Marksmanship Hunter PvP Talents and Builds (Shadowlands / Patch 9.2)
Choosing the right PvP and PvE talents is a prerequisite to proper performance in PvP. This guide goes through the various talent choices available to you as a Marksmanship Hunter and gives you the best combinations you can take.
This page is part of our Marksmanship Hunter PvP Guide.
Talent Choices for Marksmanship Hunters
Level | Choices | ||
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15 |
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25 |
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30 |
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35 |
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40 |
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45 |
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50 |
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While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.
Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
Master Marksman is the best choice in this tier. This talent is an
increase to your overall sustained damage output.
Tier 2 (Level 25) Talents
Careful Aim is the best choice in this tier. This is a talent that
helps when swapping targets or trying to kill an enemy from full health to 0
in a crowd control chain.
Tier 3 (Level 30) Talents
Natural Mending is the best choice in this tier. This talent enables
additional
Exhilarations. This
will help increase your overall survivability versus teams that will be
focusing you. However, if you are playing with a partner who has a
Stealth ability like Rogue or Feral,
Camouflage is the
better choice. This will give you team a very strong opener.
Tier 4 (Level 35) Talents
Streamline is the best choice in this tier. This talent simply
increases your overall damage output and makes it easier to finish
Aimed Shot casts.
Tier 5 (Level 40) Talents
Posthaste is the best choice in this tier. This gives you even more
mobility. It will allow you to run away from enemies if they are focusing
you.
Tier 6 (Level 45) Talents
Double Tap is the best choice in this tier. This provides strong
on-demand burst damage and crucial for securing kills. You will want to use this
once the enemy healer is in crowd control.
Tier 7 (Level 50) Talents
Lock and Load is the best choice in this tier. This gives your auto
shots a chance to cause your next
Aimed Shots to be instant and cost
no Focus. This is great for increasing your damage.
PvP Talents for Marksmanship Hunters
You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has their uses, but some are better for certain strategies than others. The top three choices are the most useful, but can be replaced with other PvP talents, depending on your team's goal.
Primary PvP Talents for Marksmanship Hunters
Survival Tactics is the best PvP Talent for most situations. It can
be used to negate individual powerful spells such as
Death Bolts, and to
remove DoTs from yourself on a regular basis. It is extra potent when combined
with the
Craven Strategem Legendary Power.
Scatter Shot is a versatile and useful PvP talent that can be used to
land
Freezing Traps, enable kill combos, interrupts, and to build range
to quick melee.
Situational PvP Talents for Marksmanship Hunters
Roar of Sacrifice is an extremely powerful defensive that can be used
to get your opponents' kill target out of trouble. It has a fairly long cooldown
and should be used only when absolutely necessary. It is more useful in 3v3
compared to 2v2, where you might prefer other options.
Hi-Explosive Trap is mostly used against Melee comps, but can be used
against any comp for its powerful knockback.
Chimaeral Sting can be used against enemy healers to silence them or
disconnect them from their teammates.
Pet Talents
Pets do not have talent trees, and instead have their own types of specialization (Cunning, Ferocity, or Tenacity).
Each specialization gives your pet a few abilities. Cunning
provides the ability Master's Call, by far the best pet ability to have.
To get the
Mortal Wounds debuff from your pets, you will need one of
the following pets:
- Hyena
- Raptor
- Rodent
You can also use a Ferocity pet which grants 10% Leech if you are not
comfortable using
Master's Call, though we highly recommend it:
- Carrion Bird
- Ravager
- Scorpid
- Wasp
Changelog
- 22 Feb. 2022: Updated the PvP Talent recommendations and the pet families you should use. Added Ferocity alternatives.
- 10 Nov. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.1.5.
- 06 Jul. 2021: Updated PvP Talents.
- 18 Mar. 2021: Updated Tier 7 Regular Talent.
- 06 Nov. 2020: Updated Talent Table.
- Updated Tiers 4 and 7 Regular Talents.
- 26 Oct. 2020: Updated Talent Table.
- 15 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch (9.0.1)
This guide has been written by Azortharion, a theorycrafter of all things Hunter-related for many years. He is an accomplished player with dozen of top parses for all specs throughout the game's history. He is also the Admin of Trueshot Lodge, the Hunter Class Discord, and you can watch his stream on Twitch. He even has his own personal Discord channel where you can get notifications about when the guides get updated and have direct communications with him.
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