Beast Mastery Hunter PvP Best Arena Compositions — The War Within (11.0.5) - World of Warcraft

Ability to crowd control on the "Disorient" Diminishing return
Examples: Psychic Scream, Cyclone, Blind, Blinding Light, Blinding Sleet, Intimidating Shout, Sleep Walk

Ability to stun a kill target every 30 seconds when there is a Freezing Trap on healer
Examples: Kidney Shot, Storm Bolt, Hammer of Justice

Ability to do high single-target burst damage, preferably every 30 or 60 seconds
Examples: Feral Frenzy, Symbols of Death, Avenging Wrath, Pillar of Frost

Ability to apply a short stun on healers to set up Freezing Traps every 60 seconds when Intimidation is not available
Examples: Cheap Shot, Mighty Bash, Rake (with Shadowmeld), Holy Word: Chastise

Ability to peel when you are stunned, either with damage reductions or crowd control breaks
Examples: Intervene, Blessing of Protection, Blessing of Freedom, Blessing of Sanctuary, Cyclone, Ursol's Vortex, Disarm, Dismantle

Things to avoid in partners as Beast Mastery

Specs that have their main crowd control abilities on the incapacitate diminishing returns category (this is the category of your Freezing Trap and Scatter Shot)
Examples: Polymorph, Hex, Paralysis, Repentance, Imprison

Healers that require you to stand still or stack in order to heal efficiently
Examples: Earthen Wall Totem, Mastery: Lightbringer

Specs that are unable to stun or lock down your kill target at least once every 30 seconds
Examples: All Mage specs, Windwalker

DPS specs with low survivability when focused
Examples: Windwalker, Enhancement Shaman

You might have noticed a running theme from the list above. All of the DPS specs that work best with Beast Mastery Hunter are melee specializations.

And all of the healing specializations that work best with Beast Mastery Hunters are ones that have access to the Disorient diminishing return category (Discipline Priest) and ideally, the stun diminishing return category as well (Holy Priest, Restoration Druid).

2v2 Arena (Beast Mastery + Healer)

It is recommended that if you are playing Beast Mastery in 2v2, then you play with a healer.

3.1.

Gameplan

The gameplan will almost always be:

Ramp your damage
(by building two Frenzy stacks from Barbed Shot, using Bloodshed and Bestial Wrath)

Freezing Trap Healer
(out of Intimidation, Holy Word: Chastise, Mighty Bash or Rake if needed)

Burst DPS
(stun them with Holy Word: Chastise, Mighty Bash, Rake or Maim if possible)

Use your disorient diminishing return out of the Freezing Trap
( Psychic Scream, Mind Control, Cyclone or Sleep Walk)

The Beast Mastery Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle page of this guide goes into more detail about your opening damage rotation.

And between that:

Scatter Shot DPS to peel when they are dealing high damage and you have run out of mobility to escape them
( Cyclone out of the Scatter Shot if playing with a Druid)
Kite with Concussive Shot, Tar Trap, Binding Shot, Ursol's Vortex
Swap to the enemy healer if the kill target uses defensives or moves out of your line of sight (do not sacrifice your good positioning chasing a melee DPS around pillars!)

Remember that your goal is to do the most damage whilst taking the least damage possible. Crowd control the enemy healer only when it is safe for you to do so, and do not let the other team bait you into a poor position.

Here is a ranked list of Beast Mastery + healer compositions for 2v2:

Disclaimer: during the first weeks of an expansion, any tier list is subject to change as the meta develops and Blizzard make balancing adjusments. This page will be regularly updated as the meta develops for The War Within Season 1.

3.2.

S tier:

Beast Mastery Hunter + Discipline Priest

3.3.

A tier:

Beast Mastery Hunter + Restoration Druid
Beast Mastery Hunter + Preservation Evoker
Beast Mastery Hunter + Holy Priest

3.4.

B tier:

Beast Mastery Hunter + Holy Paladin
Beast Mastery Hunter + Mistweaver Monk

3.5.

C tier:

Beast Mastery Hunter + Restoration Shaman

2v2 Arena (Beast Mastery + DPS)

It is possible to play Beast Mastery with DPS specializations in 2v2, but it is not recommended. Beast Mastery needs to ramp its damage before it can do meaningful burst, and has limited healing/recovery options when health has been lost so requires a hybrid that is able to "reset" the fight (e.g. with an ability like Lay on Hands Icon Lay on Hands or by locking down the enemy DPS with Cyclone Icon Cyclone and applying offheals to recover).

