Marksmanship Hunter PvP Talents and Builds (The War Within Pre-Patch)

Note that these builds are generic recommendations for arena and battlegrounds. There are multiple viable Marksmanship builds and tweaks that are very powerful in certain matchups. A description of each talent point is below.

Below is an explanation of the talents available to Marksmanship Hunters and when you would use them.

• Natural Mending provides cooldown reduction to Exhilaration and access to Rejuvenating Wind is worth taking in all situations
• Posthaste is essential to your mobility and a mandatory pick.
• Kill Shot is a strong DPS button and a mandatory pick.

• Rejuvenating Wind increases our maximum health and increases healing from Exhilaration. This is a mandatory defensive talent to survive stuns and should never be replaced.
• Hunter's Avoidance is a passive but decent defensive, particularly as a lot of cleave/area of effect damage has been added in The War Within.
• Improved Kill Shot is a passive, powerful increase to our Kill Shot's damage and a mandatory pick.

• Wilderness Medicine is very rarely worth taking (if at all). Most debuffs you would want to regularly dispel from your pet also deal backlash damage when dispelled (Unstable Affliction, Control of Lava, Vampiric Touch).
• Tar Trap is essential to your ability to kite and combined with Entrapment is a mandatory pick.
• Tranquilizing Shot is useful for many scenarios to dispel important magic buffs and some enrage mechanics. When you are not running Improved Steady Shot, Tranquilizing Shot is usually a better filler ability than Steady Shot.
• Concussive Shot is central to Marksmanship in all PvP scenarios and a mandatory pick.

• Survival of the Fittest is a strong defensive and a mandatory pick, especially with the synergy with Padded Armor and Lone Survivor
• Entrapment is essential to your ability to kite and is a mandatory pick.
• Counter Shot is required in all PvP scenarios and a mandatory pick (outside of exceptional cases in 2v2 where the other team will not have any casts to kick).
• Kodo Tranquilizer is an exceptionally powerful talent into any healer with heal-over-time effects where players will stack, and is still good against most healers where players will stack.
• Devilsaur Tranquilizer is effectively useless in PvP, where it only really does anything into Fury Warriors and is still not great.
• Misdirection has no use in PvP unless combined with Interlope, which can be a very powerful combination in certain matchups.

• Scout's Instincts is a nice mobility boost, meaning that as long as you have concussive shot on a target, they can't catch you during Aspect of the Cheetah.
• Padded Armor is very powerful in all scenarios.
• Lone Survivor Is a big bonus to your Survival of the Fittest that you should always pick.
• Specialized Arsenal Is a huge throughput increase that you should always take.
• Disruptive Rounds is an incentive to Tranquilizing Shot when we can, and can be valuable when playing Tranquilizing Darts without Improved Steady Shot into Restoration Druids.
• No Hard Feelings is rarely worth taking (if ever) especially as it requires you to take Misdirection.
• Scare Beast is situationally useful, mostly into Feral Druids. Even if the Druid shapeshifts to cancel your cast, doing this will force them out of Bear Form Icon Bear Form and greatly increase their damage taken. If the Druid doesn't shapeshift your cast, you can use it to interrupt a go.

• Intimidation is central to your ability to crowd control and should be taken in all PvP situations.
• Explosive Shot does a large amount of AOE damage. This should be used before Rapid Fire Icon Rapid Fire for maximum burst. This ability can break crowd control, so you will need to be careful with the timing or use it between crowd control setups to maintain pressure.
• Binding Shot is a powerful area of effect stun that is great for kiting as well as setting up traps.

