Marksmanship Hunter PvP Guide (Legion 7.3.5)
Table of Contents
Introduction
This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to play a Marksmanship Hunter in a PvP environment. The guide will cover everything from talent choices, artifacts, gameplay and rotation, and useful racial bonuses. It is most applicable to Arena content, but most talents and racial bonuses will work in Rated Battlegrounds and skirmishes.
About The Author
This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved Arena Master and 2500 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
1. Spec Overview / Place in the Current Meta for Marksmanship Hunters
Marksmanship Hunters are probably the strongest Hunter specialization right
now. They are unique because, depending on your playstyle, you can AoE a team
down with spells like Windburst and
Marked Shot, or you can
have strong single-target damage with spells like Windburst and
Aimed Shot. On top of all of this damage, they also have strong crowd
control abilities.
1.1. Strengths of Marksmanship Hunter
- Great control
- Decent mobility
- Strong burst damage
1.2. Weaknesses of Marksmanship Hunter
- Long burst cooldown
- Weak to teams with multiple stuns
- Very few defensive cooldowns
2. Talent Choices for Marksmanship Hunters
Regular talents work in both PvP and PvE content (although they may sometimes work differently in the two environments, which is indicated by their tooltips). In other words, they are always active.
On the other hand, Honor talents are inactive outside of a PvP environment.
2.1. Regular Talents for Marksmanship Hunters
2.1.1. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
If you are playing with a class that can apply the Mortal Wounds
debuff,
Lone Wolf is the best choice in this tier. This will increase
your overall sustained damage.
If you are not playing with a class that can apply Mortal Wounds
debuff,
Careful Aim is the best choice in this tier. This talent will
make it easier to start getting pressure on targets at full health.
2.1.2. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
Black Arrow is the best choice in this tier. This applies a
relatively strong DoT to the enemy that will increase your sustained
damage.
If you want more burst damage, Lock and Load is the best choice in
this tier. This talent gives you the potential to deal large amounts of damage
in a short period of time.
2.1.3. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
Posthaste is the best choice in this tier. This gives you even more
mobility. It will allow you to run away from enemies if they are focusing
you.
2.1.4. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
Patient Sniper is the best choice in this tier. This talent is an
overall increase to your consistent damage.
2.1.5. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
If you are playing with partners that do not have many stuns,
Binding Shot is the best choice in this tier. This will help you get
away from enemy melee or land crowd control on the enemy healer. If your team
does have multiple stuns,
Wyvern Sting will be the choice.
2.1.6. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
A Murder of Crows is the best choice in this
tier. This ability is a very strong offensive cooldown that should be used when
trying to secure a kill.
2.1.7. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
If your team is focusing on single target pressure, Trick Shot is
the best choice in this tier. This talent deals a large amount of damage and
is very important for strong consistent damage.
If you are playing against a team with two melee or a team that will be
stacked, Sidewinders is the best choice in this tier. This gives your
team strong spread pressure.
2.2. Honor Talents for Marksmanship Hunters
2.2.1. Tier 1 Talents
If you are playing against a team with multiple stuns, Relentless
is the best choice in this tier. Marksmanship Hunters are weak to stuns, so
reducing their duration greatly improves survivability.
If you are not and want an on-demand trinket, Gladiator's Medallion
is the best choice in this tier. It is the standard PvP trinket effect with a
2-minute cooldown.
2.2.2. Tier 2 Talents
Quickshots is the best choice in this tier. The Haste gained from
this talent will increase your overall damage output.
2.2.3. Tier 3 Talents
If you are playing against a team with a melee on it,
Catlike Reflexes is the best choice in this tier. This grants dodge
when you score a Critical Strike, which can help avoid enemy damage, greatly
improving survivability.
If you are playing against a team with two casters, you should take
Survival Tactics in this tier. This makes
Feign Death a very
important cooldown. It can be used to avoid incoming crowd control and, with
this talent, you can remove all magical debuffs.
2.2.4. Tier 4 Talents
The best choice in this tier is Spider Sting. This allows more
control when playing against casters, and it can be used to stop incoming crowd control.
2.2.5. Tier 5 Talents
T.N.T. is the best choice in this tier. This increases the
range of
Bursting Shot making it a more reliable way of
getting crowd control on enemy healers.
2.2.6. Tier 6 Talents
Ranger's Finesse is the best choice in this tier. This talent is
incredibly important for having access to your strong cooldowns faster.
