Build Shop: Hunter 41/20/0 Leveling Spec
by Matthew Porter 
Aug 5th 2008 at 9:30AM
Welcome readers to this week's Build Shop. I know you haven't seen this feature since the middle of last June, and that's because most viable talent specs have been covered for each class. Not a lot of additions or enhancements have been added since then but that will surely change when Wraith of the Lich King arrives. So this week I thought I would try a "theme" talent spec, one designed for a particular task, leveling a Hunter. Many people agree that the Hunter is one of the easier classes to level, but for fellow WoW Insider blogger Matthew Rossi and others, it's taking longer than expected. Let's see if this beast mastery spec can give him a boost!
The Thought Behind the Build
This particular talent spec is built in mind for leveling a Hunter with minimal downtime. As the pet can be healed by bandages, spells, and food, we're gunna use a beast mastery spec of 41/20/0. Unlike the prior Build Shop on the same spec, the point distribution will be different as this is meant for a solo/grinding roll rather than a group/raiding one. For those wondering how much choosing the right pet makes a difference for leveling, in my experience it doesn't much. Get the pet you plan to use at max level, or if you're on your toes about swapping pets in and out, you can potentially level two different ones if your persistent about it. I invite you to open this WoW Head talent planner in a new browser window or tab so you can refer to it as I break down the build.
The Build Analysis
Beast Mastery (41 points)
Our purpose here is to turn the pet into the best tank it can be while maximizing damage and efficiency. There is an argument that Improved Revive Pet can be handy during those "Oh crap!" moments, but hopefully with the tanking prowess imbued by our talent choices and pet training, and use of Mend Pet and bandages, those occasions won't rear their ugly head very often.
- Improved Aspect of the Hawk (5/5): Leveling up this will be your main aspect. The haste proc added with this talent is the cherry on top of the proverbial sunday of usefulness.
- Focused Fire (2/2): You should have your pet out at all times so you might as well get 2% extra damage for doing so. And the extra crit on Kill Command will make the 60s go by smoother.
- Thick Hide (3/3): This will help turn the pet into the ultimate damage sponge.
- Unleashed Fury (5/5): Upping manaless/focusless passive damage is always good!
- Improved Mend Pet (2/2): Making the primary heal for your pet more efficient means less time drinking. Plus being able to cure debuffs off the pet means no more waiting around for that annoying curse to fade.
- Ferocity (5/5): Gotta take this as it's a prereq to one of Beast Mastery's best talents.
- Bestial Discipline (2/2): Extra focus means more special attacks done by the pet, which means more damage and agro.
- Intimidation (1/1): Perfect for stopping casters and runners, and securing agro from your pet.
- Spirit Bond (2/2): A constant manaless regen, slight though it may be, keeps us topped off in between fights meaning less downtime spent eating.
- Frenzy (4/5): If you feel you need to max this go ahead and move around a point you feel is worth it, but even at the 80% chance this effect procs like crazy!
- Bestial Wrath (1/1): Big Red time! A trademark BM talent that's good for any occasion.
- Catlike Reflexes (3/3): This will help as you enter Outlands and mob damage is higher. The extra dodge means less mana for healing and more for special attacks all adding the benefit of less downtime.
- Serpent's Swiftness (5/5): Another hallmark of the BM tree, adding passive haste to the hunter, increasing damage in the process.
- The Beast Within (1/1): The King of BM talents. With proper use of this talent and maybe a potion or two and some luck, you'll be able to solo some elite quests for big exp and loot!
For the remainder of the points, I feel that Marksmanship has the best bang for the buck, and pairs the best with our Beast Master emphasis. The choices made here won't vary as much as it did in the Beast Master tree when compared to a BM raiding specs. Hey, there's only so many good low tier talents to go around!
- Lethal Shots (5/5): A no brainer, more crit equals more damage and more procs of Kill Command and Go for the Throat.
- Efficiency (5/5): Making your shots more mana efficient means less down time spent drinking.
- Go for the Throat (2/2): With a name this awesome how can you pass it up? Your pet will be rolling in the focus with this talent.
- Rapid Killing (2/2): With this you have a reason to go from mob to mob as fast as you can. And as a bonus you can use Rapid Fire more often.
- Aimed Shot (1/1): What use to be the pinnacle of Hunter shots have been nerfed into near uselessness since it now clips auto shot. It's still not a bad opener move when used in conjunction with Rapid Killing and Intimidation.
- Mortal Shots (5/5): One of the biggest reasons you dip into the Marksmanship tree, this talent really adds to your DPS potential.
Want more in depth talent analysis for every class? Check out the Build Shop archives! And for help leveling up that new alt don't miss our class leveling guides. For those looking to get into the fun of Karazhan, be sure to bone up on our gear guides. And as always, trust WoW Insider to bring you the most in analysis, news, tips, and guides for World of Warcraft! Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, Features, Leveling, Classes, Talents, Build Shop
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Quemedo Aug 5th 2008 9:45AM
I don't agree with Rapid Killing 2/2.
If you put 2/2 on that talent, you can't use bestial wrath everytime with rapid shot and procs from improved aspect of chicken. it will be 1min before you have bestial wrath again.
Put 1 point in that talent and you can use both everytime together, maximazing your dps/time.
wowinsider Aug 5th 2008 11:00AM
No, maximizing DPS/time is achieved by reducing all cooldowns, regardless of whether they coincide. If you can't figure out why this is true, you're beyond help.
trickster Aug 5th 2008 9:47AM
Don't forget, you also need to talk about where to sink the training points for the pet as well. Given a limited number of points and all the possible ranks, some pets have high Natural armor, others have resists, all pets should have cobra reflexes and avoidence.....
