Beast Mastery Hunter Azerite Traits, Azerite Armor, and Heart of Azeroth Shadowlands 9.0.2

By BendakWoW Updated: 2020/01/13

Heart of Azeroth GuideAzerite Trait GuideBeast Mastery Hunter Essence page

This page won't be updated for Shadowlands Pre-Patch and may be out of date.

My name's Bendak and I've been maining a Hunter since the launch of WoW. In addition to Hunter pet guides, I wrote and maintained the Beast Mastery Guide here at Wowhead for Warlords of Draenor, Legion, and Battle for Azeroth. I've since retired and taken a back seat in the theorycrafting game. The best way to get ahold of me is through Twitter @BendakWoW.

Best Azerite Traits for Beast Mastery Hunter

Primal Instincts - In terms of top value for a single copy of a trait, this one takes the crown. It turns Aspect of the Wild into a potent DPS cooldown that allows for some pretty high burst damage. The extra charge of Barbed Shot adds to this burst potential since you can all but guarantee getting to 3 Frenzy stacks (there are some small gains by modifying your opener to account for this as well). When you have multiples of this trait, the Mastery bonus is the only part that stacks, so there are some diminishing returns (mostly in single target). You want to aim to have at least 1 of these at all times, but it's great to have 2 or 3 for Mythic+ (especially in combination with Rapid Reload).

Dance of Death - The best gear setups are built around having at least 2 of these traits, preferably 3. With a high crit chance, it provides a consistent and large Agility buff.

Rapid Reload - It's worth using one of these traits for Mythic+ or any other situations where you have several targets alive for prolonged periods of time. Every target hit by your Multi-Shot reduces the cooldowns of all your Aspects by 1 sec. So if you hit 5 targets, every Multi-Shot cast reduces the cooldowns by 5 seconds! Since Aspect of the Wild + Primal Instincts are so powerful (especially for multi-target), this cooldown reduction is invaluable. Ideally you'd want a separate Azerite piece with this trait or else you'll have to respec every time you need optimal single target damage. Note that this trait is not found on any gear from the Ny'alotha raid, so you will have to obtain it elsewhere such as from Titan Residuum.

NEW 8.3 Heart of Darkness - This is a new 8.3 trait found on Ny'alotha gear. It provides a nice chunk of secondary stats and is above average in DPS. The problem is it usually competes against better traits on the raid gear so you may not get many opportunities to use it. It can also appear on Azerite gear that drops from Horrific Visions.

Haze of Rage - Similar to Primal Instincts, this increases the potency of one of your cooldowns (Bestial Wrath). This trait is good in all situations. It doesn't sim the highest, but since it adds burst damage it is valuable.

Feeding Frenzy - This trait has high single target value, especially for the first one. There are diminishing returns when stacking this trait since the Frenzy duration does not increase beyond 9 sec. The extra second of Frenzy does not change the gameplay much, as you still want to refresh it at the last second with or without this trait.

Blightborne Infusion - There's only a couple of sources for this trait, but it's a very nice compliment to the Dance of Death build.

For everything else, you should refer to the charts below to see where they rank, or better yet use Raidbots to sim all of your Azerite options in the "Top Gear" section!

Overwhelming Power - Well above all other traits in this tier, get this whenever you can. The caveat is that this decays faster when you take damage, so for bosses with constant ticking damage this loses some value over what you see in the sims.

Heed My Call - A simple damage proc that also does a little bit of AoE damage.

Unstable Flames - This is one of your best options if you're running a high crit build with Dance of Death traits and/or One with the Pack talent.

Gutripper - This is good for single target, especially if there is a demand for extra DPS during an execute phase since it procs more below 30% target health. Using multiples of this trait can be a noticeable increase to your execute damage.

Duck and Cover -- This one turns Feign Death into a mini defensive cooldown, which is pretty useful. It also reduces the cooldown of Feign Death as a bonus.

Nature's Salve -- Adds a large bonus to your Exhilaration heal and reduces its cooldown by 15 seconds.

Vampiric Speed -- This trait is great to have in Mythic+ or anywhere you have lots of enemies being killed for both the healing and extra speed.

Resounding Protection -- This is a mini version of the old Prydaz, Xavaric's Magnum Opus legendary and is good to have in any situation.

Recommended Azerite Trait CombinationsRaid BotsRaiding Build

Important: 3x Dance of Death

Important: 1+ Primal Instincts

Fill in the rest with any combination of Feeding Frenzy / Haze of Rage / Heart of Darkness, or use whatever sims the best.

Mythic+ Dungeons

Important: 3x Dance of Death

Important: 1+ Primal Instincts

Important: 1x Rapid Reload (only if you also have Primal Instincts)

Fill in the rest with any combination of Feeding Frenzy / Haze of Rage / Heart of Darkness, or use whatever sims the best.

