World of Warcraft: Forever Marksmanship Hunter Leveling Guide

Marksmanship Hunters are one of the strongest leveling specializations in World of Warcraft Forever. However, this is mostly because Hunters are exceptional levelers in general. So while Marksmanship is one of the strongest DPS specializations while leveling, it is quite a bit worse still than leveling as Beast Mastery. The core of Hunter leveling comes down to letting your pet tank enemies for you while you deal ranged damage, but Marksmanship focuses on buffing the player's damage instead of the pet. While you will deal lots of damage, it also makes it harder for your pet to hold threat, and you will rely more on skills that consume your own Mana.

This page will update based on your level selection by using the Level-sliders below. This way you will find recommendations for your talents, gear, and what areas we recommend to level in for every step on your journey to max level. Much will change once you reach Level 60, but until then, there are a lot of options on how to approach your way there.

WoW Forever puts a lot of emphasis on this journey, so if you ever feel like you want to deviate from the suggestions we list on this page, we highly recommend you do so! There are a lot of things to discover in this massive world, and there is no rush to reaching Level 60. Take your time, and enjoy the journey!

As a Hunter you already have exceptional durability and efficiency due to your pet. With Marksmanship your goal is to maximize your own damage as much as possible. While you could choose to pick up Deadly Aspects immediately, since it is one of the strongest early damage talents that Hunter has, this also means delaying your start in the Marksmanship tree. If you are committed to playing Marksmanship, then start with Lethal Attacks and Careful Aim. Careful Aim specifically will feel nice to have since it rewards you for having more Intellect on your gear. Intellect is something you will not necessarily care as much about early, but having more of it is a nice quality of life improvement just for a larger mana pool, and with this talent it will also increase your actual damage.

From here, the combination of Rapid Killing and Rapid Recuperation is incredibly important. This will solve almost all of your mana issues while leveling.

The remaining points in Marksmanship are straightforward damage increases, such as Mortal Shots and Ranged Weapon Specialization. The goal is to get to 31 points in the tree so you can grab Sniper Shot. This is the capstone talent of the Marksmanship tree and is an incredibly powerful ability to have, although it does have a long 4-second cast time.

Once you have finished putting 31 points into the Marksmanship tree, the only real option at this point is to go into the Beast Mastery tree. This will immediately get you Deadly Aspects and Focused Fire, at which point you can keep putting points into BM, eventually allowing you to get Summon Hawk. Even as Marksmanship keeping Hawks up is worthwhile since one use of Summon Hawk provides far more damage than a single Arcane Shot.

From Level 1 to 10 Hunters do not yet have a pet. This means you will need to rely on a mix of ranged and melee attacks to kill enemies while leveling. You should always start by using Auto Shot as much as possible, kiting backwards until your target is in melee range. Once there, finish by auto-attacking in melee and using Raptor Strike.

Once you get your first pet at level 10, your goal should always be to let your pet tank your enemies, allowing you to always attack from range. The majority of your damage will come from just using Auto Shot and letting your pet attack. With your mana, prioritize always keeping your Summon Hawk active, Serpent Sting on the target, and use Aimed Shot when you can.

Defensively, you will always want to be watching your pet's health. Keep in mind that you can use Mend Pet to heal it whenever needed. If it ends up dying and you do not feel confident that you can finish off the enemies without your pet, never forget than you can use Feign Death to drop combat and run away if necessary, before returning with a revived pet.

Finally, one of the most common mistakes Hunters can make while leveling is related to threat management. Your pet deals lots of damage, but you can still easily pull threat away from it if you attack too early. Always start out fights by sending your pet in first, giving it a couple of attacks to generate aggro before starting to attack yourself. The ideal cadence is to finish killing one enemy, and command your pet to attack the next enemy while you go up to loot the now dead first enemy. You can also make use of Disengage if you ever end up in melee range and you have too much threat.

We will now list the actual priority order to use your abilities in.

• Put Hunter's Mark up on your target before combat.
• Command your pet to attack your target first, with its abilities on auto-cast.
• Once your pet damages and attacks your target, start with Serpent Sting. Because of your Rapid Killing talent, you always want Serpent Sting active on your target when it dies.
• If you have your Rapid Killing buff up, start with a Sniper Shot. If you do not have Sniper Shot yet, use Aimed Shot instead.
• Summon Hawk on cooldown and always keep 2 hawks activem if you have this talented.
• Aimed Shot on cooldown.
• Continue to Auto Shot your target.
• If you ever pull aggro away from your pet, use Disengage.
• If you find yourself capped on mana and will have 2 hawks active for more than 6 seconds, use Arcane Shot.
• Auto Shot the enemy until it dies.

