Marksmanship Hunter PvP Guide in Battle for Azeroth (BfA 8.2.5)

Marksmanship Hunters are a strong Hunter specialization right now. They are unique because, depending on your playstyle, you can AoE a team down with spells like Multi-Shot, or you can have strong single-target damage with spells like Arcane Shot and Aimed Shot. On top of all of this damage, they also have strong crowd control abilities.

• Multiple tools versus teams with DoTs
• Decent mobility
• Strong burst damage

• Long burst cooldown
• Weak to teams with multiple stuns
• Need help from teammates to land crowd control

The stat priority for Marksmanship Hunter in PvP is as follows:

1. Agility;
2. Haste;
3. Mastery;
4. Critical Strike;
5. Versatility.

Agility is the best stat in all situations. Haste is the strongest secondary stat at all times due to it reducing the Global Cooldown on abilities and the cast time of your abilities. Mastery is also crucial as it increases the range and damage of all of your damaging spells.

Essences allow players to customize their characters while adding a new ability to use. This section will cover the best overall Azerite Essences for Marksmanship Hunters in PvP. For a general guide to all the essences, as well as how to obtain them and increase their ranks, check out our Essence Guide.

Memory of Lucid Dreams increases your Focus regeneration rate by 100%. This will allow you to use more abilities while your burst cooldowns are active and will increase your overall damage output.

If you would rather have a shorter cooldown ability, Blood of the Enemy is another good option. This deals AoE damage around you and increases your Critical Strike change against any enemy that was hit for 10 seconds. The cooldown of this Major Power lines up well with abilities like Trueshot.

If you are having trouble kiting away from enemies with multiple stuns, Ripple in Space gives you a teleport every 60 seconds. This can be used defensively to kite away from incoming damage on you. It can also be used aggressively to trap the enemy healer or to chase after an enemy.

In addition to having a Major Essence, you can choose two Minor Essences to place in your neck at Heart of Azeroth Levels 55 and 65.

Vision of Perfection reduces the cooldown of Trueshot. The reason this should be taken is because most players will line up their Gladiator's Medallion with your Trueshot (both have 2 minute cooldowns). This trait gives you a small window to use your burst cooldowns on a player that will not have a trinket.

Memory of Lucid Dreams gives your spells and abilities a chance to refund 50% of the Focus spent on them and heal you. This is great for increasing your damage, as you will frequently be refunded Focus throughout a match.

Azerite traits are unlocked in you helm, shoulders and chest. With each Azerite level in your neck, you get closer to unlocking the center trait in your gear. These traits vary from increasing damage of certain abilities to helping increase your survivability. Depending on what traits you use, it can completely alter your playstyle and what talents you should be using.

Below are the best Outer Ring traits.

1. Surging Shots
2. Focused Fire
3. Unerring Vision
4. In The Rhythm

Marksmanship Hunters do not depend on a single trait to do well in PvP. Instead, you want to have multiple different traits in your Azerite gear. Surging Shots and In The Rhythm increase the damage of your Rapid Fire. Focused Fire increases both your damage and Focus regeneration, which is great if you feel you do not have enough Focus through an arena match.

Below are the best Middle Ring traits.

1. Heed My Call
2. Overwhelming Power
3. Earthlink
4. Gutripper

The Middle and Inner rings are important for additional damage and stat bonuses. All of the traits above do exactly this. These traits are best for providing small damage or stat boosts and results in increasing your overall damage output.

Below are the best Inner Ring traits.

1. Duck and Cover
2. Nature's Salve
3. Impassive Visage
4. Gemhide

All of these traits give you additional ways of surviving. These are all passive, but are crucial to have.

In general, Marksmanship Hunters want to get trinkets that line up well with Trueshot. These trinkets can have a passive or on-use effect. The stats you want to be increasing are either Agility or Haste. The Agility will provide a very large increase to your damage and Haste increases your attack speed and reduces your the cast time of your spells, resulting in an increase to your damage output.

To be successful in 3v3 arena, you need the outer two rings to have a combination of Focused Fire, Surging Shots or Steady Aim. You will also want either Overwhelming Power or Heed My Call in the third tier.

Below, we list the items that have these traits.

