Marksmanship Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within Pre-Patch

• Casting Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire as much as possible, both on single-target and AoE.
• Managing your Focus — Never capping it but also ensuring you have enough Focus to cast Aimed Shot off cooldown.
• Spending Precise Shots stacks on Arcane Shot/ Multi-Shot, generated by Aimed Shot.

• All the same goals as the single-target Rotation.
• Maintaining that Trick Shots is up for all of your Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire casts by casting Multi-Shot between them, or with Volley. The T31 2PC Tier Set Bonus will also cause Rapid Fires cast during Trick Shots to give you Volley, which gives an additional 6 seconds of Trick Shots, and so on.

In the Single-Target and AoE sections, you will find a highly detailed priority list breakdown of the Rotation, as well as optimal openers.

1. Ensure Hunter's Mark is active on the target from you or another Hunter in the group!
2. Pre-cast Steady Shot when there is ~1.75 seconds left on the pull timer.
3. Cast another Steady Shot to apply Steady Focus.
4. Pre-cast Aimed Shot roughly 2.5 seconds before combat begins.
5. Pre-cast your Algeth'ar Puzzle Box Trinket roughly 2 seconds before combat begins.
6. Activate your Potion.
7. Cast Rapid Fire.
8. Cast Explosive Shot
9. Send any on-use Trinkets here along with your Potion.
10. Use Volley at your enemy's feet.
11. Activate Trueshot.
12. Cast Rapid Fire
13. Cast Aimed Shot
14. Cast Aimed Shot
15. Cast Rapid Fire
16. Continue with your normal Rotation according to the priority list below.
17. A small minmax you can do is taking advantage of the fact that Aimed Shot's cast time during Trueshot is slightly shorter than your GCD. Thanks to our tier set, Aimed Shot has an ~11% chance to reset the cooldown of Rapid Fire. Thus, you want to spam Rapid Fire during every Aimed Shot to queue up the Rapid Fire in case it gets a reset. If it does not reset, simply go back to Aimed Shot. You have a very small window (~0.2s) of dead time between every Aimed Shot where you can attempt to queue a Rapid Fire at no GCD loss.

This priority list describes the optimal single-target Rotation for Marksmanship Hunter.

1. Use Ashes of the Embersoul alongside Trueshot, and ideally your Potion.
2. Use Bandolier of Twisted Blades on cooldown.
3. Use Beacon to the Beyond on cooldown.
4. Use Darkmoon Deck Box: Dance on cooldown.
5. Use Erupting Spear Fragment with Volley.
6. Use Globe of Jagged Ice on cooldown.
7. Use Manic Grieftorch on cooldown.
8. Use Irideus Fragment right before Trueshot, and ideally your Potion. You should hold it for 1 minute at the 3-minute mark, and basically treat it like a 4-minute Trinket that lines up with every 2nd Trueshot.
9. Use Algeth'ar Puzzle Box right before Trueshot, and ideally your Potion. You should hold it for 1 minute at the 3-minute mark, and basically treat it like a 4-minute Trinket that lines up with every 2nd Trueshot.
10. Use Storm-Eater's Boon on as many targets as possible. You will not be able to move during its 10-second duration, but you can still attack. You can Aspect of the Turtle if you are about to get hit by a voidzone while immobilized. Basically, be careful when using this Trinket!
11. Use Witherbark's Branch alongside Trueshot, and ideally your Potion. To play this Trinket optimally, you want to collect the spheres it spawns in a staggered fashion. Collect the first two immediately, then collect the last one when the buff is just about to expire, thereby extending its buff. Doing this properly is a ~1.5% DPS increase over simply collecting them all. Try your best, but do not fret if you cannot play it perfectly every time.
12. Use Mirror of Fractured Tomorrows alongside Trueshot. You should hold it for your 3rd Trueshot in a standard fight, and effectively treat this Trinket as if it had a 4-minute cooldown.
13. Use Steady Shot to apply and maintain the Steady Focus buff. Refresh when it drops below 5 seconds and you would have cast one Steady Shot regardless, or apply it if it is down. Do not bother refreshing Steady Focus during Trueshot. Use this WeakAura to help using this.
14. Cast Rapid Fire if Trick Shots would expire within the next GCD. This ensures we maximize benefit from our tier set.
15. Cast Kill Shot on cooldown.
16. Use Volley on cooldown. Hold one use for right before activating Trueshot so that you can extend the Volley throughout. I recommend most people also macro Salvo into it. Check out the AddOns and Macros page if you have not.
17. A useful minmax for Salvo during Trueshot is to unmacro/decouple it from Volley, and use it later in Trueshot when you have 10 stacks of Unerring Vision, or simply if more AoE mobs spawn later in your cooldowns.
18. Use Volley on cooldown. Hold it up to 20 seconds for Trueshot.
19. It is not worth casting Barrage, as Arcane Shot is a stronger use of Focus and time.
20. Cast Kill Shot on cooldown when Trueshot is down.
21. Cast Rapid Fire on cooldown.
22. Use Explosive Shot on cooldown.
23. Use Rapid Fire Barrage on cooldown.
24. Use Trueshot, your main cooldown, as many times as possible during the fight. Save it for important add spawns and damage amplification phases.
25. Use Aimed Shot on cooldown. You should always spend all of your Precise Shots stacks first, provided that Aimed Shot is not about to reach 2 charges.
26. Cast Kill Shot on cooldown.
27. Use Chimaera Shot to spend your Precise Shots stacks or when you have over 55 Focus.
28. Use Arcane Shot to spend your Precise Shots stacks or when you have over 55 Focus.
29. Use Steady Shot when you have nothing else to do, as a filler. Try to do them in pairs, but only if nothing better is available.

