Leveling a Hunter to 20

How to level a Hunter in WoW Forever from 1 to the level 20 beta cap: taming and feeding your pet, pet families, ammo, every ability as you learn it, the published leveling talent builds, what to press, class quests, gear, and the mistakes new Hunters make.

The WoW Forever beta is capped at level 20, and level 30 is expected around mid-October 2026. Abilities, talents, pet families and tooltips here come from the Forever beta client. Anything taken from Classic's data, such as class quest givers and where beasts live, is labelled, because Forever may have changed it.

The Hunter in a nutshell

The Hunter fights from range with a bow, gun, crossbow or thrown weapon, alongside a tamed animal companion, your pet. While leveling, the pet usually holds the enemy's attention and you shoot it down. That makes the Hunter one of the safest classes to play solo. In groups you're a damage dealer (DPS, the players whose job is to kill things) and a source of crowd control (CC: taking an enemy out of the fight for a while) with Freezing Trap.

Your shots and stings cost Mana, which you get back by drinking or waiting out of combat. Your basic Auto Shot is free, so it keeps firing even when your Mana runs dry. Your pet has its own resource, Focus, which its skills spend.

The Forever client lets Hunters wear cloth and leather from level 1 and mail from level 40. For the ranged slot you can use bows, guns, crossbows and thrown weapons. For melee you can use one- and two-handed axes and swords, daggers, fist weapons and staves, plus polearms from level 20. Hunters can't use maces. You can dual-wield (hold a weapon in each hand) from level 20.

Good at

• Soloing. Your pet takes the hits while you shoot, so you take little damage yourself.
• Pulling and kiting. You attack from long range, and Concussive Shot and Wing Clip slow enemies so you can keep your distance. Kiting means shooting while you back away from an enemy that can't catch you.
• Crowd control and utility in groups: Freezing Trap, Hunter's Mark and tracking.

Not so good at

• Enemies right next to you. Your shots can't hit enemies that close, and your melee attacks are weak until Survival's tools arrive at 30.
• Mana. Your shots and stings drain it quickly at these levels.
• Upkeep. You have a pet to feed, keep happy and revive, and ammo to buy.

Choosing a race

Hunters can be Human, Dwarf, Night Elf or High Order Skyborne for the Alliance, and Orc, Tauren, Troll or Windshaper Skyborne for the Horde. Human Hunters and Skyborne Hunters are new in Forever. Blizzard reworked the racials so every race has two active abilities and two passive ones, tuned to give a similar amount of power, so pick the faction and look you like. These are the racials that matter most for a Hunter, from the Forever client's tooltips:

Racial tooltips are from the Forever beta client and are still being tuned.

Read more in Races, classes and reworked racials. The Skyborne start on their own island, Zephras Isle; see Meet the Skyborne.

Your pet: taming, feeding and families

Until level 10 you fight alone. At level 10 the trainer teaches you everything you need to keep a pet: Call Pet, Dismiss Pet, Feed Pet, Revive Pet and Beast Training. The spell that tames a beast is not taught by the trainer in the Forever client. In Classic it was the reward of the level 10 Taming the Beast quests (see Class quests below).

Taming a beast

1. Find a Beast at or below your own level. Only Beasts can be tamed, and the pet database shows what each family looks like and where Classic's data puts them.
2. Deal with anything else nearby first. Taming takes a while, and you can't fight during it.
3. Target the beast and use Tame Beast. You focus on it for 20 sec, and your armor is reduced by 100% while you do, so the beast hits you hard. If you lose its attention, the taming fails.
4. Once it's tamed, the new pet is very unhappy. Feed it straight away.

Tame Beast no longer works on Beasts that are higher than the Hunter’s level. Blizzard, WoW Forever Beta Development Notes (September 24)

So the old trick of taming a higher-level beast for a stronger early pet no longer works. Your pet gains levels by fighting alongside you.

Feeding and happiness

Pets have a happiness level. Feed Pet feeds your pet the food you choose, which raises its happiness, and food close to the pet's level works better. Each family eats only certain kinds of food, its diet, listed in the table below and on each family's page. Dismiss Pet sends your pet away, but that lowers its happiness, so use it only when you need to. Blizzard's September 24 notes fixed a bug where happiness stopped going down once a pet reached maximum loyalty, so both systems are in Forever.

