by Zerinj
Hunter Leveling – Talent Build and Tips
NOTE: Click here for an updated version of this guide.
Color Code
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- Level
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- Important Info
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- Spell
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- Location
Talent Build
On the way to 80 there is one Talent Build you should use, and that is the Beast Mastery tree. This tree will focus on improving your pet, so that you can send it in and burn the mob down with ease, and it can put out solid dps in instances as well. Here is the build:
10-14: Endurance Training – 5/5
15-16: Thick Hide 2/3
17-18: Focused Fire – 2/2
19-19: Thick Hide – 3/3
20-24: Unleashed Fury – 5/5
25-25: Aspect Mastery 1/1
26-30: Ferocity – 5/5
31-31: Intimidation – 1/1
32-33: Bestial Discipline – 2/2
34-34: Improved Mend Pet – 1/2
35-38: Frenzy – 4/5
39-39: Improved Mend Pet – 2/2
40-40: Bestial Wrath – 1/1
41-43: Ferocious Inspiration – 3/3
44-44: Pathfinding – 1/2
45-49: Serpents Swiftness – 5/5
50-50: The Beast Within – 1/1
51-51: Invigoration – 1/2
52-54: Longevity – 3/3
55-59: Kindred Spirits – 5/5
Now we go into the Marksman Tree.
60-64: Lethal Shots – 5/5
65-69: Mortal Shots – 5/5
70-71: Rapid Killing – 2/2
72-73: Go For the Throat – 2/2
74-76: Careful Aim – 3/3
77-79: Focused Aim – 3/3
80-80: Readiness – 1/1
This is the link to the final build.
==NOTE== At 80 I would recommend respeccing to a build that suits what you want to accomplish at end-game be it raiding, pvp or farming.
Back to the topPet Choice
For pets, you can use whatever you want untill Level 32. Then you get the Gorilla.
==NOTE== While you get the Gorilla at Level 32 you can not use the following rotation until you get to Level 40 and get the Volley Spell. (You can tame a gorilla in Stranglethorn Vale). (You should have some Bread, Fruit or Fungus on hand to feed your pet once you tame it. You can start loading up on Fungus Food in either Tarren Mill, Hammerfall or Undercity. Alliance can get them from Stormwind, and Ironforge Be sure to buy Delicious Cave Mold and Raw Black Truffle from the Fungus Vendors. )
Here is a video of the Gorilla’s prowess. To be simple:
- Pull 4+ Enemies,
- Cast Mend Pet,
- Let your Gorilla Thunderstomp twice,
- Use Volley untill mobs die.
For your pet, if you have a Gorilla his talent tree will be Tenacity. There are so many ways you can use this tree to benefit your playstyle so I will not link one to hinder you. Just take this word of advice: Take everything that increases your pets Armour, Health and Happiness.
1-10: You do not have your pet yet, so just Serpent Sting and then melee the mob down.
Aspect of the Viper: From Level 20 onwards if you ever finding you are running low on mana, simply turn on Aspect of the Viper to quickly regain that mana.
10-40: Send in pet, make sure that Growl is on, and then Hunter’s Mark, Serpent Sting and Arcane Shot whenever the cooldown is up.
40-50: Now you have learned Volley you can use the AoE Rotation above when facing multiple enemies, or continue to use the above rotation for single target damage.
==NOTE== The AoE rotation stays the same from now on.
50-71: Steady Shot it took us 50 levels to get it, but we have it now. This is your new Single Target rotation: Hunter’s Mark, Serpent Sting, Steady Shot until dead. (Be sure to renew Serpent Sting if it goes through the entire duration.)
71-80: Now we can train Kill Shot. Now your dps becomes even easier. First, copy this macro:
#showtooltip steady shot
/cast kill shot
/cast [harm,nodead] steady shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
Now the rotation. Hunter’s Mark, Serpent Sting, and then spam the above Macro. What the macro does is that it automatically fires a Kill Shot if the enemy your attacking is below 20% health.
Major Glyphs:
Minor Glyphs:
Useful Addons
Titan Panel: This is a very useful addon for showing your Repair Percentage and Current Repair Bill and how much Ammo you have left.
OmniCC: This addon basically adds text to items/spells that are on cooldown to indicate when they’ll be ready for use once again.
MSBT: Replacement to the default scrolling battle text.
Bartender4: Highly customizable Action Bar addon. You can create custom bars for your Traps, Aspects and etc…
I have a pet butterfly thatI have a pet butterfly that I want to level to 80 (technically a moth). Are they viable?