3. Racial Bonuses for Marksmanship Hunters
Racial bonuses can provide interesting PvP benefits. Here are the best races to choose for each faction.
3.1. Horde
The passive Orc racial bonus ( Hardiness) is great if you find
yourself being stunned a lot and having a hard time against melee classes.
The Blood Elf Silence ( Arcane Torrent) is really strong as well.
This adds to the crowd control you can bring to the table.
3.2. Alliance
The Human racial bonus ( Every Man for Himself) is a great way to get
out of stuns.
4. Playstyle for Marksmanship Hunters
The main role for a Marksmanship Hunter is simple: use your mobility to land
Freezing Traps on the enemy healer and use your strong single-target
cooldowns to burst your enemies down. Make sure you pay attention to applying
Vulnerable to the enemy team, and also to the
Marking Targets
buff you gain. Tracking these will help you deal the maximum amount
of damage that a Marksmanship Hunter can do.
4.1. Before Gates Open
If you are playing against a team with
stealth, make sure to use Flare to try to reveal them.
4.2. The Opener
The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control chain and damage done
as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force
your enemies to use their cooldowns. If the enemy healer uses their trinket in
the opener, they are in trouble. Marksmanship Hunters have
Freezing Trap,
Bursting Shot, and
Spider Sting, which
can help to this end.
This is the rotation you should use on your target at the beginning of the game.
- Use
Black Arrow on your kill target if you are talented into it.
- Use
Sidewinders to apply
Vulnerable if you are talented into it.
- Use
Arcane Shot/
Multi-Shot when
Marking Targets procs.
- Use
Marked Shot to apply
Vulnerable.
- Cast
Aimed Shot.
- Use
Arcane Shot as a filler and to generate Focus.
- Use
Marking Targets procs to be able to use
Marked Shot.
- Use
Aimed Shots when
Lock and Load procs.
- Use
A Murder of Crows if your teammate needs time to burst.
- Use your burst rotation.
- After your burst, perform your sustained damage rotation until your burst cooldowns are available.
4.3. Offensive Rotation
4.3.1. Burst Damage
When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill
an enemy, you use your burst damage. You can use your own crowd control, such
as Bursting Shot and
Freezing Trap.
- Use
Black Arrow if you are talented into it.
- Cast
Windburst.
- Use
A Murder of Crows.
- Use
Sidewinders or
Marked Shot to apply
Vulnerable.
- Use
Trueshot.
- Use any
Aimed Shots when
Lock and Load procs.
- Cast
Aimed Shot.
- Cast
Aimed Shot.
- Use
Arcane Shot/
Sidewinders as a filler.
- Use
Marked Shot to apply
Vulnerable.
- Cast
Aimed Shot.
- Cast
Aimed Shot.
4.3.2. Sustained damage
Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.
- Maintain
Vulnerable on the kill target at all times.
- If you cannot maintain it on all targets, have it active on your kill target.
- Use
Black Arrow if you are talented into it.
- Use
Sidewinders to refresh
Vulnerable if you are talented into it.
- Use
Arcane Shot/
Multi-Shot when
Marking Targets procs.
- Use
Marked Shot to apply
Vulnerable.
- Cast
Aimed Shot.
- Use
Arcane Shot to regenerate Focus.
- Use
Marked Shot.
- Use
Aimed Shot when you get
Lock and Load procs.
- Cast
Windburst for strong single-target damage.
- Use
A Murder of Crows for pressure.
4.4. Defensive Techniques
Aspect of the Turtle is our main defensive cooldown. Use this when the
enemy team is focusing you down and your healer can not heal you through the
damage or is stuck in crowd control. Although you can not attack with this
cooldown active, you still have the ability to trap. Using this to ignore
incoming attacks and using
Freezing Trap on an enemy healer could be
crucial.
Exhilaration is a very strong instant heal. Try
to stagger
Aspect of the Turtle and Exhilaration and you will be very
hard to kill.
Roar of Sacrifice is a great utility ability for you or your
teammates. This makes the teammate you use this on immune to being Critical
Strikes by spells and transfers 20% of the damage they are taking to your pet.
Use this when the enemy team is using their cooldowns on a teammate or yourself
and not many defensive cooldowns are available.