Here is a ranked list of Beast Mastery double DPS compositions for 2v2:

4.1.

A tier:

Beast Mastery Hunter + Feral Druid
Beast Mastery Hunter + Retribution Paladin

4.2.

B tier:

Beast Mastery Hunter + Shadow Priest

3v3 Arena

There are many comps available to Beast Mastery Hunter in 3v3. The best generally be Beast Mastery + melee + healer. The ranged DPS specs that are usually playable with Beast Mastery are Balance Druid and Shadow Priest because they have so many diminishing return categories that do not overlap with the incapacitate diminishing return and generally have high damage output.

The best healer for your comp will usually be either be Holy Priest or Discipline Priest. Restoration Druid will sometimes work if your comp has very high damage and doesn't need a healer that can apply the disorient diminishing return category (Restoration Druids struggle to cast cyclone or use stuns in 3v3 as they need to stay at a long distance to heal effectively). Restoration Druid + Beast Mastery 3v3 comps tend to win by having great damage and efficiency rather than through crowd-control setups.

Preservation Evoker can be good as it is able to apply the disorient diminishing return category with Sleep Walk Icon Sleep Walk, as well as being able to do significant burst damage and apply pressure with Scouring Flame Icon Scouring Flame. This is particularly powerful in The War Within as many magic buffs have been added to the game, and magic buffs such as Power Word: Shield Icon Power Word: Shield are more powerful than they were in previous expansions.

Sometimes, other healers can be competitive with Beast Mastery Hunter if their healing is highly overtuned. Currently, in Season 1 of The War Within, Holy Priest is considered to be undertuned and Discipline Priest or Holy Paladin will be the best healers for most Beast Mastery Hunter comps.

5.1.

Gameplan

Your gameplan will almost always be:

Ramp your damage
(by building two Frenzy stacks from Barbed Shot using Bloodshed and Bestial Wrath)

Freezing Trap Healer
(out of Intimidation, Mighty Bash, Cheap Shot or Holy Word: Chastise if needed)

Stun your kill target and use burst cooldowns
(stun them with Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot, Storm Bolt, Maim or Hammer of Justice when the healer is in a Freezing Trap)

Use your disorient diminishing return out of the Freezing Trap
( Psychic Scream, Mind Control, Cyclone or Blind)

Note that the final step is crucial to your success playing any setup Hunter comp, and this is why Holy and Discipline Priests are so good with Beast Mastery. If you aren't able to achieve long crowd control chains by using a disorient category crowd control out of Freezing Trap Icon Freezing Trap, you will find it difficult to kill your target unless your comp has enough damage to kill enemies without crowd control on the healer.

Usually as Beast Mastery you will save your Scatter Shot Icon Scatter Shot to crowd control an enemy DPS when your partner is in a stun, or to set up Freezing Trap Icon Freezing Traps if you aren't able to get one using Intimidation Icon Intimidation or Binding Shot Icon Binding Shot, although you can also use it to cross crowd control the off-target to prevent them from using utility (e.g. Grounding Totem Icon Grounding Totem, Blessing of Sanctuary Icon Blessing of Sanctuary, Intervene Icon Intervene).

The Beast Mastery Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle page of this guide goes into more detail about your opening damage rotation.

5.2.

Troubleshooting

The most common issues that cause teams to struggle to climb with a Beast Mastery Hunter's composition is that either:

Your team is not lining up their stun on kill target with your Freezing Trap
Your team is not using their disorient ( Psychic Scream on the healer immediately before or after Freezing Trap)
You are missing Freezing Traps on the enemy healer or not landing Freezing Trap regularly.
You are positioning too aggressively and taking more damage than you need to.
You are not saving your partner from enemy cooldowns using your utility Scatter Shot, Master's Call, Roar of Sacrifice.
Your team are not rotating defensive cooldowns or kiting the enemy DPS players when they have damage cooldowns or crowd control active.

It doesn't matter what comp you play; if you are not solving the above issues, your team will struggle to climb (and if you are able to solve those issues, your team will climb very quickly).

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 3v3:

5.3.