Marksmanship Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Shadowlands 9.2.5

Welcome to our Rotation page for Marksmanship Hunters. On this page you will find everything you need to know about actually playing the spec in Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.

If the rotations below seem overwhelming to you, you might benefit from visiting our Easy Mode page which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.

The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.

To play Marksmanship, there are a few basic mechanics you must understand to fully unlock the potential of the spec.

Precise Shots is a buff that is activated whenever you cast Aimed Shot. It causes your next 1-2 Arcane Shots or Multi-Shots after casting Aimed Shot to do 75% more damage. You do not want to waste this buff by casting Aimed Shot when you have it active. You always want to spend the charges first, except during Trueshot.

Trick Shots is the primary AoE mechanic. When you cast Multi-Shot on 3 targets or above, your next Aimed Shot or Rapid Fire will cleave up to 5 additional targets for 55% of its original damage. You simply want this buff to be active when casting Aimed Shot or Rapid Fire while dealing with 3 or more targets.

The single target rotation for a Marksmanship Hunter is based on the following priority system.

Note that some checkboxes are ticked by default as they are currently meta choices that will be relevant for most people. If they are not appropriate for you, simply untick them and change them to something that is appropriate for your character.

Racials	Talents	Covenant Abilities/Soulbinds	Legendaries/Other Gear
Mag'har Orc	A Murder of Crows	Wild Spirits	Soulforge Embers
Troll	Explosive Shot	Resonating Arrow	Serpentstalker's Trickery
Orc	Careful Aim	Death Chakram	Surging Shots
Lightforged Draenei	Steady Focus	Flayed Shot	Rae'shalare, Death's Whisper
Vulpera	Streamline	Pustule Eruption (Emeni Soulbind)	Eagletalon's True Focus
Dark Iron Dwarf	Serpent Sting		4PC Tier Set Bonus + Vigil Legendary
	Chimaera Shot		2PC Tier Set Bonus
	Volley
	Barrage
	Double Tap