• Scatter Shot is a versatile spell that is essential to your ability to kite, cross-crowd control, set up aimed shots, and peel enemies. I do not recommend playing without this.
• Bursting Shot is a knockback that is unique because it does not share diminishing returns with any other knockback. This means that when playing Quick Load you can knockback the same player twice in a row. Use this in matchups where your team has a lot of damage over time effects that would make Scatter Shot lose value.
• Territorial Instincts allows you to use Intimidation while playing Lone Wolf. I do not recommend playing Lone Wolf in arena unless your team already has a Mortal Strike effect and you are facing DoT specs where Roar of Sacrifice isn't very effective and they would otherwise funnel damage by hitting your pet.
• Trigger Finger is an extremely minor damage buff
• Blackrock Munitions is a small increase to the damage of Explosive Shot but still usually worth taking.
• Keen Eyesight is a decent buff to crit chance that you should always take.
• Tar-Coated Bindings is a decent buff to Binding Shot that is basically always worth taking.
• Scrappy is a slight cooldown reduction on both of your stuns and is basically always worth taking.

• Quick Load is a nice cooldown reduction on Scatter Shot and Bursting Shot. Can be nice to be able to Scatter a DPS on the opener and still have it on the healer. It's particularly powerful with Bursting Shot because Bursting Shot does not have a diminishing return with itself, and can be combined with the PvP talent Rangers Finesse to get more value from each Bursting Shot.
• Pathfinding is a solid boost to movement speed that you should basically always play.
• Binding Shackles is a better talent than it initially looks. If you are using Scatter Shot on a target every 30 seconds, the uptime on this talent will be high and will help you to survive when being trained. You can also apply it to several players at once because Binding Shot and High Explosive Trap are both area of effect abilities.
• Camouflage is recommended in every game to ensure you get the best opener possible. It can also be used defensively if you get an opportunity to drop combat.
• Kindling Flare is useless in all content.

• Trailblazer can be good in very rare situations where you expect to kite or be kited around pillars for the majority of a game.
• Roar of Sacrifice is essential to you and your team's survival. This is a mandatory talent unless you are playing without a pet (which I do not recommend).
• Serrated Tips is a slight buff to your Critical Strike rating which becomes more effective based on how much Critical Strike rating you have. There is synergy with Penetrating Shots, but if you have very low crit chance, the effect is minor.
• Moment of Opportunity Is a slight mobility buff, but with a long cooldown so is not an exceptional talent.
• Born To Be Wild is a solid cooldown reduction for aspect of the Turtle and Cheetah, making it strong for both survivability and mobility in games that you expect to last longer than 2 minutes. If your games are shorter than 2 minutes, this talent has no value.
• Ghillie Suit is useless in all content.
• Improved Traps is essential to your crowd control and is almost always worth taking.

• Emergency Salve is very good (into Assassination Rogues), decent into Shadow Priests to remove Devouring Plague and makes Subtlety and Outlaw Rogues easier to kite.
• High Explosive Trap is a very powerful and versatile knockback that is great for kiting generally and incredible on Z-axis maps where you can knock players off a ledge. This will usually be the better option on this choice node.
• Implosive Trap is an alternative to High Explosive trap that serves the opposite function. High Explosive Trap is generally used to knock players away, whereas Implosive Trap is to disrupt players and keep them in the same position. This is useful to use, especially into casters when they would otherwise be moving out of your line of sight.
• Unnatural Causes is a slight damage buff that is still usually worth playing.

• Aimed Shot is required.

• Rapid Fire is another required core ability of the spec.
• Multi-Shot
• Precise Shots is a required DPS talent.

• Surging Shots is a large increase to your burst damage and gives you cooldown resets on Rapid Fire. This is a mandatory talent.
• Streamline is a solid, passive DPS increase, which also helps you get Aimed Shot casts off and leads us to other important talents.
• Improved Steady Shot is an optional talent because you still gain focus from Rapid Fire and Tranquilizing Shot and so many of your abilities do not cost focus.
• Crack Shot is a required talent to make Arcane Shot worth pressing.

• Penetrating Shots is a new talent that increases the damage of your critical strikes, based on your critical strike chance. It is a mandatory because of its location on the tree.
• Trick Shots is core to the three target cleave of Marksman, but in PvP is only really worth taking in battlegrounds as it requires Multi-Shot to hit three targets.
• Master Marksman is a DPS increase and a mandatory pick.

