Hunter talents

Classes
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Starting at level 10, a Hunter can begin spending talent points to gain new abilities and spells, strengthen existing abilities, and specialize how he/she functions. See the entry on Talents for more information about the Talent system.

Hunters train in three schools: Beast Mastery, Marksmanship, and Survival. The Beast Mastery tree focuses on increasing the damage capabilities and survivability of a hunter's pet. The Marksmanship tree focuses on increasing the damage dealt by and mana efficiency of a hunter's shots. The Survival tree offers tools to aid in a hunter's survival, and extra utility to the group and raid.

For an in depth analysis of all of the talents please see the Hunter talent analysis article.

PLEASE NOTE: These talents have changed extensively in Patch 3.0.2. The following information may not be applicable to the live game, even where the talent names are the same.

Beast Mastery

Talent	Reqs	Ranks	Description
[Improved Aspect of the Hawk]	none	5	While [Aspect of the Hawk] or Dragonhawk is active, all normal ranged attacks have a 10% chance of increasing ranged attack speed by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15% for 12 sec.
[Endurance Training]	none	5	Increases the Health of your pets by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% and your Health by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%.
[Focused Fire]	5 Beast Mastery	2	All damage caused by you is increased by 1%/2% while your pet is active and the critical strike chance of your pet's special abilities is increased by 10%/20% while [Kill Command] is active.
[Improved Aspect of the Monkey]	5 Beast Mastery	3	Increases the Dodge bonus of your [Aspect of the Monkey] by 2%/4%/6%.
Thick Hide	5 Beast Mastery	3	Increases the Armor rating of your pets by 7%/14%/20% and your armor contributions from items by 4%/7%/10%.
[Improved Revive Pet]	5 Beast Mastery	2	Revive Pet's casting time is reduced by 3/6 sec, its mana cost is reduced by 20%/40%, and the health your pet returns with is increased by an additional 15%/30%.
[Pathfinding]	10 Beast Mastery	2	Increases the speed bonus of your [Aspect of the Cheetah] and [Aspect of the Pack] by 4%/8%, and increases your speed while mounted by 5%/10%. The mounted movement speed increase does not stack with other effects.
[Unleashed Fury]	10 Beast Mastery	5	Increases the damage done by your pets by 4%/8%/12%/16%/20%.
[Improved Mend Pet]	15 Beast Mastery	2	Reduces the mana cost of [Mend Pet] by 10%/20% and gives it a 15%/50% chance of cleansing 1 Curse, Disease, Magic or Poison effect from the pet each tick.
Ferocity	15 Beast Mastery	5	Increases the critical strike chance of your pets by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%.
Spirit Bond	20 Beast Mastery	2	While your pet is active, you and your pet will regenerate 1%/2% of total health every 10 sec., and increases healing done to you and your pet by 5%/10%.
[Intimidation]	20 Beast Mastery	1	Command your pet to intimidate the target on the next successful melee attack, causing a high amount of threat and stunning the target for 3 seconds.
[Bestial Discipline]	20 Beast Mastery	2	Increases the Focus regeneration of your pets by 50%/100%.
[Animal Handler]	25 Beast Mastery	2	Increases your pet's expertise by 5/10, and reduces the cooldown of your Master's Call ability by 5 sec./10 sec.
Frenzy	25 Beast Mastery 5 Ferocity	5	Gives your pet a 20%/40%/60%/80%/100% chance to gain 30% attack speed increase for 8 seconds after dealing a critical strike.
[Ferocious Inspiration]	30 Beast Mastery	3	When your pet scores a critical hit, all party and raid members have all damage increased by 1%/2%/3% for 10 sec.
[Bestial Wrath]	30 Beast Mastery 1 Intimidation	1	Send your pet into a rage causing 50% additional damage for 18 seconds. While enraged, the beast does not feel pity or remorse or fear and cannot be stopped unless killed.
Catlike Reflexes	30 Beast Mastery	3	Increases your chance to dodge by 1%/2%/3% and your pet's chance to dodge by an additional 3%/6%/9%.
[Invigoration]	35 Beast Mastery 3 Ferocious Inspiration	2	When your pet scores a critical hit with a special ability, you have a 50%/100% chance to instantly regenerate 1% mana.
[Serpent's Swiftness]	35 Beast Mastery	5	Increases ranged combat attack speed by 4%/8%/12%/16%/20% and your pet's melee attack speed by 4%/8%/12%/16%/20%.
[Longevity]	40 Beast Mastery	3	Reduces the cooldown of your Bestial Wrath, Intimidation and Pet Special Abilities by 10%/20%/30%.
[The Beast Within]	40 Beast Mastery 1 Bestial Wrath	1	When your pet is under the effects of Bestial Wrath, you also go into a rage causing 10% additional damage and reducing mana cost of all spells by 20% for 18 seconds. While enraged, you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.
[Cobra Strikes]	40 Beast Mastery	3	You have a 20%/40%/60% chance when you critically hit with Arcane Shot, Steady Shot or Kill Shot to cause your pet's next 2 special attacks to critically hit.
[Kindred Spirits]	45 Beast Mastery	5	Increases your pet's damage by 4%/8%/12%/16%/20% and you and your pet's movement speed by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% while your pet is active. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.
Beast Mastery	50 Beast Mastery	1	You master the art of Beast training, teaching you the ability to tame Exotic pets and increasing your total amount of Pet Skill Points by 4.