1. Use Fireblood alongside Trueshot.
2. Use Berserking alongside Trueshot.
3. Use Blood Fury alongside Trueshot.
4. Use Ancestral Call alongside Trueshot.
5. Cast Light's Judgment on cooldown when Trueshot is not active.
6. Use your potion alongside Trueshot. Remember that you will only have one Potion per 5 minutes.
7. Cast Steady Shot if your previous cast was a Steady Shot and the buff has less than 5 seconds remaining, or if Steady Focus is down entirely. Do not refresh or apply Steady Focus while Resonating Arrow is active.
8. Cast Kill Shot on cooldown.
9. Cast Double Tap on cooldown. It does not matter what ability you spend it on. You should ideally spend it on Rapid Fire outside of Careful Aim. You should always spend it on Aimed Shot on targets above 70% health. You should always spend it on Rapid Fire. You should always spend it on Rapid Fire below 70% health, and Aimed Shot above 70% health. You should save it for Wild Spirits, but you can use a Double Tap inbetween Wild Spirits uses and still synchronize their cooldowns. You should always spend Double Tap on Aimed Shot during Wild Spirits. You should save it for Wild Spirits, but you can use a Double Tap inbetween Wild Spirits uses and still synchronize their cooldowns. Save it for when Resonating Arrow is just about to be used. They will sync up more or less automatically, as they both have a 1-minute cooldown.
10. Cast Tar Trap on the boss if you do not already have one put down, and Flare is available.
11. Cast Flare on Tar Trap under the boss to activate your Soulforge Embers Legendary Power.
12. Cast Explosive Shot on cooldown.
13. Cast Wild Spirits on cooldown alongside Trueshot.
14. Cast Flayed Shot on cooldown.
15. Cast Death Chakram on cooldown.
16. Cast A Murder of Crows on cooldown.
17. Cast Wailing Arrow on cooldown. As a Kyrian, use it during Resonating Arrow, or if Resonating Arrow's cooldown is over 10 seconds remaining.
18. Cast Resonating Arrow on cooldown with Double Tap active.
19. Cast Volley on cooldown. If you are Kyrian, save it for when Resonating Arrow is active.
20. Cast Steady Shot to pool Focus when Resonating Arrow is coming up in the next 5 seconds. Do not cap your Focus in doing this.
21. Cast Rapid Fire on cooldown, provided that it will not Focus cap you. If Resonating Arrow is coming up within the next 10 seconds, then you should save Rapid Fire for it.
22. Cast Rapid Fire on cooldown, provided that it will not Focus cap you. If Resonating Arrow is coming up within the next 10 seconds, then you should save Rapid Fire for it.
23. When Trick Shots is down, if your 4PC Counter is below 5 and you have Precise Shots to spend, cast an Arcane Shot to bring the counter to at least 20, ensuring your next Aimed Shot will proc Trick Shots.
24. Cast Trueshot on cooldown, but be sure to spend all your Precise Shots stacks first. If you are running the 4PC Tier Set Bonus, then do not worry about Precise Shots.
25. Cast Aimed Shot on cooldown. Make sure to spend all Precise Shots first. You can also ignore Precise Shots if it allows you to squeeze another Aimed Shot into your Volley window on 2 targets only. If Chimaera Shot is chosen and you are up against two targets, then you should prioritize spending Precise Shots before casting Aimed Shot in ALL situations, even during Trueshot. If Serpentstalker's Trickery is being used, then you should use Aimed Shot on targets that do not have the Serpent Sting DoT already. With the 4PC Tier Set Bonus, you should ignore Precise Shots and focus on maximizing Aimed Shot casts.
26. Cast Rapid Fire on cooldown, as long as it will not Focus cap you. If Resonating Arrow is coming up within the next 10 seconds, then you should save Rapid Fire for it. When using Eagletalon's True Focus, you should not cast Rapid Fire during Trueshot at all, unless the only alternative is casting Steady Shot. When using the 4PC Tier Set Bonus, Rapid Fire becomes a sort of last resort, used only when you can no longer cast Aimed Shot or Arcane Shot due to a lack of Focus.
27. Cast Chimaera Shot to spend Precise Shots stacks, and whenever you are above 55 Focus.
28. Cast Arcane Shot to spend Precise Shots stacks, and whenever you are above 55 Focus.
29. Cast Serpent Sting to apply the DoT when it has less than 5.4 seconds remaining.
30. Cast Barrage on cooldown when there is more than one target up. Do not cast it on single-target.
31. Cast Bag of Tricks on cooldown when Trueshot is not active.
32. Cast Fleshcraft on cooldown when Trueshot is not active.
33. Cast Steady Shot when you have nothing else to do.

The goal of the rotation is to never cap Focus, never reach 2 charges of Aimed Shot, maximizing Focus generated by Rapid Fire by casting it on cooldown (but never Focus capping still), and spending every Precise Shots proc.

Your Trueshot rotation is the same as the normal one, except for the following changes.

Keeping Aimed Shot from hitting 2 charges is a higher priority than spending Precise Shots. However, you should still try to spend Precise Shots procs. Just do not let Aimed Shot hit 2 charges in doing so.

A lot of players struggle with Trueshot windows because they are casting Arcane Shot too much. The goal is to maximize Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire casts, and to only use Arcane Shot when this will have no impact on your ability to cast Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire on cooldown.

This means that you will usually only ever cast Arcane Shot if you are about to reach 90 Focus after an Aimed Shot. If not, then leave the "gaps" between Aimeds/Rapids to Steady Shot instead. Be careful not to cast too many Arcane Shots.

On 2 targets, do the single-target rotation. When using Volley on two targets, you should make it a very high priority to cast Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire inside the window. You do not need any particular Haste amount for this, but it does mean that you should not cast any Arcane Shot within this window.

On 3 targets and above, your general rotation is the same, with the exceptions listed below.

