Marksmanship Hunter PvP Guide (Dragonflight 10.2)

Marksmanship Hunter is a consistently underrated Hunter specialization with enormous burst and crowd control potential.

The Marksmanship damage rotation seems simple at first but leaves a lot of space for skill expression and outplay potential. There is almost no "ramp" in the damage rotation, which combined with the longest range in the game makes Marksmanship Hunters lethal when switching targets, even when they do not commit long cooldowns.

Once you are comfortable setting up your burst so that it does not get interrupted, timing your crowd control windows, and maximizing your consistent damage outside of cooldowns, Marksmanship is an incredibly fun and rewarding specialization.

Marksmanship rewards opportunistic and aggressive play. You win by setups, bursts, and punishing enemies that misuse defensives or position poorly. Marksmanship is not a spec that wins by attrition or dampening, and an aggressive playstyle is how it competes with other specializations that may be more forgiving when it comes to defensive play or crowd control.

Strengths

• Lethal burst damage when freecasting
• High sustained damage
• Decent mobility and kiting tools
• Mortal strike from pets
• Support for team with Roar of Sacrifice, Master's Call, Sentinel's Perception or Interlope

Weaknesses

• Weak to teams with multiple stuns and other instant crowd control
• Needs help from teammates to land crowd control
• Less crowd control than other ranged specs and all on comparatively long cooldowns
• Heavily relies on landing Freezing Trap at the right moment and timing Scatter Shot effectively
• Being able to do damage effectively relies on having knowledge of which targets are able to stop your casts

• Entrapment now shares diminishing returns with other root abilities
• Hunter's Mark now increases all damage taken by the target by 5% while the target is above 80% maximum health
• Hunter's Mark now has a 20-second cooldown when used in combat
• Windrunner's Guidance has been redesigned. Each Wind Arrow fired now reduces the cooldown of Rapid Fire by 0.5 seconds, and every 8 wind arrows increases the duration of your next Trueshot by 1 second, up to a maximum of 10 seconds
• Survival Tactics has been redesigned. Feign Death reduces damage taken by 90% for 3 seconds

The Entrapment change is more of an overdue bug fix. Despite being a nerf, this will not have much impact on the way that Marksmanship Hunter plays or its viability in Arena.

The Hunter's Mark change is a nice bonus in most matchups. You will have slightly more damage on your opener, and another button that you can press whilst disarmed at zero focus cost to maintain damage.

The Downside of the Hunter's Mark change is that when facing stealth classes you will not be able to reapply Hunter's Mark with no cooldown.

The Windrunner's Guidance change is interesting. If you're able to freecast Aimed Shot on cooldown, your next Trueshot will last for 28 seconds. In Arena you will rarely be able to extend your Trueshot by the maximum duration, but you will be able to add a couple of seconds (usually around six) which means your Trueshot lasts longer than almost all enemy defensive cooldowns. A lot of the time this won't matter because most 3v3 games and solo shuffle rounds are shorter than two minutes, but it is very powerful in longer games where you can freecast.

The second effect of the Windrunner's Guidance (cooldown reduction on Rapid Fire) has great synergy with the damage profile and tier set of Marksmanship Hunter in Patch 10.2. This is also a big deal because Rapid Fire is your main source of focus regeneration and you will want to take this talent in most matchups.

The Survival Tactics change is either a nerf or a buff depending on matchup. Most of the time, when running Survival Tactics, it's for the damage reduction effect rather than the magic dispel. Into specializations like Elemental Shaman, this change is a big nerf, but into a melee cleave (eg ret/warrior) or setup comp (eg RMP), it is a welcome buff to your survivability.

• The cooldown of Gladiators Medallion is now 90 seconds for all healer specializations (was 120 seconds).
• The Battleground Blitz brawl is a new Brawl coming in Patch 10.2. This is 8v8 solo queue Battleground system. Battleground Blitz is expected to become solo queue Rated battlegrounds in the future.

Whilst not Marksman specific, the healer trinket change may change the status quo with who uses their medallion first. Traditionally the kill target will be the one who uses their trinket first rather than the healer, but with the shorter cooldown on healer medallion it may become the norm for healers to trinket first.

Regardless, it is good practice especially in solo shuffle to tell your healer whether you will trinket first, or if they should trinket first. Either way works, but you are likely to lose if you and your healer trinket at the same time, and very likely to lose if you both hold trinket expecting the other to use theirs.

Battleground Blitz is a new take on Battlegrounds with a much more arcade-like feel. Marksman has always been incredible in random Battlegrounds and is expected to be very powerful in Battleground Blitz once ratings are introduced (likely in season 4 of Dragonflight or The War Within).

• On the Marksmanship Hunter PvP Talents page, you will find an analysis of the talents available to Marksmanship Hunters, as well as an overview of the PvP talents, with advice on which ones to take and under which conditions.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter PvP Pets page, you will find an overview of the advantages of each pet type with advice on which ones to take and under which conditions.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle page, you will learn how to use your spells, depending on the situation (dealing damage, surviving, controlling enemy players, etc.), and what is generally expected of your class and spec in PvP.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter PvP Stat Priority and Gear page, you will find the stat priority to follow in PvP, as well as advice for choosing your gear, which may vary depending on your playstyle and composition.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter PvP Best Races page, you will find lists of the Alliance and Horde races, ranked by how good they are for Marksmanship Hunters in PvP, as well as explanations regarding why and how their racials benefit you.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter PvP Useful Macros page, you will find a collection of useful PvP macros for Marksmanship Hunters.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter Arena Composition page, you will find the list of the most powerful Arena compositions featuring Marksmanship Hunters in both 2v2 and 3v3 modes.