Azerite Trait Stacking

Primal Instincts: Getting your hands on at least 1 Primal Instincts piece is sort of the bread and butter of Beast Mastery Azerite. Having 2 or 3 is also great (especially for Mythic+). The diminishing returns for more than 1 is relatively small.

Feeding Frenzy: It's not worth stacking more than one Feeding Frenzy in most cases since the extra second on Frenzy does not stack, but sometimes it will still be worth it depending on your other options.

Dire Consequences: There are some diminishing returns when stacking Dire Consequences since it does not summon additional Dire Beasts when stacked, but it could still be worth stacking in some cases. It's best to check with Raidbots to be sure.

Rapid Reload: It is not worth using more than one of this trait in any situation since the cooldown reduction does not stack.

Any trait that deals direct damage or procs a stat with no secondary effects should scale without diminishing returns, and there is usually no downside to stacking them. Whether or not you stack them will depend on the competing traits in each ring, and in order to know for sure you should sim your options with Raidbots Top Gear.

How Does The Heart of Azeroth Work?Magni BronzebeardHeart of AzerothAzeriteAzeriteHeart of AzerothHeart of AzerothHeart of Azeroth GuideUnlocking Beast Mastery Hunter Azerite PowersHeart of AzerothHeart of AzerothAzerite Power and Azerite Armor GuideBeast Mastery Hunter Azerite Power OverviewHeart of Azeroth

Season 2 Changes
With the start of Season 2 and the coming of Battle of Dazar'alor, pieces that previously had four rings will now have five. This new ring comes before the Ring 1 and offer two different spec traits for each specialization. Note that Items from Uldir weren't updated with this change.

Ring 0 contains Spec powers and is the first section available on each item and will likely be available to select as soon as you acquire a given piece of gear, contain traits based on your class specs. This ring is a new feature, found on Armor starting with Season 2, and requires only 15 levels on your Heart of Azeroth to be unlocked regardless of the gear.

Ring 1 contains Spec/Zone powers and is the second section available on each item and will likely be available to select as soon as you acquire a given piece of gear, contain traits based on your class specs and source of the trait.

Ring 2 contain Role powers, based on the roles your class can perform. It is only found on epic-level gear (340 or higher). Lower-level armor won't have this ring.

Ring 3 contains Defensive/Utility powers and is the last set of choices available in the piece;

Final Ring always has Azerite Empowered, which increases the item level of the armor piece it is in by 5 item level. The effect, in turn, increases the power from all previous rings.

Raidbots

Dire Consequences: Increases the damage of your Kill Command, and gives it a chance to summon a Dire Beast (average of 1 proc per minute), which behaves the same as the talent version. Multiple active Dire Beasts (either from procs or the talent) will NOT stack the 5% haste buff (the newest Dire Beast simply refreshes the buff). Having multiples of this trait will not summon extra Dire Beasts, only the damage bonus stacks.

Dance of Death: Passive Agility buff. If you had a 20% chance to crit, every time you cast Barbed Shot you'd have a 20% chance to gain this buff. If you have multiples of this trait, only the amount of Agility will increase, the chance to proc and duration of the proc will remain the same. When having one or more of these traits, Critical Strike tends to become your most valuable secondary stat.

Feeding Frenzy: Increases Barbed Shot damage and increases the duration of your pet's Frenzy stacks to 9 seconds (up from 8 seconds). If you have multiples of this trait, only the Barbed Shot damage is increased (the secondary portion will always be 9 seconds).

Haze of Rage: This trait provides an increase to your burst damage. If you have multiples of this trait, only the amount of Agility will increase, not the duration of the buff.

Primal Instincts: When you use Aspect of the Wild, you gain a Mastery buff for the duration and also gain a free charge of Barbed Shot. If you have multiples of this trait, only the amount of Mastery will increase, you will not gain more than 1 charge of Barbed Shot. You want one of these traits at all times, and in Mythic+ it's very nice to have 2 or 3 of them.

Rapid Reload: This trait works with both Marksmanship and Beast Mastery. If your Multi-Shot hits 3+ targets in a single shot, you shoot an additional wave of bullets at those targets, and the cooldowns of Aspect of the Wild, Aspect of the Turtle, and Aspect of the Cheetah are reduced by 1 second per target hit. If you have multiples of this trait, only the bullet damage is increased, you will not gain additional cooldown reduction. This is a great trait for Mythic+ due to increased Aspect of the Wild uptime, but has zero value in single target.

Serrated Jaws: This trait works with both Survival and Beast Mastery. Whenever you cast Kill Command, it has a 40% chance to deal extra damage and grant your pet Focus. If you have multiples of this trait, only the extra damage is increased, the chance to proc does not increase. This is currently the weakest Beast Mastery-specific trait and should almost never be taken.

