Hunter’s received some major buffs to their damage and survivability in Wrath of the Lich King, you will also notice that they are now a respected class in all forms of arena play, where that wasn’t the case in BC.
This guide will discuss the most “efficient” way to level a hunter from 70-80, other players may have a more fun or preferred way to play depending on their playstyle but this build will focus on minimizing downtime and killing mobs as fast as possible to complete quests and get you to 80 the fastest.
The only other way to increase your level speed is to follow a leveling guide that shows you the most efficient routes and quests to do in Northrend, I’ve found Zygor’s Guide to be the most useful and it is all done with an in-game interface.
As of patch 3.0.9, Beast Mastery is the most efficient leveling spec due to a few reasons:
Pet Holds More Aggro
Most of the talents in the beast mastery tree focus on increasing your pets damage, which will make it much harder for you to take aggro off your pet, and a key talent here Intimidation is a great taunt if you do manage to take aggro.
Simple and Efficient Rotation
There is no need to set up every fight, just keep up Serpent Sting and fire off your Steady Shots.
Low Gear Dependency
Beast Mastery is a lot less gear dependent than Marksman, as a lot of talents such as Careful Aim and Combat Experience are multipliers on your stats which won’t be that high before you hit level 80.
Pet
You will be picking any pet from the tenacity line as they have the best armor and can keep threat. Your only limiting factor leveling up is your pets health/armor.
If you are going to be questing in an area with mobs close together and you think you might be in a situation where you are fighting more than 3 mobs, the Gorilla pet is best for this job (and a favourite amongst a, while using Volley. However his ability Thunderstomp will be available to any tenacity pet after patch 3.1 so this will change. I can see Crocolisks and Bears becoming the pet of choice as they have abilities that add to their AoE DPS, where the gorilla will get a pummel (not too useful for leveling)
The Build
(53/15/3) Click here for the build
Glyphs
Glyph of Serpent Sting
Glyph of Steady Shot
Glyph of Aspect of the Viper
Combine this talent build with Zygor’s Leveling guide which has an in-game addon walkthrough for all WOTLK quests for maximum efficiency and to get a level every 2-3 hours. For a free alternative check out my write up about leveling guides in this post.
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I’m afraid you messed up with the glyphs. You can’t use 3 glyphs up until you’re level 80. I would recommend Glyph of Bestial Wrath. The more often you can use it (once every 1.1 mins talented and glyphed) The faster the grinding goes. Glyph of steady shot is very strong… in a raid environment. Mobs will not live long enough for you to put a serpent sting on them and it run entirely through. Most of the time Serpents sting only does 2 ticks of damage, so it becomes an incredible mana waste. For faster more efficient leveling, go for the glyph of arcane shot or the glyph of aspect of the viper.
Isma’s last blog post..Ego boosting WowWebStats
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?tal=052012015252120331005313510050050000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Its very important to have improved mend pet, since it removes debuffs (like sleep, stun, curse, poison) off your pet. Also talenting improved revive pet can save you in case of accidents.
For your pet, you can go with something like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc=0ukGbrh0b
This is a goriladin spec, by the way. It rox for aoe grinding. Send him in against a mob, target a second mob and hit Charge, send him to attack a third mob, and you can Volley by the second thunderclap. Always keep mend pet up.
The “link to the build” takes me to an armory page with a build where zero points have been spent, nothing has been selected. The same happens using the link in the post from Isma on March 17.
Well Ive Done A Bit of Trying Around With It And I Have A Build for a lvl 71 (becuase thats my lvl srry) but i beleive that its a pretty god BM build here it is if you need help with an 80 build i can link one of those in 2 just comment back for me.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cifRzgTRbzhIot0xcZc:mVZzM0
copy the adress bar above for the link.
Arcane shot and steady shot uses the exact same amount of mana, so you should use arcane shot whenever possible when grinding