This guide is a collaborative effort between Tosan, Tika, and Braindeadly, produced by SkillCapped. All of our written guides are available for free, and we encourage you to post them wherever you’d like as long as you use a link back!

Table of Contents

1. Stat Priority
2. Adjusting Stats As You Grind
3. Optimal Final Stats
4. Getting Started
5. Honor Gear
6. The Best Beast Mastery Hunter PvP Gear in Season 12
7. Beast Mastery Hunter PvP Professions

Stat Priority For Beast Mastery Hunters

Mandatory

Ranged Hit is by far the most important stat for Beast Mastery Hunters, and yet its importance is often times overlooked by the Hunter PvP community. The hit cap for melee/ranged classes in PvP is 3%, and until you have reached the 3% threshold, you should make obtaining Ranged Hit your number one priority.

The 3% threshold ensures that all of your Special Attacks, or Yellow damage numbers as they appear on screen, will never “Miss.” Auto attack damage, or White damage, still has a chance to miss on level 90 players. The amount of Melee Hit necessary to ensure all white damage lands on your target is extremely high, and does not warrant the loss of other secondary stats. Anything over the 3% hit cap will have a negligible impact on damage output, and thus, is a waste of secondary stat allocation.

You may notice that Melee/Ranged Hit required is much less than the amount of Hit necessary for Spell Casters (3% Ranged Hit compared to 6% Spell Hit required). The differential is due to physical damage classes having the additional requirement of Expertise. New to Mists of Pandaria, Hunter ranged attacks have a chance to be Dodged or Parried by your enemies. The current Expertise cap is 3%,  but many Hunters are choosing to exceed the 3% cap due to Strength and Agility classes having additional Dodge/Parry chance.  6% is the maximum Expertise level you should obtain.

Ideal Stat Gains

These are the stats you will focus on once you have achieved 3% hit. In this section, you will find a list of stats along with their descriptions; stats are ordered based on their importance. While gearing, you should focus on achieving the following stats based on this priority hierarchy:

• PvP Power
  • PVP Power increases all of your damage against other players. This additional damage increases linearly and does not fall subject to diminishing returns, making this stat more and more effective as you gear your character. We won’t get into the calculations, but PvP Power is point-for-point better than any other stat you can get in terms of damage output in WoW PvP’s current state.
• Agility
  • Agility increases your Attack Power and chance to score a Critical Strike.
  • As a Beast Mastery Hunter, much of your burst potential is based on having high Attack Power, coupled with high Crit chance. Since Agility adds to both of your most important secondary stats, achieving the highest Agility levels possible will maximize damage output.

• PvP Resilience
  • PVP Resilience reduces the damage your opponent does to you. In a PvP scenario, increasing your damage is amazing, but decreasing the amount of damage you take can dictate how a PvP scenario plays out. You can’t do damage if you’re dead!
  • Hunters have several escape and crowd control mechanics to help minimize the amount of damage you take from your opponents. When used effectively, [Scatter Shot], [Disengage], [Deterrence] and your trap arsenal ([Freezing Trap],[Explosive Trap] when used with [Glyph of Explosive Trap], and [Ice Trap]), can be used to negate a large amount of incoming damage.
  • In the current state of the game, most Top Hunters are recommending more PvP Resilience to deal with the incredible burst many classes are capable of, and so is Skill-Capped!

• Mastery
  • Beast Mastery Hunter mastery, [Mastery: Master of Beasts], increases the effectiveness of all your Pet’s damage. A significant portion of your damage will be dealt by your pet over the course of a PvP encounter, making Mastery a solid secondary stat to accumulate.

• Critical Strike
  • Critical Strike, or Crit, is thought of as one of the best secondary stats for a Beast Mastery Hunter. Hunter play style centers around effective control of the opposing team, and lining up very strong burst damage in conjunction with your teammate. Critical Strike increases the likelihood of solid damage output during your important cooldowns, namely [Bestial Wrath], [Stampede], and [Kill Command].

• Haste
  • Haste increases both the Hunter’s and their Pet’s attack speed. Faster attack speed will result in more damage output per second, but this damage will be predictable and lacks significant damage spikes when pressuring your target. PvP in Mists of Pandaria is very burst-oriented. The additional sustained pressure awarded from Haste does not justify the loss of other secondary stats that maximizes our burst potential.