My pet recommendationHeya, Zerinj. Love the guide. For the hunber pet after 40, I’d recommend a bear. They come with the swipe ability, which is good for the crowd control before you get stomp. Just a thought for this. Thanks again for the guide!
Ive just updated this guideIve just updated this guide [url=https://www.wow-pro.com/class_guides/hunter_levelingtalents_abd_tips_180_32]Click Me[/url] Hope you enjoy it if i miss something please coment!
It would probably be best toIt would probably be best to release a new guide with this as a reference. I will send you the code for this guide in a personal message – that way you won’t have to start from scratch.
Hi there ive read this guideHi there ive read this guide and its really outdated! can someone please tell me how i can update this guide rather to create a new one? or if thats not possible can i take the guide as a reference?
BETTER FRUIT!If you have a pet that eats fruit (I currently have a lovely white warp stalker) and you’re at least level 65, do yourself a favor and get a port to Dalaran. The fruit vendor there, Applebough, sells wonderful Tundra Berries that will restore a whopping 18480 health over 30 seconds, compared to the Telari Grapes (only 7500 health per 30 seconds) that you can buy in Outlands. I was stunned to find the Tundra Berries were available at level 65, and make sure to keep enough stacks to feed no only pet but myself too!
Telari Grapes
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29450
vs. Tundra Berries
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35949
tenacity petsYes, you can create the same build and effects with any tenacity pet.
I used a gorilla up to 63, when I tamed a warpstalker from Terokkar forest (also a tenacity pet). It was a fantastic upgrade, and fun to watch him thunderstomp!
I believe an update is inI believe an update is in the works for this, either Maw or Trollvink was planning on updating it, though I’m not sure if they ever worked out who was doing that.
Updating to 3.1?Are there plans to update the talent leveling spec for 3.1? Or the one posted is still viable?
Hey sparks,
ThunderstopHey sparks,
Thunderstop leveling gives great AOE ability. It works from when you get thunderstop right up to and including level 80. Leveling from 70 to 80 following Jame’s guides, 2 peices of tier 5 (gives a bonus that 10% of my damage heals my pet) and aoe was extremely quickly. It took around 1-2 volleys on average to kill whatever mobs I had, with much of the tier 5 healing being overhealing. The slowest bit of this method is rounding up the mobs but using a combination of your own shots, and puttling your pet on different targets can greatly speed it up. In comparison to a mage, although I haven’t played one I would assume it would be much faster due to a complete lack of downtime because of aspect of the viper. I would not advise AOE grinding for hunters, merely use aoe to acomplish the quests specified in Jame’s guides.
Hope this helped
Joey
Hey,
This is because in 3.1Hey,
This is because in 3.1 Kill Shot was put on the global cooldown, i.e. when kill shot is cast it tries to do the 1.5 second rotation like every other ability, therefore you must separate these two abilities
Hope this helps
Joey
ThanksThank you! So basically at this point you should be able to do the same basic thing with any tenacity pet right?
ThunderstompThunderstomp used to be a Gorilla only ability pre- 3.0 or 3.1 if memory is correct. Afterwards it was moved to the Tenacity talent page.
Why Gorilla at 32?I watched the video and I am still confused on why a gorilla is the recomended pet? Thunderstomp is an ability that any tenacity pet can get once they are 40. The video shows the gorilla using that ability to great effect, but can’t any tenacity pet do the same thing? I’m sorry but I just don’t know what makes the gorilla a stronger choice over another tenacity pet.
Something is wrong with this Kill Shot macroCan’t seem to figure it out, but there seems to be something wrong with the following macro…
#showtooltip steady shot
/cast kill shot
/cast [harm,nodead] steady shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
Steady shot never fires for me in this macro. I copied this macro from the rotations section on this page. Steady Shot works fine otherwise. Any ideas?
If I am reading the changesIf I am reading the changes correctly then the earliest you could get thunderstomp from talents is level 44.
Is this correct?
I have aoe leveled my mage to 40 and aoe is fun and frustrating at the same time.
Compared to a mage how much damage and how quickly can you level using aoe?
Can you do it all the way to 80?
Do you know a listing of places that are the best for hunter aoe leveling?
Deacon Brown with all tenacity pets getting thunderstomp, the 2 best are bear-thunderstomp and swipe so he will generate even more agro. And the Crocolisk—thunderstomp and bad attitude.
BAD ATTITUDE=Snap back for X to Y damage at any target that strikes you for the next 45 sec.
this is what you want now. Of course they are ugly.
