Hunter

The three trees

• Beast Mastery: pet damage, New hawks, Bestial Wrath.
• Marksmanship: your own shots, Trueshot Aura, New Sniper Shot.
• Survival: traps, tracking damage, New melee kit (Strider Kick, Lacerating Strikes).
• Talents start at 10. Gold medals at 11, 21 and 31 points, plus a New 16-point medal.
• Change talents at a class trainer in a major city. New Dual Spec at 40.

New gold medals

• New BM 16: Summon Hawk. Hawk dive-bombs your target and keeps attacking for 18 sec. Max 2 hawks. Shares its cooldown with Arcane Shot. Trained from 25.
• BM 21: Intimidation now needs Bestial Swiftness, and the stun hit also gets +100% crit.
• New MM 11: Lone Wolf. +20% damage with all attacks while you have no active pet.
• MM: Trueshot Aura moved up and is now raid-wide. ! Blizzard calls it the 21-point medal, but the beta trees put it in row 4 (16 points) and the client trains it from 25.
• New MM 31: Sniper Shot. 4 sec cast, 15 sec cooldown, 45 yd range, next 3 Shots get +10 yd. Needs Trueshot Aura.
• SV 16: Counterattack moved up to this slot.
• New SV 21: Strider Kick. Instant weapon hit, +30% run speed for 3 sec. Works while disarmed.
• New SV 31: Lacerating Strikes. Mongoose Bite also bleeds for 21 sec.

Key changes vs Classic

• New Aimed Shot is baseline at 20 (2 sec cast, 6 sec cooldown). Multi-Shot shares its cooldown. Arcane Shot no longer does.
• New Traps work in combat. Cooldown is now 30 sec. Frost and Fire traps have separate cooldowns, so you can have one of each out.
• Fire traps scale with Attack Power. You still place traps at your own feet.
• Auto Shot needs you to stand still for 0.5 sec. It keeps firing while you cast Aimed Shot or Sniper Shot.
• New Setting "Auto Attack/Auto Shot" swaps between melee and ranged auto attacks for you.
• Aspect of the Beast now also gives melee Attack Power.
• Disengage threat drop doubled. Scorpid Sting now cuts the target's hit chance by 2%.
• Trueshot Aura is raid-wide.
• ! unconfirmed: talentsforever's 28 Oct data cuts Aspect of the Hawk to 15/22/30/38/47 ranged AP by rank and Trueshot Aura to 15/22/30/40. Not in Blizzard's notes yet.
• Removed or merged talents: Improved Hunter's Mark (baseline), Wyvern Sting, Killer Instinct, Improved Feign Death (folded into New Resourcefulness), Thick Hide (into Endurance Training), Monster and Humanoid Slaying (into New Improved Tracking).
• Other new talents: Focused Fire, Careful Aim, Rapid Killing, Rapid Recuperation, Predator's Edge, Expose Prey, Survivalist's Discipline.
• Still true: 8 yd dead zone, no stun or interrupt of your own (your pet's Intimidation is the stun), longest range in the game.
• Tame Beast fails on beasts above your level.

Levelling: Beast Mastery

• Icy Veins, Method and Zockify all name BM the best levelling spec.
• From 25 you run your pet plus two hawks. Pathfinding makes Cheetah faster for travel.
• Pull: Hunter's Mark, send the pet in first, then Serpent Sting.
• Summon Hawk on cooldown, keeping 2 hawks up.
• Aimed Shot on cooldown. Auto Shot the rest.
• Pull aggro off your pet: Disengage.
• Arcane Shot only if you are mana-capped and both hawks have 6+ sec left (it shares the hawk cooldown).
• Packs: Multi-Shot instead of Aimed Shot.
• Out of mana: keep going on Auto Shot and pet damage. Spend mana on Mend Pet and Serpent Sting first.