So, your stat priority in the current Season 12 Patch 5.0 should look like this:

Stat Priority

Hit(3%) > Expertise(3%) > PvP Power > Agility > PvP Resilience >
Mastery > Crit > Expertise(>3%) > Haste

Note: We left out Stamina, as there will never be a situation where Stamina is better than any of these stats. Thus, you should never be Gemming or Enchanting Stamina on your gear.

Adjusting Stats As You Grind

Here we will be explaining exactly how to obtain, and what the optimal gear choices are while building up your character. While you are accumulating gear, it is important to recognize that until you have your completed set, your stats will constantly be changing. It is extremely important to be mindful of what stats are most important for your class as you work towards your optimal set, and make item selections based on what will have the most profound impact on your performance.

This may mean shifting a few gems around, reforging, or even swapping enchants to maintain your mandatory stats at all times.

• Make sure you are always at 3% hit rating. If you are below 3%, swap out a gem in favor of a Hit gem, or reforge some Haste or Mastery into Hit until your gear improves.
• Always try to accumulate as much PvP Power and Resilience as you can until you are in the best gear Season 12 offers. While you are gearing, how much damage you do to players, and how much damage they do to you, is significantly different than if you were in full gear, so it is not advised to prioritize Agility where you could get additional PvP Power and/or Resilience.

Optimal Final Stats For Beast Mastery Hunters

These stats reflect what we have researched and believe to be the best obtainable stats for Season 12 using Conquest gear with the Tier 2 weapon. These stats are here to give you a benchmark as you work towards completing your gear set.

• Hit: 1,030
• PvP Power: 13,444
• PvP Resilience: 7,187
• Agility: 11,069
• Expertise: 2,037
• Crit: 4,757
• Mastery: 5,203
• Haste: 1,345

Getting Started

This section is geared towards people who have recently hit 90 for the first time, or have an under-geared alt that needs to be primed for beginning the PvP gear grind.

Upon achieving level 90, we do NOT advise you to just jump into an Arena, or start grinding Battleground’s, or do any sort of PvP for that matter fresh off of leveling in your leveling items. Chances are many of the enemies in a Battleground will significantly out-gear your fresh level 90, which means they will have a significant advantage over you in a PvP setting. Something that we promise will save you a lot of grief, speed up your grind, and make your PvP experience that much more enjoyable would be to obtain the crafted PvP gear right away. Here is a list of all of the items you should immediately obtain before you start PvP’ing in Mists of Pandaria:

• [Contender's Dragonscale Belt]
• [Contender's Dragonscale Boots]
• [Contender's Dragonscale Bracers]
• [Contender's Dragonscale Chestguard]
• [Contender's Dragonscale Gloves]
• [Contender's Dragonscale Helm]
• [Contender's Dragonscale Leggings]
• [Contender's Dragonscale Shoulders]

Tip: It is normally much cheaper to get the materials for these items yourself and have someone craft them for you, rather than buying them off of the Auction House. Even if you just buy the materials off the Auction House and spam trade, it’s normally cheaper. Always check first for good deals on the Auction House, though!

Honor Gear

Why Should I get the Honor Gear?

Every season we get asked the same question:

Why would I grind out a full set of honor gear if I’m just going to replace it later with conquest point gear?

The answer is that you will have a significant edge over the large portion of the player base that chooses not to grind out their honor set early. While each stat on the honor gear is normally not much better than the previous season’s Conquest gear, (not the case here, as it’s a new expansion) when you look at the combined stat increase from all of the honor gear, it’s a massive difference.

Normally we show a stat comparison from last season’s conquest gear to the current season’s Honor gear, but this is unnecessary in the first Season of a new expansion. Honor gear is a 100% must have.

What Honor Gear to Get, and What Order

Below you will find a list of all of the honor gear pieces you can obtain. They are listed in order of their stat benefits to you. That is, if you go follow this list in order, you will get the best stats first. This is not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but we feel if you are going to gear up, you might as well do it in an efficiently as possible.

Please Note: This order disregards your previous gear set up, and only orders the gear in an optimal way given all gear being equal beforehand. A lot of you will have Contender’s gear on, though, and that changes the order.

In the case of having the Contender’s set on, you should follow the order below EXCLUDING the Contender slots that you have first, and then double back and replace Contender’s with Dreadful. ALWAYS MAINTAIN YOUR MANDATORY STATS!

Hit cap will be achieved when you accumulate [Dreadful Gladiator's Chain Gauntlets], [Dreadful Gladiator's Wristguards of Accuracy], and [Dreadful Gladiator's Ring of Accuracy].