Speculation: Classic data: in Classic, an unhappy pet dealt less damage and, if it stayed unhappy, could eventually leave you, while a pet's loyalty grew over time as you fed it and fought together. Forever may tune this differently.

Pet families

Every beast belongs to a family, and each family has a signature skill that only it can learn. Many of them are new in Forever. The families, skills and diets below come from the Forever client. The beast levels come from Classic's data, since the client doesn't say which creatures live where.

From level: when the first rank of the signature skill becomes available, from the Forever client. The client also has a Core Hound family, with no known beasts to tame.

Which pet is best? There's no single answer. For leveling, pick a pet you like the look of whose skill helps you. A few ideas from the class guides: a tallstrider's Dust Cloud lowers the target's Armor for everyone hitting it; a bear's Swipe hits 3 nearby enemies (but will break a Freezing Trap); a spider's Web holds an enemy in place; and a boar's Charge rushes in to start the fight. The Wolf's Furious Howl buffs your party, although Blizzard's notes cut its bonus in Forever. The pet database also marks beasts that attack faster than usual, rare beasts, and the ones the game has confirmed in Forever.

Pet skills and keeping your pet alive

Beast Training (level 10) lets you teach your pet the skills you have learned how to teach. Besides its family's signature skill, every pet can use Growl, which makes the enemy attack the pet, and Cower, which lowers the pet's threat. It can also learn passive boosts such as Great Stamina and Natural Armor, and from level 20 resistances to magic schools. Pet skills cost Focus.

Speculation: The Forever client lists every rank of every pet skill as a Hunter trainer spell at level 1, so it doesn't show how you unlock them. In Classic, you learned most pet skills by taming a beast that already knew them, then taught them to your own pet with Beast Training, and you bought Growl, Cower and the passive boosts from pet trainers in the cities. Forever may work the same way.

• Mend Pet (level 12) heals your pet every second for 5 sec while you focus on it. Use it early: a pet at half health in a long fight is a pet about to die.
• Revive Pet (level 10) brings a dead pet back with a little health. It has a cast time, so do it out of combat.
• Eyes of the Beast (level 14) lets you control your pet directly for 2 min, handy for scouting ahead.

Tip: At level 25 you get a separate helper: Summon Hawk, new in Forever, calls in a hawk to attack your target. It shares its cooldown with Arcane Shot and doesn't replace your pet.

Ranged weapons and ammo

Once you start Auto Shot, it keeps firing your ranged weapon at your target until you stop it or the target dies. It costs no Mana. Bows and crossbows fire arrows, such as Rough Arrow, and guns fire bullets (shot), such as Light Shot. You buy ammo from vendors in towns, and it's used up as you shoot, so buy plenty before you head out: a Hunter without ammo can't use Auto Shot. Blizzard's September 24 notes fixed a few guns and bows that weren't using up ammunition, so ammo is definitely part of Forever.

A quiver (for arrows) or ammo pouch (for bullets), such as Light Quiver or Small Ammo Pouch, is a bag that holds your ammo and also makes you shoot faster; the tooltip shows by how much. Buy one with the ammo that matches your weapon.

Your shots (Auto Shot, Arcane Shot and the rest) can't be fired at an enemy standing right next to you: the client gives them a minimum range of 8 yards. This gap is called the dead zone. If an enemy reaches you, either step back to range (slow it first with Concussive Shot or Wing Clip) or hit it in melee with Raptor Strike.

We’ve been tracking an issue in the WoW Forever Beta where the 0.5-second cast time that precedes a Hunter’s auto-shot or the use of a wand is not functioning properly. Due to a bug, these auto-shots are currently incurring a much shorter cast time, which in practice means that Hunters and wand users don’t need to stop to shoot for as long as intended. Blizzard, Auto-shoot Bug and Fix Incoming

So once the fix lands, expect to stand still briefly before each Auto Shot, and don't build your play around shooting on the move.

Thrown weapons are an option too. Right now the level 20 gear lists put two new Forever thrown weapons at the top of the ranged slot, Sharpened Cutlery and Dull Sawblade, though where they come from isn't known yet. Next in line is the bow Ranger Bow (a world drop in Classic's data).

