Building a Hunter From Lore: Beast Master

Our first installment of Building a Hunter brings us the Beast Master, the most iconic being the Mok'Nathol Rexxar. The Beast Master appeared in the Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, as a Neutral hero, at all times he was accompanied by a Bear, but could summon other companions for aid temporarily, furthermore it was a melee based class, which is the biggest difference between the Beast Master and the WoW hunter.

When building the Beast Master your Spec is going to forsake many of the standard hunter abilities because of the focus on melee combat over ranged. Here's a Sample Spec. I'd avoid using this spec if you intend on doing some hardcore raiding.

Now let's take a closer look at the spec.

The Marksmanship tree is completely ignored and all of your points will be either in Survival or Beast Mastery. Since we really don't care at all about ranged damage we nix Improved Aspect of the Hawk which is used in almost every hunter build. Instead we take talents that improve our own survivability and our pet's damage and survivability. Talents like Cobra Strikes which rely on ranged attack crits are pointless in this build. Savage Strikes is going to be important to improve your melee damage, and improved tracking is a gre

at choice both lore and damage wise. Survival Instincts can be combined with any of the three other talents in the tree talents in the tree to move to the next level, however Survivalist and Deflection are must have's for the build. This leaves 1 point left. The interesting thing is that the Beast Master does not have to take the Beast Mastery Talent. Counterattack is a great way to add another melee attack into the rotation. For those who opt out of Beast Mastery more points can be moved over to Survival for Killer Instincts, Hunter Vs. Wild, and Scatter Shot (which is yet another close range ability), this is more viable with a Tenacity pet, such as a bear which means you have to worry less about your pet dying.

As with any melee hunter build you're going to rely heavily on traps to inflict damage. You'll want to always take full advantage of Freezing Arrow to C

C. You should also utilize stings whenever possible, opening up with a Serpent Sting is always a good idea. Don't be afraid to put some distance between you to refresh your sting and throwing in the occasional Arcane Shot while you're out there isn't a bad idea either. Aspect of the Monkey and Aspect of the Beast will become our primary aspects for Defense and Damage respectively. Since there's no Aspect of the Dragonhawk equivalent for aspect of the Beast, a cast sequence macro to swap between Monkey and Beast is a good idea. For the most part though you're going to rely on your three melee abilities (Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, and Wing Clip) and white damage using a first come first serve priority, making sure to drop traps every time their up. Take full advantage of Bestial Wrath and Intimidation, and keep Mend Pet up on your pet at all times.

Glyph of the Beast will increase the attack power bonus of your Aspect of the Beast, Glyph of Raptor Strike will Give a bonus to defense every time it's used. Gear Other major glyphs worth considering for this build are Mending which will help keep your pet fighting and Immolation Trap for the straight damage boost. Minors are a standard hunter set of Mend pet, Revive Pet, and Feign Death.

Gear wise your going to want to stick to mail for the survivability, however a few pieces of rogue leather would give some expertise which is necessary for any melee build. For weapon's I personal prefer Dual Wielding for hunter melee, in my experience it gives more stability to the melee rotation, with Raptor Strikes and Mongoose Bite cooldowns alternating, so you have one or the other most of the time. Make sure you still have a good ranged weapon, since even if you're not using it it will still improve your damage output.

For the Beast Master Leatherworking and Skinning are probably your best choices as far as professions go, however skinning and herbalism would also make a good choice. Keeping cooking and fish up would be good as well.