WoW Forever Hunter Professions

How the order is counted

Order: slots with a top pick, then other slots within 10% of the top pick, then name. No score, no weights.

A top pick is a craft the path’s BiS list or weapon planner would have you wear at the level you can first equip it, with their opening filters (quests, dungeons, vendors and crafting on; world drops, rank and reputation gear off). Two professions with the same two counts tie. A profession with neither count is not ranked: it is listed under “Also useful” in name order.

• Slots with a top pick slots where a craft of the selected band ranks first (one of the two for rings). A slot counts once, however many of its crafts qualify in the band. The total is the path’s ranked armor and jewelry slots plus the lanes of its weapon planner.
• Other slots within 10% slots where a craft of the band comes within 10% of the slot’s best and the profession has no top pick.
• Armor learned at level 40 mail or plate a class learns at 40 is rated at level 40, and counts there only when it is still a top pick or within 10%. Lower-level pieces the class has outgrown by then are left out.
• Besides gear counts only, never part of the order: consumables with an effect of the path’s main stats (the consumables finder’s effect data, usable by the band’s last level), explosives and devices, camp objects, crafter-only gear of the band, recipes new in Forever. Each count links to the page that lists it.

Main stats of each talent path

The stats the path’s BiS weight table gives at least 0.4 points each (armor from 0.05 per point):

• Beast Mastery Hunter Agility, Hit, Critical Strike, Attack Power, Ranged Attack Power
• Marksmanship Hunter Agility, Hit, Critical Strike, Attack Power, Ranged Attack Power
• Survival Hunter Agility, Hit, Critical Strike, Attack Power, Ranged Attack Power

Forever rules that affect the choice

• Only primary crafting professions give Legacy Points: one each the first time one reaches skill 150, 225 and 300. Gathering and secondary professions give none, so a character earns at most 6 this way, with two crafting professions. Blizzard: the Legacy system
• Every profession builds its own camp objects, learned at different skill levels, and whichever one you place gives that profession’s own buff or function. Camp buffs are variants of class buffs and do not stack with the class buff they match. Blizzard: Deep Dive panel recap

Races and profession skill

No racial in the beta client’s lists raises a profession’s skill. Classic Era’s lists had Engineering Specialization (Gnome: Engineering +15), Cultivation (Tauren: Herbalism +15); they are not in the Forever lists we read.