Key talents

• [Improved Aspect of the Hawk]

If you are involved in end-game raiding, then this talent can significantly increase your damage output over lengthy combat durations as auto shots are always fired in all shot rotations. This is definitely the case in raid instances such as Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau, where high sustained DPS is crucial towards the success of a boss encounter. Note that in normal PvE, this talent is not quite as useful, but provides a solid DPS increase. It offers little or even no benefit for PvP as you must be able to fire successful auto shots consistently in order for this talent to proc and this is certaintly not possible if you get enemies within your deadzone constantly or getting crowd controlled.

• [Endurance Training]

The 15% boost to your pet's health can greatly boost your pet's survivability in both PvP and PvE; it can potentially help it endure an additional two or three damaging hits or ticks before dying.

• Thick Hide

Reduces the physical damage your pet takes in battle. Really pays off when you are faced with two or more opponents that deal heavy melee damage as it will help your pet take much less damage. This combined with Endurance Training can save you mana from having to heal your pet as often.

• [Unleashed Fury]

Increases your pet's damage which also pays off in increasing its ability to maintain aggro.

• [Improved Mend Pet]

A must-have for any long term Hunter. The ability to remove a range of debuffs from your pet reduces your downtime and boosts your pet's survivability in fights where annoying DoTs are applied to everyone.

• Ferocity

The added critical strike chance will greatly improve your pet's damage output which automatically means better threat generation and its ability to maintain aggro.

• [Intimidation]

A great means of interrupting spell casters and also for biding you and your pet some time to recover or inflict damage without taking any yourself. This spell also works well if your pet needs to steal aggro away from you or from casters in your party as intimidation causes a high amount of threat. Finally, while this is a primarily PvE talent, the stun aspect can make a difference in PvP encounters.

• [Bestial Discipline]

Enables your pet to regenerate twice as much focus per tick, thus letting it use it specials and growl more often which leads to a higher damage output.

• Frenzy

Another solid talent for greatly increasing your pet's damage output. Also great against casters, as it will put pressure on them when your pet is frenzied and keeps interrupting their casting.

• [Serpent's Swiftness]

One of the "core" DPS increasing talents in the tree. Passive 20% white DPS to you and your pet. Scales incredibly well, and provides a significant damage boost. Is worth about a 10-15% DPS increase when 5 points are spent here. Note that it is not a straight, direct 20% DPS increase because special attacks such as [Multi-Shot] and [Arcane Shot] are unaffected by this talent.

