Beast Mastery Hunter Leveling Guide from 1 to 80 — The War Within (11.2.5)

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/ No Hard Feelings, while doing much more damage than a tank.

Grab a Ferocity pet and Misdirection (Level 42), and activate it before tagging as many mobs as possible, usually with Cobra Shot and Barbed Shot, and watch the mobs flock to your pet. Activate Beast Cleave with Multi-Shot and get to cleaving. The more damage your pet does — meaning the more targets you hit, the more your pet will heal itself for!

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.

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.

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!

1. Misdirection redirects all the aggro/threat generated by your Barbed Shot, Cobra Shot, etc. to redirect to your pet. So you can activate it, hit a few mobs with Barbeds and Cobras, and watch them flock to your pet for AoE damage. From Level 44, it will also reduce your pet's damage taken and double as a defensive use for your pet. This ability is a big part of why leveling as Beast Mastery is considered so good!
2. Use Mend Pet for large pulls to keep your pet healthy.
3. On AoE, use Multi-Shot to maintain Beast Cleave on your pet.
4. Use Bestial Wrath on pulls and mobs that will survive most of its 15-second duration.
5. Use Kill Command on cooldown.
6. Use Kill Shot on targets below 20% health.
7. Use Barbed Shot to keep it from hitting 2 charges, and to maintain the Frenzy buff on your pet.
8. Use Cobra Shot as a filler.
9. Spam Arcane Shot.
10. Use Steady Shot as a filler.

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.