Finally, do not forget about your cooldowns. Rapid Fire is a strong ability, but you should save it for any elites or larger enemies, depending on what and where you are fighting.

Hunters have relatively limited AoE options. There are three major changes you will want to make to your rotation.

1. Always used Multi-Shot instead of Aimed Shot;
2. Prioritize placing an Explosive Trap whenever it is off cooldown.
3. Against large groups of enemies, channel Volley.

These three abilities are the only real AoE tools you have. Explosive Trap and Volley both become more valuable on larger AoE pulls. Also keep in mind that larger groups are harder to control, especially because your pet will heavily struggle at holding threat against multiple targets; you have far more AoE threat than your pet will.

At Level 10, you will have the ability to tame a pet. This is the single greatest leveling tool that any class gets without exception. Hunters have always had the ability to tame a pet, but there some important details worth understanding about the pet system in WoW Forever.

• Pets have one of three classifications: Ferocity, Cunning, or Tenacity.
• Pets do not have an inherent damage buff or reduction based on type, meaning they all do the same damage baseline.
• Pet happiness and loyalty still exists; remember to feed your pet!
• Pets inherit some of your stats, which means they gain power along with you.
• Every pet family, such as cats or turtles, has its own unique ability.
• To level up pet abilities, you still need to go out and tame a higher level pet that already knows the skill you are looking for. Your pet will not naturally learn higher level abilities on its own.
• Once you do train higher level pet abilities, you can then teach it to any other pet in the future that is capable of learning that ability.

For leveling, Bears are a strong choice. They are a defensive pet capable of tanking well, but most importantly, they have access to a unique Swipe ability. A Bear's Swipe has a 5-second cooldown and deals cleave damage in front of them, which makes it one of the rare pet abilities capable of dealing consistent AoE damage to hold aggro on multiple targets.

Your core rotation is made up of the following abilities:

• Serpent Sting: This is one of the earliest damaging attacks you get and is one of the most damage efficient abilities in terms of mana spent, assuming the enemy lives for the full DoT duration. This is always worth using at least once on any target you are killing.
• Aimed Shot: Aimed Shot is the signature Hunter shot that all Hunter specializations can use. This is your hardest-hitting shot and should be used on cooldown.
• Summon Hawk: Summon Hawk is a Beast Mastery talent that is your most important rotational ability. This shares a cooldown with Arcane Shot, but effectively gives you more pets that will stay active for a short duration and attack anything you attack yourself.
• Sniper Shot: The final talent in the Marksmanship tree and your strongest single attack. The long cast time makes this impractical most of the time, but it's an exceptionally strong burst attack to start a fight with, especially while utilizing the Rapid Killing buff.
• Multi-Shot: Multi-Shot shares a cooldown with Aimed Shot, thus it will never be used in single-target combat. However, against 2 or more targets, this should always be used, and it is an incredible damage ability that is worth prioritizing at the top of your rotation.

Hunters are known for a variety of unique utility tools that are both incredibly useful and flavorful for the class. The earmark of a Hunter's utility is that you will have tons of abilities with incredibly niche, specific uses. However, they have can solve very specific problems no one else can, such as the ability to track enemies of specific types on your mini-map.

Click for Utility and Crowd Control Explanation

• Hunters can track different types of enemies on the mini-map through various tracking skills. If you are talented into Improved Tracking, this also means more damage against your tracked targets. Tracking is most useful for quests where you are searching for specific enemies, since you can use your mini-map to scan a larger area while running around.
• Hunters can always keep an Aspect buff up, which notably includes Aspect of the Cheetah. This is one of the rare movement speed buffs available before you get a mount. Combined with Pathfinding, Hunters are one of the fastest classes in the game before Level 40. Hunters also get Aspect of the Pack at Level 40, which provides the speed buff to your whole group while active.
• Feign Death will cause you to play dead, causing any nearby enemies to drop threat on you and reset. However, they will still attack your pet if it is alive and nearby. This is one of the most valuable leveling spells for resetting and leaving combat if things get too dangerous.
• Freezing Trap will freeze an enemy in a block of ice when triggered, providing a reliable way to keep one target locked down. Breaks when the target takes any damage.
• Frost Trap leaves a patch of frost on an area, massively slowing down targets inside.
• Concussive Shot is an instant-cast, single-target slow. This is one of the strongest tools a Hunter has in PvP, especially against melee.
• Disengage can be used to lower your threat on a target. This can almost be considered a rotational ability while leveling, useful anytime you are in melee.
• Intimidation is a powerful on-use pet stun that also generates a burst of threat against a target.
• Distracting Shot is an instant shot that causes you to generate lots of threat against your current target.
• Tranquilizing Shot is an instant shot that removes a frenzy or enrage effect from your target.
• Viper Sting is another sting option that drains mana from the target while the debuff is active.
• Flare drops a flare on your location, which reveals stealthed or invisible enemies nearby while active. This is one of the most effective anti-stealth tools in the game.