• [Bestial Wrath] and [The Beast Within]

These two talents combined together makes Beast mastery Hunters the bane of casters and healers in PvP, as well as provides significant dps boost in PvE. 18 seconds are more than enough for an uncrowd-controllable hunter and his pet to kill any unwary caster/healer. It can also be activated to break any CC on your pet. In raids, use it as often as possible and if possible, combine it with a trinket such as  [Bloodlust Brooch] for a high damage output in fights.

Marksmanship

Talent	Reqs	Ranks	Description
[Improved Concussive Shot]	none	2	Increases the duration of your [Concussive Shot]'s daze effect by 1-2 sec.
[Focused Aim]	none	3	Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting [Steady Shot] by 23-70%, and increases your chance to hit by 1-3%.
[Lethal Shots]	none	5	Increases your critical strike chance with ranged weapons by 1-5%
[Careful Aim]	5 Marksmanship	3	Increases your ranged attack power by an amount equal to 33-100% of your total Intellect.
[Improved Hunter's Mark]	5 Marksmanship	3	Increases the bonus attack power granted by your [Hunter's Mark] ability by 10-30%, and reduces the mana cost of your Hunter's Mark ability by 33-100%.
[Mortal Shots]	5 Marksmanship	5	Increases the ranged weapon critical strike damage bonus by 6-30%
Go For The Throat	10 Marksmanship	2	Your ranged critical hits cause your pet to regenerate 25-50% of focus.
[Improved Arcane Shot]	10 Marksmanship	3	Increases the damage done by your [Arcane Shot] by 5-15%.
[Aimed Shot]	10 Marksmanship 5 Mortal Shots	1	An aimed shot that increases ranged damage by 70 (trainable to 870) and reduces healing done to that target by 50%. Lasts 10 sec.
[Rapid Killing]	10 Marksmanship	2	Reduces the cooldown of your [Rapid Fire] ability by 1-2 min. In addition, after killing an opponent that yields experience or honor, your next Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, or Auto Shot causes 10-20% additional damage. Lasts 20 sec.
[Improved Stings]	15 Marksmanship	3	Increases the damage done by Serpent and Wyvern Stings by 10-30%, increases the mana drained by your [Viper Sting] by 10-30%, and reduces chance that stings will be dispelled by 10-30%.
Efficiency	15 Marksmanship	5	Reduces Mana cost of Shots and Stings by 2-10%
[Concussive Barrage]	20 Marksmanship	3	Your successful [Auto Shot], Multi Shot and [Volley] attacks have a 2-6% chance to Daze the target for 4 sec.
[Readiness]	20 Marksmanship	1	When activated, this ability immediately finishes the cooldown on your other Hunter abilities.
[Barrage]	20 Marksmanship	3	Increases the damage done by your Multi-Shot, Aimed shot, and Volley spells by 4-12%
[Combat Experience]	25 Marksmanship	2	Increases your total Agility by 2-4% and your total Intellect by 2-4%.
[Ranged Weapon Specialization]	25 Marksmanship	5	Increases the damage you deal with ranged weapons by 1-5%
[Piercing Shots]	30 Marksmanship	3	Your [Steady Shot] and Aimed Shot abilities ignore 2-6% of your target's armor.
[Trueshot Aura]	30 Marksmanship 1 Readiness	1	Increases the attack power of party and raid members within 45 yards by 10%. Lasts until cancelled.
[Improved Barrage]	30 Marksmanship 3 Barrage	3	Increases the Critical Strike chance of your Multi-Shot and Aimed shot abilities by 4-12% and gives you a 33-100% chance of avoiding interruption caused by damage while channeling Volley.
[Master Marksman]	35 Marksmanship	5	Increases your critical strike chance by 1-5%, and reduces the Mana cost of your Steady Shot by 5-25%.
[Rapid Recuperation]	35 Marksmanship	5	Reduces the mana and focus cost of shots and ability of you and your pet by 30-60% while under the effect of Rapid Fire, and you will gain 1-2% of your mana every 2 sec for 6 sec when you gain Rapid Killing.
[Wild Quiver]	40 Marksmanship	3	You have a 4-10% chance to shoot an additional shot when doing damage with your auto shot, dealing 50% Nature damage. Wild Quiver consumes no ammo.
[Silencing Shot]	40 Marksmanship 5 Master Marksman	1	A shot that deals 50% weapon damage and silences the target for 3 sec.
[Improved Steady Shot]	40 Marksmanship	3	Your Steady Shot hits have a 5-15% chance to increase the damage done by your next Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot or Chimera Shot by 15%, and reduce the mana cost of your next Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot or Chimera Shot by 20%.
[Marked for Death]	45 Marksmanship	5	Increases your damage done by your shots and the damage done by your pet's special abilities by 1-5% on marked targets, and increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Aimed Shot, Steady Shot, [Kill Shot] or Chimera Shot by 2-10%.
[Chimera Shot]	50 Marksmanship	1	You deal 125% weapon damage, refreshing the current Sting on your target and triggering an effect: Serpent Sting - Instantly deals 40% of the damage done by your Serpent Sting. Viper Sting - Instantly restores mana to you equal to 60% of the total amount drained by your Viper Sting. Scorpid Sting - Attempts to Disarm the target for 10 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per 1 minute.