Role by spec (all damage)

• BM: levelling and solo. The pet can tank solo and small-group content. Icy Veins says BM keeps scaling into raids, since pets scale from your gear.
• MM: Icy Veins' pick for dungeons. Go 21 deep for Lone Wolf and Trueshot Aura, then dismiss the pet. The 20% buffs Multi-Shot.
• SV: weakest leveller. Melee only beats ranged from 30, with Savage Strikes, 5/5 Predator's Edge and Strider Kick. Before that, play it at range.
• Traps are strong crowd control in dungeons. ! Entrapment's root now has diminishing returns (Blizzard fix). Icy Veins still says it doesn't.

Survival melee rotation (30+)

Stats

• New Hit and crit are each one stat now, shared by melee, ranged and spells.
• Icy Veins priority (BM and MM at 60): weapon damage > hit > crit > Agility > Attack Power.
• ! unconfirmed: hit cap 8% against bosses (Icy Veins only). Survival's Surefooted gives 3% hit.
• Agility gives ranged and melee Attack Power plus crit.
• New Careful Aim (MM) gives Attack Power equal to 100% of your Intellect at 5/5. That makes Int worth more than raw AP.
• Pets take stats from your gear and use your melee or ranged crit, whichever is higher. They benefit from Expertise. They can't receive player stat buffs.

Races (Horde)

Horde hunters can be Orc, Tauren, Troll or New Skyborne (Windshaper). Racials changed on 26 and 27 Oct, so older race picks are out of date.

• Orc: Blood Fury +10% AP and spell power for 15 sec (2 min). Command +5% pet damage, the only pet-damage racial. Hardiness (stuns 20% shorter). New Shatter Curse.
• Tauren: War Stomp (5 targets, 2 sec). Endurance +5% health. New Plainsrunning +2% speed per 5 sec moving, up to 60% (not mounted). Cultivation now grows a duplicate herb.
• Troll: Berserking +10% attack speed for 15 sec (3 min). New Rapid Regeneration. Regeneration. Beast Slaying +5% vs beasts.
• New Skyborne (Windshaper): Walk on Air (glide, 90 sec). Skysight +15% speed. Wind Blessed +2% haste. Elemental Insight +5% vs elementals.
• ! Guides split. Icy Veins picks Tauren for Plainsrunning (its text still gives the old 30% cap). Method picks Orc for Blood Fury, partly for Savage, a crit racial Blizzard has since removed.
• PvP realm: Icy Veins calls Concussive Shot one of a Hunter's strongest PvP tools, especially against melee. It rates the MM talent Scatter Shot as PvP only.

Pets

• New Every family learns Bite or Claw (some both), plus Dive or Dash, plus one ability only that family has.
• Levelling pick (Icy Veins): Bear. Its Swipe hits 3 targets.
• Other family abilities: Wolf Furious Howl (party melee AP), Tallstrider Dust Cloud (armour cut), Crocolisk Dismember (-25% healing taken), Boar Charge, Cat Prowl, Spider Web, Turtle Shell Shield, Bat Sonic Blast, Bird of Prey Mine! (disarm), Windserpent Lightning Breath (20 yd).
• New New family: Fox, with Trickster's Dance (dodge and attack speed for 12 sec).
• Happiness and loyalty still exist. Feed your pet.
• Aggressive Mode is back, under the pet tab in your spellbook.
• ! unconfirmed: Icy Veins says higher pet ability ranks still come from taming a beast that knows them.

Professions

• Levelling: Skinning + Leatherworking (Icy Veins and Gfinity agree).
• Engineering later: Icy Veins rates it for PvP items, Gfinity for endgame (guns, scopes, ammo).
• New Camping: the Skinning Camp Chair gives +2% crit (doesn't stack with Moonkin Aura). The Leatherworking Camp Tent gives 5% of a level as rested XP.

Gear

• No gear lists yet. Nothing past 30 was playable in beta, so we post 60 gear after launch.