The stat priority boils down to two things: get the highest damage weapons possible, and get as much Agility as possible. Beyond that, you generally will just want the highest level gear possible while leveling. Below is a more detailed explanation of the various stats for Marksmanship and the benefits they provide.

1. Weapon Damage
   • Far and away your most important stat. Keep in mind that weapons have both a DPS value and a damage value; slower weapons will hit harder, but less often. While you will usually prefer the higher level weapon, slower weapons are better overall since you want a weapon that deals more damage per individual hit. This is because abilities such as Aimed Shot calculate their base damage from your weapon's damage, meaning your abilities do more damage with a higher damage weapon.
2. Hit
   • You have a baseline chance to miss attacks, which increases as you face higher level enemies. Getting hit chance as a stat makes you less likely to miss. This stat is very strong, but is also rarely found on low level gear.
3. Agility
   • Increases both your attack power and crit chance. Hunters gain the majority of their damage and Attack Power scaling from Agility, which makes this your most important primary stat. You should be looking to have this on every piece of gear.
4. Critical Strike
   • Critical strikes deal bonus damage and provide bonus effects through certain talents, such as your Mortal Shots talent, which increases the bonus damage you deal from critical hits. Your pet also inherits your critical hit chance, which makes this even more valuable for Hunters.
5. Intellect
   • Each point provides one Attack Power through Careful Aim, while also increasing your maximum mana. With Careful Aim talented this is your next most important stat after Agility. Having a higher mana pool is also incredibly important just to ensure you can cast more spells without stopping in a single fight.
6. Spirit
   • Increases your base and out of combat mana and health regeneration rates. This is a valuable leveling stat since it will cause you to recover more mana faster. However, this is only for leveling; Stamina and Intellect are far more valuable for both survivability and actual combat capability.
7. Stamina
   • Each point increases your maximum health. Having a large health pool make you more durable, but as a Hunter you should rarely be tanking or taking damage. This is your least important stat while leveling, but pets also gain more max health per point of stamina you have, so it can help your pet's survivability.

When leveling, you often get to choose between multiple zones to pick from. You will want to start out in one area until the quests start running dry, and then switch to another zone where you can then pick up over a dozen quests all at once to complete. Using the slider below, we will be recommending zones for their density of quests and proximity to dungeons that are available at each level range.

It is highly recommended to quest through these areas as quest chains often end with a final quest that requires you to complete the dungeon. In WoW Forever, these dungeon quests offer massive quest reward XP as well as powerful items. Also, just because a dungeon is listed for one faction, does not mean you won't be able to pick up a few quests or very useful items when doing it as the opposing faction. Make sure to consult our Dungeon Hub for information on whether there are quests for your faction in each dungeon, and where to pick up these quests.

Be Efficient With Your Time

You will be replacing items frequently, and skipping out on some powerful dungeon drops is totally fine. Traveling around Azeroth takes considerable amounts of time, and it is often not worth spending 30+ minutes to travel to a dungeon, just for a chance at getting an item to drop. However, doing dungeons is worth it for the quest XP alone, so try to plan around at least one trip to each dungeon.

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Loch Modan/Darkshore
  • The Barrens
• Available Dungeons:
  • Hall of Thanes
  • Ragefire Chasm

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Westfall/Darkshore
  • Silverpine Forest
• Available Dungeons:
  • Hall of Thanes
  • Ragefire Chasm and Ruins of Lordaeron

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Westfall/Redridge Mountains
  • The Barrens/Stonetalon Mountains
• Available Dungeons:
  • Hall of Thanes
  • Wailing Caverns

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Redridge Mountains/Duskwood
  • Hillsbrad Foothills/Stonetalon Mountains
• Available Dungeons:
  • The Stockade
  • Shadowfang Keep and Wailing Caverns

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Ashenvale/Duskwood
  • Ashenvale/Duskwood
• Available Dungeons:
  • Blackfathom Deeps and The Stockade
  • Blackfathom Deeps and Shadowfang Keep

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Wetlands/Ashenvale
  • Hillsbrad Foothills/Wetlands
• Available Dungeons:
  • Excavation Site: Wetlands and Blackfathom Deeps
  • Excavation Site: Wetlands and Blackfathom Deeps

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Wetlands/Ashenvale
  • Wetlands/Thousand Needles
• Available Dungeons:
  • Excavation Site: Wetlands and Gnomeregan
  • Excavation Site: Wetlands and Razorfen Kraul

Listed below are a few important items we recommend picking up during your journey, as they offer not just a small upgrade compared to many of the other items that are available, but stand out as guaranteed rewards or particularly powerful options for you to grab.

