How to Spec a Hunter for World of Warcraft

Playing a hunter is one of the most fun characters in WoW. How you choose to spend talent points to spec your hunter depends on how you want to use it, and what phase of the game you are playing. Have fun trying out all the different ways there are to spec your hunter playing WoW.
Specing Beastmaster
Step 1Spec Beastmaster for leveling. Most players find that specing Beastmaster makes leveling much easier, because it makes their pet almost unstoppable. Beastmaster talents give pets more health and armor and more abilities in general.

Step 2Choose to spec Beastmaster (BM) for playing PVP. This includes arena, battlegrounds, dueling and world PVP. This spec gives your hunter the ability to survive longer against real players, who can't be tricked as easily as non-player characters can.

Step 3Increase your effectiveness. In PVP roles, Beastmaster pets can attack one player while the hunter kites another, making the hunter character play almost like two characters.

Specing Marksmanship
Step 1Spec Marksmanship (MM) for PVE, raiding, and instances. Marksmanship talents give bonuses to group members, and make the hunter a true DPS dealer, which is more useful for groups in raids and instances.

Step 2Spec MM for PVE to give useful abilities to group members, such as Trueshot Aura, available after 30 talent points are spent in MM.

Step 3Increase MM talents to give more of the power to the hunter, rather than the pet. This spec allows the hunter to do about 75 percent of the combined hunter/pet damage, versus 50 percent with Beastmaster spec.

Combination Specs
Step 1Put some talents into Survival to make your BM or MM hunter even stronger. Most players prefer not to spec Survival, but that talent tree offers many useful abilities that combine well with either Beastmaster or Marksmanship.

Step 2Spend points in Survival to gain Trap Mastery and Clever Traps for MM spec hunters. These abilities make the hunter better at crowd control (CC). This is the best spec combination for instances and end-game raiding in groups.

Step 3Put points into Survival to gain Survivalist and Surefooted abilities for Beastmaster spec hunters. These increase your hunter's health by 10 percent and give resistance against movement impairing effects. This combination is most useful for PVP play, when you may not have a healer repairing the damage you take.