1. Ensure Hunter's Mark is active on the target from you or another Hunter in the group!
2. Pre-cast Steady Shot when there is 1.75 seconds left on the pull timer.
3. Pre-cast Algeth'ar Puzzle Box when there is 1.75 seconds left on the pull timer.
4. Cast Explosive Shot.
5. Activate your Potion.
6. Use Manic Grieftorch.
7. Use Volley at your enemy's feet.
8. Activate Trueshot
9. Cast Rapid Fire
10. Cast Aimed Shot
11. Cast Aimed Shot
12. Cast Rapid Fire
13. Continue with your normal Rotation according to the priority list below. The goal is to not have to cast Multi-Shot often at all, by using Rapid Fire regularly to extend the Volley-provided Trick Shots windows throughout your entire Trueshot window.
14. A small minmax you can do is taking advantage of the fact that Aimed Shot's cast time during Trueshot is slightly shorter than your GCD. Thanks to our tier set, Aimed Shot has an ~11% chance to reset the cooldown of Rapid Fire. Thus, you want to spam Rapid Fire during every Aimed Shot to queue up the Rapid Fire in case it gets a reset. If it does not reset, simply go back to Aimed Shot. You have a very small window (~0.2s) of dead time between every Aimed Shot where you can attempt to queue a Rapid Fire at no GCD loss.

This priority list describes the optimal AoE rotation for Marksmanship Hunter.

1. Use Ashes of the Embersoul alongside Trueshot, and ideally your Potion.
2. Use Bandolier of Twisted Blades on cooldown.
3. Use Beacon to the Beyond on cooldown.
4. Use Darkmoon Deck Box: Dance on cooldown.
5. Use Erupting Spear Fragment with Volley.
6. Use Globe of Jagged Ice on cooldown.
7. Use Manic Grieftorch on cooldown.
8. Use Irideus Fragment right before Trueshot, and ideally your Potion. You should hold it for 1 minute at the 3-minute mark, and basically treat it like a 4-minute Trinket that lines up with every 2nd Trueshot.
9. Use Algeth'ar Puzzle Box right before Trueshot, and ideally your Potion. You should hold it for 1 minute at the 3-minute mark, and basically treat it like a 4-minute Trinket that lines up with every 2nd Trueshot.
10. Use Storm-Eater's Boon on as many targets as possible. You will not be able to move during its 10-second duration, but you can still attack. You can Aspect of the Turtle if you are about to get hit by a voidzone while immobilized. Basically, be careful when using this Trinket!
11. Use Witherbark's Branch alongside Trueshot, and ideally your Potion. To play this Trinket optimally, you want to collect the spheres it spawns in a staggered fashion. Collect the first two immediately, then collect the last one when the buff is just about to expire, thereby extending its buff. Doing this properly is a ~1.5% DPS increase over simply collecting them all. Try your best, but do not fret if you cannot play it perfectly every time.
12. Use Mirror of Fractured Tomorrows alongside Trueshot. You should hold it for your 3rd Trueshot in a standard fight, and effectively treat this Trinket as if it had a 4-minute cooldown.
13. Use Steady Shot to apply and maintain the Steady Focus buff. Refresh when it drops below 8 seconds and you would have cast one Steady Shot regardless, or apply it if it is down. Do not bother refreshing or applying during Trueshot. Use this WeakAura to help using this.
14. Use Explosive Shot on cooldown.
15. It is not worth casting Barrage, as Multi-Shot is a stronger use of Focus and time.
16. Use Rapid Fire Barrage on cooldown. Make sure that Trick Shots is active before casting it.
17. Use Trueshot, your main cooldown, as many times as possible during the fight. Save it for important add spawns and damage amplification phases.
18. Use Rapid Fire on cooldown. Make sure that Trick Shots is active before casting it.
19. Use Aimed Shot on cooldown. You should try to spend all of your Precise Shots stacks first. Make sure that Trick Shots is active before casting it.
20. Use Volley on cooldown. Hold one use for right before activating Trueshot so that you can extend the Volley throughout. You can macro Salvo into it at a small DPS loss. See entry below. Check out the AddOns and Macros page if you have not.
21. Useful minmax for Salvo during Trueshot is to unmacro/decouple it from Volley, and use it later in Trueshot when you have 10 stacks of Unerring Vision, or simply if more AoE mobs spawn later in your cooldowns.
22. Use Chimaera Shot on up to 2 targets to spend your Precise Shots stacks and when you have over 55 Focus
23. Cast Kill Shot when available to spend Razor Fragments procs. During Trueshot, do this only as a filler. Which means almost never.
24. Cast Multi-Shot to apply Trick Shots if it is down. You should also cast it to spend your Precise Shots stacks when above 55 Focus, and you should also cast it if you have 10 stacks of Bulletstorm.
25. Cast Kill Shot whenever it is available and you have more than 45 Focus, as a filler.
26. Use Steady Shot when you have nothing else to do as a filler.