• Sweete's Jeweled Headgear;
• Electrified Crown of Rahu'ai;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Headpiece;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Headpiece;
• Charged SP1-R1-73D Bionic Bifocals;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Coif;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Coif.

• Cannoneer's Mantle;
• Pauldrons of Ancestral Vengeance;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Spaulders;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Spaulders;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Shoulderguards;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Shoulderguards.

• Tri-Heart Chestguard;
• Gonk's Scale Robes;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Hauberk;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chain Hauberk;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chainmail;
• Notorious Gladiator's Chainmail.

Notorious Gladiator's Maledict is absolutely the best trinket you can have. The on-use damage and healing absorption is capable of forcing defensives by itself. This can be used by itself or while you are using your burst rotation to force multiple cooldowns out of enemy teams.

Notorious Gladiator's Medallion is good because of the Agility and the on-use Versatility effect. This increases your overall damage and lines up well with your burst cooldowns.

Notorious Gladiator's Insignia provides a passive boost to your Versatility. This will increase your survivability versus teams that focus you. It also has a passive proc effect that will increase your Agility. This is a solid choice if you just want to increase your sustained damage and want to survive while in a stun.

Darkmoon Deck: Fathoms is not an item you get from PvP. Instead, you will have to look at the auction house or find an someone with the Inscription profession. This trinket also gives a passive effect. You cannot control the proc, but the damage this trinket can do is substantial. You will quickly notice a large increase to your overall damage.

Enchant Weapon - Quick Navigation is the best weapon enchant. The Haste proc that you get from this enchant is great for increasing your sustained damage. This enchant provides the largest boost to your overall damage output.

Level	Choices
15	✘ Master Marksman	✘ Serpent Sting	✔ A Murder of Crows
30	✔ Careful Aim	✘ Volley	✘ Explosive Shot
45	✘ Trailblazer	✔ Natural Mending	✔ Camouflage
60	✘ Steady Focus	✔ Streamline	✘ Hunter's Mark
75	✘ Born To Be Wild	✔ Posthaste	? Binding Shot
90	✘ Lethal Shots	✘ Barrage	✔ Double Tap
100	✘ Calling the Shots	✔ Lock and Load	✘ Piercing Shot

While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.

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.

Careful Aim is the best choice in this tier. This talent makes it much easier to swap targets who are above 80% health. It also helps with securing kills on enemies who are low on health.

Natural Mending is the best choice in this tier. This talent is crucial for reducing the cooldown of Exhilaration. This will help increase your overall survivability versus teams that will be focusing you. However, if you are playing with a partner who has a Stealth ability like Rogue or Feral, Camouflage is the better choice. This will give you team a very strong opener.

Streamline is the best choice in this tier. This increase your sustained and burst damage.

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. However, if you do not need the additional movement speed from Posthaste, Binding Shot is also a good choice to help you land crowd control or kite incoming damage.

Double Tap is the best choice in this tier. This provides strong on-demand burst damage and crucial for securing kills. You will want to use this once the enemy healer is in crowd control. Something to note is that this has the same cooldown as A Murder of Crows and you will often be pairing these two cooldowns together.

Lock and Load is the best choice in this tier. This gives your auto attacks a chance to make you next Aimed Shot instant and cost no Focus. As a result, this increases your overall damage output.

The first PvP talent tier will give you a choice between Gladiator's Medallion, Relentless, and Adaptation. Gladiator's Medallion is the best choice in this tier. It is great for removing crowd control on you that your healer cannot dispel. Normally, you should save your trinket for Aspect of the Turtle.

Roar of Sacrifice instructs your pet to protect a friendly target from critical strikes, making attacks against that target unable to be critical strikes, but 20% of all damage taken by that target is also taken by the pet. It lasts 12 seconds and this is a powerful defensive cooldown that is helpful for you and your teammates. With a cooldown of only 1 minute, this is an ability that your healer can call-out to use if they are stuck in crowd control. This is a mandatory PvP talent.

Scatter Shot is crucial for your crowd control. It is a targeted shot that incapacitates the target for 4 seconds. This is crucial for your crowd control if your teammates cannot help you setup your Freezing Trap. You can also use this to help one of your teammates stay alive if they are being focused. Something to note is that Scatter Shot shares a diminishing return with Freezing Trap, so it will only be a 3.5-second trap. This is a mandatory PvP talent.