• [Dreadful Gladiator's Chain Gauntlets]
  • Gloves may not have the highest stat increases, but they come with the added benefit of reducing the cooldown duration of your traps by 10 energy. Landing a timely Crowd control via [Freezing Trap], or controlling your enemies with [Ice Trap] can completely change the outcome of a PvP encounter. Having access to these cooldowns again two seconds early is amazing.
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Chain Armor]
  • Head, chest, and legs are all comparable. The order here was chosen due to the Mastery and Critical Strike values on the Chest.
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Chain Helm]
  • The helm is second between the chest/legs/helm category because it has Mastery and Expertise, and also offers a Meta Socket, which should be socketed with [Agile Primal Diamond] for the Agility and the bonus critical strike damage.
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Chain Leggings]
  • The Legs give you similar stats by number, but has a high Haste allocation for its secondary stats, making them inferior to the head and chest piece.
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Links of Cruelty]
  • Out of boots/shoulder/belt, belt comes first because it has Mastery and Crit and high Primary stat values and the additional Gem socket from [Living Steel Belt Buckle].
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Sabatons of Cruelty]
  • The boots before shoulders next because due to the stat advantage of Crit as opposed to Haste.
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Chain Spaulders]
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Badge of Conquest]
  • Significant PvP Power, plus the additional On-Use Agility makes this item a strong addition.
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Wristguards of Accuracy]
  • Hit Bracers are appropriate, as there is no “Cruelty” suffix (Crit and Mastery secondary stats) Bracers available. The Hit Belt is not taken because of [Dreadful Gladiator's Waistband of Cruelty]
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Ring of Accuracy]
  • Bracers and one ring next, because they both have hit, and we love that hit!
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Necklace of Proficiency]
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Cape of Cruelty]
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Ring of Cruelty]
  • Neck before Cloak and Ring because of the Crit/Expertise allocation, which is superior to Haste/Crit according to our stat priority
• [Dreadful Gladiator's Medallion of Cruelty]
  • Due to this item’s lack of primary stats, this should be your last pick-up, provided you have a PvP trinket from a previous season. If you do not already have a trinket that removes movement impairing effects, THIS SHOULD BE YOUR FIRST PICK-UP.

The Best Beast Mastery Hunter PvP Gear in Season 12

The most important section is upon us. Here you will find the best possible gear choices for Season 12 PvP. This list will be ordered by largest stat gains, just like the Honor gear section. It will list the piece or pieces of gear that are optimal – and denote any gems, enchants, and reforging that is required for your best-in-slot equipment.

Keep in mind, your reforging and gemming may vary as you are building your set since you may drop below 3% hit cap in the process. This is a full set optimization.

Head– 2,250 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Chain Helm]

• Gems
  • Meta: [Agile Primal Diamond]
    • Directly increases our damage output and burst potential, two of the main factors that Beast Mastery PvP is all about.
  • Red: [Assassin's Imperial Amethyst]
    • PvP power increases in value as you stack Agility, so the hybrid gem is best here.  If survivability is a greater concern, substitute [Lucent Vermilion Onyx] in red slots for additional PvP Resilience.
• Enchant
  • Head enchants were taken out of the game in Mists of Pandaria!
• Reforge
  • None

Legs – 2,250 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Chain Leggings]

• Gems
  • Red: [Assassin's Imperial Amethyst]
  • Blue: [Stormy River's Heart]
    • PvP Power yields the highest damage increase of any secondary stat and should be used in Blue sockets.  For additional survivability, utilize [Vivid Wild Jade] in blue sockets
• Enchant
  • [Shadowleather Leg Armor]
    • Can be found on Auction House, or crafted by a Leatherworker if that’s too expensive.
• Reforge
  • From Haste to Expertise

Save your points so you can purchase your Season 12 Weapons now [Malevolent Gladiator's Rifle], so you can upgrade to the Elite version later. Total Cost – 3,500 Conquest Points

Upgrade to 2/2 prior to collecting more gear

Trinket 1 – 1,750 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Badge of Conquest]

• Upgrade to 2/2 prior to collecting more gear
  • The On-Use trinket is preferred for PVP, as the majority of your kill attempts will revolve around coordinated set-up with your teammates. Having access to an On-Demand burst increase will help with those attempts.
  • There is a significant amount of PVP Power on the trinket as well – a Beast Mastery Hunter’s number one secondary stat.