• Fan the Hammer is a large increase to your Rapid Fire damage and burst and is a mandatory pick.
• Careful Aim is essential to your damage and is the reason switching targets is so effective as Marksman.
• Heavy Ammo adds a noticeable amount of cleave to your Trick Shots, but taking this talent costs a lot of single-target damage.
• Light Ammo is essentially useless in all PvP.
• Bulletstorm is not worth taking in PvP.
• Lock and Load is a mandatory talent saving you focus, giving you more Aimed Shots, and giving you more buffed Arcane Shots
• Steady Focus is difficult to justify in any PvP situation unless you are running Consecutive Concussion in 2v2 and expect to kite the entire game without pushing for traps and setups. If you play this you may want to use this WeakAura.

• Deathblow turns Kill Shot Icon Kill Shot into a regular button in your DPS rotation instead of only being active in "execute" range and is a mandatory talent.
• Barrage is not worth taking in PvP.
• Night Hunter is a mandatory throughput increase.
• Tactical Reload is a mandatory throughput increase.
• Serpentstalker's Trickery is a mandatory throughput increase.
• Chimaera Shot adds some two target cleave to your rotation and is worth taking when you aren't playing a setup comp with breakable crowd control.

• Killer Accuracy is a solid increase to your kill potential and increases your damage when it matters most.
• Rapid Fire Barrage is useless in PvP.
• In the Rhythm is a solid DPS buff.
• Lone Wolf has been nerfed in The War Within and does not compete with the benefits of playing with a pet.
• Bullseye is nice to have and generally worth taking.
• Hydra's Bite adds some passive cleave to your rotation and is useful when cleaving is your strategy.
• Volley is a strong button combined with Salvo for bursting one or multiple targets and is further enhanced by Kill Zone, which increases your damage into Volley and allows you to ignore line of sight.

• Legacy of the Windrunners is a slight passive damage increase.
• Trueshot is a mandatory talent and is your big burst cooldown.
• Focused Aim is a mandatory throughput increase.

• Razor Fragments enhances your Death Blow procs considerably and makes your next Kill Shot lethal when bursting with Volley.
• Wailing Arrow occasionally buffs your Aimed Shot, making it do shadow damage that ignores armor and a slight damage over time effect.
• Eagletalon's True Focus greatly enhances your Trueshot windows and is a mandatory talent.
• Calling the Shots greatly reduces the cooldown of your Trueshot and is a mandatory talent.
• Small Game Hunter enhances your Explosive Shot and is a strong talent.
• Kill Zone is a mandatory talent for bursting as well as the ignoring line of sight element.

• Readiness increases the frequency of your Wailing Arrow but does not compete with the other capstone talents in arena gameplay.
• Unerring Vision further enhances your Trueshot and is a mandatory talent.
• Salvo greatly enhances your Volley and is a must pick if you have taken Kill Zone.

You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has their uses, but some are better for certain strategies and matchups than others.

Survival Tactics is the best overall PvP Talent. It turns Feign Death into your best defensive ability by negating damage for three seconds. This talent is very powerful into burst specializations when timed correctly.

When facing matchups where you are guaranteed to not be attacked, there are occasionally better options, but it is safer to just always play this talent.

Chimaeral Sting is a versatile ability that can be used in many ways, for example:

• To silence an enemy healer while bursting their partner (note that it does damage on application, and the silence only applies after 3 seconds, so you cannot chimaeral sting during or immediately after a trap)
• To silence a healer before swapping to them (particularly good against priests as they cannot use Pain Suppression when silenced, when they would have been able to if you swapped with Intimidation)
• To peel a DPS on their go (for example, use Chimaeral Sting on a Mage when they cast Dragon's Breath; they will still be able to Polymorph your healer, but will be silenced immediately afterward and not be able to capitalize on the Polymorph, or to cancel a Shaman's Lightning Lasso when you know it is coming)
• To cancel a Restoration Druid's Tranquility by casting Chimaeral Sting before they use it
• To deny a healer's trinket by casting Chimaeral Sting when they are stunned (when they trinket the stun, they are instantly silenced)
• To apply a powerful slow to a melee DPS when you have no other options