Sniper Shot is another cooldown you can add to your damage rotation. This has a very long cast time, 3 seconds, and deals 20% of the target's health. This talent is great when you are not the focus target and are able to freely cast your abilities.

Survival Tactics causes Feign Death to remove all harmful magical effects, and reduces damage taken by 99% for 1.5 seconds. This is a mandatory talent when playing against classes with multiple DoTs (Affliction Warlock, Shadow Priest, Balance Druid). This reduces the enemies' overall damage and helps your healer with dispelling harmful effects. You can also use this to stop incoming spells that are being cast on you. You can replace Sniper Shotwith this PvP talent.

Dragonscale Armor reduces all magical DoT effects dealt to you by 20%. This is crucial versus teams and classes that have multiple DoTs. You can replace Sniper Shot with this PvP talent.

Racial bonuses can provide interesting PvP benefits. Here are the best races to choose for each faction. The races are sorted from highest impact in arena to lowest. However, all races below have their own unique ways of making an impact in a PvP match.

The Orc racial bonus ( Hardiness) is great for reducing the duration of stuns on you. This is absolutely the best Horde racial to have if you are primarily focusing on PvP. In addition to Hardiness, Orcs also have the Blood Fury racial. This is off the global cooldown and should be used when you are using your burst rotation.

The Blood Elf racial bonus ( Arcane Torrent) has multiple effects. The primary use for this ability is that it removes 1 beneficial effect from all enemies in range. This is great for removing abilities such as Blessing of Protection from Paladins or Soul of the Forest from Restoration Druids. It can also be used versus players using the The Crucible of Flame Major Essence to remove the stacks it creates. The other effect is that it restores resources based on what specialization you are.

The Troll racial bonus ( Berserking) grants you a large amount of Haste. You should activate this ability right before you are using important cooldowns or to cast crowd control faster. Another racial to note is Da Voodoo Shuffle. This significantly reduces the duration of slows on you and will help when kiting enemy players that are focusing you.

The Human racial bonus ( Every Man for Himself) is a great way to get out of stuns. If you think you will be the focus target versus teams with multiple stuns, this race allows you to play Relentless. This will help increase your overall survivability. It is also important to note that Humans also have The Human Spirit. This increases your secondary stats (Haste, Critical Strike, Mastery, Versatility). This is another beneficial reason to play Human.

The Dark Iron Dwarf racial bonus ( Fireblood) removes all bleeds, poisons, magical, and curse debuffs and increases your primary stat by 750 and an additional 250 for each effect removed. This is a great racial to use defensively. However, you can use this to remove debuffs right before you use your burst rotation to increase your primary stat.

The Dwarf racial bonus ( Stoneform) removes Poison, Disease, Magic, and bleed effects. In addition to this, it reduces all Physical damage taken by 10%. This racial can make a large impact versus teams that have multiple Bleed or Magical damage over time abilities. It is also important to note that this racial lines up with the cooldown from Maledict trinkets and can be used to remove the absorption that is placed on you from Maledict. Another example is removing bleeds versus Assassination Rogues or Feral Druids that are focusing you. This will significantly slow down the damage being dealt to you.

The Gnome racial bonus ( Escape Artist) removes any movement speed reduction effects on you. With only a 1-minute cooldown, this can be used both defensively or offensively. You can use this to help kite incoming damage or use it to remove slows on you while chasing down an enemy. Another racial that Gnome provides is Expansive Mind. This will increase your maximum Focus, which helps with not running out of resources.

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. You should not try to burst an enemy down unless the healer is on crowd control. You have multiple cooldowns that have a short cooldown and you should take advantage of this. You also want to make sure you are using your Aimed Shot charges as often as you can.

If you are playing against a team with stealth, make sure to use Flare to try to reveal them. If you are playing with someone that has a stealth, make sure to use Camouflage.

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, Scatter 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.

