WoW Classic Season of Discovery: Best Runes and talents for Hunters

Hunters in WoW Classic Season of Discovery have a dedicated build that is the optimal choice for maximizing your DPS. Since this class cannot heal or tank through normal means, the only thing we’re focused on is dealing as much damage as possible. Some Hunters choose to stay in melee, while others want to melee-weave - temporarily enter melee range to use an attack, then return to ranged combat.

That’s entirely up to you whether you choose that route or not. However, I will give you the best Runes and talents you can pick for Hunters in WoW Classic Season of Discovery. As the various phases update for this Classic-era playstyle, we’ll update this accordingly.

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Best Runes and talents for Hunters in WoW Classic Season of Discovery

Here are the Beast Mastery talents you need (Image via Wowhead.com)

The best Runes and talents for Hunters in WoW Classic Season of Discovery are remarkably simple. As of Phase 1, the best build for a Hunter is Beast Mastery. Beast Master Hunters are among the best damage dealers on the Classic-era servers right now.

Since our level cap is 25 currently, there isn’t a lot of wiggle room in terms of what you should and should not equip. While you’re free to play however you want, these are the best talents to equip. Improved Aspect of the Hawk gives your ranged attacks a chance to increase ranged attack speed for 12s, which is amazing.

Thick Hide makes your pet tankier, and Improved Revive Pet makes it faster and more viable to use the special hunter power. It’s inevitable that your pet will die, so making it cheaper and faster to cast the spell is rewarding.

Then you have Unleashed Fury for your pet, which increases the damage they deal - at max, 20%. That’s a significant boost. Then you put the last point in Ferocity for a little more critical strike chance.

Talents

• Improved Aspect of the Hawk: 5/5
• Thick Hide: 3/3
• Improved Revive Pet: 2/2
• Unleashed Fury: 5/5
• Ferocity: 1/5

Hunters have many useful runes in WoW Classic Season of Discovery. However, you can only equip three at a time right now. Heart of the Lion essentially gives you Paladin’s Blessing of Kings. You grant 10% to all stats for nearby allies. It also increases your stats by an additional 10%. It’s one of the most important abilities you can have, whether soloing or working on raids.

Beast Mastery increases your pet’s damage and health by 30% and increases Focus regeneration by 80%. The pet ability Growl now also Taunts the target for 3s. This will make soloing so much easier and could allow you to off-tank, at least a little bit, in some content.

Finally, you have Kill Command to increase your pet’s Claw and Bite damage by 60 for 30s. That bonus reduces by 20% each time they use a Claw or Bite. If you want to weave melee strikes into your build, go with Flanking Strike instead of this ability.

That will make you and your pet deal simultaneous 100% melee damage. It will also buff your Mongoose Bite and Raptor Strike by 10% for 10s, which stacks up to 3 times. Personally, I prefer Kill Command as one of the best Runes and Talents for Hunters in WoW Classic Season of Discovery, but I understand the appeal of Flanking Strike.

Runes

• Enchant Chest: Heart of the Lion
• Enchant Hands: Beast Mastery
• Enchant Legs: Kill Command (or Flanking Strike, if you Melee weave)

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Hunters have some truly incredible Runes for Phase 1 of WoW Classic Season of Discovery. Here are the 5 best Runes you can have in your collection as you level up in the current content.