As a Beast Mastery Hunter, you will not have much in the way of rotational abilities. You will focus primarily on Multi-Shot, Serpent Sting, and Arcane Shot if you have the mana to spare.

1. Kill Command on cooldown;
2. Auto Shot;
3. First ability slot;
4. Auto Shot;
5. Second ability slot;
6. Auto Shot;
7. Third ability slot;

This is the basic full rotation. It will not always follow this exact order, but this is the order you should start with. Remember that the full rotation is all about maximizing Auto Shot usage, so prioritize getting Auto Shots off and weaving in your abilities when possible. In the open slots, you should always prioritize Multi-Shot, Serpent Sting, and Arcane Shot in that order. If mana is going to be an issue, prioritize shots in the same order as well.

With max talent points at level 60, you now will have access to Aimed Shot as a talent. This should always replace Arcane Shot in your rotation if you can get the cast of. The key is to ensure you use this ability between auto shot timers to ensure the minimum lost auto shot time.

Also, keep in mind that as Beast Mastery, you likely will be playing with the Steady Shot rune. This will always give you something to cast in the gaps, and removes the need to ever melee weave.

Hunters are unique in that they have both a melee and a ranged basic attack with separate cooldowns and short animation times. During an open spot in your rotation, you can choose to run into melee to use Raptor Strike and Flanking Strike for some extra burst damage. To pull this off, you need to be doing your ranged rotation from the minimum distance, or 8 yards. As soon as you finish the Auto Shot, run into melee (within 5 yards), and use Raptor Strike. Once the Raptor Strike goes off, turn around and run back to the minimum ranged distance. You should only have to run 3-5 yards depending on your character's and the boss' hitboxes, making it a relatively short distance.

Especially when you are so limited in the number of ranged shots, melee weaving is where your skill can really shine. Maximizing melee weaving into the open ability slots in the rotation listed above is critical to maximizing your damage. In general, you'll want to use the following rotation listed below. You'll want to melee weave every 2 ranged auto shots, alternating melee weaving with a ranged shot in between.

1. Auto Shot;
2. Ranged ability;
3. Auto Shot;
4. Melee Weave;

At level 40, Hunters now have access to Rapid Fire. Additionally, Beast Mastery Huners will get Bestial Wrath. These are incredibly strong cooldowns when stacked, making Beast Mastery quite strong for shorter encounters. The general best practice is to use it on-pull with other damage based racial abilities since most encounters are short. Otherwise, just use your abilities when they're up or when you need them on encounters.