Marksmanship Hunter DPS Easy Mode — The War Within Pre-Patch
On this page, we explain how to easily play Marksmanship Hunter in World of Warcraft — The War Within Pre-Patch, using the simplest rotation, talent tree, stat priority, gear setup, etc., without sacrificing performance.
Foreword
This section is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty, or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous priorities and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.
The Basics of Marksmanship Hunter in The War Within
Marksmanship is perfect for those who enjoy the sniper playstyle, with a longer range than most specs, and tons of bursty AoE damage.
If you are completely new to Marksmanship and need more information on the abilities available to you, you can check out our Spell Summary page.
Beginner's Guide to Marksmanship Hunter in The War Within
Beginner Single-Target Talents for Marksmanship Hunter
This build is optimal for single-target scenarios. Given the huge cost of going for AoE builds as Marksmanship, you will be playing this most of the time in Raid.
Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Beginner AoE Talents for Marksmanship Hunter
This is our recommended build for AoE scenarios. This works well for AoE Fights in Raids, as well as Mythic+.
On fights with just 3-4 consistent targets, like Primal Council, use Heavy Ammo instead of
Steady Focus.
In Mythic+, or in fights with really high AoE requirements, you can swap Steady Focus for
Light Ammo.
Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Beginner Marksmanship Hunter DPS Rotation
The goal of Marksmanship is simply to cast as many
Aimed Shots and
Rapid Fires as possible. To do this, you need to cast them
on cooldown. Aimed Shot costs 35 Focus, while Rapid Fire generates it. Aside from this, you
will need to regulate your Focus, making sure never to cap it, by using
Arcane Shot as a spender and
Steady Shot as a builder.
The basic rotation of Marksmanship is best summarized as a priority system. On every global, you simply want to cast the highest priority spell, if its condition is met:
- Above all, cast
Rapid Fire off cooldown.
- Use
Volley on cooldown. Macro
Salvo into Volley.
- Use
Kill Shot on cooldown. It will randomly proc due to the
Deathblow Talent, so make sure to react to those procs!
- Use
Explosive Shot on cooldown.
- Activate
Trueshot on cooldown, or when it suits the situation.
- Spend
Precise Shots procs (which come from
Aimed Shot) on
Arcane Shot.
- Use
Aimed Shot. Do not ever let it reach 2 charges if you can help it. Your goal is to always keep it on cooldown.
- When you have more than 55 Focus and all of your abilities are on cooldown, spend excess Focus with
Arcane Shot.
- Use
Steady Shot when you have nothing else to do, and you have less than 55 Focus.
AoE Rotation for Marksmanship Hunter
There is only one extra thing you need to worry about for Marksmanship on
AoE, and that is Trick Shots. This is a buff activated by
Multi-Shot that causes your next
Rapid Fire or
Aimed Shot. It is extremely important to ensure this buff is
active for all of your Aimed Shots and Rapid Fires. Note that
Volley
activates
Trick Shots for 6 continuous seconds. This means that in a
"Volley Window", you can fit 3 or even 4 AoE'ing spells without having to activate
Multi-Shot for them!
Thanks to our Set Bonus, whenever you Rapid Fire during
Trick Shots, you activate a
Volley granting another 6 seconds
of
Trick Shots, and so on. This means that particularly during your
cooldowns, you do not have to worry about
Multi-Shot at all.
Outside of cooldowns, you can usually do Multi-Shot, into
Rapid Fire and
Aimed Shot, thanks to the Rapid Fire triggering
a Trick Shots that will benefit the Aimed Shot.
Defensive Spells for Marksmanship Hunter
Exhilaration is your primary self-heal and it has a rather short
cooldown thanks to the
Natural Mending Talent. Use this when you drop
below 50% HP to help out your Healer!
Aspect of the Turtle is your immunity. It can be used to completely
negate the damage and effects of most spells targeted on you. Use it if you are
assigned to, or in a pinch if you worry that an upcoming mechanic will kill
you!
Survival of the Fittest is our most powerful defensive besides
Turtle, a 30% damage reduction with 2 charges on a 1.5-minute cooldown each.
Use it to reduce damage taken from hard-hitting mechanics. Optimal use of this
ability entails using it proactively, before heavy incoming damage.
Fortitude of the Bear is an extra defensive that comes either from using a
Tenacity Pet (more on that in the Pets section!), or the
Lone Wolf talent. It increases max health by
20% and heals you for that amount too. This defensive can be used after heavy
damage, or to survive things that might one-shot you.
Feign Death is a very unique Hunter ability. It can be used to drop
aggro and combat, and it can also be used to stop casts on you — mobs
will usually stop casting mid-cast if you appear to be dead! It will also
dispel all Poison and Disease effects from you.
This is just some of the key utility of Marksmanship Hunter. We highly recommend checking out the fully detailed Spell Glossary page below to see everything explained in detail.
Best Talents for Marksmanship Hunter in The War Within
This is the Easy Mode page which presents things in a simplified manner with simplified builds. For our detailed, fully-fledged Talent and Rotation guides, click below!
Stat Priority for Marksmanship Hunter in The War Within
The general stat priority for a Marksmanship Hunter is:
- Agility;
- Critical Strike;
- Haste, to around 30%;
- Mastery, to around 5400 Rating;
- Versatility.
- More Haste/Mastery.
Crit is by far the strongest stat for Marksmanship, with everything else fairly close behind.
While the stat priority for classes is normally the same for both the Easy Mode page and our full guide, subtle differences can still occur. If you want to see the full explanation of the stat priority, as well as the absolute top choices for the priority, head to our full stats page below.
Changelog
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 14 Feb. 2024: Updated the recommended default Mythic+ Talent Build.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.5
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 27 Jun. 2023: Updated the Talent Builds.
- 04 May 2023: Updated the recommended AoE Talent Build. This is likely a temporary change, until the new Tier Set becomes more widespread.
- 01 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Updated the page for relevant changes in Patch 10.0.5.
- 17 Jan. 2023: Updated the recommended Single-Target Talent Build.
- 23 Dec. 2022: Talent updates.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Hunter Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Azortharion, a Hunter Theorycrafter and Guidewriter since 2014 who is widely considered one of the best Hunters in the world. He is an accomplished player with hundreds of top parses for all Hunter specs throughout the game's history. He is also the Founder and Admin of Trueshot Lodge, the Hunter Class Discord. You can find him on his stream on Twitch and his channel on YouTube. He also has his own personal Discord server where you can freely ask him any Hunter questions you may have!
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