Key talents

• [Improved Concussive Shot]

This talent extends the daze effect of [Concussive Shot] by 2 seconds. It provides the opportunity to kite your opponent or run away from them. Essential PVP talent. Much less useful in late-game PvE, and nearly useless in raiding, as many high-level mobs are immune to stun effects.

• [Lethal Shots]

Straight DPS upgrade. Coupled with Mortal Shots, is almost essential.

• [Aimed Shot]

Also the essential means of taking down spell casters quickly with a huge upfront punch.

• [Rapid Killing]

Decent in both PvP and PvE, although more so in PvP. The cooldown reduction on Rapid Fire is good, and the 20% damage buff increases the punch on any opener you throw within a reasonable timeframe. (Note: still procs off mobs that would yield experience if you are level-capped, also procs off PvP NPCs that grant neither XP nor honour)

• [Mortal Shots]

A must-have for almost any Hunter. The 30% buff to your critical hits applies to all of your shots as well, significantly increasing your DPS. Also one of the primary reasons to pick up Aimed Shot, which has only limited utility after 2.0.

• [Readiness]

Resets cooldown on all Hunter abilities. Commonly overlooked, this is a panic button that gives the Hunter redundancy. If you have a mob locked with freeze trap and draw an add, you can hit Readiness and drop another trap to freeze the add. If Feign Death is initially resisted, you can hit Readiness for another roll of the dice. In long fights, you can also use Rapid Fire once, then Readiness, and Rapid Fire again. It can also be used against difficult or larger mobs. Immolation Trap, draw the mob to the trap, Readiness, jump forward, drop Snake Trap on mob, feign to drop aggro from traps, jump back, and commence shooting.

• [Trueshot Aura]

A bonus the hunter can provide his groupmates with. Rogues, DPS warriors and beast mastery/survival spec hunters will love you for this.

• [Master Marksman]

Necessary to get the much-needed [Silencing Shot] as well as give a significant boost to your overall DPS - as marksmanship has more use in PVE than beast mastery, this is essential to obtain the high DPS needed for tougher mobs