NEW 8.3 Heart of Darkness - Provides a nice chunk of secondary stats and is one of the better traits available. The problem is it usually competes against better traits on the raid gear so you may not get many opportunities to use it.

Arcane Heart - With 25,000 DPS you would only get 1 proc per minute, or 25% uptime. The healing from arcane damage could be situationally useful.

Loyal to the End - Requires several people in your group sporting the same trait in order to be useful.

Undulating Tides - This has a 6 PPM (procs per minute), which means it should proc fairly often, but has the downside of not proccing for a while when you drop below 50% health. Even if this trait sims well, you have to take into account how it can stop proccing whenever your health drops.

Clockwork Heart - On paper this looks like a nice trait, but the problem is its limited to ilvl 415 Azerite armor so it won't have much longevity, and on one of those pieces it competes with Primal Instincts.

Person-Computer Interface - This trait will have a bit more longevity since it is found on an ilvl 430 piece (drops from King Mechagon) and has some customization based on what you have equipped in your trinket.

Treacherous Covenant - Your primary stat is increased while you are above 50% health. You take 15% increased damage while below 20% health. The is the best themed trait from the Battle for Dazar'alor raid. The 15% damage taken debuff does not stack when using multiples of this trait.

Seductive Power - It can be hard to keep track of Bwonsamdi in the middle of a chaotic fight, or he might even spawn in an area of denial like a fire puddle. This trait is simply not worth using as the benefits do not outweigh the risks.

Bonded Souls - This is a trait more suited to tanks and healers. There is no situation where you would want to take this trait.

Archive of the Titans

Nazmir

Zuldazar

Rezan's Fury - This is a decent single target trait and is worth using on Loa-Blessed Chestguard since the competing choice is worse.

Drustvar

Blightborne Infusion - This is one of the best traits available, but isn't found on much gear. It's worth choosing this one unless it competes with Primal Instincts.

Vol'dun

Stormsong Valley

Tiragarde Sound

Dagger in the Back - The value of this trait is inflated in simulations because the sim assumes you are always behind your target. Its value drops off significantly if you are not.

Tradewinds

THE MOTHERLODE!! (dungeon)

Unstable Catalyst - This trait is only found on a couple of pieces from the MOTHERLODE dungeon and it's generally not worth taking over the competition. It's easy to get greedy with the buff and stand in the bad stuff for too long.

Anduin's Dedication / Sylvanas' Resolve

Battlefield Precision / Battlefield Focus - Out of all the PVP traits, this is the only one that's relatively decent in PVE. Even though your allies can trigger the damage, it is still attributed to you in damage meters and logs.

Stand As One / Collective Will

Stronger Together / Combined Might

Liberator's Might / Glory in Battle

Last Gift / Retaliatory Fury

Barrage Of Many Bombs

Synaptic Spark Capacitor

Ricocheting Inflatable Pyrosaw

Relational Normalization Gizmo - This is the one you should pick.

Champions of Azeroth

Champion of Azeroth - Yes, this trait sims well but it's not found on any high level gear so you can pretend it doesn't exist.

Heed My Call - Your damaging abilities have a chance to deal Nature damage to your target, and Nature damage to enemies within 3 yards of that target.

Azerite Globules - Your damaging abilities have a chance to implant an Azerite Globule on your enemies. When an enemy collects 3 Azerite Globules, they explode, dealing Fire damage to nearby enemies.

Overwhelming Power - Your damaging abilities have a chance to grant you 25 applications of Overwhelming Trait. Each stack of Overwhelming Trait grants Haste. An application of Overwhelming Trait is removed every 1 sec or whenever you take damage.

Blood Siphon - Increases your Mastery and your Leech.

Gutripper - Your damaging abilities have a chance to deal Physical damage to the target. Gutripper occurs much more often against targets below 30% health.

Elemental Whirl - Your damaging abilities have a chance to grant you Elemental Whirl, increasing your Critical Strike, Haste, Mastery, or Versatility for 10 sec.

Earthlink - Azerite energy courses through you, reaching 48 primary stat and then diminishing down to 8 primary stat, cycling every 6 sec.

Unstable Flames - Your damaging abilities have a chance to grant critical strike rating for 5 sec. This effect stacks up to 5 times.

Shellshock (Hunter Only) - Every 1 sec Aspect of the Turtle is active, heal for 122.

Duck and Cover (Hunter Only) - Using Feign Death allows you to absorb 1622 damage over 6 sec, and Feign Death's cooldown is reduced to 25 seconds.

NEW 8.1 Nature's Salve -- Adds a large bonus to your Exhilaration heal and reduces its cooldown by 15 seconds.

Vampiric Speed - When an enemy you harmed dies, you heal and gain Speed for 6 sec.

