Hunter Guide for WoW Forever

WoW Forever Hunter Guide Quick Overview:

• Survival spec is now the only melee spec for this class
• Hunter pets now scale with your stats
• Aimed Shot is a basic skill now, not a talent.
• Beast Mastery is the best spec for leveling

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WoW Forever Hunter Changes

There are a lot of changes to the Hunter class, and all of them seem to benefit it. Personally, I think I’m going to main Hunter, because it’s been a vision of mine to start the classic experience as a dwarven hunter with a bear pet. There’s something in that original cinematic (and Forever cinematic) dwarf character that stuck with me, but I couldn’t find a place for him in the retail.

In any case, I think a lot of Hunter mains will enjoy the things that got changed and added. There’s quite a bit, and I won’t go over each addition, just the highlights:

What’s New or Changed	How it Changed
Aimed Shot	Now available to every Hunter spec, with a 2-second cast and a shared cooldown with Multi-Shot. So your choice
Lacerate	New base melee ability that applies a bleed
Hunter pets	Scale with the Hunter's stats and receive new family-specific abilities. No need to buff pets anymore
Traps	Can be placed during combat; base cooldown increased from 15 to 30 seconds
Fire and Frost Traps	Now have separate cooldown categories
Mongoose Bite	Deals weapon damage plus bonus damage
Arcane Shot, Serpent Sting, Volley, and fire traps	Their magical damage now scales with Attack Power
Scorpid Sting	Reduces enemy hit chance by 2% instead of reducing Strength and Agility
Viper Sting	Has a 15-second cooldown
Rapid Fire	Increases both melee and ranged attack speed
Aspect of the Beast	You take on the aspects of a beast, becoming untrackable and increasing Melee Attack Power by 110. Only one Aspect can be active at a time.
Volley	No longer has a cooldown
Auto Shot	Retains its 0.5-second wind-up after an earlier beta bug was fixed
Melee and ranged attacks	Share a swing timer. No more melee weaving. Ranged specs only have ranged attacks

The implications, benefits, and consequences of each stance are a lot to unpack. This guide is not a review of changes. That said, I think having Aimed Shot available to every spec is great. And it's something you’re going to use from the start. It's no longer something you have to spend a talent point on, although the shared cooldown with Multi-Shot means you can't simply use both abilities back to back. You'll need to decide whether single-target or multi-target damage is more important.

Another major improvement/change that I want to talk about has to do with hunter’s pets.

Hunter Pet Changes in WoW Forever

In Vanilla, a huge problem with the Beast Mastery spec was that your pet's damage didn't keep up with your level and gear. In Forever, pets inherit some of your stats, meaning they actually scale with your character

The current beta inheritance values are:

Hunter stat	Pet scaling
Stamina	Each point gives the pet 2 Health
Armor	Pet inherits 30% of your Armor
Attack Power	Pet inherits 10% of your highest Attack Power source
Critical Strike	Pet inherits 100% of your Critical Strike chance

Pets also get Avoidance, although they can no longer benefit from buffs cast by other classes. That’s a win in my book, because you don’t have to ask other players to buff your pet specifically. Now, I know, some players will say that it takes away from the, sort of, communication and roleplaying aspect of the game. If you ask me, it’s still a huge “W”.

Pet families now have unique abilities, so you’ll probably be switching between different ones for a specific ability to fit whatever you’re trying to do.

Pet family	New ability	Effect
Tallstrider	Dust Cloud	Applies an armor-reduction effect
Raptor	Savage Rend	Applies a stacking bleed
Crocolisk	Dismember	Applies a healing-reduction (has been recently nerfed)
Bird of Prey	Disarm ability	Temporarily disarms the enemy
Fox	Trickster's Dance	Improves Dodge and attack speed

Here you got some obvious choices like Crocolisks used for PvP, while Tallstriders could give you some armor reduction in PvE against elites or whatever. We might even do a pets tier list in the future, seeing how many changes there are in this aspect of a hunter class.

