Marksmanship Hunter PvP Best Races and Racials (Season 4)

• Shadowmeld
• Elusiveness
• Nature Resistance
• Touch of Elune

Night Elf is the strongest Alliance race for Marksmanship Hunters as long as you get value from Shadowmeld.

You can use Shadowmeld to completely negate any projectile that has been cast on you. For example, if a warrior casts Storm Bolt and the bolt is in the air, you can Shadowmeld while it is flying, and the Storm Bolt won't hit you.

Shadowmeld can also completely negate any instant spell (eg. Kidney Shot) if your timing is absolutely perfect. This is not an easy thing to do, and unless you really know what you are doing, you will rarely be able to immune spells that are not projectiles.

Shadowmeld can also be used to drop combat to cast Camouflage when Feign Death is on cooldown.

Night Elves gain additional Critical Strike rating during the day and additional Haste rating at night through Touch of Elune. Haste is generally the better stat for Marksmanship in PvP, so if you only play during the day, you lose some value as Night Elf.

• Will to Survive
• The Human Spirit

Human is a reliably strong Alliance race for Marksmanship Hunters and is more forgiving than Night Elf because its strength does not rely on pre-emptive Shadowmeld plays.

With Will to Survive Human Hunters do not need to run a standard 2-minute cooldown PvP trinket ( Verdant Gladiator's Medallion) and can instead choose to play two different trinkets.

Verdant Gladiator's Insignia of Alacrity has a high chance to proc, and when combined with Verdant Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity, you have a high chance of both buffs being active when the game starts and you first use cooldowns.

You can also run Verdant Gladiator's Emblem to make yourself more difficult to kill while still while still gaining the benefits of a badge/insignia trinket.

The downside of playing Human is that your trinket can only be used on stuns and has a three-minute cooldown. In Solo Shuffle as Marksman, this is not such an issue in most cases because your games will rarely last longer than two minutes and most of the time when you do trinket, it is to save yourself from a stun.

In 3v3 Arena if you are playing a composition where you are not often the likely kill target (e.g. playing Jungle Cleave) you may be better off playing with a standard 2-minute cooldown PvP trinket so you are able to remove crowd control effects that aren't stuns when you need to peel for your team (or make aggressive plays when being peeled).

Humans also gain The Human Spirit, a nice stat buff which automatically follows your stat priority (i.e. increases the stats you are already deliberately stacking).

• Fireblood
• Forged in Flames

Dark Iron Dwarf sometimes competes with Human and Night Elf for the best Alliance race purely because of Fireblood. When DoT specializations like Assassination Rogue, Feral Druid, or Unholy Death Knight are very commonly played; this racial is an excellent counter to them.

When these specializations are not commonly played, Human and Night Elf are better races.

Note that Fireblood shares a 30-second cooldown with your Verdant Gladiator's Medallion.

• Blood Fury
• Command
• Hardiness

Orc is the best race for Horde Marksmanship Hunters.

Hardiness is arguably the best racial ability in the game for the arena.

Most classes and comps will aim to kill you in a stun, and this reduces the duration of all stuns, making it more likely you will narrowly survive and be able to use Aspect of the Turtle or Feign Death.

Particularly into specializations like Subtlety Rogue, being an orc can make you a non-viable kill target because they will not be able to apply their second and third Cheap Shot whilst still using their damage rotation.

Blood Fury is also an automatic racial ability - macro it with Trueshot or Death Chakram, and you will get the maximum value from the racial without changing anything about your gameplay.

Command is a passive damage increase that is nice to have, although it is not what makes Orc the best race.

In this section is a list of the other races available, the active and racial abilities they have and any benefits they might give a Marksmanship Hunter.

• Stoneform
• Might of the Mountain
• Frost Resistance

This is similar to Dark Iron Dwarf, but the race is less useful than Fireblood - when you use either into a bleed class, the damage reduction has little value because you've already dispelled their burst, so the agility buff is worth more than the damage reduction.

Note that Stoneform shares a 30-second cooldown with your Verdant Gladiator's Medallion

• Escape Artist
• Arcane Resistance
• Expansive Mind
• Nimble Fingers

Gnome can be good for kiting but not much else.

• Gift of the Naaru
• Heroic Presence
• Shadow Resistance

Gift of the Naaru doesn't do enough healing to be worth it.

• Darkflight
• Viciousness
• Aberration

Darkflight isn't needed as hunter.

• Spatial Rift
• Chill of Night
• Entropic Embrace
• Preternatural Calm

This can potentially be good. Not having spell pushback on Aimed Shot can only be a good thing, and Spatial Rift can also be a good ability to kite with.

• Light's Judgment
• Light's Reckoning
• Holy Resistance

• Haymaker
• Brush It Off
• Child of the Sea
• Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Haymaker can sometimes be used to finish kills.

• Hyper Organic Light Originator
• Combat Analysis
• Emergency Failsafe

Emergency Failsafe will occasionally save you.

• Quaking Palm
• Epicurean

Quaking Palm is on the same diminishing return as Freezing Trap and Scatter Shot and will rarely be useful.

• Berserking
• Da Voodoo Shuffle
• Regeneration

Berserking isn't good enough to compete with Orc's Blood Fury and Hardiness.

• War Stomp
• Brawn
• Endurance
• Nature Resistance

You can use Warstomp to set up traps, but it's awkward to use and there are other ways you can trap already.

• Will of the Forsaken
• Cannibalize
• Touch of the Grave
• Shadow Resistance

Will of the Forsaken is occasionally good in certain matchups against fear classes, but being able to break fears isn't essential as a hunter, and getting out of stuns faster is more useful than being able to break some fears.

Note that this shares a 30-second cooldown with your Verdant Gladiator's Medallion

• Arcane Torrent
• Arcane Acuity
• Arcane Resistance

Situations where Arcane Torrent has value are very rare.

• Rocket Jump
• Rocket Barrage
• Time is Money

Rocket Jump is situationally good for kiting.

• Arcane Pulse
• Ancient History
• Magical Affinity
• Arcane Resistance

These racials are not competitive with the other races.

• Bull Rush
• Mountaineer
• Rugged Tenacity

These racials are not competitive with the other races.

• Ancestral Call
• Savage Blood
• Sympathetic Vigor

The pet health increase is nice, but that and the DPS gain from Ancestral Call are unlikely to win you arena games.

• Regeneration
• Embrace of the Loa

Note that Embrace of the Loa gives:

• Embrace of Akunda - Your healing abilities have a chance to heal their target.
• Embrace of Bwonsamdi - Your damaging abilities have a chance to deal with Shadow damage and heal you for 100% of the damage done.
• Embrace of Gonk - Increase movement speed by 5%.
• Embrace of Kimbul - Your damaging abilities have a chance to cause the target to bleed over 6s. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
• Embrace of Krag'wa - Taking damage has a chance to grant you additional Health and 66 Armor.
• Embrace of Pa'ku - Your abilities have a chance to grant you 4% critical strike for 12 seconds.

The speed buff is significant and is a nice thing to have, but Regeneration is canceled on damage and, in 3v3 particularly, is useless.

• Bag of Tricks
• Fire Resistance
• Nose For Trouble

The racials here are not good at the only reason it is ever played is because Nose For Trouble is very strong into Demonology Warlocks.

• Quaking Palm
• Epicurean

Quaking Palm is on the same diminishing return as Freezing Trap and Scatter Shot and will rarely be useful.