• Ranged Weapons
  • Laminated Recurve Bow is a big weapon DPS jump from earlier bows, and is available for purchase from most bow vendors.
  • Venomstrike is not a guaranteed drop, but is absolutely a reason to look for a Wailing Caverns group while you are around that level and have the dungeons quests. This is far and away one of the strongest bows around this level, and could last you until level 30 if you wanted.
  • At level 29, you should go to the Wetlands to do the quest Ormer's Revenge. This will give you the bow Raptor's End which is another massive upgrade at this level.
• Helmet
  • The best early helmet you have access to is the Brawler's Leather Hood. You can either craft this with Leatherworking or buy it from someone else.
• Shoulders
  • The best early shoulders will be Dark Leather Shoulders at Level 23, which can be crafted with Leatherworking.
• Rings
  • Field Researcher's Loop is obtainable at Level 20 by completing the second step of the Friend of the Library Quest.
  • Another easy to pick up ring is faction dependent. Horde can grab Seal of Sylvanas with a quest in Shadowfang Keep called Arugal Must Die, while Alliance can pick up Seal of Wrynn via An Audience with the King at Level 16.

We can't offer gear or leveling suggestions beyond the WoW Forever beta level cap of 30. Check back after launch for updated guidance!

Always be attacking: Once you have a pet, Hunters are far and away the most efficient class in the game when it comes to killing enemies. You can kill any normal enemy without using a single ability, just by attacking together with your pet. This means you will want to always be killing something while on the move out in the open world, letting you passively regenerate mana while your Auto Shot and pet kill enemies. It might be slow to not use any abilities, but you'd be even slower if you were to regularly take a time-out to sit down and drink.

Kill Sequentially: Hunters have incredible killing potential while attacking enemies one at a time, but you will quickly experience danger if you pull multiple enemies. Your pet will struggle to hold threat on multiple enemies, and if you attack them all at once with your AoE, your pet will never pull aggro back. You will always have more success just quickly killing enemies one at a time, letting your pet run to the next enemy while you loot the previous one.

Log out in rested areas: If you log out in any inn or city, you will passively accumulate rested experience, even while offline. This is essentially free experience. Once you start leveling again, you will gain bonus experience that consume your rested bar.

Do your dungeons once: While dungeons can be fun, they do not offer a ton of experience from killing the enemies inside it. However, every dungeon has 3-6 quests that will give a massive amount of experience along with strong gear upgrades as rewards. You should plan around doing each dungeon once, but only once you have most or all of the quests for that dungeon. Once you do a dungeon, you can choose to keep farming it for more gear if you want, but it is never going to be the efficient choice for gaining experience.

Stop at campfires: One of the incredible new additions in World of Warcraft Forever are campsites. You can set up a campfire yourself, or look for them out in the world to sit down and receive campfire buffs. Different professions can offer buffs, all of which correspond to the possible class buffs. These are incredibly strong while leveling, so if you ever see players sitting around a campfire out in the world, make sure to stop by to sit and get some buffs - and contribute your own!

Grab the Sleeping Bag: At level 14 you will get a quest that rewards a Cozy Sleeping Bag, which gives you a stacking experience buff. This is absolutely worth getting as soon as possible. You can find a full guide to obtaining the Sleeping Bag here.

Level	Important Ability/Class Quest/Game-Altering Talent
10	Class Quest to unlock Pets
20	Aspect of the Cheetah Unlock
30	Rapid Recuperation Unlock from talents
30	Feign Death Unlock
40	Sniper Shot Unlock from talents

Ultimately your professions are going to be defined by what you value most. Whether it is Engineering for valuable PvP items, Alchemy to craft consumables for raiding, or even something like Mining just to gather materials to sell for gold. Every profession has value in some way.

That being said, one of the strongest and most natural combinations early on for Hunter will be Skinning and Leatherworking. Hunters can utilize Skinning perfectly while leveling due to how easily you can kill enemies sequentially with no down-time. Moreover, you can command your pet to start to attack the next enemy while you skin the previous target, giving you something to do while your pet builds threat. You can gather plenty of materials that way, which can then be used with Leatherworking to craft armour both while leveling and in the end-game, including some of the strongest end-game pieces. We also know that there are hundreds of new recipes to learn, which means there will inevitably be valuable new gear to find and craft with Leatherworking.

More WoW Forever Hunter Guides

Beast Mastery Hunter Ranged DPS Leveling Marksmanship Hunter Ranged DPS Guide Survival Hunter Melee DPS Guide Beast Mastery Hunter Ranged DPS Guide

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