Please updateHi Ya
It would be nice if you could update this page, I have used your guild and build and it has helped me loads.
But i am now lost as I do not know what build to give my hunter and my pet gorilla
Open your spellbook (P)Open your spellbook (P) click the pet tab, and there it is.
Talent PointsCheck if you have spent the talent points for the said spell, or if it hasn’t been deleted.
3.1Note that in 3.1 all tenacity pets get Thunderstomp. So you might want to prepare to update the pet section in your guide.
Its more like Agi > AP > IntIts more like Agi > AP > Int > Crit > Sta and with Careful Aim maxed out its Int > Agi > AP > Crit > Sta for leveling and farming purpose.
You actually don’t need Sta at all the gain from leveling is enough for you and your pet, so if you run an instance consider that and do not roll Need on pure Sta-Stuff. Leave that for Shamans, Druid and Rouges.
Int is given a high value as it determines how often you have pull out Aspect of the Viper and therefore dropping your dps. More Int -> more Mana -> less time in Viper as its regeneration is based on a percentage of you max mana. Though you should never roll Need on pure Intstuff. Only when it comes with Agi or AP on Leather and has not SP on it, than its for you.
One a second note Agi is only slightly better than AP as 1 Agi = 1 AP + very low percentage of critrating. (A green of your level with Agi on it usually results in ~1% crit.) But you normaly find much higher AP Counts than Agi counts on items of the same level so usually items with AP on it are far superior.
I recommend you Rating Buster for you items choices as its summs up the secondary stats on items, also consider if you have Careful Aim or not and displays the differnce between current tooltip and the item currently equiped in this slot.
hunterI tamed a turtle and the next time i logged back on his 50%dmg for 12sec ability is gone off of the pet bar, there is a blank spot there, anyway to get it back? its not in the pet skill window
Alliance food vendorFor alliance, the innkeeper next to the Storwmind bank has bread up to level 75, and so does everyone’s favorite bread vendor wandering around the Ironforge AH and bank. I think it might be a little easier for Alliance to buy them there instead of Tarren Mill, Hammerfall, or Undercity. 😛 Other than that, this is a great guide! I was cruising along with my Ghost Saber at 35 and happy with him and never would have thought to AoE with a gorilla.
On a side note, what do you recommend as the stats to look for on gear? I’ve heard Agil > AP > Crit > Stam > Int. Is that right, or severely out of whack?
Fat belly? WTH are you guysFat belly? WTH are you guys talking about? 😛
Correct.Correct.
thanksOk, thanks a lot, I will be starting my hunter soon. And this means that all rotations posted here are still correct?
Really, the Steady Shot nerfReally, the Steady Shot nerf and the Volley nerf was not all that big, and leveling while having the gorilla will still be really fast, as the gorilla is still the best pet for levelling.
For getting Heirloom items I would only recommend getting the [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42950]Mail Shoulders[/url] and choose whatever weapons have the same stat as that.
For weapons just choose whatever, the HP of your pet doesn’t matter as the Mend Pet spell can heal it extremely well.
Hah, I was thinking thatHah, I was thinking that about the fat stomach every time I saw it!
SuggestionsHello. On my paladin, i have a ton of emblems, and i was thinking about buying heirlooms and leveling a hunter. I found this guide, and right when I was about to get on, there was patch 3.0.8. I saw that volley and steady shot had been nerfed, and wondered if the gorilla aoe grinding method was still the fastest way to level. And if this is not true anymore, will this guide be getting an update?
For some suggestions, maybe you could add an heirloom section? Sure, which ones to get and which enchants seem obvious, but i read somewhere that pets now receive way more of your stamina, so for leveling would it be worth it to get one sword and one dagger, instead of two daggers? And what is the best scope that can be put on the bow? Your could also add a sample pet talent tree, because some people like me who haven’t played as a hunter might not know which points are worth getting.
Also, sorry if I sound like a noob, I have never played as a hunter before.
Love the site!I absolutely love this site…I can log in almost every day and find new useful info. TY Jame
I do have to say that the fat belly pic on every page is disgusting 🙁
I have a lvl 71 Huntard and after reading this guide I went and tamed my first gorilla ( I have always been a cat person ).
OMG this is insane leveling. I gather up as many mobs as I can on my wolf, dismount, drop a heal pet as he aoe spanks mobs and get agrro, then frop fire trap and chain volley till they drop dead. HAHAHAHAHA love it.
