Marksmanship Hunter PvP Stat Priority, Gear, and Trinkets — Midnight Season 1

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

1. Agility
2. Versatility to around 23%
3. Haste and Mastery at a 1:2 ratio
4. Critical Strike

Agility is the best stat in all situations. You will want a balance of Versatility/Mastery/Haste that you are comfortable with, as they all do different things in PvP.

If you do not have enough Versatility, you will take a lot of damage and likely find yourself dying more often than you otherwise would.

If you do not have enough Haste, you will not be able to use all of the global cooldowns and casts required to set up crowd control and burst targets down before the enemy is able to interrupt you/use defensives and will struggle to get casts off.

If you do not have enough Mastery, your burst will not be lethal when you nail the setup.

The best stat priority will vary based on the bracket you are playing, the comp you are playing, and how much you are contributing to crowd control.

Wearing the Conquest PvP gear, you will have more Versatility than you need and will be able to use crafted pieces to increase your Haste or Mastery.

You should decide which of Mastery and Haste you need based on the following:

• If you are struggling to get casts off and land traps, you need more Haste
• If you are landing traps and getting your casts off, but your targets aren't dying when you do, you need more Mastery

As a general recommendation, should use two pieces of the tier set (Shoulders and Gloves), and then build up your Versatility with Conquest gear. Trying to have two points of Mastery on your gear for every point of Haste, avoiding any Critical Strike rating unless it comes from your tier set.

There is a slight increasing diminishing return on secondary stats past 30%, further increased past 40%.

You should be aware that Critical Strike damage in PvE content is 200% of the damage the ability would normally have done, but in PvP, this is reduced to 150% of the damage the ability would have normally done. This is slightly increased by Penetrating Shots, but the value of Critical Strike rating is still heavily reduced in PvP.

• Head: Galactic Gladiator's Chain Helm
• Neck: Thalassian Competitor's Amulet - Crafted with Versatility & Mastery
• Shoulders: Primal Sentry's Trophies
• Cloak: Galactic Gladiator's Shawl
• Chest: Galactic Gladiator's Chain Tunic
• Wrists: Galactic Gladiator's Chain Wristguards
• Hands: Primal Sentry's Talonguards
• Waist: Galactic Gladiator's Chain Belt
• Legs: Galactic Gladiator's Chain Leggings
• Feet: Galactic Gladiator's Chain Boots
• Ring 1: Thalassian Competitor's Signet - Crafted with Versatility & Mastery
• Ring 2: Thalassian Competitor's Signet - Crafted with Versatility & Haste
• Trinket 1: Galactic Gladiator's Medallion
• Trinket 2: Galactic Gladiator's Insignia of Alacrity
• Ranged Weapon: Galactic Gladiator's Blaster

Conquest vendor PvP Gear will always have Versatility and then a second stat which will be either Haste, Mastery, or Critical Strike Rating.

Almost every piece of conquest gear has a Haste option, but not many pieces have a Mastery option available.

I recommend that you buy gear with Mastery where available and use a crafted Versatility Mastery piece of gear in any slot where there is no conquest Mastery piece available.

If you have too much Versatility, the easiest way to transfer it to Haste or Mastery is to craft the ring Thalassian Competitor's Signet or necklace Thalassian Competitor's Amulet.

Marksmanship Hunter Midnight Season 1 tier bonuses:

Note that tier set bonuses are nerfed by 50% in PvP.

• (2) Precise Shots damage increased by an additional 20%
• (4) Spending Precise Shots has a small chance to release a volley of arrows at your target, dealing (150% of Attack Power) damage to nearby enemies

The Season 1 (2) set bonus will increase your throughput and you should get this as soon as possible. You should avoid the (4) set bonus as it does low damage and can break crowd control.

I recommend that you get the 2-set bonus with Shoulders and Gloves (leaving the Legs Chest and Helm because they have higher Critical Strike Rating).

To craft a piece of gear with the PvP item level scaled to 289, you must craft the Thalassian Competitor's item for that slot, and apply Galactic Gladiator's Heraldry while crafting. You should not use crafted gear unless it has the item level scaled to 289 in PvP.

To avoid letting your Versatility get too low, most of your crafted gear should have Versatility as one of the stats. I recommend only having one or two items crafted Haste Mastery if you are going to craft any.

You can apply Embellishments while crafting gear, and you can equip two Embellished crafted pieces of gear at once.

I recommend that you craft two Thalassian Competitor's Signets with the Prismatic Focusing Iris Embellishment and an Thalassian Competitor's Amulet, all with the stats as Mastery and Versatility. If you need more survivability in a matchup you can swap the neck for a Galactic Gladiator's Amulet (or swap a ring for Galactic Gladiator's Signet if you used an embellishment on your crafted necklace).

It is important that you equip two PvP trinkets. This will give you an Agility and Stamina boost that will increase your damage and survivability.

• Galactic Gladiator's Medallion
• Galactic Gladiator's Insignia of Alacrity

• Galactic Gladiator's Insignia of Alacrity
• Galactic Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity

Galactic Gladiator's Medallion is a mandatory trinket to have equipped at all times for non-human players. This allows you to remove any crowd control on yourself. Humans can use this trinket to have a shorter (90-second) the cooldown on escaping stuns, for example, into Rogue Mage teams.

Galactic Gladiator's Insignia of Alacrity increases your Haste and has a chance to proc your primary stat. This is an overall strong trinket, as the stat will proc often throughout an arena match (and will generally proc very early when your cooldowns are active).

Galactic Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity grants you some Crit and a powerful Agility on-use every minute. Synchronize this with your Salvo/ Volley combo.

Galactic Gladiator's Emblem increases your maximum health when used. This gives you an additional defensive when you think a team is focusing you or you think they are about to stun and burst you. A good example of when you will want to use this trinket is when facing Rogue Mage teams.

Here are the best enchants for a Marksmanship Hunter:

• Boots: Enchant Boots - Farstrider's Hunt
• Chest: Enchant Chest - Mark of the Rootwarden
• Helm: Enchant Helm - Empowered Blessing of Speed
• Legs: Forest Hunter's Armor Kit
• Rings: Enchant Ring - Silvermoon's Tenacity
• Shoulders: Enchant Shoulders - Akil'zon's Swiftness
• Weapon Enchant: Enchant Weapon - Strength of Halazzi

You can use one Heliatrope gem in Midnight, and for this you can choose between:

• Enduring Heliotrope (increased durability as you take less damage when stunned)
• Determined Heliotrope (increased throughput against teams that regularly slow you)

The best choice of Heliatrope gems is Enduring Heliotrope, which will increase your survivability when you need it most.

The Determined Heliotrope gem is a straight throughput increase against teams that will apply slows to you constantly at the cost of survivability.

Your other gems should be selected based on your stat needs.

• For Haste, use Flawless Versatile Peridot or Flawless Masterful Peridot
• For Versatility, use Flawless Quick Lapis or Flawless Masterful Lapis
• For Mastery, use Flawless Versatile Amethyst or Flawless Quick Amethyst