Marksmanship Hunter PvP Stat Priority, Gear, and Trinkets — The War Within (11.2)

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

1. Agility;
2. Versatility to around 25%;
3. Haste and Mastery at a 1:4 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, you should play with an equal amount of Versatility and Mastery, and then aim to have four points of Mastery on your gear for every point of Haste, avoiding any Critical Strike rating unless it comes from your tier set.

• 5,000 Critical Strike rating will give you 7.1% Critical Strike chance (7.5 with Serrated Tips)
• 5,000 Haste will increase your attack speed by 7.6%
• 5,000 Mastery will increase your damage done by 10.0% and increase your range by 4.46%
• 5,000 Versatility will increase your damage done by 6.4% and reduce your damage taken by 3.2%

There is a slight increasing diminishing return on secondary stats past 30%, further increased past 40%. In the third season of The War Within, the only stat you might be able to get to 30% is Versatility, and if you are near 30% Versatility, you should be changing some of it into either Haste or Mastery.

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.

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 Algari Competitor's Signet or necklace Algari Competitor's Amulet.

Marksmanship Hunter The War Within Season 3 tier bonuses:

Note that tier set bonuses are nerfed by 66% in PvP and change based on which Hero Talent tree you are playing.

Dark Ranger

• (2) Black Arrow arrow damage increased by 10% and Bleak Powder damage increased by 20%. The cooldown of Trueshot is reduced by 30 sec.
• (4) Withering Fire's Black Arrow damage increased by 50%. Consuming Deathblow has a 50% chance to cause all Black Arrow barrages during your next Withering Fire to fire 1 additional Black Arrow.

Sentinel

• (2) Rapid Fire damage increased by 25%. When Lunar Storm fades, gain the Boon of Elune, causing your next 2 Aimed Shots to deal Arcane damage and have their damage increased by 20%.
• (4) Sentinel's damage is increased by 25%. The Boon of Elune is now active for the duration of Lunar Storm at 100% effectiveness.

Both versions of the Season 3 tier set will increase your throughput and you should get your tier set as soon as possible. The only downside is that four of the five set pieces have your worst stat (Critical Strike rating). None of the tier set bonuses change your rotation other than the Dark Ranger set that gives you more frequent access to Trueshot.

I recommend that you get the 4-set bonus with Head, Shoulders, Legs and Gloves (leaving the Chest because it has the highest Critical Strike Rating).

To craft a piece of gear with the PvP item level scaled to 684, you must craft the Algari Competitor's item for that slot, and apply Astral Gladiator's Heraldry while crafting. You should not use crafted gear unless it has the item level scaled to 684 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 Algari Competitor's Signets with the Elemental Focusing Lens Embellishment and an Algari 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 Astral Gladiator's Amulet (or swap a ring for Astral Gladiator's Signet if you used an embellishment on your crafted necklace).

Note that the Elemental Focusing Lens embellishment will only activate once you have a piece of gear with an Algari gem so you should prioritise putting at least one Algari gem on your gear as soon as possible. It will usually do around 1.5-2% of your overall damage per Embellishment.

The Nerubian weapon embellishment Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension (and related embellishment Writhing Armor Banding) is useful for some classes, but as Marksmanship this is not competitive with the Elemental Focusing Lens, even when it reaches ten stacks.

The defensive option for your Embellished gear would be Captured Starlight, although as the shield is not significant, Embellishments providing a throughput increase will perform better.

Note: It is important to be wearing 2 PvP trinkets. This will give you an Agility and Stamina boost that will increase your damage and survivability.

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

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

Astral 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.

Astral 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).

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

Astral 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 - Scout's March
• Bracer: Enchant Bracer - Chant of Armored Speed
• Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Chant of Burrowing Rapidity
• Chest: Enchant Chest - Stormrider's Agility/ Enchant Chest - Crystalline Radiance depending on whether you value 1.5% movespeed over 225 Agility (around 0.4% of your total Agility)
• Legs: Stormbound Armor Kit
• Rings: Enchant Ring - Radiant Haste
• Weapon Enchant: Enchant Weapon - Stonebound Artistry/ Enchant Weapon - Authority of Radiant Power

If you are not using the Hunter tier set, you should use Enchant Ring - Cursed Mastery, because none of your gear has Critical Strike rating so you do not lose any stats.

You can use one Algari Diamond gem in The War Within, and for this you can choose between:

• Elusive Blasphemite (increased movement speed)
• Enduring Bloodstone (increased durability as you take less damage when stunned)
• Determined Bloodstone (increased throughput against teams that regularly slow you)

The safest choice of Algari Diamond gems is Enduring Bloodstone, which will increase your survivability when you need it most. The Determined Bloodstone Algari Diamond gem is a straight throughput increase against teams that will apply slows to you constantly at the cost of survivability.

If you are playing Enduring Bloodstone, it is easier to justify crafting Haste Mastery rings for the additional damage they bring compared to gear with Versatility that would reduce your damage taken.

The Elusive Blasphemite Algari Diamond gem will make it easier for you to kite and chase players, but will force you to take some gems with suboptimal stats to get the full benefit.

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

• For Haste, use Versatile Emerald or Masterful Emerald
• For Versatility, use Quick Sapphire or Masterful Sapphire
• For Mastery, use Quick Onyx or Versatile Onyx

If you are using Elusive Blasphemite, you want as many different colored gems as possible. There are five Algari gem colors: Emerald, Onyx, Ruby, Sapphire, and Amber.

To get the maximum movement speed when you need the Haste stat, you should use one of each of the following gems:

• Versatile Emerald/ Masterful Emerald
• Quick Onyx
• Quick Ruby
• Quick Sapphire
• Quick Amber

To get the maximum movement speed when you need the Mastery stat, you should use:

• Masterful Emerald
• Quick Onyx/ Versatile Onyx
• Masterful Ruby
• Masterful Sapphire
• Masterful Amber