Mists of Pandaria Classic Marksmanship Hunter Talent Builds

Mists of Pandaria introduces a new talent system, where instead of filling out points on a tree, you are given several distinct sets of choices between abilities. Starting at level 15 and every 15 levels after, you will unlock a new row of talents, which will always be a choice between 3 abilities centered around a new theme each row. The Hunter talent choices are identical between every specialization, while most of the spec identity is included with the default passives and abilities you get from selecting the specialization.

Below is a rough breakdown of each choice available for each tier of Talents. In Mists of Pandaria you will unlock a new row of talent selections every 15 levels, starting at level 15.

Recommended option: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera.

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 can be a great choice, as having an on-demand 60% speed boost can be useful for specific movements on some encounters.
• Narrow Escape makes your Disengage also root nearby enemies for 8 seconds. This is a powerful AOE control, but is extremely situational.
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera reduces the cooldown of your Disengage and Deterrence. This will be the default option for most situations, as it reduces your Disengage cooldown from 20 seconds to 10 seconds. Halving the cooldown is incredibly significant, making it a far more reliable button.

Recommended option: Binding Shot.

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.

Recommended option: Aspect of the Iron Hawk.

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.
• 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.

Recommended option: Fervor.

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. Survival 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.

Recommended option: A Murder of Crows.

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 nice in some encounters.
• 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.

Recommended option: Glaive Toss.

This tier of talents will give you a new rotational damage ability.

• Glaive Toss is a powerful attack on a 15 seconds cooldown that only costs 15 focus. This is an incredibly strong ability to add into any Hunter rotation, especially when you account for how damage efficient it is in regards to its focus cost.
• Powershot is a powerful shot with a 2.25 second cast time that will deal a burst of damage to your target and any enemy hit along the way. The longer cooldown and cast time ultimately makes this a far less appealing choice.
• Barrage is a wild spray of bullets where you channel for 3 seconds, hitting everything in a massive cone multiple times over the channel. This is the strictly better choice for pure AOE situations. Additionally, a great use of this comes from its incredibly large spray pattern, specifically in some dungeons where you may want to pull entire rooms of enemies instantly. This is one of the best pulling methods in the game by combining Barrage with Misdirection.

Glyphs in Mists of Pandaria are far less important than in previous expansions, specifically because they no longer provide damage increases. In Mists of Pandaria Prime Glyphs have been entirely removed, Major Glyphs are mostly situational quality of life benefits in combat and Minor Glyphs are exclusively cosmetic or tiny quality of life benefits.

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.

However, Marksmanship has one additional required glyph that needs to be called out: Glyph of Aimed Shot. This glyph allows your Aimed Shot to be usable while moving, which is an incredible quality of life increase and should be considered mandatory.

• 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 Disengage increases the distance of your Disengage. This is the recommended third glyph choice and will give you the biggest benefit in dungeons and raids.
• 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 Aspect of the Pack causes your Aspect of the Pack to have a 15 yarder radius. This is a great choice if you plan on raiding to ensure it's always affecting your raid while active.
• 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.