  
  

Chest – 2,250 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Chain Armor]

• Best Gems
  • Red: [Assassin's Imperial Amethyst]
  • Yellow: [Vivid Wild Jade]
    • Hybrid PvP Power and PvP Resilience gems upgrade both our survivability along with our damage output quite nicely. If survivability is an issue for you, substitute [Mystic Sun's Radiance] in yellow slots.
• Best Enchants
  • [Enchant Chest - Super Resilience]
• Reforge
  • None

Wrist – 1,250 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Wristguards of Alacrity]

• Best Enchants
  • [Enchant Bracer - Greater Agility]
• Reforge
  • From Haste to Crit

Ring 1 – 1,250 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Ring of Accuracy]

• Reforge
  • None

Feet – 1,750 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Sabatons of Cruelty]

• Best Gems
  • Yellow: [Vivid Wild Jade]
• Best Enchants
  • [Enchant Boots - Blurred Speed]
• Reforge
  • None

Weapon

[Malevolent Gladiator's Rifle]

• Best Enchants
  • [Living Steel Weapon Chain]
• Reforge
  • From Crit to Mastery

Waist – 1,750 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Links of Cruelty]

• Best Gems
  • Blue: [Stormy River's Heart]
  • Blue: [Stormy River's Heart] or [Mystic Sun's Radiance] – Additional Socket from [Living Steel Belt Buckle]
• Reforge
  • None

Back – 1,250 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Cape of Cruelty]

• Best Enchants
  • [Enchant Cloak - Superior Critical Strike]
• Reforge
  • From Haste to Mastery

Hands – 1,750 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Chain Gauntlets]

• Best Gems
  • Blue: [Stormy River's Heart]
• Best Enchants
  • [Enchant Gloves - Superior Mastery]
• Reforge
  • From Crit to Mastery

Shoulder – 1,750 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Chain Spaulders]

• Best Gems
  • Yellow: [Vivid Wild Jade]
• Best Enchants
  • [Greater Tiger Claw Inscription]
• Reforge
  • From Haste to Mastery

Ring 2 – 1,250 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Ring of Cruelty]

• Reforge
  • From Haste to Hit

Neck – 1,250 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Necklace of Proficiency]

• Reforge
  • From Crit to Mastery
    

Trinket 2 – 1,750 Conquest Points

[Malevolent Gladiator's Medallion of Tenacity]

• No Changes

Beast Mastery Hunter PvP Professions

Our goal is to give you the absolute best gear set up you can achieve as a Beast Mastery Hunter in Season 12, and part of that is choosing the right professions. Before we tell you what the best professions are, we should note that when comparing professions, there is a very marginal benefit to your overall gear set, and you should not sacrifice a profession you really enjoy for the sake of a minor stat increase. Leveling a new profession can be costly!

That being said, here are the best professions for a Beast Mastery Hunters in Mists of Pandaria PvP:

Blacksmithing

This is the best Profession for a Beast Mastery Hunter because of the two extra gem slots that can be used to refine your stats. Blacksmithing offers you the best customization, as you are able to increase primary stats, along with the freedom to choose various secondary stats, such as Mastery, Crit, or even PvP Power and PvP Resilience! Other professions simply do not offer this much customization for your character.

The next two Professions were a split decision between our pros, and are totally up to what you want to do.

Engineering

This is our second favorite profession solely because of the glove enchant [Synapse Springs] that will increase your Agility by 1920 for 10 seconds. Great for that big burst window you set up when going for a kill. Note – [Synapse Springs] cannot be used in conjunction with [Malevolent Gladiator's Badge of Conquest], as use of one or the other will invoke a short cooldown. Utilizing both On-Use procs does, however, allow for stronger burst attempts while your PvP trinket is on cooldown.

Oh, and [Nitro Boosts] are the greatest things since sliced bread, but unusable in Arenas or Rated Battlegrounds.

Leatherworking

Leatherworking has the added benefit of [Fur Lining - Agility], which would replace your [Enchant Bracer - Greater Agility] enchant.  Plus, you are able to Enchant your legs for cheap!

Good Luck!

This guide is a collaborative effort between Tosan, Tika, and Braindeadly, produced by SkillCapped. All of our written guides are available for free, and we encourage you to post them wherever you’d like as long as you use a link back!

We hope this answers every question you’ve ever had about Beast Mastery Hunter Gear in Season 12, and is used as a reference point for your quest to obtain the best PvP gear out there. Let us know if we missed anything, or if there is something you need cleared up in the comments below, and we’ll be sure to get back!

Please let us know how the article was. Were we missing anything? Do you have any further questions? Was the format useful? We always want to improve our articles, and your feedback helps!