Hunter Pros and Cons in WoW Forever

Coming up to our classic Pros and Cons section, I want to be as objective as possible, even though I said I would main this class. You gotta look at what this class is - do you want to play a ranged DPS class? Are you willing to accept that the only melee spec might not be as good as specs for dedicated melee DPS classes? Do you vibe with the class aesthetics? These are the questions you have to ask yourself first.

With that in mind, here are the main advantages and disadvantages of the class based on my opinion (from the beta).

Pros	Cons
Easy to play and level up. Good for beginners	Still has the 5-8-yard dead zone
Pets	Pet management is still the most difficult part of the class
Excellent mobility and kiting tools	Ammo and arrows must be restocked to use weapons

I have to say that these are more or less the same pros and cons I’ve written for this class in every version of WoW. No matter the size and quantity of changes, Hunter is still a Hunter, which, I suppose, was always the goal for WoW Forever classes.

How to Play Hunter in WoW Forever

Hunter still uses Mana as its main resource, while pets have their own Focus system. You also have to manage your ammunition (which I always loved for its immersiveness), Aspects, traps, and pet commands. So, the basic gameplay is the same as with any other iteration of Vanilla or Classic hunter.

For those who are unfamiliar with the class or new to WoW. Each class has 3 specializations, which grant unique abilities and passives. Some abilities are shared among all specs.

Specialization	Role	General playstyle
Beast Mastery	Ranged DPS	Pet-focused damage; you have to tame beasts and use them in combat to absorb and deal damage
Marksmanship	Ranged DPS	Weapon and shooting-focused spec with less emphasis on pets and more on various types of shooting.
Survival	Melee DPS	Dual-wield attacks, bleeds, traps, and Mongoose Bite procs

WoW Forever makes all 3 specs unique and different from each other, which is what all fans of the game have always been asking for. There are some overlapping improvements across all specs, such as how your resource regenerates. I also like that Hunter magic damage now scales with Attack Power. It makes abilities such as Serpent Sting, Arcane Shot, and Volley much more relevant to your normal gearing choices.

How to Play Beast Mastery Hunter

Now, let’s talk about each individual specialization and its playstyles. First of all, for Beast Mastery, you get a new ability called Summon Hawk, which sends a hawk to attack your target over 18 seconds. It has a 6-second cooldown, and you can maintain up to two hawks on the same enemy.

Summon Hawk shares its cooldown with Arcane Shot, so you'll usually be choosing between one of them. Focused Fire also increases the damage dealt by you and your pet by 2% while your pet is active.

Other important Beast Mastery talents include:

• Bestial Discipline: Increases pet Focus regeneration by 20% and allows 50% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.
• Bestial Wrath: Increases pet damage by 50% for 18 seconds, with a 2-minute cooldown.
• Endurance Training: Increases pet Health and Armor by 15%.
• Improved Aspect of the Monkey: Gives your pet 50% of the Dodge bonus from your Aspect of the Monkey.
• Intimidation: Commands your pet to stun an enemy for 3 seconds on its next successful attack, which also receives increased critical strike chance.

Essentially, Beast Mastery focuses on using pets and their abilities, which makes this spec amazing for leveling and easy to recommend to new players, but at the same time, managing your pet and its own separate quick bar with abilities and behavior settings can be difficult. Almost no other class in the game besides Warlock has to do this.

How to Play Marksmanship Hunter

Marksmanship is for players who prefer dealing damage themselves rather than relying on a pet. The specialization gets Lone Wolf, a new talent that increases your damage by 20% whenever you don't have an active pet. This alone should tell you exactly what kind of spec this is. It’s not that you can’t use your pet. Summoning a pet is still an option in case you just need it to aggro some mobs.

The other major addition is Sniper Shot, a big damage attack with a 4-second cast time and a 15-second cooldown. It deals weapon damage plus bonus damage and increases the range of your next three shots by 10 yards, making it one of the hardest-hitting abilities in the Hunter's arsenal. The increased range is amazing. It makes me think it’s going to be your opener in a rotation. But, at the same time, I wouldn’t really use it in PvP, because this thing locks you in place for 4 seconds.

