Marksmanship Hunter DPS Gear and Best in Slot — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1.5

1. The Importance of "Simming Yourself" as a Marksmanship Hunter

At this stage in the game, there are so many variables and so many layers of optimization that you can apply to your character, that there is no way for a guide or anything else to tell you exactly what gear you should wear. This is why we always recommend simulating your own character using Raidbots. The website can help you choose set bonuses, Azerite traits, trinkets and combinations thereof in a way that is tailored completely to your specific character. Learning to use this tool is essential to maximizing your potential, as there is simply no other way to take all the variables into account.

2. How to Gear Before Raids in BfA

Gearing up to prepare to enter raids provides a lot of different options now that Battle for Azeroth has opened up the majority of different gear paths. You will ideally want to get yourself to a healthy item level before setting foot in either Battle of Dazar'alor or The Crucible of Storms, and this can be done through a variety of different ways.

Remember to sim yourself a healthy amount when deciding on gear pieces to know what stats to aim for and which pieces to equip. The stats that you want to focus on will usually be decided by what build you are currently using (as defined by your Azerite traits), but Mastery and Critical Strike are both safe choices for most content types.

• World Quests will provide players with a variety of gear rewards for all slots, including Azerite. This will cap out at 370. Emissaries will also appear once a day and can potentially provide either an equipment piece or an Azerite piece, which will cap at item level 395/400 in season 2.
• Reputation gives out rewards based on your status with the faction. For most factions, Honored awards a 320 cloak, Revered a 335 item, and Exalted gives a 350 piece. Champions of Azeroth awards a 355 item level Azerite Chest with the Furious Gaze trait. Additionally, each reputation level grants additional item level boosts to your Heart of Azeroth.
• Mythic+ rewards gear based upon the keystone level you complete:
  • 2-3: 375
  • 4: 380
  • 5-6: 385
  • 7: 390
  • 8-9: 395
  • 10: 400
• World Bosses in Zandalar and Kul'Tiras spawn weekly, and killing this grants a once a week chance at a 355 item level piece of gear. There is also a cycling World Boss tied to each Warfront, with Arathi granting up to 370 item level gear, and Darkshore up to 400 item level.
• Leatherworking can craft 355 item level Boots and Legs, which can be upgraded using Breath of Bwonsamdis from Battle of Dazar'alor up to 415 item level.
• Engineering provides a craftable Azerite helm with unique traits, and can be upgraded in the same way as Leatherworking using Breath of Bwonsamdi.
• Warfronts can be repeated as many times as you want, each rewarding a random piece of gear. Arathi will be set at 340, and Darkshore will be 355. Each time the Warfront becomes available, a one time quest will reward a higher item level piece, with Arathi being set at 370, and Darkshore at 400. These can only be done when your faction has the siege event open for each respective warfront.

3. What Gear Do I Farm/Bonus Roll/Chase After?

When identifying what gear you should be aiming after, we recommend using RaidBots' Droptimizer feature. It requires the SimulationCraft Addon. Once you have the addon installed, write "/simc" into the chat in-game, and copy-pasting the contents into the RaidBots Droptimizer.

Simply select the raid and difficulty you are interested in, and RaidBots will take a while to figure out where you should spend your bonus rolls, and more.

3.1. Weekly Mythic+ Chest

Along these same lines, you should be completing at least one keystone at a high item level each week to make use of the weekly chest. Each week you will receive one piece of loot, and a fixed amount of Titan Residuum. The highest keystone you complete (up to a maximum of 10) will determine the final reward:

3.2. Notable Trinkets and Weapons

Trinkets, Weapons, and Azerite Armor are the three largest DPS increases to any class in the game. Getting good pieces to fill these slots early allows you to perform incredibly well. They are also the hardest pieces to get.

3.2.1. Weapons

There are a number of strong weapons for Marksmanship Hunters. Ideally, you should be looking for weapons with a healthy mix of Mastery and Critical Strike/Versatility:

• * Twin-Pipe Buster Cannon from Mekkatorque in Battle of Dazar'alor.
• Korgus' Blackpowder Rifle from Tol Dagor;

*This weapon's unique proc is stronger than secondary stats, but only on a single target. In AoE or Mythic+ situations, any other weapon with secondary stats will perform better.

3.2.2. Trinkets

Thanks to Bloodmallet.com, a comprehensive list of available trinkets for Marksmanship are listed against each other below. Keep in mind that this is only a guideline.

4. Stats

Many people have a tendency to overthink the distribution of their secondary stats. An important thing to remember is that a higher quantity of stats is nearly always better than a better quality of stats. Because of this, wearing higher item level gear with worse stats tends to be better than lower item level gear with great stats. Keep this in mind when considering gear.

5. Azerite

You can check through the Marksmanship Azerite page to look through the values of different traits and target different items. A quick recommendation of ideal pieces to aim for in Battle for Dazar'alor and which traits to select can be seen below:

Slot	Item	Trait 1	Trait 2	Trait 3
Helm	Target-Tracking Headgear	Unerring Vision	In The Rhythm	Heed My Call
Shoulder	Pauldrons of Ancestral Vengeance	In The Rhythm	Unerring Vision	Overwhelming Power
Chest	Mistfire Raiment	In The Rhythm	Treacherous Covenant	Heed My Call

6. Recommended Battle for Dazar'alor/Crucible of Storms Gear

This does not include items that are found outside of the raid, so this may be altered based on items you have available from outside sources. Note that this also does not include trinkets as they are covered in the above chart:

Also note that this is not a guide on which bosses to bonus roll. Refer to the Droptimizer guide above to plan out your bonus rolls!

Slot	Item	Source
Helm	Target-Tracking Headgear	High Tinker Mekkatorque in Battle of Dazar'alor
Shoulder	Pauldrons of Ancestral Vengeance	Champion of the Light in Battle of Dazar'alor
Cloak	Loa Exultant's Shroud	Conclave of the Chosen in Battle of Dazar'alor
Chest	Mistfire Raiment	Jadefire Masters in Battle of Dazar'alor
Wrists	Ape Wrangler's Wristguards	Grong in Battle of Dazar'alor
Gloves	Grips of Forsaken Sanity	Uu'nat, Harbinger of the Void in Crucible of Storms
Belt	Insurgent's Scouring Chain	The Restless Cabal in Crucible of Storms
Legs	Fa'thuul's Floodguards	The Restless Cabal in Crucible of Storms
Boots	Lightgrace Sabatons	Champion of the Light in Battle of Dazar'alor
Ring #1	Lord Admiral's Signet	Lady Jaina Proudmoore in Battle of Dazar'alor
Ring #2	Seal of the Zandalari Empire	King Rastakhan in Battle of Dazar'alor
Weapon	Twin-Pipe Buster Cannon	High Tinker Mekkatorque in Battle of Dazar'alor

7. Changelog