Sources Blizzard Hunter deep dive · Blizzard panel recap · Blizzard beta notes · Blizzard camping · Icy Veins BM · Icy Veins MM · Icy Veins SV · Method · Zockify · Gfinity · talentsforever

How to load a build

• Each build has two links. Icy Veins steps through the build point by point. talentsforever shows the final tree.
• Wowhead Forever calculator: click points in by hand. We couldn't verify its share strings.
• Talents reset at a class trainer in a major city. New Dual Spec at 40.
• New Legacy perk Talented unlocks talent points up to 5 levels early. At 5/5, read each level below as 5 levels sooner. Icy Veins says the total still stops at 51.

Levelling: Beast Mastery 10-60

Icy Veins · talentsforever

Levelling notes

• Intimidation needs Bestial Swiftness, which is why it comes at 20.
• Icy Veins on the flex points (51-60): Endurance Training makes the pet much tougher for the last levels. Hawk Eye adds range. Spirit Bond is weak but gives passive regen.
• Taking Endurance Training early is safer, but Icy Veins says damage levels faster.
• ! Levels 31-60 of this order were never playable in beta.

Option at 30: Beast Mastery (Icy Veins BM guide)

Icy Veins · talentsforever

• Same as the levelling order, except point 19 goes into Endurance Training 1/5 instead of Focused Fire.

Dungeons at 30: Marksmanship (Lone Wolf)

Icy Veins · talentsforever

• Dismiss your pet in the dungeon so Lone Wolf is active. Icy Veins: take Lone Wolf only if you want max AoE and cleave in dungeons. For questing, use the BM build.
• Trueshot Aura is raid-wide.
• New Sniper Shot (31-pt) needs 30 MM points, so 40 at the earliest.

Option at 30: Survival melee

Icy Veins · talentsforever

• Before 30 you still shoot. Melee only overtakes ranged once Strider Kick is in.
• New Lacerating Strikes (31-pt) needs 30 SV points, so 40 at the earliest.

The Survival melee rotation from 30:

Raid builds (level 60 theory)

• Level 60 theory, untested: nothing past 30 was playable in beta and raids open 9 Dec. These are wowtbc.gg's Forever builds (final trees, no point order). We swap them for builds from real logs after 9 Dec.
• Capstones: Bestial Wrath (BM), New Sniper Shot (MM), New Lacerating Strikes (SV).
• Icy Veins expects BM to keep scaling into raids, since pets scale from your gear. MM brings raid-wide Trueshot Aura.

Beast Mastery (wowtbc Standard, 31/16/4)

Marksmanship (wowtbc Standard, 5/41/5)

Whether Lone Wolf (no pet) beats a pet in raids is unknown until logs exist.

Survival (wowtbc Standard, 5/11/35)

No Survival raid rotation is published yet. The melee rotation from 30 is under "Option at 30: Survival melee" above.

PvP build (level 60 theory)

RankedBoost's Survival PvP build (0/21/30). One source, low confidence, built from an older client (70450). Recheck in launch week.

Classic Era for comparison

Builds that worked in Classic for years, from Icy Veins (WoW Classic). Classic trees differ from Forever's; the Forever planner marks what changed if you tick "Mark what changed from Classic".

Macros

• ! Untested on the Forever client. Check them in game before relying on them.
• New You may not need a melee/ranged swap macro. The "Auto Attack/Auto Shot" setting swaps for you.
• Mark and send the pet:

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

• Feign Death and call the pet back:

#showtooltip Feign Death
/petfollow
/cast Feign Death

• Hawk for fights, Cheetah with Shift held (one line): /cast [mod:shift] Aspect of the Cheetah; Aspect of the Hawk

Cooldown Manager layout (our suggestion)

• Turn it on: Options > Gameplay Enhancement (off by default). Since 16 Oct each spell's ranks count as one entry. Racials and trinkets are supported.
• BM: Bestial Wrath, Intimidation, Rapid Fire, Summon Hawk, Aimed Shot, Feign Death, racial, trinkets.
• MM: Rapid Fire, Aimed Shot, New Sniper Shot (40+), Arcane Shot, Feign Death, racial, trinkets. Buff to watch: Rapid Killing.
• SV: Strider Kick, Mongoose Bite, Raptor Strike, Freezing or Frost Trap, Immolation or Explosive Trap, Disengage, Feign Death.
• With Deadly Aspects (BM levelling build), watch its Quick Shots buff.
• ! On 24 Sep it couldn't track pet cooldowns. Recheck at launch.

