Hunter Leveling Guide From 1 to 80 for WotLK Classic (2024)

While leveling, your time spent can be put into three categories: combat,downtime, and travel. Hunters are widely considered to be one of thestrongest solo-leveling classes because they excel at all threein unique ways. Once you get your pet at Level 10, you will notice your kill speedincrease and your downtime drop drastically. By using your pet to tank, you cankill enemies with Serpent Sting and Auto Shot. Thisallows you to kill enemies without spending much Mana and only your pet losinghealth. If you keep your pet fed and use Mend Pet frequently, yourpet will stay healthy and loyal, allowing you to keep fighting with little-to-nodowntime between enemies. Additionally, you will getAspect of the Cheetah at Level 20, which will cut down your traveltime until you get your first mount.

Even in Outland, your leveling speed jumps once more. Specifically, at Level62 you get your end-game filler and primary damaging ability:Steady Shot. This will boost your kill speed significantly, whichshould propel you through Outland all the way to 70 and get you ready for Northrend.

Providing non-Hunter leveling advice is outside the scope of this article and iscovered in our general WotLK leveling guide.

While we propose leveling builds for all 3 Hunter specializations,Beast Mastery is clearly the best leveling spec for Hunter. As Beast Mastery,your pet will take less damage and deal more damage, allowing it to hold threat moreeasily.

Marksmanship is viable, but you will be more vulnerable to doing too muchdamage compared to your pet and making it harder to let your pet tank enemies.Beast Mastery also has important movement speed talents, along withBestial Wrath, an extremely powerful damage cooldown.

Survival is a much better choice than it was in TBC, but is still going to be slightlyworse overall than BM. The exception however is if you are leveling while very gearedor with a large group, where your ability to deal large amounts of damage quicklybecomes much more important for leveling efficiency. Survival has the best AoE out ofany Hunter spec, which can make it optimal for leveling in certain situations.

Contrary to popular belief, leveling with a partner or as part of a group isnot a terrible thing. In fact, for most classes, leveling with a partner isactually better than leveling solo. That being said, Hunter is still the best solo class in the game, soleveling with one or more people is by no means required or even beneficial dependingon how experienced you are with leveling. Grouping with friends could also help themlevel faster while not slowing you down much, which could be worth doing if you want to help them out.

The major exception to this rule will be in Northrend. Currently the optimalway to level from 70-80 in Northrend is by dungeon-cleaving with a 5-man groupjust to farm XP. Even as a Hunter, with a coordinated group this should befaster if you can consistently clear and do not need to constantly wait aroundfor new group members to join. This will especially hold true for Phase 1 of Wrath,since you can expect most questing hubs to be packed with players, creating frictionwhile you try to quest. The most optimal players will still be potentially faster while questing,but only if you are able to quest without many people around.

While leveling, you will be less gold-starved that you might have experienced inTBC. However, there are still plenty of filler skills that you can skip if you wish.

• Raptor Strike
• Aspect of the Monkey
• Serpent Sting
• Arcane Shot
• Hunter's Mark
• Concussive Shot
• Revive Pet
• Aspect of the Hawk
• Mend Pet
• Wing Clip
• Scare Beast
• Mongoose Bite
• Multi-Shot
• Aspect of the Cheetah
• Disengage
• Freezing Trap
• Rapid Fire
• Frost Trap
• Feign Death
• Explosive Trap
• Aspect of the Pack
• Volley
• Steady Shot
• Kill Command
• Aspect of the Viper
• Kill Shot
• Misdirection
• Master's Call

If you are playing on a PvP server and are concerned about fighting otherplayers, you can also choose to get Viper Sting for fighting castersor Flare for fighting Rogues and Druids.

Serpent Sting and Arcane Shot make up the bulk ofyour ranged damage, combined with your Auto Shot. For AoE,Multi-Shot, Explosive Trap, and Volleycan all be great tools for killing multiple targets, but you always have to becareful to make sure you are not the one picking up threat; either your pet or aparty member should be holding threat if you are trying to AoE.

This is mainly until you either pick up Aimed Shot from talents,or you learn Steady Shot at Level 62. These will both be extremelystrong while leveling, and should be used regularly as soon as you learn them.