Marksmanship spec gets these improved talents, which should give you an even better idea of the spec design and intended fighting style:

• Careful Aim: Gives Attack Power equal to 100% of your Intellect.
• Rapid Recuperation: Allows substantial Mana regeneration while casting after triggering its conditions.
• Improved Stings: Increases Serpent Sting damage by 20%, reduces Viper Sting's cooldown by 6 seconds, and extends Scorpid Sting's duration by 45 seconds.
• Barrage: Increases the damage of Aimed Shot, Multi-Shot, and Volley.
• Trueshot Aura: Increases the Ranged Attack Power of nearby party members, but no longer buffs melee Attack Power.

I really like the idea of playing a proper sniper without a pet. There’s just something about it, you know. Standing behind everyone in a dungeon and dealing big damage sounds like a unique way to play, if you ask me. In WoW Forever,r it actually works.

How to Play Survival Hunter

Survival is the odd one out of the bunch. It’s also the one with the biggest changes. Instead of being primarily a ranged Hunter with extra traps and defensive talents, it's now a melee DPS spec focused on weapon attacks, bleeds, and fast-paced combat. Kind of like Rogue, actually. But without the invisibility.

One of its most important additions is Predator's Edge, which increases melee critical strike damage by 30% and off-hand weapon damage by 50%. This makes dual-wielding look extremely attractive. Mongoose Bite also becomes far more important because it now deals weapon damage, and Expose Prey gives attacks against enemies affected by Hunter's Mark a 10% chance to activate Mongoose Bite for 10 seconds.

The major Survival talents include:

• Strider Kick: Deals 100% melee weapon damage and increases movement speed for 3 seconds. It has an 8-second cooldown but does not interrupt spellcasting.
• Predator's Edge: Improves melee critical damage and off-hand weapon damage.
• Expose Prey: Allows Hunter's Mark targets to trigger Mongoose Bite.
• Resourcefulness: Reduces trap and melee ability Mana costs by 60% and adds a Mana regeneration effect triggered by critical hits.
• Survivalist's Discipline: Reduces trap and Deterrence cooldowns by 40%.
• Lacerating Strikes: Makes Mongoose Bite apply an additional bleed.
• Entrapment: Makes traps reliably root affected enemies for up to 5 seconds at maximum rank.

Staying in melee range while maintaining Hunter's Mark, using Strider Kick on cooldown, and Mongoose Bite procs create a playstyle that’s vastly different from the other two specs. And that is nice to say the least.

Personally, Survival might be the most interesting Hunter spec in Forever. The combination of dual-wield attacks, traps, and bleed effects sounds fun. At the same time, I’m worried that it’s not going to be as viable in the endgame when in group content, you’ll be constantly asked to use Marksmanship for big burst damage or Beast Mastery for faster leveling. This trapper playstyle is probably just for you to switch things around whenever you’re bored. But I might be wrong.

Best Hunter Race in WoW Forever

Now, choosing a race for your class is actually more important for the class because of all the new and unique racial abilities. There were some good and obvious combinations in the original game, but now there are way more.

There are now also new race/class combos. Humans can now become Hunters, and Skyborne are another new option. Some of the familiar Classic racial advantages have also been redesigned. Here are all available options:

Race	Faction	Why it's Good
Night Elf	Alliance	Elune's Light for temporary Critical Strike bonuses
Human	Alliance	Ruthless for additional critical strike potential, particularly interesting for Survival
Dwarf	Alliance	Big Game Hunter against Beasts and Stoneform for PvP
Orc	Horde	Blood Fury, Hardiness, and other offensive and defensive racial abilities
Troll	Horde	Berserking for attack speed and Beast Slaying
Tauren	Horde	Extra Hit, War Stomp, and Plainsrunning
Skyborne	New race	Elemental Insight and Wind Blessed

For Alliance, I would keep an eye on Night Elves and Humans. Night Elves have Elune's Light, which can increase critical strike chance during a short damage window. Because Hunter pets inherit critical strike chance, Beast Mastery could benefit from this racial more than you might initially expect.

