WoW Hunter Leveling Spec
New: Updated for Cataclysm!

If you are looking for the best WoW Hunter leveling spec, you have come to the right place. In this article, I will outline the best way to use your talent points as a hunter, level by level.

WoW Hunter Leveling Spec Basics

First of all, we are going to work our way down the Beast Mastery talent tier. This is by far the best tier for new Hunters as this tier specifically focuses on boosting your pet's strength.

For a Hunter that is just trying to level up, this is the pefect fit because if you are leveling up quickly your gear will be of low quality. By boosting your pet's damage, you are able to significantly increase your damage output despite having low quality gear.

If you have great gear, Survival and Marksmanship become more appealing. However, as you are leveling up you will not be rolling with raid gear so that is eside the point. When the level cap is raised with Cataclysm, most raid gear will be worthless, so you still get to lump yourself in with the "newbie" hunters. Such is the nature of expansions!

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At any rate, below you will find the overall spec, as well as the talent choices broken down by every 5 talent points along with an explanation for why I chose those talents:

WoW Hunter Leveling Spec Overview

31 Beast Mastery / 7 Marksmanship / 3 Survival:

Beast Mastery:

3/3 Bestial Discipline
2/2 Improved Kill Command
2/2 Pathfinding
3/3 Frenzy
2/2 Improved Mend Pet
2/2 Spirit Bond
1/1 Fervor
1/1 Focus Fire
3/3 Cobra Strikes
2/2 Killing Streak
1/1 Bestial Wrath
1/1 Ferocious Inspiration
2/2 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera
1/1 The Beast Within
2/2 Invigoration
2/2 Kindred Spirits
1/1 Beast Mastery

Marksmanship:

2/2 Go for the Throat
3/3 Efficiency
2/2 Sic 'Em!

Beast Mastery:

3/3 Pathing

WoW Hunter Spec by Level

Levels 10-17

3/3 Bestial Discipline
2/2 Improved Kill Command

Explanation: When leveling up, we are trying to kill things as fast as possible. Faster kills yield more experience points, so I recommend staying away from defensive talents and instead putting all of your points in offense. Bestial Discipline and Improved Kill Command both maximize your damage dealt.

Levels 19-27

2/2 Pathfinding
3/3 Frenzy

I like to get Pathfinding right away because nothing speeds up your leveling rate like increased movement speed. The fact is you will be running all over the map worrying about questing, so it is only natural that a WoW Hunter leveling spec includes Pathfinding.

Frenzy is just a huge damage increase and is one of the best 3 point talents you get.

Levels 29-37

1/1 Focus Fire
1/1 Fervor
3/3 Cobra Strikes

All of these are great talents across the board. As you can see, we picked all of the third tier talents in our WoW Hunter leveling spec. This tier is great for pet DPS (which we want to maximize).

There are also two talents which increase Focus, so you can do more burst damage at this point.

Levels 39-47

2/2 Killing Streak
2/2 Improved Mend Pet
1/2 Spirit Bond

Not the best tier ever for a good WoW Hunter leveling spec. I think Longevity is much better for PvP and raiding, but not so much for leveling. We are going to go all the way back to the seconds tier and pick up Improved Mend Pet. This can be useful for mobs that try to root your pet and then attack you. The Spirit Bond was just a filler talent point: you can place it wherever you like. 

Levels 49-57

1/1 Bestial Wrath
1/1 Ferocious Inspiration
2/2 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera
2/2 Spirit Bond (had 1 from previous level)

Bestial Wrath and Ferocious Inspiration are excellent talents and I feel there will be no qualms about that choice. However, you do not have to go 2/2 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera and 2/2 Spirit Bond and can instead opt to put those points in Longevity. Both are very mediocre talents so it is not a big deal either way.

Levels 59-69

1/1 The Beast Within
2/2 Invigorate
2/2 Kindred Spirits
1/1 Beast Mastery

If only every tier was like this! Max all the points across the board in this tier, as all of these talents are nice dps boosters and you will want every single one of them.

With your final point in Beast Mastery, you can now add talent points to other specs.

Levels 70-85

2/2 Go for the Throat
3/3 Efficiency
2/2 Sic 'Em!
3/3 Pathing

Compared to other classes, the Hunter's final 10 talent points are pretty weak. Go for the Throat is a very nice talent and increases your pets Focus generation significantly, as does Sic 'Em!. Efficiency and Pathing are a mild DPS boosters.

Conclusion

I have laid out for you the best WoW Hunter leveling spec, completely updated for Cataclysm. If you are thinking about leveling up a brand new Hunter, then I strongly recommend looking into Dugi's Ultimate WoW guide, which can help you go from 1-85 in under 4 days of playtime!

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