BM Hunter Arena Guide Patch 5.1

Patch 5.1 BM Hunter gameplay in arena

Patch 5.1 just hit live and Beast Mastery is still the choice for most hunters in arenas. With the Lynx Rush nerfed, looks like the best option now is Blink Strike. In fact, even before patch 5.1, a lot of top rated hunters were using Blink Strike and it's still a very viable choice. Let's start with talents and glyphs that are most effective for your gameplay if you're really serious into arenas. Take note that these talents are meant for comps with a healer such as Hunter/Warrior/Paladin (KFC), Hunter/Frost DK/Resto Druid, Hunter/Rogue/Healer (Bandit Cleave), Hunter/Druid/Healer (Jungle Cleave) and others.

Most viable talent for BM Hunters in Arena Patch 5.1

First of all, Narrow Escape will be a better choice for arena, with the web wrap root effect upon Disengage will make it harder for melee classes to reach you. Coupled with Glyph of Master's Call, I've tried it personally, no melee class can hardly ever get near me forcing them to switch to another target. Crouching Tiger Hidden Chimera won't be as good, as you can Deterrence twice when needed using Readiness.

Silencing shot is a compulsory choice and will be used to interrupt and silence your target. Next up, since the removal of Aspect of the Fox, you will now be using Aspect of the Iron Hawk all the time and may cast Cobra Shot, Steady Shot and Barrage while moving. With 10% attack power bonus and 15% in damage reduction,  coupled with Glyph of Animal Bond, your survivability will be at its very best. I have tried a few arena games with these talent choices and even when the opponent's team used all their cooldown to burst you down, you can feel that you won't go down in a split second. This means, there's a time gap where you can decide whether to use Deterrence or just wait for your healer to top you up. Well, if he's in a crowd control without a trinket, just use Deterrence.

Next up, we won't be using Dire Beast for arenas as it will be a waste of Global Cooldown and the pet really doesn't do much damage. Instead, you should use Thrill of the Hunt one of the best talent to keep pressure by constantly spamming Arcane Shot without having focus issues. I've tried it personally, what happened was, since I started opening on the opponent and after using all of my cooldown and keep Kill Command on cooldown as well, I can still keep spamming Arcane Shot and my focus is still above 80%. Only certain times my focus drops below 40%, which I will start using Cobra Shot to regain some focus back.

Blink Strike is a very good choice and the best way to use it is as the following:

1. Cast Beastial Wrath and Intimidation (Macro these 2 spells together) with Rapid Fire
2. Cast Blink Strike on your opponent
3. Use Stampede (with Shale Spider to continue locking your opponent)
4. Kill Command
5. Spam Arcane Shot
6. Silencing shot on healer

The above rotation will guarantee to create huge pressure to your opponent team and there's a very high chance that you can get a kill. In 2v2, I've tried the rotation on a Resto Druid that was in stealth, he had no HoTs on too. He just couldn't heal himself with the damage I was putting and went down pretty quick.

Finally, Glaive Toss is still the best option for arenas, its low focus cost and snare effect is valuable in this case. I've tested Barrage in patch 5.1, since Blizzard allow you to cast it while moving and tt just doesn't do much pressure in arena. It's good in Rated Battleground though, as you  can shower everybody in front of you with a descent amount of damage for 3 seconds.

For major Glyph, I've explained some of the reasons why to pick them above. We are going to use Glyph of Master's Call that will increase your immunity of movement impairing effect for a total of 8 seconds. You can cast this on yourself or your team mates which is a huge asset for your team. Make sure to make a macro for each. Glyph of Animal Bond is chosen to provide higher survivability when used together with Aspect of the Iron Hawk that in summary will provide 15% damage reduction and 10% healing increase on your character. Glyph of Marked of Death will automatically put a Hunter's Mark on your target which pretty much needed. As for minor glyph, make sure you have Glyph of Revive Pet to summon back your pet in case he gets killed twice in a match. That wraps up the arena guide for BM hunters in patch 5.1 and I will update you with more information, tips and tricks for hunters in World of Warcraft in the near future. All the best!

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