Hunter skills use the spellbook categories Beast Mastery, Marksmanship and Survival. Beast Mastery skills are centered around the Hunter's companion. They improve his damage, health and survival. The active skills that are learned via talents are Intimidation, Bestial Wrath and The Beast Within. All of these active skills require the Hunter to have a pet around. Intimidation stuns the pet's current target, useful for catching a runner or interrupting a spellcast. Bestial Wrath turns the pet and, if The Beast Within is specced, the Hunter big and red, making them immune to any kind of Crowd Control effects while increasing their damage output by a large amount. While the ultimate skill in the Beast Mastery Talent tree is passive, it allows the Hunter to tame exotic beasts as companions.

Marksmanship skills improve the Hunter's shots. Additionally the Hunter learns a total of three new shots via the skills in the Marksmanship talent tree. Aimed Shot reduces the target's received healing by 50% while dealing some respectable damage. Silencing Shot interrupts spellcasting and silences the target for a short amount of time. Chimera Shot has a special effect dependent on the sting currently active on the target. Additionally the Marksmanship Hunter will learn the Trueshot Aura skill, increasing the attackpower of the group or raid by 10%.

Skills in the Survival tree focus on traps and stings. Similar to the Marksmanship tree a total of three new shots is learned from the Survival talent tree. Scatter Show allows the Hunter to disorient an enemy, gaining distance to them or trapping them. Wyvern Sting puts an enemy target to sleep, allowing the Hunter to remove an enemy from the battle. Explosive Shot is a damaging skill, the final talent in the Survival tree and usually used on cooldown, as its damage outweighs that of any other shot.