Sources Blizzard Hunter deep dive · Blizzard beta notes · Blizzard Legacy · Icy Veins BM levelling · Icy Veins MM · Icy Veins SV · talentsforever · Wowhead

New What changed for levelling a hunter

• Aimed Shot is baseline at 20 for every spec. It shares its 6 s cooldown with Multi-Shot.
• New Summon Hawk (BM 16-point talent, 25): two hawks fight beside your pet. Shares its cooldown with Arcane Shot.
• New Traps work in combat, 30 s cooldown. One Fire and one Frost trap can be out at once.
• New Pets scale from your gear and every family has its own ability (Bear: Swipe hits 3 targets).
• Tame Beast now fails on beasts above your level: no taming a higher pet early Beta
• Auto Shot needs you to stand still for 0.5 s before it fires Beta
• Ammo and quivers are unchanged so far: you still buy arrows or bullets Beta

Which spec, when

• 10-60 Beast Mastery. Icy Veins, Method, Zockify and Warcraft Tavern all pick it. Pathfinding early for Cheetah speed, Summon Hawk at 25, Bestial Wrath at 40.
• Marksmanship levels fine but slightly slower (Icy Veins). Its New Lone Wolf (+20% damage with no pet out) is a dungeon pick only: Icy Veins and Warcraft Tavern both say never level with it.
• Survival is the weakest early. Melee only beats ranged from 30 (Icy Veins).
• New Dual Specialization at 40: BM for questing plus MM for dungeons on one character.

AoE levelling: honest answer

• No Forever source shows hunters levelling on big pulls. Icy Veins: "Kill Sequentially", your pet "will struggle to hold threat on multiple enemies". wow4ever: "The pet cannot hold three."
• Your AoE: Multi-Shot (18), Explosive Trap (34), Volley (40, channelled). Icy Veins: Multi-Shot replaces Aimed Shot on 2+ mobs.
• A Bear's Swipe (3 targets, 5 s cooldown) is the one pet tool that holds a few mobs.
• New Frost Trap now works mid-fight, so a pull that goes wrong can be slowed and peeled.
• Expect low numbers on the SF-Speed counter. Icy Veins: hunters level fast by never stopping ("Always be attacking"), not by pack size.

Beast Mastery talents (main build)

• Icy Veins' order, the same as Hunter builds (calculator links there). Ends 39 BM / 12 MM. Levels 31-60 were never playable in beta.
• Summon Hawk is the point to rush. Intimidation needs Bestial Swiftness first.
• Icy Veins: Endurance Training early is safer, but damage levels faster.
• New Legacy perk Talented: points come up to 5 levels early, read the list 5 levels sooner. ! Whether Summon Hawk works before 25 that way is untested.

Dungeons at 30: Marksmanship Lone Wolf

• Icy Veins' level-30 MM build. Published to 30 only, no 31-60 order exists yet.
• Dismiss the pet inside so Lone Wolf is on. The 20% buffs Multi-Shot.
• Respec back to BM to quest, or use Dual Spec from 40.

Rotation: Beast Mastery

Rotation: Lone Wolf in dungeons

Survival melee at 30 (option)

Survival levels slowest early; melee only beats ranged once Strider Kick is in at 30 (Icy Veins). Icy Veins' level 30 Survival build, then its rotation:

Points 31-60 for Survival are not published. Lacerating Strikes (31-point) comes at 40 at the earliest.

