Marksmanship Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Dragonflight / Patch 10.0.5)

Last updated on Jan 30, 2023 at 13:14 by Azortharion 21 comments

PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, damaging them, bursting them down, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilizes your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as a Marksmanship Hunter, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.

This page is part of our Marksmanship Hunter PvP Guide.

1.

Playstyle for Marksmanship Hunters

The main role for a Marksmanship Hunter is simple: use your mobility to land Freezing Trap Icon 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 Icon Aimed Shot charges as often as you can.

1.1.

Before Gates Open

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

2.

Offensive Rotation

2.1.

How to Crowd Control

Before going into how to deal damage as a Marksmanship Hunter, it is important to know how to crowd control the enemy team. Hunter comps rely heavily on landing Freezing Trap Icon Freezing Trap on the enemy healer and requires some setup. Normally, you will have a Rogue or Paladin on your team that can stun before you Freezing Trap, but here are some ways you can crowd control an enemy without help from teammates:

  1. Using Scatter Shot Icon Scatter Shot:
    • Use Scatter Shot Icon Scatter Shot on the enemy healer.
    • Use Freezing Trap Icon Freezing Trap.
    • Ideally, you want to stun someone and then use Freezing Trap. Scatter Shot and Freezing Trap are on the same DR and their durations are cut in half if used one after the other.
  2. Using Binding Shot Icon Binding Shot:
2.2.

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 Icon Freezing Trap, Scatter Shot Icon Scatter Shot, and Chimaeral Sting Icon Chimaeral 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 Flare Icon Flare if you are playing against an enemy that can stealth.
  2. Use Double Tap Icon Double Tap if you are certain that you can finish your Rapid Fire Icon Rapid Fire in its window.
  3. Use Death Chakram Icon Death Chakram
  4. Cast Trueshot Icon Trueshot.
  5. Cast Rapid Fire Icon Rapid Fire.
2.3.

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 Scatter Shot Icon Scatter Shot and Freezing Trap Icon Freezing Trap.

  1. Use Death Chakram Icon Death Chakram
  2. Use Trueshot Icon Trueshot
  3. Use Aimed Shot Icon Aimed Shot.
  4. Use Rapid Fire Icon Rapid Fire.
  5. Use Aimed Shot Icon Aimed Shot.
  6. Use Rapid Fire Icon Rapid Fire.
  7. Use Aimed Shot Icon Aimed Shot.
  8. Use Kill Shot Icon Kill Shot if an enemy drops below 20% health.
2.4.

Sustained damage

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

  1. If you get Deathblow Icon Deathblow procs that allow for free Kill Shot Icon Kill Shots, use them immediately!
  2. Maintain Concussive Shot Icon Concussive Shot on your target if they are mobile, ideally using Steady Shot Icon Steady Shot to refresh it.
  3. Use Aimed Shot Icon Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire Icon Rapid Fire as often as you can.
  4. Use Double Tap Icon Double Tap when you can free-cast Rapid Fire Icon Rapid Fire
  5. Use Arcane Shot Icon Arcane Shot after you use Aimed Shot Icon Aimed Shot to increase its damage.
  6. Use Death Chakram Icon Death Chakram
  7. Use Steady Shot Icon Steady Shot to generate Focus. Use them in pairs for Steady Focus Icon Steady Focus
  8. Use Kill Shot Icon Kill Shot if an enemy drops below 20% health.
3.

Defensive Techniques

Survival of the Fittest Icon Survival of the Fittest is not a technique as much as it is simply a powerful defensive. It has a moderately long cooldown, though, and you should take care to only use it on your enemy's cooldowns.

Fortitude of the Bear Icon Fortitude of the Bear is available to you even when you do not have a pet summoned. This not only increases your maximum health like it says, but it also heals you for this same amount so that you are left with increased current HP after using it.

Feign Death Icon Feign Death can be your main defensive tool due to your Survival Tactics Icon Survival Tactics PvP Talent. Use it as often as possible while you are being targeted to force the enemy to re-target you, drop DoTs, and reduce damage taken.

Aspect of the Turtle Icon 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 Icon Freezing Trap on an enemy healer could be crucial.

Exhilaration Icon Exhilaration is a very strong instant heal. Try to stagger Aspect of the Turtle Icon Aspect of the Turtle and Exhilaration and you will be very hard to kill.

Roar of Sacrifice Icon 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.

4.

Macros

It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.

5.

Changelog

  • 30 Jan. 2023: Updated the page for relevant changes in Patch 10.0.5.
  • 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
  • 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
  • 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
  • 22 Feb. 2022: Updated and restructured the Opener and Burst DPS Rotations and clarified Lock and Load/Concussive Shot usage. Added Death Chakram.
  • 10 Nov. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.1.5.
  • 06 Jul. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.1.
  • 18 Mar. 2021: Updated Burst and Sustained Damage rotations.
  • 05 Dec. 2020: Updated Rotations to include Covenant Abilities.
  • 29 Nov. 2020: Removed outdated Traits and Essences.
  • 11 Nov. 2020: Updated all Burst and Sustained damage rotations.
  • 15 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch (9.0.1)
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