Thank you for this awesome guide. I only wish I had read this at 40. 🙂
DKs rule…others drool
All right, please don’tAll right, please don’t twist my words like that. My post directly said “Stamina helps,” (it even says that in the part you quoted) just not on the scale that Agility does. I simply said it wasn’t extremely useful, at that level of superlative. Is it useful? Yes. Is it very useful? Yes. Is it amazingly world-stoppingly mind-bendingly above-all-else useful? Probably not.
Edit: Well, I guess I can see where a source of confusion might be. People use terms like “not very good” as a nicer way to say “bad” (ie: Pokemon’s “not very effective”) so I could see someone taking “not extremely useful” as meaning “bad” as well. That wasn’t my intention with the phrase at all.
While levelling I wouldWhile levelling I would generally pull 7+ mobs, so having some extra stamina on my gear was very nice. What I’d value for levelling would be something like:
Agility -> Crit -> AP -> Stamina -> Intellect -> Haste etc…
Hai there,
Even if theHai there,
Even if the autor would add a spec for PvP (this is a [b]leveling[/b] guide, after all), you shouldn’t take it while leveling.
And DK’s [i]will[/i] kill you, they’re simply overpowered from 55 – 70.
~Trollvink
You got that wrong.[quote]Stamina isn’t extremely useful overall but it still helps[/quote]
Stamina scales with your pet, if your pet is taking the hits, then stamina helps. Alot.
:)I find your guide really useful and followed your guide till
I reached lvl 62. Just wondering can you also post hunter spec for
pvp? I am really sick and tired of getting killed by DKs…
Instead of two on improved 8) Instead of two on improved revive pet do two on improved mend pet.
Just a suggestion.
Hello there,
As you said,Hello there,
As you said, you should level as Beast Mastery.
You should get stats in this order, as BM:
Agility > Attack Power > Stamina.
As BM you want to avoid the stat ‘Haste’, as it would bring down the casting time of Steady Shot to less then 1.5. that way, the Global Cooldown (You know, the one you get on all spells when you use an instant) is too high and you can’t spam Steady Shot. Also, Armor Penetration isn’t a very good stat. You shouldnt see this until Outland and Northrend though.
Your ranged weapon doesn’t matter, just Bows, Crossbows and Guns. try to focus on the speed and damage-range. Like I said, you don’t want your SS to be too fast so that it doesn’t work well with the Global Cooldown.
Well as far as the baseWell as far as the base stats go, Agility is your main focus stat. Stamina and Intellect are kind of incidental on Hunter gear once you get to Northrend; Stamina isn’t extremely useful overall but it still helps, and Intellect helps a bunch once you have Careful Aim. Before Northrend, Agility is just the major aim. For the other stats, Strength is the most useless, and Spirit doesn’t help much either, but it contributes just a tiny bit more than Strength does. (Keep in mind Attack and Crit rating are also handy for leveling but they don’t show up too much before Outland.)
What stats should you focusWhat stats should you focus on while leveling a BM Hunter? Agility–Stamina–Strength? Is there a type of ranged weapon you should generally get while leveling (if there’s a type of ranged weapon that is just simply generally better than the other two types), or does it not matter?(I think this might also be good to add into the guide)
Guide looks well-written, by the way.
Spirit Bond combined withSpirit Bond combined with [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53482]Blood of the Rhino[/url] is AWESOME 🙂 Blood of the Rhino actually increases the healing done by Spirit Bond itself on each tick!
_______________
Have no fear, from this day forward you too can experience the overwhelming amounts of power and superiority that my beloved [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=34692]iWin button[/url] can bring you!
You are just one click away.
Spirit Bond is terrible forSpirit Bond is terrible for soloing. Thanks to its buffs it’s no longer totally useless as it once was, but for just soloing it serves very little purpose, mostly thanks to the new pet talent trees.
Edit: Oh dear, I hadn’t considered it would actually be very useful to those who play on PvP servers. I’m only on PvE ones and so I can’t get attacked in the wilderness, but for those on servers where they can Spirit Bond is much more useful.
Another edit: I’m sorry for sounding so harsh. I’m just having troubles in my personal life and taking them out on everything.
Replaced it with 2/3 ThickReplaced it with 2/3 Thick Hide, added a note at the end of the guide suggesting that at level 80 they respec to whatever they enjoy most.
Hmm, I personally almostHmm, I personally almost never lose my pet while solo’ing, so I really never cared for Improved Resurrection.
It’s even less useful if you level with a ferocity pet and take heart of the phoenix.
So I guess it’s down to personal preference.