Trainer visits (beta client, key spells)

• Train every new rank of: Serpent Sting, Aspect of the Hawk, Aimed Shot, Mend Pet, Hunter's Mark, Summon Hawk (25, 36, 48, 60).
• Summon Hawk, Intimidation and Bestial Wrath come from talents. Summon Hawk's ranks 2-4 are then trained like any spell.
• Fine to skip: Raptor Strike ranks after 10 (the pet tanks, you shoot) and Arcane Shot ranks after 25 (it shares a cooldown with Summon Hawk). Method says both lose most value. Our read for BM.
• Mongoose Bite, Counterattack and the melee kit only matter for Survival.
• Training costs are not published for Forever. Do not budget from Classic prices.
• Where: Ormak Grimshot (class) and Xao'tsu (pets) in Orgrimmar, Hanashi there for Bows. Tauren: Thunder Bluff.

Taming at 10 (class quest)

• Orc / Troll: Thotar in Razor Hill. Tame a Dire Mottled Boar, a Surf Crawler, then an Armored Scorpid. Training the Beast sends you to Ormak Grimshot, Orgrimmar.
• Tauren: Yaw Sharpmane, Mulgore. Adult Plainstrider, Prairie Stalker, Swoop. Training the Beast goes to Holt Thunderhorn, Thunder Bluff.
• New Skyborne: Quel'ana Quickgale, Zephras Isle. Windsong Crawler, Ornery Galestrider, Vuldren. Pet trainer: Quel'dora Quickgale.
• Use the Taming Rod at max range. Dismiss each tamed beast before the next one.
• The chain gives Tame Beast, Call, Dismiss, Feed and Revive Pet, plus Beast Training.
• Before 10: Orc and Troll hunters hand an Etched Parchment or Tablet to Jen'shan, Valley of Trials. New Skyborne get The Way of the Hunter at 2.
• ! Later class quests (50: Courser Antlers, Wavethrashing, The Green Drake, The Hunter's Charm) appear only in a reconstruction of Classic's quest data. Not verified in beta.
• ! The Classic epic bow chain (Rhok'delar) starts in Molten Core, which is not among Forever's announced raids.

Pets

• Bear (Icy Veins' levelling pick): tanky, Swipe hits 3 targets in front, 5 s cooldown.
• Cat: faster kills, learns Bite and Claw, less armour (Warcraft Tavern, TopBuilds). Boar: Charge roots and opens every pull.
• Ability ranks come from taming: tame a beast that knows the rank, use it in combat until "You have learned", then teach it with Beast Training (Icy Veins, Method, Warcraft Tavern).
• Teaching costs Training Points (Warcraft Tavern: they grow with loyalty). The pet trainer sells Growl ranks (every 10 levels) and passives such as Great Stamina and Natural Armor.
• ! Rank picks on our side, from fan datamines of the beta: Bite 2 from Prairie Wolf Alpha (Mulgore), Bite 4 from Giant Moss Creeper (24-25, Hillsbrad), Claw 4 from Elder Ashenvale Bear (25-26, Ashenvale).
• Happiness and loyalty still exist: feed out of combat, an unhappy pet does less damage. RestedXP buys Tough Jerky in Razor Hill.
• ! Pets earn their own XP, a quarter of yours, and stop at your level (two fan guides).
• Aggressive mode is back, under the pet tab in your spellbook.

Ammo and ranged weapons

• Beta client: arrows and shot stack to 200. RestedXP buys 1,000 to 2,200 at a time.

• Quivers (bag slots): Light 6, Medium 10 (lvl 10), Heavy 14 (lvl 30), Quickdraw 16 (lvl 40). RestedXP buys the Medium Quiver in The Barrens.
• ! Whether quivers still add ranged attack speed is not confirmed for Forever.
• RestedXP bow path (beta prices):
  • Hornwood Recurve Bow, Durotar (lvl 3)
  • Laminated Recurve Bow, 17s 51c (lvl 11): Zendo'jian, Orgrimmar, or Uthrok, The Barrens
  • Fine Longbow (green, lvl 14) from Uthrok if in stock, else Reinforced Bow, 38s 12c (lvl 16), Zendo'jian
• Tauren: RestedXP buys Heavy Shot, then trains Bows at Hanashi for the Reinforced Bow.
• A new weapon type needs its weapon skill from a weapon trainer.