Concussive Shot, Wing Clip, Freezing Trap,and Scare Beast are all valuable disengage and crowd control toolsfor both PvP and PvE.

Feign Death is one of the single most important buttons in yourtoolkit and is a unique mechanic to Hunters. Use this any time you need to getout of a bad situation and need to leave combat or drop threat.

Auto Shot is your most basic attack and your primary source ofdamage. If you played Hunter in original Classic or TBC, you will be thankful to learn thatAuto Shot is updated in Wrath. While you still still need to be standing still toget an Auto Shot off, it now works similar to how melee auto attacks work. Auto Shotscan no longer be "clipped", meaning you do not need to plan your ability uses aroundyour Auto Shot timer.

As stated above, time spent leveling can be broken into three distinct parts:travel time, downtime, and combat.

Travel time is when you have to move between quests, towns, or zones. Youwill spend a significant amount of time traveling in your journey from Level 1-80,which is why movement speed increases like your mount are very important.Getting your first mount at or close to Level 20 can reduce travel timesignificantly, which will greatly improve your leveling speed.Aspect of the Cheetah is a great ability to help with this, allowing youto run 30% faster whenever it is active. Once you learn it at Level 16, it isimportant to remember to activate Aspect of the Cheetah whenever you have tomove more than a few steps.

Downtime is the time that you are forced to wait to regenerate healthand Mana in between killing mobs. If your goal is to level quickly, minimizingdowntime is just as important as maximizing your damage. In Wrath however,Mana usage and costs has been significantly improved across all classes. In most situations,you should always use your highest-DPS rotation without worrying about the Mana costs.It is more efficient to use the Mana and drink later if needed as opposed to limiting yourdamage while fighting. Once you learn it later on, Aspect of the Viper isincredibly useful for earning back some Mana as you travel around during down time.

From Level 1-10, you will have to kill enemies without your pet to tank them.This is where Hunters can struggle the most, due to their low melee damage. Thekey to leveling before you get your pet is proper kiting while usingAuto Shot.

Kiting is when you move between attacks to put more distance between you andyour target. For Hunters, this means moving during the downtime betweenAuto Shot hits. You start by casting an Auto Shot on your target,which takes 0.5 seconds (the animation time). After getting the shot off, youare free to move backwards or use other abilities until your Auto Shot comesback up. Once it is back up, you will want to stand still for another 0.5seconds to get another Auto Shot off. At low levels, this usually looks likeAuto Shot -> Move -> Auto Shot -> Move, and so on. You can also cast other shotslike Serpent Sting and Arcane Shot while moving inbetween Auto Shots for extra damage.

Kiting before Level 10 is extremely important because it allows you to do asmuch damage as possible before the target enters your melee range. Hunters havea minimum range of 5 yards on their ranged abilities and Auto Shot.Inside that 5 yard zone, you cannot use your ranged weapon to attack or castabilities on a target. Most of the damage Hunters deal is with a ranged weapon,with their melee damage being significantly weaker. Killing targets quickly isall about getting as many Auto Shots off before they make it into your deadzone, and you are forced to use melee attacks and Raptor Strike tofinish them off.

If your goal is to hit Level 80 as fast as possible, it is not recommendedto pick up professions while leveling. However, some professions are veryuseful for either leveling or at Level 80, and can be worth the time investmentwhile leveling. First Aid is a must-have profession at max level due toHunter's lack of self healing, and learning it early on can be useful whileleveling. Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning allare great choices for making gold towards your first mount, and can also beuseful for helping to level other important professions later on, such as takingMining to help level Engineering.

The single best profession to consider leveling while you yourself are levelingas a Hunter will be Mining. Professions in general are more importantin Wrath than they ever were previously, and your two best profession choices as a Level80 Hunter will be Engineering and Jewelcrafting.These both use materials that come from Mining, making it a great starter profession ifyou want to prepare for later on.

By the time you hit maximum level, it will be very helpful to read the restof our guides. Pick Beast Mastery Hunterif you intend to play BM at maximum level,Marksmanship Hunter if you intendto play MM at maximum level and Survival Hunterif you intend to play Survival.