1. Use Concussive Shot to slow your target.
2. Cast Aimed Shot.
3. Use Arcane Shot as a filler if you cannot cast Aimed Shot and use it when you have the Precise Shots buff.
4. Cast Aimed Shot.
5. Use Aimed Shots when Lock and Load procs.
6. The Precise Shots buff:
   • You can 2 stacks after landing a Aimed Shot.
   • Use Arcane Shot for strong single target damage.
7. Cast Steady Shot to generate focus.
8. Use your burst rotation.
9. After your burst, perform your sustained damage rotation until your burst cooldowns are available.

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 Scatter Shot and Freezing Trap.

1. Cast Sniper Shot
2. Use Blood of the Enemy if you are using this Major Essence.
3. Use Trueshot
4. Use A Murder of Crows.
5. Use Arcane Shot with the Precise Shots buff.
6. Cast Aimed Shot.
7. Use Arcane Shot.
8. Use Memory of Lucid Dreams if you are low on Focus and using this Major Essence.
9. Use Double Tap.
10. Use Rapid Fire.
11. Use any Aimed Shots when Lock and Load procs.
12. Use Arcane Shot when you have Precise Shots stacks or as a filler.
13. Cast Aimed Shot.

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.

1. Use Aimed Shot as often as you can.
   • You never want to be capped on stacks of Aimed Shot. You should always have a charge regenerating.
   • It is also important to never Aimed Shot two times in a row. This will result in you losing your Precise Shots stacks.
2. Use Arcane Shot after you use Aimed Shot. You should also use it as a filler when you have high Focus./li>
3. Use Rapid Fire for strong single target damage.
   • This is often paired with Double Tap, so make sure you have Rapid Fire available when you are using Double Tap.
4. Use Steady Shot to generate Focus.
5. Use Memory of Lucid Dreams if you are low on Focus and using this Major Essence.
6. Cast Sniper Shot when you are able to cast it without being interrupted.
7. Use Aimed Shot when you get Lock and Load procs.
8. Use A Murder of Crows for pressure.

Pets do not have talent trees, and instead have their own types of specialization (Cunning, Ferocity, or Tenacity).

Each specialization gives your pet a few abilities. Cunning provides the ability Master's Call and the Mortal Wounds debuff, so we consider it to be the best specialization.

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.

Now that you have the correct talents and understand your damage rotation, it is time to step into the arena with your team. Marksmanship Hunters have a very strong burst cooldown in the form of Trueshot. This cooldown paired with multiple crowd control abilities make this spec a threat versus any team.

In 2v2 Arena, you do not have many options. Trueshot has a 3-minute cooldown and it is crucial to use it at the correct time. Before you use your burst rotation, try to make the enemy healer use their trinket. If you are playing with a Holy Paladin or Restoration Druid, they should use their stun to start the crowd control. Follow that up with a Freezing Trap and Scatter Shot. At the same time you should be doing your sustained damage rotation. When the enemy healer is starting to fall behind in healing or uses their trinket, you should use your burst rotation. With this strategy you are trying to do so much single-target damage to a target that the enemy healer will not be able to heal through it.

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 2v2:

• Marksmanship Hunter + Discipline Priest
• Marksmanship Hunter + Restoration Druid
• Marksmanship Hunter + Holy Paladin
• Marksmanship Hunter + Holy Priest

Your role in 3v3 is similar to 2v2 Arena. You will be focusing on maximizing your single target damage while still crowd controlling the enemy healer with Scatter Shot and Freezing Trap. When you start the crowd control chain, your teammate should stun the kill target and then use your burst rotation. You do not always have to stun the kill target. If your team only has one reliable stun like Hammer of Justice or Mighty Bash, it is best to use it on the enemy healer.

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 3v3:

• Jungle (Marksmanship Hunter + Feral Druid + Holy Paladin/Discipline Priest)
• Cupid (Marksmanship Hunter + Retribution Paladin + Restoration Druid/ Discipline Priest)
• Marksmanship Hunter + Arms Warrior + Restoration Shaman/Holy Paladin

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.

• #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.

• #showtooltip Concussive Shot
• /cast [target=focus] Concussive Shot

This macro will use Concussive Shot on whichever enemy you have on focus. This is crucial for when you need to slow the enemy healer to land a Freezing Trap.

• #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.