Trueshot Mastery reduces your Trueshot to less than two minutes — this is critical because a DPS player's PvP trinket has a two-minute cooldown. This means that if you can force an enemy kill target to trinket with the first Trueshot, they will not be able to trinket when you use the second. Note that the cooldown of Power Infusion is two minutes, so if you are playing with a priest that is able to give you Power Infusion, Trueshot Mastery loses a lot of value. Having a shorter cooldown on Trueshot also gives you momentum because most DPS throughput cooldowns are active any two minutes, meaning that if you use cooldowns early you get yours back first.

Consecutive Concussion is situationally very useful against melee, as it keeps them at bay for longer and interrupts their damage via the stun in a slow game where you are able to cast Steady Shot a lot. This talent can also be very good into Fistweaver (melee healer) Monks. If you maintain Concussive Shot on them whilst your team is kiting, the Fistweaver will be unable to heal.

Tranquilizing Darts is a very powerful talent into Restoration Druids specifically (especially if they are playing with caster DPS or Demon Hunters who you can interrupt Counter Shot for the maximum benefit) but has little value in other specializations. You should press Tranquilizing Shot after Restoration Druids press Overgrowth or Swiftmend when using this talent. This talent can also be used to reduce the duration of Nullifying Shroud if your team does not have a purge.

Diamond Ice makes your Freezing Trap undispellable but reduces the duration and makes the target immune to all spells while active. This is useful:

• Against Shadow Priests, Demon Hunters, and Affliction/Destruction Warlocks that are otherwise able to dispel your Freezing Trap
• To crowd control DPS players without the healer being able to dispel the trap
• To keep a target at low health (you can trap a target at low health, then pre-cast a Sniper Shot or Aimed Shot, your target will not be able to stop your cast, and their healer will not be able to recover the target's health), this is a strategy that is particularly effective in 2v2 arena

Interlope is powerful into casters and hunters. You can Interlope your healer when they are stunned, to eat an enemy Hunter's Freezing Trap or use it on yourself/your team to absorb spell casts. The pet positioning requirement of this spell can make it awkward to use, but when used properly, it is a very powerful defensive talent. (Remember that you need to talent into Misdirection to use this!)

Ranger's Finesse theoretically can reduce the cooldown of Aspect of the Turtle significantly, but is awkward to use, and there are usually better talents available. The duration bonus to Volley is noticeable, and so is the knockback increase to bursting Shot. If your talent build allows, you can consider also playing Quick Load for more frequent access to Bursting Shot. If you play with this talent, ideally you want to use Aspect of the Turtle early in the game to save your healer's cooldowns to get the maximum benefit.

If your team is able to lock several players in one place for a long time, (for example playing with an Unholy Death Knight with Blinding Sleet and Restoration Druid for Ursol's Vortex) Rangers Finesse combined with Volley and Kill Zone can lead to enormous area of effect burst.

Hunting Pack is a mobility talent that vastly reduces the cooldown of Aspect of the Cheetah and applies its buff to your teammates but requires your teammates to be within 15 yards. There are better talents available to you in almost all cases.

Wild Kingdom will help you keep your pet alive. With proper positioning of your pet and using Mend Pet and Exhilaration properly, your pet should not die often. Remember that if your team already has a Mortal Strike effect, you can use a Mechanical family pet, which will be significantly more tanky than a regular pet anyway.

Sniper Shot is a very long-range cast with a long cast time and reasonably short cooldown. It does decent damage but is unable to crit. The most useful part of Sniper Shot is the extension to the range of your abilities for six seconds after casting. This will allow you to hit targets very far away, or land a Scatter Shot into Freezing Trap from a good distance. This talent is very rarely taken in the arena, and you can do more damage with a regular rotation, so unless you are taking it for the increased range effects, it is not worth taking.