Speculation: Classic data: in Classic, thrown weapons didn't use ammo but wore down as you threw them, and weapon damage mattered more than ammo. Forever may handle this differently, so check the item in game.

Abilities by level

You learn new abilities from a Hunter trainer in your starting area and in the capital cities. This table lists everything the trainer teaches up to level 20, straight from the Forever client:

Everything a Hunter learns from the class trainer up to level 20, from the Forever client. Rows such as Bite, Claw, Dismember, Web or Great Stamina are pet skills from the Beast Training skill line, which the client lists with all their ranks: they are skills you teach your pet, not buttons you press yourself.

Here are the abilities you press yourself, in the order you get them:

• Auto Shot, level 1: your main attack, free to use. Start it and let it run.
• Raptor Strike, level 1: a melee attack for when an enemy reaches you.
• Track Beasts, level 1: shows nearby Beasts on your minimap. You get more tracking types later: Humanoids at 10, Undead at 18.
• Aspect of the Monkey, level 4: increases your chance to dodge by 8%. Wear it when something is hitting you.
• Serpent Sting, level 4: poisons the target for Nature damage over 15 sec. Worth it on enemies that will live a while.
• Arcane Shot, level 6: an instant shot that deals Arcane damage. Fire it whenever it's ready and your Mana allows.
• Hunter's Mark, level 6: raises the Ranged Attack Power of everyone attacking the marked target. Put it on before the pull.
• Concussive Shot, level 8: slows the target's movement by 50% for 4 sec, so it takes longer to reach you.
• Aspect of the Hawk, level 10: raises your Ranged Attack Power. Keep it on while you shoot.
• Wing Clip, level 12: a melee slow, for when an enemy is already on you.
• Distracting Shot, level 12: causes threat, to pull an enemy off a friend (or onto you).
• Scare Beast, level 14: makes a beast run away in fear for up to 10 sec. Handy when a second beast joins the fight.
• Immolation Trap, level 16: a Fire trap you put on the ground. The first enemy to walk over it burns.
• Mongoose Bite, level 16: a melee counterattack you can only use right after you dodge.
• Multi-Shot, level 18: fires at 3 targets at once. It shares its cooldown with the Aimed Shot talent.
• Freezing Trap, level 20: freezes the first enemy that walks onto it for up to 10 sec. Any damage breaks the ice. This is your crowd control in dungeons.
• Aspect of the Cheetah, level 20: increases your movement speed by 30%, but if you take damage you are dazed for 4 sec. Use it to travel, never in a fight.
• Disengage, level 20: reduces your threat on your target. It turns off your auto-attack, so start shooting again after.

Compared with Classic Era, the Forever trap tooltips no longer say traps can only be placed out of combat, and they limit you to one Fire trap and one Frost trap at a time instead of one trap in total. Test it in game before relying on it.

Coming by level 30

These are in the client for when the cap rises, which Blizzard hasn't confirmed yet:

• Scorpid Sting at level 22 and Beast Lore at level 24 (Beast Lore shows a beast's diet and stats before you tame it).
• Summon Hawk at level 25, new in Forever.
• Rapid Fire at level 26: faster shooting for a short time.
• Frost Trap at level 28: a trap that slows every enemy near it.
• Feign Death at level 30: play dead so enemies lose interest.
• Aspect of the Beast, Strider Kick and Lacerate at level 30: the melee kit that turns Survival into a real melee spec.

Talents: which spec to level with

You get your first talent point at level 10 and one more each level, so 11 points by level 20. That is enough to reach the third row of one tree. You spend them at your talent pane (press N).

If you have not recently changed your talents, the cost is now 1 silver to re-spec. This is temporary for the Beta only. After your first talent reset, the subsequent cost will be much higher, but it will drop to 1 silver after 1 hour has passed. Blizzard, WoW Forever Beta Development Notes (September 24)

ForeverDB has a published leveling build for each tree. You can see every point and the reason for it on the Hunter builds page, and plan your own in the talent calculator.

Summaries of the published level 20 leveling builds. Talent tooltips are from the Forever client; most ranks above rank 1 have no text in the client yet.

Which one should you pick?