Buckshot Aug 5th 2008 9:50AM
Ditch aspect of the hawk, add 5/5 endurance training, add bestial swiftness. Lose spirit bond and max out frenzy. In marks drop efficency for 5/5 improved concussive shot. Full Endgame/PvP/Arena build that gives you massive damage and survivability.
Culhag Aug 5th 2008 10:09AM
You're aware that it's meant as a leveling build, not an endgame one ?
Anyway thanks for that build ! I have a mid level hunter that takes a bit too much downtime for my liking, so I'll give it a try.
MotherAce Aug 5th 2008 10:11AM
"Full endgame/PvP/Arena build"... Yeah, read the topic headline please Buckshot, before replying.
Buckshot Aug 5th 2008 10:13AM
Yeah who wants to max out damgage while leveling. Pick a build, live it, level it. Don't wast time/money with respecs. Do it right the first time. And a big FU to the resident n00b motherace.
Hybrys Aug 5th 2008 9:48PM
You apparently know nothing about hunters. Imp Conc sucks, maxing Frenzy is unnecessary (learn to math. Just sayin'.), Bestial Swiftness sucks SO much, and, if you're honestly going for top damage, skipping Imp Hawk is terrible.
Wowie Aug 5th 2008 9:56AM
"Wraith" of the Lich King??
/sigh
trickster Aug 5th 2008 10:17AM
Also, if you take the 3 points out of catlike reflexes, move 2 of them to animal handler - it helps a pets to hit bonus(if you ever look at a wws report, your pet can miss quite a bit). Put 1 point into ferocious inspiration.
Contraversy surrounds spirit bond. I leveled without it and put the 2 remaining points into ferocious inspiration. BRK has done the math, so has Megataff as well and spirit bond is meh to well maybe okay.
6k X .02 = 120, 120/10(sec) = 12 hps per click. not much if ya think about it.
yes, maybe my math is off.
Brasson Aug 5th 2008 10:47AM
12 health per second is 43,200 health per hour. Call me crazy, but that doesn't sound like nothing.
PeeWee Aug 5th 2008 10:58AM
Brasson, it ticks every 10 seconds, not every second.
4320 health an hour is not a lot.
Jaynitan Aug 5th 2008 11:30AM
for soloing, spirit bond is quite nice, not bad in raids.
Sure for my 70 hunter having about 190 health every ten secs (raid buffed) may not seem like much but considering it is completely mana free is not bad.
In solo - if you get too many on you feign death, your pet still has a weak HOT on it. Then you pop your hunter HOT on your pet and voila mucho survivability. There have been times I killed 6 or 7 things at once by healing my pet and using autoshot and traps for extra dmg. Aspect of the viper will hopefulyl keep you in enough mana to spam the hot over and over.
In Raids, while attempting any boss where DPS healing themselves is a benefit, this is the best thing since feral druid crit heals and shadow priests. I get as much healing outta this as my lock gets from his shadowweave set. (1000 DPS = 10,000 over 10 sec *.02 = 200 health per 10 sec. Hunter with 10,000 health = 200 health per 10 sec WITHOUT using mana)
Ok look at it this way, take a Heavy netherweave bandage 3400 healing 8 seconds channeled effect with a 60 sec debuff. . . that means 3400 / 60 = 56HPS
So with bandages you can get 56 HPS, add the 14-16 HPS for most lvl 70 hunters = say 71HPS. Add a potion Super health does 1500-2500 (we'll say 2000) so 2000/120 seconds = 16HPS
So with pots, bandaids and spirit bond you can have a total HPS gain of 87HPS or better. Sure it takes 2 mintues to see the total effect of all of this and it is not a constant rate, the HPS is spikey. but you will have healed yourself for 5220 health every minute if you bandage and pot when you can/need to. That is 5220 a healer doesn't have to worry about and can use on a tank, or conserve mana.
Spirit bond on a hunter with 8000 health = the average healing done by a max level health pot over a 2 minute time frame. Hunter with 10,000 health = 20HPS =2400 health over 2 mintues. . . can we say that spirit bond gives better HPS that healing pots?
Spirit bond cost 0 mana, 0 gold, 0 energy, 0 rage, 0 lost time on GDC or autoshot. Does anyone know if trolls get the benefit of the racial regen AND spirt bond? :P
Nick S Aug 5th 2008 2:08PM
the issue with spirit bond is that it's sloooooow.
mag drops the roof, then i get tossed through some fire. which is better, 2000 health a few minutes from now, or 2000 health now?
typically, spirit bond isn't going to save you, unless you're taking very slow, very predictable damage.
Mediator Aug 5th 2008 10:05AM
The guy who wrote this article must have forgotten the talent trees are being changed in WOTLK, so there's no point in making a level 70 leveling build with the pre-WOTLK talents
regnide Aug 5th 2008 10:07AM
Unless someone is maybe playing the game right now and not 3 months from now ...
Cipri Aug 6th 2008 5:14AM
The guy who wrote this comment must have forgotten that WOTLK hasn't been released yet, so there's quite a good point in making a leveling to 70 build with the pre-WOTLK talents, for those that are leveling a hunter right now.
sephirah Aug 5th 2008 10:20AM
Yours is one of the silliest post I've read lately.
1. If someone is levelling NOW, he needs a 61 points spec NOW
2. If someone will level when WotLK is out, maybe a 71 points spec would be different from now, when all the talents will be definitive and not in beta
jten11 Aug 5th 2008 11:16AM
"1. If someone is levelling NOW, he needs a 61 points spec NOW"
Yup thats definitely me at the moment. Rolled a hunter not too long ago so this post came at a perfect time for me. This will help alot!
ThorinII Aug 5th 2008 1:13PM
Yep, that's why it's 41/20/0. That adds up to 61. I'm lvl 66. Almost there, but will take all the advise I can get.