Survival

Talent	Reqs	Ranks	Description
[Improved Tracking]	none	5	Increases all non-periodic damage done to targets that are being tracked by 1-5%.
[Hawk Eye]	none	3	Increases the range of your range weapons by 2-6 yards.
[Savage Strikes]	none	2	Increases the critical strike chance of [Raptor Strike], [Mongoose Bite] and [Counterattack] by 10-20%.
[Surefooted]	5 Survival	3	Reduces the duration of movement impairing effects by 10-30%
[Entrapment]	5 Survival	3	Gives your [Immolation Trap], [Frost Trap], [Explosive Trap], and [Snake Trap] a 8-25% chance to entrap the target, preventing them from moving for 4 sec.
[Improved Wing Clip]	5 Survival	3	Gives your [Wing Clip] ability a 7-20% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.
[Survival Instincts]	5 Survival	2	Reduces all damage taken by 2-4% and increases the critical strike chance of your [Arcane Shot], [Steady Shot], and [Explosive Shot] by 2-4%.
[Survivalist]	10 Survival	5	Increases your Stamina by 2-10%.
[Scatter Shot]	10 Survival	1	A short-range shot that deals 50% weapon damage and disorients the target for 4 sec. Any damage caused will remove the effect. Turns off your attack when used.
Deflection	10 Survival	3	Increases your chance to parry by 1-3%, and reduces the duration of all Disarm effects used against you by 16-50%. This does not stack with other Disarm duration reducing effects.
[Survival Tactics]	10 Survival	2	Reduces the chance your Feign Death ability and all trap spells will be resisted by 2-4%, and reduces the cooldown of your Disengage ability by 2-4 sec.
T.N.T	15 Survival	3	Your Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Explosive Shot have a 5-15% to stun targets for 3 sec when they land, and increases the chance your Explosive Shot will critically hit by 3-9%.
[Lock and Load]	15 Survival	3	You have a 33%/66%/100% chance when you trap a target and a 2%/4%/6% chance when you deal periodic damage with your [Serpent Sting] to cause your next 2 Arcane Shot or Explosive Shot spells to trigger no cooldown, cost no mana and consume no ammo.
[Killer Instinct]	20 Survival	3	Increases your critical strike chance with all attacks by 1%/2%/3%
[Counterattack]	20 Survival 3 Deflection	1	A strike that becomes active after parrying an opponent's attack. This attack deals 40 damage and immobilizes the target for 5 sec. Counterattack cannot be blocked, dodged, or parried.
Resourcefulness	25 Survival	3	Reduces the mana cost of all traps and melee abilities by 20-60% and reduces the cooldown of all traps by 2-6 secs.
Lightning Reflexes	25 Survival	5	Increases your Agility by 3-15%
[Thrill of the Hunt]	30 Survival	3	Gives you 33-100% chance to regain 40% of the mana cost of any shot when it critically hits.
[Wyvern Sting]	30 Survival 3 Killer Instinct	1	A stinging shot that puts the target to sleep for 12 sec. Any damage will cancel the effect. When the target wakes up, the Sting causes 300 Nature damage over 12 sec. Only usable out of combat. Only one Sting per Hunter can be active on the target at a time. (Further ranks trainable at Hunter Trainer)
[Expose Weakness]	30 Survival 5 Lightning Reflexes	3	Your ranged criticals have a 33%-100% chance to apply Expose Weakness to a target. Expose Weakness increases the attack power of all attackers against that target by 25% of your Agility for 7 sec.
[Master Tactician]	35 Survival	5	Your successful ranged attacks have a 6% chance to increase your critical strike chance with all attacks by 2-10% for 8 sec.

Key talents

• [Expose Weakness]

Hands down the best talent of all the hunter trees. It boosts Physical AP of all raid members (not just party) by 25% of the hunter's agility. This is what draws end-game hunters to the SV tree. The only downside is that it requires 600-700 agility to become truly effective for the raid. Bringing one SV hunter to raid is almost the equivalent of bringing a 26th DPSer, if your raid is heavily melee oriented. This talent is the key to the SV tree for raiders.

• [Hawk Eye]

+6 yard range should not be underestimated: It gives hunters the best range of any class in the game. Although the advantage of this in PvP should hopefully be self-explanatory, the benefit of this skill in solo PvE is primarily due to Survival's damage being crit based. As such, even after the pet loses aggro, with this skill, if a Hunter begins at maximum range from their target, they should still be able to kill the target before it reaches melee range.

