Hunter

How Forever changed the class

Blizzard's class deep dive keeps the Classic foundation but moves several talents into the baseline kit:

• Aimed Shot is a trainer ability at level 20 for every spec. It now shares a 6-second cooldown with Multi-Shot instead of Arcane Shot, has a 2-second cast and hits far less hard than Classic's talent version (ForeverDB changes).
• Traps work in combat, but their cooldown rose to 30 seconds. Fire and Frost traps have separate cooldowns, and you can have one of each down.
• Aspect of the Beast adds melee attack power, Scorpid Sting now lowers the target's hit chance by 2%, and Disengage sheds twice the threat.
• Rapid Fire speeds up melee as well as ranged attacks. Multi-Shot is a single rank costing a share of base mana. Feign Death now kills you if you leave it running for its full 6 minutes.
• Melee, ranged and spell hit are one stat, which Blizzard says makes traps more reliable.

Early in the beta, Auto Shot fired without its 0.5-second wind-up. Blizzard called this a bug, and Wowhead's overview pages say the cast time is back. Plan around standing still briefly for each shot.

Pets

Pets now inherit part of your stats. Wowhead lists the rules shown in the pet panel: 2 pet health per point of your Stamina, 30% of your armour, 10% of your highest attack power and all of your crit chance. Other players' buffs no longer apply to pets. You can no longer tame a beast above your own level (ForeverDB).

Do not assume Retail's pet specialisations establish equal family damage here. ForeverDB's pet data lists different hidden family passives from the client, but those entries are not a launch damage comparison. Guides also disagree about learning higher ability ranks; check the trainer and Beast Training in the current client before travelling to tame a particular rank.

Choosing a spec

Every source agrees on keeping the pet out while levelling. ForeverDB's simulator puts the loss without one at roughly 20–27% of your damage at levels 20–30, whatever the spec. Talents cost 1 silver to reset during the beta; the launch price isn't known. Blizzard says Dual Specialization opens at level 40.

Which spec to level

Beast Mastery is the consensus pick. The pet holds mobs, Summon Hawk arrives at 25 and Bestial Wrath at 40 (Icy Veins levelling). Wowhead's level 20 Beast Mastery build borrows four points of Marksmanship's Lethal Attacks (see [Hybrid builds](hybrid.md)). Survival players can level at range like the other specs until the melee talents arrive.

Races and professions

Race: Blizzard's 26 October notes supersede the guides' older comparisons. Orc Command adds 5% pet damage, not 5% total Hunter damage; its value depends on pet contribution and it does nothing for a petless Lone Wolf setup. Savage is gone. Human Ruthless is 1% crit, without the old sword-only wording. Tauren Plainsrunning now caps at 60% unmounted speed and gives no mounted bonus. These changes give pet-heavy Orc builds a stronger case, but do not establish a universal race winner across levelling, petless damage and PvP.

Professions: Skinning and Leatherworking support self-crafted levelling gear; Engineering offers tools at a material cost. Check whether a desired piece is bind-on-pickup before assuming it can be bought. A useful camp buff can be shared by another crafter and is not, by itself, a reason to take that profession.

Looking ahead to 60

The WoWSims presets model level 60 with first-phase gear that is still marked developer-only. They offer seven builds across all three trees, and the default is a Survival-Marksmanship build that walks into melee between Auto Shots. Treat it as a projection, not a tested result.

The hybrid tax, briefly

On the WoW: Forever podcast, Blizzard said it wants hybrid damage specs to deal about 5% less than Hunters, Mages, Rogues and Warlocks. It defined a hybrid as a class that can fill more than one role, which is why even Warriors count (ForeverDB). The rule is about classes, not about mixing talent trees, so a split Hunter build pays nothing for it. The 5% is a stated design target, not a number in the client.

Levelling hybrids

Wowhead's level 20 splits. Wowhead's Beast Mastery and Marksmanship pages both recommend 7/4/0 at level 20. That's Deadly Aspects 5 and Focused Fire 2 in Beast Mastery, plus 4 points of Lethal Attacks. Its reasoning is that the Marksmanship tree is awkward early, and a pet still beats Lone Wolf. The Survival page uses 0/4/7: Lethal Attacks 4, Improved Tracking 5 and Savage Strikes 2. By level 30 all three Wowhead builds are single-tree.

Icy Veins' paths to 60. Each Icy Veins levelling page finishes one tree's capstone, then moves into a second tree:

Icy Veins' Marksmanship page also says its 21-point build is for dungeons only. For general play at 30, it suggests the Beast Mastery build for Deadly Aspects and Pathfinding.

ForeverDB stays in one tree to 30. All of ForeverDB's builds are single-tree at 20 and 30. Its Survival "hybrid melee" build is a hybrid of play style, ranged pulls into melee finishes, not of trees.

Level 60 projections

The WoWSims presets are described as the best build found for each tree and play style, using first-phase gear over a three-minute fight. Most of them mix trees. The talent strings below are decoded against the simulator's own Forever talent tree.

