Mists of Pandaria Classic Marksmanship Hunter Leveling

Marksmanship Hunter remains one of the stronger leveling classes in the game. As a Hunter, any of the three specializations will have a strong performance while leveling. Whether you are out soloing or doing dungeons in a group, Hunters will always be one of the top performers due to their low reliance on gear and sustainability thanks to using Focus as a resource along with their pets.

In Mists of Pandaria, you will unlock a new row of talent selections every 15 levels, starting at level 15. The goal of our talent recommendations is to maximize your up time and damage so you may quickly progress through each zone.

This tier of talents augments or modifies your primary movement skill, Disengage, in some way.

• Posthaste gives you a 60% movement speed boost and clears all movement impairing effects after using Disengage. This will be the default choice while leveling for the additional movement speed and ability to escape slows or roots.
• Narrow Escape makes your Disengage also root nearby enemies for 8 seconds. This is a powerful AOE control, but not as useful while leveling.
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera reduces the cooldown of your Disengage and Deterrence. This is another strong option that is absolutely viable while leveling.

This tier of talents allows you to choose a new crowd control ability.

• Binding Shot will drop a tether at a target location, leashing nearby enemies. If they travel too far they will break the leash, stunning them for 5 seconds. This is an incredibly strong AoE stun and a powerful choice in any situation.
• Wyvern Sting is a single target sleep. This is a nice button to have, but is not really necessary given that we already have Freezing Trap.
• Intimidation is a single target, 3-second stun. Again, this is simply not as powerful of an option compare to Binding Shot.

This tier offers a few different ways to increase personal survivability.

• Exhilaration is a new healing cooldown, which heals you and your pet for a substantial amount on a 2-minute cooldown. This is a nice button to have, but simply not as strong as the other two options.
• Aspect of the Iron Hawk is an upgraded version of Aspect of the Hawk, with a flat 10% damage reduction built in. This is an absolutely incredible defensive layer passively built in for hunters, which is a relatively weak class defensively. This is slightly less valuable during leveling where recovery is more valuable, but if you have other healing options available like in group play, this should always be the default choice.
• Spirit Bond causes you and your pet to passively regenerate 3% of your health every 2 seconds at all times. This is a nice passive regeneration option, but as long as you have food or bandages available, is largely not as useful.

This tier of talents is centered around different methods to restore focus.

• Fervor is a spell that gives you 50 focus on-use and another 50 focus back over 10 seconds. Marksmanship is a spec that will focus starve easily, and this is the ability that will give you the most focus back in the tier, making it the best overall choice. However, the differences are minor and this is another button to track, so while it is better it also requires more micromanagement.
• Dire Beast summons a pet that does some damage and passive regenerates focus while out. This is the worst choice in the tier in terms of focus generated.
• Thrill of the Hunt is a passive ability that procs to cause some of your shots to cost less focus. Numerically this is slightly worse than Fervor assuming Fervor is used optimally, but this choice is just a nice passive boost. It's the safer and easier to use option to take.

This tier of talents focuses on damage, specifically pet-based damage.

• A Murder of Crows is a 2-minute cooldown that causes a target to be attacked by a storm of crows for 30 seconds. This is numerically the best option and will do the most damage out of any choice on this row in a single target scenario.
• Blink Strikes causes your pet to be able to teleport to targets from 30 yards away while also dealing 30% more damage. While this is a worse option numerically, the increase in quality of life from having a stronger, teleporting pet can be incredibly good while leveling. If you plan on primarily questing solo, this is the best option.
• Lynx Rush is a mini killing-spree style cooldown for your pet. This unfortunately just does not do a lot of damage and is a poor choice.

Glyphs in Mists of Pandaria are still a major part of the leveling process but not quite as much as previous expansions. In Mists of Pandaria Prime Glyphs have been entirely removed, Major Glyphs are often situational benefits in combat and Minor Glyphs are exclusively cosmetic or quality of life benefits. There are still incredibly important glyphs to take that can massively improve your leveling experience.

As any Hunter specialization there are two Glyphs you should pretty much always be running: Glyph of Animal Bond and Glyph of Deterrence. The flat increase to healing taken and damage reduction upgrades are too strong to pass up, regardless of what content you choose to engage with. There are other decent choices, but they mostly come down to personal preference and what you value more.

• Glyph of Animal Bond causes you and your pet to passively take 10% more healing. This is a solid all-around defensive option that will help your recovery.
• Glyph of Deterrence causes your Deterrence to reduce your damage taken by an additional 20%.
• Glyph of Mend Pet drastically improves the effectiveness of your Mend Pet ability, which will make your pet far more durable while questing.
• Glyph of Liberation causes your Disengage to heal your for 5% of your max health. This can be a nice additional passive healing source if you use it frequently to move around.
• Glyph of Pathfinding increases your movement speed while mounted and while using Aspect of the Cheetah. This is a great choice if you plan to quest or move around in the open world.

Minor Glyphs as mentioned above will only offer you quality of life or cosmetic benefits in Mists of Pandaria.

• Glyph of Aspect of the Cheetah causes your Aspect of the Cheetah to no longer daze when you get hit, but instead just remove the buff. This is an absolutely mandatory glyph that effectively removes the downside of Cheetah.
• Glyph of Fetch allows you to command your pet to loot a target from up to 40 yards away. This is an amazing quality of life feature for Hunters and will be phenomenal to use while leveling.
• Glyph of Revive Pet reduces the spell push back you may get if under attack while casting Revive Pet.

Your leveling rotation as an Marksmanship Hunter is effectively identical to your max level rotation. The most important thing while leveling is to ensure that you're sending in your pet to tank, remembering to use Misdirection on your pet before attacking.

Your opener on enemies will be as follows:

1. Serpent Sting;
2. Keep Steady Focus active by using back-to-back Steady Shots.
3. Chimera Shot, which will also automatically apply Hunter's Mark to your target;
4. Aimed Shot!;
5. Kill Shot when target is below 20%;
6. Spend excess focus with Arcane Shot;
7. Steady Shot as filler to generate focus.

Use your cooldowns as needed, usually when pulling multiple enemies. In AoE situations, always make sure to use of Multi-Shot and Explosive Trap.