Beast Mastery Hunter Leveling Guide from 1 to 80 — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0.1)

Last updated on Feb 10, 2026 at 18:00 by Azortharion 164 comments

On this page, you will find our Level by Level Beast Mastery Hunter leveling guide for The War Within. Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Hunter leveling guide.

1.

Beast Mastery Hunter Leveling Guide for The War Within

1.1.

Beast Mastery Hunter Leveling Playstyle

Beast Mastery Hunter, thanks to being able to use its pet as a tank, is an excellent questing leveler, able to do large pulls regularly like a tank thanks to Misdirection Icon Misdirection/No Hard Feelings Icon No Hard Feelings, while doing much more damage than a tank.

Grab a Ferocity pet, pull mobs with Barbed Shot Icon Barbed Shot, once they are stacked up, use Wild Thrash Icon Wild Thrash and Kill Command Icon Kill Commands to burst them down.!

2.

Best Leveling Talents for Beast Mastery Hunter in The War Within

The Leveling Build assumes that you are mostly going to fight mobs that die pretty quickly. This is why we pick Pack Leader over Dark Ranger. The Pack Leader tree does a far better job of being effective when quickly transitioning from mob to mob, which leveling demands, even in Leveling Dungeons.

This is my recommended Leveling Build for Beast Mastery Hunter in The War Within. Be sure to click the "Talents by Level" option in the bottom right.

2.1.

Best Leveling Gear for Beast Mastery Hunter

When leveling up, always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. The only exception to this rule is if you have a Ring or Necklace with a slightly lower item level, but 2 secondary stats on it instead of 1.

3.

Leveling Rotation for Beast Mastery Hunter

To keep things simple while leveling and learning the spec, use the slider to select your level, and watch as the leveling rotation grows with each level!

Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!

Level: 70
  1. Use Mend Pet Icon Mend Pet for large pulls to keep your pet healthy.
  2. On AoE, use Wild Thrash Icon Wild Thrash to maintain Beast Cleave Icon Beast Cleave on your pet.
  3. Use Bestial Wrath Icon Bestial Wrath on pulls and mobs that will survive most of its 15-second duration.
  4. Use Kill Command Icon Kill Command on cooldown.
  5. Use Barbed Shot Icon Barbed Shot to keep it from hitting 2 charges.
  6. Use Cobra Shot Icon Cobra Shot as a filler.
  7. Spam Arcane Shot Icon Arcane Shot.
  8. Use Steady Shot Icon Steady Shot as a filler.
4.

Best Leveling Pet for Beast Mastery Hunter

All pets do the same damage, but they vary in their utility and special abilities. The absolute best Leveling Pet is a Clefthoof. They both take less Physical damage, and receive more healing, than any other pet. I recommend you keep their spec set as Ferocity to fully leverage this extra healing. Any Clefthoof will do, and there are tons available from when you reach Level 10, so check out the link, find your favourite, and get hunting!

For more detailed information on Pets, especially in the endgame, check out our Pets page.

5.

Changelog

  • 10 Feb. 2026: Updated for Midnight Pre-Patch.
  • 30 Nov. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.2.7.
  • 05 Oct. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.2.5.
  • 04 Aug. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.2.
  • 15 Jun. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.1.7.
  • 21 Apr. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.1.5.
  • 25 Mar. 2025: Updated for March 25 Updates.
  • 24 Feb. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.1.0.
  • 15 Dec. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.7.
  • 30 Oct. 2024: Updated for October 29 Hotfixes.
  • 22 Oct. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.5.
  • 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
  • 30 Aug. 2024: Preliminary update pass in preparation for Season 1.
  • 22 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within.
  • 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
Show more
Show less