• Beast Mastery if you want the most relaxed solo experience. Your pet does the tanking.
• Marksmanship if you'd rather do the damage yourself and drink less often. The build skips the Aimed Shot talent for now: in Forever it adds only 20 damage, has a cast time and shares its cooldown with Multi-Shot.
• Survival if you enjoy mixing ranged and melee. It becomes a proper melee spec only at level 30, when Aspect of the Beast, Strider Kick and Lacerate arrive, so expect a thin melee kit before then.

The level 30 versions on the builds page carry on from the same points. Beast Mastery goes on to Bestial Discipline, Marksmanship adds Mortal Shots and Hawk Eye, and Survival adds Deterrence and Surefooted.

What to press

This is the level 20 order from the published builds, in plain terms. Skip steps you haven't learned yet.

One enemy (Beast Mastery or Marksmanship)

1. Before the pull, put Hunter's Mark on the enemy you'll kill first, and make sure Aspect of the Hawk is on.
2. Send your pet in and give it a moment to build threat.
3. Start Auto Shot and keep it running.
4. Put Serpent Sting on enemies that will live most of its duration. Skip it on ones that die quickly, to save Mana.
5. Fire Arcane Shot whenever it's ready and your Mana holds.
6. When the pet drops to about half health, use Mend Pet.
7. If an enemy reaches you, slow it with Concussive Shot or Wing Clip and step back to range. Use Raptor Strike only if you can't get away.

Several enemies

1. Set Immolation Trap before the pull and bring the enemies over it.
2. Use Multi-Shot on two or more enemies. Marksmanship players should save it for groups, since it costs a lot of Mana.
3. Freeze an extra enemy with Freezing Trap so the pet only has to hold the others. Keep all damage off the frozen one.
4. Put Serpent Sting on a second enemy that will live a while.
5. Shoot the pet's target so it keeps the enemies' attention and they die one at a time.
6. Heal the pet early with Mend Pet: several enemies hurt it fast.

Survival (hybrid melee)

1. Wear Aspect of the Monkey: the extra dodge chance means more Mongoose Bites.
2. Open at range with Serpent Sting and Arcane Shot while the enemy runs in.
3. In melee, use Mongoose Bite whenever a dodge makes it available, and Raptor Strike on cooldown.
4. If the enemy tries to flee, Wing Clip it.
5. Keep your tracking on the enemy's creature type: Improved Tracking adds damage against it.

Tip: Mana runs out quickly at 20. The builds note that Serpent Sting and Arcane Shot cost 50 Mana each at their level 18 and 20 ranks. Drink between pulls, and when you're low, let Auto Shot and your pet finish the job.

Class quests

Speculation: Classic data: the quests below are in the Forever client, but who gives them, where they start and what they rewarded come from Classic's data. Forever may have moved or changed them.

At level 1, Classic's data has a note that sends you to your trainer: Etched Rune from Sten Stoutarm (Dwarf), Etched Sigil from Conservator Ilthalaine (Night Elf), Etched Parchment (Orc) and Etched Tablet (Troll) from Gornek, and Etched Note from Grull Hawkwind (Tauren). There's no Classic version for Human or Skyborne Hunters, since those combinations are new in Forever.

At level 10 comes the Hunter's most important quest chain, Taming the Beast: three quests in which you tame particular beasts, followed by Training the Beast. Classic's data has them starting here:

Starts of Taming the Beast (level 10). Giver and place from Classic's data.

Classic's data also has The Hunter's Path at level 10, starting from Hunter trainers such as Jen'shan in Durotar, Lanka Farshot in Mulgore, Ayanna Everstride in Teldrassil and Thorgas Grimson in Dun Morogh. Classic's data also has versions from Hunter trainers in Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, Darnassus, Ironforge and Stormwind.

Speculation: In Classic, finishing the three Taming the Beast quests taught Tame Beast, and Training the Beast taught Beast Training. In the Forever client Beast Training is a trainer spell at level 10, while Tame Beast isn't taught by the trainer at all, which fits it still coming from these quests. Classic's data has no version for Human or Skyborne Hunters, so how they get Tame Beast in Forever isn't known yet.

