Marksmanship Hunter DPS Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible Raid Guide — Season 4

Below, you can find class and spec-specific advice for every fight in Aberrus. If you are looking for a general overview of the Raid that is not spec-specific, check out our dedicated Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible guides.

On this page, you will find Marksmanship Hunter specific information to deal with each boss in the Aberrus raid. These are not complete encounter guides but specific tips for doing the bosses as a Marksmanship Hunter.

This page assumes that you already understand most of the mechanics of each encounter. These can be found on the full raid guide, so what is contained here are details specifically tailored toward Marksmanship Hunter and how you can deal with each fight as best as possible.

All recommendations are progression-based tips and will not necessarily be the best for an overall DPS ranking.

To make importing talents easier, I have aggregated the builds into the list below into three main builds. Taking these as a baseline, you can handle all raid encounters in this tier.

Marksmanship Hunter has several defensive spells that you should plan to use and rotate throughout mechanics. You should opt to use the smaller cooldown spells often as needed with incoming mechanics and save bigger cooldowns like Aspect of the Turtle for large incoming damage.

• Exhilaration
• Fortitude of the Bear
• Survival of the Fittest

Marksmanship Hunter has a few cooldowns to think about using optimally on the fights in Aberrus:

• Trueshot — Our main, 2-minute cooldown.
• Death Chakram and Volley — Our small, 45-second mini-cooldown.

In addition to the general rotation, you want to keep in mind that your goal is to use your cooldowns as often as possible during an encounter. With that in mind, your secondary goal is to use them at the correct time.

I highly suggest using some Addon or WeakAura to track the estimated time to die of your target/boss target. Method Raid Tools has this as an option if you are already using this addon. By tracking time to die, if you know that you can only fit one more cycle of your cooldowns in before the boss dies, you can choose to hold these cooldowns to better line up with Bloodlust, your Potion, or even your other cooldowns, trying to look for opportunities to stack all of them.

• We recommend the standard single-target build above for this fight.

• Use your defensives for Wings of Extinction and Hellsteel Carnage, in particular their overlaps at ~1:30 and ~2:30 in the encounter.

• No special considerations.

• Use Disengage when targeted by Rays of Anguish to more easily drag the laser over the Dread Rifts.

For more information, please refer to our Kazzara guide.

• Use your defensives for Gloom Conflagration in Phase 2. Generally, Phase 2 hurts far more than Phase 1, so you want to enter Phase 2 with all of your defensives available if possible.

• No special considerations.

• Use Disengage when targeted by Blistering Twilight to place the puddles optimally.
• Use Aspect of the Turtle to solo-soak the Fiery Meteor/ Gloom Conflagration mechanics.

For more information, please refer to our Amalgamation Chamber guide.

• Use defensives when you have Unstable Essence if needed to hold onto the debuff for longer. You will definitely want to use defensives if you have Unstable Essence and Infused Explosion occurs at the same time.

• No special considerations.

• You can use Aspect of the Turtle to prevent the Bleed application from Rending Charge.

For more information, please refer to our Forgotten Experiments guide.

• Molten Barrier hurts and you should use your defensives for surviving the tail-end of it happening. It can coincide with Scorching Roar as well, which you should have a defensive prepared for every time.

• If a Molten Barrier is imminent, save your cooldowns for it!

• You cannot use Aspect of the Turtle to soak Catastrophic Slam.
• Kick Lava Bolt as much as possible.

For more information, please refer to our Assault of the Zaqali guide.

• This fight hurts and you will have to be smart about your defensive usage. The main mechanics to look out for are Overcharged/ Conduit Flare, and their overlaps at roughly 1:00, 2:30, and 3:20. You might also want to use a defensive on Scorching Heatwave.

• No special considerations.

• Use Aspect of the Turtle either as part of your defensive kit, or to negate the knockback from Smoldering Rage.
• You can also use Disengage immediately after the knockback to optimize your positioning.
• When targeted by Searing Slam, use Disengage to place it well.

For more information, please refer to our Rashok the Elder guide.

• Use defensives for overlaps of Blast Wave with other mechanics. These are separated by around 35 seconds, starting 45 seconds in. At 2:30 and 3:00, they will possibly overlap with Unstable Embers if you are targeted by it.

• If an add spawn is imminent, hold your cooldowns for them!

• We have no specific tips for the mechanics of this fight besides using Disengage liberally to position yourself optimally. If anything arises, we will add some more tips to this section.

For more information, please refer to our Zskarn guide.

• Defensives should primarily be used for Igniting Roar, which happens at various intervals throughout the fight. When a Roar is coming up, pay attention to your health and that of the raid before deciding on using a defensive.

• No special considerations.

• Use Aspect of the Turtle to negate the Overpowering Stomp mechanic where possible. Use Disengage otherwise.
• Use Disengage to be a mechanical hero! Your mobility makes you excellent for soaking Magma Puddles on this fight, especially ones far away.

For more information, please refer to our Magmorax guide.

• Defensives should be used when targeted by Volcanic Heart, and when wall breaks in the fight overlap with other mechanics.
• If necessary, you can also use cooldowns for Umbral Annihilation, but this is generally a healer mechanic where if you would have died with no defensive, so would half the raid.

• If Surrender to Corruption is imminent, you might want to save your cooldowns to see if you get Corrupted. If you do, send your cooldowns on the add!

• We have no specific tips for the mechanics of this fight besides using
• We have no specific tips for the mechanics of this fight besides using Disengage liberally to position yourself optimally. If anything arises, we will add some more tips to this section.

For more information, please refer to our Neltharion guide.

• You can assist your Healers by using defensives on Glittering Surge, though it should rarely be needed.
• Other than this, you should primarily use defensives to cover mistakes as there are no other, specific moments of high incoming damage.

• Simply use your cooldowns on cooldown. Every 45-second cooldown should line up with add spawns starting in Phase 2.

• When entering the Void Phase in both intermissions and other times, use Disengage to speed yourself up via the Posthaste Talent while collecting the orbs to increase your Haste. Use Aspect of the Cheetah to extend your movement speed. The faster you can get out, the more damage you can do!

For more information, please refer to our Scalecommander Sarkareth guide.