• You must always have Trick Shots active when casting either Aimed Shot or Rapid Fire. This buff is activated by casting Multi-Shot on 3 or more targets.
• Arcane Shot disappears from the rotation in AoE situations, and is replaced by Multi-Shot.
• When Volley, a very powerful Level 50 AoE Talent, is being used and is active, you no longer need to use Multi-Shot to maintain Trick Shots. However, you still use Multi-Shot as a substitute for Arcane Shot on 3 targets and above, as you will still need to spend Precise Shots procs. During Volley itself, cast Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire in any order if possible. On 3 targets and above however, it does not really matter if you fit 2 spells into Volley, as you are using Multi-Shot for Trick Shots anyway. If Trueshot is up alongside your Volley, then you can do Aimed Shot, Rapid Fire, Aimed Shot. The order of casts is not important.
• Explosive Shot should be used when going into combat as the very first global in most cases. The goal is to just get it out of the way so that you can focus on your upcoming burst rotation, rather than having to weave it into Trueshot.

Finally, when using the Serpentstalker's Trickery Legendary Item on more than one target, you should be alternating the targets that you cast Aimed Shot on to apply the Serpent Sting DoT to multiple targets. You should only really bother doing this with up to 2 targets, as it is impossible to keep up more than two outside of your cooldowns or Bloodlust/ Heroism.

Note that some checkboxes are ticked by default as they are currently meta choices that will be relevant for most people. If they are not appropriate for you, simply untick them and change them to something that is appropriate for your character.

1. Cast Double Tap around 8 seconds before combat begins.
2. Start casting Aimed Shot around 3 seconds before combat starts.
3. Start casting Steady Shot around 2 seconds before combat starts.
4. Cast an additional Steady Shot to activate Steady Focus.
5. Cast Tar Trap on the boss' feet.
6. Cast Flare on a Tar Trap under the boss to activate your Soulforge Embers Legendary Power.
7. Cast Explosive Shot.
8. Cast Explosive Shot.
9. Cast A Murder of Crows.
10. Cast Flayed Shot.
11. Cast Wailing Arrow.
12. Cast Resonating Arrow. Activate all on-use trinkets and Racials here as well.
13. Cast Explosive Shot.
14. Cast Wild Spirits.
15. Cast Volley.
16. Cast Death Chakram.
17. Cast Rapid Fire.
18. Cast Trueshot.
19. Cast Aimed Shot.
20. Cast Rapid Fire.
21. Cast Aimed Shot.
22. Cast Serpent Sting.
23. Proceed with your normal rotation.

For information about Mythic+ as a Marksmanship Hunter and the opener you need to use in this game mode, please refer to our Mythic+ page.

WeakAuras can have a tremendously positive effect on your performance. Since this is a broad topic, we made a page dedicated to it.

There are a variety of On-Use Trinkets for Marksmanship Hunter that are worth using. Here are the rules for using them optimally in the rotation.

• 1-minute trinkets like Sinful Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity should be used on cooldown, ideally synced up with effects like Resonating Arrow if you are Kyrian.
• 1.5-minute trinkets like Darkmoon Deck: Voracity and Overcharged Anima Battery should be macro'd into Trueshot and used together with it at all times. The 30-second delay is worth the extra damage.
• 3-minute on-use trinkets like Inscrutable Quantum Device should also be macro'd into Trueshot and used together with every second Trueshot.
• 5-minute on-use trinkets like The First Sigil should also be macro'd into Trueshot and used together with every third Trueshot.
• Note that the rules above only apply to Trinkets that enhance your stats. For trinkets that just deal damage, such as Dreadfire Vessel, simply use it on cooldown. Kyrians should try and use damage-dealing trinkets inside Resonating Arrow at all times.
• If you are using double On-Use Trinkets, use the longest cooldown Trinket (for example the Inscrutable Quantum Device) with your first Trueshot. After that, use your shorter cooldown Trinket (for example the Overcharged Anima Battery) on cooldown. Then use your shorter cooldown Trinket with your second Trueshot, followed by using it on cooldown, and followed by using your Inscrutable Quantum Device with your third Trueshot. In short, use the 3-minute on-use with every other Trueshot, and fill in the gaps as well as the other Trueshots with your other Trinket.

In almost all cases, the ideal time to use your combat potion is along with Bloodlust/ Heroism. In most, but not all, situations, this is when the fight starts.

On fights that last longer than 5 minutes, you will be able to use two potions, provided that you use one of them at the beginning of the fight.