Gear and professions

Your ranged weapon is your biggest upgrade: a better bow or gun makes Auto Shot and every shot hit harder. Wear leather, and look for Agility first. Stat order from the class guides: Agility, then Hit, Ranged Attack Power and Critical Strike, with Intellect more useful than it looks because Mana is what stops you. Survival also values Attack Power for melee. In Forever, melee, ranged and spell hit are one stat, which Blizzard says makes traps more reliable.

The Hunter PvE page has a gear list for every slot at level 20 for each spec, with where each item comes from, and the gear planner lets you compare items. Right now the lists put new Forever Leatherworking pieces near the top of several slots, such as Brawler's Leather Hood and Trapper's Leather Pants.

Professions: Skinning and Leatherworking suit a Hunter. You kill a lot of beasts, Skinning turns them into leather, and Leatherworking makes the leather armor that ranks well in the gear lists. Cooking helps too, since your pet needs food. See the professions guide for how to start.

Groups and dungeons

• Turn off your pet's Growl in groups. Growl makes enemies attack your pet, and in a dungeon that's the tank's job. You can turn a pet skill's automatic use on and off from the pet bar.
• Send your pet in only once the tank has the enemy's attention, and keep it on the tank's target.
• Freezing Trap is your crowd control. Set it before the pull where the tank can bring an enemy onto it, and never Multi-Shot or sting the frozen enemy.
• Put Hunter's Mark on the kill target. It raises the Ranged Attack Power of everyone attacking it.
• If the tank asks, pull with a shot from long range. Hunters have no interrupt at 20.

The dungeons within reach before 20 are Ragefire Chasm (from level 13), Deadmines (from 16), Wailing Caverns (from 17) and Shadowfang Keep (from 18), with minimum levels from the Forever client. Start with Your first dungeon, and use the planner to look at the bosses before you go.

Common beginner mistakes

• Not feeding your pet. An unhappy pet is a weaker pet. Carry food from its diet.
• Trying to tame a higher-level beast. It no longer works in Forever: tame beasts at or below your level.
• Shooting before the pet has the enemy's attention. The enemy turns on you instead. Give the pet a moment first.
• Standing in the dead zone. If an enemy is next to you, your shots won't fire. Slow it and step back.
• Running out of ammo. Check your quiver or pouch every time you're in town.
• Fighting in Aspect of the Cheetah. You get dazed when hit. Switch back to Aspect of the Hawk after traveling.
• Spending all your Mana on Arcane Shot. Auto Shot is free. Save Mana for Mend Pet and emergencies.
• Forgetting Auto Shot after Disengage. Disengage turns off your auto-attack, so start shooting again.
• Leaving Growl on in a group. Your pet steals the tank's enemies and dies.

What Forever changed for Hunters

Compared with Classic, the Forever client and Blizzard's posts show these changes up to level 20. See the changes tab and the Hunter outlook for the full list.

• New pet family skills, flagged as new in the client: Sonic Blast for bats, Swipe for bears, Mine! for birds of prey, Pinch for crabs, Dismember for crocolisks, Tendon Rip for hyenas, Savage Rend for raptors, Web for spiders and Dust Cloud for tallstriders. There's also a new Fox family with Trickster's Dance.
• You can only tame beasts at or below your level, and the Wolf's Furious Howl bonus was cut by 40% (Blizzard's notes).
• Several tooltips changed from Classic Era: Arcane Shot and Hunter's Mark are stronger, Serpent Sting's early ranks deal less, and Mongoose Bite now deals your weapon damage plus a bonus instead of a fixed amount.
• Multi-Shot now shares its cooldown with Aimed Shot. Eyes of the Beast lasts 2 minutes. Disengage lowers your threat and stops your auto-attack instead of taking you out of combat.
• Traps: the tooltips allow one Fire trap and one Frost trap at a time, and no longer say you must be out of combat to place them.
• Humans and both Skyborne races can be Hunters.
• Coming at 25 and 30: Summon Hawk, a new Aspect of the Beast, Strider Kick and Lacerate.

Furious Howl Attack Power bonus reduced 40%. Sonic Blast ability now properly available to Bat pets. Tame Beast no longer works on Beasts that are higher than the Hunter’s level. Blizzard, WoW Forever Beta Development Notes (September 24)

For the whole game's changes, see our write-up of the September 24 development notes.

Checked against WoW Forever beta build 1.60.1.70009.