The Hunter class is thought to be by many the easiest class to level in the game, not counting levels 1-10 where you won’t have a pet to tank for you. Hunters can control beasts with a variety of abilities, shoot ranged weapons from quite a distance, or use there other abilities to totally annihilate both players and non-player characters in the game. The best route for leveling is through beast mastery, but I will go over all of the trees incase you decide to be different.

Survival Hunter

Survival tree is typically used for exactly what it says in its name, surviving. Most hunters who want to be beneficial to 5 man groups will choose survival because it gives bonuses to their traps and other things to help them crowd control, melee dps, and even TANK (for a little bit)!

10-12: Hawk Eye 3/3
13-14: Savage Strikes 2/2
15-17: Improved Wing Clip 3/3
18-19: Deflection 2/5
20: Deterrence 1/1
21-22: Clever Traps 2/2
23-24: Survivalist 2/5
25-27: Surefooted 3/3
28-29: Survivalist 4/5
30: Counterattack 1/1
31-33: Killer Instinct 3/3
34: You get the point, just keep increasing things that immobilize the target, increase your melee DPS, or help you survive longer. You can take the trap path up if you’d like instead, it depends on play style.

Marksmanship Hunter

Regarded as the best PVP tree of them all and by far the highest DPS a hunter will achieve from ranged distance, the Marksmanship Tree is a force to be reckoned with. You will be able to increase your critical hits, attack power, and all sorts of other cool bonuses to your ranged attacks. I don’t recommend going into this build for leveling unless you can control your aggro because your pet won’t be able to hold aggro off of you.

10-14: Lethal Shots 5/5
15-19: Improved Concussion Shot 5/5
20: Aimed Shot 1/1
21-22: Go for the Throat 2/2
23-24: Rapid Killing 2/2
25-29: Mortal Shots 5/5
30: Obvious again where it’s going. Just remember down the tree more, Trueshot Aura is your friend until you get decent gear.

Beast Mastery Hunter

Finally, the best tree to specialize in if you want to level to the max with almost no down time and regardless of what gear you have on your hunter. Most people will say, I’m going to get a tanking pet because I’m a beast mastery, This is very bad advice. The first talents you put into the Beast Mastery Tree increase your pets health and armor, this means that a non-tank pet has now just become capable of tanking mobs without problem. There is no reason you need to get a tanking pet because they cause a significant amount less damage and since your hunter is already low on damage from doing beast mastery you can see how it might be slow if you take that bad advice. I recommend you get one of the highest DPS pets in the game: Cats, Raptors, or Ravagers. When I use this build my pet is oftentimes out dps’ing me in battle 2.5 : 1.

10-14: Endurance Training 5/5
15-17: Thick Hide 3/3
18-19: Improved Revive Pet 2/2
20: Bestial Swiftness 1/1

At this point you have all the tanking abilities to make your DPS pet capable of taking some damage. If you want to balance the DPS out between your pet and the hunter, you may want to consider starting the climb into the marksman tree. If you’d like your pet to cause most of the damage for a large portion of the game then continue on:

21-24: Unleashed Fury 4/5
25-29: Ferocity 5/5
30-31: Bestial Discipline 2/2
32: Intimidation 1/5
33: Unleashed Fury 5/5
34: Improved Aspect of the Hawk 1/1
35: Frenzy 1/5
36: Work your way down with Frenzy, all the way down to The Beast Within. This is the easiest way to level (after you get your pet),

Hunter Macros

This is the only hunter macro you will need to level. This macro will target the nearest enemy, send your pet in to attack, mark the target, and then begin auto shot for you. If you’re lazy then you really want to setup this macro.

#show Auto Shot
/targetenemy [noharm]
/stopmacro [noharm]
/petattack
/cast Hunter’s Mark
/startattack
END

Hunter Summary

Hunters are one of the most fun classes to play, but unlike rogues they are misunderstood in groups. People think they need other classes, even though, hunters are fully capable of crowd control, AoE Damage, High Ranged DPS (Doesn’t need heals), and much more. I wouldn’t plan on getting a group easily with a hunter because there are so many noobies playing hunters that groups tend to avoid taking their chances on getting someone who knows how to play the class.