5. Useful Macros for Marksmanship Hunters
Macros are crucial to be successful in PvP. They allow players to use abilities on enemies without having to target them. This helps increase overall damage/healing and general awareness in the arena. Here are a few macros that all Marksmanship Hunters can benefit from.
5.1. Sting Focus Macro
- #showtooltip
- /cast [pvptalent:4/1,@focus] Viper Sting; [pvptalent:4/2,@focus] Scorpid Sting; [@focus] Spider Sting
You will often be changing your tier 4 honor talents. This is an all-in-one macro that switches depending on which talent you take. This macro will also use the ability on your focus target, saving a lot of action bar space.
5.2. Wyvern Sting Macro
- #showtooltip Wyvern Sting
- /cast [target=focus] Wyvern Sting
If you find that you do not have much room on your action bars, you
can use a focus macro. This is much simpler to use than the arena123
macro. Put an enemy on focus and this macro will cast Wyvern Sting
on that player while you are still focused on your target.
5.3. Counter Shot Focus Macro
- #showtooltip Counter Shot
- /cast [target=focus] Counter Shot
This macro will use Counter Shot on whichever enemy you have
on focus. Because you will be primarily using
Counter Shot on the
enemy healer, you should only need this focus macro.
5.4. Roar of Sacrifice party Macro
- #showtooltip Roar of Sacrifice
- /cast [target=party1] Roar of Sacrifice
Using this macro will use Roar of Sacrifice on party player 1. This
makes it easier to use this defensive on a teammate while damaging the rest of
your team. If you want a macro to use
Roar of Sacrifice the second
party member, change the party1 to party2.
6. Gear for Marksmanship Hunters
With regards to gear, the biggest change in Legion is that there is no more PvP gear. Your strength in PvP will be determined based on the average item level of your gear (as displayed on your character sheet). For example, the base item level at level 110 is 800, so your stats in PvP will be adjusted accordingly. For every 10 item levels you gain, your stats are increased by 1%.
The implication is that it does not matter where your gear comes from, and all that matters is its item level. Gear from quests or PvE content is just as good as gear you get as a reward from PvP (which, in fact, will be very similar to PvE gear; there are no more PvP stats on gear).
Practically, you will simply look to collect gear with the highest item levels possible, and the stat distribution on the gear will not matter.
7. Artifact Traits for Marksmanship Hunters
Below, we will explain what the recommended order for artifact traits is, if you wish to maximise your PvP potential. It is quite possible that your artifact path (at the time of reading this guide) differs from our suggestions. If this is the case, do not worry, and use the information below to help you understand your traits and guide your future choices.
If you have suddenly decided that you want to turn to PvP, the best thing to
do in your artifact progression is continue to your closest Golden trait, and
then follow the recommendations below. Picking up the most useful traits
( Healing Shell,
Quick Shot,
Survival of the Fittest and
Rapid Killing) along the
way is a great way to boost your potential.
7.1. First Golden Trait
The first Golden trait you want to reach is
Call of the Hunter.
- Take
Wind Arrows.
- Take
Quick Shot.
- Take
Critical Focus.
- Take
Survival of the Fittest
- Take
Call of the Hunter.
7.2. Second Golden Trait
The second Golden trait to go for is Bullseye.
- Take
Precision.
- Take
Marked for Death.
- Take
Bullseye.
7.3. Remaining Traits
After this, you should head for your last Golden trait,
Legacy of the Windrunners, picking up any remaining traits after
that.
Healing Shell,
Mark of the Windrunner, and
Rapid Killing are the traits that should be taken before the final
golden trait.
8. Relics for Marksmanship Hunters
Relics are disabled in PvP, so they are not a concern to you.
9. ChangeLog
- 10 Apr. 2018: Made several updates to the guide and its structure.
- Added sections for Macros, Strengths, and Weaknesses.
- Moved Gear, Artifact Traits, and Relics sections to the end, since they are not that important.
- 13 Feb. 2018: No major changes needed for patch 7.3.5.
- 24 Dec. 2017: No major changes needed for patch 7.3.2.
- 23 Sep. 2017: Several changes made for Patch 7.3
- Removed Artifact Trait descriptions.
- Changed recommended tier 1, 2 and 7 regular talents.
- Changed recommended tier 7 honor talents.
- Updated sustained and burst damage rotations.
- 17 Jul. 2017: Changed recommended tier 6 honor talent.
- 26 Apr. 2017: Marksmanship Hunter PvP guide created.



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