Marksmanship Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / Patch 9.0.2)
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.
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. 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.
Before Gates Open
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.
Offensive Rotation
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 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:
- Using
Scatter Shot:
- Use
Scatter Shot on the enemy healer.
- Use
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.
- Use
- Using
Binding Shot:
- Use
Binding Shot near the enemy healer and wait for them to move.
- Use
Freezing Trap once the enemy healer is rooted.
- Use
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,
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.
- Use
Flare if you are playing against an enemy that can stealth.
- Use
Concussive Shot to slow your target if they have a lot of mobility.
- Use
Resonating Arrow if you are Kyrian to increase your damage against targets inside the area.
- Use
Flayed Shot if you are Venthyr.
- Cast
Aimed Shot.
- Aimed Shot gives you the
Precise Shots buff, stacking up to 2. This increases the damage of your next
Arcane Shot.
- Aimed Shot gives you the
- Use
Arcane Shot if you cannot cast
Aimed Shot and use it when you have the
Precise Shots buff.
- Use
Aimed Shot
- Use
Rapid Fire.
- The
Precise Shots buff:
- You can 2 stacks after landing a
Aimed Shot.
- Use
Arcane Shot for strong single target damage.
- You can 2 stacks after landing a
- Cast
Steady Shot to generate focus.
- Use
Double Tap when you can free-cast
Aimed Shot. If you cannot, use it in combination with
Rapid Fire.
- Use your burst rotation.
- After your burst, perform your sustained damage rotation until your burst cooldowns are available.
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 and
Freezing Trap.
- Use
Resonating Arrow if you are Kyrian to increase your damage against targets inside the area.
- Use
Flayed Shot if you are Venthyr.
- Use
Trueshot
- Use
Aimed Shot.
- Cast
Aimed Shot.
- Use
Arcane Shot.
- Use
Double Tap.
- Use
Rapid Fire.
- Use
Steady Shot to generate Focus.
- Cast
Aimed Shot.
- Cast
Aimed Shot.
- Use
Arcane Shot.
- Use
Kill Shot if an enemy drops below 20% health.
Sustained damage
Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.
- Maintain
Hunter's Mark on your primary target.
- Maintain
Concussive Shot on your target if they are mobile.
- 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.
- Use
Double Tap when you can free-cast
Aimed Shot. If you cannot, use it in combination with
Rapid Fire.
- Use
Rapid Fire for single target damage and to generate Focus at the same time.
- This is often paired with
Double Tap, so make sure you have Rapid Fire available when you are using Double Tap.
- This is often paired with
- Use
Arcane Shot after you use
Aimed Shot to increase its damage./li>
- Use
Resonating Arrow if you are Kyrian to increase your damage against targets inside the area.
- Use
Flayed Shot if you are Venthyr.
- Use
Steady Shot to generate Focus.
- Use
Kill Shot if an enemy drops below 20% health.
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.
Feign Death is a situational defensive that has many uses. When used,
this will interrupt any spells that are being casted on you. In combination with
some PvP talents, this becomes a powerful ability versus many caster teams.
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.
Changelog
- 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)
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.
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