Marksmanship Hunter Frequently Asked Questions — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. How much Haste should Marksmanship Hunters have? / Is there a Haste cap?

For Marksmanship, there is no Haste breakpoint/cap. With 100% Haste, your global cooldown (GCD) becomes 0.75 seconds, and any Haste gained after this point will not lower your GCD. You cannot actually reach 100% Haste from gear alone, but combining the effects of Bloodlust/ Heroism with powerful Haste procs can bring you there.

As far as your gear goes, however, there is no minimum Haste or Haste cap.

2. Which Race or Racial Ability is the best for Marksmanship Hunter?

Generally speaking, races that have powerful on-use abilities like Orcs, Trolls, Blood Elves and Lightforged Draenei are good choices. For Marksmanship on Horde, both Undead, Pandaren, and Trolls have very good Racial abilities. For Alliance, Lightforged Draenei is the clear winner.

You can see a ranked list of all the Racials on our Simulations page.

3. How good is Marksmanship Hunter in Battle for Azeroth (Patch 8.1)?

Marksmanship is not an amazing spec for raiding or Mythic+ in Patch 8.1, but it is still close to Beast Mastery. Its main drawback comes from it having less mobility than Beast Mastery, while also doing less damage.

It still brings superior burst damage to Beast Mastery and a very different playstyle with almost no reliance on your pet, which is attractive to many players.

4. Is It Better To Use A Pet?

From a pure DPS perspective on a single-target, there is almost no difference between using a pet and not using one. On multiple targets, not using a pet is almost always preferable. With that said, pets do provide powerful passive bonuses. This can sometimes make pets worth using despite the small DPS loss.

5. What Pets Should I Use?

We recommend Tenacity pets as your default pet for PvE content. They provide a powerful bonus to your maximum health, and a defensive cooldown on a 3-minute cooldown.

For Leveling and Open World content, we recommend Ferocity pets. They provide a Leech bonus that heals you when you do damage, and they allow you to cast Bloodlust/ Heroism every 10 minutes to help you on big pulls and difficult enemies. They are also more handy for world PvP. There are no Ferocity pets that stand out far above the others.

Cunning Pets are useful mostly when there is no need for any defensive ability, such as when you are doing open world content that is trivial for your gear level. There are no Cunning pets that stand out far above the others.

6. What Piece is Better, X or Y?

The answer to this question in any context will always be to simulate it. This is because what is an upgrade for you may not be an upgrade for someone else. In other words, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all answer, even when talking about 2 completely identical comparisons from you to another person. Everything in your gear has an effect on everything else.

This applies to gear, trinkets, Azerite Traits, and even talents in certain situations.

The only exception to this rule is when a specific fight dictates a certain set of optimal talents, for example. If you are curious about what kind of setup to go for a specific fight, WarcraftLogs.com's rankings and statistics are a good place to see what others are doing.

We have a guide on how to sim yourself here:

7. How Much of X Stat Should I Have?

For the most part, there is no set "amount" of any stat that you should have. Nor are there stat goals or a particular distribution of stats that you want to go for. It is very common for people to overestimate the importance of having the "right" secondaries, when in reality, having a higher quantity of stats will almost always beat having "better" stats. Having 120 of your worst stat is often better than having 100 of your best stat, the differences are not as big as many people think.

8. Changelog