Season of Discovery Hunter Melee DPS Talents and Runes

While Beast Mastery and Survival provided similar power levels for melee hunters previously, the addition of extra points going past level 40 is significant enough to make Beast Mastery the better specialization as a melee Hunter now. You can get the full benefit of the Beast Mastery tree and the substantial pet bonuses that it provides, while also taking Monster Slaying and Savage Strikes from the Survival tree. This will give you most of what the Survival tree previously offered for melee power, really only missing out on the 15% agility further down. If you went full Survival instead, there are no DPS talents open for the remaining 10 points. Beast Mastery is generally the superior tree at level 60, especially with the powerful new runes available.

• Pants — Flanking Strike
• Gloves — Beast Mastery
• Chest — Cobra Slayer
• Belt — Melee Specialist
• Boots — Dual Wield Specialization
• Helm — Rapid Killing
• Wrists — T.N.T.
• Cloak — Resourcefulness
• Ring 1 — Ranged Weapon Specialization
• Ring 2 — Pole Weapon Specialization

For the gloves rune, while Beast Mastery is the only real choice since it will be the largest buff to your pet. In the current state of Season of Discovery, pets are more powerful than they've ever been in Classic WoW.Making your pet as strong as possible is the best choice, even as a Melee Hunter. Carve is a weak option except for on high-target AoE, but ultimately that just is not common enough in raids or dungeons to justify the loss of pet damage. Flanking Strike is the strongest melee rune by far, making it a no-brainer especially compared to the other lackluster options in this rune slow.

For chest rune, Cobra Slayer is the only melee option.

For the two new runes at 50, there are again obvious choices. T.N.T. and Rapid Killing are going to be your best choices. Unfortunately the melee runes are extremely weak and not worth grabbing here, but these two offer some mediocre increases to your traps and cooldowns. Rapid Killing specifically will make your Rapid Fire a melee cooldown as well, which is incredibly strong.

At level 60, you have access to the back and ring rune slots. These will be relatively static due to the nature of the runes. For back, Resourcefulness is the best option by far due to the huge trap benefit this offers, as well as some mediocre secondary options. For rings, you have the leeway to pick what you want here, but you will always want to just take whatever weapon types you are currently using.