Gemhide - When dealt damage greater than 10% of your maximum health, gain Avoidance and Armor for 10 sec.

Impassive Visage - When you take damage, heal for 139. Cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.

Longstrider - Increases your movement speed by 3% of your highest secondary rating, up to 7%.

Resounding Protection - Every 30 sec, gain an absorb shield for 30 sec.

Azerite Fortification - When stunned, immobilized, or knocked back, you heal.

Bulwark of the Masses - When you are surrounded by 4 or more enemies, gain a shield that absorbs damage. Cannot occur more than once every 15 sec.

Self Reliance - While no enemies are within 20 yds, you heal every 3 sec.

Azerite Empowered

Azerite Trait Simulations

These charts show the rankings of all Azerite traits in the first 3 rings, for both single target and cleave situations.

These particular charts show the effects of stacking 1-3 copies of each trait and how they scale. You can also see a list of the top Azerite for each slot, but keep in mind those do not take into consideration what Azerite is worn on the other slots. The Simulation page of this guide has even more Azerite simulations.

These charts are kept up to date automatically whenever there are meaningful changes to Simulation Craft. You can view the date the sims were performed on top of each chart.

Azerite Power Rotation Changes for Beast Mastery HunterFeeding FrenzyPrimal InstinctsAspect of the WildRotation guideRapid ReloadAzerite Armor for Beast Mastery HunterRecommended Titan Residuum Armor

Slot

Item

Helm

Shoulder

Chest

Filling in the Rapid Reload void

Helm:

Shoulders:

Chest:

Recommended Ny'alotha, The Waking City Armor

Slot

Name

Boss

Helm

Fury of N'Zoth

Shoulder

Ra-den

Chest

N'Zoth the Corruptor

Horrific Visions Azerite Armor

Helm:

Shoulders:

Chest:

Finding Azerite Armor

Periodic Emissary Caches, scaling with player item level up to 445.

Personal Loot Drops from The Eternal Palace, up to 445 on Mythic difficulty.

Personal Loot Drops from Ny'alotha, the Waking City, up to 485 on Mythic difficulty.

Weekly PvP Ranking Rewards, up to 475 at 2100+ (Duelist or higher rank)

Random or specific Azerite pieces from Thaumaturge Vashreen, at the expense of Titan Residuum.

Titan ResiduumThaumaturge VashreenAzerite FinderPrevious Page:
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Comments

Comment by orca2017

what ?//

Comment by Syncness

Any commentary regarding engineering azerite traits?

Comment by Durendillehunt

Hey, thanks a lot for the guide.

I have four questions though, about the survivability traits, if you checked:

- what is the proc rate of filthy transfusion? Also, I'm surprised that in all the traits that should be about damage they added a single one that helped with survivability
- for utility traits, having several of them works the same as for dps - numbers add up but effects don't?
- for the feign death shield, does it stay on even if you cancel FD?
- for self reliance, is it 20 yards ti the hitbox of a mob or to it's center?

Thanks,
Durendil

Comment by Faradize

can you add the traits from Engineer helm as well?

Comment by Dawnfyre

How good does a second Primal Instincts hold up against other powers? I just got the Sethrallis Chest but I already got a piece with Primal Instincts on, is the second one still a better pick than Thunderous Blast?

Comment by Zander223

So I have Pa'Ku Windrider Helm (340) , Azerothian Champion's Spaulders (355) & Dreadmire Vest (340). Is it really better to take Primal Instincts on every one? That seems really weird to me.

Comment by tomga123

i wondering what the +10 and +5 about?

Comment by dr7swag

I am a little confused. Let us say we have all azerite pieces from Uldir available:
Zul Helm - Primal Instincts / Archive of the Titans
Mother Shoulders - Pack Alpha / Archive of the Titans
G'huun Shoulders - Dance of Death / Laser Matrix
Zek'voz Chest - Feeding Frenzy / Archive of the Titans
Mythrax Chest - Haze of Rage / Laser Matrix

Which traits would be the best combo?

Do I get it right like this?

Zul Helm - Primal Instincts
Mythrax Chest - Haze of Rage (Since both Archive and Matrix are inferior and we only need one)
Mother Shoulders - Archive of the Titans (Since its better than the Matrix and Pack and Dance of Death are like inferior)

Why the recommended gear now says:
G'huun Shoulders (which would force us use the inferior Matrix)
and
Zek'voz Chest (which would have us use the slightly inferior Feeding Frenzy)?

The only reason , I see, to use G'huun Shoulders instead, is the Overwhelming Power trait in the second ring while the other shoulders best option is Gutripper.

Beast Mastery Hunter Azerite Traits, Azerite Armor, and Heart of Azeroth Shadowlands 9.0.2

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