Season of Discovery Marksmanship Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
On this page, you will learn how to optimize the rotation of your Marksmanship Hunter, in WoW Classic - Season of Discovery. We also have advanced sections about cooldowns, procs, and others in order to minmax your damage efficiency.
Introduction
The Hunter rotation is based around maximizing your Auto Shot usage.
Whenever you use an ability, it has the potential to delay your Auto Shot if your
Auto Shot is off cooldown and ready to go, meaning most of the time, you will want
to use abilities in the down time between Auto Shot uses.
Abilities
Normally, the only two abilities that you will use in your normal single-target rotation
are Aimed Shot and
Multi-Shot. You will never use
Serpent Sting or
Arcane Shot. There are two reasons for each. First,
they are both magic-damage based abilities, meaning they do not scale with
your ranged AP. The more gear you get, the more your Aimed Shot and Multi Shot's
physical damage will out scale them. Serpent Sting also takes up a debuff slot,
of which there are only 16 available. Now that debuff limits are removed in the
Season of Discovery, Serpent Sting is a solid choice for
one of these slots, but is only worth using if you have the Mana to support it.
Arcane Shot is bad because it shares a cooldown with Aimed Shot. Since
you can only choose to use one of them, always use Aimed Shot. The only
exception would be if the target was going to die before the Aimed Shot cast
finished and you could get the Arcane Shot off instead.
However, with the new runes added in the Season of Discovery, you have the choice to
have a third shot added into your rotation, placed as the highest priority ability.
Currently, this is Chimera Shot. If you use Chimera Shot, you also
will keep up
Serpent Sting, as it will automatically be refreshed through
your use of Chimera Shot.
Before you begin a pull, you should always make sure Hunter's Mark is
on the boss. If a Hunter in your group has
Improved Hunter's Mark fully
talented, then they should be the one using it.
Marksmanship Hunter PvE Rotation
As a Hunter, unfortunately the pet runes are far too powerful to not take right now.
The rotation below will be as if you take Chimera Shot, but that is not
the optimal choice currently. If you take the standard pet runes, just drop Chimera Shot from
the rotation below and replace those gaps with more melee weaving.
Auto Shot;
Chimera Shot;
Auto Shot;
Aimed Shot;
Auto Shot;
Multi-Shot;
This is the basic full rotation. It will not always follow this exact order,
but this is the order you should start with. Remember that the full rotation is
all about maximizing Auto Shot usage, so prioritize getting Auto
Shots off and using Chimera Shot and
Aimed Shot in the downtime
between shots. Multi Shot has a 10 second cooldown and will be a lower priority than your
other two shots in single target scenarios.
Finally, do not forget about traps. Explosive Trap and
Immolation Trap
can both be used in combat with runes, which are massive damage increases and should be used
on cooldown in both single target and AoE.
Melee Weaving
Hunters are unique in that they have both a melee and a ranged basic attack
with separate cooldowns and short animation times. During an open spot in your
rotation, you can choose to run into melee to use Raptor Strike
and
Flanking Strike for
some extra burst damage. To pull this off, you need to be doing your ranged
rotation from the minimum distance, or 8 yards. As soon as you finish the
Auto Shot, run into melee (within 5 yards), and use Raptor Strike.
Once the Raptor Strike goes off, turn around and run back to the minimum ranged
distance. You should only have to run 3-5 yards depending on your character's
and the boss' hitboxes, making it a relatively short distance.
Especially when you are so limited in the number of ranged shots, melee weaving is where your skill can really shine. Maximizing melee weaving into the open ability slots in the rotation listed above is critical to maximizing your damage. In general, you'll want to use the following rotation listed below. You'll want to melee weave every 3 ranged auto shots, alternating melee weaving with two ranged shots and 3 auto shots in between.
A very important note: melee weaving is only worthwhile if you are not running either
Aimed Shot or
Chimera Shot. If you have both, staying
at range full time will be more DPS.
Cooldowns for PvE as a Hunter
At level 40, Hunters now have access to Rapid Fire. This is your main
damage cooldown, but is actually relatively weak comparatively. The general best practice is
to use it on-pull with other damage based racial abilities since most encounters are short.
Otherwise, just use your abilities when they're up or when you need them on encounters.
More Classic Hunter Guides
More Season of Discovery Class Guides
Classic Dungeon Guides
Classic Profession Guides
Classic Reputation Guides

This guide has been written by Impakt, an Officer in BDGG, the #2 North American guild on retail. In addition to live WoW, he has also been a classic theorycrafter and enthusiast for many years. You can watch him stream on Twitch, or follow him on Twitter.
- Hour of Twilight Arrives to Cataclysm Classic on February 18th + Raid Release Schedule
- Season of Discovery Hotfixes: February 4th
- Transfers from Hardcore Realms Temporarily Disabled
- Cataclysm Classic Hour of Twilight PTR Notes: January 30th
- Season of Discovery Hotfixes: January 30th
- Season of Discovery Naxxramas PTR Development Notes: January 30th
- Season of Discovery Phase 7 Now Live + Patch Notes
- Additional Sanctified System and Seal of the Dawn Adjustments in Season of Discovery Phase 7