Revive Pet is singleRevive Pet is single handedly the 2 best points I’ve ever spent. It may not be that great for soloing, but the difference between getting a 4 second resurrection cheap on mana compared to a 10 second resurrection that takes up nearly all your mana is huge.
Readiness isn’t taken until Level 80, and at that level it can affect your trap cooldown, rapid fire cooldown, kill command cooldown and kill shot cooldown, which is also amazing for 1 talent point.
Pathfinding is an alright talent, it speeds up your mount and aspect of the cheetah/pack so I found it to be pretty useful levelling up. Same with Invigoration, it reduced my downtime and it also is a placeholder talent. Rapid Killing I found I always had up when I went onto the next mob, so it may have been that you were in an area with a low density of mobs.
Volley is currently bugged at the moment due to the fact that its not registering it as 1 hit to the target, but several, thus breaking your weapon faster.
Omen isn’t really useful now that Blizzard added the in game threat meter.
I will add an alternate talent build, and an aspect of the viper paragraph once I get some free time.
A few suggestions on improvementsFirstly, the talent build.
You put 2 points in Improved Revive Pet. It’s a great talent in instances with pet-unfriendly fights, but for soloing? If your pet dies while soloing and the mobs aggro you, then you probably won’t start rezzing your pet, you’ll just Feign Death and rezz it afterward. Therefore, you don’t gain much benefit from the talent. Those 2 points would be [b]much[/b] better spent in Thick Hide or, even better, Spirit Bond.
Readiness for soloing? What on earth could you possibly use it for? Not to mention that with the next patch it will not affect Bestial Wrath anymore.
Rapid Killing… I used it for leveling and noticed that by the time I moved on to kill my next mob the 20 second duration of the buff would have already worn off. Maybe I was just slow, but I didn’t get so much benefit from it. Instead, I chose to spend those points in Improved Tracking, which is a great talent even if you don’t put 5/5 in it.
As for Pathfinding and Invigoration… They are nice talents, but there are far more useful talents in the tree to put points in, IMO.
[url=http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cVbhzggRmu0eoxceVbZh]Here[/url] is the talent build that I’ve used for leveling, maybe it’s not perfect, but for me it was very efficient.
As for using it in instances, it can dish out some DPS, but if you REALLY want to do instances as you level up, then don’t bother with using a talent build specifically designed for leveling, just level up with a normal DPS build and a DPS pet. You won’t level up as fast, but you will top damage meters.
Secondly, in the rotations section, consider adding a paragraph about Aspect of the Viper. Volley will drain your mana quite fast, so you have to alternate between killing multiple mobs and one at a time. The fact that Volley will tear through your ranged weapon’s durability like crazy is another thing you might want to mention.
And lastly, addons.
No Omen? Omen is the single, most useful addon a hunter could possibly have. Having a pet that tanks for us at all times, being careful not to over-aggro is our priority. Agreed that with the changes Wrath brought us, it may not be so mandatory, but it’s definitely a lot lore useful than Bartender4 and whatnot.
________________
Have no fear, from this day forward you too can experience the overwhelming amounts of power and superiority that my beloved [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=34692]iWin button[/url] can bring you!
You are just one click away.
mmBananas are not required, however any fruit, bread or fungus would suffice. I will add that in, however if you frequently use Mend Pet you won’t find happiness to be an issue.
A thing worth mentioningA thing worth mentioning about the gorillas is that they needs to be fed with bananas (I may be wrong on this point, but since the last time I used a gorilla; bananas were the thing). A good addition to this guide would be how you easily can get your hands on these bananas while leveling.
Thanks for the CCThanks for that, I fixed up the rotations section, added a note in the ‘Pet Choice’ section, included Bartender in the addon section, I kind of assumed an Action Bar addon would be a given.
Color Code added.
Looking pretty good, I willLooking pretty good, I will be using this for my hunter 🙂 I agree with Trollvink’s comments. You also should tell us where to get our gorilla at level 32 – I know there are some on STV at that level, but not everyone may know that or know where they are.
Hi there,
decent guide, butHi there,
decent guide, but there were some thing’s I noticed:
– Rank 1 Steady Shot is trainable @ level 50.
– Rank 1 volley is trainable @ level 40, so you can’t use it at level 32, maybe something to change at ‘Pet Choice’
– At addons you could add a few like Bartender4, so you can make Trap, Aspect and Track bars.
– You might want to add color code’s. Check [url=https://www.wow-pro.com/leveling_guides/james_horde_leveling_guide_chapter_ii]Jame’s guide’s[/url] for an example. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see.
~Trollvink.