For Horde, Orc remains a strong candidate, although I wouldn't declare it the winner yet. Blood Fury and Hardiness are useful, while Troll Berserking could be excellent for ranged damage. Tauren also have a surprisingly good combination of additional Hit and defensive tools.

 

 

Hunter Stat Priority in WoW Forever (WIP)

The full game isn’t out yet, so I’m going to pretend to know the best stats for sure. Below is what I think you want to prioritize. I’ll update after the game launches.

Specialization	Important stats to consider	Why
Beast Mastery	Attack Power, Hit, Critical Strike, Agility	Improves your damage while giving pets additional scaling benefits
Marksmanship	Ranged weapon damage, Attack Power, Hit, Critical Strike	Supports powerful ranged shots and consistent damage
Survival	Melee weapon damage, Hit, Agility, Critical Strike, Attack Power	Improves melee attacks, dual-wield damage, and critical strike effects

Best Hunter Builds in WoW Forever (WIP)

When it comes to builds, I’m going to have to leave this section empty until the full game comes out and we have access to all talent points and level 60.

During the beta, you could already see players making builds for each specialization. I’ve seen builds that invest all points into only one of 3 talent trees,s with a few hybrid ones, namely the Marksman/Survivor build and Beast Mastery/Marksman builds. But since I don’t plan to share level 30-scapped builds in here, I’m going to leave this section empty for future updates.

Hunter Leveling Guide in WoW Forever

Leveling is probably the only thing I can be confident in based on what we saw in the beta. And what we saw was that Hunter is a very nice class to level up. Every change and improvement made it even better for this particular aspect of the game. And since WoW Forever places a lot of focus specifically on your journey to the maximum level, rather than what you’ll be doing after that, I would say that makes Hunter one of the best classes overall. But that’s just my opinion.

As for the leveling process itself, the plan is very simple:

1. Use your pet to aggro mobs (one or more)
2. Use your damage rotation to deal with one or more targets
3. Command your pet to aggro new targets

For this,s I would use Bestial Discipline, which becomes incredibly useful once you unlock it. Your pet gets more Focus regeneration, and you regenerate Mana while casting. Combined with the new Summon Hawk ability, Beast Mastery should have less downtime and a slightly more engaging rotation than its original Vanilla version.

Would I use other specs for leveling? Only if I’m bored and want to learn how to use them. There might be a need for Marksmanship in dungeons and raids because having to worry about what your pet does in dungeons is not something you should be doing. I mean, what if you leave your pet unattended and it just aggroes everything it sees? You would be jeopardizing the entire run!

So, in the end, I would use BM for leveling and questing and probably switch to MM for group content and PvP.

Hunter Best-in-Slot Gear in WoW Forever (WIP)

This is another one of those things that I’m going to keep warm for the full release. Are we getting new gear sets and weapons? Yes. Have the existing tier sets changed? Yes. Is new gear better than the historical gear? Can’t tell. We’re not in the business of assuming things here, so a level-capped beta doesn’t give me enough to make this list.

If you’re a new player, all I’ll say is you’ll want to prioritize leather armor, asit'ss the armor type that suits your class and has the most bonuses to the stats that you scale off of.

Best Hunter Rotations in WoW Forever

Since we don’t yet have complete builds to rely on, all we can do for rotations is work out the basics, so whatever is listed below should be treated as nothing more than a template.

Beast Mastery Hunter Rotation

Beast Mastery should be the most straightforward specialization. Much of your damage comes from your pet, so keeping it attacking the correct target is just as important as managing your own abilities.

My preliminary Beast Mastery priority would look like this:

1. Keep your pet active and send it to your target.
2. Maintain Hunter's Mark where the fight is long enough to justify it.
3. Use Bestial Wrath during important damage windows.
4. Maintain up to two Summon Hawk effects without refreshing them unnecessarily.
5. Keep Serpent Sting active when the enemy will survive long enough for its damage to matter.
6. Use Aimed Shot for single-target damage or Multi-Shot when fighting several enemies.
7. Maintain Auto Shot damage between abilities.