Gear and stats

• Icy Veins: weapon damage first. Slower ranged weapons hit harder per shot, and Aimed Shot scales from weapon damage.
• Then Agility (attack power and crit), hit, crit. Pets share your crit chance.
• New Hit and crit are each one stat across melee, ranged and spells.
• Intellect: mana, and New Careful Aim (46-50 in the BM build) turns it into attack power.
• Spirit is a levelling-only stat for regen; Stamina matters least (Icy Veins).
• Brawler's Leather Hood (Leatherworking, blue, lvl 20) is the early helm Icy Veins, Method and Warcraft Tavern all name.
• Dungeon bows and guns, as listed in our dungeon posts:
  • Ragefire Chasm: Barbaric Crossbow (Oggleflint)
  • Wailing Caverns: Venomstrike (Serpentis)
  • Blackfathom Deeps: Naga Heartpiercer (Sarevess)
  • Excavation Site: Golemsight Long Gun (Relic Guardian)
  • City of Dalaran: Gravespike Repeater (Atrexis)

Professions, consumables, camping

• Skinning + Leatherworking (Icy Veins, Method, Gfinity). Send the pet to the next mob while you skin.
• New Crafted food: +5% kill XP on the beta tooltips. Eat 10 s for Well Fed.
• New Camp Tent (Leatherworking) tops rested XP up to 5% of a level. Skinning's Camp Chair gives +2% crit.
• New Cozy Sleeping Bag: quest chain from 14 (Icy Veins, ForeverChanges). Rest in it for a stacking XP buff, up to 3% for 2 h. ! Horde start: the burned tower on the Field of Giants, south of Camp Taurajo (ForeverChanges only).
• Macros (Mark + pet attack, Feign Death + recall, Hawk/Cheetah on Shift): see Hunter builds. ! Untested on the Forever client.
• New Turn on the Auto Attack/Auto Shot setting instead of a swap macro.

Common mistakes

• Shooting before the pet has threat. Let it hit first.
• Pulling packs. Your AoE threat beats the pet's.
• Moving while shooting: Auto Shot waits for 0.5 s still.
• Letting the pet go hungry. It loses damage.
• Running out of arrows mid-zone. Restock at every vendor.
• Trying to tame a beast above your level: it fails now.
• Forgetting Beast Training after a tame. Spend new Training Points.

Fast route

• Orc / Troll: Durotar 1-12 (RestedXP keeps hunters there to 12), then The Barrens. See "Horde 1-22" in Levelling.
• Tauren: Mulgore 1-12, then The Barrens.
• New Skyborne: Zephras Isle 1-12, then hunters go to The Barrens (others go to Silverpine).
• All: Barrens 12-17, then Stonetalon, Barrens, Ashenvale 17-22.
• Orgrimmar trips: at 10 (Training the Beast, Laminated Recurve Bow) and around 18 (class and pet training, Reinforced Bow).
• Past 22 there is no verified route. Use "22-60: zones by level" in Levelling.

Dungeons by level (Horde)

• Ragefire Chasm 13-18, Ruins of Lordaeron 15-20, Wailing Caverns 15-24 (Venomstrike), Shadowfang Keep 20-30.
• Deadmines (Westfall) counts for the 15-25 Legacy point. Skip Hall of Thanes: Ragefire fills its slot.
• 24-41: Blackfathom Deeps, Excavation Site, City of Dalaran, Razorfen Kraul, Scarlet Monastery. The Lone Wolf build above is published for 30.
• Your traps (Freezing, Frost) are the group's crowd control.
• Blizzard: dungeon cleaving must not be the fastest way to level. Go once with every quest. One post per dungeon in Dungeons.

Unverified until launch

• Everything past 30: beta capped there.
• Quiver haste, Summon Hawk with Talented before 25, the 50+ class quests.
• Taming spots and pet XP (fan datamines).

Sources Blizzard Hunter deep dive · Blizzard dev notes · Icy Veins BM levelling · Icy Veins MM · Method · Warcraft Tavern · ForeverChanges pets · talentsforever · wow4ever · TopBuilds · RestedXP