Cataclysm Classic Marksmanship Hunter Talent Builds

Like most classes in Cataclysm, Marksmanship Hunter has a straightforward talent setup with very little variance. This is because of the requirement to take 31 points in your main tree combined with the limited number of total talents. Even though we only take exactly 31 points in Marksmanship, we are only skipping 7 talent points in the tree total, where all 7 points are in utility talents that do not increase our damage at all. Additionally, the remaining 10 points outside of the Marksmanship tree are also extremely strict. The only variance comes from 1-2 points inside the Marksmanship tree.

This is your standard PvE spec that is built around maximizing damage done. As stated above, there are only a couple of points that have any variance: Silencing Shot, Trueshot Aura, and Marked for Death. Between these 4 talent points total, you must choose 3. To start, Trueshot Aura is a hard requirement if this will be you or your raid's souce of the attack power buff. However, this is one of the more common buffs, and it is extremely likely that your group has another source of this, meaning you could potentially skip it in a raid. Marked for Death is also a huge help on fights with lots of target switching, but is basically useless for single target encounters. Silencing Shot is not a DPS increase, but having an interrupt is incredibly useful, and potentially even mandatory on some heroic encounters.

It's also worth noting that Bombardment is useless on encounters where you won't use Multi-Shot, but the talent is so strong for when you do that it is never worth skipping.

In this section we will go over some of the key talents you will use when you are playing a Marksmanship Hunter. Be sure to understand your most important talents as they are vital to play the build to its fullest strength.

• Improved Steady Shot — this is a 15% haste buff that you can maintain with 100% up time. This is why Marksmanship uses Steady Shot as its primary way to generate focus and is a strong buff.

• Focus Fire — consumes your pet's Frenzy stacks to give you attack speed instead if your pet. This is a moderate bonus and is worth using, but only outside of Bestial Wrath.

• Piercing Shots — this causes all of your shots to bleed the target when they crit. This is the talent that makes crit such a valuable stat for Marksmanship.

• Trueshot Aura — this is your raid buff, increasing everyone's melee attack power by 20% and ranged attack power by 10%.

• Master Marksman — this is one of your most important buffs to track, as it will give you the ability to cast an instant and free Aimed Shot! when you gain 5 stacks.

• Chimera Shot — one of your most important rotational abilities that does an incredible amount of damage and refreshes your Serpent Sting constantly.

Prime glyphs are new to Cataclysm, giving you a third "row" of glyphs you can use on your character. For Marksmanship, there are only three options that make sense, which are the three gylphs that will buff your standard rotational abilities.

• Glyph of Steady Shot — increases the damage of Steady Shot by 10%. This is your most used ability, making this an obvious choice.
• Glyph of Aimed Shot — gives you 5 focus back when you crit with Aimed Shot!. If you are planning on doing a high movement encounter where you'll be using Arcane Shot more, you can use Glyph of Arcane Shot instead of this one.
• Glyph of Kill Shot — basically gives you a second instant use of Kill Shot every time you use it if the target does not die. This is an absolutely amazing option as Kill Shot is an incredibly powerful shot.

Major glyphs typically offer utility-based options and can be highly situational. For Marksmanship there are a wide variety of Glyphs but we have highlighted what are typically the most useful. None of these are actually required; this is all personal preference.

• Glyph of Disengage — reduces the cooldown of Disengage by 5 seconds. This is our most important movement ability, so having it on a lower cooldown is generally a good idea.
• Glyph of Ice Trap — increases the radius of your Ice Trap by 2 yards. These are purely personal preference, but this is one of the only remaining options that has a chance of being useful in a raid or dungeon if you need to slow down a group of adds.
• Glyph of Trap Launcher — reduces the focus cost of Trap Launcher by 10. It is very likely that you'll need to use trap launcher during a raid at some point, so the reduced focus cost is somewhat of a damage increase.

Minor glyphs typically provide very minor benefits. Your choices will typically depend on what quality of life increase is the most meaningful for you.

• Glyph of Feign Death — reduces the cooldown of Feign Death by 5 seconds.
• Glyph of Revive Pet — removes any pushback from damage while casting Revive Pet, which can be important if you ever need to revive a pet during a fight.
• Glyph of Aspect of the Pack — increases the range of your Aspect of the Pack by 15 yards. If you ever do need to use Aspect of the Pack, this is an incredibly strong bonus to ensure your whole raid is covered.