Marksmanship Hunter PvP Stat Priority, Gear, and Trinkets — The War Within (11.1.5)

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

1. Agility;
2. Versatility to around 25%;
3. Haste and Mastery at a 1:3 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 between 18-23% Versatility and then aim to have three 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 first 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 Haste on any piece of gear where there is not a Mastery PvP variant.

When crafting gear you should replace pieces of gear that give Haste rating with pieces of gear that give Versatility and Mastery.

If you have too much Versatility, the easiest way to transfer it to Haste or Mastery is to craft the ring Ring of Earthen Craftsmanship or necklace Amulet of Earthen Craftsmanship.

Marksmanship Hunter The War Within Season 2 tier bonuses:

Note that tier set bonuses are nerfed by 50% in PvP, and the Marksmanship 4-piece is nerfed by 75%..

• (2) Set Bonus: Your spells and abilities have a chance to hit a Jackpot! that increases your auto shot damage by 200% and reduces the time between auto shots by 0.5 sec for 10 sec. Casting Trueshot always hits a Jackpot!
• (4) Set Bonus: Consuming Lock and Load also fires an Explosive Shot at 300% effectiveness.

The 2-set tier bonus for this tier is underwhelming, and the 4-piece bonus is heavily nerfed in PvP. Four of the five tier pieces have Critical Strike rating as a stat, which means you will lose some of your preferred stats (and a lot of Versatility) in order to take the bonus.

Playing with this tier set won't hold you back, but it isn't important and you can skip the 4-set to have slightly better stats, or even play without any of the tier pieces if you prefer.

The 2-set bonus does not change your gameplay or rotation as Marksmanship Hunter, but if you are using the 4-set, it is ideal to pool your Lock and Load procs for when you have Rapid Fire to follow the cast, so that the burst from your Rapid Fire hits at the same time as your empowered Explosive Shot. This is not essential, though, and you should only do this when you know that a Rapid Fire will soon be available.

The talent Precision Detonation has synergy with the 4-set bonus, causing the bonus Explosive Shot to explode as soon as your Aimed Shot lands.

I recommend that you either do not use any of the tier set, or get the 2-set with only Head and Shoulders. If you are using the 4-set bonus, you should use the Head, Shoulders, Chest and Gloves (leaving the legs because they are high in Critical Strike Rating).

To craft a piece of gear with the PvP item level scaled to 678, you must craft the Algari Competitor's item for that slot, and apply Prized Gladiator's Heraldry while crafting. You should not use crafted gear unless it has the item level scaled to 678 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 Algari Competitor's Signet with the Elemental Focusing Lens Embellishment and the stats as either Haste Versatility or Haste Mastery so that you can have two Haste Rings. Crafting the ring with Haste Mastery will give you more damage but slightly reduce your survivability. The Elemental Focusing Lens will usually do around 1.5-2% of your overall damage per Embellishment.

After that, you can craft any other piece of Algari Competitor's gear with an Elemental Focusing Lens. Note that this embellishment will only activate once you have a piece of gear with an Algari gem so you should prioritise putting at least one gem on your gear as soon as possible.

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 hugely significant, it is expected that the 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.

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

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

Prized 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.

Prized 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).

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

Prized 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