• [Improved Wing Clip]

This talent allows you a possible root to make range on your target and also getting in one or two hits with your melee weapon before getting some distance to the mob.

•  [Surefooted]

You get both a boost to your chance to hit as well as the possibility of negating root effects. The +hit won't show on the character sheet, but Hunters with this talent can safely choose more gear without the +hit stat. Somewhere around 3-4% more will be needed if you do high-end raiding - while Hunters without this talent need around 6-8% depending on which instances/raids the Hunter does.

• [Killer Instinct]

Increasing the critical strike chance of all your attacks is key - especially with the Expose Weakness talent.

• [Counterattack]

Cannot be avoided by your opponent, but you can miss. It will root your target and does damage all after you successfully parry attack.

Note: Deflection is a must-have talent if you plan on getting counterattack.

• Lightning Reflexes

A 3-15% increase in Agility. This talent is the backbone of a dedicated Survival Hunter's ranged damage. Agility is the primary stat needed to make use of Survival; it provides attack power, %crit, %dodge, and armour. It also allows one of the best dps debuffs in WoW - Expose Weakness.

• [Wyvern Sting]

Originally the trademark Survival talent. Wyvern's strength isn't primarily as an extended duration form of crowd control, but rather as an initial opening stun or surprising move which can throw an opponent off-guard, and also leaves the Hunter free to perform a follow up sequence of attacks. While it can also be used as a fail safe in the event that a freeze trap fails, this is risky, and requires that the non-crowd controlled target(s) in a given scenario be killed quickly. If used in addition to a freeze trap, this makes a Survival hunter one of few who can crowd control up to three mobs at the same time.

In solo PvE, Wyvern is primarily used to buy time. In a fight against two caster mobs for example where the Hunter is currently focused on killing one but is being shot by the other, the second mob can be shot with Wyvern to allow the Hunter time to kill the first mob without continuing to be shot themselves by the second.

Note: This ability, when combined with Freezing traps allows a hunter to leave 3 mobs out of combat instead of one or two. Initially, the hunter lays a Freezing trap and waits a bit for the cooldown of traps. Then pull group regularly or open with wyvern - wyvern can now be shot in combat which makes it a lot more useful, so one generally likes to wait with that shot. The first mob to chase the hunter gets trapped. Then put a new freezing trap down a little away from the first trapped mob and if you didn't open with wyvern sting you now shoot one to sleep and let the third mob run into the last trap. With improved traps you should now have three mobs CC´ed for approx 27, 23 and 12 seconds. Then start your kiting and spam new traps as the old one breaks. Remember that if you feign death you will reset all aggro, so be sure they won't cause problems for the rest of the group/raid.

Talents added in patch 3.0.2

	Talent	Tier	Tree	Description
	Aspect Mastery	Tier 3	Beast Mastery	Improves your aspects in the following ways: Aspect of the Viper - Reduces the damage penalty by 10%. Aspect of the Monkey - Reduces the damage done to you while active by 5%. Aspect of the Hawk - Increases the attack power bonus by 30% (1 Rank)
	Invigoration	Tier 8	Beast Mastery	When your pet scores a critical hit with a special ability, you have a 50/100% chance to restore 1% of your mana. (2 Ranks)
	Focused Aim	Tier 1	Marksmanship	Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Steady Shot by 23/46/70% and increases your chance to hit by 1/2/3%. (3 Ranks)
	Improved Tracking	Tier 1	Survival	Increases all non-periodic damage done to targets that are being tracked by 1/2/3/4/5%. (5 Ranks)
	T.N.T.	Tier 2	Survival	Your Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Explosive Shot have a 5/10/15% to stun targets for 3 sec when they deal damage, and increases the critical strike chance of your Explosive Shot by 3/6/9%. (3 Ranks)

Talent discussion

Factual information on specific talents should be added to the specific talent page
Discussion on Strengths and Weaknesses should be saved for the Hunter Talent Discussion section

See also

• Hunter Talents calculator at the Official site
• Hunter Talent calculator at Wowhead