Marksmanship Hunter DPS Nerub-ar Palace Raid Guide — The War Within (Season 1)
On this page, you will find tips, tricks, and strategies tailored to your Marksmanship Hunter for each boss of the following raid: Nerub-ar Palace. All our content is updated for World of Warcraft — The War Within (Season 1).
Introduction
Below, you can find class and spec-specific advice for every fight in Nerub-ar Palace. If you are looking for a general overview of the Raid that is not spec-specific, check out our dedicated Nerub-ar Palace guides.
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.
Nerub'ar Palace Boss Guides for Marksmanship Hunter
Nerub'ar Palace Raid Builds, Tips, and Tricks for Marksmanship Hunter
Tips for Ulgrax the Devourer for Marksmanship Hunter
Note that it is early days, and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- You may want to defensive if you are at low HP when Hungering Bellows happens.
- The DoT that you get from collecting bugs to feed Ulgrax can hurt, prepare a defensive if you are doing multiple.
Cooldown Usage
- It is not generally worth using CD's on the Add Phase unless you are attempting to parse. Simply use cooldowns on pull, and then again when the boss returns.
Mechanical Tips
- Use Disengage to counter the pull of Carnivorous Contest.
- Save Aspect of the Cheetah for when you are feeding Bugs to Ulgrax to do so as quickly as possible.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
I recommend an AoE build on this encounter, but we are not sacrificing absolutely everything to do maximal AoE, we are only grabbing our most essential AoE kit abilities and passives to not hamper our single-target too much.
Tips for Bloodbound Horror for Marksmanship Hunter
Note that it is early days, and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- Consider using a defensive if you are at low HP when Bloodcurdle happens, or if you are about to go down via Gruesome Disgorge.
Cooldown Usage
- I do not recommend using cooldowns on the add waves if you do not have to. Try to use your cooldowns as they come up on the boss.
Mechanical Tips
- You can Aspect of the Turtle to bypass Spewing Hemorrhage, but do not rely on this, it is a crutch if you get in trouble.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
I recommend an AoE build on this encounter, but we are not sacrificing absolutely everything to do maximal AoE, we are only grabbing our most essential AoE kit abilities and passives to not hamper our single-target too much.
Tips for Sikran for Marksmanship Hunter
Note that it is early days, and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- As you run to place your Simulacrum, you may want to use a defensive if you are at low HP, since you may be running out of Healer range, and if you are not, they are probably busy running as well.
Cooldown Usage
- On cooldown.
Mechanical Tips
- Nothing fancy here yet, but do check back in after the Season has been out for a couple of weeks to see if any tricks or tips have been found.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
Best Dark Ranger Single-Target Talents for Marksmanship Hunter in The War Within Season 1
This pure single-target encounter has enough boss movement that you will not likely be able to achieve sufficient uptime on Sentinel to make it worth using. Because of this, I recommend Dark Ranger here.
Tips for Rasha'nan for Marksmanship Hunter
Note that it is early days, and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- If you are low on HP as Erosive Spray is going out, consider using a defensive.
Cooldown Usage
Mechanical Tips
- You can Disengage to more quickly break Spinneret's Strands.
- Binding Shot + Implosive Trap can be a good combo for add CC if they are grouped up.
- Disengage to counter the pull by Web Reave.
- Mythic: It might be possible to jump off the platform when Enveloping Webs are about to expire to drop the Web off the platform, and then Disengage back. Live testing pending for this tip.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
I recommend an AoE build on this encounter, but we are not sacrificing absolutely everything to do maximal AoE, we are only grabbing our most essential AoE kit abilities and passives to not hamper our single-target too much.
Tips for Broodtwister Ovi'nax for Marksmanship Hunter
Note that it is early days, and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- Nothing specific.
Cooldown Usage
- It is not obvious, pre-launch, what the best strategy is here. It will depend on the tuning of the adds and whether they are dying in a timely fashion. As a default, use cooldowns on the boss, but you may want to change this strategy.
Mechanical Tips
- Use Binding Shot and Tar Trap liberally for the Parasites. Consider speccing Entrapment for further CC.
- Disengage breaks Sticky Web. Make sure you are not near anyone else when you do so, or they will get Webbed too!
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
I recommend an AoE build on this encounter, but we are not sacrificing absolutely everything to do maximal AoE, we are only grabbing our most essential AoE kit abilities and passives to not hamper our single-target too much.
Tips for Nexus-Princess Ky'veza for Marksmanship Hunter
Note that it is early days, and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- Nothing specific here. Use defensives primarily to cover for mistakes, and if you are at low HP when placing your Images.
Cooldown Usage
- On cooldown.
Mechanical Tips
- Disengage to counter the Nether Rift pull.
- Note that the Starless Night pizza slice mechanic is very easy to dodge once you realize that the pizza slices are pre-drawn on the ground. You should only ever have to walk a single step to side-step them.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
Best Dark Ranger Single-Target Talents for Marksmanship Hunter in The War Within Season 1
This pure single-target encounter has enough boss movement that you will not likely be able to achieve sufficient uptime on Sentinel to make it worth using. Because of this, I recommend Dark Ranger here.
Tips for The Silken Court for Marksmanship Hunter
Note that it is early days, and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- Nothing specific to note yet.
Cooldown Usage
- On cooldown.
Mechanical Tips
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
This build is exclusively for Silken Court on Heroic Difficulty, the only 2-target scenario in Raiding in Nerub-ar Palace.
Tips for Queen Ansurek for Marksmanship Hunter
Note that it is early days, and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- There are no special moments where defensives are always required, but Phase 2 is dangerous and there will not be a lot of Healers on your side. Using Survival of the Fittest around 4:30 to mitigate Gloom Blast is generally optimal.
Cooldown Usage
- On cooldown, while ensuring you are getting full duration value out of every use. Depending on your group, Phase 2 adds may die so quickly that it does not make sense to use cooldowns on them.
Mechanical Tips
- You can both Feign Death and Disengage Roots in Phase 1. You can also Aspect of the Turtle their application
- Binding Shot on the adds spawned by Infest in Phase 3.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
I recommend an AoE build on this encounter, but we are not sacrificing absolutely everything to do maximal AoE, we are only grabbing our most essential AoE kit abilities and passives to not hamper our single-target too much.
General Defensive Usage Notes
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
- Survival of the Fittest
- Fortitude of the Bear
General Cooldown Usage
Marksmanship Hunter has a few cooldowns to think about using optimally on the fights in Nerub-ar Palace:
- Trueshot — Our main, 2-minute cooldown, though its actual cooldown will be closer to 60-80s on average thanks to Calling the Shots and Sentinel Watch.
- Volley — Not always used, but it is a vehicle for our best burst AoE and timings its use, especially with Salvo, is relevant on fights with intermittent add spawns.
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.
Changelog
- 14 Sep. 2024: Updated the Raid AoE build, and swapped the ST recommendation to Dark Ranger for a couple of bosses.
- 13 Sep. 2024: Re-visited the best builds on every boss after Heroic experience and made some changes.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Guide added.
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This guide has been written by Azortharion, a Hunter Guidewriter, Theorycrafter, and top player since 2014, who is widely considered one of the best PvE Hunters in the world. He is an accomplished player with hundreds of top parses across all Hunter specs. He is the Head Admin of Trueshot Lodge, the official 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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