These are simulations with unconfirmed level 60 data, not results anyone has played. They show which cross-tree talents the simulator rates: Lethal Attacks and Careful Aim appear in nearly every build, and Trueshot Aura in most.

Where the guides disagree

• Split or stay pure early: Wowhead splits at level 20; ForeverDB and Icy Veins' main guides stay in one tree until 30.
• Lone Wolf: the level 20–30 guides mostly keep the pet. Icy Veins takes Lone Wolf only for dungeons and Wowhead only in its Legacy-points variant, while Icy Veins' Survival path and most WoWSims presets take it by 60.

Opening and shooting

Sends the pet and marks the target in one press (ForeverDB; Kami Labs has the same macro):

#showtooltip Hunter's Mark
/petattack
/cast Hunter's Mark

Sends the pet and starts Auto Shot without ever toggling it off (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip Auto Shot
/petattack
/cast !Auto Shot

Picks a living enemy if you have no valid target, then starts Auto Shot (Kami Labs):

#showtooltip
/targetenemy [noexists][dead][help]
/cast !Auto Shot

Fires Arcane Shot and makes sure Auto Shot keeps running. Kami Labs uses the same pattern for Serpent Sting and Multi-Shot:

#showtooltip Arcane Shot
/cast Arcane Shot
/cast !Auto Shot

Aimed Shot normally, Multi-Shot while holding Shift. In Forever the two share a 6-second cooldown (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Multi-Shot; Aimed Shot

Slows the enemy under your mouse, or your target, without changing target (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip Concussive Shot
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Concussive Shot

Pulls a loose enemy off your healer with Distracting Shot and sends the pet after it (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip Distracting Shot
/petattack [@mouseover,harm,nodead][]
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Distracting Shot

Attempts Rapid Fire, Bestial Wrath (if talented) and both trinkets' use effects; shared cooldowns can prevent all of them activating together (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip Rapid Fire
/cast Rapid Fire
/cast Bestial Wrath
/use 13
/use 14

Pet control

Pet attacks your mouseover or target, follows with Shift and stays with Ctrl (ForeverDB):

/petfollow [mod:shift]
/petstay [mod:ctrl]
/petattack [nomod,@mouseover,harm,nodead][nomod]

Switches Growl's autocast on or off, for example before joining a group with a tank (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip Growl
/petautocasttoggle Growl

Calls the pet if none is out and mends it if it is; Shift revives it (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Revive Pet; [nopet] Call Pet; Mend Pet

Sends the pet in and uses its family ability. Replace {PETSKILL} with the ability's name, such as Web, Pinch or Dismember (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip {PETSKILL}
/petattack
/cast {PETSKILL}

Sends the pet in and casts Intimidation (the level 30 Beast Mastery talent) so its next hit stuns (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip Intimidation
/petattack
/cast Intimidation

Starts Feed Pet only when out of combat with a pet summoned; you must still select compatible food (Kami Labs):

#showtooltip Feed Pet
/cast [pet,nocombat] Feed Pet

Melee and staying alive

Starts melee, uses Mongoose Bite after a dodge and queues Raptor Strike on the next swing, for Survival (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip Raptor Strike
/startattack
/cast Mongoose Bite
/cast Raptor Strike

Casts Deterrence and switches to Aspect of the Monkey when several enemies are on you (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip Deterrence
/cast Deterrence
/cast !Aspect of the Monkey

Aspects, tracking, traps and escapes

Aspect of the Hawk normally, Cheetah with Shift, Monkey with Ctrl, never toggling one off (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] !Aspect of the Cheetah; [mod:ctrl] !Aspect of the Monkey; !Aspect of the Hawk

Four tracking types on one key, which suits Survival's Improved Tracking (Kami Labs):

#showtooltip Track Humanoids
/cast [mod:shift] Track Beasts; [mod:ctrl] Track Undead; [mod:alt] Track Hidden; Track Humanoids

Freezing Trap normally, Immolation Trap with Shift, Frost Trap with Ctrl (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Immolation Trap; [mod:ctrl] Frost Trap; Freezing Trap

Stops attacking, calls the pet back and feigns death (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip Feign Death
/stopattack
/petfollow
/cast Feign Death

Sets the pet passive, feigns death in combat and drops a Freezing Trap, for trapping mid-fight (Kami Labs):

#showtooltip Freezing Trap
/petpassive
/petstay [@pettarget,harm]
/stopattack
/cast [combat] Feign Death
/cast Freezing Trap

Scares the beast set as your focus, under your mouse or targeted, so you can fight one beast at a time (ForeverDB):

#showtooltip Scare Beast
/cast [@focus,harm,nodead][@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Scare Beast

Notes on the sources

• Kami Labs also lists an Aspect of the Viper macro. ForeverDB finds Aspect of the Viper only as an unused Season of Discovery leftover in the Forever client, so it's left out here.
• Kami Labs describes Disengage as a backwards leap. In Forever, Blizzard and the client describe it as a threat reduction that turns off your auto-attack, so restart Auto Shot after using it.
• Forever's trap tooltips no longer say traps work only out of combat, and Blizzard confirms traps work in combat. That makes the Feign Death trap trick optional.