Marksmanship Hunter DPS Gear and Best in Slot — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.2.5

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.

Benthic Gear is a unique type of gear introduced in Patch 8.2. It comes in the form of gear tokens for each item slot that has a chance to become one of several unique items per slot. Some of them have special effects that provide extra damage, which makes them relevant for raiding and Mythic+ content. When you buy a Benthic Token, you can right-click the token in your inventory to identify the item. Benthic Items can have sockets on them. Below we list the Benthic Items that are unique or provide damage bonuses.

Using Prismatic Manapearls, which are found in Nazjatar from doing various content, you can upgrade Benthic Pieces from their baseline item level of 385, up to 425.

Slot	Item	Note
Helm	Azsh'ari Stormsurger Helm	Unique Trait: Arcane Heart
Shoulder	Azsh'ari Stormsurger Shoulderguards	Unique Trait: Loyal to the End
Chest	Azsh'ari Stormsurger Vest	Unique Trait: Undulating Tides
Wrists	Neri's Chain Manacles	Gives your spells a chance to deal AoE Physical Damage. Only works in Nazjatar and the Eternal Palace. ~2 Procs per Minute.
Wrists	Ori's Tidal Bracers	Gives your spells a chance to deal single-target Frost damage. Only works in Nazjatar and the Eternal Palace. ~1.5 Procs per Minute.
Gloves	Poen's Deepsea Handgrips	Gives your spells a chance to deal single-target Frost damage. Only works in Nazjatar and the Eternal Palace. ~3 Procs per Minute.
Waist	Azsh'ari Stormsurger Links	Increases your damage done to Aberrations by 2%. Several bosses in the Eternal Palace are Aberrations, or have Aberration adds.
Waist	Vim's Scalecrusher Chain	Gives your spells a chance to deal single-target Physical damage. Only works in Nazjatar and the Eternal Palace. ~1.5 Procs per Minute.
Boots	Akana's Reefstrider Treads	Increases your critical strike damage done by 3%, up to 203%. Only works in Nazjatar and the Eternal Palace.
Boots	Azsh'ari Stormsurger Boots	Gives you a Mastery buff after you kill an Aberration in Nazjatar or the Eternal Palace.

Most of the damage-dealing Benthic items are competitive with iLvl 445 Mythic The Eternal Palace gear, especially with sockets. It costs 240 Prismatic Manapearls to upgrade an item from 385 to 430.

The Azerite Traits vary in their power and usually have some penalties to them anyway. Since Azerite Benthic only goes to iLevel 430, it is not generally recommended or competitive against iLvl 445 Azerite from the Eternal Palace.

Finally, we do not recommend upgrading Benthic pieces that do not have sockets, with the exception of Azerite gear (which cannot have sockets).

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.

Mechagon offers two unique types of gear. The first is the Pocket-Sized Computation Device Trinket, which has 3 sockets that can be filled with punchcards. Yellow Punchcards offer stats, Red Punchcards offer damaging effects, and Blue Punchcards offer unique utility.

The whole Trinket's item level scales with the item level of the punchcards in it, as an average of the Red and Yellow punchcards. The item level of the trinket affects the power of the punchcards in it.

Yellow Punchcards can be looted from Rares in Mechagon, or from bosses inside the Operation: Mechagon dungeon. They offer a large amount of one secondary stat, and a small amount of another. The best Yellow Punchcard for Marksmanship Hunters is any high Versatility punchcard, with a high item level.

The only truly interesting Red Punchcard is the Cyclotronic Blast. This is an on-use trinket effect that deals extremely heavy damage over time. It has a short cast, followed by a 2.5-second channel that is affected by Haste. You can buy it in Mechagon when you reach Revered with the Rustbolt Resistance. It is extremely powerful and competitive with up to Mythic Eternal Palace Trinkets.

The other type of gear are the set rings from Operation: Mechagon. By combining a "Logic Loop" ring like Logic Loop of Division with a "Bit Band" ring like Shorting Bit Band, you can combine the two effects to create a unique effect with a unique trigger. The Division and Shorting combo is the most potent for Hunters. These rings are only item level 415, but they are competitive for quite a while into Heroic The Eternal Palace, and sometimes beyond.

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:

Keystone Level	Weekly Chest Loot	Residuum Awarded
Mythic 2	410	800~
Mythic 3	415	800~
Mythic 4	420	1700~
Mythic 5	420	1700~
Mythic 6	425	1700~
Mythic 7	430	5500~
Mythic 8	430	5500~
Mythic 9	435	5500~
Mythic 10	440	17000~

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.

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

• * Shiver Venom Crossbow from Abyssal Commander Sivara in The Eternal Palace;

The Shiver Venom Crossbow has an extremely powerful single-target proc. This proc is so powerful that it would take unrealistic amounts of AoE to make different bows better (which may have more secondary stats).

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.

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.

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	Traits
Helm	Soulscarred Headgear	Unerring Vision In The Rhythm Unstable Flames
Shoulder	Gardbrace of Fractured Reality	In The Rhythm Unerring Vision Overwhelming Power
Chest	Corrupted Hexxer's Vestments	In The Rhythm Focused Fire Overwhelming Power

This does not include trinkets as they are covered in the above chart.

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	Soulscarred Headgear	Purchased from Azerite vendor for Titan Residuum
Shoulder	Gardbrace of Fractured Reality	Za'qul, Harbinger of Ny'alotha in The Eternal Palace
Cloak	Drape of the Hatcher	Orgozoa in The Eternal Palace
Chest	Corrupted Hexxer's Vestments	Purchased from Azerite vendor for Titan Residuum
Wrists	Ori's Tidal Bracers	Benthic Gear Tokens for Prismatic Manapearls
Gloves	Poen's Deepsea Handgrips	Benthic Gear Tokens for Prismatic Manapearls
Belt	Vim's Scalecrusher Chain	Benthic Gear Tokens for Prismatic Manapearls
Legs	Banded Cragscale Greaves	Crafted. Requires Leatherworking. 215 Versatility and 86 Mastery is ideal.
Boots	Akana's Reefstrider Treads	Benthic Gear Tokens for Prismatic Manapearls
Ring #1	Ascended Leviathan's Eye Loop	Crafted. Requires Jewelcrafting. 378 Versatility is ideal, with the second stat not mattering as much.
Ring #2	Cursed Lover's Ring	Queen Azshara in The Eternal Palace
Weapon	Shiver Venom Crossbow	Abyssal Commander Sivara in The Eternal Palace