The main mechanic to practice is Summon Hawk. You can have two hawks attacking simultaneously, and each lasts 18 seconds. Since the ability has a 6-second cooldown, careful timing should help you maintain both without wasting duration.

Marksmanship Hunter Rotation

Marksmanship focuses much more on your own ranged attacks. Lone Wolf increases your damage when you don't have an active pet, while Sniper Shot becomes your major hard-hitting ability.

A preliminary Marksmanship priority should look like this:

1. Maintain Hunter's Mark on your main target.
2. Keep Serpent Sting active when the target will live long enough.
3. Use Sniper Shot when you can safely complete its 4-second cast.
4. Use Aimed Shot for single-target damage.
5. Replace Aimed Shot with Multi-Shot when additional targets make it worthwhile.
6. Use Rapid Fire during suitable damage windows.
7. Keep Auto Shot running and avoid unnecessary movement.

I'd pay special attention to positioning. Sniper Shot has a long cast time, so moving at the wrong moment could cost you a significant amount of damage. It's probably going to be especially important to know boss mechanics and anticipate when you can stand still.

Also remember that Aimed Shot and Multi-Shot share a cooldown. You shouldn't plan a rotation that assumes both can be used independently.

Survival Hunter Rotation

Survival has the most unfamiliar rotation of the three, mainly because its damage now comes from a combination of melee attacks, bleeds, and trap interactions.

I would start with the following priority:

1. Maintain Hunter's Mark to enable Expose Prey.
2. Keep Lacerate's bleed active when worthwhile.
3. Use Strider Kick regularly for damage and its movement speed effect.
4. Use Mongoose Bite whenever Expose Prey activates it.
5. Maintain the additional bleed from Lacerating Strikes.
6. Use fire traps for additional damage when appropriate.
7. Maintain melee auto-attacks and use your defensive abilities whenever needed.

The important thing here is that Mongoose Bite doesn't simply become an unrestricted attack. Expose Prey gives your attacks against marked enemies a chance to activate it, making the ability available for a limited window.

Resourcefulness should also help with Mana costs, which is particularly useful for a spec that wants to use melee abilities and traps frequently.

I would treat all three of these rotations as early priorities rather than final DPS recommendations. Exact ability ordering and resource optimization still depend on further testing.

 

 

Best Hunter Professions in WoW Forever

Professions are especially interesting in Forever because Blizzard is adding hundreds of new recipes and reworking existing crafted items. This could make crafted equipment far more useful during leveling and early endgame progression.

For Hunter, I'd focus on Leatherworking and Engineering first. Both are already attractive choices in Classic, and the current beta information gives us reasons to expect them to remain valuable.

Profession	Why it's useful for Hunter
Leatherworking	Crafted armor, equipment upgrades, and potentially powerful Bind on Pickup gear
Skinning	Supplies materials for Leatherworking and generates gold while leveling
Engineering	Crafted guns, headgear, grenades, mines, and PvP utility
Mining	Supplies materials for Engineering and offers a source of income
Cooking	Creates stat food that can also offer leveling experience bonuses

For leveling, I'd probably choose Skinning and Leatherworking. You're already going to kill plenty of beasts, so gathering leather while questing is a natural combination. Leatherworking should also give you opportunities to craft useful armor without relying entirely on dungeon drops.

For PvP, Engineering remains my preferred option. Grenades and other engineering tools are especially useful for Hunters because they complement your traps and crowd-control abilities.

There's also the new Camping system to consider. Professions can contribute useful campsite objects and temporary bonuses, giving them value outside conventional crafting.

The final profession rankings will depend on which new recipes prove strongest at higher levels.

Best Hunter Consumables in WoW Forever (WIP)

Hunter consumables will likely be similar to the ones that were used in Vanilla and Classic. At the same time, since there’s way more cooking now, I bet we’ll see some new consumables taking the top as the best ones to use on a Hunter.

Rest assured, as a Hunter main myself, I will take great care in providing this list. So, stay tuned!

Check out more class guides for WoW Forever:

• Druid Guide
• Warrior Guide
• Shaman Guide
• Paladin Guide

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